
 

                                Charles Dickens

                                 Barnaby Rudge

                         A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty

                                    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 his 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. Bat 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 despondent state; and the child was suckling at her breast
when she set out for Tyburn.«

                                   Chapter I

 
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
afterwards.«
    »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 a 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 over-dressed 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 weather-beaten 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 under tone 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. »Hell 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 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 under tone,
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'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 head 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 bed-chamber; 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 II

»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 stable-yard. 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 pent-house 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 wagons, 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 breast, 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'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 III

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 mum-chance, 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 mile-stones 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 good-will, 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 parti-coloured 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
great-coat 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 IV

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 farmhouses 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 up-stairs 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 text-book. 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 where-with 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 tea-pot 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 V

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'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 the 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 VI

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 it?«
    »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
mooncalf 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?«
    »Up-stairs. 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 neighbour, »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 seen 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 acknowledgement 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 VII

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 handmaidens 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'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 great-coat, 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 VIII

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 frouzy 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 bead.
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. Tappertit 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 fullness 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 IX

Chroniclers 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
down-stairs, 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 down-stairs 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 up-stairs 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 be 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 into 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 up-stairs, 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 X

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
fire-dogs 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 spatterdashes, 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 high
mantel-shelf 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 down-stairs, 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 or 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 XI

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 up-stairs,
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 God-send. 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 hearth-stone 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, somewhere 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, somewhere 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 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
up-stairs, 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 acknowledgement 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 up-stairs, 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 XII

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 enclosed 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 dote 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 foot-pace. 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 up-stairs
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 up-stairs 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'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 XIII

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 to go 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 good-will, 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 browse 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 man-trap, 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 remain
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'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 up-stairs 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 up-stairs 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 XIV

Joe Willet rode leisurely along in his despondent 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
bed-chamber? 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 such-like
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'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 XV

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 dullness 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 tea-cup 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 tête-à-tête 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
breeding, 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
hearth'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 XVI

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 for 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, enclosing 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 stage-coaches and scarce heavier
wagons 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 XVII

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 cursed 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 bull-dog.
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'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. »We were 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
roadside, 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 up-stairs 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 XVIII

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 lamp-lighter on his rounds
went flashing past, leaving behind a little track of smoke mingled with glowing
morsels of his red-hot 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 XIX

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 tea-cup, 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 up-stairs.
    »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 up-stairs, 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 up-stairs, 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 superadded 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 up-stairs.
    »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 drowned 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. Nor 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 down-stairs 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. Tappertit, 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 fullness 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 up-stairs, 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'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 XX

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 coachmaker 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 XXI

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, ye 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 staunch 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 half-way 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 under-done, or over-done, 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 XXII

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 coachmaker 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
door-post. 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 XXIII

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 from 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 judgement.
    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 to-morrow. 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 honey-suckle 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 XXIV

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 common-place 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, 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 such 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, dumb-foundered, 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 XXV

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 dullness but of something infinitely worse, so ghastly and unchild-like 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 beggar-man, 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. »If 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 judgment 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 XXVI

»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'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'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 XXVII

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
lamp-light, 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 key-stone 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'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 up-stairs 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 utmost 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 had 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 down-stairs, 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 high-flown 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 down-stairs 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 XXVIII

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 careless 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 XXIX

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 in-doors,« 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 all owing to his not having any imagination; and if that
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 that 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 - better, 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 hand 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, involuntarily 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 is 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 bearing 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 scape-goat 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 XXX

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 dependants, 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
down-stairs 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 on the bystanders on the victory he had won, he retreated to his
own bed-chamber, 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 XXXI

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 down-stairs, 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 too; 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 sergeant,« 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 sergeant 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 sergeant, »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 tap-room, and were listening with greedy ears. One of them, a
carter in a smock frock, 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 sergeant's arguments, and grinned among themselves. »I
say nothing, boys,« said the sergeant, 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 if.
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
sergeant. »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 sergeant 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 sergeant rejoined with many choice asseverations that he didn't; and
that if his (the sergeant'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 sergeant.
»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 sergeant, 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 sergeant, 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 sergeant, 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
up-stairs 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 akimbo.
    »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 sergeant, 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 river-side. 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 XXXII

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 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 nut-crackers?«
    »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
unbiased 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 XXXIII

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. Sign-boards, 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 bedsides, and people who had gone to sleep in old
churches and being over-looked had found themselves alone there at the dead hour
of the night: until they shuddered at the thought of the dark rooms up-stairs,
yet loved to hear the wind moan too, and hoped it would continue bravely. From
time to time these happy in-door 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 mile-stone
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 acounted, 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 either.«
    »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 bareheaded 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'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 XXXIV

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 started 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 great-coats 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 horse-pond 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 at
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, half-way. 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 XXXV

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 pine 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 great-coat, 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 air of 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 up-stairs 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
fire-place; Hugh, striding in with a lighted brand and pile of fire-wood, 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 creature 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 for ever! that I'm ashamed of myself and don't
know where to look. When we're in-doors 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,
wrong side 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 pathetic
manner until he reached his chamber.
 

                                 Chapter XXXVI

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 the 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 Bull-dogs, half-a-guinea.«
    »The United Bull-dogs,« 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 XXXVII

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,
fake 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 down-stairs 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 down-stairs, 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 hundred-fold. 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 again' 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
again' 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, regarded 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 XXXVIII

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. Ill 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, »again' 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 XXXIX

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 Bull-dogs, 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 Bull-dogs, 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?« asked 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 Bull-dogs 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 Bull-dog 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 the 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 case 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 comes 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 dex-terity, 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 such 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'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 such 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 XL

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 them 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 XLI

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 wagon, 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 dose, 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 birdcage 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, broad-sword, 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 sergeant 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 - eh, 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'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 mantel-shelf, 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 one 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 knew
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 wishes 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 XLII

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 up-stairs.
    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 down-stairs, 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 up-stairs, 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 night-cap 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 nightly watching.
 

