GIFT OF
Yoshi S* Kuno
BARNABY RUDGE,
AND
EDWIN DROOD.
BY
CHARLES DICKENS.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS,
NEW YORK
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY
150 Worth Street, corner Mission Place
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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 pre-
ternatural 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 be-
hind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead ; and this youthful in-
discretion 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 considera-
tion, 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 labor 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 (unfor-
tunately) none but sober people at hand. But I could hardly have re-
spected 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 any body but the cook ; to whom he was attached — but
only, I fear, as a policeman might have been. Once, I met him unex-
pectedly, about half-a-mile from my house, walking down the middle of
a public street, attended by a pretty large crowd, and spontaneously ex-
hibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under those
trying circumstances, I can neverforget, 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 pirt 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 I " Since then I have been ravenless.
No account of the Gordon Riots has been to my knowledge intro
Mi944€>G
iv PREFACE.
duced into any work of fiction, and the subject presenting very extraor-
dinary and remarkable features, I was led to project this tale.
Ic 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 naught the commonest principles of right and
wrong; that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution; that it is
senseless, besotted, inveterate and unmerciful ; all history teaches us.
But perhaps we do not know it in our hearts too well, to profit by even
so humble an example as the " No Popery " riots of seventeen hundred
and eighty.
However imperfectly those disturbances are set forth m 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 ;
their cost in money through destruction of property is stated at a low sum,
not extending beyond the amount of compensation actually paid.
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 Amitial 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 here, 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 hus-
band 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 circum-
stance 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
defense 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 orfucrs 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 tliis woman was hanged for the comfoit 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 dis-
tracted and desponding state; and the child was sucking at her breast
when she set out for Tyburn- '
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
BARNABY RUDGE . , , , 7 to 6i8
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD,
Chapter I. The dawn, 619
Chapter II, A dean, and a chapter also, .... . 622
Chapter III. The Nuns' House, 633
Chapter IV. Mr, Sapsea, 644
Chapter V. Mr. Durdles and friend, 653
Chapter VI. Philanthropy in Minor Canon Corner, . ' . . . 659
Chapter VII. More confidences than one, 669
Chapter VIII. Daggers drawn, 677
Chapter IX. Birds in the bush, . 686
Chapter X. Smoothing the way, . 700
Chapter XI. A picture and a ring, 714
Chapter XII. A night with Durdles, ....... 727
Chapter XIII. Both at their best 740
Chapter XIV. When shall these three meet again ? . , . . 750
Chapter XV. Impeached, 763
Chapter XVI. Devoted 771
Chapter XVII. Philanthropy, professional and unprofessional, . , 781
Chapter XVIII. A settler in Cloisterham, 795
Chapter XIX. Shadow on the sun-dial, 803
Chapter XX. A flight, 810
Chapter XXI. A recognition, 820
Chapter XXII. A gritty state of nhings comes on, ... . 825
Chapter XXIII. The dawn again, . , , <, o o 843
BARNABY RUDGE,
CHAPTER I.
In the year 1775, there stood upon the border^ 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 travelers as could
neither read nor write (and at that time a vast number
both of travelers 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 build-
ing, 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 natural 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-paneled
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 folk, of whom there were a few
among the Maypole customers, as unluckily there always are
8 BAKNABY RUDGE.
in every little community, were inclined to Took 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 per-
haps older, which will sometimes happen with houses of an
uncertai.2, as with ladies of a certain, age. Its windows
were old diamond paned 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 an-
cient porch, quaintly and grotesquely carved ; and here on
summer evenings the more favored customers smoked and
drank — ay, and sung many a good song too, sometimes —
reposing on two grim-looking high-backed settles, which,
like the twin dragons of some fairy tale, guided 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 cui-buildings than any body 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 ex-
actly, 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 discolored
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, wrapped its green leaves closely round
the time-worn walls.
Jt was a hale and hearty age, though, still ; and in the sum-
mer or autumn evenings, when the glow of the setting sun fell
BARNABY RUDGE. 9
upon the oak and chestnut trees of the adjacent forest, the
old house, partaking of its luster, seemed their fit compan-
ion, 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 rambling 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 slow-
ness of apprehension, combined with a very strong reliance
upon his 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
gainsayed, seeing that he was in every thing unquestionably
the reverse of fast, and withal one of the most dogged and
positive fellows in existence — alv/ays 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 Provi-
dence, that any body 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, look-
ing round upon his guests :
" It'll clear at eleven o'clock. No sooner and no later.
Not before and not arterward."
" 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
lo BARNABY RUDGE.
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 offense I hope ? " said the little man.
Again John waited leisurely until* the observation had
thoroughly penetrated to his brain, and then replying, " No
offense 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 orna-
mented 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
matter 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 pis-
tols 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 demeanor pervaded the figure, and seemed
to comprehend even those slight accessories, which were all
handsome, and in good keeping.
Toward this young gentleman the eyes of Mr. Willet wan-
dered but once, and then as if in mute inquiry whether he had
observed his sdlent neighbor. It was plain that John and the
BARNABY RUDGE. n
young gentleman had often met before. Fnding that his look
was not returned, or indeed observed by the person to whom
it wasaddressed, John gradually concentrated the whole power
of his eyes into one focus, and brought it to bear upon the nian
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 like-
wise.
The sturdy landlord had a large pair of dull fish-like eyes,
and the little man who 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 un-
known customer. No wonder that a man should grow rest-
less 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 he had al-
ready observed) of a very ready nature, remained staring at
his guest in a particularly awkward and disconcerted man-
ner.
" 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 feat-
'■^*es of a man of sixty or thereabouts, much weather-beaten
12 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 pur-
pose of a wig, shaded his forehead, and almost hid his eye-
brows. 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 cadav-
erous 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 polite-
ness 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
honor to the house by calling for some drink, which was
promptly supplied by the landlord's son Joe, a broad-shoul-
dered 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 toward the company, and after run-
ning 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 de-
liberation.
"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 — ? "
** Ay," 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.
" May be," 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."
BARNABY ^UDGE. 13
The heir-apparent to the jVr«fp(>ie pressed his finger on
his lips, and glancing at th^ young gentleman already noticed,
who had changed his attitude when the house was first men-
tioned, 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 foot-
path 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 sleeves, " / 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 1 " said Joe, catching at any thing 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 traveler, 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 neighborhood 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 adjust-
14 BARNABY RUDGE.
ing 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 comfort-
ably littered down in our stable at this minute ; and he giv-
ing 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 per-
suade myself to do that, beautiful as she is — but then I'm
not in love (at least I don't think I am), and that's the
whole difference."
** He is in love then ? " said the stranger.
" Rather," replied Joe. '^ He'll never be more in love, an4
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, meta-
phorically.
" 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 dream-
ing of saying a word ? "
" Why that's the proper time for me to talk, isn't it t " said
Joe, rebelliously.
BARNABY RUDGE. 15
"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 / did."
" And you'd find your father rather a tough customer in
argeyment, Joe, if any body was to try and tackle him,"
remarked 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 gifr
of natur. If natur has gifted a man with the 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 scat-
tering 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 3uperiQrity. John
i6 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 repre-
sentative 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 can not
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 con-
stitution 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 any thing) 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 can not by possi-
bility be any thing else."
This elucidation of a knotty point being received with
such marks of approval as to put John Willet into a good
humor, he contented himself with repeating to his son
his command of silence, and addressing the stranger,
said :
" If you }md 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 Hare-
dale is Mr. Geoffrey Haredale's niece."
"Is her father alive ? " said the man, carelessly.
BARNABY RUDGE.
17
" 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 re-
marked in an undertone, shaking his head meanwhile as
who should say, " let no man contradict me, for I won't
believe him," that John Willet was in amazing force
to-night, and fit to tackle a chief-justice.
The stranger suffered a short pause to elapse, and then
asked abruptly, " What do you mean ? "
** More than you think for, friend," returned John Wil-
let. " 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 parjsh- clerk, whose air of con-
sciousness 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 solicita-
tion, 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 fagot, whose weight almost crushed it for
the time, shot upward with a strong and sudden glare, and
illumining his figure for a moment, seemed afterward to cast
it into deeper obscurity than before.
By this flickering light, which made the old room, with its
heavy timbers and paneled 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
i8 BARNABY RUDGE.
beat it in — by this light, and under circumstances so auspi.
cious, Solomon Daisy began his tale :
" It was Mr. Reuben Haredale, Mr. Geoffrey's eldei
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.
" Cob," 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 nine-
teenth 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 sur-
prise or encouragement, the latter made no remark, or 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 behavior.
" 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 sup-
pose 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 a 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,
BARNABY RUDGE. 19
occasioned by keen enjoyment of the tobacco and strong
pulling at the pipe, and afterward with increasing distinct-
ness :
" — 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 pur-
sued his theme accordingly.
*' It w^^ a dreary thing, especially as the grave-digger was
laid up in his bed, from long working in a damp soil and sit-
ting 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 unpre-
pared 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 folk indoors, 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.
20 BARNABY RUDGE.
" I sat down to trim the candle, and when I had done so I
could not persuade myself to get up again, and go about my
work. I don't know how it was but I thought of all the ghost
stories I had ever heard, even those that I had heard when I
was a boy at school, and had forgotten long ago ; and they
didn't come into my mind one after another, but all crowding
at once, like. I recollected one story there was in the vil-
lage, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be
that very night for any thing 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
1 had known were buried between the church door and the
church-yard 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 that 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 chan-
cel, that I saw him in his usual place, <vrapping 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 ^^inging 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 toll-
ing of itself a*:, midnight for the dead. I tolled my bell —
how or how Jong, 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 neighbors. Some were serious and
some mad'^ light of it ; I don't think any body believed it real.
But, that morning, Mr. Reuben Haredale was found murdered
in his be i-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 mur-
'HjTfcir, when he seized it.
'"hat was the bell I heard.
BARNABY RUDGE. 21
" 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 recognized by his
clothes and the watch and ring he wore — was found months
afterward, at the bottom of a piece of water in the grounds,
with a deep gash in his 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.
" Every body 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 of 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 ornament-
ing it (according to village report) with a few flourishes sug-
gested 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 ?
22 BARNABY RUDG1«.
This tavern would seem to be a house ot call for all the gap-
ing idlers of the neighborhood ! "
At this remark, which evidently had reference to the
scrutiny he had undergone, as mentioned in the fore-
going chapter, the eyes of John Willet and his friends were
diverted with marvelous 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 ques-
tion in an inn before, and in better weather than this. I
thought you mightn't know the way, as you seem strange in
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 reckon-
ing 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 prof-
fered 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 s© as to shelter himself as effectu-
ally 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 wny 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.
BARNABY RUDGK 23
" 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 some-
times for want of using."
" Use the first less too, and keep your sharpness for your
sweethearts, boy," said the man.
So saying he shook his hand from the bridle, struck him
heavily on the head with the butt end of his whip, and gal-
loped 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 ac-
quainted 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 plowed 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 further on
either side than his own arm would have extended. At that
time, too, all the roads in the neighborhood of the metrop-
olis were infested by footpads or highwaymen, and it was
a ni.q^ht, 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 traveler 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 proba-
bility 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, lean-
ing his body forward until it almost touched the horse's
24 BARNABY RUDGE.
neck, and flourishing his heavy whip above his head with
the fervor of a madman.
There are times when, the elements being in unusual com-
motion, 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 cor-
responding 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 be-
come for the time as wild and merciless as the elements
themselves.
Whether the traveler 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 sud-
denly upon a vehicle which was coming toward 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 traveler.
" A friend ! " repeated the voice. " Who calls himself a
friend and rides like that, abusing heaven's gifts in the shape
of horse flesh, 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 traveler dis-
mounting ; " lend it me for a moment. You have wounded
my horse, I think, with your shaft or wheel."
"VVounded 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 traveler, 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 dam-
BARNABY RUDGE. 25
aged and not you, one of you is welcome to the light at all
events — but it's not the crusty one."
The traveler returned no answer to this speech, but hold-
ing the light near to his panting and reeking beast, examined
him in limb and carcass. Meanwhile, the other man sat
very composedly in his vehicle, which was a kind of chaise
with a depository for a large bag of tools, and watched his
proceedings with a careful eye.
The looker-on was a round, red-faced, sturdy yeoman with
a double chin, and a voice husky with good living, good
sleeping, good humor, 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 ; mak-
ing them old men and women inexorably enough, but leav-
ing their hearts and spirits young and in full vigor. With
such people the gray 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 traveler 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 ^nd
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 i^
any other than an odd and comical expression, through
which its natural good-humor shone with undiminished lus-
ter.
'* He is not hurt," said the traveler at length, raising his
head and the lantern together.
" You have found that out at last, have you ? " rejoined
the old man. " My eyes have seen more light than yours,
but I wouldn't change with you."
" What do you mean ? "
" Mean ! I could have told you he wasn't hurt, five min-
utes ago. Give me the light, friend-; ride forward at a gen-
tler pace ; and good-night."
In handing up the lantern, the man necessarily cast hs
rays full on the speaker's face. Their eyes met at that in-
stant. He suddenly dropped it and crushed it with his
foot.
26 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Did you never see a locksmith before, that you start as
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 to
rob me ? I know these roads, friend. When I travel them,
I carry nothing but a few shiUings, 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 con-
sidering 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 few words he stood upon the de-
fensive.
" 1 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 traveler.
*' 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 traveler 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 traveler threw back his coat, and stooping
down, looked steadily at the locksmith.
Perhaps two men more powerfully contrasted, never op-
posed 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 27
locksmith lighted up with the smile of one expecting to de-
tect 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 recommend-
ation."
" It's not my wish," said the traveler. " My humor is to
be avoided."
"Well," said the locksmith bluntly, " I think you'll have
your humor."
" I will, at any cost," rejoined the traveler. ** 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."
" Ay ? " said the sturdy locksmith.
" Ay ! and a violent death." ■
" From whose hand ? "
" From mine," replied the traveler.
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 mad-
man ' - highwayman ? a cut-throat ? If he had not scoured
28 BARNABY RUDGE.
off so fast, we'd have seen who was in most danger, he or I.
1 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 further 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 traveler 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 be-
tween this and that is the very place where one needs a
light most. Two miles to the Maypole ! I told Mar-
tha 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 com-
pensate for the little resolution he was going to show by
piquing himself on the great resolution he had shown, Ga-
briel 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, respond-
ing 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 cur-
tains of the common-room, seemed to bring with it, as part
of itself, a pleasant hum of voices, and a fragrant odor of
steaming grog and rare tobacco, all steeped as it were in the
cheerful glow — when the shadows, flitting across the cur-
tains, 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 steaming 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 honor
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 sa-
vory smell that made even the boisterous wind a perfume —
Gabriel felt his firmness oozing rapidly away. He tried to
BARNABY RUDGE. 29
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 HI.
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 afterward, 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 May-
pole fire.
** I wish he may be an honest man, that's all," said Solo-
mon, 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 ; " / wish he
may be an honest man."
** So we all do, I suppose, don't we ? " observed the lock-
smith.
" I don't," said Joe.
" No ! " cried Gabriel.
" No. He struck me with his whip, the coward, when he
30 BARNABY RUDGE.
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.
" feather," 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 can not bear the contempt that your treating
me m 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 t Are they obliged to sit
muirichance, and to be ordered about till they are the laugh-
ing-stock of young and old. I am a by-word all over Chig-
weil, and I say — and it's fairer my saying so now, than wait-
ing 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 bold-
ness of his hopeful son, that he sat as one bewildered, staring
ix). a ludicrous manner at the boiler, and endeavoring, 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 \vith liquor.
The honest locksmith alone addressed a few w^ords 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 w^th too tight a hand, and
exhorting Joe himself to bear with his father's caprices, and
rather endeavor to turn them aside by temperate remon-
strance than by ill-timed rebellion. This advice was
BARNABY RUDGE. 31
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, unin-
fluenced by any body.
" 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 en-
grossing 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 any body 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 afore-
said— and giving the reins to the old man, who had by this
32 BARNABY RUDGE.
time taken his scat, sighed again and bade hiin good-
night,
" Good-night ! " said 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 toward London, thinking ot
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. Tliinking
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 tipsyness — and yet feel a strong
tendency to mingle up present circumstances with others
which have no manner of connection with them ; to con-
found 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
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 out-
stretched before him like a dark shadow on the ground, red-
dening the sluggish air with a deep dull light, that told oi
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 33
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 op-
pressed 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 recognizing 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.
34 BARNABV RUDGE.
" 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 toward 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 ;/^/ intellect. "The robber
made off that way, did he ? Well, well, never mind that just
now. Hold your torch this way — a little further off — so.
Now stand quiet, while I try to see what harm is done."
With these words, he applied himself to a closer examina-
tion 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 luster 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 want-
ing.
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 or-
namented 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 party-colored
ends of ribbons and poor glass toys completed the ornamen-
BARNABY RUDGE. 35
tal portion of his attire. The fluttered and confused dispo-
sition 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 huft, and only wink and sparkle all the night ? "
" Now heaven help this silly fellow," murmured the per-
plexed 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 every body'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 Bar-
naby was strong and active, but all the time they were so oc-
cupied he shivered from head to foot, and evidently expe-
rienced an ecstasy of terror.
This accomplished, and the wounded man being covered
with Varden's own great-coat which he took off for the pur-
pose, they proceeded onward at a brisk pace : Barnaby gayly
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.
36 BARNABY RUDGE.
CHAPTER IV.
In the venerable suburb — it was a suburb once — of Clerk-
enwell, toward 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 pres-
ent 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 High-
gate 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, parceled out in streets,
and plentifully peopled, it wore a different aspect. There
were gardens to many of the houses, and trees by the pave-
ment 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 hay-making in the sum-
mer 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 jewelers by scores, it was a purer
place, with farm-houses nearer to it than many modern
Londoners would readily believe, and lovers' walks at no
great distance, which turned into squalid courts, long be-
fore 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 or
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 build-
ing, 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 37
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 any thing besides itself.
The shop — for it had a shop — was, with reference to the
first floor, where shops usually are ; and there all resem-
blance 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 daytime, admit-
ting as much cold air as light, and very often more. Behind
this shop was a wainscoted parlor, looking first into a paved
yard, and beyond that again into a little terrace garden,
raised some feet above it. Any stranger would have sup-
posed that this wainscoted parlor, 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 thought-
ful, as weighing and pondering in their minds whether the
upper rooms were only approachable by ladders from with-
out ; 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 downvv^ard, 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 floor, 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 expendi-
ture of voice, as the neighbors were frequently reminded
^8 BARNABY RUDGE.
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
'ittle forge, near which his 'prentice was at work, that it
would have been difficult for one unused to such espials to
have distinguished any thing but various tools of uncouth
make and shape, great bunches of rusty keys, fragments of
iron, half-finished locks, and such like things, which garn-
ished the walls and hung in clusters from the ceiling.
After a long and patient contemplation of tiie 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 health-
ful — the very impersonation of good-humor 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 mut-
tered 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 39
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 'Pren-
tice'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 parlor door, Sim threw off the paper cap,
sprang from his seat and in two extraordinary steps, some-
thing between skating and minuet dancing, bounded to a
washing place at the other end of the shop, and there re-
moved from his face and hands all traces of his previous
work — practicing 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 blacksmith's family, or
Mr. Simon Tappertit, as he called himself, and required
all men to styls him out of doors, on holidays, and Sun-
days out — was an old-fashioned, thin-faced, sleek-haired,
4© BARNABV RUDGE.
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 forme?!, though somewhat of the leanest, he enter-
tained 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 '' eying 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 forever 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 sub-
mitted, 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.
BARNABY RUDGE. 41
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 be-
come their captain, who, once afoot, would make the lord
mayor tremble on his throne.
In respect of dress and personal decoration, Sim Tap-
pertit was no less of an adventurous and enterprising char-
acter. 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 re-
turning 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 the 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
honored 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 neces-
sary to be known in making his acquaintance.
It was a substantial meal ; for over and above the ordi-
nary 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 always a goodly jug
of well-browned clay, fashioned into the form of an old gen-
tleman, 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.
Bat. bettei far than fair home-brewed, or Yorkshire cake, or
_>ctm, or beef, or any thing to eat or drink that earth or air
or water can supply, there sat presiding over all, the lock-
smith'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 endur-
ance. So thought Sim Tappertit when Gabriel drew those
rosy lips to his — those lips within Sim's reach from day to
42 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 the table, " What is
this I hear about last night ? "
" All true, my dear ; true as the Gospel, Doll."
"Young Mr. Chester robbed, and lying w^ounded 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 shud-
der. " 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, en-
larged upon as it is sure to be, she will go distracted."
"Why, look ye 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 maskers."
" And like himself to do so I " 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. How-
ever, he mingled wnth 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."
BARNABY RUDGE. 43
*' 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 your-
self — 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 gentle-
man'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 con-
versation, 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 favorable display of
his eyes. Regarding the pause which now ensued, as a par-
ticularly advantageous opportunity for doing great execution
with them upon the locksmith's daughter (who he had no
doubt was looking at him m 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 toward 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 lock-
smith'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 com-
44 BARNABY RUDGE.
mitting 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 ?
Vou 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 the 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 start-
ing in her bright eyes. The good-natured locksmith was
Etill patting her on the back and applying such gentle res-
toratives, 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 dispatch ; 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 re-
mained behind.
Indeed, the big look increased immensely, and when he
BARNABY RUDGE.
45
had tied his apron on, became quite gigantic. It was not
until he had several times walked up and do\Yn 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 feat-
ures, and he smiled, uttering meanwhile with supreme con-
tempt 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 con-
fused. 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. Grind-
ing will suit my present humor 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.
Whir-r-r-r-r-r-r.
" Something will come of this ! " said Mr. Tappertit, paus-
ing 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, Avhich often fairly got the better
of him, and drove him back some paces, or, in defiance of ail
40 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 wildnessand 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 with-
out 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 forever 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 imagined, 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
jjusband's and his master's murder understood it well.
BARNABY RUDGE. 47
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, neighbor ! " said the locksmith, as he
followed her, with the air of an old friend, into a little par-
lor where a cheerful fire was burning.
" And you," she answered smiling. '" ^ our 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, neighbor?"
" He is sleeping now. He was very restless toward day-
light, 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 lock-
smith. " 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 wander-
ing, 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, neighbor, 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 con-
viction of his own, she was glad to hear even this praise of
her poor benighted son.
48 BARNABY RUDGE.
*' He will be a 'cute man yet," resumed the locksmith.
" Take care, when we are growing old and foolish, Barnaby
doesn't put us to the blush, that's all. But our other friend,"
he added, looking under the table and about the floor —
" sharpest and cunningest of all the sharp and cunning ones
— where's he ? "
" In Barnaby's room," rejoined the widow, with a faint
smile.
" Ah ? He's a knowing blade ! " said Varden, shaking
his head. *' I should be sorry to talk secrets .before him.
Oh ! He's a deep customer. I've no doubt he can read,
and write, and cast accounts if he chooses. What was that ?
Him tapping at the door ? "
** No," returned the widow. " It was in the street, I
think. Hark ! Yes. There again ! 'Tis some one knock-
ing 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 voice might otherwise have disturbed
his slumber. The party without, whoever it was, could have
stood close to the shutter without hearing any thing 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 rufifian may be," 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 ? " aaid 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 de-
tain 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 associa-
tion with — whispered " Make haste."
