- The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens
- This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
- almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
- re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
- with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
- Title: Barnaby Rudge
- Author: Charles Dickens
- Release Date: April 27, 2006 [EBook #917]
- Last Updated: September 25, 2016
- Language: English
- Character set encoding: UTF-8
- *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARNABY RUDGE ***
- Produced by Donald Lainson
- BARNABY RUDGE
- A TALE OF THE RIOTS OF ‘EIGHTY
- by Charles Dickens
- Contibutor’s Note:
- I’ve left in archaic forms such as ‘to-morrow’ or ‘to-day’ as they
- occured in my copy. Also please be aware if spell-checking, that within
- dialog many ‘mispelled’ words exist, i.e. ‘wery’ for ‘very’, as intended
- by the author.
- D.L.
- PREFACE
- The late Mr Waterton having, some time ago, expressed his opinion that
- ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offered the few
- following words about my experience of these birds.
- The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I
- was, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom
- of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in London,
- by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh
- Evans says of Anne Page, ‘good gifts’, which he improved by study and
- attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable--generally
- on horseback--and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural
- sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius,
- to walk off unmolested with the dog’s dinner, from before his face. He
- was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when, in an evil hour,
- his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that
- they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On
- their going to dinner, he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of
- a pound or two of white lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated
- in death.
- While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine
- in Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village
- public-house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a
- consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this Sage, was, to
- administer to the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the
- cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden--a work of immense
- labour and research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind.
- When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition
- of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept, that he would
- perch outside my window and drive imaginary horses with great skill,
- all day. Perhaps even I never saw him at his best, for his former master
- sent his duty with him, ‘and if I wished the bird to come out very
- strong, would I be so good as to show him a drunken man’--which I never
- did, having (unfortunately) none but sober people at hand.
- But I could hardly have respected him more, whatever the stimulating
- influences of this sight might have been. He had not the least respect,
- I am sorry to say, for me in return, or for anybody but the cook; to
- whom he was attached--but only, I fear, as a Policeman might have been.
- Once, I met him unexpectedly, about half-a-mile from my house, walking
- down the middle of a public street, attended by a pretty large crowd,
- and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His
- gravity under those trying circumstances, I can never forget, nor the
- extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he
- defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered by numbers. It may
- have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have
- been that he took some pernicious substance into his bill, and thence
- into his maw--which is not improbable, seeing that he new-pointed
- the greater part of the garden-wall by digging out the mortar, broke
- countless squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the
- frames, and tore up and swallowed, in splinters, the greater part of a
- wooden staircase of six steps and a landing--but after some three years
- he too was taken ill, and died before the kitchen fire. He kept his eye
- to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over
- on his back with a sepulchral cry of ‘Cuckoo!’ Since then I have been
- ravenless.
- No account of the Gordon Riots having been to my knowledge introduced
- into any Work of Fiction, and the subject presenting very extraordinary
- and remarkable features, I was led to project this Tale.
- It is unnecessary to say, that those shameful tumults, while they
- reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, and all
- who had act or part in them, teach a good lesson. That what we falsely
- call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no religion, and
- who in their daily practice set at nought the commonest principles of
- right and wrong; that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution;
- that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate and unmerciful; all History
- teaches us. But perhaps we do not know it in our hearts too well,
- to profit by even so humble an example as the ‘No Popery’ riots of
- Seventeen Hundred and Eighty.
- However imperfectly those disturbances are set forth in the following
- pages, they are impartially painted by one who has no sympathy with the
- Romish Church, though he acknowledges, as most men do, some esteemed
- friends among the followers of its creed.
- In the description of the principal outrages, reference has been had to
- the best authorities of that time, such as they are; the account given
- in this Tale, of all the main features of the Riots, is substantially
- correct.
- Mr Dennis’s allusions to the flourishing condition of his trade in those
- days, have their foundation in Truth, and not in the Author’s fancy. Any
- file of old Newspapers, or odd volume of the Annual Register, will prove
- this with terrible ease.
- Even the case of Mary Jones, dwelt upon with so much pleasure by the
- same character, is no effort of invention. The facts were stated,
- exactly as they are stated here, in the House of Commons. Whether they
- afforded as much entertainment to the merry gentlemen assembled there,
- as some other most affecting circumstances of a similar nature mentioned
- by Sir Samuel Romilly, is not recorded.
- That the case of Mary Jones may speak the more emphatically for
- itself, I subjoin it, as related by SIR WILLIAM MEREDITH in a speech in
- Parliament, ‘on Frequent Executions’, made in 1777.
- ‘Under this act,’ the Shop-lifting Act, ‘one Mary Jones was executed,
- whose case I shall just mention; it was at the time when press warrants
- were issued, on the alarm about Falkland Islands. The woman’s husband
- was pressed, their goods seized for some debts of his, and she, with two
- small children, turned into the streets a-begging. It is a circumstance
- not to be forgotten, that she was very young (under nineteen), and most
- remarkably handsome. She went to a linen-draper’s shop, took some coarse
- linen off the counter, and slipped it under her cloak; the shopman saw
- her, and she laid it down: for this she was hanged. Her defence was (I
- have the trial in my pocket), “that she had lived in credit, and wanted
- for nothing, till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her; but
- since then, she had no bed to lie on; nothing to give her children
- to eat; and they were almost naked; and perhaps she might have done
- something wrong, for she hardly knew what she did.” The parish officers
- testified the truth of this story; but it seems, there had been a good
- deal of shop-lifting about Ludgate; an example was thought necessary;
- and this woman was hanged for the comfort and satisfaction of
- shopkeepers in Ludgate Street. When brought to receive sentence,
- she behaved in such a frantic manner, as proved her mind to be in a
- distracted and desponding state; and the child was sucking at her breast
- when she set out for Tyburn.’
- Chapter 1
- In the year 1775, there stood upon the borders of Epping Forest, at a
- distance of about twelve miles from London--measuring from the Standard
- in Cornhill, or rather from the spot on or near to which the Standard
- used to be in days of yore--a house of public entertainment called the
- Maypole; which fact was demonstrated to all such travellers as
- could neither read nor write (and at that time a vast number both of
- travellers and stay-at-homes were in this condition) by the emblem
- reared on the roadside over against the house, which, if not of those
- goodly proportions that Maypoles were wont to present in olden times,
- was a fair young ash, thirty feet in height, and straight as any arrow
- that ever English yeoman drew.
- The Maypole--by which term from henceforth is meant the house, and not
- its sign--the Maypole was an old building, with more gable ends than a
- lazy man would care to count on a sunny day; huge zig-zag chimneys, out
- of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come in
- more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous
- progress; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous, and empty. The place was
- said to have been built in the days of King Henry the Eighth; and there
- was a legend, not only that Queen Elizabeth had slept there one night
- while upon a hunting excursion, to wit, in a certain oak-panelled room
- with a deep bay window, but that next morning, while standing on a
- mounting block before the door with one foot in the stirrup, the virgin
- monarch had then and there boxed and cuffed an unlucky page for some
- neglect of duty. The matter-of-fact and doubtful folks, of whom there
- were a few among the Maypole customers, as unluckily there always are
- in every little community, were inclined to look upon this tradition as
- rather apocryphal; but, whenever the landlord of that ancient hostelry
- appealed to the mounting block itself as evidence, and triumphantly
- pointed out that there it stood in the same place to that very day, the
- doubters never failed to be put down by a large majority, and all true
- believers exulted as in a victory.
- Whether these, and many other stories of the like nature, were true or
- untrue, the Maypole was really an old house, a very old house, perhaps
- as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which will sometimes
- happen with houses of an uncertain, as with ladies of a certain, age.
- Its windows were old diamond-pane lattices, its floors were sunken
- and uneven, its ceilings blackened by the hand of time, and heavy with
- massive beams. Over the doorway was an ancient porch, quaintly and
- grotesquely carved; and here on summer evenings the more favoured
- customers smoked and drank--ay, and sang many a good song too,
- sometimes--reposing on two grim-looking high-backed settles, which,
- like the twin dragons of some fairy tale, guarded the entrance to the
- mansion.
- In the chimneys of the disused rooms, swallows had built their nests
- for many a long year, and from earliest spring to latest autumn whole
- colonies of sparrows chirped and twittered in the eaves. There were more
- pigeons about the dreary stable-yard and out-buildings than anybody
- but the landlord could reckon up. The wheeling and circling flights
- of runts, fantails, tumblers, and pouters, were perhaps not quite
- consistent with the grave and sober character of the building, but the
- monotonous cooing, which never ceased to be raised by some among them
- all day long, suited it exactly, and seemed to lull it to rest. With its
- overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging
- out and projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were
- nodding in its sleep. Indeed, it needed no very great stretch of fancy
- to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. The bricks of which it
- was built had originally been a deep dark red, but had grown yellow and
- discoloured like an old man’s skin; the sturdy timbers had decayed like
- teeth; and here and there the ivy, like a warm garment to comfort it in
- its age, wrapt its green leaves closely round the time-worn walls.
- It was a hale and hearty age though, still: and in the summer or
- autumn evenings, when the glow of the setting sun fell upon the oak and
- chestnut trees of the adjacent forest, the old house, partaking of its
- lustre, seemed their fit companion, and to have many good years of life
- in him yet.
- The evening with which we have to do, was neither a summer nor an autumn
- one, but the twilight of a day in March, when the wind howled dismally
- among the bare branches of the trees, and rumbling in the wide chimneys
- and driving the rain against the windows of the Maypole Inn, gave such
- of its frequenters as chanced to be there at the moment an undeniable
- reason for prolonging their stay, and caused the landlord to prophesy
- that the night would certainly clear at eleven o’clock precisely,--which
- by a remarkable coincidence was the hour at which he always closed his
- house.
- The name of him upon whom the spirit of prophecy thus descended was
- John Willet, a burly, large-headed man with a fat face, which betokened
- profound obstinacy and slowness of apprehension, combined with a very
- strong reliance upon his own merits. It was John Willet’s ordinary
- boast in his more placid moods that if he were slow he was sure; which
- assertion could, in one sense at least, be by no means gainsaid, seeing
- that he was in everything unquestionably the reverse of fast, and withal
- one of the most dogged and positive fellows in existence--always sure
- that what he thought or said or did was right, and holding it as a thing
- quite settled and ordained by the laws of nature and Providence, that
- anybody who said or did or thought otherwise must be inevitably and of
- necessity wrong.
- Mr Willet walked slowly up to the window, flattened his fat nose
- against the cold glass, and shading his eyes that his sight might not
- be affected by the ruddy glow of the fire, looked abroad. Then he
- walked slowly back to his old seat in the chimney-corner, and, composing
- himself in it with a slight shiver, such as a man might give way to and
- so acquire an additional relish for the warm blaze, said, looking round
- upon his guests:
- ‘It’ll clear at eleven o’clock. No sooner and no later. Not before and
- not arterwards.’
- ‘How do you make out that?’ said a little man in the opposite corner.
- ‘The moon is past the full, and she rises at nine.’
- John looked sedately and solemnly at his questioner until he had brought
- his mind to bear upon the whole of his observation, and then made
- answer, in a tone which seemed to imply that the moon was peculiarly his
- business and nobody else’s:
- ‘Never you mind about the moon. Don’t you trouble yourself about her.
- You let the moon alone, and I’ll let you alone.’
- ‘No offence I hope?’ said the little man.
- Again John waited leisurely until the observation had thoroughly
- penetrated to his brain, and then replying, ‘No offence as YET,’ applied
- a light to his pipe and smoked in placid silence; now and then casting
- a sidelong look at a man wrapped in a loose riding-coat with huge cuffs
- ornamented with tarnished silver lace and large metal buttons, who
- sat apart from the regular frequenters of the house, and wearing a hat
- flapped over his face, which was still further shaded by the hand on
- which his forehead rested, looked unsociable enough.
- There was another guest, who sat, booted and spurred, at some distance
- from the fire also, and whose thoughts--to judge from his folded
- arms and knitted brows, and from the untasted liquor before him--were
- occupied with other matters than the topics under discussion or
- the persons who discussed them. This was a young man of about
- eight-and-twenty, rather above the middle height, and though of somewhat
- slight figure, gracefully and strongly made. He wore his own dark hair,
- and was accoutred in a riding dress, which together with his large boots
- (resembling in shape and fashion those worn by our Life Guardsmen at
- the present day), showed indisputable traces of the bad condition of
- the roads. But travel-stained though he was, he was well and even richly
- attired, and without being overdressed looked a gallant gentleman.
- Lying upon the table beside him, as he had carelessly thrown them down,
- were a heavy riding-whip and a slouched hat, the latter worn no doubt as
- being best suited to the inclemency of the weather. There, too, were a
- pair of pistols in a holster-case, and a short riding-cloak. Little of
- his face was visible, except the long dark lashes which concealed his
- downcast eyes, but an air of careless ease and natural gracefulness
- of demeanour pervaded the figure, and seemed to comprehend even those
- slight accessories, which were all handsome, and in good keeping.
- Towards this young gentleman the eyes of Mr Willet wandered but once,
- and then as if in mute inquiry whether he had observed his silent
- neighbour. It was plain that John and the young gentleman had often met
- before. Finding that his look was not returned, or indeed observed by
- the person to whom it was addressed, John gradually concentrated the
- whole power of his eyes into one focus, and brought it to bear upon the
- man in the flapped hat, at whom he came to stare in course of time with
- an intensity so remarkable, that it affected his fireside cronies, who
- all, as with one accord, took their pipes from their lips, and stared
- with open mouths at the stranger likewise.
- The sturdy landlord had a large pair of dull fish-like eyes, and the
- little man who had hazarded the remark about the moon (and who was the
- parish-clerk and bell-ringer of Chigwell, a village hard by) had little
- round black shiny eyes like beads; moreover this little man wore at the
- knees of his rusty black breeches, and on his rusty black coat, and
- all down his long flapped waistcoat, little queer buttons like nothing
- except his eyes; but so like them, that as they twinkled and glistened
- in the light of the fire, which shone too in his bright shoe-buckles,
- he seemed all eyes from head to foot, and to be gazing with every one of
- them at the unknown customer. No wonder that a man should grow restless
- under such an inspection as this, to say nothing of the eyes belonging
- to short Tom Cobb the general chandler and post-office keeper, and long
- Phil Parkes the ranger, both of whom, infected by the example of their
- companions, regarded him of the flapped hat no less attentively.
- The stranger became restless; perhaps from being exposed to this raking
- fire of eyes, perhaps from the nature of his previous meditations--most
- probably from the latter cause, for as he changed his position and
- looked hastily round, he started to find himself the object of such keen
- regard, and darted an angry and suspicious glance at the fireside group.
- It had the effect of immediately diverting all eyes to the chimney,
- except those of John Willet, who finding himself as it were, caught in
- the fact, and not being (as has been already observed) of a very ready
- nature, remained staring at his guest in a particularly awkward and
- disconcerted manner.
- ‘Well?’ said the stranger.
- Well. There was not much in well. It was not a long speech. ‘I thought
- you gave an order,’ said the landlord, after a pause of two or three
- minutes for consideration.
- The stranger took off his hat, and disclosed the hard features of a man
- of sixty or thereabouts, much weatherbeaten and worn by time, and
- the naturally harsh expression of which was not improved by a dark
- handkerchief which was bound tightly round his head, and, while it
- served the purpose of a wig, shaded his forehead, and almost hid his
- eyebrows. If it were intended to conceal or divert attention from a deep
- gash, now healed into an ugly seam, which when it was first inflicted
- must have laid bare his cheekbone, the object was but indifferently
- attained, for it could scarcely fail to be noted at a glance. His
- complexion was of a cadaverous hue, and he had a grizzly jagged beard
- of some three weeks’ date. Such was the figure (very meanly and poorly
- clad) that now rose from the seat, and stalking across the room sat down
- in a corner of the chimney, which the politeness or fears of the little
- clerk very readily assigned to him.
- ‘A highwayman!’ whispered Tom Cobb to Parkes the ranger.
- ‘Do you suppose highwaymen don’t dress handsomer than that?’ replied
- Parkes. ‘It’s a better business than you think for, Tom, and highwaymen
- don’t need or use to be shabby, take my word for it.’
- Meanwhile the subject of their speculations had done due honour to the
- house by calling for some drink, which was promptly supplied by the
- landlord’s son Joe, a broad-shouldered strapping young fellow of twenty,
- whom it pleased his father still to consider a little boy, and to treat
- accordingly. Stretching out his hands to warm them by the blazing fire,
- the man turned his head towards the company, and after running his eye
- sharply over them, said in a voice well suited to his appearance:
- ‘What house is that which stands a mile or so from here?’
- ‘Public-house?’ said the landlord, with his usual deliberation.
- ‘Public-house, father!’ exclaimed Joe, ‘where’s the public-house
- within a mile or so of the Maypole? He means the great house--the
- Warren--naturally and of course. The old red brick house, sir, that
- stands in its own grounds--?’
- ‘Aye,’ said the stranger.
- ‘And that fifteen or twenty years ago stood in a park five times as
- broad, which with other and richer property has bit by bit changed hands
- and dwindled away--more’s the pity!’ pursued the young man.
- ‘Maybe,’ was the reply. ‘But my question related to the owner. What it
- has been I don’t care to know, and what it is I can see for myself.’
- The heir-apparent to the Maypole pressed his finger on his lips, and
- glancing at the young gentleman already noticed, who had changed his
- attitude when the house was first mentioned, replied in a lower tone:
- ‘The owner’s name is Haredale, Mr Geoffrey Haredale, and’--again
- he glanced in the same direction as before--‘and a worthy gentleman
- too--hem!’
- Paying as little regard to this admonitory cough, as to the significant
- gesture that had preceded it, the stranger pursued his questioning.
- ‘I turned out of my way coming here, and took the footpath that crosses
- the grounds. Who was the young lady that I saw entering a carriage? His
- daughter?’
- ‘Why, how should I know, honest man?’ replied Joe, contriving in the
- course of some arrangements about the hearth, to advance close to his
- questioner and pluck him by the sleeve, ‘I didn’t see the young lady,
- you know. Whew! There’s the wind again--AND rain--well it IS a night!’
- Rough weather indeed!’ observed the strange man.
- ‘You’re used to it?’ said Joe, catching at anything which seemed to
- promise a diversion of the subject.
- ‘Pretty well,’ returned the other. ‘About the young lady--has Mr
- Haredale a daughter?’
- ‘No, no,’ said the young fellow fretfully, ‘he’s a single
- gentleman--he’s--be quiet, can’t you, man? Don’t you see this talk is
- not relished yonder?’
- Regardless of this whispered remonstrance, and affecting not to hear it,
- his tormentor provokingly continued:
- ‘Single men have had daughters before now. Perhaps she may be his
- daughter, though he is not married.’
- ‘What do you mean?’ said Joe, adding in an undertone as he approached
- him again, ‘You’ll come in for it presently, I know you will!’
- ‘I mean no harm’--returned the traveller boldly, ‘and have said none
- that I know of. I ask a few questions--as any stranger may, and not
- unnaturally--about the inmates of a remarkable house in a neighbourhood
- which is new to me, and you are as aghast and disturbed as if I were
- talking treason against King George. Perhaps you can tell me why, sir,
- for (as I say) I am a stranger, and this is Greek to me?’
- The latter observation was addressed to the obvious cause of Joe
- Willet’s discomposure, who had risen and was adjusting his riding-cloak
- preparatory to sallying abroad. Briefly replying that he could give him
- no information, the young man beckoned to Joe, and handing him a piece
- of money in payment of his reckoning, hurried out attended by young
- Willet himself, who taking up a candle followed to light him to the
- house-door.
- While Joe was absent on this errand, the elder Willet and his three
- companions continued to smoke with profound gravity, and in a deep
- silence, each having his eyes fixed on a huge copper boiler that was
- suspended over the fire. After some time John Willet slowly shook his
- head, and thereupon his friends slowly shook theirs; but no man withdrew
- his eyes from the boiler, or altered the solemn expression of his
- countenance in the slightest degree.
- At length Joe returned--very talkative and conciliatory, as though with
- a strong presentiment that he was going to be found fault with.
- ‘Such a thing as love is!’ he said, drawing a chair near the fire, and
- looking round for sympathy. ‘He has set off to walk to London,--all
- the way to London. His nag gone lame in riding out here this blessed
- afternoon, and comfortably littered down in our stable at this minute;
- and he giving up a good hot supper and our best bed, because Miss
- Haredale has gone to a masquerade up in town, and he has set his heart
- upon seeing her! I don’t think I could persuade myself to do that,
- beautiful as she is,--but then I’m not in love (at least I don’t think I
- am) and that’s the whole difference.’
- ‘He is in love then?’ said the stranger.
- ‘Rather,’ replied Joe. ‘He’ll never be more in love, and may very easily
- be less.’
- ‘Silence, sir!’ cried his father.
- ‘What a chap you are, Joe!’ said Long Parkes.
- ‘Such a inconsiderate lad!’ murmured Tom Cobb.
- ‘Putting himself forward and wringing the very nose off his own father’s
- face!’ exclaimed the parish-clerk, metaphorically.
- ‘What HAVE I done?’ reasoned poor Joe.
- ‘Silence, sir!’ returned his father, ‘what do you mean by talking, when
- you see people that are more than two or three times your age, sitting
- still and silent and not dreaming of saying a word?’
- ‘Why that’s the proper time for me to talk, isn’t it?’ said Joe
- rebelliously.
- ‘The proper time, sir!’ retorted his father, ‘the proper time’s no
- time.’
- ‘Ah to be sure!’ muttered Parkes, nodding gravely to the other two who
- nodded likewise, observing under their breaths that that was the point.
- ‘The proper time’s no time, sir,’ repeated John Willet; ‘when I was
- your age I never talked, I never wanted to talk. I listened and improved
- myself that’s what I did.’
- ‘And you’d find your father rather a tough customer in argeyment, Joe,
- if anybody was to try and tackle him,’ said Parkes.
- ‘For the matter o’ that, Phil!’ observed Mr Willet, blowing a long,
- thin, spiral cloud of smoke out of the corner of his mouth, and staring
- at it abstractedly as it floated away; ‘For the matter o’ that, Phil,
- argeyment is a gift of Natur. If Natur has gifted a man with powers
- of argeyment, a man has a right to make the best of ‘em, and has not
- a right to stand on false delicacy, and deny that he is so gifted; for
- that is a turning of his back on Natur, a flouting of her, a slighting
- of her precious caskets, and a proving of one’s self to be a swine that
- isn’t worth her scattering pearls before.’
- The landlord pausing here for a very long time, Mr Parkes naturally
- concluded that he had brought his discourse to an end; and therefore,
- turning to the young man with some austerity, exclaimed:
- ‘You hear what your father says, Joe? You wouldn’t much like to tackle
- him in argeyment, I’m thinking, sir.’
- ‘IF,’ said John Willet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the face of
- his interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in capitals, to apprise
- him that he had put in his oar, as the vulgar say, with unbecoming
- and irreverent haste; ‘IF, sir, Natur has fixed upon me the gift of
- argeyment, why should I not own to it, and rather glory in the same?
- Yes, sir, I AM a tough customer that way. You are right, sir. My
- toughness has been proved, sir, in this room many and many a time, as I
- think you know; and if you don’t know,’ added John, putting his pipe in
- his mouth again, ‘so much the better, for I an’t proud and am not going
- to tell you.’
- A general murmur from his three cronies, and a general shaking of
- heads at the copper boiler, assured John Willet that they had had good
- experience of his powers and needed no further evidence to assure them
- of his superiority. John smoked with a little more dignity and surveyed
- them in silence.
- ‘It’s all very fine talking,’ muttered Joe, who had been fidgeting in
- his chair with divers uneasy gestures. ‘But if you mean to tell me that
- I’m never to open my lips--’
- ‘Silence, sir!’ roared his father. ‘No, you never are. When your
- opinion’s wanted, you give it. When you’re spoke to, you speak. When
- your opinion’s not wanted and you’re not spoke to, don’t you give an
- opinion and don’t you speak. The world’s undergone a nice alteration
- since my time, certainly. My belief is that there an’t any boys
- left--that there isn’t such a thing as a boy--that there’s nothing now
- between a male baby and a man--and that all the boys went out with his
- blessed Majesty King George the Second.’
- ‘That’s a very true observation, always excepting the young princes,’
- said the parish-clerk, who, as the representative of church and state in
- that company, held himself bound to the nicest loyalty. ‘If it’s godly
- and righteous for boys, being of the ages of boys, to behave themselves
- like boys, then the young princes must be boys and cannot be otherwise.’
- ‘Did you ever hear tell of mermaids, sir?’ said Mr Willet.
- ‘Certainly I have,’ replied the clerk.
- ‘Very good,’ said Mr Willet. ‘According to the constitution of mermaids,
- so much of a mermaid as is not a woman must be a fish. According to the
- constitution of young princes, so much of a young prince (if anything)
- as is not actually an angel, must be godly and righteous. Therefore if
- it’s becoming and godly and righteous in the young princes (as it is
- at their ages) that they should be boys, they are and must be boys, and
- cannot by possibility be anything else.’
- This elucidation of a knotty point being received with such marks of
- approval as to put John Willet into a good humour, he contented himself
- with repeating to his son his command of silence, and addressing the
- stranger, said:
- ‘If you had asked your questions of a grown-up person--of me or any of
- these gentlemen--you’d have had some satisfaction, and wouldn’t have
- wasted breath. Miss Haredale is Mr Geoffrey Haredale’s niece.’
- ‘Is her father alive?’ said the man, carelessly.
- ‘No,’ rejoined the landlord, ‘he is not alive, and he is not dead--’
- ‘Not dead!’ cried the other.
- ‘Not dead in a common sort of way,’ said the landlord.
- The cronies nodded to each other, and Mr Parkes remarked in an
- undertone, shaking his head meanwhile as who should say, ‘let no man
- contradict me, for I won’t believe him,’ that John Willet was in amazing
- force to-night, and fit to tackle a Chief Justice.
- The stranger suffered a short pause to elapse, and then asked abruptly,
- ‘What do you mean?’
- ‘More than you think for, friend,’ returned John Willet. ‘Perhaps
- there’s more meaning in them words than you suspect.’
- ‘Perhaps there is,’ said the strange man, gruffly; ‘but what the devil
- do you speak in such mysteries for? You tell me, first, that a man is
- not alive, nor yet dead--then, that he’s not dead in a common sort of
- way--then, that you mean a great deal more than I think for. To tell
- you the truth, you may do that easily; for so far as I can make out, you
- mean nothing. What DO you mean, I ask again?’
- ‘That,’ returned the landlord, a little brought down from his dignity
- by the stranger’s surliness, ‘is a Maypole story, and has been any time
- these four-and-twenty years. That story is Solomon Daisy’s story. It
- belongs to the house; and nobody but Solomon Daisy has ever told it
- under this roof, or ever shall--that’s more.’
- The man glanced at the parish-clerk, whose air of consciousness and
- importance plainly betokened him to be the person referred to, and,
- observing that he had taken his pipe from his lips, after a very long
- whiff to keep it alight, and was evidently about to tell his story
- without further solicitation, gathered his large coat about him, and
- shrinking further back was almost lost in the gloom of the spacious
- chimney-corner, except when the flame, struggling from under a great
- faggot, whose weight almost crushed it for the time, shot upward with a
- strong and sudden glare, and illumining his figure for a moment, seemed
- afterwards to cast it into deeper obscurity than before.
- By this flickering light, which made the old room, with its heavy
- timbers and panelled walls, look as if it were built of polished
- ebony--the wind roaring and howling without, now rattling the latch
- and creaking the hinges of the stout oaken door, and now driving at
- the casement as though it would beat it in--by this light, and under
- circumstances so auspicious, Solomon Daisy began his tale:
- ‘It was Mr Reuben Haredale, Mr Geoffrey’s elder brother--’
- Here he came to a dead stop, and made so long a pause that even John
- Willet grew impatient and asked why he did not proceed.
- ‘Cobb,’ said Solomon Daisy, dropping his voice and appealing to the
- post-office keeper; ‘what day of the month is this?’
- ‘The nineteenth.’
- ‘Of March,’ said the clerk, bending forward, ‘the nineteenth of March;
- that’s very strange.’
- In a low voice they all acquiesced, and Solomon went on:
- ‘It was Mr Reuben Haredale, Mr Geoffrey’s elder brother, that twenty-two
- years ago was the owner of the Warren, which, as Joe has said--not that
- you remember it, Joe, for a boy like you can’t do that, but because you
- have often heard me say so--was then a much larger and better place, and
- a much more valuable property than it is now. His lady was lately
- dead, and he was left with one child--the Miss Haredale you have been
- inquiring about--who was then scarcely a year old.’
- Although the speaker addressed himself to the man who had shown so much
- curiosity about this same family, and made a pause here as if expecting
- some exclamation of surprise or encouragement, the latter made no
- remark, nor gave any indication that he heard or was interested in what
- was said. Solomon therefore turned to his old companions, whose noses
- were brightly illuminated by the deep red glow from the bowls of their
- pipes; assured, by long experience, of their attention, and resolved to
- show his sense of such indecent behaviour.
- ‘Mr Haredale,’ said Solomon, turning his back upon the strange man,
- ‘left this place when his lady died, feeling it lonely like, and went
- up to London, where he stopped some months; but finding that place as
- lonely as this--as I suppose and have always heard say--he suddenly
- came back again with his little girl to the Warren, bringing with him
- besides, that day, only two women servants, and his steward, and a
- gardener.’
- Mr Daisy stopped to take a whiff at his pipe, which was going out,
- and then proceeded--at first in a snuffling tone, occasioned by keen
- enjoyment of the tobacco and strong pulling at the pipe, and afterwards
- with increasing distinctness:
- ‘--Bringing with him two women servants, and his steward, and a
- gardener. The rest stopped behind up in London, and were to follow next
- day. It happened that that night, an old gentleman who lived at Chigwell
- Row, and had long been poorly, deceased, and an order came to me at half
- after twelve o’clock at night to go and toll the passing-bell.’
- There was a movement in the little group of listeners, sufficiently
- indicative of the strong repugnance any one of them would have felt to
- have turned out at such a time upon such an errand. The clerk felt and
- understood it, and pursued his theme accordingly.
- ‘It WAS a dreary thing, especially as the grave-digger was laid up in
- his bed, from long working in a damp soil and sitting down to take his
- dinner on cold tombstones, and I was consequently under obligation to go
- alone, for it was too late to hope to get any other companion. However,
- I wasn’t unprepared for it; as the old gentleman had often made it a
- request that the bell should be tolled as soon as possible after the
- breath was out of his body, and he had been expected to go for some
- days. I put as good a face upon it as I could, and muffling myself up
- (for it was mortal cold), started out with a lighted lantern in one hand
- and the key of the church in the other.’
- At this point of the narrative, the dress of the strange man rustled as
- if he had turned himself to hear more distinctly. Slightly pointing over
- his shoulder, Solomon elevated his eyebrows and nodded a silent inquiry
- to Joe whether this was the case. Joe shaded his eyes with his hand and
- peered into the corner, but could make out nothing, and so shook his
- head.
- ‘It was just such a night as this; blowing a hurricane, raining heavily,
- and very dark--I often think now, darker than I ever saw it before or
- since; that may be my fancy, but the houses were all close shut and the
- folks in doors, and perhaps there is only one other man who knows how
- dark it really was. I got into the church, chained the door back so that
- it should keep ajar--for, to tell the truth, I didn’t like to be shut
- in there alone--and putting my lantern on the stone seat in the little
- corner where the bell-rope is, sat down beside it to trim the candle.
- ‘I sat down to trim the candle, and when I had done so I could not
- persuade myself to get up again, and go about my work. I don’t know how
- it was, but I thought of all the ghost stories I had ever heard, even
- those that I had heard when I was a boy at school, and had forgotten
- long ago; and they didn’t come into my mind one after another, but
- all crowding at once, like. I recollected one story there was in the
- village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very
- night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground
- and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning. This made me
- think how many people I had known, were buried between the church-door
- and the churchyard gate, and what a dreadful thing it would be to have
- to pass among them and know them again, so earthy and unlike themselves.
- I had known all the niches and arches in the church from a child; still,
- I couldn’t persuade myself that those were their natural shadows which
- I saw on the pavement, but felt sure there were some ugly figures hiding
- among ‘em and peeping out. Thinking on in this way, I began to think of
- the old gentleman who was just dead, and I could have sworn, as I looked
- up the dark chancel, that I saw him in his usual place, wrapping his
- shroud about him and shivering as if he felt it cold. All this time I
- sat listening and listening, and hardly dared to breathe. At length
- I started up and took the bell-rope in my hands. At that minute there
- rang--not that bell, for I had hardly touched the rope--but another!
- ‘I heard the ringing of another bell, and a deep bell too, plainly. It
- was only for an instant, and even then the wind carried the sound away,
- but I heard it. I listened for a long time, but it rang no more. I had
- heard of corpse candles, and at last I persuaded myself that this must
- be a corpse bell tolling of itself at midnight for the dead. I tolled my
- bell--how, or how long, I don’t know--and ran home to bed as fast as I
- could touch the ground.
- ‘I was up early next morning after a restless night, and told the story
- to my neighbours. Some were serious and some made light of it; I don’t
- think anybody believed it real. But, that morning, Mr Reuben Haredale
- was found murdered in his bedchamber; and in his hand was a piece of the
- cord attached to an alarm-bell outside the roof, which hung in his room
- and had been cut asunder, no doubt by the murderer, when he seized it.
- ‘That was the bell I heard.
- ‘A bureau was found opened, and a cash-box, which Mr Haredale had
- brought down that day, and was supposed to contain a large sum of money,
- was gone. The steward and gardener were both missing and both suspected
- for a long time, but they were never found, though hunted far and wide.
- And far enough they might have looked for poor Mr Rudge the steward,
- whose body--scarcely to be recognised by his clothes and the watch and
- ring he wore--was found, months afterwards, at the bottom of a piece of
- water in the grounds, with a deep gash in the breast where he had been
- stabbed with a knife. He was only partly dressed; and people all agreed
- that he had been sitting up reading in his own room, where there were
- many traces of blood, and was suddenly fallen upon and killed before his
- master.
- Everybody now knew that the gardener must be the murderer, and though
- he has never been heard of from that day to this, he will be, mark my
- words. The crime was committed this day two-and-twenty years--on the
- nineteenth of March, one thousand seven hundred and fifty-three. On the
- nineteenth of March in some year--no matter when--I know it, I am sure
- of it, for we have always, in some strange way or other, been brought
- back to the subject on that day ever since--on the nineteenth of March
- in some year, sooner or later, that man will be discovered.’
- Chapter 2
- ‘A strange story!’ said the man who had been the cause of the
- narration.--‘Stranger still if it comes about as you predict. Is that
- all?’
- A question so unexpected, nettled Solomon Daisy not a little. By dint of
- relating the story very often, and ornamenting it (according to village
- report) with a few flourishes suggested by the various hearers from time
- to time, he had come by degrees to tell it with great effect; and ‘Is
- that all?’ after the climax, was not what he was accustomed to.
- ‘Is that all?’ he repeated, ‘yes, that’s all, sir. And enough too, I
- think.’
- ‘I think so too. My horse, young man! He is but a hack hired from a
- roadside posting house, but he must carry me to London to-night.’
- ‘To-night!’ said Joe.
- ‘To-night,’ returned the other. ‘What do you stare at? This tavern
- would seem to be a house of call for all the gaping idlers of the
- neighbourhood!’
- At this remark, which evidently had reference to the scrutiny he had
- undergone, as mentioned in the foregoing chapter, the eyes of John
- Willet and his friends were diverted with marvellous rapidity to the
- copper boiler again. Not so with Joe, who, being a mettlesome fellow,
- returned the stranger’s angry glance with a steady look, and rejoined:
- ‘It is not a very bold thing to wonder at your going on to-night. Surely
- you have been asked such a harmless question in an inn before, and in
- better weather than this. I thought you mightn’t know the way, as you
- seem strange to this part.’
- ‘The way--’ repeated the other, irritably.
- ‘Yes. DO you know it?’
- ‘I’ll--humph!--I’ll find it,’ replied the man, waving his hand and
- turning on his heel. ‘Landlord, take the reckoning here.’
- John Willet did as he was desired; for on that point he was seldom slow,
- except in the particulars of giving change, and testing the goodness of
- any piece of coin that was proffered to him, by the application of his
- teeth or his tongue, or some other test, or in doubtful cases, by a long
- series of tests terminating in its rejection. The guest then wrapped his
- garments about him so as to shelter himself as effectually as he could
- from the rough weather, and without any word or sign of farewell betook
- himself to the stableyard. Here Joe (who had left the room on the
- conclusion of their short dialogue) was protecting himself and the horse
- from the rain under the shelter of an old penthouse roof.
- ‘He’s pretty much of my opinion,’ said Joe, patting the horse upon the
- neck. ‘I’ll wager that your stopping here to-night would please him
- better than it would please me.’
- ‘He and I are of different opinions, as we have been more than once on
- our way here,’ was the short reply.
- ‘So I was thinking before you came out, for he has felt your spurs, poor
- beast.’
- The stranger adjusted his coat-collar about his face, and made no
- answer.
- ‘You’ll know me again, I see,’ he said, marking the young fellow’s
- earnest gaze, when he had sprung into the saddle.
- ‘The man’s worth knowing, master, who travels a road he don’t know,
- mounted on a jaded horse, and leaves good quarters to do it on such a
- night as this.’
- ‘You have sharp eyes and a sharp tongue, I find.’
- ‘Both I hope by nature, but the last grows rusty sometimes for want of
- using.’
- ‘Use the first less too, and keep their sharpness for your sweethearts,
- boy,’ said the man.
- So saying he shook his hand from the bridle, struck him roughly on the
- head with the butt end of his whip, and galloped away; dashing through
- the mud and darkness with a headlong speed, which few badly mounted
- horsemen would have cared to venture, even had they been thoroughly
- acquainted with the country; and which, to one who knew nothing of the
- way he rode, was attended at every step with great hazard and danger.
- The roads, even within twelve miles of London, were at that time
- ill paved, seldom repaired, and very badly made. The way this rider
- traversed had been ploughed up by the wheels of heavy waggons, and
- rendered rotten by the frosts and thaws of the preceding winter, or
- possibly of many winters. Great holes and gaps had been worn into the
- soil, which, being now filled with water from the late rains, were not
- easily distinguishable even by day; and a plunge into any one of them
- might have brought down a surer-footed horse than the poor beast now
- urged forward to the utmost extent of his powers. Sharp flints and
- stones rolled from under his hoofs continually; the rider could scarcely
- see beyond the animal’s head, or farther on either side than his own
- arm would have extended. At that time, too, all the roads in the
- neighbourhood of the metropolis were infested by footpads or highwaymen,
- and it was a night, of all others, in which any evil-disposed person of
- this class might have pursued his unlawful calling with little fear of
- detection.
- Still, the traveller dashed forward at the same reckless pace,
- regardless alike of the dirt and wet which flew about his head, the
- profound darkness of the night, and the probability of encountering
- some desperate characters abroad. At every turn and angle, even where
- a deviation from the direct course might have been least expected, and
- could not possibly be seen until he was close upon it, he guided the
- bridle with an unerring hand, and kept the middle of the road. Thus he
- sped onward, raising himself in the stirrups, leaning his body forward
- until it almost touched the horse’s neck, and flourishing his heavy whip
- above his head with the fervour of a madman.
- There are times when, the elements being in unusual commotion, those who
- are bent on daring enterprises, or agitated by great thoughts, whether
- of good or evil, feel a mysterious sympathy with the tumult of nature,
- and are roused into corresponding violence. In the midst of thunder,
- lightning, and storm, many tremendous deeds have been committed; men,
- self-possessed before, have given a sudden loose to passions they could
- no longer control. The demons of wrath and despair have striven to
- emulate those who ride the whirlwind and direct the storm; and man,
- lashed into madness with the roaring winds and boiling waters, has
- become for the time as wild and merciless as the elements themselves.
- Whether the traveller was possessed by thoughts which the fury of the
- night had heated and stimulated into a quicker current, or was merely
- impelled by some strong motive to reach his journey’s end, on he swept
- more like a hunted phantom than a man, nor checked his pace until,
- arriving at some cross roads, one of which led by a longer route to
- the place whence he had lately started, he bore down so suddenly upon a
- vehicle which was coming towards him, that in the effort to avoid it he
- well-nigh pulled his horse upon his haunches, and narrowly escaped being
- thrown.
- ‘Yoho!’ cried the voice of a man. ‘What’s that? Who goes there?’
- ‘A friend!’ replied the traveller.
- ‘A friend!’ repeated the voice. ‘Who calls himself a friend and rides
- like that, abusing Heaven’s gifts in the shape of horseflesh, and
- endangering, not only his own neck (which might be no great matter) but
- the necks of other people?’
- ‘You have a lantern there, I see,’ said the traveller dismounting, ‘lend
- it me for a moment. You have wounded my horse, I think, with your shaft
- or wheel.’
- ‘Wounded him!’ cried the other, ‘if I haven’t killed him, it’s no fault
- of yours. What do you mean by galloping along the king’s highway like
- that, eh?’
- ‘Give me the light,’ returned the traveller, snatching it from his hand,
- ‘and don’t ask idle questions of a man who is in no mood for talking.’
- ‘If you had said you were in no mood for talking before, I should
- perhaps have been in no mood for lighting,’ said the voice. ‘Hows’ever
- as it’s the poor horse that’s damaged and not you, one of you is welcome
- to the light at all events--but it’s not the crusty one.’
- The traveller returned no answer to this speech, but holding the light
- near to his panting and reeking beast, examined him in limb and carcass.
- Meanwhile, the other man sat very composedly in his vehicle, which was
- a kind of chaise with a depository for a large bag of tools, and watched
- his proceedings with a careful eye.
- The looker-on was a round, red-faced, sturdy yeoman, with a double chin,
- and a voice husky with good living, good sleeping, good humour, and good
- health. He was past the prime of life, but Father Time is not always a
- hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays
- his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men
- and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young
- and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression
- of the old fellow’s hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle
- but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
- The person whom the traveller had so abruptly encountered was of
- this kind: bluff, hale, hearty, and in a green old age: at peace with
- himself, and evidently disposed to be so with all the world. Although
- muffled up in divers coats and handkerchiefs--one of which, passed over
- his crown, and tied in a convenient crease of his double chin, secured
- his three-cornered hat and bob-wig from blowing off his head--there
- was no disguising his plump and comfortable figure; neither did certain
- dirty finger-marks upon his face give it any other than an odd and
- comical expression, through which its natural good humour shone with
- undiminished lustre.
- ‘He is not hurt,’ said the traveller at length, raising his head and the
- lantern together.
- ‘You have found that out at last, have you?’ rejoined the old man. ‘My
- eyes have seen more light than yours, but I wouldn’t change with you.’
- ‘What do you mean?’
- ‘Mean! I could have told you he wasn’t hurt, five minutes ago. Give me
- the light, friend; ride forward at a gentler pace; and good night.’
- In handing up the lantern, the man necessarily cast its rays full on the
- speaker’s face. Their eyes met at the instant. He suddenly dropped it
- and crushed it with his foot.
- ‘Did you never see a locksmith before, that you start as if you had come
- upon a ghost?’ cried the old man in the chaise, ‘or is this,’ he added
- hastily, thrusting his hand into the tool basket and drawing out a
- hammer, ‘a scheme for robbing me? I know these roads, friend. When I
- travel them, I carry nothing but a few shillings, and not a crown’s
- worth of them. I tell you plainly, to save us both trouble, that there’s
- nothing to be got from me but a pretty stout arm considering my years,
- and this tool, which, mayhap from long acquaintance with, I can use
- pretty briskly. You shall not have it all your own way, I promise you,
- if you play at that game. With these words he stood upon the defensive.
- ‘I am not what you take me for, Gabriel Varden,’ replied the other.
- ‘Then what and who are you?’ returned the locksmith. ‘You know my name,
- it seems. Let me know yours.’
- ‘I have not gained the information from any confidence of yours, but
- from the inscription on your cart which tells it to all the town,’
- replied the traveller.
- ‘You have better eyes for that than you had for your horse, then,’ said
- Varden, descending nimbly from his chaise; ‘who are you? Let me see your
- face.’
- While the locksmith alighted, the traveller had regained his saddle,
- from which he now confronted the old man, who, moving as the horse moved
- in chafing under the tightened rein, kept close beside him.
- ‘Let me see your face, I say.’
- ‘Stand off!’
- ‘No masquerading tricks,’ said the locksmith, ‘and tales at the club
- to-morrow, how Gabriel Varden was frightened by a surly voice and a dark
- night. Stand--let me see your face.’
- Finding that further resistance would only involve him in a personal
- struggle with an antagonist by no means to be despised, the traveller
- threw back his coat, and stooping down looked steadily at the locksmith.
- Perhaps two men more powerfully contrasted, never opposed each other
- face to face. The ruddy features of the locksmith so set off and
- heightened the excessive paleness of the man on horseback, that he
- looked like a bloodless ghost, while the moisture, which hard riding had
- brought out upon his skin, hung there in dark and heavy drops, like dews
- of agony and death. The countenance of the old locksmith lighted up with
- the smile of one expecting to detect in this unpromising stranger some
- latent roguery of eye or lip, which should reveal a familiar person in
- that arch disguise, and spoil his jest. The face of the other, sullen
- and fierce, but shrinking too, was that of a man who stood at bay; while
- his firmly closed jaws, his puckered mouth, and more than all a certain
- stealthy motion of the hand within his breast, seemed to announce a
- desperate purpose very foreign to acting, or child’s play.
- Thus they regarded each other for some time, in silence.
- ‘Humph!’ he said when he had scanned his features; ‘I don’t know you.’
- ‘Don’t desire to?’--returned the other, muffling himself as before.
- ‘I don’t,’ said Gabriel; ‘to be plain with you, friend, you don’t carry
- in your countenance a letter of recommendation.’
- ‘It’s not my wish,’ said the traveller. ‘My humour is to be avoided.’
- ‘Well,’ said the locksmith bluntly, ‘I think you’ll have your humour.’
- ‘I will, at any cost,’ rejoined the traveller. ‘In proof of it, lay this
- to heart--that you were never in such peril of your life as you have
- been within these few moments; when you are within five minutes of
- breathing your last, you will not be nearer death than you have been
- to-night!’
- ‘Aye!’ said the sturdy locksmith.
- ‘Aye! and a violent death.’
- ‘From whose hand?’
- ‘From mine,’ replied the traveller.
- With that he put spurs to his horse, and rode away; at first plashing
- heavily through the mire at a smart trot, but gradually increasing in
- speed until the last sound of his horse’s hoofs died away upon the wind;
- when he was again hurrying on at the same furious gallop, which had been
- his pace when the locksmith first encountered him.
- Gabriel Varden remained standing in the road with the broken lantern in
- his hand, listening in stupefied silence until no sound reached his ear
- but the moaning of the wind, and the fast-falling rain; when he struck
- himself one or two smart blows in the breast by way of rousing himself,
- and broke into an exclamation of surprise.
- ‘What in the name of wonder can this fellow be! a madman? a highwayman?
- a cut-throat? If he had not scoured off so fast, we’d have seen who was
- in most danger, he or I. I never nearer death than I have been to-night!
- I hope I may be no nearer to it for a score of years to come--if so,
- I’ll be content to be no farther from it. My stars!--a pretty brag this
- to a stout man--pooh, pooh!’
- Gabriel resumed his seat, and looked wistfully up the road by which the
- traveller had come; murmuring in a half whisper:
- ‘The Maypole--two miles to the Maypole. I came the other road from the
- Warren after a long day’s work at locks and bells, on purpose that I
- should not come by the Maypole and break my promise to Martha by looking
- in--there’s resolution! It would be dangerous to go on to London without
- a light; and it’s four miles, and a good half mile besides, to the
- Halfway-House; and between this and that is the very place where one
- needs a light most. Two miles to the Maypole! I told Martha I wouldn’t;
- I said I wouldn’t, and I didn’t--there’s resolution!’
- Repeating these two last words very often, as if to compensate for the
- little resolution he was going to show by piquing himself on the great
- resolution he had shown, Gabriel Varden quietly turned back, determining
- to get a light at the Maypole, and to take nothing but a light.
- When he got to the Maypole, however, and Joe, responding to his
- well-known hail, came running out to the horse’s head, leaving the door
- open behind him, and disclosing a delicious perspective of warmth and
- brightness--when the ruddy gleam of the fire, streaming through the old
- red curtains of the common room, seemed to bring with it, as part of
- itself, a pleasant hum of voices, and a fragrant odour of steaming grog
- and rare tobacco, all steeped as it were in the cheerful glow--when the
- shadows, flitting across the curtain, showed that those inside had risen
- from their snug seats, and were making room in the snuggest corner (how
- well he knew that corner!) for the honest locksmith, and a broad glare,
- suddenly streaming up, bespoke the goodness of the crackling log from
- which a brilliant train of sparks was doubtless at that moment whirling
- up the chimney in honour of his coming--when, superadded to these
- enticements, there stole upon him from the distant kitchen a gentle
- sound of frying, with a musical clatter of plates and dishes, and a
- savoury smell that made even the boisterous wind a perfume--Gabriel
- felt his firmness oozing rapidly away. He tried to look stoically at the
- tavern, but his features would relax into a look of fondness. He turned
- his head the other way, and the cold black country seemed to frown him
- off, and drive him for a refuge into its hospitable arms.
- ‘The merciful man, Joe,’ said the locksmith, ‘is merciful to his beast.
- I’ll get out for a little while.’
- And how natural it was to get out! And how unnatural it seemed for a
- sober man to be plodding wearily along through miry roads, encountering
- the rude buffets of the wind and pelting of the rain, when there was
- a clean floor covered with crisp white sand, a well swept hearth, a
- blazing fire, a table decorated with white cloth, bright pewter flagons,
- and other tempting preparations for a well-cooked meal--when there were
- these things, and company disposed to make the most of them, all ready
- to his hand, and entreating him to enjoyment!
- Chapter 3
- Such were the locksmith’s thoughts when first seated in the snug corner,
- and slowly recovering from a pleasant defect of vision--pleasant,
- because occasioned by the wind blowing in his eyes--which made it a
- matter of sound policy and duty to himself, that he should take refuge
- from the weather, and tempted him, for the same reason, to aggravate
- a slight cough, and declare he felt but poorly. Such were still his
- thoughts more than a full hour afterwards, when, supper over, he still
- sat with shining jovial face in the same warm nook, listening to the
- cricket-like chirrup of little Solomon Daisy, and bearing no unimportant
- or slightly respected part in the social gossip round the Maypole fire.
- ‘I wish he may be an honest man, that’s all,’ said Solomon, winding up
- a variety of speculations relative to the stranger, concerning whom
- Gabriel had compared notes with the company, and so raised a grave
- discussion; ‘I wish he may be an honest man.’
- ‘So we all do, I suppose, don’t we?’ observed the locksmith.
- ‘I don’t,’ said Joe.
- ‘No!’ cried Gabriel.
- ‘No. He struck me with his whip, the coward, when he was mounted and I
- afoot, and I should be better pleased that he turned out what I think
- him.’
- ‘And what may that be, Joe?’
- ‘No good, Mr Varden. You may shake your head, father, but I say no good,
- and will say no good, and I would say no good a hundred times over, if
- that would bring him back to have the drubbing he deserves.’
- ‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ said John Willet.
- ‘I won’t, father. It’s all along of you that he ventured to do what he
- did. Seeing me treated like a child, and put down like a fool, HE plucks
- up a heart and has a fling at a fellow that he thinks--and may well
- think too--hasn’t a grain of spirit. But he’s mistaken, as I’ll show
- him, and as I’ll show all of you before long.’
- ‘Does the boy know what he’s a saying of!’ cried the astonished John
- Willet.
- ‘Father,’ returned Joe, ‘I know what I say and mean, well--better than
- you do when you hear me. I can bear with you, but I cannot bear the
- contempt that your treating me in the way you do, brings upon me from
- others every day. Look at other young men of my age. Have they no
- liberty, no will, no right to speak? Are they obliged to sit mumchance,
- and to be ordered about till they are the laughing-stock of young and
- old? I am a bye-word all over Chigwell, and I say--and it’s fairer
- my saying so now, than waiting till you are dead, and I have got your
- money--I say, that before long I shall be driven to break such bounds,
- and that when I do, it won’t be me that you’ll have to blame, but your
- own self, and no other.’
- John Willet was so amazed by the exasperation and boldness of his
- hopeful son, that he sat as one bewildered, staring in a ludicrous
- manner at the boiler, and endeavouring, but quite ineffectually, to
- collect his tardy thoughts, and invent an answer. The guests, scarcely
- less disturbed, were equally at a loss; and at length, with a variety
- of muttered, half-expressed condolences, and pieces of advice, rose to
- depart; being at the same time slightly muddled with liquor.
- The honest locksmith alone addressed a few words of coherent and
- sensible advice to both parties, urging John Willet to remember that
- Joe was nearly arrived at man’s estate, and should not be ruled with
- too tight a hand, and exhorting Joe himself to bear with his father’s
- caprices, and rather endeavour to turn them aside by temperate
- remonstrance than by ill-timed rebellion. This advice was received as
- such advice usually is. On John Willet it made almost as much impression
- as on the sign outside the door, while Joe, who took it in the best
- part, avowed himself more obliged than he could well express, but
- politely intimated his intention nevertheless of taking his own course
- uninfluenced by anybody.
- ‘You have always been a very good friend to me, Mr Varden,’ he said,
- as they stood without, in the porch, and the locksmith was equipping
- himself for his journey home; ‘I take it very kind of you to say all
- this, but the time’s nearly come when the Maypole and I must part
- company.’
- ‘Roving stones gather no moss, Joe,’ said Gabriel.
- ‘Nor milestones much,’ replied Joe. ‘I’m little better than one here,
- and see as much of the world.’
- ‘Then, what would you do, Joe?’ pursued the locksmith, stroking his chin
- reflectively. ‘What could you be? Where could you go, you see?’
- ‘I must trust to chance, Mr Varden.’
- ‘A bad thing to trust to, Joe. I don’t like it. I always tell my girl
- when we talk about a husband for her, never to trust to chance, but to
- make sure beforehand that she has a good man and true, and then chance
- will neither make her nor break her. What are you fidgeting about there,
- Joe? Nothing gone in the harness, I hope?’
- ‘No no,’ said Joe--finding, however, something very engrossing to do in
- the way of strapping and buckling--‘Miss Dolly quite well?’
- ‘Hearty, thankye. She looks pretty enough to be well, and good too.’
- ‘She’s always both, sir’--
- ‘So she is, thank God!’
- ‘I hope,’ said Joe after some hesitation, ‘that you won’t tell this
- story against me--this of my having been beat like the boy they’d make
- of me--at all events, till I have met this man again and settled the
- account. It’ll be a better story then.’
- ‘Why who should I tell it to?’ returned Gabriel. ‘They know it here, and
- I’m not likely to come across anybody else who would care about it.’
- ‘That’s true enough,’ said the young fellow with a sigh. ‘I quite forgot
- that. Yes, that’s true!’
- So saying, he raised his face, which was very red,--no doubt from the
- exertion of strapping and buckling as aforesaid,--and giving the reins
- to the old man, who had by this time taken his seat, sighed again and
- bade him good night.
- ‘Good night!’ cried Gabriel. ‘Now think better of what we have just
- been speaking of; and don’t be rash, there’s a good fellow! I have an
- interest in you, and wouldn’t have you cast yourself away. Good night!’
- Returning his cheery farewell with cordial goodwill, Joe Willet lingered
- until the sound of wheels ceased to vibrate in his ears, and then,
- shaking his head mournfully, re-entered the house.
- Gabriel Varden went his way towards London, thinking of a great
- many things, and most of all of flaming terms in which to relate his
- adventure, and so account satisfactorily to Mrs Varden for visiting the
- Maypole, despite certain solemn covenants between himself and that lady.
- Thinking begets, not only thought, but drowsiness occasionally, and the
- more the locksmith thought, the more sleepy he became.
- A man may be very sober--or at least firmly set upon his legs on that
- neutral ground which lies between the confines of perfect sobriety and
- slight tipsiness--and yet feel a strong tendency to mingle up present
- circumstances with others which have no manner of connection with them;
- to confound all consideration of persons, things, times, and places;
- and to jumble his disjointed thoughts together in a kind of mental
- kaleidoscope, producing combinations as unexpected as they are
- transitory. This was Gabriel Varden’s state, as, nodding in his dog
- sleep, and leaving his horse to pursue a road with which he was well
- acquainted, he got over the ground unconsciously, and drew nearer and
- nearer home. He had roused himself once, when the horse stopped until
- the turnpike gate was opened, and had cried a lusty ‘good night!’ to the
- toll-keeper; but then he awoke out of a dream about picking a lock in
- the stomach of the Great Mogul, and even when he did wake, mixed up the
- turnpike man with his mother-in-law who had been dead twenty years. It
- is not surprising, therefore, that he soon relapsed, and jogged heavily
- along, quite insensible to his progress.
- And, now, he approached the great city, which lay outstretched before
- him like a dark shadow on the ground, reddening the sluggish air with a
- deep dull light, that told of labyrinths of public ways and shops, and
- swarms of busy people. Approaching nearer and nearer yet, this halo
- began to fade, and the causes which produced it slowly to develop
- themselves. Long lines of poorly lighted streets might be faintly
- traced, with here and there a lighter spot, where lamps were clustered
- round a square or market, or round some great building; after a time
- these grew more distinct, and the lamps themselves were visible; slight
- yellow specks, that seemed to be rapidly snuffed out, one by one, as
- intervening obstacles hid them from the sight. Then, sounds arose--the
- striking of church clocks, the distant bark of dogs, the hum of traffic
- in the streets; then outlines might be traced--tall steeples looming
- in the air, and piles of unequal roofs oppressed by chimneys; then,
- the noise swelled into a louder sound, and forms grew more distinct and
- numerous still, and London--visible in the darkness by its own faint
- light, and not by that of Heaven--was at hand.
- The locksmith, however, all unconscious of its near vicinity, still
- jogged on, half sleeping and half waking, when a loud cry at no great
- distance ahead, roused him with a start.
- For a moment or two he looked about him like a man who had been
- transported to some strange country in his sleep, but soon recognising
- familiar objects, rubbed his eyes lazily and might have relapsed again,
- but that the cry was repeated--not once or twice or thrice, but many
- times, and each time, if possible, with increased vehemence. Thoroughly
- aroused, Gabriel, who was a bold man and not easily daunted, made
- straight to the spot, urging on his stout little horse as if for life or
- death.
- The matter indeed looked sufficiently serious, for, coming to the place
- whence the cries had proceeded, he descried the figure of a man extended
- in an apparently lifeless state upon the pathway, and, hovering round
- him, another person with a torch in his hand, which he waved in the air
- with a wild impatience, redoubling meanwhile those cries for help which
- had brought the locksmith to the spot.
- ‘What’s here to do?’ said the old man, alighting. ‘How’s
- this--what--Barnaby?’
- The bearer of the torch shook his long loose hair back from his eyes,
- and thrusting his face eagerly into that of the locksmith, fixed upon
- him a look which told his history at once.
- ‘You know me, Barnaby?’ said Varden.
- He nodded--not once or twice, but a score of times, and that with a
- fantastic exaggeration which would have kept his head in motion for
- an hour, but that the locksmith held up his finger, and fixing his eye
- sternly upon him caused him to desist; then pointed to the body with an
- inquiring look.
- ‘There’s blood upon him,’ said Barnaby with a shudder. ‘It makes me
- sick!’
- ‘How came it there?’ demanded Varden.
- ‘Steel, steel, steel!’ he replied fiercely, imitating with his hand the
- thrust of a sword.
- ‘Is he robbed?’ said the locksmith.
- Barnaby caught him by the arm, and nodded ‘Yes;’ then pointed towards
- the city.
- ‘Oh!’ said the old man, bending over the body and looking round as he
- spoke into Barnaby’s pale face, strangely lighted up by something that
- was NOT intellect. ‘The robber made off that way, did he? Well, well,
- never mind that just now. Hold your torch this way--a little farther
- off--so. Now stand quiet, while I try to see what harm is done.’
- With these words, he applied himself to a closer examination of
- the prostrate form, while Barnaby, holding the torch as he had been
- directed, looked on in silence, fascinated by interest or curiosity, but
- repelled nevertheless by some strong and secret horror which convulsed
- him in every nerve.
- As he stood, at that moment, half shrinking back and half bending
- forward, both his face and figure were full in the strong glare of the
- link, and as distinctly revealed as though it had been broad day. He
- was about three-and-twenty years old, and though rather spare, of a fair
- height and strong make. His hair, of which he had a great profusion, was
- red, and hanging in disorder about his face and shoulders, gave to his
- restless looks an expression quite unearthly--enhanced by the paleness
- of his complexion, and the glassy lustre of his large protruding eyes.
- Startling as his aspect was, the features were good, and there was
- something even plaintive in his wan and haggard aspect. But, the absence
- of the soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one; and
- in this unfortunate being its noblest powers were wanting.
- His dress was of green, clumsily trimmed here and there--apparently by
- his own hands--with gaudy lace; brightest where the cloth was most
- worn and soiled, and poorest where it was at the best. A pair of tawdry
- ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was nearly bare. He had
- ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock’s feathers, but they were
- limp and broken, and now trailed negligently down his back. Girt to his
- side was the steel hilt of an old sword without blade or scabbard; and
- some particoloured ends of ribands and poor glass toys completed the
- ornamental portion of his attire. The fluttered and confused disposition
- of all the motley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in a scarcely
- less degree than his eager and unsettled manner, the disorder of his
- mind, and by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened the more
- impressive wildness of his face.
- ‘Barnaby,’ said the locksmith, after a hasty but careful inspection,
- ‘this man is not dead, but he has a wound in his side, and is in a
- fainting-fit.’
- ‘I know him, I know him!’ cried Barnaby, clapping his hands.
- ‘Know him?’ repeated the locksmith.
- ‘Hush!’ said Barnaby, laying his fingers upon his lips. ‘He went out
- to-day a wooing. I wouldn’t for a light guinea that he should never go
- a wooing again, for, if he did, some eyes would grow dim that are now as
- bright as--see, when I talk of eyes, the stars come out! Whose eyes are
- they? If they are angels’ eyes, why do they look down here and see good
- men hurt, and only wink and sparkle all the night?’
- ‘Now Heaven help this silly fellow,’ murmured the perplexed locksmith;
- ‘can he know this gentleman? His mother’s house is not far off; I had
- better see if she can tell me who he is. Barnaby, my man, help me to put
- him in the chaise, and we’ll ride home together.’
- ‘I can’t touch him!’ cried the idiot falling back, and shuddering as
- with a strong spasm; ‘he’s bloody!’
- ‘It’s in his nature, I know,’ muttered the locksmith, ‘it’s cruel to ask
- him, but I must have help. Barnaby--good Barnaby--dear Barnaby--if you
- know this gentleman, for the sake of his life and everybody’s life that
- loves him, help me to raise him and lay him down.’
- ‘Cover him then, wrap him close--don’t let me see it--smell it--hear the
- word. Don’t speak the word--don’t!’
- ‘No, no, I’ll not. There, you see he’s covered now. Gently. Well done,
- well done!’
- They placed him in the carriage with great ease, for Barnaby was strong
- and active, but all the time they were so occupied he shivered from head
- to foot, and evidently experienced an ecstasy of terror.
- This accomplished, and the wounded man being covered with Varden’s own
- greatcoat which he took off for the purpose, they proceeded onward at
- a brisk pace: Barnaby gaily counting the stars upon his fingers, and
- Gabriel inwardly congratulating himself upon having an adventure now,
- which would silence Mrs Varden on the subject of the Maypole, for that
- night, or there was no faith in woman.
- Chapter 4
- In the venerable suburb--it was a suburb once--of Clerkenwell, towards
- that part of its confines which is nearest to the Charter House, and in
- one of those cool, shady streets, of which a few, widely scattered
- and dispersed, yet remain in such old parts of the metropolis,--each
- tenement quietly vegetating like an ancient citizen who long ago retired
- from business, and dozing on in its infirmity until in course of time it
- tumbles down, and is replaced by some extravagant young heir, flaunting
- in stucco and ornamental work, and all the vanities of modern days,--in
- this quarter, and in a street of this description, the business of the
- present chapter lies.
- At the time of which it treats, though only six-and-sixty years ago,
- a very large part of what is London now had no existence. Even in the
- brains of the wildest speculators, there had sprung up no long rows of
- streets connecting Highgate with Whitechapel, no assemblages of palaces
- in the swampy levels, nor little cities in the open fields. Although
- this part of town was then, as now, parcelled out in streets, and
- plentifully peopled, it wore a different aspect. There were gardens
- to many of the houses, and trees by the pavement side; with an air of
- freshness breathing up and down, which in these days would be sought
- in vain. Fields were nigh at hand, through which the New River took its
- winding course, and where there was merry haymaking in the summer time.
- Nature was not so far removed, or hard to get at, as in these days; and
- although there were busy trades in Clerkenwell, and working jewellers
- by scores, it was a purer place, with farm-houses nearer to it than many
- modern Londoners would readily believe, and lovers’ walks at no great
- distance, which turned into squalid courts, long before the lovers of
- this age were born, or, as the phrase goes, thought of.
- In one of these streets, the cleanest of them all, and on the shady
- side of the way--for good housewives know that sunlight damages their
- cherished furniture, and so choose the shade rather than its intrusive
- glare--there stood the house with which we have to deal. It was a modest
- building, not very straight, not large, not tall; not bold-faced, with
- great staring windows, but a shy, blinking house, with a conical roof
- going up into a peak over its garret window of four small panes of
- glass, like a cocked hat on the head of an elderly gentleman with one
- eye. It was not built of brick or lofty stone, but of wood and plaster;
- it was not planned with a dull and wearisome regard to regularity,
- for no one window matched the other, or seemed to have the slightest
- reference to anything besides itself.
- The shop--for it had a shop--was, with reference to the first floor,
- where shops usually are; and there all resemblance between it and any
- other shop stopped short and ceased. People who went in and out didn’t
- go up a flight of steps to it, or walk easily in upon a level with the
- street, but dived down three steep stairs, as into a cellar. Its floor
- was paved with stone and brick, as that of any other cellar might be;
- and in lieu of window framed and glazed it had a great black wooden flap
- or shutter, nearly breast high from the ground, which turned back in
- the day-time, admitting as much cold air as light, and very often more.
- Behind this shop was a wainscoted parlour, looking first into a paved
- yard, and beyond that again into a little terrace garden, raised some
- feet above it. Any stranger would have supposed that this wainscoted
- parlour, saving for the door of communication by which he had entered,
- was cut off and detached from all the world; and indeed most strangers
- on their first entrance were observed to grow extremely thoughtful, as
- weighing and pondering in their minds whether the upper rooms were only
- approachable by ladders from without; never suspecting that two of
- the most unassuming and unlikely doors in existence, which the most
- ingenious mechanician on earth must of necessity have supposed to be
- the doors of closets, opened out of this room--each without the smallest
- preparation, or so much as a quarter of an inch of passage--upon two
- dark winding flights of stairs, the one upward, the other downward,
- which were the sole means of communication between that chamber and the
- other portions of the house.
- With all these oddities, there was not a neater, more scrupulously tidy,
- or more punctiliously ordered house, in Clerkenwell, in London, in all
- England. There were not cleaner windows, or whiter floors, or brighter
- Stoves, or more highly shining articles of furniture in old mahogany;
- there was not more rubbing, scrubbing, burnishing and polishing, in the
- whole street put together. Nor was this excellence attained without some
- cost and trouble and great expenditure of voice, as the neighbours
- were frequently reminded when the good lady of the house overlooked and
- assisted in its being put to rights on cleaning days--which were usually
- from Monday morning till Saturday night, both days inclusive.
- Leaning against the door-post of this, his dwelling, the locksmith
- stood early on the morning after he had met with the wounded man, gazing
- disconsolately at a great wooden emblem of a key, painted in vivid
- yellow to resemble gold, which dangled from the house-front, and swung
- to and fro with a mournful creaking noise, as if complaining that it had
- nothing to unlock. Sometimes, he looked over his shoulder into the shop,
- which was so dark and dingy with numerous tokens of his trade, and so
- blackened by the smoke of a little forge, near which his ‘prentice
- was at work, that it would have been difficult for one unused to such
- espials to have distinguished anything but various tools of uncouth make
- and shape, great bunches of rusty keys, fragments of iron, half-finished
- locks, and such like things, which garnished the walls and hung in
- clusters from the ceiling.
- After a long and patient contemplation of the golden key, and many such
- backward glances, Gabriel stepped into the road, and stole a look at the
- upper windows. One of them chanced to be thrown open at the moment,
- and a roguish face met his; a face lighted up by the loveliest pair of
- sparkling eyes that ever locksmith looked upon; the face of a pretty,
- laughing, girl; dimpled and fresh, and healthful--the very impersonation
- of good-humour and blooming beauty.
- ‘Hush!’ she whispered, bending forward and pointing archly to the window
- underneath. ‘Mother is still asleep.’
- ‘Still, my dear,’ returned the locksmith in the same tone. ‘You talk as
- if she had been asleep all night, instead of little more than half an
- hour. But I’m very thankful. Sleep’s a blessing--no doubt about it.’ The
- last few words he muttered to himself.
- ‘How cruel of you to keep us up so late this morning, and never tell us
- where you were, or send us word!’ said the girl.
- ‘Ah Dolly, Dolly!’ returned the locksmith, shaking his head, and
- smiling, ‘how cruel of you to run upstairs to bed! Come down to
- breakfast, madcap, and come down lightly, or you’ll wake your mother.
- She must be tired, I am sure--I am.’
- Keeping these latter words to himself, and returning his daughter’s nod,
- he was passing into the workshop, with the smile she had awakened still
- beaming on his face, when he just caught sight of his ‘prentice’s brown
- paper cap ducking down to avoid observation, and shrinking from the
- window back to its former place, which the wearer no sooner reached than
- he began to hammer lustily.
- ‘Listening again, Simon!’ said Gabriel to himself. ‘That’s bad. What in
- the name of wonder does he expect the girl to say, that I always catch
- him listening when SHE speaks, and never at any other time! A bad habit,
- Sim, a sneaking, underhanded way. Ah! you may hammer, but you won’t beat
- that out of me, if you work at it till your time’s up!’
- So saying, and shaking his head gravely, he re-entered the workshop, and
- confronted the subject of these remarks.
- ‘There’s enough of that just now,’ said the locksmith. ‘You needn’t make
- any more of that confounded clatter. Breakfast’s ready.’
- ‘Sir,’ said Sim, looking up with amazing politeness, and a peculiar
- little bow cut short off at the neck, ‘I shall attend you immediately.’
- ‘I suppose,’ muttered Gabriel, ‘that’s out of the ‘Prentice’s Garland or
- the ‘Prentice’s Delight, or the ‘Prentice’s Warbler, or the Prentice’s
- Guide to the Gallows, or some such improving textbook. Now he’s going to
- beautify himself--here’s a precious locksmith!’
- Quite unconscious that his master was looking on from the dark corner by
- the parlour door, Sim threw off the paper cap, sprang from his seat,
- and in two extraordinary steps, something between skating and minuet
- dancing, bounded to a washing place at the other end of the shop,
- and there removed from his face and hands all traces of his previous
- work--practising the same step all the time with the utmost gravity.
- This done, he drew from some concealed place a little scrap of
- looking-glass, and with its assistance arranged his hair, and
- ascertained the exact state of a little carbuncle on his nose. Having
- now completed his toilet, he placed the fragment of mirror on a low
- bench, and looked over his shoulder at so much of his legs as could be
- reflected in that small compass, with the greatest possible complacency
- and satisfaction.
- Sim, as he was called in the locksmith’s family, or Mr Simon Tappertit,
- as he called himself, and required all men to style him out of doors,
- on holidays, and Sundays out,--was an old-fashioned, thin-faced,
- sleek-haired, sharp-nosed, small-eyed little fellow, very little more
- than five feet high, and thoroughly convinced in his own mind that he
- was above the middle size; rather tall, in fact, than otherwise. Of his
- figure, which was well enough formed, though somewhat of the leanest,
- he entertained the highest admiration; and with his legs, which, in
- knee-breeches, were perfect curiosities of littleness, he was enraptured
- to a degree amounting to enthusiasm. He also had some majestic, shadowy
- ideas, which had never been quite fathomed by his intimate friends,
- concerning the power of his eye. Indeed he had been known to go so far
- as to boast that he could utterly quell and subdue the haughtiest beauty
- by a simple process, which he termed ‘eyeing her over;’ but it must
- be added, that neither of this faculty, nor of the power he claimed
- to have, through the same gift, of vanquishing and heaving down dumb
- animals, even in a rabid state, had he ever furnished evidence which
- could be deemed quite satisfactory and conclusive.
- It may be inferred from these premises, that in the small body of Mr
- Tappertit there was locked up an ambitious and aspiring soul. As
- certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will
- ferment, and fret, and chafe in their imprisonment, so the spiritual
- essence or soul of Mr Tappertit would sometimes fume within that
- precious cask, his body, until, with great foam and froth and splutter,
- it would force a vent, and carry all before it. It was his custom to
- remark, in reference to any one of these occasions, that his soul had
- got into his head; and in this novel kind of intoxication many scrapes
- and mishaps befell him, which he had frequently concealed with no small
- difficulty from his worthy master.
- Sim Tappertit, among the other fancies upon which his before-mentioned
- soul was for ever feasting and regaling itself (and which fancies,
- like the liver of Prometheus, grew as they were fed upon), had a mighty
- notion of his order; and had been heard by the servant-maid openly
- expressing his regret that the ‘prentices no longer carried clubs
- wherewith to mace the citizens: that was his strong expression. He was
- likewise reported to have said that in former times a stigma had been
- cast upon the body by the execution of George Barnwell, to which they
- should not have basely submitted, but should have demanded him of
- the legislature--temperately at first; then by an appeal to arms, if
- necessary--to be dealt with as they in their wisdom might think fit.
- These thoughts always led him to consider what a glorious engine the
- ‘prentices might yet become if they had but a master spirit at their
- head; and then he would darkly, and to the terror of his hearers, hint
- at certain reckless fellows that he knew of, and at a certain Lion Heart
- ready to become their captain, who, once afoot, would make the Lord
- Mayor tremble on his throne.
- In respect of dress and personal decoration, Sim Tappertit was no less
- of an adventurous and enterprising character. He had been seen, beyond
- dispute, to pull off ruffles of the finest quality at the corner of the
- street on Sunday nights, and to put them carefully in his pocket before
- returning home; and it was quite notorious that on all great holiday
- occasions it was his habit to exchange his plain steel knee-buckles for
- a pair of glittering paste, under cover of a friendly post, planted most
- conveniently in that same spot. Add to this that he was in years just
- twenty, in his looks much older, and in conceit at least two hundred;
- that he had no objection to be jested with, touching his admiration
- of his master’s daughter; and had even, when called upon at a certain
- obscure tavern to pledge the lady whom he honoured with his love,
- toasted, with many winks and leers, a fair creature whose Christian
- name, he said, began with a D--;--and as much is known of Sim Tappertit,
- who has by this time followed the locksmith in to breakfast, as is
- necessary to be known in making his acquaintance.
- It was a substantial meal; for, over and above the ordinary tea
- equipage, the board creaked beneath the weight of a jolly round of beef,
- a ham of the first magnitude, and sundry towers of buttered Yorkshire
- cake, piled slice upon slice in most alluring order. There was also
- a goodly jug of well-browned clay, fashioned into the form of an old
- gentleman, not by any means unlike the locksmith, atop of whose bald
- head was a fine white froth answering to his wig, indicative, beyond
- dispute, of sparkling home-brewed ale. But, better far than fair
- home-brewed, or Yorkshire cake, or ham, or beef, or anything to eat or
- drink that earth or air or water can supply, there sat, presiding over
- all, the locksmith’s rosy daughter, before whose dark eyes even beef
- grew insignificant, and malt became as nothing.
- Fathers should never kiss their daughters when young men are by. It’s
- too much. There are bounds to human endurance. So thought Sim Tappertit
- when Gabriel drew those rosy lips to his--those lips within Sim’s reach
- from day to day, and yet so far off. He had a respect for his master,
- but he wished the Yorkshire cake might choke him.
- ‘Father,’ said the locksmith’s daughter, when this salute was over, and
- they took their seats at table, ‘what is this I hear about last night?’
- ‘All true, my dear; true as the Gospel, Doll.’
- ‘Young Mr Chester robbed, and lying wounded in the road, when you came
- up!’
- ‘Ay--Mr Edward. And beside him, Barnaby, calling for help with all his
- might. It was well it happened as it did; for the road’s a lonely one,
- the hour was late, and, the night being cold, and poor Barnaby even less
- sensible than usual from surprise and fright, the young gentleman might
- have met his death in a very short time.’
- ‘I dread to think of it!’ cried his daughter with a shudder. ‘How did
- you know him?’
- ‘Know him!’ returned the locksmith. ‘I didn’t know him--how could I? I
- had never seen him, often as I had heard and spoken of him. I took him
- to Mrs Rudge’s; and she no sooner saw him than the truth came out.’
- ‘Miss Emma, father--If this news should reach her, enlarged upon as it
- is sure to be, she will go distracted.’
- ‘Why, lookye there again, how a man suffers for being good-natured,’
- said the locksmith. ‘Miss Emma was with her uncle at the masquerade at
- Carlisle House, where she had gone, as the people at the Warren told me,
- sorely against her will. What does your blockhead father when he and Mrs
- Rudge have laid their heads together, but goes there when he ought to be
- abed, makes interest with his friend the doorkeeper, slips him on a mask
- and domino, and mixes with the masquers.’
- ‘And like himself to do so!’ cried the girl, putting her fair arm round
- his neck, and giving him a most enthusiastic kiss.
- ‘Like himself!’ repeated Gabriel, affecting to grumble, but evidently
- delighted with the part he had taken, and with her praise. ‘Very like
- himself--so your mother said. However, he mingled with the crowd,
- and prettily worried and badgered he was, I warrant you, with people
- squeaking, “Don’t you know me?” and “I’ve found you out,” and all that
- kind of nonsense in his ears. He might have wandered on till now, but
- in a little room there was a young lady who had taken off her mask, on
- account of the place being very warm, and was sitting there alone.’
- ‘And that was she?’ said his daughter hastily.
- ‘And that was she,’ replied the locksmith; ‘and I no sooner whispered to
- her what the matter was--as softly, Doll, and with nearly as much art as
- you could have used yourself--than she gives a kind of scream and faints
- away.’
- ‘What did you do--what happened next?’ asked his daughter. ‘Why, the
- masks came flocking round, with a general noise and hubbub, and I
- thought myself in luck to get clear off, that’s all,’ rejoined the
- locksmith. ‘What happened when I reached home you may guess, if you
- didn’t hear it. Ah! Well, it’s a poor heart that never rejoices.--Put
- Toby this way, my dear.’
- This Toby was the brown jug of which previous mention has been made.
- Applying his lips to the worthy old gentleman’s benevolent forehead, the
- locksmith, who had all this time been ravaging among the eatables, kept
- them there so long, at the same time raising the vessel slowly in
- the air, that at length Toby stood on his head upon his nose, when he
- smacked his lips, and set him on the table again with fond reluctance.
- Although Sim Tappertit had taken no share in this conversation, no part
- of it being addressed to him, he had not been wanting in such silent
- manifestations of astonishment, as he deemed most compatible with the
- favourable display of his eyes. Regarding the pause which now ensued, as
- a particularly advantageous opportunity for doing great execution with
- them upon the locksmith’s daughter (who he had no doubt was looking
- at him in mute admiration), he began to screw and twist his face,
- and especially those features, into such extraordinary, hideous, and
- unparalleled contortions, that Gabriel, who happened to look towards
- him, was stricken with amazement.
- ‘Why, what the devil’s the matter with the lad?’ cried the locksmith.
- ‘Is he choking?’
- ‘Who?’ demanded Sim, with some disdain.
- ‘Who? Why, you,’ returned his master. ‘What do you mean by making those
- horrible faces over your breakfast?’
- ‘Faces are matters of taste, sir,’ said Mr Tappertit, rather
- discomfited; not the less so because he saw the locksmith’s daughter
- smiling.
- ‘Sim,’ rejoined Gabriel, laughing heartily. ‘Don’t be a fool, for I’d
- rather see you in your senses. These young fellows,’ he added, turning
- to his daughter, ‘are always committing some folly or another. There was
- a quarrel between Joe Willet and old John last night though I can’t say
- Joe was much in fault either. He’ll be missing one of these mornings,
- and will have gone away upon some wild-goose errand, seeking his
- fortune.--Why, what’s the matter, Doll? YOU are making faces now. The
- girls are as bad as the boys every bit!’
- ‘It’s the tea,’ said Dolly, turning alternately very red and very white,
- which is no doubt the effect of a slight scald--‘so very hot.’
- Mr Tappertit looked immensely big at a quartern loaf on the table, and
- breathed hard.
- ‘Is that all?’ returned the locksmith. ‘Put some more milk in it.--Yes,
- I am sorry for Joe, because he is a likely young fellow, and gains upon
- one every time one sees him. But he’ll start off, you’ll find. Indeed he
- told me as much himself!’
- ‘Indeed!’ cried Dolly in a faint voice. ‘In-deed!’
- ‘Is the tea tickling your throat still, my dear?’ said the locksmith.
- But, before his daughter could make him any answer, she was taken with
- a troublesome cough, and it was such a very unpleasant cough, that,
- when she left off, the tears were starting in her bright eyes. The
- good-natured locksmith was still patting her on the back and applying
- such gentle restoratives, when a message arrived from Mrs Varden, making
- known to all whom it might concern, that she felt too much indisposed
- to rise after her great agitation and anxiety of the previous night; and
- therefore desired to be immediately accommodated with the little black
- teapot of strong mixed tea, a couple of rounds of buttered toast, a
- middling-sized dish of beef and ham cut thin, and the Protestant Manual
- in two volumes post octavo. Like some other ladies who in remote
- ages flourished upon this globe, Mrs Varden was most devout when most
- ill-tempered. Whenever she and her husband were at unusual variance,
- then the Protestant Manual was in high feather.
- Knowing from experience what these requests portended, the triumvirate
- broke up; Dolly, to see the orders executed with all despatch; Gabriel,
- to some out-of-door work in his little chaise; and Sim, to his daily
- duty in the workshop, to which retreat he carried the big look, although
- the loaf remained behind.
- Indeed the big look increased immensely, and when he had tied his apron
- on, became quite gigantic. It was not until he had several times walked
- up and down with folded arms, and the longest strides he could take,
- and had kicked a great many small articles out of his way, that his lip
- began to curl. At length, a gloomy derision came upon his features, and
- he smiled; uttering meanwhile with supreme contempt the monosyllable
- ‘Joe!’
- ‘I eyed her over, while he talked about the fellow,’ he said, ‘and that
- was of course the reason of her being confused. Joe!’
- He walked up and down again much quicker than before, and if possible
- with longer strides; sometimes stopping to take a glance at his legs,
- and sometimes to jerk out, and cast from him, another ‘Joe!’ In the
- course of a quarter of an hour or so he again assumed the paper cap and
- tried to work. No. It could not be done.
- ‘I’ll do nothing to-day,’ said Mr Tappertit, dashing it down again, ‘but
- grind. I’ll grind up all the tools. Grinding will suit my present humour
- well. Joe!’
- Whirr-r-r-r. The grindstone was soon in motion; the sparks were flying
- off in showers. This was the occupation for his heated spirit.
- Whirr-r-r-r-r-r-r.
- ‘Something will come of this!’ said Mr Tappertit, pausing as if in
- triumph, and wiping his heated face upon his sleeve. ‘Something will
- come of this. I hope it mayn’t be human gore!’
- Whirr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.
- Chapter 5
- As soon as the business of the day was over, the locksmith sallied
- forth, alone, to visit the wounded gentleman and ascertain the progress
- of his recovery. The house where he had left him was in a by-street
- in Southwark, not far from London Bridge; and thither he hied with all
- speed, bent upon returning with as little delay as might be, and getting
- to bed betimes.
- The evening was boisterous--scarcely better than the previous night had
- been. It was not easy for a stout man like Gabriel to keep his legs at
- the street corners, or to make head against the high wind, which often
- fairly got the better of him, and drove him back some paces, or, in
- defiance of all his energy, forced him to take shelter in an arch or
- doorway until the fury of the gust was spent. Occasionally a hat or wig,
- or both, came spinning and trundling past him, like a mad thing; while
- the more serious spectacle of falling tiles and slates, or of masses of
- brick and mortar or fragments of stone-coping rattling upon the pavement
- near at hand, and splitting into fragments, did not increase the
- pleasure of the journey, or make the way less dreary.
- ‘A trying night for a man like me to walk in!’ said the locksmith, as
- he knocked softly at the widow’s door. ‘I’d rather be in old John’s
- chimney-corner, faith!’
- ‘Who’s there?’ demanded a woman’s voice from within. Being answered, it
- added a hasty word of welcome, and the door was quickly opened.
- She was about forty--perhaps two or three years older--with a cheerful
- aspect, and a face that had once been pretty. It bore traces of
- affliction and care, but they were of an old date, and Time had smoothed
- them. Any one who had bestowed but a casual glance on Barnaby might
- have known that this was his mother, from the strong resemblance between
- them; but where in his face there was wildness and vacancy, in hers
- there was the patient composure of long effort and quiet resignation.
- One thing about this face was very strange and startling. You could not
- look upon it in its most cheerful mood without feeling that it had some
- extraordinary capacity of expressing terror. It was not on the surface.
- It was in no one feature that it lingered. You could not take the
- eyes or mouth, or lines upon the cheek, and say, if this or that were
- otherwise, it would not be so. Yet there it always lurked--something for
- ever dimly seen, but ever there, and never absent for a moment. It was
- the faintest, palest shadow of some look, to which an instant of intense
- and most unutterable horror only could have given birth; but indistinct
- and feeble as it was, it did suggest what that look must have been, and
- fixed it in the mind as if it had had existence in a dream.
- More faintly imaged, and wanting force and purpose, as it were, because
- of his darkened intellect, there was this same stamp upon the son.
- Seen in a picture, it must have had some legend with it, and would have
- haunted those who looked upon the canvas. They who knew the Maypole
- story, and could remember what the widow was, before her husband’s and
- his master’s murder, understood it well. They recollected how the change
- had come, and could call to mind that when her son was born, upon the
- very day the deed was known, he bore upon his wrist what seemed a smear
- of blood but half washed out.
- ‘God save you, neighbour!’ said the locksmith, as he followed her, with
- the air of an old friend, into a little parlour where a cheerful fire
- was burning.
- ‘And you,’ she answered smiling. ‘Your kind heart has brought you
- here again. Nothing will keep you at home, I know of old, if there are
- friends to serve or comfort, out of doors.’
- ‘Tut, tut,’ returned the locksmith, rubbing his hands and warming them.
- ‘You women are such talkers. What of the patient, neighbour?’
- ‘He is sleeping now. He was very restless towards daylight, and for
- some hours tossed and tumbled sadly. But the fever has left him, and the
- doctor says he will soon mend. He must not be removed until to-morrow.’
- ‘He has had visitors to-day--humph?’ said Gabriel, slyly.
- ‘Yes. Old Mr Chester has been here ever since we sent for him, and had
- not been gone many minutes when you knocked.’
- ‘No ladies?’ said Gabriel, elevating his eyebrows and looking
- disappointed.
- ‘A letter,’ replied the widow.
- ‘Come. That’s better than nothing!’ replied the locksmith. ‘Who was the
- bearer?’
- ‘Barnaby, of course.’
- ‘Barnaby’s a jewel!’ said Varden; ‘and comes and goes with ease where we
- who think ourselves much wiser would make but a poor hand of it. He is
- not out wandering, again, I hope?’
- ‘Thank Heaven he is in his bed; having been up all night, as you know,
- and on his feet all day. He was quite tired out. Ah, neighbour, if I
- could but see him oftener so--if I could but tame down that terrible
- restlessness--’
- ‘In good time,’ said the locksmith, kindly, ‘in good time--don’t be
- down-hearted. To my mind he grows wiser every day.’
- The widow shook her head. And yet, though she knew the locksmith sought
- to cheer her, and spoke from no conviction of his own, she was glad to
- hear even this praise of her poor benighted son.
- ‘He will be a ‘cute man yet,’ resumed the locksmith. ‘Take care, when we
- are growing old and foolish, Barnaby doesn’t put us to the blush, that’s
- all. But our other friend,’ he added, looking under the table and
- about the floor--‘sharpest and cunningest of all the sharp and cunning
- ones--where’s he?’
- ‘In Barnaby’s room,’ rejoined the widow, with a faint smile.
- ‘Ah! He’s a knowing blade!’ said Varden, shaking his head. ‘I should
- be sorry to talk secrets before him. Oh! He’s a deep customer. I’ve no
- doubt he can read, and write, and cast accounts if he chooses. What was
- that? Him tapping at the door?’
- ‘No,’ returned the widow. ‘It was in the street, I think. Hark! Yes.
- There again! ‘Tis some one knocking softly at the shutter. Who can it
- be!’
- They had been speaking in a low tone, for the invalid lay overhead, and
- the walls and ceilings being thin and poorly built, the sound of their
- voices might otherwise have disturbed his slumber. The party without,
- whoever it was, could have stood close to the shutter without hearing
- anything spoken; and, seeing the light through the chinks and finding
- all so quiet, might have been persuaded that only one person was there.
- ‘Some thief or ruffian maybe,’ said the locksmith. ‘Give me the light.’
- ‘No, no,’ she returned hastily. ‘Such visitors have never come to this
- poor dwelling. Do you stay here. You’re within call, at the worst. I
- would rather go myself--alone.’
- ‘Why?’ said the locksmith, unwillingly relinquishing the candle he had
- caught up from the table.
- ‘Because--I don’t know why--because the wish is so strong upon me,’ she
- rejoined. ‘There again--do not detain me, I beg of you!’
- Gabriel looked at her, in great surprise to see one who was usually so
- mild and quiet thus agitated, and with so little cause. She left the
- room and closed the door behind her. She stood for a moment as if
- hesitating, with her hand upon the lock. In this short interval the
- knocking came again, and a voice close to the window--a voice the
- locksmith seemed to recollect, and to have some disagreeable association
- with--whispered ‘Make haste.’
- The words were uttered in that low distinct voice which finds its way so
- readily to sleepers’ ears, and wakes them in a fright. For a moment
- it startled even the locksmith; who involuntarily drew back from the
- window, and listened.
- The wind rumbling in the chimney made it difficult to hear what passed,
- but he could tell that the door was opened, that there was the tread of
- a man upon the creaking boards, and then a moment’s silence--broken by a
- suppressed something which was not a shriek, or groan, or cry for help,
- and yet might have been either or all three; and the words ‘My God!’
- uttered in a voice it chilled him to hear.
- He rushed out upon the instant. There, at last, was that dreadful
- look--the very one he seemed to know so well and yet had never seen
- before--upon her face. There she stood, frozen to the ground, gazing
- with starting eyes, and livid cheeks, and every feature fixed and
- ghastly, upon the man he had encountered in the dark last night. His
- eyes met those of the locksmith. It was but a flash, an instant, a
- breath upon a polished glass, and he was gone.
- The locksmith was upon him--had the skirts of his streaming garment
- almost in his grasp--when his arms were tightly clutched, and the widow
- flung herself upon the ground before him.
- ‘The other way--the other way,’ she cried. ‘He went the other way.
- Turn--turn!’
- ‘The other way! I see him now,’ rejoined the locksmith,
- pointing--‘yonder--there--there is his shadow passing by that light.
- What--who is this? Let me go.’
- ‘Come back, come back!’ exclaimed the woman, clasping him; ‘Do not
- touch him on your life. I charge you, come back. He carries other lives
- besides his own. Come back!’
- ‘What does this mean?’ cried the locksmith.
- ‘No matter what it means, don’t ask, don’t speak, don’t think about it.
- He is not to be followed, checked, or stopped. Come back!’
- The old man looked at her in wonder, as she writhed and clung about him;
- and, borne down by her passion, suffered her to drag him into the house.
- It was not until she had chained and double-locked the door, fastened
- every bolt and bar with the heat and fury of a maniac, and drawn him
- back into the room, that she turned upon him, once again, that stony
- look of horror, and, sinking down into a chair, covered her face, and
- shuddered, as though the hand of death were on her.
- Chapter 6
- Beyond all measure astonished by the strange occurrences which had
- passed with so much violence and rapidity, the locksmith gazed upon the
- shuddering figure in the chair like one half stupefied, and would have
- gazed much longer, had not his tongue been loosened by compassion and
- humanity.
- ‘You are ill,’ said Gabriel. ‘Let me call some neighbour in.’
- ‘Not for the world,’ she rejoined, motioning to him with her trembling
- hand, and holding her face averted. ‘It is enough that you have been by,
- to see this.’
- ‘Nay, more than enough--or less,’ said Gabriel.
- ‘Be it so,’ she returned. ‘As you like. Ask me no questions, I entreat
- you.’
- ‘Neighbour,’ said the locksmith, after a pause. ‘Is this fair, or
- reasonable, or just to yourself? Is it like you, who have known me so
- long and sought my advice in all matters--like you, who from a girl have
- had a strong mind and a staunch heart?’
- ‘I have need of them,’ she replied. ‘I am growing old, both in years and
- care. Perhaps that, and too much trial, have made them weaker than they
- used to be. Do not speak to me.’
- ‘How can I see what I have seen, and hold my peace!’ returned the
- locksmith. ‘Who was that man, and why has his coming made this change in
- you?’
- She was silent, but held to the chair as though to save herself from
- falling on the ground.
- ‘I take the licence of an old acquaintance, Mary,’ said the locksmith,
- ‘who has ever had a warm regard for you, and maybe has tried to prove it
- when he could. Who is this ill-favoured man, and what has he to do with
- you? Who is this ghost, that is only seen in the black nights and bad
- weather? How does he know, and why does he haunt this house, whispering
- through chinks and crevices, as if there was that between him and you,
- which neither durst so much as speak aloud of? Who is he?’
- ‘You do well to say he haunts this house,’ returned the widow, faintly.
- ‘His shadow has been upon it and me, in light and darkness, at noonday
- and midnight. And now, at last, he has come in the body!’
- ‘But he wouldn’t have gone in the body,’ returned the locksmith with
- some irritation, ‘if you had left my arms and legs at liberty. What
- riddle is this?’
- ‘It is one,’ she answered, rising as she spoke, ‘that must remain for
- ever as it is. I dare not say more than that.’
- ‘Dare not!’ repeated the wondering locksmith.
- ‘Do not press me,’ she replied. ‘I am sick and faint, and every faculty
- of life seems dead within me.--No!--Do not touch me, either.’
- Gabriel, who had stepped forward to render her assistance, fell back as
- she made this hasty exclamation, and regarded her in silent wonder.
- ‘Let me go my way alone,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and let the hands of
- no honest man touch mine to-night.’ When she had tottered to the door,
- she turned, and added with a stronger effort, ‘This is a secret, which,
- of necessity, I trust to you. You are a true man. As you have ever been
- good and kind to me,--keep it. If any noise was heard above, make some
- excuse--say anything but what you really saw, and never let a word or
- look between us, recall this circumstance. I trust to you. Mind, I trust
- to you. How much I trust, you never can conceive.’
- Casting her eyes upon him for an instant, she withdrew, and left him
- there alone.
- Gabriel, not knowing what to think, stood staring at the door with a
- countenance full of surprise and dismay. The more he pondered on
- what had passed, the less able he was to give it any favourable
- interpretation. To find this widow woman, whose life for so many years
- had been supposed to be one of solitude and retirement, and who, in her
- quiet suffering character, had gained the good opinion and respect of
- all who knew her--to find her linked mysteriously with an ill-omened
- man, alarmed at his appearance, and yet favouring his escape, was a
- discovery that pained as much as startled him. Her reliance on his
- secrecy, and his tacit acquiescence, increased his distress of mind. If
- he had spoken boldly, persisted in questioning her, detained her
- when she rose to leave the room, made any kind of protest, instead of
- silently compromising himself, as he felt he had done, he would have
- been more at ease.
- ‘Why did I let her say it was a secret, and she trusted it to me!’ said
- Gabriel, putting his wig on one side to scratch his head with greater
- ease, and looking ruefully at the fire. ‘I have no more readiness than
- old John himself. Why didn’t I say firmly, “You have no right to such
- secrets, and I demand of you to tell me what this means,” instead of
- standing gaping at her, like an old moon-calf as I am! But there’s my
- weakness. I can be obstinate enough with men if need be, but women may
- twist me round their fingers at their pleasure.’
- He took his wig off outright as he made this reflection, and, warming
- his handkerchief at the fire began to rub and polish his bald head with
- it, until it glistened again.
- ‘And yet,’ said the locksmith, softening under this soothing process,
- and stopping to smile, ‘it MAY be nothing. Any drunken brawler trying to
- make his way into the house, would have alarmed a quiet soul like her.
- But then’--and here was the vexation--‘how came it to be that man; how
- comes he to have this influence over her; how came she to favour his
- getting away from me; and, more than all, how came she not to say it
- was a sudden fright, and nothing more? It’s a sad thing to have, in one
- minute, reason to mistrust a person I have known so long, and an old
- sweetheart into the bargain; but what else can I do, with all this upon
- my mind!--Is that Barnaby outside there?’
- ‘Ay!’ he cried, looking in and nodding. ‘Sure enough it’s Barnaby--how
- did you guess?’
- ‘By your shadow,’ said the locksmith.
- ‘Oho!’ cried Barnaby, glancing over his shoulder, ‘He’s a merry fellow,
- that shadow, and keeps close to me, though I AM silly. We have such
- pranks, such walks, such runs, such gambols on the grass! Sometimes
- he’ll be half as tall as a church steeple, and sometimes no bigger
- than a dwarf. Now, he goes on before, and now behind, and anon he’ll
- be stealing on, on this side, or on that, stopping whenever I stop, and
- thinking I can’t see him, though I have my eye on him sharp enough. Oh!
- he’s a merry fellow. Tell me--is he silly too? I think he is.’
- ‘Why?’ asked Gabriel.
- ‘Because he never tires of mocking me, but does it all day long.--Why
- don’t you come?’
- ‘Where?’
- ‘Upstairs. He wants you. Stay--where’s HIS shadow? Come. You’re a wise
- man; tell me that.’
- ‘Beside him, Barnaby; beside him, I suppose,’ returned the locksmith.
- ‘No!’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘Guess again.’
- ‘Gone out a walking, maybe?’
- ‘He has changed shadows with a woman,’ the idiot whispered in his ear,
- and then fell back with a look of triumph. ‘Her shadow’s always with
- him, and his with her. That’s sport I think, eh?’
- ‘Barnaby,’ said the locksmith, with a grave look; ‘come hither, lad.’
- ‘I know what you want to say. I know!’ he replied, keeping away from
- him. ‘But I’m cunning, I’m silent. I only say so much to you--are you
- ready?’ As he spoke, he caught up the light, and waved it with a wild
- laugh above his head.
- ‘Softly--gently,’ said the locksmith, exerting all his influence to keep
- him calm and quiet. ‘I thought you had been asleep.’
- ‘So I HAVE been asleep,’ he rejoined, with widely-opened eyes. ‘There
- have been great faces coming and going--close to my face, and then a
- mile away--low places to creep through, whether I would or no--high
- churches to fall down from--strange creatures crowded up together neck
- and heels, to sit upon the bed--that’s sleep, eh?’
- ‘Dreams, Barnaby, dreams,’ said the locksmith.
- ‘Dreams!’ he echoed softly, drawing closer to him. ‘Those are not
- dreams.’
- ‘What are,’ replied the locksmith, ‘if they are not?’
- ‘I dreamed,’ said Barnaby, passing his arm through Varden’s, and peering
- close into his face as he answered in a whisper, ‘I dreamed just now
- that something--it was in the shape of a man--followed me--came softly
- after me--wouldn’t let me be--but was always hiding and crouching, like
- a cat in dark corners, waiting till I should pass; when it crept out and
- came softly after me.--Did you ever see me run?’
- ‘Many a time, you know.’
- ‘You never saw me run as I did in this dream. Still it came creeping on
- to worry me. Nearer, nearer, nearer--I ran faster--leaped--sprung out
- of bed, and to the window--and there, in the street below--but he is
- waiting for us. Are you coming?’
- ‘What in the street below, Barnaby?’ said Varden, imagining that
- he traced some connection between this vision and what had actually
- occurred.
- Barnaby looked into his face, muttered incoherently, waved the light
- above his head again, laughed, and drawing the locksmith’s arm more
- tightly through his own, led him up the stairs in silence.
- They entered a homely bedchamber, garnished in a scanty way with chairs,
- whose spindle-shanks bespoke their age, and other furniture of very
- little worth; but clean and neatly kept. Reclining in an easy-chair
- before the fire, pale and weak from waste of blood, was Edward Chester,
- the young gentleman who had been the first to quit the Maypole on the
- previous night, and who, extending his hand to the locksmith, welcomed
- him as his preserver and friend.
- ‘Say no more, sir, say no more,’ said Gabriel. ‘I hope I would have done
- at least as much for any man in such a strait, and most of all for you,
- sir. A certain young lady,’ he added, with some hesitation, ‘has done us
- many a kind turn, and we naturally feel--I hope I give you no offence in
- saying this, sir?’
- The young man smiled and shook his head; at the same time moving in his
- chair as if in pain.
- ‘It’s no great matter,’ he said, in answer to the locksmith’s
- sympathising look, ‘a mere uneasiness arising at least as much from
- being cooped up here, as from the slight wound I have, or from the loss
- of blood. Be seated, Mr Varden.’
- ‘If I may make so bold, Mr Edward, as to lean upon your chair,’ returned
- the locksmith, accommodating his action to his speech, and bending over
- him, ‘I’ll stand here for the convenience of speaking low. Barnaby is
- not in his quietest humour to-night, and at such times talking never
- does him good.’
- They both glanced at the subject of this remark, who had taken a seat on
- the other side of the fire, and, smiling vacantly, was making puzzles on
- his fingers with a skein of string.
- ‘Pray, tell me, sir,’ said Varden, dropping his voice still lower,
- ‘exactly what happened last night. I have my reason for inquiring. You
- left the Maypole, alone?’
- ‘And walked homeward alone, until I had nearly reached the place where
- you found me, when I heard the gallop of a horse.’
- ‘Behind you?’ said the locksmith.
- ‘Indeed, yes--behind me. It was a single rider, who soon overtook me,
- and checking his horse, inquired the way to London.’
- ‘You were on the alert, sir, knowing how many highwaymen there are,
- scouring the roads in all directions?’ said Varden.
- ‘I was, but I had only a stick, having imprudently left my pistols
- in their holster-case with the landlord’s son. I directed him as he
- desired. Before the words had passed my lips, he rode upon me furiously,
- as if bent on trampling me down beneath his horse’s hoofs. In starting
- aside, I slipped and fell. You found me with this stab and an ugly
- bruise or two, and without my purse--in which he found little enough for
- his pains. And now, Mr Varden,’ he added, shaking the locksmith by the
- hand, ‘saving the extent of my gratitude to you, you know as much as I.’
- ‘Except,’ said Gabriel, bending down yet more, and looking cautiously
- towards their silent neighhour, ‘except in respect of the robber
- himself. What like was he, sir? Speak low, if you please. Barnaby means
- no harm, but I have watched him oftener than you, and I know, little as
- you would think it, that he’s listening now.’
- It required a strong confidence in the locksmith’s veracity to lead any
- one to this belief, for every sense and faculty that Barnaby possessed,
- seemed to be fixed upon his game, to the exclusion of all other things.
- Something in the young man’s face expressed this opinion, for Gabriel
- repeated what he had just said, more earnestly than before, and with
- another glance towards Barnaby, again asked what like the man was.
- ‘The night was so dark,’ said Edward, ‘the attack so sudden, and he so
- wrapped and muffled up, that I can hardly say. It seems that--’
- ‘Don’t mention his name, sir,’ returned the locksmith, following his
- look towards Barnaby; ‘I know HE saw him. I want to know what YOU saw.’
- ‘All I remember is,’ said Edward, ‘that as he checked his horse his
- hat was blown off. He caught it, and replaced it on his head, which
- I observed was bound with a dark handkerchief. A stranger entered the
- Maypole while I was there, whom I had not seen--for I had sat apart for
- reasons of my own--and when I rose to leave the room and glanced round,
- he was in the shadow of the chimney and hidden from my sight. But, if he
- and the robber were two different persons, their voices were strangely
- and most remarkably alike; for directly the man addressed me in the
- road, I recognised his speech again.’
- ‘It is as I feared. The very man was here to-night,’ thought the
- locksmith, changing colour. ‘What dark history is this!’
- ‘Halloa!’ cried a hoarse voice in his ear. ‘Halloa, halloa, halloa! Bow
- wow wow. What’s the matter here! Hal-loa!’
- The speaker--who made the locksmith start as if he had been some
- supernatural agent--was a large raven, who had perched upon the top of
- the easy-chair, unseen by him and Edward, and listened with a polite
- attention and a most extraordinary appearance of comprehending every
- word, to all they had said up to this point; turning his head from one
- to the other, as if his office were to judge between them, and it were
- of the very last importance that he should not lose a word.
- ‘Look at him!’ said Varden, divided between admiration of the bird and a
- kind of fear of him. ‘Was there ever such a knowing imp as that! Oh he’s
- a dreadful fellow!’
- The raven, with his head very much on one side, and his bright eye
- shining like a diamond, preserved a thoughtful silence for a few
- seconds, and then replied in a voice so hoarse and distant, that it
- seemed to come through his thick feathers rather than out of his mouth.
- ‘Halloa, halloa, halloa! What’s the matter here! Keep up your spirits.
- Never say die. Bow wow wow. I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil.
- Hurrah!’--And then, as if exulting in his infernal character, he began
- to whistle.
- ‘I more than half believe he speaks the truth. Upon my word I do,’
- said Varden. ‘Do you see how he looks at me, as if he knew what I was
- saying?’
- To which the bird, balancing himself on tiptoe, as it were, and moving
- his body up and down in a sort of grave dance, rejoined, ‘I’m a devil,
- I’m a devil, I’m a devil,’ and flapped his wings against his sides as
- if he were bursting with laughter. Barnaby clapped his hands, and fairly
- rolled upon the ground in an ecstasy of delight.
- ‘Strange companions, sir,’ said the locksmith, shaking his head, and
- looking from one to the other. ‘The bird has all the wit.’
- ‘Strange indeed!’ said Edward, holding out his forefinger to the raven,
- who, in acknowledgment of the attention, made a dive at it immediately
- with his iron bill. ‘Is he old?’
- ‘A mere boy, sir,’ replied the locksmith. ‘A hundred and twenty, or
- thereabouts. Call him down, Barnaby, my man.’
- ‘Call him!’ echoed Barnaby, sitting upright upon the floor, and staring
- vacantly at Gabriel, as he thrust his hair back from his face. ‘But who
- can make him come! He calls me, and makes me go where he will. He goes
- on before, and I follow. He’s the master, and I’m the man. Is that the
- truth, Grip?’
- The raven gave a short, comfortable, confidential kind of croak;--a most
- expressive croak, which seemed to say, ‘You needn’t let these fellows
- into our secrets. We understand each other. It’s all right.’
- ‘I make HIM come?’ cried Barnaby, pointing to the bird. ‘Him, who never
- goes to sleep, or so much as winks!--Why, any time of night, you may see
- his eyes in my dark room, shining like two sparks. And every night, and
- all night too, he’s broad awake, talking to himself, thinking what he
- shall do to-morrow, where we shall go, and what he shall steal, and
- hide, and bury. I make HIM come! Ha ha ha!’
- On second thoughts, the bird appeared disposed to come of himself. After
- a short survey of the ground, and a few sidelong looks at the ceiling
- and at everybody present in turn, he fluttered to the floor, and went
- to Barnaby--not in a hop, or walk, or run, but in a pace like that of
- a very particular gentleman with exceedingly tight boots on, trying to
- walk fast over loose pebbles. Then, stepping into his extended hand,
- and condescending to be held out at arm’s length, he gave vent to a
- succession of sounds, not unlike the drawing of some eight or ten dozen
- of long corks, and again asserted his brimstone birth and parentage with
- great distinctness.
- The locksmith shook his head--perhaps in some doubt of the creature’s
- being really nothing but a bird--perhaps in pity for Barnaby, who by
- this time had him in his arms, and was rolling about, with him, on the
- ground. As he raised his eyes from the poor fellow he encountered those
- of his mother, who had entered the room, and was looking on in silence.
- She was quite white in the face, even to her lips, but had wholly
- subdued her emotion, and wore her usual quiet look. Varden fancied as he
- glanced at her that she shrunk from his eye; and that she busied herself
- about the wounded gentleman to avoid him the better.
- It was time he went to bed, she said. He was to be removed to his own
- home on the morrow, and he had already exceeded his time for sitting up,
- by a full hour. Acting on this hint, the locksmith prepared to take his
- leave.
- ‘By the bye,’ said Edward, as he shook him by the hand, and looked from
- him to Mrs Rudge and back again, ‘what noise was that below? I heard
- your voice in the midst of it, and should have inquired before, but our
- other conversation drove it from my memory. What was it?’
- The locksmith looked towards her, and bit his lip. She leant against the
- chair, and bent her eyes upon the ground. Barnaby too--he was listening.
- --‘Some mad or drunken fellow, sir,’ Varden at length made answer,
- looking steadily at the widow as he spoke. ‘He mistook the house, and
- tried to force an entrance.’
- She breathed more freely, but stood quite motionless. As the locksmith
- said ‘Good night,’ and Barnaby caught up the candle to light him down
- the stairs, she took it from him, and charged him--with more haste and
- earnestness than so slight an occasion appeared to warrant--not to stir.
- The raven followed them to satisfy himself that all was right below,
- and when they reached the street-door, stood on the bottom stair drawing
- corks out of number.
- With a trembling hand she unfastened the chain and bolts, and turned
- the key. As she had her hand upon the latch, the locksmith said in a low
- voice,
- ‘I have told a lie to-night, for your sake, Mary, and for the sake of
- bygone times and old acquaintance, when I would scorn to do so for my
- own. I hope I may have done no harm, or led to none. I can’t help the
- suspicions you have forced upon me, and I am loth, I tell you plainly,
- to leave Mr Edward here. Take care he comes to no hurt. I doubt the
- safety of this roof, and am glad he leaves it so soon. Now, let me go.’
- For a moment she hid her face in her hands and wept; but resisting the
- strong impulse which evidently moved her to reply, opened the door--no
- wider than was sufficient for the passage of his body--and motioned him
- away. As the locksmith stood upon the step, it was chained and locked
- behind him, and the raven, in furtherance of these precautions, barked
- like a lusty house-dog.
- ‘In league with that ill-looking figure that might have fallen from a
- gibbet--he listening and hiding here--Barnaby first upon the spot last
- night--can she who has always borne so fair a name be guilty of such
- crimes in secret!’ said the locksmith, musing. ‘Heaven forgive me if I
- am wrong, and send me just thoughts; but she is poor, the temptation
- may be great, and we daily hear of things as strange.--Ay, bark away, my
- friend. If there’s any wickedness going on, that raven’s in it, I’ll be
- sworn.’
- Chapter 7
- Mrs Varden was a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper--a
- phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to
- make everybody more or less uncomfortable. Thus it generally happened,
- that when other people were merry, Mrs Varden was dull; and that
- when other people were dull, Mrs Varden was disposed to be amazingly
- cheerful. Indeed the worthy housewife was of such a capricious nature,
- that she not only attained a higher pitch of genius than Macbeth, in
- respect of her ability to be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
- loyal and neutral in an instant, but would sometimes ring the changes
- backwards and forwards on all possible moods and flights in one short
- quarter of an hour; performing, as it were, a kind of triple bob major
- on the peal of instruments in the female belfry, with a skilfulness and
- rapidity of execution that astonished all who heard her.
- It had been observed in this good lady (who did not want for personal
- attractions, being plump and buxom to look at, though like her
- fair daughter, somewhat short in stature) that this uncertainty of
- disposition strengthened and increased with her temporal prosperity; and
- divers wise men and matrons, on friendly terms with the locksmith and
- his family, even went so far as to assert, that a tumble down some
- half-dozen rounds in the world’s ladder--such as the breaking of the
- bank in which her husband kept his money, or some little fall of that
- kind--would be the making of her, and could hardly fail to render her
- one of the most agreeable companions in existence. Whether they were
- right or wrong in this conjecture, certain it is that minds, like
- bodies, will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from
- mere excess of comfort, and like them, are often successfully cured by
- remedies in themselves very nauseous and unpalatable.
- Mrs Varden’s chief aider and abettor, and at the same time her principal
- victim and object of wrath, was her single domestic servant, one Miss
- Miggs; or as she was called, in conformity with those prejudices of
- society which lop and top from poor hand-maidens all such genteel
- excrescences--Miggs. This Miggs was a tall young lady, very much
- addicted to pattens in private life; slender and shrewish, of a rather
- uncomfortable figure, and though not absolutely ill-looking, of a sharp
- and acid visage. As a general principle and abstract proposition, Miggs
- held the male sex to be utterly contemptible and unworthy of notice;
- to be fickle, false, base, sottish, inclined to perjury, and wholly
- undeserving. When particularly exasperated against them (which, scandal
- said, was when Sim Tappertit slighted her most) she was accustomed to
- wish with great emphasis that the whole race of women could but die off,
- in order that the men might be brought to know the real value of the
- blessings by which they set so little store; nay, her feeling for her
- order ran so high, that she sometimes declared, if she could only have
- good security for a fair, round number--say ten thousand--of young
- virgins following her example, she would, to spite mankind, hang, drown,
- stab, or poison herself, with a joy past all expression.
- It was the voice of Miggs that greeted the locksmith, when he knocked at
- his own house, with a shrill cry of ‘Who’s there?’
- ‘Me, girl, me,’ returned Gabriel.
- What, already, sir!’ said Miggs, opening the door with a look of
- surprise. ‘We were just getting on our nightcaps to sit up,--me and
- mistress. Oh, she has been SO bad!’
- Miggs said this with an air of uncommon candour and concern; but the
- parlour-door was standing open, and as Gabriel very well knew for whose
- ears it was designed, he regarded her with anything but an approving
- look as he passed in.
- ‘Master’s come home, mim,’ cried Miggs, running before him into the
- parlour. ‘You was wrong, mim, and I was right. I thought he wouldn’t
- keep us up so late, two nights running, mim. Master’s always considerate
- so far. I’m so glad, mim, on your account. I’m a little’--here Miggs
- simpered--‘a little sleepy myself; I’ll own it now, mim, though I said I
- wasn’t when you asked me. It ain’t of no consequence, mim, of course.’
- ‘You had better,’ said the locksmith, who most devoutly wished that
- Barnaby’s raven was at Miggs’s ankles, ‘you had better get to bed at
- once then.’
- ‘Thanking you kindly, sir,’ returned Miggs, ‘I couldn’t take my rest in
- peace, nor fix my thoughts upon my prayers, otherways than that I knew
- mistress was comfortable in her bed this night; by rights she ought to
- have been there, hours ago.’
- ‘You’re talkative, mistress,’ said Varden, pulling off his greatcoat,
- and looking at her askew.
- ‘Taking the hint, sir,’ cried Miggs, with a flushed face, ‘and thanking
- you for it most kindly, I will make bold to say, that if I give offence
- by having consideration for my mistress, I do not ask your pardon, but
- am content to get myself into trouble and to be in suffering.’
- Here Mrs Varden, who, with her countenance shrouded in a large nightcap,
- had been all this time intent upon the Protestant Manual, looked round,
- and acknowledged Miggs’s championship by commanding her to hold her
- tongue.
- Every little bone in Miggs’s throat and neck developed itself with a
- spitefulness quite alarming, as she replied, ‘Yes, mim, I will.’
- ‘How do you find yourself now, my dear?’ said the locksmith, taking a
- chair near his wife (who had resumed her book), and rubbing his knees
- hard as he made the inquiry.
- ‘You’re very anxious to know, an’t you?’ returned Mrs Varden, with
- her eyes upon the print. ‘You, that have not been near me all day, and
- wouldn’t have been if I was dying!’
- ‘My dear Martha--’ said Gabriel.
- Mrs Varden turned over to the next page; then went back again to the
- bottom line over leaf to be quite sure of the last words; and then went
- on reading with an appearance of the deepest interest and study.
- ‘My dear Martha,’ said the locksmith, ‘how can you say such things,
- when you know you don’t mean them? If you were dying! Why, if there was
- anything serious the matter with you, Martha, shouldn’t I be in constant
- attendance upon you?’
- ‘Yes!’ cried Mrs Varden, bursting into tears, ‘yes, you would. I don’t
- doubt it, Varden. Certainly you would. That’s as much as to tell me that
- you would be hovering round me like a vulture, waiting till the breath
- was out of my body, that you might go and marry somebody else.’
- Miggs groaned in sympathy--a little short groan, checked in its birth,
- and changed into a cough. It seemed to say, ‘I can’t help it. It’s wrung
- from me by the dreadful brutality of that monster master.’
- ‘But you’ll break my heart one of these days,’ added Mrs Varden, with
- more resignation, ‘and then we shall both be happy. My only desire is
- to see Dolly comfortably settled, and when she is, you may settle ME as
- soon as you like.’
- ‘Ah!’ cried Miggs--and coughed again.
- Poor Gabriel twisted his wig about in silence for a long time, and then
- said mildly, ‘Has Dolly gone to bed?’
- ‘Your master speaks to you,’ said Mrs Varden, looking sternly over her
- shoulder at Miss Miggs in waiting.
- ‘No, my dear, I spoke to you,’ suggested the locksmith.
- ‘Did you hear me, Miggs?’ cried the obdurate lady, stamping her foot
- upon the ground. ‘YOU are beginning to despise me now, are you? But this
- is example!’
- At this cruel rebuke, Miggs, whose tears were always ready, for large
- or small parties, on the shortest notice and the most reasonable terms,
- fell a crying violently; holding both her hands tight upon her heart
- meanwhile, as if nothing less would prevent its splitting into small
- fragments. Mrs Varden, who likewise possessed that faculty in high
- perfection, wept too, against Miggs; and with such effect that Miggs
- gave in after a time, and, except for an occasional sob, which seemed to
- threaten some remote intention of breaking out again, left her mistress
- in possession of the field. Her superiority being thoroughly asserted,
- that lady soon desisted likewise, and fell into a quiet melancholy.
- The relief was so great, and the fatiguing occurrences of last night so
- completely overpowered the locksmith, that he nodded in his chair, and
- would doubtless have slept there all night, but for the voice of Mrs
- Varden, which, after a pause of some five minutes, awoke him with a
- start.
- ‘If I am ever,’ said Mrs V.--not scolding, but in a sort of monotonous
- remonstrance--‘in spirits, if I am ever cheerful, if I am ever more than
- usually disposed to be talkative and comfortable, this is the way I am
- treated.’
- ‘Such spirits as you was in too, mim, but half an hour ago!’ cried
- Miggs. ‘I never see such company!’
- ‘Because,’ said Mrs Varden, ‘because I never interfere or interrupt;
- because I never question where anybody comes or goes; because my whole
- mind and soul is bent on saving where I can save, and labouring in this
- house;--therefore, they try me as they do.’
- ‘Martha,’ urged the locksmith, endeavouring to look as wakeful as
- possible, ‘what is it you complain of? I really came home with every
- wish and desire to be happy. I did, indeed.’
- ‘What do I complain of!’ retorted his wife. ‘Is it a chilling thing to
- have one’s husband sulking and falling asleep directly he comes home--to
- have him freezing all one’s warm-heartedness, and throwing cold water
- over the fireside? Is it natural, when I know he went out upon a matter
- in which I am as much interested as anybody can be, that I should wish
- to know all that has happened, or that he should tell me without my
- begging and praying him to do it? Is that natural, or is it not?’
- ‘I am very sorry, Martha,’ said the good-natured locksmith. ‘I was
- really afraid you were not disposed to talk pleasantly; I’ll tell you
- everything; I shall only be too glad, my dear.’
- ‘No, Varden,’ returned his wife, rising with dignity. ‘I dare say--thank
- you! I’m not a child to be corrected one minute and petted the next--I’m
- a little too old for that, Varden. Miggs, carry the light.--YOU can be
- cheerful, Miggs, at least.’
- Miggs, who, to this moment, had been in the very depths of compassionate
- despondency, passed instantly into the liveliest state conceivable,
- and tossing her head as she glanced towards the locksmith, bore off her
- mistress and the light together.
- ‘Now, who would think,’ thought Varden, shrugging his shoulders and
- drawing his chair nearer to the fire, ‘that that woman could ever be
- pleasant and agreeable? And yet she can be. Well, well, all of us have
- our faults. I’ll not be hard upon hers. We have been man and wife too
- long for that.’
- He dozed again--not the less pleasantly, perhaps, for his hearty temper.
- While his eyes were closed, the door leading to the upper stairs was
- partially opened; and a head appeared, which, at sight of him, hastily
- drew back again.
- ‘I wish,’ murmured Gabriel, waking at the noise, and looking round
- the room, ‘I wish somebody would marry Miggs. But that’s impossible! I
- wonder whether there’s any madman alive, who would marry Miggs!’
- This was such a vast speculation that he fell into a doze again, and
- slept until the fire was quite burnt out. At last he roused himself; and
- having double-locked the street-door according to custom, and put the
- key in his pocket, went off to bed.
- He had not left the room in darkness many minutes, when the head again
- appeared, and Sim Tappertit entered, bearing in his hand a little lamp.
- ‘What the devil business has he to stop up so late!’ muttered Sim,
- passing into the workshop, and setting it down upon the forge. ‘Here’s
- half the night gone already. There’s only one good that has ever come to
- me, out of this cursed old rusty mechanical trade, and that’s this piece
- of ironmongery, upon my soul!’
- As he spoke, he drew from the right hand, or rather right leg pocket of
- his smalls, a clumsy large-sized key, which he inserted cautiously in
- the lock his master had secured, and softly opened the door. That done,
- he replaced his piece of secret workmanship in his pocket; and leaving
- the lamp burning, and closing the door carefully and without noise,
- stole out into the street--as little suspected by the locksmith in his
- sound deep sleep, as by Barnaby himself in his phantom-haunted dreams.
- Chapter 8
- Clear of the locksmith’s house, Sim Tappertit laid aside his cautious
- manner, and assuming in its stead that of a ruffling, swaggering, roving
- blade, who would rather kill a man than otherwise, and eat him too if
- needful, made the best of his way along the darkened streets.
- Half pausing for an instant now and then to smite his pocket and assure
- himself of the safety of his master key, he hurried on to Barbican, and
- turning into one of the narrowest of the narrow streets which diverged
- from that centre, slackened his pace and wiped his heated brow, as if
- the termination of his walk were near at hand.
- It was not a very choice spot for midnight expeditions, being in truth
- one of more than questionable character, and of an appearance by no
- means inviting. From the main street he had entered, itself little
- better than an alley, a low-browed doorway led into a blind court, or
- yard, profoundly dark, unpaved, and reeking with stagnant odours. Into
- this ill-favoured pit, the locksmith’s vagrant ‘prentice groped his way;
- and stopping at a house from whose defaced and rotten front the rude
- effigy of a bottle swung to and fro like some gibbeted malefactor,
- struck thrice upon an iron grating with his foot. After listening in
- vain for some response to his signal, Mr Tappertit became impatient, and
- struck the grating thrice again.
- A further delay ensued, but it was not of long duration. The ground
- seemed to open at his feet, and a ragged head appeared.
- ‘Is that the captain?’ said a voice as ragged as the head.
- ‘Yes,’ replied Mr Tappertit haughtily, descending as he spoke, ‘who
- should it be?’
- ‘It’s so late, we gave you up,’ returned the voice, as its owner stopped
- to shut and fasten the grating. ‘You’re late, sir.’
- ‘Lead on,’ said Mr Tappertit, with a gloomy majesty, ‘and make remarks
- when I require you. Forward!’
- This latter word of command was perhaps somewhat theatrical and
- unnecessary, inasmuch as the descent was by a very narrow, steep, and
- slippery flight of steps, and any rashness or departure from the beaten
- track must have ended in a yawning water-butt. But Mr Tappertit being,
- like some other great commanders, favourable to strong effects, and
- personal display, cried ‘Forward!’ again, in the hoarsest voice he could
- assume; and led the way, with folded arms and knitted brows, to the
- cellar down below, where there was a small copper fixed in one corner,
- a chair or two, a form and table, a glimmering fire, and a truckle-bed,
- covered with a ragged patchwork rug.
- ‘Welcome, noble captain!’ cried a lanky figure, rising as from a nap.
- The captain nodded. Then, throwing off his outer coat, he stood composed
- in all his dignity, and eyed his follower over.
- ‘What news to-night?’ he asked, when he had looked into his very soul.
- ‘Nothing particular,’ replied the other, stretching himself--and he was
- so long already that it was quite alarming to see him do it--‘how come
- you to be so late?’
- ‘No matter,’ was all the captain deigned to say in answer. ‘Is the room
- prepared?’
- ‘It is,’ replied the follower.
- ‘The comrade--is he here?’
- ‘Yes. And a sprinkling of the others--you hear ‘em?’
- ‘Playing skittles!’ said the captain moodily. ‘Light-hearted revellers!’
- There was no doubt respecting the particular amusement in which these
- heedless spirits were indulging, for even in the close and stifling
- atmosphere of the vault, the noise sounded like distant thunder. It
- certainly appeared, at first sight, a singular spot to choose, for that
- or any other purpose of relaxation, if the other cellars answered to
- the one in which this brief colloquy took place; for the floors were of
- sodden earth, the walls and roof of damp bare brick tapestried with
- the tracks of snails and slugs; the air was sickening, tainted, and
- offensive. It seemed, from one strong flavour which was uppermost among
- the various odours of the place, that it had, at no very distant period,
- been used as a storehouse for cheeses; a circumstance which, while it
- accounted for the greasy moisture that hung about it, was agreeably
- suggestive of rats. It was naturally damp besides, and little trees of
- fungus sprung from every mouldering corner.
- The proprietor of this charming retreat, and owner of the ragged head
- before mentioned--for he wore an old tie-wig as bare and frowzy as a
- stunted hearth-broom--had by this time joined them; and stood a little
- apart, rubbing his hands, wagging his hoary bristled chin, and smiling
- in silence. His eyes were closed; but had they been wide open, it would
- have been easy to tell, from the attentive expression of the face he
- turned towards them--pale and unwholesome as might be expected in one
- of his underground existence--and from a certain anxious raising and
- quivering of the lids, that he was blind.
- ‘Even Stagg hath been asleep,’ said the long comrade, nodding towards
- this person.
- ‘Sound, captain, sound!’ cried the blind man; ‘what does my noble
- captain drink--is it brandy, rum, usquebaugh? Is it soaked gunpowder, or
- blazing oil? Give it a name, heart of oak, and we’d get it for you, if
- it was wine from a bishop’s cellar, or melted gold from King George’s
- mint.’
- ‘See,’ said Mr Tappertit haughtily, ‘that it’s something strong, and
- comes quick; and so long as you take care of that, you may bring it from
- the devil’s cellar, if you like.’
- ‘Boldly said, noble captain!’ rejoined the blind man. ‘Spoken like the
- ‘Prentices’ Glory. Ha, ha! From the devil’s cellar! A brave joke! The
- captain joketh. Ha, ha, ha!’
- ‘I’ll tell you what, my fine feller,’ said Mr Tappertit, eyeing the
- host over as he walked to a closet, and took out a bottle and glass as
- carelessly as if he had been in full possession of his sight, ‘if you
- make that row, you’ll find that the captain’s very far from joking, and
- so I tell you.’
- ‘He’s got his eyes on me!’ cried Stagg, stopping short on his way back,
- and affecting to screen his face with the bottle. ‘I feel ‘em though I
- can’t see ‘em. Take ‘em off, noble captain. Remove ‘em, for they pierce
- like gimlets.’
- Mr Tappertit smiled grimly at his comrade; and twisting out one more
- look--a kind of ocular screw--under the influence of which the blind man
- feigned to undergo great anguish and torture, bade him, in a softened
- tone, approach, and hold his peace.
- ‘I obey you, captain,’ cried Stagg, drawing close to him and filling
- out a bumper without spilling a drop, by reason that he held his little
- finger at the brim of the glass, and stopped at the instant the liquor
- touched it, ‘drink, noble governor. Death to all masters, life to all
- ‘prentices, and love to all fair damsels. Drink, brave general, and warm
- your gallant heart!’
- Mr Tappertit condescended to take the glass from his outstretched hand.
- Stagg then dropped on one knee, and gently smoothed the calves of his
- legs, with an air of humble admiration.
- ‘That I had but eyes!’ he cried, ‘to behold my captain’s symmetrical
- proportions! That I had but eyes, to look upon these twin invaders of
- domestic peace!’
- ‘Get out!’ said Mr Tappertit, glancing downward at his favourite limbs.
- ‘Go along, will you, Stagg!’
- ‘When I touch my own afterwards,’ cried the host, smiting them
- reproachfully, ‘I hate ‘em. Comparatively speaking, they’ve no more
- shape than wooden legs, beside these models of my noble captain’s.’
- ‘Yours!’ exclaimed Mr Tappertit. ‘No, I should think not. Don’t talk
- about those precious old toothpicks in the same breath with mine; that’s
- rather too much. Here. Take the glass. Benjamin. Lead on. To business!’
- With these words, he folded his arms again; and frowning with a sullen
- majesty, passed with his companion through a little door at the upper
- end of the cellar, and disappeared; leaving Stagg to his private
- meditations.
- The vault they entered, strewn with sawdust and dimly lighted, was
- between the outer one from which they had just come, and that in which
- the skittle-players were diverting themselves; as was manifested by
- the increased noise and clamour of tongues, which was suddenly stopped,
- however, and replaced by a dead silence, at a signal from the long
- comrade. Then, this young gentleman, going to a little cupboard,
- returned with a thigh-bone, which in former times must have been part
- and parcel of some individual at least as long as himself, and placed
- the same in the hands of Mr Tappertit; who, receiving it as a sceptre
- and staff of authority, cocked his three-cornered hat fiercely on the
- top of his head, and mounted a large table, whereon a chair of state,
- cheerfully ornamented with a couple of skulls, was placed ready for his
- reception.
- He had no sooner assumed this position, than another young gentleman
- appeared, bearing in his arms a huge clasped book, who made him a
- profound obeisance, and delivering it to the long comrade, advanced to
- the table, and turning his back upon it, stood there Atlas-wise. Then,
- the long comrade got upon the table too; and seating himself in a lower
- chair than Mr Tappertit’s, with much state and ceremony, placed the
- large book on the shoulders of their mute companion as deliberately as
- if he had been a wooden desk, and prepared to make entries therein with
- a pen of corresponding size.
- When the long comrade had made these preparations, he looked towards Mr
- Tappertit; and Mr Tappertit, flourishing the bone, knocked nine times
- therewith upon one of the skulls. At the ninth stroke, a third young
- gentleman emerged from the door leading to the skittle ground, and
- bowing low, awaited his commands.
- ‘Prentice!’ said the mighty captain, ‘who waits without?’
- The ‘prentice made answer that a stranger was in attendance, who claimed
- admission into that secret society of ‘Prentice Knights, and a free
- participation in their rights, privileges, and immunities. Thereupon
- Mr Tappertit flourished the bone again, and giving the other skull a
- prodigious rap on the nose, exclaimed ‘Admit him!’ At these dread words
- the ‘prentice bowed once more, and so withdrew as he had come.
- There soon appeared at the same door, two other ‘prentices, having
- between them a third, whose eyes were bandaged, and who was attired in a
- bag-wig, and a broad-skirted coat, trimmed with tarnished lace; and who
- was girded with a sword, in compliance with the laws of the Institution
- regulating the introduction of candidates, which required them to
- assume this courtly dress, and kept it constantly in lavender, for
- their convenience. One of the conductors of this novice held a rusty
- blunderbuss pointed towards his ear, and the other a very ancient
- sabre, with which he carved imaginary offenders as he came along in a
- sanguinary and anatomical manner.
- As this silent group advanced, Mr Tappertit fixed his hat upon his head.
- The novice then laid his hand upon his breast and bent before him. When
- he had humbled himself sufficiently, the captain ordered the bandage to
- be removed, and proceeded to eye him over.
- ‘Ha!’ said the captain, thoughtfully, when he had concluded this ordeal.
- ‘Proceed.’
- The long comrade read aloud as follows:--‘Mark Gilbert. Age, nineteen.
- Bound to Thomas Curzon, hosier, Golden Fleece, Aldgate. Loves Curzon’s
- daughter. Cannot say that Curzon’s daughter loves him. Should think it
- probable. Curzon pulled his ears last Tuesday week.’
- ‘How!’ cried the captain, starting.
- ‘For looking at his daughter, please you,’ said the novice.
- ‘Write Curzon down, Denounced,’ said the captain. ‘Put a black cross
- against the name of Curzon.’
- ‘So please you,’ said the novice, ‘that’s not the worst--he calls his
- ‘prentice idle dog, and stops his beer unless he works to his liking. He
- gives Dutch cheese, too, eating Cheshire, sir, himself; and Sundays out,
- are only once a month.’
- ‘This,’ said Mr Tappert gravely, ‘is a flagrant case. Put two black
- crosses to the name of Curzon.’
- ‘If the society,’ said the novice, who was an ill-looking, one-sided,
- shambling lad, with sunken eyes set close together in his head--‘if the
- society would burn his house down--for he’s not insured--or beat him
- as he comes home from his club at night, or help me to carry off his
- daughter, and marry her at the Fleet, whether she gave consent or no--’
- Mr Tappertit waved his grizzly truncheon as an admonition to him not to
- interrupt, and ordered three black crosses to the name of Curzon.
- ‘Which means,’ he said in gracious explanation, ‘vengeance, complete and
- terrible. ‘Prentice, do you love the Constitution?’
- To which the novice (being to that end instructed by his attendant
- sponsors) replied ‘I do!’
- ‘The Church, the State, and everything established--but the masters?’
- quoth the captain.
- Again the novice said ‘I do.’
- Having said it, he listened meekly to the captain, who in an address
- prepared for such occasions, told him how that under that same
- Constitution (which was kept in a strong box somewhere, but where
- exactly he could not find out, or he would have endeavoured to procure a
- copy of it), the ‘prentices had, in times gone by, had frequent holidays
- of right, broken people’s heads by scores, defied their masters, nay,
- even achieved some glorious murders in the streets, which privileges
- had gradually been wrested from them, and in all which noble aspirations
- they were now restrained; how the degrading checks imposed upon them
- were unquestionably attributable to the innovating spirit of the times,
- and how they united therefore to resist all change, except such change
- as would restore those good old English customs, by which they would
- stand or fall. After illustrating the wisdom of going backward, by
- reference to that sagacious fish, the crab, and the not unfrequent
- practice of the mule and donkey, he described their general objects;
- which were briefly vengeance on their Tyrant Masters (of whose grievous
- and insupportable oppression no ‘prentice could entertain a moment’s
- doubt) and the restoration, as aforesaid, of their ancient rights and
- holidays; for neither of which objects were they now quite ripe, being
- barely twenty strong, but which they pledged themselves to pursue with
- fire and sword when needful. Then he described the oath which every
- member of that small remnant of a noble body took, and which was of a
- dreadful and impressive kind; binding him, at the bidding of his chief,
- to resist and obstruct the Lord Mayor, sword-bearer, and chaplain; to
- despise the authority of the sheriffs; and to hold the court of aldermen
- as nought; but not on any account, in case the fulness of time should
- bring a general rising of ‘prentices, to damage or in any way disfigure
- Temple Bar, which was strictly constitutional and always to be
- approached with reverence. Having gone over these several heads with
- great eloquence and force, and having further informed the novice that
- this society had its origin in his own teeming brain, stimulated by a
- swelling sense of wrong and outrage, Mr Tappertit demanded whether he
- had strength of heart to take the mighty pledge required, or whether he
- would withdraw while retreat was yet in his power.
- To this the novice made rejoinder, that he would take the vow, though
- it should choke him; and it was accordingly administered with many
- impressive circumstances, among which the lighting up of the two skulls
- with a candle-end inside of each, and a great many flourishes with
- the bone, were chiefly conspicuous; not to mention a variety of grave
- exercises with the blunderbuss and sabre, and some dismal groaning by
- unseen ‘prentices without. All these dark and direful ceremonies
- being at length completed, the table was put aside, the chair of state
- removed, the sceptre locked up in its usual cupboard, the doors of
- communication between the three cellars thrown freely open, and the
- ‘Prentice Knights resigned themselves to merriment.
- But Mr Tappertit, who had a soul above the vulgar herd, and who, on
- account of his greatness, could only afford to be merry now and then,
- threw himself on a bench with the air of a man who was faint with
- dignity. He looked with an indifferent eye, alike on skittles, cards,
- and dice, thinking only of the locksmith’s daughter, and the base
- degenerate days on which he had fallen.
- ‘My noble captain neither games, nor sings, nor dances,’ said his host,
- taking a seat beside him. ‘Drink, gallant general!’
- Mr Tappertit drained the proffered goblet to the dregs; then thrust
- his hands into his pockets, and with a lowering visage walked among the
- skittles, while his followers (such is the influence of superior genius)
- restrained the ardent ball, and held his little shins in dumb respect.
- ‘If I had been born a corsair or a pirate, a brigand, genteel highwayman
- or patriot--and they’re the same thing,’ thought Mr Tappertit, musing
- among the nine-pins, ‘I should have been all right. But to drag out a
- ignoble existence unbeknown to mankind in general--patience! I will be
- famous yet. A voice within me keeps on whispering Greatness. I shall
- burst out one of these days, and when I do, what power can keep me down?
- I feel my soul getting into my head at the idea. More drink there!’
- ‘The novice,’ pursued Mr Tappertit, not exactly in a voice of thunder,
- for his tones, to say the truth were rather cracked and shrill--but very
- impressively, notwithstanding--‘where is he?’
- ‘Here, noble captain!’ cried Stagg. ‘One stands beside me who I feel is
- a stranger.’
- ‘Have you,’ said Mr Tappertit, letting his gaze fall on the party
- indicated, who was indeed the new knight, by this time restored to his
- own apparel; ‘Have you the impression of your street-door key in wax?’
- The long comrade anticipated the reply, by producing it from the shelf
- on which it had been deposited.
- ‘Good,’ said Mr Tappertit, scrutinising it attentively, while a
- breathless silence reigned around; for he had constructed secret
- door-keys for the whole society, and perhaps owed something of his
- influence to that mean and trivial circumstance--on such slight
- accidents do even men of mind depend!--‘This is easily made. Come
- hither, friend.’
- With that, he beckoned the new knight apart, and putting the pattern in
- his pocket, motioned to him to walk by his side.
- ‘And so,’ he said, when they had taken a few turns up and down, you--you
- love your master’s daughter?’
- ‘I do,’ said the ‘prentice. ‘Honour bright. No chaff, you know.’
- ‘Have you,’ rejoined Mr Tappertit, catching him by the wrist, and
- giving him a look which would have been expressive of the most deadly
- malevolence, but for an accidental hiccup that rather interfered with
- it; ‘have you a--a rival?’
- ‘Not as I know on,’ replied the ‘prentice.
- ‘If you had now--’ said Mr Tappertit--‘what would you--eh?--’
- The ‘prentice looked fierce and clenched his fists.
- ‘It is enough,’ cried Mr Tappertit hastily, ‘we understand each other.
- We are observed. I thank you.’
- So saying, he cast him off again; and calling the long comrade aside
- after taking a few hasty turns by himself, bade him immediately write
- and post against the wall, a notice, proscribing one Joseph Willet
- (commonly known as Joe) of Chigwell; forbidding all ‘Prentice Knights
- to succour, comfort, or hold communion with him; and requiring them,
- on pain of excommunication, to molest, hurt, wrong, annoy, and pick
- quarrels with the said Joseph, whensoever and wheresoever they, or any
- of them, should happen to encounter him.
- Having relieved his mind by this energetic proceeding, he condescended
- to approach the festive board, and warming by degrees, at length deigned
- to preside, and even to enchant the company with a song. After this,
- he rose to such a pitch as to consent to regale the society with a
- hornpipe, which he actually performed to the music of a fiddle (played
- by an ingenious member) with such surpassing agility and brilliancy of
- execution, that the spectators could not be sufficiently enthusiastic in
- their admiration; and their host protested, with tears in his eyes, that
- he had never truly felt his blindness until that moment.
- But the host withdrawing--probably to weep in secret--soon returned with
- the information that it wanted little more than an hour of day, and that
- all the cocks in Barbican had already begun to crow, as if their lives
- depended on it. At this intelligence, the ‘Prentice Knights arose in
- haste, and marshalling into a line, filed off one by one and dispersed
- with all speed to their several homes, leaving their leader to pass the
- grating last.
- ‘Good night, noble captain,’ whispered the blind man as he held it open
- for his passage out; ‘Farewell, brave general. Bye, bye, illustrious
- commander. Good luck go with you for a--conceited, bragging,
- empty-headed, duck-legged idiot.’
- With which parting words, coolly added as he listened to his receding
- footsteps and locked the grate upon himself, he descended the steps,
- and lighting the fire below the little copper, prepared, without
- any assistance, for his daily occupation; which was to retail at the
- area-head above pennyworths of broth and soup, and savoury puddings,
- compounded of such scraps as were to be bought in the heap for the least
- money at Fleet Market in the evening time; and for the sale of which
- he had need to have depended chiefly on his private connection, for the
- court had no thoroughfare, and was not that kind of place in which
- many people were likely to take the air, or to frequent as an agreeable
- promenade.
- Chapter 9
- Chronicler’s are privileged to enter where they list, to come and go
- through keyholes, to ride upon the wind, to overcome, in their soarings
- up and down, all obstacles of distance, time, and place. Thrice blessed
- be this last consideration, since it enables us to follow the disdainful
- Miggs even into the sanctity of her chamber, and to hold her in sweet
- companionship through the dreary watches of the night!
- Miss Miggs, having undone her mistress, as she phrased it (which means,
- assisted to undress her), and having seen her comfortably to bed in
- the back room on the first floor, withdrew to her own apartment, in
- the attic story. Notwithstanding her declaration in the locksmith’s
- presence, she was in no mood for sleep; so, putting her light upon the
- table and withdrawing the little window curtain, she gazed out pensively
- at the wild night sky.
- Perhaps she wondered what star was destined for her habitation when
- she had run her little course below; perhaps speculated which of those
- glimmering spheres might be the natal orb of Mr Tappertit; perhaps
- marvelled how they could gaze down on that perfidious creature, man, and
- not sicken and turn green as chemists’ lamps; perhaps thought of nothing
- in particular. Whatever she thought about, there she sat, until her
- attention, alive to anything connected with the insinuating ‘prentice,
- was attracted by a noise in the next room to her own--his room; the room
- in which he slept, and dreamed--it might be, sometimes dreamed of her.
- That he was not dreaming now, unless he was taking a walk in his sleep,
- was clear, for every now and then there came a shuffling noise, as
- though he were engaged in polishing the whitewashed wall; then a gentle
- creaking of his door; then the faintest indication of his stealthy
- footsteps on the landing-place outside. Noting this latter circumstance,
- Miss Miggs turned pale and shuddered, as mistrusting his intentions; and
- more than once exclaimed, below her breath, ‘Oh! what a Providence it
- is, as I am bolted in!’--which, owing doubtless to her alarm, was a
- confusion of ideas on her part between a bolt and its use; for though
- there was one on the door, it was not fastened.
- Miss Miggs’s sense of hearing, however, having as sharp an edge as her
- temper, and being of the same snappish and suspicious kind, very soon
- informed her that the footsteps passed her door, and appeared to have
- some object quite separate and disconnected from herself. At this
- discovery she became more alarmed than ever, and was about to give
- utterance to those cries of ‘Thieves!’ and ‘Murder!’ which she had
- hitherto restrained, when it occurred to her to look softly out, and see
- that her fears had some good palpable foundation.
- Looking out accordingly, and stretching her neck over the handrail,
- she descried, to her great amazement, Mr Tappertit completely dressed,
- stealing downstairs, one step at a time, with his shoes in one hand
- and a lamp in the other. Following him with her eyes, and going down a
- little way herself to get the better of an intervening angle, she beheld
- him thrust his head in at the parlour-door, draw it back again with
- great swiftness, and immediately begin a retreat upstairs with all
- possible expedition.
- ‘Here’s mysteries!’ said the damsel, when she was safe in her own room
- again, quite out of breath. ‘Oh, gracious, here’s mysteries!’
- The prospect of finding anybody out in anything, would have kept Miss
- Miggs awake under the influence of henbane. Presently, she heard the
- step again, as she would have done if it had been that of a feather
- endowed with motion and walking down on tiptoe. Then gliding out as
- before, she again beheld the retreating figure of the ‘prentice; again
- he looked cautiously in at the parlour-door, but this time instead of
- retreating, he passed in and disappeared.
- Miggs was back in her room, and had her head out of the window, before
- an elderly gentleman could have winked and recovered from it. Out he
- came at the street-door, shut it carefully behind him, tried it with
- his knee, and swaggered off, putting something in his pocket as he
- went along. At this spectacle Miggs cried ‘Gracious!’ again, and then
- ‘Goodness gracious!’ and then ‘Goodness gracious me!’ and then, candle
- in hand, went downstairs as he had done. Coming to the workshop, she saw
- the lamp burning on the forge, and everything as Sim had left it.
- ‘Why I wish I may only have a walking funeral, and never be buried
- decent with a mourning-coach and feathers, if the boy hasn’t been and
- made a key for his own self!’ cried Miggs. ‘Oh the little villain!’
- This conclusion was not arrived at without consideration, and much
- peeping and peering about; nor was it unassisted by the recollection
- that she had on several occasions come upon the ‘prentice suddenly,
- and found him busy at some mysterious occupation. Lest the fact of Miss
- Miggs calling him, on whom she stooped to cast a favourable eye, a
- boy, should create surprise in any breast, it may be observed that she
- invariably affected to regard all male bipeds under thirty as mere chits
- and infants; which phenomenon is not unusual in ladies of Miss Miggs’s
- temper, and is indeed generally found to be the associate of such
- indomitable and savage virtue.
- Miss Miggs deliberated within herself for some little time, looking hard
- at the shop-door while she did so, as though her eyes and thoughts were
- both upon it; and then, taking a sheet of paper from a drawer, twisted
- it into a long thin spiral tube. Having filled this instrument with a
- quantity of small coal-dust from the forge, she approached the door,
- and dropping on one knee before it, dexterously blew into the keyhole as
- much of these fine ashes as the lock would hold. When she had filled it
- to the brim in a very workmanlike and skilful manner, she crept upstairs
- again, and chuckled as she went.
- ‘There!’ cried Miggs, rubbing her hands, ‘now let’s see whether you
- won’t be glad to take some notice of me, mister. He, he, he! You’ll have
- eyes for somebody besides Miss Dolly now, I think. A fat-faced puss she
- is, as ever I come across!’
- As she uttered this criticism, she glanced approvingly at her small
- mirror, as who should say, I thank my stars that can’t be said of
- me!--as it certainly could not; for Miss Miggs’s style of beauty was of
- that kind which Mr Tappertit himself had not inaptly termed, in private,
- ‘scraggy.’
- ‘I don’t go to bed this night!’ said Miggs, wrapping herself in a shawl,
- and drawing a couple of chairs near the window, flouncing down upon
- one, and putting her feet upon the other, ‘till you come home, my lad. I
- wouldn’t,’ said Miggs viciously, ‘no, not for five-and-forty pound!’
- With that, and with an expression of face in which a great number of
- opposite ingredients, such as mischief, cunning, malice, triumph,
- and patient expectation, were all mixed up together in a kind of
- physiognomical punch, Miss Miggs composed herself to wait and listen,
- like some fair ogress who had set a trap and was watching for a nibble
- from a plump young traveller.
- She sat there, with perfect composure, all night. At length, just upon
- break of day, there was a footstep in the street, and presently she
- could hear Mr Tappertit stop at the door. Then she could make out that
- he tried his key--that he was blowing into it--that he knocked it on the
- nearest post to beat the dust out--that he took it under a lamp to look
- at it--that he poked bits of stick into the lock to clear it--that
- he peeped into the keyhole, first with one eye, and then with the
- other--that he tried the key again--that he couldn’t turn it, and what
- was worse, couldn’t get it out--that he bent it--that then it was much
- less disposed to come out than before--that he gave it a mighty twist
- and a great pull, and then it came out so suddenly that he staggered
- backwards--that he kicked the door--that he shook it--finally, that he
- smote his forehead, and sat down on the step in despair.
- When this crisis had arrived, Miss Miggs, affecting to be exhausted
- with terror, and to cling to the window-sill for support, put out her
- nightcap, and demanded in a faint voice who was there.
- Mr Tappertit cried ‘Hush!’ and, backing to the road, exhorted her in
- frenzied pantomime to secrecy and silence.
- ‘Tell me one thing,’ said Miggs. ‘Is it thieves?’
- ‘No--no--no!’ cried Mr Tappertit.
- ‘Then,’ said Miggs, more faintly than before, ‘it’s fire. Where is it,
- sir? It’s near this room, I know. I’ve a good conscience, sir, and would
- much rather die than go down a ladder. All I wish is, respecting my love
- to my married sister, Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, second
- bell-handle on the right-hand door-post.’
- ‘Miggs!’ cried Mr Tappertit, ‘don’t you know me? Sim, you know--Sim--’
- ‘Oh! what about him!’ cried Miggs, clasping her hands. ‘Is he in any
- danger? Is he in the midst of flames and blazes! Oh gracious, gracious!’
- ‘Why I’m here, an’t I?’ rejoined Mr Tappertit, knocking himself on the
- breast. ‘Don’t you see me? What a fool you are, Miggs!’
- ‘There!’ cried Miggs, unmindful of this compliment. ‘Why--so
- it--Goodness, what is the meaning of--If you please, mim, here’s--’
- ‘No, no!’ cried Mr Tappertit, standing on tiptoe, as if by that means
- he, in the street, were any nearer being able to stop the mouth of Miggs
- in the garret. ‘Don’t!--I’ve been out without leave, and something or
- another’s the matter with the lock. Come down, and undo the shop window,
- that I may get in that way.’
- ‘I dursn’t do it, Simmun,’ cried Miggs--for that was her pronunciation
- of his Christian name. ‘I dursn’t do it, indeed. You know as well as
- anybody, how particular I am. And to come down in the dead of night,
- when the house is wrapped in slumbers and weiled in obscurity.’ And
- there she stopped and shivered, for her modesty caught cold at the very
- thought.
- ‘But Miggs,’ cried Mr Tappertit, getting under the lamp, that she might
- see his eyes. ‘My darling Miggs--’
- Miggs screamed slightly.
- ‘--That I love so much, and never can help thinking of,’ and it
- is impossible to describe the use he made of his eyes when he said
- this--‘do--for my sake, do.’
- ‘Oh Simmun,’ cried Miggs, ‘this is worse than all. I know if I come
- down, you’ll go, and--’
- ‘And what, my precious?’ said Mr Tappertit.
- ‘And try,’ said Miggs, hysterically, ‘to kiss me, or some such
- dreadfulness; I know you will!’
- ‘I swear I won’t,’ said Mr Tappertit, with remarkable earnestness. ‘Upon
- my soul I won’t. It’s getting broad day, and the watchman’s waking
- up. Angelic Miggs! If you’ll only come and let me in, I promise you
- faithfully and truly I won’t.’
- Miss Miggs, whose gentle heart was touched, did not wait for the oath
- (knowing how strong the temptation was, and fearing he might forswear
- himself), but tripped lightly down the stairs, and with her own fair
- hands drew back the rough fastenings of the workshop window. Having
- helped the wayward ‘prentice in, she faintly articulated the words
- ‘Simmun is safe!’ and yielding to her woman’s nature, immediately became
- insensible.
- ‘I knew I should quench her,’ said Sim, rather embarrassed by this
- circumstance. ‘Of course I was certain it would come to this, but there
- was nothing else to be done--if I hadn’t eyed her over, she wouldn’t
- have come down. Here. Keep up a minute, Miggs. What a slippery figure
- she is! There’s no holding her, comfortably. Do keep up a minute, Miggs,
- will you?’
- As Miggs, however, was deaf to all entreaties, Mr Tappertit leant her
- against the wall as one might dispose of a walking-stick or umbrella,
- until he had secured the window, when he took her in his arms again,
- and, in short stages and with great difficulty--arising from her being
- tall and his being short, and perhaps in some degree from that peculiar
- physical conformation on which he had already remarked--carried her
- upstairs, and planting her, in the same umbrella and walking-stick
- fashion, just inside her own door, left her to her repose.
- ‘He may be as cool as he likes,’ said Miss Miggs, recovering as soon
- as she was left alone; ‘but I’m in his confidence and he can’t help
- himself, nor couldn’t if he was twenty Simmunses!’
- Chapter 10
- It was on one of those mornings, common in early spring, when the year,
- fickle and changeable in its youth like all other created things, is
- undecided whether to step backward into winter or forward into summer,
- and in its uncertainty inclines now to the one and now to the other, and
- now to both at once--wooing summer in the sunshine, and lingering still
- with winter in the shade--it was, in short, on one of those mornings,
- when it is hot and cold, wet and dry, bright and lowering, sad and
- cheerful, withering and genial, in the compass of one short hour, that
- old John Willet, who was dropping asleep over the copper boiler, was
- roused by the sound of a horse’s feet, and glancing out at window,
- beheld a traveller of goodly promise, checking his bridle at the Maypole
- door.
- He was none of your flippant young fellows, who would call for a tankard
- of mulled ale, and make themselves as much at home as if they had
- ordered a hogshead of wine; none of your audacious young swaggerers, who
- would even penetrate into the bar--that solemn sanctuary--and, smiting
- old John upon the back, inquire if there was never a pretty girl in the
- house, and where he hid his little chambermaids, with a hundred other
- impertinences of that nature; none of your free-and-easy companions, who
- would scrape their boots upon the firedogs in the common room, and
- be not at all particular on the subject of spittoons; none of your
- unconscionable blades, requiring impossible chops, and taking unheard-of
- pickles for granted. He was a staid, grave, placid gentleman, something
- past the prime of life, yet upright in his carriage, for all that, and
- slim as a greyhound. He was well-mounted upon a sturdy chestnut cob, and
- had the graceful seat of an experienced horseman; while his riding gear,
- though free from such fopperies as were then in vogue, was handsome and
- well chosen. He wore a riding-coat of a somewhat brighter green than
- might have been expected to suit the taste of a gentleman of his years,
- with a short, black velvet cape, and laced pocket-holes and cuffs, all
- of a jaunty fashion; his linen, too, was of the finest kind, worked in a
- rich pattern at the wrists and throat, and scrupulously white. Although
- he seemed, judging from the mud he had picked up on the way, to have
- come from London, his horse was as smooth and cool as his own iron-grey
- periwig and pigtail. Neither man nor beast had turned a single hair; and
- saving for his soiled skirts and spatter-dashes, this gentleman, with
- his blooming face, white teeth, exactly-ordered dress, and perfect
- calmness, might have come from making an elaborate and leisurely toilet,
- to sit for an equestrian portrait at old John Willet’s gate.
- It must not be supposed that John observed these several characteristics
- by other than very slow degrees, or that he took in more than half a one
- at a time, or that he even made up his mind upon that, without a great
- deal of very serious consideration. Indeed, if he had been distracted in
- the first instance by questionings and orders, it would have taken him
- at the least a fortnight to have noted what is here set down; but it
- happened that the gentleman, being struck with the old house, or with
- the plump pigeons which were skimming and curtseying about it, or with
- the tall maypole, on the top of which a weathercock, which had been out
- of order for fifteen years, performed a perpetual walk to the music of
- its own creaking, sat for some little time looking round in silence.
- Hence John, standing with his hand upon the horse’s bridle, and
- his great eyes on the rider, and with nothing passing to divert his
- thoughts, had really got some of these little circumstances into his
- brain by the time he was called upon to speak.
- ‘A quaint place this,’ said the gentleman--and his voice was as rich as
- his dress. ‘Are you the landlord?’
- ‘At your service, sir,’ replied John Willet.
- ‘You can give my horse good stabling, can you, and me an early dinner (I
- am not particular what, so that it be cleanly served), and a decent
- room of which there seems to be no lack in this great mansion,’ said the
- stranger, again running his eyes over the exterior.
- ‘You can have, sir,’ returned John with a readiness quite surprising,
- ‘anything you please.’
- ‘It’s well I am easily satisfied,’ returned the other with a smile,
- ‘or that might prove a hardy pledge, my friend.’ And saying so, he
- dismounted, with the aid of the block before the door, in a twinkling.
- ‘Halloa there! Hugh!’ roared John. ‘I ask your pardon, sir, for keeping
- you standing in the porch; but my son has gone to town on business, and
- the boy being, as I may say, of a kind of use to me, I’m rather put
- out when he’s away. Hugh!--a dreadful idle vagrant fellow, sir, half
- a gipsy, as I think--always sleeping in the sun in summer, and in
- the straw in winter time, sir--Hugh! Dear Lord, to keep a gentleman
- a waiting here through him!--Hugh! I wish that chap was dead, I do
- indeed.’
- ‘Possibly he is,’ returned the other. ‘I should think if he were living,
- he would have heard you by this time.’
- ‘In his fits of laziness, he sleeps so desperate hard,’ said the
- distracted host, ‘that if you were to fire off cannon-balls into his
- ears, it wouldn’t wake him, sir.’
- The guest made no remark upon this novel cure for drowsiness, and recipe
- for making people lively, but, with his hands clasped behind him, stood
- in the porch, very much amused to see old John, with the bridle in his
- hand, wavering between a strong impulse to abandon the animal to his
- fate, and a half disposition to lead him into the house, and shut him up
- in the parlour, while he waited on his master.
- ‘Pillory the fellow, here he is at last!’ cried John, in the very height
- and zenith of his distress. ‘Did you hear me a calling, villain?’
- The figure he addressed made no answer, but putting his hand upon the
- saddle, sprung into it at a bound, turned the horse’s head towards the
- stable, and was gone in an instant.
- ‘Brisk enough when he is awake,’ said the guest.
