Book 2, Chapter 2 Summary

An old clerk at Tellson's now gives Jerry an order to go the Court, Old Bailey, where he will be let in through the aid of Mr. Lorry. He will there await his pleasure. They are trying a man for treason today. The punishment for treason is "quartering," in which a partially hanged man is literally split open in a gruesome and barbarous manner and then quartered and decapitated. The prisoner involved is a noble gentleman about twenty-five named Charles Darnay. Lucy and her father are in the Court as witnesses against him.

Book 2, Chapter 2 Analysis

In this chapter, we hear much about the gruesome sense of English justice in this era. The hangman's noose, the whipping post, the act of drawing and quartering are described at length. Against this, there is the sheer surprise of a handsome young prisoner facing...