The words were uttered in that low distinct voice which
BARNABY RUDGE. 49
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 creak-
ing boards, and then a moment's silence — broken by a sup-
pressed 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 witii 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 lock-
smith, pointing — " yonder — there — there is his shadow pass-
ing by that light. What — who is this ? Let me go."
"Come back, come back ! " exclaimed the woman, clasp-
ing 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 int© 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.
5© BARNABY RUDGE.
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 stuf)efied, 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 neigh-
bor 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."
" Neighbor," 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 license of an old acquaintance, Mary," said
the locksmith, " who has ever had a warm regard for you,
and may be has tried to prove it when he could. Who is
this ill-favored 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 neitlier durst so itiuch
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 ! "
" 13ut he wouldn't have gone in the body," returned the
BARNABY RUDGE. 51
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 forever 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." ^yhen
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 any thing but what you really saw,
and never let a word or look between us, recall this circum-
stance. 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 favorable 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
favoring his escape, was a discovery that pained as nriuch 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 r-o more readiness than old John himself. Why
52 BARNABY RUDGE.
didn't I say firmly, ' You have no right to such secrets, and
I demand of you to tell me what this means,' instead of
standing gaping at her, like an old moon-calf as I am ! But
there's my weakness. I can be obstinate enough with men
if need be, but women may twist me round their fingers at
their pleasure."
He took his wig off outright as he made this reflection,
and, warming his handkerchief at the fire, began to rub and
polish his bald head with it, until it glistened again.
"And yet," said the locksmith, softening under this sooth-
ing process, and stopping to smile, '' it rnaj 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 favor 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 sweet-
heart 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 At's shadow ^
Come. You're a wise man ; tell me that."
" Beside him, Barnaby ; beside Ui-TQ, I suppose," returned
the locksmith.
" No ! " he replied, shaking his head. " Guess again."
" Gone out ^ "'"'^ing, may be ? "
BARNABY RUDGE. S3
*' He has changed shadows with a woman," the idiot
whispered in his ear, and then fell back with a look of tri-
umph. " 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 /lave 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 tog&ther 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, " 1 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 ? "
" \Vhat 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.
54 BARNABY RUDGR.
They entered a homely bed-chamber, 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 May-
pole 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
1 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 offense
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 lock-
smith's sympathizing 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 humor 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 va-
cantly, 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 1 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 highway-
men there are, scouring the roads in all directions ? " said
Varden.
BARNABY RUDGE. , 55
" I was, but I had only a stick, having imprudently left my
I istols in their holster-case with the landlord's son. I div
I'ccted 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 look-
ing cautiously toward their silent neighbor, " except in re-
spect 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 an-
other glance toward 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 toward Barnaby ; " I know he saw him. I
want to know yi\s.dX 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 differ-
ent persons, their voices were strangely and most remark-
ably alike ; for directly the man addressed me in the road,
1 recognized his speech again."
" It is as I feared. The very man was here to-night,"
thought the locksmith, changing color. " What dark his-
tory is this ! "
56 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Halloo ! " cried a hoarse voice in his ear. " Halloo,
halloo, halloo ! Bow, wow, wow. What's the matter here !
Halloo ! "
The speaker — who niade 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 ex-
traordinary 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 admira-
tion 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.
" Halloo, halloo, halloo ! What's the matter here ! Keep
Tip 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 fore-
finger to the raven, who, in acknowledgment of the atten-
tion, 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 57
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 be-
fore, 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 under-
stand each other. It's all right."
" / 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. / 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 every body 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 long corks, and again asserted
his brimstone birth and parentage with great distinct-
ness.
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 gen-
tleman to avoid him the better.
It was time he went to bed, she said. He was to be re-
moved 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.
58 BARNABY RUDGE.
" By the by," said Edward, as he shook him by the hand,
and looked from him to Mrs. Rudge and back again, " what
noise was that below ? T heard your voice in the midst of
it, and should have inquired before, but our other conversa-
tion drove it from my memory. What was i" ? "
The locksmith looked toward her, and bit his lip. She
leaned 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 window 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 be-
low, 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 by-gone 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 re-
ply, opened the door — no wider than was sufficient for the
passage of his body — and motioned him away. As the lock-
smith stood upon the step, it was chained and locked behind
him, and the raven, in the 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 — Barn-
aby 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 59
strange. — Ah, bark away, my friend. If there's any wicked-
ness 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 every body 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
backward and forward 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 skillfulness and rapidity of execution that as-
tonished 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 in-
creased 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 agree-
able 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 success-
luUy cured by remedies in themselves very nauseous and
unpalatable.
Mrs. V^arden's chief aider and abettor, and at the same
time her principal victim and object of wrath, was her sin-
gle 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 —
6o BARNABY RUDGE.
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 prin-
ciple 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 undeserv-
ing. When particularly exasperated against them (which,
scandal said, was when Sim Tappertit slighted her most) she
was accustomed to wish witli 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 thou-
sand — 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 candor and
concern ; but the parlor door was standing open, and as
Gabriel very well knew for whose ears it was designed, he
regarded her with any thing but an approving look as he
passed in.
'' Master's come home, mini," cried Miggs, running before
him into the parlor. "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 censiderate so far. I'm so
glad, mim, on your account. I'm a little " — here Miggs
simpered — "a little sleepy myself; I'll own it now, mim,
though I said I wasn't when you asked me. It ain't of no
consequence, mim, of course."
" You had better," said the locksmith, who most devoutly
wished that Barnaby's raven was at Miggs's ankles, " you
had better go 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 61
bed this night ; by rights she ought to have been there
hours ago."
" You're talkative, mistress," said Vardcn, 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 offense 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. Vardcn, who, with her countenance shrouded
in a large nightcap, had been all this time intent upon the
Protestant Manuel, 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,
mini, 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, ain'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 any thing serious the
matter with you, Martha^ shouldn't I be in constant attend-
ance 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 bru-
tality of that monster master."
62 BARNABY RUDGE.
'' But you'll break my heart one of these days," adued
Mrs. Varden, witli more resignation, " and then we shall
both be happy. My only desire is to see Dolly comfort-
ably 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 noth-
ing 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 sori
of monotonous remonstrance — " in spirits, if I am eve:
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 any body comes
or goes ; because my whole mind and soul is bent on saving
where I can save, and laboring in this house ; — therefore,
they try me as they do."
** Martha," urged the locksmith, endeavoring to look as
wakeful as possible, "what i? it you complain of? I really
BARNABY RUDGE. 63
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 hubsand 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 any body 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 lock-
smith. " I was really afraid you were not disposed to talk
pleasantly ; I'll tell you every thing ; 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. INIiggs, carry the light. You can be cheer-
ful, 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 toward 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 lead-
ing 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 burned out. At last
he roused himself, and having double-locked the street door
according to custom, and put the key in his pocket, werit oS
to bed.
64 BARNABY RUDGE.
He had not left the room in darkness many minutes, when
the head again appeared, and Sim Tappertit entered, bear-
ing 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 lock-
smith in his sound deep sleep, as by Barnaby himself in his
phantom-haunted dreams.
CHAPTER VHI.
Clear of the locksmith's house, Sim Tappertit laid aside
his cautious manner, and assuming in its stead that of a ruf-
fling, 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 nar-
rowest of the narrow streets which diverged from that cen-
ter, 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 stag-
nant odors. Into this ill-favored 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 65
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 theat-
rical 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, favorable to strong effects, and per-
sonal display, cried " Forward ! " again, in the hoarsest voice
he could assume ; and led the way, with folded arms and knit-
ted 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 1 " said the captain moodily. " Light-
hearted revelers ! "
There was no doubt respecting the particular amusement
in which these heedless spirits were indulging, for even in
66 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 pur-
pose 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 flavor which was uppermost among the various odors
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 molder-
ing 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 toward 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 toward 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,
eying 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 67
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 cap-
tain. 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 influ-
ence 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 out-
stretched hand. Stagg then dropped on one knee, and gently
smoothed the calves of his legs, with an air of humble admi-
ration.
" 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
favorite limbs. " Go along, will you, Stagg ! "
" When I touch my own afterward," cried the host, smit-
ing 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
clamor of tongues, which was suddenly stopped, however, and
68 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 scepter 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 com-
rade got upon the table, too ; and seating himself in a lov^-er
chair than Mr. Tappertit's, with much state and ceremony,
placed the large book on the shoulders of their mute com-
panion 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 toward 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 w^aits with-
out ?"
The 'prentice made answer that a stranger was in attend-
ance, who claimed admission into that secret society of
'Prentice Knights, and a free participation in their rights,
privileges, and immunities. Thereupon Mr. Tappertit flour-
ished 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 broad skirted-coat, trimmed
with tarnished lace ; and who was girded with a sword, in
compliance with the laws of the institution regulating the in-
troduction of candidates, which required them to assume this
courtly dress, and kept ii constantly in lavender, for their
BARNABY RUDGE. 69
convenience. One of the conductors of this novice held a
rusty blunderbuss pointed at his ear, and the other a very-
ancient saber, with which he carved imaginary offenders as
he came along in a sanguinary and anatomical manner.
As this silent group advanced, Mr. Tappertit fixed his hat
upon his head. The novice then laid his hand upon his breast
and bent before him. When he had humbled himself suffi-
ciently, the captain ordered the bandage to be removed, and
proceeded to eye him over.
" Ha ! " said the captain, thoughtfully, when he had con-
cluded 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. Can not 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 togother
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 admoni-
tion to him not to interrupt, and ordered three black crosses
to the name of Curzon.
*' Which means," he said, in gracious explanation, " ven-
geance, 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 every thing established — but
the masters ? " quoth the captain.
Again the novice said " I do."
70 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 endeavored 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 unques-
•tionably 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 cus-
toms, by which they would stand or fall. After illustrating
the wisdom of going backward, by reference to that saga-
cious 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 afore-
said, 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 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 naught ; 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 con-
stitutional 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 cake the
vow, though it should choke him ; and it was. accordingly
administered with many impressive circumstances, among
BARNABY RUDGE. 71
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 saber, 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 scepter
locked up in its usual cupboard, the doors of communica-
tion 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, caking 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, gen-
teel 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 exist-
ence 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 be-
side 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 ? "
72 BARNABY RUDGE,
The long comrade anticipated the reply, by producing it
from the shelf on which it had been deposited.
*' Good, "said Mr. Tappertit, scrutinizing it attentively,
while a breathless silence reigned around ; for he had con-
structed secret door-keys for the v/hole society, and perhaps
owed something of his influence to that mean and trivial cir-
cumstance — 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 him to walk by his side.
'^ And so," he said, when he had taken a few turns up and
down, '' you — you love your master's daughter ! "
'* 1 do," said the 'prentice. " Honor bright. No chaff,
you know."
" Have you," rejoined Mr. Tappertit, catching him by the
wrist, and giving him a look which would have been express-
ive of the most deadly malevolence, but for an accidental
hiccup that rather interfered with it ; " have you a — a
rival ? "—
" Not as 1 know on," replied the 'prentice.
"If you had now — "said Mr. Tappertit — "what v/ould
you — eh ? — "
The 'prentice looked fierce and clenched his fists.
*' It is enough," cried Mr. Tappertit hastily, " we under-
stand 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 no-
tice, proscribing one Joseph ^Villet (commonly known as
Joe) of Chigwell ; forbidding all 'prentice knights to succor,
comfort, or hold communion with him ; and requiring them,
on the 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 en-
counter 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 en-
chant 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 suf-
ficiently enthusiastic in their admiration ; and their host
BARNABY RUDGE. 73
protested, with tears in his eyes, that he had never truly fe-lt
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 Barbi-
can had already begun to crow, as if their lives depended on
it. At this intelligence, the 'prentice knights arose in haste,
and marshaling 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-ni ght, noble captain," whispered the blind man as he
held it open for his passage out ; " farewell, brave general
By, by, 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 occu-
pation ; which was to retail at the area-head above penny-
worths of broth and soup, and savory 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 pri-
vate connection, for the court had no thoroughfare, and was
not that kind of a 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 over-
come, in their soarings up and down, all obstacles of dis-
tance, time and place. Thrice blest be this last considera-
tion, 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 b«=-d 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
74 BARNABY RUDGE.
withdrawing the little window curtain, she gazed out pen-
sively at the wild night sky.
Perhaps she wondered what star was destined for her hab-
itation when she had run her little course below ; perhaps
speculated which of those glimmering spheres might be the
natal orb of Mr. Tappertit ; perhaps miarveled how they
could gaze down on that perfidious creature, man, and not
sicken and turn green as chemist's lamps ; perhaps thought
nothing in particular. Whatever she thought about, there
she sat, until her attention, alive to any thing 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 pol-
ishing the whitewashed wall ; then a gentle creaking of his
door ; then the faintest indication of his stealthy footsteD*^
on the landing-place outside. Noting this latter circum-
stance, Miss Miggs turned pale and shuddered, as mistrust-
ing 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 palpa-
ble foundation.
Looking out accordingly, and stretching her neck over the
handrail, sh^ descried, to her great amazement, ]\Ir. Tap-
pertit 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 the parlor door, draw it back again with
great swiftness, and immediately begin a retreat up-stairs
with all possible expedition.
BARNABY RUDGE. 75
" 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 any body out in any thing, 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 a feather endowed with motion and walking
down on tiptoe. Then gliding out as before, she again be-
held the retreating figure of the 'prentice ; again he looked
cautiously in at the parlor door, but this time instead of re-
treating, 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 1"
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 every thing 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 favorable 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
76 BARNABY RUDGE.
the keyhole as much of these fine ashes as the lock would
hold. When she had filled it to the brim in a very woman-
like and skillful 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 be-
sides Miss Dolly now, I think. A fat-faced puss she is, as
ever / 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. Tapper-
tit 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 traveler.
She sat there, with perfect composure, all night. At
length, just upon break of day, there was a footstep in tlie
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 near-
est post to beat the dust out — that he took it under a lamp
to look at it — that he poked bits of stick into the lock to
clear it — that he peeped into the keyhole, first with one eye
and then with the other — that he tried the key again — that
he couldn't turn it, and what was worse, couldn't get it out —
that he bent it — that then it was much less disposed to come
out than before — that he gave it a mighty twist and a great
pull, and then it came out so suddenly that he staggered
backwards — that he kicked the door — that he shook it —
finally, that he smote his forehead and sat down on the step
in despair.
When this crisis had arrived, Miss Miggs, affecting to be
exhausted with terror, and to cling to the window-sill for
BARNABY RUDGE. 77
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. Tappertitt, " 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, knock-
ing 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 win-
dow, 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, in-
deed. You know as well as any body, how particular I am.
And to come down in the dead of night, when the house is
wrapped in slumbers and welled 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 com.e down, you'll go, and "
78 BARNABY RUDGE.
" And what, my precious ! " said Mr. Tappertit.
*' And try," said Miggs, hysterically, " to kiss me, or some
such dread fulness ; I know you will ! "
" I swear I won't," said Mr. Tappertit, v/ith 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 embar-
rassed 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. Tapper-
tit leaned 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, recov-
ering as soon as she was left alone ; but I'm in his confi-
dence, and he can't help himself, nor couldn't if he was
tu'enty Simmunses ! "
CHAPTER X.
It was on one of those mornings, common in early spring,
when the year, fickle and chnntieable in its youth, like all
Other created things, is undecided whether to step backward
BARNABY RUDGE. 79
into winter or forward into summer, and in its uncertainty
inclines now to the one and now to the ether, 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 traveler of goodly promise, checking his bridle at the
Maypole door.
He was none of your flippant young fellow^s, who would call
for a tankard of mulled ale, and make themselves as much at
home as if they had ordered a hogshead of wine ; none of your
audacious young swaggerers who would even penetrate into
the bar — that solemn sanctuary — and, smiting old John
upon the back, inquire if there was never a pretty girl in the
house, and where he hid his little chambermaids, with a
hundred other impertinences of that nature ; none of your
free-and-easy companions, who would scrape their boots
upon the firedogs in the common room, and be not at all par-
ticular on the subject of spittoons ; none of your uncon-
scionable blades, requiring imp£)ssible chops, and taking un-
heard-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 Jiorse was as
smooth and cool as his own iron-gray 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.
8o BARNABY RUDGE.
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 takec
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 courtesying about it, or with the tall maypole,
on the top of which a weather-cock, which had been out of
order for fifteen years, performed a perpetual walk to the
music of its own creaking, sat for some 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 -oom — 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, " any thing 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 8i
the distracted host, *' that if you were to fire off cannon-balls
into his ears, it wouldn't v/ake him, sir."
The guest made no remark upon this novel cure for drows-
iness, 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, waver-
ing 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 parlor, 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 toward 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 sud-
den 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 dis-
mantled 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 shat-
tered, 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 lifft of flatterers ; bidding it,
when it shone into his chamber, reflect the badges of his an-
cient family, and take new hues and colors 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 mel-
ancholy 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 ov/n
82 BARNABY RUDGE.
rich jewels ; the sound of gentle tongues, 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 courtesan : 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 fagots which were heaped
upon the earth, 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 burned 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 stand-
ish on the high mantle-shelf containing a dusty apology for
all three. Having set this before him, the landlord was re-
tiring, 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 a^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 mes-
senger at hand ? "
John was thoughtful for a minute or thereabouts, and
then said yes.
BARNABY RUDGE. 83
"Let me see him," said the guest.
This was disconcerting ; for Joe being out, and Hugh en-
gaged in rubbing down the chestnut cob, he designed send-
ing on the errand Barnaby, who had just then arrived in one
of his rambles, and who, so that he thought himself em-
ployed 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 forever 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
knoivn along the road by every body, 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 attend-
ing 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 tooth-
pick 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 so-
liloquizing, " must be dreadfully unpleasant — so much bus-
tle and disturbance — no response — a constant dwelling
upon one subject — and the running in and out, and up and
84 BARNABY RUDGE.
down stairs, intolerable. I wouldn't have such a thing hap-
pen to any body 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," said 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 the 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 of truth and feasi-
bility, inasmuch as that interval of time did certainly
lapse, before he returned with Barnaby to the guest's apart-
ment.
" 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 Barn-
aby, " as well as you or I do."
" I haven't the pleasure of much acquaintance with the
gentleman," returned his guest. " Vou 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 toward him as he
spoke, " into Mr. Haredale's own hands. Wait for an an-
swer, and bring it back to me — here. If you should find
that Mr. Haredale is engaged just now, tell him — can he re-
*aember a message, landlord ? "
BARNABY RUUGE. 85
" When he chooses, sir ! " replied John. " He won't for-
get 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 question-
er'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 abed 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 eulo-
gium, with the view of selecting one appropriate to the qual-
ities 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 he led him
stealthily to the back window.
" Look down here," 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 plot-
ting ? 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
86 BARNABY RUDGE.
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. Tve tried to
instill 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 woulr*
be little to the purpose, for he preserved the same concilia-
tory 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. Hare-
dale, it was notorious to all the neighborhood, 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 over-
come. 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 re-
plenished, the hearth clean swept ; the light waned without,
it grew dusk, became quite dark, and still no Barnaby ap-
peared. Yet, though John Willet was full of wonder and
misgiving, his guest sat cross-legged in the easy-chair, to all
appearance as little rufiled 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."
BARNABY RUDGE. 87
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 blaz-
ing fire be lighted there at once. This house is something
damp and chilly."
John raked the fagots 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 him-
self particularly and chiefly referred to under the term
BS BARNABY RUDGE.
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 bend-
ing down to look higher up the chimney, and earnestly watch-
ing 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 im-
pressive 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-
BARNABY RUDGE. 89
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 flavor of the tobacco. Every man
smoked his pipe with a face of grave and serious delight, and
looked at his neighbor 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 dispatch, 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 vapor
from their pipes, might shroud them in a delicious atmos-
phere 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 burned clear
and high, and the crickets in the hearthstone chirped with a
more than wonted satisfaction.
There were present two, however, who showed but little
interest in the general contentment. Of these, one was Barn-
aby himself, who slept, or, to avoid being beset with ques-
tions, 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 sunburned face and swarthy throat, overgrown with jet
black hair, might have served a painter for a model. 1 oosely
attired, in the coarsest and roughest garb, with scraps of straw
and hay — his usual bed — clinging here and there, ana mni-
gling with his uncombed locks, he had fallen asleep, in a pos-
ture 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."
90 BARNABY RUDGE.
" That's it, sir," replied John Willet. " He's not often in
the house, you know. He's more at his ease among horses
than men. I look upon him as a animal himself."
Following up this opinion with a shrug that seemed meant
to say, " we can't expect everybody to be like us," John put
his pipe into his mouth again, and smoked like one who felt
his superiority over the general run of mankind.
" That chap, sir," said John, taking it out again after a time,
and pointing at him with the stem, " though he's got all his
faculties about him — bottled up and corked down, if I may
say so, somewheres or another "
'' Very good ! " said Parkes, nodding his head. " A very
good expression, Johnny. You'll be a tackling somebody
presently. You're in twig to-night, I see."
" Take care," said Mr. Willet, not at all grateful for the
compliment, " that I don't tackle you, sir, which I shall cer-
tainly endeavor to do, if you interrupt me when I'm making
observations. That chap, I was a saying, though he has all
his faculties about him, somewheres or another, bottled up
and corked down, has no more imagination than Barnaby
has. And why hasn't he ? "
The three friends shook their heads at each other ; saying
by that action, without the trouble of opening their lips, " Do
you observe what a philosophical mind our friend has ? "
" Why hasn't he ? " said John, gently striking the table
with his open hand. " Because they was never drawed out
of him when he was a boy. That's why. What would any
of us have been, if our fathers hadn't drawed our faculties
out of us? What would my boy Joe have been, if I hadn't
drawed his faculties out of him } — Do you mind what I'm a
saying of, gentlemen ? "
" Ah ! we mind you," cried Parkes. '^ Go on improving
of us, Johnny."
" Consequently, then," said Mr. Willet, " that chap, whose
mother was hung when he was a little boy, along with six
others, for passing bad notes — and it's a blessed thing to
think how many people are hung in batches every six weeks
for that, and such like offenses, 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, in-
stead of under hay-stacks and hedges, till at last he come to
be hostler at the Maypole for his board and lodging and a
BARNABY RUDGE. 91
annual trifle — that chap that can't read nor write, and has
never had much to do with any thing 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 morn-
ing, 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."
Every body looked at Mr. Willet, after this alarming sug-
gestion. 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 remem-
ber that when I went up last, he had put the lights upon the
mantle-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 flavor 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."
92 BARNABY RUDGE.
A shade passed over Mr. Willet's face as he thought of
broken windows and disabled furniture, but bethinking him-
self 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-ex-
pected visitor, who strode into the room clanking his heavy
boots upon the floor ; and looking keenly round upon the
bowing group, raised his hat in acknowledgment of their
profound respect.
'* You have a stranger here, Willet, who sent to me," he
said, in a voice which sounded naturally stern and deep.
"Where is he?"
" In the great room up-stairs, sir," answered John.
"Show the way. Your staircase is dark, 1 know. Gentle-
men, good-night."