- ‘Brisk enough, sir!’ replied John, looking at the place where the horse
- had been, as if not yet understanding quite, what had become of him. ‘He
- melts, I think. He goes like a drop of froth. You look at him, and there
- he is. You look at him again, and--there he isn’t.’
- Having, in the absence of any more words, put this sudden climax to what
- he had faintly intended should be a long explanation of the whole life
- and character of his man, the oracular John Willet led the gentleman up
- his wide dismantled staircase into the Maypole’s best apartment.
- It was spacious enough in all conscience, occupying the whole depth of
- the house, and having at either end a great bay window, as large as many
- modern rooms; in which some few panes of stained glass, emblazoned
- with fragments of armorial bearings, though cracked, and patched, and
- shattered, yet remained; attesting, by their presence, that the former
- owner had made the very light subservient to his state, and pressed the
- sun itself into his list of flatterers; bidding it, when it shone into
- his chamber, reflect the badges of his ancient family, and take new hues
- and colours from their pride.
- But those were old days, and now every little ray came and went as it
- would; telling the plain, bare, searching truth. Although the best room
- of the inn, it had the melancholy aspect of grandeur in decay, and was
- much too vast for comfort. Rich rustling hangings, waving on the walls;
- and, better far, the rustling of youth and beauty’s dress; the light of
- women’s eyes, outshining the tapers and their own rich jewels; the sound
- of gentle tongues, and music, and the tread of maiden feet, had once
- been there, and filled it with delight. But they were gone, and with
- them all its gladness. It was no longer a home; children were never born
- and bred there; the fireside had become mercenary--a something to be
- bought and sold--a very courtezan: let who would die, or sit beside, or
- leave it, it was still the same--it missed nobody, cared for nobody,
- had equal warmth and smiles for all. God help the man whose heart ever
- changes with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn!
- No effort had been made to furnish this chilly waste, but before the
- broad chimney a colony of chairs and tables had been planted on a square
- of carpet, flanked by a ghostly screen, enriched with figures, grinning
- and grotesque. After lighting with his own hands the faggots which were
- heaped upon the hearth, old John withdrew to hold grave council with his
- cook, touching the stranger’s entertainment; while the guest himself,
- seeing small comfort in the yet unkindled wood, opened a lattice in the
- distant window, and basked in a sickly gleam of cold March sun.
- Leaving the window now and then, to rake the crackling logs together,
- or pace the echoing room from end to end, he closed it when the fire was
- quite burnt up, and having wheeled the easiest chair into the warmest
- corner, summoned John Willet.
- ‘Sir,’ said John.
- He wanted pen, ink, and paper. There was an old standish on the
- mantelshelf containing a dusty apology for all three. Having set this
- before him, the landlord was retiring, when he motioned him to stay.
- ‘There’s a house not far from here,’ said the guest when he had written
- a few lines, ‘which you call the Warren, I believe?’
- As this was said in the tone of one who knew the fact, and asked the
- question as a thing of course, John contented himself with nodding his
- head in the affirmative; at the same time taking one hand out of his
- pockets to cough behind, and then putting it in again.
- ‘I want this note’--said the guest, glancing on what he had written, and
- folding it, ‘conveyed there without loss of time, and an answer brought
- back here. Have you a messenger at hand?’
- John was thoughtful for a minute or thereabouts, and then said Yes.
- ‘Let me see him,’ said the guest.
- This was disconcerting; for Joe being out, and Hugh engaged in rubbing
- down the chestnut cob, he designed sending on the errand, Barnaby, who
- had just then arrived in one of his rambles, and who, so that he thought
- himself employed on a grave and serious business, would go anywhere.
- ‘Why the truth is,’ said John after a long pause, ‘that the person who’d
- go quickest, is a sort of natural, as one may say, sir; and though quick
- of foot, and as much to be trusted as the post itself, he’s not good at
- talking, being touched and flighty, sir.’
- ‘You don’t,’ said the guest, raising his eyes to John’s fat face, ‘you
- don’t mean--what’s the fellow’s name--you don’t mean Barnaby?’
- ‘Yes, I do,’ returned the landlord, his features turning quite
- expressive with surprise.
- ‘How comes he to be here?’ inquired the guest, leaning back in his
- chair; speaking in the bland, even tone, from which he never varied; and
- with the same soft, courteous, never-changing smile upon his face. ‘I
- saw him in London last night.’
- ‘He’s, for ever, here one hour, and there the next,’ returned old John,
- after the usual pause to get the question in his mind. ‘Sometimes he
- walks, and sometimes runs. He’s known along the road by everybody, and
- sometimes comes here in a cart or chaise, and sometimes riding double.
- He comes and goes, through wind, rain, snow, and hail, and on the
- darkest nights. Nothing hurts HIM.’
- ‘He goes often to the Warren, does he not?’ said the guest carelessly.
- ‘I seem to remember his mother telling me something to that effect
- yesterday. But I was not attending to the good woman much.’
- ‘You’re right, sir,’ John made answer, ‘he does. His father, sir, was
- murdered in that house.’
- ‘So I have heard,’ returned the guest, taking a gold toothpick from his
- pocket with the same sweet smile. ‘A very disagreeable circumstance for
- the family.’
- ‘Very,’ said John with a puzzled look, as if it occurred to him, dimly
- and afar off, that this might by possibility be a cool way of treating
- the subject.
- ‘All the circumstances after a murder,’ said the guest soliloquising,
- ‘must be dreadfully unpleasant--so much bustle and disturbance--no
- repose--a constant dwelling upon one subject--and the running in and
- out, and up and down stairs, intolerable. I wouldn’t have such a thing
- happen to anybody I was nearly interested in, on any account. ‘Twould
- be enough to wear one’s life out.--You were going to say, friend--’ he
- added, turning to John again.
- ‘Only that Mrs Rudge lives on a little pension from the family, and that
- Barnaby’s as free of the house as any cat or dog about it,’ answered
- John. ‘Shall he do your errand, sir?’
- ‘Oh yes,’ replied the guest. ‘Oh certainly. Let him do it by all means.
- Please to bring him here that I may charge him to be quick. If he
- objects to come you may tell him it’s Mr Chester. He will remember my
- name, I dare say.’
- John was so very much astonished to find who his visitor was, that he
- could express no astonishment at all, by looks or otherwise, but left
- the room as if he were in the most placid and imperturbable of all
- possible conditions. It has been reported that when he got downstairs,
- he looked steadily at the boiler for ten minutes by the clock, and all
- that time never once left off shaking his head; for which statement
- there would seem to be some ground of truth and feasibility, inasmuch
- as that interval of time did certainly elapse, before he returned with
- Barnaby to the guest’s apartment.
- ‘Come hither, lad,’ said Mr Chester. ‘You know Mr Geoffrey Haredale?’
- Barnaby laughed, and looked at the landlord as though he would say,
- ‘You hear him?’ John, who was greatly shocked at this breach of decorum,
- clapped his finger to his nose, and shook his head in mute remonstrance.
- ‘He knows him, sir,’ said John, frowning aside at Barnaby, ‘as well as
- you or I do.’
- ‘I haven’t the pleasure of much acquaintance with the gentleman,’
- returned his guest. ‘YOU may have. Limit the comparison to yourself, my
- friend.’
- Although this was said with the same easy affability, and the same
- smile, John felt himself put down, and laying the indignity at Barnaby’s
- door, determined to kick his raven, on the very first opportunity.
- ‘Give that,’ said the guest, who had by this time sealed the note, and
- who beckoned his messenger towards him as he spoke, ‘into Mr Haredale’s
- own hands. Wait for an answer, and bring it back to me here. If you
- should find that Mr Haredale is engaged just now, tell him--can he
- remember a message, landlord?’
- ‘When he chooses, sir,’ replied John. ‘He won’t forget this one.’
- ‘How are you sure of that?’
- John merely pointed to him as he stood with his head bent forward, and
- his earnest gaze fixed closely on his questioner’s face; and nodded
- sagely.
- ‘Tell him then, Barnaby, should he be engaged,’ said Mr Chester, ‘that
- I shall be glad to wait his convenience here, and to see him (if he will
- call) at any time this evening.--At the worst I can have a bed here,
- Willet, I suppose?’
- Old John, immensely flattered by the personal notoriety implied in this
- familiar form of address, answered, with something like a knowing look,
- ‘I should believe you could, sir,’ and was turning over in his mind
- various forms of eulogium, with the view of selecting one appropriate to
- the qualities of his best bed, when his ideas were put to flight by Mr
- Chester giving Barnaby the letter, and bidding him make all speed away.
- ‘Speed!’ said Barnaby, folding the little packet in his breast, ‘Speed!
- If you want to see hurry and mystery, come here. Here!’
- With that, he put his hand, very much to John Willet’s horror, on the
- guest’s fine broadcloth sleeve, and led him stealthily to the back
- window.
- ‘Look down there,’ he said softly; ‘do you mark how they whisper in each
- other’s ears; then dance and leap, to make believe they are in sport?
- Do you see how they stop for a moment, when they think there is no one
- looking, and mutter among themselves again; and then how they roll and
- gambol, delighted with the mischief they’ve been plotting? Look at
- ‘em now. See how they whirl and plunge. And now they stop again, and
- whisper, cautiously together--little thinking, mind, how often I have
- lain upon the grass and watched them. I say what is it that they plot
- and hatch? Do you know?’
- ‘They are only clothes,’ returned the guest, ‘such as we wear; hanging
- on those lines to dry, and fluttering in the wind.’
- ‘Clothes!’ echoed Barnaby, looking close into his face, and falling
- quickly back. ‘Ha ha! Why, how much better to be silly, than as wise
- as you! You don’t see shadowy people there, like those that live in
- sleep--not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, nor swift ghosts
- when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see men
- stalking in the sky--not you! I lead a merrier life than you, with all
- your cleverness. You’re the dull men. We’re the bright ones. Ha! ha!
- I’ll not change with you, clever as you are,--not I!’
- With that, he waved his hat above his head, and darted off.
- ‘A strange creature, upon my word!’ said the guest, pulling out a
- handsome box, and taking a pinch of snuff.
- ‘He wants imagination,’ said Mr Willet, very slowly, and after a long
- silence; ‘that’s what he wants. I’ve tried to instil it into him, many
- and many’s the time; but’--John added this in confidence--‘he an’t made
- for it; that’s the fact.’
- To record that Mr Chester smiled at John’s remark would be little to the
- purpose, for he preserved the same conciliatory and pleasant look at all
- times. He drew his chair nearer to the fire though, as a kind of hint
- that he would prefer to be alone, and John, having no reasonable excuse
- for remaining, left him to himself.
- Very thoughtful old John Willet was, while the dinner was preparing; and
- if his brain were ever less clear at one time than another, it is but
- reasonable to suppose that he addled it in no slight degree by shaking
- his head so much that day. That Mr Chester, between whom and Mr
- Haredale, it was notorious to all the neighbourhood, a deep and bitter
- animosity existed, should come down there for the sole purpose, as it
- seemed, of seeing him, and should choose the Maypole for their place
- of meeting, and should send to him express, were stumbling blocks John
- could not overcome. The only resource he had, was to consult the boiler,
- and wait impatiently for Barnaby’s return.
- But Barnaby delayed beyond all precedent. The visitor’s dinner was
- served, removed, his wine was set, the fire replenished, the hearth
- clean swept; the light waned without, it grew dusk, became quite dark,
- and still no Barnaby appeared. Yet, though John Willet was full of
- wonder and misgiving, his guest sat cross-legged in the easy-chair, to
- all appearance as little ruffled in his thoughts as in his dress--the
- same calm, easy, cool gentleman, without a care or thought beyond his
- golden toothpick.
- ‘Barnaby’s late,’ John ventured to observe, as he placed a pair of
- tarnished candlesticks, some three feet high, upon the table, and
- snuffed the lights they held.
- ‘He is rather so,’ replied the guest, sipping his wine. ‘He will not be
- much longer, I dare say.’
- John coughed and raked the fire together.
- ‘As your roads bear no very good character, if I may judge from my son’s
- mishap, though,’ said Mr Chester, ‘and as I have no fancy to be knocked
- on the head--which is not only disconcerting at the moment, but places
- one, besides, in a ridiculous position with respect to the people who
- chance to pick one up--I shall stop here to-night. I think you said you
- had a bed to spare.’
- ‘Such a bed, sir,’ returned John Willet; ‘ay, such a bed as few, even
- of the gentry’s houses, own. A fixter here, sir. I’ve heard say that
- bedstead is nigh two hundred years of age. Your noble son--a fine young
- gentleman--slept in it last, sir, half a year ago.’
- ‘Upon my life, a recommendation!’ said the guest, shrugging his
- shoulders and wheeling his chair nearer to the fire. ‘See that it be
- well aired, Mr Willet, and let a blazing fire be lighted there at once.
- This house is something damp and chilly.’
- John raked the faggots up again, more from habit than presence of mind,
- or any reference to this remark, and was about to withdraw, when a
- bounding step was heard upon the stair, and Barnaby came panting in.
- ‘He’ll have his foot in the stirrup in an hour’s time,’ he cried,
- advancing. ‘He has been riding hard all day--has just come home--but
- will be in the saddle again as soon as he has eat and drank, to meet his
- loving friend.’
- ‘Was that his message?’ asked the visitor, looking up, but without the
- smallest discomposure--or at least without the show of any.
- ‘All but the last words,’ Barnaby rejoined. ‘He meant those. I saw that,
- in his face.’
- ‘This for your pains,’ said the other, putting money in his hand, and
- glancing at him steadfastly.’This for your pains, sharp Barnaby.’
- ‘For Grip, and me, and Hugh, to share among us,’ he rejoined, putting
- it up, and nodding, as he counted it on his fingers. ‘Grip one, me two,
- Hugh three; the dog, the goat, the cats--well, we shall spend it pretty
- soon, I warn you. Stay.--Look. Do you wise men see nothing there, now?’
- He bent eagerly down on one knee, and gazed intently at the smoke, which
- was rolling up the chimney in a thick black cloud. John Willet, who
- appeared to consider himself particularly and chiefly referred to under
- the term wise men, looked that way likewise, and with great solidity of
- feature.
- ‘Now, where do they go to, when they spring so fast up there,’ asked
- Barnaby; ‘eh? Why do they tread so closely on each other’s heels, and
- why are they always in a hurry--which is what you blame me for, when I
- only take pattern by these busy folk about me? More of ‘em! catching to
- each other’s skirts; and as fast as they go, others come! What a merry
- dance it is! I would that Grip and I could frisk like that!’
- ‘What has he in that basket at his back?’ asked the guest after a few
- moments, during which Barnaby was still bending down to look higher up
- the chimney, and earnestly watching the smoke.
- ‘In this?’ he answered, jumping up, before John Willet could
- reply--shaking it as he spoke, and stooping his head to listen. ‘In
- this! What is there here? Tell him!’
- ‘A devil, a devil, a devil!’ cried a hoarse voice.
- ‘Here’s money!’ said Barnaby, chinking it in his hand, ‘money for a
- treat, Grip!’
- ‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!’ replied the raven, ‘keep up your spirits.
- Never say die. Bow, wow, wow!’
- Mr Willet, who appeared to entertain strong doubts whether a customer in
- a laced coat and fine linen could be supposed to have any acquaintance
- even with the existence of such unpolite gentry as the bird claimed
- to belong to, took Barnaby off at this juncture, with the view of
- preventing any other improper declarations, and quitted the room with
- his very best bow.
- Chapter 11
- There was great news that night for the regular Maypole customers, to
- each of whom, as he straggled in to occupy his allotted seat in the
- chimney-corner, John, with a most impressive slowness of delivery, and
- in an apoplectic whisper, communicated the fact that Mr Chester was
- alone in the large room upstairs, and was waiting the arrival of
- Mr Geoffrey Haredale, to whom he had sent a letter (doubtless of a
- threatening nature) by the hands of Barnaby, then and there present.
- For a little knot of smokers and solemn gossips, who had seldom any
- new topics of discussion, this was a perfect Godsend. Here was a good,
- dark-looking mystery progressing under that very roof--brought home to
- the fireside, as it were, and enjoyable without the smallest pains
- or trouble. It is extraordinary what a zest and relish it gave to the
- drink, and how it heightened the flavour of the tobacco. Every man
- smoked his pipe with a face of grave and serious delight, and looked at
- his neighbour with a sort of quiet congratulation. Nay, it was felt
- to be such a holiday and special night, that, on the motion of little
- Solomon Daisy, every man (including John himself) put down his sixpence
- for a can of flip, which grateful beverage was brewed with all despatch,
- and set down in the midst of them on the brick floor; both that it might
- simmer and stew before the fire, and that its fragrant steam, rising
- up among them, and mixing with the wreaths of vapour from their pipes,
- might shroud them in a delicious atmosphere of their own, and shut
- out all the world. The very furniture of the room seemed to mellow and
- deepen in its tone; the ceiling and walls looked blacker and more highly
- polished, the curtains of a ruddier red; the fire burnt clear and high,
- and the crickets in the hearthstone chirped with a more than wonted
- satisfaction.
- There were present two, however, who showed but little interest in the
- general contentment. Of these, one was Barnaby himself, who slept,
- or, to avoid being beset with questions, feigned to sleep, in the
- chimney-corner; the other, Hugh, who, sleeping too, lay stretched upon
- the bench on the opposite side, in the full glare of the blazing fire.
- The light that fell upon this slumbering form, showed it in all its
- muscular and handsome proportions. It was that of a young man, of a hale
- athletic figure, and a giant’s strength, whose sunburnt face and swarthy
- throat, overgrown with jet black hair, might have served a painter for
- a model. Loosely attired, in the coarsest and roughest garb, with scraps
- of straw and hay--his usual bed--clinging here and there, and mingling
- with his uncombed locks, he had fallen asleep in a posture as careless
- as his dress. The negligence and disorder of the whole man, with
- something fierce and sullen in his features, gave him a picturesque
- appearance, that attracted the regards even of the Maypole customers who
- knew him well, and caused Long Parkes to say that Hugh looked more like
- a poaching rascal to-night than ever he had seen him yet.
- ‘He’s waiting here, I suppose,’ said Solomon, ‘to take Mr Haredale’s
- horse.’
- ‘That’s it, sir,’ replied John Willet. ‘He’s not often in the house, you
- know. He’s more at his ease among horses than men. I look upon him as a
- animal himself.’
- Following up this opinion with a shrug that seemed meant to say, ‘we
- can’t expect everybody to be like us,’ John put his pipe into his mouth
- again, and smoked like one who felt his superiority over the general run
- of mankind.
- ‘That chap, sir,’ said John, taking it out again after a time, and
- pointing at him with the stem, ‘though he’s got all his faculties
- about him--bottled up and corked down, if I may say so, somewheres or
- another--’
- ‘Very good!’ said Parkes, nodding his head. ‘A very good expression,
- Johnny. You’ll be a tackling somebody presently. You’re in twig
- to-night, I see.’
- ‘Take care,’ said Mr Willet, not at all grateful for the compliment,
- ‘that I don’t tackle you, sir, which I shall certainly endeavour to do,
- if you interrupt me when I’m making observations.--That chap, I was
- a saying, though he has all his faculties about him, somewheres or
- another, bottled up and corked down, has no more imagination than
- Barnaby has. And why hasn’t he?’
- The three friends shook their heads at each other; saying by that
- action, without the trouble of opening their lips, ‘Do you observe what
- a philosophical mind our friend has?’
- ‘Why hasn’t he?’ said John, gently striking the table with his open
- hand. ‘Because they was never drawed out of him when he was a boy.
- That’s why. What would any of us have been, if our fathers hadn’t drawed
- our faculties out of us? What would my boy Joe have been, if I hadn’t
- drawed his faculties out of him?--Do you mind what I’m a saying of,
- gentlemen?’
- ‘Ah! we mind you,’ cried Parkes. ‘Go on improving of us, Johnny.’
- ‘Consequently, then,’ said Mr Willet, ‘that chap, whose mother was
- hung when he was a little boy, along with six others, for passing bad
- notes--and it’s a blessed thing to think how many people are hung in
- batches every six weeks for that, and such like offences, as showing how
- wide awake our government is--that chap that was then turned loose, and
- had to mind cows, and frighten birds away, and what not, for a few pence
- to live on, and so got on by degrees to mind horses, and to sleep in
- course of time in lofts and litter, instead of under haystacks and
- hedges, till at last he come to be hostler at the Maypole for his board
- and lodging and a annual trifle--that chap that can’t read nor write,
- and has never had much to do with anything but animals, and has never
- lived in any way but like the animals he has lived among, IS a animal.
- And,’ said Mr Willet, arriving at his logical conclusion, ‘is to be
- treated accordingly.’
- ‘Willet,’ said Solomon Daisy, who had exhibited some impatience at the
- intrusion of so unworthy a subject on their more interesting theme,
- ‘when Mr Chester come this morning, did he order the large room?’
- ‘He signified, sir,’ said John, ‘that he wanted a large apartment. Yes.
- Certainly.’
- ‘Why then, I’ll tell you what,’ said Solomon, speaking softly and with
- an earnest look. ‘He and Mr Haredale are going to fight a duel in it.’
- Everybody looked at Mr Willet, after this alarming suggestion. Mr Willet
- looked at the fire, weighing in his own mind the effect which such an
- occurrence would be likely to have on the establishment.
- ‘Well,’ said John, ‘I don’t know--I am sure--I remember that when I went
- up last, he HAD put the lights upon the mantel-shelf.’
- ‘It’s as plain,’ returned Solomon, ‘as the nose on Parkes’s face’--Mr
- Parkes, who had a large nose, rubbed it, and looked as if he considered
- this a personal allusion--‘they’ll fight in that room. You know by
- the newspapers what a common thing it is for gentlemen to fight in
- coffee-houses without seconds. One of ‘em will be wounded or perhaps
- killed in this house.’
- ‘That was a challenge that Barnaby took then, eh?’ said John.
- ‘--Inclosing a slip of paper with the measure of his sword upon it, I’ll
- bet a guinea,’ answered the little man. ‘We know what sort of gentleman
- Mr Haredale is. You have told us what Barnaby said about his looks, when
- he came back. Depend upon it, I’m right. Now, mind.’
- The flip had had no flavour till now. The tobacco had been of mere
- English growth, compared with its present taste. A duel in that great
- old rambling room upstairs, and the best bed ordered already for the
- wounded man!
- ‘Would it be swords or pistols, now?’ said John.
- ‘Heaven knows. Perhaps both,’ returned Solomon. ‘The gentlemen wear
- swords, and may easily have pistols in their pockets--most likely have,
- indeed. If they fire at each other without effect, then they’ll draw,
- and go to work in earnest.’
- A shade passed over Mr Willet’s face as he thought of broken windows and
- disabled furniture, but bethinking himself that one of the parties would
- probably be left alive to pay the damage, he brightened up again.
- ‘And then,’ said Solomon, looking from face to face, ‘then we shall have
- one of those stains upon the floor that never come out. If Mr Haredale
- wins, depend upon it, it’ll be a deep one; or if he loses, it will
- perhaps be deeper still, for he’ll never give in unless he’s beaten
- down. We know him better, eh?’
- ‘Better indeed!’ they whispered all together.
- ‘As to its ever being got out again,’ said Solomon, ‘I tell you it never
- will, or can be. Why, do you know that it has been tried, at a certain
- house we are acquainted with?’
- ‘The Warren!’ cried John. ‘No, sure!’
- ‘Yes, sure--yes. It’s only known by very few. It has been whispered
- about though, for all that. They planed the board away, but there it
- was. They went deep, but it went deeper. They put new boards down, but
- there was one great spot that came through still, and showed itself in
- the old place. And--harkye--draw nearer--Mr Geoffrey made that room his
- study, and sits there, always, with his foot (as I have heard) upon it;
- and he believes, through thinking of it long and very much, that it will
- never fade until he finds the man who did the deed.’
- As this recital ended, and they all drew closer round the fire, the
- tramp of a horse was heard without.
- ‘The very man!’ cried John, starting up. ‘Hugh! Hugh!’
- The sleeper staggered to his feet, and hurried after him. John quickly
- returned, ushering in with great attention and deference (for Mr
- Haredale was his landlord) the long-expected visitor, who strode into
- the room clanking his heavy boots upon the floor; and looking keenly
- round upon the bowing group, raised his hat in acknowledgment of their
- profound respect.
- ‘You have a stranger here, Willet, who sent to me,’ he said, in a voice
- which sounded naturally stern and deep. ‘Where is he?’
- ‘In the great room upstairs, sir,’ answered John.
- ‘Show the way. Your staircase is dark, I know. Gentlemen, good night.’
- With that, he signed to the landlord to go on before; and went clanking
- out, and up the stairs; old John, in his agitation, ingeniously lighting
- everything but the way, and making a stumble at every second step.
- ‘Stop!’ he said, when they reached the landing. ‘I can announce myself.
- Don’t wait.’
- He laid his hand upon the door, entered, and shut it heavily. Mr Willet
- was by no means disposed to stand there listening by himself, especially
- as the walls were very thick; so descended, with much greater alacrity
- than he had come up, and joined his friends below.
- Chapter 12
- There was a brief pause in the state-room of the Maypole, as Mr Haredale
- tried the lock to satisfy himself that he had shut the door securely,
- and, striding up the dark chamber to where the screen inclosed a little
- patch of light and warmth, presented himself, abruptly and in silence,
- before the smiling guest.
- If the two had no greater sympathy in their inward thoughts than in
- their outward bearing and appearance, the meeting did not seem likely to
- prove a very calm or pleasant one. With no great disparity between them
- in point of years, they were, in every other respect, as unlike and
- far removed from each other as two men could well be. The one was
- soft-spoken, delicately made, precise, and elegant; the other, a burly
- square-built man, negligently dressed, rough and abrupt in manner,
- stern, and, in his present mood, forbidding both in look and speech. The
- one preserved a calm and placid smile; the other, a distrustful frown.
- The new-comer, indeed, appeared bent on showing by his every tone and
- gesture his determined opposition and hostility to the man he had come
- to meet. The guest who received him, on the other hand, seemed to feel
- that the contrast between them was all in his favour, and to derive a
- quiet exultation from it which put him more at his ease than ever.
- ‘Haredale,’ said this gentleman, without the least appearance of
- embarrassment or reserve, ‘I am very glad to see you.’
- ‘Let us dispense with compliments. They are misplaced between us,’
- returned the other, waving his hand, ‘and say plainly what we have to
- say. You have asked me to meet you. I am here. Why do we stand face to
- face again?’
- ‘Still the same frank and sturdy character, I see!’
- ‘Good or bad, sir, I am,’ returned the other, leaning his arm upon
- the chimney-piece, and turning a haughty look upon the occupant of
- the easy-chair, ‘the man I used to be. I have lost no old likings or
- dislikings; my memory has not failed me by a hair’s-breadth. You ask me
- to give you a meeting. I say, I am here.’
- ‘Our meeting, Haredale,’ said Mr Chester, tapping his snuff-box, and
- following with a smile the impatient gesture he had made--perhaps
- unconsciously--towards his sword, ‘is one of conference and peace, I
- hope?’
- ‘I have come here,’ returned the other, ‘at your desire, holding myself
- bound to meet you, when and where you would. I have not come to bandy
- pleasant speeches, or hollow professions. You are a smooth man of the
- world, sir, and at such play have me at a disadvantage. The very last
- man on this earth with whom I would enter the lists to combat with
- gentle compliments and masked faces, is Mr Chester, I do assure you. I
- am not his match at such weapons, and have reason to believe that few
- men are.’
- ‘You do me a great deal of honour Haredale,’ returned the other, most
- composedly, ‘and I thank you. I will be frank with you--’
- ‘I beg your pardon--will be what?’
- ‘Frank--open--perfectly candid.’
- ‘Hah!’ cried Mr Haredale, drawing his breath. ‘But don’t let me
- interrupt you.’
- ‘So resolved am I to hold this course,’ returned the other, tasting his
- wine with great deliberation; ‘that I have determined not to quarrel
- with you, and not to be betrayed into a warm expression or a hasty
- word.’
- ‘There again,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘you have me at a great advantage. Your
- self-command--’
- ‘Is not to be disturbed, when it will serve my purpose, you would
- say’--rejoined the other, interrupting him with the same complacency.
- ‘Granted. I allow it. And I have a purpose to serve now. So have you. I
- am sure our object is the same. Let us attain it like sensible men, who
- have ceased to be boys some time.--Do you drink?’
- ‘With my friends,’ returned the other.
- ‘At least,’ said Mr Chester, ‘you will be seated?’
- ‘I will stand,’ returned Mr Haredale impatiently, ‘on this dismantled,
- beggared hearth, and not pollute it, fallen as it is, with mockeries. Go
- on.’
- ‘You are wrong, Haredale,’ said the other, crossing his legs, and
- smiling as he held his glass up in the bright glow of the fire. ‘You are
- really very wrong. The world is a lively place enough, in which we must
- accommodate ourselves to circumstances, sail with the stream as glibly
- as we can, be content to take froth for substance, the surface for the
- depth, the counterfeit for the real coin. I wonder no philosopher has
- ever established that our globe itself is hollow. It should be, if
- Nature is consistent in her works.’
- ‘YOU think it is, perhaps?’
- ‘I should say,’ he returned, sipping his wine, ‘there could be no doubt
- about it. Well; we, in trifling with this jingling toy, have had
- the ill-luck to jostle and fall out. We are not what the world calls
- friends; but we are as good and true and loving friends for all that, as
- nine out of every ten of those on whom it bestows the title. You have a
- niece, and I a son--a fine lad, Haredale, but foolish. They fall in
- love with each other, and form what this same world calls an attachment;
- meaning a something fanciful and false like the rest, which, if it took
- its own free time, would break like any other bubble. But it may not
- have its own free time--will not, if they are left alone--and the
- question is, shall we two, because society calls us enemies, stand
- aloof, and let them rush into each other’s arms, when, by approaching
- each other sensibly, as we do now, we can prevent it, and part them?’
- ‘I love my niece,’ said Mr Haredale, after a short silence. ‘It may
- sound strangely in your ears; but I love her.’
- ‘Strangely, my good fellow!’ cried Mr Chester, lazily filling his glass
- again, and pulling out his toothpick. ‘Not at all. I like Ned too--or,
- as you say, love him--that’s the word among such near relations.
- I’m very fond of Ned. He’s an amazingly good fellow, and a handsome
- fellow--foolish and weak as yet; that’s all. But the thing
- is, Haredale--for I’ll be very frank, as I told you I would at
- first--independently of any dislike that you and I might have to being
- related to each other, and independently of the religious differences
- between us--and damn it, that’s important--I couldn’t afford a match of
- this description. Ned and I couldn’t do it. It’s impossible.’
- ‘Curb your tongue, in God’s name, if this conversation is to last,’
- retorted Mr Haredale fiercely. ‘I have said I love my niece. Do you
- think that, loving her, I would have her fling her heart away on any man
- who had your blood in his veins?’
- ‘You see,’ said the other, not at all disturbed, ‘the advantage of being
- so frank and open. Just what I was about to add, upon my honour! I am
- amazingly attached to Ned--quite doat upon him, indeed--and even if we
- could afford to throw ourselves away, that very objection would be quite
- insuperable.--I wish you’d take some wine?’
- ‘Mark me,’ said Mr Haredale, striding to the table, and laying his hand
- upon it heavily. ‘If any man believes--presumes to think--that I, in
- word or deed, or in the wildest dream, ever entertained remotely the
- idea of Emma Haredale’s favouring the suit of any one who was akin to
- you--in any way--I care not what--he lies. He lies, and does me grievous
- wrong, in the mere thought.’
- ‘Haredale,’ returned the other, rocking himself to and fro as in assent,
- and nodding at the fire, ‘it’s extremely manly, and really very generous
- in you, to meet me in this unreserved and handsome way. Upon my word,
- those are exactly my sentiments, only expressed with much more force and
- power than I could use--you know my sluggish nature, and will forgive
- me, I am sure.’
- ‘While I would restrain her from all correspondence with your son, and
- sever their intercourse here, though it should cause her death,’ said
- Mr Haredale, who had been pacing to and fro, ‘I would do it kindly and
- tenderly if I can. I have a trust to discharge, which my nature is not
- formed to understand, and, for this reason, the bare fact of there
- being any love between them comes upon me to-night, almost for the first
- time.’
- ‘I am more delighted than I can possibly tell you,’ rejoined Mr Chester
- with the utmost blandness, ‘to find my own impression so confirmed. You
- see the advantage of our having met. We understand each other. We quite
- agree. We have a most complete and thorough explanation, and we know
- what course to take.--Why don’t you taste your tenant’s wine? It’s
- really very good.’
- ‘Pray who,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘have aided Emma, or your son? Who are
- their go-betweens, and agents--do you know?’
- ‘All the good people hereabouts--the neighbourhood in general, I think,’
- returned the other, with his most affable smile. ‘The messenger I sent
- to you to-day, foremost among them all.’
- ‘The idiot? Barnaby?’
- ‘You are surprised? I am glad of that, for I was rather so myself. Yes.
- I wrung that from his mother--a very decent sort of woman--from whom,
- indeed, I chiefly learnt how serious the matter had become, and so
- determined to ride out here to-day, and hold a parley with you on this
- neutral ground.--You’re stouter than you used to be, Haredale, but you
- look extremely well.’
- ‘Our business, I presume, is nearly at an end,’ said Mr Haredale, with
- an expression of impatience he was at no pains to conceal. ‘Trust me, Mr
- Chester, my niece shall change from this time. I will appeal,’ he added
- in a lower tone, ‘to her woman’s heart, her dignity, her pride, her
- duty--’
- ‘I shall do the same by Ned,’ said Mr Chester, restoring some errant
- faggots to their places in the grate with the toe of his boot. ‘If there
- is anything real in this world, it is those amazingly fine feelings and
- those natural obligations which must subsist between father and son. I
- shall put it to him on every ground of moral and religious feeling. I
- shall represent to him that we cannot possibly afford it--that I have
- always looked forward to his marrying well, for a genteel provision for
- myself in the autumn of life--that there are a great many clamorous dogs
- to pay, whose claims are perfectly just and right, and who must be paid
- out of his wife’s fortune. In short, that the very highest and most
- honourable feelings of our nature, with every consideration of filial
- duty and affection, and all that sort of thing, imperatively demand that
- he should run away with an heiress.’
- ‘And break her heart as speedily as possible?’ said Mr Haredale, drawing
- on his glove.
- ‘There Ned will act exactly as he pleases,’ returned the other,
- sipping his wine; ‘that’s entirely his affair. I wouldn’t for the
- world interfere with my son, Haredale, beyond a certain point. The
- relationship between father and son, you know, is positively quite a
- holy kind of bond.--WON’T you let me persuade you to take one glass of
- wine? Well! as you please, as you please,’ he added, helping himself
- again.
- ‘Chester,’ said Mr Haredale, after a short silence, during which he had
- eyed his smiling face from time to time intently, ‘you have the head and
- heart of an evil spirit in all matters of deception.’
- ‘Your health!’ said the other, with a nod. ‘But I have interrupted
- you--’
- ‘If now,’ pursued Mr Haredale, ‘we should find it difficult to separate
- these young people, and break off their intercourse--if, for instance,
- you find it difficult on your side, what course do you intend to take?’
- ‘Nothing plainer, my good fellow, nothing easier,’ returned the other,
- shrugging his shoulders and stretching himself more comfortably before
- the fire. ‘I shall then exert those powers on which you flatter me so
- highly--though, upon my word, I don’t deserve your compliments to their
- full extent--and resort to a few little trivial subterfuges for rousing
- jealousy and resentment. You see?’
- ‘In short, justifying the means by the end, we are, as a last resource
- for tearing them asunder, to resort to treachery and--and lying,’ said
- Mr Haredale.
- ‘Oh dear no. Fie, fie!’ returned the other, relishing a pinch of snuff
- extremely. ‘Not lying. Only a little management, a little diplomacy, a
- little--intriguing, that’s the word.’
- ‘I wish,’ said Mr Haredale, moving to and fro, and stopping, and moving
- on again, like one who was ill at ease, ‘that this could have been
- foreseen or prevented. But as it has gone so far, and it is necessary
- for us to act, it is of no use shrinking or regretting. Well! I shall
- second your endeavours to the utmost of my power. There is one topic in
- the whole wide range of human thoughts on which we both agree. We shall
- act in concert, but apart. There will be no need, I hope, for us to meet
- again.’
- ‘Are you going?’ said Mr Chester, rising with a graceful indolence. ‘Let
- me light you down the stairs.’
- ‘Pray keep your seat,’ returned the other drily, ‘I know the way.’ So,
- waving his hand slightly, and putting on his hat as he turned upon his
- heel, he went clanking out as he had come, shut the door behind him, and
- tramped down the echoing stairs.
- ‘Pah! A very coarse animal, indeed!’ said Mr Chester, composing himself
- in the easy-chair again. ‘A rough brute. Quite a human badger!’
- John Willet and his friends, who had been listening intently for the
- clash of swords, or firing of pistols in the great room, and had indeed
- settled the order in which they should rush in when summoned--in which
- procession old John had carefully arranged that he should bring up the
- rear--were very much astonished to see Mr Haredale come down without a
- scratch, call for his horse, and ride away thoughtfully at a footpace.
- After some consideration, it was decided that he had left the gentleman
- above, for dead, and had adopted this stratagem to divert suspicion or
- pursuit.
- As this conclusion involved the necessity of their going upstairs
- forthwith, they were about to ascend in the order they had agreed
- upon, when a smart ringing at the guest’s bell, as if he had pulled it
- vigorously, overthrew all their speculations, and involved them in
- great uncertainty and doubt. At length Mr Willet agreed to go upstairs
- himself, escorted by Hugh and Barnaby, as the strongest and stoutest
- fellows on the premises, who were to make their appearance under
- pretence of clearing away the glasses.
- Under this protection, the brave and broad-faced John boldly entered
- the room, half a foot in advance, and received an order for a boot-jack
- without trembling. But when it was brought, and he leant his sturdy
- shoulder to the guest, Mr Willet was observed to look very hard into his
- boots as he pulled them off, and, by opening his eyes much wider than
- usual, to appear to express some surprise and disappointment at not
- finding them full of blood. He took occasion, too, to examine the
- gentleman as closely as he could, expecting to discover sundry loopholes
- in his person, pierced by his adversary’s sword. Finding none,
- however, and observing in course of time that his guest was as cool and
- unruffled, both in his dress and temper, as he had been all day, old
- John at last heaved a deep sigh, and began to think no duel had been
- fought that night.
- ‘And now, Willet,’ said Mr Chester, ‘if the room’s well aired, I’ll try
- the merits of that famous bed.’
- ‘The room, sir,’ returned John, taking up a candle, and nudging Barnaby
- and Hugh to accompany them, in case the gentleman should unexpectedly
- drop down faint or dead from some internal wound, ‘the room’s as warm as
- any toast in a tankard. Barnaby, take you that other candle, and go on
- before. Hugh! Follow up, sir, with the easy-chair.’
- In this order--and still, in his earnest inspection, holding his candle
- very close to the guest; now making him feel extremely warm about the
- legs, now threatening to set his wig on fire, and constantly begging his
- pardon with great awkwardness and embarrassment--John led the party to
- the best bedroom, which was nearly as large as the chamber from which
- they had come, and held, drawn out near the fire for warmth, a great old
- spectral bedstead, hung with faded brocade, and ornamented, at the top
- of each carved post, with a plume of feathers that had once been white,
- but with dust and age had now grown hearse-like and funereal.
- ‘Good night, my friends,’ said Mr Chester with a sweet smile, seating
- himself, when he had surveyed the room from end to end, in the
- easy-chair which his attendants wheeled before the fire. ‘Good night!
- Barnaby, my good fellow, you say some prayers before you go to bed, I
- hope?’
- Barnaby nodded. ‘He has some nonsense that he calls his prayers, sir,’
- returned old John, officiously. ‘I’m afraid there an’t much good in em.’
- ‘And Hugh?’ said Mr Chester, turning to him.
- ‘Not I,’ he answered. ‘I know his’--pointing to Barnaby--‘they’re well
- enough. He sings ‘em sometimes in the straw. I listen.’
- ‘He’s quite a animal, sir,’ John whispered in his ear with dignity.
- ‘You’ll excuse him, I’m sure. If he has any soul at all, sir, it must be
- such a very small one, that it don’t signify what he does or doesn’t in
- that way. Good night, sir!’
- The guest rejoined ‘God bless you!’ with a fervour that was quite
- affecting; and John, beckoning his guards to go before, bowed himself
- out of the room, and left him to his rest in the Maypole’s ancient bed.
- Chapter 13
- If Joseph Willet, the denounced and proscribed of ‘prentices, had
- happened to be at home when his father’s courtly guest presented himself
- before the Maypole door--that is, if it had not perversely chanced to be
- one of the half-dozen days in the whole year on which he was at liberty
- to absent himself for as many hours without question or reproach--he
- would have contrived, by hook or crook, to dive to the very bottom of Mr
- Chester’s mystery, and to come at his purpose with as much certainty as
- though he had been his confidential adviser. In that fortunate case, the
- lovers would have had quick warning of the ills that threatened them,
- and the aid of various timely and wise suggestions to boot; for all
- Joe’s readiness of thought and action, and all his sympathies and good
- wishes, were enlisted in favour of the young people, and were staunch in
- devotion to their cause. Whether this disposition arose out of his old
- prepossessions in favour of the young lady, whose history had surrounded
- her in his mind, almost from his cradle, with circumstances of unusual
- interest; or from his attachment towards the young gentleman, into
- whose confidence he had, through his shrewdness and alacrity, and the
- rendering of sundry important services as a spy and messenger, almost
- imperceptibly glided; whether they had their origin in either of these
- sources, or in the habit natural to youth, or in the constant badgering
- and worrying of his venerable parent, or in any hidden little love
- affair of his own which gave him something of a fellow-feeling in the
- matter, it is needless to inquire--especially as Joe was out of the way,
- and had no opportunity on that particular occasion of testifying to his
- sentiments either on one side or the other.
- It was, in fact, the twenty-fifth of March, which, as most people
- know to their cost, is, and has been time out of mind, one of those
- unpleasant epochs termed quarter-days. On this twenty-fifth of March,
- it was John Willet’s pride annually to settle, in hard cash, his account
- with a certain vintner and distiller in the city of London; to give into
- whose hands a canvas bag containing its exact amount, and not a penny
- more or less, was the end and object of a journey for Joe, so surely as
- the year and day came round.
- This journey was performed upon an old grey mare, concerning whom John
- had an indistinct set of ideas hovering about him, to the effect that
- she could win a plate or cup if she tried. She never had tried, and
- probably never would now, being some fourteen or fifteen years of age,
- short in wind, long in body, and rather the worse for wear in respect of
- her mane and tail. Notwithstanding these slight defects, John perfectly
- gloried in the animal; and when she was brought round to the door by
- Hugh, actually retired into the bar, and there, in a secret grove of
- lemons, laughed with pride.
- ‘There’s a bit of horseflesh, Hugh!’ said John, when he had recovered
- enough self-command to appear at the door again. ‘There’s a comely
- creature! There’s high mettle! There’s bone!’
- There was bone enough beyond all doubt; and so Hugh seemed to think, as
- he sat sideways in the saddle, lazily doubled up with his chin nearly
- touching his knees; and heedless of the dangling stirrups and loose
- bridle-rein, sauntered up and down on the little green before the door.
- ‘Mind you take good care of her, sir,’ said John, appealing from this
- insensible person to his son and heir, who now appeared, fully equipped
- and ready. ‘Don’t you ride hard.’
- ‘I should be puzzled to do that, I think, father,’ Joe replied, casting
- a disconsolate look at the animal.
- ‘None of your impudence, sir, if you please,’ retorted old John. ‘What
- would you ride, sir? A wild ass or zebra would be too tame for you,
- wouldn’t he, eh sir? You’d like to ride a roaring lion, wouldn’t you,
- sir, eh sir? Hold your tongue, sir.’ When Mr Willet, in his differences
- with his son, had exhausted all the questions that occurred to him, and
- Joe had said nothing at all in answer, he generally wound up by bidding
- him hold his tongue.
- ‘And what does the boy mean,’ added Mr Willet, after he had stared at
- him for a little time, in a species of stupefaction, ‘by cocking his
- hat, to such an extent! Are you going to kill the wintner, sir?’
- ‘No,’ said Joe, tartly; ‘I’m not. Now your mind’s at ease, father.’
- ‘With a milintary air, too!’ said Mr Willet, surveying him from top to
- toe; ‘with a swaggering, fire-eating, biling-water drinking sort of way
- with him! And what do you mean by pulling up the crocuses and snowdrops,
- eh sir?’
- ‘It’s only a little nosegay,’ said Joe, reddening. ‘There’s no harm in
- that, I hope?’
- ‘You’re a boy of business, you are, sir!’ said Mr Willet, disdainfully,
- ‘to go supposing that wintners care for nosegays.’
- ‘I don’t suppose anything of the kind,’ returned Joe. ‘Let them keep
- their red noses for bottles and tankards. These are going to Mr Varden’s
- house.’
- ‘And do you suppose HE minds such things as crocuses?’ demanded John.
- ‘I don’t know, and to say the truth, I don’t care,’ said Joe. ‘Come,
- father, give me the money, and in the name of patience let me go.’
- ‘There it is, sir,’ replied John; ‘and take care of it; and mind you
- don’t make too much haste back, but give the mare a long rest.--Do you
- mind?’
- ‘Ay, I mind,’ returned Joe. ‘She’ll need it, Heaven knows.’
- ‘And don’t you score up too much at the Black Lion,’ said John. ‘Mind
- that too.’
- ‘Then why don’t you let me have some money of my own?’ retorted Joe,
- sorrowfully; ‘why don’t you, father? What do you send me into London
- for, giving me only the right to call for my dinner at the Black Lion,
- which you’re to pay for next time you go, as if I was not to be trusted
- with a few shillings? Why do you use me like this? It’s not right of
- you. You can’t expect me to be quiet under it.’
- ‘Let him have money!’ cried John, in a drowsy reverie. ‘What does he
- call money--guineas? Hasn’t he got money? Over and above the tolls,
- hasn’t he one and sixpence?’
- ‘One and sixpence!’ repeated his son contemptuously.
- ‘Yes, sir,’ returned John, ‘one and sixpence. When I was your age, I
- had never seen so much money, in a heap. A shilling of it is in case
- of accidents--the mare casting a shoe, or the like of that. The other
- sixpence is to spend in the diversions of London; and the diversion
- I recommend is going to the top of the Monument, and sitting there.
- There’s no temptation there, sir--no drink--no young women--no bad
- characters of any sort--nothing but imagination. That’s the way I
- enjoyed myself when I was your age, sir.’
- To this, Joe made no answer, but beckoning Hugh, leaped into the saddle
- and rode away; and a very stalwart, manly horseman he looked, deserving
- a better charger than it was his fortune to bestride. John stood staring
- after him, or rather after the grey mare (for he had no eyes for her
- rider), until man and beast had been out of sight some twenty minutes,
- when he began to think they were gone, and slowly re-entering the house,
- fell into a gentle doze.
- The unfortunate grey mare, who was the agony of Joe’s life, floundered
- along at her own will and pleasure until the Maypole was no longer
- visible, and then, contracting her legs into what in a puppet would have
- been looked upon as a clumsy and awkward imitation of a canter, mended
- her pace all at once, and did it of her own accord. The acquaintance
- with her rider’s usual mode of proceeding, which suggested this
- improvement in hers, impelled her likewise to turn up a bye-way,
- leading--not to London, but through lanes running parallel with the road
- they had come, and passing within a few hundred yards of the Maypole,
- which led finally to an inclosure surrounding a large, old, red-brick
- mansion--the same of which mention was made as the Warren in the
- first chapter of this history. Coming to a dead stop in a little copse
- thereabout, she suffered her rider to dismount with right goodwill, and
- to tie her to the trunk of a tree.
- ‘Stay there, old girl,’ said Joe, ‘and let us see whether there’s any
- little commission for me to-day.’ So saying, he left her to browze upon
- such stunted grass and weeds as happened to grow within the length of
- her tether, and passing through a wicket gate, entered the grounds on
- foot.
- The pathway, after a very few minutes’ walking, brought him close to the
- house, towards which, and especially towards one particular window, he
- directed many covert glances. It was a dreary, silent building, with
- echoing courtyards, desolated turret-chambers, and whole suites of rooms
- shut up and mouldering to ruin.
- The terrace-garden, dark with the shade of overhanging trees, had an air
- of melancholy that was quite oppressive. Great iron gates, disused for
- many years, and red with rust, drooping on their hinges and overgrown
- with long rank grass, seemed as though they tried to sink into the
- ground, and hide their fallen state among the friendly weeds. The
- fantastic monsters on the walls, green with age and damp, and covered
- here and there with moss, looked grim and desolate. There was a sombre
- aspect even on that part of the mansion which was inhabited and kept
- in good repair, that struck the beholder with a sense of sadness; of
- something forlorn and failing, whence cheerfulness was banished. It
- would have been difficult to imagine a bright fire blazing in the dull
- and darkened rooms, or to picture any gaiety of heart or revelry that
- the frowning walls shut in. It seemed a place where such things had
- been, but could be no more--the very ghost of a house, haunting the old
- spot in its old outward form, and that was all.
- Much of this decayed and sombre look was attributable, no doubt, to the
- death of its former master, and the temper of its present occupant;
- but remembering the tale connected with the mansion, it seemed the very
- place for such a deed, and one that might have been its predestined
- theatre years upon years ago. Viewed with reference to this legend, the
- sheet of water where the steward’s body had been found appeared to wear
- a black and sullen character, such as no other pool might own; the bell
- upon the roof that had told the tale of murder to the midnight wind,
- became a very phantom whose voice would raise the listener’s hair on
- end; and every leafless bough that nodded to another, had its stealthy
- whispering of the crime.
- Joe paced up and down the path, sometimes stopping in affected
- contemplation of the building or the prospect, sometimes leaning against
- a tree with an assumed air of idleness and indifference, but always
- keeping an eye upon the window he had singled out at first. After some
- quarter of an hour’s delay, a small white hand was waved to him for an
- instant from this casement, and the young man, with a respectful bow,
- departed; saying under his breath as he crossed his horse again, ‘No
- errand for me to-day!’
- But the air of smartness, the cock of the hat to which John Willet had
- objected, and the spring nosegay, all betokened some little errand
- of his own, having a more interesting object than a vintner or even a
- locksmith. So, indeed, it turned out; for when he had settled with the
- vintner--whose place of business was down in some deep cellars hard by
- Thames Street, and who was as purple-faced an old gentleman as if he
- had all his life supported their arched roof on his head--when he had
- settled the account, and taken the receipt, and declined tasting more
- than three glasses of old sherry, to the unbounded astonishment of the
- purple-faced vintner, who, gimlet in hand, had projected an attack upon
- at least a score of dusty casks, and who stood transfixed, or morally
- gimleted as it were, to his own wall--when he had done all this, and
- disposed besides of a frugal dinner at the Black Lion in Whitechapel;
- spurning the Monument and John’s advice, he turned his steps towards the
- locksmith’s house, attracted by the eyes of blooming Dolly Varden.
- Joe was by no means a sheepish fellow, but, for all that, when he got
- to the corner of the street in which the locksmith lived, he could by no
- means make up his mind to walk straight to the house. First, he resolved
- to stroll up another street for five minutes, then up another street for
- five minutes more, and so on until he had lost full half an hour, when
- he made a bold plunge and found himself with a red face and a beating
- heart in the smoky workshop.
- ‘Joe Willet, or his ghost?’ said Varden, rising from the desk at which
- he was busy with his books, and looking at him under his spectacles.
- ‘Which is it? Joe in the flesh, eh? That’s hearty. And how are all the
- Chigwell company, Joe?’
- ‘Much as usual, sir--they and I agree as well as ever.’
- ‘Well, well!’ said the locksmith. ‘We must be patient, Joe, and bear
- with old folks’ foibles. How’s the mare, Joe? Does she do the four miles
- an hour as easily as ever? Ha, ha, ha! Does she, Joe? Eh!--What have we
- there, Joe--a nosegay!’
- ‘A very poor one, sir--I thought Miss Dolly--’
- ‘No, no,’ said Gabriel, dropping his voice, and shaking his head, ‘not
- Dolly. Give ‘em to her mother, Joe. A great deal better give ‘em to her
- mother. Would you mind giving ‘em to Mrs Varden, Joe?’
- ‘Oh no, sir,’ Joe replied, and endeavouring, but not with the greatest
- possible success, to hide his disappointment. ‘I shall be very glad, I’m
- sure.’
- ‘That’s right,’ said the locksmith, patting him on the back. ‘It don’t
- matter who has ‘em, Joe?’
- ‘Not a bit, sir.’--Dear heart, how the words stuck in his throat!
- ‘Come in,’ said Gabriel. ‘I have just been called to tea. She’s in the
- parlour.’
- ‘She,’ thought Joe. ‘Which of ‘em I wonder--Mrs or Miss?’ The locksmith
- settled the doubt as neatly as if it had been expressed aloud, by
- leading him to the door, and saying, ‘Martha, my dear, here’s young Mr
- Willet.’
- Now, Mrs Varden, regarding the Maypole as a sort of human mantrap,
- or decoy for husbands; viewing its proprietor, and all who aided and
- abetted him, in the light of so many poachers among Christian men; and
- believing, moreover, that the publicans coupled with sinners in Holy
- Writ were veritable licensed victuallers; was far from being favourably
- disposed towards her visitor. Wherefore she was taken faint directly;
- and being duly presented with the crocuses and snowdrops, divined on
- further consideration that they were the occasion of the languor which
- had seized upon her spirits. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t bear the room
- another minute,’ said the good lady, ‘if they remained here. WOULD you
- excuse my putting them out of window?’
- Joe begged she wouldn’t mention it on any account, and smiled feebly as
- he saw them deposited on the sill outside. If anybody could have known
- the pains he had taken to make up that despised and misused bunch of
- flowers!--
- ‘I feel it quite a relief to get rid of them, I assure you,’ said Mrs
- Varden. ‘I’m better already.’ And indeed she did appear to have plucked
- up her spirits.
- Joe expressed his gratitude to Providence for this favourable
- dispensation, and tried to look as if he didn’t wonder where Dolly was.
- ‘You’re sad people at Chigwell, Mr Joseph,’ said Mrs V.
- ‘I hope not, ma’am,’ returned Joe.
- ‘You’re the cruellest and most inconsiderate people in the world,’ said
- Mrs Varden, bridling. ‘I wonder old Mr Willet, having been a married
- man himself, doesn’t know better than to conduct himself as he does. His
- doing it for profit is no excuse. I would rather pay the money twenty
- times over, and have Varden come home like a respectable and sober
- tradesman. If there is one character,’ said Mrs Varden with great
- emphasis, ‘that offends and disgusts me more than another, it is a sot.’
- ‘Come, Martha, my dear,’ said the locksmith cheerily, ‘let us have tea,
- and don’t let us talk about sots. There are none here, and Joe don’t
- want to hear about them, I dare say.’
- At this crisis, Miggs appeared with toast.
- ‘I dare say he does not,’ said Mrs Varden; ‘and I dare say you do not,
- Varden. It’s a very unpleasant subject, I have no doubt, though I
- won’t say it’s personal’--Miggs coughed--‘whatever I may be forced to
- think’--Miggs sneezed expressively. ‘You never will know, Varden, and
- nobody at young Mr Willet’s age--you’ll excuse me, sir--can be expected
- to know, what a woman suffers when she is waiting at home under such
- circumstances. If you don’t believe me, as I know you don’t, here’s
- Miggs, who is only too often a witness of it--ask her.’
- ‘Oh! she were very bad the other night, sir, indeed she were, said
- Miggs. ‘If you hadn’t the sweetness of an angel in you, mim, I don’t
- think you could abear it, I raly don’t.’
- ‘Miggs,’ said Mrs Varden, ‘you’re profane.’
- ‘Begging your pardon, mim,’ returned Miggs, with shrill rapidity, ‘such
- was not my intentions, and such I hope is not my character, though I am
- but a servant.’
- ‘Answering me, Miggs, and providing yourself,’ retorted her mistress,
- looking round with dignity, ‘is one and the same thing. How
- dare you speak of angels in connection with your sinful
- fellow-beings--mere’--said Mrs Varden, glancing at herself in a
- neighbouring mirror, and arranging the ribbon of her cap in a more
- becoming fashion--‘mere worms and grovellers as we are!’
- ‘I did not intend, mim, if you please, to give offence,’ said Miggs,
- confident in the strength of her compliment, and developing strongly in
- the throat as usual, ‘and I did not expect it would be took as such. I
- hope I know my own unworthiness, and that I hate and despise myself and
- all my fellow-creatures as every practicable Christian should.’
- ‘You’ll have the goodness, if you please,’ said Mrs Varden, loftily, ‘to
- step upstairs and see if Dolly has finished dressing, and to tell her
- that the chair that was ordered for her will be here in a minute, and
- that if she keeps it waiting, I shall send it away that instant.--I’m
- sorry to see that you don’t take your tea, Varden, and that you don’t
- take yours, Mr Joseph; though of course it would be foolish of me to
- expect that anything that can be had at home, and in the company of
- females, would please YOU.’
- This pronoun was understood in the plural sense, and included both
- gentlemen, upon both of whom it was rather hard and undeserved, for
- Gabriel had applied himself to the meal with a very promising appetite,
- until it was spoilt by Mrs Varden herself, and Joe had as great a liking
- for the female society of the locksmith’s house--or for a part of it at
- all events--as man could well entertain.
- But he had no opportunity to say anything in his own defence, for at
- that moment Dolly herself appeared, and struck him quite dumb with her
- beauty. Never had Dolly looked so handsome as she did then, in all the
- glow and grace of youth, with all her charms increased a hundredfold by
- a most becoming dress, by a thousand little coquettish ways which nobody
- could assume with a better grace, and all the sparkling expectation of
- that accursed party. It is impossible to tell how Joe hated that party
- wherever it was, and all the other people who were going to it, whoever
- they were.
- And she hardly looked at him--no, hardly looked at him. And when
- the chair was seen through the open door coming blundering into the
- workshop, she actually clapped her hands and seemed glad to go. But Joe
- gave her his arm--there was some comfort in that--and handed her into
- it. To see her seat herself inside, with her laughing eyes brighter
- than diamonds, and her hand--surely she had the prettiest hand in
- the world--on the ledge of the open window, and her little finger
- provokingly and pertly tilted up, as if it wondered why Joe didn’t
- squeeze or kiss it! To think how well one or two of the modest snowdrops
- would have become that delicate bodice, and how they were lying
- neglected outside the parlour window! To see how Miggs looked on with
- a face expressive of knowing how all this loveliness was got up, and
- of being in the secret of every string and pin and hook and eye, and
- of saying it ain’t half as real as you think, and I could look quite as
- well myself if I took the pains! To hear that provoking precious little
- scream when the chair was hoisted on its poles, and to catch that
- transient but not-to-be-forgotten vision of the happy face within--what
- torments and aggravations, and yet what delights were these! The very
- chairmen seemed favoured rivals as they bore her down the street.
- There never was such an alteration in a small room in a small time as in
- that parlour when they went back to finish tea. So dark, so deserted,
- so perfectly disenchanted. It seemed such sheer nonsense to be sitting
- tamely there, when she was at a dance with more lovers than man could
- calculate fluttering about her--with the whole party doting on and
- adoring her, and wanting to marry her. Miggs was hovering about too; and
- the fact of her existence, the mere circumstance of her ever having been
- born, appeared, after Dolly, such an unaccountable practical joke. It
- was impossible to talk. It couldn’t be done. He had nothing left for it
- but to stir his tea round, and round, and round, and ruminate on all the
- fascinations of the locksmith’s lovely daughter.
- Gabriel was dull too. It was a part of the certain uncertainty of Mrs
- Varden’s temper, that when they were in this condition, she should be
- gay and sprightly.
- ‘I need have a cheerful disposition, I am sure,’ said the smiling
- housewife, ‘to preserve any spirits at all; and how I do it I can
- scarcely tell.’
- ‘Ah, mim,’ sighed Miggs, ‘begging your pardon for the interruption,
- there an’t a many like you.’
- ‘Take away, Miggs,’ said Mrs Varden, rising, ‘take away, pray. I know
- I’m a restraint here, and as I wish everybody to enjoy themselves as
- they best can, I feel I had better go.’
- ‘No, no, Martha,’ cried the locksmith. ‘Stop here. I’m sure we shall be
- very sorry to lose you, eh Joe!’ Joe started, and said ‘Certainly.’
- ‘Thank you, Varden, my dear,’ returned his wife; ‘but I know your wishes
- better. Tobacco and beer, or spirits, have much greater attractions than
- any I can boast of, and therefore I shall go and sit upstairs and look
- out of window, my love. Good night, Mr Joseph. I’m very glad to have
- seen you, and I only wish I could have provided something more suitable
- to your taste. Remember me very kindly if you please to old Mr Willet,
- and tell him that whenever he comes here I have a crow to pluck with
- him. Good night!’
- Having uttered these words with great sweetness of manner, the good
- lady dropped a curtsey remarkable for its condescension, and serenely
- withdrew.
- And it was for this Joe had looked forward to the twenty-fifth of March
- for weeks and weeks, and had gathered the flowers with so much care, and
- had cocked his hat, and made himself so smart! This was the end of all
- his bold determination, resolved upon for the hundredth time, to speak
- out to Dolly and tell her how he loved her! To see her for a minute--for
- but a minute--to find her going out to a party and glad to go; to be
- looked upon as a common pipe-smoker, beer-bibber, spirit-guzzler, and
- tosspot! He bade farewell to his friend the locksmith, and hastened to
- take horse at the Black Lion, thinking as he turned towards home, as
- many another Joe has thought before and since, that here was an end to
- all his hopes--that the thing was impossible and never could be--that
- she didn’t care for him--that he was wretched for life--and that the
- only congenial prospect left him, was to go for a soldier or a sailor,
- and get some obliging enemy to knock his brains out as soon as possible.
- Chapter 14
- Joe Willet rode leisurely along in his desponding mood, picturing the
- locksmith’s daughter going down long country-dances, and poussetting
- dreadfully with bold strangers--which was almost too much to bear--when
- he heard the tramp of a horse’s feet behind him, and looking back, saw
- a well-mounted gentleman advancing at a smart canter. As this rider
- passed, he checked his steed, and called him of the Maypole by his name.
- Joe set spurs to the grey mare, and was at his side directly.
- ‘I thought it was you, sir,’ he said, touching his hat. ‘A fair evening,
- sir. Glad to see you out of doors again.’
- The gentleman smiled and nodded. ‘What gay doings have been going on
- to-day, Joe? Is she as pretty as ever? Nay, don’t blush, man.’
- ‘If I coloured at all, Mr Edward,’ said Joe, ‘which I didn’t know I did,
- it was to think I should have been such a fool as ever to have any hope
- of her. She’s as far out of my reach as--as Heaven is.’
- ‘Well, Joe, I hope that’s not altogether beyond it,’ said Edward,
- good-humouredly. ‘Eh?’
- ‘Ah!’ sighed Joe. ‘It’s all very fine talking, sir. Proverbs are easily
- made in cold blood. But it can’t be helped. Are you bound for our house,
- sir?’
- ‘Yes. As I am not quite strong yet, I shall stay there to-night, and
- ride home coolly in the morning.’
- ‘If you’re in no particular hurry,’ said Joe after a short silence, ‘and
- will bear with the pace of this poor jade, I shall be glad to ride on
- with you to the Warren, sir, and hold your horse when you dismount.
- It’ll save you having to walk from the Maypole, there and back again. I
- can spare the time well, sir, for I am too soon.’
- ‘And so am I,’ returned Edward, ‘though I was unconsciously riding fast
- just now, in compliment I suppose to the pace of my thoughts, which were
- travelling post. We will keep together, Joe, willingly, and be as good
- company as may be. And cheer up, cheer up, think of the locksmith’s
- daughter with a stout heart, and you shall win her yet.’
- Joe shook his head; but there was something so cheery in the buoyant
- hopeful manner of this speech, that his spirits rose under its
- influence, and communicated as it would seem some new impulse even to
- the grey mare, who, breaking from her sober amble into a gentle trot,
- emulated the pace of Edward Chester’s horse, and appeared to flatter
- herself that he was doing his very best.
- It was a fine dry night, and the light of a young moon, which was then
- just rising, shed around that peace and tranquillity which gives to
- evening time its most delicious charm. The lengthened shadows of the
- trees, softened as if reflected in still water, threw their carpet on
- the path the travellers pursued, and the light wind stirred yet more
- softly than before, as though it were soothing Nature in her sleep. By
- little and little they ceased talking, and rode on side by side in a
- pleasant silence.
- ‘The Maypole lights are brilliant to-night,’ said Edward, as they rode
- along the lane from which, while the intervening trees were bare of
- leaves, that hostelry was visible.
- ‘Brilliant indeed, sir,’ returned Joe, rising in his stirrups to get
- a better view. ‘Lights in the large room, and a fire glimmering in the
- best bedchamber? Why, what company can this be for, I wonder!’
- ‘Some benighted horseman wending towards London, and deterred from
- going on to-night by the marvellous tales of my friend the highwayman, I
- suppose,’ said Edward.
- ‘He must be a horseman of good quality to have such accommodations. Your
- bed too, sir--!’
- ‘No matter, Joe. Any other room will do for me. But come--there’s nine
- striking. We may push on.’
- They cantered forward at as brisk a pace as Joe’s charger could attain,
- and presently stopped in the little copse where he had left her in the
- morning. Edward dismounted, gave his bridle to his companion, and walked
- with a light step towards the house.
- A female servant was waiting at a side gate in the garden-wall, and
- admitted him without delay. He hurried along the terrace-walk, and
- darted up a flight of broad steps leading into an old and gloomy hall,
- whose walls were ornamented with rusty suits of armour, antlers, weapons
- of the chase, and suchlike garniture. Here he paused, but not long; for
- as he looked round, as if expecting the attendant to have followed, and
- wondering she had not done so, a lovely girl appeared, whose dark hair
- next moment rested on his breast. Almost at the same instant a heavy
- hand was laid upon her arm, Edward felt himself thrust away, and Mr
- Haredale stood between them.
- He regarded the young man sternly without removing his hat; with
- one hand clasped his niece, and with the other, in which he held his
- riding-whip, motioned him towards the door. The young man drew himself
- up, and returned his gaze.
- ‘This is well done of you, sir, to corrupt my servants, and enter my
- house unbidden and in secret, like a thief!’ said Mr Haredale. ‘Leave
- it, sir, and return no more.’
- ‘Miss Haredale’s presence,’ returned the young man, ‘and your
- relationship to her, give you a licence which, if you are a brave man,
- you will not abuse. You have compelled me to this course, and the fault
- is yours--not mine.’
- ‘It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true man,
- sir,’ retorted the other, ‘to tamper with the affections of a weak,
- trusting girl, while you shrink, in your unworthiness, from her guardian
- and protector, and dare not meet the light of day. More than this I will
- not say to you, save that I forbid you this house, and require you to be
- gone.’
- ‘It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true man to
- play the spy,’ said Edward. ‘Your words imply dishonour, and I reject
- them with the scorn they merit.’
- ‘You will find,’ said Mr Haredale, calmly, ‘your trusty go-between in
- waiting at the gate by which you entered. I have played no spy’s part,
- sir. I chanced to see you pass the gate, and followed. You might have
- heard me knocking for admission, had you been less swift of foot,
- or lingered in the garden. Please to withdraw. Your presence here is
- offensive to me and distressful to my niece.’ As he said these words,
- he passed his arm about the waist of the terrified and weeping girl, and
- drew her closer to him; and though the habitual severity of his manner
- was scarcely changed, there was yet apparent in the action an air of
- kindness and sympathy for her distress.
- ‘Mr Haredale,’ said Edward, ‘your arm encircles her on whom I have set
- my every hope and thought, and to purchase one minute’s happiness for
- whom I would gladly lay down my life; this house is the casket that
- holds the precious jewel of my existence. Your niece has plighted her
- faith to me, and I have plighted mine to her. What have I done that
- you should hold me in this light esteem, and give me these discourteous
- words?’
- ‘You have done that, sir,’ answered Mr Haredale, ‘which must be undone.
- You have tied a lover’s-knot here which must be cut asunder. Take good
- heed of what I say. Must. I cancel the bond between ye. I reject you,
- and all of your kith and kin--all the false, hollow, heartless stock.’
- ‘High words, sir,’ said Edward, scornfully.
- ‘Words of purpose and meaning, as you will find,’ replied the other.
- ‘Lay them to heart.’
- ‘Lay you then, these,’ said Edward. ‘Your cold and sullen temper, which
- chills every breast about you, which turns affection into fear, and
- changes duty into dread, has forced us on this secret course, repugnant
- to our nature and our wish, and far more foreign, sir, to us than you.
- I am not a false, a hollow, or a heartless man; the character is yours,
- who poorly venture on these injurious terms, against the truth, and
- under the shelter whereof I reminded you just now. You shall not cancel
- the bond between us. I will not abandon this pursuit. I rely upon your
- niece’s truth and honour, and set your influence at nought. I leave her
- with a confidence in her pure faith, which you will never weaken, and
- with no concern but that I do not leave her in some gentler care.’
- With that, he pressed her cold hand to his lips, and once more
- encountering and returning Mr Haredale’s steady look, withdrew.
- A few words to Joe as he mounted his horse sufficiently explained what
- had passed, and renewed all that young gentleman’s despondency with
- tenfold aggravation. They rode back to the Maypole without exchanging a
- syllable, and arrived at the door with heavy hearts.
- Old John, who had peeped from behind the red curtain as they rode up
- shouting for Hugh, was out directly, and said with great importance as
- he held the young man’s stirrup,
- ‘He’s comfortable in bed--the best bed. A thorough gentleman; the
- smilingest, affablest gentleman I ever had to do with.’
- ‘Who, Willet?’ said Edward carelessly, as he dismounted.
- ‘Your worthy father, sir,’ replied John. ‘Your honourable, venerable
- father.’
- ‘What does he mean?’ said Edward, looking with a mixture of alarm and
- doubt, at Joe.
- ‘What DO you mean?’ said Joe. ‘Don’t you see Mr Edward doesn’t
- understand, father?’
- ‘Why, didn’t you know of it, sir?’ said John, opening his eyes wide.
- ‘How very singular! Bless you, he’s been here ever since noon to-day,
- and Mr Haredale has been having a long talk with him, and hasn’t been
- gone an hour.’
- ‘My father, Willet!’
- ‘Yes, sir, he told me so--a handsome, slim, upright gentleman, in
- green-and-gold. In your old room up yonder, sir. No doubt you can go in,
- sir,’ said John, walking backwards into the road and looking up at the
- window. ‘He hasn’t put out his candles yet, I see.’
- Edward glanced at the window also, and hastily murmuring that he had
- changed his mind--forgotten something--and must return to London,
- mounted his horse again and rode away; leaving the Willets, father and
- son, looking at each other in mute astonishment.
- Chapter 15
- At noon next day, John Willet’s guest sat lingering over his breakfast
- in his own home, surrounded by a variety of comforts, which left the
- Maypole’s highest flight and utmost stretch of accommodation at an
- infinite distance behind, and suggested comparisons very much to the
- disadvantage and disfavour of that venerable tavern.
- In the broad old-fashioned window-seat--as capacious as many modern
- sofas, and cushioned to serve the purpose of a luxurious settee--in the
- broad old-fashioned window-seat of a roomy chamber, Mr Chester lounged,
- very much at his ease, over a well-furnished breakfast-table. He had
- exchanged his riding-coat for a handsome morning-gown, his boots for
- slippers; had been at great pains to atone for the having been obliged
- to make his toilet when he rose without the aid of dressing-case and
- tiring equipage; and, having gradually forgotten through these means the
- discomforts of an indifferent night and an early ride, was in a state of
- perfect complacency, indolence, and satisfaction.
- The situation in which he found himself, indeed, was particularly
- favourable to the growth of these feelings; for, not to mention the lazy
- influence of a late and lonely breakfast, with the additional sedative
- of a newspaper, there was an air of repose about his place of residence
- peculiar to itself, and which hangs about it, even in these times, when
- it is more bustling and busy than it was in days of yore.
- There are, still, worse places than the Temple, on a sultry day,
- for basking in the sun, or resting idly in the shade. There is yet a
- drowsiness in its courts, and a dreamy dulness in its trees and gardens;
- those who pace its lanes and squares may yet hear the echoes of their
- footsteps on the sounding stones, and read upon its gates, in passing
- from the tumult of the Strand or Fleet Street, ‘Who enters here leaves
- noise behind.’ There is still the plash of falling water in fair
- Fountain Court, and there are yet nooks and corners where dun-haunted
- students may look down from their dusty garrets, on a vagrant ray of
- sunlight patching the shade of the tall houses, and seldom troubled
- to reflect a passing stranger’s form. There is yet, in the Temple,
- something of a clerkly monkish atmosphere, which public offices of law
- have not disturbed, and even legal firms have failed to scare away. In
- summer time, its pumps suggest to thirsty idlers, springs cooler, and
- more sparkling, and deeper than other wells; and as they trace the
- spillings of full pitchers on the heated ground, they snuff the
- freshness, and, sighing, cast sad looks towards the Thames, and think of
- baths and boats, and saunter on, despondent.
- It was in a room in Paper Buildings--a row of goodly tenements, shaded
- in front by ancient trees, and looking, at the back, upon the Temple
- Gardens--that this, our idler, lounged; now taking up again the paper
- he had laid down a hundred times; now trifling with the fragments of
- his meal; now pulling forth his golden toothpick, and glancing leisurely
- about the room, or out at window into the trim garden walks, where a few
- early loiterers were already pacing to and fro. Here a pair of lovers
- met to quarrel and make up; there a dark-eyed nursery-maid had better
- eyes for Templars than her charge; on this hand an ancient spinster,
- with her lapdog in a string, regarded both enormities with scornful
- sidelong looks; on that a weazen old gentleman, ogling the nursery-maid,
- looked with like scorn upon the spinster, and wondered she didn’t know
- she was no longer young. Apart from all these, on the river’s margin two
- or three couple of business-talkers walked slowly up and down in earnest
- conversation; and one young man sat thoughtfully on a bench, alone.
- ‘Ned is amazingly patient!’ said Mr Chester, glancing at this last-named
- person as he set down his teacup and plied the golden toothpick,
- ‘immensely patient! He was sitting yonder when I began to dress, and has
- scarcely changed his posture since. A most eccentric dog!’
- As he spoke, the figure rose, and came towards him with a rapid pace.
- ‘Really, as if he had heard me,’ said the father, resuming his newspaper
- with a yawn. ‘Dear Ned!’
- Presently the room-door opened, and the young man entered; to whom his
- father gently waved his hand, and smiled.
- ‘Are you at leisure for a little conversation, sir?’ said Edward.
- ‘Surely, Ned. I am always at leisure. You know my constitution.--Have
- you breakfasted?’
- ‘Three hours ago.’
- ‘What a very early dog!’ cried his father, contemplating him from behind
- the toothpick, with a languid smile.
- ‘The truth is,’ said Edward, bringing a chair forward, and seating
- himself near the table, ‘that I slept but ill last night, and was glad
- to rise. The cause of my uneasiness cannot but be known to you, sir; and
- it is upon that I wish to speak.’
- ‘My dear boy,’ returned his father, ‘confide in me, I beg. But you know
- my constitution--don’t be prosy, Ned.’
- ‘I will be plain, and brief,’ said Edward.
- ‘Don’t say you will, my good fellow,’ returned his father, crossing his
- legs, ‘or you certainly will not. You are going to tell me’--
- ‘Plainly this, then,’ said the son, with an air of great concern, ‘that
- I know where you were last night--from being on the spot, indeed--and
- whom you saw, and what your purpose was.’
- ‘You don’t say so!’ cried his father. ‘I am delighted to hear it. It
- saves us the worry, and terrible wear and tear of a long explanation,
- and is a great relief for both. At the very house! Why didn’t you come
- up? I should have been charmed to see you.’
- ‘I knew that what I had to say would be better said after a night’s
- reflection, when both of us were cool,’ returned the son.
- ‘’Fore Gad, Ned,’ rejoined the father, ‘I was cool enough last night.
- That detestable Maypole! By some infernal contrivance of the builder,
- it holds the wind, and keeps it fresh. You remember the sharp east wind
- that blew so hard five weeks ago? I give you my honour it was rampant
- in that old house last night, though out of doors there was a dead calm.
- But you were saying’--
- ‘I was about to say, Heaven knows how seriously and earnestly, that you
- have made me wretched, sir. Will you hear me gravely for a moment?’
- ‘My dear Ned,’ said his father, ‘I will hear you with the patience of an
- anchorite. Oblige me with the milk.’
- ‘I saw Miss Haredale last night,’ Edward resumed, when he had complied
- with this request; ‘her uncle, in her presence, immediately after your
- interview, and, as of course I know, in consequence of it, forbade
- me the house, and, with circumstances of indignity which are of your
- creation I am sure, commanded me to leave it on the instant.’
- ‘For his manner of doing so, I give you my honour, Ned, I am not
- accountable,’ said his father. ‘That you must excuse. He is a mere boor,
- a log, a brute, with no address in life.--Positively a fly in the jug.
- The first I have seen this year.’
- Edward rose, and paced the room. His imperturbable parent sipped his
- tea.
- ‘Father,’ said the young man, stopping at length before him, ‘we must
- not trifle in this matter. We must not deceive each other, or ourselves.
- Let me pursue the manly open part I wish to take, and do not repel me by
- this unkind indifference.’
- ‘Whether I am indifferent or no,’ returned the other, ‘I leave you, my
- dear boy, to judge. A ride of twenty-five or thirty miles, through miry
- roads--a Maypole dinner--a tete-a-tete with Haredale, which, vanity
- apart, was quite a Valentine and Orson business--a Maypole bed--a
- Maypole landlord, and a Maypole retinue of idiots and centaurs;--whether
- the voluntary endurance of these things looks like indifference, dear
- Ned, or like the excessive anxiety, and devotion, and all that sort of
- thing, of a parent, you shall determine for yourself.’
- ‘I wish you to consider, sir,’ said Edward, ‘in what a cruel situation I
- am placed. Loving Miss Haredale as I do’--
- ‘My dear fellow,’ interrupted his father with a compassionate smile,
- ‘you do nothing of the kind. You don’t know anything about it. There’s
- no such thing, I assure you. Now, do take my word for it. You have good
- sense, Ned,--great good sense. I wonder you should be guilty of such
- amazing absurdities. You really surprise me.’
- ‘I repeat,’ said his son firmly, ‘that I love her. You have interposed
- to part us, and have, to the extent I have just now told you of,
- succeeded. May I induce you, sir, in time, to think more favourably of
- our attachment, or is it your intention and your fixed design to hold us
- asunder if you can?’
- ‘My dear Ned,’ returned his father, taking a pinch of snuff and pushing
- his box towards him, ‘that is my purpose most undoubtedly.’
- ‘The time that has elapsed,’ rejoined his son, ‘since I began to know
- her worth, has flown in such a dream that until now I have hardly once
- paused to reflect upon my true position. What is it? From my childhood
- I have been accustomed to luxury and idleness, and have been bred as
- though my fortune were large, and my expectations almost without a
- limit. The idea of wealth has been familiarised to me from my cradle. I
- have been taught to look upon those means, by which men raise themselves
- to riches and distinction, as being beyond my heeding, and beneath my
- care. I have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit
- for nothing. I find myself at last wholly dependent upon you, with no
- resource but in your favour. In this momentous question of my life we do
- not, and it would seem we never can, agree. I have shrunk instinctively
- alike from those to whom you have urged me to pay court, and from the
- motives of interest and gain which have rendered them in your eyes
- visible objects for my suit. If there never has been thus much
- plain-speaking between us before, sir, the fault has not been mine,
- indeed. If I seem to speak too plainly now, it is, believe me father, in
- the hope that there may be a franker spirit, a worthier reliance, and a
- kinder confidence between us in time to come.’
- ‘My good fellow,’ said his smiling father, ‘you quite affect me. Go
- on, my dear Edward, I beg. But remember your promise. There is great
- earnestness, vast candour, a manifest sincerity in all you say, but I
- fear I observe the faintest indications of a tendency to prose.’
- ‘I am very sorry, sir.’
- ‘I am very sorry, too, Ned, but you know that I cannot fix my mind for
- any long period upon one subject. If you’ll come to the point at once,
- I’ll imagine all that ought to go before, and conclude it said. Oblige
- me with the milk again. Listening, invariably makes me feverish.’
- ‘What I would say then, tends to this,’ said Edward. ‘I cannot bear
- this absolute dependence, sir, even upon you. Time has been lost and
- opportunity thrown away, but I am yet a young man, and may retrieve it.
- Will you give me the means of devoting such abilities and energies as I
- possess, to some worthy pursuit? Will you let me try to make for myself
- an honourable path in life? For any term you please to name--say for
- five years if you will--I will pledge myself to move no further in the
- matter of our difference without your full concurrence. During that
- period, I will endeavour earnestly and patiently, if ever man did, to
- open some prospect for myself, and free you from the burden you fear
- I should become if I married one whose worth and beauty are her chief
- endowments. Will you do this, sir? At the expiration of the term we
- agree upon, let us discuss this subject again. Till then, unless it is
- revived by you, let it never be renewed between us.’
- ‘My dear Ned,’ returned his father, laying down the newspaper at which
- he had been glancing carelessly, and throwing himself back in the
- window-seat, ‘I believe you know how very much I dislike what are called
- family affairs, which are only fit for plebeian Christmas days, and
- have no manner of business with people of our condition. But as you
- are proceeding upon a mistake, Ned--altogether upon a mistake--I will
- conquer my repugnance to entering on such matters, and give you a
- perfectly plain and candid answer, if you will do me the favour to shut
- the door.’
- Edward having obeyed him, he took an elegant little knife from his
- pocket, and paring his nails, continued:
- ‘You have to thank me, Ned, for being of good family; for your mother,
- charming person as she was, and almost broken-hearted, and so forth, as
- she left me, when she was prematurely compelled to become immortal--had
- nothing to boast of in that respect.’
- ‘Her father was at least an eminent lawyer, sir,’ said Edward.
- ‘Quite right, Ned; perfectly so. He stood high at the bar, had a great
- name and great wealth, but having risen from nothing--I have
- always closed my eyes to the circumstance and steadily resisted its
- contemplation, but I fear his father dealt in pork, and that his
- business did once involve cow-heel and sausages--he wished to marry his
- daughter into a good family. He had his heart’s desire, Ned. I was a
- younger son’s younger son, and I married her. We each had our object,
- and gained it. She stepped at once into the politest and best circles,
- and I stepped into a fortune which I assure you was very necessary to my
- comfort--quite indispensable. Now, my good fellow, that fortune is among
- the things that have been. It is gone, Ned, and has been gone--how old
- are you? I always forget.’
- ‘Seven-and-twenty, sir.’
- ‘Are you indeed?’ cried his father, raising his eyelids in a languishing
- surprise. ‘So much! Then I should say, Ned, that as nearly as I
- remember, its skirts vanished from human knowledge, about eighteen or
- nineteen years ago. It was about that time when I came to live in these
- chambers (once your grandfather’s, and bequeathed by that extremely
- respectable person to me), and commenced to live upon an inconsiderable
- annuity and my past reputation.’
- ‘You are jesting with me, sir,’ said Edward.
- ‘Not in the slightest degree, I assure you,’ returned his father with
- great composure. ‘These family topics are so extremely dry, that I am
- sorry to say they don’t admit of any such relief. It is for that reason,
- and because they have an appearance of business, that I dislike them so
- very much. Well! You know the rest. A son, Ned, unless he is old enough
- to be a companion--that is to say, unless he is some two or three and
- twenty--is not the kind of thing to have about one. He is a restraint
- upon his father, his father is a restraint upon him, and they make each
- other mutually uncomfortable. Therefore, until within the last four
- years or so--I have a poor memory for dates, and if I mistake, you will
- correct me in your own mind--you pursued your studies at a distance, and
- picked up a great variety of accomplishments. Occasionally we passed a
- week or two together here, and disconcerted each other as only such near
- relations can. At last you came home. I candidly tell you, my dear boy,
- that if you had been awkward and overgrown, I should have exported you
- to some distant part of the world.’
- ‘I wish with all my soul you had, sir,’ said Edward.
- ‘No you don’t, Ned,’ said his father coolly; ‘you are mistaken, I assure
- you. I found you a handsome, prepossessing, elegant fellow, and I threw
- you into the society I can still command. Having done that, my dear
- fellow, I consider that I have provided for you in life, and rely upon
- your doing something to provide for me in return.’
- ‘I do not understand your meaning, sir.’
- ‘My meaning, Ned, is obvious--I observe another fly in the cream-jug,
- but have the goodness not to take it out as you did the first, for
- their walk when their legs are milky, is extremely ungraceful and
- disagreeable--my meaning is, that you must do as I did; that you must
- marry well and make the most of yourself.’
- ‘A mere fortune-hunter!’ cried the son, indignantly.
- ‘What in the devil’s name, Ned, would you be!’ returned the father. ‘All
- men are fortune-hunters, are they not? The law, the church, the court,
- the camp--see how they are all crowded with fortune-hunters, jostling
- each other in the pursuit. The stock-exchange, the pulpit, the
- counting-house, the royal drawing-room, the senate,--what but
- fortune-hunters are they filled with? A fortune-hunter! Yes. You
- ARE one; and you would be nothing else, my dear Ned, if you were
- the greatest courtier, lawyer, legislator, prelate, or merchant, in
- existence. If you are squeamish and moral, Ned, console yourself with
- the reflection that at the very worst your fortune-hunting can make but
- one person miserable or unhappy. How many people do you suppose these
- other kinds of huntsmen crush in following their sport--hundreds at a
- step? Or thousands?’
- The young man leant his head upon his hand, and made no answer.
- ‘I am quite charmed,’ said the father rising, and walking slowly to and
- fro--stopping now and then to glance at himself in the mirror, or survey
- a picture through his glass, with the air of a connoisseur, ‘that we
- have had this conversation, Ned, unpromising as it was. It establishes
- a confidence between us which is quite delightful, and was certainly
- necessary, though how you can ever have mistaken our positions and
- designs, I confess I cannot understand. I conceived, until I found your
- fancy for this girl, that all these points were tacitly agreed upon
- between us.’
- ‘I knew you were embarrassed, sir,’ returned the son, raising his head
- for a moment, and then falling into his former attitude, ‘but I had no
- idea we were the beggared wretches you describe. How could I suppose it,
- bred as I have been; witnessing the life you have always led; and the
- appearance you have always made?’
- ‘My dear child,’ said the father--‘for you really talk so like a child
- that I must call you one--you were bred upon a careful principle;
- the very manner of your education, I assure you, maintained my credit
- surprisingly. As to the life I lead, I must lead it, Ned. I must have
- these little refinements about me. I have always been used to them, and
- I cannot exist without them. They must surround me, you observe, and
- therefore they are here. With regard to our circumstances, Ned, you
- may set your mind at rest upon that score. They are desperate. Your own
- appearance is by no means despicable, and our joint pocket-money alone
- devours our income. That’s the truth.’
- ‘Why have I never known this before? Why have you encouraged me, sir, to
- an expenditure and mode of life to which we have no right or title?’
- ‘My good fellow,’ returned his father more compassionately than ever,
- ‘if you made no appearance, how could you possibly succeed in the
- pursuit for which I destined you? As to our mode of life, every man
- has a right to live in the best way he can; and to make himself as
- comfortable as he can, or he is an unnatural scoundrel. Our debts, I
- grant, are very great, and therefore it the more behoves you, as a young
- man of principle and honour, to pay them off as speedily as possible.’
- ‘The villain’s part,’ muttered Edward, ‘that I have unconsciously
- played! I to win the heart of Emma Haredale! I would, for her sake, I
- had died first!’
- ‘I am glad you see, Ned,’ returned his father, ‘how perfectly
- self-evident it is, that nothing can be done in that quarter. But apart
- from this, and the necessity of your speedily bestowing yourself on
- another (as you know you could to-morrow, if you chose), I wish you’d
- look upon it pleasantly. In a religious point of view alone, how
- could you ever think of uniting yourself to a Catholic, unless she was
- amazingly rich? You ought to be so very Protestant, coming of such a
- Protestant family as you do. Let us be moral, Ned, or we are nothing.
- Even if one could set that objection aside, which is impossible, we come
- to another which is quite conclusive. The very idea of marrying a girl
- whose father was killed, like meat! Good God, Ned, how disagreeable!
- Consider the impossibility of having any respect for your father-in-law
- under such unpleasant circumstances--think of his having been “viewed”
- by jurors, and “sat upon” by coroners, and of his very doubtful position
- in the family ever afterwards. It seems to me such an indelicate sort
- of thing that I really think the girl ought to have been put to death by
- the state to prevent its happening. But I tease you perhaps. You would
- rather be alone? My dear Ned, most willingly. God bless you. I shall
- be going out presently, but we shall meet to-night, or if not to-night,
- certainly to-morrow. Take care of yourself in the mean time, for both
- our sakes. You are a person of great consequence to me, Ned--of vast
- consequence indeed. God bless you!’
- With these words, the father, who had been arranging his cravat in
- the glass, while he uttered them in a disconnected careless manner,
- withdrew, humming a tune as he went. The son, who had appeared so lost
- in thought as not to hear or understand them, remained quite still and
- silent. After the lapse of half an hour or so, the elder Chester, gaily
- dressed, went out. The younger still sat with his head resting on his
- hands, in what appeared to be a kind of stupor.
- Chapter 16
- A series of pictures representing the streets of London in the night,
- even at the comparatively recent date of this tale, would present to the
- eye something so very different in character from the reality which is
- witnessed in these times, that it would be difficult for the beholder to
- recognise his most familiar walks in the altered aspect of little more
- than half a century ago.
- They were, one and all, from the broadest and best to the narrowest and
- least frequented, very dark. The oil and cotton lamps, though regularly
- trimmed twice or thrice in the long winter nights, burnt feebly at the
- best; and at a late hour, when they were unassisted by the lamps and
- candles in the shops, cast but a narrow track of doubtful light upon the
- footway, leaving the projecting doors and house-fronts in the deepest
- gloom. Many of the courts and lanes were left in total darkness; those
- of the meaner sort, where one glimmering light twinkled for a score of
- houses, being favoured in no slight degree. Even in these places, the
- inhabitants had often good reason for extinguishing their lamp as soon
- as it was lighted; and the watch being utterly inefficient and powerless
- to prevent them, they did so at their pleasure. Thus, in the lightest
- thoroughfares, there was at every turn some obscure and dangerous spot
- whither a thief might fly or shelter, and few would care to follow; and
- the city being belted round by fields, green lanes, waste grounds, and
- lonely roads, dividing it at that time from the suburbs that have joined
- it since, escape, even where the pursuit was hot, was rendered easy.
- It is no wonder that with these favouring circumstances in full and
- constant operation, street robberies, often accompanied by cruel wounds,
- and not unfrequently by loss of life, should have been of nightly
- occurrence in the very heart of London, or that quiet folks should have
- had great dread of traversing its streets after the shops were closed.
- It was not unusual for those who wended home alone at midnight, to
- keep the middle of the road, the better to guard against surprise from
- lurking footpads; few would venture to repair at a late hour to Kentish
- Town or Hampstead, or even to Kensington or Chelsea, unarmed and
- unattended; while he who had been loudest and most valiant at the
- supper-table or the tavern, and had but a mile or so to go, was glad to
- fee a link-boy to escort him home.
- There were many other characteristics--not quite so disagreeable--about
- the thoroughfares of London then, with which they had been long
- familiar. Some of the shops, especially those to the eastward of Temple
- Bar, still adhered to the old practice of hanging out a sign; and the
- creaking and swinging of these boards in their iron frames on windy
- nights, formed a strange and mournful concert for the ears of those
- who lay awake in bed or hurried through the streets. Long stands of
- hackney-chairs and groups of chairmen, compared with whom the coachmen
- of our day are gentle and polite, obstructed the way and filled the
- air with clamour; night-cellars, indicated by a little stream of light
- crossing the pavement, and stretching out half-way into the road, and
- by the stifled roar of voices from below, yawned for the reception and
- entertainment of the most abandoned of both sexes; under every shed and
- bulk small groups of link-boys gamed away the earnings of the day; or
- one more weary than the rest, gave way to sleep, and let the fragment of
- his torch fall hissing on the puddled ground.
- Then there was the watch with staff and lantern crying the hour, and
- the kind of weather; and those who woke up at his voice and turned them
- round in bed, were glad to hear it rained, or snowed, or blew, or froze,
- for very comfort’s sake. The solitary passenger was startled by the
- chairmen’s cry of ‘By your leave there!’ as two came trotting past
- him with their empty vehicle--carried backwards to show its being
- disengaged--and hurried to the nearest stand. Many a private chair,
- too, inclosing some fine lady, monstrously hooped and furbelowed, and
- preceded by running-footmen bearing flambeaux--for which extinguishers
- are yet suspended before the doors of a few houses of the better
- sort--made the way gay and light as it danced along, and darker and more
- dismal when it had passed. It was not unusual for these running gentry,
- who carried it with a very high hand, to quarrel in the servants’ hall
- while waiting for their masters and mistresses; and, falling to blows
- either there or in the street without, to strew the place of skirmish
- with hair-powder, fragments of bag-wigs, and scattered nosegays. Gaming,
- the vice which ran so high among all classes (the fashion being of
- course set by the upper), was generally the cause of these disputes;
- for cards and dice were as openly used, and worked as much mischief, and
- yielded as much excitement below stairs, as above. While incidents like
- these, arising out of drums and masquerades and parties at quadrille,
- were passing at the west end of the town, heavy stagecoaches and scarce
- heavier waggons were lumbering slowly towards the city, the coachmen,
- guard, and passengers, armed to the teeth, and the coach--a day or so
- perhaps behind its time, but that was nothing--despoiled by highwaymen;
- who made no scruple to attack, alone and single-handed, a whole caravan
- of goods and men, and sometimes shot a passenger or two, and were
- sometimes shot themselves, as the case might be. On the morrow, rumours
- of this new act of daring on the road yielded matter for a few hours’
- conversation through the town, and a Public Progress of some fine
- gentleman (half-drunk) to Tyburn, dressed in the newest fashion, and
- damning the ordinary with unspeakable gallantry and grace, furnished to
- the populace, at once a pleasant excitement and a wholesome and profound
- example.
- Among all the dangerous characters who, in such a state of society,
- prowled and skulked in the metropolis at night, there was one man from
- whom many as uncouth and fierce as he, shrunk with an involuntary dread.
- Who he was, or whence he came, was a question often asked, but which
- none could answer. His name was unknown, he had never been seen until
- within about eight days or thereabouts, and was equally a stranger to
- the old ruffians, upon whose haunts he ventured fearlessly, as to the
- young. He could be no spy, for he never removed his slouched hat to look
- about him, entered into conversation with no man, heeded nothing that
- passed, listened to no discourse, regarded nobody that came or went.
- But so surely as the dead of night set in, so surely this man was in the
- midst of the loose concourse in the night-cellar where outcasts of every
- grade resorted; and there he sat till morning.
- He was not only a spectre at their licentious feasts; a something in the
- midst of their revelry and riot that chilled and haunted them; but out
- of doors he was the same. Directly it was dark, he was abroad--never in
- company with any one, but always alone; never lingering or loitering,
- but always walking swiftly; and looking (so they said who had seen him)
- over his shoulder from time to time, and as he did so quickening his
- pace. In the fields, the lanes, the roads, in all quarters of the
- town--east, west, north, and south--that man was seen gliding on like a
- shadow. He was always hurrying away. Those who encountered him, saw him
- steal past, caught sight of the backward glance, and so lost him in the
- darkness.
- This constant restlessness, and flitting to and fro, gave rise to
- strange stories. He was seen in such distant and remote places, at times
- so nearly tallying with each other, that some doubted whether there were
- not two of them, or more--some, whether he had not unearthly means of
- travelling from spot to spot. The footpad hiding in a ditch had marked
- him passing like a ghost along its brink; the vagrant had met him on the
- dark high-road; the beggar had seen him pause upon the bridge to look
- down at the water, and then sweep on again; they who dealt in bodies
- with the surgeons could swear he slept in churchyards, and that they
- had beheld him glide away among the tombs on their approach. And as they
- told these stories to each other, one who had looked about him would
- pull his neighbour by the sleeve, and there he would be among them.
- At last, one man--he was one of those whose commerce lay among the
- graves--resolved to question this strange companion. Next night, when
- he had eat his poor meal voraciously (he was accustomed to do that, they
- had observed, as though he had no other in the day), this fellow sat
- down at his elbow.
- ‘A black night, master!’
- ‘It is a black night.’
- ‘Blacker than last, though that was pitchy too. Didn’t I pass you near
- the turnpike in the Oxford Road?’
- ‘It’s like you may. I don’t know.’
- ‘Come, come, master,’ cried the fellow, urged on by the looks of his
- comrades, and slapping him on the shoulder; ‘be more companionable and
- communicative. Be more the gentleman in this good company. There are
- tales among us that you have sold yourself to the devil, and I know not
- what.’
- ‘We all have, have we not?’ returned the stranger, looking up. ‘If we
- were fewer in number, perhaps he would give better wages.’
- ‘It goes rather hard with you, indeed,’ said the fellow, as the stranger
- disclosed his haggard unwashed face, and torn clothes. ‘What of that? Be
- merry, master. A stave of a roaring song now’--
- ‘Sing you, if you desire to hear one,’ replied the other, shaking him
- roughly off; ‘and don’t touch me if you’re a prudent man; I carry
- arms which go off easily--they have done so, before now--and make it
- dangerous for strangers who don’t know the trick of them, to lay hands
- upon me.’
- ‘Do you threaten?’ said the fellow.
- ‘Yes,’ returned the other, rising and turning upon him, and looking
- fiercely round as if in apprehension of a general attack.
- His voice, and look, and bearing--all expressive of the wildest
- recklessness and desperation--daunted while they repelled the
- bystanders. Although in a very different sphere of action now, they were
- not without much of the effect they had wrought at the Maypole Inn.
- ‘I am what you all are, and live as you all do,’ said the man sternly,
- after a short silence. ‘I am in hiding here like the rest, and if we
- were surprised would perhaps do my part with the best of ye. If it’s my
- humour to be left to myself, let me have it. Otherwise,’--and here
- he swore a tremendous oath--‘there’ll be mischief done in this place,
- though there ARE odds of a score against me.’
- A low murmur, having its origin perhaps in a dread of the man and the
- mystery that surrounded him, or perhaps in a sincere opinion on the part
- of some of those present, that it would be an inconvenient precedent to
- meddle too curiously with a gentleman’s private affairs if he saw reason
- to conceal them, warned the fellow who had occasioned this discussion
- that he had best pursue it no further. After a short time the strange
- man lay down upon a bench to sleep, and when they thought of him again,
- they found he was gone.
- Next night, as soon as it was dark, he was abroad again and traversing
- the streets; he was before the locksmith’s house more than once, but
- the family were out, and it was close shut. This night he crossed London
- Bridge and passed into Southwark. As he glided down a bye street, a
- woman with a little basket on her arm, turned into it at the other end.
- Directly he observed her, he sought the shelter of an archway, and
- stood aside until she had passed. Then he emerged cautiously from his
- hiding-place, and followed.
- She went into several shops to purchase various kinds of household
- necessaries, and round every place at which she stopped he hovered like
- her evil spirit; following her when she reappeared. It was nigh eleven
- o’clock, and the passengers in the streets were thinning fast, when she
- turned, doubtless to go home. The phantom still followed her.
- She turned into the same bye street in which he had seen her first,
- which, being free from shops, and narrow, was extremely dark. She
- quickened her pace here, as though distrustful of being stopped, and
- robbed of such trifling property as she carried with her. He crept along
- on the other side of the road. Had she been gifted with the speed of
- wind, it seemed as if his terrible shadow would have tracked her down.
- At length the widow--for she it was--reached her own door, and, panting
- for breath, paused to take the key from her basket. In a flush and glow,
- with the haste she had made, and the pleasure of being safe at home,
- she stooped to draw it out, when, raising her head, she saw him standing
- silently beside her: the apparition of a dream.
- His hand was on her mouth, but that was needless, for her tongue clove
- to its roof, and her power of utterance was gone. ‘I have been looking
- for you many nights. Is the house empty? Answer me. Is any one inside?’
- She could only answer by a rattle in her throat.
- ‘Make me a sign.’
- She seemed to indicate that there was no one there. He took the key,
- unlocked the door, carried her in, and secured it carefully behind them.
- Chapter 17
- It was a chilly night, and the fire in the widow’s parlour had burnt
- low. Her strange companion placed her in a chair, and stooping down
- before the half-extinguished ashes, raked them together and fanned them
- with his hat. From time to time he glanced at her over his shoulder, as
- though to assure himself of her remaining quiet and making no effort to
- depart; and that done, busied himself about the fire again.
- It was not without reason that he took these pains, for his dress was
- dank and drenched with wet, his jaws rattled with cold, and he shivered
- from head to foot. It had rained hard during the previous night and for
- some hours in the morning, but since noon it had been fine. Wheresoever
- he had passed the hours of darkness, his condition sufficiently
- betokened that many of them had been spent beneath the open sky.
- Besmeared with mire; his saturated clothes clinging with a damp embrace
- about his limbs; his beard unshaven, his face unwashed, his meagre
- cheeks worn into deep hollows,--a more miserable wretch could hardly be,
- than this man who now cowered down upon the widow’s hearth, and watched
- the struggling flame with bloodshot eyes.
- She had covered her face with her hands, fearing, as it seemed, to look
- towards him. So they remained for some short time in silence. Glancing
- round again, he asked at length:
- ‘Is this your house?’
- ‘It is. Why, in the name of Heaven, do you darken it?’
- ‘Give me meat and drink,’ he answered sullenly, ‘or I dare do more than
- that. The very marrow in my bones is cold, with wet and hunger. I must
- have warmth and food, and I will have them here.’
- ‘You were the robber on the Chigwell road.’
- ‘I was.’
- ‘And nearly a murderer then.’
- ‘The will was not wanting. There was one came upon me and raised the
- hue-and-cry, that it would have gone hard with, but for his nimbleness.
- I made a thrust at him.’
- ‘You thrust your sword at HIM!’ cried the widow, looking upwards. ‘You
- hear this man! you hear and saw!’
- He looked at her, as, with her head thrown back, and her hands tight
- clenched together, she uttered these words in an agony of appeal. Then,
- starting to his feet as she had done, he advanced towards her.
- ‘Beware!’ she cried in a suppressed voice, whose firmness stopped him
- midway. ‘Do not so much as touch me with a finger, or you are lost; body
- and soul, you are lost.’
- ‘Hear me,’ he replied, menacing her with his hand. ‘I, that in the form
- of a man live the life of a hunted beast; that in the body am a spirit,
- a ghost upon the earth, a thing from which all creatures shrink, save
- those curst beings of another world, who will not leave me;--I am, in my
- desperation of this night, past all fear but that of the hell in which I
- exist from day to day. Give the alarm, cry out, refuse to shelter me. I
- will not hurt you. But I will not be taken alive; and so surely as you
- threaten me above your breath, I fall a dead man on this floor. The
- blood with which I sprinkle it, be on you and yours, in the name of the
- Evil Spirit that tempts men to their ruin!’
- As he spoke, he took a pistol from his breast, and firmly clutched it in
- his hand.
- ‘Remove this man from me, good Heaven!’ cried the widow. ‘In thy grace
- and mercy, give him one minute’s penitence, and strike him dead!’
- ‘It has no such purpose,’ he said, confronting her. ‘It is deaf. Give me
- to eat and drink, lest I do that it cannot help my doing, and will not
- do for you.’
- ‘Will you leave me, if I do thus much? Will you leave me and return no
- more?’
- ‘I will promise nothing,’ he rejoined, seating himself at the table,
- ‘nothing but this--I will execute my threat if you betray me.’
- She rose at length, and going to a closet or pantry in the room, brought
- out some fragments of cold meat and bread and put them on the table. He
- asked for brandy, and for water. These she produced likewise; and he ate
- and drank with the voracity of a famished hound. All the time he was so
- engaged she kept at the uttermost distance of the chamber, and sat there
- shuddering, but with her face towards him. She never turned her back
- upon him once; and although when she passed him (as she was obliged to
- do in going to and from the cupboard) she gathered the skirts of her
- garment about her, as if even its touching his by chance were horrible
- to think of, still, in the midst of all this dread and terror, she kept
- her face towards his own, and watched his every movement.
- His repast ended--if that can be called one, which was a mere ravenous
- satisfying of the calls of hunger--he moved his chair towards the
- fire again, and warming himself before the blaze which had now sprung
- brightly up, accosted her once more.
- ‘I am an outcast, to whom a roof above his head is often an uncommon
- luxury, and the food a beggar would reject is delicate fare. You live
- here at your ease. Do you live alone?’
- ‘I do not,’ she made answer with an effort.
- ‘Who dwells here besides?’
- ‘One--it is no matter who. You had best begone, or he may find you here.
- Why do you linger?’
- ‘For warmth,’ he replied, spreading out his hands before the fire. ‘For
- warmth. You are rich, perhaps?’
- ‘Very,’ she said faintly. ‘Very rich. No doubt I am very rich.’
- ‘At least you are not penniless. You have some money. You were making
- purchases to-night.’
- ‘I have a little left. It is but a few shillings.’
- ‘Give me your purse. You had it in your hand at the door. Give it to
- me.’
- She stepped to the table and laid it down. He reached across, took it
- up, and told the contents into his hand. As he was counting them, she
- listened for a moment, and sprung towards him.
- ‘Take what there is, take all, take more if more were there, but go
- before it is too late. I have heard a wayward step without, I know full
- well. It will return directly. Begone.’
- ‘What do you mean?’
- ‘Do not stop to ask. I will not answer. Much as I dread to touch you, I
- would drag you to the door if I possessed the strength, rather than you
- should lose an instant. Miserable wretch! fly from this place.’
- ‘If there are spies without, I am safer here,’ replied the man, standing
- aghast. ‘I will remain here, and will not fly till the danger is past.’
- ‘It is too late!’ cried the widow, who had listened for the step, and
- not to him. ‘Hark to that foot upon the ground. Do you tremble to hear
- it! It is my son, my idiot son!’
- As she said this wildly, there came a heavy knocking at the door. He
- looked at her, and she at him.
- ‘Let him come in,’ said the man, hoarsely. ‘I fear him less than the
- dark, houseless night. He knocks again. Let him come in!’
- ‘The dread of this hour,’ returned the widow, ‘has been upon me all my
- life, and I will not. Evil will fall upon him, if you stand eye to eye.
- My blighted boy! Oh! all good angels who know the truth--hear a poor
- mother’s prayer, and spare my boy from knowledge of this man!’
- ‘He rattles at the shutters!’ cried the man. ‘He calls you. That voice
- and cry! It was he who grappled with me in the road. Was it he?’
- She had sunk upon her knees, and so knelt down, moving her lips, but
- uttering no sound. As he gazed upon her, uncertain what to do or where
- to turn, the shutters flew open. He had barely time to catch a knife
- from the table, sheathe it in the loose sleeve of his coat, hide in the
- closet, and do all with the lightning’s speed, when Barnaby tapped at
- the bare glass, and raised the sash exultingly.
- ‘Why, who can keep out Grip and me!’ he cried, thrusting in his head,
- and staring round the room. ‘Are you there, mother? How long you keep us
- from the fire and light.’
- She stammered some excuse and tendered him her hand. But Barnaby sprung
- lightly in without assistance, and putting his arms about her neck,
- kissed her a hundred times.
- ‘We have been afield, mother--leaping ditches, scrambling through
- hedges, running down steep banks, up and away, and hurrying on. The wind
- has been blowing, and the rushes and young plants bowing and bending to
- it, lest it should do them harm, the cowards--and Grip--ha ha ha!--brave
- Grip, who cares for nothing, and when the wind rolls him over in the
- dust, turns manfully to bite it--Grip, bold Grip, has quarrelled with
- every little bowing twig--thinking, he told me, that it mocked him--and
- has worried it like a bulldog. Ha ha ha!’
- The raven, in his little basket at his master’s back, hearing this
- frequent mention of his name in a tone of exultation, expressed his
- sympathy by crowing like a cock, and afterwards running over his various
- phrases of speech with such rapidity, and in so many varieties of
- hoarseness, that they sounded like the murmurs of a crowd of people.
- ‘He takes such care of me besides!’ said Barnaby. ‘Such care, mother! He
- watches all the time I sleep, and when I shut my eyes and make-believe
- to slumber, he practises new learning softly; but he keeps his eye on
- me the while, and if he sees me laugh, though never so little, stops
- directly. He won’t surprise me till he’s perfect.’
- The raven crowed again in a rapturous manner which plainly said, ‘Those
- are certainly some of my characteristics, and I glory in them.’ In the
- meantime, Barnaby closed the window and secured it, and coming to the
- fireplace, prepared to sit down with his face to the closet. But
- his mother prevented this, by hastily taking that side herself, and
- motioning him towards the other.
- ‘How pale you are to-night!’ said Barnaby, leaning on his stick. ‘We
- have been cruel, Grip, and made her anxious!’
- Anxious in good truth, and sick at heart! The listener held the door
- of his hiding-place open with his hand, and closely watched her son.
- Grip--alive to everything his master was unconscious of--had his head
- out of the basket, and in return was watching him intently with his
- glistening eye.
- ‘He flaps his wings,’ said Barnaby, turning almost quickly enough to
- catch the retreating form and closing door, ‘as if there were strangers
- here, but Grip is wiser than to fancy that. Jump then!’
- Accepting this invitation with a dignity peculiar to himself, the bird
- hopped up on his master’s shoulder, from that to his extended hand, and
- so to the ground. Barnaby unstrapping the basket and putting it down in
- a corner with the lid open, Grip’s first care was to shut it down with
- all possible despatch, and then to stand upon it. Believing, no doubt,
- that he had now rendered it utterly impossible, and beyond the power of
- mortal man, to shut him up in it any more, he drew a great many corks in
- triumph, and uttered a corresponding number of hurrahs.
- ‘Mother!’ said Barnaby, laying aside his hat and stick, and returning
- to the chair from which he had risen, ‘I’ll tell you where we have been
- to-day, and what we have been doing,--shall I?’
- She took his hand in hers, and holding it, nodded the word she could not
- speak.
- ‘You mustn’t tell,’ said Barnaby, holding up his finger, ‘for it’s a
- secret, mind, and only known to me, and Grip, and Hugh. We had the dog
- with us, but he’s not like Grip, clever as he is, and doesn’t guess it
- yet, I’ll wager.--Why do you look behind me so?’
- ‘Did I?’ she answered faintly. ‘I didn’t know I did. Come nearer me.’
- ‘You are frightened!’ said Barnaby, changing colour. ‘Mother--you don’t
- see’--
- ‘See what?’
- ‘There’s--there’s none of this about, is there?’ he answered in a
- whisper, drawing closer to her and clasping the mark upon his wrist.
- ‘I am afraid there is, somewhere. You make my hair stand on end, and my
- flesh creep. Why do you look like that? Is it in the room as I have seen
- it in my dreams, dashing the ceiling and the walls with red? Tell me. Is
- it?’
- He fell into a shivering fit as he put the question, and shutting out
- the light with his hands, sat shaking in every limb until it had passed
- away. After a time, he raised his head and looked about him.
- ‘Is it gone?’
- ‘There has been nothing here,’ rejoined his mother, soothing him.
- ‘Nothing indeed, dear Barnaby. Look! You see there are but you and me.’
- He gazed at her vacantly, and, becoming reassured by degrees, burst into
- a wild laugh.
- ‘But let us see,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Were we talking? Was it you
- and me? Where have we been?’
- ‘Nowhere but here.’
- ‘Aye, but Hugh, and I,’ said Barnaby,--‘that’s it. Maypole Hugh, and
- I, you know, and Grip--we have been lying in the forest, and among the
- trees by the road side, with a dark lantern after night came on, and the
- dog in a noose ready to slip him when the man came by.’
- ‘What man?’
- ‘The robber; him that the stars winked at. We have waited for him
- after dark these many nights, and we shall have him. I’d know him in a
- thousand. Mother, see here! This is the man. Look!’
- He twisted his handkerchief round his head, pulled his hat upon his
- brow, wrapped his coat about him, and stood up before her: so like the
- original he counterfeited, that the dark figure peering out behind him
- might have passed for his own shadow.
- ‘Ha ha ha! We shall have him,’ he cried, ridding himself of the
- semblance as hastily as he had assumed it. ‘You shall see him, mother,
- bound hand and foot, and brought to London at a saddle-girth; and you
- shall hear of him at Tyburn Tree if we have luck. So Hugh says. You’re
- pale again, and trembling. And why DO you look behind me so?’
- ‘It is nothing,’ she answered. ‘I am not quite well. Go you to bed,
- dear, and leave me here.’
- ‘To bed!’ he answered. ‘I don’t like bed. I like to lie before the fire,
- watching the prospects in the burning coals--the rivers, hills, and
- dells, in the deep, red sunset, and the wild faces. I am hungry too,
- and Grip has eaten nothing since broad noon. Let us to supper. Grip! To
- supper, lad!’
- The raven flapped his wings, and, croaking his satisfaction, hopped to
- the feet of his master, and there held his bill open, ready for snapping
- up such lumps of meat as he should throw him. Of these he received about
- a score in rapid succession, without the smallest discomposure.
- ‘That’s all,’ said Barnaby.
- ‘More!’ cried Grip. ‘More!’
- But it appearing for a certainty that no more was to be had, he
- retreated with his store; and disgorging the morsels one by one from his
- pouch, hid them in various corners--taking particular care, however, to
- avoid the closet, as being doubtful of the hidden man’s propensities and
- power of resisting temptation. When he had concluded these arrangements,
- he took a turn or two across the room with an elaborate assumption of
- having nothing on his mind (but with one eye hard upon his treasure all
- the time), and then, and not till then, began to drag it out, piece by
- piece, and eat it with the utmost relish.
- Barnaby, for his part, having pressed his mother to eat in vain, made a
- hearty supper too. Once during the progress of his meal, he wanted more
- bread from the closet and rose to get it. She hurriedly interposed to
- prevent him, and summoning her utmost fortitude, passed into the recess,
- and brought it out herself.
- ‘Mother,’ said Barnaby, looking at her steadfastly as she sat down
- beside him after doing so; ‘is to-day my birthday?’
- ‘To-day!’ she answered. ‘Don’t you recollect it was but a week or so
- ago, and that summer, autumn, and winter have to pass before it comes
- again?’
- ‘I remember that it has been so till now,’ said Barnaby. ‘But I think
- to-day must be my birthday too, for all that.’
- She asked him why? ‘I’ll tell you why,’ he said. ‘I have always seen
- you--I didn’t let you know it, but I have--on the evening of that day
- grow very sad. I have seen you cry when Grip and I were most glad; and
- look frightened with no reason; and I have touched your hand, and felt
- that it was cold--as it is now. Once, mother (on a birthday that was,
- also), Grip and I thought of this after we went upstairs to bed, and
- when it was midnight, striking one o’clock, we came down to your door to
- see if you were well. You were on your knees. I forget what it was you
- said. Grip, what was it we heard her say that night?’
- ‘I’m a devil!’ rejoined the raven promptly.
- ‘No, no,’ said Barnaby. ‘But you said something in a prayer; and when
- you rose and walked about, you looked (as you have done ever since,
- mother, towards night on my birthday) just as you do now. I have found
- that out, you see, though I am silly. So I say you’re wrong; and this
- must be my birthday--my birthday, Grip!’
- The bird received this information with a crow of such duration as a
- cock, gifted with intelligence beyond all others of his kind, might
- usher in the longest day with. Then, as if he had well considered the
- sentiment, and regarded it as apposite to birthdays, he cried, ‘Never
- say die!’ a great many times, and flapped his wings for emphasis.
- The widow tried to make light of Barnaby’s remark, and endeavoured to
- divert his attention to some new subject; too easy a task at all times,
- as she knew. His supper done, Barnaby, regardless of her entreaties,
- stretched himself on the mat before the fire; Grip perched upon his
- leg, and divided his time between dozing in the grateful warmth, and
- endeavouring (as it presently appeared) to recall a new accomplishment
- he had been studying all day.
- A long and profound silence ensued, broken only by some change of
- position on the part of Barnaby, whose eyes were still wide open and
- intently fixed upon the fire; or by an effort of recollection on the
- part of Grip, who would cry in a low voice from time to time, ‘Polly put
- the ket--’ and there stop short, forgetting the remainder, and go off in
- a doze again.
- After a long interval, Barnaby’s breathing grew more deep and regular,
- and his eyes were closed. But even then the unquiet spirit of the raven
- interposed. ‘Polly put the ket--’ cried Grip, and his master was broad
- awake again.
- At length Barnaby slept soundly, and the bird with his bill sunk
- upon his breast, his breast itself puffed out into a comfortable
- alderman-like form, and his bright eye growing smaller and smaller,
- really seemed to be subsiding into a state of repose. Now and then he
- muttered in a sepulchral voice, ‘Polly put the ket--’ but very drowsily,
- and more like a drunken man than a reflecting raven.
- The widow, scarcely venturing to breathe, rose from her seat. The man
- glided from the closet, and extinguished the candle.
- ‘--tle on,’ cried Grip, suddenly struck with an idea and very much
- excited. ‘--tle on. Hurrah! Polly put the ket-tle on, we’ll all have
- tea; Polly put the ket-tle on, we’ll all have tea. Hurrah, hurrah,
- hurrah! I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a ket-tle on, Keep up your
- spirits, Never say die, Bow, wow, wow, I’m a devil, I’m a ket-tle, I’m
- a--Polly put the ket-tle on, we’ll all have tea.’
- They stood rooted to the ground, as though it had been a voice from the
- grave.
- But even this failed to awaken the sleeper. He turned over towards the
- fire, his arm fell to the ground, and his head drooped heavily upon it.
- The widow and her unwelcome visitor gazed at him and at each other for a
- moment, and then she motioned him towards the door.
- ‘Stay,’ he whispered. ‘You teach your son well.’
- ‘I have taught him nothing that you heard to-night. Depart instantly, or
- I will rouse him.’
- ‘You are free to do so. Shall I rouse him?’
- ‘You dare not do that.’
- ‘I dare do anything, I have told you. He knows me well, it seems. At
- least I will know him.’
- ‘Would you kill him in his sleep?’ cried the widow, throwing herself
- between them.
- ‘Woman,’ he returned between his teeth, as he motioned her aside, ‘I
- would see him nearer, and I will. If you want one of us to kill the
- other, wake him.’
- With that he advanced, and bending down over the prostrate form, softly
- turned back the head and looked into the face. The light of the fire
- was upon it, and its every lineament was revealed distinctly. He
- contemplated it for a brief space, and hastily uprose.
- ‘Observe,’ he whispered in the widow’s ear: ‘In him, of whose existence
- I was ignorant until to-night, I have you in my power. Be careful how
- you use me. Be careful how you use me. I am destitute and starving, and
- a wanderer upon the earth. I may take a sure and slow revenge.’
- ‘There is some dreadful meaning in your words. I do not fathom it.’
- ‘There is a meaning in them, and I see you fathom it to its very depth.
- You have anticipated it for years; you have told me as much. I leave you
- to digest it. Do not forget my warning.’
- He pointed, as he left her, to the slumbering form, and stealthily
- withdrawing, made his way into the street. She fell on her knees beside
- the sleeper, and remained like one stricken into stone, until the tears
- which fear had frozen so long, came tenderly to her relief.
- ‘Oh Thou,’ she cried, ‘who hast taught me such deep love for this one
- remnant of the promise of a happy life, out of whose affliction, even,
- perhaps the comfort springs that he is ever a relying, loving child to
- me--never growing old or cold at heart, but needing my care and duty in
- his manly strength as in his cradle-time--help him, in his darkened walk
- through this sad world, or he is doomed, and my poor heart is broken!’
- Chapter 18
- Gliding along the silent streets, and holding his course where they were
- darkest and most gloomy, the man who had left the widow’s house crossed
- London Bridge, and arriving in the City, plunged into the backways,
- lanes, and courts, between Cornhill and Smithfield; with no more
- fixedness of purpose than to lose himself among their windings, and
- baffle pursuit, if any one were dogging his steps.
- It was the dead time of the night, and all was quiet. Now and then a
- drowsy watchman’s footsteps sounded on the pavement, or the lamplighter
- on his rounds went flashing past, leaving behind a little track of smoke
- mingled with glowing morsels of his hot red link. He hid himself even
- from these partakers of his lonely walk, and, shrinking in some arch or
- doorway while they passed, issued forth again when they were gone and so
- pursued his solitary way.
- To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan
- and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to
- the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old
- barn or rick, or in the hollow of a tree; are dismal things--but not
- so dismal as the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and
- sleepers are by thousands; a houseless rejected creature. To pace
- the echoing stones from hour to hour, counting the dull chimes of the
- clocks; to watch the lights twinkling in chamber windows, to think what
- happy forgetfulness each house shuts in; that here are children coiled
- together in their beds, here youth, here age, here poverty, here wealth,
- all equal in their sleep, and all at rest; to have nothing in common
- with the slumbering world around, not even sleep, Heaven’s gift to
- all its creatures, and be akin to nothing but despair; to feel, by the
- wretched contrast with everything on every hand, more utterly alone and
- cast away than in a trackless desert; this is a kind of suffering, on
- which the rivers of great cities close full many a time, and which the
- solitude in crowds alone awakens.
- The miserable man paced up and down the streets--so long, so wearisome,
- so like each other--and often cast a wistful look towards the east,
- hoping to see the first faint streaks of day. But obdurate night had
- yet possession of the sky, and his disturbed and restless walk found no
- relief.
- One house in a back street was bright with the cheerful glare of lights;
- there was the sound of music in it too, and the tread of dancers,
- and there were cheerful voices, and many a burst of laughter. To this
- place--to be near something that was awake and glad--he returned again
- and again; and more than one of those who left it when the merriment
- was at its height, felt it a check upon their mirthful mood to see him
- flitting to and fro like an uneasy ghost. At last the guests departed,
- one and all; and then the house was close shut up, and became as dull
- and silent as the rest.
- His wanderings brought him at one time to the city jail. Instead of
- hastening from it as a place of ill omen, and one he had cause to shun,
- he sat down on some steps hard by, and resting his chin upon his hand,
- gazed upon its rough and frowning walls as though even they became a
- refuge in his jaded eyes. He paced it round and round, came back to the
- same spot, and sat down again. He did this often, and once, with a hasty
- movement, crossed to where some men were watching in the prison lodge,
- and had his foot upon the steps as though determined to accost them. But
- looking round, he saw that the day began to break, and failing in his
- purpose, turned and fled.
- He was soon in the quarter he had lately traversed, and pacing to and
- fro again as he had done before. He was passing down a mean street, when
- from an alley close at hand some shouts of revelry arose, and there came
- straggling forth a dozen madcaps, whooping and calling to each other,
- who, parting noisily, took different ways and dispersed in smaller
- groups.
- Hoping that some low place of entertainment which would afford him a
- safe refuge might be near at hand, he turned into this court when they
- were all gone, and looked about for a half-opened door, or lighted
- window, or other indication of the place whence they had come. It was
- so profoundly dark, however, and so ill-favoured, that he concluded they
- had but turned up there, missing their way, and were pouring out again
- when he observed them. With this impression, and finding there was no
- outlet but that by which he had entered, he was about to turn, when from
- a grating near his feet a sudden stream of light appeared, and the sound
- of talking came. He retreated into a doorway to see who these talkers
- were, and to listen to them.
- The light came to the level of the pavement as he did this, and a man
- ascended, bearing in his hand a torch. This figure unlocked and held
- open the grating as for the passage of another, who presently
- appeared, in the form of a young man of small stature and uncommon
- self-importance, dressed in an obsolete and very gaudy fashion.
- ‘Good night, noble captain,’ said he with the torch. ‘Farewell,
- commander. Good luck, illustrious general!’
- In return to these compliments the other bade him hold his tongue, and
- keep his noise to himself, and laid upon him many similar injunctions,
- with great fluency of speech and sternness of manner.
- ‘Commend me, captain, to the stricken Miggs,’ returned the torch-bearer
- in a lower voice. ‘My captain flies at higher game than Miggses. Ha, ha,
- ha! My captain is an eagle, both as respects his eye and soaring wings.
- My captain breaketh hearts as other bachelors break eggs at breakfast.’
- ‘What a fool you are, Stagg!’ said Mr Tappertit, stepping on the
- pavement of the court, and brushing from his legs the dust he had
- contracted in his passage upward.
- ‘His precious limbs!’ cried Stagg, clasping one of his ankles. ‘Shall a
- Miggs aspire to these proportions! No, no, my captain. We will inveigle
- ladies fair, and wed them in our secret cavern. We will unite ourselves
- with blooming beauties, captain.’
- ‘I’ll tell you what, my buck,’ said Mr Tappertit, releasing his leg;
- ‘I’ll trouble you not to take liberties, and not to broach certain
- questions unless certain questions are broached to you. Speak when
- you’re spoke to on particular subjects, and not otherways. Hold
- the torch up till I’ve got to the end of the court, and then kennel
- yourself, do you hear?’
- ‘I hear you, noble captain.’
- ‘Obey then,’ said Mr Tappertit haughtily. ‘Gentlemen, lead on!’ With
- which word of command (addressed to an imaginary staff or retinue) he
- folded his arms, and walked with surpassing dignity down the court.
- His obsequious follower stood holding the torch above his head, and then
- the observer saw for the first time, from his place of concealment, that
- he was blind. Some involuntary motion on his part caught the quick
- ear of the blind man, before he was conscious of having moved an inch
- towards him, for he turned suddenly and cried, ‘Who’s there?’
- ‘A man,’ said the other, advancing. ‘A friend.’
- ‘A stranger!’ rejoined the blind man. ‘Strangers are not my friends.
- What do you do there?’
- ‘I saw your company come out, and waited here till they were gone. I
- want a lodging.’
- ‘A lodging at this time!’ returned Stagg, pointing towards the dawn as
- though he saw it. ‘Do you know the day is breaking?’
- ‘I know it,’ rejoined the other, ‘to my cost. I have been traversing
- this iron-hearted town all night.’
- ‘You had better traverse it again,’ said the blind man, preparing to
- descend, ‘till you find some lodgings suitable to your taste. I don’t
- let any.’
- ‘Stay!’ cried the other, holding him by the arm.
- ‘I’ll beat this light about that hangdog face of yours (for hangdog it
- is, if it answers to your voice), and rouse the neighbourhood besides,
- if you detain me,’ said the blind man. ‘Let me go. Do you hear?’
- ‘Do YOU hear!’ returned the other, chinking a few shillings together,
- and hurriedly pressing them into his hand. ‘I beg nothing of you. I will
- pay for the shelter you give me. Death! Is it much to ask of such as
- you! I have come from the country, and desire to rest where there are
- none to question me. I am faint, exhausted, worn out, almost dead. Let
- me lie down, like a dog, before your fire. I ask no more than that. If
- you would be rid of me, I will depart to-morrow.’
- ‘If a gentleman has been unfortunate on the road,’ muttered Stagg,
- yielding to the other, who, pressing on him, had already gained a
- footing on the steps--‘and can pay for his accommodation--’
- ‘I will pay you with all I have. I am just now past the want of food,
- God knows, and wish but to purchase shelter. What companion have you
- below?’
- ‘None.’
- ‘Then fasten your grate there, and show me the way. Quick!’
- The blind man complied after a moment’s hesitation, and they descended
- together. The dialogue had passed as hurriedly as the words could be
- spoken, and they stood in his wretched room before he had had time to
- recover from his first surprise.
- ‘May I see where that door leads to, and what is beyond?’ said the man,
- glancing keenly round. ‘You will not mind that?’
- ‘I will show you myself. Follow me, or go before. Take your choice.’
- He bade him lead the way, and, by the light of the torch which his
- conductor held up for the purpose, inspected all three cellars narrowly.
- Assured that the blind man had spoken truth, and that he lived there
- alone, the visitor returned with him to the first, in which a fire was
- burning, and flung himself with a deep groan upon the ground before it.
- His host pursued his usual occupation without seeming to heed him any
- further. But directly he fell asleep--and he noted his falling into a
- slumber, as readily as the keenest-sighted man could have done--he knelt
- down beside him, and passed his hand lightly but carefully over his face
- and person.
- His sleep was checkered with starts and moans, and sometimes with a
- muttered word or two. His hands were clenched, his brow bent, and his
- mouth firmly set. All this, the blind man accurately marked; and as if
- his curiosity were strongly awakened, and he had already some inkling
- of his mystery, he sat watching him, if the expression may be used, and
- listening, until it was broad day.
- Chapter 19
- Dolly Varden’s pretty little head was yet bewildered by various
- recollections of the party, and her bright eyes were yet dazzled by a
- crowd of images, dancing before them like motes in the sunbeams, among
- which the effigy of one partner in particular did especially figure, the
- same being a young coachmaker (a master in his own right) who had given
- her to understand, when he handed her into the chair at parting, that
- it was his fixed resolve to neglect his business from that time, and die
- slowly for the love of her--Dolly’s head, and eyes, and thoughts, and
- seven senses, were all in a state of flutter and confusion for which the
- party was accountable, although it was now three days old, when, as
- she was sitting listlessly at breakfast, reading all manner of fortunes
- (that is to say, of married and flourishing fortunes) in the grounds of
- her teacup, a step was heard in the workshop, and Mr Edward Chester
- was descried through the glass door, standing among the rusty locks and
- keys, like love among the roses--for which apt comparison the historian
- may by no means take any credit to himself, the same being the
- invention, in a sentimental mood, of the chaste and modest Miggs, who,
- beholding him from the doorsteps she was then cleaning, did, in her
- maiden meditation, give utterance to the simile.
- The locksmith, who happened at the moment to have his eyes thrown upward
- and his head backward, in an intense communing with Toby, did not see
- his visitor, until Mrs Varden, more watchful than the rest, had desired
- Sim Tappertit to open the glass door and give him admission--from which
- untoward circumstance the good lady argued (for she could deduce a
- precious moral from the most trifling event) that to take a draught of
- small ale in the morning was to observe a pernicious, irreligious, and
- Pagan custom, the relish whereof should be left to swine, and Satan, or
- at least to Popish persons, and should be shunned by the righteous as
- a work of sin and evil. She would no doubt have pursued her admonition
- much further, and would have founded on it a long list of precious
- precepts of inestimable value, but that the young gentleman standing by
- in a somewhat uncomfortable and discomfited manner while she read
- her spouse this lecture, occasioned her to bring it to a premature
- conclusion.
- ‘I’m sure you’ll excuse me, sir,’ said Mrs Varden, rising and
- curtseying. ‘Varden is so very thoughtless, and needs so much
- reminding--Sim, bring a chair here.’
- Mr Tappertit obeyed, with a flourish implying that he did so, under
- protest.
- ‘And you can go, Sim,’ said the locksmith.
- Mr Tappertit obeyed again, still under protest; and betaking himself to
- the workshop, began seriously to fear that he might find it necessary to
- poison his master, before his time was out.
- In the meantime, Edward returned suitable replies to Mrs Varden’s
- courtesies, and that lady brightened up very much; so that when he
- accepted a dish of tea from the fair hands of Dolly, she was perfectly
- agreeable.
- ‘I am sure if there’s anything we can do,--Varden, or I, or Dolly
- either,--to serve you, sir, at any time, you have only to say it, and it
- shall be done,’ said Mrs V.
- ‘I am much obliged to you, I am sure,’ returned Edward. ‘You encourage
- me to say that I have come here now, to beg your good offices.’
- Mrs Varden was delighted beyond measure.
- ‘It occurred to me that probably your fair daughter might be going to
- the Warren, either to-day or to-morrow,’ said Edward, glancing at Dolly;
- ‘and if so, and you will allow her to take charge of this letter, ma’am,
- you will oblige me more than I can tell you. The truth is, that while
- I am very anxious it should reach its destination, I have particular
- reasons for not trusting it to any other conveyance; so that without
- your help, I am wholly at a loss.’
- ‘She was not going that way, sir, either to-day, or to-morrow, nor
- indeed all next week,’ the lady graciously rejoined, ‘but we shall be
- very glad to put ourselves out of the way on your account, and if you
- wish it, you may depend upon its going to-day. You might suppose,’ said
- Mrs Varden, frowning at her husband, ‘from Varden’s sitting there so
- glum and silent, that he objected to this arrangement; but you must not
- mind that, sir, if you please. It’s his way at home. Out of doors, he
- can be cheerful and talkative enough.’
- Now, the fact was, that the unfortunate locksmith, blessing his stars to
- find his helpmate in such good humour, had been sitting with a beaming
- face, hearing this discourse with a joy past all expression. Wherefore
- this sudden attack quite took him by surprise.
- ‘My dear Martha--’ he said.
- ‘Oh yes, I dare say,’ interrupted Mrs Varden, with a smile of mingled
- scorn and pleasantry. ‘Very dear! We all know that.’
- ‘No, but my good soul,’ said Gabriel, ‘you are quite mistaken. You are
- indeed. I was delighted to find you so kind and ready. I waited, my
- dear, anxiously, I assure you, to hear what you would say.’
- ‘You waited anxiously,’ repeated Mrs V. ‘Yes! Thank you, Varden. You
- waited, as you always do, that I might bear the blame, if any came of
- it. But I am used to it,’ said the lady with a kind of solemn titter,
- ‘and that’s my comfort!’
- ‘I give you my word, Martha--’ said Gabriel.
- ‘Let me give you MY word, my dear,’ interposed his wife with a Christian
- smile, ‘that such discussions as these between married people, are much
- better left alone. Therefore, if you please, Varden, we’ll drop the
- subject. I have no wish to pursue it. I could. I might say a great deal.
- But I would rather not. Pray don’t say any more.’
- ‘I don’t want to say any more,’ rejoined the goaded locksmith.
- ‘Well then, don’t,’ said Mrs Varden.
- ‘Nor did I begin it, Martha,’ added the locksmith, good-humouredly, ‘I
- must say that.’
- ‘You did not begin it, Varden!’ exclaimed his wife, opening her eyes
- very wide and looking round upon the company, as though she would say,
- You hear this man! ‘You did not begin it, Varden! But you shall not say
- I was out of temper. No, you did not begin it, oh dear no, not you, my
- dear!’
- ‘Well, well,’ said the locksmith. ‘That’s settled then.’
- ‘Oh yes,’ rejoined his wife, ‘quite. If you like to say Dolly began it,
- my dear, I shall not contradict you. I know my duty. I need know it,
- I am sure. I am often obliged to bear it in mind, when my inclination
- perhaps would be for the moment to forget it. Thank you, Varden.’ And
- so, with a mighty show of humility and forgiveness, she folded her
- hands, and looked round again, with a smile which plainly said, ‘If you
- desire to see the first and foremost among female martyrs, here she is,
- on view!’
- This little incident, illustrative though it was of Mrs Varden’s
- extraordinary sweetness and amiability, had so strong a tendency to
- check the conversation and to disconcert all parties but that excellent
- lady, that only a few monosyllables were uttered until Edward withdrew;
- which he presently did, thanking the lady of the house a great many
- times for her condescension, and whispering in Dolly’s ear that he would
- call on the morrow, in case there should happen to be an answer to the
- note--which, indeed, she knew without his telling, as Barnaby and his
- friend Grip had dropped in on the previous night to prepare her for the
- visit which was then terminating.
- Gabriel, who had attended Edward to the door, came back with his hands
- in his pockets; and, after fidgeting about the room in a very uneasy
- manner, and casting a great many sidelong looks at Mrs Varden (who
- with the calmest countenance in the world was five fathoms deep in
- the Protestant Manual), inquired of Dolly how she meant to go. Dolly
- supposed by the stage-coach, and looked at her lady mother, who finding
- herself silently appealed to, dived down at least another fathom into
- the Manual, and became unconscious of all earthly things.
- ‘Martha--’ said the locksmith.
- ‘I hear you, Varden,’ said his wife, without rising to the surface.
- ‘I am sorry, my dear, you have such an objection to the Maypole and old
- John, for otherways as it’s a very fine morning, and Saturday’s not
- a busy day with us, we might have all three gone to Chigwell in the
- chaise, and had quite a happy day of it.’
- Mrs Varden immediately closed the Manual, and bursting into tears,
- requested to be led upstairs.
- ‘What is the matter now, Martha?’ inquired the locksmith.
- To which Martha rejoined, ‘Oh! don’t speak to me,’ and protested in
- agony that if anybody had told her so, she wouldn’t have believed it.
- ‘But, Martha,’ said Gabriel, putting himself in the way as she was
- moving off with the aid of Dolly’s shoulder, ‘wouldn’t have believed
- what? Tell me what’s wrong now. Do tell me. Upon my soul I don’t know.
- Do YOU know, child? Damme!’ cried the locksmith, plucking at his wig in
- a kind of frenzy, ‘nobody does know, I verily believe, but Miggs!’
- ‘Miggs,’ said Mrs Varden faintly, and with symptoms of approaching
- incoherence, ‘is attached to me, and that is sufficient to draw down
- hatred upon her in this house. She is a comfort to me, whatever she may
- be to others.’
- ‘She’s no comfort to me,’ cried Gabriel, made bold by despair. ‘She’s
- the misery of my life. She’s all the plagues of Egypt in one.’
- ‘She’s considered so, I have no doubt,’ said Mrs Varden. ‘I was prepared
- for that; it’s natural; it’s of a piece with the rest. When you taunt
- me as you do to my face, how can I wonder that you taunt her behind her
- back!’ And here the incoherence coming on very strong, Mrs Varden wept,
- and laughed, and sobbed, and shivered, and hiccoughed, and choked; and
- said she knew it was very foolish but she couldn’t help it; and that
- when she was dead and gone, perhaps they would be sorry for it--which
- really under the circumstances did not appear quite so probable as she
- seemed to think--with a great deal more to the same effect. In a word,
- she passed with great decency through all the ceremonies incidental to
- such occasions; and being supported upstairs, was deposited in a highly
- spasmodic state on her own bed, where Miss Miggs shortly afterwards
- flung herself upon the body.
- The philosophy of all this was, that Mrs Varden wanted to go to
- Chigwell; that she did not want to make any concession or explanation;
- that she would only go on being implored and entreated so to do; and
- that she would accept no other terms. Accordingly, after a vast amount
- of moaning and crying upstairs, and much damping of foreheads, and
- vinegaring of temples, and hartshorning of noses, and so forth;
- and after most pathetic adjurations from Miggs, assisted by warm
- brandy-and-water not over-weak, and divers other cordials, also of
- a stimulating quality, administered at first in teaspoonfuls and
- afterwards in increasing doses, and of which Miss Miggs herself partook
- as a preventive measure (for fainting is infectious); after all these
- remedies, and many more too numerous to mention, but not to take,
- had been applied; and many verbal consolations, moral, religious, and
- miscellaneous, had been super-added thereto; the locksmith humbled
- himself, and the end was gained.
- ‘If it’s only for the sake of peace and quietness, father,’ said Dolly,
- urging him to go upstairs.
- ‘Oh, Doll, Doll,’ said her good-natured father. ‘If you ever have a
- husband of your own--’
- Dolly glanced at the glass.
- ‘--Well, WHEN you have,’ said the locksmith, ‘never faint, my darling.
- More domestic unhappiness has come of easy fainting, Doll, than from all
- the greater passions put together. Remember that, my dear, if you would
- be really happy, which you never can be, if your husband isn’t. And a
- word in your ear, my precious. Never have a Miggs about you!’
- With this advice he kissed his blooming daughter on the cheek, and
- slowly repaired to Mrs Varden’s room; where that lady, lying all pale
- and languid on her couch, was refreshing herself with a sight of her
- last new bonnet, which Miggs, as a means of calming her scattered
- spirits, displayed to the best advantage at her bedside.
- ‘Here’s master, mim,’ said Miggs. ‘Oh, what a happiness it is when man
- and wife come round again! Oh gracious, to think that him and her should
- ever have a word together!’ In the energy of these sentiments, which
- were uttered as an apostrophe to the Heavens in general, Miss Miggs
- perched the bonnet on the top of her own head, and folding her hands,
- turned on her tears.
- ‘I can’t help it,’ cried Miggs. ‘I couldn’t, if I was to be drownded in
- ‘em. She has such a forgiving spirit! She’ll forget all that has passed,
- and go along with you, sir--Oh, if it was to the world’s end, she’d go
- along with you.’
- Mrs Varden with a faint smile gently reproved her attendant for this
- enthusiasm, and reminded her at the same time that she was far too
- unwell to venture out that day.
- ‘Oh no, you’re not, mim, indeed you’re not,’ said Miggs; ‘I repeal to
- master; master knows you’re not, mim. The hair, and motion of the shay,
- will do you good, mim, and you must not give way, you must not raly. She
- must keep up, mustn’t she, sir, for all our sakes? I was a telling
- her that, just now. She must remember us, even if she forgets herself.
- Master will persuade you, mim, I’m sure. There’s Miss Dolly’s a-going
- you know, and master, and you, and all so happy and so comfortable. Oh!’
- cried Miggs, turning on the tears again, previous to quitting the room
- in great emotion, ‘I never see such a blessed one as she is for the
- forgiveness of her spirit, I never, never, never did. Not more did
- master neither; no, nor no one--never!’
- For five minutes or thereabouts, Mrs Varden remained mildly opposed to
- all her husband’s prayers that she would oblige him by taking a day’s
- pleasure, but relenting at length, she suffered herself to be persuaded,
- and granting him her free forgiveness (the merit whereof, she meekly
- said, rested with the Manual and not with her), desired that Miggs might
- come and help her dress. The handmaid attended promptly, and it is but
- justice to their joint exertions to record that, when the good lady came
- downstairs in course of time, completely decked out for the journey, she
- really looked as if nothing had happened, and appeared in the very best
- health imaginable.
- As to Dolly, there she was again, the very pink and pattern of good
- looks, in a smart little cherry-coloured mantle, with a hood of the same
- drawn over her head, and upon the top of that hood, a little straw hat
- trimmed with cherry-coloured ribbons, and worn the merest trifle on one
- side--just enough in short to make it the wickedest and most provoking
- head-dress that ever malicious milliner devised. And not to speak of the
- manner in which these cherry-coloured decorations brightened her eyes,
- or vied with her lips, or shed a new bloom on her face, she wore such
- a cruel little muff, and such a heart-rending pair of shoes, and was so
- surrounded and hemmed in, as it were, by aggravations of all kinds, that
- when Mr Tappettit, holding the horse’s head, saw her come out of the
- house alone, such impulses came over him to decoy her into the chaise
- and drive off like mad, that he would unquestionably have done it, but
- for certain uneasy doubts besetting him as to the shortest way to
- Gretna Green; whether it was up the street or down, or up the right-hand
- turning or the left; and whether, supposing all the turnpikes to be
- carried by storm, the blacksmith in the end would marry them on credit;
- which by reason of his clerical office appeared, even to his excited
- imagination, so unlikely, that he hesitated. And while he stood
- hesitating, and looking post-chaises-and-six at Dolly, out came his
- master and his mistress, and the constant Miggs, and the opportunity
- was gone for ever. For now the chaise creaked upon its springs, and Mrs
- Varden was inside; and now it creaked again, and more than ever, and
- the locksmith was inside; and now it bounded once, as if its heart beat
- lightly, and Dolly was inside; and now it was gone and its place
- was empty, and he and that dreary Miggs were standing in the street
- together.
- The hearty locksmith was in as good a humour as if nothing had occurred
- for the last twelve months to put him out of his way, Dolly was all
- smiles and graces, and Mrs Varden was agreeable beyond all precedent. As
- they jogged through the streets talking of this thing and of that, who
- should be descried upon the pavement but that very coachmaker, looking
- so genteel that nobody would have believed he had ever had anything to
- do with a coach but riding in it, and bowing like any nobleman. To
- be sure Dolly was confused when she bowed again, and to be sure the
- cherry-coloured ribbons trembled a little when she met his mournful eye,
- which seemed to say, ‘I have kept my word, I have begun, the business is
- going to the devil, and you’re the cause of it.’ There he stood, rooted
- to the ground: as Dolly said, like a statue; and as Mrs Varden said,
- like a pump; till they turned the corner: and when her father thought
- it was like his impudence, and her mother wondered what he meant by it,
- Dolly blushed again till her very hood was pale.
- But on they went, not the less merrily for this, and there was the
- locksmith in the incautious fulness of his heart ‘pulling-up’ at all
- manner of places, and evincing a most intimate acquaintance with all the
- taverns on the road, and all the landlords and all the landladies, with
- whom, indeed, the little horse was on equally friendly terms, for he
- kept on stopping of his own accord. Never were people so glad to see
- other people as these landlords and landladies were to behold Mr Varden
- and Mrs Varden and Miss Varden; and wouldn’t they get out, said one; and
- they really must walk upstairs, said another; and she would take it
- ill and be quite certain they were proud if they wouldn’t have a little
- taste of something, said a third; and so on, that it was really quite a
- Progress rather than a ride, and one continued scene of hospitality from
- beginning to end. It was pleasant enough to be held in such esteem, not
- to mention the refreshments; so Mrs Varden said nothing at the time,
- and was all affability and delight--but such a body of evidence as
- she collected against the unfortunate locksmith that day, to be used
- thereafter as occasion might require, never was got together for
- matrimonial purposes.
- In course of time--and in course of a pretty long time too, for these
- agreeable interruptions delayed them not a little,--they arrived upon
- the skirts of the Forest, and riding pleasantly on among the trees, came
- at last to the Maypole, where the locksmith’s cheerful ‘Yoho!’ speedily
- brought to the porch old John, and after him young Joe, both of whom
- were so transfixed at sight of the ladies, that for a moment they were
- perfectly unable to give them any welcome, and could do nothing but
- stare.
- It was only for a moment, however, that Joe forgot himself, for speedily
- reviving he thrust his drowsy father aside--to Mr Willet’s mighty and
- inexpressible indignation--and darting out, stood ready to help them to
- alight. It was necessary for Dolly to get out first. Joe had her in his
- arms;--yes, though for a space of time no longer than you could count
- one in, Joe had her in his arms. Here was a glimpse of happiness!
- It would be difficult to describe what a flat and commonplace affair the
- helping Mrs Varden out afterwards was, but Joe did it, and did it too
- with the best grace in the world. Then old John, who, entertaining a
- dull and foggy sort of idea that Mrs Varden wasn’t fond of him, had been
- in some doubt whether she might not have come for purposes of assault
- and battery, took courage, hoped she was well, and offered to conduct
- her into the house. This tender being amicably received, they marched
- in together; Joe and Dolly followed, arm-in-arm, (happiness again!) and
- Varden brought up the rear.
- Old John would have it that they must sit in the bar, and nobody
- objecting, into the bar they went. All bars are snug places, but the
- Maypole’s was the very snuggest, cosiest, and completest bar, that ever
- the wit of man devised. Such amazing bottles in old oaken pigeon-holes;
- such gleaming tankards dangling from pegs at about the same inclination
- as thirsty men would hold them to their lips; such sturdy little Dutch
- kegs ranged in rows on shelves; so many lemons hanging in separate nets,
- and forming the fragrant grove already mentioned in this chronicle,
- suggestive, with goodly loaves of snowy sugar stowed away hard by,
- of punch, idealised beyond all mortal knowledge; such closets, such
- presses, such drawers full of pipes, such places for putting things
- away in hollow window-seats, all crammed to the throat with eatables,
- drinkables, or savoury condiments; lastly, and to crown all, as typical
- of the immense resources of the establishment, and its defiances to all
- visitors to cut and come again, such a stupendous cheese!
- It is a poor heart that never rejoices--it must have been the poorest,
- weakest, and most watery heart that ever beat, which would not have
- warmed towards the Maypole bar. Mrs Varden’s did directly. She could no
- more have reproached John Willet among those household gods, the kegs
- and bottles, lemons, pipes, and cheese, than she could have stabbed him
- with his own bright carving-knife. The order for dinner too--it might
- have soothed a savage. ‘A bit of fish,’ said John to the cook, ‘and some
- lamb chops (breaded, with plenty of ketchup), and a good salad, and a
- roast spring chicken, with a dish of sausages and mashed potatoes, or
- something of that sort.’ Something of that sort! The resources of
- these inns! To talk carelessly about dishes, which in themselves were
- a first-rate holiday kind of dinner, suitable to one’s wedding-day, as
- something of that sort: meaning, if you can’t get a spring chicken, any
- other trifle in the way of poultry will do--such as a peacock, perhaps!
- The kitchen too, with its great broad cavernous chimney; the kitchen,
- where nothing in the way of cookery seemed impossible; where you could
- believe in anything to eat, they chose to tell you of. Mrs Varden
- returned from the contemplation of these wonders to the bar again, with
- a head quite dizzy and bewildered. Her housekeeping capacity was not
- large enough to comprehend them. She was obliged to go to sleep. Waking
- was pain, in the midst of such immensity.
- Dolly in the meanwhile, whose gay heart and head ran upon other matters,
- passed out at the garden door, and glancing back now and then (but of
- course not wondering whether Joe saw her), tripped away by a path across
- the fields with which she was well acquainted, to discharge her mission
- at the Warren; and this deponent hath been informed and verily
- believes, that you might have seen many less pleasant objects than the
- cherry-coloured mantle and ribbons, as they went fluttering along the
- green meadows in the bright light of the day, like giddy things as they
- were.
- Chapter 20
- The proud consciousness of her trust, and the great importance she
- derived from it, might have advertised it to all the house if she had
- had to run the gauntlet of its inhabitants; but as Dolly had played in
- every dull room and passage many and many a time, when a child, and had
- ever since been the humble friend of Miss Haredale, whose foster-sister
- she was, she was as free of the building as the young lady herself.
- So, using no greater precaution than holding her breath and walking on
- tiptoe as she passed the library door, she went straight to Emma’s room
- as a privileged visitor.
- It was the liveliest room in the building. The chamber was sombre like
- the rest for the matter of that, but the presence of youth and beauty
- would make a prison cheerful (saving alas! that confinement withers
- them), and lend some charms of their own to the gloomiest scene. Birds,
- flowers, books, drawing, music, and a hundred such graceful tokens of
- feminine loves and cares, filled it with more of life and human sympathy
- than the whole house besides seemed made to hold. There was heart in
- the room; and who that has a heart, ever fails to recognise the silent
- presence of another!
- Dolly had one undoubtedly, and it was not a tough one either, though
- there was a little mist of coquettishness about it, such as sometimes
- surrounds that sun of life in its morning, and slightly dims its lustre.
- Thus, when Emma rose to greet her, and kissing her affectionately on the
- cheek, told her, in her quiet way, that she had been very unhappy, the
- tears stood in Dolly’s eyes, and she felt more sorry than she could
- tell; but next moment she happened to raise them to the glass, and
- really there was something there so exceedingly agreeable, that as she
- sighed, she smiled, and felt surprisingly consoled.
- ‘I have heard about it, miss,’ said Dolly, ‘and it’s very sad indeed,
- but when things are at the worst they are sure to mend.’
- ‘But are you sure they are at the worst?’ asked Emma with a smile.
- ‘Why, I don’t see how they can very well be more unpromising than they
- are; I really don’t,’ said Dolly. ‘And I bring something to begin with.’
- ‘Not from Edward?’
- Dolly nodded and smiled, and feeling in her pockets (there were pockets
- in those days) with an affectation of not being able to find what she
- wanted, which greatly enhanced her importance, at length produced
- the letter. As Emma hastily broke the seal and became absorbed in its
- contents, Dolly’s eyes, by one of those strange accidents for which
- there is no accounting, wandered to the glass again. She could not help
- wondering whether the coach-maker suffered very much, and quite pitied
- the poor man.
- It was a long letter--a very long letter, written close on all four
- sides of the sheet of paper, and crossed afterwards; but it was not a
- consolatory letter, for as Emma read it she stopped from time to time to
- put her handkerchief to her eyes. To be sure Dolly marvelled greatly to
- see her in so much distress, for to her thinking a love affair ought
- to be one of the best jokes, and the slyest, merriest kind of thing in
- life. But she set it down in her own mind that all this came from Miss
- Haredale’s being so constant, and that if she would only take on with
- some other young gentleman--just in the most innocent way possible,
- to keep her first lover up to the mark--she would find herself
- inexpressibly comforted.
- ‘I am sure that’s what I should do if it was me,’ thought Dolly. ‘To
- make one’s sweetheart miserable is well enough and quite right, but to
- be made miserable one’s self is a little too much!’
- However it wouldn’t do to say so, and therefore she sat looking on in
- silence. She needed a pretty considerable stretch of patience, for when
- the long letter had been read once all through it was read again, and
- when it had been read twice all through it was read again. During this
- tedious process, Dolly beguiled the time in the most improving manner
- that occurred to her, by curling her hair on her fingers, with the
- aid of the looking-glass before mentioned, and giving it some killing
- twists.
- Everything has an end. Even young ladies in love cannot read their
- letters for ever. In course of time the packet was folded up, and it
- only remained to write the answer.
- But as this promised to be a work of time likewise, Emma said she would
- put it off until after dinner, and that Dolly must dine with her. As
- Dolly had made up her mind to do so beforehand, she required very little
- pressing; and when they had settled this point, they went to walk in the
- garden.
- They strolled up and down the terrace walks, talking incessantly--at
- least, Dolly never left off once--and making that quarter of the sad and
- mournful house quite gay. Not that they talked loudly or laughed much,
- but they were both so very handsome, and it was such a breezy day, and
- their light dresses and dark curls appeared so free and joyous in
- their abandonment, and Emma was so fair, and Dolly so rosy, and Emma
- so delicately shaped, and Dolly so plump, and--in short, there are no
- flowers for any garden like such flowers, let horticulturists say what
- they may, and both house and garden seemed to know it, and to brighten
- up sensibly.
- After this, came the dinner and the letter writing, and some more
- talking, in the course of which Miss Haredale took occasion to
- charge upon Dolly certain flirtish and inconstant propensities, which
- accusations Dolly seemed to think very complimentary indeed, and to be
- mightily amused with. Finding her quite incorrigible in this respect,
- Emma suffered her to depart; but not before she had confided to her that
- important and never-sufficiently-to-be-taken-care-of answer, and endowed
- her moreover with a pretty little bracelet as a keepsake. Having clasped
- it on her arm, and again advised her half in jest and half in earnest to
- amend her roguish ways, for she knew she was fond of Joe at heart (which
- Dolly stoutly denied, with a great many haughty protestations that she
- hoped she could do better than that indeed! and so forth), she bade
- her farewell; and after calling her back to give her more supplementary
- messages for Edward, than anybody with tenfold the gravity of Dolly
- Varden could be reasonably expected to remember, at length dismissed
- her.
- Dolly bade her good bye, and tripping lightly down the stairs arrived at
- the dreaded library door, and was about to pass it again on tiptoe, when
- it opened, and behold! there stood Mr Haredale. Now, Dolly had from her
- childhood associated with this gentleman the idea of something grim and
- ghostly, and being at the moment conscience-stricken besides, the sight
- of him threw her into such a flurry that she could neither acknowledge
- his presence nor run away, so she gave a great start, and then with
- downcast eyes stood still and trembled.
- ‘Come here, girl,’ said Mr Haredale, taking her by the hand. ‘I want to
- speak to you.’
- ‘If you please, sir, I’m in a hurry,’ faltered Dolly, ‘and--you have
- frightened me by coming so suddenly upon me, sir--I would rather go,
- sir, if you’ll be so good as to let me.’
- ‘Immediately,’ said Mr Haredale, who had by this time led her into the
- room and closed the door. ‘You shall go directly. You have just left
- Emma?’
- ‘Yes, sir, just this minute.--Father’s waiting for me, sir, if you’ll
- please to have the goodness--’
- ‘I know. I know,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘Answer me a question. What did you
- bring here to-day?’
- ‘Bring here, sir?’ faltered Dolly.
- ‘You will tell me the truth, I am sure. Yes.’
- Dolly hesitated for a little while, and somewhat emboldened by his
- manner, said at last, ‘Well then, sir. It was a letter.’
- ‘From Mr Edward Chester, of course. And you are the bearer of the
- answer?’
- Dolly hesitated again, and not being able to decide upon any other
- course of action, burst into tears.
- ‘You alarm yourself without cause,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘Why are you so
- foolish? Surely you can answer me. You know that I have but to put the
- question to Emma and learn the truth directly. Have you the answer with
- you?’
- Dolly had what is popularly called a spirit of her own, and being now
- fairly at bay, made the best of it.
- ‘Yes, sir,’ she rejoined, trembling and frightened as she was. ‘Yes,
- sir, I have. You may kill me if you please, sir, but I won’t give it up.
- I’m very sorry,--but I won’t. There, sir.’
- ‘I commend your firmness and your plain-speaking,’ said Mr Haredale.
- ‘Rest assured that I have as little desire to take your letter as your
- life. You are a very discreet messenger and a good girl.’
- Not feeling quite certain, as she afterwards said, whether he might not
- be ‘coming over her’ with these compliments, Dolly kept as far from him
- as she could, cried again, and resolved to defend her pocket (for the
- letter was there) to the last extremity.
- ‘I have some design,’ said Mr Haredale after a short silence, during
- which a smile, as he regarded her, had struggled through the gloom and
- melancholy that was natural to his face, ‘of providing a companion for
- my niece; for her life is a very lonely one. Would you like the office?
- You are the oldest friend she has, and the best entitled to it.’
- ‘I don’t know, sir,’ answered Dolly, not sure but he was bantering her;
- ‘I can’t say. I don’t know what they might wish at home. I couldn’t give
- an opinion, sir.’
- ‘If your friends had no objection, would you have any?’ said Mr
- Haredale. ‘Come. There’s a plain question; and easy to answer.’
- ‘None at all that I know of sir,’ replied Dolly. ‘I should be very glad
- to be near Miss Emma of course, and always am.’
- ‘That’s well,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘That is all I had to say. You are
- anxious to go. Don’t let me detain you.’
- Dolly didn’t let him, nor did she wait for him to try, for the words
- had no sooner passed his lips than she was out of the room, out of the
- house, and in the fields again.
- The first thing to be done, of course, when she came to herself and
- considered what a flurry she had been in, was to cry afresh; and the
- next thing, when she reflected how well she had got over it, was to
- laugh heartily. The tears once banished gave place to the smiles, and at
- last Dolly laughed so much that she was fain to lean against a tree,
- and give vent to her exultation. When she could laugh no longer, and was
- quite tired, she put her head-dress to rights, dried her eyes, looked
- back very merrily and triumphantly at the Warren chimneys, which were
- just visible, and resumed her walk.