                                 Chapter XLIII

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?«
    »It is 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 XLIV

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 fool-hardy 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 hoarsest 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'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, just 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 heard 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 XLV

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, bareheaded, 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, contrary 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; im-mediately.« 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
glass-full; 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 XLVI

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 fullness
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 XLVII

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 wagons, 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. Great-coats, 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 thorough-bred 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 wagon 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 thorough-fares had already departed, and the sun was shining with
uncommon lustre.
 

                                 Chapter XLVIII

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 XLIX

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 banister, 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
banisters 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
river-side 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 L

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 despondent; 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 LI

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 before 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 up-stairs. 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 up-stairs. 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 door-step 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 door-step 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 up-stairs, 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 LII

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 re-assembling, 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 weakness 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 his 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 flag-staff, 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, brimful 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 LIII

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 very 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 afoot.«
    »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 quite 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's 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 up-stairs 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 LIV

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 mile, or
three at the farthest, off the stones. Besides, you know, some of the Catholic
gentlefolks have actually sent trinkets and such-like 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
up-stairs 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 banisters 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 re-assemble 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
unskillful, 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 LV

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 crow-bars, - 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
court-yard 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 open wide, 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, nor 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 LVI

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 wagon-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 spell-bound. 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 LVII

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 thought 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 see 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 wagon-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 LVIII

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 court-yard; 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 slyly 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 some time 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 sergeant -
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 sergeant, with an
imprecation on the rioters, »now that the birds have set 'em the example.«
    »The birds!« repeated Tom Green.
    »Ah - birds,« said the sergeant 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 sergeant, 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! No. 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 LIX

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 fellows 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, that 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 such 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 contrary.«
    »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 heard 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 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 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 partikler, 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 LX

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, he said, 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
pent-houses, 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, pickpockets, 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 to-night, 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 LXI

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 mince-meat 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 scape-grace 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 wagon 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 - 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 LXII

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 ship-board;
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 halfway -
    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, looking 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 LXIII

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 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 party, 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 contrary. 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 such, 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 very 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 half-way. - 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 down-stairs. 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 up-stairs, 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
down-stairs, 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 shouting or noise they bore down
straight on Newgate, and halted in a dense mass before the prison-gate.
 

                                  Chapter LXIV

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 had 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
slaughterhouse, 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 lofty 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 gleaned 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 was 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 LXV

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- 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 moments 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 their
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 governor's 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 gate. 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,
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 matured 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 very 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 heard,«
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 heard a eloquence on them boards - you know what boards I mean -
and have heard 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 cell.
    »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 LXVI

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 good-will 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 at 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 good-will 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 seem 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 LXVII

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
unopened, offices and warehouses were shut, the coach and chair stands were
deserted, no carts or wagons 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 party were coming round the other way; and the dismal
jingling or 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 good-will 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 LXVIII

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 cow-herd, 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 gentle-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 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 LXIX

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'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 pack-thread 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 despondent 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 very 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 very 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 sergeant were left to take it to the nearest public-house.
    »Now then, if you're going,« said the sergeant, 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 sergeant
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 sergeant. »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-creature'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 afterwards; very 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 LXX

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 behove 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 gentleman, 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'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'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 knew 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 LXXI

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
worse 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 say. 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't,« cried Dolly, pointing at him earnestly; »now I am sure he
doesn't'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 eye-lash, 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 LXXII

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 fullness 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 great-coat, 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 LXXIII

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 perfectly 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 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 hand-bills, 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 despondent 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 iron 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, dependants, 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 LXXIV

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 gripe until his teeth
chattered in his head, cast him down upon the floor, and flung himself on the
bench again.
    »If it wasn't'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 such 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 have 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 LXXV

A month has elapsed, - and we stand in the bed-chamber 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
hair-dresser.«
    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 had 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 to-morrow, these
men die. Hear the 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 hair-dresser 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 hair-dresser may come in, Peak!«
    The hair-dresser 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 LXXVI

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 court-yard, 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 court-yard. 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 wholesale 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 LXXVII

The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less frequent by degrees,
until silence was scarcely broken save by the bells in the 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
sign-boards and inscriptions, stood plainly out, in the dull grey morning. Heavy
stage wagons 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 fret-work, 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, wagons, 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 wagons,
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
prisongate. 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 lamp-posts - 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 slaughter-house. 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 moments 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 my 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 re-appeared, 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 LXXVIII

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 particular,« said Mr. Willet, chuckling again. »It's nothing
at all particular, 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'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
every-day 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 LXXIX

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 be. 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 in 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 waters 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 up-stairs for Grip (who
had come home at his masters 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 LXXX

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 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 bumping, 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 again united moments! Ho Mr. Warden, 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 contrary! 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 knew 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 up-stairs, 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 such 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 heard 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 knew 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 heard 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 such cases with my own eyes - ho
no! He he he! Nor master neither - ho no! He he he! I have heard the neighbours
make remark as some one as they was acquainted with, was a poor good-natur'd
mean-spirited creature, 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'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 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 LXXXI

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 scattered 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;
and 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 to-night!«
    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 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 its 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
eaves-droppers 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 half-penny;
many months after even this engrossing topic was forgotten, and the United
Bull-dogs 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 shoe-black, 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 sergeant 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 ears 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 his 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.