With that he signed to the landlord to go on before ; and
BARNABY RUDGE. 93
went clanking out, and up the stairs ; old John, in his agi-
tation, ingeniously lighting every thing 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 XH.
There was a brief pause in the state-room of the Maypole,
as Mr. Haredale tried the lock to satisfy himself that he had
shut the door securely, and, striding up the dark chamber
to where the screen inclosed a little patch of light and
warmth, presented himself abruptly and in silence, before
the smiling guest.
If the two had no greater sympathy in their inward thoughts
than in their outward bearing and appearance, the meeting
did not seem likely to prove a very calm or pleasant one.
With no great disparity between them in point of years,
they were, in every other respect, as unlike and far removed
from each other as two men could well be. The one was
soft-spoken, delicately made, precise, and elegant ; the other,
a burly square-built man, negligently dressed, rough and
abrupt in manner, stern, and, in his present mood, forbidding
both in look and speech. The one preserved a calm and
placid smile ; the other a distrustful frown. The new-comer,
indeed, appeared bent on showing by his every tone and
gesture his determined opposition and hostility to the man
he had come to meet. The guest who received him, on the
other hand, seemed to feel that the contrast between them
was all in his favor, and to derive a quiet exultation from it
which put him more at his ease than ever.
" Haredale," said the gentleman, without the least appear-
ance 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 .? "
94 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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-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 — toward 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 hol-
low 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 list to com.-
bat 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 honor, Haredale," returned
the other, most composedly, " and I thank you. I will be
frank with you "
^ " I beg your pardon — will be v/hat } "
** 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."
BARNABV PvUDGE. 95
"You are wrong, Haredale," said the other, crossing his
legs, and smiling as he held his glass up in the bright glow
of the tire. '' You are really 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 phi-
losopher has ever established that our globe itself is hollow.
It should be, if Nature is content in her works."
*' You think it is, perhaps ! "
" 1 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 from 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 ap-
proaching 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 to 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 — inde-
pendently 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
96 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 ad-
vantage of being so frank and open. Just what I was about
to add, upon my honor ! 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 Air. 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 Hare-
dale's favoring 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 w^ay. 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 tr jst 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," re-
joined 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 neighborhood in
general, I think," returned the other, with his most affable
smile. " The messenger I sent to you to-day, foremost among
them all"
BARNABY RUdOE, 97
** 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 learned
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, Hare-
dale, 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, restor-
ing some errant fagots to their places in the grate with the
toe of his boot. " If there is any thing real in this world, i:
is those amazingly fine feelings and those natural obliga-
tions which must subsist between father and son. I shall
put it to him on every ground of moral and religious feel-
ing. I shall represent to him that we can not possibly afford
it — that I have always looked forward to his marrying well,
for a genteel provision for myself in the autumn of life —
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
honorable feelings of our nature, with every consideration
of filial duty and affection, and all that sort of thing, im-
peratively 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 afi'air. 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, dur-
ing which he had eyed his smiling face from time to time
intently, " you have the head and the heart of an evil spirit
in all matters of deception."
" Your health ! " said the other, with a nod. " But I have
interrupted you — "
98 BARNABY RUDGE.
" If now," pursued Mr. Haredale, *' we should find it diri%
cult to separate these young people, and break off their i.,-
tercourse — if, for instance, you find it difficult on your side,
what course do you intend to take ? "
" Nothing plainer, my good fellow, nothing easier," re-
turned 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 subter-
fuges 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
endeavors 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 grace-
ful 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. Ches-
ter, composing himself in the easy chair again. " A rough
brute. Quite a human badger ! "
John Willet and his friends, who had been listening in-
tently 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 with-
out a scratch, call for his horse, and ride away thoughtfully
BARNABY RUDGE. 99
at a footpace. After some consideration, it was decided that
he had left the gentleman above, for dead, and had adopted
this stratagem to divert suspicion or pursuit.
As this conclusion involved the necessity of _ their going
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 pretense of cleaning away the glasses.
Under this protection, the brave and broadfaced John
boldly entered the room, half a foot in advance, and re-
ceived an order for a boot-jack without trembling. But when
it was brought, and he leaned 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 disap-
pointment at not finding them full of blood. He took oc-
casion, too, to examine the gentleman as closely as he could,
expecting to discover sundry loop-holes 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 beeen 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 t^at 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 ex-
tremely warm about the legs, now threatening to set his wig
on fire and constantly begging his pardon with great awk-
wardness 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
loo BARNABY RUDGE.
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, 1 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 Barn-
aby — *' they're well enough. He sings 'em sometimes in
the straw. I listen."
'He's quite a animal, sir," John whispered in his ear
with dignity. " You'll excuse him, I'm sure. If he has
any soul at all, sir, it must be such a very small one that it
don't signify what he does or doesn't in that way. Good-
night, sir ! "
The guest rejoined " God bless you ! " with a fervor 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 'pren-
tices, 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 favor of
the young people, and were staunch in devotion to their
cause. Whether this disposition arose out of his old pre-
BARNABY RUDGE. loi
possessions in favor of the young lady, 'vvho'se history hatd
surrounded her in his mind, almost from his cradle, with
circumstances of unusual interest ; or from his attachment
toward the young gentleman, into whose confidence he had,
through his shrewdness and alacrity, and the rendering of
sundry nnportant 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 tes-
tifying 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 gray mare, con-
cerning 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 worst 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, appeal-
I02 BARNABY RUDGE.
iiig fiom this insensible person to his son and heir, who now
appeared, fully equipped and read3^ " 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. AVillet, 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 stupe-
faction, " 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 military air, too!" said Mr. Willet, surveying
him from top to toe ; *' with a swaggering, fire-eating,
biling-water drinking sort of way with him 1 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 nose-
gays."
" I don't suppose any thing of the kind," returned Joe.
" Let them keep their red roses 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 w.v
BARNABV RUDGE. 103
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 six-
pence ?"
"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 imag-
ination. That's the way I enjoyed myself when I was your
age, sir."
To this, Toe made no answer, but beckoning Hugh,
leaped into fhe 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 gray 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 gray 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 by-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 May-
pole, 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. Com-
ing to a dead stop in a little copse thereabout, she suffered
104 BARNABY RUDGE.
her rider to dismount with right good-will, and to tie her tc
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 pass-
ing a wicket gate, entered the grounds on foot.
The pathway, after a very few minutes' walking, brought
him close to the house, toward which, and especially toward
one particular window, he directed many covert glances.
It was a dreary, silent building, with echoing court-yards,
desolated turret chambers, and whole suites of rooms shut
up and moldering 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 somber 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 some-
thing 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 gayety 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 decay and somber 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 theater years
upon years ago. Viewed with reference to this legend, the
sheet of water where the steward's body had been found ap-
peared 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 phan-
tom whose voice would raise the listener's hair on end ; and
every leafless bough that nodded to another, had its stealthy
whispering of crime.
BARNABY RUDGE. 105
Joe j^aced up and down the path, sometimes stopping in af-
fected contemplation of the building or the prospect, some-
times 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 gentle-
man as if he had all his life supported their arched roof or,
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 toward 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 lock-
smith 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 easy as ever ? Ha,
io6 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 endeavoring, 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 parlor."
*' She,",thought Joe. "Which of 'ern I wonder — Mrs. or
Miss ? " The locksmith settled the doubt as neatly as if it
had been expressed aloud, by leading him to the door, and
saying, ''Martha, my dear, here's young Mr. Willet."
Now, Mrs. Varden, regarding the Maypole as a sort of
human mantrap, or decoy for husbands ; viewing its pro-
prietor, 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 victualers ; was far from being
favorably disposed toward 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 any body could have known the pains he had taken to
make up that despised and misused bunch of flowers I —
" 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 favorable
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
^ BARNABY RUDGE. 107
"I hope noj;, ma'am," returned Joe.
" You're the crudest and most inconsiderate people in the
world," said Mrs. Varden, bridling. " I wonder old Mr.
Willet, having been a married man himself, doesn't know
better than to conduct himself as he does. His doing it for
profit is no excuse. I would rather pay the money twenty
times over, and have Varden come home like a respectable
and sober tradesman. If there is one character," said Mrs.
Varden with great emphasis, '' that offends and disgusts me
more than another, it is a sot."
"Come, Martha, my dear." said the locksmith cheerily,
" let us have tea, and don't let us talk about sots. There are
none here, and Joe don't want to hear about them, I dare say."
At this crisis Miggs appeared with toast.
** I dare say he does not," said Mrs. Varden ; ''and I dare
say you do not, Varden. It's a very unpleasant subject I
have no doubt, though I won't say it's personal "—Miggs
coughed — "whatever I may be forced to think," Miggs
sneezed expressively. " You never will know, Varden, and
nobody at young Mr. Willet's age — you'll excuse me, sir-
can be expected to know what a woman suffers when she is
waiting at home under such circumstances. If you^ don't
believe me, as I know you don't, here's Miggs, who is only
too often a witness of it — ask her."
" Oh ! she were very bad the other night, sir, indeed she
were," said Miggs. " If you hadn't the sweetness of an angel
in you, mim, I don't think you could abear it, I raly don't."
'' Miggs," said Mrs. Varden, *' you're profane."
" Begging your pardon, mim," returned Miggs, with shrill
rapidity, " such was not my intentions, and such I hope is not
my character, though I am but a servant."
" Answering me, Miggs, and providing yourself," retorted
her mistress, looking round with dignity, " is one and the
same thing. How dare you speak of angels in connection
with your sinful fellow-beings — mere " — said Mrs. Varden,
glancing at herself in a neighboring mirror, and arranging
the ribbon of her cap in a more becoming fashion — " mere
worms and grovelers as we are ! "
'' I do not intend, mim, if you please, to give offense," said
Miggs, confident in the strength of her compliment, and de-
veloping strongly in the throat as usual, " and I did not ex-
pect it would be took as such. I hope I know my own un-
worthiness, and that I hate and despise myself and all my
fellow-creatures as every practicable Bhristian should."
io8 BARNABY RUDGE.
"You'll have the goodness, if you please," said Mrs. Var-
den, 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 fool-
ish of me to expect that any thing that can be had at home,
and in the company of females, would please you."
This pronoun was understood in the plural sense, and in-
cluded 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 spoiled 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 any thing in his own
defense, 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 dressj 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 lit-
tle 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 out-
side the parlor 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 an't half as real as you think,
and I could look quite as well myself if I took the pains !
BARNABY RUDGE. 109
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 tor-
ments and aggravations, and yet what delights were these !
The very chairmen seemed favored 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 parlor 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 calcu-
late fluttering about her — with the whole party doting on and
adoring her, and wanting to marry her. Miggs was hover-
ing about too ; and the fact of her existence, the mere cir-
cumstance of her ever having been born, appeared, after
Dolly, such an unaccountable practical joke. It was impos-
sible 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 uncer-
tainty 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 every
body to enjoy themselves as they best can, I feel I had bet-
ter 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 / can boast of, and there-
fore 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 . "
no BARNABY RUDGE.
Having uttered these words with great sweetness of man-
ner, the good lady dropped a courtesy remarkable for its con-
descension, 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 determina-
tion, resolved upon for the hundredth time, to speak out to
Dolly and tell her how he loved her ! To see her for a min-
ute — 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 Lyon, thinking as he turned toward home, as many
another Joe has thought before and since, fhat here was an
end to all his hopes — that the thing was imposs'ble 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 desponding mood,
picturing the locksmith's daughter going down along coun-
try-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 gray 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 1 colored 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-humoredly. " Eh ? "
* Ah ! " sighed Joe. ** It's all very fine talking, sir. Prov-
BARNABY RUDGE. iii
erbs 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 uncon-
sciously riding fast just now, in comxpliment I suppose to the
pace of my thoughts, which were traveling 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
'n 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 gray 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 tran-
quillity 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 travelers
pursued, and the light wind stirred yet more softly than be-
fore, 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 interven-
ing 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 toward London, and
deterred from going on to-night by the marvelous tales of
ny friend the highwayman, I suppose," said Edward.
'' He must be a horseman of good quality to have such ac-
commodations. Your bed too, sir ! "
112 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 toward
the house.
A female servant was waiting at a side gate in the gar-
den-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 armor, antlers, wea-
pons of the chase, and such like garniture. Here he
paused, but not long : for as he looked round, as if expect-
ing the attendant to have followed, and w^ondering 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
toward 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 license which, if
you are a brave man, you will not abuse. You have com-
pelled me to this course, and the fault is yours — not mine."
" It is neither generous, nor honorable, nor the act of a
true man, sir," retorted the other, " to tamper with the affec-
tions of a Aveak, 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 Vj
be gone."
" It is neither generous, nor honorable, nor the act of a
true man to play the spy," said Edward. *' Your words
imply dishonor, and I reject them with the scorn they
merit."
"You will find," said Mr. Haredale, calmly, '* your trusty
BARNAP3Y RUDGE. 113
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 terri-
fied 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 kind-
ness 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 pur-
chase one minute's happiness for whom I would gladly lay
down my life ; this house is the casket that holds the pre-
cious 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 re-
ject you, and all of your kith and kin — all the false, hol-
low, heartless stock."
" High words, sir," said Edward, scornfully.
" Words of purpose and meaning, as you will find," re-
plied the other. " Lay them to heart."
"Lay you then, these," said Edward. ''Your cold and
s'ullen 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 na-
ture 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 inju-
rious 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 honor, and set your
influence at naught. I leave her with a confidence in her
pure faith, which you v ill 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
114 BARNABY RUDGE,
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 gen-
tleman's despondency with tenfold aggravation. They rode
back to the Maypole without exchanging a syllable, and ar-
rived 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's ; the smilingest, affablest gentleman I ever had
to do with."
" Who, Willet ' " said Edward carelessly, as he dis-
mounted.
" Your worthy father, sir," replied John. " Your honor-
able, venerable father ! "
'' What does he mean ? " said Edward, looking with a mix-
mre of alarm and doubt at Joe.
'* What £^0 you mean ? '' said Joe. " Don't you see Mr.
Edward doesn't understand, father ? "
" Why, didn't you know of it, sir?" said John, opening
ills eyes wide. " How very singular ! Bless you, he's been
fiere 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 gen-
;leman, in green-and-gold. In your old room up yonder, sir.
Mo doubt you can go in, sir," said John, walking backward
.nto 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 murmur-
,ng that he had changed his mind — forgotten something —
md must return to London, mounted his horse again and
'•ode away ; leaving the Willets, father and son, looking at
each other in mute astonishment.
CHAPTER XV.
At noon next d^y, 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 115
stretch of accommodation at an infinite distance behind, and
suggested comparisons very much to the disadvantage and
disfavor 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 ex-
changed 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 par-
ticularly favorable 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 dull-
ness 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 wa-
ter in fair Fountain Court, and there are yet nooks and cor-
ners 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, some-
thing 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 toward the Thames, and think of baths and
boats, and saunter on, despondent.
It was in a room in Paper Buildings— a row of goodly
ii6 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 gar-
den 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 enormi-
ties with scornful sidelong looks ; on that a weazen old
gentlemen, ogling the nursery-maid, looked with a like scorn
upon the spinster, and wondered she didn't know she was
no longer young. Apart from all these, on the river's mar-
gin two or three couple of business-talkers walked slowly up
and down in earnest conversation ; and one young man sat
thoughtfully on the 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 cam.e toward him with a
rapid pace.
" Really, as if he had heard me," said the father, resum-
ing his newspaper with a yawn. " Dear Ned ! "
Presently the room door opened, and the young man en-
tered ; 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 can
not 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 ! "
BARNABY RUDGE. 117
*' I will be plain, and b«ief," said Edward.
" Don't say you will, my good fellow," returned the 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 be-
ing 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 tha
blew^ so hard five weeki. ago ? I give you my honor 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 in-
stant."
" For his manner of doing so, I give you my honor, 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
ii8 BARNABY RUDGE.
deceive each other, or ourselves. * Let me pursue the manly
open part I wish to take, and do not repel me by this unkind
indifference."
" Whether I am indifferent or no," returned the other, '' I
leave you, my dear boy, to judge. A ride of twenty-five or
thirty-miles through miry roads — a Maypole dinner — a tete-
a-tete with Haredale, which, vanity apart, was quite a Valen-
tine and Orson business — a Maypole bed — a Maypole land-
lord, and a Maypole retinue of idiots and centaurs ; whether
the voluntary endurance of these things look like indiffer-
ence, 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 compas-
sionate smile, " you do nothing of the kind. You don't
know any thing 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 favorably 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 toward 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 1 have been accus-
tomed 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 familiarized 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 favor. In this momentous
BARNABY RUDGE. 119
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 such
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 af-
fect me. Go on, my dear Edward, I beg. But remember
your promise. There is great earnestness, vast candor, 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 can not
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 can not 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 honorable 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 endeavor
earnestly and patiently, if ever man did, to open some pros-
pect 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 ex-
piration of the term we agree upon, let us discuss this sub-
ject 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
I20 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 favor 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 Ed-
ward.
'* 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 circum-
stance and steadily resisted its contemplation, but I fear his
father dealt in pork, and that his business did once involve
cow-heel and sausages — he wished to marry his daughter into
a good family. He had his heart's desire, Ned. I was a
younger son's youngest 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 indis-
pensable. 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 so 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 cham-
bers (once your grandfather's and bequeathed by that
extremely respectable person to me), and commenced to
live upon an inconsiderable annuity and my past reputa-
tion."
" 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, Ntd, unless he is old
BARNABY RUDGE. 121
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, prepos-
sessing, elegant fellow, and 1 threw you into this society J
can still com.mand. 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-hunt-
ers 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 miser-
able or unhappy. How many people do you suppose these
other kinds of huntsmen crush in following their sport-
hundreds at a step ? Or thousands ? "
122 BARNABY RUDGE.
The young man leaned 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 him-
self in the mirror, or survey a picture through his glass with
the air of a connoisseur, " that we have had this conversa-
tion, Ned, unpromising as it was. It establishes a confi-
dence between us which is quite delightful, and was cer-
tainly necessary, though how you can ever have mistaken
our positions and designs, I confess I can not 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 alv/ays 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
iife I lead, I must lead it, Ned. I must have these little
refinements about me. I have always been used to them,
and I can not 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 compassion-
ately 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 behooves you, as a
young man of principle and honor, to pay them off as speed-
ily as possible."
" The villain's part," muttered Edward, " that I have
unconsciously played ! I to win the heart of Emma Hare-
dale ! I would, for her sake, I had died first ! "
BARNABY RUDGE. 123
'* 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 pleasant circum-
stances — think of his having been Viewed ' by jurors, and
* sat upon ' by coroners, and of his very doubtful position in
the family ever afterward. It seems to me such an indeli-
cate 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 conse-
quence 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, gayly
dressed, went out. The younger still sat with his head rest-
ing 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 ^or the beholder to recognize his
124
BARNABY RUDGE,
most familiar walks in the altered aspect of little more than
half a century ago.
Thev 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, burned 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 projected 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 glim-
mering light twinkled for a score of houses, being favored
in no slight degree. Even in these places, the inhabitants
had often good reason for extinguishing their lamp as soon
as V 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 since, escape, even where the pursuit was hot,
was rendered easy.
It is no wonder that with these favoring circumstances in
full and constant operation, street robberies, often accom-
panied 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 Hamp-
stead, or even to Kensington or Chelsea, unarmed and un-
attended ; 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 dis-
agreeable — about tlie thoroughfare^ 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 125
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 clamor ; night-( cllars, 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 com-
fort'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 back-
ward to show its being disengaged — and hurried to the
nearest stand. Many a private chair, too, inclosing some
fine lady, monstrously hooped and furbelowed, and preceded
by running footmen bearing flambeaux — for which extin-
guishers 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 pass-
ing at the west end of the town, heavy stage-coaches and
scarce heavier wagons were lumbering slowly toward the
city, the coachman, 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
420 BARNABY RUDGK.
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, rumors of this riew act of dar-
ing on the road yielded matter for a few hours' conversa-
tion 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 gal-
lantry and grace, furnished to the populace at once a pleas-
ant 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 specter at their licentious feasts ; a some-
thing in the mid-st 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 glidmg on like a shadow. He was always
hurrying away. Those who encountered him saw him steal
past, caught sight oi 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 travel-
ing from spot to spot. The footpad hiding in a ditch had
BARNABY RUDGE. 127
marked him passing like a ghost along its brink ; the vagrant
had met him on the dark highroad ; 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 church-yards, and that they
had" beheld him glide away among the tombs on their ap-
proach. And as they told these stories to each other, one
who had looked about him would pull his neighbor 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 ob-
served, 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, look-
ing 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 m apprehension of a general
attack.
His voice, and look, and bearing — all expressive of the
wildest recklessness and desperation — daunted while they
128 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 humor to be left to my-
self, 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 by-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 by-street in which he had seen
her first, which, being free from shops, and narrow, was ex-
tremely dark. She quickened her pace there, as though dis-
trustful of being stopped, and robbed of such trifling prop-
erty 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 this 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 129
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 parlor had
burned low. Her strapge 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 de-
part ; 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 meager 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 toward him. So they remained for some
short time in silence. Glancing around 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
130 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 Jiard
with, but for his nimbleness. I made a thrust at him."
*' You thrust your sword at Aim / " cried the widow, look-
ing upward. " 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 toward her.
*' Beware " she cried, in a suppressed voice, whose firm-
ness 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 the form of a man live the life of a haunted 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 an-
other world, who will not leave me ; — I am in my despera-
tion 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 can not
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 the closet or pantry in
BARNABY RUDGE. 131
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
toward him. She never turned her back upon him once ;
and although when she passed him (as she was obliged to
in going to and fro 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 toward 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 toward 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 be-
fore 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 in his hand. As
he was counting them she listened for a moment and sprung
toward him.
" Take what there is ; take all ; take more if more were
there ; but go before it is too late. I have heard a way-
ward step without, I know full well. It will return directly.
Begone."
*' What do you mean ? "
132 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 pos-
sessed 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 on her knees and so kneeled down, moving
her lips, but uttering no sound. As he gazed upon her, un-
certain 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 in 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, thrust-.
ing 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 put-
ting his arms about her neck, kissed her a hundred times.
*' We have been a-field, mother — leaping ditches, scram-
bling 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 133
Grip, has quarreled 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, hear-
ing this frequent mention of his name in a tone of exultation,
expressed his sympathy by crowing like a cock, and after-
ward 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 prac-
tices 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 characteris-
tics, and I glory in them." In the meantime, Barnaby
closed the window and secured it, and coming to the fire-
place, prepared to sit down with his face to the closet. But
his mother prevented this, by hastily taking that side her-
self, and motioning him toward 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 every thing 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 him-
self, the bird hopped up on his master's shoulder, from that
to his extended hand, and so to the ground. Barnaby, un-
strapping the basket and putting it down in a corner with the
lid open, Grip's first care was to shut it down with all pos-
sible dispatch, 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.
134 BARNABY RUDGE.
** Mother ! " said Barnaby, laying aside his hat and stick,
and returning to the chair from which he had risen, ** I'll tell
you where we have been to-day, and what we have been
doing— shall I?"
She took his hand in hers, and holding it, nodded the word
she could not speak.