- The twilight had come on, and it was quickly growing dusk, but the path
- was so familiar to her from frequent traversing that she hardly thought
- of this, and certainly felt no uneasiness at being left alone. Moreover,
- there was the bracelet to admire; and when she had given it a good
- rub, and held it out at arm’s length, it sparkled and glittered so
- beautifully on her wrist, that to look at it in every point of view and
- with every possible turn of the arm, was quite an absorbing business.
- There was the letter too, and it looked so mysterious and knowing, when
- she took it out of her pocket, and it held, as she knew, so much inside,
- that to turn it over and over, and think about it, and wonder how it
- began, and how it ended, and what it said all through, was another
- matter of constant occupation. Between the bracelet and the letter,
- there was quite enough to do without thinking of anything else; and
- admiring each by turns, Dolly went on gaily.
- As she passed through a wicket-gate to where the path was narrow, and
- lay between two hedges garnished here and there with trees, she heard
- a rustling close at hand, which brought her to a sudden stop. She
- listened. All was very quiet, and she went on again--not absolutely
- frightened, but a little quicker than before perhaps, and possibly not
- quite so much at her ease, for a check of that kind is startling.
- She had no sooner moved on again, than she was conscious of the same
- sound, which was like that of a person tramping stealthily among bushes
- and brushwood. Looking towards the spot whence it appeared to come, she
- almost fancied she could make out a crouching figure. She stopped
- again. All was quiet as before. On she went once more--decidedly faster
- now--and tried to sing softly to herself. It must be the wind.
- But how came the wind to blow only when she walked, and cease when she
- stood still? She stopped involuntarily as she made the reflection, and
- the rustling noise stopped likewise. She was really frightened now, and
- was yet hesitating what to do, when the bushes crackled and snapped, and
- a man came plunging through them, close before her.
- Chapter 21
- It was for the moment an inexpressible relief to Dolly, to recognise in
- the person who forced himself into the path so abruptly, and now stood
- directly in her way, Hugh of the Maypole, whose name she uttered in a
- tone of delighted surprise that came from her heart.
- ‘Was it you?’ she said, ‘how glad I am to see you! and how could you
- terrify me so!’
- In answer to which, he said nothing at all, but stood quite still,
- looking at her.
- ‘Did you come to meet me?’ asked Dolly.
- Hugh nodded, and muttered something to the effect that he had been
- waiting for her, and had expected her sooner.
- ‘I thought it likely they would send,’ said Dolly, greatly reassured by
- this.
- ‘Nobody sent me,’ was his sullen answer. ‘I came of my own accord.’
- The rough bearing of this fellow, and his wild, uncouth appearance, had
- often filled the girl with a vague apprehension even when other people
- were by, and had occasioned her to shrink from him involuntarily. The
- having him for an unbidden companion in so solitary a place, with the
- darkness fast gathering about them, renewed and even increased the alarm
- she had felt at first.
- If his manner had been merely dogged and passively fierce, as usual,
- she would have had no greater dislike to his company than she always
- felt--perhaps, indeed, would have been rather glad to have had him at
- hand. But there was something of coarse bold admiration in his look,
- which terrified her very much. She glanced timidly towards him,
- uncertain whether to go forward or retreat, and he stood gazing at her
- like a handsome satyr; and so they remained for some short time without
- stirring or breaking silence. At length Dolly took courage, shot past
- him, and hurried on.
- ‘Why do you spend so much breath in avoiding me?’ said Hugh,
- accommodating his pace to hers, and keeping close at her side.
- ‘I wish to get back as quickly as I can, and you walk too near me,
- answered Dolly.’
- ‘Too near!’ said Hugh, stooping over her so that she could feel his
- breath upon her forehead. ‘Why too near? You’re always proud to ME,
- mistress.’
- ‘I am proud to no one. You mistake me,’ answered Dolly. ‘Fall back, if
- you please, or go on.’
- ‘Nay, mistress,’ he rejoined, endeavouring to draw her arm through his,
- ‘I’ll walk with you.’
- She released herself and clenching her little hand, struck him with
- right good will. At this, Maypole Hugh burst into a roar of laughter,
- and passing his arm about her waist, held her in his strong grasp as
- easily as if she had been a bird.
- ‘Ha ha ha! Well done, mistress! Strike again. You shall beat my face,
- and tear my hair, and pluck my beard up by the roots, and welcome, for
- the sake of your bright eyes. Strike again, mistress. Do. Ha ha ha! I
- like it.’
- ‘Let me go,’ she cried, endeavouring with both her hands to push him
- off. ‘Let me go this moment.’
- ‘You had as good be kinder to me, Sweetlips,’ said Hugh. ‘You had,
- indeed. Come. Tell me now. Why are you always so proud? I don’t quarrel
- with you for it. I love you when you’re proud. Ha ha ha! You can’t hide
- your beauty from a poor fellow; that’s a comfort!’
- She gave him no answer, but as he had not yet checked her progress,
- continued to press forward as rapidly as she could. At length, between
- the hurry she had made, her terror, and the tightness of his embrace,
- her strength failed her, and she could go no further.
- ‘Hugh,’ cried the panting girl, ‘good Hugh; if you will leave me I will
- give you anything--everything I have--and never tell one word of this to
- any living creature.’
- ‘You had best not,’ he answered. ‘Harkye, little dove, you had best not.
- All about here know me, and what I dare do if I have a mind. If ever you
- are going to tell, stop when the words are on your lips, and think of
- the mischief you’ll bring, if you do, upon some innocent heads that you
- wouldn’t wish to hurt a hair of. Bring trouble on me, and I’ll bring
- trouble and something more on them in return. I care no more for them
- than for so many dogs; not so much--why should I? I’d sooner kill a man
- than a dog any day. I’ve never been sorry for a man’s death in all my
- life, and I have for a dog’s.’
- There was something so thoroughly savage in the manner of these
- expressions, and the looks and gestures by which they were accompanied,
- that her great fear of him gave her new strength, and enabled her by a
- sudden effort to extricate herself and run fleetly from him. But Hugh
- was as nimble, strong, and swift of foot, as any man in broad England,
- and it was but a fruitless expenditure of energy, for he had her in his
- encircling arms again before she had gone a hundred yards.
- ‘Softly, darling--gently--would you fly from rough Hugh, that loves you
- as well as any drawing-room gallant?’
- ‘I would,’ she answered, struggling to free herself again. ‘I will.
- Help!’
- ‘A fine for crying out,’ said Hugh. ‘Ha ha ha! A fine, pretty one, from
- your lips. I pay myself! Ha ha ha!’
- ‘Help! help! help!’ As she shrieked with the utmost violence she could
- exert, a shout was heard in answer, and another, and another.
- ‘Thank Heaven!’ cried the girl in an ecstasy. ‘Joe, dear Joe, this way.
- Help!’
- Her assailant paused, and stood irresolute for a moment, but the shouts
- drawing nearer and coming quick upon them, forced him to a speedy
- decision. He released her, whispered with a menacing look, ‘Tell HIM:
- and see what follows!’ and leaping the hedge, was gone in an instant.
- Dolly darted off, and fairly ran into Joe Willet’s open arms.
- ‘What is the matter? are you hurt? what was it? who was it? where is
- he? what was he like?’ with a great many encouraging expressions and
- assurances of safety, were the first words Joe poured forth. But poor
- little Dolly was so breathless and terrified that for some time she
- was quite unable to answer him, and hung upon his shoulder, sobbing and
- crying as if her heart would break.
- Joe had not the smallest objection to have her hanging on his shoulder;
- no, not the least, though it crushed the cherry-coloured ribbons sadly,
- and put the smart little hat out of all shape. But he couldn’t bear to
- see her cry; it went to his very heart. He tried to console her, bent
- over her, whispered to her--some say kissed her, but that’s a fable. At
- any rate he said all the kind and tender things he could think of and
- Dolly let him go on and didn’t interrupt him once, and it was a good ten
- minutes before she was able to raise her head and thank him.
- ‘What was it that frightened you?’ said Joe.
- A man whose person was unknown to her had followed her, she answered; he
- began by begging, and went on to threats of robbery, which he was on the
- point of carrying into execution, and would have executed, but for Joe’s
- timely aid. The hesitation and confusion with which she said this, Joe
- attributed to the fright she had sustained, and no suspicion of the
- truth occurred to him for a moment.
- ‘Stop when the words are on your lips.’ A hundred times that night, and
- very often afterwards, when the disclosure was rising to her tongue,
- Dolly thought of that, and repressed it. A deeply rooted dread of the
- man; the conviction that his ferocious nature, once roused, would stop
- at nothing; and the strong assurance that if she impeached him, the
- full measure of his wrath and vengeance would be wreaked on Joe, who
- had preserved her; these were considerations she had not the courage to
- overcome, and inducements to secrecy too powerful for her to surmount.
- Joe, for his part, was a great deal too happy to inquire very curiously
- into the matter; and Dolly being yet too tremulous to walk without
- assistance, they went forward very slowly, and in his mind very
- pleasantly, until the Maypole lights were near at hand, twinkling their
- cheerful welcome, when Dolly stopped suddenly and with a half scream
- exclaimed,
- ‘The letter!’
- ‘What letter?’ cried Joe.
- ‘That I was carrying--I had it in my hand. My bracelet too,’ she said,
- clasping her wrist. ‘I have lost them both.’
- ‘Do you mean just now?’ said Joe.
- ‘Either I dropped them then, or they were taken from me,’ answered
- Dolly, vainly searching her pocket and rustling her dress. ‘They are
- gone, both gone. What an unhappy girl I am!’ With these words poor
- Dolly, who to do her justice was quite as sorry for the loss of the
- letter as for her bracelet, fell a-crying again, and bemoaned her fate
- most movingly.
- Joe tried to comfort her with the assurance that directly he had housed
- her in the Maypole, he would return to the spot with a lantern (for it
- was now quite dark) and make strict search for the missing articles,
- which there was great probability of his finding, as it was not likely
- that anybody had passed that way since, and she was not conscious that
- they had been forcibly taken from her. Dolly thanked him very heartily
- for this offer, though with no great hope of his quest being successful;
- and so with many lamentations on her side, and many hopeful words on
- his, and much weakness on the part of Dolly and much tender supporting
- on the part of Joe, they reached the Maypole bar at last, where the
- locksmith and his wife and old John were yet keeping high festival.
- Mr Willet received the intelligence of Dolly’s trouble with that
- surprising presence of mind and readiness of speech for which he was so
- eminently distinguished above all other men. Mrs Varden expressed her
- sympathy for her daughter’s distress by scolding her roundly for being
- so late; and the honest locksmith divided himself between condoling with
- and kissing Dolly, and shaking hands heartily with Joe, whom he could
- not sufficiently praise or thank.
- In reference to this latter point, old John was far from agreeing with
- his friend; for besides that he by no means approved of an adventurous
- spirit in the abstract, it occurred to him that if his son and heir had
- been seriously damaged in a scuffle, the consequences would assuredly
- have been expensive and inconvenient, and might perhaps have proved
- detrimental to the Maypole business. Wherefore, and because he looked
- with no favourable eye upon young girls, but rather considered that they
- and the whole female sex were a kind of nonsensical mistake on the part
- of Nature, he took occasion to retire and shake his head in private at
- the boiler; inspired by which silent oracle, he was moved to give Joe
- various stealthy nudges with his elbow, as a parental reproof and gentle
- admonition to mind his own business and not make a fool of himself.
- Joe, however, took down the lantern and lighted it; and arming himself
- with a stout stick, asked whether Hugh was in the stable.
- ‘He’s lying asleep before the kitchen fire, sir,’ said Mr Willet. ‘What
- do you want him for?’
- ‘I want him to come with me to look after this bracelet and letter,’
- answered Joe. ‘Halloa there! Hugh!’
- Dolly turned pale as death, and felt as if she must faint forthwith.
- After a few moments, Hugh came staggering in, stretching himself and
- yawning according to custom, and presenting every appearance of having
- been roused from a sound nap.
- ‘Here, sleepy-head,’ said Joe, giving him the lantern. ‘Carry this, and
- bring the dog, and that small cudgel of yours. And woe betide the fellow
- if we come upon him.’
- ‘What fellow?’ growled Hugh, rubbing his eyes and shaking himself.
- ‘What fellow?’ returned Joe, who was in a state of great valour and
- bustle; ‘a fellow you ought to know of and be more alive about. It’s
- well for the like of you, lazy giant that you are, to be snoring your
- time away in chimney-corners, when honest men’s daughters can’t cross
- even our quiet meadows at nightfall without being set upon by footpads,
- and frightened out of their precious lives.’
- ‘They never rob me,’ cried Hugh with a laugh. ‘I have got nothing to
- lose. But I’d as lief knock them at head as any other men. How many are
- there?’
- ‘Only one,’ said Dolly faintly, for everybody looked at her.
- ‘And what was he like, mistress?’ said Hugh with a glance at young
- Willet, so slight and momentary that the scowl it conveyed was lost on
- all but her. ‘About my height?’
- ‘Not--not so tall,’ Dolly replied, scarce knowing what she said.
- ‘His dress,’ said Hugh, looking at her keenly, ‘like--like any of ours
- now? I know all the people hereabouts, and maybe could give a guess at
- the man, if I had anything to guide me.’
- Dolly faltered and turned paler yet; then answered that he was wrapped
- in a loose coat and had his face hidden by a handkerchief and that she
- could give no other description of him.
- ‘You wouldn’t know him if you saw him then, belike?’ said Hugh with a
- malicious grin.
- ‘I should not,’ answered Dolly, bursting into tears again. ‘I don’t wish
- to see him. I can’t bear to think of him. I can’t talk about him any
- more. Don’t go to look for these things, Mr Joe, pray don’t. I entreat
- you not to go with that man.’
- ‘Not to go with me!’ cried Hugh. ‘I’m too rough for them all. They’re
- all afraid of me. Why, bless you mistress, I’ve the tenderest heart
- alive. I love all the ladies, ma’am,’ said Hugh, turning to the
- locksmith’s wife.
- Mrs Varden opined that if he did, he ought to be ashamed of himself;
- such sentiments being more consistent (so she argued) with a benighted
- Mussulman or wild Islander than with a stanch Protestant. Arguing from
- this imperfect state of his morals, Mrs Varden further opined that he
- had never studied the Manual. Hugh admitting that he never had, and
- moreover that he couldn’t read, Mrs Varden declared with much severity,
- that he ought to be even more ashamed of himself than before, and
- strongly recommended him to save up his pocket-money for the purchase
- of one, and further to teach himself the contents with all convenient
- diligence. She was still pursuing this train of discourse, when Hugh,
- somewhat unceremoniously and irreverently, followed his young master
- out, and left her to edify the rest of the company. This she proceeded
- to do, and finding that Mr Willet’s eyes were fixed upon her with an
- appearance of deep attention, gradually addressed the whole of her
- discourse to him, whom she entertained with a moral and theological
- lecture of considerable length, in the conviction that great workings
- were taking place in his spirit. The simple truth was, however, that Mr
- Willet, although his eyes were wide open and he saw a woman before
- him whose head by long and steady looking at seemed to grow bigger
- and bigger until it filled the whole bar, was to all other intents and
- purposes fast asleep; and so sat leaning back in his chair with his
- hands in his pockets until his son’s return caused him to wake up with
- a deep sigh, and a faint impression that he had been dreaming about
- pickled pork and greens--a vision of his slumbers which was no doubt
- referable to the circumstance of Mrs Varden’s having frequently
- pronounced the word ‘Grace’ with much emphasis; which word, entering
- the portals of Mr Willet’s brain as they stood ajar, and coupling itself
- with the words ‘before meat,’ which were there ranging about, did in
- time suggest a particular kind of meat together with that description of
- vegetable which is usually its companion.
- The search was wholly unsuccessful. Joe had groped along the path a
- dozen times, and among the grass, and in the dry ditch, and in the
- hedge, but all in vain. Dolly, who was quite inconsolable for her loss,
- wrote a note to Miss Haredale giving her the same account of it that she
- had given at the Maypole, which Joe undertook to deliver as soon as the
- family were stirring next day. That done, they sat down to tea in the
- bar, where there was an uncommon display of buttered toast, and--in
- order that they might not grow faint for want of sustenance, and
- might have a decent halting-place or halfway house between dinner and
- supper--a few savoury trifles in the shape of great rashers of broiled
- ham, which being well cured, done to a turn, and smoking hot, sent forth
- a tempting and delicious fragrance.
- Mrs Varden was seldom very Protestant at meals, unless it happened that
- they were underdone, or overdone, or indeed that anything occurred to
- put her out of humour. Her spirits rose considerably on beholding these
- goodly preparations, and from the nothingness of good works, she passed
- to the somethingness of ham and toast with great cheerfulness. Nay,
- under the influence of these wholesome stimulants, she sharply reproved
- her daughter for being low and despondent (which she considered an
- unacceptable frame of mind), and remarked, as she held her own plate for
- a fresh supply, that it would be well for Dolly, who pined over the loss
- of a toy and a sheet of paper, if she would reflect upon the voluntary
- sacrifices of the missionaries in foreign parts who lived chiefly on
- salads.
- The proceedings of such a day occasion various fluctuations in the human
- thermometer, and especially in instruments so sensitively and delicately
- constructed as Mrs Varden. Thus, at dinner Mrs V. stood at summer heat;
- genial, smiling, and delightful. After dinner, in the sunshine of the
- wine, she went up at least half-a-dozen degrees, and was perfectly
- enchanting. As its effect subsided, she fell rapidly, went to sleep for
- an hour or so at temperate, and woke at something below freezing. Now
- she was at summer heat again, in the shade; and when tea was over, and
- old John, producing a bottle of cordial from one of the oaken cases,
- insisted on her sipping two glasses thereof in slow succession, she
- stood steadily at ninety for one hour and a quarter. Profiting by
- experience, the locksmith took advantage of this genial weather to smoke
- his pipe in the porch, and in consequence of this prudent management, he
- was fully prepared, when the glass went down again, to start homewards
- directly.
- The horse was accordingly put in, and the chaise brought round to the
- door. Joe, who would on no account be dissuaded from escorting them
- until they had passed the most dreary and solitary part of the road,
- led out the grey mare at the same time; and having helped Dolly into her
- seat (more happiness!) sprung gaily into the saddle. Then, after many
- good nights, and admonitions to wrap up, and glancing of lights, and
- handing in of cloaks and shawls, the chaise rolled away, and Joe trotted
- beside it--on Dolly’s side, no doubt, and pretty close to the wheel too.
- Chapter 22
- It was a fine bright night, and for all her lowness of spirits Dolly
- kept looking up at the stars in a manner so bewitching (and SHE knew
- it!) that Joe was clean out of his senses, and plainly showed that if
- ever a man were--not to say over head and ears, but over the Monument
- and the top of Saint Paul’s in love, that man was himself. The road was
- a very good one; not at all a jolting road, or an uneven one; and yet
- Dolly held the side of the chaise with one little hand, all the way. If
- there had been an executioner behind him with an uplifted axe ready
- to chop off his head if he touched that hand, Joe couldn’t have helped
- doing it. From putting his own hand upon it as if by chance, and taking
- it away again after a minute or so, he got to riding along without
- taking it off at all; as if he, the escort, were bound to do that as an
- important part of his duty, and had come out for the purpose. The most
- curious circumstance about this little incident was, that Dolly didn’t
- seem to know of it. She looked so innocent and unconscious when she
- turned her eyes on Joe, that it was quite provoking.
- She talked though; talked about her fright, and about Joe’s coming up to
- rescue her, and about her gratitude, and about her fear that she might
- not have thanked him enough, and about their always being friends from
- that time forth--and about all that sort of thing. And when Joe said,
- not friends he hoped, Dolly was quite surprised, and said not enemies
- she hoped; and when Joe said, couldn’t they be something much better
- than either, Dolly all of a sudden found out a star which was brighter
- than all the other stars, and begged to call his attention to the same,
- and was ten thousand times more innocent and unconscious than ever.
- In this manner they travelled along, talking very little above a
- whisper, and wishing the road could be stretched out to some dozen times
- its natural length--at least that was Joe’s desire--when, as they were
- getting clear of the forest and emerging on the more frequented road,
- they heard behind them the sound of a horse’s feet at a round trot,
- which growing rapidly louder as it drew nearer, elicited a scream from
- Mrs Varden, and the cry ‘a friend!’ from the rider, who now came panting
- up, and checked his horse beside them.
- ‘This man again!’ cried Dolly, shuddering.
- ‘Hugh!’ said Joe. ‘What errand are you upon?’
- ‘I come to ride back with you,’ he answered, glancing covertly at the
- locksmith’s daughter. ‘HE sent me.’
- ‘My father!’ said poor Joe; adding under his breath, with a very
- unfilial apostrophe, ‘Will he never think me man enough to take care of
- myself!’
- ‘Aye!’ returned Hugh to the first part of the inquiry. ‘The roads are
- not safe just now, he says, and you’d better have a companion.’
- ‘Ride on then,’ said Joe. ‘I’m not going to turn yet.’
- Hugh complied, and they went on again. It was his whim or humour to
- ride immediately before the chaise, and from this position he constantly
- turned his head, and looked back. Dolly felt that he looked at her, but
- she averted her eyes and feared to raise them once, so great was the
- dread with which he had inspired her.
- This interruption, and the consequent wakefulness of Mrs Varden, who had
- been nodding in her sleep up to this point, except for a minute or
- two at a time, when she roused herself to scold the locksmith for
- audaciously taking hold of her to prevent her nodding herself out of
- the chaise, put a restraint upon the whispered conversation, and made
- it difficult of resumption. Indeed, before they had gone another mile,
- Gabriel stopped at his wife’s desire, and that good lady protested she
- would not hear of Joe’s going a step further on any account whatever. It
- was in vain for Joe to protest on the other hand that he was by no means
- tired, and would turn back presently, and would see them safely past
- such a point, and so forth. Mrs Varden was obdurate, and being so was
- not to be overcome by mortal agency.
- ‘Good night--if I must say it,’ said Joe, sorrowfully.
- ‘Good night,’ said Dolly. She would have added, ‘Take care of that man,
- and pray don’t trust him,’ but he had turned his horse’s head, and was
- standing close to them. She had therefore nothing for it but to suffer
- Joe to give her hand a gentle squeeze, and when the chaise had gone on
- for some distance, to look back and wave it, as he still lingered on
- the spot where they had parted, with the tall dark figure of Hugh beside
- him.
- What she thought about, going home; and whether the coach-maker held as
- favourable a place in her meditations as he had occupied in the morning,
- is unknown. They reached home at last--at last, for it was a long way,
- made none the shorter by Mrs Varden’s grumbling. Miggs hearing the sound
- of wheels was at the door immediately.
- ‘Here they are, Simmun! Here they are!’ cried Miggs, clapping her
- hands, and issuing forth to help her mistress to alight. ‘Bring a
- chair, Simmun. Now, an’t you the better for it, mim? Don’t you feel more
- yourself than you would have done if you’d have stopped at home? Oh,
- gracious! how cold you are! Goodness me, sir, she’s a perfect heap of
- ice.’
- ‘I can’t help it, my good girl. You had better take her in to the fire,’
- said the locksmith.
- ‘Master sounds unfeeling, mim,’ said Miggs, in a tone of commiseration,
- ‘but such is not his intentions, I’m sure. After what he has seen of you
- this day, I never will believe but that he has a deal more affection
- in his heart than to speak unkind. Come in and sit yourself down by the
- fire; there’s a good dear--do.’
- Mrs Varden complied. The locksmith followed with his hands in his
- pockets, and Mr Tappertit trundled off with the chaise to a neighbouring
- stable.
- ‘Martha, my dear,’ said the locksmith, when they reached the parlour,
- ‘if you’ll look to Dolly yourself or let somebody else do it, perhaps it
- will be only kind and reasonable. She has been frightened, you know, and
- is not at all well to-night.’
- In fact, Dolly had thrown herself upon the sofa, quite regardless of
- all the little finery of which she had been so proud in the morning, and
- with her face buried in her hands was crying very much.
- At first sight of this phenomenon (for Dolly was by no means accustomed
- to displays of this sort, rather learning from her mother’s example to
- avoid them as much as possible) Mrs Varden expressed her belief that
- never was any woman so beset as she; that her life was a continued scene
- of trial; that whenever she was disposed to be well and cheerful, so
- sure were the people around her to throw, by some means or other, a damp
- upon her spirits; and that, as she had enjoyed herself that day, and
- Heaven knew it was very seldom she did enjoy herself so she was now to
- pay the penalty. To all such propositions Miggs assented freely. Poor
- Dolly, however, grew none the better for these restoratives, but rather
- worse, indeed; and seeing that she was really ill, both Mrs Varden and
- Miggs were moved to compassion, and tended her in earnest.
- But even then, their very kindness shaped itself into their usual course
- of policy, and though Dolly was in a swoon, it was rendered clear to
- the meanest capacity, that Mrs Varden was the sufferer. Thus when
- Dolly began to get a little better, and passed into that stage in which
- matrons hold that remonstrance and argument may be successfully applied,
- her mother represented to her, with tears in her eyes, that if she had
- been flurried and worried that day, she must remember it was the common
- lot of humanity, and in especial of womankind, who through the whole
- of their existence must expect no less, and were bound to make up their
- minds to meek endurance and patient resignation. Mrs Varden entreated
- her to remember that one of these days she would, in all probability,
- have to do violence to her feelings so far as to be married; and that
- marriage, as she might see every day of her life (and truly she did) was
- a state requiring great fortitude and forbearance. She represented to
- her in lively colours, that if she (Mrs V.) had not, in steering her
- course through this vale of tears, been supported by a strong principle
- of duty which alone upheld and prevented her from drooping, she must
- have been in her grave many years ago; in which case she desired to know
- what would have become of that errant spirit (meaning the locksmith), of
- whose eye she was the very apple, and in whose path she was, as it were,
- a shining light and guiding star?
- Miss Miggs also put in her word to the same effect. She said that indeed
- and indeed Miss Dolly might take pattern by her blessed mother, who,
- she always had said, and always would say, though she were to be hanged,
- drawn, and quartered for it next minute, was the mildest, amiablest,
- forgivingest-spirited, longest-sufferingest female as ever she could
- have believed; the mere narration of whose excellencies had worked such
- a wholesome change in the mind of her own sister-in-law, that, whereas,
- before, she and her husband lived like cat and dog, and were in the
- habit of exchanging brass candlesticks, pot-lids, flat-irons, and other
- such strong resentments, they were now the happiest and affectionatest
- couple upon earth; as could be proved any day on application at Golden
- Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, second bell-handle on the right-hand
- doorpost. After glancing at herself as a comparatively worthless vessel,
- but still as one of some desert, she besought her to bear in mind that
- her aforesaid dear and only mother was of a weakly constitution and
- excitable temperament, who had constantly to sustain afflictions in
- domestic life, compared with which thieves and robbers were as nothing,
- and yet never sunk down or gave way to despair or wrath, but, in
- prize-fighting phraseology, always came up to time with a cheerful
- countenance, and went in to win as if nothing had happened. When Miggs
- finished her solo, her mistress struck in again, and the two together
- performed a duet to the same purpose; the burden being, that Mrs Varden
- was persecuted perfection, and Mr Varden, as the representative of
- mankind in that apartment, a creature of vicious and brutal habits,
- utterly insensible to the blessings he enjoyed. Of so refined a
- character, indeed, was their talent of assault under the mask of
- sympathy, that when Dolly, recovering, embraced her father tenderly,
- as in vindication of his goodness, Mrs Varden expressed her solemn hope
- that this would be a lesson to him for the remainder of his life,
- and that he would do some little justice to a woman’s nature ever
- afterwards--in which aspiration Miss Miggs, by divers sniffs and
- coughs, more significant than the longest oration, expressed her entire
- concurrence.
- But the great joy of Miggs’s heart was, that she not only picked up
- a full account of what had happened, but had the exquisite delight of
- conveying it to Mr Tappertit for his jealousy and torture. For that
- gentleman, on account of Dolly’s indisposition, had been requested to
- take his supper in the workshop, and it was conveyed thither by Miss
- Miggs’s own fair hands.
- ‘Oh Simmun!’ said the young lady, ‘such goings on to-day! Oh, gracious
- me, Simmun!’
- Mr Tappertit, who was not in the best of humours, and who disliked Miss
- Miggs more when she laid her hand on her heart and panted for breath
- than at any other time, as her deficiency of outline was most apparent
- under such circumstances, eyed her over in his loftiest style, and
- deigned to express no curiosity whatever.
- ‘I never heard the like, nor nobody else,’ pursued Miggs. ‘The idea of
- interfering with HER. What people can see in her to make it worth their
- while to do so, that’s the joke--he he he!’
- Finding there was a lady in the case, Mr Tappertit haughtily requested
- his fair friend to be more explicit, and demanded to know what she meant
- by ‘her.’
- ‘Why, that Dolly,’ said Miggs, with an extremely sharp emphasis on the
- name. ‘But, oh upon my word and honour, young Joseph Willet is a brave
- one; and he do deserve her, that he do.’
- ‘Woman!’ said Mr Tappertit, jumping off the counter on which he was
- seated; ‘beware!’
- ‘My stars, Simmun!’ cried Miggs, in affected astonishment. ‘You frighten
- me to death! What’s the matter?’
- ‘There are strings,’ said Mr Tappertit, flourishing his bread-and-cheese
- knife in the air, ‘in the human heart that had better not be wibrated.
- That’s what’s the matter.’
- ‘Oh, very well--if you’re in a huff,’ cried Miggs, turning away.
- ‘Huff or no huff,’ said Mr Tappertit, detaining her by the wrist. ‘What
- do you mean, Jezebel? What were you going to say? Answer me!’
- Notwithstanding this uncivil exhortation, Miggs gladly did as she was
- required; and told him how that their young mistress, being alone in
- the meadows after dark, had been attacked by three or four tall men, who
- would have certainly borne her away and perhaps murdered her, but for
- the timely arrival of Joseph Willet, who with his own single hand put
- them all to flight, and rescued her; to the lasting admiration of his
- fellow-creatures generally, and to the eternal love and gratitude of
- Dolly Varden.
- ‘Very good,’ said Mr Tappertit, fetching a long breath when the tale was
- told, and rubbing his hair up till it stood stiff and straight on end
- all over his head. ‘His days are numbered.’
- ‘Oh, Simmun!’
- ‘I tell you,’ said the ‘prentice, ‘his days are numbered. Leave me. Get
- along with you.’
- Miggs departed at his bidding, but less because of his bidding than
- because she desired to chuckle in secret. When she had given vent to
- her satisfaction, she returned to the parlour; where the locksmith,
- stimulated by quietness and Toby, had become talkative, and was disposed
- to take a cheerful review of the occurrences of the day. But Mrs
- Varden, whose practical religion (as is not uncommon) was usually of the
- retrospective order, cut him short by declaiming on the sinfulness of
- such junketings, and holding that it was high time to go to bed. To bed
- therefore she withdrew, with an aspect as grim and gloomy as that of the
- Maypole’s own state couch; and to bed the rest of the establishment soon
- afterwards repaired.
- Chapter 23
- Twilight had given place to night some hours, and it was high noon
- in those quarters of the town in which ‘the world’ condescended to
- dwell--the world being then, as now, of very limited dimensions and
- easily lodged--when Mr Chester reclined upon a sofa in his dressing-room
- in the Temple, entertaining himself with a book.
- He was dressing, as it seemed, by easy stages, and having performed half
- the journey was taking a long rest. Completely attired as to his legs
- and feet in the trimmest fashion of the day, he had yet the remainder of
- his toilet to perform. The coat was stretched, like a refined scarecrow,
- on its separate horse; the waistcoat was displayed to the best
- advantage; the various ornamental articles of dress were severally set
- out in most alluring order; and yet he lay dangling his legs between the
- sofa and the ground, as intent upon his book as if there were nothing
- but bed before him.
- ‘Upon my honour,’ he said, at length raising his eyes to the ceiling
- with the air of a man who was reflecting seriously on what he had
- read; ‘upon my honour, the most masterly composition, the most delicate
- thoughts, the finest code of morality, and the most gentlemanly
- sentiments in the universe! Ah Ned, Ned, if you would but form your mind
- by such precepts, we should have but one common feeling on every subject
- that could possibly arise between us!’
- This apostrophe was addressed, like the rest of his remarks, to empty
- air: for Edward was not present, and the father was quite alone.
- ‘My Lord Chesterfield,’ he said, pressing his hand tenderly upon the
- book as he laid it down, ‘if I could but have profited by your genius
- soon enough to have formed my son on the model you have left to all
- wise fathers, both he and I would have been rich men. Shakespeare was
- undoubtedly very fine in his way; Milton good, though prosy; Lord Bacon
- deep, and decidedly knowing; but the writer who should be his country’s
- pride, is my Lord Chesterfield.’
- He became thoughtful again, and the toothpick was in requisition.
- ‘I thought I was tolerably accomplished as a man of the world,’ he
- continued, ‘I flattered myself that I was pretty well versed in all
- those little arts and graces which distinguish men of the world from
- boors and peasants, and separate their character from those intensely
- vulgar sentiments which are called the national character. Apart from
- any natural prepossession in my own favour, I believed I was. Still, in
- every page of this enlightened writer, I find some captivating hypocrisy
- which has never occurred to me before, or some superlative piece of
- selfishness to which I was utterly a stranger. I should quite blush for
- myself before this stupendous creature, if remembering his precepts, one
- might blush at anything. An amazing man! a nobleman indeed! any King or
- Queen may make a Lord, but only the Devil himself--and the Graces--can
- make a Chesterfield.’
- Men who are thoroughly false and hollow, seldom try to hide those vices
- from themselves; and yet in the very act of avowing them, they lay claim
- to the virtues they feign most to despise. ‘For,’ say they, ‘this is
- honesty, this is truth. All mankind are like us, but they have not the
- candour to avow it.’ The more they affect to deny the existence of any
- sincerity in the world, the more they would be thought to possess it in
- its boldest shape; and this is an unconscious compliment to Truth on the
- part of these philosophers, which will turn the laugh against them to
- the Day of Judgment.
- Mr Chester, having extolled his favourite author, as above recited,
- took up the book again in the excess of his admiration and was composing
- himself for a further perusal of its sublime morality, when he was
- disturbed by a noise at the outer door; occasioned as it seemed by the
- endeavours of his servant to obstruct the entrance of some unwelcome
- visitor.
- ‘A late hour for an importunate creditor,’ he said, raising his eyebrows
- with as indolent an expression of wonder as if the noise were in the
- street, and one with which he had not the smallest possible concern.
- ‘Much after their accustomed time. The usual pretence I suppose. No
- doubt a heavy payment to make up tomorrow. Poor fellow, he loses time,
- and time is money as the good proverb says--I never found it out though.
- Well. What now? You know I am not at home.’
- ‘A man, sir,’ replied the servant, who was to the full as cool and
- negligent in his way as his master, ‘has brought home the riding-whip
- you lost the other day. I told him you were out, but he said he was to
- wait while I brought it in, and wouldn’t go till I did.’
- ‘He was quite right,’ returned his master, ‘and you’re a blockhead,
- possessing no judgment or discretion whatever. Tell him to come in, and
- see that he rubs his shoes for exactly five minutes first.’
- The man laid the whip on a chair, and withdrew. The master, who had only
- heard his foot upon the ground and had not taken the trouble to turn
- round and look at him, shut his book, and pursued the train of ideas his
- entrance had disturbed.
- ‘If time were money,’ he said, handling his snuff-box, ‘I would compound
- with my creditors, and give them--let me see--how much a day? There’s
- my nap after dinner--an hour--they’re extremely welcome to that, and to
- make the most of it. In the morning, between my breakfast and the
- paper, I could spare them another hour; in the evening before dinner
- say another. Three hours a day. They might pay themselves in calls, with
- interest, in twelve months. I think I shall propose it to them. Ah, my
- centaur, are you there?’
- ‘Here I am,’ replied Hugh, striding in, followed by a dog, as rough and
- sullen as himself; ‘and trouble enough I’ve had to get here. What do you
- ask me to come for, and keep me out when I DO come?’
- ‘My good fellow,’ returned the other, raising his head a little from the
- cushion and carelessly surveying him from top to toe, ‘I am delighted to
- see you, and to have, in your being here, the very best proof that you
- are not kept out. How are you?’
- ‘I’m well enough,’ said Hugh impatiently.
- ‘You look a perfect marvel of health. Sit down.’
- ‘I’d rather stand,’ said Hugh.
- ‘Please yourself my good fellow,’ returned Mr Chester rising, slowly
- pulling off the loose robe he wore, and sitting down before the
- dressing-glass. ‘Please yourself by all means.’
- Having said this in the politest and blandest tone possible, he went on
- dressing, and took no further notice of his guest, who stood in the same
- spot as uncertain what to do next, eyeing him sulkily from time to time.
- ‘Are you going to speak to me, master?’ he said, after a long silence.
- ‘My worthy creature,’ returned Mr Chester, ‘you are a little ruffled and
- out of humour. I’ll wait till you’re quite yourself again. I am in no
- hurry.’
- This behaviour had its intended effect. It humbled and abashed the man,
- and made him still more irresolute and uncertain. Hard words he could
- have returned, violence he would have repaid with interest; but this
- cool, complacent, contemptuous, self-possessed reception, caused him to
- feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate arguments.
- Everything contributed to this effect. His own rough speech, contrasted
- with the soft persuasive accents of the other; his rude bearing, and
- Mr Chester’s polished manner; the disorder and negligence of his
- ragged dress, and the elegant attire he saw before him; with all the
- unaccustomed luxuries and comforts of the room, and the silence that
- gave him leisure to observe these things, and feel how ill at ease they
- made him; all these influences, which have too often some effect on
- tutored minds and become of almost resistless power when brought to bear
- on such a mind as his, quelled Hugh completely. He moved by little and
- little nearer to Mr Chester’s chair, and glancing over his shoulder
- at the reflection of his face in the glass, as if seeking for some
- encouragement in its expression, said at length, with a rough attempt at
- conciliation,
- ‘ARE you going to speak to me, master, or am I to go away?’
- ‘Speak you,’ said Mr Chester, ‘speak you, good fellow. I have spoken,
- have I not? I am waiting for you.’
- ‘Why, look’ee, sir,’ returned Hugh with increased embarrassment, ‘am I
- the man that you privately left your whip with before you rode away from
- the Maypole, and told to bring it back whenever he might want to see you
- on a certain subject?’
- ‘No doubt the same, or you have a twin brother,’ said Mr Chester,
- glancing at the reflection of his anxious face; ‘which is not probable,
- I should say.’
- ‘Then I have come, sir,’ said Hugh, ‘and I have brought it back, and
- something else along with it. A letter, sir, it is, that I took from
- the person who had charge of it.’ As he spoke, he laid upon the
- dressing-table, Dolly’s lost epistle. The very letter that had cost her
- so much trouble.
- ‘Did you obtain this by force, my good fellow?’ said Mr Chester, casting
- his eye upon it without the least perceptible surprise or pleasure.
- ‘Not quite,’ said Hugh. ‘Partly.’
- ‘Who was the messenger from whom you took it?’
- ‘A woman. One Varden’s daughter.’
- ‘Oh indeed!’ said Mr Chester gaily. ‘What else did you take from her?’
- ‘What else?’
- ‘Yes,’ said the other, in a drawling manner, for he was fixing a very
- small patch of sticking plaster on a very small pimple near the corner
- of his mouth. ‘What else?’
- ‘Well a kiss,’ replied Hugh, after some hesitation.
- ‘And what else?’
- ‘Nothing.’
- ‘I think,’ said Mr Chester, in the same easy tone, and smiling twice or
- thrice to try if the patch adhered--‘I think there was something else.
- I have heard a trifle of jewellery spoken of--a mere trifle--a thing
- of such little value, indeed, that you may have forgotten it. Do you
- remember anything of the kind--such as a bracelet now, for instance?’
- Hugh with a muttered oath thrust his hand into his breast, and drawing
- the bracelet forth, wrapped in a scrap of hay, was about to lay it on
- the table likewise, when his patron stopped his hand and bade him put it
- up again.
- ‘You took that for yourself my excellent friend,’ he said, ‘and may keep
- it. I am neither a thief nor a receiver. Don’t show it to me. You had
- better hide it again, and lose no time. Don’t let me see where you put
- it either,’ he added, turning away his head.
- ‘You’re not a receiver!’ said Hugh bluntly, despite the increasing awe
- in which he held him. ‘What do you call THAT, master?’ striking the
- letter with his heavy hand.
- ‘I call that quite another thing,’ said Mr Chester coolly. ‘I shall
- prove it presently, as you will see. You are thirsty, I suppose?’
- Hugh drew his sleeve across his lips, and gruffly answered yes.
- ‘Step to that closet and bring me a bottle you will see there, and a
- glass.’
- He obeyed. His patron followed him with his eyes, and when his back was
- turned, smiled as he had never done when he stood beside the mirror.
- On his return he filled the glass, and bade him drink. That dram
- despatched, he poured him out another, and another.
- ‘How many can you bear?’ he said, filling the glass again.
- ‘As many as you like to give me. Pour on. Fill high. A bumper with a
- bead in the middle! Give me enough of this,’ he added, as he tossed it
- down his hairy throat, ‘and I’ll do murder if you ask me!’
- ‘As I don’t mean to ask you, and you might possibly do it without
- being invited if you went on much further,’ said Mr Chester with great
- composure, ‘we will stop, if agreeable to you, my good friend, at the
- next glass. You were drinking before you came here.’
- ‘I always am when I can get it,’ cried Hugh boisterously, waving the
- empty glass above his head, and throwing himself into a rude dancing
- attitude. ‘I always am. Why not? Ha ha ha! What’s so good to me as this?
- What ever has been? What else has kept away the cold on bitter nights,
- and driven hunger off in starving times? What else has given me the
- strength and courage of a man, when men would have left me to die, a
- puny child? I should never have had a man’s heart but for this. I
- should have died in a ditch. Where’s he who when I was a weak and sickly
- wretch, with trembling legs and fading sight, bade me cheer up, as this
- did? I never knew him; not I. I drink to the drink, master. Ha ha ha!’
- ‘You are an exceedingly cheerful young man,’ said Mr Chester, putting
- on his cravat with great deliberation, and slightly moving his head
- from side to side to settle his chin in its proper place. ‘Quite a boon
- companion.’
- ‘Do you see this hand, master,’ said Hugh, ‘and this arm?’ baring the
- brawny limb to the elbow. ‘It was once mere skin and bone, and would
- have been dust in some poor churchyard by this time, but for the drink.’
- ‘You may cover it,’ said Mr Chester, ‘it’s sufficiently real in your
- sleeve.’
- ‘I should never have been spirited up to take a kiss from the proud
- little beauty, master, but for the drink,’ cried Hugh. ‘Ha ha ha! It was
- a good one. As sweet as honeysuckle, I warrant you. I thank the drink
- for it. I’ll drink to the drink again, master. Fill me one more. Come.
- One more!’
- ‘You are such a promising fellow,’ said his patron, putting on his
- waistcoat with great nicety, and taking no heed of this request, ‘that
- I must caution you against having too many impulses from the drink, and
- getting hung before your time. What’s your age?’
- ‘I don’t know.’
- ‘At any rate,’ said Mr Chester, ‘you are young enough to escape what
- I may call a natural death for some years to come. How can you trust
- yourself in my hands on so short an acquaintance, with a halter round
- your neck? What a confiding nature yours must be!’
- Hugh fell back a pace or two and surveyed him with a look of mingled
- terror, indignation, and surprise. Regarding himself in the glass with
- the same complacency as before, and speaking as smoothly as if he were
- discussing some pleasant chit-chat of the town, his patron went on:
- ‘Robbery on the king’s highway, my young friend, is a very dangerous and
- ticklish occupation. It is pleasant, I have no doubt, while it lasts;
- but like many other pleasures in this transitory world, it seldom lasts
- long. And really if in the ingenuousness of youth, you open your heart
- so readily on the subject, I am afraid your career will be an extremely
- short one.’
- ‘How’s this?’ said Hugh. ‘What do you talk of master? Who was it set me
- on?’
- ‘Who?’ said Mr Chester, wheeling sharply round, and looking full at him
- for the first time. ‘I didn’t hear you. Who was it?’
- Hugh faltered, and muttered something which was not audible.
- ‘Who was it? I am curious to know,’ said Mr Chester, with surpassing
- affability. ‘Some rustic beauty perhaps? But be cautious, my good
- friend. They are not always to be trusted. Do take my advice now, and be
- careful of yourself.’ With these words he turned to the glass again, and
- went on with his toilet.
- Hugh would have answered him that he, the questioner himself had set him
- on, but the words stuck in his throat. The consummate art with which his
- patron had led him to this point, and managed the whole conversation,
- perfectly baffled him. He did not doubt that if he had made the retort
- which was on his lips when Mr Chester turned round and questioned him
- so keenly, he would straightway have given him into custody and had him
- dragged before a justice with the stolen property upon him; in which
- case it was as certain he would have been hung as it was that he had
- been born. The ascendency which it was the purpose of the man of the
- world to establish over this savage instrument, was gained from that
- time. Hugh’s submission was complete. He dreaded him beyond description;
- and felt that accident and artifice had spun a web about him, which at a
- touch from such a master-hand as his, would bind him to the gallows.
- With these thoughts passing through his mind, and yet wondering at the
- very same time how he who came there rioting in the confidence of this
- man (as he thought), should be so soon and so thoroughly subdued, Hugh
- stood cowering before him, regarding him uneasily from time to time,
- while he finished dressing. When he had done so, he took up the
- letter, broke the seal, and throwing himself back in his chair, read it
- leisurely through.
- ‘Very neatly worded upon my life! Quite a woman’s letter, full of what
- people call tenderness, and disinterestedness, and heart, and all that
- sort of thing!’
- As he spoke, he twisted it up, and glancing lazily round at Hugh as
- though he would say ‘You see this?’ held it in the flame of the candle.
- When it was in a full blaze, he tossed it into the grate, and there it
- smouldered away.
- ‘It was directed to my son,’ he said, turning to Hugh, ‘and you did
- quite right to bring it here. I opened it on my own responsibility, and
- you see what I have done with it. Take this, for your trouble.’
- Hugh stepped forward to receive the piece of money he held out to him.
- As he put it in his hand, he added:
- ‘If you should happen to find anything else of this sort, or to pick
- up any kind of information you may think I would like to have, bring it
- here, will you, my good fellow?’
- This was said with a smile which implied--or Hugh thought it did--‘fail
- to do so at your peril!’ He answered that he would.
- ‘And don’t,’ said his patron, with an air of the very kindest patronage,
- ‘don’t be at all downcast or uneasy respecting that little rashness we
- have been speaking of. Your neck is as safe in my hands, my good fellow,
- as though a baby’s fingers clasped it, I assure you.--Take another
- glass. You are quieter now.’
- Hugh accepted it from his hand, and looking stealthily at his smiling
- face, drank the contents in silence.
- ‘Don’t you--ha, ha!--don’t you drink to the drink any more?’ said Mr
- Chester, in his most winning manner.
- ‘To you, sir,’ was the sullen answer, with something approaching to a
- bow. ‘I drink to you.’
- ‘Thank you. God bless you. By the bye, what is your name, my good soul?
- You are called Hugh, I know, of course--your other name?’
- ‘I have no other name.’
- ‘A very strange fellow! Do you mean that you never knew one, or that you
- don’t choose to tell it? Which?’
- ‘I’d tell it if I could,’ said Hugh, quickly. ‘I can’t. I have been
- always called Hugh; nothing more. I never knew, nor saw, nor thought
- about a father; and I was a boy of six--that’s not very old--when they
- hung my mother up at Tyburn for a couple of thousand men to stare at.
- They might have let her live. She was poor enough.’
- ‘How very sad!’ exclaimed his patron, with a condescending smile. ‘I
- have no doubt she was an exceedingly fine woman.’
- ‘You see that dog of mine?’ said Hugh, abruptly.
- ‘Faithful, I dare say?’ rejoined his patron, looking at him through his
- glass; ‘and immensely clever? Virtuous and gifted animals, whether man
- or beast, always are so very hideous.’
- ‘Such a dog as that, and one of the same breed, was the only living
- thing except me that howled that day,’ said Hugh. ‘Out of the two
- thousand odd--there was a larger crowd for its being a woman--the dog
- and I alone had any pity. If he’d have been a man, he’d have been
- glad to be quit of her, for she had been forced to keep him lean and
- half-starved; but being a dog, and not having a man’s sense, he was
- sorry.’
- ‘It was dull of the brute, certainly,’ said Mr Chester, ‘and very like a
- brute.’
- Hugh made no rejoinder, but whistling to his dog, who sprung up at the
- sound and came jumping and sporting about him, bade his sympathising
- friend good night.
- ‘Good night,’ he returned. ‘Remember; you’re safe with me--quite safe. So
- long as you deserve it, my good fellow, as I hope you always will, you
- have a friend in me, on whose silence you may rely. Now do be careful of
- yourself, pray do, and consider what jeopardy you might have stood in.
- Good night! bless you!’
- Hugh truckled before the hidden meaning of these words as much as such
- a being could, and crept out of the door so submissively and
- subserviently--with an air, in short, so different from that with which
- he had entered--that his patron on being left alone, smiled more than
- ever.
- ‘And yet,’ he said, as he took a pinch of snuff, ‘I do not like their
- having hanged his mother. The fellow has a fine eye, and I am sure she
- was handsome. But very probably she was coarse--red-nosed perhaps, and
- had clumsy feet. Aye, it was all for the best, no doubt.’
- With this comforting reflection, he put on his coat, took a farewell
- glance at the glass, and summoned his man, who promptly attended,
- followed by a chair and its two bearers.
- ‘Foh!’ said Mr Chester. ‘The very atmosphere that centaur has breathed,
- seems tainted with the cart and ladder. Here, Peak. Bring some scent and
- sprinkle the floor; and take away the chair he sat upon, and air it; and
- dash a little of that mixture upon me. I am stifled!’
- The man obeyed; and the room and its master being both purified, nothing
- remained for Mr Chester but to demand his hat, to fold it jauntily under
- his arm, to take his seat in the chair and be carried off; humming a
- fashionable tune.
- Chapter 24
- How the accomplished gentleman spent the evening in the midst of a
- dazzling and brilliant circle; how he enchanted all those with whom he
- mingled by the grace of his deportment, the politeness of his manner,
- the vivacity of his conversation, and the sweetness of his voice; how
- it was observed in every corner, that Chester was a man of that happy
- disposition that nothing ruffled him, that he was one on whom the
- world’s cares and errors sat lightly as his dress, and in whose smiling
- face a calm and tranquil mind was constantly reflected; how honest men,
- who by instinct knew him better, bowed down before him nevertheless,
- deferred to his every word, and courted his favourable notice; how
- people, who really had good in them, went with the stream, and fawned
- and flattered, and approved, and despised themselves while they did
- so, and yet had not the courage to resist; how, in short, he was one of
- those who are received and cherished in society (as the phrase is) by
- scores who individually would shrink from and be repelled by the
- object of their lavish regard; are things of course, which will suggest
- themselves. Matter so commonplace needs but a passing glance, and there
- an end.
- The despisers of mankind--apart from the mere fools and mimics, of that
- creed--are of two sorts. They who believe their merit neglected and
- unappreciated, make up one class; they who receive adulation and
- flattery, knowing their own worthlessness, compose the other. Be sure
- that the coldest-hearted misanthropes are ever of this last order.
- Mr Chester sat up in bed next morning, sipping his coffee, and
- remembering with a kind of contemptuous satisfaction how he had shone
- last night, and how he had been caressed and courted, when his servant
- brought in a very small scrap of dirty paper, tightly sealed in two
- places, on the inside whereof was inscribed in pretty large text these
- words: ‘A friend. Desiring of a conference. Immediate. Private. Burn it
- when you’ve read it.’
- ‘Where in the name of the Gunpowder Plot did you pick up this?’ said his
- master.
- It was given him by a person then waiting at the door, the man replied.
- ‘With a cloak and dagger?’ said Mr Chester.
- With nothing more threatening about him, it appeared, than a leather
- apron and a dirty face. ‘Let him come in.’ In he came--Mr Tappertit;
- with his hair still on end, and a great lock in his hand, which he put
- down on the floor in the middle of the chamber as if he were about to go
- through some performances in which it was a necessary agent.
- ‘Sir,’ said Mr Tappertit with a low bow, ‘I thank you for this
- condescension, and am glad to see you. Pardon the menial office in which
- I am engaged, sir, and extend your sympathies to one, who, humble as his
- appearance is, has inn’ard workings far above his station.’
- Mr Chester held the bed-curtain farther back, and looked at him with a
- vague impression that he was some maniac, who had not only broken open
- the door of his place of confinement, but had brought away the lock. Mr
- Tappertit bowed again, and displayed his legs to the best advantage.
- ‘You have heard, sir,’ said Mr Tappertit, laying his hand upon his
- breast, ‘of G. Varden Locksmith and bell-hanger and repairs neatly
- executed in town and country, Clerkenwell, London?’
- ‘What then?’ asked Mr Chester.
- ‘I’m his ‘prentice, sir.’
- ‘What THEN?’
- ‘Ahem!’ said Mr Tappertit. ‘Would you permit me to shut the door, sir,
- and will you further, sir, give me your honour bright, that what passes
- between us is in the strictest confidence?’
- Mr Chester laid himself calmly down in bed again, and turning a
- perfectly undisturbed face towards the strange apparition, which had
- by this time closed the door, begged him to speak out, and to be as
- rational as he could, without putting himself to any very great personal
- inconvenience.
- ‘In the first place, sir,’ said Mr Tappertit, producing a small
- pocket-handkerchief and shaking it out of the folds, ‘as I have not
- a card about me (for the envy of masters debases us below that level)
- allow me to offer the best substitute that circumstances will admit of.
- If you will take that in your own hand, sir, and cast your eye on the
- right-hand corner,’ said Mr Tappertit, offering it with a graceful air,
- ‘you will meet with my credentials.’
- ‘Thank you,’ answered Mr Chester, politely accepting it, and turning to
- some blood-red characters at one end. ‘“Four. Simon Tappertit. One.” Is
- that the--’
- ‘Without the numbers, sir, that is my name,’ replied the ‘prentice.
- ‘They are merely intended as directions to the washerwoman, and have no
- connection with myself or family. YOUR name, sir,’ said Mr Tappertit,
- looking very hard at his nightcap, ‘is Chester, I suppose? You needn’t
- pull it off, sir, thank you. I observe E. C. from here. We will take the
- rest for granted.’
- ‘Pray, Mr Tappertit,’ said Mr Chester, ‘has that complicated piece of
- ironmongery which you have done me the favour to bring with you, any
- immediate connection with the business we are to discuss?’
- ‘It has not, sir,’ rejoined the ‘prentice. ‘It’s going to be fitted on a
- ware’us-door in Thames Street.’
- ‘Perhaps, as that is the case,’ said Mr Chester, ‘and as it has a
- stronger flavour of oil than I usually refresh my bedroom with, you will
- oblige me so far as to put it outside the door?’
- ‘By all means, sir,’ said Mr Tappertit, suiting the action to the word.
- ‘You’ll excuse my mentioning it, I hope?’
- ‘Don’t apologise, sir, I beg. And now, if you please, to business.’
- During the whole of this dialogue, Mr Chester had suffered nothing but
- his smile of unvarying serenity and politeness to appear upon his face.
- Sim Tappertit, who had far too good an opinion of himself to suspect
- that anybody could be playing upon him, thought within himself that
- this was something like the respect to which he was entitled, and drew
- a comparison from this courteous demeanour of a stranger, by no means
- favourable to the worthy locksmith.
- ‘From what passes in our house,’ said Mr Tappertit, ‘I am aware, sir,
- that your son keeps company with a young lady against your inclinations.
- Sir, your son has not used me well.’
- ‘Mr Tappertit,’ said the other, ‘you grieve me beyond description.’
- ‘Thank you, sir,’ replied the ‘prentice. ‘I’m glad to hear you say so.
- He’s very proud, sir, is your son; very haughty.’
- ‘I am afraid he IS haughty,’ said Mr Chester. ‘Do you know I was really
- afraid of that before; and you confirm me?’
- ‘To recount the menial offices I’ve had to do for your son, sir,’ said
- Mr Tappertit; ‘the chairs I’ve had to hand him, the coaches I’ve had to
- call for him, the numerous degrading duties, wholly unconnected with
- my indenters, that I’ve had to do for him, would fill a family Bible.
- Besides which, sir, he is but a young man himself and I do not consider
- “thank’ee Sim,” a proper form of address on those occasions.’
- ‘Mr Tappertit, your wisdom is beyond your years. Pray go on.’
- ‘I thank you for your good opinion, sir,’ said Sim, much gratified,
- ‘and will endeavour so to do. Now sir, on this account (and perhaps for
- another reason or two which I needn’t go into) I am on your side. And
- what I tell you is this--that as long as our people go backwards and
- forwards, to and fro, up and down, to that there jolly old Maypole,
- lettering, and messaging, and fetching and carrying, you couldn’t help
- your son keeping company with that young lady by deputy,--not if he was
- minded night and day by all the Horse Guards, and every man of ‘em in
- the very fullest uniform.’
- Mr Tappertit stopped to take breath after this, and then started fresh
- again.
- ‘Now, sir, I am a coming to the point. You will inquire of me, “how is
- this to be prevented?” I’ll tell you how. If an honest, civil, smiling
- gentleman like you--’
- ‘Mr Tappertit--really--’
- ‘No, no, I’m serious,’ rejoined the ‘prentice, ‘I am, upon my soul.
- If an honest, civil, smiling gentleman like you, was to talk but ten
- minutes to our old woman--that’s Mrs Varden--and flatter her up a bit,
- you’d gain her over for ever. Then there’s this point got--that her
- daughter Dolly,’--here a flush came over Mr Tappertit’s face--‘wouldn’t
- be allowed to be a go-between from that time forward; and till that
- point’s got, there’s nothing ever will prevent her. Mind that.’
- ‘Mr Tappertit, your knowledge of human nature--’
- ‘Wait a minute,’ said Sim, folding his arms with a dreadful calmness.
- ‘Now I come to THE point. Sir, there is a villain at that Maypole, a
- monster in human shape, a vagabond of the deepest dye, that unless you
- get rid of and have kidnapped and carried off at the very least--nothing
- less will do--will marry your son to that young woman, as certainly and
- as surely as if he was the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. He will,
- sir, for the hatred and malice that he bears to you; let alone the
- pleasure of doing a bad action, which to him is its own reward. If you
- knew how this chap, this Joseph Willet--that’s his name--comes backwards
- and forwards to our house, libelling, and denouncing, and threatening
- you, and how I shudder when I hear him, you’d hate him worse than I
- do,--worse than I do, sir,’ said Mr Tappertit wildly, putting his hair
- up straighter, and making a crunching noise with his teeth; ‘if sich a
- thing is possible.’
- ‘A little private vengeance in this, Mr Tappertit?’
- ‘Private vengeance, sir, or public sentiment, or both combined--destroy
- him,’ said Mr Tappertit. ‘Miggs says so too. Miggs and me both say so.
- We can’t bear the plotting and undermining that takes place. Our souls
- recoil from it. Barnaby Rudge and Mrs Rudge are in it likewise; but the
- villain, Joseph Willet, is the ringleader. Their plottings and schemes
- are known to me and Miggs. If you want information of ‘em, apply to us.
- Put Joseph Willet down, sir. Destroy him. Crush him. And be happy.’
- With these words, Mr Tappertit, who seemed to expect no reply, and to
- hold it as a necessary consequence of his eloquence that his hearer
- should be utterly stunned, dumbfoundered, and overwhelmed, folded his
- arms so that the palm of each hand rested on the opposite shoulder, and
- disappeared after the manner of those mysterious warners of whom he had
- read in cheap story-books.
- ‘That fellow,’ said Mr Chester, relaxing his face when he was fairly
- gone, ‘is good practice. I HAVE some command of my features, beyond all
- doubt. He fully confirms what I suspected, though; and blunt tools are
- sometimes found of use, where sharper instruments would fail. I fear
- I may be obliged to make great havoc among these worthy people. A
- troublesome necessity! I quite feel for them.’
- With that he fell into a quiet slumber:--subsided into such a gentle,
- pleasant sleep, that it was quite infantine.
- Chapter 25
- Leaving the favoured, and well-received, and flattered of the world;
- him of the world most worldly, who never compromised himself by an
- ungentlemanly action, and never was guilty of a manly one; to lie
- smilingly asleep--for even sleep, working but little change in his
- dissembling face, became with him a piece of cold, conventional
- hypocrisy--we follow in the steps of two slow travellers on foot, making
- towards Chigwell.
- Barnaby and his mother. Grip in their company, of course.
- The widow, to whom each painful mile seemed longer than the last, toiled
- wearily along; while Barnaby, yielding to every inconstant impulse,
- fluttered here and there, now leaving her far behind, now lingering far
- behind himself, now darting into some by-lane or path and leaving her
- to pursue her way alone, until he stealthily emerged again and came upon
- her with a wild shout of merriment, as his wayward and capricious nature
- prompted. Now he would call to her from the topmost branch of some high
- tree by the roadside; now using his tall staff as a leaping-pole, come
- flying over ditch or hedge or five-barred gate; now run with surprising
- swiftness for a mile or more on the straight road, and halting, sport
- upon a patch of grass with Grip till she came up. These were his
- delights; and when his patient mother heard his merry voice, or looked
- into his flushed and healthy face, she would not have abated them by one
- sad word or murmur, though each had been to her a source of suffering in
- the same degree as it was to him of pleasure.
- It is something to look upon enjoyment, so that it be free and wild and
- in the face of nature, though it is but the enjoyment of an idiot. It is
- something to know that Heaven has left the capacity of gladness in such
- a creature’s breast; it is something to be assured that, however lightly
- men may crush that faculty in their fellows, the Great Creator of
- mankind imparts it even to his despised and slighted work. Who would not
- rather see a poor idiot happy in the sunlight, than a wise man pining in
- a darkened jail!
- Ye men of gloom and austerity, who paint the face of Infinite
- Benevolence with an eternal frown; read in the Everlasting Book, wide
- open to your view, the lesson it would teach. Its pictures are not in
- black and sombre hues, but bright and glowing tints; its music--save
- when ye drown it--is not in sighs and groans, but songs and cheerful
- sounds. Listen to the million voices in the summer air, and find one
- dismal as your own. Remember, if ye can, the sense of hope and pleasure
- which every glad return of day awakens in the breast of all your kind
- who have not changed their nature; and learn some wisdom even from the
- witless, when their hearts are lifted up they know not why, by all the
- mirth and happiness it brings.
- The widow’s breast was full of care, was laden heavily with secret dread
- and sorrow; but her boy’s gaiety of heart gladdened her, and beguiled
- the long journey. Sometimes he would bid her lean upon his arm, and
- would keep beside her steadily for a short distance; but it was more his
- nature to be rambling to and fro, and she better liked to see him free
- and happy, even than to have him near her, because she loved him better
- than herself.
- She had quitted the place to which they were travelling, directly after
- the event which had changed her whole existence; and for two-and-twenty
- years had never had courage to revisit it. It was her native village.
- How many recollections crowded on her mind when it appeared in sight!
- Two-and-twenty years. Her boy’s whole life and history. The last time
- she looked back upon those roofs among the trees, she carried him in her
- arms, an infant. How often since that time had she sat beside him night
- and day, watching for the dawn of mind that never came; how had she
- feared, and doubted, and yet hoped, long after conviction forced itself
- upon her! The little stratagems she had devised to try him, the little
- tokens he had given in his childish way--not of dulness but of something
- infinitely worse, so ghastly and unchildlike in its cunning--came back
- as vividly as if but yesterday had intervened. The room in which they
- used to be; the spot in which his cradle stood; he, old and elfin-like
- in face, but ever dear to her, gazing at her with a wild and vacant
- eye, and crooning some uncouth song as she sat by and rocked him; every
- circumstance of his infancy came thronging back, and the most trivial,
- perhaps, the most distinctly.
- His older childhood, too; the strange imaginings he had; his terror of
- certain senseless things--familiar objects he endowed with life; the
- slow and gradual breaking out of that one horror, in which, before his
- birth, his darkened intellect began; how, in the midst of all, she had
- found some hope and comfort in his being unlike another child, and had
- gone on almost believing in the slow development of his mind until he
- grew a man, and then his childhood was complete and lasting; one after
- another, all these old thoughts sprung up within her, strong after their
- long slumber and bitterer than ever.
- She took his arm and they hurried through the village street. It was
- the same as it was wont to be in old times, yet different too, and wore
- another air. The change was in herself, not it; but she never thought of
- that, and wondered at its alteration, and where it lay, and what it was.
- The people all knew Barnaby, and the children of the place came flocking
- round him--as she remembered to have done with their fathers and mothers
- round some silly beggarman, when a child herself. None of them knew her;
- they passed each well-remembered house, and yard, and homestead; and
- striking into the fields, were soon alone again.
- The Warren was the end of their journey. Mr Haredale was walking in the
- garden, and seeing them as they passed the iron gate, unlocked it, and
- bade them enter that way.
- ‘At length you have mustered heart to visit the old place,’ he said to
- the widow. ‘I am glad you have.’
- ‘For the first time, and the last, sir,’ she replied.
- ‘The first for many years, but not the last?’
- ‘The very last.’
- ‘You mean,’ said Mr Haredale, regarding her with some surprise, ‘that
- having made this effort, you are resolved not to persevere and are
- determined to relapse? This is unworthy of you. I have often told you,
- you should return here. You would be happier here than elsewhere, I
- know. As to Barnaby, it’s quite his home.’
- ‘And Grip’s,’ said Barnaby, holding the basket open. The raven hopped
- gravely out, and perching on his shoulder and addressing himself to Mr
- Haredale, cried--as a hint, perhaps, that some temperate refreshment
- would be acceptable--‘Polly put the ket-tle on, we’ll all have tea!’
- ‘Hear me, Mary,’ said Mr Haredale kindly, as he motioned her to walk
- with him towards the house. ‘Your life has been an example of patience
- and fortitude, except in this one particular which has often given me
- great pain. It is enough to know that you were cruelly involved in the
- calamity which deprived me of an only brother, and Emma of her father,
- without being obliged to suppose (as I sometimes am) that you associate
- us with the author of our joint misfortunes.’
- ‘Associate you with him, sir!’ she cried.
- ‘Indeed,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘I think you do. I almost believe that
- because your husband was bound by so many ties to our relation, and died
- in his service and defence, you have come in some sort to connect us
- with his murder.’
- ‘Alas!’ she answered. ‘You little know my heart, sir. You little know
- the truth!’
- ‘It is natural you should do so; it is very probable you may, without
- being conscious of it,’ said Mr Haredale, speaking more to himself than
- her. ‘We are a fallen house. Money, dispensed with the most lavish
- hand, would be a poor recompense for sufferings like yours; and thinly
- scattered by hands so pinched and tied as ours, it becomes a miserable
- mockery. I feel it so, God knows,’ he added, hastily. ‘Why should I
- wonder if she does!’
- ‘You do me wrong, dear sir, indeed,’ she rejoined with great
- earnestness; ‘and yet when you come to hear what I desire your leave to
- say--’
- ‘I shall find my doubts confirmed?’ he said, observing that she faltered
- and became confused. ‘Well!’
- He quickened his pace for a few steps, but fell back again to her side,
- and said:
- ‘And have you come all this way at last, solely to speak to me?’
- She answered, ‘Yes.’
- ‘A curse,’ he muttered, ‘upon the wretched state of us proud beggars,
- from whom the poor and rich are equally at a distance; the one being
- forced to treat us with a show of cold respect; the other condescending
- to us in their every deed and word, and keeping more aloof, the nearer
- they approach us.--Why, if it were pain to you (as it must have been)
- to break for this slight purpose the chain of habit forged through
- two-and-twenty years, could you not let me know your wish, and beg me to
- come to you?’
- ‘There was not time, sir,’ she rejoined. ‘I took my resolution but
- last night, and taking it, felt that I must not lose a day--a day! an
- hour--in having speech with you.’
- They had by this time reached the house. Mr Haredale paused for a
- moment, and looked at her as if surprised by the energy of her manner.
- Observing, however, that she took no heed of him, but glanced up,
- shuddering, at the old walls with which such horrors were connected in
- her mind, he led her by a private stair into his library, where Emma was
- seated in a window, reading.
- The young lady, seeing who approached, hastily rose and laid aside her
- book, and with many kind words, and not without tears, gave her a warm
- and earnest welcome. But the widow shrunk from her embrace as though she
- feared her, and sunk down trembling on a chair.
- ‘It is the return to this place after so long an absence,’ said Emma
- gently. ‘Pray ring, dear uncle--or stay--Barnaby will run himself and
- ask for wine--’
- ‘Not for the world,’ she cried. ‘It would have another taste--I could
- not touch it. I want but a minute’s rest. Nothing but that.’
- Miss Haredale stood beside her chair, regarding her with silent pity.
- She remained for a little time quite still; then rose and turned to Mr
- Haredale, who had sat down in his easy chair, and was contemplating her
- with fixed attention.
- The tale connected with the mansion borne in mind, it seemed, as has
- been already said, the chosen theatre for such a deed as it had known.
- The room in which this group were now assembled--hard by the very
- chamber where the act was done--dull, dark, and sombre; heavy with
- worm-eaten books; deadened and shut in by faded hangings, muffling every
- sound; shadowed mournfully by trees whose rustling boughs gave ever and
- anon a spectral knocking at the glass; wore, beyond all others in
- the house, a ghostly, gloomy air. Nor were the group assembled there,
- unfitting tenants of the spot. The widow, with her marked and startling
- face and downcast eyes; Mr Haredale stern and despondent ever; his niece
- beside him, like, yet most unlike, the picture of her father, which
- gazed reproachfully down upon them from the blackened wall; Barnaby,
- with his vacant look and restless eye; were all in keeping with the
- place, and actors in the legend. Nay, the very raven, who had hopped
- upon the table and with the air of some old necromancer appeared to be
- profoundly studying a great folio volume that lay open on a desk, was
- strictly in unison with the rest, and looked like the embodied spirit of
- evil biding his time of mischief.
- ‘I scarcely know,’ said the widow, breaking silence, ‘how to begin. You
- will think my mind disordered.’
- ‘The whole tenor of your quiet and reproachless life since you were last
- here,’ returned Mr Haredale, mildly, ‘shall bear witness for you. Why do
- you fear to awaken such a suspicion? You do not speak to strangers. You
- have not to claim our interest or consideration for the first time. Be
- more yourself. Take heart. Any advice or assistance that I can give you,
- you know is yours of right, and freely yours.’
- ‘What if I came, sir,’ she rejoined, ‘I who have but one other friend on
- earth, to reject your aid from this moment, and to say that henceforth
- I launch myself upon the world, alone and unassisted, to sink or swim as
- Heaven may decree!’
- ‘You would have, if you came to me for such a purpose,’ said Mr Haredale
- calmly, ‘some reason to assign for conduct so extraordinary, which--if
- one may entertain the possibility of anything so wild and strange--would
- have its weight, of course.’
- ‘That, sir,’ she answered, ‘is the misery of my distress. I can give
- no reason whatever. My own bare word is all that I can offer. It is
- my duty, my imperative and bounden duty. If I did not discharge it,
- I should be a base and guilty wretch. Having said that, my lips are
- sealed, and I can say no more.’
- As though she felt relieved at having said so much, and had nerved
- herself to the remainder of her task, she spoke from this time with a
- firmer voice and heightened courage.
- ‘Heaven is my witness, as my own heart is--and yours, dear young lady,
- will speak for me, I know--that I have lived, since that time we all
- have bitter reason to remember, in unchanging devotion, and gratitude to
- this family. Heaven is my witness that go where I may, I shall preserve
- those feelings unimpaired. And it is my witness, too, that they alone
- impel me to the course I must take, and from which nothing now shall
- turn me, as I hope for mercy.’
- ‘These are strange riddles,’ said Mr Haredale.
- ‘In this world, sir,’ she replied, ‘they may, perhaps, never be
- explained. In another, the Truth will be discovered in its own good
- time. And may that time,’ she added in a low voice, ‘be far distant!’
- ‘Let me be sure,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘that I understand you, for I am
- doubtful of my own senses. Do you mean that you are resolved voluntarily
- to deprive yourself of those means of support you have received from us
- so long--that you are determined to resign the annuity we settled on you
- twenty years ago--to leave house, and home, and goods, and begin life
- anew--and this, for some secret reason or monstrous fancy which is
- incapable of explanation, which only now exists, and has been dormant
- all this time? In the name of God, under what delusion are you
- labouring?’
- ‘As I am deeply thankful,’ she made answer, ‘for the kindness of those,
- alive and dead, who have owned this house; and as I would not have its
- roof fall down and crush me, or its very walls drip blood, my name being
- spoken in their hearing; I never will again subsist upon their bounty,
- or let it help me to subsistence. You do not know,’ she added, suddenly,
- ‘to what uses it may be applied; into what hands it may pass. I do, and
- I renounce it.’
- ‘Surely,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘its uses rest with you.’
- ‘They did. They rest with me no longer. It may be--it IS--devoted to
- purposes that mock the dead in their graves. It never can prosper with
- me. It will bring some other heavy judgement on the head of my dear son,
- whose innocence will suffer for his mother’s guilt.’
- ‘What words are these!’ cried Mr Haredale, regarding her with wonder.
- ‘Among what associates have you fallen? Into what guilt have you ever
- been betrayed?’
- ‘I am guilty, and yet innocent; wrong, yet right; good in intention,
- though constrained to shield and aid the bad. Ask me no more questions,
- sir; but believe that I am rather to be pitied than condemned. I must
- leave my house to-morrow, for while I stay there, it is haunted. My
- future dwelling, if I am to live in peace, must be a secret. If my poor
- boy should ever stray this way, do not tempt him to disclose it or have
- him watched when he returns; for if we are hunted, we must fly again.
- And now this load is off my mind, I beseech you--and you, dear Miss
- Haredale, too--to trust me if you can, and think of me kindly as you
- have been used to do. If I die and cannot tell my secret even then (for
- that may come to pass), it will sit the lighter on my breast in that
- hour for this day’s work; and on that day, and every day until it comes,
- I will pray for and thank you both, and trouble you no more.’
- With that, she would have left them, but they detained her, and with
- many soothing words and kind entreaties, besought her to consider what
- she did, and above all to repose more freely upon them, and say what
- weighed so sorely on her mind. Finding her deaf to their persuasions, Mr
- Haredale suggested, as a last resource, that she should confide in Emma,
- of whom, as a young person and one of her own sex, she might stand in
- less dread than of himself. From this proposal, however, she recoiled
- with the same indescribable repugnance she had manifested when they met.
- The utmost that could be wrung from her was, a promise that she would
- receive Mr Haredale at her own house next evening, and in the mean time
- reconsider her determination and their dissuasions--though any change on
- her part, as she told them, was quite hopeless. This condition made at
- last, they reluctantly suffered her to depart, since she would neither
- eat nor drink within the house; and she, and Barnaby, and Grip,
- accordingly went out as they had come, by the private stair and
- garden-gate; seeing and being seen of no one by the way.
- It was remarkable in the raven that during the whole interview he
- had kept his eye on his book with exactly the air of a very sly human
- rascal, who, under the mask of pretending to read hard, was listening to
- everything. He still appeared to have the conversation very strongly in
- his mind, for although, when they were alone again, he issued orders for
- the instant preparation of innumerable kettles for purposes of tea, he
- was thoughtful, and rather seemed to do so from an abstract sense of
- duty, than with any regard to making himself agreeable, or being what is
- commonly called good company.
- They were to return by the coach. As there was an interval of full two
- hours before it started, and they needed rest and some refreshment,
- Barnaby begged hard for a visit to the Maypole. But his mother, who had
- no wish to be recognised by any of those who had known her long ago, and
- who feared besides that Mr Haredale might, on second thoughts, despatch
- some messenger to that place of entertainment in quest of her, proposed
- to wait in the churchyard instead. As it was easy for Barnaby to buy
- and carry thither such humble viands as they required, he cheerfully
- assented, and in the churchyard they sat down to take their frugal
- dinner.
- Here again, the raven was in a highly reflective state; walking up and
- down when he had dined, with an air of elderly complacency which was
- strongly suggestive of his having his hands under his coat-tails; and
- appearing to read the tombstones with a very critical taste. Sometimes,
- after a long inspection of an epitaph, he would strop his beak upon the
- grave to which it referred, and cry in his hoarse tones, ‘I’m a devil,
- I’m a devil, I’m a devil!’ but whether he addressed his observations to
- any supposed person below, or merely threw them off as a general remark,
- is matter of uncertainty.
- It was a quiet pretty spot, but a sad one for Barnaby’s mother; for Mr
- Reuben Haredale lay there, and near the vault in which his ashes rested,
- was a stone to the memory of her own husband, with a brief inscription
- recording how and when he had lost his life. She sat here, thoughtful
- and apart, until their time was out, and the distant horn told that the
- coach was coming.
- Barnaby, who had been sleeping on the grass, sprung up quickly at the
- sound; and Grip, who appeared to understand it equally well, walked
- into his basket straightway, entreating society in general (as though
- he intended a kind of satire upon them in connection with churchyards)
- never to say die on any terms. They were soon on the coach-top and
- rolling along the road.
- It went round by the Maypole, and stopped at the door. Joe was from
- home, and Hugh came sluggishly out to hand up the parcel that it called
- for. There was no fear of old John coming out. They could see him from
- the coach-roof fast asleep in his cosy bar. It was a part of John’s
- character. He made a point of going to sleep at the coach’s time. He
- despised gadding about; he looked upon coaches as things that ought
- to be indicted; as disturbers of the peace of mankind; as restless,
- bustling, busy, horn-blowing contrivances, quite beneath the dignity of
- men, and only suited to giddy girls that did nothing but chatter and go
- a-shopping. ‘We know nothing about coaches here, sir,’ John would say,
- if any unlucky stranger made inquiry touching the offensive vehicles;
- ‘we don’t book for ‘em; we’d rather not; they’re more trouble than
- they’re worth, with their noise and rattle. If you like to wait for ‘em
- you can; but we don’t know anything about ‘em; they may call and they
- may not--there’s a carrier--he was looked upon as quite good enough for
- us, when I was a boy.’
- She dropped her veil as Hugh climbed up, and while he hung behind, and
- talked to Barnaby in whispers. But neither he nor any other person
- spoke to her, or noticed her, or had any curiosity about her; and so, an
- alien, she visited and left the village where she had been born, and had
- lived a merry child, a comely girl, a happy wife--where she had known
- all her enjoyment of life, and had entered on its hardest sorrows.
- Chapter 26
- ‘And you’re not surprised to hear this, Varden?’ said Mr Haredale.
- ‘Well! You and she have always been the best friends, and you should
- understand her if anybody does.’
- ‘I ask your pardon, sir,’ rejoined the locksmith. ‘I didn’t say I
- understood her. I wouldn’t have the presumption to say that of any
- woman. It’s not so easily done. But I am not so much surprised, sir, as
- you expected me to be, certainly.’
- ‘May I ask why not, my good friend?’
- ‘I have seen, sir,’ returned the locksmith with evident reluctance,
- ‘I have seen in connection with her, something that has filled me with
- distrust and uneasiness. She has made bad friends, how, or when, I don’t
- know; but that her house is a refuge for one robber and cut-throat at
- least, I am certain. There, sir! Now it’s out.’
- ‘Varden!’
- ‘My own eyes, sir, are my witnesses, and for her sake I would be
- willingly half-blind, if I could but have the pleasure of mistrusting
- ‘em. I have kept the secret till now, and it will go no further than
- yourself, I know; but I tell you that with my own eyes--broad awake--I
- saw, in the passage of her house one evening after dark, the highwayman
- who robbed and wounded Mr Edward Chester, and on the same night
- threatened me.’
- ‘And you made no effort to detain him?’ said Mr Haredale quickly.
- ‘Sir,’ returned the locksmith, ‘she herself prevented me--held me, with
- all her strength, and hung about me until he had got clear off.’ And
- having gone so far, he related circumstantially all that had passed upon
- the night in question.
- This dialogue was held in a low tone in the locksmith’s little parlour,
- into which honest Gabriel had shown his visitor on his arrival. Mr
- Haredale had called upon him to entreat his company to the widow’s, that
- he might have the assistance of his persuasion and influence; and out of
- this circumstance the conversation had arisen.
- ‘I forbore,’ said Gabriel, ‘from repeating one word of this to anybody,
- as it could do her no good and might do her great harm. I thought and
- hoped, to say the truth, that she would come to me, and talk to me about
- it, and tell me how it was; but though I have purposely put myself
- in her way more than once or twice, she has never touched upon the
- subject--except by a look. And indeed,’ said the good-natured locksmith,
- ‘there was a good deal in the look, more than could have been put into a
- great many words. It said among other matters “Don’t ask me anything”
- so imploringly, that I didn’t ask her anything. You’ll think me an old
- fool, I know, sir. If it’s any relief to call me one, pray do.’
- ‘I am greatly disturbed by what you tell me,’ said Mr Haredale, after a
- silence. ‘What meaning do you attach to it?’
- The locksmith shook his head, and looked doubtfully out of window at the
- failing light.
- ‘She cannot have married again,’ said Mr Haredale.
- ‘Not without our knowledge surely, sir.’
- ‘She may have done so, in the fear that it would lead, if known, to some
- objection or estrangement. Suppose she married incautiously--it is not
- improbable, for her existence has been a lonely and monotonous one for
- many years--and the man turned out a ruffian, she would be anxious to
- screen him, and yet would revolt from his crimes. This might be. It
- bears strongly on the whole drift of her discourse yesterday, and would
- quite explain her conduct. Do you suppose Barnaby is privy to these
- circumstances?’
- ‘Quite impossible to say, sir,’ returned the locksmith, shaking his head
- again: ‘and next to impossible to find out from him. If what you suppose
- is really the case, I tremble for the lad--a notable person, sir, to put
- to bad uses--’
- ‘It is not possible, Varden,’ said Mr Haredale, in a still lower tone of
- voice than he had spoken yet, ‘that we have been blinded and deceived by
- this woman from the beginning? It is not possible that this connection
- was formed in her husband’s lifetime, and led to his and my brother’s--’
- ‘Good God, sir,’ cried Gabriel, interrupting him, ‘don’t entertain such
- dark thoughts for a moment. Five-and-twenty years ago, where was there a
- girl like her? A gay, handsome, laughing, bright-eyed damsel! Think what
- she was, sir. It makes my heart ache now, even now, though I’m an old
- man, with a woman for a daughter, to think what she was and what she is.
- We all change, but that’s with Time; Time does his work honestly, and
- I don’t mind him. A fig for Time, sir. Use him well, and he’s a hearty
- fellow, and scorns to have you at a disadvantage. But care and suffering
- (and those have changed her) are devils, sir--secret, stealthy,
- undermining devils--who tread down the brightest flowers in Eden, and do
- more havoc in a month than Time does in a year. Picture to yourself for
- one minute what Mary was before they went to work with her fresh
- heart and face--do her that justice--and say whether such a thing is
- possible.’
- ‘You’re a good fellow, Varden,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘and are quite right.
- I have brooded on that subject so long, that every breath of suspicion
- carries me back to it. You are quite right.’
- ‘It isn’t, sir,’ cried the locksmith with brightened eyes, and sturdy,
- honest voice; ‘it isn’t because I courted her before Rudge, and failed,
- that I say she was too good for him. She would have been as much too
- good for me. But she WAS too good for him; he wasn’t free and frank
- enough for her. I don’t reproach his memory with it, poor fellow; I only
- want to put her before you as she really was. For myself, I’ll keep her
- old picture in my mind; and thinking of that, and what has altered her,
- I’ll stand her friend, and try to win her back to peace. And damme,
- sir,’ cried Gabriel, ‘with your pardon for the word, I’d do the same if
- she had married fifty highwaymen in a twelvemonth; and think it in the
- Protestant Manual too, though Martha said it wasn’t, tooth and nail,
- till doomsday!’
- If the dark little parlour had been filled with a dense fog, which,
- clearing away in an instant, left it all radiance and brightness, it
- could not have been more suddenly cheered than by this outbreak on the
- part of the hearty locksmith. In a voice nearly as full and round as his
- own, Mr Haredale cried ‘Well said!’ and bade him come away without more
- parley. The locksmith complied right willingly; and both getting into a
- hackney coach which was waiting at the door, drove off straightway.
- They alighted at the street corner, and dismissing their conveyance,
- walked to the house. To their first knock at the door there was no
- response. A second met with the like result. But in answer to the third,
- which was of a more vigorous kind, the parlour window-sash was gently
- raised, and a musical voice cried:
- ‘Haredale, my dear fellow, I am extremely glad to see you. How very much
- you have improved in your appearance since our last meeting! I never saw
- you looking better. HOW do you do?’
- Mr Haredale turned his eyes towards the casement whence the voice
- proceeded, though there was no need to do so, to recognise the speaker,
- and Mr Chester waved his hand, and smiled a courteous welcome.
- ‘The door will be opened immediately,’ he said. ‘There is nobody but
- a very dilapidated female to perform such offices. You will excuse her
- infirmities? If she were in a more elevated station of society, she
- would be gouty. Being but a hewer of wood and drawer of water, she
- is rheumatic. My dear Haredale, these are natural class distinctions,
- depend upon it.’
- Mr Haredale, whose face resumed its lowering and distrustful look the
- moment he heard the voice, inclined his head stiffly, and turned his
- back upon the speaker.
- ‘Not opened yet,’ said Mr Chester. ‘Dear me! I hope the aged soul has
- not caught her foot in some unlucky cobweb by the way. She is there at
- last! Come in, I beg!’
- Mr Haredale entered, followed by the locksmith. Turning with a look of
- great astonishment to the old woman who had opened the door, he inquired
- for Mrs Rudge--for Barnaby. They were both gone, she replied, wagging
- her ancient head, for good. There was a gentleman in the parlour, who
- perhaps could tell them more. That was all SHE knew.
- ‘Pray, sir,’ said Mr Haredale, presenting himself before this new
- tenant, ‘where is the person whom I came here to see?’
- ‘My dear friend,’ he returned, ‘I have not the least idea.’
- ‘Your trifling is ill-timed,’ retorted the other in a suppressed tone
- and voice, ‘and its subject ill-chosen. Reserve it for those who
- are your friends, and do not expend it on me. I lay no claim to the
- distinction, and have the self-denial to reject it.’
- ‘My dear, good sir,’ said Mr Chester, ‘you are heated with walking. Sit
- down, I beg. Our friend is--’
- ‘Is but a plain honest man,’ returned Mr Haredale, ‘and quite unworthy
- of your notice.’
- ‘Gabriel Varden by name, sir,’ said the locksmith bluntly.
- ‘A worthy English yeoman!’ said Mr Chester. ‘A most worthy yeoman, of
- whom I have frequently heard my son Ned--darling fellow--speak, and have
- often wished to see. Varden, my good friend, I am glad to know you. You
- wonder now,’ he said, turning languidly to Mr Haredale, ‘to see me here.
- Now, I am sure you do.’
- Mr Haredale glanced at him--not fondly or admiringly--smiled, and held
- his peace.
- ‘The mystery is solved in a moment,’ said Mr Chester; ‘in a moment. Will
- you step aside with me one instant. You remember our little compact in
- reference to Ned, and your dear niece, Haredale? You remember the list
- of assistants in their innocent intrigue? You remember these two people
- being among them? My dear fellow, congratulate yourself, and me. I have
- bought them off.’
- ‘You have done what?’ said Mr Haredale.
- ‘Bought them off,’ returned his smiling friend. ‘I have found it
- necessary to take some active steps towards setting this boy and girl
- attachment quite at rest, and have begun by removing these two agents.
- You are surprised? Who CAN withstand the influence of a little money!
- They wanted it, and have been bought off. We have nothing more to fear
- from them. They are gone.’
- ‘Gone!’ echoed Mr Haredale. ‘Where?’
- ‘My dear fellow--and you must permit me to say again, that you never
- looked so young; so positively boyish as you do to-night--the Lord knows
- where; I believe Columbus himself wouldn’t find them. Between you and
- me they have their hidden reasons, but upon that point I have pledged
- myself to secrecy. She appointed to see you here to-night, I know, but
- found it inconvenient, and couldn’t wait. Here is the key of the door.
- I am afraid you’ll find it inconveniently large; but as the tenement is
- yours, your good-nature will excuse that, Haredale, I am certain!’
- Chapter 27
- Mr Haredale stood in the widow’s parlour with the door-key in his hand,
- gazing by turns at Mr Chester and at Gabriel Varden, and occasionally
- glancing downward at the key as in the hope that of its own accord
- it would unlock the mystery; until Mr Chester, putting on his hat and
- gloves, and sweetly inquiring whether they were walking in the same
- direction, recalled him to himself.
- ‘No,’ he said. ‘Our roads diverge--widely, as you know. For the present,
- I shall remain here.’
- ‘You will be hipped, Haredale; you will be miserable, melancholy,
- utterly wretched,’ returned the other. ‘It’s a place of the very last
- description for a man of your temper. I know it will make you very
- miserable.’
- ‘Let it,’ said Mr Haredale, sitting down; ‘and thrive upon the thought.
- Good night!’
- Feigning to be wholly unconscious of the abrupt wave of the hand which
- rendered this farewell tantamount to a dismissal, Mr Chester retorted
- with a bland and heartfelt benediction, and inquired of Gabriel in what
- direction HE was going.
- ‘Yours, sir, would be too much honour for the like of me,’ replied the
- locksmith, hesitating.
- ‘I wish you to remain here a little while, Varden,’ said Mr Haredale,
- without looking towards them. ‘I have a word or two to say to you.’
- ‘I will not intrude upon your conference another moment,’ said Mr
- Chester with inconceivable politeness. ‘May it be satisfactory to you
- both! God bless you!’ So saying, and bestowing upon the locksmith a most
- refulgent smile, he left them.
- ‘A deplorably constituted creature, that rugged person,’ he said, as
- he walked along the street; ‘he is an atrocity that carries its own
- punishment along with it--a bear that gnaws himself. And here is one
- of the inestimable advantages of having a perfect command over one’s
- inclinations. I have been tempted in these two short interviews, to draw
- upon that fellow, fifty times. Five men in six would have yielded to the
- impulse. By suppressing mine, I wound him deeper and more keenly than if
- I were the best swordsman in all Europe, and he the worst. You are the
- wise man’s very last resource,’ he said, tapping the hilt of his weapon;
- ‘we can but appeal to you when all else is said and done. To come to you
- before, and thereby spare our adversaries so much, is a barbarian mode
- of warfare, quite unworthy of any man with the remotest pretensions to
- delicacy of feeling, or refinement.’
- He smiled so very pleasantly as he communed with himself after this
- manner, that a beggar was emboldened to follow for alms, and to dog
- his footsteps for some distance. He was gratified by the circumstance,
- feeling it complimentary to his power of feature, and as a reward
- suffered the man to follow him until he called a chair, when he
- graciously dismissed him with a fervent blessing.
- ‘Which is as easy as cursing,’ he wisely added, as he took his seat,
- ‘and more becoming to the face.--To Clerkenwell, my good creatures, if
- you please!’ The chairmen were rendered quite vivacious by having such a
- courteous burden, and to Clerkenwell they went at a fair round trot.
- Alighting at a certain point he had indicated to them upon the road, and
- paying them something less than they expected from a fare of such gentle
- speech, he turned into the street in which the locksmith dwelt, and
- presently stood beneath the shadow of the Golden Key. Mr Tappertit, who
- was hard at work by lamplight, in a corner of the workshop, remained
- unconscious of his presence until a hand upon his shoulder made him
- start and turn his head.
- ‘Industry,’ said Mr Chester, ‘is the soul of business, and the keystone
- of prosperity. Mr Tappertit, I shall expect you to invite me to dinner
- when you are Lord Mayor of London.’
- ‘Sir,’ returned the ‘prentice, laying down his hammer, and rubbing
- his nose on the back of a very sooty hand, ‘I scorn the Lord Mayor and
- everything that belongs to him. We must have another state of society,
- sir, before you catch me being Lord Mayor. How de do, sir?’
- ‘The better, Mr Tappertit, for looking into your ingenuous face once
- more. I hope you are well.’
- ‘I am as well, sir,’ said Sim, standing up to get nearer to his ear, and
- whispering hoarsely, ‘as any man can be under the aggrawations to which
- I am exposed. My life’s a burden to me. If it wasn’t for wengeance, I’d
- play at pitch and toss with it on the losing hazard.’
- ‘Is Mrs Varden at home?’ said Mr Chester.
- ‘Sir,’ returned Sim, eyeing him over with a look of concentrated
- expression,--‘she is. Did you wish to see her?’
- Mr Chester nodded.
- ‘Then come this way, sir,’ said Sim, wiping his face upon his apron.
- ‘Follow me, sir.--Would you permit me to whisper in your ear, one half a
- second?’
- ‘By all means.’
- Mr Tappertit raised himself on tiptoe, applied his lips to Mr Chester’s
- ear, drew back his head without saying anything, looked hard at
- him, applied them to his ear again, again drew back, and finally
- whispered--‘The name is Joseph Willet. Hush! I say no more.’
- Having said that much, he beckoned the visitor with a mysterious aspect
- to follow him to the parlour-door, where he announced him in the voice
- of a gentleman-usher. ‘Mr Chester.’
- ‘And not Mr Ed’dard, mind,’ said Sim, looking into the door again, and
- adding this by way of postscript in his own person; ‘it’s his father.’
- ‘But do not let his father,’ said Mr Chester, advancing hat in hand, as
- he observed the effect of this last explanatory announcement, ‘do not
- let his father be any check or restraint on your domestic occupations,
- Miss Varden.’
- ‘Oh! Now! There! An’t I always a-saying it!’ exclaimed Miggs, clapping
- her hands. ‘If he an’t been and took Missis for her own daughter. Well,
- she DO look like it, that she do. Only think of that, mim!’
- ‘Is it possible,’ said Mr Chester in his softest tones, ‘that this is
- Mrs Varden! I am amazed. That is not your daughter, Mrs Varden? No, no.
- Your sister.’
- ‘My daughter, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs V., blushing with great
- juvenility.
- ‘Ah, Mrs Varden!’ cried the visitor. ‘Ah, ma’am--humanity is indeed a
- happy lot, when we can repeat ourselves in others, and still be young
- as they. You must allow me to salute you--the custom of the country, my
- dear madam--your daughter too.’
- Dolly showed some reluctance to perform this ceremony, but was sharply
- reproved by Mrs Varden, who insisted on her undergoing it that minute.
- For pride, she said with great severity, was one of the seven deadly
- sins, and humility and lowliness of heart were virtues. Wherefore she
- desired that Dolly would be kissed immediately, on pain of her just
- displeasure; at the same time giving her to understand that whatever
- she saw her mother do, she might safely do herself, without being at the
- trouble of any reasoning or reflection on the subject--which, indeed,
- was offensive and undutiful, and in direct contravention of the church
- catechism.
- Thus admonished, Dolly complied, though by no means willingly; for there
- was a broad, bold look of admiration in Mr Chester’s face, refined and
- polished though it sought to be, which distressed her very much. As she
- stood with downcast eyes, not liking to look up and meet his, he gazed
- upon her with an approving air, and then turned to her mother.
- ‘My friend Gabriel (whose acquaintance I only made this very evening)
- should be a happy man, Mrs Varden.’
- ‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs V., shaking her head.
- ‘Ah!’ echoed Miggs.
- ‘Is that the case?’ said Mr Chester, compassionately. ‘Dear me!’
- ‘Master has no intentions, sir,’ murmured Miggs as she sidled up to him,
- ‘but to be as grateful as his natur will let him, for everythink he owns
- which it is in his powers to appreciate. But we never, sir’--said Miggs,
- looking sideways at Mrs Varden, and interlarding her discourse with a
- sigh--‘we never know the full value of SOME wines and fig-trees till we
- lose ‘em. So much the worse, sir, for them as has the slighting of ‘em
- on their consciences when they’re gone to be in full blow elsewhere.’
- And Miss Miggs cast up her eyes to signify where that might be.
- As Mrs Varden distinctly heard, and was intended to hear, all that Miggs
- said, and as these words appeared to convey in metaphorical terms a
- presage or foreboding that she would at some early period droop beneath
- her trials and take an easy flight towards the stars, she immediately
- began to languish, and taking a volume of the Manual from a neighbouring
- table, leant her arm upon it as though she were Hope and that her
- Anchor. Mr Chester perceiving this, and seeing how the volume was
- lettered on the back, took it gently from her hand, and turned the
- fluttering leaves.
- ‘My favourite book, dear madam. How often, how very often in his early
- life--before he can remember’--(this clause was strictly true) ‘have I
- deduced little easy moral lessons from its pages, for my dear son Ned!
- You know Ned?’
- Mrs Varden had that honour, and a fine affable young gentleman he was.
- ‘You’re a mother, Mrs Varden,’ said Mr Chester, taking a pinch of snuff,
- ‘and you know what I, as a father, feel, when he is praised. He gives me
- some uneasiness--much uneasiness--he’s of a roving nature, ma’am--from
- flower to flower--from sweet to sweet--but his is the butterfly time of
- life, and we must not be hard upon such trifling.’
- He glanced at Dolly. She was attending evidently to what he said. Just
- what he desired!
- ‘The only thing I object to in this little trait of Ned’s, is,’ said Mr
- Chester, ‘--and the mention of his name reminds me, by the way, that I
- am about to beg the favour of a minute’s talk with you alone--the only
- thing I object to in it, is, that it DOES partake of insincerity. Now,
- however I may attempt to disguise the fact from myself in my affection
- for Ned, still I always revert to this--that if we are not sincere, we
- are nothing. Nothing upon earth. Let us be sincere, my dear madam--’
- ‘--and Protestant,’ murmured Mrs Varden.
- ‘--and Protestant above all things. Let us be sincere and Protestant,
- strictly moral, strictly just (though always with a leaning towards
- mercy), strictly honest, and strictly true, and we gain--it is a slight
- point, certainly, but still it is something tangible; we throw up a
- groundwork and foundation, so to speak, of goodness, on which we may
- afterwards erect some worthy superstructure.’
- Now, to be sure, Mrs Varden thought, here is a perfect character. Here
- is a meek, righteous, thoroughgoing Christian, who, having mastered all
- these qualities, so difficult of attainment; who, having dropped a pinch
- of salt on the tails of all the cardinal virtues, and caught them every
- one; makes light of their possession, and pants for more morality. For
- the good woman never doubted (as many good men and women never do), that
- this slighting kind of profession, this setting so little store by great
- matters, this seeming to say, ‘I am not proud, I am what you hear, but I
- consider myself no better than other people; let us change the subject,
- pray’--was perfectly genuine and true. He so contrived it, and said
- it in that way that it appeared to have been forced from him, and its
- effect was marvellous.
- Aware of the impression he had made--few men were quicker than he at
- such discoveries--Mr Chester followed up the blow by propounding certain
- virtuous maxims, somewhat vague and general in their nature, doubtless,
- and occasionally partaking of the character of truisms, worn a little
- out at elbow, but delivered in so charming a voice and with such
- uncommon serenity and peace of mind, that they answered as well as the
- best. Nor is this to be wondered at; for as hollow vessels produce a far
- more musical sound in falling than those which are substantial, so it
- will oftentimes be found that sentiments which have nothing in them make
- the loudest ringing in the world, and are the most relished.
- Mr Chester, with the volume gently extended in one hand, and with
- the other planted lightly on his breast, talked to them in the most
- delicious manner possible; and quite enchanted all his hearers,
- notwithstanding their conflicting interests and thoughts. Even Dolly,
- who, between his keen regards and her eyeing over by Mr Tappertit, was
- put quite out of countenance, could not help owning within herself that
- he was the sweetest-spoken gentleman she had ever seen. Even Miss Miggs,
- who was divided between admiration of Mr Chester and a mortal jealousy
- of her young mistress, had sufficient leisure to be propitiated. Even
- Mr Tappertit, though occupied as we have seen in gazing at his heart’s
- delight, could not wholly divert his thoughts from the voice of the
- other charmer. Mrs Varden, to her own private thinking, had never been
- so improved in all her life; and when Mr Chester, rising and craving
- permission to speak with her apart, took her by the hand and led her at
- arm’s length upstairs to the best sitting-room, she almost deemed him
- something more than human.
- ‘Dear madam,’ he said, pressing her hand delicately to his lips; ‘be
- seated.’
- Mrs Varden called up quite a courtly air, and became seated.
- ‘You guess my object?’ said Mr Chester, drawing a chair towards her.
- ‘You divine my purpose? I am an affectionate parent, my dear Mrs
- Varden.’
- ‘That I am sure you are, sir,’ said Mrs V.
- ‘Thank you,’ returned Mr Chester, tapping his snuff-box lid. ‘Heavy
- moral responsibilities rest with parents, Mrs Varden.’
- Mrs Varden slightly raised her hands, shook her head, and looked at the
- ground as though she saw straight through the globe, out at the other
- end, and into the immensity of space beyond.
- ‘I may confide in you,’ said Mr Chester, ‘without reserve. I love
- my son, ma’am, dearly; and loving him as I do, I would save him from
- working certain misery. You know of his attachment to Miss Haredale.
- You have abetted him in it, and very kind of you it was to do so. I am
- deeply obliged to you--most deeply obliged to you--for your interest in
- his behalf; but my dear ma’am, it is a mistaken one, I do assure you.’
- Mrs Varden stammered that she was sorry--
- ‘Sorry, my dear ma’am,’ he interposed. ‘Never be sorry for what is so
- very amiable, so very good in intention, so perfectly like yourself. But
- there are grave and weighty reasons, pressing family considerations, and
- apart even from these, points of religious difference, which interpose
- themselves, and render their union impossible; utterly im-possible.
- I should have mentioned these circumstances to your husband; but he
- has--you will excuse my saying this so freely--he has NOT your quickness
- of apprehension or depth of moral sense. What an extremely airy house
- this is, and how beautifully kept! For one like myself--a widower so
- long--these tokens of female care and superintendence have inexpressible
- charms.’
- Mrs Varden began to think (she scarcely knew why) that the young Mr
- Chester must be in the wrong and the old Mr Chester must be in the
- right.
- ‘My son Ned,’ resumed her tempter with his most winning air, ‘has had, I
- am told, your lovely daughter’s aid, and your open-hearted husband’s.’
- ‘--Much more than mine, sir,’ said Mrs Varden; ‘a great deal more. I
- have often had my doubts. It’s a--’
- ‘A bad example,’ suggested Mr Chester. ‘It is. No doubt it is. Your
- daughter is at that age when to set before her an encouragement for
- young persons to rebel against their parents on this most important
- point, is particularly injudicious. You are quite right. I ought to have
- thought of that myself, but it escaped me, I confess--so far superior
- are your sex to ours, dear madam, in point of penetration and sagacity.’
- Mrs Varden looked as wise as if she had really said something to deserve
- this compliment--firmly believed she had, in short--and her faith in her
- own shrewdness increased considerably.
- ‘My dear ma’am,’ said Mr Chester, ‘you embolden me to be plain with
- you. My son and I are at variance on this point. The young lady and her
- natural guardian differ upon it, also. And the closing point is, that my
- son is bound by his duty to me, by his honour, by every solemn tie and
- obligation, to marry some one else.’
- ‘Engaged to marry another lady!’ quoth Mrs Varden, holding up her hands.
- ‘My dear madam, brought up, educated, and trained, expressly for that
- purpose. Expressly for that purpose.--Miss Haredale, I am told, is a
- very charming creature.’
- ‘I am her foster-mother, and should know--the best young lady in the
- world,’ said Mrs Varden.
- ‘I have not the smallest doubt of it. I am sure she is. And you, who
- have stood in that tender relation towards her, are bound to consult her
- happiness. Now, can I--as I have said to Haredale, who quite agrees--can
- I possibly stand by, and suffer her to throw herself away (although she
- IS of a Catholic family), upon a young fellow who, as yet, has no heart
- at all? It is no imputation upon him to say he has not, because young
- men who have plunged deeply into the frivolities and conventionalities
- of society, very seldom have. Their hearts never grow, my dear ma’am,
- till after thirty. I don’t believe, no, I do NOT believe, that I had any
- heart myself when I was Ned’s age.’
- ‘Oh sir,’ said Mrs Varden, ‘I think you must have had. It’s impossible
- that you, who have so much now, can ever have been without any.’
- ‘I hope,’ he answered, shrugging his shoulders meekly, ‘I have a little;
- I hope, a very little--Heaven knows! But to return to Ned; I have no
- doubt you thought, and therefore interfered benevolently in his behalf,
- that I objected to Miss Haredale. How very natural! My dear madam, I
- object to him--to him--emphatically to Ned himself.’
- Mrs Varden was perfectly aghast at the disclosure.
- ‘He has, if he honourably fulfils this solemn obligation of which I have
- told you--and he must be honourable, dear Mrs Varden, or he is no son
- of mine--a fortune within his reach. He is of most expensive, ruinously
- expensive habits; and if, in a moment of caprice and wilfulness, he
- were to marry this young lady, and so deprive himself of the means
- of gratifying the tastes to which he has been so long accustomed, he
- would--my dear madam, he would break the gentle creature’s heart. Mrs
- Varden, my good lady, my dear soul, I put it to you--is such a sacrifice
- to be endured? Is the female heart a thing to be trifled with in this
- way? Ask your own, my dear madam. Ask your own, I beseech you.’
- ‘Truly,’ thought Mrs Varden, ‘this gentleman is a saint. But,’ she added
- aloud, and not unnaturally, ‘if you take Miss Emma’s lover away, sir,
- what becomes of the poor thing’s heart then?’
- ‘The very point,’ said Mr Chester, not at all abashed, ‘to which I
- wished to lead you. A marriage with my son, whom I should be compelled
- to disown, would be followed by years of misery; they would be
- separated, my dear madam, in a twelvemonth. To break off this
- attachment, which is more fancied than real, as you and I know very
- well, will cost the dear girl but a few tears, and she is happy again.
- Take the case of your own daughter, the young lady downstairs, who is
- your breathing image’--Mrs Varden coughed and simpered--‘there is a
- young man (I am sorry to say, a dissolute fellow, of very
- indifferent character) of whom I have heard Ned speak--Bullet was
- it--Pullet--Mullet--’
- ‘There is a young man of the name of Joseph Willet, sir,’ said Mrs
- Varden, folding her hands loftily.
- ‘That’s he,’ cried Mr Chester. ‘Suppose this Joseph Willet now, were to
- aspire to the affections of your charming daughter, and were to engage
- them.’
- ‘It would be like his impudence,’ interposed Mrs Varden, bridling, ‘to
- dare to think of such a thing!’
- ‘My dear madam, that’s the whole case. I know it would be like his
- impudence. It is like Ned’s impudence to do as he has done; but you
- would not on that account, or because of a few tears from your beautiful
- daughter, refrain from checking their inclinations in their birth. I
- meant to have reasoned thus with your husband when I saw him at Mrs
- Rudge’s this evening--’
- ‘My husband,’ said Mrs Varden, interposing with emotion, ‘would be a
- great deal better at home than going to Mrs Rudge’s so often. I don’t
- know what he does there. I don’t see what occasion he has to busy
- himself in her affairs at all, sir.’
- ‘If I don’t appear to express my concurrence in those last sentiments of
- yours,’ returned Mr Chester, ‘quite so strongly as you might desire,
- it is because his being there, my dear madam, and not proving
- conversational, led me hither, and procured me the happiness of
- this interview with one, in whom the whole management, conduct, and
- prosperity of her family are centred, I perceive.’
- With that he took Mrs Varden’s hand again, and having pressed it to his
- lips with the highflown gallantry of the day--a little burlesqued
- to render it the more striking in the good lady’s unaccustomed
- eyes--proceeded in the same strain of mingled sophistry, cajolery,
- and flattery, to entreat that her utmost influence might be exerted to
- restrain her husband and daughter from any further promotion of Edward’s
- suit to Miss Haredale, and from aiding or abetting either party in any
- way. Mrs Varden was but a woman, and had her share of vanity, obstinacy,
- and love of power. She entered into a secret treaty of alliance,
- offensive and defensive, with her insinuating visitor; and really did
- believe, as many others would have done who saw and heard him, that in
- so doing she furthered the ends of truth, justice, and morality, in a
- very uncommon degree.
- Overjoyed by the success of his negotiation, and mightily amused within
- himself, Mr Chester conducted her downstairs in the same state as
- before; and having repeated the previous ceremony of salutation, which
- also as before comprehended Dolly, took his leave; first completing the
- conquest of Miss Miggs’s heart, by inquiring if ‘this young lady’ would
- light him to the door.
- ‘Oh, mim,’ said Miggs, returning with the candle. ‘Oh gracious me, mim,
- there’s a gentleman! Was there ever such an angel to talk as he is--and
- such a sweet-looking man! So upright and noble, that he seems to despise
- the very ground he walks on; and yet so mild and condescending, that
- he seems to say “but I will take notice on it too.” And to think of
- his taking you for Miss Dolly, and Miss Dolly for your sister--Oh, my
- goodness me, if I was master wouldn’t I be jealous of him!’
- Mrs Varden reproved her handmaid for this vain-speaking; but very gently
- and mildly--quite smilingly indeed--remarking that she was a foolish,
- giddy, light-headed girl, whose spirits carried her beyond all bounds,
- and who didn’t mean half she said, or she would be quite angry with her.
- ‘For my part,’ said Dolly, in a thoughtful manner, ‘I half believe Mr
- Chester is something like Miggs in that respect. For all his politeness
- and pleasant speaking, I am pretty sure he was making game of us, more
- than once.’
- ‘If you venture to say such a thing again, and to speak ill of people
- behind their backs in my presence, miss,’ said Mrs Varden, ‘I shall
- insist upon your taking a candle and going to bed directly. How dare
- you, Dolly? I’m astonished at you. The rudeness of your whole behaviour
- this evening has been disgraceful. Did anybody ever hear,’ cried the
- enraged matron, bursting into tears, ‘of a daughter telling her own
- mother she has been made game of!’
- What a very uncertain temper Mrs Varden’s was!
- Chapter 28
- Repairing to a noted coffee-house in Covent Garden when he left the
- locksmith’s, Mr Chester sat long over a late dinner, entertaining
- himself exceedingly with the whimsical recollection of his recent
- proceedings, and congratulating himself very much on his great
- cleverness. Influenced by these thoughts, his face wore an expression
- so benign and tranquil, that the waiter in immediate attendance upon him
- felt he could almost have died in his defence, and settled in his own
- mind (until the receipt of the bill, and a very small fee for very great
- trouble disabused it of the idea) that such an apostolic customer was
- worth half-a-dozen of the ordinary run of visitors, at least.
- A visit to the gaming-table--not as a heated, anxious venturer, but
- one whom it was quite a treat to see staking his two or three pieces in
- deference to the follies of society, and smiling with equal benevolence
- on winners and losers--made it late before he reached home. It was his
- custom to bid his servant go to bed at his own time unless he had orders
- to the contrary, and to leave a candle on the common stair. There was a
- lamp on the landing by which he could always light it when he came home
- late, and having a key of the door about him he could enter and go to
- bed at his pleasure.
- He opened the glass of the dull lamp, whose wick, burnt up and swollen
- like a drunkard’s nose, came flying off in little carbuncles at the
- candle’s touch, and scattering hot sparks about, rendered it matter
- of some difficulty to kindle the lazy taper; when a noise, as of a man
- snoring deeply some steps higher up, caused him to pause and listen.
- It was the heavy breathing of a sleeper, close at hand. Some fellow
- had lain down on the open staircase, and was slumbering soundly.
- Having lighted the candle at length and opened his own door, he softly
- ascended, holding the taper high above his head, and peering cautiously
- about; curious to see what kind of man had chosen so comfortless a
- shelter for his lodging.
- With his head upon the landing and his great limbs flung over
- half-a-dozen stairs, as carelessly as though he were a dead man
- whom drunken bearers had thrown down by chance, there lay Hugh, face
- uppermost, his long hair drooping like some wild weed upon his wooden
- pillow, and his huge chest heaving with the sounds which so unwontedly
- disturbed the place and hour.
- He who came upon him so unexpectedly was about to break his rest by
- thrusting him with his foot, when, glancing at his upturned face, he
- arrested himself in the very action, and stooping down and shading the
- candle with his hand, examined his features closely. Close as his first
- inspection was, it did not suffice, for he passed the light, still
- carefully shaded as before, across and across his face, and yet observed
- him with a searching eye.
- While he was thus engaged, the sleeper, without any starting or turning
- round, awoke. There was a kind of fascination in meeting his steady gaze
- so suddenly, which took from the other the presence of mind to withdraw
- his eyes, and forced him, as it were, to meet his look. So they remained
- staring at each other, until Mr Chester at last broke silence, and asked
- him in a low voice, why he lay sleeping there.
- ‘I thought,’ said Hugh, struggling into a sitting posture and gazing at
- him intently, still, ‘that you were a part of my dream. It was a curious
- one. I hope it may never come true, master.’
- ‘What makes you shiver?’
- ‘The--the cold, I suppose,’ he growled, as he shook himself and rose. ‘I
- hardly know where I am yet.’
- ‘Do you know me?’ said Mr Chester.
- ‘Ay, I know you,’ he answered. ‘I was dreaming of you--we’re not where I
- thought we were. That’s a comfort.’
- He looked round him as he spoke, and in particular looked above his
- head, as though he half expected to be standing under some object
- which had had existence in his dream. Then he rubbed his eyes and shook
- himself again, and followed his conductor into his own rooms.
- Mr Chester lighted the candles which stood upon his dressing-table, and
- wheeling an easy-chair towards the fire, which was yet burning, stirred
- up a cheerful blaze, sat down before it, and bade his uncouth visitor
- ‘Come here,’ and draw his boots off.
- ‘You have been drinking again, my fine fellow,’ he said, as Hugh went
- down on one knee, and did as he was told.
- ‘As I’m alive, master, I’ve walked the twelve long miles, and waited
- here I don’t know how long, and had no drink between my lips since
- dinner-time at noon.’
- ‘And can you do nothing better, my pleasant friend, than fall asleep,
- and shake the very building with your snores?’ said Mr Chester. ‘Can’t
- you dream in your straw at home, dull dog as you are, that you need come
- here to do it?--Reach me those slippers, and tread softly.’
- Hugh obeyed in silence.
- ‘And harkee, my dear young gentleman,’ said Mr Chester, as he put them
- on, ‘the next time you dream, don’t let it be of me, but of some dog or
- horse with whom you are better acquainted. Fill the glass once--you’ll
- find it and the bottle in the same place--and empty it to keep yourself
- awake.’
- Hugh obeyed again even more zealously--and having done so, presented
- himself before his patron.
- ‘Now,’ said Mr Chester, ‘what do you want with me?’
- ‘There was news to-day,’ returned Hugh. ‘Your son was at our house--came
- down on horseback. He tried to see the young woman, but couldn’t get
- sight of her. He left some letter or some message which our Joe had
- charge of, but he and the old one quarrelled about it when your son had
- gone, and the old one wouldn’t let it be delivered. He says (that’s the
- old one does) that none of his people shall interfere and get him into
- trouble. He’s a landlord, he says, and lives on everybody’s custom.’
- ‘He’s a jewel,’ smiled Mr Chester, ‘and the better for being a dull
- one.--Well?’
- ‘Varden’s daughter--that’s the girl I kissed--’
- ‘--and stole the bracelet from upon the king’s highway,’ said Mr
- Chester, composedly. ‘Yes; what of her?’
- ‘She wrote a note at our house to the young woman, saying she lost the
- letter I brought to you, and you burnt. Our Joe was to carry it, but
- the old one kept him at home all next day, on purpose that he shouldn’t.
- Next morning he gave it to me to take; and here it is.’
- ‘You didn’t deliver it then, my good friend?’ said Mr Chester, twirling
- Dolly’s note between his finger and thumb, and feigning to be surprised.
- ‘I supposed you’d want to have it,’ retorted Hugh. ‘Burn one, burn all,
- I thought.’
- ‘My devil-may-care acquaintance,’ said Mr Chester--‘really if you do not
- draw some nicer distinctions, your career will be cut short with most
- surprising suddenness. Don’t you know that the letter you brought to
- me, was directed to my son who resides in this very place? And can you
- descry no difference between his letters and those addressed to other
- people?’
- ‘If you don’t want it,’ said Hugh, disconcerted by this reproof, for he
- had expected high praise, ‘give it me back, and I’ll deliver it. I don’t
- know how to please you, master.’
- ‘I shall deliver it,’ returned his patron, putting it away after a
- moment’s consideration, ‘myself. Does the young lady walk out, on fine
- mornings?’
- ‘Mostly--about noon is her usual time.’
- ‘Alone?’
- ‘Yes, alone.’
- ‘Where?’
- ‘In the grounds before the house.--Them that the footpath crosses.’
- ‘If the weather should be fine, I may throw myself in her way to-morrow,
- perhaps,’ said Mr Chester, as coolly as if she were one of his ordinary
- acquaintance. ‘Mr Hugh, if I should ride up to the Maypole door, you
- will do me the favour only to have seen me once. You must suppress your
- gratitude, and endeavour to forget my forbearance in the matter of the
- bracelet. It is natural it should break out, and it does you honour; but
- when other folks are by, you must, for your own sake and safety, be as
- like your usual self as though you owed me no obligation whatever, and
- had never stood within these walls. You comprehend me?’
- Hugh understood him perfectly. After a pause he muttered that he hoped
- his patron would involve him in no trouble about this last letter;
- for he had kept it back solely with the view of pleasing him. He was
- continuing in this strain, when Mr Chester with a most beneficent and
- patronising air cut him short by saying:
- ‘My good fellow, you have my promise, my word, my sealed bond (for a
- verbal pledge with me is quite as good), that I will always protect you
- so long as you deserve it. Now, do set your mind at rest. Keep it at
- ease, I beg of you. When a man puts himself in my power so thoroughly as
- you have done, I really feel as though he had a kind of claim upon me. I
- am more disposed to mercy and forbearance under such circumstances
- than I can tell you, Hugh. Do look upon me as your protector, and rest
- assured, I entreat you, that on the subject of that indiscretion, you
- may preserve, as long as you and I are friends, the lightest heart that
- ever beat within a human breast. Fill that glass once more to cheer you
- on your road homewards--I am really quite ashamed to think how far you
- have to go--and then God bless you for the night.’
- ‘They think,’ said Hugh, when he had tossed the liquor down, ‘that I am
- sleeping soundly in the stable. Ha ha ha! The stable door is shut, but
- the steed’s gone, master.’
- ‘You are a most convivial fellow,’ returned his friend, ‘and I love your
- humour of all things. Good night! Take the greatest possible care of
- yourself, for my sake!’
- It was remarkable that during the whole interview, each had endeavoured
- to catch stolen glances of the other’s face, and had never looked full
- at it. They interchanged one brief and hasty glance as Hugh went out,
- averted their eyes directly, and so separated. Hugh closed the double
- doors behind him, carefully and without noise; and Mr Chester remained
- in his easy-chair, with his gaze intently fixed upon the fire.
- ‘Well!’ he said, after meditating for a long time--and said with a deep
- sigh and an uneasy shifting of his attitude, as though he dismissed some
- other subject from his thoughts, and returned to that which had held
- possession of them all the day--‘the plot thickens; I have thrown the
- shell; it will explode, I think, in eight-and-forty hours, and should
- scatter these good folks amazingly. We shall see!’
- He went to bed and fell asleep, but had not slept long when he started
- up and thought that Hugh was at the outer door, calling in a strange
- voice, very different from his own, to be admitted. The delusion was so
- strong upon him, and was so full of that vague terror of the night
- in which such visions have their being, that he rose, and taking his
- sheathed sword in his hand, opened the door, and looked out upon the
- staircase, and towards the spot where Hugh had lain asleep; and even
- spoke to him by name. But all was dark and quiet, and creeping back
- to bed again, he fell, after an hour’s uneasy watching, into a second
- sleep, and woke no more till morning.
- Chapter 29
- The thoughts of worldly men are for ever regulated by a moral law of
- gravitation, which, like the physical one, holds them down to earth. The
- bright glory of day, and the silent wonders of a starlit night, appeal
- to their minds in vain. There are no signs in the sun, or in the moon,
- or in the stars, for their reading. They are like some wise men, who,
- learning to know each planet by its Latin name, have quite forgotten
- such small heavenly constellations as Charity, Forbearance, Universal
- Love, and Mercy, although they shine by night and day so brightly that
- the blind may see them; and who, looking upward at the spangled sky,
- see nothing there but the reflection of their own great wisdom and
- book-learning.
- It is curious to imagine these people of the world, busy in thought,
- turning their eyes towards the countless spheres that shine above us,
- and making them reflect the only images their minds contain. The man who
- lives but in the breath of princes, has nothing in his sight but stars for
- courtiers’ breasts. The envious man beholds his neighbours’ honours
- even in the sky; to the money-hoarder, and the mass of worldly folk, the
- whole great universe above glitters with sterling coin--fresh from the
- mint--stamped with the sovereign’s head--coming always between them and
- heaven, turn where they may. So do the shadows of our own desires stand
- between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.
- Everything was fresh and gay, as though the world were but that morning
- made, when Mr Chester rode at a tranquil pace along the Forest road.
- Though early in the season, it was warm and genial weather; the trees
- were budding into leaf, the hedges and the grass were green, the air was
- musical with songs of birds, and high above them all the lark poured
- out her richest melody. In shady spots, the morning dew sparkled on
- each young leaf and blade of grass; and where the sun was shining, some
- diamond drops yet glistened brightly, as in unwillingness to leave so
- fair a world, and have such brief existence. Even the light wind, whose
- rustling was as gentle to the ear as softly-falling water, had its hope
- and promise; and, leaving a pleasant fragrance in its track as it went
- fluttering by, whispered of its intercourse with Summer, and of his
- happy coming.
- The solitary rider went glancing on among the trees, from sunlight
- into shade and back again, at the same even pace--looking about him,
- certainly, from time to time, but with no greater thought of the day
- or the scene through which he moved, than that he was fortunate (being
- choicely dressed) to have such favourable weather. He smiled very
- complacently at such times, but rather as if he were satisfied with
- himself than with anything else: and so went riding on, upon his
- chestnut cob, as pleasant to look upon as his own horse, and probably
- far less sensitive to the many cheerful influences by which he was
- surrounded.
- In the course of time, the Maypole’s massive chimneys rose upon his
- view: but he quickened not his pace one jot, and with the same cool
- gravity rode up to the tavern porch. John Willet, who was toasting
- his red face before a great fire in the bar, and who, with surpassing
- foresight and quickness of apprehension, had been thinking, as he looked
- at the blue sky, that if that state of things lasted much longer, it
- might ultimately become necessary to leave off fires and throw the
- windows open, issued forth to hold his stirrup; calling lustily for
- Hugh.
- ‘Oh, you’re here, are you, sir?’ said John, rather surprised by the
- quickness with which he appeared. ‘Take this here valuable animal into
- the stable, and have more than particular care of him if you want to
- keep your place. A mortal lazy fellow, sir; he needs a deal of looking
- after.’
- ‘But you have a son,’ returned Mr Chester, giving his bridle to Hugh as
- he dismounted, and acknowledging his salute by a careless motion of his
- hand towards his hat. ‘Why don’t you make HIM useful?’
- ‘Why, the truth is, sir,’ replied John with great importance, ‘that my
- son--what, you’re a-listening are you, villain?’
- ‘Who’s listening?’ returned Hugh angrily. ‘A treat, indeed, to hear YOU
- speak! Would you have me take him in till he’s cool?’
- ‘Walk him up and down further off then, sir,’ cried old John, ‘and when
- you see me and a noble gentleman entertaining ourselves with talk, keep
- your distance. If you don’t know your distance, sir,’ added Mr Willet,
- after an enormously long pause, during which he fixed his great dull
- eyes on Hugh, and waited with exemplary patience for any little property
- in the way of ideas that might come to him, ‘we’ll find a way to teach
- you, pretty soon.’
- Hugh shrugged his shoulders scornfully, and in his reckless swaggering
- way, crossed to the other side of the little green, and there, with
- the bridle slung loosely over his shoulder, led the horse to and fro,
- glancing at his master every now and then from under his bushy eyebrows,
- with as sinister an aspect as one would desire to see.
- Mr Chester, who, without appearing to do so, had eyed him attentively
- during this brief dispute, stepped into the porch, and turning abruptly
- to Mr Willet, said,
- ‘You keep strange servants, John.’
- ‘Strange enough to look at, sir, certainly,’ answered the host; ‘but out
- of doors; for horses, dogs, and the likes of that; there an’t a better
- man in England than is that Maypole Hugh yonder. He an’t fit for
- indoors,’ added Mr Willet, with the confidential air of a man who felt
- his own superior nature. ‘I do that; but if that chap had only a little
- imagination, sir--’
- ‘He’s an active fellow now, I dare swear,’ said Mr Chester, in a musing
- tone, which seemed to suggest that he would have said the same had there
- been nobody to hear him.
- ‘Active, sir!’ retorted John, with quite an expression in his face;
- ‘that chap! Hallo there! You, sir! Bring that horse here, and go and
- hang my wig on the weathercock, to show this gentleman whether you’re
- one of the lively sort or not.’
- Hugh made no answer, but throwing the bridle to his master, and
- snatching his wig from his head, in a manner so unceremonious and hasty
- that the action discomposed Mr Willet not a little, though performed at
- his own special desire, climbed nimbly to the very summit of the maypole
- before the house, and hanging the wig upon the weathercock, sent it
- twirling round like a roasting jack. Having achieved this performance,
- he cast it on the ground, and sliding down the pole with inconceivable
- rapidity, alighted on his feet almost as soon as it had touched the
- earth.
- ‘There, sir,’ said John, relapsing into his usual stolid state, ‘you
- won’t see that at many houses, besides the Maypole, where there’s good
- accommodation for man and beast--nor that neither, though that with him
- is nothing.’
- This last remark bore reference to his vaulting on horseback, as upon Mr
- Chester’s first visit, and quickly disappearing by the stable gate.
- ‘That with him is nothing,’ repeated Mr Willet, brushing his wig with
- his wrist, and inwardly resolving to distribute a small charge for dust
- and damage to that article of dress, through the various items of his
- guest’s bill; ‘he’ll get out of a’most any winder in the house. There
- never was such a chap for flinging himself about and never hurting his
- bones. It’s my opinion, sir, that it’s pretty nearly allowing to his
- not having any imagination; and that if imagination could be (which it
- can’t) knocked into him, he’d never be able to do it any more. But we
- was a-talking, sir, about my son.’
- ‘True, Willet, true,’ said his visitor, turning again towards the
- landlord with his accustomed serenity of face. ‘My good friend, what
- about him?’
- It has been reported that Mr Willet, previously to making answer,
- winked. But as he was never known to be guilty of such lightness of
- conduct either before or afterwards, this may be looked upon as
- a malicious invention of his enemies--founded, perhaps, upon the
- undisputed circumstance of his taking his guest by the third breast
- button of his coat, counting downwards from the chin, and pouring his
- reply into his ear:
- ‘Sir,’ whispered John, with dignity, ‘I know my duty. We want no
- love-making here, sir, unbeknown to parents. I respect a certain young
- gentleman, taking him in the light of a young gentleman; I respect a
- certain young lady, taking her in the light of a young lady; but of the
- two as a couple, I have no knowledge, sir, none whatever. My son, sir,
- is upon his patrole.’
- ‘I thought I saw him looking through the corner window but this moment,’
- said Mr Chester, who naturally thought that being on patrole, implied
- walking about somewhere.
- ‘No doubt you did, sir,’ returned John. ‘He is upon his patrole of
- honour, sir, not to leave the premises. Me and some friends of mine that
- use the Maypole of an evening, sir, considered what was best to be done
- with him, to prevent his doing anything unpleasant in opposing your
- desires; and we’ve put him on his patrole. And what’s more, sir, he
- won’t be off his patrole for a pretty long time to come, I can tell you
- that.’
- When he had communicated this bright idea, which had its origin in the
- perusal by the village cronies of a newspaper, containing, among other
- matters, an account of how some officer pending the sentence of some
- court-martial had been enlarged on parole, Mr Willet drew back from his
- guest’s ear, and without any visible alteration of feature, chuckled
- thrice audibly. This nearest approach to a laugh in which he ever
- indulged (and that but seldom and only on extreme occasions), never even
- curled his lip or effected the smallest change in--no, not so much as a
- slight wagging of--his great, fat, double chin, which at these times, as
- at all others, remained a perfect desert in the broad map of his face;
- one changeless, dull, tremendous blank.
- Lest it should be matter of surprise to any, that Mr Willet adopted this
- bold course in opposition to one whom he had often entertained, and who
- had always paid his way at the Maypole gallantly, it may be remarked
- that it was his very penetration and sagacity in this respect, which
- occasioned him to indulge in those unusual demonstrations of jocularity,
- just now recorded. For Mr Willet, after carefully balancing father and
- son in his mental scales, had arrived at the distinct conclusion that
- the old gentleman was a better sort of a customer than the young one.
- Throwing his landlord into the same scale, which was already turned by
- this consideration, and heaping upon him, again, his strong desires
- to run counter to the unfortunate Joe, and his opposition as a general
- principle to all matters of love and matrimony, it went down to the very
- ground straightway, and sent the light cause of the younger gentleman
- flying upwards to the ceiling. Mr Chester was not the kind of man to be
- by any means dim-sighted to Mr Willet’s motives, but he thanked him as
- graciously as if he had been one of the most disinterested martyrs that
- ever shone on earth; and leaving him, with many complimentary reliances
- on his great taste and judgment, to prepare whatever dinner he might
- deem most fitting the occasion, bent his steps towards the Warren.
- Dressed with more than his usual elegance; assuming a gracefulness of
- manner, which, though it was the result of long study, sat easily upon
- him and became him well; composing his features into their most serene
- and prepossessing expression; and setting in short that guard upon
- himself, at every point, which denoted that he attached no slight
- importance to the impression he was about to make; he entered the bounds
- of Miss Haredale’s usual walk. He had not gone far, or looked about him
- long, when he descried coming towards him, a female figure. A glimpse
- of the form and dress as she crossed a little wooden bridge which lay
- between them, satisfied him that he had found her whom he desired to
- see. He threw himself in her way, and a very few paces brought them
- close together.
- He raised his hat from his head, and yielding the path, suffered her to
- pass him. Then, as if the idea had but that moment occurred to him, he
- turned hastily back and said in an agitated voice:
- ‘I beg pardon--do I address Miss Haredale?’
- She stopped in some confusion at being so unexpectedly accosted by a
- stranger; and answered ‘Yes.’
- ‘Something told me,’ he said, LOOKING a compliment to her beauty, ‘that
- it could be no other. Miss Haredale, I bear a name which is not unknown
- to you--which it is a pride, and yet a pain to me to know, sounds
- pleasantly in your ears. I am a man advanced in life, as you see. I am
- the father of him whom you honour and distinguish above all other
- men. May I for weighty reasons which fill me with distress, beg but a
- minute’s conversation with you here?’
- Who that was inexperienced in deceit, and had a frank and youthful
- heart, could doubt the speaker’s truth--could doubt it too, when the
- voice that spoke, was like the faint echo of one she knew so well, and
- so much loved to hear? She inclined her head, and stopping, cast her
- eyes upon the ground.
- ‘A little more apart--among these trees. It is an old man’s hand, Miss
- Haredale; an honest one, believe me.’
- She put hers in it as he said these words, and suffered him to lead her
- to a neighbouring seat.
- ‘You alarm me, sir,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You are not the bearer of
- any ill news, I hope?’
- ‘Of none that you anticipate,’ he answered, sitting down beside her.
- ‘Edward is well--quite well. It is of him I wish to speak, certainly;
- but I have no misfortune to communicate.’
- She bowed her head again, and made as though she would have begged him
- to proceed; but said nothing.
- ‘I am sensible that I speak to you at a disadvantage, dear Miss
- Haredale. Believe me that I am not so forgetful of the feelings of my
- younger days as not to know that you are little disposed to view me
- with favour. You have heard me described as cold-hearted, calculating,
- selfish--’
- ‘I have never, sir,’--she interposed with an altered manner and a firmer
- voice; ‘I have never heard you spoken of in harsh or disrespectful
- terms. You do a great wrong to Edward’s nature if you believe him
- capable of any mean or base proceeding.’
- ‘Pardon me, my sweet young lady, but your uncle--’
- ‘Nor is it my uncle’s nature either,’ she replied, with a heightened
- colour in her cheek. ‘It is not his nature to stab in the dark, nor is
- it mine to love such deeds.’
- She rose as she spoke, and would have left him; but he detained her with
- a gentle hand, and besought her in such persuasive accents to hear him
- but another minute, that she was easily prevailed upon to comply, and so
- sat down again.
- ‘And it is,’ said Mr Chester, looking upward, and apostrophising the
- air; ‘it is this frank, ingenuous, noble nature, Ned, that you can wound
- so lightly. Shame--shame upon you, boy!’
- She turned towards him quickly, and with a scornful look and flashing
- eyes. There were tears in Mr Chester’s eyes, but he dashed them
- hurriedly away, as though unwilling that his weakness should be known,
- and regarded her with mingled admiration and compassion.
- ‘I never until now,’ he said, ‘believed, that the frivolous actions of a
- young man could move me like these of my own son. I never knew till now,
- the worth of a woman’s heart, which boys so lightly win, and lightly
- fling away. Trust me, dear young lady, that I never until now did
- know your worth; and though an abhorrence of deceit and falsehood has
- impelled me to seek you out, and would have done so had you been the
- poorest and least gifted of your sex, I should have lacked the fortitude
- to sustain this interview could I have pictured you to my imagination as
- you really are.’
- Oh! If Mrs Varden could have seen the virtuous gentleman as he said
- these words, with indignation sparkling from his eyes--if she could have
- heard his broken, quavering voice--if she could have beheld him as he
- stood bareheaded in the sunlight, and with unwonted energy poured forth
- his eloquence!
- With a haughty face, but pale and trembling too, Emma regarded him in
- silence. She neither spoke nor moved, but gazed upon him as though she
- would look into his heart.
- ‘I throw off,’ said Mr Chester, ‘the restraint which natural affection
- would impose on some men, and reject all bonds but those of truth and
- duty. Miss Haredale, you are deceived; you are deceived by your unworthy
- lover, and my unworthy son.’
- Still she looked at him steadily, and still said not one word.
- ‘I have ever opposed his professions of love for you; you will do me
- the justice, dear Miss Haredale, to remember that. Your uncle and myself
- were enemies in early life, and if I had sought retaliation, I might
- have found it here. But as we grow older, we grow wiser--bitter, I would
- fain hope--and from the first, I have opposed him in this attempt. I
- foresaw the end, and would have spared you, if I could.’
- ‘Speak plainly, sir,’ she faltered. ‘You deceive me, or are deceived
- yourself. I do not believe you--I cannot--I should not.’
- ‘First,’ said Mr Chester, soothingly, ‘for there may be in your mind
- some latent angry feeling to which I would not appeal, pray take this
- letter. It reached my hands by chance, and by mistake, and should have
- accounted to you (as I am told) for my son’s not answering some other
- note of yours. God forbid, Miss Haredale,’ said the good gentleman, with
- great emotion, ‘that there should be in your gentle breast one causeless
- ground of quarrel with him. You should know, and you will see, that he
- was in no fault here.’
- There appeared something so very candid, so scrupulously honourable,
- so very truthful and just in this course--something which rendered the
- upright person who resorted to it, so worthy of belief--that Emma’s
- heart, for the first time, sunk within her. She turned away and burst
- into tears.
- ‘I would,’ said Mr Chester, leaning over her, and speaking in mild and
- quite venerable accents; ‘I would, dear girl, it were my task to banish,
- not increase, those tokens of your grief. My son, my erring son,--I will
- not call him deliberately criminal in this, for men so young, who have
- been inconstant twice or thrice before, act without reflection, almost
- without a knowledge of the wrong they do,--will break his plighted faith
- to you; has broken it even now. Shall I stop here, and having given you
- this warning, leave it to be fulfilled; or shall I go on?’
- ‘You will go on, sir,’ she answered, ‘and speak more plainly yet, in
- justice both to him and me.’
- ‘My dear girl,’ said Mr Chester, bending over her more affectionately
- still; ‘whom I would call my daughter, but the Fates forbid, Edward
- seeks to break with you upon a false and most unwarrantable pretence. I
- have it on his own showing; in his own hand. Forgive me, if I have had
- a watch upon his conduct; I am his father; I had a regard for your peace
- and his honour, and no better resource was left me. There lies on his
- desk at this present moment, ready for transmission to you, a letter,
- in which he tells you that our poverty--our poverty; his and mine, Miss
- Haredale--forbids him to pursue his claim upon your hand; in which he
- offers, voluntarily proposes, to free you from your pledge; and talks
- magnanimously (men do so, very commonly, in such cases) of being in
- time more worthy of your regard--and so forth. A letter, to be plain, in
- which he not only jilts you--pardon the word; I would summon to your
- aid your pride and dignity--not only jilts you, I fear, in favour of the
- object whose slighting treatment first inspired his brief passion for
- yourself and gave it birth in wounded vanity, but affects to make a
- merit and a virtue of the act.’
- She glanced proudly at him once more, as by an involuntary impulse, and
- with a swelling breast rejoined, ‘If what you say be true, he takes much
- needless trouble, sir, to compass his design. He’s very tender of my
- peace of mind. I quite thank him.’
- ‘The truth of what I tell you, dear young lady,’ he replied, ‘you will
- test by the receipt or non-receipt of the letter of which I speak.
- Haredale, my dear fellow, I am delighted to see you, although we meet
- under singular circumstances, and upon a melancholy occasion. I hope you
- are very well.’
- At these words the young lady raised her eyes, which were filled with
- tears; and seeing that her uncle indeed stood before them, and being
- quite unequal to the trial of hearing or of speaking one word more,
- hurriedly withdrew, and left them. They stood looking at each other, and
- at her retreating figure, and for a long time neither of them spoke.
- ‘What does this mean? Explain it,’ said Mr Haredale at length. ‘Why are
- you here, and why with her?’
- ‘My dear friend,’ rejoined the other, resuming his accustomed manner
- with infinite readiness, and throwing himself upon the bench with a
- weary air, ‘you told me not very long ago, at that delightful old
- tavern of which you are the esteemed proprietor (and a most charming
- establishment it is for persons of rural pursuits and in robust health,
- who are not liable to take cold), that I had the head and heart of an
- evil spirit in all matters of deception. I thought at the time; I
- really did think; you flattered me. But now I begin to wonder at your
- discernment, and vanity apart, do honestly believe you spoke the truth.
- Did you ever counterfeit extreme ingenuousness and honest indignation?
- My dear fellow, you have no conception, if you never did, how faint the
- effort makes one.’
- Mr Haredale surveyed him with a look of cold contempt. ‘You may evade an
- explanation, I know,’ he said, folding his arms. ‘But I must have it. I
- can wait.’
- ‘Not at all. Not at all, my good fellow. You shall not wait a moment,’
- returned his friend, as he lazily crossed his legs. ‘The simplest thing
- in the world. It lies in a nutshell. Ned has written her a letter--a
- boyish, honest, sentimental composition, which remains as yet in
- his desk, because he hasn’t had the heart to send it. I have taken a
- liberty, for which my parental affection and anxiety are a sufficient
- excuse, and possessed myself of the contents. I have described them
- to your niece (a most enchanting person, Haredale; quite an angelic
- creature), with a little colouring and description adapted to our
- purpose. It’s done. You may be quite easy. It’s all over. Deprived of
- their adherents and mediators; her pride and jealousy roused to the
- utmost; with nobody to undeceive her, and you to confirm me; you will
- find that their intercourse will close with her answer. If she receives
- Ned’s letter by to-morrow noon, you may date their parting from
- to-morrow night. No thanks, I beg; you owe me none. I have acted for
- myself; and if I have forwarded our compact with all the ardour even you
- could have desired, I have done so selfishly, indeed.’
- ‘I curse the compact, as you call it, with my whole heart and soul,’
- returned the other. ‘It was made in an evil hour. I have bound myself
- to a lie; I have leagued myself with you; and though I did so with a
- righteous motive, and though it cost me such an effort as haply few men
- know, I hate and despise myself for the deed.’
- ‘You are very warm,’ said Mr Chester with a languid smile.
- ‘I AM warm. I am maddened by your coldness. ‘Death, Chester, if your
- blood ran warmer in your veins, and there were no restraints upon me,
- such as those that hold and drag me back--well; it is done; you tell me
- so, and on such a point I may believe you. When I am most remorseful
- for this treachery, I will think of you and your marriage, and try to
- justify myself in such remembrances, for having torn asunder Emma and
- your son, at any cost. Our bond is cancelled now, and we may part.’
- Mr Chester kissed his hand gracefully; and with the same tranquil face
- he had preserved throughout--even when he had seen his companion
- so tortured and transported by his passion that his whole frame was
- shaken--lay in his lounging posture on the seat and watched him as he
- walked away.
- ‘My scapegoat and my drudge at school,’ he said, raising his head
- to look after him; ‘my friend of later days, who could not keep his
- mistress when he had won her, and threw me in her way to carry off the
- prize; I triumph in the present and the past. Bark on, ill-favoured,
- ill-conditioned cur; fortune has ever been with me--I like to hear you.’
- The spot where they had met, was in an avenue of trees. Mr Haredale not
- passing out on either hand, had walked straight on. He chanced to turn
- his head when at some considerable distance, and seeing that his late
- companion had by that time risen and was looking after him, stood still
- as though he half expected him to follow and waited for his coming up.
- ‘It MAY come to that one day, but not yet,’ said Mr Chester, waving his
- hand, as though they were the best of friends, and turning away. ‘Not
- yet, Haredale. Life is pleasant enough to me; dull and full of heaviness
- to you. No. To cross swords with such a man--to indulge his humour
- unless upon extremity--would be weak indeed.’
- For all that, he drew his sword as he walked along, and in an
- absent humour ran his eye from hilt to point full twenty times. But
- thoughtfulness begets wrinkles; remembering this, he soon put it up,
- smoothed his contracted brow, hummed a gay tune with greater gaiety of
- manner, and was his unruffled self again.
- Chapter 30
- A homely proverb recognises the existence of a troublesome class of
- persons who, having an inch conceded them, will take an ell. Not to
- quote the illustrious examples of those heroic scourges of mankind,
- whose amiable path in life has been from birth to death through blood,
- and fire, and ruin, and who would seem to have existed for no better
- purpose than to teach mankind that as the absence of pain is pleasure,
- so the earth, purged of their presence, may be deemed a blessed
- place--not to quote such mighty instances, it will be sufficient to
- refer to old John Willet.
- Old John having long encroached a good standard inch, full measure, on
- the liberty of Joe, and having snipped off a Flemish ell in the matter
- of the parole, grew so despotic and so great, that his thirst for
- conquest knew no bounds. The more young Joe submitted, the more absolute
- old John became. The ell soon faded into nothing. Yards, furlongs, miles
- arose; and on went old John in the pleasantest manner possible, trimming
- off an exuberance in this place, shearing away some liberty of speech
- or action in that, and conducting himself in his small way with as much
- high mightiness and majesty, as the most glorious tyrant that ever had
- his statue reared in the public ways, of ancient or of modern times.
- As great men are urged on to the abuse of power (when they need urging,
- which is not often), by their flatterers and dependents, so old John was
- impelled to these exercises of authority by the applause and admiration
- of his Maypole cronies, who, in the intervals of their nightly pipes and
- pots, would shake their heads and say that Mr Willet was a father of the
- good old English sort; that there were no new-fangled notions or modern
- ways in him; that he put them in mind of what their fathers were when
- they were boys; that there was no mistake about him; that it would be
- well for the country if there were more like him, and more was the pity
- that there were not; with many other original remarks of that nature.
- Then they would condescendingly give Joe to understand that it was
- all for his good, and he would be thankful for it one day; and in
- particular, Mr Cobb would acquaint him, that when he was his age, his
- father thought no more of giving him a parental kick, or a box on the
- ears, or a cuff on the head, or some little admonition of that sort,
- than he did of any other ordinary duty of life; and he would further
- remark, with looks of great significance, that but for this judicious
- bringing up, he might have never been the man he was at that present
- speaking; which was probable enough, as he was, beyond all question,
- the dullest dog of the party. In short, between old John and old
- John’s friends, there never was an unfortunate young fellow so bullied,
- badgered, worried, fretted, and brow-beaten; so constantly beset, or
- made so tired of his life, as poor Joe Willet.
- This had come to be the recognised and established state of things; but
- as John was very anxious to flourish his supremacy before the eyes of Mr
- Chester, he did that day exceed himself, and did so goad and chafe his
- son and heir, that but for Joe’s having made a solemn vow to keep
- his hands in his pockets when they were not otherwise engaged, it is
- impossible to say what he might have done with them. But the longest day
- has an end, and at length Mr Chester came downstairs to mount his horse,
- which was ready at the door.
- As old John was not in the way at the moment, Joe, who was sitting in
- the bar ruminating on his dismal fate and the manifold perfections of
- Dolly Varden, ran out to hold the guest’s stirrup and assist him to
- mount. Mr Chester was scarcely in the saddle, and Joe was in the very
- act of making him a graceful bow, when old John came diving out of the
- porch, and collared him.
- ‘None of that, sir,’ said John, ‘none of that, sir. No breaking of
- patroles. How dare you come out of the door, sir, without leave? You’re
- trying to get away, sir, are you, and to make a traitor of yourself
- again? What do you mean, sir?’
- ‘Let me go, father,’ said Joe, imploringly, as he marked the smile upon
- their visitor’s face, and observed the pleasure his disgrace afforded
- him. ‘This is too bad. Who wants to get away?’
- ‘Who wants to get away!’ cried John, shaking him. ‘Why you do, sir,
- you do. You’re the boy, sir,’ added John, collaring with one hand, and
- aiding the effect of a farewell bow to the visitor with the other,
- ‘that wants to sneak into houses, and stir up differences between noble
- gentlemen and their sons, are you, eh? Hold your tongue, sir.’
- Joe made no effort to reply. It was the crowning circumstance of his
- degradation. He extricated himself from his father’s grasp, darted an
- angry look at the departing guest, and returned into the house.
- ‘But for her,’ thought Joe, as he threw his arms upon a table in the
- common room, and laid his head upon them, ‘but for Dolly, who I couldn’t
- bear should think me the rascal they would make me out to be if I ran
- away, this house and I should part to-night.’
- It being evening by this time, Solomon Daisy, Tom Cobb, and Long Parkes,
- were all in the common room too, and had from the window been witnesses
- of what had just occurred. Mr Willet joining them soon afterwards,
- received the compliments of the company with great composure, and
- lighting his pipe, sat down among them.
- ‘We’ll see, gentlemen,’ said John, after a long pause, ‘who’s the master
- of this house, and who isn’t. We’ll see whether boys are to govern men,
- or men are to govern boys.’
- ‘And quite right too,’ assented Solomon Daisy with some approving nods;
- ‘quite right, Johnny. Very good, Johnny. Well said, Mr Willet. Brayvo,
- sir.’
- John slowly brought his eyes to bear upon him, looked at him for a long
- time, and finally made answer, to the unspeakable consternation of his
- hearers, ‘When I want encouragement from you, sir, I’ll ask you for
- it. You let me alone, sir. I can get on without you, I hope. Don’t you
- tackle me, sir, if you please.’
- ‘Don’t take it ill, Johnny; I didn’t mean any harm,’ pleaded the little
- man.
- ‘Very good, sir,’ said John, more than usually obstinate after his late
- success. ‘Never mind, sir. I can stand pretty firm of myself, sir, I
- believe, without being shored up by you.’ And having given utterance to
- this retort, Mr Willet fixed his eyes upon the boiler, and fell into a
- kind of tobacco-trance.
- The spirits of the company being somewhat damped by this embarrassing
- line of conduct on the part of their host, nothing more was said for a
- long time; but at length Mr Cobb took upon himself to remark, as he rose
- to knock the ashes out of his pipe, that he hoped Joe would thenceforth
- learn to obey his father in all things; that he had found, that day, he
- was not one of the sort of men who were to be trifled with; and that
- he would recommend him, poetically speaking, to mind his eye for the
- future.
- ‘I’d recommend you, in return,’ said Joe, looking up with a flushed
- face, ‘not to talk to me.’
- ‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ cried Mr Willet, suddenly rousing himself, and
- turning round.
- ‘I won’t, father,’ cried Joe, smiting the table with his fist, so that
- the jugs and glasses rung again; ‘these things are hard enough to bear
- from you; from anybody else I never will endure them any more. Therefore
- I say, Mr Cobb, don’t talk to me.’
- ‘Why, who are you,’ said Mr Cobb, sneeringly, ‘that you’re not to be
- talked to, eh, Joe?’
- To which Joe returned no answer, but with a very ominous shake of the
- head, resumed his old position, which he would have peacefully preserved
- until the house shut up at night, but that Mr Cobb, stimulated by the
- wonder of the company at the young man’s presumption, retorted with
- sundry taunts, which proved too much for flesh and blood to bear.
- Crowding into one moment the vexation and the wrath of years, Joe
- started up, overturned the table, fell upon his long enemy, pummelled
- him with all his might and main, and finished by driving him with
- surprising swiftness against a heap of spittoons in one corner; plunging
- into which, head foremost, with a tremendous crash, he lay at full
- length among the ruins, stunned and motionless. Then, without waiting to
- receive the compliments of the bystanders on the victory he had won, he
- retreated to his own bedchamber, and considering himself in a state
- of siege, piled all the portable furniture against the door by way of
- barricade.
- ‘I have done it now,’ said Joe, as he sat down upon his bedstead and
- wiped his heated face. ‘I knew it would come at last. The Maypole and
- I must part company. I’m a roving vagabond--she hates me for
- evermore--it’s all over!’
- Chapter 31
- Pondering on his unhappy lot, Joe sat and listened for a long time,
- expecting every moment to hear their creaking footsteps on the stairs,
- or to be greeted by his worthy father with a summons to capitulate
- unconditionally, and deliver himself up straightway. But neither voice
- nor footstep came; and though some distant echoes, as of closing doors
- and people hurrying in and out of rooms, resounding from time to time
- through the great passages, and penetrating to his remote seclusion,
- gave note of unusual commotion downstairs, no nearer sound disturbed his
- place of retreat, which seemed the quieter for these far-off noises, and
- was as dull and full of gloom as any hermit’s cell.
- It came on darker and darker. The old-fashioned furniture of the
- chamber, which was a kind of hospital for all the invalided movables in
- the house, grew indistinct and shadowy in its many shapes; chairs and
- tables, which by day were as honest cripples as need be, assumed a
- doubtful and mysterious character; and one old leprous screen of faded
- India leather and gold binding, which had kept out many a cold breath of
- air in days of yore and shut in many a jolly face, frowned on him with
- a spectral aspect, and stood at full height in its allotted corner, like
- some gaunt ghost who waited to be questioned. A portrait opposite the
- window--a queer, old grey-eyed general, in an oval frame--seemed to
- wink and doze as the light decayed, and at length, when the last faint
- glimmering speck of day went out, to shut its eyes in good earnest, and
- fall sound asleep. There was such a hush and mystery about everything,
- that Joe could not help following its example; and so went off into
- a slumber likewise, and dreamed of Dolly, till the clock of Chigwell
- church struck two.
- Still nobody came. The distant noises in the house had ceased, and
- out of doors all was quiet; save for the occasional barking of some
- deep-mouthed dog, and the shaking of the branches by the night wind.
- He gazed mournfully out of window at each well-known object as it lay
- sleeping in the dim light of the moon; and creeping back to his former
- seat, thought about the late uproar, until, with long thinking of, it
- seemed to have occurred a month ago. Thus, between dozing, and thinking,
- and walking to the window and looking out, the night wore away; the grim
- old screen, and the kindred chairs and tables, began slowly to reveal
- themselves in their accustomed forms; the grey-eyed general seemed to
- wink and yawn and rouse himself; and at last he was broad awake again,
- and very uncomfortable and cold and haggard he looked, in the dull grey
- light of morning.
- The sun had begun to peep above the forest trees, and already flung
- across the curling mist bright bars of gold, when Joe dropped from his
- window on the ground below, a little bundle and his trusty stick, and
- prepared to descend himself.
- It was not a very difficult task; for there were so many projections and
- gable ends in the way, that they formed a series of clumsy steps, with
- no greater obstacle than a jump of some few feet at last. Joe, with his
- stick and bundle on his shoulder, quickly stood on the firm earth, and
- looked up at the old Maypole, it might be for the last time.
- He didn’t apostrophise it, for he was no great scholar. He didn’t curse
- it, for he had little ill-will to give to anything on earth. He felt
- more affectionate and kind to it than ever he had done in all his life
- before, so said with all his heart, ‘God bless you!’ as a parting wish,
- and turned away.
- He walked along at a brisk pace, big with great thoughts of going for
- a soldier and dying in some foreign country where it was very hot and
- sandy, and leaving God knows what unheard-of wealth in prize-money to
- Dolly, who would be very much affected when she came to know of it;
- and full of such youthful visions, which were sometimes sanguine and
- sometimes melancholy, but always had her for their main point and
- centre, pushed on vigorously until the noise of London sounded in his
- ears, and the Black Lion hove in sight.
- It was only eight o’clock then, and very much astonished the Black Lion
- was, to see him come walking in with dust upon his feet at that early
- hour, with no grey mare to bear him company. But as he ordered breakfast
- to be got ready with all speed, and on its being set before him gave
- indisputable tokens of a hearty appetite, the Lion received him, as
- usual, with a hospitable welcome; and treated him with those marks
- of distinction, which, as a regular customer, and one within the
- freemasonry of the trade, he had a right to claim.
- This Lion or landlord,--for he was called both man and beast, by reason
- of his having instructed the artist who painted his sign, to convey
- into the features of the lordly brute whose effigy it bore, as near a
- counterpart of his own face as his skill could compass and devise,--was
- a gentleman almost as quick of apprehension, and of almost as subtle a
- wit, as the mighty John himself. But the difference between them lay in
- this: that whereas Mr Willet’s extreme sagacity and acuteness were
- the efforts of unassisted nature, the Lion stood indebted, in no small
- amount, to beer; of which he swigged such copious draughts, that most of
- his faculties were utterly drowned and washed away, except the one
- great faculty of sleep, which he retained in surprising perfection.
- The creaking Lion over the house-door was, therefore, to say the
- truth, rather a drowsy, tame, and feeble lion; and as these social
- representatives of a savage class are usually of a conventional
- character (being depicted, for the most part, in impossible attitudes
- and of unearthly colours), he was frequently supposed by the more
- ignorant and uninformed among the neighbours, to be the veritable
- portrait of the host as he appeared on the occasion of some great
- funeral ceremony or public mourning.
- ‘What noisy fellow is that in the next room?’ said Joe, when he had
- disposed of his breakfast, and had washed and brushed himself.
- ‘A recruiting serjeant,’ replied the Lion.
- Joe started involuntarily. Here was the very thing he had been dreaming
- of, all the way along.
- ‘And I wish,’ said the Lion, ‘he was anywhere else but here. The party
- make noise enough, but don’t call for much. There’s great cry there, Mr
- Willet, but very little wool. Your father wouldn’t like ‘em, I know.’
- Perhaps not much under any circumstances. Perhaps if he could have known
- what was passing at that moment in Joe’s mind, he would have liked them
- still less.
- ‘Is he recruiting for a--for a fine regiment?’ said Joe, glancing at a
- little round mirror that hung in the bar.
- ‘I believe he is,’ replied the host. ‘It’s much the same thing, whatever
- regiment he’s recruiting for. I’m told there an’t a deal of difference
- between a fine man and another one, when they’re shot through and
- through.’
- ‘They’re not all shot,’ said Joe.
- ‘No,’ the Lion answered, ‘not all. Those that are--supposing it’s done
- easy--are the best off in my opinion.’
- ‘Ah!’ retorted Joe, ‘but you don’t care for glory.’
- ‘For what?’ said the Lion.
- ‘Glory.’
- ‘No,’ returned the Lion, with supreme indifference. ‘I don’t. You’re
- right in that, Mr Willet. When Glory comes here, and calls for anything
- to drink and changes a guinea to pay for it, I’ll give it him for
- nothing. It’s my belief, sir, that the Glory’s arms wouldn’t do a very
- strong business.’
- These remarks were not at all comforting. Joe walked out, stopped at
- the door of the next room, and listened. The serjeant was describing
- a military life. It was all drinking, he said, except that there were
- frequent intervals of eating and love-making. A battle was the finest
- thing in the world--when your side won it--and Englishmen always did
- that. ‘Supposing you should be killed, sir?’ said a timid voice in one
- corner. ‘Well, sir, supposing you should be,’ said the serjeant, ‘what
- then? Your country loves you, sir; his Majesty King George the Third
- loves you; your memory is honoured, revered, respected; everybody’s fond
- of you, and grateful to you; your name’s wrote down at full length in a
- book in the War Office. Damme, gentlemen, we must all die some time, or
- another, eh?’
- The voice coughed, and said no more.
- Joe walked into the room. A group of half-a-dozen fellows had gathered
- together in the taproom, and were listening with greedy ears. One of
- them, a carter in a smockfrock, seemed wavering and disposed to enlist.
- The rest, who were by no means disposed, strongly urged him to do so
- (according to the custom of mankind), backed the serjeant’s arguments,
- and grinned among themselves. ‘I say nothing, boys,’ said the serjeant,
- who sat a little apart, drinking his liquor. ‘For lads of spirit’--here
- he cast an eye on Joe--‘this is the time. I don’t want to inveigle you.
- The king’s not come to that, I hope. Brisk young blood is what we
- want; not milk and water. We won’t take five men out of six. We want
- top-sawyers, we do. I’m not a-going to tell tales out of school, but,
- damme, if every gentleman’s son that carries arms in our corps, through
- being under a cloud and having little differences with his relations,
- was counted up’--here his eye fell on Joe again, and so good-naturedly,
- that Joe beckoned him out. He came directly.
- ‘You’re a gentleman, by G--!’ was his first remark, as he slapped him
- on the back. ‘You’re a gentleman in disguise. So am I. Let’s swear a
- friendship.’
- Joe didn’t exactly do that, but he shook hands with him, and thanked him
- for his good opinion.
- ‘You want to serve,’ said his new friend. ‘You shall. You were made for
- it. You’re one of us by nature. What’ll you take to drink?’
