Men and Brothers — Hard Times

In a densely crowded, suffocatingly close hall, Slackbridge the union agitator declaims about down-trodden operatives, iron-handed despotism, and the God-created rights of Humanity until he is hoarse and must call for water. Dickens's eye is cold: judged by Nature's evidence, the orator is above the mass in very little but the stage on which he stands. He is not so honest, not so manly, not so good-humoured; he substitutes cunning for their simplicity and passion for their safe solid sense. Yet the earnest faces below are gravely, deeply, faithfully in earnest, and Dickens refuses to pretend their grievances are smoke without fire.

Slackbridge then denounces a working-man who will not subscribe to the United Aggregate Tribunal: a traitor, a craven, a recreant who holds himself aloof from Freedom and Right. The crowd demands to hear the man himself. Stephen Blackpool comes forward pale and quiet and says he is the one Hand in Bounderby's mill who cannot come in. He doubts the regulations will do them good and has lifelong reasons he will not explain. Slackbridge gnashes; the chairman asks Stephen to think again; Stephen says he simply cannot and must take his leave, asking only to be let work if that is still his right.

The hall opens a path and Stephen walks out alone into the loneliest of lives, solitude among a familiar crowd. By general consent his former mates avoid his side of the street. After four days of Coventry, a young man named Bitzer tells him Bounderby wants to see him and sends him toward the red brick house. Stephen goes in duty bound, not knowing what mercy will mean there.