"You mustn't tell," said Barnaby, holding up his finger,
" for it's a secret, mind, and only known to me, and Grip,
and Hugh. We had the dog with us, but he's not like Grip,
clever as he is, and doesn't guess it yet, I'll wager. Why do
you look behind me so ? "
" Did I ? " she answered, faintly. ** I didn't know I did.
Come nearer me."
** You are frightened ! " said Barnaby, changing color.
** Mother — you don't see "
*' See what ? "
" There's — there's none of this about, is there ? " he an-
swered, 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 shut-
ting 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 hmi. " 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 talk-
ing. Was it you and me ? Where have we been ? "
*' Nowhere but here."
*' Ay, but Hugh and I," said Barnaby— " that's it. May-
pole Hugh, and I, you know, and Grip — we have been lying
in the forest, and among the trees by the road side, with a
dark lantern after night came on, and the dog in a noose
ready to slip him when the man came by."
" What man ? "
" The robber ; him that the stars winked at. We have
waited for him after dark these many nights, and we shall
BARNABY RUDGE. 135
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 ! ¥/e shall have him," he cried, ridding him-
self 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 Ty-
burn 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 satisfac-
tion, 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 mor-
sels 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 ar-
rangements, 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
136 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 birth-
day ?"
''To-day!" she answered. ''Don't you recollect it was
but a week or so ago, and that summer, autumn, and winter
has 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 fright-
ened with no reason ; and I have touched your hand, and
felt that it was cold — as it is now. Once, mother (on a birth-
day 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 i.i a
prayer ; and when you rose and walked about, you looked
(as you have done ever since, mother, toward nigh, on my
birthday) just as you do now. I have found tLat out you
see, though I am silly. So I say you're wrong ; and this
must be my birthday — my birthday, G:!^ : ''
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
opposite 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
endeavored 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 Are ; Grip perched upon his leg, and
divided his time between dozing in the grateful warmth, and
endeavoring (as it presently appeared) to recall a new ac-
complishment he had been studying all day.
A long and profound silence ensued, broken only by some
BARNABY RUDGE. 137
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
imcjuiet 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 com-
fortable alderman-like form, and his bright eye growing
smaller and sm.aller, 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.
" — tie on," cried Grip, suddenly struck with an idea and
very much excited. " — tie 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 toward the fire, his arm fell to the ground, and his
head drooped heavily upon it. The widow and her unwel-
come visitor gazed at him and at e'ach other for a moment,
and then she motioned him toward the door.
" Stay," he whispered. '' You teach your son well."
" I have taught him nothing that you heard to-night. De-
part instantly, or I will rouse him."
" You are free to do so. Shall / rouse him ? "
" You dare not do that."
" I dare do any thing, 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
138 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 pros-
trate form, softly turned back the head and looked into the
face. The light of the fire was upon it, and its every linea-
ment 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, be-
tween 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 pave-
BARNABY RUDGE. 139
ment, or the lamp-lighter •on his rounds went flashing past,
leaving behind a little track of smoke mingled with glowing
morsels of his hot red link. He hid himself even from these
partakers of his lonely walk, and shrinking in some arch or
doorway while they passed, issued forth again when they
were gone and so pursued his solitary way.
To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing
the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long
weary night ; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for
warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or in the
hollow of a tree ; are dismal things — but not so dismal as
the wandering up and down where shelter is, and beds and
sleepers are by thousands ; a houseless, rejected creature.
To pace the echoing stones from hour to hour, counting the
dull chimes of the clocks ; to watch the lights twinkling in
chamber windows, to think what happy forgetfulness each
house shuts in ; that here are children coiled together in
their beds, here youth, here age, here poverty, here wealth,
all equal in their sleep, and all at rest ; to have nothing in
common with the slumbering world around, not even sleep,
heaven's gift to all its creatures, and be akin to nothing but
despair ; to feel, by the wretched contrast with every thing
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 and wearisome, so like each other — and often cast a
wistful look toward 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 some-
thing that was awake and glad^-he returned again and again ;
and more than one of those who left it when the merri-
ment 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 guest? 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 ^ity jail.
I40 BARNABY RUDGE.
Instead of hastening from it as a j^lace 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 it where some men
were watching in the prison lodge, and had his foot upon
the steps as though determined to accost them. But look-
ing 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 indica-
tion of the place whence they had come. It was so pro-
foundly dark, however, and so ill-favored, that he con-
cluded 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 door-
way 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 141
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, step-
ping 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, releas-
ing 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 spoken to on partic-
ular 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 toward
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 toward
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."
142 BARNABY RUDGE.
** 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
neighborhood besides, if you detain me," said the blind man.
" Let me go. Do you hear ? "
" Do you hear ! " returned the other, chinking a few shil-
lings 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, al-
most 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," mut-
tered 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 hur-
riedly 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 be-
yond I " said thf 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 re-
turned with him to the first, in which a fire was burning,
and flung himself with a deep groan upon the ground be-
fore 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 keen-
BARNABY RUDGE. 143
est-sighted man could have done — he kneeled 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
clinched, 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 maybe
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
coach-maker (a master of 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-pot, a step was heard in the workshop, and Mr.
Edward Chester was descried through the glass door, stand-
ing 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 inven-
tion, in a sentimental mood, of the chaste and modest Miggs,
who, beholding him from the door-steps she was then clean-
ing, 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 Tap-
pertit to open the glass door and give him admission — from
which untoward circumstance the good lady argueS (for she
could deduce a precious moral from the most trifling event)
144 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 tha*-.
the young gentleman standing by in a somewhat uncomfo -
table and discomfited manner while she read her spouse tl is
lecture, occasioned her to bring it to a premature conclusi m.
" I'm sure you'll excuse me, sir," said Mrs. Varden, ri' ing
and courtesying. ** Varden is so very thoughtless, and n ;eds
so much reminding — Sim, bring a chair here.''
Mr. Tappertit obeyed, with a flourish implying that h i 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 tc fear
that he might find it necessary to poison his master, 1 efore
his time was out.
In the meantime, Edward returned suitable replies t > 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 any thing we can do— Varde i, or I,
or Dolly either — to serve you, sir, at any time, yoi have
only to say it, and it shall be done," said Mrs. V.
" I am much obliged to you, I am sure," returned Edward.
" Yau encourage me to say that 1 have come here ? tOw, to
beg your good offices."
Mrs. Varden was delighted beyond measure.
*' It occurred to me that probably your fair daught« r might
be going to the Warren, either to-day or to-morro v," said
Edward, glancing at Dolly ; " and if so, and you w 11 allow
her to take charge of this letter, ma'am, you will ob'ige me
more than I can tell you. The truth is, that while I ; m very
anxious it should reach its destination, I have p? rticular
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-d?y, or to-
morrow, nor indeed all next week," the lady grac ously re-
joined, *',but we shall be very glad to put ourselv.s out of
the way on your account, and if you wish it, you may de-
pend upon its going to-day. You might suppose," said Mrs.
BARNABY RUDGE. 145
Varden, frowning at her husband, " from Vardsn's sitting
there so glum and silent, that he objected to this arrange-
m^ent ; 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, bless-
ing his stars to find his helpmate in such good-humor, 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 be-
tween married people, are much better left alone. There-
fore, 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-
humoredly, *^ I must say that."
" You did not begin it, Varden ! " exclaimed his wife,
opening her eyes 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
Polly began it, my dear, I shall not contradict you. I know
146 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 fore-
most 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 discon-
cert 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
hapf)en 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 pocket ; 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 Prot-
estant 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 uncon-
scious 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 burst-
ing into tears, requested to be led up-stairs.
" What is the matter now, Martha?" inquired the lock-
smith.
To which Martha rejoined, "Oh! don't speak to mc,"
and protested in agony that if any body had told her sOj
she wouldn't have believed it.
BARNABY RUDGE. 147
" 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. T>o 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, per-
haps they would be sorry for it — which really under the cir-
cumstances 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 cere-
monies incidental to such occasions ; and being supported
up-stairs, was deposited in a highly spasmodic state on her
own bed, where Miss Miggs shortly afterward 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 con-
cession 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 moan-
ing 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, adminis-
tered at first in teaspoonfuls and afterward in increasing
doses and of which Miss Miggs herself partook as a prevent-
ive measure (for fainting is infectious) ; after all these rem-
edies, and many more too numerous to mention, but not to
148 BARNABY RUDGE.
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, w/ie/i 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 happi-
ness it is when man and wife come round again ! Oh gra-
cious, to think that him and her should ever have a word
together ! " In the energy of these sentiments, which were
uttered as an apostrophe to the heavens in general. Miss
Miggs perched the bonnet on the top of her own head, and
folding her hands, turned on her tears.
" I can't help it," cried Miggs. " I couldn't, if I was to be
drownded in 'em. She has such a forgiving spirit ! She'll
forget all that has passed, and go along with you, sir — Oh, if
it was to the world's end, she'd go along with you."
Mrs. Varden with a faint smile gently reproved her attend-
ant 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, vn^IU 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 149
the tears again previous to quitting the room in great emo-
tion, '* I never see ^uch a blessed one as she is for the for-
giveness 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-colored 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-colored rib-
bons, 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-colored decora-
tions 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 sur-
rounded 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 cleri-
cal office appeared, even to his excited imagination, so un-
likely, that he hesitated. And while he stood hesitating,
and looking post-chaises-and-six at Dolly, out came his mas-
ter and his mistress, and the constant Miggs, and the oppor-
tunity was gone forever. 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 ;
150 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 humor as if noth-
ing 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 that, who should be de-
scried upon the pavement but that very coach-maker, look-
ing so genteel that nobody would have believed he had any
thing 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-colored ribbons trem-
bled 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 the father thought it was like his impu-
dence, 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 wouidn 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 vv^as 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 lock-
smith that day, to be used thereafter as occasion might
require, never was got together for macrimonial pur-
poses.
BARNABY RUDGE. 151
In course of time, and in the course of a pretty long time
too, for these agreeable interruptions delayed them not a lit-
tle — 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 wel-
come, and could do nothing but stare.
It was only for a moment, however, that Joe forgot him-
self, 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 nec-
essary 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 common-
place affair the helping Mrs. Varden out afterward was, but
Joe did it, and did it too with the best grace in the world.
Then old John, who, entertaining a dull and foggy sort of
idea that Mrs. Varden wasn't fond of him, had been in some
doubt whether she might not have come for purposes of as-
sault and battery, took courage, hoped she was well, and
offered to conduct her into the house. This tender be-
ing 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, coziest,
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, ideal-
ized 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 savory condiments ; lastly, and to
crown all, as typical of the immense resources of the estab-
152 BARNABY RUDGE.
lishment, 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 toward the Maypole bar.
Mrs. Varden's did directly. She could no more have re-
proached 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
any thing 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 house-
keeping 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, Avhose 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 in-
formed and verily believes, that you might have seen many
less pleasant objects than the cherry-colored 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 im-
portance she derived from it, might have advertised it to all
BARNABY RUDGE. 153
the house if she had had to run the gauntlet of its inhabi-
tants ; but as Dolly had played in every dull room and pas-
sage 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 tip-toe as she passed the
library door, she went straight to Emma's room as a priv-
ileged visitor.
It was the liveliest room in the building. The chamber
was somber like the rest for the matter of that, but the pres-
ence 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 recognize 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 morn-
ing, and slightly dims its luster. 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 exceed-
ingly agreeable, that as she sighed, she smiled, and felt sur-
prisingly 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 donl see how they can very well be more un-
promising 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
154 BARNABY RUDGE.
hastily broke the seal, and became absorbed in its contents,
Dolly's eyes, by one of those strange accidents for which
there is no accounting, wandered to the glass again. She
could not help wondering whether the coach-maker suffered
very much, and quite pitied the poor man.
It was a long letter — a very long letter, written close on
all four sides of the sheet of paper, and crossed afterward ;
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 marveled 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 Hardale'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 improv-
ing 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.
Every thing has an end. Even young ladies in love can
not read their letters forever. 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 in-
cessantly — 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 the light
BARNABY RUDGE. 155
dresses and dark curls appeared so free and joyous in theii
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 in-
constant 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 pretly little brace-
let 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 prot-
estations that she hoped she could do better than that in-
deed ! and so forth), she bade her farewell ; and after call-
ing her back to give her more supplementary messages for
Edward, than any body with tenfold the gravity of Dolly
Varden could be reasonably expected to remember, at
length dismissed her.
Dolly bade her good-by, 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 am 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 lett Emma r "
156 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 embold-
ened 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 mes-
senger and a good girl."
Not feeling quite certain, as she afterward said, whether
he might not be " coming over her " with these compliments,
Dolly kept as far from him as she could, cried again, and re-
solved 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 strug-
gled 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."
BARNABY RUDGE. 157
" 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 re-
sumed 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 be-
gan, and how it ended, and what it said all through, was an-
other matter of constant occupation. Between the bracelet
and the letter, there was quite enough to do without think-
ing of any thing else ; and admiring each by turns, Dolly
went on gayly.
As she passed through a wicket-gate to where the path
was narrov/, 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 mcved on again, than she was con-
158 BARNABY RUDGE.
scious of the same sound, which was like that of a person
tramping stealthily among bushes and brushwood. Looking
toward the spot whence it appeared to come, she almost
fancied she could make out a crouching figare. 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
likev/ise. 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
recognize 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 Doily.
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
re-assured 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 apprehen-
sion 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 dark-
ness 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 159
been rather glad to have had him at hand. But there was
something of coarse bold admiration in his look, which ter-
rified her very much. She glanced timidly toward him, un-
certain 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 7}ie, mistress."
" I am proud to no one. You mistake me," answered
Dolly. " Fall back, if you please, or go on."
'' Nay, mistress," he rejoined, endeavoring 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, endeavoring v/ith 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 ter-
ror, 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 any thing — every thing 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
i6c BARNABV RUDGE
do it 1 nave a mind It ever you are going to tell, stop wtiec
the words are on your lips, and think of the mischief you 1
bring, if you do, upon some innocent heads that you wouldn :
wish to hurt a hair of. Bring trouble on me. and I'll bring
trouble and something more on them in return. [ 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 sorrv ^or ? man's death in all my life, and I have
for a dog's
There was sometning so thoroughly savage in the manner
ot 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 extri-
cate herself and run fleetly from him. But Hugh was as
nimble, strong, and swift of foot, as any man in broad En-
gland, 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 I 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 /lim : 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 un-
able 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-
BARNABY RUDGE. r6i
colored ribbons sadly, and pat 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, whis-
pered 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 afterward, when the dis-
closure was rising to her tongue, Dolly thought of that, and
repressed it. A deep rooted dread of the man ; the convic-
tion 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 con-
siderations she had not the courage to overcome, and in-
ducements 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 ex-
claimed :
"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 rust-
ling her dress. *' They are gone, both gone. What an un-
happy girl I am ! " With these words poor Dolly, who to
do her justice was quite as sorry for the loss of the letter as
i62 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 mi3sing articles, which there was great
probability of his finding, as it was not likely that any body
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 weak-
ness 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 !iave proved
detrimental to the Maypole business. Wherefore, and
because he looked with no favorable 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 ? "
BARNABY RUDGE. 163
" I want him to come with me to look after this bracelet
and letter," answered Joe. " Halloo 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 fello 7 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
valor 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 the chimney-
corners, when honest men's daughters can't cross even our
quiet meadows at nightfall without being set upon by foot-
pads, 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 every body 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 may be could give a guess at the man, if I had any
thing 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, v/ith 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
1 64 BARNABY RUDGE.
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, mis-
tress, 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 such a staunch Protestant. Arguing from this imper-
fect 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 dis-
course to him, whom she entertained with a moral and theo-
logical 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 pur-
poses 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 circum-
'vtance of Mrs. Varden 's having frequently pronounced the
vord '' Grace" with much emphasis ; wliich word, entering
\he portals of Mr. Willet's brain as they stood ajar, and
coupling itself with the words " before meat," which were
then 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
BARNABY RUDGE 165
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 dis-
play 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 savory 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 in-
deed that any thing occurred to put her out of humor. Her
spirits rose considerably on beholding these goodly prepara-
tions, 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 flunctua-
tions in the human thermometer, and especially in instru-
ments 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 a 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 advan ■
tage of this genial weather to smoke his pipe in the porch,
and in consequence of his prudent management, he was fully
prepared, when the glass went down again, to start homeward
directly.
!66 BARNABY RUDGE.
The horse was accordingly put in, and the chaise brought
round to the door. Joe, who would on no account be dis-
suaded from escorting them until they had passed the most
dreary and solitary part of the road, let out the gray mare
at the same time ; and having helped Dolly into her seat
(more happiness !) sprung gayly into the saddle. Then, after
so 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 bewitch-
ing (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 ax 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 enouL^h,
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.
BARNAHV RUDGR. 167
In this manner they traveled along, talking very little
above a whisper, and wished 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 frec^uented 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 ! "
" Ay ! " 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 humor 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 ne had inspired her.
This interruption, and the consequent wakefulness of Mrs.
Varden, who had been nodding in her sleeo up to this point,
except for a minute or two at a time, when she roused her-
self 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 diffi-
cult 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
an any account whatever. It was in vain for Joe to protest
on the other hand that he was by no means tired, and v/ould
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
i68 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 lin-
gered on the spot where they had parted, with the tall dark
figure of Hugh beside him.
What she thought about, going home ; and whether the
coach-maker held as favorable 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 ! " crid Miggs,
clapping her hands, and issuing forth to hetp 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 him ? Oh, gra-
cious ! how cold you are ! Goodness me, sir, she's a per-
fect heap of ice."
" I can't help it, my good girl. You had better take her
into 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 vvill 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 neighboring stable.
" Martha, my dear," said the locksmith, when they reached
the parlor, *' if you'll look to Dolly yourself, or let some-
body 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 possi-
ble) Mrs. Varden expressed her belief that never was any
woman so beset as she : that her life was a continued scene
BARNABY RUDGE. 169
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 restor-
atives, but rather worse, indeed ; and seeing that she was
really ill, both Mrs. Varden and Miggs were moved to com
passion, and tended her in earnest.
But even then, their very kindness shaped itself into theL*
usual course of policy, and though Dolly was in a swoon, it
was rendered clear to the meanest capacity that Mrs. Var-
den was the sufferer. Thus when Dolly began to get a little
better, and passed into that stage in which matrons hold
that remonstance and argument maybe successfully applied,
her mother represented to her, with tears in her eyes, that if
she had been flurried and worried that day, she must remem-
ber it was the common lot of humanity, and in especial of
wom.ankind, 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 fe "flings so far
as to be married ; and that marriage, as she mig.it see every
day of her life (and truly she did) was a state requiring
great fortitude and forbearance. She represented to her in
lively colors, 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, ami-
ablest, forgivingest-spirited, longest-sufferingest female as
ever she could have believed ; the mere narration of
whose excellences had worked such a wholesome change in
the mind of her own sister-in-law, that, whereas, before, she
170 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 happi-
est and affectionest 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 ves-
sel, 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, com-
pared 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 Avas perse-
cuted 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, em-
braced 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 after-
ward — 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 Sim.mun ! " said the young lady, *' such goings on
to-day ? Oh, gracious me, Simmun ! "
Mr. Tappertit, who was not in the best of humors, 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 cir-
BARNABY RUDGE. 171
cumstances, 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 haught-
ily requested his fair friend to be more explicit, and de-
manded 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 honor,
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 astonish-
ment. " 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 tlie 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
have borne her away and perhaps murdered her, but for the
timely arrival of Joseph Willet, who with his own single
hand had 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 bid-
ding than because she desired to cliuckle in secret. When
she had given vent to her satisfaction, she returned to the
172 I3ARNAFA' RUDGK.
parlor ; 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 declaim-
ing on the sinfulness of such junketings, and holding that it
was high time to go to bed. To bed therefore she with-
drew, with an aspect as grim and gloomy as that of the
Maypole's own state coach ; and to bed the rest of the es-
tablishment soon afterward 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. Com-
pletely 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 ad-
vantage ; 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 honor," he said, at length raising his eyes to
the ceiling with the air of a man who was reflecting seri-
ously on what he had read ; " upon my honor, the most
masterly composition, the most delicate thoughts, the finest
code of morality, and the most gentlemanly sentiments in
^e universe ! Ah Ned, Ned, if you would but form your
mind by such precepts, we should have but one common
feeling on every subject that could possibly arise between
us!"
This apostrophe was addressed, like the rest of his re-
marks, to empty air ; for Edward was not present, and the
father was quite alone.
■'My Lord Chesterfield," he said, pressing i.*^ hand ten-
derly upon the book as he laid it down, " if i "^ould but
BARNABY RUDGE. 173
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 un-
doubtedly 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 distin-
guished men of the world from bocrs and peasants, and
separate their character from those intensely vulgar senti-
ments which are called the national character. Apart from
any natural prepossession in my own favor, 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 be-
fore this stupendous creature, if remembering his precepts,
one mxight blush at any thing. An amazing man ! a noble-
man indeed ! any king or queen may make a lord, but only
the devil himself — and the Graces — can make a Chester-
field."
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 1 ke us, but they have not the can-
dor 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 un-
conscious compliment to Truth on the part of these philos-
ophers, which will turn the laugh against them to the Day
of Judgment.
Mr. Chester, having extolled his favorite author, as above
recited, took up the book again in the excess of his admira-
tion 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 endeavors of
his servant to obstruct the entrance of some unwelcome
visitor.
" A late hour for an importunate creditor," he said, rais-
ing his eyebrows with as indolent an expression of wonder
174 BARNABY RUDGE.
as if the noise were in the street, and one with which he had
not the smallest possible concern. " Much after their ac-
customed time. The usual pretense 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 welcom.e 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 tv/elve
months. I think I shall propose it to them. Ah, my cen-
taur, 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 1 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 175
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,
eying 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 humor. I'll wait till you're quite
yourself again. I am in no hurry."
This behavior 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, compla-
cent, contemptuous, self-possessed reception, caused him to
feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate
arguments. Every thing 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 be-
come 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 1 not ? I am waiting for
you."
" Why, look'ee, sir," returned Hugh with increased
embarrassment, " I am 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
176 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 per-
ceptible 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 gayly. ** 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 jewelry
spoken of — a mere trifle — a thing of such little value, indeed,
that you may have forgotten it. Do you remember any
thing of the kind — such as a bracelet now, for instance ? "
Hugh wi.'h 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 with which he held him. " What do you
call f/ii7t, 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 ? "
BARNABY RUDGE. i77
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 dispatched, 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 agree-
able 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 boister-
ously, 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, bademe 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 witli 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
church-vard 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
17?? BARNABY RUDGE.
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, put-
ting on his waistcoat with a great nicety, and taking no 'leed
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 him-
self 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 your-
self," 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
BARNABY RUDGE. i79
this point, and managed the whole conversation, perfectly
baffled him. He did not doubt that if he 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 property stolen upon him ; in which case it was as cer-
tain 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 acci-
dent 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 disinterested-
ness, 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 flames of the candle. When it was in a full
blaze he tossed it into the grate, and there it smoldered
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 any thing else of this
sort, or to pick up any kind of information you may think
1 would like to have, bring it here, will you, my good
fellovv ? "
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 kind-
i8o BARNABY RUDGE.
est patronage, "don't be at all downcast or uneasy respect-
ing that little rashness we have been speaking of. Your
neck is as safe in my hands, my good fellow, as though a
baby's finger 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 ap-
proaching to a bow. " I drink to you.''