- ‘Nothing just now,’ replied Joe, smiling faintly. ‘I haven’t quite made
- up my mind.’
- ‘A mettlesome fellow like you, and not made up his mind!’ cried the
- serjeant. ‘Here--let me give the bell a pull, and you’ll make up your
- mind in half a minute, I know.’
- ‘You’re right so far’--answered Joe, ‘for if you pull the bell here,
- where I’m known, there’ll be an end of my soldiering inclinations in no
- time. Look in my face. You see me, do you?’
- ‘I do,’ replied the serjeant with an oath, ‘and a finer young fellow or
- one better qualified to serve his king and country, I never set my--’ he
- used an adjective in this place--‘eyes on.’
- ‘Thank you,’ said Joe, ‘I didn’t ask you for want of a compliment, but
- thank you all the same. Do I look like a sneaking fellow or a liar?’
- The serjeant rejoined with many choice asseverations that he didn’t; and
- that if his (the serjeant’s) own father were to say he did, he would
- run the old gentleman through the body cheerfully, and consider it a
- meritorious action.
- Joe expressed his obligations, and continued, ‘You can trust me then,
- and credit what I say. I believe I shall enlist in your regiment
- to-night. The reason I don’t do so now is, because I don’t want until
- to-night, to do what I can’t recall. Where shall I find you, this
- evening?’
- His friend replied with some unwillingness, and after much ineffectual
- entreaty having for its object the immediate settlement of the business,
- that his quarters would be at the Crooked Billet in Tower Street; where
- he would be found waking until midnight, and sleeping until breakfast
- time to-morrow.
- ‘And if I do come--which it’s a million to one, I shall--when will you
- take me out of London?’ demanded Joe.
- ‘To-morrow morning, at half after eight o’clock,’ replied the serjeant.
- ‘You’ll go abroad--a country where it’s all sunshine and plunder--the
- finest climate in the world.’
- ‘To go abroad,’ said Joe, shaking hands with him, ‘is the very thing I
- want. You may expect me.’
- ‘You’re the kind of lad for us,’ cried the serjeant, holding Joe’s hand
- in his, in the excess of his admiration. ‘You’re the boy to push your
- fortune. I don’t say it because I bear you any envy, or would take away
- from the credit of the rise you’ll make, but if I had been bred and
- taught like you, I’d have been a colonel by this time.’
- ‘Tush, man!’ said Joe, ‘I’m not so young as that. Needs must when the
- devil drives; and the devil that drives me is an empty pocket and an
- unhappy home. For the present, good-bye.’
- ‘For king and country!’ cried the serjeant, flourishing his cap.
- ‘For bread and meat!’ cried Joe, snapping his fingers. And so they
- parted.
- He had very little money in his pocket; so little indeed, that after
- paying for his breakfast (which he was too honest and perhaps too proud
- to score up to his father’s charge) he had but a penny left. He had
- courage, notwithstanding, to resist all the affectionate importunities
- of the serjeant, who waylaid him at the door with many protestations of
- eternal friendship, and did in particular request that he would do him
- the favour to accept of only one shilling as a temporary accommodation.
- Rejecting his offers both of cash and credit, Joe walked away with
- stick and bundle as before, bent upon getting through the day as he best
- could, and going down to the locksmith’s in the dusk of the evening;
- for it should go hard, he had resolved, but he would have a parting word
- with charming Dolly Varden.
- He went out by Islington and so on to Highgate, and sat on many stones
- and gates, but there were no voices in the bells to bid him turn. Since
- the time of noble Whittington, fair flower of merchants, bells have come
- to have less sympathy with humankind. They only ring for money and on
- state occasions. Wanderers have increased in number; ships leave the
- Thames for distant regions, carrying from stem to stern no other cargo;
- the bells are silent; they ring out no entreaties or regrets; they are
- used to it and have grown worldly.
- Joe bought a roll, and reduced his purse to the condition (with a
- difference) of that celebrated purse of Fortunatus, which, whatever were
- its favoured owner’s necessities, had one unvarying amount in it. In
- these real times, when all the Fairies are dead and buried, there are
- still a great many purses which possess that quality. The sum-total they
- contain is expressed in arithmetic by a circle, and whether it be added
- to or multiplied by its own amount, the result of the problem is more
- easily stated than any known in figures.
- Evening drew on at last. With the desolate and solitary feeling of one
- who had no home or shelter, and was alone utterly in the world for the
- first time, he bent his steps towards the locksmith’s house. He had
- delayed till now, knowing that Mrs Varden sometimes went out alone,
- or with Miggs for her sole attendant, to lectures in the evening; and
- devoutly hoping that this might be one of her nights of moral culture.
- He had walked up and down before the house, on the opposite side of the
- way, two or three times, when as he returned to it again, he caught a
- glimpse of a fluttering skirt at the door. It was Dolly’s--to whom else
- could it belong? no dress but hers had such a flow as that. He plucked
- up his spirits, and followed it into the workshop of the Golden Key.
- His darkening the door caused her to look round. Oh that face! ‘If it
- hadn’t been for that,’ thought Joe, ‘I should never have walked into
- poor Tom Cobb. She’s twenty times handsomer than ever. She might marry a
- Lord!’
- He didn’t say this. He only thought it--perhaps looked it also. Dolly
- was glad to see him, and was SO sorry her father and mother were away
- from home. Joe begged she wouldn’t mention it on any account.
- Dolly hesitated to lead the way into the parlour, for there it was
- nearly dark; at the same time she hesitated to stand talking in the
- workshop, which was yet light and open to the street. They had got by
- some means, too, before the little forge; and Joe having her hand in his
- (which he had no right to have, for Dolly only gave it him to shake), it
- was so like standing before some homely altar being married, that it was
- the most embarrassing state of things in the world.
- ‘I have come,’ said Joe, ‘to say good-bye--to say good-bye for I don’t
- know how many years; perhaps for ever. I am going abroad.’
- Now this was exactly what he should not have said. Here he was, talking
- like a gentleman at large who was free to come and go and roam about the
- world at pleasure, when that gallant coachmaker had vowed but the night
- before that Miss Varden held him bound in adamantine chains; and had
- positively stated in so many words that she was killing him by inches,
- and that in a fortnight more or thereabouts he expected to make a decent
- end and leave the business to his mother.
- Dolly released her hand and said ‘Indeed!’ She remarked in the same
- breath that it was a fine night, and in short, betrayed no more emotion
- than the forge itself.
- ‘I couldn’t go,’ said Joe, ‘without coming to see you. I hadn’t the
- heart to.’
- Dolly was more sorry than she could tell, that he should have taken so
- much trouble. It was such a long way, and he must have such a deal to
- do. And how WAS Mr Willet--that dear old gentleman--
- ‘Is this all you say!’ cried Joe.
- All! Good gracious, what did the man expect! She was obliged to take her
- apron in her hand and run her eyes along the hem from corner to corner,
- to keep herself from laughing in his face;--not because his gaze
- confused her--not at all.
- Joe had small experience in love affairs, and had no notion how
- different young ladies are at different times; he had expected to
- take Dolly up again at the very point where he had left her after that
- delicious evening ride, and was no more prepared for such an alteration
- than to see the sun and moon change places. He had buoyed himself up all
- day with an indistinct idea that she would certainly say ‘Don’t go,’ or
- ‘Don’t leave us,’ or ‘Why do you go?’ or ‘Why do you leave us?’ or would
- give him some little encouragement of that sort; he had even entertained
- the possibility of her bursting into tears, of her throwing herself into
- his arms, of her falling down in a fainting fit without previous word
- or sign; but any approach to such a line of conduct as this, had been so
- far from his thoughts that he could only look at her in silent wonder.
- Dolly in the meanwhile, turned to the corners of her apron, and measured
- the sides, and smoothed out the wrinkles, and was as silent as he. At
- last after a long pause, Joe said good-bye. ‘Good-bye’--said Dolly--with
- as pleasant a smile as if he were going into the next street, and were
- coming back to supper; ‘good-bye.’
- ‘Come,’ said Joe, putting out both hands, ‘Dolly, dear Dolly, don’t let
- us part like this. I love you dearly, with all my heart and soul; with
- as much truth and earnestness as ever man loved woman in this world, I
- do believe. I am a poor fellow, as you know--poorer now than ever, for
- I have fled from home, not being able to bear it any longer, and must
- fight my own way without help. You are beautiful, admired, are loved by
- everybody, are well off and happy; and may you ever be so! Heaven forbid
- I should ever make you otherwise; but give me a word of comfort. Say
- something kind to me. I have no right to expect it of you, I know, but
- I ask it because I love you, and shall treasure the slightest word from
- you all through my life. Dolly, dearest, have you nothing to say to me?’
- No. Nothing. Dolly was a coquette by nature, and a spoilt child. She had
- no notion of being carried by storm in this way. The coachmaker would
- have been dissolved in tears, and would have knelt down, and called
- himself names, and clasped his hands, and beat his breast, and tugged
- wildly at his cravat, and done all kinds of poetry. Joe had no business
- to be going abroad. He had no right to be able to do it. If he was in
- adamantine chains, he couldn’t.
- ‘I have said good-bye,’ said Dolly, ‘twice. Take your arm away directly,
- Mr Joseph, or I’ll call Miggs.’
- ‘I’ll not reproach you,’ answered Joe, ‘it’s my fault, no doubt. I have
- thought sometimes that you didn’t quite despise me, but I was a fool to
- think so. Every one must, who has seen the life I have led--you most of
- all. God bless you!’
- He was gone, actually gone. Dolly waited a little while, thinking he
- would return, peeped out at the door, looked up the street and down as
- well as the increasing darkness would allow, came in again, waited a
- little longer, went upstairs humming a tune, bolted herself in, laid
- her head down on her bed, and cried as if her heart would break. And yet
- such natures are made up of so many contradictions, that if Joe Willet
- had come back that night, next day, next week, next month, the odds are
- a hundred to one she would have treated him in the very same manner, and
- have wept for it afterwards with the very same distress.
- She had no sooner left the workshop than there cautiously peered out
- from behind the chimney of the forge, a face which had already emerged
- from the same concealment twice or thrice, unseen, and which, after
- satisfying itself that it was now alone, was followed by a leg, a
- shoulder, and so on by degrees, until the form of Mr Tappertit stood
- confessed, with a brown-paper cap stuck negligently on one side of its
- head, and its arms very much a-kimbo.
- ‘Have my ears deceived me,’ said the ‘prentice, ‘or do I dream! am I to
- thank thee, Fortun’, or to cus thee--which?’
- He gravely descended from his elevation, took down his piece of
- looking-glass, planted it against the wall upon the usual bench, twisted
- his head round, and looked closely at his legs.
- ‘If they’re a dream,’ said Sim, ‘let sculptures have such wisions, and
- chisel ‘em out when they wake. This is reality. Sleep has no such limbs
- as them. Tremble, Willet, and despair. She’s mine! She’s mine!’
- With these triumphant expressions, he seized a hammer and dealt a heavy
- blow at a vice, which in his mind’s eye represented the sconce or head
- of Joseph Willet. That done, he burst into a peal of laughter which
- startled Miss Miggs even in her distant kitchen, and dipping his head
- into a bowl of water, had recourse to a jack-towel inside the closet
- door, which served the double purpose of smothering his feelings and
- drying his face.
- Joe, disconsolate and down-hearted, but full of courage too, on leaving
- the locksmith’s house made the best of his way to the Crooked Billet,
- and there inquired for his friend the serjeant, who, expecting no man
- less, received him with open arms. In the course of five minutes after
- his arrival at that house of entertainment, he was enrolled among the
- gallant defenders of his native land; and within half an hour, was
- regaled with a steaming supper of boiled tripe and onions, prepared,
- as his friend assured him more than once, at the express command of his
- most Sacred Majesty the King. To this meal, which tasted very savoury
- after his long fasting, he did ample justice; and when he had followed
- it up, or down, with a variety of loyal and patriotic toasts, he was
- conducted to a straw mattress in a loft over the stable, and locked in
- there for the night.
- The next morning, he found that the obliging care of his martial friend
- had decorated his hat with sundry particoloured streamers, which made
- a very lively appearance; and in company with that officer, and three
- other military gentlemen newly enrolled, who were under a cloud so dense
- that it only left three shoes, a boot, and a coat and a half visible
- among them, repaired to the riverside. Here they were joined by a
- corporal and four more heroes, of whom two were drunk and daring, and
- two sober and penitent, but each of whom, like Joe, had his dusty stick
- and bundle. The party embarked in a passage-boat bound for Gravesend,
- whence they were to proceed on foot to Chatham; the wind was in their
- favour, and they soon left London behind them, a mere dark mist--a giant
- phantom in the air.
- Chapter 32
- Misfortunes, saith the adage, never come singly. There is little doubt
- that troubles are exceedingly gregarious in their nature, and flying
- in flocks, are apt to perch capriciously; crowding on the heads of some
- poor wights until there is not an inch of room left on their unlucky
- crowns, and taking no more notice of others who offer as good
- resting-places for the soles of their feet, than if they had no
- existence. It may have happened that a flight of troubles brooding over
- London, and looking out for Joseph Willet, whom they couldn’t find,
- darted down haphazard on the first young man that caught their fancy,
- and settled on him instead. However this may be, certain it is that on
- the very day of Joe’s departure they swarmed about the ears of Edward
- Chester, and did so buzz and flap their wings, and persecute him, that
- he was most profoundly wretched.
- It was evening, and just eight o’clock, when he and his father, having
- wine and dessert set before them, were left to themselves for the first
- time that day. They had dined together, but a third person had been
- present during the meal, and until they met at table they had not seen
- each other since the previous night.
- Edward was reserved and silent. Mr Chester was more than usually gay;
- but not caring, as it seemed, to open a conversation with one whose
- humour was so different, he vented the lightness of his spirit in smiles
- and sparkling looks, and made no effort to awaken his attention. So they
- remained for some time: the father lying on a sofa with his accustomed
- air of graceful negligence; the son seated opposite to him with downcast
- eyes, busied, it was plain, with painful and uneasy thoughts.
- ‘My dear Edward,’ said Mr Chester at length, with a most engaging laugh,
- ‘do not extend your drowsy influence to the decanter. Suffer THAT to
- circulate, let your spirits be never so stagnant.’
- Edward begged his pardon, passed it, and relapsed into his former state.
- ‘You do wrong not to fill your glass,’ said Mr Chester, holding up his
- own before the light. ‘Wine in moderation--not in excess, for that makes
- men ugly--has a thousand pleasant influences. It brightens the eye,
- improves the voice, imparts a new vivacity to one’s thoughts and
- conversation: you should try it, Ned.’
- ‘Ah father!’ cried his son, ‘if--’
- ‘My good fellow,’ interposed the parent hastily, as he set down his
- glass, and raised his eyebrows with a startled and horrified expression,
- ‘for Heaven’s sake don’t call me by that obsolete and ancient name. Have
- some regard for delicacy. Am I grey, or wrinkled, do I go on crutches,
- have I lost my teeth, that you adopt such a mode of address? Good God,
- how very coarse!’
- ‘I was about to speak to you from my heart, sir,’ returned Edward, ‘in
- the confidence which should subsist between us; and you check me in the
- outset.’
- ‘Now DO, Ned, DO not,’ said Mr Chester, raising his delicate hand
- imploringly, ‘talk in that monstrous manner. About to speak from
- your heart. Don’t you know that the heart is an ingenious part of
- our formation--the centre of the blood-vessels and all that sort of
- thing--which has no more to do with what you say or think, than your
- knees have? How can you be so very vulgar and absurd? These anatomical
- allusions should be left to gentlemen of the medical profession. They
- are really not agreeable in society. You quite surprise me, Ned.’
- ‘Well! there are no such things to wound, or heal, or have regard for. I
- know your creed, sir, and will say no more,’ returned his son.
- ‘There again,’ said Mr Chester, sipping his wine, ‘you are wrong. I
- distinctly say there are such things. We know there are. The hearts of
- animals--of bullocks, sheep, and so forth--are cooked and devoured, as
- I am told, by the lower classes, with a vast deal of relish. Men are
- sometimes stabbed to the heart, shot to the heart; but as to speaking
- from the heart, or to the heart, or being warm-hearted, or cold-hearted,
- or broken-hearted, or being all heart, or having no heart--pah! these
- things are nonsense, Ned.’
- ‘No doubt, sir,’ returned his son, seeing that he paused for him to
- speak. ‘No doubt.’
- ‘There’s Haredale’s niece, your late flame,’ said Mr Chester, as a
- careless illustration of his meaning. ‘No doubt in your mind she was all
- heart once. Now she has none at all. Yet she is the same person, Ned,
- exactly.’
- ‘She is a changed person, sir,’ cried Edward, reddening; ‘and changed by
- vile means, I believe.’
- ‘You have had a cool dismissal, have you?’ said his father. ‘Poor Ned!
- I told you last night what would happen.--May I ask you for the
- nutcrackers?’
- ‘She has been tampered with, and most treacherously deceived,’ cried
- Edward, rising from his seat. ‘I never will believe that the knowledge
- of my real position, given her by myself, has worked this change. I know
- she is beset and tortured. But though our contract is at an end, and
- broken past all redemption; though I charge upon her want of firmness
- and want of truth, both to herself and me; I do not now, and never will
- believe, that any sordid motive, or her own unbiassed will, has led her
- to this course--never!’
- ‘You make me blush,’ returned his father gaily, ‘for the folly of your
- nature, in which--but we never know ourselves--I devoutly hope there is
- no reflection of my own. With regard to the young lady herself, she has
- done what is very natural and proper, my dear fellow; what you yourself
- proposed, as I learn from Haredale; and what I predicted--with no great
- exercise of sagacity--she would do. She supposed you to be rich, or
- at least quite rich enough; and found you poor. Marriage is a civil
- contract; people marry to better their worldly condition and improve
- appearances; it is an affair of house and furniture, of liveries,
- servants, equipage, and so forth. The lady being poor and you poor
- also, there is an end of the matter. You cannot enter upon these
- considerations, and have no manner of business with the ceremony. I
- drink her health in this glass, and respect and honour her for her
- extreme good sense. It is a lesson to you. Fill yours, Ned.’
- ‘It is a lesson,’ returned his son, ‘by which I hope I may never profit,
- and if years and experience impress it on--’
- ‘Don’t say on the heart,’ interposed his father.
- ‘On men whom the world and its hypocrisy have spoiled,’ said Edward
- warmly, ‘Heaven keep me from its knowledge.’
- ‘Come, sir,’ returned his father, raising himself a little on the sofa,
- and looking straight towards him; ‘we have had enough of this. Remember,
- if you please, your interest, your duty, your moral obligations, your
- filial affections, and all that sort of thing, which it is so very
- delightful and charming to reflect upon; or you will repent it.’
- ‘I shall never repent the preservation of my self-respect, sir,’ said
- Edward. ‘Forgive me if I say that I will not sacrifice it at your
- bidding, and that I will not pursue the track which you would have me
- take, and to which the secret share you have had in this late separation
- tends.’
- His father rose a little higher still, and looking at him as though
- curious to know if he were quite resolved and earnest, dropped gently
- down again, and said in the calmest voice--eating his nuts meanwhile,
- ‘Edward, my father had a son, who being a fool like you, and, like you,
- entertaining low and disobedient sentiments, he disinherited and cursed
- one morning after breakfast. The circumstance occurs to me with a
- singular clearness of recollection this evening. I remember eating
- muffins at the time, with marmalade. He led a miserable life (the son,
- I mean) and died early; it was a happy release on all accounts; he
- degraded the family very much. It is a sad circumstance, Edward, when a
- father finds it necessary to resort to such strong measures.
- ‘It is,’ replied Edward, ‘and it is sad when a son, proffering him his
- love and duty in their best and truest sense, finds himself repelled
- at every turn, and forced to disobey. Dear father,’ he added, more
- earnestly though in a gentler tone, ‘I have reflected many times on what
- occurred between us when we first discussed this subject. Let there be
- a confidence between us; not in terms, but truth. Hear what I have to
- say.’
- ‘As I anticipate what it is, and cannot fail to do so, Edward,’ returned
- his father coldly, ‘I decline. I couldn’t possibly. I am sure it would
- put me out of temper, which is a state of mind I can’t endure. If
- you intend to mar my plans for your establishment in life, and the
- preservation of that gentility and becoming pride, which our family
- have so long sustained--if, in short, you are resolved to take your own
- course, you must take it, and my curse with it. I am very sorry, but
- there’s really no alternative.’
- ‘The curse may pass your lips,’ said Edward, ‘but it will be but empty
- breath. I do not believe that any man on earth has greater power to call
- one down upon his fellow--least of all, upon his own child--than he has
- to make one drop of rain or flake of snow fall from the clouds above us
- at his impious bidding. Beware, sir, what you do.’
- ‘You are so very irreligious, so exceedingly undutiful, so horribly
- profane,’ rejoined his father, turning his face lazily towards him, and
- cracking another nut, ‘that I positively must interrupt you here. It is
- quite impossible we can continue to go on, upon such terms as these. If
- you will do me the favour to ring the bell, the servant will show you
- to the door. Return to this roof no more, I beg you. Go, sir, since
- you have no moral sense remaining; and go to the Devil, at my express
- desire. Good day.’
- Edward left the room without another word or look, and turned his back
- upon the house for ever.
- The father’s face was slightly flushed and heated, but his manner was
- quite unchanged, as he rang the bell again, and addressed the servant on
- his entrance.
- ‘Peak--if that gentleman who has just gone out--’
- ‘I beg your pardon, sir, Mr Edward?’
- ‘Were there more than one, dolt, that you ask the question?--If that
- gentleman should send here for his wardrobe, let him have it, do you
- hear? If he should call himself at any time, I’m not at home. You’ll
- tell him so, and shut the door.’
- So, it soon got whispered about, that Mr Chester was very unfortunate
- in his son, who had occasioned him great grief and sorrow. And the
- good people who heard this and told it again, marvelled the more at his
- equanimity and even temper, and said what an amiable nature that man
- must have, who, having undergone so much, could be so placid and so
- calm. And when Edward’s name was spoken, Society shook its head, and
- laid its finger on its lip, and sighed, and looked very grave; and those
- who had sons about his age, waxed wrathful and indignant, and hoped, for
- Virtue’s sake, that he was dead. And the world went on turning round, as
- usual, for five years, concerning which this Narrative is silent.
- Chapter 33
- One wintry evening, early in the year of our Lord one thousand seven
- hundred and eighty, a keen north wind arose as it grew dark, and night
- came on with black and dismal looks. A bitter storm of sleet, sharp,
- dense, and icy-cold, swept the wet streets, and rattled on the trembling
- windows. Signboards, shaken past endurance in their creaking frames,
- fell crashing on the pavement; old tottering chimneys reeled and
- staggered in the blast; and many a steeple rocked again that night, as
- though the earth were troubled.
- It was not a time for those who could by any means get light and warmth,
- to brave the fury of the weather. In coffee-houses of the better sort,
- guests crowded round the fire, forgot to be political, and told each
- other with a secret gladness that the blast grew fiercer every minute.
- Each humble tavern by the water-side, had its group of uncouth figures
- round the hearth, who talked of vessels foundering at sea, and all hands
- lost; related many a dismal tale of shipwreck and drowned men, and
- hoped that some they knew were safe, and shook their heads in doubt.
- In private dwellings, children clustered near the blaze; listening with
- timid pleasure to tales of ghosts and goblins, and tall figures clad
- in white standing by bed-sides, and people who had gone to sleep in old
- churches and being overlooked had found themselves alone there at the
- dead hour of the night: until they shuddered at the thought of the dark
- rooms upstairs, yet loved to hear the wind moan too, and hoped it would
- continue bravely. From time to time these happy indoor people stopped to
- listen, or one held up his finger and cried ‘Hark!’ and then, above the
- rumbling in the chimney, and the fast pattering on the glass, was heard
- a wailing, rushing sound, which shook the walls as though a giant’s hand
- were on them; then a hoarse roar as if the sea had risen; then such a
- whirl and tumult that the air seemed mad; and then, with a lengthened
- howl, the waves of wind swept on, and left a moment’s interval of rest.
- Cheerily, though there were none abroad to see it, shone the Maypole
- light that evening. Blessings on the red--deep, ruby, glowing red--old
- curtain of the window; blending into one rich stream of brightness, fire
- and candle, meat, drink, and company, and gleaming like a jovial
- eye upon the bleak waste out of doors! Within, what carpet like its
- crunching sand, what music merry as its crackling logs, what perfume
- like its kitchen’s dainty breath, what weather genial as its hearty
- warmth! Blessings on the old house, how sturdily it stood! How did the
- vexed wind chafe and roar about its stalwart roof; how did it pant
- and strive with its wide chimneys, which still poured forth from their
- hospitable throats, great clouds of smoke, and puffed defiance in its
- face; how, above all, did it drive and rattle at the casement, emulous
- to extinguish that cheerful glow, which would not be put down and seemed
- the brighter for the conflict!
- The profusion too, the rich and lavish bounty, of that goodly tavern! It
- was not enough that one fire roared and sparkled on its spacious hearth;
- in the tiles which paved and compassed it, five hundred flickering fires
- burnt brightly also. It was not enough that one red curtain shut the
- wild night out, and shed its cheerful influence on the room. In every
- saucepan lid, and candlestick, and vessel of copper, brass, or tin
- that hung upon the walls, were countless ruddy hangings, flashing and
- gleaming with every motion of the blaze, and offering, let the eye
- wander where it might, interminable vistas of the same rich colour. The
- old oak wainscoting, the beams, the chairs, the seats, reflected it in
- a deep, dull glimmer. There were fires and red curtains in the very eyes
- of the drinkers, in their buttons, in their liquor, in the pipes they
- smoked.
- Mr Willet sat in what had been his accustomed place five years before,
- with his eyes on the eternal boiler; and had sat there since the clock
- struck eight, giving no other signs of life than breathing with a loud
- and constant snore (though he was wide awake), and from time to time
- putting his glass to his lips, or knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
- and filling it anew. It was now half-past ten. Mr Cobb and long Phil
- Parkes were his companions, as of old, and for two mortal hours and a
- half, none of the company had pronounced one word.
- Whether people, by dint of sitting together in the same place and the
- same relative positions, and doing exactly the same things for a great
- many years, acquire a sixth sense, or some unknown power of influencing
- each other which serves them in its stead, is a question for philosophy
- to settle. But certain it is that old John Willet, Mr Parkes, and Mr
- Cobb, were one and all firmly of opinion that they were very jolly
- companions--rather choice spirits than otherwise; that they looked at
- each other every now and then as if there were a perpetual interchange
- of ideas going on among them; that no man considered himself or his
- neighbour by any means silent; and that each of them nodded occasionally
- when he caught the eye of another, as if he would say, ‘You have
- expressed yourself extremely well, sir, in relation to that sentiment,
- and I quite agree with you.’
- The room was so very warm, the tobacco so very good, and the fire so
- very soothing, that Mr Willet by degrees began to doze; but as he had
- perfectly acquired, by dint of long habit, the art of smoking in his
- sleep, and as his breathing was pretty much the same, awake or asleep,
- saving that in the latter case he sometimes experienced a slight
- difficulty in respiration (such as a carpenter meets with when he is
- planing and comes to a knot), neither of his companions was aware of the
- circumstance, until he met with one of these impediments and was obliged
- to try again.
- ‘Johnny’s dropped off,’ said Mr Parkes in a whisper.
- ‘Fast as a top,’ said Mr Cobb.
- Neither of them said any more until Mr Willet came to another knot--one
- of surpassing obduracy--which bade fair to throw him into convulsions,
- but which he got over at last without waking, by an effort quite
- superhuman.
- ‘He sleeps uncommon hard,’ said Mr Cobb.
- Mr Parkes, who was possibly a hard-sleeper himself, replied with some
- disdain, ‘Not a bit on it;’ and directed his eyes towards a handbill
- pasted over the chimney-piece, which was decorated at the top with a
- woodcut representing a youth of tender years running away very fast,
- with a bundle over his shoulder at the end of a stick, and--to carry
- out the idea--a finger-post and a milestone beside him. Mr Cobb likewise
- turned his eyes in the same direction, and surveyed the placard as if
- that were the first time he had ever beheld it. Now, this was a document
- which Mr Willet had himself indited on the disappearance of his son
- Joseph, acquainting the nobility and gentry and the public in general
- with the circumstances of his having left his home; describing his dress
- and appearance; and offering a reward of five pounds to any person or
- persons who would pack him up and return him safely to the Maypole at
- Chigwell, or lodge him in any of his Majesty’s jails until such time as
- his father should come and claim him. In this advertisement Mr Willet
- had obstinately persisted, despite the advice and entreaties of his
- friends, in describing his son as a ‘young boy;’ and furthermore as
- being from eighteen inches to a couple of feet shorter than he really
- was; two circumstances which perhaps accounted, in some degree, for its
- never having been productive of any other effect than the transmission
- to Chigwell at various times and at a vast expense, of some
- five-and-forty runaways varying from six years old to twelve.
- Mr Cobb and Mr Parkes looked mysteriously at this composition, at each
- other, and at old John. From the time he had pasted it up with his own
- hands, Mr Willet had never by word or sign alluded to the subject, or
- encouraged any one else to do so. Nobody had the least notion what his
- thoughts or opinions were, connected with it; whether he remembered it
- or forgot it; whether he had any idea that such an event had ever taken
- place. Therefore, even while he slept, no one ventured to refer to it in
- his presence; and for such sufficient reasons, these his chosen friends
- were silent now.
- Mr Willet had got by this time into such a complication of knots,
- that it was perfectly clear he must wake or die. He chose the former
- alternative, and opened his eyes.
- ‘If he don’t come in five minutes,’ said John, ‘I shall have supper
- without him.’
- The antecedent of this pronoun had been mentioned for the last time
- at eight o’clock. Messrs Parkes and Cobb being used to this style of
- conversation, replied without difficulty that to be sure Solomon was
- very late, and they wondered what had happened to detain him.
- ‘He an’t blown away, I suppose,’ said Parkes. ‘It’s enough to carry a
- man of his figure off his legs, and easy too. Do you hear it? It blows
- great guns, indeed. There’ll be many a crash in the Forest to-night, I
- reckon, and many a broken branch upon the ground to-morrow.’
- ‘It won’t break anything in the Maypole, I take it, sir,’ returned old
- John. ‘Let it try. I give it leave--what’s that?’
- ‘The wind,’ cried Parkes. ‘It’s howling like a Christian, and has been
- all night long.’
- ‘Did you ever, sir,’ asked John, after a minute’s contemplation, ‘hear
- the wind say “Maypole”?’
- ‘Why, what man ever did?’ said Parkes.
- ‘Nor “ahoy,” perhaps?’ added John.
- ‘No. Nor that neither.’
- ‘Very good, sir,’ said Mr Willet, perfectly unmoved; ‘then if that
- was the wind just now, and you’ll wait a little time without speaking,
- you’ll hear it say both words very plain.’
- Mr Willet was right. After listening for a few moments, they could
- clearly hear, above the roar and tumult out of doors, this shout
- repeated; and that with a shrillness and energy, which denoted that it
- came from some person in great distress or terror. They looked at each
- other, turned pale, and held their breath. No man stirred.
- It was in this emergency that Mr Willet displayed something of that
- strength of mind and plenitude of mental resource, which rendered him
- the admiration of all his friends and neighbours. After looking at
- Messrs Parkes and Cobb for some time in silence, he clapped his two
- hands to his cheeks, and sent forth a roar which made the glasses dance
- and rafters ring--a long-sustained, discordant bellow, that rolled
- onward with the wind, and startling every echo, made the night a hundred
- times more boisterous--a deep, loud, dismal bray, that sounded like a
- human gong. Then, with every vein in his head and face swollen with the
- great exertion, and his countenance suffused with a lively purple, he
- drew a little nearer to the fire, and turning his back upon it, said
- with dignity:
- ‘If that’s any comfort to anybody, they’re welcome to it. If it an’t,
- I’m sorry for ‘em. If either of you two gentlemen likes to go out and
- see what’s the matter, you can. I’m not curious, myself.’
- While he spoke the cry drew nearer and nearer, footsteps passed the
- window, the latch of the door was raised, it opened, was violently shut
- again, and Solomon Daisy, with a lighted lantern in his hand, and the
- rain streaming from his disordered dress, dashed into the room.
- A more complete picture of terror than the little man presented, it
- would be difficult to imagine. The perspiration stood in beads upon his
- face, his knees knocked together, his every limb trembled, the power
- of articulation was quite gone; and there he stood, panting for breath,
- gazing on them with such livid ashy looks, that they were infected with
- his fear, though ignorant of its occasion, and, reflecting his dismayed
- and horror-stricken visage, stared back again without venturing to
- question him; until old John Willet, in a fit of temporary insanity,
- made a dive at his cravat, and, seizing him by that portion of his
- dress, shook him to and fro until his very teeth appeared to rattle in
- his head.
- ‘Tell us what’s the matter, sir,’ said John, ‘or I’ll kill you. Tell us
- what’s the matter, sir, or in another second I’ll have your head under
- the biler. How dare you look like that? Is anybody a-following of you?
- What do you mean? Say something, or I’ll be the death of you, I will.’
- Mr Willet, in his frenzy, was so near keeping his word to the very
- letter (Solomon Daisy’s eyes already beginning to roll in an alarming
- manner, and certain guttural sounds, as of a choking man, to issue from
- his throat), that the two bystanders, recovering in some degree,
- plucked him off his victim by main force, and placed the little clerk
- of Chigwell in a chair. Directing a fearful gaze all round the room, he
- implored them in a faint voice to give him some drink; and above all to
- lock the house-door and close and bar the shutters of the room, without
- a moment’s loss of time. The latter request did not tend to reassure
- his hearers, or to fill them with the most comfortable sensations; they
- complied with it, however, with the greatest expedition; and having
- handed him a bumper of brandy-and-water, nearly boiling hot, waited to
- hear what he might have to tell them.
- ‘Oh, Johnny,’ said Solomon, shaking him by the hand. ‘Oh, Parkes. Oh,
- Tommy Cobb. Why did I leave this house to-night! On the nineteenth of
- March--of all nights in the year, on the nineteenth of March!’
- They all drew closer to the fire. Parkes, who was nearest to the door,
- started and looked over his shoulder. Mr Willet, with great indignation,
- inquired what the devil he meant by that--and then said, ‘God forgive
- me,’ and glanced over his own shoulder, and came a little nearer.
- ‘When I left here to-night,’ said Solomon Daisy, ‘I little thought what
- day of the month it was. I have never gone alone into the church after
- dark on this day, for seven-and-twenty years. I have heard it said
- that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so the ghosts of
- dead people, who are not easy in their graves, keep the day they died
- upon.--How the wind roars!’
- Nobody spoke. All eyes were fastened on Solomon.
- ‘I might have known,’ he said, ‘what night it was, by the foul weather.
- There’s no such night in the whole year round as this is, always. I
- never sleep quietly in my bed on the nineteenth of March.’
- ‘Go on,’ said Tom Cobb, in a low voice. ‘Nor I neither.’
- Solomon Daisy raised his glass to his lips; put it down upon the floor
- with such a trembling hand that the spoon tinkled in it like a little
- bell; and continued thus:
- ‘Have I ever said that we are always brought back to this subject in
- some strange way, when the nineteenth of this month comes round? Do
- you suppose it was by accident, I forgot to wind up the church-clock? I
- never forgot it at any other time, though it’s such a clumsy thing that
- it has to be wound up every day. Why should it escape my memory on this
- day of all others?
- ‘I made as much haste down there as I could when I went from here, but
- I had to go home first for the keys; and the wind and rain being dead
- against me all the way, it was pretty well as much as I could do at
- times to keep my legs. I got there at last, opened the church-door, and
- went in. I had not met a soul all the way, and you may judge whether it
- was dull or not. Neither of you would bear me company. If you could have
- known what was to come, you’d have been in the right.
- ‘The wind was so strong, that it was as much as I could do to shut the
- church-door by putting my whole weight against it; and even as it was,
- it burst wide open twice, with such strength that any of you would have
- sworn, if you had been leaning against it, as I was, that somebody was
- pushing on the other side. However, I got the key turned, went into the
- belfry, and wound up the clock--which was very near run down, and would
- have stood stock-still in half an hour.
- ‘As I took up my lantern again to leave the church, it came upon me all
- at once that this was the nineteenth of March. It came upon me with a
- kind of shock, as if a hand had struck the thought upon my forehead;
- at the very same moment, I heard a voice outside the tower--rising from
- among the graves.’
- Here old John precipitately interrupted the speaker, and begged that if
- Mr Parkes (who was seated opposite to him and was staring directly over
- his head) saw anything, he would have the goodness to mention it. Mr
- Parkes apologised, and remarked that he was only listening; to which Mr
- Willet angrily retorted, that his listening with that kind of expression
- in his face was not agreeable, and that if he couldn’t look like other
- people, he had better put his pocket-handkerchief over his head.
- Mr Parkes with great submission pledged himself to do so, if again
- required, and John Willet turning to Solomon desired him to proceed.
- After waiting until a violent gust of wind and rain, which seemed to
- shake even that sturdy house to its foundation, had passed away, the
- little man complied:
- ‘Never tell me that it was my fancy, or that it was any other sound
- which I mistook for that I tell you of. I heard the wind whistle through
- the arches of the church. I heard the steeple strain and creak. I heard
- the rain as it came driving against the walls. I felt the bells shake. I
- saw the ropes sway to and fro. And I heard that voice.’
- ‘What did it say?’ asked Tom Cobb.
- ‘I don’t know what; I don’t know that it spoke. It gave a kind of cry,
- as any one of us might do, if something dreadful followed us in a dream,
- and came upon us unawares; and then it died off: seeming to pass quite
- round the church.’
- ‘I don’t see much in that,’ said John, drawing a long breath, and
- looking round him like a man who felt relieved.
- ‘Perhaps not,’ returned his friend, ‘but that’s not all.’
- ‘What more do you mean to say, sir, is to come?’ asked John, pausing in
- the act of wiping his face upon his apron. ‘What are you a-going to tell
- us of next?’
- ‘What I saw.’
- ‘Saw!’ echoed all three, bending forward.
- ‘When I opened the church-door to come out,’ said the little man, with
- an expression of face which bore ample testimony to the sincerity of
- his conviction, ‘when I opened the church-door to come out, which I did
- suddenly, for I wanted to get it shut again before another gust of wind
- came up, there crossed me--so close, that by stretching out my finger
- I could have touched it--something in the likeness of a man. It was
- bare-headed to the storm. It turned its face without stopping, and fixed
- its eyes on mine. It was a ghost--a spirit.’
- ‘Whose?’ they all three cried together.
- In the excess of his emotion (for he fell back trembling in his chair,
- and waved his hand as if entreating them to question him no further),
- his answer was lost on all but old John Willet, who happened to be
- seated close beside him.
- ‘Who!’ cried Parkes and Tom Cobb, looking eagerly by turns at Solomon
- Daisy and at Mr Willet. ‘Who was it?’
- ‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr Willet after a long pause, ‘you needn’t ask. The
- likeness of a murdered man. This is the nineteenth of March.’
- A profound silence ensued.
- ‘If you’ll take my advice,’ said John, ‘we had better, one and all, keep
- this a secret. Such tales would not be liked at the Warren. Let us keep
- it to ourselves for the present time at all events, or we may get into
- trouble, and Solomon may lose his place. Whether it was really as he
- says, or whether it wasn’t, is no matter. Right or wrong, nobody would
- believe him. As to the probabilities, I don’t myself think,’ said Mr
- Willet, eyeing the corners of the room in a manner which showed that,
- like some other philosophers, he was not quite easy in his theory,
- ‘that a ghost as had been a man of sense in his lifetime, would be out
- a-walking in such weather--I only know that I wouldn’t, if I was one.’
- But this heretical doctrine was strongly opposed by the other three,
- who quoted a great many precedents to show that bad weather was the very
- time for such appearances; and Mr Parkes (who had had a ghost in his
- family, by the mother’s side) argued the matter with so much ingenuity
- and force of illustration, that John was only saved from having to
- retract his opinion by the opportune appearance of supper, to which they
- applied themselves with a dreadful relish. Even Solomon Daisy himself,
- by dint of the elevating influences of fire, lights, brandy, and good
- company, so far recovered as to handle his knife and fork in a highly
- creditable manner, and to display a capacity both of eating and
- drinking, such as banished all fear of his having sustained any lasting
- injury from his fright.
- Supper done, they crowded round the fire again, and, as is common on
- such occasions, propounded all manner of leading questions calculated
- to surround the story with new horrors and surprises. But Solomon Daisy,
- notwithstanding these temptations, adhered so steadily to his original
- account, and repeated it so often, with such slight variations, and with
- such solemn asseverations of its truth and reality, that his hearers
- were (with good reason) more astonished than at first. As he took John
- Willet’s view of the matter in regard to the propriety of not bruiting
- the tale abroad, unless the spirit should appear to him again, in which
- case it would be necessary to take immediate counsel with the clergyman,
- it was solemnly resolved that it should be hushed up and kept quiet.
- And as most men like to have a secret to tell which may exalt their own
- importance, they arrived at this conclusion with perfect unanimity.
- As it was by this time growing late, and was long past their usual hour
- of separating, the cronies parted for the night. Solomon Daisy, with a
- fresh candle in his lantern, repaired homewards under the escort of long
- Phil Parkes and Mr Cobb, who were rather more nervous than himself. Mr
- Willet, after seeing them to the door, returned to collect his thoughts
- with the assistance of the boiler, and to listen to the storm of wind
- and rain, which had not yet abated one jot of its fury.
- Chapter 34
- Before old John had looked at the boiler quite twenty minutes, he got
- his ideas into a focus, and brought them to bear upon Solomon Daisy’s
- story. The more he thought of it, the more impressed he became with
- a sense of his own wisdom, and a desire that Mr Haredale should be
- impressed with it likewise. At length, to the end that he might sustain
- a principal and important character in the affair; and might have the
- start of Solomon and his two friends, through whose means he knew the
- adventure, with a variety of exaggerations, would be known to at least
- a score of people, and most likely to Mr Haredale himself, by
- breakfast-time to-morrow; he determined to repair to the Warren before
- going to bed.
- ‘He’s my landlord,’ thought John, as he took a candle in his hand, and
- setting it down in a corner out of the wind’s way, opened a casement in
- the rear of the house, looking towards the stables. ‘We haven’t met of
- late years so often as we used to do--changes are taking place in the
- family--it’s desirable that I should stand as well with them, in point
- of dignity, as possible--the whispering about of this here tale will
- anger him--it’s good to have confidences with a gentleman of his natur’,
- and set one’s-self right besides. Halloa there! Hugh--Hugh. Hal-loa!’
- When he had repeated this shout a dozen times, and startled every pigeon
- from its slumbers, a door in one of the ruinous old buildings opened,
- and a rough voice demanded what was amiss now, that a man couldn’t even
- have his sleep in quiet.
- ‘What! Haven’t you sleep enough, growler, that you’re not to be knocked
- up for once?’ said John.
- ‘No,’ replied the voice, as the speaker yawned and shook himself. ‘Not
- half enough.’
- ‘I don’t know how you CAN sleep, with the wind a bellowsing and roaring
- about you, making the tiles fly like a pack of cards,’ said John; ‘but
- no matter for that. Wrap yourself up in something or another, and come
- here, for you must go as far as the Warren with me. And look sharp about
- it.’
- Hugh, with much low growling and muttering, went back into his lair;
- and presently reappeared, carrying a lantern and a cudgel, and enveloped
- from head to foot in an old, frowzy, slouching horse-cloth. Mr Willet
- received this figure at the back-door, and ushered him into the bar,
- while he wrapped himself in sundry greatcoats and capes, and so tied and
- knotted his face in shawls and handkerchiefs, that how he breathed was a
- mystery.
- ‘You don’t take a man out of doors at near midnight in such weather,
- without putting some heart into him, do you, master?’ said Hugh.
- ‘Yes I do, sir,’ returned Mr Willet. ‘I put the heart (as you call it)
- into him when he has brought me safe home again, and his standing steady
- on his legs an’t of so much consequence. So hold that light up, if you
- please, and go on a step or two before, to show the way.’
- Hugh obeyed with a very indifferent grace, and a longing glance at the
- bottles. Old John, laying strict injunctions on his cook to keep the
- doors locked in his absence, and to open to nobody but himself on pain
- of dismissal, followed him into the blustering darkness out of doors.
- The way was wet and dismal, and the night so black, that if Mr Willet
- had been his own pilot, he would have walked into a deep horsepond
- within a few hundred yards of his own house, and would certainly have
- terminated his career in that ignoble sphere of action. But Hugh, who
- had a sight as keen as any hawk’s, and, apart from that endowment, could
- have found his way blindfold to any place within a dozen miles, dragged
- old John along, quite deaf to his remonstrances, and took his own course
- without the slightest reference to, or notice of, his master. So they
- made head against the wind as they best could; Hugh crushing the wet
- grass beneath his heavy tread, and stalking on after his ordinary savage
- fashion; John Willet following at arm’s length, picking his steps, and
- looking about him, now for bogs and ditches, and now for such stray
- ghosts as might be wandering abroad, with looks of as much dismay and
- uneasiness as his immovable face was capable of expressing.
- At length they stood upon the broad gravel-walk before the Warren-house.
- The building was profoundly dark, and none were moving near it save
- themselves. From one solitary turret-chamber, however, there shone a
- ray of light; and towards this speck of comfort in the cold, cheerless,
- silent scene, Mr Willet bade his pilot lead him.
- ‘The old room,’ said John, looking timidly upward; ‘Mr Reuben’s own
- apartment, God be with us! I wonder his brother likes to sit there, so
- late at night--on this night too.’
- ‘Why, where else should he sit?’ asked Hugh, holding the lantern to his
- breast, to keep the candle from the wind, while he trimmed it with his
- fingers. ‘It’s snug enough, an’t it?’
- ‘Snug!’ said John indignantly. ‘You have a comfortable idea of snugness,
- you have, sir. Do you know what was done in that room, you ruffian?’
- ‘Why, what is it the worse for that!’ cried Hugh, looking into John’s
- fat face. ‘Does it keep out the rain, and snow, and wind, the less for
- that? Is it less warm or dry, because a man was killed there? Ha, ha,
- ha! Never believe it, master. One man’s no such matter as that comes
- to.’
- Mr Willet fixed his dull eyes on his follower, and began--by a species
- of inspiration--to think it just barely possible that he was something
- of a dangerous character, and that it might be advisable to get rid
- of him one of these days. He was too prudent to say anything, with the
- journey home before him; and therefore turned to the iron gate before
- which this brief dialogue had passed, and pulled the handle of the bell
- that hung beside it. The turret in which the light appeared being at
- one corner of the building, and only divided from the path by one of
- the garden-walks, upon which this gate opened, Mr Haredale threw up the
- window directly, and demanded who was there.
- ‘Begging pardon, sir,’ said John, ‘I knew you sat up late, and made bold
- to come round, having a word to say to you.’
- ‘Willet--is it not?’
- ‘Of the Maypole--at your service, sir.’
- Mr Haredale closed the window, and withdrew. He presently appeared at
- a door in the bottom of the turret, and coming across the garden-walk,
- unlocked the gate and let them in.
- ‘You are a late visitor, Willet. What is the matter?’
- ‘Nothing to speak of, sir,’ said John; ‘an idle tale, I thought you
- ought to know of; nothing more.’
- ‘Let your man go forward with the lantern, and give me your hand. The
- stairs are crooked and narrow. Gently with your light, friend. You swing
- it like a censer.’
- Hugh, who had already reached the turret, held it more steadily, and
- ascended first, turning round from time to time to shed his light
- downward on the steps. Mr Haredale following next, eyed his lowering
- face with no great favour; and Hugh, looking down on him, returned his
- glances with interest, as they climbed the winding stairs.
- It terminated in a little ante-room adjoining that from which they had
- seen the light. Mr Haredale entered first, and led the way through it
- into the latter chamber, where he seated himself at a writing-table from
- which he had risen when they had rung the bell.
- ‘Come in,’ he said, beckoning to old John, who remained bowing at the
- door. ‘Not you, friend,’ he added hastily to Hugh, who entered also.
- ‘Willet, why do you bring that fellow here?’
- ‘Why, sir,’ returned John, elevating his eyebrows, and lowering his
- voice to the tone in which the question had been asked him, ‘he’s a good
- guard, you see.’
- ‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ said Mr Haredale, looking towards him as he
- spoke. ‘I doubt it. He has an evil eye.’
- ‘There’s no imagination in his eye,’ returned Mr Willet, glancing over
- his shoulder at the organ in question, ‘certainly.’
- ‘There is no good there, be assured,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘Wait in that
- little room, friend, and close the door between us.’
- Hugh shrugged his shoulders, and with a disdainful look, which showed,
- either that he had overheard, or that he guessed the purport of their
- whispering, did as he was told. When he was shut out, Mr Haredale turned
- to John, and bade him go on with what he had to say, but not to speak
- too loud, for there were quick ears yonder.
- Thus cautioned, Mr Willet, in an oily whisper, recited all that he
- had heard and said that night; laying particular stress upon his own
- sagacity, upon his great regard for the family, and upon his solicitude
- for their peace of mind and happiness. The story moved his auditor much
- more than he had expected. Mr Haredale often changed his attitude, rose
- and paced the room, returned again, desired him to repeat, as nearly as
- he could, the very words that Solomon had used, and gave so many other
- signs of being disturbed and ill at ease, that even Mr Willet was
- surprised.
- ‘You did quite right,’ he said, at the end of a long conversation, ‘to
- bid them keep this story secret. It is a foolish fancy on the part of
- this weak-brained man, bred in his fears and superstition. But Miss
- Haredale, though she would know it to be so, would be disturbed by it
- if it reached her ears; it is too nearly connected with a subject very
- painful to us all, to be heard with indifference. You were most prudent,
- and have laid me under a great obligation. I thank you very much.’
- This was equal to John’s most sanguine expectations; but he would have
- preferred Mr Haredale’s looking at him when he spoke, as if he really
- did thank him, to his walking up and down, speaking by fits and starts,
- often stopping with his eyes fixed on the ground, moving hurriedly on
- again, like one distracted, and seeming almost unconscious of what he
- said or did.
- This, however, was his manner; and it was so embarrassing to John that
- he sat quite passive for a long time, not knowing what to do. At length
- he rose. Mr Haredale stared at him for a moment as though he had quite
- forgotten his being present, then shook hands with him, and opened the
- door. Hugh, who was, or feigned to be, fast asleep on the ante-chamber
- floor, sprang up on their entrance, and throwing his cloak about him,
- grasped his stick and lantern, and prepared to descend the stairs.
- ‘Stay,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘Will this man drink?’
- ‘Drink! He’d drink the Thames up, if it was strong enough, sir,’ replied
- John Willet. ‘He’ll have something when he gets home. He’s better
- without it, now, sir.’
- ‘Nay. Half the distance is done,’ said Hugh. ‘What a hard master you
- are! I shall go home the better for one glassful, halfway. Come!’
- As John made no reply, Mr Haredale brought out a glass of liquor, and
- gave it to Hugh, who, as he took it in his hand, threw part of it upon
- the floor.
- ‘What do you mean by splashing your drink about a gentleman’s house,
- sir?’ said John.
- ‘I’m drinking a toast,’ Hugh rejoined, holding the glass above his head,
- and fixing his eyes on Mr Haredale’s face; ‘a toast to this house and
- its master.’ With that he muttered something to himself, and drank the
- rest, and setting down the glass, preceded them without another word.
- John was a good deal scandalised by this observance, but seeing that
- Mr Haredale took little heed of what Hugh said or did, and that his
- thoughts were otherwise employed, he offered no apology, and went in
- silence down the stairs, across the walk, and through the garden-gate.
- They stopped upon the outer side for Hugh to hold the light while Mr
- Haredale locked it on the inner; and then John saw with wonder (as he
- often afterwards related), that he was very pale, and that his face
- had changed so much and grown so haggard since their entrance, that he
- almost seemed another man.
- They were in the open road again, and John Willet was walking on behind
- his escort, as he had come, thinking very steadily of what he had just
- now seen, when Hugh drew him suddenly aside, and almost at the same
- instant three horsemen swept past--the nearest brushed his shoulder even
- then--who, checking their steeds as suddenly as they could, stood still,
- and waited for their coming up.
- Chapter 35
- When John Willet saw that the horsemen wheeled smartly round, and drew
- up three abreast in the narrow road, waiting for him and his man to join
- them, it occurred to him with unusual precipitation that they must be
- highwaymen; and had Hugh been armed with a blunderbuss, in place of his
- stout cudgel, he would certainly have ordered him to fire it off at a
- venture, and would, while the word of command was obeyed, have consulted
- his own personal safety in immediate flight. Under the circumstances of
- disadvantage, however, in which he and his guard were placed, he deemed
- it prudent to adopt a different style of generalship, and therefore
- whispered his attendant to address them in the most peaceable and
- courteous terms. By way of acting up to the spirit and letter of this
- instruction, Hugh stepped forward, and flourishing his staff before the
- very eyes of the rider nearest to him, demanded roughly what he and his
- fellows meant by so nearly galloping over them, and why they scoured the
- king’s highway at that late hour of night.
- The man whom he addressed was beginning an angry reply in the same
- strain, when he was checked by the horseman in the centre, who,
- interposing with an air of authority, inquired in a somewhat loud but
- not harsh or unpleasant voice:
- ‘Pray, is this the London road?’
- ‘If you follow it right, it is,’ replied Hugh roughly.
- ‘Nay, brother,’ said the same person, ‘you’re but a churlish Englishman,
- if Englishman you be--which I should much doubt but for your tongue.
- Your companion, I am sure, will answer me more civilly. How say you,
- friend?’
- ‘I say it IS the London road, sir,’ answered John. ‘And I wish,’ he
- added in a subdued voice, as he turned to Hugh, ‘that you was in any
- other road, you vagabond. Are you tired of your life, sir, that you go
- a-trying to provoke three great neck-or-nothing chaps, that could keep
- on running over us, back’ards and for’ards, till we was dead, and then
- take our bodies up behind ‘em, and drown us ten miles off?’
- ‘How far is it to London?’ inquired the same speaker.
- ‘Why, from here, sir,’ answered John, persuasively, ‘it’s thirteen very
- easy mile.’
- The adjective was thrown in, as an inducement to the travellers to
- ride away with all speed; but instead of having the desired effect, it
- elicited from the same person, the remark, ‘Thirteen miles! That’s a
- long distance!’ which was followed by a short pause of indecision.
- ‘Pray,’ said the gentleman, ‘are there any inns hereabouts?’ At the word
- ‘inns,’ John plucked up his spirit in a surprising manner; his fears
- rolled off like smoke; all the landlord stirred within him.
- ‘There are no inns,’ rejoined Mr Willet, with a strong emphasis on the
- plural number; ‘but there’s a Inn--one Inn--the Maypole Inn. That’s a
- Inn indeed. You won’t see the like of that Inn often.’
- ‘You keep it, perhaps?’ said the horseman, smiling.
- ‘I do, sir,’ replied John, greatly wondering how he had found this out.
- ‘And how far is the Maypole from here?’
- ‘About a mile’--John was going to add that it was the easiest mile in
- all the world, when the third rider, who had hitherto kept a little in
- the rear, suddenly interposed:
- ‘And have you one excellent bed, landlord? Hem! A bed that you can
- recommend--a bed that you are sure is well aired--a bed that has been
- slept in by some perfectly respectable and unexceptionable person?’
- ‘We don’t take in no tagrag and bobtail at our house, sir,’ answered
- John. ‘And as to the bed itself--’
- ‘Say, as to three beds,’ interposed the gentleman who had spoken before;
- ‘for we shall want three if we stay, though my friend only speaks of
- one.’
- ‘No, no, my lord; you are too good, you are too kind; but your life is
- of far too much importance to the nation in these portentous times, to
- be placed upon a level with one so useless and so poor as mine. A great
- cause, my lord, a mighty cause, depends on you. You are its leader and
- its champion, its advanced guard and its van. It is the cause of our
- altars and our homes, our country and our faith. Let ME sleep on a
- chair--the carpet--anywhere. No one will repine if I take cold or fever.
- Let John Grueby pass the night beneath the open sky--no one will
- repine for HIM. But forty thousand men of this our island in the wave
- (exclusive of women and children) rivet their eyes and thoughts on Lord
- George Gordon; and every day, from the rising up of the sun to the going
- down of the same, pray for his health and vigour. My lord,’ said the
- speaker, rising in his stirrups, ‘it is a glorious cause, and must not
- be forgotten. My lord, it is a mighty cause, and must not be endangered.
- My lord, it is a holy cause, and must not be deserted.’
- ‘It IS a holy cause,’ exclaimed his lordship, lifting up his hat with
- great solemnity. ‘Amen.’
- ‘John Grueby,’ said the long-winded gentleman, in a tone of mild
- reproof, ‘his lordship said Amen.’
- ‘I heard my lord, sir,’ said the man, sitting like a statue on his
- horse.
- ‘And do not YOU say Amen, likewise?’
- To which John Grueby made no reply at all, but sat looking straight
- before him.
- ‘You surprise me, Grueby,’ said the gentleman. ‘At a crisis like the
- present, when Queen Elizabeth, that maiden monarch, weeps within
- her tomb, and Bloody Mary, with a brow of gloom and shadow, stalks
- triumphant--’
- ‘Oh, sir,’ cried the man, gruffly, ‘where’s the use of talking of Bloody
- Mary, under such circumstances as the present, when my lord’s wet
- through, and tired with hard riding? Let’s either go on to London, sir,
- or put up at once; or that unfort’nate Bloody Mary will have more to
- answer for--and she’s done a deal more harm in her grave than she ever
- did in her lifetime, I believe.’
- By this time Mr Willet, who had never heard so many words spoken
- together at one time, or delivered with such volubility and emphasis as
- by the long-winded gentleman; and whose brain, being wholly unable to
- sustain or compass them, had quite given itself up for lost; recovered
- so far as to observe that there was ample accommodation at the Maypole
- for all the party: good beds; neat wines; excellent entertainment
- for man and beast; private rooms for large and small parties; dinners
- dressed upon the shortest notice; choice stabling, and a lock-up
- coach-house; and, in short, to run over such recommendatory scraps of
- language as were painted up on various portions of the building, and
- which in the course of some forty years he had learnt to repeat with
- tolerable correctness. He was considering whether it was at all possible
- to insert any novel sentences to the same purpose, when the gentleman
- who had spoken first, turning to him of the long wind, exclaimed, ‘What
- say you, Gashford? Shall we tarry at this house he speaks of, or press
- forward? You shall decide.’
- ‘I would submit, my lord, then,’ returned the person he appealed to,
- in a silky tone, ‘that your health and spirits--so important, under
- Providence, to our great cause, our pure and truthful cause’--here his
- lordship pulled off his hat again, though it was raining hard--‘require
- refreshment and repose.’
- ‘Go on before, landlord, and show the way,’ said Lord George Gordon; ‘we
- will follow at a footpace.’
- ‘If you’ll give me leave, my lord,’ said John Grueby, in a low voice,
- ‘I’ll change my proper place, and ride before you. The looks of the
- landlord’s friend are not over honest, and it may be as well to be
- cautious with him.’
- ‘John Grueby is quite right,’ interposed Mr Gashford, falling back
- hastily. ‘My lord, a life so precious as yours must not be put in peril.
- Go forward, John, by all means. If you have any reason to suspect the
- fellow, blow his brains out.’
- John made no answer, but looking straight before him, as his custom
- seemed to be when the secretary spoke, bade Hugh push on, and followed
- close behind him. Then came his lordship, with Mr Willet at his bridle
- rein; and, last of all, his lordship’s secretary--for that, it seemed,
- was Gashford’s office.
- Hugh strode briskly on, often looking back at the servant, whose horse
- was close upon his heels, and glancing with a leer at his holster
- case of pistols, by which he seemed to set great store. He was a
- square-built, strong-made, bull-necked fellow, of the true English
- breed; and as Hugh measured him with his eye, he measured Hugh,
- regarding him meanwhile with a look of bluff disdain. He was much older
- than the Maypole man, being to all appearance five-and-forty; but was
- one of those self-possessed, hard-headed, imperturbable fellows, who, if
- they are ever beaten at fisticuffs, or other kind of warfare, never know
- it, and go on coolly till they win.
- ‘If I led you wrong now,’ said Hugh, tauntingly, ‘you’d--ha ha
- ha!--you’d shoot me through the head, I suppose.’
- John Grueby took no more notice of this remark than if he had been deaf
- and Hugh dumb; but kept riding on quite comfortably, with his eyes fixed
- on the horizon.
- ‘Did you ever try a fall with a man when you were young, master?’ said
- Hugh. ‘Can you make any play at single-stick?’
- John Grueby looked at him sideways with the same contented air, but
- deigned not a word in answer.
- ‘--Like this?’ said Hugh, giving his cudgel one of those skilful
- flourishes, in which the rustic of that time delighted. ‘Whoop!’
- ‘--Or that,’ returned John Grueby, beating down his guard with his whip,
- and striking him on the head with its butt end. ‘Yes, I played a little
- once. You wear your hair too long; I should have cracked your crown if
- it had been a little shorter.’
- It was a pretty smart, loud-sounding rap, as it was, and evidently
- astonished Hugh; who, for the moment, seemed disposed to drag his new
- acquaintance from his saddle. But his face betokening neither malice,
- triumph, rage, nor any lingering idea that he had given him offence;
- his eyes gazing steadily in the old direction, and his manner being as
- careless and composed as if he had merely brushed away a fly; Hugh was
- so puzzled, and so disposed to look upon him as a customer of almost
- supernatural toughness, that he merely laughed, and cried ‘Well done!’
- then, sheering off a little, led the way in silence.
- Before the lapse of many minutes the party halted at the Maypole door.
- Lord George and his secretary quickly dismounting, gave their horses to
- their servant, who, under the guidance of Hugh, repaired to the stables.
- Right glad to escape from the inclemency of the night, they followed
- Mr Willet into the common room, and stood warming themselves and drying
- their clothes before the cheerful fire, while he busied himself with
- such orders and preparations as his guest’s high quality required.
- As he bustled in and out of the room, intent on these arrangements, he
- had an opportunity of observing the two travellers, of whom, as yet, he
- knew nothing but the voice. The lord, the great personage who did the
- Maypole so much honour, was about the middle height, of a slender make,
- and sallow complexion, with an aquiline nose, and long hair of a reddish
- brown, combed perfectly straight and smooth about his ears, and slightly
- powdered, but without the faintest vestige of a curl. He was attired,
- under his greatcoat, in a full suit of black, quite free from any
- ornament, and of the most precise and sober cut. The gravity of his
- dress, together with a certain lankness of cheek and stiffness of
- deportment, added nearly ten years to his age, but his figure was that
- of one not yet past thirty. As he stood musing in the red glow of
- the fire, it was striking to observe his very bright large eye, which
- betrayed a restlessness of thought and purpose, singularly at variance
- with the studied composure and sobriety of his mien, and with his
- quaint and sad apparel. It had nothing harsh or cruel in its expression;
- neither had his face, which was thin and mild, and wore an air of
- melancholy; but it was suggestive of an indefinable uneasiness; which
- infected those who looked upon him, and filled them with a kind of pity
- for the man: though why it did so, they would have had some trouble to
- explain.
- Gashford, the secretary, was taller, angularly made, high-shouldered,
- bony, and ungraceful. His dress, in imitation of his superior, was
- demure and staid in the extreme; his manner, formal and constrained.
- This gentleman had an overhanging brow, great hands and feet and ears,
- and a pair of eyes that seemed to have made an unnatural retreat into
- his head, and to have dug themselves a cave to hide in. His manner was
- smooth and humble, but very sly and slinking. He wore the aspect of a
- man who was always lying in wait for something that WOULDN’T come to
- pass; but he looked patient--very patient--and fawned like a spaniel
- dog. Even now, while he warmed and rubbed his hands before the blaze,
- he had the air of one who only presumed to enjoy it in his degree as a
- commoner; and though he knew his lord was not regarding him, he looked
- into his face from time to time, and with a meek and deferential manner,
- smiled as if for practice.
- Such were the guests whom old John Willet, with a fixed and leaden
- eye, surveyed a hundred times, and to whom he now advanced with a state
- candlestick in each hand, beseeching them to follow him into a worthier
- chamber. ‘For my lord,’ said John--it is odd enough, but certain people
- seem to have as great a pleasure in pronouncing titles as their owners
- have in wearing them--‘this room, my lord, isn’t at all the sort of
- place for your lordship, and I have to beg your lordship’s pardon for
- keeping you here, my lord, one minute.’
- With this address, John ushered them upstairs into the state apartment,
- which, like many other things of state, was cold and comfortless. Their
- own footsteps, reverberating through the spacious room, struck upon
- their hearing with a hollow sound; and its damp and chilly atmosphere
- was rendered doubly cheerless by contrast with the homely warmth they
- had deserted.
- It was of no use, however, to propose a return to the place they had
- quitted, for the preparations went on so briskly that there was no time
- to stop them. John, with the tall candlesticks in his hands, bowed them
- up to the fireplace; Hugh, striding in with a lighted brand and pile
- of firewood, cast it down upon the hearth, and set it in a blaze; John
- Grueby (who had a great blue cockade in his hat, which he appeared
- to despise mightily) brought in the portmanteau he had carried on his
- horse, and placed it on the floor; and presently all three were busily
- engaged in drawing out the screen, laying the cloth, inspecting the
- beds, lighting fires in the bedrooms, expediting the supper, and making
- everything as cosy and as snug as might be, on so short a notice. In
- less than an hour’s time, supper had been served, and ate, and cleared
- away; and Lord George and his secretary, with slippered feet, and legs
- stretched out before the fire, sat over some hot mulled wine together.
- ‘So ends, my lord,’ said Gashford, filling his glass with great
- complacency, ‘the blessed work of a most blessed day.’
- ‘And of a blessed yesterday,’ said his lordship, raising his head.
- ‘Ah!’--and here the secretary clasped his hands--‘a blessed yesterday
- indeed! The Protestants of Suffolk are godly men and true. Though others
- of our countrymen have lost their way in darkness, even as we, my lord,
- did lose our road to-night, theirs is the light and glory.’
- ‘Did I move them, Gashford?’ said Lord George.
- ‘Move them, my lord! Move them! They cried to be led on against the
- Papists, they vowed a dreadful vengeance on their heads, they roared
- like men possessed--’
- ‘But not by devils,’ said his lord.
- ‘By devils! my lord! By angels.’
- ‘Yes--oh surely--by angels, no doubt,’ said Lord George, thrusting his
- hands into his pockets, taking them out again to bite his nails, and
- looking uncomfortably at the fire. ‘Of course by angels--eh Gashford?’
- ‘You do not doubt it, my lord?’ said the secretary.
- ‘No--No,’ returned his lord. ‘No. Why should I? I suppose it would be
- decidedly irreligious to doubt it--wouldn’t it, Gashford? Though there
- certainly were,’ he added, without waiting for an answer, ‘some plaguy
- ill-looking characters among them.’
- ‘When you warmed,’ said the secretary, looking sharply at the other’s
- downcast eyes, which brightened slowly as he spoke; ‘when you warmed
- into that noble outbreak; when you told them that you were never of
- the lukewarm or the timid tribe, and bade them take heed that they were
- prepared to follow one who would lead them on, though to the very death;
- when you spoke of a hundred and twenty thousand men across the Scottish
- border who would take their own redress at any time, if it were not
- conceded; when you cried “Perish the Pope and all his base adherents;
- the penal laws against them shall never be repealed while Englishmen
- have hearts and hands”--and waved your own and touched your sword; and
- when they cried “No Popery!” and you cried “No; not even if we wade in
- blood,” and they threw up their hats and cried “Hurrah! not even if we
- wade in blood; No Popery! Lord George! Down with the Papists--Vengeance
- on their heads:” when this was said and done, and a word from you, my
- lord, could raise or still the tumult--ah! then I felt what greatness
- was indeed, and thought, When was there ever power like this of Lord
- George Gordon’s!’
- ‘It’s a great power. You’re right. It is a great power!’ he cried with
- sparkling eyes. ‘But--dear Gashford--did I really say all that?’
- ‘And how much more!’ cried the secretary, looking upwards. ‘Ah! how much
- more!’
- ‘And I told them what you say, about the one hundred and forty thousand
- men in Scotland, did I!’ he asked with evident delight. ‘That was bold.’
- ‘Our cause is boldness. Truth is always bold.’
- ‘Certainly. So is religion. She’s bold, Gashford?’
- ‘The true religion is, my lord.’
- ‘And that’s ours,’ he rejoined, moving uneasily in his seat, and biting
- his nails as though he would pare them to the quick. ‘There can be no
- doubt of ours being the true one. You feel as certain of that as I do,
- Gashford, don’t you?’
- ‘Does my lord ask ME,’ whined Gashford, drawing his chair nearer with
- an injured air, and laying his broad flat hand upon the table; ‘ME,’
- he repeated, bending the dark hollows of his eyes upon him with an
- unwholesome smile, ‘who, stricken by the magic of his eloquence in
- Scotland but a year ago, abjured the errors of the Romish church, and
- clung to him as one whose timely hand had plucked me from a pit?’
- ‘True. No--No. I--I didn’t mean it,’ replied the other, shaking him by
- the hand, rising from his seat, and pacing restlessly about the room.
- ‘It’s a proud thing to lead the people, Gashford,’ he added as he made a
- sudden halt.
- ‘By force of reason too,’ returned the pliant secretary.
- ‘Ay, to be sure. They may cough and jeer, and groan in Parliament, and
- call me fool and madman, but which of them can raise this human sea and
- make it swell and roar at pleasure? Not one.’
- ‘Not one,’ repeated Gashford.
- ‘Which of them can say for his honesty, what I can say for mine; which
- of them has refused a minister’s bribe of one thousand pounds a year, to
- resign his seat in favour of another? Not one.’
- ‘Not one,’ repeated Gashford again--taking the lion’s share of the
- mulled wine between whiles.
- ‘And as we are honest, true, and in a sacred cause, Gashford,’ said Lord
- George with a heightened colour and in a louder voice, as he laid his
- fevered hand upon his shoulder, ‘and are the only men who regard the
- mass of people out of doors, or are regarded by them, we will uphold
- them to the last; and will raise a cry against these un-English Papists
- which shall re-echo through the country, and roll with a noise like
- thunder. I will be worthy of the motto on my coat of arms, “Called and
- chosen and faithful.”’
- ‘Called,’ said the secretary, ‘by Heaven.’
- ‘I am.’
- ‘Chosen by the people.’
- ‘Yes.’
- ‘Faithful to both.’
- ‘To the block!’
- It would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the excited manner
- in which he gave these answers to the secretary’s promptings; of the
- rapidity of his utterance, or the violence of his tone and gesture; in
- which, struggling through his Puritan’s demeanour, was something wild
- and ungovernable which broke through all restraint. For some minutes he
- walked rapidly up and down the room, then stopping suddenly, exclaimed,
- ‘Gashford--YOU moved them yesterday too. Oh yes! You did.’
- ‘I shone with a reflected light, my lord,’ replied the humble secretary,
- laying his hand upon his heart. ‘I did my best.’
- ‘You did well,’ said his master, ‘and are a great and worthy instrument.
- If you will ring for John Grueby to carry the portmanteau into my room,
- and will wait here while I undress, we will dispose of business as
- usual, if you’re not too tired.’
- ‘Too tired, my lord!--But this is his consideration! Christian from head
- to foot.’ With which soliloquy, the secretary tilted the jug, and looked
- very hard into the mulled wine, to see how much remained.
- John Willet and John Grueby appeared together. The one bearing the great
- candlesticks, and the other the portmanteau, showed the deluded lord
- into his chamber; and left the secretary alone, to yawn and shake
- himself, and finally to fall asleep before the fire.
- ‘Now, Mr Gashford sir,’ said John Grueby in his ear, after what appeared
- to him a moment of unconsciousness; ‘my lord’s abed.’
- ‘Oh. Very good, John,’ was his mild reply. ‘Thank you, John. Nobody need
- sit up. I know my room.’
- ‘I hope you’re not a-going to trouble your head to-night, or my lord’s
- head neither, with anything more about Bloody Mary,’ said John. ‘I wish
- the blessed old creetur had never been born.’
- ‘I said you might go to bed, John,’ returned the secretary. ‘You didn’t
- hear me, I think.’
- ‘Between Bloody Marys, and blue cockades, and glorious Queen Besses,
- and no Poperys, and Protestant associations, and making of speeches,’
- pursued John Grueby, looking, as usual, a long way off, and taking no
- notice of this hint, ‘my lord’s half off his head. When we go out o’
- doors, such a set of ragamuffins comes a-shouting after us, “Gordon
- forever!” that I’m ashamed of myself and don’t know where to look. When
- we’re indoors, they come a-roaring and screaming about the house like so
- many devils; and my lord instead of ordering them to be drove away, goes
- out into the balcony and demeans himself by making speeches to ‘em, and
- calls ‘em “Men of England,” and “Fellow-countrymen,” as if he was fond
- of ‘em and thanked ‘em for coming. I can’t make it out, but they’re all
- mixed up somehow or another with that unfort’nate Bloody Mary, and call
- her name out till they’re hoarse. They’re all Protestants too--every man
- and boy among ‘em: and Protestants are very fond of spoons, I find, and
- silver-plate in general, whenever area-gates is left open accidentally.
- I wish that was the worst of it, and that no more harm might be to come;
- but if you don’t stop these ugly customers in time, Mr Gashford (and I
- know you; you’re the man that blows the fire), you’ll find ‘em grow a
- little bit too strong for you. One of these evenings, when the weather
- gets warmer and Protestants are thirsty, they’ll be pulling London
- down,--and I never heard that Bloody Mary went as far as THAT.’
- Gashford had vanished long ago, and these remarks had been bestowed on
- empty air. Not at all discomposed by the discovery, John Grueby fixed
- his hat on, wrongside foremost that he might be unconscious of the
- shadow of the obnoxious cockade, and withdrew to bed; shaking his head
- in a very gloomy and prophetic manner until he reached his chamber.
- Chapter 36
- Gashford, with a smiling face, but still with looks of profound
- deference and humility, betook himself towards his master’s room,
- smoothing his hair down as he went, and humming a psalm tune. As he
- approached Lord George’s door, he cleared his throat and hummed more
- vigorously.
- There was a remarkable contrast between this man’s occupation at the
- moment, and the expression of his countenance, which was singularly
- repulsive and malicious. His beetling brow almost obscured his eyes;
- his lip was curled contemptuously; his very shoulders seemed to sneer in
- stealthy whisperings with his great flapped ears.
- ‘Hush!’ he muttered softly, as he peeped in at the chamber-door. ‘He
- seems to be asleep. Pray Heaven he is! Too much watching, too much care,
- too much thought--ah! Lord preserve him for a martyr! He is a saint, if
- ever saint drew breath on this bad earth.’
- Placing his light upon a table, he walked on tiptoe to the fire, and
- sitting in a chair before it with his back towards the bed, went on
- communing with himself like one who thought aloud:
- ‘The saviour of his country and his country’s religion, the friend of
- his poor countrymen, the enemy of the proud and harsh; beloved of the
- rejected and oppressed, adored by forty thousand bold and loyal English
- hearts--what happy slumbers his should be!’ And here he sighed, and
- warmed his hands, and shook his head as men do when their hearts are
- full, and heaved another sigh, and warmed his hands again.
- ‘Why, Gashford?’ said Lord George, who was lying broad awake, upon his
- side, and had been staring at him from his entrance.
- ‘My--my lord,’ said Gashford, starting and looking round as though in
- great surprise. ‘I have disturbed you!’
- ‘I have not been sleeping.’
- ‘Not sleeping!’ he repeated, with assumed confusion. ‘What can I say
- for having in your presence given utterance to thoughts--but they were
- sincere--they were sincere!’ exclaimed the secretary, drawing his sleeve
- in a hasty way across his eyes; ‘and why should I regret your having
- heard them?’
- ‘Gashford,’ said the poor lord, stretching out his hand with manifest
- emotion. ‘Do not regret it. You love me well, I know--too well. I don’t
- deserve such homage.’
- Gashford made no reply, but grasped the hand and pressed it to his lips.
- Then rising, and taking from the trunk a little desk, he placed it on
- a table near the fire, unlocked it with a key he carried in his pocket,
- sat down before it, took out a pen, and, before dipping it in the
- inkstand, sucked it--to compose the fashion of his mouth perhaps, on
- which a smile was hovering yet.
- ‘How do our numbers stand since last enrolling-night?’ inquired Lord
- George. ‘Are we really forty thousand strong, or do we still speak in
- round numbers when we take the Association at that amount?’
- ‘Our total now exceeds that number by a score and three,’ Gashford
- replied, casting his eyes upon his papers.
- ‘The funds?’
- ‘Not VERY improving; but there is some manna in the wilderness, my lord.
- Hem! On Friday night the widows’ mites dropped in. “Forty scavengers,
- three and fourpence. An aged pew-opener of St Martin’s parish, sixpence.
- A bell-ringer of the established church, sixpence. A Protestant infant,
- newly born, one halfpenny. The United Link Boys, three shillings--one
- bad. The anti-popish prisoners in Newgate, five and fourpence. A friend
- in Bedlam, half-a-crown. Dennis the hangman, one shilling.”’
- ‘That Dennis,’ said his lordship, ‘is an earnest man. I marked him in
- the crowd in Welbeck Street, last Friday.’
- ‘A good man,’ rejoined the secretary, ‘a staunch, sincere, and truly
- zealous man.’
- ‘He should be encouraged,’ said Lord George. ‘Make a note of Dennis.
- I’ll talk with him.’
- Gashford obeyed, and went on reading from his list:
- ‘“The Friends of Reason, half-a-guinea. The Friends of Liberty,
- half-a-guinea. The Friends of Peace, half-a-guinea. The Friends of
- Charity, half-a-guinea. The Friends of Mercy, half-a-guinea. The
- Associated Rememberers of Bloody Mary, half-a-guinea. The United
- Bulldogs, half-a-guinea.”’
- ‘The United Bulldogs,’ said Lord George, biting his nails most horribly,
- ‘are a new society, are they not?’
- ‘Formerly the ‘Prentice Knights, my lord. The indentures of the old
- members expiring by degrees, they changed their name, it seems, though
- they still have ‘prentices among them, as well as workmen.’
- ‘What is their president’s name?’ inquired Lord George.
- ‘President,’ said Gashford, reading, ‘Mr Simon Tappertit.’
- ‘I remember him. The little man, who sometimes brings an elderly sister
- to our meetings, and sometimes another female too, who is conscientious,
- I have no doubt, but not well-favoured?’
- ‘The very same, my lord.’
- ‘Tappertit is an earnest man,’ said Lord George, thoughtfully. ‘Eh,
- Gashford?’
- ‘One of the foremost among them all, my lord. He snuffs the battle from
- afar, like the war-horse. He throws his hat up in the street as if he
- were inspired, and makes most stirring speeches from the shoulders of
- his friends.’
- ‘Make a note of Tappertit,’ said Lord George Gordon. ‘We may advance him
- to a place of trust.’
- ‘That,’ rejoined the secretary, doing as he was told, ‘is all--except
- Mrs Varden’s box (fourteenth time of opening), seven shillings and
- sixpence in silver and copper, and half-a-guinea in gold; and Miggs
- (being the saving of a quarter’s wages), one-and-threepence.’
- ‘Miggs,’ said Lord George. ‘Is that a man?’
- ‘The name is entered on the list as a woman,’ replied the secretary. ‘I
- think she is the tall spare female of whom you spoke just now, my
- lord, as not being well-favoured, who sometimes comes to hear the
- speeches--along with Tappertit and Mrs Varden.’
- ‘Mrs Varden is the elderly lady then, is she?’
- The secretary nodded, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with the feather
- of his pen.
- ‘She is a zealous sister,’ said Lord George. ‘Her collection goes on
- prosperously, and is pursued with fervour. Has her husband joined?’
- ‘A malignant,’ returned the secretary, folding up his papers. ‘Unworthy
- such a wife. He remains in outer darkness and steadily refuses.’
- ‘The consequences be upon his own head!--Gashford!’
- ‘My lord!’
- ‘You don’t think,’ he turned restlessly in his bed as he spoke, ‘these
- people will desert me, when the hour arrives? I have spoken boldly for
- them, ventured much, suppressed nothing. They’ll not fall off, will
- they?’
- ‘No fear of that, my lord,’ said Gashford, with a meaning look, which
- was rather the involuntary expression of his own thoughts than intended
- as any confirmation of his words, for the other’s face was turned away.
- ‘Be sure there is no fear of that.’
- ‘Nor,’ he said with a more restless motion than before, ‘of their--but
- they CAN sustain no harm from leaguing for this purpose. Right is on
- our side, though Might may be against us. You feel as sure of that as
- I--honestly, you do?’
- The secretary was beginning with ‘You do not doubt,’ when the other
- interrupted him, and impatiently rejoined:
- ‘Doubt. No. Who says I doubt? If I doubted, should I cast away
- relatives, friends, everything, for this unhappy country’s sake; this
- unhappy country,’ he cried, springing up in bed, after repeating the
- phrase ‘unhappy country’s sake’ to himself, at least a dozen times,
- ‘forsaken of God and man, delivered over to a dangerous confederacy of
- Popish powers; the prey of corruption, idolatry, and despotism! Who says
- I doubt? Am I called, and chosen, and faithful? Tell me. Am I, or am I
- not?’
- ‘To God, the country, and yourself,’ cried Gashford.
- ‘I am. I will be. I say again, I will be: to the block. Who says as
- much! Do you? Does any man alive?’
- The secretary drooped his head with an expression of perfect
- acquiescence in anything that had been said or might be; and Lord George
- gradually sinking down upon his pillow, fell asleep.
- Although there was something very ludicrous in his vehement manner,
- taken in conjunction with his meagre aspect and ungraceful presence, it
- would scarcely have provoked a smile in any man of kindly feeling; or
- even if it had, he would have felt sorry and almost angry with himself
- next moment, for yielding to the impulse. This lord was sincere in his
- violence and in his wavering. A nature prone to false enthusiasm, and
- the vanity of being a leader, were the worst qualities apparent in his
- composition. All the rest was weakness--sheer weakness; and it is
- the unhappy lot of thoroughly weak men, that their very sympathies,
- affections, confidences--all the qualities which in better constituted
- minds are virtues--dwindle into foibles, or turn into downright vices.
- Gashford, with many a sly look towards the bed, sat chuckling at his
- master’s folly, until his deep and heavy breathing warned him that he
- might retire. Locking his desk, and replacing it within the trunk (but
- not before he had taken from a secret lining two printed handbills), he
- cautiously withdrew; looking back, as he went, at the pale face of
- the slumbering man, above whose head the dusty plumes that crowned the
- Maypole couch, waved drearily and sadly as though it were a bier.
- Stopping on the staircase to listen that all was quiet, and to take off
- his shoes lest his footsteps should alarm any light sleeper who might
- be near at hand, he descended to the ground floor, and thrust one of his
- bills beneath the great door of the house. That done, he crept softly
- back to his own chamber, and from the window let another fall--carefully
- wrapt round a stone to save it from the wind--into the yard below.
- They were addressed on the back ‘To every Protestant into whose hands
- this shall come,’ and bore within what follows:
- ‘Men and Brethren. Whoever shall find this letter, will take it as a
- warning to join, without delay, the friends of Lord George Gordon. There
- are great events at hand; and the times are dangerous and troubled. Read
- this carefully, keep it clean, and drop it somewhere else. For King and
- Country. Union.’
- ‘More seed, more seed,’ said Gashford as he closed the window. ‘When
- will the harvest come!’
- Chapter 37
- To surround anything, however monstrous or ridiculous, with an air of
- mystery, is to invest it with a secret charm, and power of attraction
- which to the crowd is irresistible. False priests, false prophets, false
- doctors, false patriots, false prodigies of every kind, veiling their
- proceedings in mystery, have always addressed themselves at an immense
- advantage to the popular credulity, and have been, perhaps, more
- indebted to that resource in gaining and keeping for a time the upper
- hand of Truth and Common Sense, than to any half-dozen items in the
- whole catalogue of imposture. Curiosity is, and has been from the
- creation of the world, a master-passion. To awaken it, to gratify it
- by slight degrees, and yet leave something always in suspense, is to
- establish the surest hold that can be had, in wrong, on the unthinking
- portion of mankind.
- If a man had stood on London Bridge, calling till he was hoarse, upon
- the passers-by, to join with Lord George Gordon, although for an object
- which no man understood, and which in that very incident had a charm of
- its own,--the probability is, that he might have influenced a score of
- people in a month. If all zealous Protestants had been publicly urged
- to join an association for the avowed purpose of singing a hymn or two
- occasionally, and hearing some indifferent speeches made, and ultimately
- of petitioning Parliament not to pass an act for abolishing the
- penal laws against Roman Catholic priests, the penalty of perpetual
- imprisonment denounced against those who educated children in that
- persuasion, and the disqualification of all members of the Romish church
- to inherit real property in the United Kingdom by right of purchase or
- descent,--matters so far removed from the business and bosoms of the
- mass, might perhaps have called together a hundred people. But when
- vague rumours got abroad, that in this Protestant association a secret
- power was mustering against the government for undefined and mighty
- purposes; when the air was filled with whispers of a confederacy
- among the Popish powers to degrade and enslave England, establish an
- inquisition in London, and turn the pens of Smithfield market into
- stakes and cauldrons; when terrors and alarms which no man understood
- were perpetually broached, both in and out of Parliament, by one
- enthusiast who did not understand himself, and bygone bugbears which had
- lain quietly in their graves for centuries, were raised again to haunt
- the ignorant and credulous; when all this was done, as it were, in the
- dark, and secret invitations to join the Great Protestant Association in
- defence of religion, life, and liberty, were dropped in the public ways,
- thrust under the house-doors, tossed in at windows, and pressed into
- the hands of those who trod the streets by night; when they glared
- from every wall, and shone on every post and pillar, so that stocks and
- stones appeared infected with the common fear, urging all men to join
- together blindfold in resistance of they knew not what, they knew not
- why;--then the mania spread indeed, and the body, still increasing every
- day, grew forty thousand strong.
- So said, at least, in this month of March, 1780, Lord George Gordon, the
- Association’s president. Whether it was the fact or otherwise, few men
- knew or cared to ascertain. It had never made any public demonstration;
- had scarcely ever been heard of, save through him; had never been seen;
- and was supposed by many to be the mere creature of his disordered
- brain. He was accustomed to talk largely about numbers of
- men--stimulated, as it was inferred, by certain successful disturbances,
- arising out of the same subject, which had occurred in Scotland in the
- previous year; was looked upon as a cracked-brained member of the lower
- house, who attacked all parties and sided with none, and was very little
- regarded. It was known that there was discontent abroad--there always
- is; he had been accustomed to address the people by placard, speech,
- and pamphlet, upon other questions; nothing had come, in England, of his
- past exertions, and nothing was apprehended from his present. Just as
- he has come upon the reader, he had come, from time to time, upon the
- public, and been forgotten in a day; as suddenly as he appears in these
- pages, after a blank of five long years, did he and his proceedings
- begin to force themselves, about this period, upon the notice of
- thousands of people, who had mingled in active life during the whole
- interval, and who, without being deaf or blind to passing events, had
- scarcely ever thought of him before.
- ‘My lord,’ said Gashford in his ear, as he drew the curtains of his bed
- betimes; ‘my lord!’
- ‘Yes--who’s that? What is it?’
- ‘The clock has struck nine,’ returned the secretary, with meekly folded
- hands. ‘You have slept well? I hope you have slept well? If my prayers
- are heard, you are refreshed indeed.’
- ‘To say the truth, I have slept so soundly,’ said Lord George, rubbing
- his eyes and looking round the room, ‘that I don’t remember quite--what
- place is this?’
- ‘My lord!’ cried Gashford, with a smile.
- ‘Oh!’ returned his superior. ‘Yes. You’re not a Jew then?’
- ‘A Jew!’ exclaimed the pious secretary, recoiling.
- ‘I dreamed that we were Jews, Gashford. You and I--both of us--Jews with
- long beards.’
- ‘Heaven forbid, my lord! We might as well be Papists.’
- ‘I suppose we might,’ returned the other, very quickly. ‘Eh? You really
- think so, Gashford?’
- ‘Surely I do,’ the secretary cried, with looks of great surprise.
- ‘Humph!’ he muttered. ‘Yes, that seems reasonable.’
- ‘I hope my lord--’ the secretary began.
- ‘Hope!’ he echoed, interrupting him. ‘Why do you say, you hope? There’s
- no harm in thinking of such things.’
- ‘Not in dreams,’ returned the Secretary.
- ‘In dreams! No, nor waking either.’
- --‘“Called, and chosen, and faithful,”’ said Gashford, taking up
- Lord George’s watch which lay upon a chair, and seeming to read the
- inscription on the seal, abstractedly.
- It was the slightest action possible, not obtruded on his notice, and
- apparently the result of a moment’s absence of mind, not worth remark.
- But as the words were uttered, Lord George, who had been going on
- impetuously, stopped short, reddened, and was silent. Apparently quite
- unconscious of this change in his demeanour, the wily Secretary stepped
- a little apart, under pretence of pulling up the window-blind, and
- returning when the other had had time to recover, said:
- ‘The holy cause goes bravely on, my lord. I was not idle, even last
- night. I dropped two of the handbills before I went to bed, and both are
- gone this morning. Nobody in the house has mentioned the circumstance
- of finding them, though I have been downstairs full half-an-hour. One or
- two recruits will be their first fruit, I predict; and who shall say how
- many more, with Heaven’s blessing on your inspired exertions!’
- ‘It was a famous device in the beginning,’ replied Lord George; ‘an
- excellent device, and did good service in Scotland. It was quite worthy
- of you. You remind me not to be a sluggard, Gashford, when the vineyard
- is menaced with destruction, and may be trodden down by Papist feet. Let
- the horses be saddled in half-an-hour. We must be up and doing!’
- He said this with a heightened colour, and in a tone of such enthusiasm,
- that the secretary deemed all further prompting needless, and withdrew.
- --‘Dreamed he was a Jew,’ he said thoughtfully, as he closed the bedroom
- door. ‘He may come to that before he dies. It’s like enough. Well! After
- a time, and provided I lost nothing by it, I don’t see why that religion
- shouldn’t suit me as well as any other. There are rich men among the
- Jews; shaving is very troublesome;--yes, it would suit me well enough.
- For the present, though, we must be Christian to the core. Our prophetic
- motto will suit all creeds in their turn, that’s a comfort.’ Reflecting
- on this source of consolation, he reached the sitting-room, and rang the
- bell for breakfast.
- Lord George was quickly dressed (for his plain toilet was easily made),
- and as he was no less frugal in his repasts than in his Puritan attire,
- his share of the meal was soon dispatched. The secretary, however, more
- devoted to the good things of this world, or more intent on sustaining
- his strength and spirits for the sake of the Protestant cause, ate
- and drank to the last minute, and required indeed some three or four
- reminders from John Grueby, before he could resolve to tear himself away
- from Mr Willet’s plentiful providing.
- At length he came downstairs, wiping his greasy mouth, and having paid
- John Willet’s bill, climbed into his saddle. Lord George, who had been
- walking up and down before the house talking to himself with earnest
- gestures, mounted his horse; and returning old John Willet’s stately
- bow, as well as the parting salutation of a dozen idlers whom the rumour
- of a live lord being about to leave the Maypole had gathered round the
- porch, they rode away, with stout John Grueby in the rear.
- If Lord George Gordon had appeared in the eyes of Mr Willet, overnight,
- a nobleman of somewhat quaint and odd exterior, the impression was
- confirmed this morning, and increased a hundredfold. Sitting bolt
- upright upon his bony steed, with his long, straight hair, dangling
- about his face and fluttering in the wind; his limbs all angular and
- rigid, his elbows stuck out on either side ungracefully, and his whole
- frame jogged and shaken at every motion of his horse’s feet; a more
- grotesque or more ungainly figure can hardly be conceived. In lieu of
- whip, he carried in his hand a great gold-headed cane, as large as any
- footman carries in these days, and his various modes of holding this
- unwieldy weapon--now upright before his face like the sabre of a
- horse-soldier, now over his shoulder like a musket, now between
- his finger and thumb, but always in some uncouth and awkward
- fashion--contributed in no small degree to the absurdity of his
- appearance. Stiff, lank, and solemn, dressed in an unusual manner,
- and ostentatiously exhibiting--whether by design or accident--all his
- peculiarities of carriage, gesture, and conduct, all the qualities,
- natural and artificial, in which he differed from other men; he might
- have moved the sternest looker-on to laughter, and fully provoked the
- smiles and whispered jests which greeted his departure from the Maypole
- inn.
- Quite unconscious, however, of the effect he produced, he trotted on
- beside his secretary, talking to himself nearly all the way, until they
- came within a mile or two of London, when now and then some passenger
- went by who knew him by sight, and pointed him out to some one else, and
- perhaps stood looking after him, or cried in jest or earnest as it might
- be, ‘Hurrah Geordie! No Popery!’ At which he would gravely pull off his
- hat, and bow. When they reached the town and rode along the streets,
- these notices became more frequent; some laughed, some hissed, some
- turned their heads and smiled, some wondered who he was, some ran along
- the pavement by his side and cheered. When this happened in a crush of
- carts and chairs and coaches, he would make a dead stop, and pulling
- off his hat, cry, ‘Gentlemen, No Popery!’ to which the gentlemen would
- respond with lusty voices, and with three times three; and then, on he
- would go again with a score or so of the raggedest, following at his
- horse’s heels, and shouting till their throats were parched.
- The old ladies too--there were a great many old ladies in the streets,
- and these all knew him. Some of them--not those of the highest rank,
- but such as sold fruit from baskets and carried burdens--clapped their
- shrivelled hands, and raised a weazen, piping, shrill ‘Hurrah, my
- lord.’ Others waved their hands or handkerchiefs, or shook their fans
- or parasols, or threw up windows and called in haste to those within,
- to come and see. All these marks of popular esteem, he received with
- profound gravity and respect; bowing very low, and so frequently that
- his hat was more off his head than on; and looking up at the houses as
- he passed along, with the air of one who was making a public entry, and
- yet was not puffed up or proud.
- So they rode (to the deep and unspeakable disgust of John Grueby) the
- whole length of Whitechapel, Leadenhall Street, and Cheapside, and into
- St Paul’s Churchyard. Arriving close to the cathedral, he halted; spoke
- to Gashford; and looking upward at its lofty dome, shook his head, as
- though he said, ‘The Church in Danger!’ Then to be sure, the bystanders
- stretched their throats indeed; and he went on again with mighty
- acclamations from the mob, and lower bows than ever.
- So along the Strand, up Swallow Street, into the Oxford Road, and thence
- to his house in Welbeck Street, near Cavendish Square, whither he was
- attended by a few dozen idlers; of whom he took leave on the steps with
- this brief parting, ‘Gentlemen, No Popery. Good day. God bless you.’
- This being rather a shorter address than they expected, was received
- with some displeasure, and cries of ‘A speech! a speech!’ which might
- have been complied with, but that John Grueby, making a mad charge upon
- them with all three horses, on his way to the stables, caused them to
- disperse into the adjoining fields, where they presently fell to
- pitch and toss, chuck-farthing, odd or even, dog-fighting, and other
- Protestant recreations.
- In the afternoon Lord George came forth again, dressed in a black velvet
- coat, and trousers and waistcoat of the Gordon plaid, all of the same
- Quaker cut; and in this costume, which made him look a dozen times more
- strange and singular than before, went down on foot to Westminster.
- Gashford, meanwhile, bestirred himself in business matters; with which
- he was still engaged when, shortly after dusk, John Grueby entered and
- announced a visitor.
- ‘Let him come in,’ said Gashford.
- ‘Here! come in!’ growled John to somebody without; ‘You’re a Protestant,
- an’t you?’
- ‘I should think so,’ replied a deep, gruff voice.
- ‘You’ve the looks of it,’ said John Grueby. ‘I’d have known you for one,
- anywhere.’ With which remark he gave the visitor admission, retired, and
- shut the door.
- The man who now confronted Gashford, was a squat, thickset personage,
- with a low, retreating forehead, a coarse shock head of hair, and eyes
- so small and near together, that his broken nose alone seemed to
- prevent their meeting and fusing into one of the usual size. A dingy
- handkerchief twisted like a cord about his neck, left its great veins
- exposed to view, and they were swollen and starting, as though with
- gulping down strong passions, malice, and ill-will. His dress was of
- threadbare velveteen--a faded, rusty, whitened black, like the ashes
- of a pipe or a coal fire after a day’s extinction; discoloured with the
- soils of many a stale debauch, and reeking yet with pot-house odours. In
- lieu of buckles at his knees, he wore unequal loops of packthread; and
- in his grimy hands he held a knotted stick, the knob of which was carved
- into a rough likeness of his own vile face. Such was the visitor who
- doffed his three-cornered hat in Gashford’s presence, and waited,
- leering, for his notice.
- ‘Ah! Dennis!’ cried the secretary. ‘Sit down.’
- ‘I see my lord down yonder--’ cried the man, with a jerk of his thumb
- towards the quarter that he spoke of, ‘and he says to me, says my lord,
- “If you’ve nothing to do, Dennis, go up to my house and talk with Muster
- Gashford.” Of course I’d nothing to do, you know. These an’t my working
- hours. Ha ha! I was a-taking the air when I see my lord, that’s what
- I was doing. I takes the air by night, as the howls does, Muster
- Gashford.’
- And sometimes in the day-time, eh?’ said the secretary--‘when you go out
- in state, you know.’
- ‘Ha ha!’ roared the fellow, smiting his leg; ‘for a gentleman as ‘ull
- say a pleasant thing in a pleasant way, give me Muster Gashford agin’
- all London and Westminster! My lord an’t a bad ‘un at that, but he’s a
- fool to you. Ah to be sure,--when I go out in state.’
- ‘And have your carriage,’ said the secretary; ‘and your chaplain, eh?
- and all the rest of it?’
- ‘You’ll be the death of me,’ cried Dennis, with another roar, ‘you will.
- But what’s in the wind now, Muster Gashford,’ he asked hoarsely, ‘Eh?
- Are we to be under orders to pull down one of them Popish chapels--or
- what?’
- ‘Hush!’ said the secretary, suffering the faintest smile to play upon
- his face. ‘Hush! God bless me, Dennis! We associate, you know, for
- strictly peaceable and lawful purposes.’
- ‘I know, bless you,’ returned the man, thrusting his tongue into his
- cheek; ‘I entered a’ purpose, didn’t I!’
- ‘No doubt,’ said Gashford, smiling as before. And when he said so,
- Dennis roared again, and smote his leg still harder, and falling into
- fits of laughter, wiped his eyes with the corner of his neckerchief, and
- cried, ‘Muster Gashford agin’ all England hollow!’
- ‘Lord George and I were talking of you last night,’ said Gashford, after
- a pause. ‘He says you are a very earnest fellow.’
- ‘So I am,’ returned the hangman.
- ‘And that you truly hate the Papists.’
- ‘So I do,’ and he confirmed it with a good round oath. ‘Lookye here,
- Muster Gashford,’ said the fellow, laying his hat and stick upon the
- floor, and slowly beating the palm of one hand with the fingers of the
- other; ‘Ob-serve. I’m a constitutional officer that works for my living,
- and does my work creditable. Do I, or do I not?’
- ‘Unquestionably.’
- ‘Very good. Stop a minute. My work, is sound, Protestant,
- constitutional, English work. Is it, or is it not?’
- ‘No man alive can doubt it.’
- ‘Nor dead neither. Parliament says this here--says Parliament, “If any
- man, woman, or child, does anything which goes again a certain number
- of our acts”--how many hanging laws may there be at this present time,
- Muster Gashford? Fifty?’
- ‘I don’t exactly know how many,’ replied Gashford, leaning back in his
- chair and yawning; ‘a great number though.’
- ‘Well, say fifty. Parliament says, “If any man, woman, or child, does
- anything again any one of them fifty acts, that man, woman, or child,
- shall be worked off by Dennis.” George the Third steps in when they
- number very strong at the end of a sessions, and says, “These are too
- many for Dennis. I’ll have half for myself and Dennis shall have half
- for himself;” and sometimes he throws me in one over that I don’t
- expect, as he did three year ago, when I got Mary Jones, a young woman
- of nineteen who come up to Tyburn with a infant at her breast, and was
- worked off for taking a piece of cloth off the counter of a shop in
- Ludgate Hill, and putting it down again when the shopman see her;
- and who had never done any harm before, and only tried to do that, in
- consequence of her husband having been pressed three weeks previous, and
- she being left to beg, with two young children--as was proved upon the
- trial. Ha ha!--Well! That being the law and the practice of England, is
- the glory of England, an’t it, Muster Gashford?’
- ‘Certainly,’ said the secretary.
- ‘And in times to come,’ pursued the hangman, ‘if our grandsons should
- think of their grandfathers’ times, and find these things altered,
- they’ll say, “Those were days indeed, and we’ve been going down hill
- ever since.” Won’t they, Muster Gashford?’
- ‘I have no doubt they will,’ said the secretary.
- ‘Well then, look here,’ said the hangman. ‘If these Papists gets into
- power, and begins to boil and roast instead of hang, what becomes of my
- work! If they touch my work that’s a part of so many laws, what becomes
- of the laws in general, what becomes of the religion, what becomes of
- the country!--Did you ever go to church, Muster Gashford?’
- ‘Ever!’ repeated the secretary with some indignation; ‘of course.’
- ‘Well,’ said the ruffian, ‘I’ve been once--twice, counting the time I
- was christened--and when I heard the Parliament prayed for, and thought
- how many new hanging laws they made every sessions, I considered that I
- was prayed for. Now mind, Muster Gashford,’ said the fellow, taking
- up his stick and shaking it with a ferocious air, ‘I mustn’t have
- my Protestant work touched, nor this here Protestant state of things
- altered in no degree, if I can help it; I mustn’t have no Papists
- interfering with me, unless they come to be worked off in course of law;
- I mustn’t have no biling, no roasting, no frying--nothing but hanging.
- My lord may well call me an earnest fellow. In support of the great
- Protestant principle of having plenty of that, I’ll,’ and here he beat
- his club upon the ground, ‘burn, fight, kill--do anything you bid me, so
- that it’s bold and devilish--though the end of it was, that I got hung
- myself.--There, Muster Gashford!’
- He appropriately followed up this frequent prostitution of a noble word
- to the vilest purposes, by pouring out in a kind of ecstasy at least
- a score of most tremendous oaths; then wiped his heated face upon his
- neckerchief, and cried, ‘No Popery! I’m a religious man, by G--!’
- Gashford had leant back in his chair, regarding him with eyes so sunken,
- and so shadowed by his heavy brows, that for aught the hangman saw of
- them, he might have been stone blind. He remained smiling in silence for
- a short time longer, and then said, slowly and distinctly:
- ‘You are indeed an earnest fellow, Dennis--a most valuable fellow--the
- staunchest man I know of in our ranks. But you must calm yourself;
- you must be peaceful, lawful, mild as any lamb. I am sure you will be
- though.’
- ‘Ay, ay, we shall see, Muster Gashford, we shall see. You won’t have to
- complain of me,’ returned the other, shaking his head.
- ‘I am sure I shall not,’ said the secretary in the same mild tone, and
- with the same emphasis. ‘We shall have, we think, about next month, or
- May, when this Papist relief bill comes before the house, to convene our
- whole body for the first time. My lord has thoughts of our walking
- in procession through the streets--just as an innocent display of
- strength--and accompanying our petition down to the door of the House of
- Commons.’
- ‘The sooner the better,’ said Dennis, with another oath.
- ‘We shall have to draw up in divisions, our numbers being so large; and,
- I believe I may venture to say,’ resumed Gashford, affecting not to
- hear the interruption, ‘though I have no direct instructions to that
- effect--that Lord George has thought of you as an excellent leader for
- one of these parties. I have no doubt you would be an admirable one.’
- ‘Try me,’ said the fellow, with an ugly wink.
- ‘You would be cool, I know,’ pursued the secretary, still smiling, and
- still managing his eyes so that he could watch him closely, and really
- not be seen in turn, ‘obedient to orders, and perfectly temperate. You
- would lead your party into no danger, I am certain.’
- ‘I’d lead them, Muster Gashford,’--the hangman was beginning in a
- reckless way, when Gashford started forward, laid his finger on his
- lips, and feigned to write, just as the door was opened by John Grueby.
- ‘Oh!’ said John, looking in; ‘here’s another Protestant.’
- ‘Some other room, John,’ cried Gashford in his blandest voice. ‘I am
- engaged just now.’
- But John had brought this new visitor to the door, and he walked
- in unbidden, as the words were uttered; giving to view the form and
- features, rough attire, and reckless air, of Hugh.
- Chapter 38
- The secretary put his hand before his eyes to shade them from the glare
- of the lamp, and for some moments looked at Hugh with a frowning brow,
- as if he remembered to have seen him lately, but could not call to mind
- where, or on what occasion. His uncertainty was very brief, for before
- Hugh had spoken a word, he said, as his countenance cleared up:
- ‘Ay, ay, I recollect. It’s quite right, John, you needn’t wait. Don’t
- go, Dennis.’
- ‘Your servant, master,’ said Hugh, as Grueby disappeared.
- ‘Yours, friend,’ returned the secretary in his smoothest manner. ‘What
- brings YOU here? We left nothing behind us, I hope?’
- Hugh gave a short laugh, and thrusting his hand into his breast,
- produced one of the handbills, soiled and dirty from lying out of doors
- all night, which he laid upon the secretary’s desk after flattening it
- upon his knee, and smoothing out the wrinkles with his heavy palm.
- ‘Nothing but that, master. It fell into good hands, you see.’
- ‘What is this!’ said Gashford, turning it over with an air of perfectly
- natural surprise. ‘Where did you get it from, my good fellow; what does
- it mean? I don’t understand this at all.’
- A little disconcerted by this reception, Hugh looked from the secretary
- to Dennis, who had risen and was standing at the table too, observing
- the stranger by stealth, and seeming to derive the utmost satisfaction
- from his manners and appearance. Considering himself silently appealed
- to by this action, Mr Dennis shook his head thrice, as if to say of
- Gashford, ‘No. He don’t know anything at all about it. I know he don’t.
- I’ll take my oath he don’t;’ and hiding his profile from Hugh with one
- long end of his frowzy neckerchief, nodded and chuckled behind this
- screen in extreme approval of the secretary’s proceedings.
- ‘It tells the man that finds it, to come here, don’t it?’ asked Hugh.
- ‘I’m no scholar, myself, but I showed it to a friend, and he said it
- did.’
- ‘It certainly does,’ said Gashford, opening his eyes to their utmost
- width; ‘really this is the most remarkable circumstance I have ever
- known. How did you come by this piece of paper, my good friend?’
- ‘Muster Gashford,’ wheezed the hangman under his breath, ‘agin’ all
- Newgate!’
- Whether Hugh heard him, or saw by his manner that he was being played
- upon, or perceived the secretary’s drift of himself, he came in his
- blunt way to the point at once.
- ‘Here!’ he said, stretching out his hand and taking it back; ‘never mind
- the bill, or what it says, or what it don’t say. You don’t know anything
- about it, master,--no more do I,--no more does he,’ glancing at Dennis.
- ‘None of us know what it means, or where it comes from: there’s an end
- of that. Now I want to make one against the Catholics, I’m a No-Popery
- man, and ready to be sworn in. That’s what I’ve come here for.’
- ‘Put him down on the roll, Muster Gashford,’ said Dennis approvingly.
- ‘That’s the way to go to work--right to the end at once, and no
- palaver.’
- ‘What’s the use of shooting wide of the mark, eh, old boy!’ cried Hugh.
- ‘My sentiments all over!’ rejoined the hangman. ‘This is the sort of
- chap for my division, Muster Gashford. Down with him, sir. Put him on
- the roll. I’d stand godfather to him, if he was to be christened in a
- bonfire, made of the ruins of the Bank of England.’
- With these and other expressions of confidence of the like flattering
- kind, Mr Dennis gave him a hearty slap on the back, which Hugh was not
- slow to return.
- ‘No Popery, brother!’ cried the hangman.
- ‘No Property, brother!’ responded Hugh.
- ‘Popery, Popery,’ said the secretary with his usual mildness.
- ‘It’s all the same!’ cried Dennis. ‘It’s all right. Down with him,
- Muster Gashford. Down with everybody, down with everything! Hurrah for
- the Protestant religion! That’s the time of day, Muster Gashford!’
- The secretary regarded them both with a very favourable expression of
- countenance, while they gave loose to these and other demonstrations of
- their patriotic purpose; and was about to make some remark aloud, when
- Dennis, stepping up to him, and shading his mouth with his hand, said,
- in a hoarse whisper, as he nudged him with his elbow:
- ‘Don’t split upon a constitutional officer’s profession, Muster
- Gashford. There are popular prejudices, you know, and he mightn’t like
- it. Wait till he comes to be more intimate with me. He’s a fine-built
- chap, an’t he?’
- ‘A powerful fellow indeed!’
- ‘Did you ever, Muster Gashford,’ whispered Dennis, with a horrible
- kind of admiration, such as that with which a cannibal might regard his
- intimate friend, when hungry,--‘did you ever--and here he drew still
- closer to his ear, and fenced his mouth with both his open hands--‘see
- such a throat as his? Do but cast your eye upon it. There’s a neck for
- stretching, Muster Gashford!’
- The secretary assented to this proposition with the best grace he could
- assume--it is difficult to feign a true professional relish: which is
- eccentric sometimes--and after asking the candidate a few unimportant
- questions, proceeded to enrol him a member of the Great Protestant
- Association of England. If anything could have exceeded Mr Dennis’s joy
- on the happy conclusion of this ceremony, it would have been the rapture
- with which he received the announcement that the new member could
- neither read nor write: those two arts being (as Mr Dennis swore) the
- greatest possible curse a civilised community could know, and militating
- more against the professional emoluments and usefulness of the great
- constitutional office he had the honour to hold, than any adverse
- circumstances that could present themselves to his imagination.
- The enrolment being completed, and Hugh having been informed by
- Gashford, in his peculiar manner, of the peaceful and strictly lawful
- objects contemplated by the body to which he now belonged--during which
- recital Mr Dennis nudged him very much with his elbow, and made divers
- remarkable faces--the secretary gave them both to understand that he
- desired to be alone. Therefore they took their leaves without delay, and
- came out of the house together.
- ‘Are you walking, brother?’ said Dennis.
- ‘Ay!’ returned Hugh. ‘Where you will.’
- ‘That’s social,’ said his new friend. ‘Which way shall we take? Shall we
- go and have a look at doors that we shall make a pretty good clattering
- at, before long--eh, brother?’
- Hugh answering in the affirmative, they went slowly down to Westminster,
- where both houses of Parliament were then sitting. Mingling in the crowd
- of carriages, horses, servants, chairmen, link-boys, porters, and idlers
- of all kinds, they lounged about; while Hugh’s new friend pointed out to
- him significantly the weak parts of the building, how easy it was to get
- into the lobby, and so to the very door of the House of Commons; and how
- plainly, when they marched down there in grand array, their roars and
- shouts would be heard by the members inside; with a great deal more to
- the same purpose, all of which Hugh received with manifest delight.
- He told him, too, who some of the Lords and Commons were, by name,
- as they came in and out; whether they were friendly to the Papists or
- otherwise; and bade him take notice of their liveries and equipages,
- that he might be sure of them, in case of need. Sometimes he drew
- him close to the windows of a passing carriage, that he might see its
- master’s face by the light of the lamps; and, both in respect of people
- and localities, he showed so much acquaintance with everything around,
- that it was plain he had often studied there before; as indeed, when
- they grew a little more confidential, he confessed he had.
- Perhaps the most striking part of all this was, the number of
- people--never in groups of more than two or three together--who seemed
- to be skulking about the crowd for the same purpose. To the greater part
- of these, a slight nod or a look from Hugh’s companion was sufficient
- greeting; but, now and then, some man would come and stand beside him
- in the throng, and, without turning his head or appearing to communicate
- with him, would say a word or two in a low voice, which he would answer
- in the same cautious manner. Then they would part, like strangers. Some
- of these men often reappeared again unexpectedly in the crowd close to
- Hugh, and, as they passed by, pressed his hand, or looked him sternly in
- the face; but they never spoke to him, nor he to them; no, not a word.
- It was remarkable, too, that whenever they happened to stand where there
- was any press of people, and Hugh chanced to be looking downward, he
- was sure to see an arm stretched out--under his own perhaps, or perhaps
- across him--which thrust some paper into the hand or pocket of a
- bystander, and was so suddenly withdrawn that it was impossible to tell
- from whom it came; nor could he see in any face, on glancing quickly
- round, the least confusion or surprise. They often trod upon a paper
- like the one he carried in his breast, but his companion whispered him
- not to touch it or to take it up,--not even to look towards it,--so
- there they let them lie, and passed on.
- When they had paraded the street and all the avenues of the building in
- this manner for near two hours, they turned away, and his friend asked
- him what he thought of what he had seen, and whether he was prepared
- for a good hot piece of work if it should come to that. ‘The hotter the
- better,’ said Hugh, ‘I’m prepared for anything.’--‘So am I,’ said his
- friend, ‘and so are many of us; and they shook hands upon it with a
- great oath, and with many terrible imprecations on the Papists.
- As they were thirsty by this time, Dennis proposed that they should
- repair together to The Boot, where there was good company and strong
- liquor. Hugh yielding a ready assent, they bent their steps that way
- with no loss of time.
- This Boot was a lone house of public entertainment, situated in the
- fields at the back of the Foundling Hospital; a very solitary spot at
- that period, and quite deserted after dark. The tavern stood at some
- distance from any high road, and was approachable only by a dark and
- narrow lane; so that Hugh was much surprised to find several people
- drinking there, and great merriment going on. He was still more
- surprised to find among them almost every face that had caught his
- attention in the crowd; but his companion having whispered him outside
- the door, that it was not considered good manners at The Boot to appear
- at all curious about the company, he kept his own counsel, and made no
- show of recognition.
- Before putting his lips to the liquor which was brought for them, Dennis
- drank in a loud voice the health of Lord George Gordon, President of the
- Great Protestant Association; which toast Hugh pledged likewise, with
- corresponding enthusiasm. A fiddler who was present, and who appeared
- to act as the appointed minstrel of the company, forthwith struck up a
- Scotch reel; and that in tones so invigorating, that Hugh and his friend
- (who had both been drinking before) rose from their seats as by previous
- concert, and, to the great admiration of the assembled guests, performed
- an extemporaneous No-Popery Dance.
- Chapter 39
- The applause which the performance of Hugh and his new friend elicited
- from the company at The Boot, had not yet subsided, and the two dancers
- were still panting from their exertions, which had been of a rather
- extreme and violent character, when the party was reinforced by the
- arrival of some more guests, who, being a detachment of United Bulldogs,
- were received with very flattering marks of distinction and respect.
- The leader of this small party--for, including himself, they were but
- three in number--was our old acquaintance, Mr Tappertit, who seemed,
- physically speaking, to have grown smaller with years (particularly as
- to his legs, which were stupendously little), but who, in a moral point
- of view, in personal dignity and self-esteem, had swelled into a giant.
- Nor was it by any means difficult for the most unobservant person to
- detect this state of feeling in the quondam ‘prentice, for it not only
- proclaimed itself impressively and beyond mistake in his majestic
- walk and kindling eye, but found a striking means of revelation in his
- turned-up nose, which scouted all things of earth with deep disdain, and
- sought communion with its kindred skies.
- Mr Tappertit, as chief or captain of the Bulldogs, was attended by his
- two lieutenants; one, the tall comrade of his younger life; the other, a
- ‘Prentice Knight in days of yore--Mark Gilbert, bound in the olden time
- to Thomas Curzon of the Golden Fleece. These gentlemen, like himself,
- were now emancipated from their ‘prentice thraldom, and served as
- journeymen; but they were, in humble emulation of his great example,
- bold and daring spirits, and aspired to a distinguished state in great
- political events. Hence their connection with the Protestant Association
- of England, sanctioned by the name of Lord George Gordon; and hence
- their present visit to The Boot.
- ‘Gentlemen!’ said Mr Tappertit, taking off his hat as a great general
- might in addressing his troops. ‘Well met. My lord does me and you the
- honour to send his compliments per self.’
- ‘You’ve seen my lord too, have you?’ said Dennis. ‘I see him this
- afternoon.’
- ‘My duty called me to the Lobby when our shop shut up; and I saw him
- there, sir,’ Mr Tappertit replied, as he and his lieutenants took their
- seats. ‘How do YOU do?’
- ‘Lively, master, lively,’ said the fellow. ‘Here’s a new brother,
- regularly put down in black and white by Muster Gashford; a credit to
- the cause; one of the stick-at-nothing sort; one arter my own heart.
- D’ye see him? Has he got the looks of a man that’ll do, do you think?’
- he cried, as he slapped Hugh on the back.
- ‘Looks or no looks,’ said Hugh, with a drunken flourish of his arm, ‘I’m
- the man you want. I hate the Papists, every one of ‘em. They hate me and
- I hate them. They do me all the harm they can, and I’ll do them all the
- harm I can. Hurrah!’
- ‘Was there ever,’ said Dennis, looking round the room, when the echo
- of his boisterous voice had died away; ‘was there ever such a game boy!
- Why, I mean to say, brothers, that if Muster Gashford had gone a hundred
- mile and got together fifty men of the common run, they wouldn’t have
- been worth this one.’
- The greater part of the company implicitly subscribed to this
- opinion, and testified their faith in Hugh by nods and looks of great
- significance. Mr Tappertit sat and contemplated him for a long time in
- silence, as if he suspended his judgment; then drew a little nearer to
- him, and eyed him over more carefully; then went close up to him, and
- took him apart into a dark corner.
- ‘I say,’ he began, with a thoughtful brow, ‘haven’t I seen you before?’
- ‘It’s like you may,’ said Hugh, in his careless way. ‘I don’t know;
- shouldn’t wonder.’
- ‘No, but it’s very easily settled,’ returned Sim. ‘Look at me. Did you
- ever see ME before? You wouldn’t be likely to forget it, you know, if
- you ever did. Look at me. Don’t be afraid; I won’t do you any harm. Take
- a good look--steady now.’
- The encouraging way in which Mr Tappertit made this request, and
- coupled it with an assurance that he needn’t be frightened, amused Hugh
- mightily--so much indeed, that he saw nothing at all of the small man
- before him, through closing his eyes in a fit of hearty laughter, which
- shook his great broad sides until they ached again.
- ‘Come!’ said Mr Tappertit, growing a little impatient under this
- disrespectful treatment. ‘Do you know me, feller?’
- ‘Not I,’ cried Hugh. ‘Ha ha ha! Not I! But I should like to.’
- ‘And yet I’d have wagered a seven-shilling piece,’ said Mr Tappertit,
- folding his arms, and confronting him with his legs wide apart and
- firmly planted on the ground, ‘that you once were hostler at the
- Maypole.’
- Hugh opened his eyes on hearing this, and looked at him in great
- surprise.
- ‘--And so you were, too,’ said Mr Tappertit, pushing him away with a
- condescending playfulness. ‘When did MY eyes ever deceive--unless it was
- a young woman! Don’t you know me now?’
- ‘Why it an’t--’ Hugh faltered.
- ‘An’t it?’ said Mr Tappertit. ‘Are you sure of that? You remember G.
- Varden, don’t you?’
- Certainly Hugh did, and he remembered D. Varden too; but that he didn’t
- tell him.
- ‘You remember coming down there, before I was out of my time, to ask
- after a vagabond that had bolted off, and left his disconsolate father a
- prey to the bitterest emotions, and all the rest of it--don’t you?’ said
- Mr Tappertit.
- ‘Of course I do!’ cried Hugh. ‘And I saw you there.’
- ‘Saw me there!’ said Mr Tappertit. ‘Yes, I should think you did see
- me there. The place would be troubled to go on without me. Don’t you
- remember my thinking you liked the vagabond, and on that account going
- to quarrel with you; and then finding you detested him worse than
- poison, going to drink with you? Don’t you remember that?’
- ‘To be sure!’ cried Hugh.
- ‘Well! and are you in the same mind now?’ said Mr Tappertit.
- ‘Yes!’ roared Hugh.
- ‘You speak like a man,’ said Mr Tappertit, ‘and I’ll shake hands with
- you.’ With these conciliatory expressions he suited the action to the
- word; and Hugh meeting his advances readily, they performed the ceremony
- with a show of great heartiness.
- ‘I find,’ said Mr Tappertit, looking round on the assembled guests,
- ‘that brother What’s-his-name and I are old acquaintance.--You never
- heard anything more of that rascal, I suppose, eh?’
- ‘Not a syllable,’ replied Hugh. ‘I never want to. I don’t believe I ever
- shall. He’s dead long ago, I hope.’
- ‘It’s to be hoped, for the sake of mankind in general and the happiness
- of society, that he is,’ said Mr Tappertit, rubbing his palm upon his
- legs, and looking at it between whiles. ‘Is your other hand at all
- cleaner? Much the same. Well, I’ll owe you another shake. We’ll suppose
- it done, if you’ve no objection.’
- Hugh laughed again, and with such thorough abandonment to his mad
- humour, that his limbs seemed dislocated, and his whole frame in danger
- of tumbling to pieces; but Mr Tappertit, so far from receiving this
- extreme merriment with any irritation, was pleased to regard it with the
- utmost favour, and even to join in it, so far as one of his gravity and
- station could, with any regard to that decency and decorum which men in
- high places are expected to maintain.
- Mr Tappertit did not stop here, as many public characters might have
- done, but calling up his brace of lieutenants, introduced Hugh to them
- with high commendation; declaring him to be a man who, at such times as
- those in which they lived, could not be too much cherished. Further, he
- did him the honour to remark, that he would be an acquisition of which
- even the United Bulldogs might be proud; and finding, upon sounding him,
- that he was quite ready and willing to enter the society (for he was
- not at all particular, and would have leagued himself that night with
- anything, or anybody, for any purpose whatsoever), caused the necessary
- preliminaries to be gone into upon the spot. This tribute to his great
- merit delighted no man more than Mr Dennis, as he himself proclaimed
- with several rare and surprising oaths; and indeed it gave unmingled
- satisfaction to the whole assembly.
- ‘Make anything you like of me!’ cried Hugh, flourishing the can he had
- emptied more than once. ‘Put me on any duty you please. I’m your man.
- I’ll do it. Here’s my captain--here’s my leader. Ha ha ha! Let him
- give me the word of command, and I’ll fight the whole Parliament House
- single-handed, or set a lighted torch to the King’s Throne itself!’ With
- that, he smote Mr Tappertit on the back, with such violence that his
- little body seemed to shrink into a mere nothing; and roared again until
- the very foundlings near at hand were startled in their beds.
- In fact, a sense of something whimsical in their companionship seemed to
- have taken entire possession of his rude brain. The bare fact of being
- patronised by a great man whom he could have crushed with one hand,
- appeared in his eyes so eccentric and humorous, that a kind of ferocious
- merriment gained the mastery over him, and quite subdued his brutal
- nature. He roared and roared again; toasted Mr Tappertit a hundred
- times; declared himself a Bulldog to the core; and vowed to be faithful
- to him to the last drop of blood in his veins.
- All these compliments Mr Tappertit received as matters of
- course--flattering enough in their way, but entirely attributable to his
- vast superiority. His dignified self-possession only delighted Hugh the
- more; and in a word, this giant and dwarf struck up a friendship which
- bade fair to be of long continuance, as the one held it to be his right
- to command, and the other considered it an exquisite pleasantry to
- obey. Nor was Hugh by any means a passive follower, who scrupled to act
- without precise and definite orders; for when Mr Tappertit mounted on an
- empty cask which stood by way of rostrum in the room, and volunteered a
- speech upon the alarming crisis then at hand, he placed himself beside
- the orator, and though he grinned from ear to ear at every word he said,
- threw out such expressive hints to scoffers in the management of his
- cudgel, that those who were at first the most disposed to interrupt,
- became remarkably attentive, and were the loudest in their approbation.
- It was not all noise and jest, however, at The Boot, nor were the whole
- party listeners to the speech. There were some men at the other end of
- the room (which was a long, low-roofed chamber) in earnest conversation
- all the time; and when any of this group went out, fresh people were
- sure to come in soon afterwards and sit down in their places, as though
- the others had relieved them on some watch or duty; which it was pretty
- clear they did, for these changes took place by the clock, at intervals
- of half an hour. These persons whispered very much among themselves,
- and kept aloof, and often looked round, as jealous of their speech being
- overheard; some two or three among them entered in books what seemed
- to be reports from the others; when they were not thus employed one of
- them would turn to the newspapers which were strewn upon the table,
- and from the St James’s Chronicle, the Herald, Chronicle, or Public
- Advertiser, would read to the rest in a low voice some passage having
- reference to the topic in which they were all so deeply interested. But
- the great attraction was a pamphlet called The Thunderer, which espoused
- their own opinions, and was supposed at that time to emanate directly
- from the Association. This was always in request; and whether read
- aloud, to an eager knot of listeners, or by some solitary man, was
- certain to be followed by stormy talking and excited looks.
- In the midst of all his merriment, and admiration of his captain, Hugh
- was made sensible by these and other tokens, of the presence of an air
- of mystery, akin to that which had so much impressed him out of doors.
- It was impossible to discard a sense that something serious was going
- on, and that under the noisy revel of the public-house, there lurked
- unseen and dangerous matter. Little affected by this, however, he was
- perfectly satisfied with his quarters and would have remained there till
- morning, but that his conductor rose soon after midnight, to go home; Mr
- Tappertit following his example, left him no excuse to stay. So they all
- three left the house together: roaring a No-Popery song until the fields
- resounded with the dismal noise.
- ‘Cheer up, captain!’ cried Hugh, when they had roared themselves out of
- breath. ‘Another stave!’
- Mr Tappertit, nothing loath, began again; and so the three went
- staggering on, arm-in-arm, shouting like madmen, and defying the watch
- with great valour. Indeed this did not require any unusual bravery or
- boldness, as the watchmen of that time, being selected for the office
- on account of excessive age and extraordinary infirmity, had a custom
- of shutting themselves up tight in their boxes on the first symptoms
- of disturbance, and remaining there until they disappeared. In these
- proceedings, Mr Dennis, who had a gruff voice and lungs of considerable
- power, distinguished himself very much, and acquired great credit with
- his two companions.
- ‘What a queer fellow you are!’ said Mr Tappertit. ‘You’re so precious
- sly and close. Why don’t you ever tell what trade you’re of?’
- ‘Answer the captain instantly,’ cried Hugh, beating his hat down on his
- head; ‘why don’t you ever tell what trade you’re of?’
- ‘I’m of as gen-teel a calling, brother, as any man in England--as light
- a business as any gentleman could desire.’
- ‘Was you ‘prenticed to it?’ asked Mr Tappertit.
- ‘No. Natural genius,’ said Mr Dennis. ‘No ‘prenticing. It come
- by natur’. Muster Gashford knows my calling. Look at that hand of
- mine--many and many a job that hand has done, with a neatness and
- dexterity, never known afore. When I look at that hand,’ said Mr
- Dennis, shaking it in the air, ‘and remember the helegant bits of work
- it has turned off, I feel quite molloncholy to think it should ever grow
- old and feeble. But sich is life!’
- He heaved a deep sigh as he indulged in these reflections, and putting
- his fingers with an absent air on Hugh’s throat, and particularly under
- his left ear, as if he were studying the anatomical development of that
- part of his frame, shook his head in a despondent manner and actually
- shed tears.
- ‘You’re a kind of artist, I suppose--eh!’ said Mr Tappertit.
- ‘Yes,’ rejoined Dennis; ‘yes--I may call myself a artist--a fancy
- workman--art improves natur’--that’s my motto.’
- ‘And what do you call this?’ said Mr Tappertit taking his stick out of
- his hand.
- ‘That’s my portrait atop,’ Dennis replied; ‘d’ye think it’s like?’
- ‘Why--it’s a little too handsome,’ said Mr Tappertit. ‘Who did it? You?’
- ‘I!’ repeated Dennis, gazing fondly on his image. ‘I wish I had the
- talent. That was carved by a friend of mine, as is now no more. The very
- day afore he died, he cut that with his pocket-knife from memory! “I’ll
- die game,” says my friend, “and my last moments shall be dewoted to
- making Dennis’s picter.” That’s it.’
- ‘That was a queer fancy, wasn’t it?’ said Mr Tappertit.
- ‘It WAS a queer fancy,’ rejoined the other, breathing on his fictitious
- nose, and polishing it with the cuff of his coat, ‘but he was a queer
- subject altogether--a kind of gipsy--one of the finest, stand-up men,
- you ever see. Ah! He told me some things that would startle you a bit,
- did that friend of mine, on the morning when he died.’
- ‘You were with him at the time, were you?’ said Mr Tappertit.
- ‘Yes,’ he answered with a curious look, ‘I was there. Oh! yes certainly,
- I was there. He wouldn’t have gone off half as comfortable without me. I
- had been with three or four of his family under the same circumstances.
- They were all fine fellows.’
- ‘They must have been fond of you,’ remarked Mr Tappertit, looking at him
- sideways.
- ‘I don’t know that they was exactly fond of me,’ said Dennis, with a
- little hesitation, ‘but they all had me near ‘em when they departed. I
- come in for their wardrobes too. This very handkecher that you see round
- my neck, belonged to him that I’ve been speaking of--him as did that
- likeness.’
- Mr Tappertit glanced at the article referred to, and appeared to think
- that the deceased’s ideas of dress were of a peculiar and by no means an
- expensive kind. He made no remark upon the point, however, and suffered
- his mysterious companion to proceed without interruption.
- ‘These smalls,’ said Dennis, rubbing his legs; ‘these very smalls--they
- belonged to a friend of mine that’s left off sich incumbrances for ever:
- this coat too--I’ve often walked behind this coat, in the street, and
- wondered whether it would ever come to me: this pair of shoes have
- danced a hornpipe for another man, afore my eyes, full half-a-dozen
- times at least: and as to my hat,’ he said, taking it off, and whirling
- it round upon his fist--‘Lord! I’ve seen this hat go up Holborn on the
- box of a hackney-coach--ah, many and many a day!’
- ‘You don’t mean to say their old wearers are ALL dead, I hope?’ said Mr
- Tappertit, falling a little distance from him as he spoke.
- ‘Every one of ‘em,’ replied Dennis. ‘Every man Jack!’
- There was something so very ghastly in this circumstance, and it
- appeared to account, in such a very strange and dismal manner, for his
- faded dress--which, in this new aspect, seemed discoloured by the earth
- from graves--that Mr Tappertit abruptly found he was going another way,
- and, stopping short, bade him good night with the utmost heartiness. As
- they happened to be near the Old Bailey, and Mr Dennis knew there were
- turnkeys in the lodge with whom he could pass the night, and discuss
- professional subjects of common interest among them before a rousing
- fire, and over a social glass, he separated from his companions without
- any great regret, and warmly shaking hands with Hugh, and making an
- early appointment for their meeting at The Boot, left them to pursue
- their road.
- ‘That’s a strange sort of man,’ said Mr Tappertit, watching the
- hackney-coachman’s hat as it went bobbing down the street. ‘I don’t know
- what to make of him. Why can’t he have his smalls made to order, or wear
- live clothes at any rate?’
- ‘He’s a lucky man, captain,’ cried Hugh. ‘I should like to have such
- friends as his.’
- ‘I hope he don’t get ‘em to make their wills, and then knock ‘em on the
- head,’ said Mr Tappertit, musing. ‘But come. The United B.’s expect me.
- On!--What’s the matter?’
- ‘I quite forgot,’ said Hugh, who had started at the striking of a
- neighbouring clock. ‘I have somebody to see to-night--I must turn back
- directly. The drinking and singing put it out of my head. It’s well I
- remembered it!’
- Mr Tappertit looked at him as though he were about to give utterance to
- some very majestic sentiments in reference to this act of desertion, but
- as it was clear, from Hugh’s hasty manner, that the engagement was one
- of a pressing nature, he graciously forbore, and gave him his permission
- to depart immediately, which Hugh acknowledged with a roar of laughter.
- ‘Good night, captain!’ he cried. ‘I am yours to the death, remember!’
- ‘Farewell!’ said Mr Tappertit, waving his hand. ‘Be bold and vigilant!’
- ‘No Popery, captain!’ roared Hugh.
- ‘England in blood first!’ cried his desperate leader. Whereat Hugh
- cheered and laughed, and ran off like a greyhound.
- ‘That man will prove a credit to my corps,’ said Simon, turning
- thoughtfully upon his heel. ‘And let me see. In an altered state of
- society--which must ensue if we break out and are victorious--when the
- locksmith’s child is mine, Miggs must be got rid of somehow, or she’ll
- poison the tea-kettle one evening when I’m out. He might marry Miggs, if
- he was drunk enough. It shall be done. I’ll make a note of it.’
- Chapter 40
- Little thinking of the plan for his happy settlement in life which had
- suggested itself to the teeming brain of his provident commander, Hugh
- made no pause until Saint Dunstan’s giants struck the hour above him,
- when he worked the handle of a pump which stood hard by, with great
- vigour, and thrusting his head under the spout, let the water gush upon
- him until a little stream ran down from every uncombed hair, and he was
- wet to the waist. Considerably refreshed by this ablution, both in mind
- and body, and almost sobered for the time, he dried himself as he best
- could; then crossed the road, and plied the knocker of the Middle Temple
- gate.
- The night-porter looked through a small grating in the portal with a
- surly eye, and cried ‘Halloa!’ which greeting Hugh returned in kind, and
- bade him open quickly.
- ‘We don’t sell beer here,’ cried the man; ‘what else do you want?’
- ‘To come in,’ Hugh replied, with a kick at the door.
- ‘Where to go?’
- ‘Paper Buildings.’
- ‘Whose chambers?’
- ‘Sir John Chester’s.’ Each of which answers, he emphasised with another
- kick.
- After a little growling on the other side, the gate was opened, and he
- passed in: undergoing a close inspection from the porter as he did so.
- ‘YOU wanting Sir John, at this time of night!’ said the man.
- ‘Ay!’ said Hugh. ‘I! What of that?’
- ‘Why, I must go with you and see that you do, for I don’t believe it.’
- ‘Come along then.’
- Eyeing him with suspicious looks, the man, with key and lantern, walked
- on at his side, and attended him to Sir John Chester’s door, at which
- Hugh gave one knock, that echoed through the dark staircase like a
- ghostly summons, and made the dull light tremble in the drowsy lamp.
- ‘Do you think he wants me now?’ said Hugh.
- Before the man had time to answer, a footstep was heard within, a light
- appeared, and Sir John, in his dressing-gown and slippers, opened the
- door.
- ‘I ask your pardon, Sir John,’ said the porter, pulling off his hat.
- ‘Here’s a young man says he wants to speak to you. It’s late for
- strangers. I thought it best to see that all was right.’
- ‘Aha!’ cried Sir John, raising his eyebrows. ‘It’s you, messenger, is
- it? Go in. Quite right, friend. I commend your prudence highly. Thank
- you. God bless you. Good night.’
- To be commended, thanked, God-blessed, and bade good night by one who
- carried ‘Sir’ before his name, and wrote himself M.P. to boot, was
- something for a porter. He withdrew with much humility and reverence.
- Sir John followed his late visitor into the dressing-room, and sitting
- in his easy-chair before the fire, and moving it so that he could see
- him as he stood, hat in hand, beside the door, looked at him from head
- to foot.
- The old face, calm and pleasant as ever; the complexion, quite juvenile
- in its bloom and clearness; the same smile; the wonted precision and
- elegance of dress; the white, well-ordered teeth; the delicate hands;
- the composed and quiet manner; everything as it used to be: no mark of
- age or passion, envy, hate, or discontent: all unruffled and serene, and
- quite delightful to behold.
- He wrote himself M.P.--but how? Why, thus. It was a proud family--more
- proud, indeed, than wealthy. He had stood in danger of arrest; of
- bailiffs, and a jail--a vulgar jail, to which the common people with
- small incomes went. Gentlemen of ancient houses have no privilege of
- exemption from such cruel laws--unless they are of one great house, and
- then they have. A proud man of his stock and kindred had the means of
- sending him there. He offered--not indeed to pay his debts, but to let
- him sit for a close borough until his own son came of age, which, if he
- lived, would come to pass in twenty years. It was quite as good as an
- Insolvent Act, and infinitely more genteel. So Sir John Chester was a
- member of Parliament.
- But how Sir John? Nothing so simple, or so easy. One touch with a sword
- of state, and the transformation was effected. John Chester, Esquire,
- M.P., attended court--went up with an address--headed a deputation.
- Such elegance of manner, so many graces of deportment, such powers of
- conversation, could never pass unnoticed. Mr was too common for
- such merit. A man so gentlemanly should have been--but Fortune is
- capricious--born a Duke: just as some dukes should have been born
- labourers. He caught the fancy of the king, knelt down a grub, and rose
- a butterfly. John Chester, Esquire, was knighted and became Sir John.
- ‘I thought when you left me this evening, my esteemed acquaintance,’
- said Sir John after a pretty long silence, ‘that you intended to return
- with all despatch?’
- ‘So I did, master.’
- ‘And so you have?’ he retorted, glancing at his watch. ‘Is that what you
- would say?’
- Instead of replying, Hugh changed the leg on which he leant, shuffled
- his cap from one hand to the other, looked at the ground, the wall, the
- ceiling, and finally at Sir John himself; before whose pleasant face he
- lowered his eyes again, and fixed them on the floor.
- ‘And how have you been employing yourself in the meanwhile?’ quoth Sir
- John, lazily crossing his legs. ‘Where have you been? what harm have you
- been doing?’
- ‘No harm at all, master,’ growled Hugh, with humility. ‘I have only done
- as you ordered.’
- ‘As I WHAT?’ returned Sir John.
- ‘Well then,’ said Hugh uneasily, ‘as you advised, or said I ought, or
- said I might, or said that you would do, if you was me. Don’t be so hard
- upon me, master.’
- Something like an expression of triumph in the perfect control he had
- established over this rough instrument appeared in the knight’s face for
- an instant; but it vanished directly, as he said--paring his nails while
- speaking:
- ‘When you say I ordered you, my good fellow, you imply that I directed
- you to do something for me--something I wanted done--something for my
- own ends and purposes--you see? Now I am sure I needn’t enlarge upon the
- extreme absurdity of such an idea, however unintentional; so please--’
- and here he turned his eyes upon him--‘to be more guarded. Will you?’
- ‘I meant to give you no offence,’ said Hugh. ‘I don’t know what to say.
- You catch me up so very short.’
- ‘You will be caught up much shorter, my good friend--infinitely
- shorter--one of these days, depend upon it,’ replied his patron calmly.
- ‘By-the-bye, instead of wondering why you have been so long, my wonder
- should be why you came at all. Why did you?’
- ‘You know, master,’ said Hugh, ‘that I couldn’t read the bill I found,
- and that supposing it to be something particular from the way it was
- wrapped up, I brought it here.’
- ‘And could you ask no one else to read it, Bruin?’ said Sir John.
- ‘No one that I could trust with secrets, master. Since Barnaby Rudge
- was lost sight of for good and all--and that’s five years ago--I haven’t
- talked with any one but you.’
- ‘You have done me honour, I am sure.’
- ‘I have come to and fro, master, all through that time, when there was
- anything to tell, because I knew that you’d be angry with me if I stayed
- away,’ said Hugh, blurting the words out, after an embarrassed silence;
- ‘and because I wished to please you if I could, and not to have you go
- against me. There. That’s the true reason why I came to-night. You know
- that, master, I am sure.’
- ‘You are a specious fellow,’ returned Sir John, fixing his eyes upon
- him, ‘and carry two faces under your hood, as well as the best. Didn’t
- you give me in this room, this evening, any other reason; no dislike
- of anybody who has slighted you lately, on all occasions, abused you,
- treated you with rudeness; acted towards you, more as if you were a
- mongrel dog than a man like himself?’
- ‘To be sure I did!’ cried Hugh, his passion rising, as the other meant
- it should; ‘and I say it all over now, again. I’d do anything to have
- some revenge on him--anything. And when you told me that he and all
- the Catholics would suffer from those who joined together under that
- handbill, I said I’d make one of ‘em, if their master was the devil
- himself. I AM one of ‘em. See whether I am as good as my word and turn
- out to be among the foremost, or no. I mayn’t have much head, master,
- but I’ve head enough to remember those that use me ill. You shall see,
- and so shall he, and so shall hundreds more, how my spirit backs me
- when the time comes. My bark is nothing to my bite. Some that I know had
- better have a wild lion among ‘em than me, when I am fairly loose--they
- had!’
- The knight looked at him with a smile of far deeper meaning than
- ordinary; and pointing to the old cupboard, followed him with his eyes
- while he filled and drank a glass of liquor; and smiled when his back
- was turned, with deeper meaning yet.
- ‘You are in a blustering mood, my friend,’ he said, when Hugh confronted
- him again.
- ‘Not I, master!’ cried Hugh. ‘I don’t say half I mean. I can’t. I
- haven’t got the gift. There are talkers enough among us; I’ll be one of
- the doers.’
- ‘Oh! you have joined those fellows then?’ said Sir John, with an air of
- most profound indifference.
- ‘Yes. I went up to the house you told me of; and got put down upon the
- muster. There was another man there, named Dennis--’
- ‘Dennis, eh!’ cried Sir John, laughing. ‘Ay, ay! a pleasant fellow, I
- believe?’
- ‘A roaring dog, master--one after my own heart--hot upon the matter
- too--red hot.’
- ‘So I have heard,’ replied Sir John, carelessly. ‘You don’t happen to
- know his trade, do you?’
- ‘He wouldn’t say,’ cried Hugh. ‘He keeps it secret.’
- ‘Ha ha!’ laughed Sir John. ‘A strange fancy--a weakness with some
- persons--you’ll know it one day, I dare swear.’
- ‘We’re intimate already,’ said Hugh.
- ‘Quite natural! And have been drinking together, eh?’ pursued Sir John.
- ‘Did you say what place you went to in company, when you left Lord
- George’s?’
- Hugh had not said or thought of saying, but he told him; and this
- inquiry being followed by a long train of questions, he related all that
- had passed both in and out of doors, the kind of people he had seen,
- their numbers, state of feeling, mode of conversation, apparent
- expectations and intentions. His questioning was so artfully contrived,
- that he seemed even in his own eyes to volunteer all this information
- rather than to have it wrested from him; and he was brought to this
- state of feeling so naturally, that when Mr Chester yawned at length and
- declared himself quite wearied out, he made a rough kind of excuse for
- having talked so much.
- ‘There--get you gone,’ said Sir John, holding the door open in his hand.
- ‘You have made a pretty evening’s work. I told you not to do this. You
- may get into trouble. You’ll have an opportunity of revenging yourself
- on your proud friend Haredale, though, and for that, you’d hazard
- anything, I suppose?’
- ‘I would,’ retorted Hugh, stopping in his passage out and looking
- back; ‘but what do I risk! What do I stand a chance of losing, master?
- Friends, home? A fig for ‘em all; I have none; they are nothing to me.
- Give me a good scuffle; let me pay off old scores in a bold riot where
- there are men to stand by me; and then use me as you like--it don’t
- matter much to me what the end is!’
- ‘What have you done with that paper?’ said Sir John.
- ‘I have it here, master.’
- ‘Drop it again as you go along; it’s as well not to keep such things
- about you.’
- Hugh nodded, and touching his cap with an air of as much respect as he
- could summon up, departed.
- Sir John, fastening the doors behind him, went back to his
- dressing-room, and sat down once again before the fire, at which he
- gazed for a long time, in earnest meditation.
- ‘This happens fortunately,’ he said, breaking into a smile, ‘and
- promises well. Let me see. My relative and I, who are the most
- Protestant fellows in the world, give our worst wishes to the Roman
- Catholic cause; and to Saville, who introduces their bill, I have a
- personal objection besides; but as each of us has himself for the first
- article in his creed, we cannot commit ourselves by joining with a very
- extravagant madman, such as this Gordon most undoubtedly is. Now really,
- to foment his disturbances in secret, through the medium of such a very
- apt instrument as my savage friend here, may further our real ends;
- and to express at all becoming seasons, in moderate and polite terms,
- a disapprobation of his proceedings, though we agree with him in
- principle, will certainly be to gain a character for honesty and
- uprightness of purpose, which cannot fail to do us infinite service, and
- to raise us into some importance. Good! So much for public grounds. As
- to private considerations, I confess that if these vagabonds WOULD make
- some riotous demonstration (which does not appear impossible), and WOULD
- inflict some little chastisement on Haredale as a not inactive man among
- his sect, it would be extremely agreeable to my feelings, and would
- amuse me beyond measure. Good again! Perhaps better!’
- When he came to this point, he took a pinch of snuff; then beginning
- slowly to undress, he resumed his meditations, by saying with a smile:
- ‘I fear, I DO fear exceedingly, that my friend is following fast in the
- footsteps of his mother. His intimacy with Mr Dennis is very ominous.
- But I have no doubt he must have come to that end any way. If I lend
- him a helping hand, the only difference is, that he may, upon the whole,
- possibly drink a few gallons, or puncheons, or hogsheads, less in this
- life than he otherwise would. It’s no business of mine. It’s a matter of
- very small importance!’
- So he took another pinch of snuff, and went to bed.
- Chapter 41
- From the workshop of the Golden Key, there issued forth a tinkling
- sound, so merry and good-humoured, that it suggested the idea of some
- one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. No man who hammered
- on at a dull monotonous duty, could have brought such cheerful notes
- from steel and iron; none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted
- fellow, who made the best of everything, and felt kindly towards
- everybody, could have done it for an instant. He might have been a
- coppersmith, and still been musical. If he had sat in a jolting waggon,
- full of rods of iron, it seemed as if he would have brought some harmony
- out of it.
- Tink, tink, tink--clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause of
- the streets’ harsher noises, as though it said, ‘I don’t care; nothing
- puts me out; I am resolved to be happy.’ Women scolded, children
- squalled, heavy carts went rumbling by, horrible cries proceeded from
- the lungs of hawkers; still it struck in again, no higher, no lower,
- no louder, no softer; not thrusting itself on people’s notice a bit the
- more for having been outdone by louder sounds--tink, tink, tink, tink,
- tink.
- It was a perfect embodiment of the still small voice, free from
- all cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind;
- foot-passengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near
- it; neighbours who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good-humour
- stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite
- sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing; still the same
- magical tink, tink, tink, came gaily from the workshop of the Golden
- Key.
- Who but the locksmith could have made such music! A gleam of sun shining
- through the unsashed window, and chequering the dark workshop with a
- broad patch of light, fell full upon him, as though attracted by his
- sunny heart. There he stood working at his anvil, his face all radiant
- with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off
- his shining forehead--the easiest, freest, happiest man in all the
- world. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and
- falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort.
- Toby looked on from a tall bench hard by; one beaming smile, from his
- broad nut-brown face down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The
- very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and
- seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their
- infirmities. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene.
- It seemed impossible that any one of the innumerable keys could fit a
- churlish strong-box or a prison-door. Cellars of beer and wine, rooms
- where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter--these
- were their proper sphere of action. Places of distrust and cruelty, and
- restraint, they would have left quadruple-locked for ever.
- Tink, tink, tink. The locksmith paused at last, and wiped his brow. The
- silence roused the cat, who, jumping softly down, crept to the door,
- and watched with tiger eyes a bird-cage in an opposite window. Gabriel
- lifted Toby to his mouth, and took a hearty draught.
- Then, as he stood upright, with his head flung back, and his portly
- chest thrown out, you would have seen that Gabriel’s lower man was
- clothed in military gear. Glancing at the wall beyond, there might
- have been espied, hanging on their several pegs, a cap and feather,
- broadsword, sash, and coat of scarlet; which any man learned in such
- matters would have known from their make and pattern to be the uniform
- of a serjeant in the Royal East London Volunteers.
- As the locksmith put his mug down, empty, on the bench whence it had
- smiled on him before, he glanced at these articles with a laughing eye,
- and looking at them with his head a little on one side, as though he
- would get them all into a focus, said, leaning on his hammer:
- ‘Time was, now, I remember, when I was like to run mad with the desire
- to wear a coat of that colour. If any one (except my father) had called
- me a fool for my pains, how I should have fired and fumed! But what a
- fool I must have been, sure-ly!’
- ‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs Varden, who had entered unobserved. ‘A fool indeed. A
- man at your time of life, Varden, should know better now.’
- ‘Why, what a ridiculous woman you are, Martha,’ said the locksmith,
- turning round with a smile.
- ‘Certainly,’ replied Mrs V. with great demureness. ‘Of course I am. I
- know that, Varden. Thank you.’
- ‘I mean--’ began the locksmith.
- ‘Yes,’ said his wife, ‘I know what you mean. You speak quite plain
- enough to be understood, Varden. It’s very kind of you to adapt yourself
- to my capacity, I am sure.’
- ‘Tut, tut, Martha,’ rejoined the locksmith; ‘don’t take offence at
- nothing. I mean, how strange it is of you to run down volunteering, when
- it’s done to defend you and all the other women, and our own fireside
- and everybody else’s, in case of need.’
- ‘It’s unchristian,’ cried Mrs Varden, shaking her head.
- ‘Unchristian!’ said the locksmith. ‘Why, what the devil--’
- Mrs Varden looked at the ceiling, as in expectation that the consequence
- of this profanity would be the immediate descent of the four-post
- bedstead on the second floor, together with the best sitting-room on the
- first; but no visible judgment occurring, she heaved a deep sigh, and
- begged her husband, in a tone of resignation, to go on, and by all means
- to blaspheme as much as possible, because he knew she liked it.
- The locksmith did for a moment seem disposed to gratify her, but he gave
- a great gulp, and mildly rejoined:
- ‘I was going to say, what on earth do you call it unchristian for?
- Which would be most unchristian, Martha--to sit quietly down and let our
- houses be sacked by a foreign army, or to turn out like men and drive
- ‘em off? Shouldn’t I be a nice sort of a Christian, if I crept into
- a corner of my own chimney and looked on while a parcel of whiskered
- savages bore off Dolly--or you?’
- When he said ‘or you,’ Mrs Varden, despite herself, relaxed into a
- smile. There was something complimentary in the idea. ‘In such a state
- of things as that, indeed--’ she simpered.
- ‘As that!’ repeated the locksmith. ‘Well, that would be the state of
- things directly. Even Miggs would go. Some black tambourine-player,
- with a great turban on, would be bearing HER off, and, unless the
- tambourine-player was proof against kicking and scratching, it’s
- my belief he’d have the worst of it. Ha ha ha! I’d forgive the
- tambourine-player. I wouldn’t have him interfered with on any account,
- poor fellow.’ And here the locksmith laughed again so heartily, that
- tears came into his eyes--much to Mrs Varden’s indignation, who thought
- the capture of so sound a Protestant and estimable a private character
- as Miggs by a pagan negro, a circumstance too shocking and awful for
- contemplation.
- The picture Gabriel had drawn, indeed, threatened serious consequences,
- and would indubitably have led to them, but luckily at that moment a
- light footstep crossed the threshold, and Dolly, running in, threw her
- arms round her old father’s neck and hugged him tight.
- ‘Here she is at last!’ cried Gabriel. ‘And how well you look, Doll, and
- how late you are, my darling!’
- How well she looked? Well? Why, if he had exhausted every laudatory
- adjective in the dictionary, it wouldn’t have been praise enough. When
- and where was there ever such a plump, roguish, comely, bright-eyed,
- enticing, bewitching, captivating, maddening little puss in all this
- world, as Dolly! What was the Dolly of five years ago, to the Dolly of
- that day! How many coachmakers, saddlers, cabinet-makers, and professors
- of other useful arts, had deserted their fathers, mothers, sisters,
- brothers, and, most of all, their cousins, for the love of her! How many
- unknown gentlemen--supposed to be of mighty fortunes, if not titles--had
- waited round the corner after dark, and tempted Miggs the incorruptible,
- with golden guineas, to deliver offers of marriage folded up in
- love-letters! How many disconsolate fathers and substantial tradesmen
- had waited on the locksmith for the same purpose, with dismal tales of
- how their sons had lost their appetites, and taken to shut themselves up
- in dark bedrooms, and wandering in desolate suburbs with pale faces,
- and all because of Dolly Varden’s loveliness and cruelty! How many
- young men, in all previous times of unprecedented steadiness, had turned
- suddenly wild and wicked for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of
- unrequited love, taken to wrench off door-knockers, and invert the boxes
- of rheumatic watchmen! How had she recruited the king’s service, both
- by sea and land, through rendering desperate his loving subjects between
- the ages of eighteen and twenty-five! How many young ladies had publicly
- professed, with tears in their eyes, that for their tastes she was much
- too short, too tall, too bold, too cold, too stout, too thin, too fair,
- too dark--too everything but handsome! How many old ladies, taking
- counsel together, had thanked Heaven their daughters were not like her,
- and had hoped she might come to no harm, and had thought she would come
- to no good, and had wondered what people saw in her, and had arrived at
- the conclusion that she was ‘going off’ in her looks, or had never
- come on in them, and that she was a thorough imposition and a popular
- mistake!
- And yet here was this same Dolly Varden, so whimsical and hard to please
- that she was Dolly Varden still, all smiles and dimples and pleasant
- looks, and caring no more for the fifty or sixty young fellows who at
- that very moment were breaking their hearts to marry her, than if so
- many oysters had been crossed in love and opened afterwards.
- Dolly hugged her father as has been already stated, and having hugged
- her mother also, accompanied both into the little parlour where the
- cloth was already laid for dinner, and where Miss Miggs--a trifle more
- rigid and bony than of yore--received her with a sort of hysterical
- gasp, intended for a smile. Into the hands of that young virgin, she
- delivered her bonnet and walking dress (all of a dreadful, artful,
- and designing kind), and then said with a laugh, which rivalled the
- locksmith’s music, ‘How glad I always am to be at home again!’
- ‘And how glad we always are, Doll,’ said her father, putting back the
- dark hair from her sparkling eyes, ‘to have you at home. Give me a
- kiss.’
- If there had been anybody of the male kind there to see her do it--but
- there was not--it was a mercy.
- ‘I don’t like your being at the Warren,’ said the locksmith, ‘I can’t
- bear to have you out of my sight. And what is the news over yonder,
- Doll?’
- ‘What news there is, I think you know already,’ replied his daughter. ‘I
- am sure you do though.’
- ‘Ay?’ cried the locksmith. ‘What’s that?’
- ‘Come, come,’ said Dolly, ‘you know very well. I want you to tell me why
- Mr Haredale--oh, how gruff he is again, to be sure!--has been away from
- home for some days past, and why he is travelling about (we know he IS
- travelling, because of his letters) without telling his own niece why or
- wherefore.’
- ‘Miss Emma doesn’t want to know, I’ll swear,’ returned the locksmith.
- ‘I don’t know that,’ said Dolly; ‘but I do, at any rate. Do tell me. Why
- is he so secret, and what is this ghost story, which nobody is to tell
- Miss Emma, and which seems to be mixed up with his going away? Now I see
- you know by your colouring so.’
- ‘What the story means, or is, or has to do with it, I know no more than
- you, my dear,’ returned the locksmith, ‘except that it’s some foolish
- fear of little Solomon’s--which has, indeed, no meaning in it, I
- suppose. As to Mr Haredale’s journey, he goes, as I believe--’
- ‘Yes,’ said Dolly.
- ‘As I believe,’ resumed the locksmith, pinching her cheek, ‘on business,
- Doll. What it may be, is quite another matter. Read Blue Beard, and
- don’t be too curious, pet; it’s no business of yours or mine, depend
- upon that; and here’s dinner, which is much more to the purpose.’
- Dolly might have remonstrated against this summary dismissal of the
- subject, notwithstanding the appearance of dinner, but at the mention
- of Blue Beard Mrs Varden interposed, protesting she could not find it
- in her conscience to sit tamely by, and hear her child recommended to
- peruse the adventures of a Turk and Mussulman--far less of a fabulous
- Turk, which she considered that potentate to be. She held that, in such
- stirring and tremendous times as those in which they lived, it would
- be much more to the purpose if Dolly became a regular subscriber to the
- Thunderer, where she would have an opportunity of reading Lord George
- Gordon’s speeches word for word, which would be a greater comfort and
- solace to her, than a hundred and fifty Blue Beards ever could impart.
- She appealed in support of this proposition to Miss Miggs, then in
- waiting, who said that indeed the peace of mind she had derived from the
- perusal of that paper generally, but especially of one article of the
- very last week as ever was, entitled ‘Great Britain drenched in gore,’
- exceeded all belief; the same composition, she added, had also wrought
- such a comforting effect on the mind of a married sister of hers, then
- resident at Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, second bell-handle
- on the right-hand door-post, that, being in a delicate state of health,
- and in fact expecting an addition to her family, she had been seized
- with fits directly after its perusal, and had raved of the Inquisition
- ever since; to the great improvement of her husband and friends. Miss
- Miggs went on to say that she would recommend all those whose hearts
- were hardened to hear Lord George themselves, whom she commended first,
- in respect of his steady Protestantism, then of his oratory, then of
- his eyes, then of his nose, then of his legs, and lastly of his figure
- generally, which she looked upon as fit for any statue, prince, or
- angel, to which sentiment Mrs Varden fully subscribed.
- Mrs Varden having cut in, looked at a box upon the mantelshelf, painted
- in imitation of a very red-brick dwelling-house, with a yellow roof;
- having at top a real chimney, down which voluntary subscribers dropped
- their silver, gold, or pence, into the parlour; and on the door the
- counterfeit presentment of a brass plate, whereon was legibly inscribed
- ‘Protestant Association:’--and looking at it, said, that it was to her
- a source of poignant misery to think that Varden never had, of all his
- substance, dropped anything into that temple, save once in secret--as
- she afterwards discovered--two fragments of tobacco-pipe, which she
- hoped would not be put down to his last account. That Dolly, she was
- grieved to say, was no less backward in her contributions, better
- loving, as it seemed, to purchase ribbons and such gauds, than to
- encourage the great cause, then in such heavy tribulation; and that she
- did entreat her (her father she much feared could not be moved) not to
- despise, but imitate, the bright example of Miss Miggs, who flung her
- wages, as it were, into the very countenance of the Pope, and bruised
- his features with her quarter’s money.
- ‘Oh, mim,’ said Miggs, ‘don’t relude to that. I had no intentions, mim,
- that nobody should know. Such sacrifices as I can make, are quite a
- widder’s mite. It’s all I have,’ cried Miggs with a great burst of
- tears--for with her they never came on by degrees--‘but it’s made up to
- me in other ways; it’s well made up.’
- This was quite true, though not perhaps in the sense that Miggs
- intended. As she never failed to keep her self-denial full in Mrs
- Varden’s view, it drew forth so many gifts of caps and gowns and other
- articles of dress, that upon the whole the red-brick house was perhaps
- the best investment for her small capital she could possibly have hit
- upon; returning her interest, at the rate of seven or eight per cent in
- money, and fifty at least in personal repute and credit.
- ‘You needn’t cry, Miggs,’ said Mrs Varden, herself in tears; ‘you
- needn’t be ashamed of it, though your poor mistress IS on the same
- side.’
- Miggs howled at this remark, in a peculiarly dismal way, and said she
- knowed that master hated her. That it was a dreadful thing to live in
- families and have dislikes, and not give satisfactions. That to make
- divisions was a thing she could not abear to think of, neither could her
- feelings let her do it. That if it was master’s wishes as she and him
- should part, it was best they should part, and she hoped he might be
- the happier for it, and always wished him well, and that he might find
- somebody as would meet his dispositions. It would be a hard trial, she
- said, to part from such a missis, but she could meet any suffering when
- her conscience told her she was in the rights, and therefore she was
- willing even to go that lengths. She did not think, she added, that she
- could long survive the separations, but, as she was hated and looked
- upon unpleasant, perhaps her dying as soon as possible would be the best
- endings for all parties. With this affecting conclusion, Miss Miggs shed
- more tears, and sobbed abundantly.
- ‘Can you bear this, Varden?’ said his wife in a solemn voice, laying
- down her knife and fork.
- ‘Why, not very well, my dear,’ rejoined the locksmith, ‘but I try to
- keep my temper.’
- ‘Don’t let there be words on my account, mim,’ sobbed Miggs. ‘It’s much
- the best that we should part. I wouldn’t stay--oh, gracious me!--and
- make dissensions, not for a annual gold mine, and found in tea and
- sugar.’
- Lest the reader should be at any loss to discover the cause of Miss
- Miggs’s deep emotion, it may be whispered apart that, happening to
- be listening, as her custom sometimes was, when Gabriel and his wife
- conversed together, she had heard the locksmith’s joke relative to the
- foreign black who played the tambourine, and bursting with the spiteful
- feelings which the taunt awoke in her fair breast, exploded in the
- manner we have witnessed. Matters having now arrived at a crisis, the
- locksmith, as usual, and for the sake of peace and quietness, gave in.
- ‘What are you crying for, girl?’ he said. ‘What’s the matter with you?
- What are you talking about hatred for? I don’t hate you; I don’t hate
- anybody. Dry your eyes and make yourself agreeable, in Heaven’s name,
- and let us all be happy while we can.’
- The allied powers deeming it good generalship to consider this a
- sufficient apology on the part of the enemy, and confession of having
- been in the wrong, did dry their eyes and take it in good part. Miss
- Miggs observed that she bore no malice, no not to her greatest foe, whom
- she rather loved the more indeed, the greater persecution she sustained.
- Mrs Varden approved of this meek and forgiving spirit in high terms,
- and incidentally declared as a closing article of agreement, that Dolly
- should accompany her to the Clerkenwell branch of the association, that
- very night. This was an extraordinary instance of her great prudence and
- policy; having had this end in view from the first, and entertaining
- a secret misgiving that the locksmith (who was bold when Dolly was in
- question) would object, she had backed Miss Miggs up to this point, in
- order that she might have him at a disadvantage. The manoeuvre succeeded
- so well that Gabriel only made a wry face, and with the warning he had
- just had, fresh in his mind, did not dare to say one word.
- The difference ended, therefore, in Miggs being presented with a gown
- by Mrs Varden and half-a-crown by Dolly, as if she had eminently
- distinguished herself in the paths of morality and goodness. Mrs V.,
- according to custom, expressed her hope that Varden would take a lesson
- from what had passed and learn more generous conduct for the time to
- come; and the dinner being now cold and nobody’s appetite very much
- improved by what had passed, they went on with it, as Mrs Varden said,
- ‘like Christians.’
- As there was to be a grand parade of the Royal East London Volunteers
- that afternoon, the locksmith did no more work; but sat down comfortably
- with his pipe in his mouth, and his arm round his pretty daughter’s
- waist, looking lovingly on Mrs V., from time to time, and exhibiting
- from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, one smiling surface
- of good humour. And to be sure, when it was time to dress him in his
- regimentals, and Dolly, hanging about him in all kinds of graceful
- winning ways, helped to button and buckle and brush him up and get him
- into one of the tightest coats that ever was made by mortal tailor, he
- was the proudest father in all England.
- ‘What a handy jade it is!’ said the locksmith to Mrs Varden, who stood
- by with folded hands--rather proud of her husband too--while Miggs held
- his cap and sword at arm’s length, as if mistrusting that the latter
- might run some one through the body of its own accord; ‘but never marry
- a soldier, Doll, my dear.’
- Dolly didn’t ask why not, or say a word, indeed, but stooped her head
- down very low to tie his sash.
- ‘I never wear this dress,’ said honest Gabriel, ‘but I think of poor Joe
- Willet. I loved Joe; he was always a favourite of mine. Poor Joe!--Dear
- heart, my girl, don’t tie me in so tight.’
- Dolly laughed--not like herself at all--the strangest little laugh that
- could be--and held her head down lower still.
- ‘Poor Joe!’ resumed the locksmith, muttering to himself; ‘I always wish
- he had come to me. I might have made it up between them, if he had. Ah!
- old John made a great mistake in his way of acting by that lad--a great
- mistake.--Have you nearly tied that sash, my dear?’
- What an ill-made sash it was! There it was, loose again and trailing
- on the ground. Dolly was obliged to kneel down, and recommence at the
- beginning.
- ‘Never mind young Willet, Varden,’ said his wife frowning; ‘you might
- find some one more deserving to talk about, I think.’
- Miss Miggs gave a great sniff to the same effect.
- ‘Nay, Martha,’ cried the locksmith, ‘don’t let us bear too hard upon
- him. If the lad is dead indeed, we’ll deal kindly by his memory.’
- ‘A runaway and a vagabond!’ said Mrs Varden.
- Miss Miggs expressed her concurrence as before.
- ‘A runaway, my dear, but not a vagabond,’ returned the locksmith in
- a gentle tone. ‘He behaved himself well, did Joe--always--and was a
- handsome, manly fellow. Don’t call him a vagabond, Martha.’
- Mrs Varden coughed--and so did Miggs.
- ‘He tried hard to gain your good opinion, Martha, I can tell you,’ said
- the locksmith smiling, and stroking his chin. ‘Ah! that he did. It seems
- but yesterday that he followed me out to the Maypole door one night, and
- begged me not to say how like a boy they used him--say here, at home, he
- meant, though at the time, I recollect, I didn’t understand. “And how’s
- Miss Dolly, sir?” says Joe,’ pursued the locksmith, musing sorrowfully,
- ‘Ah! Poor Joe!’
- ‘Well, I declare,’ cried Miggs. ‘Oh! Goodness gracious me!’
- ‘What’s the matter now?’ said Gabriel, turning sharply to her.
- ‘Why, if here an’t Miss Dolly,’ said the handmaid, stooping down to look
- into her face, ‘a-giving way to floods of tears. Oh mim! oh sir. Raly
- it’s give me such a turn,’ cried the susceptible damsel, pressing her
- hand upon her side to quell the palpitation of her heart, ‘that you
- might knock me down with a feather.’
- The locksmith, after glancing at Miss Miggs as if he could have wished
- to have a feather brought straightway, looked on with a broad stare
- while Dolly hurried away, followed by that sympathising young woman:
- then turning to his wife, stammered out, ‘Is Dolly ill? Have I done
- anything? Is it my fault?’
- ‘Your fault!’ cried Mrs V. reproachfully. ‘There--you had better make
- haste out.’
- ‘What have I done?’ said poor Gabriel. ‘It was agreed that Mr Edward’s
- name was never to be mentioned, and I have not spoken of him, have I?’
- Mrs Varden merely replied that she had no patience with him, and bounced
- off after the other two. The unfortunate locksmith wound his sash about
- him, girded on his sword, put on his cap, and walked out.
- ‘I am not much of a dab at my exercise,’ he said under his breath, ‘but
- I shall get into fewer scrapes at that work than at this. Every man came
- into the world for something; my department seems to be to make every
- woman cry without meaning it. It’s rather hard!’
- But he forgot it before he reached the end of the street, and went on
- with a shining face, nodding to the neighbours, and showering about his
- friendly greetings like mild spring rain.
- Chapter 42
- The Royal East London Volunteers made a brilliant sight that day: formed
- into lines, squares, circles, triangles, and what not, to the beating
- of drums, and the streaming of flags; and performed a vast number of
- complex evolutions, in all of which Serjeant Varden bore a conspicuous
- share. Having displayed their military prowess to the utmost in these
- warlike shows, they marched in glittering order to the Chelsea Bun
- House, and regaled in the adjacent taverns until dark. Then at sound
- of drum they fell in again, and returned amidst the shouting of His
- Majesty’s lieges to the place from whence they came.
- The homeward march being somewhat tardy,--owing to the un-soldierlike
- behaviour of certain corporals, who, being gentlemen of sedentary
- pursuits in private life and excitable out of doors, broke several
- windows with their bayonets, and rendered it imperative on the
- commanding officer to deliver them over to a strong guard, with whom
- they fought at intervals as they came along,--it was nine o’clock when
- the locksmith reached home. A hackney-coach was waiting near his door;
- and as he passed it, Mr Haredale looked from the window and called him
- by his name.
- ‘The sight of you is good for sore eyes, sir,’ said the locksmith,
- stepping up to him. ‘I wish you had walked in though, rather than waited
- here.’
- ‘There is nobody at home, I find,’ Mr Haredale answered; ‘besides, I
- desired to be as private as I could.’
- ‘Humph!’ muttered the locksmith, looking round at his house. ‘Gone with
- Simon Tappertit to that precious Branch, no doubt.’
- Mr Haredale invited him to come into the coach, and, if he were not
- tired or anxious to go home, to ride with him a little way that they
- might have some talk together. Gabriel cheerfully complied, and the
- coachman mounting his box drove off.
- ‘Varden,’ said Mr Haredale, after a minute’s pause, ‘you will be amazed
- to hear what errand I am on; it will seem a very strange one.’
- ‘I have no doubt it’s a reasonable one, sir, and has a meaning in it,’
- replied the locksmith; ‘or it would not be yours at all. Have you just
- come back to town, sir?’
- ‘But half an hour ago.’
- ‘Bringing no news of Barnaby, or his mother?’ said the locksmith
- dubiously. ‘Ah! you needn’t shake your head, sir. It was a wild-goose
- chase. I feared that, from the first. You exhausted all reasonable means
- of discovery when they went away. To begin again after so long a time
- has passed is hopeless, sir--quite hopeless.’
- ‘Why, where are they?’ he returned impatiently. ‘Where can they be?
- Above ground?’
- ‘God knows,’ rejoined the locksmith, ‘many that I knew above it five
- years ago, have their beds under the grass now. And the world is a
- wide place. It’s a hopeless attempt, sir, believe me. We must leave the
- discovery of this mystery, like all others, to time, and accident, and
- Heaven’s pleasure.’
- ‘Varden, my good fellow,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘I have a deeper meaning in
- my present anxiety to find them out, than you can fathom. It is not a
- mere whim; it is not the casual revival of my old wishes and desires;
- but an earnest, solemn purpose. My thoughts and dreams all tend to it,
- and fix it in my mind. I have no rest by day or night; I have no peace
- or quiet; I am haunted.’
- His voice was so altered from its usual tones, and his manner bespoke
- so much emotion, that Gabriel, in his wonder, could only sit and look
- towards him in the darkness, and fancy the expression of his face.
- ‘Do not ask me,’ continued Mr Haredale, ‘to explain myself. If I were to
- do so, you would think me the victim of some hideous fancy. It is enough
- that this is so, and that I cannot--no, I can not--lie quietly in my
- bed, without doing what will seem to you incomprehensible.’
- ‘Since when, sir,’ said the locksmith after a pause, ‘has this uneasy
- feeling been upon you?’
- Mr Haredale hesitated for some moments, and then replied: ‘Since the
- night of the storm. In short, since the last nineteenth of March.’
- As though he feared that Varden might express surprise, or reason with
- him, he hastily went on:
- ‘You will think, I know, I labour under some delusion. Perhaps I do. But
- it is not a morbid one; it is a wholesome action of the mind, reasoning
- on actual occurrences. You know the furniture remains in Mrs Rudge’s
- house, and that it has been shut up, by my orders, since she went away,
- save once a-week or so, when an old neighbour visits it to scare away
- the rats. I am on my way there now.’
- ‘For what purpose?’ asked the locksmith.
- ‘To pass the night there,’ he replied; ‘and not to-night alone, but many
- nights. This is a secret which I trust to you in case of any unexpected
- emergency. You will not come, unless in case of strong necessity, to me;
- from dusk to broad day I shall be there. Emma, your daughter, and the
- rest, suppose me out of London, as I have been until within this hour.
- Do not undeceive them. This is the errand I am bound upon. I know I may
- confide it to you, and I rely upon your questioning me no more at this
- time.’
- With that, as if to change the theme, he led the astounded locksmith
- back to the night of the Maypole highwayman, to the robbery of Edward
- Chester, to the reappearance of the man at Mrs Rudge’s house, and to all
- the strange circumstances which afterwards occurred. He even asked him
- carelessly about the man’s height, his face, his figure, whether he was
- like any one he had ever seen--like Hugh, for instance, or any man he
- had known at any time--and put many questions of that sort, which the
- locksmith, considering them as mere devices to engage his attention and
- prevent his expressing the astonishment he felt, answered pretty much at
- random.
- At length, they arrived at the corner of the street in which the house
- stood, where Mr Haredale, alighting, dismissed the coach. ‘If you desire
- to see me safely lodged,’ he said, turning to the locksmith with a
- gloomy smile, ‘you can.’
- Gabriel, to whom all former marvels had been nothing in comparison
- with this, followed him along the narrow pavement in silence. When they
- reached the door, Mr Haredale softly opened it with a key he had about
- him, and closing it when Varden entered, they were left in thorough
- darkness.
- They groped their way into the ground-floor room. Here Mr Haredale
- struck a light, and kindled a pocket taper he had brought with him for
- the purpose. It was then, when the flame was full upon him, that the
- locksmith saw for the first time how haggard, pale, and changed he
- looked; how worn and thin he was; how perfectly his whole appearance
- coincided with all that he had said so strangely as they rode along.
- It was not an unnatural impulse in Gabriel, after what he had heard, to
- note curiously the expression of his eyes. It was perfectly collected
- and rational;--so much so, indeed, that he felt ashamed of his momentary
- suspicion, and drooped his own when Mr Haredale looked towards him, as
- if he feared they would betray his thoughts.
- ‘Will you walk through the house?’ said Mr Haredale, with a glance
- towards the window, the crazy shutters of which were closed and
- fastened. ‘Speak low.’
- There was a kind of awe about the place, which would have rendered it
- difficult to speak in any other manner. Gabriel whispered ‘Yes,’ and
- followed him upstairs.
- Everything was just as they had seen it last. There was a sense of
- closeness from the exclusion of fresh air, and a gloom and heaviness
- around, as though long imprisonment had made the very silence sad. The
- homely hangings of the beds and windows had begun to droop; the dust lay
- thick upon their dwindling folds; and damps had made their way through
- ceiling, wall, and floor. The boards creaked beneath their tread, as if
- resenting the unaccustomed intrusion; nimble spiders, paralysed by the
- taper’s glare, checked the motion of their hundred legs upon the wall,
- or dropped like lifeless things upon the ground; the death-watch ticked;
- and the scampering feet of rats and mice rattled behind the wainscot.
- As they looked about them on the decaying furniture, it was strange to
- find how vividly it presented those to whom it had belonged, and
- with whom it was once familiar. Grip seemed to perch again upon his
- high-backed chair; Barnaby to crouch in his old favourite corner by the
- fire; the mother to resume her usual seat, and watch him as of old. Even
- when they could separate these objects from the phantoms of the mind
- which they invoked, the latter only glided out of sight, but lingered
- near them still; for then they seemed to lurk in closets and behind the
- doors, ready to start out and suddenly accost them in well-remembered
- tones.
- They went downstairs, and again into the room they had just now left.
- Mr Haredale unbuckled his sword and laid it on the table, with a pair of
- pocket pistols; then told the locksmith he would light him to the door.
- ‘But this is a dull place, sir,’ said Gabriel lingering; ‘may no one
- share your watch?’
- He shook his head, and so plainly evinced his wish to be alone, that
- Gabriel could say no more. In another moment the locksmith was standing
- in the street, whence he could see that the light once more travelled
- upstairs, and soon returning to the room below, shone brightly through
- the chinks of the shutters.
- If ever man were sorely puzzled and perplexed, the locksmith was, that
- night. Even when snugly seated by his own fireside, with Mrs Varden
- opposite in a nightcap and night-jacket, and Dolly beside him (in a
- most distracting dishabille) curling her hair, and smiling as if she had
- never cried in all her life and never could--even then, with Toby at
- his elbow and his pipe in his mouth, and Miggs (but that perhaps was not
- much) falling asleep in the background, he could not quite discard his
- wonder and uneasiness. So in his dreams--still there was Mr Haredale,
- haggard and careworn, listening in the solitary house to every sound
- that stirred, with the taper shining through the chinks until the day
- should turn it pale and end his lonely watching.
- Chapter 43
- Next morning brought no satisfaction to the locksmith’s thoughts,
- nor next day, nor the next, nor many others. Often after nightfall he
- entered the street, and turned his eyes towards the well-known house;
- and as surely as he did so, there was the solitary light, still gleaming
- through the crevices of the window-shutter, while all within was
- motionless, noiseless, cheerless, as a grave. Unwilling to hazard Mr
- Haredale’s favour by disobeying his strict injunction, he never ventured
- to knock at the door or to make his presence known in any way. But
- whenever strong interest and curiosity attracted him to the spot--which
- was not seldom--the light was always there.
- If he could have known what passed within, the knowledge would have
- yielded him no clue to this mysterious vigil. At twilight, Mr Haredale
- shut himself up, and at daybreak he came forth. He never missed a night,
- always came and went alone, and never varied his proceedings in the
- least degree.
- The manner of his watch was this. At dusk, he entered the house in the
- same way as when the locksmith bore him company, kindled a light, went
- through the rooms, and narrowly examined them. That done, he returned to
- the chamber on the ground-floor, and laying his sword and pistols on the
- table, sat by it until morning.
- He usually had a book with him, and often tried to read, but never fixed
- his eyes or thoughts upon it for five minutes together. The slightest
- noise without doors, caught his ear; a step upon the pavement seemed to
- make his heart leap.
- He was not without some refreshment during the long lonely hours;
- generally carrying in his pocket a sandwich of bread and meat, and a
- small flask of wine. The latter diluted with large quantities of water,
- he drank in a heated, feverish way, as though his throat were dried; but
- he scarcely ever broke his fast, by so much as a crumb of bread.
- If this voluntary sacrifice of sleep and comfort had its origin, as the
- locksmith on consideration was disposed to think, in any superstitious
- expectation of the fulfilment of a dream or vision connected with the
- event on which he had brooded for so many years, and if he waited for
- some ghostly visitor who walked abroad when men lay sleeping in their
- beds, he showed no trace of fear or wavering. His stern features
- expressed inflexible resolution; his brows were puckered, and his lips
- compressed, with deep and settled purpose; and when he started at a
- noise and listened, it was not with the start of fear but hope, and
- catching up his sword as though the hour had come at last, he would
- clutch it in his tight-clenched hand, and listen with sparkling eyes and
- eager looks, until it died away.
- These disappointments were numerous, for they ensued on almost every
- sound, but his constancy was not shaken. Still, every night he was at
- his post, the same stern, sleepless, sentinel; and still night passed,
- and morning dawned, and he must watch again.
- This went on for weeks; he had taken a lodging at Vauxhall in which
- to pass the day and rest himself; and from this place, when the tide
- served, he usually came to London Bridge from Westminster by water, in
- order that he might avoid the busy streets.
- One evening, shortly before twilight, he came his accustomed road upon
- the river’s bank, intending to pass through Westminster Hall into Palace
- Yard, and there take boat to London Bridge as usual. There was a pretty
- large concourse of people assembled round the Houses of Parliament,
- looking at the members as they entered and departed, and giving vent to
- rather noisy demonstrations of approval or dislike, according to their
- known opinions. As he made his way among the throng, he heard once or
- twice the No-Popery cry, which was then becoming pretty familiar to the
- ears of most men; but holding it in very slight regard, and observing
- that the idlers were of the lowest grade, he neither thought nor cared
- about it, but made his way along, with perfect indifference.
- There were many little knots and groups of persons in Westminster Hall:
- some few looking upward at its noble ceiling, and at the rays of evening
- light, tinted by the setting sun, which streamed in aslant through
- its small windows, and growing dimmer by degrees, were quenched in the
- gathering gloom below; some, noisy passengers, mechanics going home from
- work, and otherwise, who hurried quickly through, waking the echoes with
- their voices, and soon darkening the small door in the distance, as
- they passed into the street beyond; some, in busy conference together on
- political or private matters, pacing slowly up and down with eyes that
- sought the ground, and seeming, by their attitudes, to listen earnestly
- from head to foot. Here, a dozen squabbling urchins made a very Babel in
- the air; there, a solitary man, half clerk, half mendicant, paced up and
- down with hungry dejection in his look and gait; at his elbow passed
- an errand-lad, swinging his basket round and round, and with his shrill
- whistle riving the very timbers of the roof; while a more observant
- schoolboy, half-way through, pocketed his ball, and eyed the distant
- beadle as he came looming on. It was that time of evening when, if you
- shut your eyes and open them again, the darkness of an hour appears
- to have gathered in a second. The smooth-worn pavement, dusty with
- footsteps, still called upon the lofty walls to reiterate the shuffle
- and the tread of feet unceasingly, save when the closing of some heavy
- door resounded through the building like a clap of thunder, and drowned
- all other noises in its rolling sound.
- Mr Haredale, glancing only at such of these groups as he passed nearest
- to, and then in a manner betokening that his thoughts were elsewhere,
- had nearly traversed the Hall, when two persons before him caught his
- attention. One of these, a gentleman in elegant attire, carried in his
- hand a cane, which he twirled in a jaunty manner as he loitered on; the
- other, an obsequious, crouching, fawning figure, listened to what
- he said--at times throwing in a humble word himself--and, with his
- shoulders shrugged up to his ears, rubbed his hands submissively, or
- answered at intervals by an inclination of the head, half-way between a
- nod of acquiescence, and a bow of most profound respect.
- In the abstract there was nothing very remarkable in this pair, for
- servility waiting on a handsome suit of clothes and a cane--not to speak
- of gold and silver sticks, or wands of office--is common enough. But
- there was that about the well-dressed man, yes, and about the other
- likewise, which struck Mr Haredale with no pleasant feeling. He
- hesitated, stopped, and would have stepped aside and turned out of his
- path, but at the moment, the other two faced about quickly, and stumbled
- upon him before he could avoid them.
- The gentleman with the cane lifted his hat and had begun to tender an
- apology, which Mr Haredale had begun as hastily to acknowledge and walk
- away, when he stopped short and cried, ‘Haredale! Gad bless me, this is
- strange indeed!’
- ‘It is,’ he returned impatiently; ‘yes--a--’
- ‘My dear friend,’ cried the other, detaining him, ‘why such great speed?
- One minute, Haredale, for the sake of old acquaintance.’
- ‘I am in haste,’ he said. ‘Neither of us has sought this meeting. Let it
- be a brief one. Good night!’
- ‘Fie, fie!’ replied Sir John (for it was he), ‘how very churlish! We
- were speaking of you. Your name was on my lips--perhaps you heard me
- mention it? No? I am sorry for that. I am really sorry.--You know our
- friend here, Haredale? This is really a most remarkable meeting!’
- The friend, plainly very ill at ease, had made bold to press Sir John’s
- arm, and to give him other significant hints that he was desirous of
- avoiding this introduction. As it did not suit Sir John’s purpose,
- however, that it should be evaded, he appeared quite unconscious of
- these silent remonstrances, and inclined his hand towards him, as he
- spoke, to call attention to him more particularly.
- The friend, therefore, had nothing for it, but to muster up the
- pleasantest smile he could, and to make a conciliatory bow, as Mr
- Haredale turned his eyes upon him. Seeing that he was recognised, he put
- out his hand in an awkward and embarrassed manner, which was not mended
- by its contemptuous rejection.
- ‘Mr Gashford!’ said Haredale, coldly. ‘It is as I have heard then. You
- have left the darkness for the light, sir, and hate those whose opinions
- you formerly held, with all the bitterness of a renegade. You are an
- honour, sir, to any cause. I wish the one you espouse at present, much
- joy of the acquisition it has made.’
- The secretary rubbed his hands and bowed, as though he would disarm
- his adversary by humbling himself before him. Sir John Chester again
- exclaimed, with an air of great gaiety, ‘Now, really, this is a
- most remarkable meeting!’ and took a pinch of snuff with his usual
- self-possession.
- ‘Mr Haredale,’ said Gashford, stealthily raising his eyes, and
- letting them drop again when they met the other’s steady gaze, ‘is too
- conscientious, too honourable, too manly, I am sure, to attach unworthy
- motives to an honest change of opinions, even though it implies a doubt
- of those he holds himself. Mr Haredale is too just, too generous, too
- clear-sighted in his moral vision, to--’
- ‘Yes, sir?’ he rejoined with a sarcastic smile, finding the secretary
- stopped. ‘You were saying’--
- Gashford meekly shrugged his shoulders, and looking on the ground again,
- was silent.
- ‘No, but let us really,’ interposed Sir John at this juncture, ‘let us
- really, for a moment, contemplate the very remarkable character of this
- meeting. Haredale, my dear friend, pardon me if I think you are not
- sufficiently impressed with its singularity. Here we stand, by no
- previous appointment or arrangement, three old schoolfellows, in
- Westminster Hall; three old boarders in a remarkably dull and shady
- seminary at Saint Omer’s, where you, being Catholics and of necessity
- educated out of England, were brought up; and where I, being a promising
- young Protestant at that time, was sent to learn the French tongue from
- a native of Paris!’
- ‘Add to the singularity, Sir John,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘that some of you
- Protestants of promise are at this moment leagued in yonder building, to
- prevent our having the surpassing and unheard-of privilege of teaching
- our children to read and write--here--in this land, where thousands of
- us enter your service every year, and to preserve the freedom of which,
- we die in bloody battles abroad, in heaps: and that others of you, to
- the number of some thousands as I learn, are led on to look on all men
- of my creed as wolves and beasts of prey, by this man Gashford. Add
- to it besides the bare fact that this man lives in society, walks the
- streets in broad day--I was about to say, holds up his head, but that he
- does not--and it will be strange, and very strange, I grant you.’
- ‘Oh! you are hard upon our friend,’ replied Sir John, with an engaging
- smile. ‘You are really very hard upon our friend!’
- ‘Let him go on, Sir John,’ said Gashford, fumbling with his gloves. ‘Let
- him go on. I can make allowances, Sir John. I am honoured with your
- good opinion, and I can dispense with Mr Haredale’s. Mr Haredale is a
- sufferer from the penal laws, and I can’t expect his favour.’
- ‘You have so much of my favour, sir,’ retorted Mr Haredale, with a
- bitter glance at the third party in their conversation, ‘that I am
- glad to see you in such good company. You are the essence of your great
- Association, in yourselves.’
- ‘Now, there you mistake,’ said Sir John, in his most benignant way.
- ‘There--which is a most remarkable circumstance for a man of your
- punctuality and exactness, Haredale--you fall into error. I don’t belong
- to the body; I have an immense respect for its members, but I don’t
- belong to it; although I am, it is certainly true, the conscientious
- opponent of your being relieved. I feel it my duty to be so; it is a
- most unfortunate necessity; and cost me a bitter struggle.--Will you try
- this box? If you don’t object to a trifling infusion of a very chaste
- scent, you’ll find its flavour exquisite.’
- ‘I ask your pardon, Sir John,’ said Mr Haredale, declining the proffer
- with a motion of his hand, ‘for having ranked you among the humble
- instruments who are obvious and in all men’s sight. I should have done
- more justice to your genius. Men of your capacity plot in secrecy and
- safety, and leave exposed posts to the duller wits.’
- ‘Don’t apologise, for the world,’ replied Sir John sweetly; ‘old friends
- like you and I, may be allowed some freedoms, or the deuce is in it.’
- Gashford, who had been very restless all this time, but had not once
- looked up, now turned to Sir John, and ventured to mutter something to
- the effect that he must go, or my lord would perhaps be waiting.
- ‘Don’t distress yourself, good sir,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘I’ll take my
- leave, and put you at your ease--’ which he was about to do without
- ceremony, when he was stayed by a buzz and murmur at the upper end of
- the hall, and, looking in that direction, saw Lord George Gordon coming
- in, with a crowd of people round him.
- There was a lurking look of triumph, though very differently expressed,
- in the faces of his two companions, which made it a natural impulse
- on Mr Haredale’s part not to give way before this leader, but to stand
- there while he passed. He drew himself up and, clasping his hands behind
- him, looked on with a proud and scornful aspect, while Lord George
- slowly advanced (for the press was great about him) towards the spot
- where they were standing.
- He had left the House of Commons but that moment, and had come straight
- down into the Hall, bringing with him, as his custom was, intelligence
- of what had been said that night in reference to the Papists, and what
- petitions had been presented in their favour, and who had supported
- them, and when the bill was to be brought in, and when it would be
- advisable to present their own Great Protestant petition. All this he
- told the persons about him in a loud voice, and with great abundance
- of ungainly gesture. Those who were nearest him made comments to each
- other, and vented threats and murmurings; those who were outside the
- crowd cried, ‘Silence,’ and ‘Stand back,’ or closed in upon the rest,
- endeavouring to make a forcible exchange of places: and so they came
- driving on in a very disorderly and irregular way, as it is the manner
- of a crowd to do.
- When they were very near to where the secretary, Sir John, and Mr
- Haredale stood, Lord George turned round and, making a few remarks of
- a sufficiently violent and incoherent kind, concluded with the usual
- sentiment, and called for three cheers to back it. While these were in
- the act of being given with great energy, he extricated himself from
- the press, and stepped up to Gashford’s side. Both he and Sir John being
- well known to the populace, they fell back a little, and left the four
- standing together.
- ‘Mr Haredale, Lord George,’ said Sir John Chester, seeing that the
- nobleman regarded him with an inquisitive look. ‘A Catholic gentleman
- unfortunately--most unhappily a Catholic--but an esteemed acquaintance
- of mine, and once of Mr Gashford’s. My dear Haredale, this is Lord
- George Gordon.’
- ‘I should have known that, had I been ignorant of his lordship’s
- person,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘I hope there is but one gentleman in England
- who, addressing an ignorant and excited throng, would speak of a large
- body of his fellow-subjects in such injurious language as I heard this
- moment. For shame, my lord, for shame!’
- ‘I cannot talk to you, sir,’ replied Lord George in a loud voice, and
- waving his hand in a disturbed and agitated manner; ‘we have nothing in
- common.’
- ‘We have much in common--many things--all that the Almighty gave us,’
- said Mr Haredale; ‘and common charity, not to say common sense and
- common decency, should teach you to refrain from these proceedings. If
- every one of those men had arms in their hands at this moment, as they
- have them in their heads, I would not leave this place without telling
- you that you disgrace your station.’
- ‘I don’t hear you, sir,’ he replied in the same manner as before; ‘I
- can’t hear you. It is indifferent to me what you say. Don’t retort,
- Gashford,’ for the secretary had made a show of wishing to do so; ‘I can
- hold no communion with the worshippers of idols.’
- As he said this, he glanced at Sir John, who lifted his hands and
- eyebrows, as if deploring the intemperate conduct of Mr Haredale, and
- smiled in admiration of the crowd and of their leader.
- ‘HE retort!’ cried Haredale. ‘Look you here, my lord. Do you know this
- man?’
- Lord George replied by laying his hand upon the shoulder of his cringing
- secretary, and viewing him with a smile of confidence.
- ‘This man,’ said Mr Haredale, eyeing him from top to toe, ‘who in his
- boyhood was a thief, and has been from that time to this, a servile,
- false, and truckling knave: this man, who has crawled and crept through
- life, wounding the hands he licked, and biting those he fawned upon:
- this sycophant, who never knew what honour, truth, or courage meant; who
- robbed his benefactor’s daughter of her virtue, and married her to break
- her heart, and did it, with stripes and cruelty: this creature, who has
- whined at kitchen windows for the broken food, and begged for halfpence
- at our chapel doors: this apostle of the faith, whose tender conscience
- cannot bear the altars where his vicious life was publicly denounced--Do
- you know this man?’
- ‘Oh, really--you are very, very hard upon our friend!’ exclaimed Sir
- John.
- ‘Let Mr Haredale go on,’ said Gashford, upon whose unwholesome face the
- perspiration had broken out during this speech, in blotches of wet; ‘I
- don’t mind him, Sir John; it’s quite as indifferent to me what he says,
- as it is to my lord. If he reviles my lord, as you have heard, Sir John,
- how can I hope to escape?’
- ‘Is it not enough, my lord,’ Mr Haredale continued, ‘that I, as good a
- gentleman as you, must hold my property, such as it is, by a trick at
- which the state connives because of these hard laws; and that we may not
- teach our youth in schools the common principles of right and wrong; but
- must we be denounced and ridden by such men as this! Here is a man to
- head your No-Popery cry! For shame. For shame!’
- The infatuated nobleman had glanced more than once at Sir John Chester,
- as if to inquire whether there was any truth in these statements
- concerning Gashford, and Sir John had as often plainly answered by a
- shrug or look, ‘Oh dear me! no.’ He now said, in the same loud key, and
- in the same strange manner as before:
- ‘I have nothing to say, sir, in reply, and no desire to hear anything
- more. I beg you won’t obtrude your conversation, or these personal
- attacks, upon me. I shall not be deterred from doing my duty to my
- country and my countrymen, by any such attempts, whether they proceed
- from emissaries of the Pope or not, I assure you. Come, Gashford!’
- They had walked on a few paces while speaking, and were now at the
- Hall-door, through which they passed together. Mr Haredale, without any
- leave-taking, turned away to the river stairs, which were close at hand,
- and hailed the only boatman who remained there.
- But the throng of people--the foremost of whom had heard every word
- that Lord George Gordon said, and among all of whom the rumour had been
- rapidly dispersed that the stranger was a Papist who was bearding him
- for his advocacy of the popular cause--came pouring out pell-mell, and,
- forcing the nobleman, his secretary, and Sir John Chester on before
- them, so that they appeared to be at their head, crowded to the top of
- the stairs where Mr Haredale waited until the boat was ready, and there
- stood still, leaving him on a little clear space by himself.
- They were not silent, however, though inactive. At first some indistinct
- mutterings arose among them, which were followed by a hiss or two, and
- these swelled by degrees into a perfect storm. Then one voice said,
- ‘Down with the Papists!’ and there was a pretty general cheer, but
- nothing more. After a lull of a few moments, one man cried out, ‘Stone
- him;’ another, ‘Duck him;’ another, in a stentorian voice, ‘No Popery!’
- This favourite cry the rest re-echoed, and the mob, which might have
- been two hundred strong, joined in a general shout.
- Mr Haredale had stood calmly on the brink of the steps, until they made
- this demonstration, when he looked round contemptuously, and walked at
- a slow pace down the stairs. He was pretty near the boat, when Gashford,
- as if without intention, turned about, and directly afterwards a great
- stone was thrown by some hand, in the crowd, which struck him on the
- head, and made him stagger like a drunken man.
- The blood sprung freely from the wound, and trickled down his coat. He
- turned directly, and rushing up the steps with a boldness and passion
- which made them all fall back, demanded:
- ‘Who did that? Show me the man who hit me.’
- Not a soul moved; except some in the rear who slunk off, and, escaping
- to the other side of the way, looked on like indifferent spectators.
- ‘Who did that?’ he repeated. ‘Show me the man who did it. Dog, was it
- you? It was your deed, if not your hand--I know you.’
- He threw himself on Gashford as he said the words, and hurled him to the
- ground. There was a sudden motion in the crowd, and some laid hands upon
- him, but his sword was out, and they fell off again.
- ‘My lord--Sir John,’--he cried, ‘draw, one of you--you are responsible
- for this outrage, and I look to you. Draw, if you are gentlemen.’ With
- that he struck Sir John upon the breast with the flat of his weapon,
- and with a burning face and flashing eyes stood upon his guard; alone,
- before them all.
- For an instant, for the briefest space of time the mind can readily
- conceive, there was a change in Sir John’s smooth face, such as no man
- ever saw there. The next moment, he stepped forward, and laid one hand
- on Mr Haredale’s arm, while with the other he endeavoured to appease the
- crowd.
- ‘My dear friend, my good Haredale, you are blinded with passion--it’s
- very natural, extremely natural--but you don’t know friends from foes.’
- ‘I know them all, sir, I can distinguish well--’ he retorted, almost mad
- with rage. ‘Sir John, Lord George--do you hear me? Are you cowards?’
- ‘Never mind, sir,’ said a man, forcing his way between and pushing him
- towards the stairs with friendly violence, ‘never mind asking that. For
- God’s sake, get away. What CAN you do against this number? And there are
- as many more in the next street, who’ll be round directly,’--indeed they
- began to pour in as he said the words--‘you’d be giddy from that cut, in
- the first heat of a scuffle. Now do retire, sir, or take my word for it
- you’ll be worse used than you would be if every man in the crowd was a
- woman, and that woman Bloody Mary. Come, sir, make haste--as quick as
- you can.’
- Mr Haredale, who began to turn faint and sick, felt how sensible
- this advice was, and descended the steps with his unknown friend’s
- assistance. John Grueby (for John it was) helped him into the boat, and
- giving her a shove off, which sent her thirty feet into the tide, bade
- the waterman pull away like a Briton; and walked up again as composedly
- as if he had just landed.
- There was at first a slight disposition on the part of the mob to resent
- this interference; but John looking particularly strong and cool, and
- wearing besides Lord George’s livery, they thought better of it, and
- contented themselves with sending a shower of small missiles after the
- boat, which plashed harmlessly in the water; for she had by this time
- cleared the bridge, and was darting swiftly down the centre of the
- stream.
- From this amusement, they proceeded to giving Protestant knocks at the
- doors of private houses, breaking a few lamps, and assaulting some stray
- constables. But, it being whispered that a detachment of Life Guards had
- been sent for, they took to their heels with great expedition, and left
- the street quite clear.
- Chapter 44
- When the concourse separated, and, dividing into chance clusters, drew
- off in various directions, there still remained upon the scene of the
- late disturbance, one man. This man was Gashford, who, bruised by his
- late fall, and hurt in a much greater degree by the indignity he had
- undergone, and the exposure of which he had been the victim, limped up
- and down, breathing curses and threats of vengeance.
- It was not the secretary’s nature to waste his wrath in words. While he
- vented the froth of his malevolence in those effusions, he kept a steady
- eye on two men, who, having disappeared with the rest when the alarm was
- spread, had since returned, and were now visible in the moonlight, at no
- great distance, as they walked to and fro, and talked together.
- He made no move towards them, but waited patiently on the dark side of
- the street, until they were tired of strolling backwards and forwards
- and walked away in company. Then he followed, but at some distance:
- keeping them in view, without appearing to have that object, or being
- seen by them.
- They went up Parliament Street, past Saint Martin’s church, and away by
- Saint Giles’s to Tottenham Court Road, at the back of which, upon
- the western side, was then a place called the Green Lanes. This was a
- retired spot, not of the choicest kind, leading into the fields. Great
- heaps of ashes; stagnant pools, overgrown with rank grass and duckweed;
- broken turnstiles; and the upright posts of palings long since carried
- off for firewood, which menaced all heedless walkers with their jagged
- and rusty nails; were the leading features of the landscape: while here
- and there a donkey, or a ragged horse, tethered to a stake, and cropping
- off a wretched meal from the coarse stunted turf, were quite in keeping
- with the scene, and would have suggested (if the houses had not done so,
- sufficiently, of themselves) how very poor the people were who lived in
- the crazy huts adjacent, and how foolhardy it might prove for one who
- carried money, or wore decent clothes, to walk that way alone, unless by
- daylight.
- Poverty has its whims and shows of taste, as wealth has. Some of these
- cabins were turreted, some had false windows painted on their rotten
- walls; one had a mimic clock, upon a crazy tower of four feet high,
- which screened the chimney; each in its little patch of ground had a
- rude seat or arbour. The population dealt in bones, in rags, in broken
- glass, in old wheels, in birds, and dogs. These, in their several ways
- of stowage, filled the gardens; and shedding a perfume, not of the most
- delicious nature, in the air, filled it besides with yelps, and screams,
- and howling.
- Into this retreat, the secretary followed the two men whom he had held
- in sight; and here he saw them safely lodged, in one of the meanest
- houses, which was but a room, and that of small dimensions. He waited
- without, until the sound of their voices, joined in a discordant song,
- assured him they were making merry; and then approaching the door, by
- means of a tottering plank which crossed the ditch in front, knocked at
- it with his hand.
- ‘Muster Gashford!’ said the man who opened it, taking his pipe from
- his mouth, in evident surprise. ‘Why, who’d have thought of this here
- honour! Walk in, Muster Gashford--walk in, sir.’
- Gashford required no second invitation, and entered with a gracious air.
- There was a fire in the rusty grate (for though the spring was pretty
- far advanced, the nights were cold), and on a stool beside it Hugh sat
- smoking. Dennis placed a chair, his only one, for the secretary, in
- front of the hearth; and took his seat again upon the stool he had left
- when he rose to give the visitor admission.
- ‘What’s in the wind now, Muster Gashford?’ he said, as he resumed his
- pipe, and looked at him askew. ‘Any orders from head-quarters? Are we
- going to begin? What is it, Muster Gashford?’
- ‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ rejoined the secretary, with a friendly nod to
- Hugh. ‘We have broken the ice, though. We had a little spurt to-day--eh,
- Dennis?’
- ‘A very little one,’ growled the hangman. ‘Not half enough for me.’
- ‘Nor me neither!’ cried Hugh. ‘Give us something to do with life in
- it--with life in it, master. Ha, ha!’
- ‘Why, you wouldn’t,’ said the secretary, with his worst expression of
- face, and in his mildest tones, ‘have anything to do, with--with death
- in it?’
- ‘I don’t know that,’ replied Hugh. ‘I’m open to orders. I don’t care;
- not I.’
- ‘Nor I!’ vociferated Dennis.
- ‘Brave fellows!’ said the secretary, in as pastor-like a voice as if he
- were commending them for some uncommon act of valour and generosity. ‘By
- the bye’--and here he stopped and warmed his hands: then suddenly looked
- up--‘who threw that stone to-day?’
- Mr Dennis coughed and shook his head, as who should say, ‘A mystery
- indeed!’ Hugh sat and smoked in silence.
- ‘It was well done!’ said the secretary, warming his hands again. ‘I
- should like to know that man.’
- ‘Would you?’ said Dennis, after looking at his face to assure himself
- that he was serious. ‘Would you like to know that man, Muster Gashford?’
- ‘I should indeed,’ replied the secretary.
- ‘Why then, Lord love you,’ said the hangman, in his hoarest chuckle,
- as he pointed with his pipe to Hugh, ‘there he sits. That’s the man. My
- stars and halters, Muster Gashford,’ he added in a whisper, as he
- drew his stool close to him and jogged him with his elbow, ‘what a
- interesting blade he is! He wants as much holding in as a thorough-bred
- bulldog. If it hadn’t been for me to-day, he’d have had that ‘ere Roman
- down, and made a riot of it, in another minute.’
- ‘And why not?’ cried Hugh in a surly voice, as he overheard this last
- remark. ‘Where’s the good of putting things off? Strike while the iron’s
- hot; that’s what I say.’
- ‘Ah!’ retorted Dennis, shaking his head, with a kind of pity for his
- friend’s ingenuous youth; ‘but suppose the iron an’t hot, brother! You
- must get people’s blood up afore you strike, and have ‘em in the humour.
- There wasn’t quite enough to provoke ‘em to-day, I tell you. If you’d
- had your way, you’d have spoilt the fun to come, and ruined us.’
- ‘Dennis is quite right,’ said Gashford, smoothly. ‘He is perfectly
- correct. Dennis has great knowledge of the world.’
- ‘I ought to have, Muster Gashford, seeing what a many people I’ve helped
- out of it, eh?’ grinned the hangman, whispering the words behind his
- hand.
- The secretary laughed at this jest as much as Dennis could desire, and
- when he had done, said, turning to Hugh:
- ‘Dennis’s policy was mine, as you may have observed. You saw, for
- instance, how I fell when I was set upon. I made no resistance. I did
- nothing to provoke an outbreak. Oh dear no!’
- ‘No, by the Lord Harry!’ cried Dennis with a noisy laugh, ‘you went down
- very quiet, Muster Gashford--and very flat besides. I thinks to myself
- at the time “it’s all up with Muster Gashford!” I never see a man lay
- flatter nor more still--with the life in him--than you did to-day. He’s
- a rough ‘un to play with, is that ‘ere Papist, and that’s the fact.’
- The secretary’s face, as Dennis roared with laughter, and turned his
- wrinkled eyes on Hugh who did the like, might have furnished a study for
- the devil’s picture. He sat quite silent until they were serious again,
- and then said, looking round:
- ‘We are very pleasant here; so very pleasant, Dennis, that but for my
- lord’s particular desire that I should sup with him, and the time being
- very near at hand, I should be inclined to stay, until it would be
- hardly safe to go homeward. I come upon a little business--yes, I do--as
- you supposed. It’s very flattering to you; being this. If we ever
- should be obliged--and we can’t tell, you know--this is a very uncertain
- world’--
- ‘I believe you, Muster Gashford,’ interposed the hangman with a grave
- nod. ‘The uncertainties as I’ve seen in reference to this here state of
- existence, the unexpected contingencies as have come about!--Oh my eye!’
- Feeling the subject much too vast for expression, he puffed at his pipe
- again, and looked the rest.
- ‘I say,’ resumed the secretary, in a slow, impressive way; ‘we can’t
- tell what may come to pass; and if we should be obliged, against our
- wills, to have recourse to violence, my lord (who has suffered terribly
- to-day, as far as words can go) consigns to you two--bearing in mind my
- recommendation of you both, as good staunch men, beyond all doubt and
- suspicion--the pleasant task of punishing this Haredale. You may do as
- you please with him, or his, provided that you show no mercy, and no
- quarter, and leave no two beams of his house standing where the builder
- placed them. You may sack it, burn it, do with it as you like, but
- it must come down; it must be razed to the ground; and he, and all
- belonging to him, left as shelterless as new-born infants whom their
- mothers have exposed. Do you understand me?’ said Gashford, pausing, and
- pressing his hands together gently.
- ‘Understand you, master!’ cried Hugh. ‘You speak plain now. Why, this is
- hearty!’
- ‘I knew you would like it,’ said Gashford, shaking him by the hand; ‘I
- thought you would. Good night! Don’t rise, Dennis: I would rather find
- my way alone. I may have to make other visits here, and it’s pleasant
- to come and go without disturbing you. I can find my way perfectly well.
- Good night!’
- He was gone, and had shut the door behind him. They looked at each
- other, and nodded approvingly: Dennis stirred up the fire.
- ‘This looks a little more like business!’ he said.
- ‘Ay, indeed!’ cried Hugh; ‘this suits me!’
- ‘I’ve heerd it said of Muster Gashford,’ said the hangman, ‘that he’d
- a surprising memory and wonderful firmness--that he never forgot, and
- never forgave.--Let’s drink his health!’
- Hugh readily complied--pouring no liquor on the floor when he drank this
- toast--and they pledged the secretary as a man after their own hearts,
- in a bumper.
- Chapter 45
- While the worst passions of the worst men were thus working in the dark,
- and the mantle of religion, assumed to cover the ugliest deformities,
- threatened to become the shroud of all that was good and peaceful in
- society, a circumstance occurred which once more altered the position of
- two persons from whom this history has long been separated, and to whom
- it must now return.
- In a small English country town, the inhabitants of which supported
- themselves by the labour of their hands in plaiting and preparing straw
- for those who made bonnets and other articles of dress and ornament from
- that material,--concealed under an assumed name, and living in a quiet
- poverty which knew no change, no pleasures, and few cares but that
- of struggling on from day to day in one great toil for bread,--dwelt
- Barnaby and his mother. Their poor cottage had known no stranger’s foot
- since they sought the shelter of its roof five years before; nor had
- they in all that time held any commerce or communication with the old
- world from which they had fled. To labour in peace, and devote her
- labour and her life to her poor son, was all the widow sought. If
- happiness can be said at any time to be the lot of one on whom a secret
- sorrow preys, she was happy now. Tranquillity, resignation, and her
- strong love of him who needed it so much, formed the small circle of her
- quiet joys; and while that remained unbroken, she was contented.
- For Barnaby himself, the time which had flown by, had passed him like
- the wind. The daily suns of years had shed no brighter gleam of reason
- on his mind; no dawn had broken on his long, dark night. He would sit
- sometimes--often for days together on a low seat by the fire or by the
- cottage door, busy at work (for he had learnt the art his mother plied),
- and listening, God help him, to the tales she would repeat, as a lure
- to keep him in her sight. He had no recollection of these little
- narratives; the tale of yesterday was new to him upon the morrow; but
- he liked them at the moment; and when the humour held him, would remain
- patiently within doors, hearing her stories like a little child, and
- working cheerfully from sunrise until it was too dark to see.
- At other times,--and then their scanty earnings were barely sufficient
- to furnish them with food, though of the coarsest sort,--he would wander
- abroad from dawn of day until the twilight deepened into night. Few
- in that place, even of the children, could be idle, and he had no
- companions of his own kind. Indeed there were not many who could have
- kept up with him in his rambles, had there been a legion. But there were
- a score of vagabond dogs belonging to the neighbours, who served his
- purpose quite as well. With two or three of these, or sometimes with a
- full half-dozen barking at his heels, he would sally forth on some
- long expedition that consumed the day; and though, on their return at
- nightfall, the dogs would come home limping and sore-footed, and almost
- spent with their fatigue, Barnaby was up and off again at sunrise with
- some new attendants of the same class, with whom he would return in like
- manner. On all these travels, Grip, in his little basket at his master’s
- back, was a constant member of the party, and when they set off in fine
- weather and in high spirits, no dog barked louder than the raven.
- Their pleasures on these excursions were simple enough. A crust of bread
- and scrap of meat, with water from the brook or spring, sufficed for
- their repast. Barnaby’s enjoyments were, to walk, and run, and leap,
- till he was tired; then to lie down in the long grass, or by the growing
- corn, or in the shade of some tall tree, looking upward at the light
- clouds as they floated over the blue surface of the sky, and
- listening to the lark as she poured out her brilliant song. There were
- wild-flowers to pluck--the bright red poppy, the gentle harebell, the
- cowslip, and the rose. There were birds to watch; fish; ants; worms;
- hares or rabbits, as they darted across the distant pathway in the wood
- and so were gone: millions of living things to have an interest in, and
- lie in wait for, and clap hands and shout in memory of, when they had
- disappeared. In default of these, or when they wearied, there was the
- merry sunlight to hunt out, as it crept in aslant through leaves and
- boughs of trees, and hid far down--deep, deep, in hollow places--like
- a silver pool, where nodding branches seemed to bathe and sport; sweet
- scents of summer air breathing over fields of beans or clover; the
- perfume of wet leaves or moss; the life of waving trees, and shadows
- always changing. When these or any of them tired, or in excess of
- pleasing tempted him to shut his eyes, there was slumber in the midst
- of all these soft delights, with the gentle wind murmuring like music in
- his ears, and everything around melting into one delicious dream.
- Their hut--for it was little more--stood on the outskirts of the town,
- at a short distance from the high road, but in a secluded place, where
- few chance passengers strayed at any season of the year. It had a plot
- of garden-ground attached, which Barnaby, in fits and starts of working,
- trimmed, and kept in order. Within doors and without, his mother
- laboured for their common good; and hail, rain, snow, or sunshine, found
- no difference in her.
- Though so far removed from the scenes of her past life, and with so
- little thought or hope of ever visiting them again, she seemed to have
- a strange desire to know what happened in the busy world. Any old
- newspaper, or scrap of intelligence from London, she caught at with
- avidity. The excitement it produced was not of a pleasurable kind, for
- her manner at such times expressed the keenest anxiety and dread; but it
- never faded in the least degree. Then, and in stormy winter nights, when
- the wind blew loud and strong, the old expression came into her face,
- and she would be seized with a fit of trembling, like one who had an
- ague. But Barnaby noted little of this; and putting a great constraint
- upon herself, she usually recovered her accustomed manner before the
- change had caught his observation.
- Grip was by no means an idle or unprofitable member of the humble
- household. Partly by dint of Barnaby’s tuition, and partly by pursuing a
- species of self-instruction common to his tribe, and exerting his powers
- of observation to the utmost, he had acquired a degree of sagacity
- which rendered him famous for miles round. His conversational powers and
- surprising performances were the universal theme: and as many
- persons came to see the wonderful raven, and none left his exertions
- unrewarded--when he condescended to exhibit, which was not always,
- for genius is capricious--his earnings formed an important item in the
- common stock. Indeed, the bird himself appeared to know his value well;
- for though he was perfectly free and unrestrained in the presence of
- Barnaby and his mother, he maintained in public an amazing gravity,
- and never stooped to any other gratuitous performances than biting
- the ankles of vagabond boys (an exercise in which he much delighted),
- killing a fowl or two occasionally, and swallowing the dinners of
- various neighbouring dogs, of whom the boldest held him in great awe and
- dread.
- Time had glided on in this way, and nothing had happened to disturb or
- change their mode of life, when, one summer’s night in June, they were
- in their little garden, resting from the labours of the day. The widow’s
- work was yet upon her knee, and strewn upon the ground about her; and
- Barnaby stood leaning on his spade, gazing at the brightness in the
- west, and singing softly to himself.
- ‘A brave evening, mother! If we had, chinking in our pockets, but a few
- specks of that gold which is piled up yonder in the sky, we should be
- rich for life.’
- ‘We are better as we are,’ returned the widow with a quiet smile. ‘Let
- us be contented, and we do not want and need not care to have it, though
- it lay shining at our feet.’
- ‘Ay!’ said Barnaby, resting with crossed arms on his spade, and looking
- wistfully at the sunset, ‘that’s well enough, mother; but gold’s a good
- thing to have. I wish that I knew where to find it. Grip and I could do
- much with gold, be sure of that.’
- ‘What would you do?’ she asked.
- ‘What! A world of things. We’d dress finely--you and I, I mean; not
- Grip--keep horses, dogs, wear bright colours and feathers, do no more
- work, live delicately and at our ease. Oh, we’d find uses for it,
- mother, and uses that would do us good. I would I knew where gold was
- buried. How hard I’d work to dig it up!’
- ‘You do not know,’ said his mother, rising from her seat and laying her
- hand upon his shoulder, ‘what men have done to win it, and how they have
- found, too late, that it glitters brightest at a distance, and turns
- quite dim and dull when handled.’
- ‘Ay, ay; so you say; so you think,’ he answered, still looking eagerly
- in the same direction. ‘For all that, mother, I should like to try.’
- ‘Do you not see,’ she said, ‘how red it is? Nothing bears so many stains
- of blood, as gold. Avoid it. None have such cause to hate its name as
- we have. Do not so much as think of it, dear love. It has brought such
- misery and suffering on your head and mine as few have known, and God
- grant few may have to undergo. I would rather we were dead and laid down
- in our graves, than you should ever come to love it.’
- For a moment Barnaby withdrew his eyes and looked at her with wonder.
- Then, glancing from the redness in the sky to the mark upon his wrist
- as if he would compare the two, he seemed about to question her with
- earnestness, when a new object caught his wandering attention, and made
- him quite forgetful of his purpose.
- This was a man with dusty feet and garments, who stood, bare-headed,
- behind the hedge that divided their patch of garden from the pathway,
- and leant meekly forward as if he sought to mingle with their
- conversation, and waited for his time to speak. His face was turned
- towards the brightness, too, but the light that fell upon it showed that
- he was blind, and saw it not.
- ‘A blessing on those voices!’ said the wayfarer. ‘I feel the beauty of
- the night more keenly, when I hear them. They are like eyes to me. Will
- they speak again, and cheer the heart of a poor traveller?’
- ‘Have you no guide?’ asked the widow, after a moment’s pause.
- ‘None but that,’ he answered, pointing with his staff towards the sun;
- ‘and sometimes a milder one at night, but she is idle now.’
- ‘Have you travelled far?’
- ‘A weary way and long,’ rejoined the traveller as he shook his head. ‘A
- weary, weary, way. I struck my stick just now upon the bucket of your
- well--be pleased to let me have a draught of water, lady.’
- ‘Why do you call me lady?’ she returned. ‘I am as poor as you.’
- ‘Your speech is soft and gentle, and I judge by that,’ replied the man.
- ‘The coarsest stuffs and finest silks, are--apart from the sense of
- touch--alike to me. I cannot judge you by your dress.’
- ‘Come round this way,’ said Barnaby, who had passed out at the
- garden-gate and now stood close beside him. ‘Put your hand in mine.
- You’re blind and always in the dark, eh? Are you frightened in the dark?
- Do you see great crowds of faces, now? Do they grin and chatter?’
- ‘Alas!’ returned the other, ‘I see nothing. Waking or sleeping,
- nothing.’
- Barnaby looked curiously at his eyes, and touching them with his
- fingers, as an inquisitive child might, led him towards the house.
- ‘You have come a long distance,’ said the widow, meeting him at the
- door. ‘How have you found your way so far?’
- ‘Use and necessity are good teachers, as I have heard--the best of any,’
- said the blind man, sitting down upon the chair to which Barnaby had
- led him, and putting his hat and stick upon the red-tiled floor. ‘May
- neither you nor your son ever learn under them. They are rough masters.’
- ‘You have wandered from the road, too,’ said the widow, in a tone of
- pity.
- ‘Maybe, maybe,’ returned the blind man with a sigh, and yet with
- something of a smile upon his face, ‘that’s likely. Handposts and
- milestones are dumb, indeed, to me. Thank you the more for this rest,
- and this refreshing drink!’
- As he spoke, he raised the mug of water to his mouth. It was clear, and
- cold, and sparkling, but not to his taste nevertheless, or his thirst
- was not very great, for he only wetted his lips and put it down again.
- He wore, hanging with a long strap round his neck, a kind of scrip or
- wallet, in which to carry food. The widow set some bread and cheese
- before him, but he thanked her, and said that through the kindness of
- the charitable he had broken his fast once since morning, and was not
- hungry. When he had made her this reply, he opened his wallet, and took
- out a few pence, which was all it appeared to contain.
- ‘Might I make bold to ask,’ he said, turning towards where Barnaby stood
- looking on, ‘that one who has the gift of sight, would lay this out for
- me in bread to keep me on my way? Heaven’s blessing on the young feet
- that will bestir themselves in aid of one so helpless as a sightless
- man!’
- Barnaby looked at his mother, who nodded assent; in another moment he
- was gone upon his charitable errand. The blind man sat listening with an
- attentive face, until long after the sound of his retreating footsteps
- was inaudible to the widow, and then said, suddenly, and in a very
- altered tone:
- ‘There are various degrees and kinds of blindness, widow. There is the
- connubial blindness, ma’am, which perhaps you may have observed in
- the course of your own experience, and which is a kind of wilful and
- self-bandaging blindness. There is the blindness of party, ma’am, and
- public men, which is the blindness of a mad bull in the midst of a
- regiment of soldiers clothed in red. There is the blind confidence of
- youth, which is the blindness of young kittens, whose eyes have not yet
- opened on the world; and there is that physical blindness, ma’am, of
- which I am, contrairy to my own desire, a most illustrious example.
- Added to these, ma’am, is that blindness of the intellect, of which we
- have a specimen in your interesting son, and which, having sometimes
- glimmerings and dawnings of the light, is scarcely to be trusted as a
- total darkness. Therefore, ma’am, I have taken the liberty to get him
- out of the way for a short time, while you and I confer together, and
- this precaution arising out of the delicacy of my sentiments towards
- yourself, you will excuse me, ma’am, I know.’
- Having delivered himself of this speech with many flourishes of manner,
- he drew from beneath his coat a flat stone bottle, and holding the cork
- between his teeth, qualified his mug of water with a plentiful infusion
- of the liquor it contained. He politely drained the bumper to her
- health, and the ladies, and setting it down empty, smacked his lips with
- infinite relish.
- ‘I am a citizen of the world, ma’am,’ said the blind man, corking his
- bottle, ‘and if I seem to conduct myself with freedom, it is therefore.
- You wonder who I am, ma’am, and what has brought me here. Such
- experience of human nature as I have, leads me to that conclusion,
- without the aid of eyes by which to read the movements of your soul
- as depicted in your feminine features. I will satisfy your curiosity
- immediately, ma’am; immediately.’ With that he slapped his bottle on its
- broad back, and having put it under his garment as before, crossed his
- legs and folded his hands, and settled himself in his chair, previous to
- proceeding any further.
- The change in his manner was so unexpected, the craft and wickedness
- of his deportment were so much aggravated by his condition--for we are
- accustomed to see in those who have lost a human sense, something in its
- place almost divine--and this alteration bred so many fears in her whom
- he addressed, that she could not pronounce one word. After waiting, as
- it seemed, for some remark or answer, and waiting in vain, the visitor
- resumed:
- ‘Madam, my name is Stagg. A friend of mine who has desired the honour of
- meeting with you any time these five years past, has commissioned me to
- call upon you. I should be glad to whisper that gentleman’s name in your
- ear.--Zounds, ma’am, are you deaf? Do you hear me say that I should be
- glad to whisper my friend’s name in your ear?’
- ‘You need not repeat it,’ said the widow, with a stifled groan; ‘I see
- too well from whom you come.’
- ‘But as a man of honour, ma’am,’ said the blind man, striking himself on
- the breast, ‘whose credentials must not be disputed, I take leave to say
- that I WILL mention that gentleman’s name. Ay, ay,’ he added, seeming
- to catch with his quick ear the very motion of her hand, ‘but not aloud.
- With your leave, ma’am, I desire the favour of a whisper.’
- She moved towards him, and stooped down. He muttered a word in her
- ear; and, wringing her hands, she paced up and down the room like one
- distracted. The blind man, with perfect composure, produced his bottle
- again, mixed another glassful; put it up as before; and, drinking from
- time to time, followed her with his face in silence.
- ‘You are slow in conversation, widow,’ he said after a time, pausing in
- his draught. ‘We shall have to talk before your son.’
- ‘What would you have me do?’ she answered. ‘What do you want?’
- ‘We are poor, widow, we are poor,’ he retorted, stretching out his right
- hand, and rubbing his thumb upon its palm.
- ‘Poor!’ she cried. ‘And what am I?’
- ‘Comparisons are odious,’ said the blind man. ‘I don’t know, I don’t
- care. I say that we are poor. My friend’s circumstances are indifferent,
- and so are mine. We must have our rights, widow, or we must be bought
- off. But you know that, as well as I, so where is the use of talking?’
- She still walked wildly to and fro. At length, stopping abruptly before
- him, she said:
- ‘Is he near here?’
- ‘He is. Close at hand.’
- ‘Then I am lost!’
- ‘Not lost, widow,’ said the blind man, calmly; ‘only found. Shall I call
- him?’
- ‘Not for the world,’ she answered, with a shudder.
- ‘Very good,’ he replied, crossing his legs again, for he had made as
- though he would rise and walk to the door. ‘As you please, widow. His
- presence is not necessary that I know of. But both he and I must live;
- to live, we must eat and drink; to eat and drink, we must have money:--I
- say no more.’
- ‘Do you know how pinched and destitute I am?’ she retorted. ‘I do not
- think you do, or can. If you had eyes, and could look around you on this
- poor place, you would have pity on me. Oh! let your heart be softened by
- your own affliction, friend, and have some sympathy with mine.’
- The blind man snapped his fingers as he answered:
- ‘--Beside the question, ma’am, beside the question. I have the softest
- heart in the world, but I can’t live upon it. Many a gentleman lives
- well upon a soft head, who would find a heart of the same quality a very
- great drawback. Listen to me. This is a matter of business, with which
- sympathies and sentiments have nothing to do. As a mutual friend, I wish
- to arrange it in a satisfactory manner, if possible; and thus the
- case stands.--If you are very poor now, it’s your own choice. You have
- friends who, in case of need, are always ready to help you. My friend is
- in a more destitute and desolate situation than most men, and, you and
- he being linked together in a common cause, he naturally looks to you to
- assist him. He has boarded and lodged with me a long time (for as I
- said just now, I am very soft-hearted), and I quite approve of his
- entertaining this opinion. You have always had a roof over your head; he
- has always been an outcast. You have your son to comfort and assist you;
- he has nobody at all. The advantages must not be all one side. You are
- in the same boat, and we must divide the ballast a little more equally.’
- She was about to speak, but he checked her, and went on.
- ‘The only way of doing this, is by making up a little purse now and then
- for my friend; and that’s what I advise. He bears you no malice that I
- know of, ma’am: so little, that although you have treated him harshly
- more than once, and driven him, I may say, out of doors, he has that
- regard for you that I believe even if you disappointed him now, he would
- consent to take charge of your son, and to make a man of him.’
- He laid a great stress on these latter words, and paused as if to find
- out what effect they had produced. She only answered by her tears.
- ‘He is a likely lad,’ said the blind man, thoughtfully, ‘for many
- purposes, and not ill-disposed to try his fortune in a little change
- and bustle, if I may judge from what I heard of his talk with you
- to-night.--Come. In a word, my friend has pressing necessity for twenty
- pounds. You, who can give up an annuity, can get that sum for him. It’s
- a pity you should be troubled. You seem very comfortable here, and
- it’s worth that much to remain so. Twenty pounds, widow, is a
- moderate demand. You know where to apply for it; a post will bring it
- you.--Twenty pounds!’
- She was about to answer him again, but again he stopped her.
- ‘Don’t say anything hastily; you might be sorry for it. Think of it a
- little while. Twenty pounds--of other people’s money--how easy! Turn it
- over in your mind. I’m in no hurry. Night’s coming on, and if I don’t
- sleep here, I shall not go far. Twenty pounds! Consider of it, ma’am,
- for twenty minutes; give each pound a minute; that’s a fair allowance.
- I’ll enjoy the air the while, which is very mild and pleasant in these
- parts.’
- With these words he groped his way to the door, carrying his chair with
- him. Then seating himself, under a spreading honeysuckle, and stretching
- his legs across the threshold so that no person could pass in or out
- without his knowledge, he took from his pocket a pipe, flint, steel and
- tinder-box, and began to smoke. It was a lovely evening, of that gentle
- kind, and at that time of year, when the twilight is most beautiful.
- Pausing now and then to let his smoke curl slowly off, and to sniff the
- grateful fragrance of the flowers, he sat there at his ease--as though
- the cottage were his proper dwelling, and he had held undisputed
- possession of it all his life--waiting for the widow’s answer and for
- Barnaby’s return.
- Chapter 46
- When Barnaby returned with the bread, the sight of the pious old pilgrim
- smoking his pipe and making himself so thoroughly at home, appeared
- to surprise even him; the more so, as that worthy person, instead of
- putting up the loaf in his wallet as a scarce and precious article,
- tossed it carelessly on the table, and producing his bottle, bade him
- sit down and drink.
- ‘For I carry some comfort, you see,’ he said. ‘Taste that. Is it good?’
- The water stood in Barnaby’s eyes as he coughed from the strength of the
- draught, and answered in the affirmative.
- ‘Drink some more,’ said the blind man; ‘don’t be afraid of it. You don’t
- taste anything like that, often, eh?’
- ‘Often!’ cried Barnaby. ‘Never!’
- ‘Too poor?’ returned the blind man with a sigh. ‘Ay. That’s bad. Your
- mother, poor soul, would be happier if she was richer, Barnaby.’
- ‘Why, so I tell her--the very thing I told her just before you came
- to-night, when all that gold was in the sky,’ said Barnaby, drawing his
- chair nearer to him, and looking eagerly in his face. ‘Tell me. Is there
- any way of being rich, that I could find out?’
- ‘Any way! A hundred ways.’
- ‘Ay, ay?’ he returned. ‘Do you say so? What are they?--Nay, mother, it’s
- for your sake I ask; not mine;--for yours, indeed. What are they?’
- The blind man turned his face, on which there was a smile of triumph, to
- where the widow stood in great distress; and answered,
- ‘Why, they are not to be found out by stay-at-homes, my good friend.’
- ‘By stay-at-homes!’ cried Barnaby, plucking at his sleeve. ‘But I am not
- one. Now, there you mistake. I am often out before the sun, and travel
- home when he has gone to rest. I am away in the woods before the day
- has reached the shady places, and am often there when the bright moon
- is peeping through the boughs, and looking down upon the other moon that
- lives in the water. As I walk along, I try to find, among the grass and
- moss, some of that small money for which she works so hard and used to
- shed so many tears. As I lie asleep in the shade, I dream of it--dream
- of digging it up in heaps; and spying it out, hidden under bushes; and
- seeing it sparkle, as the dew-drops do, among the leaves. But I never
- find it. Tell me where it is. I’d go there, if the journey were a whole
- year long, because I know she would be happier when I came home and
- brought some with me. Speak again. I’ll listen to you if you talk all
- night.’
- The blind man passed his hand lightly over the poor fellow’s face, and
- finding that his elbows were planted on the table, that his chin rested
- on his two hands, that he leaned eagerly forward, and that his whole
- manner expressed the utmost interest and anxiety, paused for a minute as
- though he desired the widow to observe this fully, and then made answer:
- ‘It’s in the world, bold Barnaby, the merry world; not in solitary
- places like those you pass your time in, but in crowds, and where
- there’s noise and rattle.’
- ‘Good! good!’ cried Barnaby, rubbing his hands. ‘Yes! I love that. Grip
- loves it too. It suits us both. That’s brave!’
- ‘--The kind of places,’ said the blind man, ‘that a young fellow likes,
- and in which a good son may do more for his mother, and himself to boot,
- in a month, than he could here in all his life--that is, if he had a
- friend, you know, and some one to advise with.’
- ‘You hear this, mother?’ cried Barnaby, turning to her with delight.
- ‘Never tell me we shouldn’t heed it, if it lay shining at our feet. Why
- do we heed it so much now? Why do you toil from morning until night?’
- ‘Surely,’ said the blind man, ‘surely. Have you no answer, widow? Is
- your mind,’ he slowly added, ‘not made up yet?’
- ‘Let me speak with you,’ she answered, ‘apart.’
- ‘Lay your hand upon my sleeve,’ said Stagg, arising from the table; ‘and
- lead me where you will. Courage, bold Barnaby. We’ll talk more of this:
- I’ve a fancy for you. Wait there till I come back. Now, widow.’
- She led him out at the door, and into the little garden, where they
- stopped.
- ‘You are a fit agent,’ she said, in a half breathless manner, ‘and well
- represent the man who sent you here.’
- ‘I’ll tell him that you said so,’ Stagg retorted. ‘He has a regard for
- you, and will respect me the more (if possible) for your praise. We must
- have our rights, widow.’
- ‘Rights! Do you know,’ she said, ‘that a word from me--’
- ‘Why do you stop?’ returned the blind man calmly, after a long pause.
- ‘Do I know that a word from you would place my friend in the last
- position of the dance of life? Yes, I do. What of that? It will never be
- spoken, widow.’
- ‘You are sure of that?’
- ‘Quite--so sure, that I don’t come here to discuss the question. I say
- we must have our rights, or we must be bought off. Keep to that point,
- or let me return to my young friend, for I have an interest in the lad,
- and desire to put him in the way of making his fortune. Bah! you needn’t
- speak,’ he added hastily; ‘I know what you would say: you have hinted
- at it once already. Have I no feeling for you, because I am blind? No, I
- have not. Why do you expect me, being in darkness, to be better than
- men who have their sight--why should you? Is the hand of Heaven more
- manifest in my having no eyes, than in your having two? It’s the cant
- of you folks to be horrified if a blind man robs, or lies, or steals;
- oh yes, it’s far worse in him, who can barely live on the few halfpence
- that are thrown to him in streets, than in you, who can see, and work,
- and are not dependent on the mercies of the world. A curse on you! You
- who have five senses may be wicked at your pleasure; we who have four,
- and want the most important, are to live and be moral on our affliction.
- The true charity and justice of rich to poor, all the world over!’
- He paused a moment when he had said these words, and caught the sound of
- money, jingling in her hand.
- ‘Well?’ he cried, quickly resuming his former manner. ‘That should lead
- to something. The point, widow?’
- ‘First answer me one question,’ she replied. ‘You say he is close at
- hand. Has he left London?’
- ‘Being close at hand, widow, it would seem he has,’ returned the blind
- man.
- ‘I mean, for good? You know that.’
- ‘Yes, for good. The truth is, widow, that his making a longer stay there
- might have had disagreeable consequences. He has come away for that
- reason.’
- ‘Listen,’ said the widow, telling some money out, upon a bench beside
- them. ‘Count.’
- ‘Six,’ said the blind man, listening attentively. ‘Any more?’
- ‘They are the savings,’ she answered, ‘of five years. Six guineas.’
- He put out his hand for one of the coins; felt it carefully, put it
- between his teeth, rung it on the bench; and nodded to her to proceed.
- ‘These have been scraped together and laid by, lest sickness or death
- should separate my son and me. They have been purchased at the price of
- much hunger, hard labour, and want of rest. If you CAN take them--do--on
- condition that you leave this place upon the instant, and enter no more
- into that room, where he sits now, expecting your return.’
- ‘Six guineas,’ said the blind man, shaking his head, ‘though of the
- fullest weight that were ever coined, fall very far short of twenty
- pounds, widow.’
- ‘For such a sum, as you know, I must write to a distant part of the
- country. To do that, and receive an answer, I must have time.’
- ‘Two days?’ said Stagg.
- ‘More.’
- ‘Four days?’
- ‘A week. Return on this day week, at the same hour, but not to the
- house. Wait at the corner of the lane.’
- ‘Of course,’ said the blind man, with a crafty look, ‘I shall find you
- there?’
- ‘Where else can I take refuge? Is it not enough that you have made
- a beggar of me, and that I have sacrificed my whole store, so hardly
- earned, to preserve this home?’
- ‘Humph!’ said the blind man, after some consideration. ‘Set me with my
- face towards the point you speak of, and in the middle of the road. Is
- this the spot?’
- ‘It is.’
- ‘On this day week at sunset. And think of him within doors.--For the
- present, good night.’
- She made him no answer, nor did he stop for any. He went slowly away,
- turning his head from time to time, and stopping to listen, as if he
- were curious to know whether he was watched by any one. The shadows of
- night were closing fast around, and he was soon lost in the gloom. It
- was not, however, until she had traversed the lane from end to end,
- and made sure that he was gone, that she re-entered the cottage, and
- hurriedly barred the door and window.
- ‘Mother!’ said Barnaby. ‘What is the matter? Where is the blind man?’
- ‘He is gone.’
- ‘Gone!’ he cried, starting up. ‘I must have more talk with him. Which
- way did he take?’
- ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, folding her arms about him. ‘You must not
- go out to-night. There are ghosts and dreams abroad.’
- ‘Ay?’ said Barnaby, in a frightened whisper.
- ‘It is not safe to stir. We must leave this place to-morrow.’
- ‘This place! This cottage--and the little garden, mother!’
- ‘Yes! To-morrow morning at sunrise. We must travel to London; lose
- ourselves in that wide place--there would be some trace of us in any
- other town--then travel on again, and find some new abode.’
- Little persuasion was required to reconcile Barnaby to anything that
- promised change. In another minute, he was wild with delight; in
- another, full of grief at the prospect of parting with his friends the
- dogs; in another, wild again; then he was fearful of what she had said
- to prevent his wandering abroad that night, and full of terrors and
- strange questions. His light-heartedness in the end surmounted all his
- other feelings, and lying down in his clothes to the end that he might
- be ready on the morrow, he soon fell fast asleep before the poor turf
- fire.
- His mother did not close her eyes, but sat beside him, watching. Every
- breath of wind sounded in her ears like that dreaded footstep at the
- door, or like that hand upon the latch, and made the calm summer night,
- a night of horror. At length the welcome day appeared. When she had made
- the little preparations which were needful for their journey, and had
- prayed upon her knees with many tears, she roused Barnaby, who jumped up
- gaily at her summons.
- His clothes were few enough, and to carry Grip was a labour of love. As
- the sun shed his earliest beams upon the earth, they closed the door of
- their deserted home, and turned away. The sky was blue and bright.
- The air was fresh and filled with a thousand perfumes. Barnaby looked
- upward, and laughed with all his heart.
- But it was a day he usually devoted to a long ramble, and one of the
- dogs--the ugliest of them all--came bounding up, and jumping round him
- in the fulness of his joy. He had to bid him go back in a surly tone,
- and his heart smote him while he did so. The dog retreated; turned
- with a half-incredulous, half-imploring look; came a little back; and
- stopped.
- It was the last appeal of an old companion and a faithful friend--cast
- off. Barnaby could bear no more, and as he shook his head and waved his
- playmate home, he burst into tears.
- ‘Oh mother, mother, how mournful he will be when he scratches at the
- door, and finds it always shut!’
- There was such a sense of home in the thought, that though her own eyes
- overflowed she would not have obliterated the recollection of it, either
- from her own mind or from his, for the wealth of the whole wide world.
- Chapter 47
- In the exhaustless catalogue of Heaven’s mercies to mankind, the power
- we have of finding some germs of comfort in the hardest trials must ever
- occupy the foremost place; not only because it supports and upholds
- us when we most require to be sustained, but because in this source of
- consolation there is something, we have reason to believe, of the divine
- spirit; something of that goodness which detects amidst our own evil
- doings, a redeeming quality; something which, even in our fallen nature,
- we possess in common with the angels; which had its being in the old
- time when they trod the earth, and lingers on it yet, in pity.
- How often, on their journey, did the widow remember with a grateful
- heart, that out of his deprivation Barnaby’s cheerfulness and affection
- sprung! How often did she call to mind that but for that, he might have
- been sullen, morose, unkind, far removed from her--vicious, perhaps, and
- cruel! How often had she cause for comfort, in his strength, and hope,
- and in his simple nature! Those feeble powers of mind which rendered him
- so soon forgetful of the past, save in brief gleams and flashes,--even
- they were a comfort now. The world to him was full of happiness; in
- every tree, and plant, and flower, in every bird, and beast, and tiny
- insect whom a breath of summer wind laid low upon the ground, he had
- delight. His delight was hers; and where many a wise son would have
- made her sorrowful, this poor light-hearted idiot filled her breast with
- thankfulness and love.
- Their stock of money was low, but from the hoard she had told into the
- blind man’s hand, the widow had withheld one guinea. This, with the few
- pence she possessed besides, was to two persons of their frugal habits,
- a goodly sum in bank. Moreover they had Grip in company; and when they
- must otherwise have changed the guinea, it was but to make him exhibit
- outside an alehouse door, or in a village street, or in the grounds or
- gardens of a mansion of the better sort, and scores who would have given
- nothing in charity, were ready to bargain for more amusement from the
- talking bird.
- One day--for they moved slowly, and although they had many rides in
- carts and waggons, were on the road a week--Barnaby, with Grip upon his
- shoulder and his mother following, begged permission at a trim lodge to
- go up to the great house, at the other end of the avenue, and show his
- raven. The man within was inclined to give them admittance, and was
- indeed about to do so, when a stout gentleman with a long whip in his
- hand, and a flushed face which seemed to indicate that he had had his
- morning’s draught, rode up to the gate, and called in a loud voice and
- with more oaths than the occasion seemed to warrant to have it opened
- directly.
- ‘Who hast thou got here?’ said the gentleman angrily, as the man threw
- the gate wide open, and pulled off his hat, ‘who are these? Eh? art a
- beggar, woman?’
- The widow answered with a curtsey, that they were poor travellers.
- ‘Vagrants,’ said the gentleman, ‘vagrants and vagabonds. Thee wish to be
- made acquainted with the cage, dost thee--the cage, the stocks, and the
- whipping-post? Where dost come from?’
- She told him in a timid manner,--for he was very loud, hoarse, and
- red-faced,--and besought him not to be angry, for they meant no harm,
- and would go upon their way that moment.
- ‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ replied the gentleman, ‘we don’t allow
- vagrants to roam about this place. I know what thou want’st--stray
- linen drying on hedges, and stray poultry, eh? What hast got in that
- basket, lazy hound?’
- ‘Grip, Grip, Grip--Grip the clever, Grip the wicked, Grip the
- knowing--Grip, Grip, Grip,’ cried the raven, whom Barnaby had shut up
- on the approach of this stern personage. ‘I’m a devil I’m a devil I’m a
- devil, Never say die Hurrah Bow wow wow, Polly put the kettle on we’ll
- all have tea.’
- ‘Take the vermin out, scoundrel,’ said the gentleman, ‘and let me see
- him.’
- Barnaby, thus condescendingly addressed, produced his bird, but not
- without much fear and trembling, and set him down upon the ground; which
- he had no sooner done than Grip drew fifty corks at least, and then
- began to dance; at the same time eyeing the gentleman with surprising
- insolence of manner, and screwing his head so much on one side that he
- appeared desirous of screwing it off upon the spot.
- The cork-drawing seemed to make a greater impression on the gentleman’s
- mind, than the raven’s power of speech, and was indeed particularly
- adapted to his habits and capacity. He desired to have that done again,
- but despite his being very peremptory, and notwithstanding that Barnaby
- coaxed to the utmost, Grip turned a deaf ear to the request, and
- preserved a dead silence.
- ‘Bring him along,’ said the gentleman, pointing to the house. But Grip,
- who had watched the action, anticipated his master, by hopping on before
- them;--constantly flapping his wings, and screaming ‘cook!’ meanwhile,
- as a hint perhaps that there was company coming, and a small collation
- would be acceptable.
- Barnaby and his mother walked on, on either side of the gentleman on
- horseback, who surveyed each of them from time to time in a proud and
- coarse manner, and occasionally thundered out some question, the tone
- of which alarmed Barnaby so much that he could find no answer, and, as
- a matter of course, could make him no reply. On one of these occasions,
- when the gentleman appeared disposed to exercise his horsewhip, the
- widow ventured to inform him in a low voice and with tears in her eyes,
- that her son was of weak mind.
- ‘An idiot, eh?’ said the gentleman, looking at Barnaby as he spoke. ‘And
- how long hast thou been an idiot?’
- ‘She knows,’ was Barnaby’s timid answer, pointing to his
- mother--‘I--always, I believe.’
- ‘From his birth,’ said the widow.
- ‘I don’t believe it,’ cried the gentleman, ‘not a bit of it. It’s an
- excuse not to work. There’s nothing like flogging to cure that disorder.
- I’d make a difference in him in ten minutes, I’ll be bound.’
- ‘Heaven has made none in more than twice ten years, sir,’ said the widow
- mildly.
- ‘Then why don’t you shut him up? we pay enough for county institutions,
- damn ‘em. But thou’d rather drag him about to excite charity--of course.
- Ay, I know thee.’
- Now, this gentleman had various endearing appellations among his
- intimate friends. By some he was called ‘a country gentleman of the true
- school,’ by some ‘a fine old country gentleman,’ by some ‘a sporting
- gentleman,’ by some ‘a thorough-bred Englishman,’ by some ‘a genuine
- John Bull;’ but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it
- was a pity there were not more like him, and that because there were
- not, the country was going to rack and ruin every day. He was in the
- commission of the peace, and could write his name almost legibly; but
- his greatest qualifications were, that he was more severe with poachers,
- was a better shot, a harder rider, had better horses, kept better dogs,
- could eat more solid food, drink more strong wine, go to bed every night
- more drunk and get up every morning more sober, than any man in the
- county. In knowledge of horseflesh he was almost equal to a farrier, in
- stable learning he surpassed his own head groom, and in gluttony not
- a pig on his estate was a match for him. He had no seat in Parliament
- himself, but he was extremely patriotic, and usually drove his voters
- up to the poll with his own hands. He was warmly attached to church
- and state, and never appointed to the living in his gift any but a
- three-bottle man and a first-rate fox-hunter. He mistrusted the honesty
- of all poor people who could read and write, and had a secret jealousy
- of his own wife (a young lady whom he had married for what his friends
- called ‘the good old English reason,’ that her father’s property
- adjoined his own) for possessing those accomplishments in a greater
- degree than himself. In short, Barnaby being an idiot, and Grip a
- creature of mere brute instinct, it would be very hard to say what this
- gentleman was.
- He rode up to the door of a handsome house approached by a great flight
- of steps, where a man was waiting to take his horse, and led the way
- into a large hall, which, spacious as it was, was tainted with the
- fumes of last night’s stale debauch. Greatcoats, riding-whips, bridles,
- top-boots, spurs, and such gear, were strewn about on all sides, and
- formed, with some huge stags’ antlers, and a few portraits of dogs and
- horses, its principal embellishments.
- Throwing himself into a great chair (in which, by the bye, he often
- snored away the night, when he had been, according to his admirers, a
- finer country gentleman than usual) he bade the man to tell his mistress
- to come down: and presently there appeared, a little flurried, as it
- seemed, by the unwonted summons, a lady much younger than himself, who
- had the appearance of being in delicate health, and not too happy.
- ‘Here! Thou’st no delight in following the hounds as an Englishwoman
- should have,’ said the gentleman. ‘See to this here. That’ll please thee
- perhaps.’
- The lady smiled, sat down at a little distance from him, and glanced at
- Barnaby with a look of pity.
- ‘He’s an idiot, the woman says,’ observed the gentleman, shaking his
- head; ‘I don’t believe it.’
- ‘Are you his mother?’ asked the lady.
- She answered yes.
- ‘What’s the use of asking HER?’ said the gentleman, thrusting his hands
- into his breeches pockets. ‘She’ll tell thee so, of course. Most likely
- he’s hired, at so much a day. There. Get on. Make him do something.’
- Grip having by this time recovered his urbanity, condescended, at
- Barnaby’s solicitation, to repeat his various phrases of speech, and to
- go through the whole of his performances with the utmost success. The
- corks, and the never say die, afforded the gentleman so much delight
- that he demanded the repetition of this part of the entertainment, until
- Grip got into his basket, and positively refused to say another word,
- good or bad. The lady too, was much amused with him; and the closing
- point of his obstinacy so delighted her husband that he burst into a
- roar of laughter, and demanded his price.
- Barnaby looked as though he didn’t understand his meaning. Probably he
- did not.
- ‘His price,’ said the gentleman, rattling the money in his pockets,
- ‘what dost want for him? How much?’
- ‘He’s not to be sold,’ replied Barnaby, shutting up the basket in a
- great hurry, and throwing the strap over his shoulder. ‘Mother, come
- away.’
- ‘Thou seest how much of an idiot he is, book-learner,’ said the
- gentleman, looking scornfully at his wife. ‘He can make a bargain. What
- dost want for him, old woman?’
- ‘He is my son’s constant companion,’ said the widow. ‘He is not to be
- sold, sir, indeed.’
- ‘Not to be sold!’ cried the gentleman, growing ten times redder,
- hoarser, and louder than before. ‘Not to be sold!’
- ‘Indeed no,’ she answered. ‘We have never thought of parting with him,
- sir, I do assure you.’
- He was evidently about to make a very passionate retort, when a few
- murmured words from his wife happening to catch his ear, he turned
- sharply round, and said, ‘Eh? What?’
- ‘We can hardly expect them to sell the bird, against their own desire,’
- she faltered. ‘If they prefer to keep him--’
- ‘Prefer to keep him!’ he echoed. ‘These people, who go tramping about
- the country a-pilfering and vagabondising on all hands, prefer to keep
- a bird, when a landed proprietor and a justice asks his price! That old
- woman’s been to school. I know she has. Don’t tell me no,’ he roared to
- the widow, ‘I say, yes.’
- Barnaby’s mother pleaded guilty to the accusation, and hoped there was
- no harm in it.
- ‘No harm!’ said the gentleman. ‘No. No harm. No harm, ye old rebel, not
- a bit of harm. If my clerk was here, I’d set ye in the stocks, I would,
- or lay ye in jail for prowling up and down, on the look-out for petty
- larcenies, ye limb of a gipsy. Here, Simon, put these pilferers out,
- shove ‘em into the road, out with ‘em! Ye don’t want to sell the bird,
- ye that come here to beg, don’t ye? If they an’t out in double-quick,
- set the dogs upon ‘em!’
- They waited for no further dismissal, but fled precipitately, leaving
- the gentleman to storm away by himself (for the poor lady had already
- retreated), and making a great many vain attempts to silence Grip, who,
- excited by the noise, drew corks enough for a city feast as they hurried
- down the avenue, and appeared to congratulate himself beyond measure on
- having been the cause of the disturbance. When they had nearly reached
- the lodge, another servant, emerging from the shrubbery, feigned to
- be very active in ordering them off, but this man put a crown into the
- widow’s hand, and whispering that his lady sent it, thrust them gently
- from the gate.
- This incident only suggested to the widow’s mind, when they halted at
- an alehouse some miles further on, and heard the justice’s character
- as given by his friends, that perhaps something more than capacity of
- stomach and tastes for the kennel and the stable, were required to form
- either a perfect country gentleman, a thoroughbred Englishman, or
- a genuine John Bull; and that possibly the terms were sometimes
- misappropriated, not to say disgraced. She little thought then, that a
- circumstance so slight would ever influence their future fortunes; but
- time and experience enlightened her in this respect.
- ‘Mother,’ said Barnaby, as they were sitting next day in a waggon which
- was to take them within ten miles of the capital, ‘we’re going to London
- first, you said. Shall we see that blind man there?’
- She was about to answer ‘Heaven forbid!’ but checked herself, and told
- him No, she thought not; why did he ask?
- ‘He’s a wise man,’ said Barnaby, with a thoughtful countenance. ‘I wish
- that we may meet with him again. What was it that he said of crowds?
- That gold was to be found where people crowded, and not among the
- trees and in such quiet places? He spoke as if he loved it; London is a
- crowded place; I think we shall meet him there.’
- ‘But why do you desire to see him, love?’ she asked.
- ‘Because,’ said Barnaby, looking wistfully at her, ‘he talked to me
- about gold, which is a rare thing, and say what you will, a thing
- you would like to have, I know. And because he came and went away so
- strangely--just as white-headed old men come sometimes to my bed’s foot
- in the night, and say what I can’t remember when the bright day returns.
- He told me he’d come back. I wonder why he broke his word!’
- ‘But you never thought of being rich or gay, before, dear Barnaby. You
- have always been contented.’
- He laughed and bade her say that again, then cried, ‘Ay ay--oh yes,’ and
- laughed once more. Then something passed that caught his fancy, and
- the topic wandered from his mind, and was succeeded by another just as
- fleeting.
- But it was plain from what he had said, and from his returning to the
- point more than once that day, and on the next, that the blind man’s
- visit, and indeed his words, had taken strong possession of his mind.
- Whether the idea of wealth had occurred to him for the first time
- on looking at the golden clouds that evening--and images were often
- presented to his thoughts by outward objects quite as remote and
- distant; or whether their poor and humble way of life had suggested it,
- by contrast, long ago; or whether the accident (as he would deem it) of
- the blind man’s pursuing the current of his own remarks, had done so at
- the moment; or he had been impressed by the mere circumstance of the
- man being blind, and, therefore, unlike any one with whom he had talked
- before; it was impossible to tell. She tried every means to discover,
- but in vain; and the probability is that Barnaby himself was equally in
- the dark.
- It filled her with uneasiness to find him harping on this string, but
- all that she could do, was to lead him quickly to some other subject,
- and to dismiss it from his brain. To caution him against their visitor,
- to show any fear or suspicion in reference to him, would only be, she
- feared, to increase that interest with which Barnaby regarded him, and
- to strengthen his desire to meet him once again. She hoped, by plunging
- into the crowd, to rid herself of her terrible pursuer, and then, by
- journeying to a distance and observing increased caution, if that were
- possible, to live again unknown, in secrecy and peace.
- They reached, in course of time, their halting-place within ten miles of
- London, and lay there for the night, after bargaining to be carried on
- for a trifle next day, in a light van which was returning empty, and was
- to start at five o’clock in the morning. The driver was punctual, the
- road good--save for the dust, the weather being very hot and dry--and at
- seven in the forenoon of Friday the second of June, one thousand seven
- hundred and eighty, they alighted at the foot of Westminster Bridge,
- bade their conductor farewell, and stood alone, together, on the
- scorching pavement. For the freshness which night sheds upon such
- busy thoroughfares had already departed, and the sun was shining with
- uncommon lustre.
- Chapter 48
- Uncertain where to go next, and bewildered by the crowd of people who
- were already astir, they sat down in one of the recesses on the bridge,
- to rest. They soon became aware that the stream of life was all pouring
- one way, and that a vast throng of persons were crossing the river
- from the Middlesex to the Surrey shore, in unusual haste and evident
- excitement. They were, for the most part, in knots of two or three, or
- sometimes half-a-dozen; they spoke little together--many of them were
- quite silent; and hurried on as if they had one absorbing object in
- view, which was common to them all.
- They were surprised to see that nearly every man in this great
- concourse, which still came pouring past, without slackening in the
- least, wore in his hat a blue cockade; and that the chance passengers
- who were not so decorated, appeared timidly anxious to escape
- observation or attack, and gave them the wall as if they would
- conciliate them. This, however, was natural enough, considering their
- inferiority in point of numbers; for the proportion of those who wore
- blue cockades, to those who were dressed as usual, was at least forty or
- fifty to one. There was no quarrelling, however: the blue cockades went
- swarming on, passing each other when they could, and making all the
- speed that was possible in such a multitude; and exchanged nothing more
- than looks, and very often not even those, with such of the passers-by
- as were not of their number.
- At first, the current of people had been confined to the two pathways,
- and but a few more eager stragglers kept the road. But after half an
- hour or so, the passage was completely blocked up by the great press,
- which, being now closely wedged together, and impeded by the carts and
- coaches it encountered, moved but slowly, and was sometimes at a stand
- for five or ten minutes together.
- After the lapse of nearly two hours, the numbers began to diminish
- visibly, and gradually dwindling away, by little and little, left the
- bridge quite clear, save that, now and then, some hot and dusty man,
- with the cockade in his hat, and his coat thrown over his shoulder, went
- panting by, fearful of being too late, or stopped to ask which way
- his friends had taken, and being directed, hastened on again like one
- refreshed. In this comparative solitude, which seemed quite strange
- and novel after the late crowd, the widow had for the first time an
- opportunity of inquiring of an old man who came and sat beside them,
- what was the meaning of that great assemblage.
- ‘Why, where have you come from,’ he returned, ‘that you haven’t heard of
- Lord George Gordon’s great association? This is the day that he presents
- the petition against the Catholics, God bless him!’
- ‘What have all these men to do with that?’ she said.
- ‘What have they to do with it!’ the old man replied. ‘Why, how you talk!
- Don’t you know his lordship has declared he won’t present it to the
- house at all, unless it is attended to the door by forty thousand good
- and true men at least? There’s a crowd for you!’
- ‘A crowd indeed!’ said Barnaby. ‘Do you hear that, mother!’
- ‘And they’re mustering yonder, as I am told,’ resumed the old man, ‘nigh
- upon a hundred thousand strong. Ah! Let Lord George alone. He knows
- his power. There’ll be a good many faces inside them three windows over
- there,’ and he pointed to where the House of Commons overlooked the
- river, ‘that’ll turn pale when good Lord George gets up this afternoon,
- and with reason too! Ay, ay. Let his lordship alone. Let him alone.
- HE knows!’ And so, with much mumbling and chuckling and shaking of his
- forefinger, he rose, with the assistance of his stick, and tottered off.
- ‘Mother!’ said Barnaby, ‘that’s a brave crowd he talks of. Come!’
- ‘Not to join it!’ cried his mother.
- ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered, plucking at her sleeve. ‘Why not? Come!’
- ‘You don’t know,’ she urged, ‘what mischief they may do, where they may
- lead you, what their meaning is. Dear Barnaby, for my sake--’
- ‘For your sake!’ he cried, patting her hand. ‘Well! It IS for your sake,
- mother. You remember what the blind man said, about the gold. Here’s a
- brave crowd! Come! Or wait till I come back--yes, yes, wait here.’
- She tried with all the earnestness her fears engendered, to turn him
- from his purpose, but in vain. He was stooping down to buckle on his
- shoe, when a hackney-coach passed them rather quickly, and a voice
- inside called to the driver to stop.
- ‘Young man,’ said a voice within.
- ‘Who’s that?’ cried Barnaby, looking up.
- ‘Do you wear this ornament?’ returned the stranger, holding out a blue
- cockade.
- ‘In Heaven’s name, no. Pray do not give it him!’ exclaimed the widow.
- ‘Speak for yourself, woman,’ said the man within the coach, coldly.
- ‘Leave the young man to his choice; he’s old enough to make it, and
- to snap your apron-strings. He knows, without your telling, whether he
- wears the sign of a loyal Englishman or not.’
- Barnaby, trembling with impatience, cried, ‘Yes! yes, yes, I do,’ as
- he had cried a dozen times already. The man threw him a cockade, and
- crying, ‘Make haste to St George’s Fields,’ ordered the coachman to
- drive on fast; and left them.
- With hands that trembled with his eagerness to fix the bauble in his
- hat, Barnaby was adjusting it as he best could, and hurriedly replying
- to the tears and entreaties of his mother, when two gentlemen passed on
- the opposite side of the way. Observing them, and seeing how Barnaby was
- occupied, they stopped, whispered together for an instant, turned back,
- and came over to them.
- ‘Why are you sitting here?’ said one of them, who was dressed in a plain
- suit of black, wore long lank hair, and carried a great cane. ‘Why have
- you not gone with the rest?’
- ‘I am going, sir,’ replied Barnaby, finishing his task, and putting his
- hat on with an air of pride. ‘I shall be there directly.’
- ‘Say “my lord,” young man, when his lordship does you the honour of
- speaking to you,’ said the second gentleman mildly. ‘If you don’t know
- Lord George Gordon when you see him, it’s high time you should.’
- ‘Nay, Gashford,’ said Lord George, as Barnaby pulled off his hat again
- and made him a low bow, ‘it’s no great matter on a day like this, which
- every Englishman will remember with delight and pride. Put on your hat,
- friend, and follow us, for you lag behind and are late. It’s past ten
- now. Didn’t you know that the hour for assembling was ten o’clock?’
- Barnaby shook his head and looked vacantly from one to the other.
- ‘You might have known it, friend,’ said Gashford, ‘it was perfectly
- understood. How came you to be so ill informed?’
- ‘He cannot tell you, sir,’ the widow interposed. ‘It’s of no use to ask
- him. We are but this morning come from a long distance in the country,
- and know nothing of these matters.’
- ‘The cause has taken a deep root, and has spread its branches far and
- wide,’ said Lord George to his secretary. ‘This is a pleasant hearing. I
- thank Heaven for it!’
- ‘Amen!’ cried Gashford with a solemn face.
- ‘You do not understand me, my lord,’ said the widow. ‘Pardon me, but you
- cruelly mistake my meaning. We know nothing of these matters. We have no
- desire or right to join in what you are about to do. This is my son, my
- poor afflicted son, dearer to me than my own life. In mercy’s name, my
- lord, go your way alone, and do not tempt him into danger!’
- ‘My good woman,’ said Gashford, ‘how can you!--Dear me!--What do you
- mean by tempting, and by danger? Do you think his lordship is a roaring
- lion, going about and seeking whom he may devour? God bless me!’
- ‘No, no, my lord, forgive me,’ implored the widow, laying both her hands
- upon his breast, and scarcely knowing what she did, or said, in the
- earnestness of her supplication, ‘but there are reasons why you should
- hear my earnest, mother’s prayer, and leave my son with me. Oh do! He is
- not in his right senses, he is not, indeed!’
- ‘It is a bad sign of the wickedness of these times,’ said Lord George,
- evading her touch, and colouring deeply, ‘that those who cling to the
- truth and support the right cause, are set down as mad. Have you the
- heart to say this of your own son, unnatural mother!’
- ‘I am astonished at you!’ said Gashford, with a kind of meek severity.
- ‘This is a very sad picture of female depravity.’
- ‘He has surely no appearance,’ said Lord George, glancing at Barnaby,
- and whispering in his secretary’s ear, ‘of being deranged? And even
- if he had, we must not construe any trifling peculiarity into madness.
- Which of us’--and here he turned red again--‘would be safe, if that were
- made the law!’
- ‘Not one,’ replied the secretary; ‘in that case, the greater the zeal,
- the truth, and talent; the more direct the call from above; the clearer
- would be the madness. With regard to this young man, my lord,’ he added,
- with a lip that slightly curled as he looked at Barnaby, who stood
- twirling his hat, and stealthily beckoning them to come away, ‘he is as
- sensible and self-possessed as any one I ever saw.’
- ‘And you desire to make one of this great body?’ said Lord George,
- addressing him; ‘and intended to make one, did you?’
- ‘Yes--yes,’ said Barnaby, with sparkling eyes. ‘To be sure I did! I told
- her so myself.’
- ‘I see,’ replied Lord George, with a reproachful glance at the unhappy
- mother. ‘I thought so. Follow me and this gentleman, and you shall have
- your wish.’
- Barnaby kissed his mother tenderly on the cheek, and bidding her be
- of good cheer, for their fortunes were both made now, did as he was
- desired. She, poor woman, followed too--with how much fear and grief it
- would be hard to tell.
- They passed quickly through the Bridge Road, where the shops were all
- shut up (for the passage of the great crowd and the expectation of
- their return had alarmed the tradesmen for their goods and windows),
- and where, in the upper stories, all the inhabitants were congregated,
- looking down into the street below, with faces variously expressive
- of alarm, of interest, expectancy, and indignation. Some of these
- applauded, and some hissed; but regardless of these interruptions--for
- the noise of a vast congregation of people at a little distance, sounded
- in his ears like the roaring of the sea--Lord George Gordon quickened
- his pace, and presently arrived before St George’s Fields.
- They were really fields at that time, and of considerable extent. Here
- an immense multitude was collected, bearing flags of various kinds
- and sizes, but all of the same colour--blue, like the cockades--some
- sections marching to and fro in military array, and others drawn up in
- circles, squares, and lines. A large portion, both of the bodies
- which paraded the ground, and of those which remained stationary, were
- occupied in singing hymns or psalms. With whomsoever this originated, it
- was well done; for the sound of so many thousand voices in the air must
- have stirred the heart of any man within him, and could not fail to have
- a wonderful effect upon enthusiasts, however mistaken.
- Scouts had been posted in advance of the great body, to give notice of
- their leader’s coming. These falling back, the word was quickly passed
- through the whole host, and for a short interval there ensued a profound
- and deathlike silence, during which the mass was so still and
- quiet, that the fluttering of a banner caught the eye, and became a
- circumstance of note. Then they burst into a tremendous shout, into
- another, and another; and the air seemed rent and shaken, as if by the
- discharge of cannon.
- ‘Gashford!’ cried Lord George, pressing his secretary’s arm tight within
- his own, and speaking with as much emotion in his voice, as in his
- altered face, ‘I am called indeed, now. I feel and know it. I am the
- leader of a host. If they summoned me at this moment with one voice to
- lead them on to death, I’d do it--Yes, and fall first myself!’
- ‘It is a proud sight,’ said the secretary. ‘It is a noble day for
- England, and for the great cause throughout the world. Such homage, my
- lord, as I, an humble but devoted man, can render--’
- ‘What are you doing?’ cried his master, catching him by both hands;
- for he had made a show of kneeling at his feet. ‘Do not unfit me, dear
- Gashford, for the solemn duty of this glorious day--’ the tears stood in
- the eyes of the poor gentleman as he said the words.--‘Let us go
- among them; we have to find a place in some division for this new
- recruit--give me your hand.’
- Gashford slid his cold insidious palm into his master’s grasp, and so,
- hand in hand, and followed still by Barnaby and by his mother too, they
- mingled with the concourse.
- They had by this time taken to their singing again, and as their leader
- passed between their ranks, they raised their voices to their utmost.
- Many of those who were banded together to support the religion of their
- country, even unto death, had never heard a hymn or psalm in all their
- lives. But these fellows having for the most part strong lungs, and
- being naturally fond of singing, chanted any ribaldry or nonsense that
- occurred to them, feeling pretty certain that it would not be detected
- in the general chorus, and not caring much if it were. Many of these
- voluntaries were sung under the very nose of Lord George Gordon, who,
- quite unconscious of their burden, passed on with his usual stiff and
- solemn deportment, very much edified and delighted by the pious conduct
- of his followers.
- So they went on and on, up this line, down that, round the exterior of
- this circle, and on every side of that hollow square; and still there
- were lines, and squares, and circles out of number to review. The day
- being now intensely hot, and the sun striking down his fiercest rays
- upon the field, those who carried heavy banners began to grow faint
- and weary; most of the number assembled were fain to pull off their
- neckcloths, and throw their coats and waistcoats open; and some, towards
- the centre, quite overpowered by the excessive heat, which was of course
- rendered more unendurable by the multitude around them, lay down upon
- the grass, and offered all they had about them for a drink of water.
- Still, no man left the ground, not even of those who were so distressed;
- still Lord George, streaming from every pore, went on with Gashford; and
- still Barnaby and his mother followed close behind them.
- They had arrived at the top of a long line of some eight hundred men in
- single file, and Lord George had turned his head to look back, when a
- loud cry of recognition--in that peculiar and half-stifled tone which a
- voice has, when it is raised in the open air and in the midst of a
- great concourse of persons--was heard, and a man stepped with a shout
- of laughter from the rank, and smote Barnaby on the shoulders with his
- heavy hand.
- ‘How now!’ he cried. ‘Barnaby Rudge! Why, where have you been hiding for
- these hundred years?’
- Barnaby had been thinking within himself that the smell of the trodden
- grass brought back his old days at cricket, when he was a young boy
- and played on Chigwell Green. Confused by this sudden and boisterous
- address, he stared in a bewildered manner at the man, and could scarcely
- say ‘What! Hugh!’
- ‘Hugh!’ echoed the other; ‘ay, Hugh--Maypole Hugh! You remember my dog?
- He’s alive now, and will know you, I warrant. What, you wear the colour,
- do you? Well done! Ha ha ha!’
- ‘You know this young man, I see,’ said Lord George.
- ‘Know him, my lord! as well as I know my own right hand. My captain
- knows him. We all know him.’
- ‘Will you take him into your division?’
- ‘It hasn’t in it a better, nor a nimbler, nor a more active man, than
- Barnaby Rudge,’ said Hugh. ‘Show me the man who says it has! Fall in,
- Barnaby. He shall march, my lord, between me and Dennis; and he shall
- carry,’ he added, taking a flag from the hand of a tired man who
- tendered it, ‘the gayest silken streamer in this valiant army.’
- ‘In the name of God, no!’ shrieked the widow, darting forward.
- ‘Barnaby--my lord--see--he’ll come back--Barnaby--Barnaby!’
- ‘Women in the field!’ cried Hugh, stepping between them, and holding her
- off. ‘Holloa! My captain there!’
- ‘What’s the matter here?’ cried Simon Tappertit, bustling up in a great
- heat. ‘Do you call this order?’
- ‘Nothing like it, captain,’ answered Hugh, still holding her back with
- his outstretched hand. ‘It’s against all orders. Ladies are carrying
- off our gallant soldiers from their duty. The word of command, captain!
- They’re filing off the ground. Quick!’
- ‘Close!’ cried Simon, with the whole power of his lungs. ‘Form! March!’
- She was thrown to the ground; the whole field was in motion; Barnaby was
- whirled away into the heart of a dense mass of men, and she saw him no
- more.
- Chapter 49
- The mob had been divided from its first assemblage into four divisions;
- the London, the Westminster, the Southwark, and the Scotch. Each of
- these divisions being subdivided into various bodies, and these bodies
- being drawn up in various forms and figures, the general arrangement
- was, except to the few chiefs and leaders, as unintelligible as the
- plan of a great battle to the meanest soldier in the field. It was not
- without its method, however; for, in a very short space of time after
- being put in motion, the crowd had resolved itself into three great
- parties, and were prepared, as had been arranged, to cross the river
- by different bridges, and make for the House of Commons in separate
- detachments.
- At the head of that division which had Westminster Bridge for its
- approach to the scene of action, Lord George Gordon took his post; with
- Gashford at his right hand, and sundry ruffians, of most unpromising
- appearance, forming a kind of staff about him. The conduct of a second
- party, whose route lay by Blackfriars, was entrusted to a committee of
- management, including perhaps a dozen men: while the third, which was to
- go by London Bridge, and through the main streets, in order that their
- numbers and their serious intentions might be the better known and
- appreciated by the citizens, were led by Simon Tappertit (assisted by
- a few subalterns, selected from the Brotherhood of United Bulldogs),
- Dennis the hangman, Hugh, and some others.
- The word of command being given, each of these great bodies took the
- road assigned to it, and departed on its way, in perfect order and
- profound silence. That which went through the City greatly exceeded the
- others in number, and was of such prodigious extent that when the
- rear began to move, the front was nearly four miles in advance,
- notwithstanding that the men marched three abreast and followed very
- close upon each other.
- At the head of this party, in the place where Hugh, in the madness
- of his humour, had stationed him, and walking between that dangerous
- companion and the hangman, went Barnaby; as many a man among the
- thousands who looked on that day afterwards remembered well. Forgetful
- of all other things in the ecstasy of the moment, his face flushed and
- his eyes sparkling with delight, heedless of the weight of the great
- banner he carried, and mindful only of its flashing in the sun and
- rustling in the summer breeze, on he went, proud, happy, elated past
- all telling:--the only light-hearted, undesigning creature, in the whole
- assembly.
- ‘What do you think of this?’ asked Hugh, as they passed through the
- crowded streets, and looked up at the windows which were thronged with
- spectators. ‘They have all turned out to see our flags and streamers?
- Eh, Barnaby? Why, Barnaby’s the greatest man of all the pack! His flag’s
- the largest of the lot, the brightest too. There’s nothing in the show,
- like Barnaby. All eyes are turned on him. Ha ha ha!’
- ‘Don’t make that din, brother,’ growled the hangman, glancing with
- no very approving eyes at Barnaby as he spoke: ‘I hope he don’t think
- there’s nothing to be done, but carrying that there piece of blue rag,
- like a boy at a breaking up. You’re ready for action I hope, eh? You, I
- mean,’ he added, nudging Barnaby roughly with his elbow. ‘What are you
- staring at? Why don’t you speak?’
- Barnaby had been gazing at his flag, and looked vacantly from his
- questioner to Hugh.
- ‘He don’t understand your way,’ said the latter. ‘Here, I’ll explain it
- to him. Barnaby old boy, attend to me.’
- ‘I’ll attend,’ said Barnaby, looking anxiously round; ‘but I wish I
- could see her somewhere.’
- ‘See who?’ demanded Dennis in a gruff tone. ‘You an’t in love I hope,
- brother? That an’t the sort of thing for us, you know. We mustn’t have
- no love here.’
- ‘She would be proud indeed to see me now, eh Hugh?’ said Barnaby.
- ‘Wouldn’t it make her glad to see me at the head of this large show?
- She’d cry for joy, I know she would. Where CAN she be? She never sees me
- at my best, and what do I care to be gay and fine if SHE’S not by?’
- ‘Why, what palaver’s this?’ asked Mr Dennis with supreme disdain. ‘We
- an’t got no sentimental members among us, I hope.’
- ‘Don’t be uneasy, brother,’ cried Hugh, ‘he’s only talking of his
- mother.’
- ‘Of his what?’ said Mr Dennis with a strong oath.
- ‘His mother.’
- ‘And have I combined myself with this here section, and turned out on
- this here memorable day, to hear men talk about their mothers!’ growled
- Mr Dennis with extreme disgust. ‘The notion of a man’s sweetheart’s bad
- enough, but a man’s mother!’--and here his disgust was so extreme that
- he spat upon the ground, and could say no more.
- ‘Barnaby’s right,’ cried Hugh with a grin, ‘and I say it. Lookee, bold
- lad. If she’s not here to see, it’s because I’ve provided for her, and
- sent half-a-dozen gentlemen, every one of ‘em with a blue flag (but not
- half as fine as yours), to take her, in state, to a grand house all
- hung round with gold and silver banners, and everything else you please,
- where she’ll wait till you come, and want for nothing.’
- ‘Ay!’ said Barnaby, his face beaming with delight: ‘have you indeed?
- That’s a good hearing. That’s fine! Kind Hugh!’
- ‘But nothing to what will come, bless you,’ retorted Hugh, with a
- wink at Dennis, who regarded his new companion in arms with great
- astonishment.
- ‘No, indeed?’ cried Barnaby.
- ‘Nothing at all,’ said Hugh. ‘Money, cocked hats and feathers, red coats
- and gold lace; all the fine things there are, ever were, or will be;
- will belong to us if we are true to that noble gentleman--the best man
- in the world--carry our flags for a few days, and keep ‘em safe. That’s
- all we’ve got to do.’
- ‘Is that all?’ cried Barnaby with glistening eyes, as he clutched his
- pole the tighter; ‘I warrant you I keep this one safe, then. You have
- put it in good hands. You know me, Hugh. Nobody shall wrest this flag
- away.’
- ‘Well said!’ cried Hugh. ‘Ha ha! Nobly said! That’s the old stout
- Barnaby, that I have climbed and leaped with, many and many a day--I
- knew I was not mistaken in Barnaby.--Don’t you see, man,’ he added in
- a whisper, as he slipped to the other side of Dennis, ‘that the lad’s a
- natural, and can be got to do anything, if you take him the right way?
- Letting alone the fun he is, he’s worth a dozen men, in earnest, as
- you’d find if you tried a fall with him. Leave him to me. You shall soon
- see whether he’s of use or not.’
- Mr Dennis received these explanatory remarks with many nods and winks,
- and softened his behaviour towards Barnaby from that moment. Hugh,
- laying his finger on his nose, stepped back into his former place, and
- they proceeded in silence.
- It was between two and three o’clock in the afternoon when the three
- great parties met at Westminster, and, uniting into one huge mass,
- raised a tremendous shout. This was not only done in token of their
- presence, but as a signal to those on whom the task devolved, that it
- was time to take possession of the lobbies of both Houses, and of
- the various avenues of approach, and of the gallery stairs. To the
- last-named place, Hugh and Dennis, still with their pupil between them,
- rushed straightway; Barnaby having given his flag into the hands of one
- of their own party, who kept them at the outer door. Their followers
- pressing on behind, they were borne as on a great wave to the very doors
- of the gallery, whence it was impossible to retreat, even if they had
- been so inclined, by reason of the throng which choked up the passages.
- It is a familiar expression in describing a great crowd, that a person
- might have walked upon the people’s heads. In this case it was actually
- done; for a boy who had by some means got among the concourse, and was
- in imminent danger of suffocation, climbed to the shoulders of a man
- beside him and walked upon the people’s hats and heads into the open
- street; traversing in his passage the whole length of two staircases and
- a long gallery. Nor was the swarm without less dense; for a basket
- which had been tossed into the crowd, was jerked from head to head,
- and shoulder to shoulder, and went spinning and whirling on above them,
- until it was lost to view, without ever once falling in among them or
- coming near the ground.
- Through this vast throng, sprinkled doubtless here and there with honest
- zealots, but composed for the most part of the very scum and refuse
- of London, whose growth was fostered by bad criminal laws, bad prison
- regulations, and the worst conceivable police, such of the members of
- both Houses of Parliament as had not taken the precaution to be already
- at their posts, were compelled to fight and force their way. Their
- carriages were stopped and broken; the wheels wrenched off; the glasses
- shivered to atoms; the panels beaten in; drivers, footmen, and masters,
- pulled from their seats and rolled in the mud. Lords, commoners, and
- reverend bishops, with little distinction of person or party, were
- kicked and pinched and hustled; passed from hand to hand through various
- stages of ill-usage; and sent to their fellow-senators at last with
- their clothes hanging in ribands about them, their bagwigs torn off,
- themselves speechless and breathless, and their persons covered with the
- powder which had been cuffed and beaten out of their hair. One lord was
- so long in the hands of the populace, that the Peers as a body resolved
- to sally forth and rescue him, and were in the act of doing so, when he
- happily appeared among them covered with dirt and bruises, and hardly to
- be recognised by those who knew him best. The noise and uproar were on
- the increase every moment. The air was filled with execrations, hoots,
- and howlings. The mob raged and roared, like a mad monster as it was,
- unceasingly, and each new outrage served to swell its fury.
- Within doors, matters were even yet more threatening. Lord
- George--preceded by a man who carried the immense petition on a porter’s
- knot through the lobby to the door of the House of Commons, where it
- was received by two officers of the house who rolled it up to the table
- ready for presentation--had taken his seat at an early hour, before the
- Speaker went to prayers. His followers pouring in at the same time, the
- lobby and all the avenues were immediately filled, as we have seen. Thus
- the members were not only attacked in their passage through the streets,
- but were set upon within the very walls of Parliament; while the tumult,
- both within and without, was so great, that those who attempted to speak
- could scarcely hear their own voices: far less, consult upon the course
- it would be wise to take in such extremity, or animate each other to
- dignified and firm resistance. So sure as any member, just arrived, with
- dress disordered and dishevelled hair, came struggling through the crowd
- in the lobby, it yelled and screamed in triumph; and when the door
- of the House, partially and cautiously opened by those within for his
- admission, gave them a momentary glimpse of the interior, they grew
- more wild and savage, like beasts at the sight of prey, and made a rush
- against the portal which strained its locks and bolts in their staples,
- and shook the very beams.
- The strangers’ gallery, which was immediately above the door of the
- House, had been ordered to be closed on the first rumour of disturbance,
- and was empty; save that now and then Lord George took his seat there,
- for the convenience of coming to the head of the stairs which led to
- it, and repeating to the people what had passed within. It was on
- these stairs that Barnaby, Hugh, and Dennis were posted. There were two
- flights, short, steep, and narrow, running parallel to each other,
- and leading to two little doors communicating with a low passage which
- opened on the gallery. Between them was a kind of well, or unglazed
- skylight, for the admission of light and air into the lobby, which might
- be some eighteen or twenty feet below.
- Upon one of these little staircases--not that at the head of which Lord
- George appeared from time to time, but the other--Gashford stood with
- his elbow on the bannister, and his cheek resting on his hand, with his
- usual crafty aspect. Whenever he varied this attitude in the slightest
- degree--so much as by the gentlest motion of his arm--the uproar was
- certain to increase, not merely there, but in the lobby below; from
- which place no doubt, some man who acted as fugleman to the rest, was
- constantly looking up and watching him.
- ‘Order!’ cried Hugh, in a voice which made itself heard even above the
- roar and tumult, as Lord George appeared at the top of the staircase.
- ‘News! News from my lord!’
- The noise continued, notwithstanding his appearance, until Gashford
- looked round. There was silence immediately--even among the people in
- the passages without, and on the other staircases, who could neither
- see nor hear, but to whom, notwithstanding, the signal was conveyed with
- marvellous rapidity.
- ‘Gentlemen,’ said Lord George, who was very pale and agitated, ‘we must
- be firm. They talk of delays, but we must have no delays. They talk of
- taking your petition into consideration next Tuesday, but we must have
- it considered now. Present appearances look bad for our success, but we
- must succeed and will!’
- ‘We must succeed and will!’ echoed the crowd. And so among their shouts
- and cheers and other cries, he bowed to them and retired, and presently
- came back again. There was another gesture from Gashford, and a dead
- silence directly.
- ‘I am afraid,’ he said, this time, ‘that we have little reason,
- gentlemen, to hope for any redress from the proceedings of Parliament.
- But we must redress our own grievances, we must meet again, we must put
- our trust in Providence, and it will bless our endeavours.’
- This speech being a little more temperate than the last, was not so
- favourably received. When the noise and exasperation were at their
- height, he came back once more, and told them that the alarm had gone
- forth for many miles round; that when the King heard of their assembling
- together in that great body, he had no doubt, His Majesty would send
- down private orders to have their wishes complied with; and--with the
- manner of his speech as childish, irresolute, and uncertain as his
- matter--was proceeding in this strain, when two gentlemen suddenly
- appeared at the door where he stood, and pressing past him and coming a
- step or two lower down upon the stairs, confronted the people.
- The boldness of this action quite took them by surprise. They were
- not the less disconcerted, when one of the gentlemen, turning to Lord
- George, spoke thus--in a loud voice that they might hear him well, but
- quite coolly and collectedly:
- ‘You may tell these people, if you please, my lord, that I am General
- Conway of whom they have heard; and that I oppose this petition, and all
- their proceedings, and yours. I am a soldier, you may tell them, and I
- will protect the freedom of this place with my sword. You see, my lord,
- that the members of this House are all in arms to-day; you know that the
- entrance to it is a narrow one; you cannot be ignorant that there are
- men within these walls who are determined to defend that pass to the
- last, and before whom many lives must fall if your adherents persevere.
- Have a care what you do.’
- ‘And my Lord George,’ said the other gentleman, addressing him in like
- manner, ‘I desire them to hear this, from me--Colonel Gordon--your
- near relation. If a man among this crowd, whose uproar strikes us deaf,
- crosses the threshold of the House of Commons, I swear to run my sword
- that moment--not into his, but into your body!’
- With that, they stepped back again, keeping their faces towards the
- crowd; took each an arm of the misguided nobleman; drew him into the
- passage, and shut the door; which they directly locked and fastened on
- the inside.
- This was so quickly done, and the demeanour of both gentlemen--who
- were not young men either--was so gallant and resolute, that the crowd
- faltered and stared at each other with irresolute and timid looks. Many
- tried to turn towards the door; some of the faintest-hearted cried they
- had best go back, and called to those behind to give way; and the panic
- and confusion were increasing rapidly, when Gashford whispered Hugh.
- ‘What now!’ Hugh roared aloud, turning towards them. ‘Why go back? Where
- can you do better than here, boys! One good rush against these doors and
- one below at the same time, will do the business. Rush on, then! As to
- the door below, let those stand back who are afraid. Let those who are
- not afraid, try who shall be the first to pass it. Here goes! Look out
- down there!’
- Without the delay of an instant, he threw himself headlong over the
- bannisters into the lobby below. He had hardly touched the ground when
- Barnaby was at his side. The chaplain’s assistant, and some members who
- were imploring the people to retire, immediately withdrew; and then,
- with a great shout, both crowds threw themselves against the doors
- pell-mell, and besieged the House in earnest.
- At that moment, when a second onset must have brought them into
- collision with those who stood on the defensive within, in which case
- great loss of life and bloodshed would inevitably have ensued,--the
- hindmost portion of the crowd gave way, and the rumour spread from mouth
- to mouth that a messenger had been despatched by water for the military,
- who were forming in the street. Fearful of sustaining a charge in the
- narrow passages in which they were so closely wedged together, the
- throng poured out as impetuously as they had flocked in. As the whole
- stream turned at once, Barnaby and Hugh went with it: and so, fighting
- and struggling and trampling on fallen men and being trampled on in turn
- themselves, they and the whole mass floated by degrees into the open
- street, where a large detachment of the Guards, both horse and foot,
- came hurrying up; clearing the ground before them so rapidly that the
- people seemed to melt away as they advanced.
- The word of command to halt being given, the soldiers formed across the
- street; the rioters, breathless and exhausted with their late exertions,
- formed likewise, though in a very irregular and disorderly manner. The
- commanding officer rode hastily into the open space between the two
- bodies, accompanied by a magistrate and an officer of the House of
- Commons, for whose accommodation a couple of troopers had hastily
- dismounted. The Riot Act was read, but not a man stirred.
- In the first rank of the insurgents, Barnaby and Hugh stood side by
- side. Somebody had thrust into Barnaby’s hands when he came out into the
- street, his precious flag; which, being now rolled up and tied round
- the pole, looked like a giant quarter-staff as he grasped it firmly and
- stood upon his guard. If ever man believed with his whole heart and soul
- that he was engaged in a just cause, and that he was bound to stand by
- his leader to the last, poor Barnaby believed it of himself and Lord
- George Gordon.
- After an ineffectual attempt to make himself heard, the magistrate gave
- the word and the Horse Guards came riding in among the crowd. But, even
- then, he galloped here and there, exhorting the people to disperse; and,
- although heavy stones were thrown at the men, and some were desperately
- cut and bruised, they had no orders but to make prisoners of such of the
- rioters as were the most active, and to drive the people back with the
- flat of their sabres. As the horses came in among them, the throng gave
- way at many points, and the Guards, following up their advantage, were
- rapidly clearing the ground, when two or three of the foremost, who were
- in a manner cut off from the rest by the people closing round them, made
- straight towards Barnaby and Hugh, who had no doubt been pointed out as
- the two men who dropped into the lobby: laying about them now with some
- effect, and inflicting on the more turbulent of their opponents, a few
- slight flesh wounds, under the influence of which a man dropped,
- here and there, into the arms of his fellows, amid much groaning and
- confusion.
- At the sight of gashed and bloody faces, seen for a moment in the crowd,
- then hidden by the press around them, Barnaby turned pale and sick. But
- he stood his ground, and grasping his pole more firmly yet, kept his
- eye fixed upon the nearest soldier--nodding his head meanwhile, as Hugh,
- with a scowling visage, whispered in his ear.
- The soldier came spurring on, making his horse rear as the people
- pressed about him, cutting at the hands of those who would have grasped
- his rein and forced his charger back, and waving to his comrades to
- follow--and still Barnaby, without retreating an inch, waited for his
- coming. Some called to him to fly, and some were in the very act of
- closing round him, to prevent his being taken, when the pole swept into
- the air above the people’s heads, and the man’s saddle was empty in an
- instant.
- Then, he and Hugh turned and fled, the crowd opening to let them pass,
- and closing up again so quickly that there was no clue to the course
- they had taken. Panting for breath, hot, dusty, and exhausted with
- fatigue, they reached the riverside in safety, and getting into a boat
- with all despatch were soon out of any immediate danger.
- As they glided down the river, they plainly heard the people cheering;
- and supposing they might have forced the soldiers to retreat, lay upon
- their oars for a few minutes, uncertain whether to return or not. But
- the crowd passing along Westminster Bridge, soon assured them that the
- populace were dispersing; and Hugh rightly guessed from this, that
- they had cheered the magistrate for offering to dismiss the military on
- condition of their immediate departure to their several homes, and that
- he and Barnaby were better where they were. He advised, therefore, that
- they should proceed to Blackfriars, and, going ashore at the bridge,
- make the best of their way to The Boot; where there was not only good
- entertainment and safe lodging, but where they would certainly be joined
- by many of their late companions. Barnaby assenting, they decided on
- this course of action, and pulled for Blackfriars accordingly.
- They landed at a critical time, and fortunately for themselves at the
- right moment. For, coming into Fleet Street, they found it in an unusual
- stir; and inquiring the cause, were told that a body of Horse Guards had
- just galloped past, and that they were escorting some rioters whom they
- had made prisoners, to Newgate for safety. Not at all ill-pleased to
- have so narrowly escaped the cavalcade, they lost no more time in asking
- questions, but hurried to The Boot with as much speed as Hugh considered
- it prudent to make, without appearing singular or attracting an
- inconvenient share of public notice.
- Chapter 50
- They were among the first to reach the tavern, but they had not been
- there many minutes, when several groups of men who had formed part of
- the crowd, came straggling in. Among them were Simon Tappertit and Mr
- Dennis; both of whom, but especially the latter, greeted Barnaby with
- the utmost warmth, and paid him many compliments on the prowess he had
- shown.
- ‘Which,’ said Dennis, with an oath, as he rested his bludgeon in a
- corner with his hat upon it, and took his seat at the same table with
- them, ‘it does me good to think of. There was a opportunity! But it
- led to nothing. For my part, I don’t know what would. There’s no spirit
- among the people in these here times. Bring something to eat and drink
- here. I’m disgusted with humanity.’
- ‘On what account?’ asked Mr Tappertit, who had been quenching his fiery
- face in a half-gallon can. ‘Don’t you consider this a good beginning,
- mister?’
- ‘Give me security that it an’t a ending,’ rejoined the hangman. ‘When
- that soldier went down, we might have made London ours; but no;--we
- stand, and gape, and look on--the justice (I wish he had had a bullet in
- each eye, as he would have had, if we’d gone to work my way) says,
- “My lads, if you’ll give me your word to disperse, I’ll order off the
- military,” our people sets up a hurrah, throws up the game with the
- winning cards in their hands, and skulks away like a pack of tame curs
- as they are. Ah,’ said the hangman, in a tone of deep disgust, ‘it makes
- me blush for my feller creeturs. I wish I had been born a ox, I do!’
- ‘You’d have been quite as agreeable a character if you had been, I
- think,’ returned Simon Tappertit, going out in a lofty manner.
- ‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ rejoined the hangman, calling after him;
- ‘if I was a horned animal at the present moment, with the smallest
- grain of sense, I’d toss every man in this company, excepting them two,’
- meaning Hugh and Barnaby, ‘for his manner of conducting himself this
- day.’
- With which mournful review of their proceedings, Mr Dennis sought
- consolation in cold boiled beef and beer; but without at all relaxing
- the grim and dissatisfied expression of his face, the gloom of which was
- rather deepened than dissipated by their grateful influence.
- The company who were thus libelled might have retaliated by strong
- words, if not by blows, but they were dispirited and worn out. The
- greater part of them had fasted since morning; all had suffered
- extremely from the excessive heat; and between the day’s shouting,
- exertion, and excitement, many had quite lost their voices, and so much
- of their strength that they could hardly stand. Then they were uncertain
- what to do next, fearful of the consequences of what they had done
- already, and sensible that after all they had carried no point, but had
- indeed left matters worse than they had found them. Of those who had
- come to The Boot, many dropped off within an hour; such of them as were
- really honest and sincere, never, after the morning’s experience, to
- return, or to hold any communication with their late companions. Others
- remained but to refresh themselves, and then went home desponding;
- others who had theretofore been regular in their attendance, avoided the
- place altogether. The half-dozen prisoners whom the Guards had taken,
- were magnified by report into half-a-hundred at least; and their
- friends, being faint and sober, so slackened in their energy, and so
- drooped beneath these dispiriting influences, that by eight o’clock in
- the evening, Dennis, Hugh, and Barnaby, were left alone. Even they were
- fast asleep upon the benches, when Gashford’s entrance roused them.
- ‘Oh! you ARE here then?’ said the Secretary. ‘Dear me!’
- ‘Why, where should we be, Muster Gashford!’ Dennis rejoined as he rose
- into a sitting posture.
- ‘Oh nowhere, nowhere,’ he returned with excessive mildness. ‘The streets
- are filled with blue cockades. I rather thought you might have been
- among them. I am glad you are not.’
- ‘You have orders for us, master, then?’ said Hugh.
- ‘Oh dear, no. Not I. No orders, my good fellow. What orders should I
- have? You are not in my service.’
- ‘Muster Gashford,’ remonstrated Dennis, ‘we belong to the cause, don’t
- we?’
- ‘The cause!’ repeated the secretary, looking at him in a sort of
- abstraction. ‘There is no cause. The cause is lost.’
- ‘Lost!’
- ‘Oh yes. You have heard, I suppose? The petition is rejected by a
- hundred and ninety-two, to six. It’s quite final. We might have spared
- ourselves some trouble. That, and my lord’s vexation, are the only
- circumstances I regret. I am quite satisfied in all other respects.’
- As he said this, he took a penknife from his pocket, and putting his
- hat upon his knee, began to busy himself in ripping off the blue cockade
- which he had worn all day; at the same time humming a psalm tune which
- had been very popular in the morning, and dwelling on it with a gentle
- regret.
- His two adherents looked at each other, and at him, as if they were at a
- loss how to pursue the subject. At length Hugh, after some elbowing and
- winking between himself and Mr Dennis, ventured to stay his hand, and to
- ask him why he meddled with that riband in his hat.
- ‘Because,’ said the secretary, looking up with something between a snarl
- and a smile; ‘because to sit still and wear it, or to fall asleep and
- wear it, is a mockery. That’s all, friend.’
- ‘What would you have us do, master!’ cried Hugh.
- ‘Nothing,’ returned Gashford, shrugging his shoulders, ‘nothing. When my
- lord was reproached and threatened for standing by you, I, as a prudent
- man, would have had you do nothing. When the soldiers were trampling you
- under their horses’ feet, I would have had you do nothing. When one of
- them was struck down by a daring hand, and I saw confusion and dismay in
- all their faces, I would have had you do nothing--just what you did,
- in short. This is the young man who had so little prudence and so much
- boldness. Ah! I am sorry for him.’
- ‘Sorry, master!’ cried Hugh.
- ‘Sorry, Muster Gashford!’ echoed Dennis.
- ‘In case there should be a proclamation out to-morrow, offering five
- hundred pounds, or some such trifle, for his apprehension; and in case
- it should include another man who dropped into the lobby from the stairs
- above,’ said Gashford, coldly; ‘still, do nothing.’
- ‘Fire and fury, master!’ cried Hugh, starting up. ‘What have we done,
- that you should talk to us like this!’
- ‘Nothing,’ returned Gashford with a sneer. ‘If you are cast into prison;
- if the young man--’ here he looked hard at Barnaby’s attentive face--‘is
- dragged from us and from his friends; perhaps from people whom he loves,
- and whom his death would kill; is thrown into jail, brought out and
- hanged before their eyes; still, do nothing. You’ll find it your best
- policy, I have no doubt.’
- ‘Come on!’ cried Hugh, striding towards the door. ‘Dennis--Barnaby--come
- on!’
- ‘Where? To do what?’ said Gashford, slipping past him, and standing with
- his back against it.
- ‘Anywhere! Anything!’ cried Hugh. ‘Stand aside, master, or the window
- will serve our turn as well. Let us out!’
- ‘Ha ha ha! You are of such--of such an impetuous nature,’ said Gashford,
- changing his manner for one of the utmost good fellowship and the
- pleasantest raillery; ‘you are such an excitable creature--but you’ll
- drink with me before you go?’
- ‘Oh, yes--certainly,’ growled Dennis, drawing his sleeve across his
- thirsty lips. ‘No malice, brother. Drink with Muster Gashford!’
- Hugh wiped his heated brow, and relaxed into a smile. The artful
- secretary laughed outright.
- ‘Some liquor here! Be quick, or he’ll not stop, even for that. He is a
- man of such desperate ardour!’ said the smooth secretary, whom Mr Dennis
- corroborated with sundry nods and muttered oaths--‘Once roused, he is a
- fellow of such fierce determination!’
- Hugh poised his sturdy arm aloft, and clapping Barnaby on the back,
- bade him fear nothing. They shook hands together--poor Barnaby evidently
- possessed with the idea that he was among the most virtuous and
- disinterested heroes in the world--and Gashford laughed again.
- ‘I hear,’ he said smoothly, as he stood among them with a great measure
- of liquor in his hand, and filled their glasses as quickly and as
- often as they chose, ‘I hear--but I cannot say whether it be true or
- false--that the men who are loitering in the streets to-night are half
- disposed to pull down a Romish chapel or two, and that they only want
- leaders. I even heard mention of those in Duke Street, Lincoln’s Inn
- Fields, and in Warwick Street, Golden Square; but common report, you
- know--You are not going?’
- --‘To do nothing, master, eh?’ cried Hugh. ‘No jails and halter for
- Barnaby and me. They must be frightened out of that. Leaders are wanted,
- are they? Now boys!’
- ‘A most impetuous fellow!’ cried the secretary. ‘Ha ha! A courageous,
- boisterous, most vehement fellow! A man who--’
- There was no need to finish the sentence, for they had rushed out of the
- house, and were far beyond hearing. He stopped in the middle of a laugh,
- listened, drew on his gloves, and, clasping his hands behind him, paced
- the deserted room for a long time, then bent his steps towards the busy
- town, and walked into the streets.
- They were filled with people, for the rumour of that day’s proceedings
- had made a great noise. Those persons who did not care to leave home,
- were at their doors or windows, and one topic of discourse prevailed
- on every side. Some reported that the riots were effectually put down;
- others that they had broken out again: some said that Lord George Gordon
- had been sent under a strong guard to the Tower; others that an attempt
- had been made upon the King’s life, that the soldiers had been again
- called out, and that the noise of musketry in a distant part of the town
- had been plainly heard within an hour. As it grew darker, these stories
- became more direful and mysterious; and often, when some frightened
- passenger ran past with tidings that the rioters were not far off,
- and were coming up, the doors were shut and barred, lower windows
- made secure, and as much consternation engendered, as if the city were
- invaded by a foreign army.
- Gashford walked stealthily about, listening to all he heard, and
- diffusing or confirming, whenever he had an opportunity, such false
- intelligence as suited his own purpose; and, busily occupied in this
- way, turned into Holborn for the twentieth time, when a great many women
- and children came flying along the street--often panting and looking
- back--and the confused murmur of numerous voices struck upon his ear.
- Assured by these tokens, and by the red light which began to flash
- upon the houses on either side, that some of his friends were indeed
- approaching, he begged a moment’s shelter at a door which opened as he
- passed, and running with some other persons to an upper window, looked
- out upon the crowd.
- They had torches among them, and the chief faces were distinctly
- visible. That they had been engaged in the destruction of some building
- was sufficiently apparent, and that it was a Catholic place of worship
- was evident from the spoils they bore as trophies, which were easily
- recognisable for the vestments of priests, and rich fragments of altar
- furniture. Covered with soot, and dirt, and dust, and lime; their
- garments torn to rags; their hair hanging wildly about them; their hands
- and faces jagged and bleeding with the wounds of rusty nails; Barnaby,
- Hugh, and Dennis hurried on before them all, like hideous madmen. After
- them, the dense throng came fighting on: some singing; some shouting in
- triumph; some quarrelling among themselves; some menacing the spectators
- as they passed; some with great wooden fragments, on which they spent
- their rage as if they had been alive, rending them limb from limb,
- and hurling the scattered morsels high into the air; some in a drunken
- state, unconscious of the hurts they had received from falling bricks,
- and stones, and beams; one borne upon a shutter, in the very midst,
- covered with a dingy cloth, a senseless, ghastly heap. Thus--a vision
- of coarse faces, with here and there a blot of flaring, smoky light; a
- dream of demon heads and savage eyes, and sticks and iron bars uplifted
- in the air, and whirled about; a bewildering horror, in which so much
- was seen, and yet so little, which seemed so long, and yet so short, in
- which there were so many phantoms, not to be forgotten all through life,
- and yet so many things that could not be observed in one distracting
- glimpse--it flitted onward, and was gone.
- As it passed away upon its work of wrath and ruin, a piercing scream was
- heard. A knot of persons ran towards the spot; Gashford, who just then
- emerged into the street, among them. He was on the outskirts of the
- little concourse, and could not see or hear what passed within; but one
- who had a better place, informed him that a widow woman had descried her
- son among the rioters.
- ‘Is that all?’ said the secretary, turning his face homewards. ‘Well! I
- think this looks a little more like business!’
- Chapter 51
- Promising as these outrages were to Gashford’s view, and much like
- business as they looked, they extended that night no farther. The
- soldiers were again called out, again they took half-a-dozen prisoners,
- and again the crowd dispersed after a short and bloodless scuffle. Hot
- and drunken though they were, they had not yet broken all bounds and
- set all law and government at defiance. Something of their habitual
- deference to the authority erected by society for its own preservation
- yet remained among them, and had its majesty been vindicated in time,
- the secretary would have had to digest a bitter disappointment.
- By midnight, the streets were clear and quiet, and, save that there
- stood in two parts of the town a heap of nodding walls and pile of
- rubbish, where there had been at sunset a rich and handsome building,
- everything wore its usual aspect. Even the Catholic gentry and
- tradesmen, of whom there were many resident in different parts of the
- City and its suburbs, had no fear for their lives or property, and
- but little indignation for the wrong they had already sustained in
- the plunder and destruction of their temples of worship. An honest
- confidence in the government under whose protection they had lived for
- many years, and a well-founded reliance on the good feeling and right
- thinking of the great mass of the community, with whom, notwithstanding
- their religious differences, they were every day in habits of
- confidential, affectionate, and friendly intercourse, reassured them,
- even under the excesses that had been committed; and convinced them that
- they who were Protestants in anything but the name, were no more to
- be considered as abettors of these disgraceful occurrences, than they
- themselves were chargeable with the uses of the block, the rack, the
- gibbet, and the stake in cruel Mary’s reign.
- The clock was on the stroke of one, when Gabriel Varden, with his
- lady and Miss Miggs, sat waiting in the little parlour. This fact; the
- toppling wicks of the dull, wasted candles; the silence that prevailed;
- and, above all, the nightcaps of both maid and matron, were sufficient
- evidence that they had been prepared for bed some time ago, and had some
- reason for sitting up so far beyond their usual hour.
- If any other corroborative testimony had been required, it would have
- been abundantly furnished in the actions of Miss Miggs, who, having
- arrived at that restless state and sensitive condition of the nervous
- system which are the result of long watching, did, by a constant rubbing
- and tweaking of her nose, a perpetual change of position (arising from
- the sudden growth of imaginary knots and knobs in her chair), a frequent
- friction of her eyebrows, the incessant recurrence of a small cough, a
- small groan, a gasp, a sigh, a sniff, a spasmodic start, and by other
- demonstrations of that nature, so file down and rasp, as it were, the
- patience of the locksmith, that after looking at her in silence for some
- time, he at last broke out into this apostrophe:--
- ‘Miggs, my good girl, go to bed--do go to bed. You’re really worse
- than the dripping of a hundred water-butts outside the window, or the
- scratching of as many mice behind the wainscot. I can’t bear it. Do go
- to bed, Miggs. To oblige me--do.’
- ‘You haven’t got nothing to untie, sir,’ returned Miss Miggs, ‘and
- therefore your requests does not surprise me. But missis has--and
- while you sit up, mim’--she added, turning to the locksmith’s wife,
- ‘I couldn’t, no, not if twenty times the quantity of cold water was
- aperiently running down my back at this moment, go to bed with a quiet
- spirit.’
- Having spoken these words, Miss Miggs made divers efforts to rub her
- shoulders in an impossible place, and shivered from head to foot;
- thereby giving the beholders to understand that the imaginary cascade
- was still in full flow, but that a sense of duty upheld her under that
- and all other sufferings, and nerved her to endurance.
- Mrs Varden being too sleepy to speak, and Miss Miggs having, as the
- phrase is, said her say, the locksmith had nothing for it but to sigh
- and be as quiet as he could.
- But to be quiet with such a basilisk before him was impossible. If he
- looked another way, it was worse to feel that she was rubbing her
- cheek, or twitching her ear, or winking her eye, or making all kinds of
- extraordinary shapes with her nose, than to see her do it. If she was
- for a moment free from any of these complaints, it was only because of
- her foot being asleep, or of her arm having got the fidgets, or of her
- leg being doubled up with the cramp, or of some other horrible disorder
- which racked her whole frame. If she did enjoy a moment’s ease, then
- with her eyes shut and her mouth wide open, she would be seen to sit
- very stiff and upright in her chair; then to nod a little way forward,
- and stop with a jerk; then to nod a little farther forward, and stop
- with another jerk; then to recover herself; then to come forward
- again--lower--lower--lower--by very slow degrees, until, just as it
- seemed impossible that she could preserve her balance for another
- instant, and the locksmith was about to call out in an agony, to save
- her from dashing down upon her forehead and fracturing her skull, then
- all of a sudden and without the smallest notice, she would come upright
- and rigid again with her eyes open, and in her countenance an expression
- of defiance, sleepy but yet most obstinate, which plainly said, ‘I’ve
- never once closed ‘em since I looked at you last, and I’ll take my oath
- of it!’
- At length, after the clock had struck two, there was a sound at the
- street door, as if somebody had fallen against the knocker by accident.
- Miss Miggs immediately jumping up and clapping her hands, cried with a
- drowsy mingling of the sacred and profane, ‘Ally Looyer, mim! there’s
- Simmuns’s knock!’
- ‘Who’s there?’ said Gabriel.
- ‘Me!’ cried the well-known voice of Mr Tappertit. Gabriel opened the
- door, and gave him admission.
- He did not cut a very insinuating figure, for a man of his stature
- suffers in a crowd; and having been active in yesterday morning’s work,
- his dress was literally crushed from head to foot: his hat being beaten
- out of all shape, and his shoes trodden down at heel like slippers. His
- coat fluttered in strips about him, the buckles were torn away both from
- his knees and feet, half his neckerchief was gone, and the bosom of
- his shirt was rent to tatters. Yet notwithstanding all these personal
- disadvantages; despite his being very weak from heat and fatigue; and
- so begrimed with mud and dust that he might have been in a case, for
- anything of the real texture (either of his skin or apparel) that the
- eye could discern; he stalked haughtily into the parlour, and throwing
- himself into a chair, and endeavouring to thrust his hands into the
- pockets of his small-clothes, which were turned inside out and displayed
- upon his legs, like tassels, surveyed the household with a gloomy
- dignity.
- ‘Simon,’ said the locksmith gravely, ‘how comes it that you return home
- at this time of night, and in this condition? Give me an assurance that
- you have not been among the rioters, and I am satisfied.’
- ‘Sir,’ replied Mr Tappertit, with a contemptuous look, ‘I wonder at YOUR
- assurance in making such demands.’
- ‘You have been drinking,’ said the locksmith.
- ‘As a general principle, and in the most offensive sense of the words,
- sir,’ returned his journeyman with great self-possession,
- ‘I consider you a liar. In that last observation you have
- unintentionally--unintentionally, sir,--struck upon the truth.’
- ‘Martha,’ said the locksmith, turning to his wife, and shaking his head
- sorrowfully, while a smile at the absurd figure beside him still played
- upon his open face, ‘I trust it may turn out that this poor lad is not
- the victim of the knaves and fools we have so often had words about, and
- who have done so much harm to-day. If he has been at Warwick Street or
- Duke Street to-night--’
- ‘He has been at neither, sir,’ cried Mr Tappertit in a loud voice, which
- he suddenly dropped into a whisper as he repeated, with eyes fixed upon
- the locksmith, ‘he has been at neither.’
- ‘I am glad of it, with all my heart,’ said the locksmith in a serious
- tone; ‘for if he had been, and it could be proved against him, Martha,
- your Great Association would have been to him the cart that draws men
- to the gallows and leaves them hanging in the air. It would, as sure as
- we’re alive!’
- Mrs Varden was too much scared by Simon’s altered manner and appearance,
- and by the accounts of the rioters which had reached her ears that
- night, to offer any retort, or to have recourse to her usual matrimonial
- policy. Miss Miggs wrung her hands, and wept.
- ‘He was not at Duke Street, or at Warwick Street, G. Varden,’ said
- Simon, sternly; ‘but he WAS at Westminster. Perhaps, sir, he kicked a
- county member, perhaps, sir, he tapped a lord--you may stare, sir, I
- repeat it--blood flowed from noses, and perhaps he tapped a lord. Who
- knows? This,’ he added, putting his hand into his waistcoat-pocket,
- and taking out a large tooth, at the sight of which both Miggs and Mrs
- Varden screamed, ‘this was a bishop’s. Beware, G. Varden!’
- ‘Now, I would rather,’ said the locksmith hastily, ‘have paid five
- hundred pounds, than had this come to pass. You idiot, do you know what
- peril you stand in?’
- ‘I know it, sir,’ replied his journeyman, ‘and it is my glory. I was
- there, everybody saw me there. I was conspicuous, and prominent. I will
- abide the consequences.’
- The locksmith, really disturbed and agitated, paced to and fro in
- silence--glancing at his former ‘prentice every now and then--and at
- length stopping before him, said:
- ‘Get to bed, and sleep for a couple of hours that you may wake penitent,
- and with some of your senses about you. Be sorry for what you have
- done, and we will try to save you. If I call him by five o’clock,’ said
- Varden, turning hurriedly to his wife, and he washes himself clean
- and changes his dress, he may get to the Tower Stairs, and away by the
- Gravesend tide-boat, before any search is made for him. From there he
- can easily get on to Canterbury, where your cousin will give him
- work till this storm has blown over. I am not sure that I do right in
- screening him from the punishment he deserves, but he has lived in this
- house, man and boy, for a dozen years, and I should be sorry if for this
- one day’s work he made a miserable end. Lock the front-door, Miggs, and
- show no light towards the street when you go upstairs. Quick, Simon! Get
- to bed!’
- ‘And do you suppose, sir,’ retorted Mr Tappertit, with a thickness
- and slowness of speech which contrasted forcibly with the rapidity and
- earnestness of his kind-hearted master--‘and do you suppose, sir, that I
- am base and mean enough to accept your servile proposition?--Miscreant!’
- ‘Whatever you please, Sim, but get to bed. Every minute is of
- consequence. The light here, Miggs!’
- ‘Yes yes, oh do! Go to bed directly,’ cried the two women together.
- Mr Tappertit stood upon his feet, and pushing his chair away to show
- that he needed no assistance, answered, swaying himself to and fro, and
- managing his head as if it had no connection whatever with his body:
- ‘You spoke of Miggs, sir--Miggs may be smothered!’
- ‘Oh Simmun!’ ejaculated that young lady in a faint voice. ‘Oh mim! Oh
- sir! Oh goodness gracious, what a turn he has give me!’
- ‘This family may ALL be smothered, sir,’ returned Mr Tappertit, after
- glancing at her with a smile of ineffable disdain, ‘excepting Mrs V.
- I have come here, sir, for her sake, this night. Mrs Varden, take this
- piece of paper. It’s a protection, ma’am. You may need it.’
- With these words he held out at arm’s length, a dirty, crumpled scrap of
- writing. The locksmith took it from him, opened it, and read as follows:
- ‘All good friends to our cause, I hope will be particular, and do no
- injury to the property of any true Protestant. I am well assured that
- the proprietor of this house is a staunch and worthy friend to the
- cause.
- GEORGE GORDON.’
- ‘What’s this!’ said the locksmith, with an altered face.
- ‘Something that’ll do you good service, young feller,’ replied his
- journeyman, ‘as you’ll find. Keep that safe, and where you can lay your
- hand upon it in an instant. And chalk “No Popery” on your door to-morrow
- night, and for a week to come--that’s all.’
- ‘This is a genuine document,’ said the locksmith, ‘I know, for I have
- seen the hand before. What threat does it imply? What devil is abroad?’
- ‘A fiery devil,’ retorted Sim; ‘a flaming, furious devil. Don’t you put
- yourself in its way, or you’re done for, my buck. Be warned in time, G.
- Varden. Farewell!’
- But here the two women threw themselves in his way--especially Miss
- Miggs, who fell upon him with such fervour that she pinned him against
- the wall--and conjured him in moving words not to go forth till he was
- sober; to listen to reason; to think of it; to take some rest, and then
- determine.
- ‘I tell you,’ said Mr Tappertit, ‘that my mind is made up. My bleeding
- country calls me and I go! Miggs, if you don’t get out of the way, I’ll
- pinch you.’
- Miss Miggs, still clinging to the rebel, screamed once vociferously--but
- whether in the distraction of her mind, or because of his having
- executed his threat, is uncertain.
- ‘Release me,’ said Simon, struggling to free himself from her chaste,
- but spider-like embrace. ‘Let me go! I have made arrangements for you in
- an altered state of society, and mean to provide for you comfortably in
- life--there! Will that satisfy you?’
- ‘Oh Simmun!’ cried Miss Miggs. ‘Oh my blessed Simmun! Oh mim! what are
- my feelings at this conflicting moment!’
- Of a rather turbulent description, it would seem; for her nightcap
- had been knocked off in the scuffle, and she was on her knees upon
- the floor, making a strange revelation of blue and yellow curl-papers,
- straggling locks of hair, tags of staylaces, and strings of it’s
- impossible to say what; panting for breath, clasping her hands, turning
- her eyes upwards, shedding abundance of tears, and exhibiting various
- other symptoms of the acutest mental suffering.
- ‘I leave,’ said Simon, turning to his master, with an utter disregard of
- Miggs’s maidenly affliction, ‘a box of things upstairs. Do what you
- like with ‘em. I don’t want ‘em. I’m never coming back here, any more.
- Provide yourself, sir, with a journeyman; I’m my country’s journeyman;
- henceforward that’s MY line of business.’
- ‘Be what you like in two hours’ time, but now go up to bed,’ returned
- the locksmith, planting himself in the doorway. ‘Do you hear me? Go to
- bed!’
- ‘I hear you, and defy you, Varden,’ rejoined Simon Tappertit. ‘This
- night, sir, I have been in the country, planning an expedition which
- shall fill your bell-hanging soul with wonder and dismay. The plot
- demands my utmost energy. Let me pass!’
- ‘I’ll knock you down if you come near the door,’ replied the locksmith.
- ‘You had better go to bed!’
- Simon made no answer, but gathering himself up as straight as he could,
- plunged head foremost at his old master, and the two went driving out
- into the workshop together, plying their hands and feet so briskly that
- they looked like half-a-dozen, while Miggs and Mrs Varden screamed for
- twelve.
- It would have been easy for Varden to knock his old ‘prentice down,
- and bind him hand and foot; but as he was loth to hurt him in his then
- defenceless state, he contented himself with parrying his blows when he
- could, taking them in perfect good part when he could not, and keeping
- between him and the door, until a favourable opportunity should present
- itself for forcing him to retreat up-stairs, and shutting him up in his
- own room. But, in the goodness of his heart, he calculated too much upon
- his adversary’s weakness, and forgot that drunken men who have lost
- the power of walking steadily, can often run. Watching his time, Simon
- Tappertit made a cunning show of falling back, staggered unexpectedly
- forward, brushed past him, opened the door (he knew the trick of that
- lock well), and darted down the street like a mad dog. The locksmith
- paused for a moment in the excess of his astonishment, and then gave
- chase.
- It was an excellent season for a run, for at that silent hour the
- streets were deserted, the air was cool, and the flying figure before
- him distinctly visible at a great distance, as it sped away, with a long
- gaunt shadow following at its heels. But the short-winded locksmith had
- no chance against a man of Sim’s youth and spare figure, though the day
- had been when he could have run him down in no time. The space between
- them rapidly increased, and as the rays of the rising sun streamed upon
- Simon in the act of turning a distant corner, Gabriel Varden was fain
- to give up, and sit down on a doorstep to fetch his breath. Simon
- meanwhile, without once stopping, fled at the same degree of swiftness
- to The Boot, where, as he well knew, some of his company were lying,
- and at which respectable hostelry--for he had already acquired the
- distinction of being in great peril of the law--a friendly watch had
- been expecting him all night, and was even now on the look-out for his
- coming.
- ‘Go thy ways, Sim, go thy ways,’ said the locksmith, as soon as he could
- speak. ‘I have done my best for thee, poor lad, and would have saved
- thee, but the rope is round thy neck, I fear.’
- So saying, and shaking his head in a very sorrowful and disconsolate
- manner, he turned back, and soon re-entered his own house, where Mrs
- Varden and the faithful Miggs had been anxiously expecting his return.
- Now Mrs Varden (and by consequence Miss Miggs likewise) was impressed
- with a secret misgiving that she had done wrong; that she had, to the
- utmost of her small means, aided and abetted the growth of disturbances,
- the end of which it was impossible to foresee; that she had led remotely
- to the scene which had just passed; and that the locksmith’s time for
- triumph and reproach had now arrived indeed. And so strongly did Mrs
- Varden feel this, and so crestfallen was she in consequence, that while
- her husband was pursuing their lost journeyman, she secreted under her
- chair the little red-brick dwelling-house with the yellow roof, lest it
- should furnish new occasion for reference to the painful theme; and now
- hid the same still more, with the skirts of her dress.
- But it happened that the locksmith had been thinking of this very
- article on his way home, and that, coming into the room and not seeing
- it, he at once demanded where it was.
- Mrs Varden had no resource but to produce it, which she did with many
- tears, and broken protestations that if she could have known--
- ‘Yes, yes,’ said Varden, ‘of course--I know that. I don’t mean to
- reproach you, my dear. But recollect from this time that all good things
- perverted to evil purposes, are worse than those which are naturally
- bad. A thoroughly wicked woman, is wicked indeed. When religion goes
- wrong, she is very wrong, for the same reason. Let us say no more about
- it, my dear.’
- So he dropped the red-brick dwelling-house on the floor, and setting his
- heel upon it, crushed it into pieces. The halfpence, and sixpences,
- and other voluntary contributions, rolled about in all directions, but
- nobody offered to touch them, or to take them up.
- ‘That,’ said the locksmith, ‘is easily disposed of, and I would to
- Heaven that everything growing out of the same society could be settled
- as easily.’
- ‘It happens very fortunately, Varden,’ said his wife, with her
- handkerchief to her eyes, ‘that in case any more disturbances should
- happen--which I hope not; I sincerely hope not--’
- ‘I hope so too, my dear.’
- ‘--That in case any should occur, we have the piece of paper which that
- poor misguided young man brought.’
- ‘Ay, to be sure,’ said the locksmith, turning quickly round. ‘Where is
- that piece of paper?’
- Mrs Varden stood aghast as he took it from her outstretched hand, tore
- it into fragments, and threw them under the grate.
- ‘Not use it?’ she said.
- ‘Use it!’ cried the locksmith. No! Let them come and pull the roof about
- our ears; let them burn us out of house and home; I’d neither have the
- protection of their leader, nor chalk their howl upon my door, though,
- for not doing it, they shot me on my own threshold. Use it! Let them
- come and do their worst. The first man who crosses my doorstep on such
- an errand as theirs, had better be a hundred miles away. Let him look to
- it. The others may have their will. I wouldn’t beg or buy them off, if,
- instead of every pound of iron in the place, there was a hundred weight
- of gold. Get you to bed, Martha. I shall take down the shutters and go
- to work.’
- ‘So early!’ said his wife.
- ‘Ay,’ replied the locksmith cheerily, ‘so early. Come when they may,
- they shall not find us skulking and hiding, as if we feared to take our
- portion of the light of day, and left it all to them. So pleasant dreams
- to you, my dear, and cheerful sleep!’
- With that he gave his wife a hearty kiss, and bade her delay no longer,
- or it would be time to rise before she lay down to rest. Mrs Varden
- quite amiably and meekly walked upstairs, followed by Miggs, who,
- although a good deal subdued, could not refrain from sundry stimulative
- coughs and sniffs by the way, or from holding up her hands in
- astonishment at the daring conduct of master.