" Thank you. God bless you. By the by, 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 always been 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 a
Tyburn for a couple of thousand of men to stare rt. They
might have let her live. She was poor enough."
" How very sad ! " exclaimed his patron, with a conde-
scending 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 w^as 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 sympathizing friend good-night.
BARNABY RUUGE. i8i
" Good-night," he returned. " Remember ; 3^ou'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 your-
self, 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 prob-
ably she was coarse — red-nosed, and had clumsy feet. Ay,
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 lit-
tle 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 en-
chanted 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 con-
stantly reflected ; how honest men, who by instinct knew
him better, bowed down before him nevertheless, deferred
to his every word, and courted his favorable notice ; how
i82 BARNABY RUDGE.
people, who really had good in them, went with the stream,
and fawned and flattered and approved, and despised them>
selves 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 ob-
ject of their lavish regard ; are things of course, which will
suggest themselves. Matter so commonplace needs but a
passing glance, and there an end.
The despisers of mankind — apart from the mere fools and
mimics of that creed — are of two sorts. They who believe
their merit neglected and unappreciated, makeup 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
wliereof 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 I am glad to see you. Pardon
the menial office in which I am engaged, sir, and extenc".
your sympathies to one who, humble as his appearance is,
has inn'ard workings far above his station."
Mr. Chester held the bed-curtain further 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 con-
finement, but had brought away the lock. Mr. Tappertit
bowed again, and displayed his legs to the best advantage.
BARNABY RUDGE. 183
" You have heard, sir," said Mr. Tappertit, faying 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 M<f// ; "
"Ahem ! " said Mr. Tappertit. "Would you permit me
to shut the door, sir, and will you further, sir, give me your
honor 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 toward 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 inconvenience.
"In the first place, sir," said Mr. Tappertit, producing a
small pocket handkerchief, and shaking it out of the folds,
"as 1 have not a card about me (for the envy of masters
debases us below that level) allow me to offer the best sub-
stitute that circumstances will admit of. If you will take
that in your ov/n 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 com-
plicated piece of iron-mongery which you have done me the
favor 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 flavor of oil than I usually refresh my bed-
room with, you will oblige me so far as to put it outside the
door?"
j8/ J3ARNABY RUDGE
' By aii means, sir said Mr Tappertit- suiting the actior
to the word-
* You'll excuse my mentioning it, I hope ? '
' Don't apologize, sir, I beg. And now. if you please, tt
business."
During the whole of this dialogue, Mr. Chester had suf-
fered nothing but his smile of unvarying serenity and polite-
ness to appear upon his face. Sim Tappertit, who had far
too good an opinion of himself to suspect that any body
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 demeanor of a
stranger, by no means favorable 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
70U know I was really afraid of that before ; and you con
firm 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. Be-
sides 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 endeavor 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 backward and forward,
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 185
all the Horse Guards, and every man of 'em in the very full-
est uniform."
Mr. Tappertit stopped to take breath after this, and then
started fresh again.
" Now, sir, 1 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, "' 1 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
forever. 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 dread
ful calmness. " Now, I come to the point. Sir, there is a
villain at that Maypole, a monster in human shape, a vaga-
bond 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 mal-
ice 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
backward and forward to our house, libeling, and denounc-
ing, 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 vengence, 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 ring-
leader. Their plottings and schemes are known to me and
Miggs. If you want information of 'em apply to us. Put
i86 BARNABY RUDGE.
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, dum-
foundered, and overwhelmed, folded his arms so that the
palm of each hand rested on the opposite shoulder, and dis-
appeared 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 com-
mand of my features, beyond all doubt. He fully con-
firms 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 favored, 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 'ie 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 travelers on foot, making toward 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 leav-
ing 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 road side ;
now using his tall as a leaping-pole, coming flying over ditch
or hedge or five-barred gate ; now run with surprising swift-
ness for a mile or more on the straight road, and halting,
BAXINABY RUDGE. 187
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 of
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 en-
joyment 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 man-
kind 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 the darkened jail !
Ye men of gloom and austerity, who paint the face of the
Infinite Benevolence v.ath 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 somber 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 cay
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 gayety 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 traveling,
directly after the event which had changed her whole exist-
ence ; and for two-and-twenty years had never had courage
to revisit it. It was her native village. How many recol-
lections 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
i8S BARNABV RUDGE.
since that time had she sat beside him night and day, watch-
ing 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 de-
vised to try him, the little tokens he had given in his child-
ish way — not of dullness but of something infinitely worse,
so ghastly and unchildlike in its cunning — came back as
vividly as if but yesterday had intervened. The room in
which they used to be ; the spot in which his cradle stood ;
he, old and elfin-like in face, but ever dear to her, gazing at
her with a wild and vacant eye, and crooning some uncouth
song as she sat by and rocked him ; every circumstance of
his infancy came thronging back, and the most trivial, per-
haps, the most distinctly.
His older childhood, too ; the strange imaginings he had ;
his terror of certain senseless things — familiar objects he en-
dowed with life ; the slow and gradual breaking out of that
one horror, in w^hich, 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 beggerman,
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. Hare-
dale 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 plar<r "
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 ?"
iJAKNABY RUDGE. 189
rue 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 un-
worthy 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 accept-
able — " Polly put the ket-tle on, we'll all have tea."
*' Hear me, Mary," said Mr. Haredale kindly, as he mo-
tioned her to walk with him toward 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 some-
times 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 al-
most believe that because your husband was bound by so
many ties to our relation, and died in his service and
defense, you have come in some sort to connect us with his
murderer."
"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 :
I90 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 ap-
proach 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 is not time, sir," she rejoined. " I took my reso-
lution 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 arose and
laid aside her book, and with many kind words, and not
without tears, gave her a warm and earnest welcome. But
the widow shrunk from her embrace as though she feared
her, and sunk down trembling on a chair.
" It is the return to this place after so long an absence,"
said Emma gently. " Pray ring, dear uncle— or stay — Barnaby
will run himself and ask for wine "
" Not for the world," she cried. " It would have another
taste — I could not touch it. I want but a minute's rest.
Nothing but that."
Miss Haredale stood beside her chair, regarding her with
silent pity. She remained for a little time quite still ; then
rose and turned to Mr. Haredale, who had sat down in his
easy chair, and was contemplating her with fixed attention.
The tale connected with the mansion borne in mind, it
seemed, as has been already said, the chosen theater 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 somber ; heavy with worm-
eaten books ; deadened and shut in by faded hangings,
muffling every sound ; shadowed mournfully by trees whose
BARNABY RUDGE. 191
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 start-
ling face and downcast eyes ; Mr. Haredale, stern and de-
spondent ever ; his niece beside him, like, )et most unlike,
the picture of her father, which gazed reproachfully down
upon them from the blackened wall ; Barnaby, with his va-
cant look and restless eye, were all in keeping with the place,
and actors in the legend. Nay, the very raven which 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
tinie. Be more yourself. Take heart. Any advice or as-
sistance 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 de-
cree ! "
" You would have, if you came to me for such a purpose,"
said Mr. Haredale calmly, " some reason to assign for con-
duct so extraordinary, which, if one may entertain the pos-
sibility of any thing so wild and strange, would have its
weiglit, 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.
192 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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," bhe 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 mon-
strous 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 laboring ? "
"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 inno-
cence 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 193
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 dis-
close 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 can not 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 trou-
ble you no more."
With that, she would have left them, but they detained
her, and with many soothing words and kind entreaties, be-
sought 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 all their persuasions, Mr.
Haredale suggested, as a last resource, that she should con-
fide 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 indescrib-
able 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 meantime reconsider her determination and their
dissuasions — though any change on her part^as she told
them, was quite hopeless. This condition mad(Fat 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 pre-
tending to read hard, was listening to every thing. 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 pur-
poses 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, of being what is commonly called
good company.
They were to return by the coach. As there was an
194 BARNABY RUDGE.
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
recognized by any of those who had known her long ago,
and who feared besides that Mr. Haredale might, on second
thoughts, dispatch some messenger to that place of enter-
tainment in quest of her, proposed to wait in the church-
yard instead. As it was easy for Barnaby to buy and carry
thither such humble viands as they required, he cheerfully
assented, and in the church-yard 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 hi'S 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 ad-
dressed his observations to any supposed person below, or
merely threw them off as a general remark, is matter of un
certainty.
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 hu^and, with a brief inscription recording how and
when he nad 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 under-
stand 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 church-yards) 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 cozy bar. It was a part of John's character. He
made a point of going to sleep at the coach's time. He de-
spised gadding about ; he looked upon coaches as things
that ought to be indicted ; as disturbers of the peace of
BARNABY RUDGE. 195
mankind ; as restless, bustling, busy, horn-blowing contriv-
ances, 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 an 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 all their n©ise and
rattle. If you like to wait for 'em you can ; but we don't
know any thing 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 any body
does."
"I ask your pardon, sir," rejoined the locksmith. "I
didn't say I understood her. I wouldn't have the pre-
sumption 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 re-
luctance, " 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 pleas-
ure of mistrusting 'em. I have kept the secret till now, and
it will go no further than yourself, I know ; but I tell you
196 BARNABY RUDGE.
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. Hare-
dale, quickly.
" Sir," returned the locksmith, " she herself prevented me
— held me, with all her strength, and hung about me until
he had got clean off." And having gone so far he related
circumstantially all that had passed upon the night in ques-
tion.
This dialogue was held in a low tone in the locksmith's
little parlor, 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 assist-
ance of his persuasion and influence ; and out of this cir-
cumstance the conversation had arisen.
" I forbore," said Gabriel, " from repeating one word of
this to any body, 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 any thing' so im-
ploringly, that I didn't ask her any thing. 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 at-
tach to it ? "
The locksmith shook his head, and looked doubtfully out
of window at the failing light.
" She can not 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 yester-
BARNABY RUDGE. 197
day, 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 begin-
ning ? 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— se-
cret, 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 min-
ute what Mary was before they went to work with her fresh
heart and face — to do her that justice— and say whether such
a thing is possible."
" You're a good fellow, Varden," said Mr. Haredale, " and
are quite right. I have brooded on that subject so long,
that every breath of suspicion carries me back to it. You
are quite right."
" It isn't, sir," cried the locksmith with brightened eyes,
and sturdy honest voice ; " it isn't because I courted her
before Rudge, and failed, that I say she was too good for
him. She would have been as much too good for me. But
she was too good for him ; he wasn't free and frank enough
for her. I don't reproach his memory with it, poor fellow ;
I only want to put her before you as she really was. For
myself, I'll keep her old picture in my mind ; and thmking
of that, and what has altered her, I'll stand her friend, and
try to win her back to peace. And damme, sir," cried Ga-
briel, " with your pardon for the word, I'd do the same if
198 BARNABY RUDGE.
she had married fifty highwaymen in a twelvemonth ; and
think it in the Protestant 'Manual too, though Martha said
it wasn't, tooth and nail, till doomsday ! "
If the dark little parlor 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. Hare-
dale cried "Well said 1 " and bade him come away without
more parley. The locksmith complied right willingly ; and
both getting into a hackney-coach which was w^aiting 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 a like
result. But in answer to the third, which was of a more
vigorous kind, the parlor 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 appear-
ance since our last meeting ! I never saw you looking bet-
ter. Hoiv do you do.^"
Mr. Haredale turned his eyes toward the casement whence
the voice proceeded, though there was no need to do so, to
recognize 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 ele-
vated station of society, she would be gouty. Being but a
hewer of wood and a 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 dis-
trustful 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 cob-
web by the way. She is there at last ! Come in, I beg ! "
Mr. Haredale entered, followed by the locksniith. Turn-
ing with a look of great astonishment to the old woman who
had opened the door, he inquired for Mrs. Rudge — for Barn-
aby. They were both gone, she replied, wagging her an
cient head, for good. There was a gentleman in the parlor,
5ARNABY RUDGE. 199
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 tr.^ least idea."
" Your trifliug is ill-timed," retorted the other in a sup-
pressed 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
Avonder 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 assist-
ants 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 toward 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. Thev 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
200 BARNABY P.UDGE.
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 inconven-
iently 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 parlor with the door-
key in his hand, gazing by turns at Mr. Chester and at Ga-
briel 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 dis-
missal, Mr. Chester retorted with a bland and heartfelt bene-
diction, and inquired of Gabriel in what direction he was
going.
"Yours, sir, would be too much honor for the like of me,"
replied the locksmith, hesitating.
" I wish you to remain here a little while, Varden," said
Mr. Haredale, without looking toward them. " 1 have a
word or two to say to you."
" 1 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 201
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 re-
finement."
He smiled so very pleasantly as he communed with him-
self after this manner, that a beggar was emboldened to fol-
low for alms, and to dog his footsteps for some distance.
He was gratified by the circumstance, feeling it complimen-
tary to his power of feature, and as a reward suffered the
man to follow him until he called a chair, when he gra-
ciously 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 bur-
den, and to Clerkenwell they went at a fair round trot.
Alighting at a certain point he had indicated to them
upon the road, and paying them something less than they
expected from a fare of such gentle speech, he turned into
the street in which the locksmith dwelt, and presently stood
beneath the shadow of the Golden Key. Mr. Tappertit, who
was hard at work by lamplight, in a corner of the work-
shop, 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 ex-
pect 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 every thing 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 ingen-
uous face once more. 1 hope you are well."
" I am as well, sir," said Sim, standing up to get nearer to
202 BARNABY RUDGE.
his ear, and whispering hoarsely, " as any man can be under
the aggrawations to which I am exposed. My life's a bur-
den to me. If it wasn't for wengeance, I'd play at pitch and
toss with it on the losing hazard."
*' Is Mrs. Varden at home ? " said Mr. Chester.
"Sir," returned Sim, eying him over with a look of con-
centrated 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 any
thing, 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 parlor 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 re-
straint on your domestic occupations, Miss Varden."
" Oh ! Now ! There ! An't I always a-saying it ! " ex-
claimed Miggs, clapping her hands. "If h© 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 vistor. " Ah, ma'am —
humanity is indeed a happy lot, when we can repeat our-
selves 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 203
her undergoing it that minute. For pride, she said with
great severity, was one of the seven deadly sins, and humil-
ity and lowliness of heart were virtues. Wherefore she de-
sired that Dolly would be kissed immediately, on pain of
her just displeasure ; at the same time giving her to under-
stand 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 cate-
chism.
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 power to ap-
preciate. 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 toward the stars, she immediately
began to languish, and taking a volume of the Manual from
a neighboring table, leaned 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.
204 BARNABY RUDGE.
" My favorite 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 honor, 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 a butterfly
time of life, and we must not be hard upon such triflings."
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 re-
minds me, by the way, that I am about to beg the favor 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 affec-
tion 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 u.s be sincere
and Protestant, strictly moral, strictly just (though always
with a leaning toward 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 found-
ation, so to speak, of goodness, on which we may after-
ward erect some worthy superstructure."
Now, to be sure, Mrs. Varden thought, here is a perfect
character. Here is a meek, righteous, thorough-going
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 205
true. He so contrived it, and said it in that way that ii: ap-
peared to have been forced from him, and its effect was
marvelous.
Aware of the impression he had made — few men were
quicker than he at such discoveries — Mr. Chester followed
up the blow, propounding certain virtuous maxjms, some-
what vague and general in their nature, doubtless, and oc-
casionally partaking of the character of truisms, worn a
little out at the 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 worldj and
are 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 en-
chanted all his hearers, notwithstanding their conflicting
interests and thoughts. Even Dolly, who, between his keen
regards and her eying 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 de-
light, could not wholly divert his thoughts from the voice of
the other charmer. Mrs. Varden, to her own private think-
ing, 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 some-
thing 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
toward her. " You divine my purpose ? I am an affection-
ate parent, my dear Mrs. Varden."
" That I am sure you are, sir," said Mrs. V.
" Thank you," returned Mr. Chester, tapping his snuff-box
2o6 BARNABY RUDGE.
Ud. ** 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 v/as sorry
" Sorry, my dear ma'am," he interposed. " Never be sorry
for what is so very amiable, so very good in intention, so per-
fectly like yourself. But there are grave and v/eighty 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 inexpressi-
ble charms."
Mrs. Varden began to think (she scarcely knew why) that
the young Mr. Chester must be in the r ^ong and the old Mr.
Chester must be in the right.
*' My son Ned," resumed her tempter with his utmost win-
ning 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 in-
judicious. You are quite right. I ought o 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 «tnd
sagacity."
BARNABY RUDGE. 207
Mrs. Varden looked as wise as if she had really said some-
thing to deserve this compliment — firmly believed she had,
in short — and her faith in her own shrewdness increased con-
siderably.
" 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 honor, by every solemn tie and obli-
gation, 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, ex-
pressly 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 toward her,
are bound to consult her happiness. Nov/, can I — as I have
said to Haredale, who quite agrees — can I possibly stand by,
and suffer her to throve 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 bis 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 there-
fore interfered benevolently in his behalf, that I object 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 honorably fulfills this solemn obligation of
which I have told you — and he must be honorable, 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 willfulness, he were to marry this
2o8 BARNABY RUDGE.
young lady, and so deprive himself of the means of gratify-
ing the tastes to which he had been so long accustomed, he
would — my dear madam, he would break the gentle creat-
ure'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 wish 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 charm-
ing daughter, and were to engage them."
" It would be like his impudence," interposed Mrs. Var-
den, 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 hushand when I saw him at Mrs.
Rudge's this evening "
" My husband," said Mrs. Varden, interposing with emo-
tion, '^ 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 uU, sir."
BARNABY RUDGE. 209
" 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 prosper-
ity 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, ODstinacy, 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 com-
prehended Dolly, took his leave ; first completing the con-
quest of Miss Miggs's fi^eart, 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 means 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 speak-
ing ; 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.
2IO . BARNABY RUDGE.
" For my part," said Dolly, in a thoughtful manner, " I
half believe Mr, Chester is something like Miggs, in that
respect. For all his politenesss 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 aston-
ished at you. The rudeness of your whole behavior this
evening has been disgraceful. Did any body ever hear,"
cried the enraged matron, busting 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 din-
ner, entertaining himself exceedingly with the whimsical
recollection of his recent proceedings, and congratulating
himself very much on his great cleverness. Influenced by
'hese 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 defense, 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 com-
mon 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, burned
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 211
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 slum-
bering soundly. Having lighted the candle at length and
opened his own door, he softly ascended, holding the taper
high above his head, and peering cautiously about ; curious
to see what kind of man had chosen so comfortless a shelter
for his lodging.
With his head upon the landing and his great limbs flung
over half a dozen stairs, as carelessly as though he were a
dead man whom drunken bearers had thrown down by
chance, there lay Hugh, face uppermost, his long hair droop-
ing like some wild weed upon his wooden pillow, and his
huge chest heaving with the sounds which so unwontedly dis-
turbed 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 ob-
served him with a searching eye.
While he was thus engaged, the sleeper, without any start-
ing or turning round, awoke. There was a kind of fascina-
tion 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, 1 suppose," he growled, as he shook him-
self and rose. " I hardly know where I am yet."
'' Do you know me ? " said Mr. Chester.
" Ay, I know you," he answered. '* 1 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.
212 BARNABY RUDGK
Then he rubbed his eyes and shook himself again, and fol-
lowed his conductor into his own rooms.
Mr. Chester lighted the candles which stood upon hrs
dressing-table, and wheeling an easy-chair toward 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 long twelve 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 ii. your strav/ 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. Ches-
ter, 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 quarreled 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 inter-
fere and get him into trouble. He's a landlord, he says, and
lives on every body'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, say-
ing she lost the letter I brought to you, and you burned. Our
Joe was to carry it, but the old one kept him at home all
BARNABY RUDGE. 213
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 di-
rected to my son who resides in this very place ? And can
you descry no difference between his letters and those ad-
dressed 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 foot-
path 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
favor only to have seen me once. You must suppress your
gratitude, and endeavor to forget my forbearance in the
matter of the bracelet. It is natural it should break out,
and it does you honor ; but when other folks are by, you
must, for you 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 mut-
tured that he hoped his patron would involve him in no trou-
ble 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 patronizing
air cut him short by saying :
" My good fellow, you have my promise, my word, my
214 BARNABY RUDGE.
scaled 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 you set your mind at rest. Keep it at easej 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
on 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, 1 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 homeward — 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 humor 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 endeavored 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 v/ithout noise ; and Mr. Ghester
remained in his easy-chair, with his gaze intently 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 nim, 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 toward the spot where Hugh had lain
asleep ; and even spoke to him by name. But all was dark
BARNABY RUDGE. 215
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 forever regulated by a
moral law of gravitation, which, like the physical one, holds
them down to the 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 char-
ity, 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 toward 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 neighbors' honors
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 sover-
eign 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 bright-
ness is eclipsed.
Every thing 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
2i6 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 its 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 favorable weather. He smiled very compla-
cently at such times, but rather as if he were satisfied with
himself than with any thing 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 porcli.
John Willet, who was toasting his red face before a great
fire in the bar, and who with surprising foresight and quick-
ness 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 sur-
prised 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 acknowledged his
salute by a careless motion of his hand toward his hat.
" \\'hy don't you make /i/m useful ? "
" Why, the truth is, sir," replied John with great import-
ance, " that my son — what, you're a-listening are you,
villain ?"
"Who's listening?" returned Hugh angrily. "A treat,
indeed, to hear you speak I 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 enter-
taining ourselves with talk, keep your distance. If you
don't know your distance, sir," added Mr. Willet. after an
BARNABY RUDGE. 217
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 reck-
less swaggering way, crossed to the other side of the little
green, and there, with the bridle slung loosely over his shoul-
der, led the horse to and fro, glancing at his master every
now and then from under his bushy eyebrows, with as sin-
ister 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, ana the likes of
that, there ain't a better man in England than is that May-
pole Hugh yonder. He ain't fit for in-doors," added Mr.
Willet, with the confidential air of a man who felt his own
superior nature, "/do that ; but if that chap had only a
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 the
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 mas-
ter, 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 weather-
cock, 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 May-
pole, Where's there good accommodation for man and beast
—nor that neither, though that with him is nothing."
2i8 BARNABY RUDGE.
This last remark bore reference to his vaulting on horse-
back, as upon Mr. Chester's first visit, and quickly disap-
pearing by the stable gate.
"That with him is nothing," repeated Mr. Willet, brush-
ing his wig with his wrist, and inwardly resolving to distribute
a small charge of 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 toward
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 afterward 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 ray 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 patrol."
" I thought I saw him looking through the corner window
but this moment," said Mr. Chester, who naturally thought
that being on patrol, implied walking about somewhere.
" No doubt you did, sir," returned John. " He is upon
his patrol of honor, 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 any thing unpleasant in opposing your desires ;
and we've put him oit his patrol. And what's more, sir, he
won't be off his patrol 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 news-
BARNABY RUDGE. 219
paper 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 hi<i
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 a 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. Wiilet, after care-
fully 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 desire to run counter to the unfortunate Joe, and his
opposition as a general principle to all matters of love and
m.atrimony, it went down to the very ground straightway,
and sent the light cause of the younger gentleman flying up-
ward 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 v/hatever dinner he
might deem most fitting the occasion, bent his steps toward
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 ; com-
posing 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 im-
portance to the impression that 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
220 BARNABY RUDGE.
coming toward 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 :
*' 1 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 honor 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 neighboring 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 com-
municate."