- Chapter 52
- A mob is usually a creature of very mysterious existence, particularly
- in a large city. Where it comes from or whither it goes, few men
- can tell. Assembling and dispersing with equal suddenness, it is as
- difficult to follow to its various sources as the sea itself; nor does
- the parallel stop here, for the ocean is not more fickle and uncertain,
- more terrible when roused, more unreasonable, or more cruel.
- The people who were boisterous at Westminster upon the Friday morning,
- and were eagerly bent upon the work of devastation in Duke Street and
- Warwick Street at night, were, in the mass, the same. Allowing for the
- chance accessions of which any crowd is morally sure in a town where
- there must always be a large number of idle and profligate persons,
- one and the same mob was at both places. Yet they spread themselves
- in various directions when they dispersed in the afternoon, made no
- appointment for reassembling, had no definite purpose or design, and
- indeed, for anything they knew, were scattered beyond the hope of future
- union.
- At The Boot, which, as has been shown, was in a manner the head-quarters
- of the rioters, there were not, upon this Friday night, a dozen people.
- Some slept in the stable and outhouses, some in the common room, some
- two or three in beds. The rest were in their usual homes or haunts.
- Perhaps not a score in all lay in the adjacent fields and lanes, and
- under haystacks, or near the warmth of brick-kilns, who had not their
- accustomed place of rest beneath the open sky. As to the public ways
- within the town, they had their ordinary nightly occupants, and no
- others; the usual amount of vice and wretchedness, but no more.
- The experience of one evening, however, had taught the reckless leaders
- of disturbance, that they had but to show themselves in the streets, to
- be immediately surrounded by materials which they could only have kept
- together when their aid was not required, at great risk, expense, and
- trouble. Once possessed of this secret, they were as confident as if
- twenty thousand men, devoted to their will, had been encamped about
- them, and assumed a confidence which could not have been surpassed,
- though that had really been the case. All day, Saturday, they remained
- quiet. On Sunday, they rather studied how to keep their men within call,
- and in full hope, than to follow out, by any fierce measure, their first
- day’s proceedings.
- ‘I hope,’ said Dennis, as, with a loud yawn, he raised his body from
- a heap of straw on which he had been sleeping, and supporting his head
- upon his hand, appealed to Hugh on Sunday morning, ‘that Muster Gashford
- allows some rest? Perhaps he’d have us at work again already, eh?’
- ‘It’s not his way to let matters drop, you may be sure of that,’ growled
- Hugh in answer. ‘I’m in no humour to stir yet, though. I’m as stiff as
- a dead body, and as full of ugly scratches as if I had been fighting all
- day yesterday with wild cats.’
- ‘You’ve so much enthusiasm, that’s it,’ said Dennis, looking with great
- admiration at the uncombed head, matted beard, and torn hands and face
- of the wild figure before him; ‘you’re such a devil of a fellow. You
- hurt yourself a hundred times more than you need, because you will be
- foremost in everything, and will do more than the rest.’
- ‘For the matter of that,’ returned Hugh, shaking back his ragged hair
- and glancing towards the door of the stable in which they lay; ‘there’s
- one yonder as good as me. What did I tell you about him? Did I say he
- was worth a dozen, when you doubted him?’
- Mr Dennis rolled lazily over upon his breast, and resting his chin upon
- his hand in imitation of the attitude in which Hugh lay, said, as he too
- looked towards the door:
- ‘Ay, ay, you knew him, brother, you knew him. But who’d suppose to look
- at that chap now, that he could be the man he is! Isn’t it a thousand
- cruel pities, brother, that instead of taking his nat’ral rest and
- qualifying himself for further exertions in this here honourable cause,
- he should be playing at soldiers like a boy? And his cleanliness too!’
- said Mr Dennis, who certainly had no reason to entertain a fellow
- feeling with anybody who was particular on that score; ‘what weaknesses
- he’s guilty of; with respect to his cleanliness! At five o’clock this
- morning, there he was at the pump, though any one would think he had
- gone through enough, the day before yesterday, to be pretty fast asleep
- at that time. But no--when I woke for a minute or two, there he was at
- the pump, and if you’d seen him sticking them peacock’s feathers into
- his hat when he’d done washing--ah! I’m sorry he’s such a imperfect
- character, but the best on us is incomplete in some pint of view or
- another.’
- The subject of this dialogue and of these concluding remarks, which were
- uttered in a tone of philosophical meditation, was, as the reader will
- have divined, no other than Barnaby, who, with his flag in hand, stood
- sentry in the little patch of sunlight at the distant door, or walked
- to and fro outside, singing softly to himself; and keeping time to the
- music of some clear church bells. Whether he stood still, leaning with
- both hands on the flagstaff, or, bearing it upon his shoulder, paced
- slowly up and down, the careful arrangement of his poor dress, and his
- erect and lofty bearing, showed how high a sense he had of the great
- importance of his trust, and how happy and how proud it made him. To
- Hugh and his companion, who lay in a dark corner of the gloomy shed,
- he, and the sunlight, and the peaceful Sabbath sound to which he made
- response, seemed like a bright picture framed by the door, and set
- off by the stable’s blackness. The whole formed such a contrast to
- themselves, as they lay wallowing, like some obscene animals, in their
- squalor and wickedness on the two heaps of straw, that for a few moments
- they looked on without speaking, and felt almost ashamed.
- ‘Ah!’ said Hugh at length, carrying it off with a laugh: ‘He’s a rare
- fellow is Barnaby, and can do more, with less rest, or meat, or drink,
- than any of us. As to his soldiering, I put him on duty there.’
- ‘Then there was a object in it, and a proper good one too, I’ll be
- sworn,’ retorted Dennis with a broad grin, and an oath of the same
- quality. ‘What was it, brother?’
- ‘Why, you see,’ said Hugh, crawling a little nearer to him, ‘that our
- noble captain yonder, came in yesterday morning rather the worse for
- liquor, and was--like you and me--ditto last night.’
- Dennis looked to where Simon Tappertit lay coiled upon a truss of hay,
- snoring profoundly, and nodded.
- ‘And our noble captain,’ continued Hugh with another laugh, ‘our noble
- captain and I, have planned for to-morrow a roaring expedition, with
- good profit in it.’
- ‘Again the Papists?’ asked Dennis, rubbing his hands.
- ‘Ay, against the Papists--against one of ‘em at least, that some of us,
- and I for one, owe a good heavy grudge to.’
- ‘Not Muster Gashford’s friend that he spoke to us about in my house,
- eh?’ said Dennis, brimfull of pleasant expectation.
- ‘The same man,’ said Hugh.
- ‘That’s your sort,’ cried Mr Dennis, gaily shaking hands with him,
- ‘that’s the kind of game. Let’s have revenges and injuries, and all
- that, and we shall get on twice as fast. Now you talk, indeed!’
- ‘Ha ha ha! The captain,’ added Hugh, ‘has thoughts of carrying off a
- woman in the bustle, and--ha ha ha!--and so have I!’
- Mr Dennis received this part of the scheme with a wry face, observing
- that as a general principle he objected to women altogether, as being
- unsafe and slippery persons on whom there was no calculating with any
- certainty, and who were never in the same mind for four-and-twenty hours
- at a stretch. He might have expatiated on this suggestive theme at
- much greater length, but that it occurred to him to ask what connection
- existed between the proposed expedition and Barnaby’s being posted at
- the stable-door as sentry; to which Hugh cautiously replied in these
- words:
- ‘Why, the people we mean to visit, were friends of his, once upon a
- time, and I know that much of him to feel pretty sure that if he thought
- we were going to do them any harm, he’d be no friend to our side, but
- would lend a ready hand to the other. So I’ve persuaded him (for I know
- him of old) that Lord George has picked him out to guard this place
- to-morrow while we’re away, and that it’s a great honour--and so he’s on
- duty now, and as proud of it as if he was a general. Ha ha! What do you
- say to me for a careful man as well as a devil of a one?’
- Mr Dennis exhausted himself in compliments, and then added,
- ‘But about the expedition itself--’
- ‘About that,’ said Hugh, ‘you shall hear all particulars from me and
- the great captain conjointly and both together--for see, he’s waking up.
- Rouse yourself, lion-heart. Ha ha! Put a good face upon it, and drink
- again. Another hair of the dog that bit you, captain! Call for
- drink! There’s enough of gold and silver cups and candlesticks buried
- underneath my bed,’ he added, rolling back the straw, and pointing to
- where the ground was newly turned, ‘to pay for it, if it was a score of
- casks full. Drink, captain!’
- Mr Tappertit received these jovial promptings with a very bad grace,
- being much the worse, both in mind and body, for his two nights of
- debauch, and but indifferently able to stand upon his legs. With Hugh’s
- assistance, however, he contrived to stagger to the pump; and having
- refreshed himself with an abundant draught of cold water, and a copious
- shower of the same refreshing liquid on his head and face, he ordered
- some rum and milk to be served; and upon that innocent beverage and some
- biscuits and cheese made a pretty hearty meal. That done, he disposed
- himself in an easy attitude on the ground beside his two companions (who
- were carousing after their own tastes), and proceeded to enlighten Mr
- Dennis in reference to to-morrow’s project.
- That their conversation was an interesting one, was rendered manifest by
- its length, and by the close attention of all three. That it was not
- of an oppressively grave character, but was enlivened by various
- pleasantries arising out of the subject, was clear from their loud and
- frequent roars of laughter, which startled Barnaby on his post, and made
- him wonder at their levity. But he was not summoned to join them, until
- they had eaten, and drunk, and slept, and talked together for some
- hours; not, indeed, until the twilight; when they informed him that they
- were about to make a slight demonstration in the streets--just to keep
- the people’s hands in, as it was Sunday night, and the public might
- otherwise be disappointed--and that he was free to accompany them if he
- would.
- Without the slightest preparation, saving that they carried clubs and
- wore the blue cockade, they sallied out into the streets; and, with no
- more settled design than that of doing as much mischief as they could,
- paraded them at random. Their numbers rapidly increasing, they soon
- divided into parties; and agreeing to meet by-and-by, in the fields
- near Welbeck Street, scoured the town in various directions. The largest
- body, and that which augmented with the greatest rapidity, was the
- one to which Hugh and Barnaby belonged. This took its way towards
- Moorfields, where there was a rich chapel, and in which neighbourhood
- several Catholic families were known to reside.
- Beginning with the private houses so occupied, they broke open the doors
- and windows; and while they destroyed the furniture and left but the
- bare walls, made a sharp search for tools and engines of destruction,
- such as hammers, pokers, axes, saws, and such like instruments. Many of
- the rioters made belts of cord, of handkerchiefs, or any material they
- found at hand, and wore these weapons as openly as pioneers upon a
- field-day. There was not the least disguise or concealment--indeed, on
- this night, very little excitement or hurry. From the chapels, they
- tore down and took away the very altars, benches, pulpits, pews, and
- flooring; from the dwelling-houses, the very wainscoting and stairs.
- This Sunday evening’s recreation they pursued like mere workmen who had
- a certain task to do, and did it. Fifty resolute men might have turned
- them at any moment; a single company of soldiers could have scattered
- them like dust; but no man interposed, no authority restrained them,
- and, except by the terrified persons who fled from their approach, they
- were as little heeded as if they were pursuing their lawful occupations
- with the utmost sobriety and good conduct.
- In the same manner, they marched to the place of rendezvous agreed upon,
- made great fires in the fields, and reserving the most valuable of their
- spoils, burnt the rest. Priestly garments, images of saints, rich stuffs
- and ornaments, altar-furniture and household goods, were cast into the
- flames, and shed a glare on the whole country round; but they danced
- and howled, and roared about these fires till they were tired, and were
- never for an instant checked.
- As the main body filed off from this scene of action, and passed down
- Welbeck Street, they came upon Gashford, who had been a witness of their
- proceedings, and was walking stealthily along the pavement. Keeping up
- with him, and yet not seeming to speak, Hugh muttered in his ear:
- ‘Is this better, master?’
- ‘No,’ said Gashford. ‘It is not.’
- ‘What would you have?’ said Hugh. ‘Fevers are never at their height at
- once. They must get on by degrees.’
- ‘I would have you,’ said Gashford, pinching his arm with such
- malevolence that his nails seemed to meet in the skin; ‘I would have you
- put some meaning into your work. Fools! Can you make no better bonfires
- than of rags and scraps? Can you burn nothing whole?’
- ‘A little patience, master,’ said Hugh. ‘Wait but a few hours, and you
- shall see. Look for a redness in the sky, to-morrow night.’
- With that, he fell back into his place beside Barnaby; and when the
- secretary looked after him, both were lost in the crowd.
- Chapter 53
- The next day was ushered in by merry peals of bells, and by the firing
- of the Tower guns; flags were hoisted on many of the church-steeples;
- the usual demonstrations were made in honour of the anniversary of the
- King’s birthday; and every man went about his pleasure or business as
- if the city were in perfect order, and there were no half-smouldering
- embers in its secret places, which, on the approach of night, would
- kindle up again and scatter ruin and dismay abroad. The leaders of the
- riot, rendered still more daring by the success of last night and by
- the booty they had acquired, kept steadily together, and only thought of
- implicating the mass of their followers so deeply that no hope of pardon
- or reward might tempt them to betray their more notorious confederates
- into the hands of justice.
- Indeed, the sense of having gone too far to be forgiven, held the timid
- together no less than the bold. Many who would readily have pointed out
- the foremost rioters and given evidence against them, felt that escape
- by that means was hopeless, when their every act had been observed by
- scores of people who had taken no part in the disturbances; who had
- suffered in their persons, peace, or property, by the outrages of the
- mob; who would be most willing witnesses; and whom the government would,
- no doubt, prefer to any King’s evidence that might be offered. Many of
- this class had deserted their usual occupations on the Saturday morning;
- some had been seen by their employers active in the tumult; others
- knew they must be suspected, and that they would be discharged if they
- returned; others had been desperate from the beginning, and comforted
- themselves with the homely proverb, that, being hanged at all, they
- might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. They all hoped and
- believed, in a greater or less degree, that the government they seemed
- to have paralysed, would, in its terror, come to terms with them in the
- end, and suffer them to make their own conditions. The least sanguine
- among them reasoned with himself that, at the worst, they were too many
- to be all punished, and that he had as good a chance of escape as any
- other man. The great mass never reasoned or thought at all, but were
- stimulated by their own headlong passions, by poverty, by ignorance, by
- the love of mischief, and the hope of plunder.
- One other circumstance is worthy of remark; and that is, that from the
- moment of their first outbreak at Westminster, every symptom of order
- or preconcerted arrangement among them vanished. When they divided
- into parties and ran to different quarters of the town, it was on the
- spontaneous suggestion of the moment. Each party swelled as it went
- along, like rivers as they roll towards the sea; new leaders sprang
- up as they were wanted, disappeared when the necessity was over, and
- reappeared at the next crisis. Each tumult took shape and form from the
- circumstances of the moment; sober workmen, going home from their day’s
- labour, were seen to cast down their baskets of tools and become rioters
- in an instant; mere boys on errands did the like. In a word, a moral
- plague ran through the city. The noise, and hurry, and excitement, had
- for hundreds and hundreds an attraction they had no firmness to resist.
- The contagion spread like a dread fever: an infectious madness, as yet
- not near its height, seized on new victims every hour, and society began
- to tremble at their ravings.
- It was between two and three o’clock in the afternoon when Gashford
- looked into the lair described in the last chapter, and seeing only
- Barnaby and Dennis there, inquired for Hugh.
- He was out, Barnaby told him; had gone out more than an hour ago; and
- had not yet returned.
- ‘Dennis!’ said the smiling secretary, in his smoothest voice, as he sat
- down cross-legged on a barrel, ‘Dennis!’
- The hangman struggled into a sitting posture directly, and with his eyes
- wide open, looked towards him.
- ‘How do you do, Dennis?’ said Gashford, nodding. ‘I hope you have
- suffered no inconvenience from your late exertions, Dennis?’
- ‘I always will say of you, Muster Gashford,’ returned the hangman,
- staring at him, ‘that that ‘ere quiet way of yours might almost wake a
- dead man. It is,’ he added, with a muttered oath--still staring at him
- in a thoughtful manner--‘so awful sly!’
- ‘So distinct, eh Dennis?’
- ‘Distinct!’ he answered, scratching his head, and keeping his eyes upon
- the secretary’s face; ‘I seem to hear it, Muster Gashford, in my wery
- bones.’
- ‘I am very glad your sense of hearing is so sharp, and that I succeed
- in making myself so intelligible,’ said Gashford, in his unvarying, even
- tone. ‘Where is your friend?’
- Mr Dennis looked round as in expectation of beholding him asleep upon
- his bed of straw; then remembering he had seen him go out, replied:
- ‘I can’t say where he is, Muster Gashford, I expected him back afore
- now. I hope it isn’t time that we was busy, Muster Gashford?’
- ‘Nay,’ said the secretary, ‘who should know that as well as you? How
- can I tell you, Dennis? You are perfect master of your own actions, you
- know, and accountable to nobody--except sometimes to the law, eh?’
- Dennis, who was very much baffled by the cool matter-of-course manner of
- this reply, recovered his self-possession on his professional pursuits
- being referred to, and pointing towards Barnaby, shook his head and
- frowned.
- ‘Hush!’ cried Barnaby.
- ‘Ah! Do hush about that, Muster Gashford,’ said the hangman in a low
- voice, ‘pop’lar prejudices--you always forget--well, Barnaby, my lad,
- what’s the matter?’
- ‘I hear him coming,’ he answered: ‘Hark! Do you mark that? That’s his
- foot! Bless you, I know his step, and his dog’s too. Tramp, tramp,
- pit-pat, on they come together, and, ha ha ha!--and here they are!’ he
- cried, joyfully welcoming Hugh with both hands, and then patting him
- fondly on the back, as if instead of being the rough companion he was,
- he had been one of the most prepossessing of men. ‘Here he is, and safe
- too! I am glad to see him back again, old Hugh!’
- ‘I’m a Turk if he don’t give me a warmer welcome always than any man
- of sense,’ said Hugh, shaking hands with him with a kind of ferocious
- friendship, strange enough to see. ‘How are you, boy?’
- ‘Hearty!’ cried Barnaby, waving his hat. ‘Ha ha ha! And merry too,
- Hugh! And ready to do anything for the good cause, and the right, and
- to help the kind, mild, pale-faced gentleman--the lord they used so
- ill--eh, Hugh?’
- ‘Ay!’ returned his friend, dropping his hand, and looking at Gashford
- for an instant with a changed expression before he spoke to him. ‘Good
- day, master!’
- ‘And good day to you,’ replied the secretary, nursing his leg.
- ‘And many good days--whole years of them, I hope. You are heated.’
- ‘So would you have been, master,’ said Hugh, wiping his face, ‘if you’d
- been running here as fast as I have.’
- ‘You know the news, then? Yes, I supposed you would have heard it.’
- ‘News! what news?’
- ‘You don’t?’ cried Gashford, raising his eyebrows with an exclamation
- of surprise. ‘Dear me! Come; then I AM the first to make you acquainted
- with your distinguished position, after all. Do you see the King’s Arms
- a-top?’ he smilingly asked, as he took a large paper from his pocket,
- unfolded it, and held it out for Hugh’s inspection.
- ‘Well!’ said Hugh. ‘What’s that to me?’
- ‘Much. A great deal,’ replied the secretary. ‘Read it.’
- ‘I told you, the first time I saw you, that I couldn’t read,’ said Hugh,
- impatiently. ‘What in the Devil’s name’s inside of it?’
- ‘It is a proclamation from the King in Council,’ said Gashford, ‘dated
- to-day, and offering a reward of five hundred pounds--five hundred
- pounds is a great deal of money, and a large temptation to some
- people--to any one who will discover the person or persons most active
- in demolishing those chapels on Saturday night.’
- ‘Is that all?’ cried Hugh, with an indifferent air. ‘I knew of that.’
- ‘Truly I might have known you did,’ said Gashford, smiling, and folding
- up the document again. ‘Your friend, I might have guessed--indeed I did
- guess--was sure to tell you.’
- ‘My friend!’ stammered Hugh, with an unsuccessful effort to appear
- surprised. ‘What friend?’
- ‘Tut tut--do you suppose I don’t know where you have been?’ retorted
- Gashford, rubbing his hands, and beating the back of one on the palm of
- the other, and looking at him with a cunning eye. ‘How dull you think
- me! Shall I say his name?’
- ‘No,’ said Hugh, with a hasty glance towards Dennis.
- ‘You have also heard from him, no doubt,’ resumed the secretary, after a
- moment’s pause, ‘that the rioters who have been taken (poor fellows) are
- committed for trial, and that some very active witnesses have had the
- temerity to appear against them. Among others--’ and here he clenched
- his teeth, as if he would suppress by force some violent words that rose
- upon his tongue; and spoke very slowly. ‘Among others, a gentleman
- who saw the work going on in Warwick Street; a Catholic gentleman; one
- Haredale.’
- Hugh would have prevented his uttering the word, but it was out already.
- Hearing the name, Barnaby turned swiftly round.
- ‘Duty, duty, bold Barnaby!’ cried Hugh, assuming his wildest and most
- rapid manner, and thrusting into his hand his staff and flag which leant
- against the wall. ‘Mount guard without loss of time, for we are off upon
- our expedition. Up, Dennis, and get ready! Take care that no one turns
- the straw upon my bed, brave Barnaby; we know what’s underneath it--eh?
- Now, master, quick! What you have to say, say speedily, for the little
- captain and a cluster of ‘em are in the fields, and only waiting for us.
- Sharp’s the word, and strike’s the action. Quick!’
- Barnaby was not proof against this bustle and despatch. The look of
- mingled astonishment and anger which had appeared in his face when he
- turned towards them, faded from it as the words passed from his memory,
- like breath from a polished mirror; and grasping the weapon which Hugh
- forced upon him, he proudly took his station at the door, beyond their
- hearing.
- ‘You might have spoiled our plans, master,’ said Hugh. ‘YOU, too, of all
- men!’
- ‘Who would have supposed that HE would be so quick?’ urged Gashford.
- ‘He’s as quick sometimes--I don’t mean with his hands, for that you
- know, but with his head--as you or any man,’ said Hugh. ‘Dennis, it’s
- time we were going; they’re waiting for us; I came to tell you. Reach
- me my stick and belt. Here! Lend a hand, master. Fling this over my
- shoulder, and buckle it behind, will you?’
- ‘Brisk as ever!’ said the secretary, adjusting it for him as he desired.
- ‘A man need be brisk to-day; there’s brisk work a-foot.’
- ‘There is, is there?’ said Gashford. He said it with such a provoking
- assumption of ignorance, that Hugh, looking over his shoulder and
- angrily down upon him, replied:
- ‘Is there! You know there is! Who knows better than you, master, that
- the first great step to be taken is to make examples of these witnesses,
- and frighten all men from appearing against us or any of our body, any
- more?’
- ‘There’s one we know of,’ returned Gashford, with an expressive smile,
- ‘who is at least as well informed upon that subject as you or I.’
- ‘If we mean the same gentleman, as I suppose we do,’ Hugh rejoined
- softly, ‘I tell you this--he’s as good and quick information about
- everything as--’ here he paused and looked round, as if to make sure
- that the person in question was not within hearing, ‘as Old Nick
- himself. Have you done that, master? How slow you are!’
- ‘It’s quite fast now,’ said Gashford, rising. ‘I say--you didn’t find
- that your friend disapproved of to-day’s little expedition? Ha ha ha!
- It is fortunate it jumps so well with the witness policy; for, once
- planned, it must have been carried out. And now you are going, eh?’
- ‘Now we are going, master!’ Hugh replied. ‘Any parting words?’
- ‘Oh dear, no,’ said Gashford sweetly. ‘None!’
- ‘You’re sure?’ cried Hugh, nudging the grinning Dennis.
- ‘Quite sure, eh, Muster Gashford?’ chuckled the hangman.
- Gashford paused a moment, struggling with his caution and his malice;
- then putting himself between the two men, and laying a hand upon the arm
- of each, said, in a cramped whisper:
- ‘Do not, my good friends--I am sure you will not--forget our talk one
- night--in your house, Dennis--about this person. No mercy, no quarter,
- no two beams of his house to be left standing where the builder placed
- them! Fire, the saying goes, is a good servant, but a bad master. Make
- it _his_ master; he deserves no better. But I am sure you will be firm, I
- am sure you will be very resolute, I am sure you will remember that he
- thirsts for your lives, and those of all your brave companions. If
- you ever acted like staunch fellows, you will do so to-day. Won’t you,
- Dennis--won’t you, Hugh?’
- The two looked at him, and at each other; then bursting into a roar of
- laughter, brandished their staves above their heads, shook hands, and
- hurried out.
- When they had been gone a little time, Gashford followed. They were yet
- in sight, and hastening to that part of the adjacent fields in
- which their fellows had already mustered; Hugh was looking back, and
- flourishing his hat to Barnaby, who, delighted with his trust, replied
- in the same way, and then resumed his pacing up and down before the
- stable-door, where his feet had worn a path already. And when Gashford
- himself was far distant, and looked back for the last time, he was still
- walking to and fro, with the same measured tread; the most devoted and
- the blithest champion that ever maintained a post, and felt his heart
- lifted up with a brave sense of duty, and determination to defend it to
- the last.
- Smiling at the simplicity of the poor idiot, Gashford betook himself to
- Welbeck Street by a different path from that which he knew the rioters
- would take, and sitting down behind a curtain in one of the upper
- windows of Lord George Gordon’s house, waited impatiently for their
- coming. They were so long, that although he knew it had been settled
- they should come that way, he had a misgiving they must have changed
- their plans and taken some other route. But at length the roar of voices
- was heard in the neighbouring fields, and soon afterwards they came
- thronging past, in a great body.
- However, they were not all, nor nearly all, in one body, but were, as he
- soon found, divided into four parties, each of which stopped before the
- house to give three cheers, and then went on; the leaders crying out in
- what direction they were going, and calling on the spectators to join
- them. The first detachment, carrying, by way of banners, some relics
- of the havoc they had made in Moorfields, proclaimed that they were on
- their way to Chelsea, whence they would return in the same order, to
- make of the spoil they bore, a great bonfire, near at hand. The second
- gave out that they were bound for Wapping, to destroy a chapel; the
- third, that their place of destination was East Smithfield, and their
- object the same. All this was done in broad, bright, summer day. Gay
- carriages and chairs stopped to let them pass, or turned back to avoid
- them; people on foot stood aside in doorways, or perhaps knocked and
- begged permission to stand at a window, or in the hall, until the
- rioters had passed: but nobody interfered with them; and when they had
- gone by, everything went on as usual.
- There still remained the fourth body, and for that the secretary looked
- with a most intense eagerness. At last it came up. It was numerous, and
- composed of picked men; for as he gazed down among them, he recognised
- many upturned faces which he knew well--those of Simon Tappertit, Hugh,
- and Dennis in the front, of course. They halted and cheered, as the
- others had done; but when they moved again, they did not, like them,
- proclaim what design they had. Hugh merely raised his hat upon the
- bludgeon he carried, and glancing at a spectator on the opposite side of
- the way, was gone.
- Gashford followed the direction of his glance instinctively, and
- saw, standing on the pavement, and wearing the blue cockade, Sir John
- Chester. He held his hat an inch or two above his head, to propitiate
- the mob; and, resting gracefully on his cane, smiling pleasantly, and
- displaying his dress and person to the very best advantage, looked on
- in the most tranquil state imaginable. For all that, and quick and
- dexterous as he was, Gashford had seen him recognise Hugh with the air
- of a patron. He had no longer any eyes for the crowd, but fixed his keen
- regards upon Sir John.
- He stood in the same place and posture until the last man in the
- concourse had turned the corner of the street; then very deliberately
- took the blue cockade out of his hat; put it carefully in his pocket,
- ready for the next emergency; refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff;
- put up his box; and was walking slowly off, when a passing carriage
- stopped, and a lady’s hand let down the glass. Sir John’s hat was off
- again immediately. After a minute’s conversation at the carriage-window,
- in which it was apparent that he was vastly entertaining on the subject
- of the mob, he stepped lightly in, and was driven away.
- The secretary smiled, but he had other thoughts to dwell upon, and
- soon dismissed the topic. Dinner was brought him, but he sent it down
- untasted; and, in restless pacings up and down the room, and constant
- glances at the clock, and many futile efforts to sit down and read, or
- go to sleep, or look out of the window, consumed four weary hours. When
- the dial told him thus much time had crept away, he stole upstairs to
- the top of the house, and coming out upon the roof sat down, with his
- face towards the east.
- Heedless of the fresh air that blew upon his heated brow, of the
- pleasant meadows from which he turned, of the piles of roofs and
- chimneys upon which he looked, of the smoke and rising mist he vainly
- sought to pierce, of the shrill cries of children at their evening
- sports, the distant hum and turmoil of the town, the cheerful country
- breath that rustled past to meet it, and to droop, and die; he watched,
- and watched, till it was dark save for the specks of light that twinkled
- in the streets below and far away--and, as the darkness deepened,
- strained his gaze and grew more eager yet.
- ‘Nothing but gloom in that direction, still!’ he muttered restlessly.
- ‘Dog! where is the redness in the sky, you promised me!’
- Chapter 54
- Rumours of the prevailing disturbances had, by this time, begun to be
- pretty generally circulated through the towns and villages round London,
- and the tidings were everywhere received with that appetite for the
- marvellous and love of the terrible which have probably been among the
- natural characteristics of mankind since the creation of the world.
- These accounts, however, appeared, to many persons at that day--as
- they would to us at the present, but that we know them to be matter of
- history--so monstrous and improbable, that a great number of those who
- were resident at a distance, and who were credulous enough on other
- points, were really unable to bring their minds to believe that such
- things could be; and rejected the intelligence they received on all
- hands, as wholly fabulous and absurd.
- Mr Willet--not so much, perhaps, on account of his having argued and
- settled the matter with himself, as by reason of his constitutional
- obstinacy--was one of those who positively refused to entertain the
- current topic for a moment. On this very evening, and perhaps at the
- very time when Gashford kept his solitary watch, old John was so red in
- the face with perpetually shaking his head in contradiction of his three
- ancient cronies and pot companions, that he was quite a phenomenon to
- behold, and lighted up the Maypole Porch wherein they sat together, like
- a monstrous carbuncle in a fairy tale.
- ‘Do you think, sir,’ said Mr Willet, looking hard at Solomon Daisy--for
- it was his custom in cases of personal altercation to fasten upon the
- smallest man in the party--‘do you think, sir, that I’m a born fool?’
- ‘No, no, Johnny,’ returned Solomon, looking round upon the little circle
- of which he formed a part: ‘We all know better than that. You’re no
- fool, Johnny. No, no!’
- Mr Cobb and Mr Parkes shook their heads in unison, muttering, ‘No, no,
- Johnny, not you!’ But as such compliments had usually the effect of
- making Mr Willet rather more dogged than before, he surveyed them with a
- look of deep disdain, and returned for answer:
- ‘Then what do you mean by coming here, and telling me that this evening
- you’re a-going to walk up to London together--you three--you--and have
- the evidence of your own senses? An’t,’ said Mr Willet, putting his pipe
- in his mouth with an air of solemn disgust, ‘an’t the evidence of MY
- senses enough for you?’
- ‘But we haven’t got it, Johnny,’ pleaded Parkes, humbly.
- ‘You haven’t got it, sir?’ repeated Mr Willet, eyeing him from top to
- toe. ‘You haven’t got it, sir? You HAVE got it, sir. Don’t I tell you
- that His blessed Majesty King George the Third would no more stand a
- rioting and rollicking in his streets, than he’d stand being crowed over
- by his own Parliament?’
- ‘Yes, Johnny, but that’s your sense--not your senses,’ said the
- adventurous Mr Parkes.
- ‘How do you know?’ retorted John with great dignity. ‘You’re a
- contradicting pretty free, you are, sir. How do YOU know which it is?
- I’m not aware I ever told you, sir.’
- Mr Parkes, finding himself in the position of having got into
- metaphysics without exactly seeing his way out of them, stammered forth
- an apology and retreated from the argument. There then ensued a silence
- of some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, at the expiration of which
- period Mr Willet was observed to rumble and shake with laughter, and
- presently remarked, in reference to his late adversary, ‘that he hoped
- he had tackled him enough.’ Thereupon Messrs Cobb and Daisy laughed,
- and nodded, and Parkes was looked upon as thoroughly and effectually put
- down.
- ‘Do you suppose if all this was true, that Mr Haredale would be
- constantly away from home, as he is?’ said John, after another silence.
- ‘Do you think he wouldn’t be afraid to leave his house with them two
- young women in it, and only a couple of men, or so?’
- ‘Ay, but then you know,’ returned Solomon Daisy, ‘his house is a goodish
- way out of London, and they do say that the rioters won’t go more than
- two miles, or three at the farthest, off the stones. Besides, you
- know, some of the Catholic gentlefolks have actually sent trinkets and
- suchlike down here for safety--at least, so the story goes.’
- ‘The story goes!’ said Mr Willet testily. ‘Yes, sir. The story goes that
- you saw a ghost last March. But nobody believes it.’
- ‘Well!’ said Solomon, rising, to divert the attention of his two
- friends, who tittered at this retort: ‘believed or disbelieved, it’s
- true; and true or not, if we mean to go to London, we must be going at
- once. So shake hands, Johnny, and good night.’
- ‘I shall shake hands,’ returned the landlord, putting his into his
- pockets, ‘with no man as goes to London on such nonsensical errands.’
- The three cronies were therefore reduced to the necessity of shaking his
- elbows; having performed that ceremony, and brought from the house their
- hats, and sticks, and greatcoats, they bade him good night and departed;
- promising to bring him on the morrow full and true accounts of the real
- state of the city, and if it were quiet, to give him the full merit of
- his victory.
- John Willet looked after them, as they plodded along the road in the
- rich glow of a summer evening; and knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
- laughed inwardly at their folly, until his sides were sore. When he had
- quite exhausted himself--which took some time, for he laughed as slowly
- as he thought and spoke--he sat himself comfortably with his back to the
- house, put his legs upon the bench, then his apron over his face, and
- fell sound asleep.
- How long he slept, matters not; but it was for no brief space, for
- when he awoke, the rich light had faded, the sombre hues of night were
- falling fast upon the landscape, and a few bright stars were already
- twinkling overhead. The birds were all at roost, the daisies on the
- green had closed their fairy hoods, the honeysuckle twining round the
- porch exhaled its perfume in a twofold degree, as though it lost its
- coyness at that silent time and loved to shed its fragrance on the
- night; the ivy scarcely stirred its deep green leaves. How tranquil, and
- how beautiful it was!
- Was there no sound in the air, besides the gentle rustling of the
- trees and the grasshopper’s merry chirp? Hark! Something very faint and
- distant, not unlike the murmuring in a sea-shell. Now it grew louder,
- fainter now, and now it altogether died away. Presently, it came again,
- subsided, came once more, grew louder, fainter--swelled into a roar. It
- was on the road, and varied with its windings. All at once it burst into
- a distinct sound--the voices, and the tramping feet of many men.
- It is questionable whether old John Willet, even then, would have
- thought of the rioters but for the cries of his cook and housemaid,
- who ran screaming upstairs and locked themselves into one of the old
- garrets,--shrieking dismally when they had done so, by way of rendering
- their place of refuge perfectly secret and secure. These two females did
- afterwards depone that Mr Willet in his consternation uttered but one
- word, and called that up the stairs in a stentorian voice, six distinct
- times. But as this word was a monosyllable, which, however inoffensive
- when applied to the quadruped it denotes, is highly reprehensible when
- used in connection with females of unimpeachable character, many persons
- were inclined to believe that the young women laboured under some
- hallucination caused by excessive fear; and that their ears deceived
- them.
- Be this as it may, John Willet, in whom the very uttermost extent of
- dull-headed perplexity supplied the place of courage, stationed himself
- in the porch, and waited for their coming up. Once, it dimly occurred
- to him that there was a kind of door to the house, which had a lock and
- bolts; and at the same time some shadowy ideas of shutters to the lower
- windows, flitted through his brain. But he stood stock still, looking
- down the road in the direction in which the noise was rapidly advancing,
- and did not so much as take his hands out of his pockets.
- He had not to wait long. A dark mass, looming through a cloud of dust,
- soon became visible; the mob quickened their pace; shouting and whooping
- like savages, they came rushing on pell mell; and in a few seconds he
- was bandied from hand to hand, in the heart of a crowd of men.
- ‘Halloa!’ cried a voice he knew, as the man who spoke came cleaving
- through the throng. ‘Where is he? Give him to me. Don’t hurt him. How
- now, old Jack! Ha ha ha!’
- Mr Willet looked at him, and saw it was Hugh; but he said nothing, and
- thought nothing.
- ‘These lads are thirsty and must drink!’ cried Hugh, thrusting him back
- towards the house. ‘Bustle, Jack, bustle. Show us the best--the very
- best--the over-proof that you keep for your own drinking, Jack!’
- John faintly articulated the words, ‘Who’s to pay?’
- ‘He says “Who’s to pay?”’ cried Hugh, with a roar of laughter which was
- loudly echoed by the crowd. Then turning to John, he added, ‘Pay! Why,
- nobody.’
- John stared round at the mass of faces--some grinning, some fierce, some
- lighted up by torches, some indistinct, some dusky and shadowy: some
- looking at him, some at his house, some at each other--and while he was,
- as he thought, in the very act of doing so, found himself, without any
- consciousness of having moved, in the bar; sitting down in an arm-chair,
- and watching the destruction of his property, as if it were some queer
- play or entertainment, of an astonishing and stupefying nature, but
- having no reference to himself--that he could make out--at all.
- Yes. Here was the bar--the bar that the boldest never entered without
- special invitation--the sanctuary, the mystery, the hallowed ground:
- here it was, crammed with men, clubs, sticks, torches, pistols; filled
- with a deafening noise, oaths, shouts, screams, hootings; changed all at
- once into a bear-garden, a madhouse, an infernal temple: men darting
- in and out, by door and window, smashing the glass, turning the taps,
- drinking liquor out of China punchbowls, sitting astride of casks,
- smoking private and personal pipes, cutting down the sacred grove of
- lemons, hacking and hewing at the celebrated cheese, breaking open
- inviolable drawers, putting things in their pockets which didn’t belong
- to them, dividing his own money before his own eyes, wantonly wasting,
- breaking, pulling down and tearing up: nothing quiet, nothing private:
- men everywhere--above, below, overhead, in the bedrooms, in the kitchen,
- in the yard, in the stables--clambering in at windows when there were
- doors wide open; dropping out of windows when the stairs were handy;
- leaping over the bannisters into chasms of passages: new faces and
- figures presenting themselves every instant--some yelling, some singing,
- some fighting, some breaking glass and crockery, some laying the dust
- with the liquor they couldn’t drink, some ringing the bells till they
- pulled them down, others beating them with pokers till they beat them
- into fragments: more men still--more, more, more--swarming on like
- insects: noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans,
- plunder, fear, and ruin!
- Nearly all the time while John looked on at this bewildering scene, Hugh
- kept near him; and though he was the loudest, wildest, most destructive
- villain there, he saved his old master’s bones a score of times. Nay,
- even when Mr Tappertit, excited by liquor, came up, and in assertion of
- his prerogative politely kicked John Willet on the shins, Hugh bade him
- return the compliment; and if old John had had sufficient presence of
- mind to understand this whispered direction, and to profit by it, he
- might no doubt, under Hugh’s protection, have done so with impunity.
- At length the band began to reassemble outside the house, and to call
- to those within, to join them, for they were losing time. These murmurs
- increasing, and attaining a high pitch, Hugh, and some of those who yet
- lingered in the bar, and who plainly were the leaders of the troop, took
- counsel together, apart, as to what was to be done with John, to keep
- him quiet until their Chigwell work was over. Some proposed to set the
- house on fire and leave him in it; others, that he should be reduced
- to a state of temporary insensibility, by knocking on the head; others,
- that he should be sworn to sit where he was until to-morrow at the same
- hour; others again, that he should be gagged and taken off with them,
- under a sufficient guard. All these propositions being overruled, it was
- concluded, at last, to bind him in his chair, and the word was passed
- for Dennis.
- ‘Look’ee here, Jack!’ said Hugh, striding up to him: ‘We are going to
- tie you, hand and foot, but otherwise you won’t be hurt. D’ye hear?’
- John Willet looked at another man, as if he didn’t know which was the
- speaker, and muttered something about an ordinary every Sunday at two
- o’clock.
- ‘You won’t be hurt I tell you, Jack--do you hear me?’ roared Hugh,
- impressing the assurance upon him by means of a heavy blow on the back.
- ‘He’s so dead scared, he’s woolgathering, I think. Give him a drop of
- something to drink here. Hand over, one of you.’
- A glass of liquor being passed forward, Hugh poured the contents down
- old John’s throat. Mr Willet feebly smacked his lips, thrust his hand
- into his pocket, and inquired what was to pay; adding, as he looked
- vacantly round, that he believed there was a trifle of broken glass--
- ‘He’s out of his senses for the time, it’s my belief,’ said Hugh, after
- shaking him, without any visible effect upon his system, until his keys
- rattled in his pocket. ‘Where’s that Dennis?’
- The word was again passed, and presently Mr Dennis, with a long cord
- bound about his middle, something after the manner of a friar, came
- hurrying in, attended by a body-guard of half-a-dozen of his men.
- ‘Come! Be alive here!’ cried Hugh, stamping his foot upon the ground.
- ‘Make haste!’
- Dennis, with a wink and a nod, unwound the cord from about his person,
- and raising his eyes to the ceiling, looked all over it, and round the
- walls and cornice, with a curious eye; then shook his head.
- ‘Move, man, can’t you!’ cried Hugh, with another impatient stamp of his
- foot. ‘Are we to wait here, till the cry has gone for ten miles round,
- and our work’s interrupted?’
- ‘It’s all very fine talking, brother,’ answered Dennis, stepping towards
- him; ‘but unless--’ and here he whispered in his ear--‘unless we do it
- over the door, it can’t be done at all in this here room.’
- ‘What can’t?’ Hugh demanded.
- ‘What can’t!’ retorted Dennis. ‘Why, the old man can’t.’
- ‘Why, you weren’t going to hang him!’ cried Hugh.
- ‘No, brother?’ returned the hangman with a stare. ‘What else?’
- Hugh made no answer, but snatching the rope from his companion’s hand,
- proceeded to bind old John himself; but his very first move was so
- bungling and unskilful, that Mr Dennis entreated, almost with tears
- in his eyes, that he might be permitted to perform the duty. Hugh
- consenting, he achieved it in a twinkling.
- ‘There,’ he said, looking mournfully at John Willet, who displayed no
- more emotion in his bonds than he had shown out of them. ‘That’s what I
- call pretty and workmanlike. He’s quite a picter now. But, brother, just
- a word with you--now that he’s ready trussed, as one may say, wouldn’t
- it be better for all parties if we was to work him off? It would read
- uncommon well in the newspapers, it would indeed. The public would think
- a great deal more on us!’
- Hugh, inferring what his companion meant, rather from his gestures than
- his technical mode of expressing himself (to which, as he was ignorant
- of his calling, he wanted the clue), rejected this proposition for the
- second time, and gave the word ‘Forward!’ which was echoed by a hundred
- voices from without.
- ‘To the Warren!’ shouted Dennis as he ran out, followed by the rest. ‘A
- witness’s house, my lads!’
- A loud yell followed, and the whole throng hurried off, mad for pillage
- and destruction. Hugh lingered behind for a few moments to stimulate
- himself with more drink, and to set all the taps running, a few of which
- had accidentally been spared; then, glancing round the despoiled and
- plundered room, through whose shattered window the rioters had thrust
- the Maypole itself,--for even that had been sawn down,--lighted a torch,
- clapped the mute and motionless John Willet on the back, and waving his
- light above his head, and uttering a fierce shout, hastened after his
- companions.
- Chapter 55
- John Willet, left alone in his dismantled bar, continued to sit staring
- about him; awake as to his eyes, certainly, but with all his powers of
- reason and reflection in a sound and dreamless sleep. He looked round
- upon the room which had been for years, and was within an hour ago, the
- pride of his heart; and not a muscle of his face was moved. The night,
- without, looked black and cold through the dreary gaps in the casement;
- the precious liquids, now nearly leaked away, dripped with a hollow
- sound upon the floor; the Maypole peered ruefully in through the broken
- window, like the bowsprit of a wrecked ship; the ground might have
- been the bottom of the sea, it was so strewn with precious fragments.
- Currents of air rushed in, as the old doors jarred and creaked upon
- their hinges; the candles flickered and guttered down, and made long
- winding-sheets; the cheery deep-red curtains flapped and fluttered idly
- in the wind; even the stout Dutch kegs, overthrown and lying empty in
- dark corners, seemed the mere husks of good fellows whose jollity had
- departed, and who could kindle with a friendly glow no more. John saw
- this desolation, and yet saw it not. He was perfectly contented to sit
- there, staring at it, and felt no more indignation or discomfort in his
- bonds than if they had been robes of honour. So far as he was personally
- concerned, old Time lay snoring, and the world stood still.
- Save for the dripping from the barrels, the rustling of such light
- fragments of destruction as the wind affected, and the dull creaking of
- the open doors, all was profoundly quiet: indeed, these sounds, like
- the ticking of the death-watch in the night, only made the silence they
- invaded deeper and more apparent. But quiet or noisy, it was all one
- to John. If a train of heavy artillery could have come up and commenced
- ball practice outside the window, it would have been all the same to
- him. He was a long way beyond surprise. A ghost couldn’t have overtaken
- him.
- By and by he heard a footstep--a hurried, and yet cautious
- footstep--coming on towards the house. It stopped, advanced again,
- then seemed to go quite round it. Having done that, it came beneath the
- window, and a head looked in.
- It was strongly relieved against the darkness outside by the glare of
- the guttering candles. A pale, worn, withered face; the eyes--but that
- was owing to its gaunt condition--unnaturally large and bright; the
- hair, a grizzled black. It gave a searching glance all round the room,
- and a deep voice said:
- ‘Are you alone in this house?’
- John made no sign, though the question was repeated twice, and he heard
- it distinctly. After a moment’s pause, the man got in at the window.
- John was not at all surprised at this, either. There had been so much
- getting in and out of window in the course of the last hour or so, that
- he had quite forgotten the door, and seemed to have lived among such
- exercises from infancy.
- The man wore a large, dark, faded cloak, and a slouched hat; he walked
- up close to John, and looked at him. John returned the compliment with
- interest.
- ‘How long have you been sitting thus?’ said the man.
- John considered, but nothing came of it.
- ‘Which way have the party gone?’
- Some wandering speculations relative to the fashion of the stranger’s
- boots, got into Mr Willet’s mind by some accident or other, but they got
- out again in a hurry, and left him in his former state.
- ‘You would do well to speak,’ said the man; ‘you may keep a whole skin,
- though you have nothing else left that can be hurt. Which way have the
- party gone?’
- ‘That!’ said John, finding his voice all at once, and nodding with
- perfect good faith--he couldn’t point; he was so tightly bound--in
- exactly the opposite direction to the right one.
- ‘You lie!’ said the man angrily, and with a threatening gesture. ‘I came
- that way. You would betray me.’
- It was so evident that John’s imperturbability was not assumed, but was
- the result of the late proceedings under his roof, that the man stayed
- his hand in the very act of striking him, and turned away.
- John looked after him without so much as a twitch in a single nerve
- of his face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the little
- casks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; then
- throwing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in his
- hands and drained it into his throat. Some scraps of bread and meat were
- scattered about, and on these he fell next; eating them with voracity,
- and pausing every now and then to listen for some fancied noise outside.
- When he had refreshed himself in this manner with violent haste, and
- raised another barrel to his lips, he pulled his hat upon his brow as
- though he were about to leave the house, and turned to John.
- ‘Where are your servants?’
- Mr Willet indistinctly remembered to have heard the rioters calling to
- them to throw the key of the room in which they were, out of window, for
- their keeping. He therefore replied, ‘Locked up.’
- ‘Well for them if they remain quiet, and well for you if you do the
- like,’ said the man. ‘Now show me the way the party went.’
- This time Mr Willet indicated it correctly. The man was hurrying to the
- door, when suddenly there came towards them on the wind, the loud
- and rapid tolling of an alarm-bell, and then a bright and vivid glare
- streamed up, which illumined, not only the whole chamber, but all the
- country.
- It was not the sudden change from darkness to this dreadful light, it
- was not the sound of distant shrieks and shouts of triumph, it was not
- this dread invasion of the serenity and peace of night, that drove the
- man back as though a thunderbolt had struck him. It was the Bell. If the
- ghastliest shape the human mind has ever pictured in its wildest dreams
- had risen up before him, he could not have staggered backward from its
- touch, as he did from the first sound of that loud iron voice. With eyes
- that started from his head, his limbs convulsed, his face most horrible
- to see, he raised one arm high up into the air, and holding something
- visionary back and down, with his other hand, drove at it as though
- he held a knife and stabbed it to the heart. He clutched his hair,
- and stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round; then gave a
- frightful cry, and with it rushed away: still, still, the Bell tolled on
- and seemed to follow him--louder and louder, hotter and hotter yet.
- The glare grew brighter, the roar of voices deeper; the crash of heavy
- bodies falling, shook the air; bright streams of sparks rose up into the
- sky; but louder than them all--rising faster far, to Heaven--a million
- times more fierce and furious--pouring forth dreadful secrets after its
- long silence--speaking the language of the dead--the Bell--the Bell!
- What hunt of spectres could surpass that dread pursuit and flight! Had
- there been a legion of them on his track, he could have better borne it.
- They would have had a beginning and an end, but here all space was full.
- The one pursuing voice was everywhere: it sounded in the earth, the air;
- shook the long grass, and howled among the trembling trees. The
- echoes caught it up, the owls hooted as it flew upon the breeze, the
- nightingale was silent and hid herself among the thickest boughs:
- it seemed to goad and urge the angry fire, and lash it into madness;
- everything was steeped in one prevailing red; the glow was everywhere;
- nature was drenched in blood: still the remorseless crying of that awful
- voice--the Bell, the Bell!
- It ceased; but not in his ears. The knell was at his heart. No work of
- man had ever voice like that which sounded there, and warned him that it
- cried unceasingly to Heaven. Who could hear that bell, and not know what
- it said! There was murder in its every note--cruel, relentless, savage
- murder--the murder of a confiding man, by one who held his every trust.
- Its ringing summoned phantoms from their graves. What face was that,
- in which a friendly smile changed to a look of half incredulous horror,
- which stiffened for a moment into one of pain, then changed again into
- an imploring glance at Heaven, and so fell idly down with upturned
- eyes, like the dead stags’ he had often peeped at when a little child:
- shrinking and shuddering--there was a dreadful thing to think of
- now!--and clinging to an apron as he looked! He sank upon the ground,
- and grovelling down as if he would dig himself a place to hide in,
- covered his face and ears: but no, no, no,--a hundred walls and roofs of
- brass would not shut out that bell, for in it spoke the wrathful voice
- of God, and from that voice, the whole wide universe could not afford a
- refuge!
- While he rushed up and down, not knowing where to turn, and while he
- lay crouching there, the work went briskly on indeed. When they left the
- Maypole, the rioters formed into a solid body, and advanced at a quick
- pace towards the Warren. Rumour of their approach having gone before,
- they found the garden-doors fast closed, the windows made secure, and
- the house profoundly dark: not a light being visible in any portion of
- the building. After some fruitless ringing at the bells, and beating
- at the iron gates, they drew off a few paces to reconnoitre, and confer
- upon the course it would be best to take.
- Very little conference was needed, when all were bent upon one desperate
- purpose, infuriated with liquor, and flushed with successful riot.
- The word being given to surround the house, some climbed the gates, or
- dropped into the shallow trench and scaled the garden wall, while others
- pulled down the solid iron fence, and while they made a breach to
- enter by, made deadly weapons of the bars. The house being completely
- encircled, a small number of men were despatched to break open a
- tool-shed in the garden; and during their absence on this errand, the
- remainder contented themselves with knocking violently at the doors, and
- calling to those within, to come down and open them on peril of their
- lives.
- No answer being returned to this repeated summons, and the detachment
- who had been sent away, coming back with an accession of pickaxes,
- spades, and hoes, they,--together with those who had such arms already,
- or carried (as many did) axes, poles, and crowbars,--struggled into the
- foremost rank, ready to beset the doors and windows. They had not at
- this time more than a dozen lighted torches among them; but when these
- preparations were completed, flaming links were distributed and passed
- from hand to hand with such rapidity, that, in a minute’s time, at
- least two-thirds of the whole roaring mass bore, each man in his hand,
- a blazing brand. Whirling these about their heads they raised a loud
- shout, and fell to work upon the doors and windows.
- Amidst the clattering of heavy blows, the rattling of broken glass, the
- cries and execrations of the mob, and all the din and turmoil of the
- scene, Hugh and his friends kept together at the turret-door where Mr
- Haredale had last admitted him and old John Willet; and spent their
- united force on that. It was a strong old oaken door, guarded by good
- bolts and a heavy bar, but it soon went crashing in upon the narrow
- stairs behind, and made, as it were, a platform to facilitate their
- tearing up into the rooms above. Almost at the same moment, a dozen
- other points were forced, and at every one the crowd poured in like
- water.
- A few armed servant-men were posted in the hall, and when the rioters
- forced an entrance there, they fired some half-a-dozen shots. But these
- taking no effect, and the concourse coming on like an army of devils,
- they only thought of consulting their own safety, and retreated, echoing
- their assailants’ cries, and hoping in the confusion to be taken
- for rioters themselves; in which stratagem they succeeded, with the
- exception of one old man who was never heard of again, and was said
- to have had his brains beaten out with an iron bar (one of his fellows
- reported that he had seen the old man fall), and to have been afterwards
- burnt in the flames.
- The besiegers being now in complete possession of the house, spread
- themselves over it from garret to cellar, and plied their demon labours
- fiercely. While some small parties kindled bonfires underneath the
- windows, others broke up the furniture and cast the fragments down
- to feed the flames below; where the apertures in the wall (windows no
- longer) were large enough, they threw out tables, chests of drawers,
- beds, mirrors, pictures, and flung them whole into the fire; while
- every fresh addition to the blazing masses was received with shouts,
- and howls, and yells, which added new and dismal terrors to the
- conflagration. Those who had axes and had spent their fury on the
- movables, chopped and tore down the doors and window frames, broke up
- the flooring, hewed away the rafters, and buried men who lingered in the
- upper rooms, in heaps of ruins. Some searched the drawers, the chests,
- the boxes, writing-desks, and closets, for jewels, plate, and money;
- while others, less mindful of gain and more mad for destruction, cast
- their whole contents into the courtyard without examination, and called
- to those below, to heap them on the blaze. Men who had been into the
- cellars, and had staved the casks, rushed to and fro stark mad, setting
- fire to all they saw--often to the dresses of their own friends--and
- kindling the building in so many parts that some had no time for
- escape, and were seen, with drooping hands and blackened faces, hanging
- senseless on the window-sills to which they had crawled, until they were
- sucked and drawn into the burning gulf. The more the fire crackled and
- raged, the wilder and more cruel the men grew; as though moving in that
- element they became fiends, and changed their earthly nature for the
- qualities that give delight in hell.
- The burning pile, revealing rooms and passages red hot, through gaps
- made in the crumbling walls; the tributary fires that licked the outer
- bricks and stones, with their long forked tongues, and ran up to meet
- the glowing mass within; the shining of the flames upon the villains who
- looked on and fed them; the roaring of the angry blaze, so bright and
- high that it seemed in its rapacity to have swallowed up the very smoke;
- the living flakes the wind bore rapidly away and hurried on with, like
- a storm of fiery snow; the noiseless breaking of great beams of wood,
- which fell like feathers on the heap of ashes, and crumbled in the very
- act to sparks and powder; the lurid tinge that overspread the sky,
- and the darkness, very deep by contrast, which prevailed around; the
- exposure to the coarse, common gaze, of every little nook which usages
- of home had made a sacred place, and the destruction by rude hands of
- every little household favourite which old associations made a dear
- and precious thing: all this taking place--not among pitying looks and
- friendly murmurs of compassion, but brutal shouts and exultations,
- which seemed to make the very rats who stood by the old house too long,
- creatures with some claim upon the pity and regard of those its roof had
- sheltered:--combined to form a scene never to be forgotten by those who
- saw it and were not actors in the work, so long as life endured.
- And who were they? The alarm-bell rang--and it was pulled by no faint or
- hesitating hands--for a long time; but not a soul was seen. Some of the
- insurgents said that when it ceased, they heard the shrieks of women,
- and saw some garments fluttering in the air, as a party of men bore away
- no unresisting burdens. No one could say that this was true or false, in
- such an uproar; but where was Hugh? Who among them had seen him, since
- the forcing of the doors? The cry spread through the body. Where was
- Hugh!
- ‘Here!’ he hoarsely cried, appearing from the darkness; out of breath,
- and blackened with the smoke. ‘We have done all we can; the fire is
- burning itself out; and even the corners where it hasn’t spread, are
- nothing but heaps of ruins. Disperse, my lads, while the coast’s
- clear; get back by different ways; and meet as usual!’ With that, he
- disappeared again,--contrary to his wont, for he was always first to
- advance, and last to go away,--leaving them to follow homewards as they
- would.
- It was not an easy task to draw off such a throng. If Bedlam gates had
- been flung wide open, there would not have issued forth such maniacs as
- the frenzy of that night had made. There were men there, who danced and
- trampled on the beds of flowers as though they trod down human enemies,
- and wrenched them from the stalks, like savages who twisted human necks.
- There were men who cast their lighted torches in the air, and suffered
- them to fall upon their heads and faces, blistering the skin with deep
- unseemly burns. There were men who rushed up to the fire, and paddled
- in it with their hands as if in water; and others who were restrained by
- force from plunging in, to gratify their deadly longing. On the skull of
- one drunken lad--not twenty, by his looks--who lay upon the ground with
- a bottle to his mouth, the lead from the roof came streaming down in a
- shower of liquid fire, white hot; melting his head like wax. When the
- scattered parties were collected, men--living yet, but singed as with
- hot irons--were plucked out of the cellars, and carried off upon the
- shoulders of others, who strove to wake them as they went along, with
- ribald jokes, and left them, dead, in the passages of hospitals. But of
- all the howling throng not one learnt mercy from, or sickened at, these
- sights; nor was the fierce, besotted, senseless rage of one man glutted.
- Slowly, and in small clusters, with hoarse hurrahs and repetitions
- of their usual cry, the assembly dropped away. The last few red-eyed
- stragglers reeled after those who had gone before; the distant noise of
- men calling to each other, and whistling for others whom they missed,
- grew fainter and fainter; at length even these sounds died away, and
- silence reigned alone.
- Silence indeed! The glare of the flames had sunk into a fitful, flashing
- light; and the gentle stars, invisible till now, looked down upon the
- blackening heap. A dull smoke hung upon the ruin, as though to hide it
- from those eyes of Heaven; and the wind forbore to move it. Bare walls,
- roof open to the sky--chambers, where the beloved dead had, many and
- many a fair day, risen to new life and energy; where so many dear ones
- had been sad and merry; which were connected with so many thoughts and
- hopes, regrets and changes--all gone. Nothing left but a dull and dreary
- blank--a smouldering heap of dust and ashes--the silence and solitude of
- utter desolation.
- Chapter 56
- The Maypole cronies, little dreaming of the change so soon to come upon
- their favourite haunt, struck through the Forest path upon their way to
- London; and avoiding the main road, which was hot and dusty, kept to the
- by-paths and the fields. As they drew nearer to their destination, they
- began to make inquiries of the people whom they passed, concerning the
- riots, and the truth or falsehood of the stories they had heard. The
- answers went far beyond any intelligence that had spread to quiet
- Chigwell. One man told them that that afternoon the Guards, conveying to
- Newgate some rioters who had been re-examined, had been set upon by the
- mob and compelled to retreat; another, that the houses of two witnesses
- near Clare Market were about to be pulled down when he came away;
- another, that Sir George Saville’s house in Leicester Fields was to be
- burned that night, and that it would go hard with Sir George if he fell
- into the people’s hands, as it was he who had brought in the Catholic
- bill. All accounts agreed that the mob were out, in stronger numbers
- and more numerous parties than had yet appeared; that the streets were
- unsafe; that no man’s house or life was worth an hour’s purchase; that
- the public consternation was increasing every moment; and that many
- families had already fled the city. One fellow who wore the popular
- colour, damned them for not having cockades in their hats, and bade them
- set a good watch to-morrow night upon their prison doors, for the locks
- would have a straining; another asked if they were fire-proof, that
- they walked abroad without the distinguishing mark of all good and true
- men;--and a third who rode on horseback, and was quite alone, ordered
- them to throw each man a shilling, in his hat, towards the support of
- the rioters. Although they were afraid to refuse compliance with this
- demand, and were much alarmed by these reports, they agreed, having come
- so far, to go forward, and see the real state of things with their own
- eyes. So they pushed on quicker, as men do who are excited by portentous
- news; and ruminating on what they had heard, spoke little to each other.
- It was now night, and as they came nearer to the city they had dismal
- confirmation of this intelligence in three great fires, all close
- together, which burnt fiercely and were gloomily reflected in the sky.
- Arriving in the immediate suburbs, they found that almost every house
- had chalked upon its door in large characters ‘No Popery,’ that the
- shops were shut, and that alarm and anxiety were depicted in every face
- they passed.
- Noting these things with a degree of apprehension which neither of the
- three cared to impart, in its full extent, to his companions, they
- came to a turnpike-gate, which was shut. They were passing through the
- turnstile on the path, when a horseman rode up from London at a hard
- gallop, and called to the toll-keeper in a voice of great agitation, to
- open quickly in the name of God.
- The adjuration was so earnest and vehement, that the man, with a lantern
- in his hand, came running out--toll-keeper though he was--and was about
- to throw the gate open, when happening to look behind him, he exclaimed,
- ‘Good Heaven, what’s that! Another fire!’
- At this, the three turned their heads, and saw in the distance--straight
- in the direction whence they had come--a broad sheet of flame, casting
- a threatening light upon the clouds, which glimmered as though the
- conflagration were behind them, and showed like a wrathful sunset.
- ‘My mind misgives me,’ said the horseman, ‘or I know from what far
- building those flames come. Don’t stand aghast, my good fellow. Open the
- gate!’
- ‘Sir,’ cried the man, laying his hand upon his horse’s bridle as he let
- him through: ‘I know you now, sir; be advised by me; do not go on. I saw
- them pass, and know what kind of men they are. You will be murdered.’
- ‘So be it!’ said the horseman, looking intently towards the fire, and
- not at him who spoke.
- ‘But sir--sir,’ cried the man, grasping at his rein more tightly yet,
- ‘if you do go on, wear the blue riband. Here, sir,’ he added, taking one
- from his own hat, ‘it’s necessity, not choice, that makes me wear it;
- it’s love of life and home, sir. Wear it for this one night, sir; only
- for this one night.’
- ‘Do!’ cried the three friends, pressing round his horse. ‘Mr
- Haredale--worthy sir--good gentleman--pray be persuaded.’
- ‘Who’s that?’ cried Mr Haredale, stooping down to look. ‘Did I hear
- Daisy’s voice?’
- ‘You did, sir,’ cried the little man. ‘Do be persuaded, sir. This
- gentleman says very true. Your life may hang upon it.’
- ‘Are you,’ said Mr Haredale abruptly, ‘afraid to come with me?’
- ‘I, sir?--N-n-no.’
- ‘Put that riband in your hat. If we meet the rioters, swear that I took
- you prisoner for wearing it. I will tell them so with my own lips; for
- as I hope for mercy when I die, I will take no quarter from them, nor
- shall they have quarter from me, if we come hand to hand to-night.
- Up here--behind me--quick! Clasp me tight round the body, and fear
- nothing.’
- In an instant they were riding away, at full gallop, in a dense cloud of
- dust, and speeding on, like hunters in a dream.
- It was well the good horse knew the road he traversed, for never
- once--no, never once in all the journey--did Mr Haredale cast his eyes
- upon the ground, or turn them, for an instant, from the light towards
- which they sped so madly. Once he said in a low voice, ‘It is my house,’
- but that was the only time he spoke. When they came to dark and doubtful
- places, he never forgot to put his hand upon the little man to hold him
- more securely in his seat, but he kept his head erect and his eyes fixed
- on the fire, then, and always.
- The road was dangerous enough, for they went the nearest
- way--headlong--far from the highway--by lonely lanes and paths, where
- waggon-wheels had worn deep ruts; where hedge and ditch hemmed in
- the narrow strip of ground; and tall trees, arching overhead, made it
- profoundly dark. But on, on, on, with neither stop nor stumble, till
- they reached the Maypole door, and could plainly see that the fire began
- to fade, as if for want of fuel.
- ‘Down--for one moment--for but one moment,’ said Mr Haredale, helping
- Daisy to the ground, and following himself. ‘Willet--Willet--where are
- my niece and servants--Willet!’
- Crying to him distractedly, he rushed into the bar.--The landlord bound
- and fastened to his chair; the place dismantled, stripped, and pulled
- about his ears;--nobody could have taken shelter here.
- He was a strong man, accustomed to restrain himself, and suppress his
- strong emotions; but this preparation for what was to follow--though he
- had seen that fire burning, and knew that his house must be razed to the
- ground--was more than he could bear. He covered his face with his hands
- for a moment, and turned away his head.
- ‘Johnny, Johnny,’ said Solomon--and the simple-hearted fellow cried
- outright, and wrung his hands--‘Oh dear old Johnny, here’s a change!
- That the Maypole bar should come to this, and we should live to see
- it! The old Warren too, Johnny--Mr Haredale--oh, Johnny, what a piteous
- sight this is!’
- Pointing to Mr Haredale as he said these words, little Solomon Daisy put
- his elbows on the back of Mr Willet’s chair, and fairly blubbered on his
- shoulder.
- While Solomon was speaking, old John sat, mute as a stock-fish, staring
- at him with an unearthly glare, and displaying, by every possible
- symptom, entire and complete unconsciousness. But when Solomon was
- silent again, John followed with his great round eyes the direction
- of his looks, and did appear to have some dawning distant notion that
- somebody had come to see him.
- ‘You know us, don’t you, Johnny?’ said the little clerk, rapping himself
- on the breast. ‘Daisy, you know--Chigwell Church--bell-ringer--little
- desk on Sundays--eh, Johnny?’
- Mr Willet reflected for a few moments, and then muttered, as it were
- mechanically: ‘Let us sing to the praise and glory of--’
- ‘Yes, to be sure,’ cried the little man, hastily; ‘that’s it--that’s me,
- Johnny. You’re all right now, an’t you? Say you’re all right, Johnny.’
- ‘All right?’ pondered Mr Willet, as if that were a matter entirely
- between himself and his conscience. ‘All right? Ah!’
- ‘They haven’t been misusing you with sticks, or pokers, or any other
- blunt instruments--have they, Johnny?’ asked Solomon, with a very
- anxious glance at Mr Willet’s head. ‘They didn’t beat you, did they?’
- John knitted his brow; looked downwards, as if he were mentally engaged
- in some arithmetical calculation; then upwards, as if the total would
- not come at his call; then at Solomon Daisy, from his eyebrow to his
- shoe-buckle; then very slowly round the bar. And then a great, round,
- leaden-looking, and not at all transparent tear, came rolling out of
- each eye, and he said, as he shook his head:
- ‘If they’d only had the goodness to murder me, I’d have thanked ‘em
- kindly.’
- ‘No, no, no, don’t say that, Johnny,’ whimpered his little friend. ‘It’s
- very, very bad, but not quite so bad as that. No, no!’
- ‘Look’ee here, sir!’ cried John, turning his rueful eyes on Mr Haredale,
- who had dropped on one knee, and was hastily beginning to untie
- his bonds. ‘Look’ee here, sir! The very Maypole--the old dumb
- Maypole--stares in at the winder, as if it said, “John Willet, John
- Willet, let’s go and pitch ourselves in the nighest pool of water as is
- deep enough to hold us; for our day is over!”’
- ‘Don’t, Johnny, don’t,’ cried his friend: no less affected with this
- mournful effort of Mr Willet’s imagination, than by the sepulchral tone
- in which he had spoken of the Maypole. ‘Please don’t, Johnny!’
- ‘Your loss is great, and your misfortune a heavy one,’ said Mr Haredale,
- looking restlessly towards the door: ‘and this is not a time to comfort
- you. If it were, I am in no condition to do so. Before I leave you, tell
- me one thing, and try to tell me plainly, I implore you. Have you seen,
- or heard of Emma?’
- ‘No!’ said Mr Willet.
- ‘Nor any one but these bloodhounds?’
- ‘No!’
- ‘They rode away, I trust in Heaven, before these dreadful scenes began,’
- said Mr Haredale, who, between his agitation, his eagerness to mount
- his horse again, and the dexterity with which the cords were tied, had
- scarcely yet undone one knot. ‘A knife, Daisy!’
- ‘You didn’t,’ said John, looking about, as though he had lost his
- pocket-handkerchief, or some such slight article--‘either of you
- gentlemen--see a--a coffin anywheres, did you?’
- ‘Willet!’ cried Mr Haredale. Solomon dropped the knife, and instantly
- becoming limp from head to foot, exclaimed ‘Good gracious!’
- ‘--Because,’ said John, not at all regarding them, ‘a dead man called a
- little time ago, on his way yonder. I could have told you what name was
- on the plate, if he had brought his coffin with him, and left it behind.
- If he didn’t, it don’t signify.’
- His landlord, who had listened to these words with breathless attention,
- started that moment to his feet; and, without a word, drew Solomon
- Daisy to the door, mounted his horse, took him up behind again, and flew
- rather than galloped towards the pile of ruins, which that day’s sun
- had shone upon, a stately house. Mr Willet stared after them, listened,
- looked down upon himself to make quite sure that he was still unbound,
- and, without any manifestation of impatience, disappointment, or
- surprise, gently relapsed into the condition from which he had so
- imperfectly recovered.
- Mr Haredale tied his horse to the trunk of a tree, and grasping his
- companion’s arm, stole softly along the footpath, and into what had
- been the garden of his house. He stopped for an instant to look upon its
- smoking walls, and at the stars that shone through roof and floor upon
- the heap of crumbling ashes. Solomon glanced timidly in his face, but
- his lips were tightly pressed together, a resolute and stern expression
- sat upon his brow, and not a tear, a look, or gesture indicating grief,
- escaped him.
- He drew his sword; felt for a moment in his breast, as though he carried
- other arms about him; then grasping Solomon by the wrist again, went
- with a cautious step all round the house. He looked into every doorway
- and gap in the wall; retraced his steps at every rustling of the air
- among the leaves; and searched in every shadowed nook with outstretched
- hands. Thus they made the circuit of the building: but they returned
- to the spot from which they had set out, without encountering any human
- being, or finding the least trace of any concealed straggler.
- After a short pause, Mr Haredale shouted twice or thrice. Then cried
- aloud, ‘Is there any one in hiding here, who knows my voice! There is
- nothing to fear now. If any of my people are near, I entreat them
- to answer!’ He called them all by name; his voice was echoed in many
- mournful tones; then all was silent as before.
- They were standing near the foot of the turret, where the alarm-bell
- hung. The fire had raged there, and the floors had been sawn, and hewn,
- and beaten down, besides. It was open to the night; but a part of the
- staircase still remained, winding upward from a great mound of dust and
- cinders. Fragments of the jagged and broken steps offered an insecure
- and giddy footing here and there, and then were lost again, behind
- protruding angles of the wall, or in the deep shadows cast upon it by
- other portions of the ruin; for by this time the moon had risen, and
- shone brightly.
- As they stood here, listening to the echoes as they died away, and
- hoping in vain to hear a voice they knew, some of the ashes in this
- turret slipped and rolled down. Startled by the least noise in that
- melancholy place, Solomon looked up in his companion’s face, and saw
- that he had turned towards the spot, and that he watched and listened
- keenly.
- He covered the little man’s mouth with his hand, and looked again.
- Instantly, with kindling eyes, he bade him on his life keep still, and
- neither speak nor move. Then holding his breath, and stooping down,
- he stole into the turret, with his drawn sword in his hand, and
- disappeared.
- Terrified to be left there by himself, under such desolate
- circumstances, and after all he had seen and heard that night, Solomon
- would have followed, but there had been something in Mr Haredale’s
- manner and his look, the recollection of which held him spellbound. He
- stood rooted to the spot; and scarcely venturing to breathe, looked up
- with mingled fear and wonder.
- Again the ashes slipped and rolled--very, very softly--again--and then
- again, as though they crumbled underneath the tread of a stealthy foot.
- And now a figure was dimly visible; climbing very softly; and often
- stopping to look down; now it pursued its difficult way; and now it was
- hidden from the view again.
- It emerged once more, into the shadowy and uncertain light--higher now,
- but not much, for the way was steep and toilsome, and its progress very
- slow. What phantom of the brain did he pursue; and why did he look down
- so constantly? He knew he was alone. Surely his mind was not affected by
- that night’s loss and agony. He was not about to throw himself headlong
- from the summit of the tottering wall. Solomon turned sick, and clasped
- his hands. His limbs trembled beneath him, and a cold sweat broke out
- upon his pallid face.
- If he complied with Mr Haredale’s last injunction now, it was because he
- had not the power to speak or move. He strained his gaze, and fixed it
- on a patch of moonlight, into which, if he continued to ascend, he must
- soon emerge. When he appeared there, he would try to call to him.
- Again the ashes slipped and crumbled; some stones rolled down, and fell
- with a dull, heavy sound upon the ground below. He kept his eyes upon
- the piece of moonlight. The figure was coming on, for its shadow was
- already thrown upon the wall. Now it appeared--and now looked round at
- him--and now--
- The horror-stricken clerk uttered a scream that pierced the air, and
- cried, ‘The ghost! The ghost!’
- Long before the echo of his cry had died away, another form rushed out
- into the light, flung itself upon the foremost one, knelt down upon its
- breast, and clutched its throat with both hands.
- ‘Villain!’ cried Mr Haredale, in a terrible voice--for it was he. ‘Dead
- and buried, as all men supposed through your infernal arts, but reserved
- by Heaven for this--at last--at last I have you. You, whose hands are
- red with my brother’s blood, and that of his faithful servant, shed
- to conceal your own atrocious guilt--You, Rudge, double murderer and
- monster, I arrest you in the name of God, who has delivered you into my
- hands. No. Though you had the strength of twenty men,’ he added, as the
- murderer writhed and struggled, ‘you could not escape me or loosen my
- grasp to-night!’
- Chapter 57
- Barnaby, armed as we have seen, continued to pace up and down before
- the stable-door; glad to be alone again, and heartily rejoicing in the
- unaccustomed silence and tranquillity. After the whirl of noise and riot
- in which the last two days had been passed, the pleasures of solitude
- and peace were enhanced a thousandfold. He felt quite happy; and as he
- leaned upon his staff and mused, a bright smile overspread his face, and
- none but cheerful visions floated into his brain.
- Had he no thoughts of her, whose sole delight he was, and whom he had
- unconsciously plunged in such bitter sorrow and such deep affliction?
- Oh, yes. She was at the heart of all his cheerful hopes and proud
- reflections. It was she whom all this honour and distinction were to
- gladden; the joy and profit were for her. What delight it gave her
- to hear of the bravery of her poor boy! Ah! He would have known that,
- without Hugh’s telling him. And what a precious thing it was to know she
- lived so happily, and heard with so much pride (he pictured to himself
- her look when they told her) that he was in such high esteem: bold among
- the boldest, and trusted before them all! And when these frays were
- over, and the good lord had conquered his enemies, and they were all at
- peace again, and he and she were rich, what happiness they would have
- in talking of these troubled times when he was a great soldier: and when
- they sat alone together in the tranquil twilight, and she had no longer
- reason to be anxious for the morrow, what pleasure would he have in the
- reflection that this was his doing--his--poor foolish Barnaby’s; and
- in patting her on the cheek, and saying with a merry laugh, ‘Am I silly
- now, mother--am I silly now?’
- With a lighter heart and step, and eyes the brighter for the happy tear
- that dimmed them for a moment, Barnaby resumed his walk; and singing
- gaily to himself, kept guard upon his quiet post.
- His comrade Grip, the partner of his watch, though fond of basking in
- the sunshine, preferred to-day to walk about the stable; having a great
- deal to do in the way of scattering the straw, hiding under it such
- small articles as had been casually left about, and haunting Hugh’s
- bed, to which he seemed to have taken a particular attachment. Sometimes
- Barnaby looked in and called him, and then he came hopping out; but
- he merely did this as a concession to his master’s weakness, and soon
- returned again to his own grave pursuits: peering into the straw with
- his bill, and rapidly covering up the place, as if, Midas-like, he were
- whispering secrets to the earth and burying them; constantly busying
- himself upon the sly; and affecting, whenever Barnaby came past, to
- look up in the clouds and have nothing whatever on his mind: in short,
- conducting himself, in many respects, in a more than usually thoughtful,
- deep, and mysterious manner.
- As the day crept on, Barnaby, who had no directions forbidding him to
- eat and drink upon his post, but had been, on the contrary, supplied
- with a bottle of beer and a basket of provisions, determined to break
- his fast, which he had not done since morning. To this end, he sat down
- on the ground before the door, and putting his staff across his knees in
- case of alarm or surprise, summoned Grip to dinner.
- This call, the bird obeyed with great alacrity; crying, as he sidled
- up to his master, ‘I’m a devil, I’m a Polly, I’m a kettle, I’m a
- Protestant, No Popery!’ Having learnt this latter sentiment from the
- gentry among whom he had lived of late, he delivered it with uncommon
- emphasis.
- ‘Well said, Grip!’ cried his master, as he fed him with the daintiest
- bits. ‘Well said, old boy!’
- ‘Never say die, bow wow wow, keep up your spirits, Grip Grip Grip,
- Holloa! We’ll all have tea, I’m a Protestant kettle, No Popery!’ cried
- the raven.
- ‘Gordon for ever, Grip!’ cried Barnaby.
- The raven, placing his head upon the ground, looked at his master
- sideways, as though he would have said, ‘Say that again!’ Perfectly
- understanding his desire, Barnaby repeated the phrase a great many
- times. The bird listened with profound attention; sometimes repeating
- the popular cry in a low voice, as if to compare the two, and try if it
- would at all help him to this new accomplishment; sometimes flapping
- his wings, or barking; and sometimes in a kind of desperation drawing a
- multitude of corks, with extraordinary viciousness.
- Barnaby was so intent upon his favourite, that he was not at first
- aware of the approach of two persons on horseback, who were riding at a
- foot-pace, and coming straight towards his post. When he perceived them,
- however, which he did when they were within some fifty yards of him, he
- jumped hastily up, and ordering Grip within doors, stood with both hands
- on his staff, waiting until he should know whether they were friends or
- foes.
- He had hardly done so, when he observed that those who advanced were a
- gentleman and his servant; almost at the same moment he recognised Lord
- George Gordon, before whom he stood uncovered, with his eyes turned
- towards the ground.
- ‘Good day!’ said Lord George, not reining in his horse until he was
- close beside him. ‘Well!’
- ‘All quiet, sir, all safe!’ cried Barnaby. ‘The rest are away--they went
- by that path--that one. A grand party!’
- ‘Ay?’ said Lord George, looking thoughtfully at him. ‘And you?’
- ‘Oh! They left me here to watch--to mount guard--to keep everything
- secure till they come back. I’ll do it, sir, for your sake. You’re a
- good gentleman; a kind gentleman--ay, you are. There are many against
- you, but we’ll be a match for them, never fear!’
- ‘What’s that?’ said Lord George--pointing to the raven who was peeping
- out of the stable-door--but still looking thoughtfully, and in some
- perplexity, it seemed, at Barnaby.
- ‘Why, don’t you know!’ retorted Barnaby, with a wondering laugh. ‘Not
- know what HE is! A bird, to be sure. My bird--my friend--Grip.’
- ‘A devil, a kettle, a Grip, a Polly, a Protestant, no Popery!’ cried the
- raven.
- ‘Though, indeed,’ added Barnaby, laying his hand upon the neck of Lord
- George’s horse, and speaking softly: ‘you had good reason to ask me what
- he is, for sometimes it puzzles me--and I am used to him--to think
- he’s only a bird. He’s my brother, Grip is--always with me--always
- talking--always merry--eh, Grip?’
- The raven answered by an affectionate croak, and hopping on his master’s
- arm, which he held downward for that purpose, submitted with an air of
- perfect indifference to be fondled, and turned his restless, curious
- eye, now upon Lord George, and now upon his man.
- Lord George, biting his nails in a discomfited manner, regarded Barnaby
- for some time in silence; then beckoning to his servant, said:
- ‘Come hither, John.’
- John Grueby touched his hat, and came.
- ‘Have you ever seen this young man before?’ his master asked in a low
- voice.
- ‘Twice, my lord,’ said John. ‘I saw him in the crowd last night and
- Saturday.’
- ‘Did--did it seem to you that his manner was at all wild or strange?’
- Lord George demanded, faltering.
- ‘Mad,’ said John, with emphatic brevity.
- ‘And why do you think him mad, sir?’ said his master, speaking in a
- peevish tone. ‘Don’t use that word too freely. Why do you think him
- mad?’
- ‘My lord,’ John Grueby answered, ‘look at his dress, look at his eyes,
- look at his restless way, hear him cry “No Popery!” Mad, my lord.’
- ‘So because one man dresses unlike another,’ returned his angry master,
- glancing at himself; ‘and happens to differ from other men in his
- carriage and manner, and to advocate a great cause which the corrupt and
- irreligious desert, he is to be accounted mad, is he?’
- ‘Stark, staring, raving, roaring mad, my lord,’ returned the unmoved
- John.
- ‘Do you say this to my face?’ cried his master, turning sharply upon
- him.
- ‘To any man, my lord, who asks me,’ answered John.
- ‘Mr Gashford, I find, was right,’ said Lord George; ‘I thought him
- prejudiced, though I ought to have known a man like him better than to
- have supposed it possible!’
- ‘I shall never have Mr Gashford’s good word, my lord,’ replied John,
- touching his hat respectfully, ‘and I don’t covet it.’
- ‘You are an ill-conditioned, most ungrateful fellow,’ said Lord George:
- ‘a spy, for anything I know. Mr Gashford is perfectly correct, as I
- might have felt convinced he was. I have done wrong to retain you in
- my service. It is a tacit insult to him as my choice and confidential
- friend to do so, remembering the cause you sided with, on the day he was
- maligned at Westminster. You will leave me to-night--nay, as soon as we
- reach home. The sooner the better.’
- ‘If it comes to that, I say so too, my lord. Let Mr Gashford have his
- will. As to my being a spy, my lord, you know me better than to believe
- it, I am sure. I don’t know much about causes. My cause is the cause of
- one man against two hundred; and I hope it always will be.’
- ‘You have said quite enough,’ returned Lord George, motioning him to go
- back. ‘I desire to hear no more.’
- ‘If you’ll let me have another word, my lord,’ returned John Grueby,
- ‘I’d give this silly fellow a caution not to stay here by himself. The
- proclamation is in a good many hands already, and it’s well known that
- he was concerned in the business it relates to. He had better get to a
- place of safety if he can, poor creature.’
- ‘You hear what this man says?’ cried Lord George, addressing Barnaby,
- who had looked on and wondered while this dialogue passed. ‘He thinks
- you may be afraid to remain upon your post, and are kept here perhaps
- against your will. What do you say?’
- ‘I think, young man,’ said John, in explanation, ‘that the soldiers may
- turn out and take you; and that if they do, you will certainly be hung
- by the neck till you’re dead--dead--dead. And I think you had better go
- from here, as fast as you can. That’s what I think.’
- ‘He’s a coward, Grip, a coward!’ cried Barnaby, putting the raven on the
- ground, and shouldering his staff. ‘Let them come! Gordon for ever! Let
- them come!’
- ‘Ay!’ said Lord George, ‘let them! Let us see who will venture to attack
- a power like ours; the solemn league of a whole people. THIS a madman!
- You have said well, very well. I am proud to be the leader of such men
- as you.’
- Barnaby’s heart swelled within his bosom as he heard these words. He took
- Lord George’s hand and carried it to his lips; patted his horse’s crest,
- as if the affection and admiration he had conceived for the man extended
- to the animal he rode; then unfurling his flag, and proudly waving it,
- resumed his pacing up and down.
- Lord George, with a kindling eye and glowing cheek, took off his hat,
- and flourishing it above his head, bade him exultingly Farewell!--then
- cantered off at a brisk pace; after glancing angrily round to see that
- his servant followed. Honest John set spurs to his horse and rode after
- his master, but not before he had again warned Barnaby to retreat,
- with many significant gestures, which indeed he continued to make, and
- Barnaby to resist, until the windings of the road concealed them from
- each other’s view.
- Left to himself again with a still higher sense of the importance of
- his post, and stimulated to enthusiasm by the special notice and
- encouragement of his leader, Barnaby walked to and fro in a delicious
- trance rather than as a waking man. The sunshine which prevailed around
- was in his mind. He had but one desire ungratified. If she could only
- see him now!
- The day wore on; its heat was gently giving place to the cool of
- evening; a light wind sprung up, fanning his long hair, and making
- the banner rustle pleasantly above his head. There was a freedom and
- freshness in the sound and in the time, which chimed exactly with his
- mood. He was happier than ever.
- He was leaning on his staff looking towards the declining sun, and
- reflecting with a smile that he stood sentinel at that moment over
- buried gold, when two or three figures appeared in the distance, making
- towards the house at a rapid pace, and motioning with their hands as
- though they urged its inmates to retreat from some approaching danger.
- As they drew nearer, they became more earnest in their gestures; and
- they were no sooner within hearing, than the foremost among them cried
- that the soldiers were coming up.
- At these words, Barnaby furled his flag, and tied it round the pole. His
- heart beat high while he did so, but he had no more fear or thought of
- retreating than the pole itself. The friendly stragglers hurried past
- him, after giving him notice of his danger, and quickly passed into the
- house, where the utmost confusion immediately prevailed. As those within
- hastily closed the windows and the doors, they urged him by looks and
- signs to fly without loss of time, and called to him many times to do
- so; but he only shook his head indignantly in answer, and stood the
- firmer on his post. Finding that he was not to be persuaded, they took
- care of themselves; and leaving the place with only one old woman in it,
- speedily withdrew.
- As yet there had been no symptom of the news having any better
- foundation than in the fears of those who brought it, but The Boot had
- not been deserted five minutes, when there appeared, coming across the
- fields, a body of men who, it was easy to see, by the glitter of their
- arms and ornaments in the sun, and by their orderly and regular mode of
- advancing--for they came on as one man--were soldiers. In a very little
- time, Barnaby knew that they were a strong detachment of the Foot
- Guards, having along with them two gentlemen in private clothes, and a
- small party of Horse; the latter brought up the rear, and were not in
- number more than six or eight.
- They advanced steadily; neither quickening their pace as they came
- nearer, nor raising any cry, nor showing the least emotion or anxiety.
- Though this was a matter of course in the case of regular troops,
- even to Barnaby, there was something particularly impressive and
- disconcerting in it to one accustomed to the noise and tumult of an
- undisciplined mob. For all that, he stood his ground not a whit the less
- resolutely, and looked on undismayed.
- Presently, they marched into the yard, and halted. The
- commanding-officer despatched a messenger to the horsemen, one of whom
- came riding back. Some words passed between them, and they glanced at
- Barnaby; who well remembered the man he had unhorsed at Westminster, and
- saw him now before his eyes. The man being speedily dismissed, saluted,
- and rode back to his comrades, who were drawn up apart at a short
- distance.
- The officer then gave the word to prime and load. The heavy ringing of
- the musket-stocks upon the ground, and the sharp and rapid rattling of
- the ramrods in their barrels, were a kind of relief to Barnaby, deadly
- though he knew the purport of such sounds to be. When this was done,
- other commands were given, and the soldiers instantaneously formed in
- single file all round the house and stables; completely encircling them
- in every part, at a distance, perhaps, of some half-dozen yards; at
- least that seemed in Barnaby’s eyes to be about the space left between
- himself and those who confronted him. The horsemen remained drawn up by
- themselves as before.
- The two gentlemen in private clothes who had kept aloof, now rode
- forward, one on either side the officer. The proclamation having been
- produced and read by one of them, the officer called on Barnaby to
- surrender.
- He made no answer, but stepping within the door, before which he had
- kept guard, held his pole crosswise to protect it. In the midst of a
- profound silence, he was again called upon to yield.
- Still he offered no reply. Indeed he had enough to do, to run his eye
- backward and forward along the half-dozen men who immediately fronted
- him, and settle hurriedly within himself at which of them he would
- strike first, when they pressed on him. He caught the eye of one in the
- centre, and resolved to hew that fellow down, though he died for it.
- Again there was a dead silence, and again the same voice called upon him
- to deliver himself up.
- Next moment he was back in the stable, dealing blows about him like a
- madman. Two of the men lay stretched at his feet: the one he had marked,
- dropped first--he had a thought for that, even in the hot blood and
- hurry of the struggle. Another blow--another! Down, mastered, wounded in
- the breast by a heavy blow from the butt-end of a gun (he saw the weapon
- in the act of falling)--breathless--and a prisoner.
- An exclamation of surprise from the officer recalled him, in some
- degree, to himself. He looked round. Grip, after working in secret all
- the afternoon, and with redoubled vigour while everybody’s attention was
- distracted, had plucked away the straw from Hugh’s bed, and turned up
- the loose ground with his iron bill. The hole had been recklessly filled
- to the brim, and was merely sprinkled with earth. Golden cups, spoons,
- candlesticks, coined guineas--all the riches were revealed.
- They brought spades and a sack; dug up everything that was hidden there;
- and carried away more than two men could lift. They handcuffed him
- and bound his arms, searched him, and took away all he had. Nobody
- questioned or reproached him, or seemed to have much curiosity about
- him. The two men he had stunned, were carried off by their companions in
- the same business-like way in which everything else was done. Finally,
- he was left under a guard of four soldiers with fixed bayonets, while
- the officer directed in person the search of the house and the other
- buildings connected with it.
- This was soon completed. The soldiers formed again in the yard; he was
- marched out, with his guard about him; and ordered to fall in, where a
- space was left. The others closed up all round, and so they moved away,
- with the prisoner in the centre.
- When they came into the streets, he felt he was a sight; and looking up
- as they passed quickly along, could see people running to the windows a
- little too late, and throwing up the sashes to look after him. Sometimes
- he met a staring face beyond the heads about him, or under the arms of
- his conductors, or peering down upon him from a waggon-top or coach-box;
- but this was all he saw, being surrounded by so many men. The very
- noises of the streets seemed muffled and subdued; and the air came stale
- and hot upon him, like the sickly breath of an oven.
- Tramp, tramp. Tramp, tramp. Heads erect, shoulders square, every man
- stepping in exact time--all so orderly and regular--nobody looking at
- him--nobody seeming conscious of his presence,--he could hardly believe
- he was a Prisoner. But at the word, though only thought, not spoken, he
- felt the handcuffs galling his wrists, the cord pressing his arms to
- his sides: the loaded guns levelled at his head; and those cold, bright,
- sharp, shining points turned towards him: the mere looking down at
- which, now that he was bound and helpless, made the warm current of his
- life run cold.
- Chapter 58
- They were not long in reaching the barracks, for the officer who
- commanded the party was desirous to avoid rousing the people by the
- display of military force in the streets, and was humanely anxious
- to give as little opportunity as possible for any attempt at rescue;
- knowing that it must lead to bloodshed and loss of life, and that if the
- civil authorities by whom he was accompanied, empowered him to order his
- men to fire, many innocent persons would probably fall, whom curiosity
- or idleness had attracted to the spot. He therefore led the party
- briskly on, avoiding with a merciful prudence the more public and
- crowded thoroughfares, and pursuing those which he deemed least likely
- to be infested by disorderly persons. This wise proceeding not only
- enabled them to gain their quarters without any interruption, but
- completely baffled a body of rioters who had assembled in one of the
- main streets, through which it was considered certain they would pass,
- and who remained gathered together for the purpose of releasing the
- prisoner from their hands, long after they had deposited him in a place
- of security, closed the barrack-gates, and set a double guard at every
- entrance for its better protection.
- Arrived at this place, poor Barnaby was marched into a stone-floored
- room, where there was a very powerful smell of tobacco, a strong
- thorough draught of air, and a great wooden bedstead, large enough for a
- score of men. Several soldiers in undress were lounging about, or eating
- from tin cans; military accoutrements dangled on rows of pegs along the
- whitewashed wall; and some half-dozen men lay fast asleep upon their
- backs, snoring in concert. After remaining here just long enough to
- note these things, he was marched out again, and conveyed across the
- parade-ground to another portion of the building.
- Perhaps a man never sees so much at a glance as when he is in a
- situation of extremity. The chances are a hundred to one, that if
- Barnaby had lounged in at the gate to look about him, he would have
- lounged out again with a very imperfect idea of the place, and would
- have remembered very little about it. But as he was taken handcuffed
- across the gravelled area, nothing escaped his notice. The dry, arid
- look of the dusty square, and of the bare brick building; the clothes
- hanging at some of the windows; and the men in their shirt-sleeves and
- braces, lolling with half their bodies out of the others; the green
- sun-blinds at the officers’ quarters, and the little scanty trees in
- front; the drummer-boys practising in a distant courtyard; the men at
- drill on the parade; the two soldiers carrying a basket between them,
- who winked to each other as he went by, and slily pointed to their
- throats; the spruce serjeant who hurried past with a cane in his hand,
- and under his arm a clasped book with a vellum cover; the fellows in the
- ground-floor rooms, furbishing and brushing up their different articles
- of dress, who stopped to look at him, and whose voices as they
- spoke together echoed loudly through the empty galleries and
- passages;--everything, down to the stand of muskets before the
- guard-house, and the drum with a pipe-clayed belt attached, in one
- corner, impressed itself upon his observation, as though he had noticed
- them in the same place a hundred times, or had been a whole day among
- them, in place of one brief hurried minute.
- He was taken into a small paved back yard, and there they opened a great
- door, plated with iron, and pierced some five feet above the ground with
- a few holes to let in air and light. Into this dungeon he was walked
- straightway; and having locked him up there, and placed a sentry over
- him, they left him to his meditations.
- The cell, or black hole, for it had those words painted on the door, was
- very dark, and having recently accommodated a drunken deserter, by no
- means clean. Barnaby felt his way to some straw at the farther end, and
- looking towards the door, tried to accustom himself to the gloom, which,
- coming from the bright sunshine out of doors, was not an easy task.
- There was a kind of portico or colonnade outside, and this obstructed
- even the little light that at the best could have found its way through
- the small apertures in the door. The footsteps of the sentinel echoed
- monotonously as he paced its stone pavement to and fro (reminding
- Barnaby of the watch he had so lately kept himself); and as he passed
- and repassed the door, he made the cell for an instant so black by the
- interposition of his body, that his going away again seemed like the
- appearance of a new ray of light, and was quite a circumstance to look
- for.
- When the prisoner had sat sometime upon the ground, gazing at the
- chinks, and listening to the advancing and receding footsteps of his
- guard, the man stood still upon his post. Barnaby, quite unable to
- think, or to speculate on what would be done with him, had been lulled
- into a kind of doze by his regular pace; but his stopping roused him;
- and then he became aware that two men were in conversation under the
- colonnade, and very near the door of his cell.
- How long they had been talking there, he could not tell, for he had
- fallen into an unconsciousness of his real position, and when the
- footsteps ceased, was answering aloud some question which seemed to have
- been put to him by Hugh in the stable, though of the fancied purport,
- either of question or reply, notwithstanding that he awoke with the
- latter on his lips, he had no recollection whatever. The first words
- that reached his ears, were these:
- ‘Why is he brought here then, if he has to be taken away again so soon?’
- ‘Why where would you have him go! Damme, he’s not as safe anywhere as
- among the king’s troops, is he? What WOULD you do with him? Would you
- hand him over to a pack of cowardly civilians, that shake in their
- shoes till they wear the soles out, with trembling at the threats of the
- ragamuffins he belongs to?’
- ‘That’s true enough.’
- ‘True enough!--I’ll tell you what. I wish, Tom Green, that I was a
- commissioned instead of a non-commissioned officer, and that I had the
- command of two companies--only two companies--of my own regiment.
- Call me out to stop these riots--give me the needful authority, and
- half-a-dozen rounds of ball cartridge--’
- ‘Ay!’ said the other voice. ‘That’s all very well, but they won’t give
- the needful authority. If the magistrate won’t give the word, what’s the
- officer to do?’
- Not very well knowing, as it seemed, how to overcome this difficulty,
- the other man contented himself with damning the magistrates.
- ‘With all my heart,’ said his friend.
- ‘Where’s the use of a magistrate?’ returned the other voice. ‘What’s
- a magistrate in this case, but an impertinent, unnecessary,
- unconstitutional sort of interference? Here’s a proclamation. Here’s a
- man referred to in that proclamation. Here’s proof against him, and a
- witness on the spot. Damme! Take him out and shoot him, sir. Who wants a
- magistrate?’
- ‘When does he go before Sir John Fielding?’ asked the man who had spoken
- first.
- ‘To-night at eight o’clock,’ returned the other. ‘Mark what follows. The
- magistrate commits him to Newgate. Our people take him to Newgate. The
- rioters pelt our people. Our people retire before the rioters. Stones
- are thrown, insults are offered, not a shot’s fired. Why? Because of the
- magistrates. Damn the magistrates!’
- When he had in some degree relieved his mind by cursing the magistrates
- in various other forms of speech, the man was silent, save for a low
- growling, still having reference to those authorities, which from time
- to time escaped him.
- Barnaby, who had wit enough to know that this conversation concerned,
- and very nearly concerned, himself, remained perfectly quiet until they
- ceased to speak, when he groped his way to the door, and peeping through
- the air-holes, tried to make out what kind of men they were, to whom he
- had been listening.
- The one who condemned the civil power in such strong terms, was a
- serjeant--engaged just then, as the streaming ribands in his cap
- announced, on the recruiting service. He stood leaning sideways against
- a pillar nearly opposite the door, and as he growled to himself, drew
- figures on the pavement with his cane. The other man had his back
- towards the dungeon, and Barnaby could only see his form. To judge from
- that, he was a gallant, manly, handsome fellow, but he had lost his left
- arm. It had been taken off between the elbow and the shoulder, and his
- empty coat-sleeve hung across his breast.
- It was probably this circumstance which gave him an interest beyond any
- that his companion could boast of, and attracted Barnaby’s attention.
- There was something soldierly in his bearing, and he wore a jaunty cap
- and jacket. Perhaps he had been in the service at one time or other.
- If he had, it could not have been very long ago, for he was but a young
- fellow now.
- ‘Well, well,’ he said thoughtfully; ‘let the fault be where it may, it
- makes a man sorrowful to come back to old England, and see her in this
- condition.’
- ‘I suppose the pigs will join ‘em next,’ said the serjeant, with
- an imprecation on the rioters, ‘now that the birds have set ‘em the
- example.’
- ‘The birds!’ repeated Tom Green.
- ‘Ah--birds,’ said the serjeant testily; ‘that’s English, an’t it?’
- ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
- ‘Go to the guard-house, and see. You’ll find a bird there, that’s got
- their cry as pat as any of ‘em, and bawls “No Popery,” like a man--or
- like a devil, as he says he is. I shouldn’t wonder. The devil’s loose
- in London somewhere. Damme if I wouldn’t twist his neck round, on the
- chance, if I had MY way.’
- The young man had taken two or three steps away, as if to go and see
- this creature, when he was arrested by the voice of Barnaby.
- ‘It’s mine,’ he called out, half laughing and half weeping--‘my pet,
- my friend Grip. Ha ha ha! Don’t hurt him, he has done no harm. I taught
- him; it’s my fault. Let me have him, if you please. He’s the only friend
- I have left now. He’ll not dance, or talk, or whistle for you, I
- know; but he will for me, because he knows me and loves me--though you
- wouldn’t think it--very well. You wouldn’t hurt a bird, I’m sure. You’re
- a brave soldier, sir, and wouldn’t harm a woman or a child--no, no, nor
- a poor bird, I’m certain.’
- This latter adjuration was addressed to the serjeant, whom Barnaby
- judged from his red coat to be high in office, and able to seal Grip’s
- destiny by a word. But that gentleman, in reply, surlily damned him for
- a thief and rebel as he was, and with many disinterested imprecations on
- his own eyes, liver, blood, and body, assured him that if it rested with
- him to decide, he would put a final stopper on the bird, and his master
- too.
- ‘You talk boldly to a caged man,’ said Barnaby, in anger. ‘If I was on
- the other side of the door and there were none to part us, you’d change
- your note--ay, you may toss your head--you would! Kill the bird--do.
- Kill anything you can, and so revenge yourself on those who with their
- bare hands untied could do as much to you!’
- Having vented his defiance, he flung himself into the furthest corner
- of his prison, and muttering, ‘Good bye, Grip--good bye, dear old Grip!’
- shed tears for the first time since he had been taken captive; and hid
- his face in the straw.
- He had had some fancy at first, that the one-armed man would help him,
- or would give him a kind word in answer. He hardly knew why, but he
- hoped and thought so. The young fellow had stopped when he called out,
- and checking himself in the very act of turning round, stood listening
- to every word he said. Perhaps he built his feeble trust on this;
- perhaps on his being young, and having a frank and honest manner.
- However that might be, he built on sand. The other went away directly
- he had finished speaking, and neither answered him, nor returned. No
- matter. They were all against him here: he might have known as much.
- Good bye, old Grip, good bye!
- After some time, they came and unlocked the door, and called to him to
- come out. He rose directly, and complied, for he would not have THEM
- think he was subdued or frightened. He walked out like a man, and looked
- from face to face.
- None of them returned his gaze or seemed to notice it. They marched
- him back to the parade by the way they had brought him, and there they
- halted, among a body of soldiers, at least twice as numerous as that
- which had taken him prisoner in the afternoon. The officer he had seen
- before, bade him in a few brief words take notice that if he attempted
- to escape, no matter how favourable a chance he might suppose he had,
- certain of the men had orders to fire upon him, that moment. They then
- closed round him as before, and marched him off again.
- In the same unbroken order they arrived at Bow Street, followed and
- beset on all sides by a crowd which was continually increasing. Here
- he was placed before a blind gentleman, and asked if he wished to say
- anything. Not he. What had he got to tell them? After a very little
- talking, which he was careless of and quite indifferent to, they told
- him he was to go to Newgate, and took him away.
- He went out into the street, so surrounded and hemmed in on every side
- by soldiers, that he could see nothing; but he knew there was a great
- crowd of people, by the murmur; and that they were not friendly to the
- soldiers, was soon rendered evident by their yells and hisses. How often
- and how eagerly he listened for the voice of Hugh! There was not a voice
- he knew among them all. Was Hugh a prisoner too? Was there no hope!
- As they came nearer and nearer to the prison, the hootings of the people
- grew more violent; stones were thrown; and every now and then, a rush
- was made against the soldiers, which they staggered under. One of them,
- close before him, smarting under a blow upon the temple, levelled his
- musket, but the officer struck it upwards with his sword, and ordered
- him on peril of his life to desist. This was the last thing he saw
- with any distinctness, for directly afterwards he was tossed about,
- and beaten to and fro, as though in a tempestuous sea. But go where
- he would, there were the same guards about him. Twice or thrice he was
- thrown down, and so were they; but even then, he could not elude their
- vigilance for a moment. They were up again, and had closed about him,
- before he, with his wrists so tightly bound, could scramble to his feet.
- Fenced in, thus, he felt himself hoisted to the top of a low flight of
- steps, and then for a moment he caught a glimpse of the fighting in
- the crowd, and of a few red coats sprinkled together, here and there,
- struggling to rejoin their fellows. Next moment, everything was dark and
- gloomy, and he was standing in the prison lobby; the centre of a group
- of men.
- A smith was speedily in attendance, who riveted upon him a set of heavy
- irons. Stumbling on as well as he could, beneath the unusual burden of
- these fetters, he was conducted to a strong stone cell, where, fastening
- the door with locks, and bolts, and chains, they left him, well secured;
- having first, unseen by him, thrust in Grip, who, with his head drooping
- and his deep black plumes rough and rumpled, appeared to comprehend and
- to partake, his master’s fallen fortunes.
- Chapter 59
- It is necessary at this juncture to return to Hugh, who, having, as we
- have seen, called to the rioters to disperse from about the Warren, and
- meet again as usual, glided back into the darkness from which he had
- emerged, and reappeared no more that night.
- He paused in the copse which sheltered him from the observation of his
- mad companions, and waited to ascertain whether they drew off at his
- bidding, or still lingered and called to him to join them. Some few, he
- saw, were indisposed to go away without him, and made towards the spot
- where he stood concealed as though they were about to follow in his
- footsteps, and urge him to come back; but these men, being in their turn
- called to by their friends, and in truth not greatly caring to venture
- into the dark parts of the grounds, where they might be easily surprised
- and taken, if any of the neighbours or retainers of the family were
- watching them from among the trees, soon abandoned the idea, and hastily
- assembling such men as they found of their mind at the moment, straggled
- off.
- When he was satisfied that the great mass of the insurgents were
- imitating this example, and that the ground was rapidly clearing, he
- plunged into the thickest portion of the little wood; and, crashing the
- branches as he went, made straight towards a distant light: guided by
- that, and by the sullen glow of the fire behind him.
- As he drew nearer and nearer to the twinkling beacon towards which he
- bent his course, the red glare of a few torches began to reveal itself,
- and the voices of men speaking together in a subdued tone broke the
- silence which, save for a distant shouting now and then, already
- prevailed. At length he cleared the wood, and, springing across a ditch,
- stood in a dark lane, where a small body of ill-looking vagabonds, whom
- he had left there some twenty minutes before, waited his coming with
- impatience.
- They were gathered round an old post-chaise or chariot, driven by one of
- themselves, who sat postilion-wise upon the near horse. The blinds were
- drawn up, and Mr Tappertit and Dennis kept guard at the two windows. The
- former assumed the command of the party, for he challenged Hugh as he
- advanced towards them; and when he did so, those who were resting on the
- ground about the carriage rose to their feet and clustered round him.
- ‘Well!’ said Simon, in a low voice; ‘is all right?’
- ‘Right enough,’ replied Hugh, in the same tone. ‘They’re dispersing
- now--had begun before I came away.’
- ‘And is the coast clear?’
- ‘Clear enough before our men, I take it,’ said Hugh. ‘There are not many
- who, knowing of their work over yonder, will want to meddle with ‘em
- to-night.--Who’s got some drink here?’
- Everybody had some plunder from the cellar; half-a-dozen flasks and
- bottles were offered directly. He selected the largest, and putting it
- to his mouth, sent the wine gurgling down his throat. Having emptied
- it, he threw it down, and stretched out his hand for another, which he
- emptied likewise, at a draught. Another was given him, and this he half
- emptied too. Reserving what remained to finish with, he asked:
- ‘Have you got anything to eat, any of you? I’m as ravenous as a hungry
- wolf. Which of you was in the larder--come?’
- ‘I was, brother,’ said Dennis, pulling off his hat, and fumbling in
- the crown. ‘There’s a matter of cold venison pasty somewhere or another
- here, if that’ll do.’
- ‘Do!’ cried Hugh, seating himself on the pathway. ‘Bring it out! Quick!
- Show a light here, and gather round! Let me sup in state, my lads! Ha ha
- ha!’
- Entering into his boisterous humour, for they all had drunk deeply, and
- were as wild as he, they crowded about him, while two of their number
- who had torches, held them up, one on either side of him, that his
- banquet might not be despatched in the dark. Mr Dennis, having by this
- time succeeded in extricating from his hat a great mass of pasty, which
- had been wedged in so tightly that it was not easily got out, put it
- before him; and Hugh, having borrowed a notched and jagged knife from
- one of the company, fell to work upon it vigorously.
- ‘I should recommend you to swallow a little fire every day, about an
- hour afore dinner, brother,’ said Dennis, after a pause. ‘It seems to
- agree with you, and to stimulate your appetite.’
- Hugh looked at him, and at the blackened faces by which he was
- surrounded, and, stopping for a moment to flourish his knife above his
- head, answered with a roar of laughter.
- ‘Keep order, there, will you?’ said Simon Tappertit.
- ‘Why, isn’t a man allowed to regale himself, noble captain,’ retorted
- his lieutenant, parting the men who stood between them, with his knife,
- that he might see him,--‘to regale himself a little bit after such work
- as mine? What a hard captain! What a strict captain! What a tyrannical
- captain! Ha ha ha!’
- ‘I wish one of you fellers would hold a bottle to his mouth to keep him
- quiet,’ said Simon, ‘unless you want the military to be down upon us.’
- ‘And what if they are down upon us!’ retorted Hugh. ‘Who cares? Who’s
- afraid? Let ‘em come, I say, let ‘em come. The more, the merrier. Give
- me bold Barnaby at my side, and we two will settle the military, without
- troubling any of you. Barnaby’s the man for the military. Barnaby’s
- health!’
- But as the majority of those present were by no means anxious for a
- second engagement that night, being already weary and exhausted, they
- sided with Mr Tappertit, and pressed him to make haste with his supper,
- for they had already delayed too long. Knowing, even in the height of
- his frenzy, that they incurred great danger by lingering so near the
- scene of the late outrages, Hugh made an end of his meal without more
- remonstrance, and rising, stepped up to Mr Tappertit, and smote him on
- the back.
- ‘Now then,’ he cried, ‘I’m ready. There are brave birds inside this
- cage, eh? Delicate birds,--tender, loving, little doves. I caged ‘em--I
- caged ‘em--one more peep!’
- He thrust the little man aside as he spoke, and mounting on the steps,
- which were half let down, pulled down the blind by force, and stared
- into the chaise like an ogre into his larder.
- ‘Ha ha ha! and did you scratch, and pinch, and struggle, pretty
- mistress?’ he cried, as he grasped a little hand that sought in vain to
- free itself from his grip: ‘you, so bright-eyed, and cherry-lipped, and
- daintily made? But I love you better for it, mistress. Ay, I do. You
- should stab me and welcome, so that it pleased you, and you had to
- cure me afterwards. I love to see you proud and scornful. It makes you
- handsomer than ever; and who so handsome as you at any time, my pretty
- one!’
- ‘Come!’ said Mr Tappertit, who had waited during this speech with
- considerable impatience. ‘There’s enough of that. Come down.’
- The little hand seconded this admonition by thrusting Hugh’s great head
- away with all its force, and drawing up the blind, amidst his noisy
- laughter, and vows that he must have another look, for the last glimpse
- of that sweet face had provoked him past all bearing. However, as the
- suppressed impatience of the party now broke out into open murmurs,
- he abandoned this design, and taking his seat upon the bar, contented
- himself with tapping at the front windows of the carriage, and trying to
- steal a glance inside; Mr Tappertit, mounting the steps and hanging on
- by the door, issued his directions to the driver with a commanding
- voice and attitude; the rest got up behind, or ran by the side of the
- carriage, as they could; some, in imitation of Hugh, endeavoured to
- see the face he had praised so highly, and were reminded of their
- impertinence by hints from the cudgel of Mr Tappertit. Thus they pursued
- their journey by circuitous and winding roads; preserving, except when
- they halted to take breath, or to quarrel about the best way of reaching
- London, pretty good order and tolerable silence.
- In the mean time, Dolly--beautiful, bewitching, captivating little
- Dolly--her hair dishevelled, her dress torn, her dark eyelashes wet with
- tears, her bosom heaving--her face, now pale with fear, now crimsoned
- with indignation--her whole self a hundred times more beautiful in
- this heightened aspect than ever she had been before--vainly strove to
- comfort Emma Haredale, and to impart to her the consolation of which she
- stood in so much need herself. The soldiers were sure to come; they must
- be rescued; it would be impossible to convey them through the streets
- of London when they set the threats of their guards at defiance, and
- shrieked to the passengers for help. If they did this when they
- came into the more frequented ways, she was certain--she was quite
- certain--they must be released. So poor Dolly said, and so poor Dolly
- tried to think; but the invariable conclusion of all such arguments was,
- that Dolly burst into tears; cried, as she wrung her hands, what would
- they do or think, or who would comfort them, at home, at the Golden Key;
- and sobbed most piteously.
- Miss Haredale, whose feelings were usually of a quieter kind than
- Dolly’s, and not so much upon the surface, was dreadfully alarmed, and
- indeed had only just recovered from a swoon. She was very pale, and the
- hand which Dolly held was quite cold; but she bade her, nevertheless,
- remember that, under Providence, much must depend upon their own
- discretion; that if they remained quiet and lulled the vigilance of the
- ruffians into whose hands they had fallen, the chances of their being
- able to procure assistance when they reached the town, were very much
- increased; that unless society were quite unhinged, a hot pursuit must
- be immediately commenced; and that her uncle, she might be sure, would
- never rest until he had found them out and rescued them. But as she said
- these latter words, the idea that he had fallen in a general massacre of
- the Catholics that night--no very wild or improbable supposition after
- what they had seen and undergone--struck her dumb; and, lost in the
- horrors they had witnessed, and those they might be yet reserved for,
- she sat incapable of thought, or speech, or outward show of grief: as
- rigid, and almost as white and cold, as marble.
- Oh, how many, many times, in that long ride, did Dolly think of her old
- lover,--poor, fond, slighted Joe! How many, many times, did she recall
- that night when she ran into his arms from the very man now projecting
- his hateful gaze into the darkness where she sat, and leering through
- the glass in monstrous admiration! And when she thought of Joe, and what
- a brave fellow he was, and how he would have rode boldly up, and
- dashed in among these villains now, yes, though they were double the
- number--and here she clenched her little hand, and pressed her foot upon
- the ground--the pride she felt for a moment in having won his heart,
- faded in a burst of tears, and she sobbed more bitterly than ever.
- As the night wore on, and they proceeded by ways which were quite
- unknown to them--for they could recognise none of the objects of which
- they sometimes caught a hurried glimpse--their fears increased; nor were
- they without good foundation; it was not difficult for two beautiful
- young women to find, in their being borne they knew not whither by a
- band of daring villains who eyed them as some among these fellows did,
- reasons for the worst alarm. When they at last entered London, by a
- suburb with which they were wholly unacquainted, it was past midnight,
- and the streets were dark and empty. Nor was this the worst, for the
- carriage stopping in a lonely spot, Hugh suddenly opened the door,
- jumped in, and took his seat between them.
- It was in vain they cried for help. He put his arm about the neck of
- each, and swore to stifle them with kisses if they were not as silent as
- the grave.
- ‘I come here to keep you quiet,’ he said, ‘and that’s the means I shall
- take. So don’t be quiet, pretty mistresses--make a noise--do--and I
- shall like it all the better.’
- They were proceeding at a rapid pace, and apparently with fewer
- attendants than before, though it was so dark (the torches being
- extinguished) that this was mere conjecture. They shrunk from his touch,
- each into the farthest corner of the carriage; but shrink as Dolly
- would, his arm encircled her waist, and held her fast. She neither cried
- nor spoke, for terror and disgust deprived her of the power; but she
- plucked at his hand as though she would die in the effort to disengage
- herself; and crouching on the ground, with her head averted and held
- down, repelled him with a strength she wondered at as much as he. The
- carriage stopped again.
- ‘Lift this one out,’ said Hugh to the man who opened the door, as
- he took Miss Haredale’s hand, and felt how heavily it fell. ‘She’s
- fainted.’
- ‘So much the better,’ growled Dennis--it was that amiable gentleman.
- ‘She’s quiet. I always like ‘em to faint, unless they’re very tender and
- composed.’
- ‘Can you take her by yourself?’ asked Hugh.
- ‘I don’t know till I try. I ought to be able to; I’ve lifted up a good
- many in my time,’ said the hangman. ‘Up then! She’s no small weight,
- brother; none of these here fine gals are. Up again! Now we have her.’
- Having by this time hoisted the young lady into his arms, he staggered
- off with his burden.
- ‘Look ye, pretty bird,’ said Hugh, drawing Dolly towards him. ‘Remember
- what I told you--a kiss for every cry. Scream, if you love me, darling.
- Scream once, mistress. Pretty mistress, only once, if you love me.’
- Thrusting his face away with all her force, and holding down her head,
- Dolly submitted to be carried out of the chaise, and borne after Miss
- Haredale into a miserable cottage, where Hugh, after hugging her to his
- breast, set her gently down upon the floor.
- Poor Dolly! Do what she would, she only looked the better for it, and
- tempted them the more. When her eyes flashed angrily, and her ripe lips
- slightly parted, to give her rapid breathing vent, who could resist it?
- When she wept and sobbed as though her heart would break, and bemoaned
- her miseries in the sweetest voice that ever fell upon a listener’s ear,
- who could be insensible to the little winning pettishness which now
- and then displayed itself, even in the sincerity and earnestness of her
- grief? When, forgetful for a moment of herself, as she was now, she fell
- on her knees beside her friend, and bent over her, and laid her cheek
- to hers, and put her arms about her, what mortal eyes could have avoided
- wandering to the delicate bodice, the streaming hair, the neglected
- dress, the perfect abandonment and unconsciousness of the blooming
- little beauty? Who could look on and see her lavish caresses and
- endearments, and not desire to be in Emma Haredale’s place; to be either
- her or Dolly; either the hugging or the hugged? Not Hugh. Not Dennis.
- ‘I tell you what it is, young women,’ said Mr Dennis, ‘I an’t much of a
- lady’s man myself, nor am I a party in the present business further than
- lending a willing hand to my friends: but if I see much more of this
- here sort of thing, I shall become a principal instead of a accessory. I
- tell you candid.’
- ‘Why have you brought us here?’ said Emma. ‘Are we to be murdered?’
- ‘Murdered!’ cried Dennis, sitting down upon a stool, and regarding her
- with great favour. ‘Why, my dear, who’d murder sich chickabiddies as
- you? If you was to ask me, now, whether you was brought here to be
- married, there might be something in it.’
- And here he exchanged a grin with Hugh, who removed his eyes from Dolly
- for the purpose.
- ‘No, no,’ said Dennis, ‘there’ll be no murdering, my pets. Nothing of
- that sort. Quite the contrairy.’
- ‘You are an older man than your companion, sir,’ said Emma, trembling.
- ‘Have you no pity for us? Do you not consider that we are women?’
- ‘I do indeed, my dear,’ retorted Dennis. ‘It would be very hard not to,
- with two such specimens afore my eyes. Ha ha! Oh yes, I consider that.
- We all consider that, miss.’
- He shook his head waggishly, leered at Hugh again, and laughed very
- much, as if he had said a noble thing, and rather thought he was coming
- out.
- ‘There’ll be no murdering, my dear. Not a bit on it. I tell you what
- though, brother,’ said Dennis, cocking his hat for the convenience
- of scratching his head, and looking gravely at Hugh, ‘it’s worthy of
- notice, as a proof of the amazing equalness and dignity of our law, that
- it don’t make no distinction between men and women. I’ve heerd the judge
- say, sometimes, to a highwayman or housebreaker as had tied the ladies
- neck and heels--you’ll excuse me making mention of it, my darlings--and
- put ‘em in a cellar, that he showed no consideration to women. Now, I
- say that there judge didn’t know his business, brother; and that if
- I had been that there highwayman or housebreaker, I should have made
- answer: “What are you a talking of, my lord? I showed the women as much
- consideration as the law does, and what more would you have me do?” If
- you was to count up in the newspapers the number of females as have
- been worked off in this here city alone, in the last ten year,’ said Mr
- Dennis thoughtfully, ‘you’d be surprised at the total--quite amazed, you
- would. There’s a dignified and equal thing; a beautiful thing! But we’ve
- no security for its lasting. Now that they’ve begun to favour these here
- Papists, I shouldn’t wonder if they went and altered even THAT, one of
- these days. Upon my soul, I shouldn’t.’
- The subject, perhaps from being of too exclusive and professional a
- nature, failed to interest Hugh as much as his friend had anticipated.
- But he had no time to pursue it, for at this crisis Mr Tappertit entered
- precipitately; at sight of whom Dolly uttered a scream of joy, and
- fairly threw herself into his arms.
- ‘I knew it, I was sure of it!’ cried Dolly. ‘My dear father’s at the
- door. Thank God, thank God! Bless you, Sim. Heaven bless you for this!’
- Simon Tappertit, who had at first implicitly believed that the
- locksmith’s daughter, unable any longer to suppress her secret passion
- for himself, was about to give it full vent in its intensity, and to
- declare that she was his for ever, looked extremely foolish when she
- said these words;--the more so, as they were received by Hugh and Dennis
- with a loud laugh, which made her draw back, and regard him with a fixed
- and earnest look.
- ‘Miss Haredale,’ said Sim, after a very awkward silence, ‘I hope
- you’re as comfortable as circumstances will permit of. Dolly Varden,
- my darling--my own, my lovely one--I hope YOU’RE pretty comfortable
- likewise.’
- Poor little Dolly! She saw how it was; hid her face in her hands; and
- sobbed more bitterly than ever.
- ‘You meet in me, Miss V.,’ said Simon, laying his hand upon his breast,
- ‘not a ‘prentice, not a workman, not a slave, not the wictim of your
- father’s tyrannical behaviour, but the leader of a great people, the
- captain of a noble band, in which these gentlemen are, as I may say,
- corporals and serjeants. You behold in me, not a private individual, but
- a public character; not a mender of locks, but a healer of the wounds of
- his unhappy country. Dolly V., sweet Dolly V., for how many years have
- I looked forward to this present meeting! For how many years has it been
- my intention to exalt and ennoble you! I redeem it. Behold in me, your
- husband. Yes, beautiful Dolly--charmer--enslaver--S. Tappertit is all
- your own!’
- As he said these words he advanced towards her. Dolly retreated till she
- could go no farther, and then sank down upon the floor. Thinking it very
- possible that this might be maiden modesty, Simon essayed to raise her;
- on which Dolly, goaded to desperation, wound her hands in his hair, and
- crying out amidst her tears that he was a dreadful little wretch, and
- always had been, shook, and pulled, and beat him, until he was fain to
- call for help, most lustily. Hugh had never admired her half so much as
- at that moment.
- ‘She’s in an excited state to-night,’ said Simon, as he smoothed his
- rumpled feathers, ‘and don’t know when she’s well off. Let her be by
- herself till to-morrow, and that’ll bring her down a little. Carry her
- into the next house!’
- Hugh had her in his arms directly. It might be that Mr Tappertit’s heart
- was really softened by her distress, or it might be that he felt it in
- some degree indecorous that his intended bride should be struggling in
- the grasp of another man. He commanded him, on second thoughts, to put
- her down again, and looked moodily on as she flew to Miss Haredale’s
- side, and clinging to her dress, hid her flushed face in its folds.
- ‘They shall remain here together till to-morrow,’ said Simon, who had
- now quite recovered his dignity--‘till to-morrow. Come away!’
- ‘Ay!’ cried Hugh. ‘Come away, captain. Ha ha ha!’
- ‘What are you laughing at?’ demanded Simon sternly.
- ‘Nothing, captain, nothing,’ Hugh rejoined; and as he spoke, and clapped
- his hand upon the shoulder of the little man, he laughed again, for some
- unknown reason, with tenfold violence.
- Mr Tappertit surveyed him from head to foot with lofty scorn (this only
- made him laugh the more), and turning to the prisoners, said:
- ‘You’ll take notice, ladies, that this place is well watched on every
- side, and that the least noise is certain to be attended with unpleasant
- consequences. You’ll hear--both of you--more of our intentions
- to-morrow. In the mean time, don’t show yourselves at the window, or
- appeal to any of the people you may see pass it; for if you do, it’ll
- be known directly that you come from a Catholic house, and all the
- exertions our men can make, may not be able to save your lives.’
- With this last caution, which was true enough, he turned to the door,
- followed by Hugh and Dennis. They paused for a moment, going out, to
- look at them clasped in each other’s arms, and then left the cottage;
- fastening the door, and setting a good watch upon it, and indeed all
- round the house.
- ‘I say,’ growled Dennis, as they walked away in company, ‘that’s a
- dainty pair. Muster Gashford’s one is as handsome as the other, eh?’
- ‘Hush!’ said Hugh, hastily. ‘Don’t you mention names. It’s a bad habit.’
- ‘I wouldn’t like to be HIM, then (as you don’t like names), when he
- breaks it out to her; that’s all,’ said Dennis. ‘She’s one of them fine,
- black-eyed, proud gals, as I wouldn’t trust at such times with a knife
- too near ‘em. I’ve seen some of that sort, afore now. I recollect one
- that was worked off, many year ago--and there was a gentleman in that
- case too--that says to me, with her lip a trembling, but her hand as
- steady as ever I see one: “Dennis, I’m near my end, but if I had a
- dagger in these fingers, and he was within my reach, I’d strike him dead
- afore me;”--ah, she did--and she’d have done it too!’
- Strike who dead?’ demanded Hugh.
- ‘How should I know, brother?’ answered Dennis. ‘SHE never said; not
- she.’
- Hugh looked, for a moment, as though he would have made some further
- inquiry into this incoherent recollection; but Simon Tappertit, who had
- been meditating deeply, gave his thoughts a new direction.
- ‘Hugh!’ said Sim. ‘You have done well to-day. You shall be rewarded.
- So have you, Dennis.--There’s no young woman YOU want to carry off, is
- there?’
- ‘N--no,’ returned that gentleman, stroking his grizzly beard, which was
- some two inches long. ‘None in partickler, I think.’
- ‘Very good,’ said Sim; ‘then we’ll find some other way of making it up
- to you. As to you, old boy’--he turned to Hugh--‘you shall have Miggs
- (her that I promised you, you know) within three days. Mind. I pass my
- word for it.’
- Hugh thanked him heartily; and as he did so, his laughing fit returned
- with such violence that he was obliged to hold his side with one hand,
- and to lean with the other on the shoulder of his small captain, without
- whose support he would certainly have rolled upon the ground.
- Chapter 60
- The three worthies turned their faces towards The Boot, with the
- intention of passing the night in that place of rendezvous, and of
- seeking the repose they so much needed in the shelter of their old
- den; for now that the mischief and destruction they had purposed were
- achieved, and their prisoners were safely bestowed for the night, they
- began to be conscious of exhaustion, and to feel the wasting effects of
- the madness which had led to such deplorable results.
- Notwithstanding the lassitude and fatigue which oppressed him now, in
- common with his two companions, and indeed with all who had taken an
- active share in that night’s work, Hugh’s boisterous merriment broke out
- afresh whenever he looked at Simon Tappertit, and vented itself--much to
- that gentleman’s indignation--in such shouts of laughter as bade fair to
- bring the watch upon them, and involve them in a skirmish, to which in
- their present worn-out condition they might prove by no means equal.
- Even Mr Dennis, who was not at all particular on the score of gravity
- or dignity, and who had a great relish for his young friend’s eccentric
- humours, took occasion to remonstrate with him on this imprudent
- behaviour, which he held to be a species of suicide, tantamount to a
- man’s working himself off without being overtaken by the law, than which
- he could imagine nothing more ridiculous or impertinent.
- Not abating one jot of his noisy mirth for these remonstrances, Hugh
- reeled along between them, having an arm of each, until they hove in
- sight of The Boot, and were within a field or two of that convenient
- tavern. He happened by great good luck to have roared and shouted
- himself into silence by this time. They were proceeding onward without
- noise, when a scout who had been creeping about the ditches all night,
- to warn any stragglers from encroaching further on what was now such
- dangerous ground, peeped cautiously from his hiding-place, and called to
- them to stop.
- ‘Stop! and why?’ said Hugh.
- Because (the scout replied) the house was filled with constables and
- soldiers; having been surprised that afternoon. The inmates had fled
- or been taken into custody, he could not say which. He had prevented a
- great many people from approaching nearer, and he believed they had
- gone to the markets and such places to pass the night. He had seen the
- distant fires, but they were all out now. He had heard the people who
- passed and repassed, speaking of them too, and could report that the
- prevailing opinion was one of apprehension and dismay. He had not heard
- a word of Barnaby--didn’t even know his name--but it had been said in
- his hearing that some man had been taken and carried off to Newgate.
- Whether this was true or false, he could not affirm.
- The three took counsel together, on hearing this, and debated what it
- might be best to do. Hugh, deeming it possible that Barnaby was in the
- hands of the soldiers, and at that moment under detention at The Boot,
- was for advancing stealthily, and firing the house; but his companions,
- who objected to such rash measures unless they had a crowd at their
- backs, represented that if Barnaby were taken he had assuredly been
- removed to a stronger prison; they would never have dreamed of keeping
- him all night in a place so weak and open to attack. Yielding to this
- reasoning, and to their persuasions, Hugh consented to turn back and
- to repair to Fleet Market; for which place, it seemed, a few of their
- boldest associates had shaped their course, on receiving the same
- intelligence.
- Feeling their strength recruited and their spirits roused, now that
- there was a new necessity for action, they hurried away, quite forgetful
- of the fatigue under which they had been sinking but a few minutes
- before; and soon arrived at their new place of destination.
- Fleet Market, at that time, was a long irregular row of wooden sheds
- and penthouses, occupying the centre of what is now called Farringdon
- Street. They were jumbled together in a most unsightly fashion, in the
- middle of the road; to the great obstruction of the thoroughfare and the
- annoyance of passengers, who were fain to make their way, as they best
- could, among carts, baskets, barrows, trucks, casks, bulks, and benches,
- and to jostle with porters, hucksters, waggoners, and a motley crowd
- of buyers, sellers, pick-pockets, vagrants, and idlers. The air was
- perfumed with the stench of rotten leaves and faded fruit; the refuse of
- the butchers’ stalls, and offal and garbage of a hundred kinds. It
- was indispensable to most public conveniences in those days, that they
- should be public nuisances likewise; and Fleet Market maintained the
- principle to admiration.
- To this place, perhaps because its sheds and baskets were a tolerable
- substitute for beds, or perhaps because it afforded the means of a hasty
- barricade in case of need, many of the rioters had straggled, not only
- that night, but for two or three nights before. It was now broad day,
- but the morning being cold, a group of them were gathered round a fire
- in a public-house, drinking hot purl, and smoking pipes, and planning
- new schemes for to-morrow.
- Hugh and his two friends being known to most of these men, were received
- with signal marks of approbation, and inducted into the most honourable
- seats. The room-door was closed and fastened to keep intruders at a
- distance, and then they proceeded to exchange news.
- ‘The soldiers have taken possession of The Boot, I hear,’ said Hugh.
- ‘Who knows anything about it?’
- Several cried that they did; but the majority of the company having
- been engaged in the assault upon the Warren, and all present having been
- concerned in one or other of the night’s expeditions, it proved that
- they knew no more than Hugh himself; having been merely warned by each
- other, or by the scout, and knowing nothing of their own knowledge.
- ‘We left a man on guard there to-day,’ said Hugh, looking round him,
- ‘who is not here. You know who it is--Barnaby, who brought the soldier
- down, at Westminster. Has any man seen or heard of him?’
- They shook their heads, and murmured an answer in the negative, as each
- man looked round and appealed to his fellow; when a noise was heard
- without, and a man was heard to say that he wanted Hugh--that he must
- see Hugh.
- ‘He is but one man,’ cried Hugh to those who kept the door; ‘let him
- come in.’
- ‘Ay, ay!’ muttered the others. ‘Let him come in. Let him come in.’
- The door was accordingly unlocked and opened. A one-armed man, with
- his head and face tied up with a bloody cloth, as though he had been
- severely beaten, his clothes torn, and his remaining hand grasping a
- thick stick, rushed in among them, and panting for breath, demanded
- which was Hugh.
- ‘Here he is,’ replied the person he inquired for. ‘I am Hugh. What do
- you want with me?’
- ‘I have a message for you,’ said the man. ‘You know one Barnaby.’
- ‘What of him? Did he send the message?’
- ‘Yes. He’s taken. He’s in one of the strong cells in Newgate. He
- defended himself as well as he could, but was overpowered by numbers.
- That’s his message.’
- ‘When did you see him?’ asked Hugh, hastily.
- ‘On his way to prison, where he was taken by a party of soldiers. They
- took a by-road, and not the one we expected. I was one of the few who
- tried to rescue him, and he called to me, and told me to tell Hugh where
- he was. We made a good struggle, though it failed. Look here!’
- He pointed to his dress and to his bandaged head, and still panting for
- breath, glanced round the room; then faced towards Hugh again.
- ‘I know you by sight,’ he said, ‘for I was in the crowd on Friday, and
- on Saturday, and yesterday, but I didn’t know your name. You’re a bold
- fellow, I know. So is he. He fought like a lion tonight, but it was of
- no use. I did my best, considering that I want this limb.’
- Again he glanced inquisitively round the room or seemed to do so, for
- his face was nearly hidden by the bandage--and again facing sharply
- towards Hugh, grasped his stick as if he half expected to be set upon,
- and stood on the defensive.
- If he had any such apprehension, however, he was speedily reassured by
- the demeanour of all present. None thought of the bearer of the tidings.
- He was lost in the news he brought. Oaths, threats, and execrations,
- were vented on all sides. Some cried that if they bore this tamely,
- another day would see them all in jail; some, that they should have
- rescued the other prisoners, and this would not have happened. One man
- cried in a loud voice, ‘Who’ll follow me to Newgate!’ and there was a
- loud shout and general rush towards the door.
- But Hugh and Dennis stood with their backs against it, and kept them
- back, until the clamour had so far subsided that their voices could be
- heard, when they called to them together that to go now, in broad day,
- would be madness; and that if they waited until night and arranged a
- plan of attack, they might release, not only their own companions, but
- all the prisoners, and burn down the jail.
- ‘Not that jail alone,’ cried Hugh, ‘but every jail in London. They shall
- have no place to put their prisoners in. We’ll burn them all down; make
- bonfires of them every one! Here!’ he cried, catching at the hangman’s
- hand. ‘Let all who’re men here, join with us. Shake hands upon it.
- Barnaby out of jail, and not a jail left standing! Who joins?’
- Every man there. And they swore a great oath to release their friends
- from Newgate next night; to force the doors and burn the jail; or perish
- in the fire themselves.
- Chapter 61
- On that same night--events so crowd upon each other in convulsed and
- distracted times, that more than the stirring incidents of a whole life
- often become compressed into the compass of four-and-twenty hours--on
- that same night, Mr Haredale, having strongly bound his prisoner,
- with the assistance of the sexton, and forced him to mount his horse,
- conducted him to Chigwell; bent upon procuring a conveyance to London
- from that place, and carrying him at once before a justice. The
- disturbed state of the town would be, he knew, a sufficient reason for
- demanding the murderer’s committal to prison before daybreak, as no man
- could answer for the security of any of the watch-houses or ordinary
- places of detention; and to convey a prisoner through the streets when
- the mob were again abroad, would not only be a task of great danger and
- hazard, but would be to challenge an attempt at rescue. Directing the
- sexton to lead the horse, he walked close by the murderer’s side, and in
- this order they reached the village about the middle of the night.
- The people were all awake and up, for they were fearful of being burnt
- in their beds, and sought to comfort and assure each other by watching
- in company. A few of the stoutest-hearted were armed and gathered in a
- body on the green. To these, who knew him well, Mr Haredale addressed
- himself, briefly narrating what had happened, and beseeching them to aid
- in conveying the criminal to London before the dawn of day.
- But not a man among them dared to help him by so much as the motion of
- a finger. The rioters, in their passage through the village, had
- menaced with their fiercest vengeance, any person who should aid in
- extinguishing the fire, or render the least assistance to him, or any
- Catholic whomsoever. Their threats extended to their lives and all they
- possessed. They were assembled for their own protection, and could not
- endanger themselves by lending any aid to him. This they told him, not
- without hesitation and regret, as they kept aloof in the moonlight and
- glanced fearfully at the ghostly rider, who, with his head drooping on
- his breast and his hat slouched down upon his brow, neither moved nor
- spoke.
- Finding it impossible to persuade them, and indeed hardly knowing how
- to do so after what they had seen of the fury of the crowd, Mr Haredale
- besought them that at least they would leave him free to act for
- himself, and would suffer him to take the only chaise and pair of
- horses that the place afforded. This was not acceded to without some
- difficulty, but in the end they told him to do what he would, and go
- away from them in heaven’s name.
- Leaving the sexton at the horse’s bridle, he drew out the chaise
- with his own hands, and would have harnessed the horses, but that the
- post-boy of the village--a soft-hearted, good-for-nothing, vagabond kind
- of fellow--was moved by his earnestness and passion, and, throwing down
- a pitchfork with which he was armed, swore that the rioters might cut
- him into mincemeat if they liked, but he would not stand by and see
- an honest gentleman who had done no wrong, reduced to such extremity,
- without doing what he could to help him. Mr Haredale shook him warmly
- by the hand, and thanked him from his heart. In five minutes’ time the
- chaise was ready, and this good scapegrace in his saddle. The murderer
- was put inside, the blinds were drawn up, the sexton took his seat upon
- the bar, Mr Haredale mounted his horse and rode close beside the door;
- and so they started in the dead of night, and in profound silence, for
- London.
- The consternation was so extreme that even the horses which had escaped
- the flames at the Warren, could find no friends to shelter them. They
- passed them on the road, browsing on the stunted grass; and the driver
- told them, that the poor beasts had wandered to the village first, but
- had been driven away, lest they should bring the vengeance of the crowd
- on any of the inhabitants.
- Nor was this feeling confined to such small places, where the people
- were timid, ignorant, and unprotected. When they came near London they
- met, in the grey light of morning, more than one poor Catholic family
- who, terrified by the threats and warnings of their neighbours, were
- quitting the city on foot, and who told them they could hire no cart or
- horse for the removal of their goods, and had been compelled to leave
- them behind, at the mercy of the crowd. Near Mile End they passed a
- house, the master of which, a Catholic gentleman of small means, having
- hired a waggon to remove his furniture by midnight, had had it all
- brought down into the street, to wait the vehicle’s arrival, and save
- time in the packing. But the man with whom he made the bargain, alarmed
- by the fires that night, and by the sight of the rioters passing his
- door, had refused to keep it: and the poor gentleman, with his wife and
- servant and their little children, were sitting trembling among their
- goods in the open street, dreading the arrival of day and not knowing
- where to turn or what to do.
- It was the same, they heard, with the public conveyances. The panic
- was so great that the mails and stage-coaches were afraid to carry
- passengers who professed the obnoxious religion. If the drivers knew
- them, or they admitted that they held that creed, they would not take
- them, no, though they offered large sums; and yesterday, people had
- been afraid to recognise Catholic acquaintance in the streets, lest
- they should be marked by spies, and burnt out, as it was called, in
- consequence. One mild old man--a priest, whose chapel was destroyed;
- a very feeble, patient, inoffensive creature--who was trudging away,
- alone, designing to walk some distance from town, and then try his
- fortune with the coaches, told Mr Haredale that he feared he might not
- find a magistrate who would have the hardihood to commit a prisoner to
- jail, on his complaint. But notwithstanding these discouraging accounts
- they went on, and reached the Mansion House soon after sunrise.
- Mr Haredale threw himself from his horse, but he had no need to knock
- at the door, for it was already open, and there stood upon the step
- a portly old man, with a very red, or rather purple face, who with an
- anxious expression of countenance, was remonstrating with some unseen
- personage upstairs, while the porter essayed to close the door by
- degrees and get rid of him. With the intense impatience and excitement
- natural to one in his condition, Mr Haredale thrust himself forward and
- was about to speak, when the fat old gentleman interposed:
- ‘My good sir,’ said he, ‘pray let me get an answer. This is the sixth
- time I have been here. I was here five times yesterday. My house is
- threatened with destruction. It is to be burned down to-night, and was
- to have been last night, but they had other business on their hands.
- Pray let me get an answer.’
- ‘My good sir,’ returned Mr Haredale, shaking his head, ‘my house is
- burned to the ground. But heaven forbid that yours should be. Get your
- answer. Be brief, in mercy to me.’
- ‘Now, you hear this, my lord?’--said the old gentleman, calling up
- the stairs, to where the skirt of a dressing-gown fluttered on the
- landing-place. ‘Here is a gentleman here, whose house was actually burnt
- down last night.’
- ‘Dear me, dear me,’ replied a testy voice, ‘I am very sorry for it, but
- what am I to do? I can’t build it up again. The chief magistrate of the
- city can’t go and be a rebuilding of people’s houses, my good sir. Stuff
- and nonsense!’
- ‘But the chief magistrate of the city can prevent people’s houses from
- having any need to be rebuilt, if the chief magistrate’s a man, and
- not a dummy--can’t he, my lord?’ cried the old gentleman in a choleric
- manner.
- ‘You are disrespectable, sir,’ said the Lord Mayor--‘leastways,
- disrespectful I mean.’
- ‘Disrespectful, my lord!’ returned the old gentleman. ‘I was respectful
- five times yesterday. I can’t be respectful for ever. Men can’t stand
- on being respectful when their houses are going to be burnt over their
- heads, with them in ‘em. What am I to do, my lord? AM I to have any
- protection!’
- ‘I told you yesterday, sir,’ said the Lord Mayor, ‘that you might have
- an alderman in your house, if you could get one to come.’
- ‘What the devil’s the good of an alderman?’ returned the choleric old
- gentleman.
- ‘--To awe the crowd, sir,’ said the Lord Mayor.
- ‘Oh Lord ha’ mercy!’ whimpered the old gentleman, as he wiped his
- forehead in a state of ludicrous distress, ‘to think of sending an
- alderman to awe a crowd! Why, my lord, if they were even so many babies,
- fed on mother’s milk, what do you think they’d care for an alderman!
- Will YOU come?’
- ‘I!’ said the Lord Mayor, most emphatically: ‘Certainly not.’
- ‘Then what,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘what am I to do? Am I a
- citizen of England? Am I to have the benefit of the laws? Am I to have
- any return for the King’s taxes?’
- ‘I don’t know, I am sure,’ said the Lord Mayor; ‘what a pity it is
- you’re a Catholic! Why couldn’t you be a Protestant, and then you
- wouldn’t have got yourself into such a mess? I’m sure I don’t know
- what’s to be done.--There are great people at the bottom of these
- riots.--Oh dear me, what a thing it is to be a public character!--You
- must look in again in the course of the day.--Would a javelin-man
- do?--Or there’s Philips the constable,--HE’S disengaged,--he’s not very
- old for a man at his time of life, except in his legs, and if you put
- him up at a window he’d look quite young by candle-light, and might
- frighten ‘em very much.--Oh dear!--well!--we’ll see about it.’
- ‘Stop!’ cried Mr Haredale, pressing the door open as the porter strove
- to shut it, and speaking rapidly, ‘My Lord Mayor, I beg you not to go
- away. I have a man here, who committed a murder eight-and-twenty years
- ago. Half-a-dozen words from me, on oath, will justify you in committing
- him to prison for re-examination. I only seek, just now, to have him
- consigned to a place of safety. The least delay may involve his being
- rescued by the rioters.’
- ‘Oh dear me!’ cried the Lord Mayor. ‘God bless my soul--and body--oh
- Lor!--well I!--there are great people at the bottom of these riots, you
- know.--You really mustn’t.’
- ‘My lord,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘the murdered gentleman was my brother; I
- succeeded to his inheritance; there were not wanting slanderous tongues
- at that time, to whisper that the guilt of this most foul and cruel deed
- was mine--mine, who loved him, as he knows, in Heaven, dearly. The time
- has come, after all these years of gloom and misery, for avenging him,
- and bringing to light a crime so artful and so devilish that it has no
- parallel. Every second’s delay on your part loosens this man’s bloody
- hands again, and leads to his escape. My lord, I charge you hear me, and
- despatch this matter on the instant.’
- ‘Oh dear me!’ cried the chief magistrate; ‘these an’t business
- hours, you know--I wonder at you--how ungentlemanly it is of you--you
- mustn’t--you really mustn’t.--And I suppose you are a Catholic too?’
- ‘I am,’ said Mr Haredale.
- ‘God bless my soul, I believe people turn Catholics a’purpose to vex
- and worrit me,’ cried the Lord Mayor. ‘I wish you wouldn’t come here;
- they’ll be setting the Mansion House afire next, and we shall have you
- to thank for it. You must lock your prisoner up, sir--give him to a
- watchman--and--call again at a proper time. Then we’ll see about it!’
- Before Mr Haredale could answer, the sharp closing of a door and drawing
- of its bolts, gave notice that the Lord Mayor had retreated to his
- bedroom, and that further remonstrance would be unavailing. The two
- clients retreated likewise, and the porter shut them out into the
- street.
- ‘That’s the way he puts me off,’ said the old gentleman, ‘I can get no
- redress and no help. What are you going to do, sir?’
- ‘To try elsewhere,’ answered Mr Haredale, who was by this time on
- horseback.
- ‘I feel for you, I assure you--and well I may, for we are in a common
- cause,’ said the old gentleman. ‘I may not have a house to offer you
- to-night; let me tender it while I can. On second thoughts though,’ he
- added, putting up a pocket-book he had produced while speaking, ‘I’ll
- not give you a card, for if it was found upon you, it might get you
- into trouble. Langdale--that’s my name--vintner and distiller--Holborn
- Hill--you’re heartily welcome, if you’ll come.’
- Mr Haredale bowed, and rode off, close beside the chaise as before;
- determining to repair to the house of Sir John Fielding, who had the
- reputation of being a bold and active magistrate, and fully resolved, in
- case the rioters should come upon them, to do execution on the murderer
- with his own hands, rather than suffer him to be released.
- They arrived at the magistrate’s dwelling, however, without molestation
- (for the mob, as we have seen, were then intent on deeper schemes), and
- knocked at the door. As it had been pretty generally rumoured that Sir
- John was proscribed by the rioters, a body of thief-takers had been
- keeping watch in the house all night. To one of them Mr Haredale stated
- his business, which appearing to the man of sufficient moment to warrant
- his arousing the justice, procured him an immediate audience.
- No time was lost in committing the murderer to Newgate; then a new
- building, recently completed at a vast expense, and considered to be of
- enormous strength. The warrant being made out, three of the thief-takers
- bound him afresh (he had been struggling, it seemed, in the chaise, and
- had loosened his manacles); gagged him lest they should meet with any
- of the mob, and he should call to them for help; and seated themselves,
- along with him, in the carriage. These men being all well armed, made
- a formidable escort; but they drew up the blinds again, as though the
- carriage were empty, and directed Mr Haredale to ride forward, that he
- might not attract attention by seeming to belong to it.
- The wisdom of this proceeding was sufficiently obvious, for as they
- hurried through the city they passed among several groups of men, who,
- if they had not supposed the chaise to be quite empty, would certainly
- have stopped it. But those within keeping quite close, and the driver
- tarrying to be asked no questions, they reached the prison without
- interruption, and, once there, had him out, and safe within its gloomy
- walls, in a twinkling.
- With eager eyes and strained attention, Mr Haredale saw him chained, and
- locked and barred up in his cell. Nay, when he had left the jail, and
- stood in the free street, without, he felt the iron plates upon the
- doors, with his hands, and drew them over the stone wall, to assure
- himself that it was real; and to exult in its being so strong, and
- rough, and cold. It was not until he turned his back upon the jail, and
- glanced along the empty streets, so lifeless and quiet in the bright
- morning, that he felt the weight upon his heart; that he knew he was
- tortured by anxiety for those he had left at home; and that home itself
- was but another bead in the long rosary of his regrets.
- Chapter 62
- The prisoner, left to himself, sat down upon his bedstead: and resting
- his elbows on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, remained in
- that attitude for hours. It would be hard to say, of what nature his
- reflections were. They had no distinctness, and, saving for some
- flashes now and then, no reference to his condition or the train of
- circumstances by which it had been brought about. The cracks in the
- pavement of his cell, the chinks in the wall where stone was joined
- to stone, the bars in the window, the iron ring upon the floor,--such
- things as these, subsiding strangely into one another, and awakening an
- indescribable kind of interest and amusement, engrossed his whole mind;
- and although at the bottom of his every thought there was an uneasy
- sense of guilt, and dread of death, he felt no more than that vague
- consciousness of it, which a sleeper has of pain. It pursues him through
- his dreams, gnaws at the heart of all his fancied pleasures, robs the
- banquet of its taste, music of its sweetness, makes happiness itself
- unhappy, and yet is no bodily sensation, but a phantom without shape,
- or form, or visible presence; pervading everything, but having no
- existence; recognisable everywhere, but nowhere seen, or touched, or met
- with face to face, until the sleep is past, and waking agony returns.
- After a long time the door of his cell opened. He looked up; saw the
- blind man enter; and relapsed into his former position.
- Guided by his breathing, the visitor advanced to where he sat; and
- stopping beside him, and stretching out his hand to assure himself that
- he was right, remained, for a good space, silent.
- ‘This is bad, Rudge. This is bad,’ he said at length.
- The prisoner shuffled with his feet upon the ground in turning his body
- from him, but made no other answer.
- ‘How were you taken?’ he asked. ‘And where? You never told me more than
- half your secret. No matter; I know it now. How was it, and where, eh?’
- he asked again, coming still nearer to him.
- ‘At Chigwell,’ said the other.
- ‘At Chigwell! How came you there?’
- ‘Because I went there to avoid the man I stumbled on,’ he answered.
- ‘Because I was chased and driven there, by him and Fate. Because I was
- urged to go there, by something stronger than my own will. When I found
- him watching in the house she used to live in, night after night, I knew
- I never could escape him--never! and when I heard the Bell--’
- He shivered; muttered that it was very cold; paced quickly up and down
- the narrow cell; and sitting down again, fell into his old posture.
- ‘You were saying,’ said the blind man, after another pause, ‘that when
- you heard the Bell--’
- ‘Let it be, will you?’ he retorted in a hurried voice. ‘It hangs there
- yet.’
- The blind man turned a wistful and inquisitive face towards him, but he
- continued to speak, without noticing him.
- ‘I went to Chigwell, in search of the mob. I have been so hunted and
- beset by this man, that I knew my only hope of safety lay in joining
- them. They had gone on before; I followed them when it left off.’
- ‘When what left off?’
- ‘The Bell. They had quitted the place. I hoped that some of them might
- be still lingering among the ruins, and was searching for them when
- I heard--’ he drew a long breath, and wiped his forehead with his
- sleeve--‘his voice.’
- ‘Saying what?’
- ‘No matter what. I don’t know. I was then at the foot of the turret,
- where I did the--’
- ‘Ay,’ said the blind man, nodding his head with perfect composure, ‘I
- understand.’
- ‘I climbed the stair, or so much of it as was left; meaning to hide till
- he had gone. But he heard me; and followed almost as soon as I set foot
- upon the ashes.’
- ‘You might have hidden in the wall, and thrown him down, or stabbed
- him,’ said the blind man.
- ‘Might I? Between that man and me, was one who led him on--I saw it,
- though he did not--and raised above his head a bloody hand. It was in
- the room above that HE and I stood glaring at each other on the night of
- the murder, and before he fell he raised his hand like that, and fixed
- his eyes on me. I knew the chase would end there.’
- ‘You have a strong fancy,’ said the blind man, with a smile.
- ‘Strengthen yours with blood, and see what it will come to.’
- He groaned, and rocked himself, and looking up for the first time, said,
- in a low, hollow voice:
- ‘Eight-and-twenty years! Eight-and-twenty years! He has never changed
- in all that time, never grown older, nor altered in the least degree.
- He has been before me in the dark night, and the broad sunny day; in the
- twilight, the moonlight, the sunlight, the light of fire, and lamp,
- and candle; and in the deepest gloom. Always the same! In company, in
- solitude, on land, on shipboard; sometimes leaving me alone for months,
- and sometimes always with me. I have seen him, at sea, come gliding in
- the dead of night along the bright reflection of the moon in the calm
- water; and I have seen him, on quays and market-places, with his hand
- uplifted, towering, the centre of a busy crowd, unconscious of the
- terrible form that had its silent stand among them. Fancy! Are you real?
- Am I? Are these iron fetters, riveted on me by the smith’s hammer, or
- are they fancies I can shatter at a blow?’
- The blind man listened in silence.
- ‘Fancy! Do I fancy that I killed him? Do I fancy that as I left the
- chamber where he lay, I saw the face of a man peeping from a dark door,
- who plainly showed me by his fearful looks that he suspected what I
- had done? Do I remember that I spoke fairly to him--that I drew
- nearer--nearer yet--with the hot knife in my sleeve? Do I fancy how HE
- died? Did he stagger back into the angle of the wall into which I had
- hemmed him, and, bleeding inwardly, stand, not fall, a corpse before
- me? Did I see him, for an instant, as I see you now, erect and on his
- feet--but dead!’
- The blind man, who knew that he had risen, motioned him to sit down
- again upon his bedstead; but he took no notice of the gesture.
- ‘It was then I thought, for the first time, of fastening the murder upon
- him. It was then I dressed him in my clothes, and dragged him down
- the back-stairs to the piece of water. Do I remember listening to the
- bubbles that came rising up when I had rolled him in? Do I remember
- wiping the water from my face, and because the body splashed it there,
- in its descent, feeling as if it MUST be blood?
- ‘Did I go home when I had done? And oh, my God! how long it took to do!
- Did I stand before my wife, and tell her? Did I see her fall upon the
- ground; and, when I stooped to raise her, did she thrust me back with a
- force that cast me off as if I had been a child, staining the hand with
- which she clasped my wrist? Is THAT fancy?
- ‘Did she go down upon her knees, and call on Heaven to witness that she
- and her unborn child renounced me from that hour; and did she, in words
- so solemn that they turned me cold--me, fresh from the horrors my own
- hands had made--warn me to fly while there was time; for though she
- would be silent, being my wretched wife, she would not shelter me? Did I
- go forth that night, abjured of God and man, and anchored deep in hell,
- to wander at my cable’s length about the earth, and surely be drawn down
- at last?’
- ‘Why did you return? said the blind man.
- ‘Why is blood red? I could no more help it, than I could live without
- breath. I struggled against the impulse, but I was drawn back, through
- every difficult and adverse circumstance, as by a mighty engine. Nothing
- could stop me. The day and hour were none of my choice. Sleeping and
- waking, I had been among the old haunts for years--had visited my own
- grave. Why did I come back? Because this jail was gaping for me, and he
- stood beckoning at the door.’
- ‘You were not known?’ said the blind man.
- ‘I was a man who had been twenty-two years dead. No. I was not known.’
- ‘You should have kept your secret better.’
- ‘MY secret? MINE? It was a secret, any breath of air could whisper at
- its will. The stars had it in their twinkling, the water in its flowing,
- the leaves in their rustling, the seasons in their return. It lurked
- in strangers’ faces, and their voices. Everything had lips on which it
- always trembled.--MY secret!’
- ‘It was revealed by your own act at any rate,’ said the blind man.
- ‘The act was not mine. I did it, but it was not mine. I was forced
- at times to wander round, and round, and round that spot. If you had
- chained me up when the fit was on me, I should have broken away, and
- gone there. As truly as the loadstone draws iron towards it, so he,
- lying at the bottom of his grave, could draw me near him when he would.
- Was that fancy? Did I like to go there, or did I strive and wrestle with
- the power that forced me?’
- The blind man shrugged his shoulders, and smiled incredulously. The
- prisoner again resumed his old attitude, and for a long time both were
- mute.
- ‘I suppose then,’ said his visitor, at length breaking silence, ‘that
- you are penitent and resigned; that you desire to make peace with
- everybody (in particular, with your wife who has brought you to this);
- and that you ask no greater favour than to be carried to Tyburn as soon
- as possible? That being the case, I had better take my leave. I am not
- good enough to be company for you.’
- ‘Have I not told you,’ said the other fiercely, ‘that I have striven
- and wrestled with the power that brought me here? Has my whole life, for
- eight-and-twenty years, been one perpetual struggle and resistance, and
- do you think I want to lie down and die? Do all men shrink from death--I
- most of all!’
- ‘That’s better said. That’s better spoken, Rudge--but I’ll not call you
- that again--than anything you have said yet,’ returned the blind man,
- speaking more familiarly, and laying his hands upon his arm. ‘Lookye,--I
- never killed a man myself, for I have never been placed in a position
- that made it worth my while. Farther, I am not an advocate for killing
- men, and I don’t think I should recommend it or like it--for it’s very
- hazardous--under any circumstances. But as you had the misfortune to get
- into this trouble before I made your acquaintance, and as you have been
- my companion, and have been of use to me for a long time now, I overlook
- that part of the matter, and am only anxious that you shouldn’t die
- unnecessarily. Now, I do not consider that, at present, it is at all
- necessary.’
- ‘What else is left me?’ returned the prisoner. ‘To eat my way through
- these walls with my teeth?’
- ‘Something easier than that,’ returned his friend. ‘Promise me that you
- will talk no more of these fancies of yours--idle, foolish things, quite
- beneath a man--and I’ll tell you what I mean.’
- ‘Tell me,’ said the other.
- ‘Your worthy lady with the tender conscience; your scrupulous, virtuous,
- punctilious, but not blindly affectionate wife--’
- ‘What of her?’
- ‘Is now in London.’
- ‘A curse upon her, be she where she may!’
- ‘That’s natural enough. If she had taken her annuity as usual, you would
- not have been here, and we should have been better off. But that’s apart
- from the business. She’s in London. Scared, as I suppose, and have no
- doubt, by my representation when I waited upon her, that you were close
- at hand (which I, of course, urged only as an inducement to compliance,
- knowing that she was not pining to see you), she left that place, and
- travelled up to London.’
- ‘How do you know?’
- ‘From my friend the noble captain--the illustrious general--the bladder,
- Mr Tappertit. I learnt from him the last time I saw him, which was
- yesterday, that your son who is called Barnaby--not after his father, I
- suppose--’
- ‘Death! does that matter now!’
- ‘--You are impatient,’ said the blind man, calmly; ‘it’s a good sign,
- and looks like life--that your son Barnaby had been lured away from her
- by one of his companions who knew him of old, at Chigwell; and that he
- is now among the rioters.’
- ‘And what is that to me? If father and son be hanged together, what
- comfort shall I find in that?’
- ‘Stay--stay, my friend,’ returned the blind man, with a cunning look,
- ‘you travel fast to journeys’ ends. Suppose I track my lady out, and say
- thus much: “You want your son, ma’am--good. I, knowing those who tempt
- him to remain among them, can restore him to you, ma’am--good. You must
- pay a price, ma’am, for his restoration--good again. The price is small,
- and easy to be paid--dear ma’am, that’s best of all.”’
- ‘What mockery is this?’
- ‘Very likely, she may reply in those words. “No mockery at all,” I
- answer: “Madam, a person said to be your husband (identity is difficult
- of proof after the lapse of many years) is in prison, his life in
- peril--the charge against him, murder. Now, ma’am, your husband has been
- dead a long, long time. The gentleman never can be confounded with him,
- if you will have the goodness to say a few words, on oath, as to when he
- died, and how; and that this person (who I am told resembles him in some
- degree) is no more he than I am. Such testimony will set the question
- quite at rest. Pledge yourself to me to give it, ma’ am, and I will
- undertake to keep your son (a fine lad) out of harm’s way until you have
- done this trifling service, when he shall be delivered up to you, safe
- and sound. On the other hand, if you decline to do so, I fear he will be
- betrayed, and handed over to the law, which will assuredly sentence him
- to suffer death. It is, in fact, a choice between his life and death. If
- you refuse, he swings. If you comply, the timber is not grown, nor the
- hemp sown, that shall do him any harm.”’
- ‘There is a gleam of hope in this!’ cried the prisoner.
- ‘A gleam!’ returned his friend, ‘a noon-blaze; a full and glorious
- daylight. Hush! I hear the tread of distant feet. Rely on me.’
- ‘When shall I hear more?’
- ‘As soon as I do. I should hope, to-morrow. They are coming to say that
- our time for talk is over. I hear the jingling of the keys. Not another
- word of this just now, or they may overhear us.’
- As he said these words, the lock was turned, and one of the prison
- turnkeys appearing at the door, announced that it was time for visitors
- to leave the jail.
- ‘So soon!’ said Stagg, meekly. ‘But it can’t be helped. Cheer up,
- friend. This mistake will soon be set at rest, and then you are a man
- again! If this charitable gentleman will lead a blind man (who has
- nothing in return but prayers) to the prison-porch, and set him with his
- face towards the west, he will do a worthy deed. Thank you, good sir. I
- thank you very kindly.’
- So saying, and pausing for an instant at the door to turn his grinning
- face towards his friend, he departed.
- When the officer had seen him to the porch, he returned, and again
- unlocking and unbarring the door of the cell, set it wide open,
- informing its inmate that he was at liberty to walk in the adjacent
- yard, if he thought proper, for an hour.
- The prisoner answered with a sullen nod; and being left alone again, sat
- brooding over what he had heard, and pondering upon the hopes the recent
- conversation had awakened; gazing abstractedly, the while he did so,
- on the light without, and watching the shadows thrown by one wall on
- another, and on the stone-paved ground.
- It was a dull, square yard, made cold and gloomy by high walls, and
- seeming to chill the very sunlight. The stone, so bare, and rough,
- and obdurate, filled even him with longing thoughts of meadow-land and
- trees; and with a burning wish to be at liberty. As he looked, he rose,
- and leaning against the door-post, gazed up at the bright blue sky,
- smiling even on that dreary home of crime. He seemed, for a moment, to
- remember lying on his back in some sweet-scented place, and gazing at it
- through moving branches, long ago.
- His attention was suddenly attracted by a clanking sound--he knew what
- it was, for he had startled himself by making the same noise in walking
- to the door. Presently a voice began to sing, and he saw the shadow of
- a figure on the pavement. It stopped--was silent all at once, as
- though the person for a moment had forgotten where he was, but
- soon remembered--and so, with the same clanking noise, the shadow
- disappeared.
- He walked out into the court and paced it to and fro; startling the
- echoes, as he went, with the harsh jangling of his fetters. There was a
- door near his, which, like his, stood ajar.
- He had not taken half-a-dozen turns up and down the yard, when, standing
- still to observe this door, he heard the clanking sound again. A face
- looked out of the grated window--he saw it very dimly, for the cell was
- dark and the bars were heavy--and directly afterwards, a man appeared,
- and came towards him.
- For the sense of loneliness he had, he might have been in jail a year.
- Made eager by the hope of companionship, he quickened his pace, and
- hastened to meet the man half way--
- What was this! His son!
- They stood face to face, staring at each other. He shrinking and cowed,
- despite himself; Barnaby struggling with his imperfect memory, and
- wondering where he had seen that face before. He was not uncertain long,
- for suddenly he laid hands upon him, and striving to bear him to the
- ground, cried:
- ‘Ah! I know! You are the robber!’
- He said nothing in reply at first, but held down his head, and struggled
- with him silently. Finding the younger man too strong for him, he raised
- his face, looked close into his eyes, and said,
- ‘I am your father.’
- God knows what magic the name had for his ears; but Barnaby released his
- hold, fell back, and looked at him aghast. Suddenly he sprung towards
- him, put his arms about his neck, and pressed his head against his
- cheek.
- Yes, yes, he was; he was sure he was. But where had he been so long, and
- why had he left his mother by herself, or worse than by herself, with
- her poor foolish boy? And had she really been as happy as they said?
- And where was she? Was she near there? She was not happy now, and he in
- jail? Ah, no.
- Not a word was said in answer; but Grip croaked loudly, and hopped
- about them, round and round, as if enclosing them in a magic circle, and
- invoking all the powers of mischief.
- Chapter 63
- During the whole of this day, every regiment in or near the metropolis
- was on duty in one or other part of the town; and the regulars and
- militia, in obedience to the orders which were sent to every barrack and
- station within twenty-four hours’ journey, began to pour in by all the
- roads. But the disturbance had attained to such a formidable height, and
- the rioters had grown, with impunity, to be so audacious, that the sight
- of this great force, continually augmented by new arrivals, instead of
- operating as a check, stimulated them to outrages of greater hardihood
- than any they had yet committed; and helped to kindle a flame in
- London, the like of which had never been beheld, even in its ancient and
- rebellious times.
- All yesterday, and on this day likewise, the commander-in-chief
- endeavoured to arouse the magistrates to a sense of their duty, and in
- particular the Lord Mayor, who was the faintest-hearted and most timid
- of them all. With this object, large bodies of the soldiery were several
- times despatched to the Mansion House to await his orders: but as he
- could, by no threats or persuasions, be induced to give any, and as the
- men remained in the open street, fruitlessly for any good purpose, and
- thrivingly for a very bad one; these laudable attempts did harm rather
- than good. For the crowd, becoming speedily acquainted with the Lord
- Mayor’s temper, did not fail to take advantage of it by boasting that
- even the civil authorities were opposed to the Papists, and could not
- find it in their hearts to molest those who were guilty of no other
- offence. These vaunts they took care to make within the hearing of the
- soldiers; and they, being naturally loth to quarrel with the people,
- received their advances kindly enough: answering, when they were asked
- if they desired to fire upon their countrymen, ‘No, they would be damned
- if they did;’ and showing much honest simplicity and good nature.
- The feeling that the military were No-Popery men, and were ripe for
- disobeying orders and joining the mob, soon became very prevalent in
- consequence. Rumours of their disaffection, and of their leaning towards
- the popular cause, spread from mouth to mouth with astonishing rapidity;
- and whenever they were drawn up idly in the streets or squares, there
- was sure to be a crowd about them, cheering and shaking hands, and
- treating them with a great show of confidence and affection.
- By this time, the crowd was everywhere; all concealment and disguise
- were laid aside, and they pervaded the whole town. If any man among them
- wanted money, he had but to knock at the door of a dwelling-house, or
- walk into a shop, and demand it in the rioters name; and his demand
- was instantly complied with. The peaceable citizens being afraid to lay
- hands upon them, singly and alone, it may be easily supposed that
- when gathered together in bodies, they were perfectly secure from
- interruption. They assembled in the streets, traversed them at their
- will and pleasure, and publicly concerted their plans. Business was
- quite suspended; the greater part of the shops were closed; most of the
- houses displayed a blue flag in token of their adherence to the popular
- side; and even the Jews in Houndsditch, Whitechapel, and those quarters,
- wrote upon their doors or window-shutters, ‘This House is a True
- Protestant.’ The crowd was the law, and never was the law held in
- greater dread, or more implicitly obeyed.
- It was about six o’clock in the evening, when a vast mob poured
- into Lincoln’s Inn Fields by every avenue, and divided--evidently in
- pursuance of a previous design--into several parties. It must not be
- understood that this arrangement was known to the whole crowd, but that
- it was the work of a few leaders; who, mingling with the men as they
- came upon the ground, and calling to them to fall into this or that
- parry, effected it as rapidly as if it had been determined on by a
- council of the whole number, and every man had known his place.
- It was perfectly notorious to the assemblage that the largest body,
- which comprehended about two-thirds of the whole, was designed for
- the attack on Newgate. It comprehended all the rioters who had been
- conspicuous in any of their former proceedings; all those whom they
- recommended as daring hands and fit for the work; all those whose
- companions had been taken in the riots; and a great number of people
- who were relatives or friends of felons in the jail. This last class
- included, not only the most desperate and utterly abandoned villains in
- London, but some who were comparatively innocent. There was more than
- one woman there, disguised in man’s attire, and bent upon the rescue
- of a child or brother. There were the two sons of a man who lay under
- sentence of death, and who was to be executed along with three
- others, on the next day but one. There was a great party of boys whose
- fellow-pickpockets were in the prison; and at the skirts of all, a score
- of miserable women, outcasts from the world, seeking to release some
- other fallen creature as miserable as themselves, or moved by a general
- sympathy perhaps--God knows--with all who were without hope, and
- wretched.
- Old swords, and pistols without ball or powder; sledge-hammers, knives,
- axes, saws, and weapons pillaged from the butchers’ shops; a forest of
- iron bars and wooden clubs; long ladders for scaling the walls, each
- carried on the shoulders of a dozen men; lighted torches; tow smeared
- with pitch, and tar, and brimstone; staves roughly plucked from fence
- and paling; and even crutches taken from crippled beggars in the
- streets; composed their arms. When all was ready, Hugh and Dennis, with
- Simon Tappertit between them, led the way. Roaring and chafing like an
- angry sea, the crowd pressed after them.
- Instead of going straight down Holborn to the jail, as all expected,
- their leaders took the way to Clerkenwell, and pouring down a quiet
- street, halted before a locksmith’s house--the Golden Key.
- ‘Beat at the door,’ cried Hugh to the men about him. ‘We want one of his
- craft to-night. Beat it in, if no one answers.’
- The shop was shut. Both door and shutters were of a strong and sturdy
- kind, and they knocked without effect. But the impatient crowd raising
- a cry of ‘Set fire to the house!’ and torches being passed to the front,
- an upper window was thrown open, and the stout old locksmith stood
- before them.
- ‘What now, you villains!’ he demanded. ‘Where is my daughter?’
- ‘Ask no questions of us, old man,’ retorted Hugh, waving his comrades
- to be silent, ‘but come down, and bring the tools of your trade. We want
- you.’
- ‘Want me!’ cried the locksmith, glancing at the regimental dress he
- wore: ‘Ay, and if some that I could name possessed the hearts of mice,
- ye should have had me long ago. Mark me, my lad--and you about him do
- the same. There are a score among ye whom I see now and know, who are
- dead men from this hour. Begone! and rob an undertaker’s while you can!
- You’ll want some coffins before long.’
- ‘Will you come down?’ cried Hugh.
- ‘Will you give me my daughter, ruffian?’ cried the locksmith.
- ‘I know nothing of her,’ Hugh rejoined. ‘Burn the door!’
- ‘Stop!’ cried the locksmith, in a voice that made them
- falter--presenting, as he spoke, a gun. ‘Let an old man do that. You can
- spare him better.’
- The young fellow who held the light, and who was stooping down before
- the door, rose hastily at these words, and fell back. The locksmith ran
- his eye along the upturned faces, and kept the weapon levelled at the
- threshold of his house. It had no other rest than his shoulder, but was
- as steady as the house itself.
- ‘Let the man who does it, take heed to his prayers,’ he said firmly; ‘I
- warn him.’
- Snatching a torch from one who stood near him, Hugh was stepping forward
- with an oath, when he was arrested by a shrill and piercing shriek, and,
- looking upward, saw a fluttering garment on the house-top.
- There was another shriek, and another, and then a shrill voice cried,
- ‘Is Simmun below!’ At the same moment a lean neck was stretched over
- the parapet, and Miss Miggs, indistinctly seen in the gathering gloom
- of evening, screeched in a frenzied manner, ‘Oh! dear gentlemen, let me
- hear Simmuns’s answer from his own lips. Speak to me, Simmun. Speak to
- me!’
- Mr Tappertit, who was not at all flattered by this compliment, looked
- up, and bidding her hold her peace, ordered her to come down and open
- the door, for they wanted her master, and would take no denial.
- ‘Oh good gentlemen!’ cried Miss Miggs. ‘Oh my own precious, precious
- Simmun--’
- ‘Hold your nonsense, will you!’ retorted Mr Tappertit; ‘and come down
- and open the door.--G. Varden, drop that gun, or it will be worse for
- you.’
- ‘Don’t mind his gun,’ screamed Miggs. ‘Simmun and gentlemen, I poured a
- mug of table-beer right down the barrel.’
- The crowd gave a loud shout, which was followed by a roar of laughter.
- ‘It wouldn’t go off, not if you was to load it up to the muzzle,’
- screamed Miggs. ‘Simmun and gentlemen, I’m locked up in the front attic,
- through the little door on the right hand when you think you’ve got to
- the very top of the stairs--and up the flight of corner steps, being
- careful not to knock your heads against the rafters, and not to tread on
- one side in case you should fall into the two-pair bedroom through the
- lath and plasture, which do not bear, but the contrairy. Simmun and
- gentlemen, I’ve been locked up here for safety, but my endeavours has
- always been, and always will be, to be on the right side--the blessed
- side and to prenounce the Pope of Babylon, and all her inward and
- her outward workings, which is Pagin. My sentiments is of little
- consequences, I know,’ cried Miggs, with additional shrillness, ‘for my
- positions is but a servant, and as sich, of humilities, still I gives
- expressions to my feelings, and places my reliances on them which
- entertains my own opinions!’
- Without taking much notice of these outpourings of Miss Miggs after she
- had made her first announcement in relation to the gun, the crowd
- raised a ladder against the window where the locksmith stood, and
- notwithstanding that he closed, and fastened, and defended it manfully,
- soon forced an entrance by shivering the glass and breaking in the
- frames. After dealing a few stout blows about him, he found himself
- defenceless, in the midst of a furious crowd, which overflowed the room
- and softened off in a confused heap of faces at the door and window.
- They were very wrathful with him (for he had wounded two men), and
- even called out to those in front, to bring him forth and hang him on
- a lamp-post. But Gabriel was quite undaunted, and looked from Hugh and
- Dennis, who held him by either arm, to Simon Tappertit, who confronted
- him.
- ‘You have robbed me of my daughter,’ said the locksmith, ‘who is far
- dearer to me than my life; and you may take my life, if you will. I
- bless God that I have been enabled to keep my wife free of this scene;
- and that He has made me a man who will not ask mercy at such hands as
- yours.’
- ‘And a wery game old gentleman you are,’ said Mr Dennis, approvingly;
- ‘and you express yourself like a man. What’s the odds, brother, whether
- it’s a lamp-post to-night, or a feather-bed ten year to come, eh?’
- The locksmith glanced at him disdainfully, but returned no other answer.
- ‘For my part,’ said the hangman, who particularly favoured the lamp-post
- suggestion, ‘I honour your principles. They’re mine exactly. In such
- sentiments as them,’ and here he emphasised his discourse with an oath,
- ‘I’m ready to meet you or any man halfway.--Have you got a bit of cord
- anywheres handy? Don’t put yourself out of the way, if you haven’t. A
- handkecher will do.’
- ‘Don’t be a fool, master,’ whispered Hugh, seizing Varden roughly by
- the shoulder; ‘but do as you’re bid. You’ll soon hear what you’re wanted
- for. Do it!’
- ‘I’ll do nothing at your request, or that of any scoundrel here,’
- returned the locksmith. ‘If you want any service from me, you may spare
- yourselves the pains of telling me what it is. I tell you, beforehand,
- I’ll do nothing for you.’
- Mr Dennis was so affected by this constancy on the part of the staunch
- old man, that he protested--almost with tears in his eyes--that to baulk
- his inclinations would be an act of cruelty and hard dealing to which
- he, for one, never could reconcile his conscience. The gentleman, he
- said, had avowed in so many words that he was ready for working off;
- such being the case, he considered it their duty, as a civilised and
- enlightened crowd, to work him off. It was not often, he observed, that
- they had it in their power to accommodate themselves to the wishes of
- those from whom they had the misfortune to differ. Having now found an
- individual who expressed a desire which they could reasonably indulge
- (and for himself he was free to confess that in his opinion that desire
- did honour to his feelings), he hoped they would decide to accede to
- his proposition before going any further. It was an experiment which,
- skilfully and dexterously performed, would be over in five minutes, with
- great comfort and satisfaction to all parties; and though it did not
- become him (Mr Dennis) to speak well of himself he trusted he might
- be allowed to say that he had practical knowledge of the subject, and,
- being naturally of an obliging and friendly disposition, would work the
- gentleman off with a deal of pleasure.
- These remarks, which were addressed in the midst of a frightful din and
- turmoil to those immediately about him, were received with great favour;
- not so much, perhaps, because of the hangman’s eloquence, as on account
- of the locksmith’s obstinacy. Gabriel was in imminent peril, and he knew
- it; but he preserved a steady silence; and would have done so, if they
- had been debating whether they should roast him at a slow fire.
- As the hangman spoke, there was some stir and confusion on the ladder;
- and directly he was silent--so immediately upon his holding his peace,
- that the crowd below had no time to learn what he had been saying, or to
- shout in response--some one at the window cried:
- ‘He has a grey head. He is an old man: Don’t hurt him!’
- The locksmith turned, with a start, towards the place from which the
- words had come, and looked hurriedly at the people who were hanging on
- the ladder and clinging to each other.
- ‘Pay no respect to my grey hair, young man,’ he said, answering the
- voice and not any one he saw. ‘I don’t ask it. My heart is green enough
- to scorn and despise every man among you, band of robbers that you are!’
- This incautious speech by no means tended to appease the ferocity of the
- crowd. They cried again to have him brought out; and it would have gone
- hard with the honest locksmith, but that Hugh reminded them, in answer,
- that they wanted his services, and must have them.
- ‘So, tell him what we want,’ he said to Simon Tappertit, ‘and quickly.
- And open your ears, master, if you would ever use them after to-night.’
- Gabriel folded his arms, which were now at liberty, and eyed his old
- ‘prentice in silence.
- ‘Lookye, Varden,’ said Sim, ‘we’re bound for Newgate.’
- ‘I know you are,’ returned the locksmith. ‘You never said a truer word
- than that.’
- ‘To burn it down, I mean,’ said Simon, ‘and force the gates, and set the
- prisoners at liberty. You helped to make the lock of the great door.’
- ‘I did,’ said the locksmith. ‘You owe me no thanks for that--as you’ll
- find before long.’
- ‘Maybe,’ returned his journeyman, ‘but you must show us how to force
- it.’
- ‘Must I!’
- ‘Yes; for you know, and I don’t. You must come along with us, and pick
- it with your own hands.’
- ‘When I do,’ said the locksmith quietly, ‘my hands shall drop off at the
- wrists, and you shall wear them, Simon Tappertit, on your shoulders for
- epaulettes.’
- ‘We’ll see that,’ cried Hugh, interposing, as the indignation of the
- crowd again burst forth. ‘You fill a basket with the tools he’ll want,
- while I bring him downstairs. Open the doors below, some of you. And
- light the great captain, others! Is there no business afoot, my lads,
- that you can do nothing but stand and grumble?’
- They looked at one another, and quickly dispersing, swarmed over the
- house, plundering and breaking, according to their custom, and carrying
- off such articles of value as happened to please their fancy. They had
- no great length of time for these proceedings, for the basket of tools
- was soon prepared and slung over a man’s shoulders. The preparations
- being now completed, and everything ready for the attack, those who
- were pillaging and destroying in the other rooms were called down to the
- workshop. They were about to issue forth, when the man who had been last
- upstairs, stepped forward, and asked if the young woman in the garret
- (who was making a terrible noise, he said, and kept on screaming without
- the least cessation) was to be released?
- For his own part, Simon Tappertit would certainly have replied in the
- negative, but the mass of his companions, mindful of the good service
- she had done in the matter of the gun, being of a different opinion, he
- had nothing for it but to answer, Yes. The man, accordingly, went back
- again to the rescue, and presently returned with Miss Miggs, limp and
- doubled up, and very damp from much weeping.
- As the young lady had given no tokens of consciousness on their way
- downstairs, the bearer reported her either dead or dying; and being at
- some loss what to do with her, was looking round for a convenient bench
- or heap of ashes on which to place her senseless form, when she suddenly
- came upon her feet by some mysterious means, thrust back her hair,
- stared wildly at Mr Tappertit, cried, ‘My Simmuns’s life is not a
- wictim!’ and dropped into his arms with such promptitude that he
- staggered and reeled some paces back, beneath his lovely burden.
- ‘Oh bother!’ said Mr Tappertit. ‘Here. Catch hold of her, somebody. Lock
- her up again; she never ought to have been let out.’
- ‘My Simmun!’ cried Miss Miggs, in tears, and faintly. ‘My for ever, ever
- blessed Simmun!’
- ‘Hold up, will you,’ said Mr Tappertit, in a very unresponsive tone,
- ‘I’ll let you fall if you don’t. What are you sliding your feet off the
- ground for?’
- ‘My angel Simmuns!’ murmured Miggs--‘he promised--’
- ‘Promised! Well, and I’ll keep my promise,’ answered Simon, testily. ‘I
- mean to provide for you, don’t I? Stand up!’
- ‘Where am I to go? What is to become of me after my actions of this
- night!’ cried Miggs. ‘What resting-places now remains but in the silent
- tombses!’
- ‘I wish you was in the silent tombses, I do,’ cried Mr Tappertit, ‘and
- boxed up tight, in a good strong one. Here,’ he cried to one of the
- bystanders, in whose ear he whispered for a moment: ‘Take her off, will
- you. You understand where?’
- The fellow nodded; and taking her in his arms, notwithstanding her
- broken protestations, and her struggles (which latter species of
- opposition, involving scratches, was much more difficult of resistance),
- carried her away. They who were in the house poured out into the street;
- the locksmith was taken to the head of the crowd, and required to walk
- between his two conductors; the whole body was put in rapid motion;
- and without any shouts or noise they bore down straight on Newgate, and
- halted in a dense mass before the prison-gate.
- Chapter 64
- Breaking the silence they had hitherto preserved, they raised a great
- cry as soon as they were ranged before the jail, and demanded to speak
- to the governor. This visit was not wholly unexpected, for his house,
- which fronted the street, was strongly barricaded, the wicket-gate of
- the prison was closed up, and at no loophole or grating was any person
- to be seen. Before they had repeated their summons many times, a man
- appeared upon the roof of the governor’s house, and asked what it was
- they wanted.
- Some said one thing, some another, and some only groaned and hissed. It
- being now nearly dark, and the house high, many persons in the throng
- were not aware that any one had come to answer them, and continued their
- clamour until the intelligence was gradually diffused through the whole
- concourse. Ten minutes or more elapsed before any one voice could be
- heard with tolerable distinctness; during which interval the figure
- remained perched alone, against the summer-evening sky, looking down
- into the troubled street.
- ‘Are you,’ said Hugh at length, ‘Mr Akerman, the head jailer here?’
- ‘Of course he is, brother,’ whispered Dennis. But Hugh, without minding
- him, took his answer from the man himself.
- ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am.’
- ‘You have got some friends of ours in your custody, master.’
- ‘I have a good many people in my custody.’ He glanced downward, as
- he spoke, into the jail: and the feeling that he could see into the
- different yards, and that he overlooked everything which was hidden from
- their view by the rugged walls, so lashed and goaded the mob, that they
- howled like wolves.
- ‘Deliver up our friends,’ said Hugh, ‘and you may keep the rest.’
- ‘It’s my duty to keep them all. I shall do my duty.’
- ‘If you don’t throw the doors open, we shall break ‘em down,’ said Hugh;
- ‘for we will have the rioters out.’
- ‘All I can do, good people,’ Akerman replied, ‘is to exhort you to
- disperse; and to remind you that the consequences of any disturbance in
- this place, will be very severe, and bitterly repented by most of you,
- when it is too late.’
- He made as though he would retire when he said these words, but he was
- checked by the voice of the locksmith.
- ‘Mr Akerman,’ cried Gabriel, ‘Mr Akerman.’
- ‘I will hear no more from any of you,’ replied the governor, turning
- towards the speaker, and waving his hand.
- ‘But I am not one of them,’ said Gabriel. ‘I am an honest man, Mr
- Akerman; a respectable tradesman--Gabriel Varden, the locksmith. You
- know me?’
- ‘You among the crowd!’ cried the governor in an altered voice.
- ‘Brought here by force--brought here to pick the lock of the great door
- for them,’ rejoined the locksmith. ‘Bear witness for me, Mr Akerman,
- that I refuse to do it; and that I will not do it, come what may of my
- refusal. If any violence is done to me, please to remember this.’
- ‘Is there no way of helping you?’ said the governor.
- ‘None, Mr Akerman. You’ll do your duty, and I’ll do mine. Once again,
- you robbers and cut-throats,’ said the locksmith, turning round upon
- them, ‘I refuse. Ah! Howl till you’re hoarse. I refuse.’
- ‘Stay--stay!’ said the jailer, hastily. ‘Mr Varden, I know you for
- a worthy man, and one who would do no unlawful act except upon
- compulsion--’
- ‘Upon compulsion, sir,’ interposed the locksmith, who felt that the tone
- in which this was said, conveyed the speaker’s impression that he had
- ample excuse for yielding to the furious multitude who beset and hemmed
- him in, on every side, and among whom he stood, an old man, quite alone;
- ‘upon compulsion, sir, I’ll do nothing.’
- ‘Where is that man,’ said the keeper, anxiously, ‘who spoke to me just
- now?’
- ‘Here!’ Hugh replied.
- ‘Do you know what the guilt of murder is, and that by keeping that
- honest tradesman at your side you endanger his life!’
- ‘We know it very well,’ he answered, ‘for what else did we bring him
- here? Let’s have our friends, master, and you shall have your friend. Is
- that fair, lads?’
- The mob replied to him with a loud Hurrah!
- ‘You see how it is, sir?’ cried Varden. ‘Keep ‘em out, in King George’s
- name. Remember what I have said. Good night!’
- There was no more parley. A shower of stones and other missiles
- compelled the keeper of the jail to retire; and the mob, pressing on,
- and swarming round the walls, forced Gabriel Varden close up to the
- door.
- In vain the basket of tools was laid upon the ground before him, and
- he was urged in turn by promises, by blows, by offers of reward, and
- threats of instant death, to do the office for which they had brought
- him there. ‘No,’ cried the sturdy locksmith, ‘I will not!’
- He had never loved his life so well as then, but nothing could move him.
- The savage faces that glared upon him, look where he would; the cries of
- those who thirsted, like wild animals, for his blood; the sight of men
- pressing forward, and trampling down their fellows, as they strove to
- reach him, and struck at him above the heads of other men, with axes and
- with iron bars; all failed to daunt him. He looked from man to man, and
- face to face, and still, with quickened breath and lessening colour,
- cried firmly, ‘I will not!’
- Dennis dealt him a blow upon the face which felled him to the ground. He
- sprung up again like a man in the prime of life, and with blood upon his
- forehead, caught him by the throat.
- ‘You cowardly dog!’ he said: ‘Give me my daughter. Give me my daughter.’
- They struggled together. Some cried ‘Kill him,’ and some (but they were
- not near enough) strove to trample him to death. Tug as he would at the
- old man’s wrists, the hangman could not force him to unclench his hands.
- ‘Is this all the return you make me, you ungrateful monster?’ he
- articulated with great difficulty, and with many oaths.
- ‘Give me my daughter!’ cried the locksmith, who was now as fierce as
- those who gathered round him: ‘Give me my daughter!’
- He was down again, and up, and down once more, and buffeting with a
- score of them, who bandied him from hand to hand, when one tall fellow,
- fresh from a slaughter-house, whose dress and great thigh-boots smoked
- hot with grease and blood, raised a pole-axe, and swearing a horrible
- oath, aimed it at the old man’s uncovered head. At that instant, and in
- the very act, he fell himself, as if struck by lightning, and over his
- body a one-armed man came darting to the locksmith’s side. Another man
- was with him, and both caught the locksmith roughly in their grasp.
- ‘Leave him to us!’ they cried to Hugh--struggling, as they spoke, to
- force a passage backward through the crowd. ‘Leave him to us. Why do you
- waste your whole strength on such as he, when a couple of men can finish
- him in as many minutes! You lose time. Remember the prisoners! remember
- Barnaby!’
- The cry ran through the mob. Hammers began to rattle on the walls; and
- every man strove to reach the prison, and be among the foremost rank.
- Fighting their way through the press and struggle, as desperately as if
- they were in the midst of enemies rather than their own friends, the two
- men retreated with the locksmith between them, and dragged him through
- the very heart of the concourse.
- And now the strokes began to fall like hail upon the gate, and on the
- strong building; for those who could not reach the door, spent their
- fierce rage on anything--even on the great blocks of stone, which
- shivered their weapons into fragments, and made their hands and arms to
- tingle as if the walls were active in their stout resistance, and dealt
- them back their blows. The clash of iron ringing upon iron, mingled
- with the deafening tumult and sounded high above it, as the great
- sledge-hammers rattled on the nailed and plated door: the sparks flew
- off in showers; men worked in gangs, and at short intervals relieved
- each other, that all their strength might be devoted to the work; but
- there stood the portal still, as grim and dark and strong as ever, and,
- saving for the dints upon its battered surface, quite unchanged.
- While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task;
- and some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried to clamber to the
- summit of the walls they were too short to scale; and some again engaged
- a body of police a hundred strong, and beat them back and trod them
- under foot by force of numbers; others besieged the house on which the
- jailer had appeared, and driving in the door, brought out his furniture,
- and piled it up against the prison-gate, to make a bonfire which should
- burn it down. As soon as this device was understood, all those who had
- laboured hitherto, cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap;
- which reached half-way across the street, and was so high, that those
- who threw more fuel on the top, got up by ladders. When all the keeper’s
- goods were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, they
- smeared it with the pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, and
- sprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round the prison-doors
- they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. This infernal
- christening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches and with
- blazing tow, and then stood by, awaiting the result.
- The furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by wax
- and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames
- roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison-wall, and twining up
- its loftly front like burning serpents. At first they crowded round the
- blaze, and vented their exultation only in their looks: but when it grew
- hotter and fiercer--when it crackled, leaped, and roared, like a great
- furnace--when it shone upon the opposite houses, and lighted up not only
- the pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of
- each habitation--when through the deep red heat and glow, the fire was
- seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate
- surface, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy and soaring high into
- the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to
- its ruin--when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of
- St Sepulchre’s so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in
- broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted
- light like something richly jewelled--when blackened stone and sombre
- brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone like
- burnished gold, dotting the longest distance in the fiery vista
- with their specks of brightness--when wall and tower, and roof and
- chimney-stack, seemed drunk, and in the flickering glare appeared to
- reel and stagger--when scores of objects, never seen before, burst out
- upon the view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect--then
- the mob began to join the whirl, and with loud yells, and shouts, and
- clamour, such as happily is seldom heard, bestirred themselves to feed
- the fire, and keep it at its height.
- Although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over
- against the prison, parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils,
- as it were from excess of torture, broke and crumbled away; although the
- glass fell from the window-sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs
- blistered the incautious hand that touched them, and the sparrows in the
- eaves took wing, and rendered giddy by the smoke, fell fluttering down
- upon the blazing pile; still the fire was tended unceasingly by busy
- hands, and round it, men were going always. They never slackened in
- their zeal, or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard, that
- those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in; if
- one man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that
- although they knew the pain, and thirst, and pressure to be unendurable.
- Those who fell down in fainting-fits, and were not crushed or burnt,
- were carried to an inn-yard close at hand, and dashed with water from a
- pump; of which buckets full were passed from man to man among the crowd;
- but such was the strong desire of all to drink, and such the fighting to
- be first, that, for the most part, the whole contents were spilled upon
- the ground, without the lips of one man being moistened.
- Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those who were
- nearest to the pile, heaped up again the burning fragments that came
- toppling down, and raked the fire about the door, which, although a
- sheet of flame, was still a door fast locked and barred, and kept
- them out. Great pieces of blazing wood were passed, besides, above the
- people’s heads to such as stood about the ladders, and some of these,
- climbing up to the topmost stave, and holding on with one hand by the
- prison wall, exerted all their skill and force to cast these fire-brands
- on the roof, or down into the yards within. In many instances their
- efforts were successful; which occasioned a new and appalling addition
- to the horrors of the scene: for the prisoners within, seeing from
- between their bars that the fire caught in many places and thrived
- fiercely, and being all locked up in strong cells for the night, began
- to know that they were in danger of being burnt alive. This terrible
- fear, spreading from cell to cell and from yard to yard, vented itself
- in such dismal cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks for
- help, that the whole jail resounded with the noise; which was loudly
- heard even above the shouting of the mob and roaring of the flames, and
- was so full of agony and despair, that it made the boldest tremble.
- It was remarkable that these cries began in that quarter of the jail
- which fronted Newgate Street, where, it was well known, the men who were
- to suffer death on Thursday were confined. And not only were these four
- who had so short a time to live, the first to whom the dread of being
- burnt occurred, but they were, throughout, the most importunate of all:
- for they could be plainly heard, notwithstanding the great thickness of
- the walls, crying that the wind set that way, and that the flames would
- shortly reach them; and calling to the officers of the jail to come
- and quench the fire from a cistern which was in their yard, and full
- of water. Judging from what the crowd outside the walls could hear from
- time to time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for
- help; and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of
- attachment to existence, as though each had an honoured, happy life
- before him, instead of eight-and-forty hours of miserable imprisonment,
- and then a violent and shameful death.
- But the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men, when
- they heard, or fancied that they heard, their father’s voice, is past
- description. After wringing their hands and rushing to and fro as if
- they were stark mad, one mounted on the shoulders of his brother, and
- tried to clamber up the face of the high wall, guarded at the top with
- spikes and points of iron. And when he fell among the crowd, he was not
- deterred by his bruises, but mounted up again, and fell again, and, when
- he found the feat impossible, began to beat the stones and tear them
- with his hands, as if he could that way make a breach in the strong
- building, and force a passage in. At last, they cleft their way among
- the mob about the door, though many men, a dozen times their match, had
- tried in vain to do so, and were seen, in--yes, in--the fire, striving
- to prize it down, with crowbars.
- Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison. The
- women who were looking on, shrieked loudly, beat their hands together,
- stopped their ears; and many fainted: the men who were not near the
- walls and active in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the
- pavement of the street, and did so with a haste and fury they could
- not have surpassed if that had been the jail, and they were near their
- object. Not one living creature in the throng was for an instant still.
- The whole great mass were mad.
- A shout! Another! Another yet, though few knew why, or what it meant.
- But those around the gate had seen it slowly yield, and drop from its
- topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but it was upright
- still, because of the bar, and its having sunk, of its own weight, into
- the heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of the
- doorway, through which could be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and
- dark. Pile up the fire!
- It burnt fiercely. The door was red-hot, and the gap wider. They vainly
- tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if in
- readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling
- on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seen
- to pass along the roof. It was plain the jail could hold out no longer.
- The keeper, and his officers, and their wives and children, were
- escaping. Pile up the fire!
- The door sank down again: it settled deeper in the
- cinders--tottered--yielded--was down!
- As they shouted again, they fell back, for a moment, and left a clear
- space about the fire that lay between them and the jail entry. Hugh
- leapt upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train of sparks into the
- air, and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon his
- dress, dashed into the jail.
- The hangman followed. And then so many rushed upon their track, that the
- fire got trodden down and thinly strewn about the street; but there was
- no need of it now, for, inside and out, the prison was in flames.
- Chapter 65
- During the whole course of the terrible scene which was now at its
- height, one man in the jail suffered a degree of fear and mental torment
- which had no parallel in the endurance, even of those who lay under
- sentence of death.
- When the rioters first assembled before the building, the murderer
- was roused from sleep--if such slumbers as his may have that blessed
- name--by the roar of voices, and the struggling of a great crowd. He
- started up as these sounds met his ear, and, sitting on his bedstead,
- listened.
- After a short interval of silence the noise burst out again. Still
- listening attentively, he made out, in course of time, that the jail was
- besieged by a furious multitude. His guilty conscience instantly arrayed
- these men against himself, and brought the fear upon him that he would
- be singled out, and torn to pieces.
- Once impressed with the terror of this conceit, everything tended to
- confirm and strengthen it. His double crime, the circumstances under
- which it had been committed, the length of time that had elapsed, and
- its discovery in spite of all, made him, as it were, the visible object
- of the Almighty’s wrath. In all the crime and vice and moral gloom of
- the great pest-house of the capital, he stood alone, marked and singled
- out by his great guilt, a Lucifer among the devils. The other prisoners
- were a host, hiding and sheltering each other--a crowd like that without
- the walls. He was one man against the whole united concourse; a single,
- solitary, lonely man, from whom the very captives in the jail fell off
- and shrunk appalled.
- It might be that the intelligence of his capture having been bruited
- abroad, they had come there purposely to drag him out and kill him in
- the street; or it might be that they were the rioters, and, in pursuance
- of an old design, had come to sack the prison. But in either case he had
- no belief or hope that they would spare him. Every shout they raised,
- and every sound they made, was a blow upon his heart. As the attack went
- on, he grew more wild and frantic in his terror: tried to pull away the
- bars that guarded the chimney and prevented him from climbing up: called
- loudly on the turnkeys to cluster round the cell and save him from the
- fury of the rabble; or put him in some dungeon underground, no matter
- of what depth, how dark it was, or loathsome, or beset with rats and
- creeping things, so that it hid him and was hard to find.
- But no one came, or answered him. Fearful, even while he cried to them,
- of attracting attention, he was silent. By and bye, he saw, as he looked
- from his grated window, a strange glimmering on the stone walls and
- pavement of the yard. It was feeble at first, and came and went, as
- though some officers with torches were passing to and fro upon the roof
- of the prison. Soon it reddened, and lighted brands came whirling down,
- spattering the ground with fire, and burning sullenly in corners. One
- rolled beneath a wooden bench, and set it in a blaze; another caught a
- water-spout, and so went climbing up the wall, leaving a long straight
- track of fire behind it. After a time, a slow thick shower of burning
- fragments, from some upper portion of the prison which was blazing nigh,
- began to fall before his door. Remembering that it opened outwards, he
- knew that every spark which fell upon the heap, and in the act lost
- its bright life, and died an ugly speck of dust and rubbish, helped
- to entomb him in a living grave. Still, though the jail resounded with
- shrieks and cries for help,--though the fire bounded up as if each
- separate flame had had a tiger’s life, and roared as though, in every
- one, there were a hungry voice--though the heat began to grow intense,
- and the air suffocating, and the clamour without increased, and the
- danger of his situation even from one merciless element was every moment
- more extreme,--still he was afraid to raise his voice again, lest
- the crowd should break in, and should, of their own ears or from the
- information given them by the other prisoners, get the clue to his place
- of confinement. Thus fearful alike, of those within the prison and
- of those without; of noise and silence; light and darkness; of being
- released, and being left there to die; he was so tortured and tormented,
- that nothing man has ever done to man in the horrible caprice of power
- and cruelty, exceeds his self-inflicted punishment.
- Now, now, the door was down. Now they came rushing through the jail,
- calling to each other in the vaulted passages; clashing the iron gates
- dividing yard from yard; beating at the doors of cells and wards;
- wrenching off bolts and locks and bars; tearing down the door-posts to
- get men out; endeavouring to drag them by main force through gaps and
- windows where a child could scarcely pass; whooping and yelling without
- a moment’s rest; and running through the heat and flames as if they were
- cased in metal. By their legs, their arms, the hair upon their heads,
- they dragged the prisoners out. Some threw themselves upon the captives
- as they got towards the door, and tried to file away their irons; some
- danced about them with a frenzied joy, and rent their clothes, and were
- ready, as it seemed, to tear them limb from limb. Now a party of a dozen
- men came darting through the yard into which the murderer cast fearful
- glances from his darkened window; dragging a prisoner along the ground
- whose dress they had nearly torn from his body in their mad eagerness to
- set him free, and who was bleeding and senseless in their hands. Now
- a score of prisoners ran to and fro, who had lost themselves in the
- intricacies of the prison, and were so bewildered with the noise and
- glare that they knew not where to turn or what to do, and still cried
- out for help, as loudly as before. Anon some famished wretch whose theft
- had been a loaf of bread, or scrap of butcher’s meat, came skulking
- past, barefooted--going slowly away because that jail, his house, was
- burning; not because he had any other, or had friends to meet, or old
- haunts to revisit, or any liberty to gain, but liberty to starve and
- die. And then a knot of highwaymen went trooping by, conducted by the
- friends they had among the crowd, who muffled their fetters as they went
- along, with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them in coats
- and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles, and held it to their lips,
- because of their handcuffs which there was no time to remove. All this,
- and Heaven knows how much more, was done amidst a noise, a hurry, and
- distraction, like nothing that we know of, even in our dreams; which
- seemed for ever on the rise, and never to decrease for the space of a
- single instant.
- He was still looking down from his window upon these things, when a band
- of men with torches, ladders, axes, and many kinds of weapons, poured
- into the yard, and hammering at his door, inquired if there were any
- prisoner within. He left the window when he saw them coming, and drew
- back into the remotest corner of the cell; but although he returned them
- no answer, they had a fancy that some one was inside, for they presently
- set ladders against it, and began to tear away the bars at the casement;
- not only that, indeed, but with pickaxes to hew down the very stones in
- the wall.
- As soon as they had made a breach at the window, large enough for the
- admission of a man’s head, one of them thrust in a torch and looked all
- round the room. He followed this man’s gaze until it rested on himself,
- and heard him demand why he had not answered, but made him no reply.
- In the general surprise and wonder, they were used to this; without
- saying anything more, they enlarged the breach until it was large enough
- to admit the body of a man, and then came dropping down upon the floor,
- one after another, until the cell was full. They caught him up among
- them, handed him to the window, and those who stood upon the ladders
- passed him down upon the pavement of the yard. Then the rest came out,
- one after another, and, bidding him fly, and lose no time, or the way
- would be choked up, hurried away to rescue others.
- It seemed not a minute’s work from first to last. He staggered to his
- feet, incredulous of what had happened, when the yard was filled
- again, and a crowd rushed on, hurrying Barnaby among them. In another
- minute--not so much: another minute! the same instant, with no lapse or
- interval between!--he and his son were being passed from hand to hand,
- through the dense crowd in the street, and were glancing backward at a
- burning pile which some one said was Newgate.
- From the moment of their first entrance into the prison, the crowd
- dispersed themselves about it, and swarmed into every chink and crevice,
- as if they had a perfect acquaintance with its innermost parts, and bore
- in their minds an exact plan of the whole. For this immediate knowledge
- of the place, they were, no doubt, in a great degree, indebted to the
- hangman, who stood in the lobby, directing some to go this way, some
- that, and some the other; and who materially assisted in bringing about
- the wonderful rapidity with which the release of the prisoners was
- effected.
- But this functionary of the law reserved one important piece of
- intelligence, and kept it snugly to himself. When he had issued his
- instructions relative to every other part of the building, and the mob
- were dispersed from end to end, and busy at their work, he took a bundle
- of keys from a kind of cupboard in the wall, and going by a kind of
- passage near the chapel (it joined the governors house, and was then
- on fire), betook himself to the condemned cells, which were a series of
- small, strong, dismal rooms, opening on a low gallery, guarded, at the
- end at which he entered, by a strong iron wicket, and at its opposite
- extremity by two doors and a thick grate. Having double locked the
- wicket, and assured himself that the other entrances were well secured,
- he sat down on a bench in the gallery, and sucked the head of his stick
- with the utmost complacency, tranquillity, and contentment.
- It would have been strange enough, a man’s enjoying himself in this
- quiet manner, while the prison was burning, and such a tumult was
- cleaving the air, though he had been outside the walls. But here, in the
- very heart of the building, and moreover with the prayers and cries
- of the four men under sentence sounding in his ears, and their hands,
- stretched out through the gratings in their cell-doors, clasped in
- frantic entreaty before his very eyes, it was particularly remarkable.
- Indeed, Mr Dennis appeared to think it an uncommon circumstance, and to
- banter himself upon it; for he thrust his hat on one side as some men do
- when they are in a waggish humour, sucked the head of his stick with a
- higher relish, and smiled as though he would say, ‘Dennis, you’re a rum
- dog; you’re a queer fellow; you’re capital company, Dennis, and quite a
- character!’
- He sat in this way for some minutes, while the four men in the cells,
- who were certain that somebody had entered the gallery, but could not
- see who, gave vent to such piteous entreaties as wretches in their
- miserable condition may be supposed to have been inspired with: urging,
- whoever it was, to set them at liberty, for the love of Heaven; and
- protesting, with great fervour, and truly enough, perhaps, for the time,
- that if they escaped, they would amend their ways, and would never,
- never, never again do wrong before God or man, but would lead penitent
- and sober lives, and sorrowfully repent the crimes they had committed.
- The terrible energy with which they spoke, would have moved any person,
- no matter how good or just (if any good or just person could have
- strayed into that sad place that night), to have set them at liberty:
- and, while he would have left any other punishment to its free course,
- to have saved them from this last dreadful and repulsive penalty; which
- never turned a man inclined to evil, and has hardened thousands who were
- half inclined to good.
- Mr Dennis, who had been bred and nurtured in the good old school, and
- had administered the good old laws on the good old plan, always once
- and sometimes twice every six weeks, for a long time, bore these appeals
- with a deal of philosophy. Being at last, however, rather disturbed in
- his pleasant reflection by their repetition, he rapped at one of the
- doors with his stick, and cried:
- ‘Hold your noise there, will you?’
- At this they all cried together that they were to be hanged on the next
- day but one; and again implored his aid.
- ‘Aid! For what!’ said Mr Dennis, playfully rapping the knuckles of the
- hand nearest him.
- ‘To save us!’ they cried.
- ‘Oh, certainly,’ said Mr Dennis, winking at the wall in the absence
- of any friend with whom he could humour the joke. ‘And so you’re to be
- worked off, are you, brothers?’
- ‘Unless we are released to-night,’ one of them cried, ‘we are dead men!’
- ‘I tell you what it is,’ said the hangman, gravely; ‘I’m afraid, my
- friend, that you’re not in that ‘ere state of mind that’s suitable to
- your condition, then; you’re not a-going to be released: don’t think
- it--Will you leave off that ‘ere indecent row? I wonder you an’t ashamed
- of yourselves, I do.’
- He followed up this reproof by rapping every set of knuckles one after
- the other, and having done so, resumed his seat again with a cheerful
- countenance.
- ‘You’ve had law,’ he said, crossing his legs and elevating his eyebrows:
- ‘laws have been made a’ purpose for you; a wery handsome prison’s
- been made a’ purpose for you; a parson’s kept a purpose for you;
- a constitootional officer’s appointed a’ purpose for you; carts is
- maintained a’ purpose for you--and yet you’re not contented!--WILL you
- hold that noise, you sir in the furthest?’
- A groan was the only answer.
- ‘So well as I can make out,’ said Mr Dennis, in a tone of mingled
- badinage and remonstrance, ‘there’s not a man among you. I begin to
- think I’m on the opposite side, and among the ladies; though for the
- matter of that, I’ve seen a many ladies face it out, in a manner that
- did honour to the sex.--You in number two, don’t grind them teeth of
- yours. Worse manners,’ said the hangman, rapping at the door with his
- stick, ‘I never see in this place afore. I’m ashamed of you. You’re a
- disgrace to the Bailey.’
- After pausing for a moment to hear if anything could be pleaded in
- justification, Mr Dennis resumed in a sort of coaxing tone:
- ‘Now look’ee here, you four. I’m come here to take care of you, and see
- that you an’t burnt, instead of the other thing. It’s no use your making
- any noise, for you won’t be found out by them as has broken in, and
- you’ll only be hoarse when you come to the speeches,--which is a pity.
- What I say in respect to the speeches always is, “Give it mouth.” That’s
- my maxim. Give it mouth. I’ve heerd,’ said the hangman, pulling off his
- hat to take his handkerchief from the crown and wipe his face, and then
- putting it on again a little more on one side than before, ‘I’ve heerd a
- eloquence on them boards--you know what boards I mean--and have heerd
- a degree of mouth given to them speeches, that they was as clear as a
- bell, and as good as a play. There’s a pattern! And always, when a thing
- of this natur’s to come off, what I stand up for, is, a proper frame of
- mind. Let’s have a proper frame of mind, and we can go through with it,
- creditable--pleasant--sociable. Whatever you do (and I address myself in
- particular, to you in the furthest), never snivel. I’d sooner by half,
- though I lose by it, see a man tear his clothes a’ purpose to spile
- ‘em before they come to me, than find him snivelling. It’s ten to one a
- better frame of mind, every way!’
- While the hangman addressed them to this effect, in the tone and with
- the air of a pastor in familiar conversation with his flock, the noise
- had been in some degree subdued; for the rioters were busy in conveying
- the prisoners to the Sessions House, which was beyond the main walls of
- the prison, though connected with it, and the crowd were busy too, in
- passing them from thence along the street. But when he had got thus far
- in his discourse, the sound of voices in the yard showed plainly that
- the mob had returned and were coming that way; and directly afterwards a
- violent crashing at the grate below, gave note of their attack upon the
- cells (as they were called) at last.
- It was in vain the hangman ran from door to door, and covered the
- grates, one after another, with his hat, in futile efforts to stifle
- the cries of the four men within; it was in vain he dogged their
- outstretched hands, and beat them with his stick, or menaced them
- with new and lingering pains in the execution of his office; the place
- resounded with their cries. These, together with the feeling that they
- were now the last men in the jail, so worked upon and stimulated the
- besiegers, that in an incredibly short space of time they forced the
- strong grate down below, which was formed of iron rods two inches
- square, drove in the two other doors, as if they had been but deal
- partitions, and stood at the end of the gallery with only a bar or two
- between them and the cells.
- ‘Halloa!’ cried Hugh, who was the first to look into the dusky passage:
- ‘Dennis before us! Well done, old boy. Be quick, and open here, for we
- shall be suffocated in the smoke, going out.’
- ‘Go out at once, then,’ said Dennis. ‘What do you want here?’
- ‘Want!’ echoed Hugh. ‘The four men.’
- ‘Four devils!’ cried the hangman. ‘Don’t you know they’re left for death
- on Thursday? Don’t you respect the law--the constitootion--nothing? Let
- the four men be.’
- ‘Is this a time for joking?’ cried Hugh. ‘Do you hear ‘em? Pull away
- these bars that have got fixed between the door and the ground; and let
- us in.’
- ‘Brother,’ said the hangman, in a low voice, as he stooped under
- pretence of doing what Hugh desired, but only looked up in his face,
- ‘can’t you leave these here four men to me, if I’ve the whim! You
- do what you like, and have what you like of everything for your
- share,--give me my share. I want these four men left alone, I tell you!’
- ‘Pull the bars down, or stand out of the way,’ was Hugh’s reply.
- ‘You can turn the crowd if you like, you know that well enough,
- brother,’ said the hangman, slowly. ‘What! You WILL come in, will you?’
- ‘Yes.’
- ‘You won’t let these men alone, and leave ‘em to me? You’ve no respect
- for nothing--haven’t you?’ said the hangman, retreating to the door by
- which he had entered, and regarding his companion with a scowl. ‘You
- WILL come in, will you, brother!’
- ‘I tell you, yes. What the devil ails you? Where are you going?’
- ‘No matter where I’m going,’ rejoined the hangman, looking in again at
- the iron wicket, which he had nearly shut upon himself, and held ajar.
- ‘Remember where you’re coming. That’s all!’
- With that, he shook his likeness at Hugh, and giving him a grin,
- compared with which his usual smile was amiable, disappeared, and shut
- the door.
- Hugh paused no longer, but goaded alike by the cries of the convicts,
- and by the impatience of the crowd, warned the man immediately behind
- him--the way was only wide enough for one abreast--to stand back, and
- wielded a sledge-hammer with such strength, that after a few blows the
- iron bent and broke, and gave them free admittance.
- If the two sons of one of these men, of whom mention has been made,
- were furious in their zeal before, they had now the wrath and vigour of
- lions. Calling to the man within each cell, to keep as far back as he
- could, lest the axes crashing through the door should wound him, a party
- went to work upon each one, to beat it in by sheer strength, and force
- the bolts and staples from their hold. But although these two lads had
- the weakest party, and the worst armed, and did not begin until after
- the others, having stopped to whisper to him through the grate, that
- door was the first open, and that man was the first out. As they dragged
- him into the gallery to knock off his irons, he fell down among them,
- a mere heap of chains, and was carried out in that state on men’s
- shoulders, with no sign of life.
- The release of these four wretched creatures, and conveying them,
- astounded and bewildered, into the streets so full of life--a spectacle
- they had never thought to see again, until they emerged from solitude
- and silence upon that last journey, when the air should be heavy with
- the pent-up breath of thousands, and the streets and houses should
- be built and roofed with human faces, not with bricks and tiles and
- stones--was the crowning horror of the scene. Their pale and haggard
- looks and hollow eyes; their staggering feet, and hands stretched out as
- if to save themselves from falling; their wandering and uncertain air;
- the way they heaved and gasped for breath, as though in water, when they
- were first plunged into the crowd; all marked them for the men. No need
- to say ‘this one was doomed to die;’ for there were the words broadly
- stamped and branded on his face. The crowd fell off, as if they had been
- laid out for burial, and had risen in their shrouds; and many were seen
- to shudder, as though they had been actually dead men, when they chanced
- to touch or brush against their garments.
- At the bidding of the mob, the houses were all illuminated that
- night--lighted up from top to bottom as at a time of public gaiety and
- joy. Many years afterwards, old people who lived in their youth near
- this part of the city, remembered being in a great glare of light,
- within doors and without, and as they looked, timid and frightened
- children, from the windows, seeing a FACE go by. Though the whole great
- crowd and all its other terrors had faded from their recollection, this
- one object remained; alone, distinct, and well remembered. Even in the
- unpractised minds of infants, one of these doomed men darting past,
- and but an instant seen, was an image of force enough to dim the whole
- concourse; to find itself an all-absorbing place, and hold it ever
- after.
- When this last task had been achieved, the shouts and cries grew
- fainter; the clank of fetters, which had resounded on all sides as
- the prisoners escaped, was heard no more; all the noises of the crowd
- subsided into a hoarse and sullen murmur as it passed into the distance;
- and when the human tide had rolled away, a melancholy heap of smoking
- ruins marked the spot where it had lately chafed and roared.
- Chapter 66
- Although he had had no rest upon the previous night, and had watched
- with little intermission for some weeks past, sleeping only in the day
- by starts and snatches, Mr Haredale, from the dawn of morning until
- sunset, sought his niece in every place where he deemed it possible she
- could have taken refuge. All day long, nothing, save a draught of water,
- passed his lips; though he prosecuted his inquiries far and wide, and
- never so much as sat down, once.
- In every quarter he could think of; at Chigwell and in London; at the
- houses of the tradespeople with whom he dealt, and of the friends he
- knew; he pursued his search. A prey to the most harrowing anxieties and
- apprehensions, he went from magistrate to magistrate, and finally to the
- Secretary of State. The only comfort he received was from this minister,
- who assured him that the Government, being now driven to the exercise
- of the extreme prerogatives of the Crown, were determined to exert them;
- that a proclamation would probably be out upon the morrow, giving to the
- military, discretionary and unlimited power in the suppression of the
- riots; that the sympathies of the King, the Administration, and both
- Houses of Parliament, and indeed of all good men of every religious
- persuasion, were strongly with the injured Catholics; and that justice
- should be done them at any cost or hazard. He told him, moreover, that
- other persons whose houses had been burnt, had for a time lost sight of
- their children or their relatives, but had, in every case, within his
- knowledge, succeeded in discovering them; that his complaint should be
- remembered, and fully stated in the instructions given to the officers
- in command, and to all the inferior myrmidons of justice; and that
- everything that could be done to help him, should be done, with a
- goodwill and in good faith.
- Grateful for this consolation, feeble as it was in its reference to the
- past, and little hope as it afforded him in connection with the subject
- of distress which lay nearest to his heart; and really thankful for the
- interest the minister expressed, and seemed to feel, in his condition;
- Mr Haredale withdrew. He found himself, with the night coming on, alone
- in the streets; and destitute of any place in which to lay his head.
- He entered an hotel near Charing Cross, and ordered some refreshment and
- a bed. He saw that his faint and worn appearance attracted the attention
- of the landlord and his waiters; and thinking that they might suppose
- him to be penniless, took out his purse, and laid it on the table. It
- was not that, the landlord said, in a faltering voice. If he were one
- of those who had suffered by the rioters, he durst not give him
- entertainment. He had a family of children, and had been twice warned to
- be careful in receiving guests. He heartily prayed his forgiveness, but
- what could he do?
- Nothing. No man felt that more sincerely than Mr Haredale. He told the
- man as much, and left the house.
- Feeling that he might have anticipated this occurrence, after what
- he had seen at Chigwell in the morning, where no man dared to touch a
- spade, though he offered a large reward to all who would come and dig
- among the ruins of his house, he walked along the Strand; too proud
- to expose himself to another refusal, and of too generous a spirit
- to involve in distress or ruin any honest tradesman who might be weak
- enough to give him shelter. He wandered into one of the streets by the
- side of the river, and was pacing in a thoughtful manner up and
- down, thinking of things that had happened long ago, when he heard a
- servant-man at an upper window call to another on the opposite side of
- the street, that the mob were setting fire to Newgate.
- To Newgate! where that man was! His failing strength returned, his
- energies came back with tenfold vigour, on the instant. If it were
- possible--if they should set the murderer free--was he, after all he had
- undergone, to die with the suspicion of having slain his own brother,
- dimly gathering about him--
- He had no consciousness of going to the jail; but there he stood, before
- it. There was the crowd wedged and pressed together in a dense, dark,
- moving mass; and there were the flames soaring up into the air. His head
- turned round and round, lights flashed before his eyes, and he struggled
- hard with two men.
- ‘Nay, nay,’ said one. ‘Be more yourself, my good sir. We attract
- attention here. Come away. What can you do among so many men?’
- ‘The gentleman’s always for doing something,’ said the other, forcing
- him along as he spoke. ‘I like him for that. I do like him for that.’
- They had by this time got him into a court, hard by the prison. He
- looked from one to the other, and as he tried to release himself, felt
- that he tottered on his feet. He who had spoken first, was the old
- gentleman whom he had seen at the Lord Mayor’s. The other was John
- Grueby, who had stood by him so manfully at Westminster.
- ‘What does this mean?’ he asked them faintly. ‘How came we together?’
- ‘On the skirts of the crowd,’ returned the distiller; ‘but come with us.
- Pray come with us. You seem to know my friend here?’
- ‘Surely,’ said Mr Haredale, looking in a kind of stupor at John.
- ‘He’ll tell you then,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘that I am a man
- to be trusted. He’s my servant. He was lately (as you know, I have no
- doubt) in Lord George Gordon’s service; but he left it, and brought,
- in pure goodwill to me and others, who are marked by the rioters, such
- intelligence as he had picked up, of their designs.’
- --‘On one condition, please, sir,’ said John, touching his hat. No
- evidence against my lord--a misled man--a kind-hearted man, sir. My lord
- never intended this.’
- ‘The condition will be observed, of course,’ rejoined the old distiller.
- ‘It’s a point of honour. But come with us, sir; pray come with us.’
- John Grueby added no entreaties, but he adopted a different kind of
- persuasion, by putting his arm through one of Mr Haredale’s, while his
- master took the other, and leading him away with all speed.
- Sensible, from a strange lightness in his head, and a difficulty in
- fixing his thoughts on anything, even to the extent of bearing his
- companions in his mind for a minute together without looking at them,
- that his brain was affected by the agitation and suffering through which
- he had passed, and to which he was still a prey, Mr Haredale let them
- lead him where they would. As they went along, he was conscious of
- having no command over what he said or thought, and that he had a fear
- of going mad.
- The distiller lived, as he had told him when they first met, on Holborn
- Hill, where he had great storehouses and drove a large trade. They
- approached his house by a back entrance, lest they should attract the
- notice of the crowd, and went into an upper room which faced towards the
- street; the windows, however, in common with those of every other room
- in the house, were boarded up inside, in order that, out of doors, all
- might appear quite dark.
- They laid him on a sofa in this chamber, perfectly insensible; but John
- immediately fetching a surgeon, who took from him a large quantity of
- blood, he gradually came to himself. As he was, for the time, too weak
- to walk, they had no difficulty in persuading him to remain there all
- night, and got him to bed without loss of a minute. That done, they
- gave him cordial and some toast, and presently a pretty strong
- composing-draught, under the influence of which he soon fell into a
- lethargy, and, for a time, forgot his troubles.
- The vintner, who was a very hearty old fellow and a worthy man, had
- no thoughts of going to bed himself, for he had received several
- threatening warnings from the rioters, and had indeed gone out that
- evening to try and gather from the conversation of the mob whether his
- house was to be the next attacked. He sat all night in an easy-chair in
- the same room--dozing a little now and then--and received from time
- to time the reports of John Grueby and two or three other trustworthy
- persons in his employ, who went out into the streets as scouts; and
- for whose entertainment an ample allowance of good cheer (which the old
- vintner, despite his anxiety, now and then attacked himself) was set
- forth in an adjoining chamber.
- These accounts were of a sufficiently alarming nature from the first;
- but as the night wore on, they grew so much worse, and involved such a
- fearful amount of riot and destruction, that in comparison with these
- new tidings all the previous disturbances sunk to nothing.
- The first intelligence that came, was of the taking of Newgate, and the
- escape of all the prisoners, whose track, as they made up Holborn and
- into the adjacent streets, was proclaimed to those citizens who were
- shut up in their houses, by the rattling of their chains, which formed
- a dismal concert, and was heard in every direction, as though so many
- forges were at work. The flames too, shone so brightly through the
- vintner’s skylights, that the rooms and staircases below were nearly as
- light as in broad day; while the distant shouting of the mob seemed to
- shake the very walls and ceilings.
- At length they were heard approaching the house, and some minutes of
- terrible anxiety ensued. They came close up, and stopped before it;
- but after giving three loud yells, went on. And although they returned
- several times that night, creating new alarms each time, they did
- nothing there; having their hands full. Shortly after they had gone away
- for the first time, one of the scouts came running in with the news that
- they had stopped before Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square.
- Soon afterwards there came another, and another, and then the first
- returned again, and so, by little and little, their tale was this:--That
- the mob gathering round Lord Mansfield’s house, had called on those
- within to open the door, and receiving no reply (for Lord and Lady
- Mansfield were at that moment escaping by the backway), forced an
- entrance according to their usual custom. That they then began to
- demolish the house with great fury, and setting fire to it in several
- parts, involved in a common ruin the whole of the costly furniture, the
- plate and jewels, a beautiful gallery of pictures, the rarest collection
- of manuscripts ever possessed by any one private person in the world,
- and worse than all, because nothing could replace this loss, the great
- Law Library, on almost every page of which were notes in the Judge’s
- own hand, of inestimable value,--being the results of the study and
- experience of his whole life. That while they were howling and exulting
- round the fire, a troop of soldiers, with a magistrate among them, came
- up, and being too late (for the mischief was by that time done), began
- to disperse the crowd. That the Riot Act being read, and the crowd still
- resisting, the soldiers received orders to fire, and levelling their
- muskets shot dead at the first discharge six men and a woman, and
- wounded many persons; and loading again directly, fired another volley,
- but over the people’s heads it was supposed, as none were seen to fall.
- That thereupon, and daunted by the shrieks and tumult, the crowd began
- to disperse, and the soldiers went away, leaving the killed and wounded
- on the ground: which they had no sooner done than the rioters came back
- again, and taking up the dead bodies, and the wounded people, formed
- into a rude procession, having the bodies in the front. That in this
- order they paraded off with a horrible merriment; fixing weapons in the
- dead men’s hands to make them look as if alive; and preceded by a fellow
- ringing Lord Mansfield’s dinner-bell with all his might.
- The scouts reported further, that this party meeting with some others
- who had been at similar work elsewhere, they all united into one, and
- drafting off a few men with the killed and wounded, marched away to Lord
- Mansfield’s country seat at Caen Wood, between Hampstead and Highgate;
- bent upon destroying that house likewise, and lighting up a great fire
- there, which from that height should be seen all over London. But in
- this, they were disappointed, for a party of horse having arrived before
- them, they retreated faster than they went, and came straight back to
- town.
- There being now a great many parties in the streets, each went to
- work according to its humour, and a dozen houses were quickly blazing,
- including those of Sir John Fielding and two other justices, and four
- in Holborn--one of the greatest thoroughfares in London--which were all
- burning at the same time, and burned until they went out of themselves,
- for the people cut the engine hose, and would not suffer the firemen to
- play upon the flames. At one house near Moorfields, they found in one of
- the rooms some canary birds in cages, and these they cast into the fire
- alive. The poor little creatures screamed, it was said, like infants,
- when they were flung upon the blaze; and one man was so touched that he
- tried in vain to save them, which roused the indignation of the crowd,
- and nearly cost him his life.
- At this same house, one of the fellows who went through the rooms,
- breaking the furniture and helping to destroy the building, found a
- child’s doll--a poor toy--which he exhibited at the window to the mob
- below, as the image of some unholy saint which the late occupants had
- worshipped. While he was doing this, another man with an equally tender
- conscience (they had both been foremost in throwing down the canary
- birds for roasting alive), took his seat on the parapet of the house,
- and harangued the crowd from a pamphlet circulated by the Association,
- relative to the true principles of Christianity! Meanwhile the Lord
- Mayor, with his hands in his pockets, looked on as an idle man might
- look at any other show, and seemed mightily satisfied to have got a good
- place.
- Such were the accounts brought to the old vintner by his servants as he
- sat at the side of Mr Haredale’s bed, having been unable even to doze,
- after the first part of the night; too much disturbed by his own fears;
- by the cries of the mob, the light of the fires, and the firing of the
- soldiers. Such, with the addition of the release of all the prisoners in
- the New Jail at Clerkenwell, and as many robberies of passengers in
- the streets, as the crowd had leisure to indulge in, were the scenes of
- which Mr Haredale was happily unconscious, and which were all enacted
- before midnight.
- Chapter 67
- When darkness broke away and morning began to dawn, the town wore a
- strange aspect indeed.
- Sleep had hardly been thought of all night. The general alarm was so
- apparent in the faces of the inhabitants, and its expression was so
- aggravated by want of rest (few persons, with any property to lose,
- having dared go to bed since Monday), that a stranger coming into the
- streets would have supposed some mortal pest or plague to have been
- raging. In place of the usual cheerfulness and animation of morning,
- everything was dead and silent. The shops remained closed, offices and
- warehouses were shut, the coach and chair stands were deserted, no carts
- or waggons rumbled through the slowly waking streets, the early cries
- were all hushed; a universal gloom prevailed. Great numbers of people
- were out, even at daybreak, but they flitted to and fro as though they
- shrank from the sound of their own footsteps; the public ways were
- haunted rather than frequented; and round the smoking ruins people stood
- apart from one another and in silence, not venturing to condemn the
- rioters, or to be supposed to do so, even in whispers.
- At the Lord President’s in Piccadilly, at Lambeth Palace, at the Lord
- Chancellor’s in Great Ormond Street, in the Royal Exchange, the Bank,
- the Guildhall, the Inns of Court, the Courts of Law, and every chamber
- fronting the streets near Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament,
- parties of soldiers were posted before daylight. A body of Horse Guards
- paraded Palace Yard; an encampment was formed in the Park, where fifteen
- hundred men and five battalions of Militia were under arms; the Tower
- was fortified, the drawbridges were raised, the cannon loaded and
- pointed, and two regiments of artillery busied in strengthening the
- fortress and preparing it for defence. A numerous detachment of soldiers
- were stationed to keep guard at the New River Head, which the people had
- threatened to attack, and where, it was said, they meant to cut off the
- main-pipes, so that there might be no water for the extinction of the
- flames. In the Poultry, and on Cornhill, and at several other leading
- points, iron chains were drawn across the street; parties of soldiers
- were distributed in some of the old city churches while it was yet
- dark; and in several private houses (among them, Lord Rockingham’s in
- Grosvenor Square); which were blockaded as though to sustain a siege,
- and had guns pointed from the windows. When the sun rose, it shone into
- handsome apartments filled with armed men; the furniture hastily heaped
- away in corners, and made of little or no account, in the terror of the
- time--on arms glittering in city chambers, among desks and stools, and
- dusty books--into little smoky churchyards in odd lanes and by-ways,
- with soldiers lying down among the tombs, or lounging under the shade of
- the one old tree, and their pile of muskets sparkling in the light--on
- solitary sentries pacing up and down in courtyards, silent now, but
- yesterday resounding with the din and hum of business--everywhere on
- guard-rooms, garrisons, and threatening preparations.
- As the day crept on, still more unusual sights were witnessed in the
- streets. The gates of the King’s Bench and Fleet Prisons being opened at
- the usual hour, were found to have notices affixed to them, announcing
- that the rioters would come that night to burn them down. The wardens,
- too well knowing the likelihood there was of this promise being
- fulfilled, were fain to set their prisoners at liberty, and give
- them leave to move their goods; so, all day, such of them as had any
- furniture were occupied in conveying it, some to this place, some to
- that, and not a few to the brokers’ shops, where they gladly sold it,
- for any wretched price those gentry chose to give. There were some
- broken men among these debtors who had been in jail so long, and were
- so miserable and destitute of friends, so dead to the world, and utterly
- forgotten and uncared for, that they implored their jailers not to
- set them free, and to send them, if need were, to some other place of
- custody. But they, refusing to comply, lest they should incur the anger
- of the mob, turned them into the streets, where they wandered up and
- down hardly remembering the ways untrodden by their feet so long, and
- crying--such abject things those rotten-hearted jails had made them--as
- they slunk off in their rags, and dragged their slipshod feet along the
- pavement.
- Even of the three hundred prisoners who had escaped from Newgate, there
- were some--a few, but there were some--who sought their jailers out and
- delivered themselves up: preferring imprisonment and punishment to the
- horrors of such another night as the last. Many of the convicts, drawn
- back to their old place of captivity by some indescribable attraction,
- or by a desire to exult over it in its downfall and glut their revenge
- by seeing it in ashes, actually went back in broad noon, and loitered
- about the cells. Fifty were retaken at one time on this next day, within
- the prison walls; but their fate did not deter others, for there they
- went in spite of everything, and there they were taken in twos and
- threes, twice or thrice a day, all through the week. Of the fifty just
- mentioned, some were occupied in endeavouring to rekindle the fire; but
- in general they seemed to have no object in view but to prowl and lounge
- about the old place: being often found asleep in the ruins, or sitting
- talking there, or even eating and drinking, as in a choice retreat.
- Besides the notices on the gates of the Fleet and the King’s Bench,
- many similar announcements were left, before one o’clock at noon, at
- the houses of private individuals; and further, the mob proclaimed their
- intention of seizing on the Bank, the Mint, the Arsenal at Woolwich, and
- the Royal Palaces. The notices were seldom delivered by more than one
- man, who, if it were at a shop, went in, and laid it, with a bloody
- threat perhaps, upon the counter; or if it were at a private
- house, knocked at the door, and thrust it in the servant’s hand.
- Notwithstanding the presence of the military in every quarter of the
- town, and the great force in the Park, these messengers did their
- errands with impunity all through the day. So did two boys who went
- down Holborn alone, armed with bars taken from the railings of Lord
- Mansfield’s house, and demanded money for the rioters. So did a tall man
- on horseback who made a collection for the same purpose in Fleet Street,
- and refused to take anything but gold.
- A rumour had now got into circulation, too, which diffused a greater
- dread all through London, even than these publicly announced intentions
- of the rioters, though all men knew that if they were successfully
- effected, there must ensue a national bankruptcy and general ruin. It
- was said that they meant to throw the gates of Bedlam open, and let all
- the madmen loose. This suggested such dreadful images to the people’s
- minds, and was indeed an act so fraught with new and unimaginable
- horrors in the contemplation, that it beset them more than any loss or
- cruelty of which they could foresee the worst, and drove many sane men
- nearly mad themselves.
- So the day passed on: the prisoners moving their goods; people running
- to and fro in the streets, carrying away their property; groups standing
- in silence round the ruins; all business suspended; and the soldiers
- disposed as has been already mentioned, remaining quite inactive. So the
- day passed on, and dreaded night drew near again.
- At last, at seven o’clock in the evening, the Privy Council issued a
- solemn proclamation that it was now necessary to employ the military,
- and that the officers had most direct and effectual orders, by an
- immediate exertion of their utmost force, to repress the disturbances;
- and warning all good subjects of the King to keep themselves, their
- servants, and apprentices, within doors that night. There was then
- delivered out to every soldier on duty, thirty-six rounds of powder and
- ball; the drums beat; and the whole force was under arms at sunset.
- The City authorities, stimulated by these vigorous measures, held a
- Common Council; passed a vote thanking the military associations who
- had tendered their aid to the civil authorities; accepted it; and placed
- them under the direction of the two sheriffs. At the Queen’s palace,
- a double guard, the yeomen on duty, the groom-porters, and all other
- attendants, were stationed in the passages and on the staircases at
- seven o’clock, with strict instructions to be watchful on their posts
- all night; and all the doors were locked. The gentlemen of the Temple,
- and the other Inns, mounted guard within their gates, and strengthened
- them with the great stones of the pavement, which they took up for the
- purpose. In Lincoln’s Inn, they gave up the hall and commons to the
- Northumberland Militia, under the command of Lord Algernon Percy; in
- some few of the city wards, the burgesses turned out, and without
- making a very fierce show, looked brave enough. Some hundreds of stout
- gentlemen threw themselves, armed to the teeth, into the halls of the
- different companies, double-locked and bolted all the gates, and
- dared the rioters (among themselves) to come on at their peril. These
- arrangements being all made simultaneously, or nearly so, were completed
- by the time it got dark; and then the streets were comparatively clear,
- and were guarded at all the great corners and chief avenues by
- the troops: while parties of the officers rode up and down in all
- directions, ordering chance stragglers home, and admonishing the
- residents to keep within their houses, and, if any firing ensued, not
- to approach the windows. More chains were drawn across such of the
- thoroughfares as were of a nature to favour the approach of a great
- crowd, and at each of these points a considerable force was stationed.
- All these precautions having been taken, and it being now quite dark,
- those in command awaited the result in some anxiety: and not without a
- hope that such vigilant demonstrations might of themselves dishearten
- the populace, and prevent any new outrages.
- But in this reckoning they were cruelly mistaken, for in half an hour,
- or less, as though the setting in of night had been their preconcerted
- signal, the rioters having previously, in small parties, prevented the
- lighting of the street lamps, rose like a great sea; and that in so many
- places at once, and with such inconceivable fury, that those who had the
- direction of the troops knew not, at first, where to turn or what to do.
- One after another, new fires blazed up in every quarter of the town,
- as though it were the intention of the insurgents to wrap the city in a
- circle of flames, which, contracting by degrees, should burn the whole
- to ashes; the crowd swarmed and roared in every street; and none but
- rioters and soldiers being out of doors, it seemed to the latter as if
- all London were arrayed against them, and they stood alone against the
- town.
- In two hours, six-and-thirty fires were raging--six-and-thirty great
- conflagrations: among them the Borough Clink in Tooley Street, the
- King’s Bench, the Fleet, and the New Bridewell. In almost every street,
- there was a battle; and in every quarter the muskets of the troops were
- heard above the shouts and tumult of the mob. The firing began in the
- Poultry, where the chain was drawn across the road, where nearly a score
- of people were killed on the first discharge. Their bodies having been
- hastily carried into St Mildred’s Church by the soldiers, the latter
- fired again, and following fast upon the crowd, who began to give way
- when they saw the execution that was done, formed across Cheapside, and
- charged them at the point of the bayonet.
- The streets were now a dreadful spectacle. The shouts of the rabble,
- the shrieks of women, the cries of the wounded, and the constant firing,
- formed a deafening and an awful accompaniment to the sights which every
- corner presented. Wherever the road was obstructed by the chains, there
- the fighting and the loss of life were greatest; but there was hot work
- and bloodshed in almost every leading thoroughfare.
- At Holborn Bridge, and on Holborn Hill, the confusion was greater than
- in any other part; for the crowd that poured out of the city in two
- great streams, one by Ludgate Hill, and one by Newgate Street, united at
- that spot, and formed a mass so dense, that at every volley the people
- seemed to fall in heaps. At this place a large detachment of soldiery
- were posted, who fired, now up Fleet Market, now up Holborn, now up Snow
- Hill--constantly raking the streets in each direction. At this place
- too, several large fires were burning, so that all the terrors of that
- terrible night seemed to be concentrated in one spot.
- Full twenty times, the rioters, headed by one man who wielded an axe
- in his right hand, and bestrode a brewer’s horse of great size and
- strength, caparisoned with fetters taken out of Newgate, which clanked
- and jingled as he went, made an attempt to force a passage at this
- point, and fire the vintner’s house. Full twenty times they were
- repulsed with loss of life, and still came back again; and though
- the fellow at their head was marked and singled out by all, and was a
- conspicuous object as the only rioter on horseback, not a man could
- hit him. So surely as the smoke cleared away, so surely there was he;
- calling hoarsely to his companions, brandishing his axe above his head,
- and dashing on as though he bore a charmed life, and was proof against
- ball and powder.
- This man was Hugh; and in every part of the riot, he was seen. He headed
- two attacks upon the Bank, helped to break open the Toll-houses on
- Blackfriars Bridge, and cast the money into the street: fired two of the
- prisons with his own hand: was here, and there, and everywhere--always
- foremost--always active--striking at the soldiers, cheering on the
- crowd, making his horse’s iron music heard through all the yell and
- uproar: but never hurt or stopped. Turn him at one place, and he made
- a new struggle in another; force him to retreat at this point, and he
- advanced on that, directly. Driven from Holborn for the twentieth
- time, he rode at the head of a great crowd straight upon Saint Paul’s,
- attacked a guard of soldiers who kept watch over a body of prisoners
- within the iron railings, forced them to retreat, rescued the men they
- had in custody, and with this accession to his party, came back again,
- mad with liquor and excitement, and hallooing them on like a demon.
- It would have been no easy task for the most careful rider to sit a
- horse in the midst of such a throng and tumult; but though this madman
- rolled upon his back (he had no saddle) like a boat upon the sea, he
- never for an instant lost his seat, or failed to guide him where he
- would. Through the very thickest of the press, over dead bodies and
- burning fragments, now on the pavement, now in the road, now riding up
- a flight of steps to make himself the more conspicuous to his party,
- and now forcing a passage through a mass of human beings, so closely
- squeezed together that it seemed as if the edge of a knife would
- scarcely part them,--on he went, as though he could surmount all
- obstacles by the mere exercise of his will. And perhaps his not being
- shot was in some degree attributable to this very circumstance; for his
- extreme audacity, and the conviction that he must be one of those to
- whom the proclamation referred, inspired the soldiers with a desire to
- take him alive, and diverted many an aim which otherwise might have been
- more near the mark.
- The vintner and Mr Haredale, unable to sit quietly listening to the
- noise without seeing what went on, had climbed to the roof of the house,
- and hiding behind a stack of chimneys, were looking cautiously down into
- the street, almost hoping that after so many repulses the rioters would
- be foiled, when a great shout proclaimed that a parry were coming round
- the other way; and the dismal jingling of those accursed fetters warned
- them next moment that they too were led by Hugh. The soldiers had
- advanced into Fleet Market and were dispersing the people there; so that
- they came on with hardly any check, and were soon before the house.
- ‘All’s over now,’ said the vintner. ‘Fifty thousand pounds will be
- scattered in a minute. We must save ourselves. We can do no more, and
- shall have reason to be thankful if we do as much.’
- Their first impulse was, to clamber along the roofs of the houses, and,
- knocking at some garret window for admission, pass down that way into
- the street, and so escape. But another fierce cry from below, and a
- general upturning of the faces of the crowd, apprised them that they
- were discovered, and even that Mr Haredale was recognised; for Hugh,
- seeing him plainly in the bright glare of the fire, which in that part
- made it as light as day, called to him by his name, and swore to have
- his life.
- ‘Leave me here,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘and in Heaven’s name, my good
- friend, save yourself! Come on!’ he muttered, as he turned towards Hugh
- and faced him without any further effort at concealment: ‘This roof is
- high, and if we close, we will die together!’
- ‘Madness,’ said the honest vintner, pulling him back, ‘sheer madness.
- Hear reason, sir. My good sir, hear reason. I could never make myself
- heard by knocking at a window now; and even if I could, no one would be
- bold enough to connive at my escape. Through the cellars, there’s a kind
- of passage into the back street by which we roll casks in and out. We
- shall have time to get down there before they can force an entry. Do
- not delay an instant, but come with me--for both our sakes--for mine--my
- dear good sir!’
- As he spoke, and drew Mr Haredale back, they had both a glimpse of the
- street. It was but a glimpse, but it showed them the crowd, gathering
- and clustering round the house: some of the armed men pressing to the
- front to break down the doors and windows, some bringing brands from
- the nearest fire, some with lifted faces following their course upon the
- roof and pointing them out to their companions: all raging and roaring
- like the flames they lighted up. They saw some men thirsting for the
- treasures of strong liquor which they knew were stored within; they saw
- others, who had been wounded, sinking down into the opposite doorways
- and dying, solitary wretches, in the midst of all the vast assemblage;
- here a frightened woman trying to escape; and there a lost child; and
- there a drunken ruffian, unconscious of the death-wound on his head,
- raving and fighting to the last. All these things, and even such trivial
- incidents as a man with his hat off, or turning round, or stooping down,
- or shaking hands with another, they marked distinctly; yet in a glance
- so brief, that, in the act of stepping back, they lost the whole, and
- saw but the pale faces of each other, and the red sky above them.
- Mr Haredale yielded to the entreaties of his companion--more because he
- was resolved to defend him, than for any thought he had of his own life,
- or any care he entertained for his own safety--and quickly re-entering
- the house, they descended the stairs together. Loud blows were
- thundering on the shutters, crowbars were already thrust beneath the
- door, the glass fell from the sashes, a deep light shone through every
- crevice, and they heard the voices of the foremost in the crowd so close
- to every chink and keyhole, that they seemed to be hoarsely whispering
- their threats into their very ears. They had but a moment reached the
- bottom of the cellar-steps and shut the door behind them, when the mob
- broke in.
- The vaults were profoundly dark, and having no torch or candle--for
- they had been afraid to carry one, lest it should betray their place of
- refuge--they were obliged to grope with their hands. But they were not
- long without light, for they had not gone far when they heard the crowd
- forcing the door; and, looking back among the low-arched passages,
- could see them in the distance, hurrying to and fro with flashing links,
- broaching the casks, staving the great vats, turning off upon the right
- hand and the left, into the different cellars, and lying down to drink
- at the channels of strong spirits which were already flowing on the
- ground.
- They hurried on, not the less quickly for this; and had reached the only
- vault which lay between them and the passage out, when suddenly, from
- the direction in which they were going, a strong light gleamed upon
- their faces; and before they could slip aside, or turn back, or hide
- themselves, two men (one bearing a torch) came upon them, and cried in
- an astonished whisper, ‘Here they are!’
- At the same instant they pulled off what they wore upon their heads. Mr
- Haredale saw before him Edward Chester, and then saw, when the vintner
- gasped his name, Joe Willet.
- Ay, the same Joe, though with an arm the less, who used to make the
- quarterly journey on the grey mare to pay the bill to the purple-faced
- vintner; and that very same purple-faced vintner, formerly of Thames
- Street, now looked him in the face, and challenged him by name.
- ‘Give me your hand,’ said Joe softly, taking it whether the astonished
- vintner would or no. ‘Don’t fear to shake it; it’s a friendly one and
- a hearty one, though it has no fellow. Why, how well you look and how
- bluff you are! And you--God bless you, sir. Take heart, take heart.
- We’ll find them. Be of good cheer; we have not been idle.’
- There was something so honest and frank in Joe’s speech, that Mr
- Haredale put his hand in his involuntarily, though their meeting
- was suspicious enough. But his glance at Edward Chester, and that
- gentleman’s keeping aloof, were not lost upon Joe, who said bluntly,
- glancing at Edward while he spoke:
- ‘Times are changed, Mr Haredale, and times have come when we ought to
- know friends from enemies, and make no confusion of names. Let me tell
- you that but for this gentleman, you would most likely have been dead by
- this time, or badly wounded at the best.’
- ‘What do you say?’ cried Mr Haredale.
- ‘I say,’ said Joe, ‘first, that it was a bold thing to be in the crowd
- at all disguised as one of them; though I won’t say much about that, on
- second thoughts, for that’s my case too. Secondly, that it was a brave
- and glorious action--that’s what I call it--to strike that fellow off
- his horse before their eyes!’
- ‘What fellow! Whose eyes!’
- ‘What fellow, sir!’ cried Joe: ‘a fellow who has no goodwill to you, and
- who has the daring and devilry in him of twenty fellows. I know him of
- old. Once in the house, HE would have found you, here or anywhere. The
- rest owe you no particular grudge, and, unless they see you, will only
- think of drinking themselves dead. But we lose time. Are you ready?’
- ‘Quite,’ said Edward. ‘Put out the torch, Joe, and go on. And be silent,
- there’s a good fellow.’
- ‘Silent or not silent,’ murmured Joe, as he dropped the flaring link
- upon the ground, crushed it with his foot, and gave his hand to Mr
- Haredale, ‘it was a brave and glorious action;--no man can alter that.’
- Both Mr Haredale and the worthy vintner were too amazed and too much
- hurried to ask any further questions, so followed their conductors
- in silence. It seemed, from a short whispering which presently ensued
- between them and the vintner relative to the best way of escape, that
- they had entered by the back-door, with the connivance of John Grueby,
- who watched outside with the key in his pocket, and whom they had taken
- into their confidence. A party of the crowd coming up that way, just as
- they entered, John had double-locked the door again, and made off for
- the soldiers, so that means of retreat was cut off from under them.
- However, as the front-door had been forced, and this minor crowd, being
- anxious to get at the liquor, had no fancy for losing time in breaking
- down another, but had gone round and got in from Holborn with the rest,
- the narrow lane in the rear was quite free of people. So, when they had
- crawled through the passage indicated by the vintner (which was a mere
- shelving-trap for the admission of casks), and had managed with some
- difficulty to unchain and raise the door at the upper end, they emerged
- into the street without being observed or interrupted. Joe still holding
- Mr Haredale tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner, they
- hurried through the streets at a rapid pace; occasionally standing aside
- to let some fugitives go by, or to keep out of the way of the soldiers
- who followed them, and whose questions, when they halted to put any,
- were speedily stopped by one whispered word from Joe.
- Chapter 68
- While Newgate was burning on the previous night, Barnaby and his
- father, having been passed among the crowd from hand to hand, stood in
- Smithfield, on the outskirts of the mob, gazing at the flames like men
- who had been suddenly roused from sleep. Some moments elapsed before
- they could distinctly remember where they were, or how they got
- there; or recollected that while they were standing idle and listless
- spectators of the fire, they had tools in their hands which had been
- hurriedly given them that they might free themselves from their fetters.
- Barnaby, heavily ironed as he was, if he had obeyed his first impulse,
- or if he had been alone, would have made his way back to the side of
- Hugh, who to his clouded intellect now shone forth with the new lustre
- of being his preserver and truest friend. But his father’s terror
- of remaining in the streets, communicated itself to him when he
- comprehended the full extent of his fears, and impressed him with the
- same eagerness to fly to a place of safety.
- In a corner of the market among the pens for cattle, Barnaby knelt down,
- and pausing every now and then to pass his hand over his father’s face,
- or look up to him with a smile, knocked off his irons. When he had seen
- him spring, a free man, to his feet, and had given vent to the transport
- of delight which the sight awakened, he went to work upon his own, which
- soon fell rattling down upon the ground, and left his limbs unfettered.
- Gliding away together when this task was accomplished, and passing
- several groups of men, each gathered round a stooping figure to hide
- him from those who passed, but unable to repress the clanking sound of
- hammers, which told that they too were busy at the same work,--the two
- fugitives made towards Clerkenwell, and passing thence to Islington, as
- the nearest point of egress, were quickly in the fields. After wandering
- about for a long time, they found in a pasture near Finchley a poor
- shed, with walls of mud, and roof of grass and brambles, built for
- some cowherd, but now deserted. Here, they lay down for the rest of the
- night.
- They wandered to and fro when it was day, and once Barnaby went off
- alone to a cluster of little cottages two or three miles away, to
- purchase some bread and milk. But finding no better shelter, they
- returned to the same place, and lay down again to wait for night.
- Heaven alone can tell, with what vague hopes of duty, and affection;
- with what strange promptings of nature, intelligible to him as to a man
- of radiant mind and most enlarged capacity; with what dim memories of
- children he had played with when a child himself, who had prattled
- of their fathers, and of loving them, and being loved; with how many
- half-remembered, dreamy associations of his mother’s grief and tears and
- widowhood; he watched and tended this man. But that a vague and shadowy
- crowd of such ideas came slowly on him; that they taught him to be sorry
- when he looked upon his haggard face, that they overflowed his eyes when
- he stooped to kiss him, that they kept him waking in a tearful gladness,
- shading him from the sun, fanning him with leaves, soothing him when he
- started in his sleep--ah! what a troubled sleep it was--and wondering
- when SHE would come to join them and be happy, is the truth. He sat
- beside him all that day; listening for her footsteps in every breath
- of air, looking for her shadow on the gently-waving grass, twining the
- hedge flowers for her pleasure when she came, and his when he awoke; and
- stooping down from time to time to listen to his mutterings, and wonder
- why he was so restless in that quiet place. The sun went down, and night
- came on, and he was still quite tranquil; busied with these thoughts, as
- if there were no other people in the world, and the dull cloud of smoke
- hanging on the immense city in the distance, hid no vices, no crimes, no
- life or death, or cause of disquiet--nothing but clear air.
- But the hour had now come when he must go alone to find out the blind
- man (a task that filled him with delight) and bring him to that place;
- taking especial care that he was not watched or followed on his way
- back. He listened to the directions he must observe, repeated them again
- and again, and after twice or thrice returning to surprise his father
- with a light-hearted laugh, went forth, at last, upon his errand:
- leaving Grip, whom he had carried from the jail in his arms, to his
- care.
- Fleet of foot, and anxious to return, he sped swiftly on towards the
- city, but could not reach it before the fires began, and made the night
- angry with their dismal lustre. When he entered the town--it might be
- that he was changed by going there without his late companions, and on
- no violent errand; or by the beautiful solitude in which he had passed
- the day, or by the thoughts that had come upon him,--but it seemed
- peopled by a legion of devils. This flight and pursuit, this cruel
- burning and destroying, these dreadful cries and stunning noises, were
- THEY the good lord’s noble cause!
- Though almost stupefied by the bewildering scene, still he found the
- blind man’s house. It was shut up and tenantless.
- He waited for a long while, but no one came. At last he withdrew; and as
- he knew by this time that the soldiers were firing, and many people must
- have been killed, he went down into Holborn, where he heard the great
- crowd was, to try if he could find Hugh, and persuade him to avoid the
- danger, and return with him.
- If he had been stunned and shocked before, his horror was increased a
- thousandfold when he got into this vortex of the riot, and not being an
- actor in the terrible spectacle, had it all before his eyes. But there,
- in the midst, towering above them all, close before the house they were
- attacking now, was Hugh on horseback, calling to the rest!
- Sickened by the sights surrounding him on every side, and by the heat
- and roar, and crash, he forced his way among the crowd (where many
- recognised him, and with shouts pressed back to let him pass), and in
- time was nearly up with Hugh, who was savagely threatening some one, but
- whom or what he said, he could not, in the great confusion, understand.
- At that moment the crowd forced their way into the house, and Hugh--it
- was impossible to see by what means, in such a concourse--fell headlong
- down.
- Barnaby was beside him when he staggered to his feet. It was well he
- made him hear his voice, or Hugh, with his uplifted axe, would have
- cleft his skull in twain.
- ‘Barnaby--you! Whose hand was that, that struck me down?’
- ‘Not mine.’
- ‘Whose!--I say, whose!’ he cried, reeling back, and looking wildly
- round. ‘What are you doing? Where is he? Show me!’
- ‘You are hurt,’ said Barnaby--as indeed he was, in the head, both by the
- blow he had received, and by his horse’s hoof. ‘Come away with me.’
- As he spoke, he took the horse’s bridle in his hand, turned him, and
- dragged Hugh several paces. This brought them out of the crowd, which
- was pouring from the street into the vintner’s cellars.
- ‘Where’s--where’s Dennis?’ said Hugh, coming to a stop, and checking
- Barnaby with his strong arm. ‘Where has he been all day? What did
- he mean by leaving me as he did, in the jail, last night? Tell me,
- you--d’ye hear!’
- With a flourish of his dangerous weapon, he fell down upon the ground
- like a log. After a minute, though already frantic with drinking and
- with the wound in his head, he crawled to a stream of burning spirit
- which was pouring down the kennel, and began to drink at it as if it
- were a brook of water.
- Barnaby drew him away, and forced him to rise. Though he could neither
- stand nor walk, he involuntarily staggered to his horse, climbed upon
- his back, and clung there. After vainly attempting to divest the animal
- of his clanking trappings, Barnaby sprung up behind him, snatched the
- bridle, turned into Leather Lane, which was close at hand, and urged the
- frightened horse into a heavy trot.
- He looked back, once, before he left the street; and looked upon a sight
- not easily to be erased, even from his remembrance, so long as he had
- life.
- The vintner’s house with a half-a-dozen others near at hand, was one
- great, glowing blaze. All night, no one had essayed to quench the
- flames, or stop their progress; but now a body of soldiers were actively
- engaged in pulling down two old wooden houses, which were every moment
- in danger of taking fire, and which could scarcely fail, if they were
- left to burn, to extend the conflagration immensely. The tumbling
- down of nodding walls and heavy blocks of wood, the hooting and
- the execrations of the crowd, the distant firing of other military
- detachments, the distracted looks and cries of those whose habitations
- were in danger, the hurrying to and fro of frightened people with
- their goods; the reflections in every quarter of the sky, of deep, red,
- soaring flames, as though the last day had come and the whole universe
- were burning; the dust, and smoke, and drift of fiery particles,
- scorching and kindling all it fell upon; the hot unwholesome vapour,
- the blight on everything; the stars, and moon, and very sky,
- obliterated;--made up such a sum of dreariness and ruin, that it seemed
- as if the face of Heaven were blotted out, and night, in its rest and
- quiet, and softened light, never could look upon the earth again.
- But there was a worse spectacle than this--worse by far than fire and
- smoke, or even the rabble’s unappeasable and maniac rage. The gutters
- of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with
- scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed
- the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people
- dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps all round this fearful
- pond, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, women
- with children in their arms and babies at their breasts, and drank until
- they died. While some stooped with their lips to the brink and never
- raised their heads again, others sprang up from their fiery draught,
- and danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of suffocation,
- until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the liquor that had killed
- them. Nor was even this the worst or most appalling kind of death that
- happened on this fatal night. From the burning cellars, where they
- drank out of hats, pails, buckets, tubs, and shoes, some men were drawn,
- alive, but all alight from head to foot; who, in their unendurable
- anguish and suffering, making for anything that had the look of water,
- rolled, hissing, in this hideous lake, and splashed up liquid fire
- which lapped in all it met with as it ran along the surface, and
- neither spared the living nor the dead. On this last night of the great
- riots--for the last night it was--the wretched victims of a senseless
- outcry, became themselves the dust and ashes of the flames they had
- kindled, and strewed the public streets of London.
- With all he saw in this last glance fixed indelibly upon his mind,
- Barnaby hurried from the city which enclosed such horrors; and holding
- down his head that he might not even see the glare of the fires upon the
- quiet landscape, was soon in the still country roads.
- He stopped at about half-a-mile from the shed where his father lay, and
- with some difficulty making Hugh sensible that he must dismount, sunk
- the horse’s furniture in a pool of stagnant water, and turned the animal
- loose. That done, he supported his companion as well as he could, and
- led him slowly forward.
- Chapter 69
- It was the dead of night, and very dark, when Barnaby, with his
- stumbling comrade, approached the place where he had left his father;
- but he could see him stealing away into the gloom, distrustful even of
- him, and rapidly retreating. After calling to him twice or thrice that
- there was nothing to fear, but without effect, he suffered Hugh to sink
- upon the ground, and followed to bring him back.
- He continued to creep away, until Barnaby was close upon him; then
- turned, and said in a terrible, though suppressed voice:
- ‘Let me go. Do not lay hands upon me. You have told her; and you and she
- together have betrayed me!’
- Barnaby looked at him, in silence.
- ‘You have seen your mother!’
- ‘No,’ cried Barnaby, eagerly. ‘Not for a long time--longer than I can
- tell. A whole year, I think. Is she here?’
- His father looked upon him steadfastly for a few moments, and then
- said--drawing nearer to him as he spoke, for, seeing his face, and
- hearing his words, it was impossible to doubt his truth:
- ‘What man is that?’
- ‘Hugh--Hugh. Only Hugh. You know him. HE will not harm you. Why, you’re
- afraid of Hugh! Ha ha ha! Afraid of gruff, old, noisy Hugh!’
- ‘What man is he, I ask you,’ he rejoined so fiercely, that Barnaby
- stopped in his laugh, and shrinking back, surveyed him with a look of
- terrified amazement.
- ‘Why, how stern you are! You make me fear you, though you are my father.
- Why do you speak to me so?’
- --‘I want,’ he answered, putting away the hand which his son, with
- a timid desire to propitiate him, laid upon his sleeve,--‘I want an
- answer, and you give me only jeers and questions. Who have you brought
- with you to this hiding-place, poor fool; and where is the blind man?’
- ‘I don’t know where. His house was close shut. I waited, but no person
- came; that was no fault of mine. This is Hugh--brave Hugh, who broke
- into that ugly jail, and set us free. Aha! You like him now, do you? You
- like him now!’
- ‘Why does he lie upon the ground?’
- ‘He has had a fall, and has been drinking. The fields and trees go
- round, and round, and round with him, and the ground heaves under his
- feet. You know him? You remember? See!’
- They had by this time returned to where he lay, and both stooped over
- him to look into his face.
- ‘I recollect the man,’ his father murmured. ‘Why did you bring him
- here?’
- ‘Because he would have been killed if I had left him over yonder. They
- were firing guns and shedding blood. Does the sight of blood turn you
- sick, father? I see it does, by your face. That’s like me--What are you
- looking at?’
- ‘At nothing!’ said the murderer softly, as he started back a pace or
- two, and gazed with sunken jaw and staring eyes above his son’s head.
- ‘At nothing!’
- He remained in the same attitude and with the same expression on his
- face for a minute or more; then glanced slowly round as if he had lost
- something; and went shivering back, towards the shed.
- ‘Shall I bring him in, father?’ asked Barnaby, who had looked on,
- wondering.
- He only answered with a suppressed groan, and lying down upon the
- ground, wrapped his cloak about his head, and shrunk into the darkest
- corner.
- Finding that nothing would rouse Hugh now, or make him sensible for a
- moment, Barnaby dragged him along the grass, and laid him on a little
- heap of refuse hay and straw which had been his own bed; first having
- brought some water from a running stream hard by, and washed his wound,
- and laved his hands and face. Then he lay down himself, between the two,
- to pass the night; and looking at the stars, fell fast asleep.
- Awakened early in the morning, by the sunshine and the songs of birds,
- and hum of insects, he left them sleeping in the hut, and walked into
- the sweet and pleasant air. But he felt that on his jaded senses,
- oppressed and burdened with the dreadful scenes of last night, and many
- nights before, all the beauties of opening day, which he had so often
- tasted, and in which he had had such deep delight, fell heavily. He
- thought of the blithe mornings when he and the dogs went bounding on
- together through the woods and fields; and the recollection filled his
- eyes with tears. He had no consciousness, God help him, of having done
- wrong, nor had he any new perception of the merits of the cause in which
- he had been engaged, or those of the men who advocated it; but he was
- full of cares now, and regrets, and dismal recollections, and wishes
- (quite unknown to him before) that this or that event had never
- happened, and that the sorrow and suffering of so many people had been
- spared. And now he began to think how happy they would be--his father,
- mother, he, and Hugh--if they rambled away together, and lived in some
- lonely place, where there were none of these troubles; and that perhaps
- the blind man, who had talked so wisely about gold, and told him of
- the great secrets he knew, could teach them how to live without being
- pinched by want. As this occurred to him, he was the more sorry that he
- had not seen him last night; and he was still brooding over this regret,
- when his father came, and touched him on the shoulder.
- ‘Ah!’ cried Barnaby, starting from his fit of thoughtfulness. ‘Is it
- only you?’
- ‘Who should it be?’
- ‘I almost thought,’ he answered, ‘it was the blind man. I must have some
- talk with him, father.’
- ‘And so must I, for without seeing him, I don’t know where to fly or
- what to do, and lingering here, is death. You must go to him again, and
- bring him here.’
- ‘Must I!’ cried Barnaby, delighted; ‘that’s brave, father. That’s what I
- want to do.’
- ‘But you must bring only him, and none other. And though you wait at
- his door a whole day and night, still you must wait, and not come back
- without him.’
- ‘Don’t you fear that,’ he cried gaily. ‘He shall come, he shall come.’
- ‘Trim off these gewgaws,’ said his father, plucking the scraps of ribbon
- and the feathers from his hat, ‘and over your own dress wear my cloak.
- Take heed how you go, and they will be too busy in the streets to notice
- you. Of your coming back you need take no account, for he’ll manage
- that, safely.’
- ‘To be sure!’ said Barnaby. ‘To be sure he will! A wise man, father, and
- one who can teach us to be rich. Oh! I know him, I know him.’
- He was speedily dressed, and as well disguised as he could be. With a
- lighter heart he then set off upon his second journey, leaving Hugh,
- who was still in a drunken stupor, stretched upon the ground within the
- shed, and his father walking to and fro before it.
- The murderer, full of anxious thoughts, looked after him, and paced up
- and down, disquieted by every breath of air that whispered among the
- boughs, and by every light shadow thrown by the passing clouds upon the
- daisied ground. He was anxious for his safe return, and yet, though his
- own life and safety hung upon it, felt a relief while he was gone. In
- the intense selfishness which the constant presence before him of his
- great crimes, and their consequences here and hereafter, engendered,
- every thought of Barnaby, as his son, was swallowed up and lost. Still,
- his presence was a torture and reproach; in his wild eyes, there were
- terrible images of that guilty night; with his unearthly aspect, and his
- half-formed mind, he seemed to the murderer a creature who had sprung
- into existence from his victim’s blood. He could not bear his look, his
- voice, his touch; and yet he was forced, by his own desperate condition
- and his only hope of cheating the gibbet, to have him by his side, and
- to know that he was inseparable from his single chance of escape.
- He walked to and fro, with little rest, all day, revolving these things
- in his mind; and still Hugh lay, unconscious, in the shed. At length,
- when the sun was setting, Barnaby returned, leading the blind man, and
- talking earnestly to him as they came along together.
- The murderer advanced to meet them, and bidding his son go on and speak
- to Hugh, who had just then staggered to his feet, took his place at the
- blind man’s elbow, and slowly followed, towards the shed.
- ‘Why did you send HIM?’ said Stagg. ‘Don’t you know it was the way to
- have him lost, as soon as found?’
- ‘Would you have had me come myself?’ returned the other.
- ‘Humph! Perhaps not. I was before the jail on Tuesday night, but missed
- you in the crowd. I was out last night, too. There was good work last
- night--gay work--profitable work’--he added, rattling the money in his
- pockets.
- ‘Have you--’
- --‘Seen your good lady? Yes.’
- ‘Do you mean to tell me more, or not?’
- ‘I’ll tell you all,’ returned the blind man, with a laugh. ‘Excuse
- me--but I love to see you so impatient. There’s energy in it.’
- ‘Does she consent to say the word that may save me?’
- ‘No,’ returned the blind man emphatically, as he turned his face towards
- him. ‘No. Thus it is. She has been at death’s door since she lost her
- darling--has been insensible, and I know not what. I tracked her to a
- hospital, and presented myself (with your leave) at her bedside. Our
- talk was not a long one, for she was weak, and there being people near
- I was not quite easy. But I told her all that you and I agreed upon, and
- pointed out the young gentleman’s position, in strong terms. She tried
- to soften me, but that, of course (as I told her), was lost time. She
- cried and moaned, you may be sure; all women do. Then, of a sudden, she
- found her voice and strength, and said that Heaven would help her and
- her innocent son; and that to Heaven she appealed against us--which she
- did; in really very pretty language, I assure you. I advised her, as
- a friend, not to count too much on assistance from any such distant
- quarter--recommended her to think of it--told her where I lived--said I
- knew she would send to me before noon, next day--and left her, either in
- a faint or shamming.’
- When he had concluded this narration, during which he had made several
- pauses, for the convenience of cracking and eating nuts, of which
- he seemed to have a pocketful, the blind man pulled a flask from his
- pocket, took a draught himself, and offered it to his companion.
- ‘You won’t, won’t you?’ he said, feeling that he pushed it from him.
- ‘Well! Then the gallant gentleman who’s lodging with you, will. Hallo,
- bully!’
- ‘Death!’ said the other, holding him back. ‘Will you tell me what I am
- to do!’
- ‘Do! Nothing easier. Make a moonlight flitting in two hours’ time with
- the young gentleman (he’s quite ready to go; I have been giving him good
- advice as we came along), and get as far from London as you can. Let me
- know where you are, and leave the rest to me. She MUST come round; she
- can’t hold out long; and as to the chances of your being retaken in
- the meanwhile, why it wasn’t one man who got out of Newgate, but three
- hundred. Think of that, for your comfort.’
- ‘We must support life. How?’
- ‘How!’ repeated the blind man. ‘By eating and drinking. And how get meat
- and drink, but by paying for it! Money!’ he cried, slapping his pocket.
- ‘Is money the word? Why, the streets have been running money. Devil send
- that the sport’s not over yet, for these are jolly times; golden, rare,
- roaring, scrambling times. Hallo, bully! Hallo! Hallo! Drink, bully,
- drink. Where are ye there! Hallo!’
- With such vociferations, and with a boisterous manner which bespoke his
- perfect abandonment to the general licence and disorder, he groped his
- way towards the shed, where Hugh and Barnaby were sitting on the ground.
- ‘Put it about!’ he cried, handing his flask to Hugh. ‘The kennels run
- with wine and gold. Guineas and strong water flow from the very pumps.
- About with it, don’t spare it!’
- Exhausted, unwashed, unshorn, begrimed with smoke and dust, his hair
- clotted with blood, his voice quite gone, so that he spoke in whispers;
- his skin parched up by fever, his whole body bruised and cut, and beaten
- about, Hugh still took the flask, and raised it to his lips. He was in
- the act of drinking, when the front of the shed was suddenly darkened,
- and Dennis stood before them.
- ‘No offence, no offence,’ said that personage in a conciliatory tone, as
- Hugh stopped in his draught, and eyed him, with no pleasant look, from
- head to foot. ‘No offence, brother. Barnaby here too, eh? How are you,
- Barnaby? And two other gentlemen! Your humble servant, gentlemen. No
- offence to YOU either, I hope. Eh, brothers?’
- Notwithstanding that he spoke in this very friendly and confident
- manner, he seemed to have considerable hesitation about entering, and
- remained outside the roof. He was rather better dressed than usual:
- wearing the same suit of threadbare black, it is true, but having round
- his neck an unwholesome-looking cravat of a yellowish white; and, on his
- hands, great leather gloves, such as a gardener might wear in following
- his trade. His shoes were newly greased, and ornamented with a pair of
- rusty iron buckles; the packthread at his knees had been renewed; and
- where he wanted buttons, he wore pins. Altogether, he had something the
- look of a tipstaff, or a bailiff’s follower, desperately faded, but who
- had a notion of keeping up the appearance of a professional character,
- and making the best of the worst means.
- ‘You’re very snug here,’ said Mr Dennis, pulling out a mouldy
- pocket-handkerchief, which looked like a decomposed halter, and wiping
- his forehead in a nervous manner.
- ‘Not snug enough to prevent your finding us, it seems,’ Hugh answered,
- sulkily.
- ‘Why I’ll tell you what, brother,’ said Dennis, with a friendly smile,
- ‘when you don’t want me to know which way you’re riding, you must wear
- another sort of bells on your horse. Ah! I know the sound of them you
- wore last night, and have got quick ears for ‘em; that’s the truth.
- Well, but how are you, brother?’
- He had by this time approached, and now ventured to sit down by him.
- ‘How am I?’ answered Hugh. ‘Where were you yesterday? Where did you go
- when you left me in the jail? Why did you leave me? And what did you
- mean by rolling your eyes and shaking your fist at me, eh?’
- ‘I shake my fist!--at you, brother!’ said Dennis, gently checking Hugh’s
- uplifted hand, which looked threatening.
- ‘Your stick, then; it’s all one.’
- ‘Lord love you, brother, I meant nothing. You don’t understand me by
- half. I shouldn’t wonder now,’ he added, in the tone of a desponding and
- an injured man, ‘but you thought, because I wanted them chaps left in
- the prison, that I was a going to desert the banners?’
- Hugh told him, with an oath, that he had thought so.
- ‘Well!’ said Mr Dennis, mournfully, ‘if you an’t enough to make a man
- mistrust his feller-creeturs, I don’t know what is. Desert the banners!
- Me! Ned Dennis, as was so christened by his own father!--Is this axe
- your’n, brother?’
- ‘Yes, it’s mine,’ said Hugh, in the same sullen manner as before; ‘it
- might have hurt you, if you had come in its way once or twice last
- night. Put it down.’
- ‘Might have hurt me!’ said Mr Dennis, still keeping it in his hand, and
- feeling the edge with an air of abstraction. ‘Might have hurt me! and me
- exerting myself all the time to the wery best advantage. Here’s a world!
- And you’re not a-going to ask me to take a sup out of that ‘ere bottle,
- eh?’
- Hugh passed it towards him. As he raised it to his lips, Barnaby jumped
- up, and motioning them to be silent, looked eagerly out.
- ‘What’s the matter, Barnaby?’ said Dennis, glancing at Hugh and dropping
- the flask, but still holding the axe in his hand.
- ‘Hush!’ he answered softly. ‘What do I see glittering behind the hedge?’
- ‘What!’ cried the hangman, raising his voice to its highest pitch, and
- laying hold of him and Hugh. ‘Not SOLDIERS, surely!’
- That moment, the shed was filled with armed men; and a body of horse,
- galloping into the field, drew up before it.
- ‘There!’ said Dennis, who remained untouched among them when they had
- seized their prisoners; ‘it’s them two young ones, gentlemen, that the
- proclamation puts a price on. This other’s an escaped felon.--I’m sorry
- for it, brother,’ he added, in a tone of resignation, addressing himself
- to Hugh; ‘but you’ve brought it on yourself; you forced me to do it; you
- wouldn’t respect the soundest constitootional principles, you know; you
- went and wiolated the wery framework of society. I had sooner have
- given away a trifle in charity than done this, I would upon my soul.--If
- you’ll keep fast hold on ‘em, gentlemen, I think I can make a shift to
- tie ‘em better than you can.’
- But this operation was postponed for a few moments by a new occurrence.
- The blind man, whose ears were quicker than most people’s sight, had
- been alarmed, before Barnaby, by a rustling in the bushes, under cover
- of which the soldiers had advanced. He retreated instantly--had hidden
- somewhere for a minute--and probably in his confusion mistaking the
- point at which he had emerged, was now seen running across the open
- meadow.
- An officer cried directly that he had helped to plunder a house last
- night. He was loudly called on, to surrender. He ran the harder, and in
- a few seconds would have been out of gunshot. The word was given, and
- the men fired.
- There was a breathless pause and a profound silence, during which all
- eyes were fixed upon him. He had been seen to start at the discharge, as
- if the report had frightened him. But he neither stopped nor slackened
- his pace in the least, and ran on full forty yards further. Then,
- without one reel or stagger, or sign of faintness, or quivering of any
- limb, he dropped.
- Some of them hurried up to where he lay;--the hangman with them.
- Everything had passed so quickly, that the smoke had not yet scattered,
- but curled slowly off in a little cloud, which seemed like the dead
- man’s spirit moving solemnly away. There were a few drops of blood upon
- the grass--more, when they turned him over--that was all.
- ‘Look here! Look here!’ said the hangman, stooping one knee beside the
- body, and gazing up with a disconsolate face at the officer and men.
- ‘Here’s a pretty sight!’
- ‘Stand out of the way,’ replied the officer. ‘Serjeant! see what he had
- about him.’
- The man turned his pockets out upon the grass, and counted, besides some
- foreign coins and two rings, five-and-forty guineas in gold. These were
- bundled up in a handkerchief and carried away; the body remained there
- for the present, but six men and the serjeant were left to take it to
- the nearest public-house.
- ‘Now then, if you’re going,’ said the serjeant, clapping Dennis on the
- back, and pointing after the officer who was walking towards the shed.
- To which Mr Dennis only replied, ‘Don’t talk to me!’ and then repeated
- what he had said before, namely, ‘Here’s a pretty sight!’
- ‘It’s not one that you care for much, I should think,’ observed the
- serjeant coolly.
- ‘Why, who,’ said Mr Dennis rising, ‘should care for it, if I don’t?’
- ‘Oh! I didn’t know you was so tender-hearted,’ said the serjeant.
- ‘That’s all!’
- ‘Tender-hearted!’ echoed Dennis. ‘Tender-hearted! Look at this man. Do
- you call THIS constitootional? Do you see him shot through and through
- instead of being worked off like a Briton? Damme, if I know which
- party to side with. You’re as bad as the other. What’s to become of the
- country if the military power’s to go a superseding the ciwilians in
- this way? Where’s this poor feller-creetur’s rights as a citizen, that
- he didn’t have ME in his last moments! I was here. I was willing. I
- was ready. These are nice times, brother, to have the dead crying out
- against us in this way, and sleep comfortably in our beds arterwards;
- wery nice!’
- Whether he derived any material consolation from binding the prisoners,
- is uncertain; most probably he did. At all events his being summoned to
- that work, diverted him, for the time, from these painful reflections,
- and gave his thoughts a more congenial occupation.
- They were not all three carried off together, but in two parties;
- Barnaby and his father, going by one road in the centre of a body of
- foot; and Hugh, fast bound upon a horse, and strongly guarded by a troop
- of cavalry, being taken by another.
- They had no opportunity for the least communication, in the short
- interval which preceded their departure; being kept strictly apart. Hugh
- only observed that Barnaby walked with a drooping head among his guard,
- and, without raising his eyes, that he tried to wave his fettered hand
- when he passed. For himself, he buoyed up his courage as he rode along,
- with the assurance that the mob would force his jail wherever it might
- be, and set him at liberty. But when they got into London, and more
- especially into Fleet Market, lately the stronghold of the rioters,
- where the military were rooting out the last remnant of the crowd, he
- saw that this hope was gone, and felt that he was riding to his death.
- Chapter 70
- Mr Dennis having despatched this piece of business without any personal
- hurt or inconvenience, and having now retired into the tranquil
- respectability of private life, resolved to solace himself with half an
- hour or so of female society. With this amiable purpose in his mind,
- he bent his steps towards the house where Dolly and Miss Haredale were
- still confined, and whither Miss Miggs had also been removed by order of
- Mr Simon Tappertit.
- As he walked along the streets with his leather gloves clasped
- behind him, and his face indicative of cheerful thought and pleasant
- calculation, Mr Dennis might have been likened unto a farmer ruminating
- among his crops, and enjoying by anticipation the bountiful gifts of
- Providence. Look where he would, some heap of ruins afforded him rich
- promise of a working off; the whole town appeared to have been ploughed
- and sown, and nurtured by most genial weather; and a goodly harvest was
- at hand.
- Having taken up arms and resorted to deeds of violence, with the great
- main object of preserving the Old Bailey in all its purity, and the
- gallows in all its pristine usefulness and moral grandeur, it would
- perhaps be going too far to assert that Mr Dennis had ever distinctly
- contemplated and foreseen this happy state of things. He rather looked
- upon it as one of those beautiful dispensations which are inscrutably
- brought about for the behoof and advantage of good men. He felt, as
- it were, personally referred to, in this prosperous ripening for the
- gibbet; and had never considered himself so much the pet and favourite
- child of Destiny, or loved that lady so well or with such a calm and
- virtuous reliance, in all his life.
- As to being taken up, himself, for a rioter, and punished with the
- rest, Mr Dennis dismissed that possibility from his thoughts as an idle
- chimera; arguing that the line of conduct he had adopted at Newgate,
- and the service he had rendered that day, would be more than a set-off
- against any evidence which might identify him as a member of the crowd.
- That any charge of companionship which might be made against him by
- those who were themselves in danger, would certainly go for nought. And
- that if any trivial indiscretion on his part should unluckily come out,
- the uncommon usefulness of his office, at present, and the great demand
- for the exercise of its functions, would certainly cause it to be winked
- at, and passed over. In a word, he had played his cards throughout, with
- great care; had changed sides at the very nick of time; had delivered
- up two of the most notorious rioters, and a distinguished felon to boot;
- and was quite at his ease.
- Saving--for there is a reservation; and even Mr Dennis was not perfectly
- happy--saving for one circumstance; to wit, the forcible detention of
- Dolly and Miss Haredale, in a house almost adjoining his own. This was
- a stumbling-block; for if they were discovered and released, they could,
- by the testimony they had it in their power to give, place him in a
- situation of great jeopardy; and to set them at liberty, first extorting
- from them an oath of secrecy and silence, was a thing not to be thought
- of. It was more, perhaps, with an eye to the danger which lurked in this
- quarter, than from his abstract love of conversation with the sex, that
- the hangman, quickening his steps, now hastened into their society,
- cursing the amorous natures of Hugh and Mr Tappertit with great
- heartiness, at every step he took.
- When he entered the miserable room in which they were confined, Dolly
- and Miss Haredale withdrew in silence to the remotest corner. But Miss
- Miggs, who was particularly tender of her reputation, immediately fell
- upon her knees and began to scream very loud, crying, ‘What will become
- of me!’--‘Where is my Simmuns!’--‘Have mercy, good gentlemen, on my
- sex’s weaknesses!’--with other doleful lamentations of that nature,
- which she delivered with great propriety and decorum.
- ‘Miss, miss,’ whispered Dennis, beckoning to her with his forefinger,
- ‘come here--I won’t hurt you. Come here, my lamb, will you?’
- On hearing this tender epithet, Miss Miggs, who had left off screaming
- when he opened his lips, and had listened to him attentively, began
- again, crying: ‘Oh I’m his lamb! He says I’m his lamb! Oh gracious, why
- wasn’t I born old and ugly! Why was I ever made to be the youngest of
- six, and all of ‘em dead and in their blessed graves, excepting
- one married sister, which is settled in Golden Lion Court, number
- twenty-sivin, second bell-handle on the--!’
- ‘Don’t I say I an’t a-going to hurt you?’ said Dennis, pointing to a
- chair. ‘Why miss, what’s the matter?’
- ‘I don’t know what mayn’t be the matter!’ cried Miss Miggs, clasping her
- hands distractedly. ‘Anything may be the matter!’
- ‘But nothing is, I tell you,’ said the hangman. ‘First stop that noise
- and come and sit down here, will you, chuckey?’
- The coaxing tone in which he said these latter words might have failed
- in its object, if he had not accompanied them with sundry sharp jerks of
- his thumb over one shoulder, and with divers winks and thrustings of his
- tongue into his cheek, from which signals the damsel gathered that he
- sought to speak to her apart, concerning Miss Haredale and Dolly. Her
- curiosity being very powerful, and her jealousy by no means inactive,
- she arose, and with a great deal of shivering and starting back, and
- much muscular action among all the small bones in her throat, gradually
- approached him.
- ‘Sit down,’ said the hangman.
- Suiting the action to the word, he thrust her rather suddenly and
- prematurely into a chair, and designing to reassure her by a little
- harmless jocularity, such as is adapted to please and fascinate the sex,
- converted his right forefinger into an ideal bradawl or gimlet, and
- made as though he would screw the same into her side--whereat Miss Miggs
- shrieked again, and evinced symptoms of faintness.
- ‘Lovey, my dear,’ whispered Dennis, drawing his chair close to hers.
- ‘When was your young man here last, eh?’
- ‘MY young man, good gentleman!’ answered Miggs in a tone of exquisite
- distress.
- ‘Ah! Simmuns, you know--him?’ said Dennis.
- ‘Mine indeed!’ cried Miggs, with a burst of bitterness--and as she said
- it, she glanced towards Dolly. ‘MINE, good gentleman!’
- This was just what Mr Dennis wanted, and expected.
- ‘Ah!’ he said, looking so soothingly, not to say amorously on Miggs,
- that she sat, as she afterwards remarked, on pins and needles of
- the sharpest Whitechapel kind, not knowing what intentions might be
- suggesting that expression to his features: ‘I was afraid of that. I saw
- as much myself. It’s her fault. She WILL entice ‘em.’
- ‘I wouldn’t,’ cried Miggs, folding her hands and looking upwards with
- a kind of devout blankness, ‘I wouldn’t lay myself out as she does; I
- wouldn’t be as bold as her; I wouldn’t seem to say to all male creeturs
- “Come and kiss me”’--and here a shudder quite convulsed her frame--‘for
- any earthly crowns as might be offered. Worlds,’ Miggs added solemnly,
- ‘should not reduce me. No. Not if I was Wenis.’
- ‘Well, but you ARE Wenus, you know,’ said Mr Dennis, confidentially.
- ‘No, I am not, good gentleman,’ answered Miggs, shaking her head with an
- air of self-denial which seemed to imply that she might be if she chose,
- but she hoped she knew better. ‘No, I am not, good gentleman. Don’t
- charge me with it.’
- Up to this time she had turned round, every now and then, to where Dolly
- and Miss Haredale had retired and uttered a scream, or groan, or laid
- her hand upon her heart and trembled excessively, with a view of keeping
- up appearances, and giving them to understand that she conversed with
- the visitor, under protest and on compulsion, and at a great personal
- sacrifice, for their common good. But at this point, Mr Dennis looked
- so very full of meaning, and gave such a singularly expressive twitch
- to his face as a request to her to come still nearer to him, that
- she abandoned these little arts, and gave him her whole and undivided
- attention.
- ‘When was Simmuns here, I say?’ quoth Dennis, in her ear.
- ‘Not since yesterday morning; and then only for a few minutes. Not all
- day, the day before.’
- ‘You know he meant all along to carry off that one!’ said Dennis,
- indicating Dolly by the slightest possible jerk of his head:--‘And to
- hand you over to somebody else.’
- Miss Miggs, who had fallen into a terrible state of grief when the first
- part of this sentence was spoken, recovered a little at the second,
- and seemed by the sudden check she put upon her tears, to intimate
- that possibly this arrangement might meet her views; and that it might,
- perhaps, remain an open question.
- ‘--But unfort’nately,’ pursued Dennis, who observed this: ‘somebody else
- was fond of her too, you see; and even if he wasn’t, somebody else is
- took for a rioter, and it’s all over with him.’
- Miss Miggs relapsed.
- ‘Now I want,’ said Dennis, ‘to clear this house, and to see you righted.
- What if I was to get her off, out of the way, eh?’
- Miss Miggs, brightening again, rejoined, with many breaks and pauses
- from excess of feeling, that temptations had been Simmuns’s bane. That
- it was not his faults, but hers (meaning Dolly’s). That men did not see
- through these dreadful arts as women did, and therefore was caged
- and trapped, as Simmun had been. That she had no personal motives to
- serve--far from it--on the contrary, her intentions was good towards
- all parties. But forasmuch as she knowed that Simmun, if united to any
- designing and artful minxes (she would name no names, for that was not
- her dispositions)--to ANY designing and artful minxes--must be made
- miserable and unhappy for life, she DID incline towards prewentions.
- Such, she added, was her free confessions. But as this was private
- feelings, and might perhaps be looked upon as wengeance, she begged the
- gentleman would say no more. Whatever he said, wishing to do her duty
- by all mankind, even by them as had ever been her bitterest enemies, she
- would not listen to him. With that she stopped her ears, and shook her
- head from side to side, to intimate to Mr Dennis that though he talked
- until he had no breath left, she was as deaf as any adder.
- ‘Lookee here, my sugar-stick,’ said Mr Dennis, ‘if your view’s the same
- as mine, and you’ll only be quiet and slip away at the right time, I
- can have the house clear to-morrow, and be out of this trouble.--Stop
- though! there’s the other.’
- ‘Which other, sir?’ asked Miggs--still with her fingers in her ears and
- her head shaking obstinately.
- ‘Why, the tallest one, yonder,’ said Dennis, as he stroked his chin, and
- added, in an undertone to himself, something about not crossing Muster
- Gashford.
- Miss Miggs replied (still being profoundly deaf) that if Miss Haredale
- stood in the way at all, he might make himself quite easy on that score;
- as she had gathered, from what passed between Hugh and Mr Tappertit when
- they were last there, that she was to be removed alone (not by them, but
- by somebody else), to-morrow night.
- Mr Dennis opened his eyes very wide at this piece of information,
- whistled once, considered once, and finally slapped his head once and
- nodded once, as if he had got the clue to this mysterious removal, and
- so dismissed it. Then he imparted his design concerning Dolly to Miss
- Miggs, who was taken more deaf than before, when he began; and so
- remained, all through.
- The notable scheme was this. Mr Dennis was immediately to seek out from
- among the rioters, some daring young fellow (and he had one in his eye,
- he said), who, terrified by the threats he could hold out to him, and
- alarmed by the capture of so many who were no better and no worse than
- he, would gladly avail himself of any help to get abroad, and out of
- harm’s way, with his plunder, even though his journey were incumbered
- by an unwilling companion; indeed, the unwilling companion being
- a beautiful girl, would probably be an additional inducement and
- temptation. Such a person found, he proposed to bring him there on
- the ensuing night, when the tall one was taken off, and Miss Miggs had
- purposely retired; and then that Dolly should be gagged, muffled in a
- cloak, and carried in any handy conveyance down to the river’s side;
- where there were abundant means of getting her smuggled snugly off in
- any small craft of doubtful character, and no questions asked. With
- regard to the expense of this removal, he would say, at a rough
- calculation, that two or three silver tea or coffee-pots, with something
- additional for drink (such as a muffineer, or toast-rack), would more
- than cover it. Articles of plate of every kind having been buried by the
- rioters in several lonely parts of London, and particularly, as he
- knew, in St James’s Square, which, though easy of access, was little
- frequented after dark, and had a convenient piece of water in the midst,
- the needful funds were close at hand, and could be had upon the shortest
- notice. With regard to Dolly, the gentleman would exercise his own
- discretion. He would be bound to do nothing but to take her away,
- and keep her away. All other arrangements and dispositions would rest
- entirely with himself.
- If Miss Miggs had had her hearing, no doubt she would have been greatly
- shocked by the indelicacy of a young female’s going away with a stranger
- by night (for her moral feelings, as we have said, were of the tenderest
- kind); but directly Mr Dennis ceased to speak, she reminded him that he
- had only wasted breath. She then went on to say (still with her fingers
- in her ears) that nothing less than a severe practical lesson would save
- the locksmith’s daughter from utter ruin; and that she felt it, as it
- were, a moral obligation and a sacred duty to the family, to wish that
- some one would devise one for her reformation. Miss Miggs remarked, and
- very justly, as an abstract sentiment which happened to occur to her
- at the moment, that she dared to say the locksmith and his wife would
- murmur, and repine, if they were ever, by forcible abduction, or
- otherwise, to lose their child; but that we seldom knew, in this world,
- what was best for us: such being our sinful and imperfect natures, that
- very few arrived at that clear understanding.
- Having brought their conversation to this satisfactory end, they parted:
- Dennis, to pursue his design, and take another walk about his farm; Miss
- Miggs, to launch, when he left her, into such a burst of mental anguish
- (which she gave them to understand was occasioned by certain tender
- things he had had the presumption and audacity to say), that little
- Dolly’s heart was quite melted. Indeed, she said and did so much to
- soothe the outraged feelings of Miss Miggs, and looked so beautiful
- while doing so, that if that young maid had not had ample vent for her
- surpassing spite, in a knowledge of the mischief that was brewing, she
- must have scratched her features, on the spot.
- Chapter 71
- All next day, Emma Haredale, Dolly, and Miggs, remained cooped up
- together in what had now been their prison for so many days, without
- seeing any person, or hearing any sound but the murmured conversation,
- in an outer room, of the men who kept watch over them. There appeared to
- be more of these fellows than there had been hitherto; and they could
- no longer hear the voices of women, which they had before plainly
- distinguished. Some new excitement, too, seemed to prevail among them;
- for there was much stealthy going in and out, and a constant questioning
- of those who were newly arrived. They had previously been quite reckless
- in their behaviour; often making a great uproar; quarrelling among
- themselves, fighting, dancing, and singing. They were now very subdued
- and silent, conversing almost in whispers, and stealing in and out with
- a soft and stealthy tread, very different from the boisterous trampling
- in which their arrivals and departures had hitherto been announced to
- the trembling captives.
- Whether this change was occasioned by the presence among them of some
- person of authority in their ranks, or by any other cause, they were
- unable to decide. Sometimes they thought it was in part attributable to
- there being a sick man in the chamber, for last night there had been a
- shuffling of feet, as though a burden were brought in, and afterwards a
- moaning noise. But they had no means of ascertaining the truth: for
- any question or entreaty on their parts only provoked a storm of
- execrations, or something worse; and they were too happy to be left
- alone, unassailed by threats or admiration, to risk even that comfort,
- by any voluntary communication with those who held them in durance.
- It was sufficiently evident, both to Emma and to the locksmith’s poor
- little daughter herself, that she, Dolly, was the great object of
- attraction; and that so soon as they should have leisure to indulge in
- the softer passion, Hugh and Mr Tappertit would certainly fall to blows
- for her sake; in which latter case, it was not very difficult to see
- whose prize she would become. With all her old horror of that man
- revived, and deepened into a degree of aversion and abhorrence which no
- language can describe; with a thousand old recollections and regrets,
- and causes of distress, anxiety, and fear, besetting her on all sides;
- poor Dolly Varden--sweet, blooming, buxom Dolly--began to hang her head,
- and fade, and droop, like a beautiful flower. The colour fled from her
- cheeks, her courage forsook her, her gentle heart failed. Unmindful
- of all her provoking caprices, forgetful of all her conquests and
- inconstancy, with all her winning little vanities quite gone, she
- nestled all the livelong day in Emma Haredale’s bosom; and, sometimes
- calling on her dear old grey-haired father, sometimes on her mother, and
- sometimes even on her old home, pined slowly away, like a poor bird in
- its cage.
- Light hearts, light hearts, that float so gaily on a smooth stream, that
- are so sparkling and buoyant in the sunshine--down upon fruit, bloom
- upon flowers, blush in summer air, life of the winged insect, whose
- whole existence is a day--how soon ye sink in troubled water! Poor
- Dolly’s heart--a little, gentle, idle, fickle thing; giddy, restless,
- fluttering; constant to nothing but bright looks, and smiles and
- laughter--Dolly’s heart was breaking.
- Emma had known grief, and could bear it better. She had little comfort
- to impart, but she could soothe and tend her, and she did so; and Dolly
- clung to her like a child to its nurse. In endeavouring to inspire her
- with some fortitude, she increased her own; and though the nights
- were long, and the days dismal, and she felt the wasting influence
- of watching and fatigue, and had perhaps a more defined and clear
- perception of their destitute condition and its worst dangers, she
- uttered no complaint. Before the ruffians, in whose power they were, she
- bore herself so calmly, and with such an appearance, in the midst of all
- her terror, of a secret conviction that they dared not harm her, that
- there was not a man among them but held her in some degree of dread;
- and more than one believed she had a weapon hidden in her dress, and was
- prepared to use it.
- Such was their condition when they were joined by Miss Miggs, who gave
- them to understand that she too had been taken prisoner because of her
- charms, and detailed such feats of resistance she had performed (her
- virtue having given her supernatural strength), that they felt it quite
- a happiness to have her for a champion. Nor was this the only comfort
- they derived at first from Miggs’s presence and society: for that young
- lady displayed such resignation and long-suffering, and so much meek
- endurance, under her trials, and breathed in all her chaste discourse a
- spirit of such holy confidence and resignation, and devout belief that
- all would happen for the best, that Emma felt her courage strengthened
- by the bright example; never doubting but that everything she said was
- true, and that she, like them, was torn from all she loved, and agonised
- by doubt and apprehension. As to poor Dolly, she was roused, at
- first, by seeing one who came from home; but when she heard under what
- circumstances she had left it, and into whose hands her father had
- fallen, she wept more bitterly than ever, and refused all comfort.
- Miss Miggs was at some trouble to reprove her for this state of mind,
- and to entreat her to take example by herself, who, she said, was now
- receiving back, with interest, tenfold the amount of her subscriptions
- to the red-brick dwelling-house, in the articles of peace of mind and a
- quiet conscience. And, while on serious topics, Miss Miggs considered it
- her duty to try her hand at the conversion of Miss Haredale; for whose
- improvement she launched into a polemical address of some length, in the
- course whereof, she likened herself unto a chosen missionary, and that
- young lady to a cannibal in darkness. Indeed, she returned so often to
- these subjects, and so frequently called upon them to take a lesson from
- her,--at the same time vaunting and, as it were, rioting in, her huge
- unworthiness, and abundant excess of sin,--that, in the course of a
- short time, she became, in that small chamber, rather a nuisance than a
- comfort, and rendered them, if possible, even more unhappy than they had
- been before.
- The night had now come; and for the first time (for their jailers had
- been regular in bringing food and candles), they were left in darkness.
- Any change in their condition in such a place inspired new fears; and
- when some hours had passed, and the gloom was still unbroken, Emma could
- no longer repress her alarm.
- They listened attentively. There was the same murmuring in the outer
- room, and now and then a moan which seemed to be wrung from a person in
- great pain, who made an effort to subdue it, but could not. Even these
- men seemed to be in darkness too; for no light shone through the chinks
- in the door, nor were they moving, as their custom was, but quite still:
- the silence being unbroken by so much as the creaking of a board.
- At first, Miss Miggs wondered greatly in her own mind who this sick
- person might be; but arriving, on second thoughts, at the conclusion
- that he was a part of the schemes on foot, and an artful device soon to
- be employed with great success, she opined, for Miss Haredale’s comfort,
- that it must be some misguided Papist who had been wounded: and this
- happy supposition encouraged her to say, under her breath, ‘Ally
- Looyer!’ several times.
- ‘Is it possible,’ said Emma, with some indignation, ‘that you who have
- seen these men committing the outrages you have told us of, and who have
- fallen into their hands, like us, can exult in their cruelties!’
- ‘Personal considerations, miss,’ rejoined Miggs, ‘sinks into nothing,
- afore a noble cause. Ally Looyer! Ally Looyer! Ally Looyer, good
- gentlemen!’
- It seemed from the shrill pertinacity with which Miss Miggs repeated
- this form of acclamation, that she was calling the same through the
- keyhole of the door; but in the profound darkness she could not be seen.
- ‘If the time has come--Heaven knows it may come at any moment--when they
- are bent on prosecuting the designs, whatever they may be, with which
- they have brought us here, can you still encourage, and take part with
- them?’ demanded Emma.
- ‘I thank my goodness-gracious-blessed-stars I can, miss,’ returned
- Miggs, with increased energy.--‘Ally Looyer, good gentlemen!’
- Even Dolly, cast down and disappointed as she was, revived at this, and
- bade Miggs hold her tongue directly.
- ‘WHICH, was you pleased to observe, Miss Varden?’ said Miggs, with a
- strong emphasis on the irrelative pronoun.
- Dolly repeated her request.
- ‘Ho, gracious me!’ cried Miggs, with hysterical derision. ‘Ho, gracious
- me! Yes, to be sure I will. Ho yes! I am a abject slave, and a
- toiling, moiling, constant-working, always-being-found-fault-with,
- never-giving-satisfactions, nor-having-no-time-to-clean-oneself,
- potter’s wessel--an’t I, miss! Ho yes! My situations is lowly, and my
- capacities is limited, and my duties is to humble myself afore the
- base degenerating daughters of their blessed mothers as is--fit to
- keep companies with holy saints but is born to persecutions from
- wicked relations--and to demean myself before them as is no better than
- Infidels--an’t it, miss! Ho yes! My only becoming occupations is to help
- young flaunting pagins to brush and comb and titiwate theirselves into
- whitening and suppulchres, and leave the young men to think that there
- an’t a bit of padding in it nor no pinching ins nor fillings out nor
- pomatums nor deceits nor earthly wanities--an’t it, miss! Yes, to be
- sure it is--ho yes!’
- Having delivered these ironical passages with a most wonderful
- volubility, and with a shrillness perfectly deafening (especially when
- she jerked out the interjections), Miss Miggs, from mere habit, and not
- because weeping was at all appropriate to the occasion, which was one of
- triumph, concluded by bursting into a flood of tears, and calling in an
- impassioned manner on the name of Simmuns.
- What Emma Haredale and Dolly would have done, or how long Miss Miggs,
- now that she had hoisted her true colours, would have gone on waving
- them before their astonished senses, it is impossible to tell. Nor is
- it necessary to speculate on these matters, for a startling interruption
- occurred at that moment, which took their whole attention by storm.
- This was a violent knocking at the door of the house, and then its
- sudden bursting open; which was immediately succeeded by a scuffle in
- the room without, and the clash of weapons. Transported with the hope
- that rescue had at length arrived, Emma and Dolly shrieked aloud for
- help; nor were their shrieks unanswered; for after a hurried interval, a
- man, bearing in one hand a drawn sword, and in the other a taper, rushed
- into the chamber where they were confined.
- It was some check upon their transport to find in this person an entire
- stranger, but they appealed to him, nevertheless, and besought him, in
- impassioned language, to restore them to their friends.
- ‘For what other purpose am I here?’ he answered, closing the door, and
- standing with his back against it. ‘With what object have I made my way
- to this place, through difficulty and danger, but to preserve you?’
- With a joy for which it was impossible to find adequate expression, they
- embraced each other, and thanked Heaven for this most timely aid. Their
- deliverer stepped forward for a moment to put the light upon the table,
- and immediately returning to his former position against the door, bared
- his head, and looked on smilingly.
- ‘You have news of my uncle, sir?’ said Emma, turning hastily towards
- him.
- ‘And of my father and mother?’ added Dolly.
- ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Good news.’
- ‘They are alive and unhurt?’ they both cried at once.
- ‘Yes, and unhurt,’ he rejoined.
- ‘And close at hand?’
- ‘I did not say close at hand,’ he answered smoothly; ‘they are at no
- great distance. YOUR friends, sweet one,’ he added, addressing Dolly,
- ‘are within a few hours’ journey. You will be restored to them, I hope,
- to-night.’
- ‘My uncle, sir--’ faltered Emma.
- ‘Your uncle, dear Miss Haredale, happily--I say happily, because he has
- succeeded where many of our creed have failed, and is safe--has crossed
- the sea, and is out of Britain.’
- ‘I thank God for it,’ said Emma, faintly.
- ‘You say well. You have reason to be thankful: greater reason than it is
- possible for you, who have seen but one night of these cruel outrages,
- to imagine.’
- ‘Does he desire,’ said Emma, ‘that I should follow him?’
- ‘Do you ask if he desires it?’ cried the stranger in surprise. ‘IF he
- desires it! But you do not know the danger of remaining in England,
- the difficulty of escape, or the price hundreds would pay to secure the
- means, when you make that inquiry. Pardon me. I had forgotten that you
- could not, being prisoner here.’
- ‘I gather, sir,’ said Emma, after a moment’s pause, ‘from what you hint
- at, but fear to tell me, that I have witnessed but the beginning, and
- the least, of the violence to which we are exposed, and that it has not
- yet slackened in its fury?’
- He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, lifted up his hands; and with
- the same smooth smile, which was not a pleasant one to see, cast his
- eyes upon the ground, and remained silent.
- ‘You may venture, sir, to speak plain,’ said Emma, ‘and to tell me the
- worst. We have undergone some preparation for it.’
- But here Dolly interposed, and entreated her not to hear the worst, but
- the best; and besought the gentleman to tell them the best, and to
- keep the remainder of his news until they were safe among their friends
- again.
- ‘It is told in three words,’ he said, glancing at the locksmith’s
- daughter with a look of some displeasure. ‘The people have risen, to a
- man, against us; the streets are filled with soldiers, who support
- them and do their bidding. We have no protection but from above, and no
- safety but in flight; and that is a poor resource; for we are watched on
- every hand, and detained here, both by force and fraud. Miss Haredale,
- I cannot bear--believe me, that I cannot bear--by speaking of myself,
- or what I have done, or am prepared to do, to seem to vaunt my services
- before you. But, having powerful Protestant connections, and having my
- whole wealth embarked with theirs in shipping and commerce, I happily
- possessed the means of saving your uncle. I have the means of saving
- you; and in redemption of my sacred promise, made to him, I am here;
- pledged not to leave you until I have placed you in his arms. The
- treachery or penitence of one of the men about you, led to the discovery
- of your place of confinement; and that I have forced my way here, sword
- in hand, you see.’
- ‘You bring,’ said Emma, faltering, ‘some note or token from my uncle?’
- ‘No, he doesn’t,’ cried Dolly, pointing at him earnestly; ‘now I am sure
- he doesn’t. Don’t go with him for the world!’
- ‘Hush, pretty fool--be silent,’ he replied, frowning angrily upon her.
- ‘No, Miss Haredale, I have no letter, nor any token of any kind; for
- while I sympathise with you, and such as you, on whom misfortune so
- heavy and so undeserved has fallen, I value my life. I carry, therefore,
- no writing which, found upon me, would lead to its certain loss. I
- never thought of bringing any other token, nor did Mr Haredale think of
- entrusting me with one--possibly because he had good experience of my
- faith and honesty, and owed his life to me.’
- There was a reproof conveyed in these words, which to a nature like
- Emma Haredale’s, was well addressed. But Dolly, who was differently
- constituted, was by no means touched by it, and still conjured her, in
- all the terms of affection and attachment she could think of, not to be
- lured away.
- ‘Time presses,’ said their visitor, who, although he sought to express
- the deepest interest, had something cold and even in his speech, that
- grated on the ear; ‘and danger surrounds us. If I have exposed myself to
- it, in vain, let it be so; but if you and he should ever meet again, do
- me justice. If you decide to remain (as I think you do), remember, Miss
- Haredale, that I left you with a solemn caution, and acquitting myself
- of all the consequences to which you expose yourself.’
- ‘Stay, sir!’ cried Emma--‘one moment, I beg you. Cannot we’--and she drew
- Dolly closer to her--‘cannot we go together?’
- ‘The task of conveying one female in safety through such scenes as we
- must encounter, to say nothing of attracting the attention of those who
- crowd the streets,’ he answered, ‘is enough. I have said that she will
- be restored to her friends to-night. If you accept the service I tender,
- Miss Haredale, she shall be instantly placed in safe conduct, and that
- promise redeemed. Do you decide to remain? People of all ranks and
- creeds are flying from the town, which is sacked from end to end. Let me
- be of use in some quarter. Do you stay, or go?’
- ‘Dolly,’ said Emma, in a hurried manner, ‘my dear girl, this is our last
- hope. If we part now, it is only that we may meet again in happiness and
- honour. I will trust to this gentleman.’
- ‘No no-no!’ cried Dolly, clinging to her. ‘Pray, pray, do not!’
- ‘You hear,’ said Emma, ‘that to-night--only to-night--within a few
- hours--think of that!--you will be among those who would die of grief to
- lose you, and who are now plunged in the deepest misery for your sake.
- Pray for me, dear girl, as I will for you; and never forget the many
- quiet hours we have passed together. Say one “God bless you!” Say that
- at parting!’
- But Dolly could say nothing; no, not when Emma kissed her cheek a
- hundred times, and covered it with tears, could she do more than hang
- upon her neck, and sob, and clasp, and hold her tight.
- ‘We have time for no more of this,’ cried the man, unclenching her
- hands, and pushing her roughly off, as he drew Emma Haredale towards the
- door: ‘Now! Quick, outside there! are you ready?’
- ‘Ay!’ cried a loud voice, which made him start. ‘Quite ready! Stand back
- here, for your lives!’
- And in an instant he was felled like an ox in the butcher’s
- shambles--struck down as though a block of marble had fallen from the
- roof and crushed him--and cheerful light, and beaming faces came pouring
- in--and Emma was clasped in her uncle’s embrace, and Dolly, with a
- shriek that pierced the air, fell into the arms of her father and
- mother.
- What fainting there was, what laughing, what crying, what sobbing, what
- smiling, how much questioning, no answering, all talking together, all
- beside themselves with joy; what kissing, congratulating, embracing,
- shaking of hands, and falling into all these raptures, over and over and
- over again; no language can describe.
- At length, and after a long time, the old locksmith went up and fairly
- hugged two strangers, who had stood apart and left them to themselves;
- and then they saw--whom? Yes, Edward Chester and Joseph Willet.
- ‘See here!’ cried the locksmith. ‘See here! where would any of us have
- been without these two? Oh, Mr Edward, Mr Edward--oh, Joe, Joe, how
- light, and yet how full, you have made my old heart to-night!’
- ‘It was Mr Edward that knocked him down, sir,’ said Joe: ‘I longed to do
- it, but I gave it up to him. Come, you brave and honest gentleman! Get
- your senses together, for you haven’t long to lie here.’
- He had his foot upon the breast of their sham deliverer, in the absence
- of a spare arm; and gave him a gentle roll as he spoke. Gashford, for
- it was no other, crouching yet malignant, raised his scowling face, like
- sin subdued, and pleaded to be gently used.
- ‘I have access to all my lord’s papers, Mr Haredale,’ he said, in a
- submissive voice: Mr Haredale keeping his back towards him, and not once
- looking round: ‘there are very important documents among them. There are
- a great many in secret drawers, and distributed in various places, known
- only to my lord and me. I can give some very valuable information, and
- render important assistance to any inquiry. You will have to answer it,
- if I receive ill usage.
- ‘Pah!’ cried Joe, in deep disgust. ‘Get up, man; you’re waited for,
- outside. Get up, do you hear?’
- Gashford slowly rose; and picking up his hat, and looking with a baffled
- malevolence, yet with an air of despicable humility, all round the room,
- crawled out.
- ‘And now, gentlemen,’ said Joe, who seemed to be the spokesman of the
- party, for all the rest were silent; ‘the sooner we get back to the
- Black Lion, the better, perhaps.’
- Mr Haredale nodded assent, and drawing his niece’s arm through his,
- and taking one of her hands between his own, passed out straightway;
- followed by the locksmith, Mrs Varden, and Dolly--who would scarcely
- have presented a sufficient surface for all the hugs and caresses they
- bestowed upon her though she had been a dozen Dollys. Edward Chester and
- Joe followed.
- And did Dolly never once look behind--not once? Was there not one little
- fleeting glimpse of the dark eyelash, almost resting on her flushed
- cheek, and of the downcast sparkling eye it shaded? Joe thought there
- was--and he is not likely to have been mistaken; for there were not many
- eyes like Dolly’s, that’s the truth.
- The outer room through which they had to pass, was full of men; among
- them, Mr Dennis in safe keeping; and there, had been since yesterday,
- lying in hiding behind a wooden screen which was now thrown down,
- Simon Tappertit, the recreant ‘prentice, burnt and bruised, and with a
- gun-shot wound in his body; and his legs--his perfect legs, the pride
- and glory of his life, the comfort of his existence--crushed into
- shapeless ugliness. Wondering no longer at the moans they had heard,
- Dolly kept closer to her father, and shuddered at the sight; but neither
- bruises, burns, nor gun-shot wound, nor all the torture of his shattered
- limbs, sent half so keen a pang to Simon’s breast, as Dolly passing out,
- with Joe for her preserver.
- A coach was ready at the door, and Dolly found herself safe and whole
- inside, between her father and mother, with Emma Haredale and her uncle,
- quite real, sitting opposite. But there was no Joe, no Edward; and they
- had said nothing. They had only bowed once, and kept at a distance. Dear
- heart! what a long way it was to the Black Lion!
- Chapter 72
- The Black Lion was so far off, and occupied such a length of time in the
- getting at, that notwithstanding the strong presumptive evidence she had
- about her of the late events being real and of actual occurrence, Dolly
- could not divest herself of the belief that she must be in a dream which
- was lasting all night. Nor was she quite certain that she saw and heard
- with her own proper senses, even when the coach, in the fulness of time,
- stopped at the Black Lion, and the host of that tavern approached in a
- gush of cheerful light to help them to dismount, and give them hearty
- welcome.
- There too, at the coach door, one on one side, one upon the other, were
- already Edward Chester and Joe Willet, who must have followed in another
- coach: and this was such a strange and unaccountable proceeding, that
- Dolly was the more inclined to favour the idea of her being fast asleep.
- But when Mr Willet appeared--old John himself--so heavy-headed and
- obstinate, and with such a double chin as the liveliest imagination
- could never in its boldest flights have conjured up in all its vast
- proportions--then she stood corrected, and unwillingly admitted to
- herself that she was broad awake.
- And Joe had lost an arm--he--that well-made, handsome, gallant fellow!
- As Dolly glanced towards him, and thought of the pain he must have
- suffered, and the far-off places in which he had been wandering, and
- wondered who had been his nurse, and hoped that whoever it was, she
- had been as kind and gentle and considerate as she would have been,
- the tears came rising to her bright eyes, one by one, little by little,
- until she could keep them back no longer, and so before them all, wept
- bitterly.
- ‘We are all safe now, Dolly,’ said her father, kindly. ‘We shall not be
- separated any more. Cheer up, my love, cheer up!’
- The locksmith’s wife knew better perhaps, than he, what ailed her
- daughter. But Mrs Varden being quite an altered woman--for the riots had
- done that good--added her word to his, and comforted her with similar
- representations.
- ‘Mayhap,’ said Mr Willet, senior, looking round upon the company, ‘she’s
- hungry. That’s what it is, depend upon it--I am, myself.’
- The Black Lion, who, like old John, had been waiting supper past all
- reasonable and conscionable hours, hailed this as a philosophical
- discovery of the profoundest and most penetrating kind; and the table
- being already spread, they sat down to supper straightway.
- The conversation was not of the liveliest nature, nor were the appetites
- of some among them very keen. But, in both these respects, old John more
- than atoned for any deficiency on the part of the rest, and very much
- distinguished himself.
- It was not in point of actual conversation that Mr Willet shone so
- brilliantly, for he had none of his old cronies to ‘tackle,’ and was
- rather timorous of venturing on Joe; having certain vague misgivings
- within him, that he was ready on the shortest notice, and on receipt of
- the slightest offence, to fell the Black Lion to the floor of his own
- parlour, and immediately to withdraw to China or some other remote and
- unknown region, there to dwell for evermore, or at least until he had
- got rid of his remaining arm and both legs, and perhaps an eye or so,
- into the bargain. It was with a peculiar kind of pantomime that Mr
- Willet filled up every pause; and in this he was considered by the Black
- Lion, who had been his familiar for some years, quite to surpass and
- go beyond himself, and outrun the expectations of his most admiring
- friends.
- The subject that worked in Mr Willet’s mind, and occasioned these
- demonstrations, was no other than his son’s bodily disfigurement, which
- he had never yet got himself thoroughly to believe, or comprehend.
- Shortly after their first meeting, he had been observed to wander, in
- a state of great perplexity, to the kitchen, and to direct his gaze
- towards the fire, as if in search of his usual adviser in all matters of
- doubt and difficulty. But there being no boiler at the Black Lion, and
- the rioters having so beaten and battered his own that it was quite
- unfit for further service, he wandered out again, in a perfect bog of
- uncertainty and mental confusion, and in that state took the strangest
- means of resolving his doubts: such as feeling the sleeve of his son’s
- greatcoat as deeming it possible that his arm might be there; looking at
- his own arms and those of everybody else, as if to assure himself that
- two and not one was the usual allowance; sitting by the hour together in
- a brown study, as if he were endeavouring to recall Joe’s image in his
- younger days, and to remember whether he really had in those times one
- arm or a pair; and employing himself in many other speculations of the
- same kind.
- Finding himself at this supper, surrounded by faces with which he had
- been so well acquainted in old times, Mr Willet recurred to the subject
- with uncommon vigour; apparently resolved to understand it now or never.
- Sometimes, after every two or three mouthfuls, he laid down his knife
- and fork, and stared at his son with all his might--particularly at his
- maimed side; then, he looked slowly round the table until he caught some
- person’s eye, when he shook his head with great solemnity, patted his
- shoulder, winked, or as one may say--for winking was a very slow process
- with him--went to sleep with one eye for a minute or two; and so, with
- another solemn shaking of his head, took up his knife and fork
- again, and went on eating. Sometimes, he put his food into his mouth
- abstractedly, and, with all his faculties concentrated on Joe, gazed at
- him in a fit of stupefaction as he cut his meat with one hand, until he
- was recalled to himself by symptoms of choking on his own part, and was
- by that means restored to consciousness. At other times he resorted to
- such small devices as asking him for the salt, the pepper, the vinegar,
- the mustard--anything that was on his maimed side--and watching him as
- he handed it. By dint of these experiments, he did at last so satisfy
- and convince himself, that, after a longer silence than he had yet
- maintained, he laid down his knife and fork on either side his plate,
- drank a long draught from a tankard beside him (still keeping his eyes
- on Joe), and leaning backward in his chair and fetching a long breath,
- said, as he looked all round the board:
- ‘It’s been took off!’
- ‘By George!’ said the Black Lion, striking the table with his hand,
- ‘he’s got it!’
- ‘Yes, sir,’ said Mr Willet, with the look of a man who felt that he had
- earned a compliment, and deserved it. ‘That’s where it is. It’s been
- took off.’
- ‘Tell him where it was done,’ said the Black Lion to Joe.
- ‘At the defence of the Savannah, father.’
- ‘At the defence of the Salwanners,’ repeated Mr Willet, softly; again
- looking round the table.
- ‘In America, where the war is,’ said Joe.
- ‘In America, where the war is,’ repeated Mr Willet. ‘It was took off in
- the defence of the Salwanners in America where the war is.’ Continuing
- to repeat these words to himself in a low tone of voice (the same
- information had been conveyed to him in the same terms, at least fifty
- times before), Mr Willet arose from table, walked round to Joe, felt his
- empty sleeve all the way up, from the cuff, to where the stump of his
- arm remained; shook his hand; lighted his pipe at the fire, took a long
- whiff, walked to the door, turned round once when he had reached it,
- wiped his left eye with the back of his forefinger, and said, in
- a faltering voice: ‘My son’s arm--was took off--at the defence of
- the--Salwanners--in America--where the war is’--with which words he
- withdrew, and returned no more that night.
- Indeed, on various pretences, they all withdrew one after another, save
- Dolly, who was left sitting there alone. It was a great relief to be
- alone, and she was crying to her heart’s content, when she heard Joe’s
- voice at the end of the passage, bidding somebody good night.
- Good night! Then he was going elsewhere--to some distance, perhaps. To
- what kind of home COULD he be going, now that it was so late!
- She heard him walk along the passage, and pass the door. But there was a
- hesitation in his footsteps. He turned back--Dolly’s heart beat high--he
- looked in.
- ‘Good night!’--he didn’t say Dolly, but there was comfort in his not
- saying Miss Varden.
- ‘Good night!’ sobbed Dolly.
- ‘I am sorry you take on so much, for what is past and gone,’ said Joe
- kindly. ‘Don’t. I can’t bear to see you do it. Think of it no longer.
- You are safe and happy now.’
- Dolly cried the more.
- ‘You must have suffered very much within these few days--and yet you’re
- not changed, unless it’s for the better. They said you were, but I don’t
- see it. You were--you were always very beautiful,’ said Joe, ‘but you
- are more beautiful than ever, now. You are indeed. There can be no harm
- in my saying so, for you must know it. You are told so very often, I am
- sure.’
- As a general principle, Dolly DID know it, and WAS told so, very often.
- But the coachmaker had turned out, years ago, to be a special donkey;
- and whether she had been afraid of making similar discoveries in others,
- or had grown by dint of long custom to be careless of compliments
- generally, certain it is that although she cried so much, she was better
- pleased to be told so now, than ever she had been in all her life.
- ‘I shall bless your name,’ sobbed the locksmith’s little daughter, ‘as
- long as I live. I shall never hear it spoken without feeling as if my
- heart would burst. I shall remember it in my prayers, every night and
- morning till I die!’
- ‘Will you?’ said Joe, eagerly. ‘Will you indeed? It makes me--well, it
- makes me very glad and proud to hear you say so.’
- Dolly still sobbed, and held her handkerchief to her eyes. Joe still
- stood, looking at her.
- ‘Your voice,’ said Joe, ‘brings up old times so pleasantly, that, for
- the moment, I feel as if that night--there can be no harm in talking
- of that night now--had come back, and nothing had happened in the mean
- time. I feel as if I hadn’t suffered any hardships, but had knocked down
- poor Tom Cobb only yesterday, and had come to see you with my bundle on
- my shoulder before running away.--You remember?’
- Remember! But she said nothing. She raised her eyes for an instant. It
- was but a glance; a little, tearful, timid glance. It kept Joe silent
- though, for a long time.
- ‘Well!’ he said stoutly, ‘it was to be otherwise, and was. I have been
- abroad, fighting all the summer and frozen up all the winter, ever
- since. I have come back as poor in purse as I went, and crippled for
- life besides. But, Dolly, I would rather have lost this other arm--ay, I
- would rather have lost my head--than have come back to find you dead,
- or anything but what I always pictured you to myself, and what I always
- hoped and wished to find you. Thank God for all!’
- Oh how much, and how keenly, the little coquette of five years ago, felt
- now! She had found her heart at last. Never having known its worth till
- now, she had never known the worth of his. How priceless it appeared!
- ‘I did hope once,’ said Joe, in his homely way, ‘that I might come back
- a rich man, and marry you. But I was a boy then, and have long known
- better than that. I am a poor, maimed, discharged soldier, and must
- be content to rub through life as I can. I can’t say, even now, that I
- shall be glad to see you married, Dolly; but I AM glad--yes, I am, and
- glad to think I can say so--to know that you are admired and courted,
- and can pick and choose for a happy life. It’s a comfort to me to know
- that you’ll talk to your husband about me; and I hope the time will come
- when I may be able to like him, and to shake hands with him, and to
- come and see you as a poor friend who knew you when you were a girl. God
- bless you!’