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 favor. You have heard me
described as cold-hearted, calculating, selfish "
*^ I have never, sir " — she interposed with an altered man-
BARNABY RUDGE. 221
ner 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 color 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 NIr. Chester, looking upward, and apos-
trophizing the air ; " it is this frank, ingenuous, noble nature,
Ned, that you can wovnd so lightly. Shame — shame upon
you, boy ! "
She turned toward 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 frivo-
lous 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 false-
hood 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 1 have pictured you to my imagination as you really
are."
Oh ! If Mrs. Varden could have seen the virtuous gentle-
man as he said these words, with indigna^.ion 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 duly. Miss Haredale, you
222 BARNABY RUDGE.
are deceived ; yon 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 can not — 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 ray 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 gen-
tleman, 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 scrupu-
lously honorable, 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 speak-
ing 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 reflec-
tion, 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
BARNAE/ kUDGE. 223
affectionately still ; " whom I would call my daughter, but
the Fates forbid, Edward seeks to break with you upon a
false and most unwarrantable pretense. 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 honar, 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 Hare-
dale — forbids him to pursue his claim upon your hand ; in
which he offers, voluntarily proposes, to free you from
your pledge ; and talks magnanimously (men do so, very
commonly, in such cases) of being in time more worthy of
your regard — and so forth. A letter, to be plain, in which
he not only jilts you — pardon the word ; I would summon
to your aid your pride and dignity — not only jilts you, I
fear, in favor 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 involun-
tary 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 cir-
cumstances, and upon a melancholy occasion. I hope you
are very well."
At these words the young lady raised her eyes, which
were filled with tears ; and seeing that her uncle indeed
stood before them, and being quite unequal to the trial of
hearing or of speaking one word more, hurriedly withdrew,
and left them. They stood looking at each other, and at
her retreating figure, and for a long time neither of them
spoke.
*' What does this mean ? Explain it," said Mr. Haredale
at length. *' Why are you here, and why with her ? "
** My dear friend," rejoined the other, resuming his accus-
tomed 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 vou are the
224 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 ; 1 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 coun-
terfeit 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
v/ait a moment," returned his friend, as he lazily crossed his
legs. " The simplest thing in the world. It lies in a nut-
shell. Ned has written her a letter — a boyish, honest, senti-
mental 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 de-
scribed them to your niece (a most enchanting person, Hare-
dale ; quite an angelic creature), with a little coloring 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 ardor 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
BARNABV RIIDGR. 22$
me back — well ; it is done ; you lell 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 can-
celed now and we may part."
Mr. Chester kissed his hand gracefully ; and with the
same tranquil face he had preserved throughout — even when
he had seen his companion so tortured and transported
by his passion that his whole frame was shaken — lay in his
lounging posture on the seat and watched him as he walked
away.
"My scapegoat and my drudge at school," he said, rais-
ing 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 tri-
umph in the present and the past. Bark on, ill-favored,
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 had expected him to follow, and waited for his
coming up.
'* It w<zy 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
humor unless upon extremity — would be weak indeed."
For all that, he drew his sword as he walked along, and in
an absent humor 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 gayety of manner, and was
his unruffled self again.
226 BARNABV RUDGE.
CHAPTER XXX.
A homely proverb recognizes the existence of a trouble-
some 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 pur-
pose than to teach mankind that as the absence of pain is
plasure, 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 man-
ner possible, trimming off an exuberance in this place,
shearing away some liberty of speech or action in that, and
conducting himself in this 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 arc urged on to the abuse of power (when
they need urging, which is not often), by their flatterers and
dependents, so old John was impelled to these exercises of
authority by the applause and admiration of his Maypole
cronies, who, in the intervals of their nightly pipes and pots,
would shake their heads and say that Mr. Willet was a
father of the good old English sort ; that there were no new-
fangled notions or modern ways in him ; that he put them
in mind of what their fathers were when they were boys ;
that there was no mistake about him ; that it would be well
for the country if there were more like him, and more was the
pity that there were not ; with many other original-remarks
of that nature. Then they would condescendingly give Joe
to understand that it was all for his good, and he would be
thankful for it one day ; and in particular, Mr. Cobb would
acquaint him, that when he was his age, his father thought
no more of giving him a parental kick, or a box on the ears,
or a cuff on the head, or some little admonition of that sort.
BARNABY RUDGE. 227
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 prob-
able enough, as he was, beyond all question, the dullest dog
of the party. In short, between old John and old John's
'riends, 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 recognized and established state
of things ; but as John was very anxious to flourish his
supremacy before the ey£s 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 patrols. 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 v/as the crowning circum-
stance of his degradation. He extricated himself from his
228 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 afterward, received the com-
pliments 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. Bravo, sir."
John slowly brought his eyes to bear upon him, looked at
him for a long time, and finally made answer, to the unspeak-
able consternation of his hearers, " When I want encourage-
ment from you, sir, I'll ask you for it. You let me alone,
sir. I can get on wit\out 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."
BARNABY RUDGE. 229
" Hold your tongue, sir," cried Mr. Willet, suddenly rous-
ing himself, and turning round.'
" 1 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 any body 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 omin-
ous 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, pummeled him with all his might and main,
and finished by driving him with surprising swiftness against
a heap of spittoons in one corner ; plunging into which, head
foremost, with a tremendous crash, he lay at full length
among the ruins, stunned and motionless. Then, without
waiting to receive the compliments of the bystanders on the
victory he had won, he retreated to his own 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. " 1 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
^^ootsteps 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
230 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 furni-
ture 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 gray- eyed general, in an oval
frame — seemed to wink and doze as the light decayed, and
at length, when the last faint glimmmering speck of day
went out, to shut its eyes in good earnest, and fall sound
asleep. There was such a hush and mystery about every
thing, 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 occa-
sional 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, tliought 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 gray-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 gray light of morning.
The sun had begun to peep above the forest trees, and al-
ready 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 him-
self.
It was not a very difficult task ; for there were so many
projections and gable ends i^ the way, that they formed a
BARN A BY RUDGE. 2;?r
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 apostrophize it, for he was no great scholar.
He didn't curse it, for he had little ill-will to give to any
thing 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 center, 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 gray 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 indis-
putable tokens of a hearty appetite, the Lion received him,
as usual, with a hospitable welcom.e ; 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 perfec-
tion. The creaking Lion over the house-door was, there-
±^2 BARNABY RUDGE.
fore, 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 colors)
he was frequently supposed by the more ignorant and unin-
formed among the neighbors, 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, / 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 any thing 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 drink-
ing, he said, except that there were frequent intervals of eat-
ing and love-making. A battle was the finest thing in the
BARNABY RUDGE. 233
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 honored, revered, respected ; every body'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 sometime, or other, eh ? "
The voice coughed, and said no more.
Joe walked into the room. A group of half-a-dozen fel-
lows had gathered together in the tap-room, and were listen-
ing 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 mankmd), backed the ser-
geant'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. 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 gen-
tleman'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 the first remark, as
he slapped him on the back. "You're a gentleman in dis-
guise. So am I. Let's swear friendship."
Joe didn't exactly do that, but he shook hands with him,
and thanked him for his good opinion.
"You want to serve," said his new friend. "You shall.
You were made for it. You're one of us by nature. What'U
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 riahtso far "— ansvv^ered Joe, " for if you pull the
234 BARNABY RUDGE.
bell here, where I'm known, there'll be an end of my soldier-
ing 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
— " eye 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 re-
call. Where shall I find you, this evening ? "
His friend replied with some unwillingness, and after
much ineffectual entreaty, having for its object the immedi-
ate settlement of the business, that the 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, hold-
ing 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 Avould 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 I " said Joe, " I'm not so young as that. Need>^
must when the devil drives ; and the devil that drives n.e
is an empty pocket and an unhappy home. For the present,
good-by."
"Forking and country ! " cried the sergeant, flourishing
his cap
BARNABY RUDGE. 235
" 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 favor 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 part-
ing word with charming Dolly Varden.
He went out by Islington and so on to Highgatc, and sat
on many stones and gates, but there were no voices in the
bells to bid him turn. Since the time of noble Whitting-
ton, 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 num-
bers ; 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 favored 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 con-
tain 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 to-
ward the locksmith's house. He had delayed till now, know-
ing 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 op-
236 BARNABY RUDGE.
posite side of the way, two or three times, when as he re-
turned 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 parlor, 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-by — to say good-
by, for I don't know how many years ; perhaps forever. 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 coach-maker 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 re-
marked 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
— ihat dear old gentleman — "
BARNABY RUDGE. 237
" 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 hnnself 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 seme little
encouragement of that sort ; he had even entertained the
possibility of her bursting into tears, of her throwing herself
into his arms, of falling down in a fainting fit without pre-
vious word or sign ; but any approach to such a line of con-
duct 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-by. " Good-by " — said Dolly — with as pleasant a smile
as if he were going into the next street, and were coming
back to supper ; " good-by."
"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 every body, 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
spoiled child. She had no notion of being carried by storm
in this way. The coach-maker would have been dissolved in
238 BARNABY RUDGE.
tears, and would have kneeled 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-by," said Dolly, ^' twice. Take your
arm away directly, Mr. Joseph, or 1 11. 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 afterward with the very same distress.
She had no sooner left the work-shop 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 de-
spair. 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 239
represented the sconce or head of Joseph Wiiiet. 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
was 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 gal-
lant defenders of his native land ; and within half an hour
was regaled with a steamWg 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 savory after
his long fasting, he did ample justice ; and when he had
followed it up, or down, with a variety of loyal and patriotic
boasts, 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 party-col-
ored streamers, which made a very lively appearance ; and
in company with that officer, and three other military gen-
tlemen newly enrolled, who were under a cloud so dense
that it only left three shoes, a boot, 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 Chat-
ham ; the wind was in their favor, and they soon left Lon-
don 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 capri-
ciously ; crowding on the heads of some poor wights until
240 BARNABY RUDGE.
there is not an inch of room left on their unlucky crowns,
and taking no more notice of others wlio offer as good rest-
ing-places for the soles of their feet, than if they had no ex-
istence. 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 had 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 humor was so different, he
vented the lightness of his spirit in smiles and sparkling
looks, and made no effort to awaken his attention. So they
remained for some time ; the father lying on a sofa with his
accustomed air of graceful negligence ; the son seated oppo-
site him with downcast eyes, busied, it was plain, with pain-
ful 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, 'Sf "
*' My good fellow," interposed the parent hastily, as he set
down his glass, and raised iiis 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 gray, or wrinkled, do I go on crutches, have
BARNABY RUDGE. 241
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 vou check me in the outset."
"Now^/(^, Ned, do not," said Mr. Chester, raising his del-
icate 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 center of
the bloodvessels 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 anatom-
ical 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
iower classes, with avast 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 hap-
pen — May I ask you for the nut-crackers ? "
" She has been tampered with, and most treacherously de-
ceived," 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
oast all redemption ; though I charge upon her want of
242 BARNABY RUDGE.
iirmness 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 gayly, *' 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 pro-
posed, as I learn from Haredale ; and what I predicted —
with no great exercise of sagacity — she would do. She sup-
posed 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 can not enter upon
these considerations, and have no manner of business with
the ceremony. I drink her health in this glass, and respect
and honor 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 knowl-
edge."
" Come, sir," returned his father, raising himself a little
on the sofa, and looking straight toward him ; *' we have
had enough of this. Remember, if you please, your interest,"
)'our 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 1 say that 1 will not
sacrifice it at your bidding, and that I will not pursue the
track which you would have made 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 earn-
est, 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 mornini2f after breakfastc
BARNABY RUDGE. 243
The circumstance occurs to me with a singuhir 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 ac-
counts ; he degraded the family very much. It is a sad cir-
cumstance, Edward, when a father finds it necessary to re-
sort to such strong measures."
^' It is," replied Edward, " and it is sad when a son, prof-
fering 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 con-
fidence between us ; not in terms, but truth. Hear what I
have to say."
" As I anticipate what it is, and can not fail to do so, Ed-
ward," 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 undutif ul, so
horribly profane," rejoined his father, turning his face lazily
toward him, and cracking another nut, " that I positively
must interrupt you here. It is quite impossible we can con-
tinue to go on, upon such terms as these. If you will do me
the favor to ring the bell, the servant will shov/ 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 forever.
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.
244 BARNABY RUDCxE.
'' Peak — if that gentleman who has just gone out — "
" I beg your pardon, sir, Mr. Edward ? "
'' Were there more than one, dolt, that you asked the ques-
tion ? 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, marveled the more at his equanimity and even tem-
per, 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 wlio 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, dense, and icy-cold, swept
the wet streets, and rattled on the trenibling 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 the
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, chil-
dren clustered near the blaze ; listening with timid pleasure
BARNABY RUDGE. 245
to tales of ghosts and goblins, and tail figures clad in white
standing by bedsides, and people who had gone to sleep in
old churches and being overlooked had found themselves
alone there at the dead hour of the night ; until they shud-
dered 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 ; blend-
ing 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 wath
its wide chimneys, which still poured forth from their hos-
pitable 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 con-
flict.
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 burned
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 count-
less ruddy hangings, flashing and gleaming wnth every mo-
tion of the blaze, and offering, let the eye wander where it
might, interminable vistas of the same rich color. The old
oak wainscoting, the beams, the chairs, the seats, reflected it
246 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 pro-
nounced 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 neighbor 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 sen-
timent, and 1 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 be-
gan 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, sav-
ing 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 an-
other knot — one of surprising obduracy — which bade fair to
throw him into convulsions, but Avhich he got over at last
without waking, by an effort quite superhuman.
BARNABY RUDGE. 247
" He sleeps uncommon hard," said Mr. Cobb.
Mr. Parkes, who was possibly a hard sleeper himself, re-
l)lied with some disdain " Not a bit on it ;" and directed his
eyes toward a hand-bill pasted over the chimney-piece, which
was decorated at the top with a wood-cut 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 him-
self indited on the disappearance of his son Joseph, ac-
quainting the nobility and gentry and the public in general
with the circumstances of his having left his home ; describ-
ing 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 en-
treaties of his friends, in describing his son as a ''young
boy ; " and furthermore as being from eighteen inches to a
couple of feet shorter than he really was ; two circumstances
which perhaps accounted, in some degree, for its never
having been productive of any other effect than the trans-
mission 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."
24S BARNABY RUDGE.
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 diffi-
culty that to be sure Solomon was very late, and they won-
dered 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 any thing 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 contem-
plation, " 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 arid
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 some-
thing of that strength of mind and plenitude of mental re-
source which rendered him the admiration of all his friends
and neighbors. 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 exer-
tion, and his countenance suffused with a lively purple, he
drew a little nearer to the fire, and turning his back upon it,
said with digni v -
BARNABY RUDGE. 249
" If that's any comfort to any body, they're welcome to it.
If it an't, I am sorry for 'em. If either of you two gentle-
men 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 dis-
ordered dress, dashed into the room.
A more complete picture of terror than the little man pre-
sented, 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 any body 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 by-
standers, recovering in some degree, plucked him off his vic-
tim 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 shut-
ters of the room without a moment's loss of time. The lat-
ter request did not tend to re-assure 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
250 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 lit-
tle 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 w^hole 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 acci-
dent, 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 v»^ind 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 251
been leannig against it, as I was, that somebody was pushing
on the other side. However I got the key turned, and went
into the belfry and wound up the clock — which was very
near run down, and would have sCood 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 that 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 any thing, he
would have the goodness to mention it. Mr. Parkes apolo-
gized, and remarked that he was only listening ; to which Mr.
VVillet 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 sub-
mission 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. 1 felt the bells shake. I saw the
ropes sway to and fro. And I heard that voice."
" What did it say 1 " 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 dread-
ful 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."
252 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 testi-
mony to the sincerity of his conviction, " when I opened the
church-door to come out, which I did suddenly, for I wanted
to get it shut again before another gust of wind came up,
there crossed me — so close, that by stretching out my finger
I could have touched it — something in the likeness of a man.
It was bare-headed to the storm. It turned its face without
stopping, and fixed its eyes on mine. It was a ghost — a
spirit."
"Whose ? " they all three cried together.
In the excess of bis emotion (for befell back trembling in
his chair, and waved his hand as if entreating them to ques-
tion him no further), his answer was lost on all but old John
Willet, who happened to be seated close beside him.
" Who ? " cried Parkes ard Tom Cobb, looking eagerly by
turns at Solomon Daisy and at Mr. Wiliet. " Who was it ? "
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Wallet, after a long pause, "you
needn't ask. The likeness of a murdered man. This is the
nineteenth of March."
A profound silence ensued.
" If you'll take my advice," said John, " we had better,
one and all, keep this a secret. Such tales would not be liked
at the Warren. Let us keep it to ourselves for the present time
at all events, or we may get into trouble, and Solomon may
lose his place. Whether it was really as he says, or whether
it wasn't, is no matter. Right or wrong, nobody would
believe him. As to the probabilities, I don't myself think,"
said Mr. Willet, eying 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 / 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 appearance ; 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 hav-
ing 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 elevat-
ing influences of fire, light, brandy, and good company, so
BARNABY RUDGE. 253
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 sus-
tained 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 variation, and such sol-
emn 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 re-
solved 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 homeward under the escort of long Phil Parkes
and Mr. Cobb, who were rather more nervous than him-
self, 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 sus-
tain a principal and important character in the affair ; and
might have the start of Solomon and his two friends, througli
whose means he knew the adventure, with a variety of ex-
aggerations, would be known to at least a score of people,
and most likely to Mr. Haredale liimself, by breakfast-time
2S4 BARNABY RUDGE.
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
toward 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 a point
of dignity, as possible — the whispering about of this here
taie will anger him — it's good to have confidences with a
gentleman of his natur', and set one's self right besides. Hal-
loa 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 ? "
" 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-bellow-
ing and roaring about you, making the tiles fly like a pack
of cards," said John ; "but no matter for that. Wrap your-
self 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 re-appeared, carrying a lantern
and a cudgel, and enveloped from head to foot in an old,
frousy, slouclrlng house-cloth. Mr. Willet received this fig-
ure 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 in different grace, and a longing
BARNABY RUDGE. 255
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 hun-
dred 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, wi-h 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 budding was profoundly dark, and
none were moving near it save themselves." From one soli-
tary turret-chamber, however, there shone a ray of light ;
and toward this speck of comfort in the cold, cheerless,
silent scene, Mr. Willet made 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,
ain't it ? "
" Snug ! " said John indignantly. " You have a comfort-
able 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, look-
ing into John's 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."
256 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 any thing, 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 fol-
lowing next, eyed his lowering face with no great favor ; and
Hugh, looking down on him, returned his glances with in-
terest, 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 re-
mained bovvnng 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, vou see."
BARNABY RUDGE. ^57
" Don't be too sure of that," said Mr. Haredale, looking
toward 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, " cer-
tainly."
" 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 ex-
pected. 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 con-
versation, " to bid them keep this story secret. It is a fool-
ish fancy on the part of this weak-brained man, bred in his
fears and superstition. But Miss Haredale, though she v^-ould
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 pru-
dent, 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 embarrass-
ing to John that he sat quite passive for a long time, not
knowing what to do. At length he rose. Mr. Haredale
258 BARNABY RUDGE.
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, sprung 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 gen-
tleman'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 mut-
tered something to himself, and drank the rest, and setting
down the glass, preceded them without another Avord.
John was a good deal scandalized 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. Hare-
dale locked it on the inner ; and then John saw with wonder
(as he often afterward 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 horse-
men 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.
BARNABY RUDGE. 259
CHAPTER XXXV.
When John Willet saw that the horsemen wheeled smartly
round, and drew up three abreast in the narrow road, wait-
ing 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 com-
mand was obeyed, have consulted his own personal safety
in immediate flight. Under the circumstances of disadvan-
tage, 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 act-
ing 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 horse-
man in the centgr, 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 straight, 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'ard and for'ard, 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
26o BARNABY RUDGE.
travelers 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 here-
abouts ? "
At the word " inns," John plucked up his spirit in a sur-
prising manner ; his fears rolled off like smoke ; all the
landlord stirred within him.
" Tl^iCre 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 tne sleep on a chair — the carpet — anywhere. No one
will repine if / take cold or fever. Let John Grucby pass
the night beneath the open sky — no one will pine for //////.
But forty thousand men of this our island in the wave
(ex( iusive of women and children) rivet tlieir eyes and
thojghts on Lord George Gordon ; and every day, from
the rising up of the sun to the going down of the same, pray
/'w his health and vigor. My lord," said the speaker, rising
BARNABY RUDGE. 261
in his stirrups, "it is a glorious cause, and must not be for-
gotten. 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 v/hich 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 May-
pole 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 no-
tice ; 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 learned to re-
peat 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
«62 BARNABY RUDGE.
appealed to in a silky tone, " that your health and spirits,
so important, under Providence, to our great cause, our true
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 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 Gash-
ford's office.
Hugh strode briskly on, often looking back at the serv-
ant, 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 jfisty-
cuffs, 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 sup-
pose."
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 con-
tented air, but deigned not a word in answer.
BARNABY RUDGE. 263
" — Like this ? " said Hugh, giving his cudgel one of those
skillful 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 the saddle. But
his face betokened neither malice, triumph, rage, nor any
lingering idea that he had given him offense ; his eyes gaz-
ing 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 pa-rty halted at the
Maypole door ; Lord George and his secretary quickly dis-
mounting, 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 them-
selves 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 ar-
rangements, he had an opportunity of observing the two
travelers, of whom, as yet he knew nothing b«t the voice.
The lord, the great personage who did the Maypole so much
honor, was about the middle height, of a slender make, and
sallow complexion, with an aquiline nose, and long hair of
reddish brown, combed perfectly straight and smooth about
his ears, and slightly powdered, but without the faintest ves-
tige 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, to-
gether with a certain lankness of cheek and stiffness of de-
portment, 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
264 BARNABY RUDGE.
and purpose, singularly at variance with the studied compos-
ure 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 inde-
finable 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, demure and staid in the ex-
treme ; 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 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 ivouldiit 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 wi';h 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, be-
seeching 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,
••sn'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 ren-
dered 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 265
there was no time to stop them. John with the tall candle-
sticks 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 every
thing as cozy 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 — .^h, 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-look-
ing 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
266 BARNABY RUDGE.
you told them that you were never of the lukewarm or timid
tribe, and bade them take heed that they were prepared to
follow one who had led 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 lav%'s 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 rise 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 up-
ward. " 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 evi-
dent 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 ;/?<"," whined Gashford, drawing his
chair nearer with an injured air, and laying his broad flat
hand upon the table ; *' ;;z<f," he repeated, bending tlie dark
hollows of his eyes upon him with an unwholesome smile,
" who strickened 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 267
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 a 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 favor of an-
other. 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, Gash-
ford," said Lord George, with a he'ghtened color 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 sec-
retary's promptings ; of the rapidity of his utterance, or the
violence of his tone and gesture in which, struggling through
his Puritan's demeanor, was something wild and ungoverna-
ble which broke through all restraint. For some minutes
he walked rapidly up and down the room, then stoppmg
suddenly, exclaimed :
" Gashford — Vou moved them yesterday too. Oh yes !
You did."
" I shone with a reflected light, my lord," replied the hum-
ble secretary, laying his hand upon his heart. " I did my
best."
" You did well," said his master, " and are a great and
268 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 port-
manteau, 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 any thing more about Bloody
Mary," said John. *' I wish the blessed old creetur had
never been born."
** I said you might go to bed, John," returned the secre-
tary. " You didn't hear me, I think."
*' Between Bloody Marys, and blue cockades, and glorious
Queen Bess, 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 some-
how 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, when-
ever area-gates is left open accidentally. I wish that was
the woist of it, and that no more harm might be to come ;
BARNABY RUDGE 269
but if you don't stop these ugly customers in time, Mr. Gash-
ford (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 Protest-
ants 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 pro-
found deference and humility, betook himself toward 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 coun-
tenance, 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 toward the
bed, went on communing with himself like one who thought
aloud :
" The savior 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.
270 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Why, Gashfcrd ? " 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 ! "
** 1 have not been sleeping."
" Not sleeping ! " he repeated, with assumed confusion.
*' What can I say for having in your presence given utter-
ance to thoughts — but they were sincere — they were sin-
cere ! " 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 tlie wil-
derness, 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 Protest-
ant infant, newly born, one halfpenny. The United Link
Boys, three shillings — one bad. The anti-Popish prisoners
in Newgate, five and four-pence. 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."
BARNABY RUDGE. 271
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 Remem-
berers 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 indent-
ures 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 Tap-
pertit."
" 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-favored ? "
" The very same, my lord."
" Tappertit is an earnest man," said Lord George, thought-
fully. " 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 Airs. Varden's box (fourteenth time of opening),
seven shillings and sixpence in silver and copper, and a 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-fav-
ored, 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 col-
272 BARNABY RUDGE.
lection goes on prosperously, and is pursued with fervor.
Has her husband joined ? "
" A malignant," returned the secretary, folding up his
papers. " Unworthy of 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 mean-
ing 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, every thing, 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 des-
potism ! 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. 1 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 per-
fect acquiescence in any thing that had been said or might
be ; and Lord George gradually sinking down upon his pil-
low, fell asleep.
Although there was something very ludicrous in his vehe-
ment manner, taken in conjunction with his meager aspect
and ungraceful presence, it would scarcely have provoked a
smile in any man of kindly feelings ; or even if it had, he
would have felt sorry and almost angry with himself next
moment^ for yielding to the io7 pulse. * his lord was sincere
BARNABY RUDGE. 273
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
thouroughly weak men, that their very sympathies, affections,
confidences — all the qualities which in better constituted
minds, are virtues — dwindle into foibles, or turn into down-
right vices.
Gashford, with many a sly look toward 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 — care-
fully wrapped 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 fol-
lows :
" 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 care-
fully, 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 XXXVn.
To surround any thing, 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,
2 74 BARNABY RUDGE.
false prodigies of every kind, veiling their proceedings in
mystery, have always addressed themselves at an immense
advantage to the popular credulity, and have been, perhaps,
more indebted to that resource in gaining and keeping for
a time the upper hand of truth and common sense, than to
any half-dozen items in the whole catalogue of imposture.
Curiosity is, and has been from the creation of the world, a
master passion. To awaken it, to gratify it by slight degrees,
and yet leave something always in suspense, is to establish
the surest hold that can be had, in wrong, on the unthinking
portion of mankind.
If a man had stood on London Bridge, calling till he was
hoarse, upon the passers-by, to join with Lord George Gor-
don, 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 peo-
ple in a month. If all zealous Protestants had been pub-
licly urged to join an association for the avowed purpose of
singing a hymn or two occasionally, and hearing some in-
different speeches made, and ultimately of petitioning parlia-
ment not to pass an act for abolishing the penal laws against
Roman Catholic priests, the penalty of perpetual imprison-
ment 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 King-
dom by the 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 rumors 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 de-
grade and enslave England, establish an inquisition in Lon-
don, and turn the pens of Smithfield market into stakes and
caldrons ; when terrors and alarms which no man under-
stood were perpetually broached, both in and out of parlia-
ment, by one enthusiast, who did not understand himself,
and by-gone 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 Associa-
tion in defense 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 tliose who trod chg
BARNABY RUDGE. 275
streets by night ; when they glared from every wall, and
shone on every post and pillar, so that stocks and stones ap-
peared 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, 17 So, Lord
George Gordon, the association's president. Whether it
was the fact or otherwise, few men knew or cared to ascer-
tain. 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 creat-
ure 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 discon-
tent 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 them-
selves, about this period, upon the notice of thousands of peo-
ple, 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 cur-
tains of his bed betimes ; " my lord ! "
" Yes— vv^ho'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?"
276 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 uncon-
scious of this change in his demeanor, the wily secretary
stepped a little apart, under pretense 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 Scot-
land. It was quite worthy of you. You remind me not to be
a sluggard, Gashford, when the vineyard is menaced with de-
struction, and may be trodden down by Papist feet. Let the
horses be saddled in half an hour. W^e must be up and
doing ! "
He said this with a heightened color, and in a tone of such
enthusiasm, that the secretary deemed all further prompting
needless, and withdrew.
BARNABY RUDGE. 277
— " 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 the source of con-
solation, 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 dis-
patched. 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 rumor
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 con-
ceived. 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 saber of a horse
soldier, now over his shoulder like a musket, now between
his finger and thumb, but always in some uncouth and
278 BARNABY RUDGE.
awkward fashion — contributed in no small degree to the
absurdity of his appearance. Stiff, lank, and solemn,
dressed in an unusual manner, and ostentatiously exhib-
iting — 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, and cried in jest
or in earnest as 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 higliest rank, but such as sold fruit from bas-
kets and carried burdens — clapped their shriveled hands,
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, Leaden-
hall Street, and Clieapside, and into St. Paul's church-yard.
BARNABY RUDGE. 279
Arriving close to the cathedral, he halted ; spoke to Gash-
ford ; 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 Cav-
endish 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 trowsers and waistcoat of the
Gordon plaid, all of the same Quaker cut ; and in this cos-
tume, 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 visitoro
" Let him come in," said Gashford.
"Here ! come in ! " growled John to somebody without :
" you're a Protestant, an't you ? "
" / 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,
thick-set 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 ex-
posed 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 coal fire after a day's
28o BARNABY RUDGE.
extinction ; discolored with the soils of many a debauch,
and reeking yet with pot-house odors. In lieu of buckles
at his knees, he wore unequal loops of pack-thread ; 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 Gash-
ford'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 toward 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've 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 daytime, eh.^" said the secretary
— " when you go out in state, you know."
" Ha, ha ! " roared the fellow, smiting his leg; "for a
gentleman as 'ull say a pleasant thing in a pleasant way,
give me Muster Gashford agin' all London an' 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 ail 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 Gash-
ford," 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."
"/ know, bless you," returned the man, thrusting his
tongue into his cheek, " I entered a' purpose, didn't I ! "
" No doubt," said Gashford, smiling as before. And when
he said so, Dennis roared again, and smote his leg still
harder, and, falling into fits of laughter, wiped his eyes with
the corner of his neckerchief, and cried " Muster Gashford
agin' all England hollow ! "
" Lord George and I were talking of you last night," said
Gashford, after a pause. " He says you are a very earnest
fellow."
"So I am," returned the hangman.
BARNABY RUDGE. 281
" And that you truly hate the Papists."
" So I do," and he confirmed it with a good round oath.
"Lookye here, Muster Gasiiford," 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, Protest-
ant, 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 any thing
which goes again a certain number of our acts' — how many
hanging lav/s 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 any thing 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 myseU and Dennis shall have
half for /ii/me\( ; 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 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 childien — 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.
282 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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, count-
ing the time I was christened — and when I heard the parlia-
ment prayed for, and thought how many new hanging laws
they made every session, I considered that / 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 any thing you bid me, so that it's bold and devilisn —
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 rilest purpose, by pouring out in a kind
of ecstasy at least a score of tremendous oaths ; then wiped
his heated face upon his neckerchief, and cried, *' No Popery !
I'm a religious man, by G — ! "
Gashford had leaned back in his chair, regarding him with
eyes so sunken, and so shadowed by his heavy brows, that
for aught the hangman saw of them, he might have been
stone-blind. He remained smiling in silence for a short time
longer, and then said slowly and distinctly :
"You are indeed an earnest fellow, Dennis — a most valu-
able 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.
BARNABY RUDGE. 283
we til ink, 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 pro-
cession 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 be-
ing 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 for-
ward, 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 Protest-
ant."
" 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 XXXVni.
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."
284 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Your servant, master," said Hugh, as Grueby disap-
peared.
" Yours, friend," returned the secretary in his smoothest
manner, " What brings j'i7« 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 sec-
retary'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 perfe'^tly 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 ap-
pearance. Considering himself silently appealed to by this
action, Mr. Dennis shook his head thrice, as if to say of
Gashford, ''No. He don't know anything at all about it.
I know he don't. I'll take my oath he don't ; " and hiding
his profile from Hugh with one long end of his frowsy necker-
chief, 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 cir-
cumstance I hav§ ever known. How did you come by this
piece of paper, my good friend ? "
** Muster Gashford," wheezed the hangman under his
breath, *' ag?in' 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 any thing about it, master — no more
do I — no more does he," glancing at Dennis. " None of us
know what it mears, or where it comes from ; there's an end
BARNABY RUDGE. 285
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 Den-
nis 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 roil. 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 mild-
ness.
" It's all the same ! " cried Dennis. " It's all right. Down
with him, Muster Gashford. Down with every body, down
with every thing ! Hurrah for the Protestant religion !
That's the time of day. Muster Gashford ! "
The secretary regarded them both with a very favorable
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, step-
ping 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 inti-
mate 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 I "
The secretary assented to this proposition with the best
grace he could assume, it is difficult to feign a true professional
286 BARNABY RUDGE.
relish which is eccentric sometimes — and after asking the
candidate a few unimportant questions, proceeded to enroll
him a member of the Great Protestant Association of England.
if any thing 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
civilized community could know, and militating more against
thci professional emoluments and usefulness of the great con-
stitutional office he had the honor to hold, than any adverse
circumstances that could present themselves to his imagina-
tion.
The enrolment being completed, and Hugh having been
informed byGashford, in his peculiar manner, of the peace-
ful 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 re-
markable faces — the secretary gave them both to under-
stand 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, serv-
ants, 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 287
master's face by the light of the lamps ; and, both in re-
spect of people and localities, he showed so much acquaint-
ance with every thing 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 chan 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 appear-
ing to communicate with him, would say a word or two in a
low voice, which he would answer in the same cautious man-
ner. 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 im-
possible to tell from whom it came ; nor could he see in any
face, on glancing quickly round, the least confusion or sur-
prise. 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 toward 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 am prepared for any thing." "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 im-
precations 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
consent, they bent their steps that way with no loss of time.
288 BARNABY RUDGE.
This Boot was a lone house of public entertainment, situ-
ated 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 whis-
pered 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 tne liquor which was brought
for them, Dennis drank in a loud voice the health of Lord
George Gordon, president of the Great Protestant Associa-
tion ; which toast Hugh pledged likewise, with correspond-
ing enthusiasm. A fiddler who was present, and who ap-
peared to act as the appointed minstrel of the company,
forthwith struck up a Scoth reel ; and that in tones so in-
vigorating, 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, per-
formed 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 re-enforced 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 289
person to detect this state of feeling in the quondam 'pren-
tice, for it not only proclaimed itself impressively and be-
yond 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 at-
tended by his two lieutenants ; one, the tall comrade of his
younger life ; the other, a Trentice Knight in days of yore
— Mark Gilbers, bound in the olden time to Tomas 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 dis-
tinguished state in great poliiical events. Hence their con-
nection with the Protestant Association of England, sanc-
tioned 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 honor to send his compliments
per self."
" You've seen my lord too, have you ? " said Dennis. ''' /
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 lieutenant took their seats. '' How doyou- 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 v/ant. 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
/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."
290 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 contem-
plated 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 up close 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 we 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 clos-
ing 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, fel-
ler ? "
" 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 condescending playfulness. " When did mv eyes
ever deceive — unless it was a young woman ! Don't you
know me now? "
** Why it an't— " Hugh faltered.
" Ain'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
BARNABY RUDGE. 291
disconsolate father a prey to his 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 ad-
vances readily^ they performed the ceremony with a show of
great heartiness.
" I find," said Mr. Tappertit, looking round on the assem-
bhd guests, '' that brother what's-his-name and I are old
acquaintance. You never heard any thing more of that rascal,
1 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, rub-
bing 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 abandon-
ment to his mad humor, 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 favor,
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 charac-
ters might have done, but calling up his brace of lieutenants,
introduced Hugh to them with high commendation ; declar-
ing him to be a man who, at such times as those in wnich
they lived, could not be too much cherished Further, he
292 BARNABY RUDGE.
did him the honor to remark, that he would be an acquisi-
tion of which even the United Bull-dogs might be proud :
and finding, upon sounding him, that he was quite wiiHng
to enter the society (for he was not at all particular, and
would have leagued himself that night with anything or any
body, for any purpose whatsoever), caused the necessary pre-
liminaries 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 as-
sembly.
" Make any thing you like of me ! " cried Hugh, flourish-
ing 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 nothings and roared again until the very found-
lings near at hand were startled in their beds.
In fact a sense of something whimsical in their com-
panionship seemed to have taken entire possession of his
rude brain. The bare fact of being patronized by a great
man whom he could have crushed with one hand, appeared
in his eyes so eccentric and humorous, that a kind of fero-
cious 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 xMr. Tappertit received as matters
of course — flattering enough in their way, but entirely at-
tributable to his vast superiority. His dignified self-pos-
session only delighted Hugh the more ; ana 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 x\Ir. Tappertit mounted on an empty cask
which stood by way of rostrum in the room, and volun-
teered a speech upon the alarming crisis then at hand, he
placed himself beside the orator, and though he grinned
BARNABY RUDGE. 293
from ear to ear at every word he said, threw out such ex-
pressive 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 v/ere sure
to come in soon afterward 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 per-
sons 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. Jatties's Ckrotiide, the Herald, Chronicle, or Public Ad-
vertiser, 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 Thunder e?', 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 lot of listeners, or by some solitary
man, was certain to be followed by stormy talking and ex-
cited 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, how-
ever, 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, follow-
ing 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 ! "
294 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 valor. Indeed, this did
not require any unusual bravery or boldness, as the watch-
men 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 En-
gland — as light a business as any gentleman could desire."
" Was you 'prenticed to it ? " asked Mr. Tappertit.
" No. Natural genius," said Mr, Dennis. " No 'prentic-
ing. It comes by natur'. Muster Gashford knows my call-
ing. Look at that hand of mine — many and many a job
that hand has done, with a neatness and dexterity never
known afore. When I look at that hand," said Mr. Dennis,
shaking it in the air, " and remember the helegant bits of
work it has turned off, I feel quite moUoncholy to think it
should ever grow old and feeble. But sich is life ! "
He heaved a deep sigh as he indulged in these reflections,
and putting his fingers with an absent air on Hugh's throat,
and particularly under his left ear, as if he were studying
the anatomical development of that part of his frame, shook
his head in a despondent manner and actually shed tears.
*' You're a kind of artist, I suppose — eh ! " said Mr. Tap-
pertit.
" 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 a-top," Dennis replied ; " d'ye think
it's like?"
" Why — it's a little too handsome," said Mr. Tappertit.
" Who did it ? You ? "
BARNABY RUDGE. 295
" 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 minutes shall be dewoted to making
Dennis's picter.' That's it."
" That was a queer fancy, wasn't it ? " said Mr. Tapper-
tit.
" It 7C'(js 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
oif half as comfortably without me. I had been with three
or four of the family under the same circumstances. They
were all fine fellows."
" They must have been fond of you," remarked Mr. Tap-
pertit, 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 ap-
peared 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 myste-
rious companion to proceed without interruption.
** These smalls," said Dennis, rubbing his legs, " these
very smalls — they belonged to a friend of mine that's left
off sich incumbrances forever : 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 to Holborn on the box of a hackney-coach — ah, many
and many a day ! "
296 BARNABY RUDGE.
" You don't mean to say their old wearers are oil dead,
I hope ? " said Mr. Tappertit, faUing 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 dis-
mal manner, for his faded dress — which, in this new aspect,
seemed discolored by the earth from graves — that Mr, Tap-
pertit abruptly found he was going another way, and, stop-
ping 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, watch-
ing 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 mat-
ter ?"
" I quite forgot," said Hugh, who had started at the strik-
ing of a neighboring 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 ! "
BARNABY RUDGE. 297
*'No Popery, captain ! " roared Hugh.
" England in blood first ! " cried his desperate leader.
Whereat Hugh cheered and laughed, and ran off like a grey-
hound.
"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 provi-
dent 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 vigor, and thrust-
ing 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 '' Halloo ! " 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 empha-
sized 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 ? "
298 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Why, I must go with you and see that you do, for I don't
believe it.
" Come along, then."
Eying him with suspicious looks, the man, with key and
lantern, walked on at the 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 com-
mend 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 p.s ever ; the complexion,
quite juvenile in its bloom and cleamess ; the same smile ;
the wonted precision and elegance of dress ; the white, well-
ordered teeth ; the delicate hands ; the composed and quiet
manner ; every thing 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 or
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
BARNABY RUDGE. ^ 299
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 laborers. He
caught the fancy of the king, kneeled kown 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 dispatch ? "
*' 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
leaned, 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 whatV returned Sir John.
"Well then," said Hugh uneasily, " as you advised, or
said I ought, or said I might, or said what 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 ap-
peared 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 im-
ply that I directed you to do something for me — something
I wanted done — something for my own ends and purposes
—you see t Now I am sure I needn't enlarge upon the ex-
300 BARNABY RUDGE.
treme 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 offense," 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," re-
plied his patron calmly. " By the by, instead of wonder-
ing 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 honor, I am sure."
" I have come to and fro, master, all through that time,
when there was any thing to tell, because I knew that you'd
be angry with me if I staid 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're 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 any body who has slighted
you lately, on all occasions, abused you, treated you with
rudeness ; acted toward 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 any thing to have some revenge on him — any thing.
And when you told me that he and all the Catholics would
suffer from those who joined together under that hand bill,
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 301
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 ? " saia 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 I " laughed Sir John. " A strange fancy — a weak-
ness 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 wsls 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.
302 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 any thing,
I suppose ? "
" I would," retorted Hugh, stopping in his passage out and
looking back ; " but what do / 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 Vvcll 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 medita-
tion.
•' 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 can not commit ourselves by joining with a very extrava-
gant 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 be-
coming seasons, in moderate and polite terms, a disapproba-
tion of his proceedings, though we agree with him in prin-
ciple, will certainly be to gain a character for honesty and
upriuhtness of purpose, which can not 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 ivould
inflict some little chastisement on Haredale as a not inactive
man among his sect, it would be extremely agreeable to my
BARNABY RUDGE. 303
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 medita-
tions, 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-humored, that it sug-
gested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite
pleasant music. No man who hammered on at a dull mo-
notonous duty, could have brought such cheerful notes from
steel and iron ; none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted
fellow, who made the best of every thing, and felt kindly to-
ward every body, 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 ev-
ery pause of the streets' harsher noises, as though it said, " I
don't care ; nothing puts me out ; I am resolved to be hap-
py." 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 dis-
posed to linger near it ; neighbors who had got up splenetic
that morning, felt good-humor stealing on them as they heard
it, and by degrees became quite sprightl) ; mothers danced
304 BARNABY RUDGE.
their babies to its ringing; still the same magical tink, tink,
tink, came gayly 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
checkering 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 ex-
ercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed
off his shining forehead — the easiest, freeest, happiest man
in all the world. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and wink-
ing in the light, and falling every now and then into an idle
doze, as from excess of comfort. Toby looked on from a tall
bench hard by ; one beaming smile, from his broad nut-brown
face down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The very
locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust,
and seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed
to joke on their infirmities. There was nothing surly or
severe in the whole scene. It seemed impos>ible that any
one of the innumerable keys could fit a churlish strong-box
or a prison door. Cellars of beer and wine, rooms vv^here
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
forever.
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 v/ith tiger eyes a bird-
cage in an opposite window. Gabriel lifted Toby to his
mouth, and took a hearty draught.
Then, as he stood upright, with his head flung back, and
his portly chest thrown out, you would have seen that Ga-
briel'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 Volun-
teers.
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 vras, nov/, I reineiBber, when 1 was like to run
BARNABY RUDGE.
305
mad with the desire to wear a coat of that color. 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 enougli 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
offense 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 every body 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, to-
gether 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 locksmitli did for a moment seem disposed to gratify
her, but he gave a great gulp, and mildly rejoined :
" 1 was going to say, what on earth do you call it unchris-
tian for ? Which would be most unchristian, jMartha — 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 sav-
ages bore off Dolly — or you ? "
When he said " Or you," Mrs. Varden, despite herself, re-
laxed into a smile. There was something complimentary in
the idea. " In such a state of things as that, indeed "
she simpered.
3o6 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 /-^r 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. Var-
den's mdignation, 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 alight 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 coach-makers, 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 gentle-
men — supposed to be of mighty fortunes, if not titles — had
waited round the cprner 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 lock-
smith 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 307
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 every thing 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 the 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 afterward.
Dolly hugged her father as has been already stated, and
having hugged her mother also, accompanied both into the
little parlor 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 rivaled
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 any body 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 lock-
smith, '' I can't bear to have you out of my sight. And
what is the news over yonder, Doll ? "
" What news there is, I think you know already," replied
his daughter. " I am sure you do though."
'' Ay ? " cried the locksmith. " What's that ? "
" Come, come," said Dolly, " you know very well, I want
you to tell me why Mr. Haredale — oh, how gruff he is again,
to be sure ! — has been away from home for some days past,
and why he is traveling about (we know he is traveling,
3o8 BARNABY RUDGE
because of his letters) without telling his own niece why or
wherefore."
'* Miss Emma doesn't want to know, I'll swear," returned
the locksmith.
*' I don't know that," said Dolly ; " but / 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 coloring 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 dis-
missal of the subject, notwithstanding the appearance of din-
ner, but at the mention of Blue Beard Mrs. Varden inter-
posed, 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 fab-
ulous 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 Gor-
don'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, v/ho 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
BARNABY RUDGB:. 3^9
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 man-
tle-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 parlor ; and on the door the counterfeit
presentment of a brass plate, whereupon 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 any thing into that
temple, save once in secret — as she afterward 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 contribution,
better loving, as it seemed, to purchase ribbons and such
gauds, than to encourage the great cause, then in such
heavy tribulations ; 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 invest-
ment for her small capital she could possibly have it upon ;
returning her interest, at the rate of seven or eight per cent,
in money, and fifty at least in personal repute and credit.
310 BARNABY RUDGE.
** You needn't cry, Miggs," said Mrs. Varden, herself in
tears ; " you needn't be ashamed of it, though your poor
mistress is on the same side."