- His hand DID tremble; but for all that, he took it away again, and left
- her.
- Chapter 73
- By this Friday night--for it was on Friday in the riot week, that Emma
- and Dolly were rescued, by the timely aid of Joe and Edward Chester--the
- disturbances were entirely quelled, and peace and order were restored
- to the affrighted city. True, after what had happened, it was impossible
- for any man to say how long this better state of things might last, or
- how suddenly new outrages, exceeding even those so lately witnessed,
- might burst forth and fill its streets with ruin and bloodshed; for
- this reason, those who had fled from the recent tumults still kept at
- a distance, and many families, hitherto unable to procure the means
- of flight, now availed themselves of the calm, and withdrew into the
- country. The shops, too, from Tyburn to Whitechapel, were still shut;
- and very little business was transacted in any of the places of great
- commercial resort. But, notwithstanding, and in spite of the melancholy
- forebodings of that numerous class of society who see with the greatest
- clearness into the darkest perspectives, the town remained profoundly
- quiet. The strong military force disposed in every advantageous quarter,
- and stationed at every commanding point, held the scattered fragments
- of the mob in check; the search after rioters was prosecuted with
- unrelenting vigour; and if there were any among them so desperate and
- reckless as to be inclined, after the terrible scenes they had beheld,
- to venture forth again, they were so daunted by these resolute measures,
- that they quickly shrunk into their hiding-places, and had no thought
- but for their safety.
- In a word, the crowd was utterly routed. Upwards of two hundred had been
- shot dead in the streets. Two hundred and fifty more were lying, badly
- wounded, in the hospitals; of whom seventy or eighty died within a short
- time afterwards. A hundred were already in custody, and more were taken
- every hour. How many perished in the conflagrations, or by their own
- excesses, is unknown; but that numbers found a terrible grave in the hot
- ashes of the flames they had kindled, or crept into vaults and cellars
- to drink in secret or to nurse their sores, and never saw the light
- again, is certain. When the embers of the fires had been black and cold
- for many weeks, the labourers’ spades proved this, beyond a doubt.
- Seventy-two private houses and four strong jails were destroyed in the
- four great days of these riots. The total loss of property, as estimated
- by the sufferers, was one hundred and fifty-five thousand pounds; at the
- lowest and least partial estimate of disinterested persons, it exceeded
- one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. For this immense loss,
- compensation was soon afterwards made out of the public purse, in
- pursuance of a vote of the House of Commons; the sum being levied on the
- various wards in the city, on the county, and the borough of Southwark.
- Both Lord Mansfield and Lord Saville, however, who had been great
- sufferers, refused to accept of any compensation whatever.
- The House of Commons, sitting on Tuesday with locked and guarded doors,
- had passed a resolution to the effect that, as soon as the tumults
- subsided, it would immediately proceed to consider the petitions
- presented from many of his Majesty’s Protestant subjects, and would take
- the same into its serious consideration. While this question was under
- debate, Mr Herbert, one of the members present, indignantly rose and
- called upon the House to observe that Lord George Gordon was then
- sitting under the gallery with the blue cockade, the signal of
- rebellion, in his hat. He was not only obliged, by those who sat near,
- to take it out; but offering to go into the street to pacify the mob
- with the somewhat indefinite assurance that the House was prepared to
- give them ‘the satisfaction they sought,’ was actually held down in his
- seat by the combined force of several members. In short, the disorder
- and violence which reigned triumphant out of doors, penetrated into
- the senate, and there, as elsewhere, terror and alarm prevailed, and
- ordinary forms were for the time forgotten.
- On the Thursday, both Houses had adjourned until the following Monday
- se’nnight, declaring it impossible to pursue their deliberations with
- the necessary gravity and freedom, while they were surrounded by armed
- troops. And now that the rioters were dispersed, the citizens were beset
- with a new fear; for, finding the public thoroughfares and all their
- usual places of resort filled with soldiers entrusted with the free use
- of fire and sword, they began to lend a greedy ear to the rumours which
- were afloat of martial law being declared, and to dismal stories of
- prisoners having been seen hanging on lamp-posts in Cheapside and
- Fleet Street. These terrors being promptly dispelled by a Proclamation
- declaring that all the rioters in custody would be tried by a special
- commission in due course of law, a fresh alarm was engendered by its
- being whispered abroad that French money had been found on some of the
- rioters, and that the disturbances had been fomented by foreign powers
- who sought to compass the overthrow and ruin of England. This report,
- which was strengthened by the diffusion of anonymous handbills, but
- which, if it had any foundation at all, probably owed its origin to the
- circumstance of some few coins which were not English money having been
- swept into the pockets of the insurgents with other miscellaneous booty,
- and afterwards discovered on the prisoners or the dead bodies,--caused
- a great sensation; and men’s minds being in that excited state when they
- are most apt to catch at any shadow of apprehension, was bruited about
- with much industry.
- All remaining quiet, however, during the whole of this Friday, and on
- this Friday night, and no new discoveries being made, confidence began
- to be restored, and the most timid and desponding breathed again.
- In Southwark, no fewer than three thousand of the inhabitants formed
- themselves into a watch, and patrolled the streets every hour. Nor were
- the citizens slow to follow so good an example: and it being the manner
- of peaceful men to be very bold when the danger is over, they were
- abundantly fierce and daring; not scrupling to question the stoutest
- passenger with great severity, and carrying it with a very high hand
- over all errand-boys, servant-girls, and ‘prentices.
- As day deepened into evening, and darkness crept into the nooks and
- corners of the town as if it were mustering in secret and gathering
- strength to venture into the open ways, Barnaby sat in his dungeon,
- wondering at the silence, and listening in vain for the noise and outcry
- which had ushered in the night of late. Beside him, with his hand in
- hers, sat one in whose companionship he felt at peace. She was worn, and
- altered, full of grief, and heavy-hearted; but the same to him.
- ‘Mother,’ he said, after a long silence: ‘how long,--how many days and
- nights,--shall I be kept here?’
- ‘Not many, dear. I hope not many.’
- ‘You hope! Ay, but your hoping will not undo these chains. I hope, but
- they don’t mind that. Grip hopes, but who cares for Grip?’
- The raven gave a short, dull, melancholy croak. It said ‘Nobody,’ as
- plainly as a croak could speak.
- ‘Who cares for Grip, except you and me?’ said Barnaby, smoothing the
- bird’s rumpled feathers with his hand. ‘He never speaks in this place;
- he never says a word in jail; he sits and mopes all day in his dark
- corner, dozing sometimes, and sometimes looking at the light that creeps
- in through the bars, and shines in his bright eye as if a spark from
- those great fires had fallen into the room and was burning yet. But who
- cares for Grip?’
- The raven croaked again--Nobody.
- ‘And by the way,’ said Barnaby, withdrawing his hand from the bird, and
- laying it upon his mother’s arm, as he looked eagerly in her face; ‘if
- they kill me--they may: I heard it said they would--what will become of
- Grip when I am dead?’
- The sound of the word, or the current of his own thoughts, suggested to
- Grip his old phrase ‘Never say die!’ But he stopped short in the middle
- of it, drew a dismal cork, and subsided into a faint croak, as if he
- lacked the heart to get through the shortest sentence.
- ‘Will they take HIS life as well as mine?’ said Barnaby. ‘I wish they
- would. If you and I and he could die together, there would be none to
- feel sorry, or to grieve for us. But do what they will, I don’t fear
- them, mother!’
- ‘They will not harm you,’ she said, her tears choking her utterance.
- ‘They never will harm you, when they know all. I am sure they never
- will.’
- ‘Oh! Don’t be too sure of that,’ cried Barnaby, with a strange pleasure
- in the belief that she was self-deceived, and in his own sagacity. ‘They
- have marked me from the first. I heard them say so to each other when
- they brought me to this place last night; and I believe them. Don’t you
- cry for me. They said that I was bold, and so I am, and so I will be.
- You may think that I am silly, but I can die as well as another.--I have
- done no harm, have I?’ he added quickly.
- ‘None before Heaven,’ she answered.
- ‘Why then,’ said Barnaby, ‘let them do their worst. You told me
- once--you--when I asked you what death meant, that it was nothing to
- be feared, if we did no harm--Aha! mother, you thought I had forgotten
- that!’
- His merry laugh and playful manner smote her to the heart. She drew him
- closer to her, and besought him to talk to her in whispers and to be
- very quiet, for it was getting dark, and their time was short, and she
- would soon have to leave him for the night.
- ‘You will come to-morrow?’ said Barnaby.
- Yes. And every day. And they would never part again.
- He joyfully replied that this was well, and what he wished, and what he
- had felt quite certain she would tell him; and then he asked her where
- she had been so long, and why she had not come to see him when he had
- been a great soldier, and ran through the wild schemes he had had for
- their being rich and living prosperously, and with some faint notion in
- his mind that she was sad and he had made her so, tried to console and
- comfort her, and talked of their former life and his old sports and
- freedom: little dreaming that every word he uttered only increased her
- sorrow, and that her tears fell faster at the freshened recollection of
- their lost tranquillity.
- ‘Mother,’ said Barnaby, as they heard the man approaching to close the
- cells for the night, ‘when I spoke to you just now about my father you
- cried “Hush!” and turned away your head. Why did you do so? Tell me why,
- in a word. You thought HE was dead. You are not sorry that he is alive
- and has come back to us. Where is he? Here?’
- ‘Do not ask any one where he is, or speak about him,’ she made answer.
- ‘Why not?’ said Barnaby. ‘Because he is a stern man, and talks roughly?
- Well! I don’t like him, or want to be with him by myself; but why not
- speak about him?’
- ‘Because I am sorry that he is alive; sorry that he has come back;
- and sorry that he and you have ever met. Because, dear Barnaby, the
- endeavour of my life has been to keep you two asunder.’
- ‘Father and son asunder! Why?’
- ‘He has,’ she whispered in his ear, ‘he has shed blood. The time has
- come when you must know it. He has shed the blood of one who loved him
- well, and trusted him, and never did him wrong in word or deed.’
- Barnaby recoiled in horror, and glancing at his stained wrist for an
- instant, wrapped it, shuddering, in his dress.
- ‘But,’ she added hastily as the key turned in the lock, ‘although we
- shun him, he is your father, dearest, and I am his wretched wife. They
- seek his life, and he will lose it. It must not be by our means; nay, if
- we could win him back to penitence, we should be bound to love him yet.
- Do not seem to know him, except as one who fled with you from the jail,
- and if they question you about him, do not answer them. God be with you
- through the night, dear boy! God be with you!’
- She tore herself away, and in a few seconds Barnaby was alone. He stood
- for a long time rooted to the spot, with his face hidden in his hands;
- then flung himself, sobbing, on his miserable bed.
- But the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars
- looked out, and through the small compass of the grated window, as
- through the narrow crevice of one good deed in a murky life of guilt,
- the face of Heaven shone bright and merciful. He raised his head;
- gazed upward at the quiet sky, which seemed to smile upon the earth in
- sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, looked down in
- sorrow on the sufferings and evil deeds of men; and felt its peace sink
- deep into his heart. He, a poor idiot, caged in his narrow cell, was as
- much lifted up to God, while gazing on the mild light, as the freest and
- most favoured man in all the spacious city; and in his ill-remembered
- prayer, and in the fragment of the childish hymn, with which he sung and
- crooned himself asleep, there breathed as true a spirit as ever studied
- homily expressed, or old cathedral arches echoed.
- As his mother crossed a yard on her way out, she saw, through a grated
- door which separated it from another court, her husband, walking round
- and round, with his hands folded on his breast, and his head hung down.
- She asked the man who conducted her, if she might speak a word with
- this prisoner. Yes, but she must be quick for he was locking up for
- the night, and there was but a minute or so to spare. Saying this, he
- unlocked the door, and bade her go in.
- It grated harshly as it turned upon its hinges, but he was deaf to
- the noise, and still walked round and round the little court, without
- raising his head or changing his attitude in the least. She spoke to
- him, but her voice was weak, and failed her. At length she put herself
- in his track, and when he came near, stretched out her hand and touched
- him.
- He started backward, trembling from head to foot; but seeing who it was,
- demanded why she came there. Before she could reply, he spoke again.
- ‘Am I to live or die? Do you murder too, or spare?’
- ‘My son--our son,’ she answered, ‘is in this prison.’
- ‘What is that to me?’ he cried, stamping impatiently on the stone
- pavement. ‘I know it. He can no more aid me than I can aid him. If you
- are come to talk of him, begone!’
- As he spoke he resumed his walk, and hurried round the court as before.
- When he came again to where she stood, he stopped, and said,
- ‘Am I to live or die? Do you repent?’
- ‘Oh!--do YOU?’ she answered. ‘Will you, while time remains? Do not
- believe that I could save you, if I dared.’
- ‘Say if you would,’ he answered with an oath, as he tried to disengage
- himself and pass on. ‘Say if you would.’
- ‘Listen to me for one moment,’ she returned; ‘for but a moment. I am but
- newly risen from a sick-bed, from which I never hoped to rise again. The
- best among us think, at such a time, of good intentions half-performed
- and duties left undone. If I have ever, since that fatal night, omitted
- to pray for your repentance before death--if I omitted, even then,
- anything which might tend to urge it on you when the horror of your
- crime was fresh--if, in our later meeting, I yielded to the dread that
- was upon me, and forgot to fall upon my knees and solemnly adjure you,
- in the name of him you sent to his account with Heaven, to prepare for
- the retribution which must come, and which is stealing on you now--I
- humbly before you, and in the agony of supplication in which you see me,
- beseech that you will let me make atonement.’
- ‘What is the meaning of your canting words?’ he answered roughly. ‘Speak
- so that I may understand you.’
- ‘I will,’ she answered, ‘I desire to. Bear with me for a moment more.
- The hand of Him who set His curse on murder, is heavy on us now. You
- cannot doubt it. Our son, our innocent boy, on whom His anger fell
- before his birth, is in this place in peril of his life--brought here
- by your guilt; yes, by that alone, as Heaven sees and knows, for he
- has been led astray in the darkness of his intellect, and that is the
- terrible consequence of your crime.’
- ‘If you come, woman-like, to load me with reproaches--’ he muttered,
- again endeavouring to break away.
- ‘I do not. I have a different purpose. You must hear it. If not
- to-night, to-morrow; if not to-morrow, at another time. You MUST hear
- it. Husband, escape is hopeless--impossible.’
- ‘You tell me so, do you?’ he said, raising his manacled hand, and
- shaking it. ‘You!’
- ‘Yes,’ she said, with indescribable earnestness. ‘But why?’
- ‘To make me easy in this jail. To make the time ‘twixt this and death,
- pass pleasantly. For my good--yes, for my good, of course,’ he said,
- grinding his teeth, and smiling at her with a livid face.
- ‘Not to load you with reproaches,’ she replied; ‘not to aggravate the
- tortures and miseries of your condition, not to give you one hard word,
- but to restore you to peace and hope. Husband, dear husband, if you will
- but confess this dreadful crime; if you will but implore forgiveness of
- Heaven and of those whom you have wronged on earth; if you will dismiss
- these vain uneasy thoughts, which never can be realised, and will rely
- on Penitence and on the Truth, I promise you, in the great name of the
- Creator, whose image you have defaced, that He will comfort and console
- you. And for myself,’ she cried, clasping her hands, and looking upward,
- ‘I swear before Him, as He knows my heart and reads it now, that from
- that hour I will love and cherish you as I did of old, and watch you
- night and day in the short interval that will remain to us, and
- soothe you with my truest love and duty, and pray with you, that one
- threatening judgment may be arrested, and that our boy may be spared to
- bless God, in his poor way, in the free air and light!’
- He fell back and gazed at her while she poured out these words, as
- though he were for a moment awed by her manner, and knew not what to do.
- But anger and fear soon got the mastery of him, and he spurned her from
- him.
- ‘Begone!’ he cried. ‘Leave me! You plot, do you! You plot to get speech
- with me, and let them know I am the man they say I am. A curse on you
- and on your boy.’
- ‘On him the curse has already fallen,’ she replied, wringing her hands.
- ‘Let it fall heavier. Let it fall on one and all. I hate you both. The
- worst has come to me. The only comfort that I seek or I can have, will
- be the knowledge that it comes to you. Now go!’
- She would have urged him gently, even then, but he menaced her with his
- chain.
- ‘I say go--I say it for the last time. The gallows has me in its grasp,
- and it is a black phantom that may urge me on to something more. Begone!
- I curse the hour that I was born, the man I slew, and all the living
- world!’
- In a paroxysm of wrath, and terror, and the fear of death, he broke from
- her, and rushed into the darkness of his cell, where he cast himself
- jangling down upon the stone floor, and smote it with his ironed hands.
- The man returned to lock the dungeon door, and having done so, carried
- her away.
- On that warm, balmy night in June, there were glad faces and light
- hearts in all quarters of the town, and sleep, banished by the late
- horrors, was doubly welcomed. On that night, families made merry in
- their houses, and greeted each other on the common danger they had
- escaped; and those who had been denounced, ventured into the streets;
- and they who had been plundered, got good shelter. Even the timorous
- Lord Mayor, who was summoned that night before the Privy Council to
- answer for his conduct, came back contented; observing to all his
- friends that he had got off very well with a reprimand, and repeating
- with huge satisfaction his memorable defence before the Council, ‘that
- such was his temerity, he thought death would have been his portion.’
- On that night, too, more of the scattered remnants of the mob were
- traced to their lurking-places, and taken; and in the hospitals, and
- deep among the ruins they had made, and in the ditches, and fields, many
- unshrouded wretches lay dead: envied by those who had been active in
- the disturbances, and who pillowed their doomed heads in the temporary
- jails.
- And in the Tower, in a dreary room whose thick stone walls shut out
- the hum of life, and made a stillness which the records left by former
- prisoners with those silent witnesses seemed to deepen and intensify;
- remorseful for every act that had been done by every man among the cruel
- crowd; feeling for the time their guilt his own, and their lives put in
- peril by himself; and finding, amidst such reflections, little comfort
- in fanaticism, or in his fancied call; sat the unhappy author of
- all--Lord George Gordon.
- He had been made prisoner that evening. ‘If you are sure it’s me you
- want,’ he said to the officers, who waited outside with the warrant for
- his arrest on a charge of High Treason, ‘I am ready to accompany you--’
- which he did without resistance. He was conducted first before the Privy
- Council, and afterwards to the Horse Guards, and then was taken by way
- of Westminster Bridge, and back over London Bridge (for the purpose of
- avoiding the main streets), to the Tower, under the strongest guard ever
- known to enter its gates with a single prisoner.
- Of all his forty thousand men, not one remained to bear him company.
- Friends, dependents, followers,--none were there. His fawning secretary
- had played the traitor; and he whose weakness had been goaded and urged
- on by so many for their own purposes, was desolate and alone.
- Chapter 74
- Mr Dennis, having been made prisoner late in the evening, was removed to
- a neighbouring round-house for that night, and carried before a justice
- for examination on the next day, Saturday. The charges against him
- being numerous and weighty, and it being in particular proved, by the
- testimony of Gabriel Varden, that he had shown a special desire to take
- his life, he was committed for trial. Moreover he was honoured with
- the distinction of being considered a chief among the insurgents, and
- received from the magistrate’s lips the complimentary assurance that
- he was in a position of imminent danger, and would do well to prepare
- himself for the worst.
- To say that Mr Dennis’s modesty was not somewhat startled by these
- honours, or that he was altogether prepared for so flattering a
- reception, would be to claim for him a greater amount of stoical
- philosophy than even he possessed. Indeed this gentleman’s stoicism was
- of that not uncommon kind, which enables a man to bear with exemplary
- fortitude the afflictions of his friends, but renders him, by way of
- counterpoise, rather selfish and sensitive in respect of any that happen
- to befall himself. It is therefore no disparagement to the great officer
- in question to state, without disguise or concealment, that he was at
- first very much alarmed, and that he betrayed divers emotions of fear,
- until his reasoning powers came to his relief, and set before him a more
- hopeful prospect.
- In proportion as Mr Dennis exercised these intellectual qualities
- with which he was gifted, in reviewing his best chances of coming off
- handsomely and with small personal inconvenience, his spirits rose, and
- his confidence increased. When he remembered the great estimation in
- which his office was held, and the constant demand for his services;
- when he bethought himself, how the Statute Book regarded him as a kind
- of Universal Medicine applicable to men, women, and children, of every
- age and variety of criminal constitution; and how high he stood, in
- his official capacity, in the favour of the Crown, and both Houses of
- Parliament, the Mint, the Bank of England, and the Judges of the land;
- when he recollected that whatever Ministry was in or out, he remained
- their peculiar pet and panacea, and that for his sake England stood
- single and conspicuous among the civilised nations of the earth: when
- he called these things to mind and dwelt upon them, he felt certain that
- the national gratitude MUST relieve him from the consequences of his
- late proceedings, and would certainly restore him to his old place in
- the happy social system.
- With these crumbs, or as one may say, with these whole loaves of comfort
- to regale upon, Mr Dennis took his place among the escort that awaited
- him, and repaired to jail with a manly indifference. Arriving at
- Newgate, where some of the ruined cells had been hastily fitted up for
- the safe keeping of rioters, he was warmly received by the turnkeys,
- as an unusual and interesting case, which agreeably relieved their
- monotonous duties. In this spirit, he was fettered with great care, and
- conveyed into the interior of the prison.
- ‘Brother,’ cried the hangman, as, following an officer, he traversed
- under these novel circumstances the remains of passages with which he
- was well acquainted, ‘am I going to be along with anybody?’
- ‘If you’d have left more walls standing, you’d have been alone,’ was the
- reply. ‘As it is, we’re cramped for room, and you’ll have company.’
- ‘Well,’ returned Dennis, ‘I don’t object to company, brother. I rather
- like company. I was formed for society, I was.’
- ‘That’s rather a pity, an’t it?’ said the man.
- ‘No,’ answered Dennis, ‘I’m not aware that it is. Why should it be a
- pity, brother?’
- ‘Oh! I don’t know,’ said the man carelessly. ‘I thought that was what
- you meant. Being formed for society, and being cut off in your flower,
- you know--’
- ‘I say,’ interposed the other quickly, ‘what are you talking of? Don’t.
- Who’s a-going to be cut off in their flowers?’
- ‘Oh, nobody particular. I thought you was, perhaps,’ said the man.
- Mr Dennis wiped his face, which had suddenly grown very hot, and
- remarking in a tremulous voice to his conductor that he had always been
- fond of his joke, followed him in silence until he stopped at a door.
- ‘This is my quarters, is it?’ he asked facetiously.
- ‘This is the shop, sir,’ replied his friend.
- He was walking in, but not with the best possible grace, when he
- suddenly stopped, and started back.
- ‘Halloa!’ said the officer. ‘You’re nervous.’
- ‘Nervous!’ whispered Dennis in great alarm. ‘Well I may be. Shut the
- door.’
- ‘I will, when you’re in,’ returned the man.
- ‘But I can’t go in there,’ whispered Dennis. ‘I can’t be shut up with
- that man. Do you want me to be throttled, brother?’
- The officer seemed to entertain no particular desire on the subject one
- way or other, but briefly remarking that he had his orders, and intended
- to obey them, pushed him in, turned the key, and retired.
- Dennis stood trembling with his back against the door, and involuntarily
- raising his arm to defend himself, stared at a man, the only other
- tenant of the cell, who lay, stretched at his full length, upon a stone
- bench, and who paused in his deep breathing as if he were about to wake.
- But he rolled over on one side, let his arm fall negligently down, drew
- a long sigh, and murmuring indistinctly, fell fast asleep again.
- Relieved in some degree by this, the hangman took his eyes for an
- instant from the slumbering figure, and glanced round the cell in search
- of some ‘vantage-ground or weapon of defence. There was nothing moveable
- within it, but a clumsy table which could not be displaced without
- noise, and a heavy chair. Stealing on tiptoe towards this latter
- piece of furniture, he retired with it into the remotest corner,
- and intrenching himself behind it, watched the enemy with the utmost
- vigilance and caution.
- The sleeping man was Hugh; and perhaps it was not unnatural for Dennis
- to feel in a state of very uncomfortable suspense, and to wish with
- his whole soul that he might never wake again. Tired of standing, he
- crouched down in his corner after some time, and rested on the cold
- pavement; but although Hugh’s breathing still proclaimed that he
- was sleeping soundly, he could not trust him out of his sight for an
- instant. He was so afraid of him, and of some sudden onslaught, that he
- was not content to see his closed eyes through the chair-back, but
- every now and then, rose stealthily to his feet, and peered at him with
- outstretched neck, to assure himself that he really was still asleep,
- and was not about to spring upon him when he was off his guard.
- He slept so long and so soundly, that Mr Dennis began to think he might
- sleep on until the turnkey visited them. He was congratulating himself
- upon these promising appearances, and blessing his stars with much
- fervour, when one or two unpleasant symptoms manifested themselves: such
- as another motion of the arm, another sigh, a restless tossing of the
- head. Then, just as it seemed that he was about to fall heavily to the
- ground from his narrow bed, Hugh’s eyes opened.
- It happened that his face was turned directly towards his unexpected
- visitor. He looked lazily at him for some half-dozen seconds without any
- aspect of surprise or recognition; then suddenly jumped up, and with a
- great oath pronounced his name.
- ‘Keep off, brother, keep off!’ cried Dennis, dodging behind the chair.
- ‘Don’t do me a mischief. I’m a prisoner like you. I haven’t the free use
- of my limbs. I’m quite an old man. Don’t hurt me!’
- He whined out the last three words in such piteous accents, that Hugh,
- who had dragged away the chair, and aimed a blow at him with it, checked
- himself, and bade him get up.
- ‘I’ll get up certainly, brother,’ cried Dennis, anxious to propitiate
- him by any means in his power. ‘I’ll comply with any request of yours,
- I’m sure. There--I’m up now. What can I do for you? Only say the word,
- and I’ll do it.’
- ‘What can you do for me!’ cried Hugh, clutching him by the collar with
- both hands, and shaking him as though he were bent on stopping his
- breath by that means. ‘What have you done for me?’
- ‘The best. The best that could be done,’ returned the hangman.
- Hugh made him no answer, but shaking him in his strong grip until his
- teeth chattered in his head, cast him down upon the floor, and flung
- himself on the bench again.
- ‘If it wasn’t for the comfort it is to me, to see you here,’ he
- muttered, ‘I’d have crushed your head against it; I would.’
- It was some time before Dennis had breath enough to speak, but as soon
- as he could resume his propitiatory strain, he did so.
- ‘I did the best that could be done, brother,’ he whined; ‘I did indeed.
- I was forced with two bayonets and I don’t know how many bullets on each
- side of me, to point you out. If you hadn’t been taken, you’d have been
- shot; and what a sight that would have been--a fine young man like you!’
- ‘Will it be a better sight now?’ asked Hugh, raising his head, with such
- a fierce expression, that the other durst not answer him just then.
- ‘A deal better,’ said Dennis meekly, after a pause. ‘First, there’s all
- the chances of the law, and they’re five hundred strong. We may get off
- scot-free. Unlikelier things than that have come to pass. Even if we
- shouldn’t, and the chances fail, we can but be worked off once: and when
- it’s well done, it’s so neat, so skilful, so captiwating, if that don’t
- seem too strong a word, that you’d hardly believe it could be brought
- to sich perfection. Kill one’s fellow-creeturs off, with muskets!--Pah!’
- and his nature so revolted at the bare idea, that he spat upon the
- dungeon pavement.
- His warming on this topic, which to one unacquainted with his pursuits
- and tastes appeared like courage; together with his artful suppression
- of his own secret hopes, and mention of himself as being in the same
- condition with Hugh; did more to soothe that ruffian than the most
- elaborate arguments could have done, or the most abject submission.
- He rested his arms upon his knees, and stooping forward, looked from
- beneath his shaggy hair at Dennis, with something of a smile upon his
- face.
- ‘The fact is, brother,’ said the hangman, in a tone of greater
- confidence, ‘that you got into bad company. The man that was with you
- was looked after more than you, and it was him I wanted. As to me, what
- have I got by it? Here we are, in one and the same plight.’
- ‘Lookee, rascal,’ said Hugh, contracting his brows, ‘I’m not altogether
- such a shallow blade but I know you expected to get something by it, or
- you wouldn’t have done it. But it’s done, and you’re here, and it will
- soon be all over with you and me; and I’d as soon die as live, or live
- as die. Why should I trouble myself to have revenge on you? To eat, and
- drink, and go to sleep, as long as I stay here, is all I care for. If
- there was but a little more sun to bask in, than can find its way into
- this cursed place, I’d lie in it all day, and not trouble myself to sit
- or stand up once. That’s all the care I have for myself. Why should I
- care for YOU?’
- Finishing this speech with a growl like the yawn of a wild beast, he
- stretched himself upon the bench again, and closed his eyes once more.
- After looking at him in silence for some moments, Dennis, who was
- greatly relieved to find him in this mood, drew the chair towards his
- rough couch and sat down near him--taking the precaution, however, to
- keep out of the range of his brawny arm.
- ‘Well said, brother; nothing could be better said,’ he ventured to
- observe. ‘We’ll eat and drink of the best, and sleep our best, and make
- the best of it every way. Anything can be got for money. Let’s spend it
- merrily.’
- ‘Ay,’ said Hugh, coiling himself into a new position.--‘Where is it?’
- ‘Why, they took mine from me at the lodge,’ said Mr Dennis; ‘but mine’s
- a peculiar case.’
- ‘Is it? They took mine too.’
- ‘Why then, I tell you what, brother,’ Dennis began. ‘You must look up
- your friends--’
- ‘My friends!’ cried Hugh, starting up and resting on his hands. ‘Where
- are my friends?’
- ‘Your relations then,’ said Dennis.
- ‘Ha ha ha!’ laughed Hugh, waving one arm above his head. ‘He talks of
- friends to me--talks of relations to a man whose mother died the death
- in store for her son, and left him, a hungry brat, without a face he
- knew in all the world! He talks of this to me!’
- ‘Brother,’ cried the hangman, whose features underwent a sudden change,
- ‘you don’t mean to say--’
- ‘I mean to say,’ Hugh interposed, ‘that they hung her up at Tyburn. What
- was good enough for her, is good enough for me. Let them do the like by
- me as soon as they please--the sooner the better. Say no more to me. I’m
- going to sleep.’
- ‘But I want to speak to you; I want to hear more about that,’ said
- Dennis, changing colour.
- ‘If you’re a wise man,’ growled Hugh, raising his head to look at him
- with a frown, ‘you’ll hold your tongue. I tell you I’m going to sleep.’
- Dennis venturing to say something more in spite of this caution, the
- desperate fellow struck at him with all his force, and missing him, lay
- down again with many muttered oaths and imprecations, and turned his
- face towards the wall. After two or three ineffectual twitches at his
- dress, which he was hardy enough to venture upon, notwithstanding his
- dangerous humour, Mr Dennis, who burnt, for reasons of his own, to
- pursue the conversation, had no alternative but to sit as patiently as
- he could: waiting his further pleasure.
- Chapter 75
- A month has elapsed,--and we stand in the bedchamber of Sir John
- Chester. Through the half-opened window, the Temple Garden looks green
- and pleasant; the placid river, gay with boat and barge, and dimpled
- with the plash of many an oar, sparkles in the distance; the sky is blue
- and clear; and the summer air steals gently in, filling the room with
- perfume. The very town, the smoky town, is radiant. High roofs and
- steeple-tops, wont to look black and sullen, smile a cheerful grey;
- every old gilded vane, and ball, and cross, glitters anew in the bright
- morning sun; and, high among them all, St Paul’s towers up, showing its
- lofty crest in burnished gold.
- Sir John was breakfasting in bed. His chocolate and toast stood upon a
- little table at his elbow; books and newspapers lay ready to his hand,
- upon the coverlet; and, sometimes pausing to glance with an air of
- tranquil satisfaction round the well-ordered room, and sometimes to
- gaze indolently at the summer sky, he ate, and drank, and read the news
- luxuriously.
- The cheerful influence of the morning seemed to have some effect, even
- upon his equable temper. His manner was unusually gay; his smile more
- placid and agreeable than usual; his voice more clear and pleasant. He
- laid down the newspaper he had been reading; leaned back upon his
- pillow with the air of one who resigned himself to a train of charming
- recollections; and after a pause, soliloquised as follows:
- ‘And my friend the centaur, goes the way of his mamma! I am not
- surprised. And his mysterious friend Mr Dennis, likewise! I am not
- surprised. And my old postman, the exceedingly free-and-easy young
- madman of Chigwell! I am quite rejoiced. It’s the very best thing that
- could possibly happen to him.’
- After delivering himself of these remarks, he fell again into his
- smiling train of reflection; from which he roused himself at length
- to finish his chocolate, which was getting cold, and ring the bell for
- more.
- The new supply arriving, he took the cup from his servant’s hand;
- and saying, with a charming affability, ‘I am obliged to you, Peak,’
- dismissed him.
- ‘It is a remarkable circumstance,’ he mused, dallying lazily with the
- teaspoon, ‘that my friend the madman should have been within an ace of
- escaping, on his trial; and it was a good stroke of chance (or, as the
- world would say, a providential occurrence) that the brother of my Lord
- Mayor should have been in court, with other country justices, into whose
- very dense heads curiosity had penetrated. For though the brother of my
- Lord Mayor was decidedly wrong; and established his near relationship
- to that amusing person beyond all doubt, in stating that my friend
- was sane, and had, to his knowledge, wandered about the country with a
- vagabond parent, avowing revolutionary and rebellious sentiments; I am
- not the less obliged to him for volunteering that evidence. These insane
- creatures make such very odd and embarrassing remarks, that they really
- ought to be hanged for the comfort of society.’
- The country justice had indeed turned the wavering scale against poor
- Barnaby, and solved the doubt that trembled in his favour. Grip little
- thought how much he had to answer for.
- ‘They will be a singular party,’ said Sir John, leaning his head upon
- his hand, and sipping his chocolate; ‘a very curious party. The hangman
- himself; the centaur; and the madman. The centaur would make a very
- handsome preparation in Surgeons’ Hall, and would benefit science
- extremely. I hope they have taken care to bespeak him.--Peak, I am not
- at home, of course, to anybody but the hairdresser.’
- This reminder to his servant was called forth by a knock at the door,
- which the man hastened to open. After a prolonged murmur of question and
- answer, he returned; and as he cautiously closed the room-door behind
- him, a man was heard to cough in the passage.
- ‘Now, it is of no use, Peak,’ said Sir John, raising his hand in
- deprecation of his delivering any message; ‘I am not at home. I cannot
- possibly hear you. I told you I was not at home, and my word is sacred.
- Will you never do as you are desired?’
- Having nothing to oppose to this reproof, the man was about to withdraw,
- when the visitor who had given occasion to it, probably rendered
- impatient by delay, knocked with his knuckles at the chamber-door, and
- called out that he had urgent business with Sir John Chester, which
- admitted of no delay.
- ‘Let him in,’ said Sir John. ‘My good fellow,’ he added, when the door
- was opened, ‘how come you to intrude yourself in this extraordinary
- manner upon the privacy of a gentleman? How can you be so wholly
- destitute of self-respect as to be guilty of such remarkable
- ill-breeding?’
- ‘My business, Sir John, is not of a common kind, I do assure you,’
- returned the person he addressed. ‘If I have taken any uncommon course
- to get admission to you, I hope I shall be pardoned on that account.’
- ‘Well! we shall see; we shall see,’ returned Sir John, whose face
- cleared up when he saw who it was, and whose prepossessing smile was now
- restored. ‘I am sure we have met before,’ he added in his winning tone,
- ‘but really I forget your name?’
- ‘My name is Gabriel Varden, sir.’
- ‘Varden, of course, Varden,’ returned Sir John, tapping his forehead.
- ‘Dear me, how very defective my memory becomes! Varden to be sure--Mr
- Varden the locksmith. You have a charming wife, Mr Varden, and a most
- beautiful daughter. They are well?’
- Gabriel thanked him, and said they were.
- ‘I rejoice to hear it,’ said Sir John. ‘Commend me to them when you
- return, and say that I wished I were fortunate enough to convey, myself,
- the salute which I entrust you to deliver. And what,’ he asked very
- sweetly, after a moment’s pause, ‘can I do for you? You may command me
- freely.’
- ‘I thank you, Sir John,’ said Gabriel, with some pride in his
- manner, ‘but I have come to ask no favour of you, though I come on
- business.--Private,’ he added, with a glance at the man who stood
- looking on, ‘and very pressing business.’
- ‘I cannot say you are the more welcome for being independent, and having
- nothing to ask of me,’ returned Sir John, graciously, ‘for I should have
- been happy to render you a service; still, you are welcome on any terms.
- Oblige me with some more chocolate, Peak, and don’t wait.’
- The man retired, and left them alone.
- ‘Sir John,’ said Gabriel, ‘I am a working-man, and have been so, all my
- life. If I don’t prepare you enough for what I have to tell; if I come
- to the point too abruptly; and give you a shock, which a gentleman could
- have spared you, or at all events lessened very much; I hope you will
- give me credit for meaning well. I wish to be careful and considerate,
- and I trust that in a straightforward person like me, you’ll take the
- will for the deed.’
- ‘Mr Varden,’ returned the other, perfectly composed under this exordium;
- ‘I beg you’ll take a chair. Chocolate, perhaps, you don’t relish? Well!
- it IS an acquired taste, no doubt.’
- ‘Sir John,’ said Gabriel, who had acknowledged with a bow the invitation
- to be seated, but had not availed himself of it. ‘Sir John’--he
- dropped his voice and drew nearer to the bed--‘I am just now come from
- Newgate--’
- ‘Good Gad!’ cried Sir John, hastily sitting up in bed; ‘from Newgate,
- Mr Varden! How could you be so very imprudent as to come from Newgate!
- Newgate, where there are jail-fevers, and ragged people, and bare-footed
- men and women, and a thousand horrors! Peak, bring the camphor, quick!
- Heaven and earth, Mr Varden, my dear, good soul, how COULD you come from
- Newgate?’
- Gabriel returned no answer, but looked on in silence while Peak (who had
- entered with the hot chocolate) ran to a drawer, and returning with
- a bottle, sprinkled his master’s dressing-gown and the bedding; and
- besides moistening the locksmith himself, plentifully, described a
- circle round about him on the carpet. When he had done this, he again
- retired; and Sir John, reclining in an easy attitude upon his pillow,
- once more turned a smiling face towards his visitor.
- ‘You will forgive me, Mr Varden, I am sure, for being at first a little
- sensitive both on your account and my own. I confess I was startled,
- notwithstanding your delicate exordium. Might I ask you to do me the
- favour not to approach any nearer?--You have really come from Newgate!’
- The locksmith inclined his head.
- ‘In-deed! And now, Mr Varden, all exaggeration and embellishment apart,’
- said Sir John Chester, confidentially, as he sipped his chocolate, ‘what
- kind of place IS Newgate?’
- ‘A strange place, Sir John,’ returned the locksmith, ‘of a sad and
- doleful kind. A strange place, where many strange things are heard and
- seen; but few more strange than that I come to tell you of. The case is
- urgent. I am sent here.’
- ‘Not--no, no--not from the jail?’
- ‘Yes, Sir John; from the jail.’
- ‘And my good, credulous, open-hearted friend,’ said Sir John, setting
- down his cup, and laughing,--‘by whom?’
- ‘By a man called Dennis--for many years the hangman, and to-morrow
- morning the hanged,’ returned the locksmith.
- Sir John had expected--had been quite certain from the first--that he
- would say he had come from Hugh, and was prepared to meet him on that
- point. But this answer occasioned him a degree of astonishment, which,
- for the moment, he could not, with all his command of feature, prevent
- his face from expressing. He quickly subdued it, however, and said in
- the same light tone:
- ‘And what does the gentleman require of me? My memory may be at
- fault again, but I don’t recollect that I ever had the pleasure of
- an introduction to him, or that I ever numbered him among my personal
- friends, I do assure you, Mr Varden.’
- ‘Sir John,’ returned the locksmith, gravely, ‘I will tell you, as nearly
- as I can, in the words he used to me, what he desires that you should
- know, and what you ought to know without a moment’s loss of time.’
- Sir John Chester settled himself in a position of greater repose, and
- looked at his visitor with an expression of face which seemed to say,
- ‘This is an amusing fellow! I’ll hear him out.’
- ‘You may have seen in the newspapers, sir,’ said Gabriel, pointing to
- the one which lay by his side, ‘that I was a witness against this man
- upon his trial some days since; and that it was not his fault I was
- alive, and able to speak to what I knew.’
- ‘MAY have seen!’ cried Sir John. ‘My dear Mr Varden, you are quite
- a public character, and live in all men’s thoughts most deservedly.
- Nothing can exceed the interest with which I read your testimony,
- and remembered that I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance with
- you.---I hope we shall have your portrait published?’
- ‘This morning, sir,’ said the locksmith, taking no notice of these
- compliments, ‘early this morning, a message was brought to me from
- Newgate, at this man’s request, desiring that I would go and see him,
- for he had something particular to communicate. I needn’t tell you
- that he is no friend of mine, and that I had never seen him, until the
- rioters beset my house.’
- Sir John fanned himself gently with the newspaper, and nodded.
- ‘I knew, however, from the general report,’ resumed Gabriel, ‘that the
- order for his execution to-morrow, went down to the prison last night;
- and looking upon him as a dying man, I complied with his request.’
- ‘You are quite a Christian, Mr Varden,’ said Sir John; ‘and in that
- amiable capacity, you increase my desire that you should take a chair.’
- ‘He said,’ continued Gabriel, looking steadily at the knight, ‘that he
- had sent to me, because he had no friend or companion in the whole world
- (being the common hangman), and because he believed, from the way in
- which I had given my evidence, that I was an honest man, and would act
- truly by him. He said that, being shunned by every one who knew his
- calling, even by people of the lowest and most wretched grade, and
- finding, when he joined the rioters, that the men he acted with had no
- suspicion of it (which I believe is true enough, for a poor fool of an
- old ‘prentice of mine was one of them), he had kept his own counsel, up
- to the time of his being taken and put in jail.’
- ‘Very discreet of Mr Dennis,’ observed Sir John with a slight yawn,
- though still with the utmost affability, ‘but--except for your admirable
- and lucid manner of telling it, which is perfect--not very interesting
- to me.’
- ‘When,’ pursued the locksmith, quite unabashed and wholly regardless of
- these interruptions, ‘when he was taken to the jail, he found that his
- fellow-prisoner, in the same room, was a young man, Hugh by name, a
- leader in the riots, who had been betrayed and given up by himself. From
- something which fell from this unhappy creature in the course of the
- angry words they had at meeting, he discovered that his mother had
- suffered the death to which they both are now condemned.--The time is
- very short, Sir John.’
- The knight laid down his paper fan, replaced his cup upon the table at
- his side, and, saving for the smile that lurked about his mouth, looked
- at the locksmith with as much steadiness as the locksmith looked at him.
- ‘They have been in prison now, a month. One conversation led to many
- more; and the hangman soon found, from a comparison of time, and place,
- and dates, that he had executed the sentence of the law upon this woman,
- himself. She had been tempted by want--as so many people are--into the
- easy crime of passing forged notes. She was young and handsome; and the
- traders who employ men, women, and children in this traffic, looked
- upon her as one who was well adapted for their business, and who
- would probably go on without suspicion for a long time. But they were
- mistaken; for she was stopped in the commission of her very first
- offence, and died for it. She was of gipsy blood, Sir John--’
- It might have been the effect of a passing cloud which obscured the sun,
- and cast a shadow on his face; but the knight turned deadly pale. Still
- he met the locksmith’s eye, as before.
- ‘She was of gipsy blood, Sir John,’ repeated Gabriel, ‘and had a high,
- free spirit. This, and her good looks, and her lofty manner, interested
- some gentlemen who were easily moved by dark eyes; and efforts were made
- to save her. They might have been successful, if she would have given
- them any clue to her history. But she never would, or did. There was
- reason to suspect that she would make an attempt upon her life. A watch
- was set upon her night and day; and from that time she never spoke
- again--’
- Sir John stretched out his hand towards his cup. The locksmith going on,
- arrested it half-way.
- --‘Until she had but a minute to live. Then she broke silence, and said,
- in a low firm voice which no one heard but this executioner, for all
- other living creatures had retired and left her to her fate, “If I had
- a dagger within these fingers and he was within my reach, I would strike
- him dead before me, even now!” The man asked “Who?” She said, “The
- father of her boy.”’
- Sir John drew back his outstretched hand, and seeing that the locksmith
- paused, signed to him with easy politeness and without any new
- appearance of emotion, to proceed.
- ‘It was the first word she had ever spoken, from which it could be
- understood that she had any relative on earth. “Was the child alive?” he
- asked. “Yes.” He asked her where it was, its name, and whether she had
- any wish respecting it. She had but one, she said. It was that the boy
- might live and grow, in utter ignorance of his father, so that no arts
- might teach him to be gentle and forgiving. When he became a man,
- she trusted to the God of their tribe to bring the father and the
- son together, and revenge her through her child. He asked her other
- questions, but she spoke no more. Indeed, he says, she scarcely said
- this much, to him, but stood with her face turned upwards to the sky,
- and never looked towards him once.’
- Sir John took a pinch of snuff; glanced approvingly at an elegant little
- sketch, entitled ‘Nature,’ on the wall; and raising his eyes to the
- locksmith’s face again, said, with an air of courtesy and patronage,
- ‘You were observing, Mr Varden--’
- ‘That she never,’ returned the locksmith, who was not to be diverted by
- any artifice from his firm manner, and his steady gaze, ‘that she never
- looked towards him once, Sir John; and so she died, and he forgot her.
- But, some years afterwards, a man was sentenced to die the same death,
- who was a gipsy too; a sunburnt, swarthy fellow, almost a wild man; and
- while he lay in prison, under sentence, he, who had seen the hangman
- more than once while he was free, cut an image of him on his stick, by
- way of braving death, and showing those who attended on him, how little
- he cared or thought about it. He gave this stick into his hands at
- Tyburn, and told him then, that the woman I have spoken of had left her
- own people to join a fine gentleman, and that, being deserted by him,
- and cast off by her old friends, she had sworn within her own proud
- breast, that whatever her misery might be, she would ask no help of any
- human being. He told him that she had kept her word to the last; and
- that, meeting even him in the streets--he had been fond of her once, it
- seems--she had slipped from him by a trick, and he never saw her again,
- until, being in one of the frequent crowds at Tyburn, with some of
- his rough companions, he had been driven almost mad by seeing, in
- the criminal under another name, whose death he had come to witness,
- herself. Standing in the same place in which she had stood, he told
- the hangman this, and told him, too, her real name, which only her own
- people and the gentleman for whose sake she had left them, knew. That
- name he will tell again, Sir John, to none but you.’
- ‘To none but me!’ exclaimed the knight, pausing in the act of raising
- his cup to his lips with a perfectly steady hand, and curling up his
- little finger for the better display of a brilliant ring with which it
- was ornamented: ‘but me!--My dear Mr Varden, how very preposterous, to
- select me for his confidence! With you at his elbow, too, who are so
- perfectly trustworthy!’
- ‘Sir John, Sir John,’ returned the locksmith, ‘at twelve tomorrow, these
- men die. Hear the few words I have to add, and do not hope to deceive
- me; for though I am a plain man of humble station, and you are a
- gentleman of rank and learning, the truth raises me to your level, and
- I KNOW that you anticipate the disclosure with which I am about to end,
- and that you believe this doomed man, Hugh, to be your son.’
- ‘Nay,’ said Sir John, bantering him with a gay air; ‘the wild gentleman,
- who died so suddenly, scarcely went as far as that, I think?’
- ‘He did not,’ returned the locksmith, ‘for she had bound him by some
- pledge, known only to these people, and which the worst among them
- respect, not to tell your name: but, in a fantastic pattern on the
- stick, he had carved some letters, and when the hangman asked it, he
- bade him, especially if he should ever meet with her son in after life,
- remember that place well.’
- ‘What place?’
- ‘Chester.’
- The knight finished his cup of chocolate with an appearance of infinite
- relish, and carefully wiped his lips upon his handkerchief.
- ‘Sir John,’ said the locksmith, ‘this is all that has been told to me;
- but since these two men have been left for death, they have conferred
- together closely. See them, and hear what they can add. See this Dennis,
- and learn from him what he has not trusted to me. If you, who hold the
- clue to all, want corroboration (which you do not), the means are easy.’
- ‘And to what,’ said Sir John Chester, rising on his elbow, after
- smoothing the pillow for its reception; ‘my dear, good-natured,
- estimable Mr Varden--with whom I cannot be angry if I would--to what
- does all this tend?’
- ‘I take you for a man, Sir John, and I suppose it tends to some pleading
- of natural affection in your breast,’ returned the locksmith. ‘I suppose
- to the straining of every nerve, and the exertion of all the influence
- you have, or can make, in behalf of your miserable son, and the man
- who has disclosed his existence to you. At the worst, I suppose to your
- seeing your son, and awakening him to a sense of his crime and danger.
- He has no such sense now. Think what his life must have been, when he
- said in my hearing, that if I moved you to anything, it would be to
- hastening his death, and ensuring his silence, if you had it in your
- power!’
- ‘And have you, my good Mr Varden,’ said Sir John in a tone of mild
- reproof, ‘have you really lived to your present age, and remained so
- very simple and credulous, as to approach a gentleman of established
- character with such credentials as these, from desperate men in their
- last extremity, catching at any straw? Oh dear! Oh fie, fie!’
- The locksmith was going to interpose, but he stopped him:
- ‘On any other subject, Mr Varden, I shall be delighted--I shall be
- charmed--to converse with you, but I owe it to my own character not to
- pursue this topic for another moment.’
- ‘Think better of it, sir, when I am gone,’ returned the locksmith;
- ‘think better of it, sir. Although you have, thrice within as many
- weeks, turned your lawful son, Mr Edward, from your door, you may have
- time, you may have years to make your peace with HIM, Sir John: but that
- twelve o’clock will soon be here, and soon be past for ever.’
- ‘I thank you very much,’ returned the knight, kissing his delicate hand
- to the locksmith, ‘for your guileless advice; and I only wish, my good
- soul, although your simplicity is quite captivating, that you had a
- little more worldly wisdom. I never so much regretted the arrival of my
- hairdresser as I do at this moment. God bless you! Good morning! You’ll
- not forget my message to the ladies, Mr Varden? Peak, show Mr Varden to
- the door.’
- Gabriel said no more, but gave the knight a parting look, and left him.
- As he quitted the room, Sir John’s face changed; and the smile gave
- place to a haggard and anxious expression, like that of a weary actor
- jaded by the performance of a difficult part. He rose from his bed with
- a heavy sigh, and wrapped himself in his morning-gown.
- ‘So she kept her word,’ he said, ‘and was constant to her threat! I
- would I had never seen that dark face of hers,--I might have read these
- consequences in it, from the first. This affair would make a noise
- abroad, if it rested on better evidence; but, as it is, and by not
- joining the scattered links of the chain, I can afford to slight
- it.--Extremely distressing to be the parent of such an uncouth creature!
- Still, I gave him very good advice. I told him he would certainly be
- hanged. I could have done no more if I had known of our relationship;
- and there are a great many fathers who have never done as much for THEIR
- natural children.--The hairdresser may come in, Peak!’
- The hairdresser came in; and saw in Sir John Chester (whose
- accommodating conscience was soon quieted by the numerous precedents
- that occurred to him in support of his last observation), the same
- imperturbable, fascinating, elegant gentleman he had seen yesterday, and
- many yesterdays before.
- Chapter 76
- As the locksmith walked slowly away from Sir John Chester’s chambers,
- he lingered under the trees which shaded the path, almost hoping that
- he might be summoned to return. He had turned back thrice, and still
- loitered at the corner, when the clock struck twelve.
- It was a solemn sound, and not merely for its reference to to-morrow;
- for he knew that in that chime the murderer’s knell was rung. He had
- seen him pass along the crowded street, amidst the execration of the
- throng; and marked his quivering lip, and trembling limbs; the ashy hue
- upon his face, his clammy brow, the wild distraction of his eye--the
- fear of death that swallowed up all other thoughts, and gnawed without
- cessation at his heart and brain. He had marked the wandering look,
- seeking for hope, and finding, turn where it would, despair. He had seen
- the remorseful, pitiful, desolate creature, riding, with his coffin
- by his side, to the gibbet. He knew that, to the last, he had been an
- unyielding, obdurate man; that in the savage terror of his condition he
- had hardened, rather than relented, to his wife and child; and that the
- last words which had passed his white lips were curses on them as his
- enemies.
- Mr Haredale had determined to be there, and see it done. Nothing but
- the evidence of his own senses could satisfy that gloomy thirst for
- retribution which had been gathering upon him for so many years. The
- locksmith knew this, and when the chimes had ceased to vibrate, hurried
- away to meet him.
- ‘For these two men,’ he said, as he went, ‘I can do no more. Heaven have
- mercy on them!--Alas! I say I can do no more for them, but whom can I
- help? Mary Rudge will have a home, and a firm friend when she most wants
- one; but Barnaby--poor Barnaby--willing Barnaby--what aid can I render
- him? There are many, many men of sense, God forgive me,’ cried the
- honest locksmith, stopping in a narrow court to pass his hand across his
- eyes, ‘I could better afford to lose than Barnaby. We have always been
- good friends, but I never knew, till now, how much I loved the lad.’
- There were not many in the great city who thought of Barnaby that day,
- otherwise than as an actor in a show which was to take place to-morrow.
- But if the whole population had had him in their minds, and had wished
- his life to be spared, not one among them could have done so with a
- purer zeal or greater singleness of heart than the good locksmith.
- Barnaby was to die. There was no hope. It is not the least evil
- attendant upon the frequent exhibition of this last dread punishment,
- of Death, that it hardens the minds of those who deal it out, and makes
- them, though they be amiable men in other respects, indifferent to, or
- unconscious of, their great responsibility. The word had gone forth that
- Barnaby was to die. It went forth, every month, for lighter crimes.
- It was a thing so common, that very few were startled by the awful
- sentence, or cared to question its propriety. Just then, too, when the
- law had been so flagrantly outraged, its dignity must be asserted.
- The symbol of its dignity,--stamped upon every page of the criminal
- statute-book,--was the gallows; and Barnaby was to die.
- They had tried to save him. The locksmith had carried petitions and
- memorials to the fountain-head, with his own hands. But the well was not
- one of mercy, and Barnaby was to die.
- From the first his mother had never left him, save at night; and with
- her beside him, he was as usual contented. On this last day, he was more
- elated and more proud than he had been yet; and when she dropped the
- book she had been reading to him aloud, and fell upon his neck, he
- stopped in his busy task of folding a piece of crape about his hat,
- and wondered at her anguish. Grip uttered a feeble croak, half in
- encouragement, it seemed, and half in remonstrance, but he wanted heart
- to sustain it, and lapsed abruptly into silence.
- With them who stood upon the brink of the great gulf which none can see
- beyond, Time, so soon to lose itself in vast Eternity, rolled on like a
- mighty river, swollen and rapid as it nears the sea. It was morning but
- now; they had sat and talked together in a dream; and here was evening.
- The dreadful hour of separation, which even yesterday had seemed so
- distant, was at hand.
- They walked out into the courtyard, clinging to each other, but not
- speaking. Barnaby knew that the jail was a dull, sad, miserable place,
- and looked forward to to-morrow, as to a passage from it to something
- bright and beautiful. He had a vague impression too, that he was
- expected to be brave--that he was a man of great consequence, and that
- the prison people would be glad to make him weep. He trod the ground
- more firmly as he thought of this, and bade her take heart and cry no
- more, and feel how steady his hand was. ‘They call me silly, mother.
- They shall see to-morrow!’
- Dennis and Hugh were in the courtyard. Hugh came forth from his cell as
- they did, stretching himself as though he had been sleeping. Dennis sat
- upon a bench in a corner, with his knees and chin huddled together, and
- rocked himself to and fro like a person in severe pain.
- The mother and son remained on one side of the court, and these two men
- upon the other. Hugh strode up and down, glancing fiercely every now and
- then at the bright summer sky, and looking round, when he had done so,
- at the walls.
- ‘No reprieve, no reprieve! Nobody comes near us. There’s only the night
- left now!’ moaned Dennis faintly, as he wrung his hands. ‘Do you think
- they’ll reprieve me in the night, brother? I’ve known reprieves come
- in the night, afore now. I’ve known ‘em come as late as five, six, and
- seven o’clock in the morning. Don’t you think there’s a good chance
- yet,--don’t you? Say you do. Say you do, young man,’ whined the
- miserable creature, with an imploring gesture towards Barnaby, ‘or I
- shall go mad!’
- ‘Better be mad than sane, here,’ said Hugh. ‘GO mad.’
- ‘But tell me what you think. Somebody tell me what he thinks!’ cried
- the wretched object,--so mean, and wretched, and despicable, that even
- Pity’s self might have turned away, at sight of such a being in the
- likeness of a man--‘isn’t there a chance for me,--isn’t there a good
- chance for me? Isn’t it likely they may be doing this to frighten me?
- Don’t you think it is? Oh!’ he almost shrieked, as he wrung his hands,
- ‘won’t anybody give me comfort!’
- ‘You ought to be the best, instead of the worst,’ said Hugh, stopping
- before him. ‘Ha, ha, ha! See the hangman, when it comes home to him!’
- ‘You don’t know what it is,’ cried Dennis, actually writhing as he
- spoke: ‘I do. That I should come to be worked off! I! I! That I should
- come!’
- ‘And why not?’ said Hugh, as he thrust back his matted hair to get a
- better view of his late associate. ‘How often, before I knew your trade,
- did I hear you talking of this as if it was a treat?’
- ‘I an’t unconsistent,’ screamed the miserable creature; ‘I’d talk so
- again, if I was hangman. Some other man has got my old opinions at this
- minute. That makes it worse. Somebody’s longing to work me off. I know
- by myself that somebody must be!’
- ‘He’ll soon have his longing,’ said Hugh, resuming his walk. ‘Think of
- that, and be quiet.’
- Although one of these men displayed, in his speech and bearing, the
- most reckless hardihood; and the other, in his every word and action,
- testified such an extreme of abject cowardice that it was humiliating
- to see him; it would be difficult to say which of them would most have
- repelled and shocked an observer. Hugh’s was the dogged desperation of
- a savage at the stake; the hangman was reduced to a condition little
- better, if any, than that of a hound with the halter round his neck.
- Yet, as Mr Dennis knew and could have told them, these were the two
- commonest states of mind in persons brought to their pass. Such was the
- wholesome growth of the seed sown by the law, that this kind of harvest
- was usually looked for, as a matter of course.
- In one respect they all agreed. The wandering and uncontrollable train
- of thought, suggesting sudden recollections of things distant and long
- forgotten and remote from each other--the vague restless craving for
- something undefined, which nothing could satisfy--the swift flight of
- the minutes, fusing themselves into hours, as if by enchantment--the
- rapid coming of the solemn night--the shadow of death always upon them,
- and yet so dim and faint, that objects the meanest and most trivial
- started from the gloom beyond, and forced themselves upon the view--the
- impossibility of holding the mind, even if they had been so disposed,
- to penitence and preparation, or of keeping it to any point while one
- hideous fascination tempted it away--these things were common to them
- all, and varied only in their outward tokens.
- ‘Fetch me the book I left within--upon your bed,’ she said to Barnaby,
- as the clock struck. ‘Kiss me first.’
- He looked in her face, and saw there, that the time was come. After a
- long embrace, he tore himself away, and ran to bring it to her; bidding
- her not stir till he came back. He soon returned, for a shriek recalled
- him,--but she was gone.
- He ran to the yard-gate, and looked through. They were carrying her
- away. She had said her heart would break. It was better so.
- ‘Don’t you think,’ whimpered Dennis, creeping up to him, as he stood
- with his feet rooted to the ground, gazing at the blank walls--‘don’t
- you think there’s still a chance? It’s a dreadful end; it’s a terrible
- end for a man like me. Don’t you think there’s a chance? I don’t mean
- for you, I mean for me. Don’t let HIM hear us (meaning Hugh); ‘he’s so
- desperate.’
- ‘Now then,’ said the officer, who had been lounging in and out with his
- hands in his pockets, and yawning as if he were in the last extremity
- for some subject of interest: ‘it’s time to turn in, boys.’
- ‘Not yet,’ cried Dennis, ‘not yet. Not for an hour yet.’
- ‘I say,--your watch goes different from what it used to,’ returned the
- man. ‘Once upon a time it was always too fast. It’s got the other fault
- now.’
- ‘My friend,’ cried the wretched creature, falling on his knees, ‘my
- dear friend--you always were my dear friend--there’s some mistake. Some
- letter has been mislaid, or some messenger has been stopped upon the
- way. He may have fallen dead. I saw a man once, fall down dead in the
- street, myself, and he had papers in his pocket. Send to inquire. Let
- somebody go to inquire. They never will hang me. They never can.--Yes,
- they will,’ he cried, starting to his feet with a terrible scream.
- ‘They’ll hang me by a trick, and keep the pardon back. It’s a plot
- against me. I shall lose my life!’ And uttering another yell, he fell in
- a fit upon the ground.
- ‘See the hangman when it comes home to him!’ cried Hugh again, as they
- bore him away--‘Ha ha ha! Courage, bold Barnaby, what care we? Your
- hand! They do well to put us out of the world, for if we got loose a
- second time, we wouldn’t let them off so easy, eh? Another shake! A man
- can die but once. If you wake in the night, sing that out lustily, and
- fall asleep again. Ha ha ha!’
- Barnaby glanced once more through the grate into the empty yard;
- and then watched Hugh as he strode to the steps leading to his
- sleeping-cell. He heard him shout, and burst into a roar of laughter,
- and saw him flourish his hat. Then he turned away himself, like one who
- walked in his sleep; and, without any sense of fear or sorrow, lay down
- on his pallet, listening for the clock to strike again.
- Chapter 77
- The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less frequent by
- degrees, until silence was scarcely broken save by the bells in church
- towers, marking the progress--softer and more stealthy while the city
- slumbered--of that Great Watcher with the hoary head, who never sleeps
- or rests. In the brief interval of darkness and repose which feverish
- towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed; and those who awoke from
- dreams lay listening in their beds, and longed for dawn, and wished the
- dead of the night were past.
- Into the street outside the jail’s main wall, workmen came straggling at
- this solemn hour, in groups of two or three, and meeting in the centre,
- cast their tools upon the ground and spoke in whispers. Others soon
- issued from the jail itself, bearing on their shoulders planks and
- beams: these materials being all brought forth, the rest bestirred
- themselves, and the dull sound of hammers began to echo through the
- stillness.
- Here and there among this knot of labourers, one, with a lantern or
- a smoky link, stood by to light his fellows at their work; and by its
- doubtful aid, some might be dimly seen taking up the pavement of the
- road, while others held great upright posts, or fixed them in the holes
- thus made for their reception. Some dragged slowly on, towards the rest,
- an empty cart, which they brought rumbling from the prison-yard; while
- others erected strong barriers across the street. All were busily
- engaged. Their dusky figures moving to and fro, at that unusual hour,
- so active and so silent, might have been taken for those of shadowy
- creatures toiling at midnight on some ghostly unsubstantial work, which,
- like themselves, would vanish with the first gleam of day, and leave but
- morning mist and vapour.
- While it was yet dark, a few lookers-on collected, who had plainly come
- there for the purpose and intended to remain: even those who had to pass
- the spot on their way to some other place, lingered, and lingered yet,
- as though the attraction of that were irresistible. Meanwhile the noise
- of saw and mallet went on briskly, mingled with the clattering of boards
- on the stone pavement of the road, and sometimes with the workmen’s
- voices as they called to one another. Whenever the chimes of the
- neighbouring church were heard--and that was every quarter of an hour--a
- strange sensation, instantaneous and indescribable, but perfectly
- obvious, seemed to pervade them all.
- Gradually, a faint brightness appeared in the east, and the air, which
- had been very warm all through the night, felt cool and chilly. Though
- there was no daylight yet, the darkness was diminished, and the stars
- looked pale. The prison, which had been a mere black mass with little
- shape or form, put on its usual aspect; and ever and anon a solitary
- watchman could be seen upon its roof, stopping to look down upon the
- preparations in the street. This man, from forming, as it were, a part
- of the jail, and knowing or being supposed to know all that was passing
- within, became an object of as much interest, and was as eagerly looked
- for, and as awfully pointed out, as if he had been a spirit.
- By and by, the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses with their
- signboards and inscriptions, stood plainly out, in the dull grey
- morning. Heavy stage waggons crawled from the inn-yard opposite; and
- travellers peeped out; and as they rolled sluggishly away, cast many
- a backward look towards the jail. And now, the sun’s first beams came
- glancing into the street; and the night’s work, which, in its various
- stages and in the varied fancies of the lookers-on had taken a hundred
- shapes, wore its own proper form--a scaffold, and a gibbet.
- As the warmth of the cheerful day began to shed itself upon the scanty
- crowd, the murmur of tongues was heard, shutters were thrown open,
- and blinds drawn up, and those who had slept in rooms over against the
- prison, where places to see the execution were let at high prices, rose
- hastily from their beds. In some of the houses, people were busy taking
- out the window-sashes for the better accommodation of spectators; in
- others, the spectators were already seated, and beguiling the time with
- cards, or drink, or jokes among themselves. Some had purchased seats
- upon the house-tops, and were already crawling to their stations from
- parapet and garret-window. Some were yet bargaining for good places, and
- stood in them in a state of indecision: gazing at the slowly-swelling
- crowd, and at the workmen as they rested listlessly against the
- scaffold--affecting to listen with indifference to the proprietor’s
- eulogy of the commanding view his house afforded, and the surpassing
- cheapness of his terms.
- A fairer morning never shone. From the roofs and upper stories of these
- buildings, the spires of city churches and the great cathedral dome were
- visible, rising up beyond the prison, into the blue sky, and clad in the
- colour of light summer clouds, and showing in the clear atmosphere their
- every scrap of tracery and fretwork, and every niche and loophole. All
- was brightness and promise, excepting in the street below, into which
- (for it yet lay in shadow) the eye looked down as into a dark trench,
- where, in the midst of so much life, and hope, and renewal of existence,
- stood the terrible instrument of death. It seemed as if the very sun
- forbore to look upon it.
- But it was better, grim and sombre in the shade, than when, the day
- being more advanced, it stood confessed in the full glare and glory of
- the sun, with its black paint blistering, and its nooses dangling in the
- light like loathsome garlands. It was better in the solitude and gloom
- of midnight with a few forms clustering about it, than in the freshness
- and the stir of morning: the centre of an eager crowd. It was better
- haunting the street like a spectre, when men were in their beds, and
- influencing perchance the city’s dreams, than braving the broad day, and
- thrusting its obscene presence upon their waking senses.
- Five o’clock had struck--six--seven--and eight. Along the two main
- streets at either end of the cross-way, a living stream had now set in,
- rolling towards the marts of gain and business. Carts, coaches, waggons,
- trucks, and barrows, forced a passage through the outskirts of the
- throng, and clattered onward in the same direction. Some of these
- which were public conveyances and had come from a short distance in the
- country, stopped; and the driver pointed to the gibbet with his whip,
- though he might have spared himself the pains, for the heads of all the
- passengers were turned that way without his help, and the coach-windows
- were stuck full of staring eyes. In some of the carts and waggons, women
- might be seen, glancing fearfully at the same unsightly thing; and even
- little children were held up above the people’s heads to see what kind
- of a toy a gallows was, and learn how men were hanged.
- Two rioters were to die before the prison, who had been concerned in
- the attack upon it; and one directly afterwards in Bloomsbury Square.
- At nine o’clock, a strong body of military marched into the street,
- and formed and lined a narrow passage into Holborn, which had been
- indifferently kept all night by constables. Through this, another
- cart was brought (the one already mentioned had been employed in the
- construction of the scaffold), and wheeled up to the prison-gate. These
- preparations made, the soldiers stood at ease; the officers lounged
- to and fro, in the alley they had made, or talked together at the
- scaffold’s foot; and the concourse, which had been rapidly augmenting
- for some hours, and still received additions every minute, waited with
- an impatience which increased with every chime of St Sepulchre’s clock,
- for twelve at noon.
- Up to this time they had been very quiet, comparatively silent, save
- when the arrival of some new party at a window, hitherto unoccupied,
- gave them something new to look at or to talk of. But, as the hour
- approached, a buzz and hum arose, which, deepening every moment, soon
- swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the air. No words or even voices
- could be distinguished in this clamour, nor did they speak much to each
- other; though such as were better informed upon the topic than the rest,
- would tell their neighbours, perhaps, that they might know the hangman
- when he came out, by his being the shorter one: and that the man who
- was to suffer with him was named Hugh: and that it was Barnaby Rudge who
- would be hanged in Bloomsbury Square.
- The hum grew, as the time drew near, so loud, that those who were at the
- windows could not hear the church-clock strike, though it was close at
- hand. Nor had they any need to hear it, either, for they could see it
- in the people’s faces. So surely as another quarter chimed, there was
- a movement in the crowd--as if something had passed over it--as if the
- light upon them had been changed--in which the fact was readable as on a
- brazen dial, figured by a giant’s hand.
- Three quarters past eleven! The murmur now was deafening, yet every man
- seemed mute. Look where you would among the crowd, you saw strained eyes
- and lips compressed; it would have been difficult for the most vigilant
- observer to point this way or that, and say that yonder man had cried
- out. It were as easy to detect the motion of lips in a sea-shell.
- Three quarters past eleven! Many spectators who had retired from the
- windows, came back refreshed, as though their watch had just begun.
- Those who had fallen asleep, roused themselves; and every person in the
- crowd made one last effort to better his position--which caused a press
- against the sturdy barriers that made them bend and yield like twigs.
- The officers, who until now had kept together, fell into their several
- positions, and gave the words of command. Swords were drawn, muskets
- shouldered, and the bright steel winding its way among the crowd,
- gleamed and glittered in the sun like a river. Along this shining path,
- two men came hurrying on, leading a horse, which was speedily harnessed
- to the cart at the prison-door. Then, a profound silence replaced the
- tumult that had so long been gathering, and a breathless pause ensued.
- Every window was now choked up with heads; the house-tops teemed with
- people--clinging to chimneys, peering over gable-ends, and holding on
- where the sudden loosening of any brick or stone would dash them down
- into the street. The church tower, the church roof, the church yard,
- the prison leads, the very water-spouts and lampposts--every inch of
- room--swarmed with human life.
- At the first stroke of twelve the prison-bell began to toll. Then the
- roar--mingled now with cries of ‘Hats off!’ and ‘Poor fellows!’ and,
- from some specks in the great concourse, with a shriek or groan--burst
- forth again. It was terrible to see--if any one in that distraction of
- excitement could have seen--the world of eager eyes, all strained upon
- the scaffold and the beam.
- The hollow murmuring was heard within the jail as plainly as without.
- The three were brought forth into the yard, together, as it resounded
- through the air. They knew its import well.
- ‘D’ye hear?’ cried Hugh, undaunted by the sound. ‘They expect us!
- I heard them gathering when I woke in the night, and turned over on
- t’other side and fell asleep again. We shall see how they welcome the
- hangman, now that it comes home to him. Ha, ha, ha!’
- The Ordinary coming up at this moment, reproved him for his indecent
- mirth, and advised him to alter his demeanour.
- ‘And why, master?’ said Hugh. ‘Can I do better than bear it easily? YOU
- bear it easily enough. Oh! never tell me,’ he cried, as the other would
- have spoken, ‘for all your sad look and your solemn air, you think
- little enough of it! They say you’re the best maker of lobster salads in
- London. Ha, ha! I’ve heard that, you see, before now. Is it a good
- one, this morning--is your hand in? How does the breakfast look? I hope
- there’s enough, and to spare, for all this hungry company that’ll sit
- down to it, when the sight’s over.’
- ‘I fear,’ observed the clergyman, shaking his head, ‘that you are
- incorrigible.’
- ‘You’re right. I am,’ rejoined Hugh sternly. ‘Be no hypocrite, master!
- You make a merry-making of this, every month; let me be merry, too. If
- you want a frightened fellow there’s one that’ll suit you. Try your hand
- upon him.’
- He pointed, as he spoke, to Dennis, who, with his legs trailing on the
- ground, was held between two men; and who trembled so, that all his
- joints and limbs seemed racked by spasms. Turning from this wretched
- spectacle, he called to Barnaby, who stood apart.
- ‘What cheer, Barnaby? Don’t be downcast, lad. Leave that to HIM.’
- ‘Bless you,’ cried Barnaby, stepping lightly towards him, ‘I’m not
- frightened, Hugh. I’m quite happy. I wouldn’t desire to live now,
- if they’d let me. Look at me! Am I afraid to die? Will they see ME
- tremble?’
- Hugh gazed for a moment at his face, on which there was a strange,
- unearthly smile; and at his eye, which sparkled brightly; and
- interposing between him and the Ordinary, gruffly whispered to the
- latter:
- ‘I wouldn’t say much to him, master, if I was you. He may spoil your
- appetite for breakfast, though you ARE used to it.’
- He was the only one of the three who had washed or trimmed himself
- that morning. Neither of the others had done so, since their doom was
- pronounced. He still wore the broken peacock’s feathers in his hat; and
- all his usual scraps of finery were carefully disposed about his person.
- His kindling eye, his firm step, his proud and resolute bearing, might
- have graced some lofty act of heroism; some voluntary sacrifice, born of
- a noble cause and pure enthusiasm; rather than that felon’s death.
- But all these things increased his guilt. They were mere assumptions.
- The law had declared it so, and so it must be. The good minister had
- been greatly shocked, not a quarter of an hour before, at his parting
- with Grip. For one in his condition, to fondle a bird!--The yard was
- filled with people; bluff civic functionaries, officers of justice,
- soldiers, the curious in such matters, and guests who had been bidden as
- to a wedding. Hugh looked about him, nodded gloomily to some person
- in authority, who indicated with his hand in what direction he was to
- proceed; and clapping Barnaby on the shoulder, passed out with the gait
- of a lion.
- They entered a large room, so near to the scaffold that the voices of
- those who stood about it, could be plainly heard: some beseeching
- the javelin-men to take them out of the crowd: others crying to those
- behind, to stand back, for they were pressed to death, and suffocating
- for want of air.
- In the middle of this chamber, two smiths, with hammers, stood beside an
- anvil. Hugh walked straight up to them, and set his foot upon it with a
- sound as though it had been struck by a heavy weapon. Then, with folded
- arms, he stood to have his irons knocked off: scowling haughtily round,
- as those who were present eyed him narrowly and whispered to each other.
- It took so much time to drag Dennis in, that this ceremony was over with
- Hugh, and nearly over with Barnaby, before he appeared. He no sooner
- came into the place he knew so well, however, and among faces with which
- he was so familiar, than he recovered strength and sense enough to clasp
- his hands and make a last appeal.
- ‘Gentlemen, good gentlemen,’ cried the abject creature, grovelling down
- upon his knees, and actually prostrating himself upon the stone floor:
- ‘Governor, dear governor--honourable sheriffs--worthy gentlemen--have
- mercy upon a wretched man that has served His Majesty, and the Law, and
- Parliament, for so many years, and don’t--don’t let me die--because of a
- mistake.’
- ‘Dennis,’ said the governor of the jail, ‘you know what the course
- is, and that the order came with the rest. You know that we could do
- nothing, even if we would.’
- ‘All I ask, sir,--all I want and beg, is time, to make it sure,’ cried
- the trembling wretch, looking wildly round for sympathy. ‘The King and
- Government can’t know it’s me; I’m sure they can’t know it’s me; or they
- never would bring me to this dreadful slaughterhouse. They know my name,
- but they don’t know it’s the same man. Stop my execution--for charity’s
- sake stop my execution, gentlemen--till they can be told that I’ve
- been hangman here, nigh thirty year. Will no one go and tell them?’ he
- implored, clenching his hands and glaring round, and round, and round
- again--‘will no charitable person go and tell them!’
- ‘Mr Akerman,’ said a gentleman who stood by, after a moment’s pause,
- ‘since it may possibly produce in this unhappy man a better frame of
- mind, even at this last minute, let me assure him that he was well known
- to have been the hangman, when his sentence was considered.’
- ‘--But perhaps they think on that account that the punishment’s not so
- great,’ cried the criminal, shuffling towards this speaker on his knees,
- and holding up his folded hands; ‘whereas it’s worse, it’s worse a
- hundred times, to me than any man. Let them know that, sir. Let them
- know that. They’ve made it worse to me by giving me so much to do. Stop
- my execution till they know that!’
- The governor beckoned with his hand, and the two men, who had supported
- him before, approached. He uttered a piercing cry:
- ‘Wait! Wait. Only a moment--only one moment more! Give me a last chance
- of reprieve. One of us three is to go to Bloomsbury Square. Let me be
- the one. It may come in that time; it’s sure to come. In the Lord’s name
- let me be sent to Bloomsbury Square. Don’t hang me here. It’s murder.’
- They took him to the anvil: but even then he could be heard above the
- clinking of the smiths’ hammers, and the hoarse raging of the crowd,
- crying that he knew of Hugh’s birth--that his father was living, and
- was a gentleman of influence and rank--that he had family secrets in his
- possession--that he could tell nothing unless they gave him time, but
- must die with them on his mind; and he continued to rave in this sort
- until his voice failed him, and he sank down a mere heap of clothes
- between the two attendants.
- It was at this moment that the clock struck the first stroke of twelve,
- and the bell began to toll. The various officers, with the two sheriffs
- at their head, moved towards the door. All was ready when the last chime
- came upon the ear.
- They told Hugh this, and asked if he had anything to say.
- ‘To say!’ he cried. ‘Not I. I’m ready.--Yes,’ he added, as his eye fell
- upon Barnaby, ‘I have a word to say, too. Come hither, lad.’
- There was, for the moment, something kind, and even tender, struggling
- in his fierce aspect, as he wrung his poor companion by the hand.
- ‘I’ll say this,’ he cried, looking firmly round, ‘that if I had ten
- lives to lose, and the loss of each would give me ten times the agony
- of the hardest death, I’d lay them all down--ay, I would, though you
- gentlemen may not believe it--to save this one. This one,’ he added,
- wringing his hand again, ‘that will be lost through me.’
- ‘Not through you,’ said the idiot, mildly. ‘Don’t say that. You were
- not to blame. You have always been very good to me.--Hugh, we shall know
- what makes the stars shine, NOW!’
- ‘I took him from her in a reckless mood, and didn’t think what harm
- would come of it,’ said Hugh, laying his hand upon his head, and
- speaking in a lower voice. ‘I ask her pardon; and his.--Look here,’ he
- added roughly, in his former tone. ‘You see this lad?’
- They murmured ‘Yes,’ and seemed to wonder why he asked.
- ‘That gentleman yonder--’ pointing to the clergyman--‘has often in the
- last few days spoken to me of faith, and strong belief. You see what
- I am--more brute than man, as I have been often told--but I had faith
- enough to believe, and did believe as strongly as any of you gentlemen
- can believe anything, that this one life would be spared. See what he
- is!--Look at him!’
- Barnaby had moved towards the door, and stood beckoning him to follow.
- ‘If this was not faith, and strong belief!’ cried Hugh, raising his
- right arm aloft, and looking upward like a savage prophet whom the near
- approach of Death had filled with inspiration, ‘where are they! What
- else should teach me--me, born as I was born, and reared as I have
- been reared--to hope for any mercy in this hardened, cruel, unrelenting
- place! Upon these human shambles, I, who never raised this hand in
- prayer till now, call down the wrath of God! On that black tree, of
- which I am the ripened fruit, I do invoke the curse of all its victims,
- past, and present, and to come. On the head of that man, who, in his
- conscience, owns me for his son, I leave the wish that he may never
- sicken on his bed of down, but die a violent death as I do now, and have
- the night-wind for his only mourner. To this I say, Amen, amen!’
- His arm fell downward by his side; he turned; and moved towards them
- with a steady step, the man he had been before.
- ‘There is nothing more?’ said the governor.
- Hugh motioned Barnaby not to come near him (though without looking in
- the direction where he stood) and answered, ‘There is nothing more.’
- ‘Move forward!’
- ‘--Unless,’ said Hugh, glancing hurriedly back,--‘unless any person here
- has a fancy for a dog; and not then, unless he means to use him well.
- There’s one, belongs to me, at the house I came from, and it wouldn’t
- be easy to find a better. He’ll whine at first, but he’ll soon get over
- that.--You wonder that I think about a dog just now,’ he added, with a
- kind of laugh. ‘If any man deserved it of me half as well, I’d think of
- HIM.’
- He spoke no more, but moved onward in his place, with a careless air,
- though listening at the same time to the Service for the Dead, with
- something between sullen attention, and quickened curiosity. As soon as
- he had passed the door, his miserable associate was carried out; and the
- crowd beheld the rest.
- Barnaby would have mounted the steps at the same time--indeed he would
- have gone before them, but in both attempts he was restrained, as he
- was to undergo the sentence elsewhere. In a few minutes the sheriffs
- reappeared, the same procession was again formed, and they passed
- through various rooms and passages to another door--that at which the
- cart was waiting. He held down his head to avoid seeing what he knew his
- eyes must otherwise encounter, and took his seat sorrowfully,--and yet
- with something of a childish pride and pleasure,--in the vehicle. The
- officers fell into their places at the sides, in front and in the rear;
- the sheriffs’ carriages rolled on; a guard of soldiers surrounded the
- whole; and they moved slowly forward through the throng and pressure
- toward Lord Mansfield’s ruined house.
- It was a sad sight--all the show, and strength, and glitter, assembled
- round one helpless creature--and sadder yet to note, as he rode along,
- how his wandering thoughts found strange encouragement in the crowded
- windows and the concourse in the streets; and how, even then, he felt
- the influence of the bright sky, and looked up, smiling, into its deep
- unfathomable blue. But there had been many such sights since the riots
- were over--some so moving in their nature, and so repulsive too, that
- they were far more calculated to awaken pity for the sufferers, than
- respect for that law whose strong arm seemed in more than one case to be
- as wantonly stretched forth now that all was safe, as it had been basely
- paralysed in time of danger.
- Two cripples--both mere boys--one with a leg of wood, one who dragged
- his twisted limbs along by the help of a crutch, were hanged in this
- same Bloomsbury Square. As the cart was about to glide from under them,
- it was observed that they stood with their faces from, not to, the house
- they had assisted to despoil; and their misery was protracted that this
- omission might be remedied. Another boy was hanged in Bow Street; other
- young lads in various quarters of the town. Four wretched women, too,
- were put to death. In a word, those who suffered as rioters were, for
- the most part, the weakest, meanest, and most miserable among them. It
- was a most exquisite satire upon the false religious cry which had led
- to so much misery, that some of these people owned themselves to be
- Catholics, and begged to be attended by their own priests.
- One young man was hanged in Bishopsgate Street, whose aged grey-headed
- father waited for him at the gallows, kissed him at its foot when he
- arrived, and sat there, on the ground, till they took him down. They
- would have given him the body of his child; but he had no hearse, no
- coffin, nothing to remove it in, being too poor--and walked meekly away
- beside the cart that took it back to prison, trying, as he went, to
- touch its lifeless hand.
- But the crowd had forgotten these matters, or cared little about them
- if they lived in their memory: and while one great multitude fought
- and hustled to get near the gibbet before Newgate, for a parting look,
- another followed in the train of poor lost Barnaby, to swell the throng
- that waited for him on the spot.
- Chapter 78
- On this same day, and about this very hour, Mr Willet the elder sat
- smoking his pipe in a chamber at the Black Lion. Although it was hot
- summer weather, Mr Willet sat close to the fire. He was in a state of
- profound cogitation, with his own thoughts, and it was his custom
- at such times to stew himself slowly, under the impression that that
- process of cookery was favourable to the melting out of his ideas,
- which, when he began to simmer, sometimes oozed forth so copiously as to
- astonish even himself.
- Mr Willet had been several thousand times comforted by his friends and
- acquaintance, with the assurance that for the loss he had sustained in
- the damage done to the Maypole, he could ‘come upon the county.’ But as
- this phrase happened to bear an unfortunate resemblance to the popular
- expression of ‘coming on the parish,’ it suggested to Mr Willet’s mind
- no more consolatory visions than pauperism on an extensive scale, and
- ruin in a capacious aspect. Consequently, he had never failed to receive
- the intelligence with a rueful shake of the head, or a dreary stare, and
- had been always observed to appear much more melancholy after a visit of
- condolence than at any other time in the whole four-and-twenty hours.
- It chanced, however, that sitting over the fire on this particular
- occasion--perhaps because he was, as it were, done to a turn; perhaps
- because he was in an unusually bright state of mind; perhaps because
- he had considered the subject so long; perhaps because of all these
- favouring circumstances, taken together--it chanced that, sitting over
- the fire on this particular occasion, Mr Willet did, afar off and in
- the remotest depths of his intellect, perceive a kind of lurking hint or
- faint suggestion, that out of the public purse there might issue funds
- for the restoration of the Maypole to its former high place among the
- taverns of the earth. And this dim ray of light did so diffuse itself
- within him, and did so kindle up and shine, that at last he had it as
- plainly and visibly before him as the blaze by which he sat; and, fully
- persuaded that he was the first to make the discovery, and that he had
- started, hunted down, fallen upon, and knocked on the head, a perfectly
- original idea which had never presented itself to any other man, alive
- or dead, he laid down his pipe, rubbed his hands, and chuckled audibly.
- ‘Why, father!’ cried Joe, entering at the moment, ‘you’re in spirits
- to-day!’
- ‘It’s nothing partickler,’ said Mr Willet, chuckling again. ‘It’s
- nothing at all partickler, Joseph. Tell me something about the
- Salwanners.’ Having preferred this request, Mr Willet chuckled a third
- time, and after these unusual demonstrations of levity, he put his pipe
- in his mouth again.
- ‘What shall I tell you, father?’ asked Joe, laying his hand upon his
- sire’s shoulder, and looking down into his face. ‘That I have come back,
- poorer than a church mouse? You know that. That I have come back, maimed
- and crippled? You know that.’
- ‘It was took off,’ muttered Mr Willet, with his eyes upon the fire, ‘at
- the defence of the Salwanners, in America, where the war is.’
- ‘Quite right,’ returned Joe, smiling, and leaning with his remaining
- elbow on the back of his father’s chair; ‘the very subject I came to
- speak to you about. A man with one arm, father, is not of much use in
- the busy world.’
- This was one of those vast propositions which Mr Willet had never
- considered for an instant, and required time to ‘tackle.’ Wherefore he
- made no answer.
- ‘At all events,’ said Joe, ‘he can’t pick and choose his means of
- earning a livelihood, as another man may. He can’t say “I will turn my
- hand to this,” or “I won’t turn my hand to that,” but must take what he
- can do, and be thankful it’s no worse.--What did you say?’
- Mr Willet had been softly repeating to himself, in a musing tone, the
- words ‘defence of the Salwanners:’ but he seemed embarrassed at having
- been overheard, and answered ‘Nothing.’
- ‘Now look here, father.--Mr Edward has come to England from the West
- Indies. When he was lost sight of (I ran away on the same day, father),
- he made a voyage to one of the islands, where a school-friend of his
- had settled; and, finding him, wasn’t too proud to be employed on his
- estate, and--and in short, got on well, and is prospering, and has come
- over here on business of his own, and is going back again speedily. Our
- returning nearly at the same time, and meeting in the course of the late
- troubles, has been a good thing every way; for it has not only enabled
- us to do old friends some service, but has opened a path in life for me
- which I may tread without being a burden upon you. To be plain, father,
- he can employ me; I have satisfied myself that I can be of real use to
- him; and I am going to carry my one arm away with him, and to make the
- most of it.’
- In the mind’s eye of Mr Willet, the West Indies, and indeed all foreign
- countries, were inhabited by savage nations, who were perpetually
- burying pipes of peace, flourishing tomahawks, and puncturing strange
- patterns in their bodies. He no sooner heard this announcement,
- therefore, than he leaned back in his chair, took his pipe from his
- lips, and stared at his son with as much dismay as if he already beheld
- him tied to a stake, and tortured for the entertainment of a lively
- population. In what form of expression his feelings would have found
- a vent, it is impossible to say. Nor is it necessary: for, before a
- syllable occurred to him, Dolly Varden came running into the room, in
- tears, threw herself on Joe’s breast without a word of explanation, and
- clasped her white arms round his neck.
- ‘Dolly!’ cried Joe. ‘Dolly!’
- ‘Ay, call me that; call me that always,’ exclaimed the locksmith’s
- little daughter; ‘never speak coldly to me, never be distant, never
- again reprove me for the follies I have long repented, or I shall die,
- Joe.’
- ‘I reprove you!’ said Joe.
- ‘Yes--for every kind and honest word you uttered, went to my heart. For
- you, who have borne so much from me--for you, who owe your sufferings
- and pain to my caprice--for you to be so kind--so noble to me, Joe--’
- He could say nothing to her. Not a syllable. There was an odd sort of
- eloquence in his one arm, which had crept round her waist: but his lips
- were mute.
- ‘If you had reminded me by a word--only by one short word,’ sobbed
- Dolly, clinging yet closer to him, ‘how little I deserved that you
- should treat me with so much forbearance; if you had exulted only for
- one moment in your triumph, I could have borne it better.’
- ‘Triumph!’ repeated Joe, with a smile which seemed to say, ‘I am a
- pretty figure for that.’
- ‘Yes, triumph,’ she cried, with her whole heart and soul in her earnest
- voice, and gushing tears; ‘for it is one. I am glad to think and know
- it is. I wouldn’t be less humbled, dear--I wouldn’t be without the
- recollection of that last time we spoke together in this place--no, not
- if I could recall the past, and make our parting, yesterday.’
- Did ever lover look as Joe looked now!
- ‘Dear Joe,’ said Dolly, ‘I always loved you--in my own heart I always
- did, although I was so vain and giddy. I hoped you would come back that
- night. I made quite sure you would. I prayed for it on my knees. Through
- all these long, long years, I have never once forgotten you, or left off
- hoping that this happy time might come.’
- The eloquence of Joe’s arm surpassed the most impassioned language; and
- so did that of his lips--yet he said nothing, either.
- ‘And now, at last,’ cried Dolly, trembling with the fervour of her
- speech, ‘if you were sick, and shattered in your every limb; if you were
- ailing, weak, and sorrowful; if, instead of being what you are, you were
- in everybody’s eyes but mine the wreck and ruin of a man; I would be
- your wife, dear love, with greater pride and joy, than if you were the
- stateliest lord in England!’
- ‘What have I done,’ cried Joe, ‘what have I done to meet with this
- reward?’
- ‘You have taught me,’ said Dolly, raising her pretty face to his, ‘to
- know myself, and your worth; to be something better than I was; to be
- more deserving of your true and manly nature. In years to come, dear
- Joe, you shall find that you have done so; for I will be, not only
- now, when we are young and full of hope, but when we have grown old and
- weary, your patient, gentle, never-tiring wife. I will never know a wish
- or care beyond our home and you, and I will always study how to please
- you with my best affection and my most devoted love. I will: indeed I
- will!’
- Joe could only repeat his former eloquence--but it was very much to the
- purpose.
- ‘They know of this, at home,’ said Dolly. ‘For your sake, I would leave
- even them; but they know it, and are glad of it, and are as proud of you
- as I am, and as full of gratitude.--You’ll not come and see me as a poor
- friend who knew me when I was a girl, will you, dear Joe?’
- Well, well! It don’t matter what Joe said in answer, but he said a great
- deal; and Dolly said a great deal too: and he folded Dolly in his one
- arm pretty tight, considering that it was but one; and Dolly made no
- resistance: and if ever two people were happy in this world--which is
- not an utterly miserable one, with all its faults--we may, with some
- appearance of certainty, conclude that they were.
- To say that during these proceedings Mr Willet the elder underwent
- the greatest emotions of astonishment of which our common nature is
- susceptible--to say that he was in a perfect paralysis of surprise, and
- that he wandered into the most stupendous and theretofore unattainable
- heights of complicated amazement--would be to shadow forth his state of
- mind in the feeblest and lamest terms. If a roc, an eagle, a griffin, a
- flying elephant, a winged sea-horse, had suddenly appeared, and, taking
- him on its back, carried him bodily into the heart of the ‘Salwanners,’
- it would have been to him as an everyday occurrence, in comparison with
- what he now beheld. To be sitting quietly by, seeing and hearing these
- things; to be completely overlooked, unnoticed, and disregarded,
- while his son and a young lady were talking to each other in the most
- impassioned manner, kissing each other, and making themselves in
- all respects perfectly at home; was a position so tremendous, so
- inexplicable, so utterly beyond the widest range of his capacity of
- comprehension, that he fell into a lethargy of wonder, and could no more
- rouse himself than an enchanted sleeper in the first year of his fairy
- lease, a century long.
- ‘Father,’ said Joe, presenting Dolly. ‘You know who this is?’
- Mr Willet looked first at her, then at his son, then back again at
- Dolly, and then made an ineffectual effort to extract a whiff from his
- pipe, which had gone out long ago.
- ‘Say a word, father, if it’s only “how d’ye do,”’ urged Joe.
- ‘Certainly, Joseph,’ answered Mr Willet. ‘Oh yes! Why not?’
- ‘To be sure,’ said Joe. ‘Why not?’
- ‘Ah!’ replied his father. ‘Why not?’ and with this remark, which he
- uttered in a low voice as though he were discussing some grave question
- with himself, he used the little finger--if any of his fingers can
- be said to have come under that denomination--of his right hand as a
- tobacco-stopper, and was silent again.
- And so he sat for half an hour at least, although Dolly, in the most
- endearing of manners, hoped, a dozen times, that he was not angry with
- her. So he sat for half an hour, quite motionless, and looking all
- the while like nothing so much as a great Dutch Pin or Skittle. At the
- expiration of that period, he suddenly, and without the least notice,
- burst (to the great consternation of the young people) into a very loud
- and very short laugh; and repeating, ‘Certainly, Joseph. Oh yes! Why
- not?’ went out for a walk.
- Chapter 79
- Old John did not walk near the Golden Key, for between the Golden Key
- and the Black Lion there lay a wilderness of streets--as everybody
- knows who is acquainted with the relative bearings of Clerkenwell and
- Whitechapel--and he was by no means famous for pedestrian exercises.
- But the Golden Key lies in our way, though it was out of his; so to the
- Golden Key this chapter goes.
- The Golden Key itself, fair emblem of the locksmith’s trade, had been
- pulled down by the rioters, and roughly trampled under foot. But, now,
- it was hoisted up again in all the glory of a new coat of paint,
- and showed more bravely even than in days of yore. Indeed the whole
- house-front was spruce and trim, and so freshened up throughout, that if
- there yet remained at large any of the rioters who had been concerned in
- the attack upon it, the sight of the old, goodly, prosperous dwelling,
- so revived, must have been to them as gall and wormwood.
- The shutters of the shop were closed, however, and the window-blinds
- above were all pulled down, and in place of its usual cheerful
- appearance, the house had a look of sadness and an air of mourning;
- which the neighbours, who in old days had often seen poor Barnaby go in
- and out, were at no loss to understand. The door stood partly open;
- but the locksmith’s hammer was unheard; the cat sat moping on the ashy
- forge; all was deserted, dark, and silent.
- On the threshold of this door, Mr Haredale and Edward Chester met. The
- younger man gave place; and both passing in with a familiar air, which
- seemed to denote that they were tarrying there, or were well-accustomed
- to go to and fro unquestioned, shut it behind them.
- Entering the old back-parlour, and ascending the flight of stairs,
- abrupt and steep, and quaintly fashioned as of old, they turned into
- the best room; the pride of Mrs Varden’s heart, and erst the scene of
- Miggs’s household labours.
- ‘Varden brought the mother here last evening, he told me?’ said Mr
- Haredale.
- ‘She is above-stairs now--in the room over here,’ Edward rejoined. ‘Her
- grief, they say, is past all telling. I needn’t add--for that you know
- beforehand, sir--that the care, humanity, and sympathy of these good
- people have no bounds.’
- ‘I am sure of that. Heaven repay them for it, and for much more! Varden
- is out?’
- ‘He returned with your messenger, who arrived almost at the moment of
- his coming home himself. He was out the whole night--but that of course
- you know. He was with you the greater part of it?’
- ‘He was. Without him, I should have lacked my right hand. He is an older
- man than I; but nothing can conquer him.’
- ‘The cheeriest, stoutest-hearted fellow in the world.’
- ‘He has a right to be. He has a right to he. A better creature never
- lived. He reaps what he has sown--no more.’
- ‘It is not all men,’ said Edward, after a moment’s hesitation, ‘who have
- the happiness to do that.’
- ‘More than you imagine,’ returned Mr Haredale. ‘We note the harvest more
- than the seed-time. You do so in me.’
- In truth his pale and haggard face, and gloomy bearing, had so far
- influenced the remark, that Edward was, for the moment, at a loss to
- answer him.
- ‘Tut, tut,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘’twas not very difficult to read a
- thought so natural. But you are mistaken nevertheless. I have had my
- share of sorrows--more than the common lot, perhaps, but I have borne
- them ill. I have broken where I should have bent; and have mused and
- brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all God’s great creation.
- The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.
- I have turned FROM the world, and I pay the penalty.’
- Edward would have interposed, but he went on without giving him time.
- ‘It is too late to evade it now. I sometimes think, that if I had
- to live my life once more, I might amend this fault--not so much, I
- discover when I search my mind, for the love of what is right, as for my
- own sake. But even when I make these better resolutions, I instinctively
- recoil from the idea of suffering again what I have undergone; and in
- this circumstance I find the unwelcome assurance that I should still be
- the same man, though I could cancel the past, and begin anew, with its
- experience to guide me.’
- ‘Nay, you make too sure of that,’ said Edward.
- ‘You think so,’ Mr Haredale answered, ‘and I am glad you do. I know
- myself better, and therefore distrust myself more. Let us leave this
- subject for another--not so far removed from it as it might, at first
- sight, seem to be. Sir, you still love my niece, and she is still
- attached to you.’
- ‘I have that assurance from her own lips,’ said Edward, ‘and you know--I
- am sure you know--that I would not exchange it for any blessing life
- could yield me.’
- ‘You are frank, honourable, and disinterested,’ said Mr Haredale; ‘you
- have forced the conviction that you are so, even on my once-jaundiced
- mind, and I believe you. Wait here till I come back.’
- He left the room as he spoke; but soon returned with his niece. ‘On that
- first and only time,’ he said, looking from the one to the other, ‘when
- we three stood together under her father’s roof, I told you to quit it,
- and charged you never to return.’
- ‘It is the only circumstance arising out of our love,’ observed Edward,
- ‘that I have forgotten.’
- ‘You own a name,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘I had deep reason to remember. I
- was moved and goaded by recollections of personal wrong and injury, I
- know, but, even now I cannot charge myself with having, then, or ever,
- lost sight of a heartfelt desire for her true happiness; or with having
- acted--however much I was mistaken--with any other impulse than the one
- pure, single, earnest wish to be to her, as far as in my inferior nature
- lay, the father she had lost.’
- ‘Dear uncle,’ cried Emma, ‘I have known no parent but you. I have loved
- the memory of others, but I have loved you all my life. Never was father
- kinder to his child than you have been to me, without the interval of
- one harsh hour, since I can first remember.’
- ‘You speak too fondly,’ he answered, ‘and yet I cannot wish you were
- less partial; for I have a pleasure in hearing those words, and shall
- have in calling them to mind when we are far asunder, which nothing else
- could give me. Bear with me for a moment longer, Edward, for she and I
- have been together many years; and although I believe that in resigning
- her to you I put the seal upon her future happiness, I find it needs an
- effort.’
- He pressed her tenderly to his bosom, and after a minute’s pause,
- resumed:
- ‘I have done you wrong, sir, and I ask your forgiveness--in no common
- phrase, or show of sorrow; but with earnestness and sincerity. In the
- same spirit, I acknowledge to you both that the time has been when
- I connived at treachery and falsehood--which if I did not perpetrate
- myself, I still permitted--to rend you two asunder.’
- ‘You judge yourself too harshly,’ said Edward. ‘Let these things rest.’
- ‘They rise in judgment against me when I look back, and not now for
- the first time,’ he answered. ‘I cannot part from you without your full
- forgiveness; for busy life and I have little left in common now, and
- I have regrets enough to carry into solitude, without addition to the
- stock.’
- ‘You bear a blessing from us both,’ said Emma. ‘Never mingle thoughts of
- me--of me who owe you so much love and duty--with anything but undying
- affection and gratitude for the past, and bright hopes for the future.’
- ‘The future,’ returned her uncle, with a melancholy smile, ‘is a bright
- word for you, and its image should be wreathed with cheerful hopes. Mine
- is of another kind, but it will be one of peace, and free, I trust, from
- care or passion. When you quit England I shall leave it too. There are
- cloisters abroad; and now that the two great objects of my life are set
- at rest, I know no better home. You droop at that, forgetting that I am
- growing old, and that my course is nearly run. Well, we will speak of it
- again--not once or twice, but many times; and you shall give me cheerful
- counsel, Emma.’
- ‘And you will take it?’ asked his niece.
- ‘I’ll listen to it,’ he answered, with a kiss, ‘and it will have its
- weight, be certain. What have I left to say? You have, of late, been
- much together. It is better and more fitting that the circumstances
- attendant on the past, which wrought your separation, and sowed between
- you suspicion and distrust, should not be entered on by me.’
- ‘Much, much better,’ whispered Emma.
- ‘I avow my share in them,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘though I held it, at the
- time, in detestation. Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the
- broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by
- the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.
- Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left
- alone.’
- He looked from her to Edward, and said in a gentler tone:
- ‘In goods and fortune you are now nearly equal. I have been her faithful
- steward, and to that remnant of a richer property which my brother left
- her, I desire to add, in token of my love, a poor pittance, scarcely
- worth the mention, for which I have no longer any need. I am glad you go
- abroad. Let our ill-fated house remain the ruin it is. When you return,
- after a few thriving years, you will command a better, and a more
- fortunate one. We are friends?’
- Edward took his extended hand, and grasped it heartily.
- ‘You are neither slow nor cold in your response,’ said Mr Haredale,
- doing the like by him, ‘and when I look upon you now, and know you, I
- feel that I would choose you for her husband. Her father had a generous
- nature, and you would have pleased him well. I give her to you in his
- name, and with his blessing. If the world and I part in this act, we
- part on happier terms than we have lived for many a day.’
- He placed her in his arms, and would have left the room, but that he was
- stopped in his passage to the door by a great noise at a distance, which
- made them start and pause.
- It was a loud shouting, mingled with boisterous acclamations, that rent
- the very air. It drew nearer and nearer every moment, and approached
- so rapidly, that, even while they listened, it burst into a deafening
- confusion of sounds at the street corner.
- ‘This must be stopped--quieted,’ said Mr Haredale, hastily. ‘We should
- have foreseen this, and provided against it. I will go out to them at
- once.’
- But, before he could reach the door, and before Edward could catch up
- his hat and follow him, they were again arrested by a loud shriek from
- above-stairs: and the locksmith’s wife, bursting in, and fairly running
- into Mr Haredale’s arms, cried out:
- ‘She knows it all, dear sir!--she knows it all! We broke it out to her
- by degrees, and she is quite prepared.’ Having made this communication,
- and furthermore thanked Heaven with great fervour and heartiness, the
- good lady, according to the custom of matrons, on all occasions of
- excitement, fainted away directly.
- They ran to the window, drew up the sash, and looked into the crowded
- street. Among a dense mob of persons, of whom not one was for an instant
- still, the locksmith’s ruddy face and burly form could be descried,
- beating about as though he was struggling with a rough sea. Now, he was
- carried back a score of yards, now onward nearly to the door, now
- back again, now forced against the opposite houses, now against those
- adjoining his own: now carried up a flight of steps, and greeted by the
- outstretched hands of half a hundred men, while the whole tumultuous
- concourse stretched their throats, and cheered with all their might.
- Though he was really in a fair way to be torn to pieces in the general
- enthusiasm, the locksmith, nothing discomposed, echoed their shouts till
- he was as hoarse as they, and in a glow of joy and right good-humour,
- waved his hat until the daylight shone between its brim and crown.
- But in all the bandyings from hand to hand, and strivings to and fro,
- and sweepings here and there, which--saving that he looked more jolly
- and more radiant after every struggle--troubled his peace of mind no
- more than if he had been a straw upon the water’s surface, he never once
- released his firm grasp of an arm, drawn tight through his. He sometimes
- turned to clap this friend upon the back, or whisper in his ear a word
- of staunch encouragement, or cheer him with a smile; but his great care
- was to shield him from the pressure, and force a passage for him to the
- Golden Key. Passive and timid, scared, pale, and wondering, and gazing
- at the throng as if he were newly risen from the dead, and felt himself
- a ghost among the living, Barnaby--not Barnaby in the spirit, but in
- flesh and blood, with pulses, sinews, nerves, and beating heart, and
- strong affections--clung to his stout old friend, and followed where he
- led.
- And thus, in course of time, they reached the door, held ready for their
- entrance by no unwilling hands. Then slipping in, and shutting out
- the crowd by main force, Gabriel stood between Mr Haredale and Edward
- Chester, and Barnaby, rushing up the stairs, fell upon his knees beside
- his mother’s bed.
- ‘Such is the blessed end, sir,’ cried the panting locksmith, to Mr
- Haredale, ‘of the best day’s work we ever did. The rogues! it’s been
- hard fighting to get away from ‘em. I almost thought, once or twice,
- they’d have been too much for us with their kindness!’
- They had striven, all the previous day, to rescue Barnaby from his
- impending fate. Failing in their attempts, in the first quarter to which
- they addressed themselves, they renewed them in another. Failing there,
- likewise, they began afresh at midnight; and made their way, not only to
- the judge and jury who had tried him, but to men of influence at court,
- to the young Prince of Wales, and even to the ante-chamber of the King
- himself. Successful, at last, in awakening an interest in his favour,
- and an inclination to inquire more dispassionately into his case, they
- had had an interview with the minister, in his bed, so late as eight
- o’clock that morning. The result of a searching inquiry (in which
- they, who had known the poor fellow from his childhood, did other good
- service, besides bringing it about) was, that between eleven and twelve
- o’clock, a free pardon to Barnaby Rudge was made out and signed, and
- entrusted to a horse-soldier for instant conveyance to the place of
- execution. This courier reached the spot just as the cart appeared in
- sight; and Barnaby being carried back to jail, Mr Haredale, assured that
- all was safe, had gone straight from Bloomsbury Square to the Golden
- Key, leaving to Gabriel the grateful task of bringing him home in
- triumph.
- ‘I needn’t say,’ observed the locksmith, when he had shaken hands with
- all the males in the house, and hugged all the females, five-and-forty
- times, at least, ‘that, except among ourselves, I didn’t want to make a
- triumph of it. But, directly we got into the street we were known, and
- this hubbub began. Of the two,’ he added, as he wiped his crimson face,
- ‘and after experience of both, I think I’d rather be taken out of my
- house by a crowd of enemies, than escorted home by a mob of friends!’
- It was plain enough, however, that this was mere talk on Gabriel’s part,
- and that the whole proceeding afforded him the keenest delight; for
- the people continuing to make a great noise without, and to cheer as if
- their voices were in the freshest order, and good for a fortnight, he
- sent upstairs for Grip (who had come home at his master’s back, and had
- acknowledged the favours of the multitude by drawing blood from every
- finger that came within his reach), and with the bird upon his arm
- presented himself at the first-floor window, and waved his hat again
- until it dangled by a shred, between his finger and thumb. This
- demonstration having been received with appropriate shouts, and silence
- being in some degree restored, he thanked them for their sympathy; and
- taking the liberty to inform them that there was a sick person in the
- house, proposed that they should give three cheers for King George,
- three more for Old England, and three more for nothing particular, as
- a closing ceremony. The crowd assenting, substituted Gabriel Varden
- for the nothing particular; and giving him one over, for good measure,
- dispersed in high good-humour.
- What congratulations were exchanged among the inmates at the Golden
- Key, when they were left alone; what an overflowing of joy and happiness
- there was among them; how incapable it was of expression in Barnaby’s
- own person; and how he went wildly from one to another, until he became
- so far tranquillised, as to stretch himself on the ground beside his
- mother’s couch and fall into a deep sleep; are matters that need not be
- told. And it is well they happened to be of this class, for they would
- be very hard to tell, were their narration ever so indispensable.
- Before leaving this bright picture, it may be well to glance at a dark
- and very different one which was presented to only a few eyes, that same
- night.
- The scene was a churchyard; the time, midnight; the persons, Edward
- Chester, a clergyman, a grave-digger, and the four bearers of a homely
- coffin. They stood about a grave which had been newly dug, and one of
- the bearers held up a dim lantern,--the only light there--which shed
- its feeble ray upon the book of prayer. He placed it for a moment on the
- coffin, when he and his companions were about to lower it down. There
- was no inscription on the lid.
- The mould fell solemnly upon the last house of this nameless man; and
- the rattling dust left a dismal echo even in the accustomed ears of
- those who had borne it to its resting-place. The grave was filled in to
- the top, and trodden down. They all left the spot together.
- ‘You never saw him, living?’ asked the clergyman, of Edward.
- ‘Often, years ago; not knowing him for my brother.’
- ‘Never since?’
- ‘Never. Yesterday, he steadily refused to see me. It was urged upon him,
- many times, at my desire.’
- ‘Still he refused? That was hardened and unnatural.’
- ‘Do you think so?’
- ‘I infer that you do not?’
- ‘You are right. We hear the world wonder, every day, at monsters of
- ingratitude. Did it never occur to you that it often looks for monsters
- of affection, as though they were things of course?’
- They had reached the gate by this time, and bidding each other good
- night, departed on their separate ways.
- Chapter 80
- That afternoon, when he had slept off his fatigue; had shaved, and
- washed, and dressed, and freshened himself from top to toe; when he had
- dined, comforted himself with a pipe, an extra Toby, a nap in the great
- arm-chair, and a quiet chat with Mrs Varden on everything that had
- happened, was happening, or about to happen, within the sphere of their
- domestic concern; the locksmith sat himself down at the tea-table in
- the little back-parlour: the rosiest, cosiest, merriest, heartiest,
- best-contented old buck, in Great Britain or out of it.
- There he sat, with his beaming eye on Mrs V., and his shining face
- suffused with gladness, and his capacious waistcoat smiling in every
- wrinkle, and his jovial humour peeping from under the table in the very
- plumpness of his legs; a sight to turn the vinegar of misanthropy into
- purest milk of human kindness. There he sat, watching his wife as she
- decorated the room with flowers for the greater honour of Dolly and
- Joseph Willet, who had gone out walking, and for whom the tea-kettle
- had been singing gaily on the hob full twenty minutes, chirping as
- never kettle chirped before; for whom the best service of real undoubted
- china, patterned with divers round-faced mandarins holding up broad
- umbrellas, was now displayed in all its glory; to tempt whose
- appetites a clear, transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool green
- lettuce-leaves and fragrant cucumber, reposed upon a shady table,
- covered with a snow-white cloth; for whose delight, preserves and jams,
- crisp cakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cunning twists, and
- cottage loaves, and rolls of bread both white and brown, were all set
- forth in rich profusion; in whose youth Mrs V. herself had grown quite
- young, and stood there in a gown of red and white: symmetrical in
- figure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, faultless in ankle,
- laughing in face and mood, in all respects delicious to behold--there
- sat the locksmith among all and every these delights, the sun that shone
- upon them all: the centre of the system: the source of light, heat,
- life, and frank enjoyment in the bright household world.
- And when had Dolly ever been the Dolly of that afternoon? To see how she
- came in, arm-in-arm with Joe; and how she made an effort not to blush or
- seem at all confused; and how she made believe she didn’t care to sit on
- his side of the table; and how she coaxed the locksmith in a whisper not
- to joke; and how her colour came and went in a little restless flutter
- of happiness, which made her do everything wrong, and yet so charmingly
- wrong that it was better than right!--why, the locksmith could have
- looked on at this (as he mentioned to Mrs Varden when they retired for
- the night) for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and never wished it
- done.
- The recollections, too, with which they made merry over that long
- protracted tea! The glee with which the locksmith asked Joe if he
- remembered that stormy night at the Maypole when he first asked after
- Dolly--the laugh they all had, about that night when she was going out
- to the party in the sedan-chair--the unmerciful manner in which they
- rallied Mrs Varden about putting those flowers outside that very
- window--the difficulty Mrs Varden found in joining the laugh against
- herself, at first, and the extraordinary perception she had of the joke
- when she overcame it--the confidential statements of Joe concerning the
- precise day and hour when he was first conscious of being fond of Dolly,
- and Dolly’s blushing admissions, half volunteered and half extorted, as
- to the time from which she dated the discovery that she ‘didn’t mind’
- Joe--here was an exhaustless fund of mirth and conversation.
- Then, there was a great deal to be said regarding Mrs Varden’s doubts,
- and motherly alarms, and shrewd suspicions; and it appeared that from
- Mrs Varden’s penetration and extreme sagacity nothing had ever been
- hidden. She had known it all along. She had seen it from the first. She
- had always predicted it. She had been aware of it before the principals.
- She had said within herself (for she remembered the exact words) ‘that
- young Willet is certainly looking after our Dolly, and I must look
- after HIM.’ Accordingly, she had looked after him, and had observed many
- little circumstances (all of which she named) so exceedingly minute that
- nobody else could make anything out of them even now; and had, it
- seemed from first to last, displayed the most unbounded tact and most
- consummate generalship.
- Of course the night when Joe WOULD ride homeward by the side of the
- chaise, and when Mrs Varden WOULD insist upon his going back again,
- was not forgotten--nor the night when Dolly fainted on his name being
- mentioned--nor the times upon times when Mrs Varden, ever watchful and
- prudent, had found her pining in her own chamber. In short, nothing was
- forgotten; and everything by some means or other brought them back to
- the conclusion, that that was the happiest hour in all their lives;
- consequently, that everything must have occurred for the best, and
- nothing could be suggested which would have made it better.
- While they were in the full glow of such discourse as this, there came a
- startling knock at the door, opening from the street into the workshop,
- which had been kept closed all day that the house might be more quiet.
- Joe, as in duty bound, would hear of nobody but himself going to open
- it; and accordingly left the room for that purpose.
- It would have been odd enough, certainly, if Joe had forgotten the way
- to this door; and even if he had, as it was a pretty large one and stood
- straight before him, he could not easily have missed it. But Dolly,
- perhaps because she was in the flutter of spirits before mentioned, or
- perhaps because she thought he would not be able to open it with his one
- arm--she could have had no other reason--hurried out after him; and they
- stopped so long in the passage--no doubt owing to Joe’s entreaties
- that she would not expose herself to the draught of July air which must
- infallibly come rushing in on this same door being opened--that the
- knock was repeated, in a yet more startling manner than before.
- ‘Is anybody going to open that door?’ cried the locksmith. ‘Or shall I
- come?’
- Upon that, Dolly went running back into the parlour, all dimples and
- blushes; and Joe opened it with a mighty noise, and other superfluous
- demonstrations of being in a violent hurry.
- ‘Well,’ said the locksmith, when he reappeared: ‘what is it? eh Joe?
- what are you laughing at?’
- ‘Nothing, sir. It’s coming in.’
- ‘Who’s coming in? what’s coming in?’ Mrs Varden, as much at a loss as
- her husband, could only shake her head in answer to his inquiring look:
- so, the locksmith wheeled his chair round to command a better view of
- the room-door, and stared at it with his eyes wide open, and a mingled
- expression of curiosity and wonder shining in his jolly face.
- Instead of some person or persons straightway appearing, divers
- remarkable sounds were heard, first in the workshop and afterwards
- in the little dark passage between it and the parlour, as though some
- unwieldy chest or heavy piece of furniture were being brought in, by an
- amount of human strength inadequate to the task. At length after much
- struggling and humping, and bruising of the wall on both sides, the
- door was forced open as by a battering-ram; and the locksmith, steadily
- regarding what appeared beyond, smote his thigh, elevated his eyebrows,
- opened his mouth, and cried in a loud voice expressive of the utmost
- consternation:
- ‘Damme, if it an’t Miggs come back!’
- The young damsel whom he named no sooner heard these words, than
- deserting a small boy and a very large box by which she was accompanied,
- and advancing with such precipitation that her bonnet flew off her head,
- burst into the room, clasped her hands (in which she held a pair of
- pattens, one in each), raised her eyes devotedly to the ceiling, and
- shed a flood of tears.
- ‘The old story!’ cried the locksmith, looking at her in inexpressible
- desperation. ‘She was born to be a damper, this young woman! nothing can
- prevent it!’
- ‘Ho master, ho mim!’ cried Miggs, ‘can I constrain my feelings in these
- here once agin united moments! Ho Mr Warsen, here’s blessedness
- among relations, sir! Here’s forgivenesses of injuries, here’s
- amicablenesses!’
- The locksmith looked from his wife to Dolly, and from Dolly to Joe, and
- from Joe to Miggs, with his eyebrows still elevated and his mouth still
- open. When his eyes got back to Miggs, they rested on her; fascinated.
- ‘To think,’ cried Miggs with hysterical joy, ‘that Mr Joe, and dear
- Miss Dolly, has raly come together after all as has been said and done
- contrairy! To see them two a-settin’ along with him and her, so pleasant
- and in all respects so affable and mild; and me not knowing of it, and
- not being in the ways to make no preparations for their teas. Ho what a
- cutting thing it is, and yet what sweet sensations is awoke within me!’
- Either in clasping her hands again, or in an ecstasy of pious joy, Miss
- Miggs clinked her pattens after the manner of a pair of cymbals, at this
- juncture; and then resumed, in the softest accents:
- ‘And did my missis think--ho goodness, did she think--as her own Miggs,
- which supported her under so many trials, and understood her natur’
- when them as intended well but acted rough, went so deep into her
- feelings--did she think as her own Miggs would ever leave her? Did she
- think as Miggs, though she was but a servant, and knowed that servitudes
- was no inheritances, would forgit that she was the humble instruments
- as always made it comfortable between them two when they fell out,
- and always told master of the meekness and forgiveness of her blessed
- dispositions! Did she think as Miggs had no attachments! Did she think
- that wages was her only object!’
- To none of these interrogatories, whereof every one was more
- pathetically delivered than the last, did Mrs Varden answer one word:
- but Miggs, not at all abashed by this circumstance, turned to the
- small boy in attendance--her eldest nephew--son of her own married
- sister--born in Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, and bred in the
- very shadow of the second bell-handle on the right-hand door-post--and
- with a plentiful use of her pocket-handkerchief, addressed herself to
- him: requesting that on his return home he would console his parents for
- the loss of her, his aunt, by delivering to them a faithful statement
- of his having left her in the bosom of that family, with which, as his
- aforesaid parents well knew, her best affections were incorporated; that
- he would remind them that nothing less than her imperious sense of duty,
- and devoted attachment to her old master and missis, likewise Miss Dolly
- and young Mr Joe, should ever have induced her to decline that pressing
- invitation which they, his parents, had, as he could testify, given her,
- to lodge and board with them, free of all cost and charge, for evermore;
- lastly, that he would help her with her box upstairs, and then repair
- straight home, bearing her blessing and her strong injunctions to mingle
- in his prayers a supplication that he might in course of time grow up
- a locksmith, or a Mr Joe, and have Mrs Vardens and Miss Dollys for his
- relations and friends.
- Having brought this admonition to an end--upon which, to say the truth,
- the young gentleman for whose benefit it was designed, bestowed little
- or no heed, having to all appearance his faculties absorbed in the
- contemplation of the sweetmeats,--Miss Miggs signified to the company in
- general that they were not to be uneasy, for she would soon return; and,
- with her nephew’s aid, prepared to bear her wardrobe up the staircase.
- ‘My dear,’ said the locksmith to his wife. ‘Do you desire this?’
- ‘I desire it!’ she answered. ‘I am astonished--I am amazed--at her
- audacity. Let her leave the house this moment.’
- Miggs, hearing this, let her end of the box fall heavily to the floor,
- gave a very loud sniff, crossed her arms, screwed down the corners of
- her mouth, and cried, in an ascending scale, ‘Ho, good gracious!’ three
- distinct times.
- ‘You hear what your mistress says, my love,’ remarked the locksmith.
- ‘You had better go, I think. Stay; take this with you, for the sake of
- old service.’
- Miss Miggs clutched the bank-note he took from his pocket-book and held
- out to her; deposited it in a small, red leather purse; put the purse
- in her pocket (displaying, as she did so, a considerable portion of some
- under-garment, made of flannel, and more black cotton stocking than is
- commonly seen in public); and, tossing her head, as she looked at Mrs
- Varden, repeated--
- ‘Ho, good gracious!’
- ‘I think you said that once before, my dear,’ observed the locksmith.
- ‘Times is changed, is they, mim!’ cried Miggs, bridling; ‘you can spare
- me now, can you? You can keep ‘em down without me? You’re not in wants
- of any one to scold, or throw the blame upon, no longer, an’t you, mim?
- I’m glad to find you’ve grown so independent. I wish you joy, I’m sure!’
- With that she dropped a curtsey, and keeping her head erect, her ear
- towards Mrs Varden, and her eye on the rest of the company, as she
- alluded to them in her remarks, proceeded:
- ‘I’m quite delighted, I’m sure, to find sich independency, feeling sorry
- though, at the same time, mim, that you should have been forced into
- submissions when you couldn’t help yourself--he he he! It must be great
- vexations, ‘specially considering how ill you always spoke of Mr Joe--to
- have him for a son-in-law at last; and I wonder Miss Dolly can put
- up with him, either, after being off and on for so many years with a
- coachmaker. But I HAVE heerd say, that the coachmaker thought twice
- about it--he he he!--and that he told a young man as was a frind of his,
- that he hoped he knowed better than to be drawed into that; though she
- and all the family DID pull uncommon strong!’
- Here she paused for a reply, and receiving none, went on as before.
- ‘I HAVE heerd say, mim, that the illnesses of some ladies was all
- pretensions, and that they could faint away, stone dead, whenever they
- had the inclinations so to do. Of course I never see sich cases with my
- own eyes--ho no! He he he! Nor master neither--ho no! He he he! I HAVE
- heerd the neighbours make remark as some one as they was acquainted
- with, was a poor good-natur’d mean-spirited creetur, as went out
- fishing for a wife one day, and caught a Tartar. Of course I never to my
- knowledge see the poor person himself. Nor did you neither, mim--ho no.
- I wonder who it can be--don’t you, mim? No doubt you do, mim. Ho yes. He
- he he!’
- Again Miggs paused for a reply; and none being offered, was so oppressed
- with teeming spite and spleen, that she seemed like to burst.
- ‘I’m glad Miss Dolly can laugh,’ cried Miggs with a feeble titter. ‘I
- like to see folks a-laughing--so do you, mim, don’t you? You was always
- glad to see people in spirits, wasn’t you, mim? And you always did your
- best to keep ‘em cheerful, didn’t you, mim? Though there an’t such a
- great deal to laugh at now either; is there, mim? It an’t so much of a
- catch, after looking out so sharp ever since she was a little chit, and
- costing such a deal in dress and show, to get a poor, common soldier,
- with one arm, is it, mim? He he! I wouldn’t have a husband with one arm,
- anyways. I would have two arms. I would have two arms, if it was me,
- though instead of hands they’d only got hooks at the end, like our
- dustman!’
- Miss Miggs was about to add, and had, indeed, begun to add, that,
- taking them in the abstract, dustmen were far more eligible matches than
- soldiers, though, to be sure, when people were past choosing they must
- take the best they could get, and think themselves well off too; but her
- vexation and chagrin being of that internally bitter sort which finds no
- relief in words, and is aggravated to madness by want of contradiction,
- she could hold out no longer, and burst into a storm of sobs and tears.
- In this extremity she fell on the unlucky nephew, tooth and nail, and
- plucking a handful of hair from his head, demanded to know how long she
- was to stand there to be insulted, and whether or no he meant to help
- her to carry out the box again, and if he took a pleasure in hearing his
- family reviled: with other inquiries of that nature; at which disgrace
- and provocation, the small boy, who had been all this time gradually
- lashed into rebellion by the sight of unattainable pastry, walked off
- indignant, leaving his aunt and the box to follow at their leisure.
- Somehow or other, by dint of pushing and pulling, they did attain the
- street at last; where Miss Miggs, all blowzed with the exertion of
- getting there, and with her sobs and tears, sat down upon her property
- to rest and grieve, until she could ensnare some other youth to help her
- home.
- ‘It’s a thing to laugh at, Martha, not to care for,’ whispered the
- locksmith, as he followed his wife to the window, and good-humouredly
- dried her eyes. ‘What does it matter? You had seen your fault before.
- Come! Bring up Toby again, my dear; Dolly shall sing us a song; and
- we’ll be all the merrier for this interruption!’
- Chapter 81
- Another month had passed, and the end of August had nearly come, when Mr
- Haredale stood alone in the mail-coach office at Bristol. Although but a
- few weeks had intervened since his conversation with Edward Chester and
- his niece, in the locksmith’s house, and he had made no change, in the
- mean time, in his accustomed style of dress, his appearance was greatly
- altered. He looked much older, and more care-worn. Agitation and anxiety
- of mind scatter wrinkles and grey hairs with no unsparing hand; but
- deeper traces follow on the silent uprooting of old habits, and severing
- of dear, familiar ties. The affections may not be so easily wounded as
- the passions, but their hurts are deeper, and more lasting. He was now a
- solitary man, and the heart within him was dreary and lonesome.
- He was not the less alone for having spent so many years in seclusion
- and retirement. This was no better preparation than a round of social
- cheerfulness: perhaps it even increased the keenness of his sensibility.
- He had been so dependent upon her for companionship and love; she had
- come to be so much a part and parcel of his existence; they had had so
- many cares and thoughts in common, which no one else had shared; that
- losing her was beginning life anew, and being required to summon up the
- hope and elasticity of youth, amid the doubts, distrusts, and weakened
- energies of age.
- The effort he had made to part from her with seeming cheerfulness and
- hope--and they had parted only yesterday--left him the more depressed.
- With these feelings, he was about to revisit London for the last time,
- and look once more upon the walls of their old home, before turning his
- back upon it, for ever.
- The journey was a very different one, in those days, from what the
- present generation find it; but it came to an end, as the longest
- journey will, and he stood again in the streets of the metropolis. He
- lay at the inn where the coach stopped, and resolved, before he went
- to bed, that he would make his arrival known to no one; would spend but
- another night in London; and would spare himself the pang of parting,
- even with the honest locksmith.
- Such conditions of the mind as that to which he was a prey when he lay
- down to rest, are favourable to the growth of disordered fancies, and
- uneasy visions. He knew this, even in the horror with which he started
- from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the
- presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it
- were, the witness of his dream. But it was not a new terror of the
- night; it had been present to him before, in many shapes; it had haunted
- him in bygone times, and visited his pillow again and again. If it had
- been but an ugly object, a childish spectre, haunting his sleep, its
- return, in its old form, might have awakened a momentary sensation of
- fear, which, almost in the act of waking, would have passed away. This
- disquiet, however, lingered about him, and would yield to nothing. When
- he closed his eyes again, he felt it hovering near; as he slowly sunk
- into a slumber, he was conscious of its gathering strength and purpose,
- and gradually assuming its recent shape; when he sprang up from his bed,
- the same phantom vanished from his heated brain, and left him filled
- with a dread against which reason and waking thought were powerless.
- The sun was up, before he could shake it off. He rose late, but not
- refreshed, and remained within doors all that day. He had a fancy for
- paying his last visit to the old spot in the evening, for he had been
- accustomed to walk there at that season, and desired to see it under the
- aspect that was most familiar to him. At such an hour as would afford
- him time to reach it a little before sunset, he left the inn, and turned
- into the busy street.
- He had not gone far, and was thoughtfully making his way among the noisy
- crowd, when he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and, turning, recognised
- one of the waiters from the inn, who begged his pardon, but he had left
- his sword behind him.
- ‘Why have you brought it to me?’ he asked, stretching out his hand, and
- yet not taking it from the man, but looking at him in a disturbed and
- agitated manner.
- The man was sorry to have disobliged him, and would carry it back again.
- The gentleman had said that he was going a little way into the country,
- and that he might not return until late. The roads were not very safe
- for single travellers after dark; and, since the riots, gentlemen had
- been more careful than ever, not to trust themselves unarmed in lonely
- places. ‘We thought you were a stranger, sir,’ he added, ‘and that you
- might believe our roads to be better than they are; but perhaps you know
- them well, and carry fire-arms--’
- He took the sword, and putting it up at his side, thanked the man, and
- resumed his walk.
- It was long remembered that he did this in a manner so strange, and
- with such a trembling hand, that the messenger stood looking after his
- retreating figure, doubtful whether he ought not to follow, and watch
- him. It was long remembered that he had been heard pacing his bedroom in
- the dead of the night; that the attendants had mentioned to each other
- in the morning, how fevered and how pale he looked; and that when this
- man went back to the inn, he told a fellow-servant that what he had
- observed in this short interview lay very heavy on his mind, and that he
- feared the gentleman intended to destroy himself, and would never come
- back alive.
- With a half-consciousness that his manner had attracted the man’s
- attention (remembering the expression of his face when they parted),
- Mr Haredale quickened his steps; and arriving at a stand of coaches,
- bargained with the driver of the best to carry him so far on his road as
- the point where the footway struck across the fields, and to await his
- return at a house of entertainment which was within a stone’s-throw of
- that place. Arriving there in due course, he alighted and pursued his
- way on foot.
- He passed so near the Maypole, that he could see its smoke rising from
- among the trees, while a flock of pigeons--some of its old inhabitants,
- doubtless--sailed gaily home to roost, between him and the unclouded
- sky. ‘The old house will brighten up now,’ he said, as he looked towards
- it, ‘and there will be a merry fireside beneath its ivied roof. It is
- some comfort to know that everything will not be blighted hereabouts. I
- shall be glad to have one picture of life and cheerfulness to turn to,
- in my mind!’
- He resumed his walk, and bent his steps towards the Warren. It was a
- clear, calm, silent evening, with hardly a breath of wind to stir the
- leaves, or any sound to break the stillness of the time, but drowsy
- sheep-bells tinkling in the distance, and, at intervals, the far-off
- lowing of cattle, or bark of village dogs. The sky was radiant with
- the softened glory of sunset; and on the earth, and in the air, a deep
- repose prevailed. At such an hour, he arrived at the deserted mansion
- which had been his home so long, and looked for the last time upon its
- blackened walls.
- The ashes of the commonest fire are melancholy things, for in them there
- is an image of death and ruin,--of something that has been bright, and
- is but dull, cold, dreary dust,--with which our nature forces us to
- sympathise. How much more sad the crumbled embers of a home: the casting
- down of that great altar, where the worst among us sometimes perform
- the worship of the heart; and where the best have offered up such
- sacrifices, and done such deeds of heroism, as, chronicled, would put
- the proudest temples of old Time, with all their vaunting annals, to the
- blush!
- He roused himself from a long train of meditation, and walked slowly
- round the house. It was by this time almost dark.
- He had nearly made the circuit of the building, when he uttered a
- half-suppressed exclamation, started, and stood still. Reclining, in an
- easy attitude, with his back against a tree, and contemplating the ruin
- with an expression of pleasure,--a pleasure so keen that it overcame his
- habitual indolence and command of feature, and displayed itself utterly
- free from all restraint or reserve,--before him, on his own ground,
- and triumphing then, as he had triumphed in every misfortune and
- disappointment of his life, stood the man whose presence, of all
- mankind, in any place, and least of all in that, he could the least
- endure.
- Although his blood so rose against this man, and his wrath so stirred
- within him, that he could have struck him dead, he put such fierce
- constraint upon himself that he passed him without a word or look. Yes,
- and he would have gone on, and not turned, though to resist the Devil
- who poured such hot temptation in his brain, required an effort scarcely
- to be achieved, if this man had not himself summoned him to stop: and
- that, with an assumed compassion in his voice which drove him well-nigh
- mad, and in an instant routed all the self-command it had been
- anguish--acute, poignant anguish--to sustain.
- All consideration, reflection, mercy, forbearance; everything by which
- a goaded man can curb his rage and passion; fled from him as he turned
- back. And yet he said, slowly and quite calmly--far more calmly than he
- had ever spoken to him before:
- ‘Why have you called to me?’
- ‘To remark,’ said Sir John Chester with his wonted composure, ‘what an
- odd chance it is, that we should meet here!’
- ‘It IS a strange chance.’
- ‘Strange? The most remarkable and singular thing in the world. I never
- ride in the evening; I have not done so for years. The whim seized me,
- quite unaccountably, in the middle of last night.--How very picturesque
- this is!’--He pointed, as he spoke, to the dismantled house, and raised
- his glass to his eye.
- ‘You praise your own work very freely.’
- Sir John let fall his glass; inclined his face towards him with an air
- of the most courteous inquiry; and slightly shook his head as though he
- were remarking to himself, ‘I fear this animal is going mad!’
- ‘I say you praise your own work very freely,’ repeated Mr Haredale.
- ‘Work!’ echoed Sir John, looking smilingly round. ‘Mine!--I beg your
- pardon, I really beg your pardon--’
- ‘Why, you see,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘those walls. You see those tottering
- gables. You see on every side where fire and smoke have raged. You see
- the destruction that has been wanton here. Do you not?’
- ‘My good friend,’ returned the knight, gently checking his impatience
- with his hand, ‘of course I do. I see everything you speak of, when you
- stand aside, and do not interpose yourself between the view and me. I
- am very sorry for you. If I had not had the pleasure to meet you here,
- I think I should have written to tell you so. But you don’t bear it as
- well as I had expected--excuse me--no, you don’t indeed.’
- He pulled out his snuff-box, and addressing him with the superior air of
- a man who, by reason of his higher nature, has a right to read a moral
- lesson to another, continued:
- ‘For you are a philosopher, you know--one of that stern and rigid school
- who are far above the weaknesses of mankind in general. You are removed,
- a long way, from the frailties of the crowd. You contemplate them from a
- height, and rail at them with a most impressive bitterness. I have heard
- you.’
- --‘And shall again,’ said Mr Haredale.
- ‘Thank you,’ returned the other. ‘Shall we walk as we talk? The damp
- falls rather heavily. Well,--as you please. But I grieve to say that I
- can spare you only a very few moments.’
- ‘I would,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘you had spared me none. I would, with
- all my soul, you had been in Paradise (if such a monstrous lie could be
- enacted), rather than here to-night.’
- ‘Nay,’ returned the other--‘really--you do yourself injustice. You are a
- rough companion, but I would not go so far to avoid you.’
- ‘Listen to me,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘Listen to me.’
- ‘While you rail?’ inquired Sir John.
- ‘While I deliver your infamy. You urged and stimulated to do your work
- a fit agent, but one who in his nature--in the very essence of his
- being--is a traitor, and who has been false to you (despite the sympathy
- you two should have together) as he has been to all others. With hints,
- and looks, and crafty words, which told again are nothing, you set on
- Gashford to this work--this work before us now. With these same hints,
- and looks, and crafty words, which told again are nothing, you urged
- him on to gratify the deadly hate he owes me--I have earned it, I thank
- Heaven--by the abduction and dishonour of my niece. You did. I see
- denial in your looks,’ he cried, abruptly pointing in his face, and
- stepping back, ‘and denial is a lie!’
- He had his hand upon his sword; but the knight, with a contemptuous
- smile, replied to him as coldly as before.
- ‘You will take notice, sir--if you can discriminate sufficiently--that I
- have taken the trouble to deny nothing. Your discernment is hardly fine
- enough for the perusal of faces, not of a kind as coarse as your speech;
- nor has it ever been, that I remember; or, in one face that I could
- name, you would have read indifference, not to say disgust, somewhat
- sooner than you did. I speak of a long time ago,--but you understand
- me.’
- ‘Disguise it as you will, you mean denial. Denial explicit or reserved,
- expressed or left to be inferred, is still a lie. You say you don’t
- deny. Do you admit?’
- ‘You yourself,’ returned Sir John, suffering the current of his
- speech to flow as smoothly as if it had been stemmed by no one word of
- interruption, ‘publicly proclaimed the character of the gentleman in
- question (I think it was in Westminster Hall) in terms which relieve me
- from the necessity of making any further allusion to him. You may
- have been warranted; you may not have been; I can’t say. Assuming the
- gentleman to be what you described, and to have made to you or any other
- person any statements that may have happened to suggest themselves to
- him, for the sake of his own security, or for the sake of money, or for
- his own amusement, or for any other consideration,--I have nothing to
- say of him, except that his extremely degrading situation appears to me
- to be shared with his employers. You are so very plain yourself, that
- you will excuse a little freedom in me, I am sure.’
- ‘Attend to me again, Sir John but once,’ cried Mr Haredale; ‘in your
- every look, and word, and gesture, you tell me this was not your act. I
- tell you that it was, and that you tampered with the man I speak of, and
- with your wretched son (whom God forgive!) to do this deed. You talk of
- degradation and character. You told me once that you had purchased the
- absence of the poor idiot and his mother, when (as I have discovered
- since, and then suspected) you had gone to tempt them, and had found
- them flown. To you I traced the insinuation that I alone reaped any
- harvest from my brother’s death; and all the foul attacks and whispered
- calumnies that followed in its train. In every action of my life, from
- that first hope which you converted into grief and desolation, you have
- stood, like an adverse fate, between me and peace. In all, you have ever
- been the same cold-blooded, hollow, false, unworthy villain. For the
- second time, and for the last, I cast these charges in your teeth, and
- spurn you from me as I would a faithless dog!’
- With that he raised his arm, and struck him on the breast so that he
- staggered. Sir John, the instant he recovered, drew his sword, threw
- away the scabbard and his hat, and running on his adversary made a
- desperate lunge at his heart, which, but that his guard was quick and
- true, would have stretched him dead upon the grass.
- In the act of striking him, the torrent of his opponent’s rage had
- reached a stop. He parried his rapid thrusts, without returning them,
- and called to him, with a frantic kind of terror in his face, to keep
- back.
- ‘Not to-night! not to-night!’ he cried. ‘In God’s name, not tonight!’
- Seeing that he lowered his weapon, and that he would not thrust in turn,
- Sir John lowered his.
- ‘Not to-night!’ his adversary cried. ‘Be warned in time!’
- ‘You told me--it must have been in a sort of inspiration--’ said Sir
- John, quite deliberately, though now he dropped his mask, and showed his
- hatred in his face, ‘that this was the last time. Be assured it is! Did
- you believe our last meeting was forgotten? Did you believe that your
- every word and look was not to be accounted for, and was not well
- remembered? Do you believe that I have waited your time, or you mine?
- What kind of man is he who entered, with all his sickening cant of
- honesty and truth, into a bond with me to prevent a marriage he affected
- to dislike, and when I had redeemed my part to the spirit and the
- letter, skulked from his, and brought the match about in his own time,
- to rid himself of a burden he had grown tired of, and cast a spurious
- lustre on his house?’
- ‘I have acted,’ cried Mr Haredale, ‘with honour and in good faith. I do
- so now. Do not force me to renew this duel to-night!’
- ‘You said my “wretched” son, I think?’ said Sir John, with a smile.
- ‘Poor fool! The dupe of such a shallow knave--trapped into marriage by
- such an uncle and by such a niece--he well deserves your pity. But he
- is no longer a son of mine: you are welcome to the prize your craft has
- made, sir.’
- ‘Once more,’ cried his opponent, wildly stamping on the ground,
- ‘although you tear me from my better angel, I implore you not to come
- within the reach of my sword to-night. Oh! why were you here at all! Why
- have we met! To-morrow would have cast us far apart for ever!’
- ‘That being the case,’ returned Sir John, without the least emotion, ‘it
- is very fortunate we have met to-night. Haredale, I have always despised
- you, as you know, but I have given you credit for a species of brute
- courage. For the honour of my judgment, which I had thought a good one,
- I am sorry to find you a coward.’
- Not another word was spoken on either side. They crossed swords, though
- it was now quite dusk, and attacked each other fiercely. They were
- well matched, and each was thoroughly skilled in the management of his
- weapon.
- After a few seconds they grew hotter and more furious, and pressing on
- each other inflicted and received several slight wounds. It was directly
- after receiving one of these in his arm, that Mr Haredale, making a
- keener thrust as he felt the warm blood spirting out, plunged his sword
- through his opponent’s body to the hilt.
- Their eyes met, and were on each other as he drew it out. He put his
- arm about the dying man, who repulsed him, feebly, and dropped upon the
- turf. Raising himself upon his hands, he gazed at him for an instant,
- with scorn and hatred in his look; but, seeming to remember, even then,
- that this expression would distort his features after death, he tried
- to smile, and, faintly moving his right hand, as if to hide his bloody
- linen in his vest, fell back dead--the phantom of last night.
- Chapter the Last
- A parting glance at such of the actors in this little history as it has
- not, in the course of its events, dismissed, will bring it to an end.
- Mr Haredale fled that night. Before pursuit could be begun, indeed
- before Sir John was traced or missed, he had left the kingdom. Repairing
- straight to a religious establishment, known throughout Europe for the
- rigour and severity of its discipline, and for the merciless penitence
- it exacted from those who sought its shelter as a refuge from the world,
- he took the vows which thenceforth shut him out from nature and
- his kind, and after a few remorseful years was buried in its gloomy
- cloisters.
- Two days elapsed before the body of Sir John was found. As soon as
- it was recognised and carried home, the faithful valet, true to his
- master’s creed, eloped with all the cash and movables he could lay his
- hands on, and started as a finished gentleman upon his own account. In
- this career he met with great success, and would certainly have married
- an heiress in the end, but for an unlucky check which led to his
- premature decease. He sank under a contagious disorder, very prevalent
- at that time, and vulgarly termed the jail fever.
- Lord George Gordon, remaining in his prison in the Tower until Monday
- the fifth of February in the following year, was on that day solemnly
- tried at Westminster for High Treason. Of this crime he was, after a
- patient investigation, declared Not Guilty; upon the ground that there
- was no proof of his having called the multitude together with any
- traitorous or unlawful intentions. Yet so many people were there, still,
- to whom those riots taught no lesson of reproof or moderation, that a
- public subscription was set on foot in Scotland to defray the cost of
- his defence.
- For seven years afterwards he remained, at the strong intercession of
- his friends, comparatively quiet; saving that he, every now and then,
- took occasion to display his zeal for the Protestant faith in some
- extravagant proceeding which was the delight of its enemies; and saving,
- besides, that he was formally excommunicated by the Archbishop of
- Canterbury, for refusing to appear as a witness in the Ecclesiastical
- Court when cited for that purpose. In the year 1788 he was stimulated by
- some new insanity to write and publish an injurious pamphlet, reflecting
- on the Queen of France, in very violent terms. Being indicted for the
- libel, and (after various strange demonstrations in court) found guilty,
- he fled into Holland in place of appearing to receive sentence: from
- whence, as the quiet burgomasters of Amsterdam had no relish for his
- company, he was sent home again with all speed. Arriving in the month of
- July at Harwich, and going thence to Birmingham, he made in the latter
- place, in August, a public profession of the Jewish religion; and
- figured there as a Jew until he was arrested, and brought back to London
- to receive the sentence he had evaded. By virtue of this sentence he
- was, in the month of December, cast into Newgate for five years and ten
- months, and required besides to pay a large fine, and to furnish heavy
- securities for his future good behaviour.
- After addressing, in the midsummer of the following year, an appeal to
- the commiseration of the National Assembly of France, which the English
- minister refused to sanction, he composed himself to undergo his full
- term of punishment; and suffering his beard to grow nearly to his waist,
- and conforming in all respects to the ceremonies of his new religion, he
- applied himself to the study of history, and occasionally to the art
- of painting, in which, in his younger days, he had shown some skill.
- Deserted by his former friends, and treated in all respects like the
- worst criminal in the jail, he lingered on, quite cheerful and resigned,
- until the 1st of November 1793, when he died in his cell, being then
- only three-and-forty years of age.
- Many men with fewer sympathies for the distressed and needy, with less
- abilities and harder hearts, have made a shining figure and left a
- brilliant fame. He had his mourners. The prisoners bemoaned his loss,
- and missed him; for though his means were not large, his charity was
- great, and in bestowing alms among them he considered the necessities of
- all alike, and knew no distinction of sect or creed. There are wise men
- in the highways of the world who may learn something, even from this
- poor crazy lord who died in Newgate.
- To the last, he was truly served by bluff John Grueby. John was at his
- side before he had been four-and-twenty hours in the Tower, and never
- left him until he died. He had one other constant attendant, in the
- person of a beautiful Jewish girl; who attached herself to him
- from feelings half religious, half romantic, but whose virtuous and
- disinterested character appears to have been beyond the censure even of
- the most censorious.
- Gashford deserted him, of course. He subsisted for a time upon his
- traffic in his master’s secrets; and, this trade failing when the stock
- was quite exhausted, procured an appointment in the honourable corps
- of spies and eavesdroppers employed by the government. As one of these
- wretched underlings, he did his drudgery, sometimes abroad, sometimes at
- home, and long endured the various miseries of such a station. Ten or a
- dozen years ago--not more--a meagre, wan old man, diseased and miserably
- poor, was found dead in his bed at an obscure inn in the Borough, where
- he was quite unknown. He had taken poison. There was no clue to his
- name; but it was discovered from certain entries in a pocket-book he
- carried, that he had been secretary to Lord George Gordon in the time of
- the famous riots.
- Many months after the re-establishment of peace and order, and even when
- it had ceased to be the town-talk, that every military officer, kept at
- free quarters by the City during the late alarms, had cost for his board
- and lodging four pounds four per day, and every private soldier two and
- twopence halfpenny; many months after even this engrossing topic was
- forgotten, and the United Bulldogs were to a man all killed, imprisoned,
- or transported, Mr Simon Tappertit, being removed from a hospital
- to prison, and thence to his place of trial, was discharged by
- proclamation, on two wooden legs. Shorn of his graceful limbs, and
- brought down from his high estate to circumstances of utter destitution,
- and the deepest misery, he made shift to stump back to his old master,
- and beg for some relief. By the locksmith’s advice and aid, he was
- established in business as a shoeblack, and opened shop under an archway
- near the Horse Guards. This being a central quarter, he quickly made a
- very large connection; and on levee days, was sometimes known to have
- as many as twenty half-pay officers waiting their turn for polishing.
- Indeed his trade increased to that extent, that in course of time he
- entertained no less than two apprentices, besides taking for his wife
- the widow of an eminent bone and rag collector, formerly of Millbank.
- With this lady (who assisted in the business) he lived in great domestic
- happiness, only chequered by those little storms which serve to clear
- the atmosphere of wedlock, and brighten its horizon. In some of these
- gusts of bad weather, Mr Tappertit would, in the assertion of his
- prerogative, so far forget himself, as to correct his lady with a brush,
- or boot, or shoe; while she (but only in extreme cases) would retaliate
- by taking off his legs, and leaving him exposed to the derision of those
- urchins who delight in mischief.
- Miss Miggs, baffled in all her schemes, matrimonial and otherwise, and
- cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour;
- and did at length become so acid, and did so pinch and slap and tweak
- the hair and noses of the youth of Golden Lion Court, that she was by
- one consent expelled that sanctuary, and desired to bless some other
- spot of earth, in preference. It chanced at that moment, that the
- justices of the peace for Middlesex proclaimed by public placard that
- they stood in need of a female turnkey for the County Bridewell, and
- appointed a day and hour for the inspection of candidates. Miss Miggs
- attending at the time appointed, was instantly chosen and selected from
- one hundred and twenty-four competitors, and at once promoted to
- the office; which she held until her decease, more than thirty years
- afterwards, remaining single all that time. It was observed of this lady
- that while she was inflexible and grim to all her female flock, she was
- particularly so to those who could establish any claim to beauty: and
- it was often remarked as a proof of her indomitable virtue and severe
- chastity, that to such as had been frail she showed no mercy; always
- falling upon them on the slightest occasion, or on no occasion at all,
- with the fullest measure of her wrath. Among other useful inventions
- which she practised upon this class of offenders and bequeathed to
- posterity, was the art of inflicting an exquisitely vicious poke or dig
- with the wards of a key in the small of the back, near the spine. She
- likewise originated a mode of treading by accident (in pattens) on
- such as had small feet; also very remarkable for its ingenuity, and
- previously quite unknown.
- It was not very long, you may be sure, before Joe Willet and Dolly
- Varden were made husband and wife, and with a handsome sum in bank (for
- the locksmith could afford to give his daughter a good dowry), reopened
- the Maypole. It was not very long, you may be sure, before a red-faced
- little boy was seen staggering about the Maypole passage, and kicking up
- his heels on the green before the door. It was not very long, counting
- by years, before there was a red-faced little girl, another red-faced
- little boy, and a whole troop of girls and boys: so that, go to Chigwell
- when you would, there would surely be seen, either in the village
- street, or on the green, or frolicking in the farm-yard--for it was a
- farm now, as well as a tavern--more small Joes and small Dollys than
- could be easily counted. It was not a very long time before these
- appearances ensued; but it WAS a VERY long time before Joe looked five
- years older, or Dolly either, or the locksmith either, or his wife
- either: for cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and are
- famous preservers of youthful looks, depend upon it.
- It was a long time, too, before there was such a country inn as the
- Maypole, in all England: indeed it is a great question whether there has
- ever been such another to this hour, or ever will be. It was a long time
- too--for Never, as the proverb says, is a long day--before they forgot
- to have an interest in wounded soldiers at the Maypole, or before Joe
- omitted to refresh them, for the sake of his old campaign; or before
- the serjeant left off looking in there, now and then; or before they
- fatigued themselves, or each other, by talking on these occasions of
- battles and sieges, and hard weather and hard service, and a thousand
- things belonging to a soldier’s life. As to the great silver snuff-box
- which the King sent Joe with his own hand, because of his conduct in the
- Riots, what guest ever went to the Maypole without putting finger and
- thumb into that box, and taking a great pinch, though he had never taken
- a pinch of snuff before, and almost sneezed himself into convulsions
- even then? As to the purple-faced vintner, where is the man who lived in
- those times and never saw HIM at the Maypole: to all appearance as much
- at home in the best room, as if he lived there? And as to the feastings
- and christenings, and revellings at Christmas, and celebrations of
- birthdays, wedding-days, and all manner of days, both at the Maypole and
- the Golden Key,--if they are not notorious, what facts are?
- Mr Willet the elder, having been by some extraordinary means possessed
- with the idea that Joe wanted to be married, and that it would be well
- for him, his father, to retire into private life, and enable him to live
- in comfort, took up his abode in a small cottage at Chigwell; where
- they widened and enlarged the fireplace for him, hung up the boiler,
- and furthermore planted in the little garden outside the front-door, a
- fictitious Maypole; so that he was quite at home directly. To this, his
- new habitation, Tom Cobb, Phil Parkes, and Solomon Daisy went regularly
- every night: and in the chimney-corner, they all four quaffed, and
- smoked, and prosed, and dozed, as they had done of old. It being
- accidentally discovered after a short time that Mr Willet still appeared
- to consider himself a landlord by profession, Joe provided him with
- a slate, upon which the old man regularly scored up vast accounts for
- meat, drink, and tobacco. As he grew older this passion increased upon
- him; and it became his delight to chalk against the name of each of his
- cronies a sum of enormous magnitude, and impossible to be paid: and such
- was his secret joy in these entries, that he would be perpetually seen
- going behind the door to look at them, and coming forth again, suffused
- with the liveliest satisfaction.
- He never recovered the surprise the Rioters had given him, and remained
- in the same mental condition down to the last moment of his life. It was
- like to have been brought to a speedy termination by the first sight of
- his first grandchild, which appeared to fill him with the belief that
- some alarming miracle had happened to Joe. Being promptly blooded,
- however, by a skilful surgeon, he rallied; and although the doctors
- all agreed, on his being attacked with symptoms of apoplexy six months
- afterwards, that he ought to die, and took it very ill that he did
- not, he remained alive--possibly on account of his constitutional
- slowness--for nearly seven years more, when he was one morning found
- speechless in his bed. He lay in this state, free from all tokens
- of uneasiness, for a whole week, when he was suddenly restored to
- consciousness by hearing the nurse whisper in his son’s ear that he was
- going. ‘I’m a-going, Joseph,’ said Mr Willet, turning round upon the
- instant, ‘to the Salwanners’--and immediately gave up the ghost.
- He left a large sum of money behind him; even more than he was supposed
- to have been worth, although the neighbours, according to the custom of
- mankind in calculating the wealth that other people ought to have saved,
- had estimated his property in good round numbers. Joe inherited the
- whole; so that he became a man of great consequence in those parts, and
- was perfectly independent.
- Some time elapsed before Barnaby got the better of the shock he had
- sustained, or regained his old health and gaiety. But he recovered
- by degrees: and although he could never separate his condemnation and
- escape from the idea of a terrific dream, he became, in other respects,
- more rational. Dating from the time of his recovery, he had a better
- memory and greater steadiness of purpose; but a dark cloud overhung his
- whole previous existence, and never cleared away.
- He was not the less happy for this, for his love of freedom and interest
- in all that moved or grew, or had its being in the elements, remained
- to him unimpaired. He lived with his mother on the Maypole farm, tending
- the poultry and the cattle, working in a garden of his own, and helping
- everywhere. He was known to every bird and beast about the place, and
- had a name for every one. Never was there a lighter-hearted husbandman,
- a creature more popular with young and old, a blither or more happy soul
- than Barnaby; and though he was free to ramble where he would, he never
- quitted Her, but was for evermore her stay and comfort.
- It was remarkable that although he had that dim sense of the past, he
- sought out Hugh’s dog, and took him under his care; and that he never
- could be tempted into London. When the Riots were many years old,
- and Edward and his wife came back to England with a family almost as
- numerous as Dolly’s, and one day appeared at the Maypole porch, he knew
- them instantly, and wept and leaped for joy. But neither to visit them,
- nor on any other pretence, no matter how full of promise and enjoyment,
- could he be persuaded to set foot in the streets: nor did he ever
- conquer this repugnance or look upon the town again.
- Grip soon recovered his looks, and became as glossy and sleek as ever.
- But he was profoundly silent. Whether he had forgotten the art of Polite
- Conversation in Newgate, or had made a vow in those troubled times to
- forego, for a period, the display of his accomplishments, is matter of
- uncertainty; but certain it is that for a whole year he never indulged
- in any other sound than a grave, decorous croak. At the expiration of
- that term, the morning being very bright and sunny, he was heard to
- address himself to the horses in the stable, upon the subject of the
- Kettle, so often mentioned in these pages; and before the witness who
- overheard him could run into the house with the intelligence, and add
- to it upon his solemn affirmation the statement that he had heard him
- laugh, the bird himself advanced with fantastic steps to the very door
- of the bar, and there cried, ‘I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil!’
- with extraordinary rapture.
- From that period (although he was supposed to be much affected by the
- death of Mr Willet senior), he constantly practised and improved himself
- in the vulgar tongue; and, as he was a mere infant for a raven when
- Barnaby was grey, he has very probably gone on talking to the present
- time.
- End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens
- *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARNABY RUDGE ***
- ***** This file should be named 917-0.txt or 917-0.zip *****
- This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
- http://www.gutenberg.org/9/1/917/
- Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
- Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
- will be renamed.
- Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
- one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
- (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
- permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
- set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
- copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
- protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
- Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
- charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
- do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
- rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
- such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
- research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
- practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
- subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
- redistribution.
- *** START: FULL LICENSE ***
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
- PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
- To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
- distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
- (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
- Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
- Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
- http://gutenberg.org/license).
- Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
- electronic works
- 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
- electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
- and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
- (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
- the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
- all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
- If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
- Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
- terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
- entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
- 1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
- used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
- agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
- things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
- even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
- paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
- Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
- and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
- works. See paragraph 1.E below.
- 1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
- or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
- Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
- collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
- individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
- located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
- copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
- works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
- are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
- Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
- freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
- this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
- the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
- keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
- Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
- 1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
- what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
- a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
- the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
- before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
- creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
- Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
- the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
- States.
- 1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
- 1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
- access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
- whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
- phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
- Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
- copied or distributed:
- This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
- almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
- re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
- with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
- 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
- from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
- posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
- and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
- or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
- with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
- work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
- through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
- Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
- 1.E.9.
- 1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
- with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
- must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
- terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
- to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
- permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
- 1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
- License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
- work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
- 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
- electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
- prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
- active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
- Gutenberg-tm License.
- 1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
- compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
- word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
- distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
- “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
- posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
- you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
- copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
- request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
- form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
- License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
- 1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
- performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
- unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
- 1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
- access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
- that
- - You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
- the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
- you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
- owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
- has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
- Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
- must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
- prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
- returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
- sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
- address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
- the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
- - You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
- you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
- does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
- License. You must require such a user to return or
- destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
- and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
- Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
- money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
- electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
- of receipt of the work.
- - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
- distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
- electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
- forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
- both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
- Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
- Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
- 1.F.
- 1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
- effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
- public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
- collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
- works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
- “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
- corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
- property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
- computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
- your equipment.
- 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
- of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
- Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
- Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
- Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
- liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
- fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
- LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
- PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
- TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
- LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
- INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
- DAMAGE.
- 1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
- defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
- receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
- written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
- received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
- your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
- the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
- refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
- providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
- receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
- is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
- opportunities to fix the problem.
- 1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
- in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER
- WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
- WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
- 1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
- warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
- If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
- law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
- interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
- the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
- provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
- 1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
- trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
- providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
- with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
- promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
- harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
- that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
- or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
- work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
- Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
- Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
- Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
- electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
- including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
- because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
- people in all walks of life.
- Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
- assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s
- goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
- remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
- Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
- and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
- To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
- and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
- and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
- Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
- Foundation
- The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
- 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
- state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
- Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
- number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
- http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
- Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
- permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
- The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
- Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
- throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
- 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
- business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
- information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official
- page at http://pglaf.org
- For additional contact information:
- Dr. Gregory B. Newby
- Chief Executive and Director
- gbnewby@pglaf.org
- Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
- Literary Archive Foundation
- Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
- spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
- increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
- freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
- array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
- ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
- status with the IRS.
- The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
- charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
- States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
- considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
- with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
- where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
- SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
- particular state visit http://pglaf.org
- While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
- have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
- against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
- approach us with offers to donate.
- International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
- any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
- outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
- Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
- methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
- ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
- To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
- Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
- works.
- Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
- concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
- with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
- Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
- Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
- editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
- unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
- keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
- Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
- http://www.gutenberg.org
- This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
- including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
- Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
- subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.