Miggs howled at this remark, in a peculiarly dismal way,
and said she knowed that master hated her. That it was a
dreadful thing to live in families and have dislikes, and not
give satisfactions. That to make divisions was a thing she
could not a-bear 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 locksmitli'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 ?
/ don't hate you ; I don't hate any body. Dry your eyes
and make yourself agreeable, in heaven's name, and let us
all be happy while we can."
BARNABY RUDGE. 311
The allied powers deeming it good generalship to consider
this a sufficient apology on the part of the enemy, and con-
fession 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 terras, and incidentally declared as a closing article of
agreement, that Dolly should accompany her to the Clerken-
well 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 maneuver 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, look-
ing lovingly on Mrs. V., from time to time, and exhibiting
from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, one smil-
ing surface of good-humor. 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
312 BARNABY RUDGE.
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
favorite 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 him-
self ; " 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 mis-
take. 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 frown-
ing ; " 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, 1 recollect, I didn't understand.
* And how's Miss Dolly, sir ? ' says Joe," pursued the lock-
smith, musing sorrowfully, " Ah ! Poor Joe ! "
"Well, I declare," cried Miggs. "Oh! Goodness gra-
cious me ! "
" What's the matter now ? " said Gabriel, turning sharply
to her.
BARNABY RUDGE. %is
"Why, if here ain't Miss Dolly," said the handmaid,
Stooping down to look into her face, " a-giving way to floods
of tears. Oh, mim I 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
en with a broad stare while Dolly hurried away, followed by
that sympathizing young woman : then turning to his wife,
stammered out, " Is Dolly ill ? Have / done g.ny thing ?
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 s'hall get into fewer scrapes at that work
than at this. Every man came into the world for some-
thing ; 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 neiphbors,
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. Hav-
ing displayed their military prowess to the utmost in these
warlike shows, they marched in glistering order to the Chel-
sea Bunhouse, and regaled in the adjacent taverns until dark.
Then at sound of drum they fell in again, and returned
amidst the shouti .g of his majesty's lieges to the place from,
whence they came.
314 BARNABY RUDGE.
The homeward march being somewhat tardy — owing to
the un-soldierlike behavior 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 in-
tervals 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 an-
swered ; " 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 preciou<=
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. Ga-
briel 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
?eem 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 — (juite 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 315
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 won-
der, could only sit and look toward 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 can not — 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 re-
plied : " 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 labor 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 neighbor 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 bVoad day I shall be there. Emma, your daughter, and
the rest, suppose me out of London, as I have been until 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 re-appearance of the
man at Mrs. Rudge's house, and to all the strange circum-
stances which afterward occurred. He even asked him
3i6 BARNABY RUDGE.
carelessly about the man's height, his face, his figure, whether
he was like any one he had ever seen — like Hugh, for in-
stance, 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 pave-
ment in silence. When they reached the door, Mr. Hare-
dale softly opened it with a key he had about him, and clos-
ing 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 dropped his own when Mr. Haredale looked toward him
as if he feared they would betray his thoughts.
" Will you walk through the house ? " said Mr. Haredale,
with a glance toward the window, the crazy shutters of which
weie closed and fastened. " Speak low."
There was a kind of awe about the place, which v/ould
have rendered it difficult to speak in any other manner.
Gabriel whispered " Yes," and followed him up-stairs.
Every thing 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 hanging 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 rfoor. The boards creaked be-
BARNABY RUDGE. 317
neath their tread, as if resenting the unaccustomed intrusion;
nimble spiders, paralyzed 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. Barn-
aby to crouch in his old favorite 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 dgwn 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 traveled up-stairs, and so on re-
turning to the room below, shone brightly through the
chinks of the shutters.
If ever man were sorely puzzled and perplexed, the lock-
smith was, that night. Even when snugly seated by his own
fireside, with Mrs. Varden opposite in a nightcap and night-
jacket, and Dolly beside him (in a most distracting disha-
bille) 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 per-
haps 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 watch-
ing.
3i8 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 toward 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 motion-
less, noiseless, cheerless, as a grave. Unwilling to hazard
Mr. Haredale's favor 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 curi-
osity attracted him to the spot — which was not seldom — the
light was always there.
If he could have known what passed within, the knowl-
edge would have yielded him no clew to this mysterious vigil.
At twilight, Mr. Haredale shut himself up, and at day-break
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 nar-
rowly examined them. That done, he returned to the
chamber on the ground-floor, and laying his sword and pis-
tols 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 fulfillment
of a dream or vision connected with the event on which he
had brooded for so many years, and if he waited for some
BARNABY RUDGE. 319
ghostly visitor vho 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-clinched hand, and listen with sparkling eyes
and eager looks, until it died away.
These disappointments were numerous, for they en-
sued 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 ^yent on for weeks ; he had taken a lodging at Vaux-
hall in which to pass the day and rest himself ; and from
this place, when the tide served, he usually came to Lon-
don Bridge from Westminster by water, in order that he
might avoid the busy streets.
One evening, shortly before twilight, he came his accus-
tomed 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 con-
course 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 n:iade his way along, with
perfect indifference.
There were many little knots and groups of persons in
Westminster Hall ; some fev/ 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 po-
litical or private matters, pacing slowly up and down v. ith
320 BARNABY RUDGE.
eyes that sought the ground, and seeming, by their attitudes,
to listen earnestly from head to foot. Here a dozen squad-
bling 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 obstinate school boy, 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 ap-
pears to have gathered in a second. The smooth worn pave-
ment, 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 noise
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 an humble word himself
— and, with his shoulders shrugged up to his ears, rubbed
his hands submissively, or answered at intervals by an in-
clination of the head, half-way between a nod of acquies-
cence, 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, whicli
struck Mr. Haredale with no pleasant feeling. He hesita-
ted, stopped, and would have stepped aside and turned out
of his path, but at that 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 ! God bless me, this is strange
indeed ! "
BARNABY RUDGE. 321
" It is," he returned impatiently ; " yes — a-
" My dear friend," cried the other, detaining him, 'Svhy
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 re-
monstrances, and inclined his hand toward 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 recognized, he put out his hand in an awkward
and embarrassed manner, which was not mended by its con-
temptuous rejection.
" xMr. 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 honor, 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
gayety, " 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 honorable, too maniy,
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 "
322 BARNABY RUDGE.
Gashford meekly shrugged his shoulders, and looking on
the ground again, was silent.
" No, but let us really," interposed Sir John at this junc-
ture, "let us really, for a moment, contemplate the very
remarkable character of this meeting. Haredale, my dear
friend, pardon me if 1 think you are not sufficiently im-
pressed with its singularity. Here we stand, by no previous
appointment or arrangement, three old school-fellows, 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 Protest-
ant at that time, was sent to learn the French tongue from
a native of Paris I "
"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 sur-
passing 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 honored 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 favor."
" You have so much of my favor, sir," retorted Mr. Hare-
dale, with a bitter glance at the third party in their con-
versation, "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, injiis most
benignant way. " There — which is a most remarkable circum-
stance for a man of your punctuality and exactness, Hare-
dale — you fall into error. I don't belong to the body ; I
BARNABY RUDGE. 323
have ail immense respect for its members, but I don't be-
lon^^ to it ; although 1 am, it is certainly true, the conscien-
tious opponent of your being relieved. I feel it my duty to
be so ; it is a most unfortunate necessity ; and cost me a bit-
ter struggle. Will you try this box ? If you don't object to
a trilling infusion of a very chaste scent, you'll find its flavor
exquisite."
" J ask your pardon, Sir John," said Mr. Haredale, declin-
ing th^ 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 apologize, for the world," replied Sir John, sweetly.
*' Old friends like you and 1, 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 staid 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 differ-
ently 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) to-
ward 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 favor, 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 ventured
324 BARNABY RUDGE.
threats and murmurings ; those who were outside the crowd
cried, "Silence," and " Stand back," or closed in upon the
rest, endeavoring 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 inco-
herent 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 unhap-
pily 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 lord-
ship's person," said Mr. Haredale. " I hope there is but one
gentleman in England who, addressing an ignorant and ex-
cited throng, would speak of a large body of his fellow- sub-
jects in such injurious language as I heard this moment.
For shame, my lord, for shame ! '/
" I can not 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 digrace 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 worshipers 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.
BARNABY RUDGE. 325
" 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, eying 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 honor, 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 win-
dows for the broken food, and begged for half-pence at our
chapel doors ; this apostle of the faith, whose tender con-
science can not bear the altars where his vicious life was
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 / hope to escape ? "
" Is it not enough, my lord," .Mr. Haredale continued,
" that I, as good a gentleman as you, must hold my prop-
erty, 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
any thing more. I beg you won't obtrude your conversa-
tion, or these personal attacks, upon me. I shall not be
deterred from doing my duty to my country and my coun-
326 BARNABY RUDGE.
trymen by any such attempts, whether they proceed from
emissaries of the Pope or not, I assure you. Come, Gash-
ford ! "
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 rumor had been rapidly dispersed that the
stranger was a Papist who was bearding him for his advo-
cacy 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 tliere stood still, leaving him
on a little clear space by himself.
They were not sil'ent, 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 stento-
rian voice, " No Popery ! " This favorite cry the rest re-
echoed, and the mob, which might have been two hundred
strong, joined in a general sliout.
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 ]iace down the stairs.
He was pretty near the boat, when Gashford, as if without
intention, turned about, and directly afterward 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 327
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, anS I look to you. Draw,
if you are gentlemen." With that he struck Sir John upon
the breast with the fiat of his weapon, and with a burning
face and flashing eye 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 endeavored 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 re-
torted, 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 toward 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'll 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 particu-
larly strong and cool, and wearing besides Lord George's
328 BARNABY RUDGE.
livery, they thought better of it, and contented themselves
with sending a shower of small missiles a^ter the boat, which
plashed harmlessly in the water ; for she had by this time
cleared the bridge, and was darting swiftly down the center
of the stream.
From this amusement, they proceeded to giving Protest-
ant 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, hav-
ing 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 toward them, but waited patiently on
the dark side of the street, until they were tired of strolling
backward and forward 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 pal-
ings long since carried off for firewood, which meniced all
heedless walkers with their jagged and rusty nails ; were the
leading features of the landscape ; while here and there a
BARNABY RUDGE. 329
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
horses had not done so, sufficiently, of themselves) how
very poor the people were who lived in the crazy huts adja-
cent, and how foolhardy it might prove for one who carried
money, or wore decent clothes, to walk that way alone, un-
less 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 arbor.
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 honor ! Walk in. Muster Gash-
ford — 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 ? "
330 BARNABY RUDGE.
"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, v/ith his worst
expression of face, and in his mildest tones, " have any thing
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 valor and generosity. " By the by" — 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 bull-dog. 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 over-
heard 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 humor. There wasn't quite
enough to provoke 'em to-day, I tell you. If you'd had
^our way, you'd have spoiled the fun to come, and ruined us."
" Dennis is quite right," said Gashford, smoothly. "He
is perfectly correct. Dennis ha,« great knowledge of the
world."
BARNABY RUDGE. 331
" 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 beside. 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 home-
ward. I come upon a little business — yes, I do— as you sup-
posed. 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 hang-
man with a grave nod. " The uncertainties as I've seen in
reference to this here state of existence, the unexpected con-
tingencies 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 recommenda-
tion of you both, as good stanch 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
332 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 to-
gether gently.
" Understand you, master !" cried Hugh. "You speak
plain now. Why, this is hearty ! "
" I knew you would like it," said Gashford, shaking him
by the hand ; '' I thought you would. Good-night ! Don't
rise, Dennis ; I would rather find my way alone. I may
have to make other visits here, and it's pleasant to come and
go without disturbing you. I can find my way perfectly
well. Good-night ! "
He was gone, and had shut the door behind him. They
looked at each other, and nodded approvingly. Dennis
stirred up the fire.
" This looks a little more like business ! " he said.
"Ay, indeed ! " cried Hugh ; " this suits me ! "
" I've heerd it said of Muster Gashford," said the hang-
man, "that he'd a surprising memory and wonderful firm-
ness — that he never forget — 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 cir-
cumstance 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 labor 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
BARNABY RUDGE. ^^3
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 all that time held any
commerce or communication with the old world from which
they had fled. To labor in peace, and devote her labor and
her life to her poor son, was all the widow sought. If hap-
piness 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 all 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 learned 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 humor held him, would remain pa-
tiently 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 when 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 compan-
ions 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 belong-
ing to the neighbors, 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 re-
turn 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
334 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 enjoy-
ments 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
scenes 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 ev-
ery thing 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 la-
bored for their common good ; and hail, rain, snow, or sun-
shine, 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 intelli-
gence from London, she caught at with avidity. The ex-
citement 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 335
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 ex-
hibit, 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 neigh-
boring dogs, of whom the boldest held him in great awe and
dread.
Time had glided on in this way, and nothing had hap-
pened to disturb or change their mode of life, when, one
summer's night in June, they were in their little garden, rest-
ing from the labors 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 bright-
ness 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 yon-
der 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 1 knew where to find it. Grip and I could do much
with gold, be sure of that."
^:{6 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 colors
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 seal
and laying her hand upon his shoulder, " what men have
done to win it, and how they have found too late, that it glit-
ters 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 leaned meekly forward as if
he sought to mingle with their conversation, and waited for
his time to speak. His face was turned toward the bright-
ness, 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 traveler ? "
" Have you no guide ? " asked the widow, after a moment's
pause.
" None but that," he answered, pointing with his staff
toward the sun ; " and f ometimes a milder one at night,
but she is idle now."
BARNABY RUDGE. 337
" Have you traveled far ? "
" A weary way and long," rejoined the traveler 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," re-
plied the man. " The coarsest stuffs and finest silks, are —
apart from the sense of touch — alike to me. I can not 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 to-
ward 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.
" May be, may be," 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 nev-
ertheless, or his thirst was not very great, for he only v/etted
his lips and put it down again.
He wore, hanging with a long strap around his neck, a
kind of scrip or wallet, in whic];i 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.
338 BARNABY RUDGE.
When he 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 toward
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 v;ill 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 inaudi-
ble to the widow, and then said suddenly, and i?. 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 willful and self-band-
aging 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 kittens,
whose eyes have not yet been opened on the world ; and
there is that physical blindness, ma'am, of which I am, con-
trary to my 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 I and you confer together, and this precaution arising
out of the delicacy of my sentiments toward yourself, you
will excuse me, ma'am, I know."
Having delivered himself of this speech with many flour-
ishes 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 con-
tained. 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 339
aid of eyes by which to read the movements of your soul as
depicted in your feminine features. I will satisfy your curi-
osity immediately, ma'am ; im-mediately." With that he
slapped his bottle on its broad back, and having put it un-
der his garment as before, crossed his legs and folded his
hands, and settled himself in his chair, previous to proceed-
ing any further.
The change of his manner was so unexpected, the craft
and wickedness of his deportment w^ere 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. Af-
ter 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 honor 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 honor, ma'am," said the blind mc*n,
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 favor of a
whisper."
She moved toward 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 tnan,
with perfect composure, produced his bottle again, mixed
another glass full ; put it up as before ; and, drinking froni*
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.
340 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 have 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 re-
torted. " 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 finger 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 Fentiments have nothing to do. As a mutual
friend, I wish to arrange it in a satisfactory manner, if pos-
sible ; 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 des-
olate situation than most men, and, you and he being linked
together in a common cause, he naturally looks to you to as
sist 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
BARNABY RUDGK. 341
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 an-
swered 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 to you. Twenty
pounds ! "
She was about to answer him again, but again he stopped
her.
" Don't say any thing 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 al-
lowance. 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 gen-
tle kind, and at that time of the 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 flowerSj
342 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 any thing 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
1 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 1 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 1 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 343
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 fel-
low'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 man-
ner, " and well represent the man who sent you here."
344 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 feel-
ing for you, because I am blind ? No, 1 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 ht^rrified if a
blind man robs, or lies, or steals ; oh yes, it's far worse in
him, who can barely live on the few half-pence that are
thrown to him in the streets, than in you, who can see, and
work, and are not dependent on the mercies of the world.
A curse on you I 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 nioment 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,"
BARNABY RUDGE. ^ 345
** 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 sick-
ness or death should separate my son and me. They have
been purchased at the price of much hunger, hard labor, 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
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 toward 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 withm
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
346 BARNABY RUDGE.
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, with a frightened whisper.
" It is not safe to stir. We must leave this place to-mor-
row."
" 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
any thing 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 wan-
dering abroad that night, and full of terror and strange ques-
tions. 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 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 hor-
ror. At length the welcome day appeared. When she
had made the little preparations that were needful for their
journey, and had prayed upon her knees with many tears,
she roused Barnaby, who jumped up gayly at her summons.
His clothes were few enough, and to carry Grip was a la-
bor of love. As the sun shed its 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 tliousand perfumes. Barnaby looked
upward, and laughed with all his heart.
But it was the day he usually devoted to a long ramble,
BARNABY RUDdK. 347
and one of his dogs — the ugliest of them all — came bound-
ing 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 obliter-
ated 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 man-
kind, 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 ;
34^^ BARNABY RUDGE.
and where many a wise son would have made her sorrow-
ful, this poor light-hearted idiot filled her breast with thank-
fulness and love.
Their stock of money was low, but from the hoard she
had toll into the blind man's hand, the widow had with-
held one guinea. This, with a 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 ale-house door, or in a vil-
lage 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 courtesy, that they were poor
travelers.
"Vagrants," said the gentleman, "vagrants and vaga-
bonds. 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,
BARNAB); RUDGE. 349
Grip the knowing — Grip, Grip, Grip," cried the raven, whom
Barnaby had shut up on the approach of this stern person-
age. "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 eying the gentleman with surprising inso-
lence 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 exer-
cise 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 floggiiig to
350 BARNAB^ RaDGK.
cure that disorder. I'd make a difference in him in ten min-
utes, 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 coun-
try gentleman of the true school," by some " a fine old
country gentleman," by some '* a sporting gentleman," by
some " a thorough-bred Englishman," by sonrie " a genuine
John Bull ; " but they all agreed in one respect, and that
was, that it was a pity that 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 the 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 de-
bauch. Great-coats, riding-whips, bridles, top-boots, spurs,
and such gear, were strewn about on all sides, and formed,
BARNABY RUDGE. 351
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 by,
he often snored away the night, when he had been, accord-
ing to his admirers, a finer country gentleman than usual)
he bade the man tell his mistress to come down ; and pres-
ently 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 asking her ? " said the gentleman, thrust-
ing 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, conde-
scended, at Barnaby's solicitation, to repeat his various
phrases of speech, and to go through the whole of his per-
formances with the utmost success. The corks, and the never
say die, afforded the gentleman so much delight that he de-
manded 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 de-
lighted her husband that he burst into a roar of laughter, and
demanded his price.
Barnaby looked as though he didn't understand his mean-
ing. 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 } "
352 BARNABY RUDGE.
**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 re-
tort, when a few murmured words from his wife happened
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 vagabondizing
on all hands, prefer to keep a bird, when a landed proprietor
and a justice asks his price ! That old woman has 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, 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 meas-
ure on having been the cause of the disturbance. When
they had nearly reached the lodge, another servant, emerg-
ing 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 ale-house some miles further on, and heard
BARNABY RUDGE. 353
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 some-
times misappropriated, not so say disgraced. She little
thought then, that a circumstance so slight would ever influ-
ence their future fortunes ; but time and experience enlight-
ened 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 were 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 meet 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 return-
ing 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. Whetlier 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,
354 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 im=
pressed by the mere circumstance of the man being blind,
and, therefore, unlike any one with whom he had talked be-
fore ; 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 suspi-
cion in reference to him, would only be, she feared, to in-
crease that interest with which Barnaby regarded him, and
to strengthen his desire to m.eet him once again. She hoped,
by plunging into the crowd, to rid herself of her terrrible
pursuer, and then, by journeying to a distance and observing
increased caution, if that were possible, to live again un-
known 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 bar-
gaining 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 v/as shining with
uncommon luster.
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 evi-
dent excitement. They were, for the most part, in knots of
two or three, or sometimes half a dozen ; they spoke little
BARNABY RUDGE. 355
together — many of them were quite silent ; and hurried on
as if they had one absorbing object in view, Avhich was com-
mon 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, ap-
peared 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 quarreling, how-
ever ; 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 com-
pletely 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 some-
times 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 associa-
tion ? 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 de-
356 BARNABY RUDGE.
clared he won't present it to the House at all, unless it is at-
tended 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 9*j:ong. 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 ! " ex-
claimed the widow.
" Speak for youself, 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 tlie sign of a
loyal Englishman or not,"
BARNABY RUDGE. 357
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 honor 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 re-
member 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 in-
formed ? "
" He can not 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 ! "
" x\men ! " cried Gashford with a solemn face.
'* You do not understand me, my lord," said the widow
358 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 coloring 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 de-
pravity."
"He has surely no appearance," said Lord George, glanc-
ing 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 359
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, fol-
lowed 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 trades-
men 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 pres-
ently 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 color^ —
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 death-like
silence, during which the mass was so still and quiet, that the
fluttering of a banner caught the eye, and became a circum-
stance 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, *' 1 am called indeed, now.
I feel and know it. I am the leader of a host. If they sum-
36o BARNABY RUDGE.
moned 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 rre you doing ? " cried his master, catching him by
both liands ; 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 to-
gether 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 car-
ing much if it were. Many of these voluntaries were sung
under the very nose of Lord George Gordon, who, quite un-
conscious 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 and 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, toward the center, quite overpowered by the ex-
cessive heat, which was, of course, rendered more unendur-
able 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 those who
were so distressed ; still, Lord George, streaming from every
BARNABY RUDGE. 361
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 ! Barnaby Rudge ! Why, where have you
been 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 at 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 color, 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 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 — Barn-
aby — Barnaby ! "
" Women in the field ? " cried Hugh, stepping between
them and holding her oflF. " Holloa ; My captain there ! "
" What's the matter here ? " cried Simon Tappertit, brist-
ling up in 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 or-
ders. Ladies are carrying off our gallant soldiers from their
duty. The word of command, captain ! They're filing off
the ground. Quick ! "
362 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Close ! " cried SiniDn, 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 XLI
The mob had been divided from its first assemblage into
four divisions ; the London, the Westminster, the South-
wark, and the Scotch. Each of these divisions being sub-
divided 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 re-
solved 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 detach-
ments.
At the head of that division v/hich 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 intrusted 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 Bull-
dogs), 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, notwith-
standing 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 363
madness of his humor, had stationed him, and walking be-
tween that dangerous companion and the hangman, went
Barnaby ; as many a man among the thousands who looked
on that day afterward 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 crreat banner he carried, and mindful only of its tlash-
incr in tlie sun and rustling in the summer breeze, on he went,
proud, happy, elated past all telling :— the only hght-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 nothmg m 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, ., , , u u-
" He don't understand your way," said the latter. f;*-^^^'
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, m 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 ca^l she be ? She never sees me at my best,
and what do I care to be gay and fine if s/ie's not by ? '
" Whv what player's this ? " asked Mr. Dennis, with su-
preme disdain. ''We ain't got no sentimental members
among us, I hope." .,„.,« tx . 1 ^ n
" Don't be uneasy, brother," cried Hugh. He s only talk-
ing of his mother."
364 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 dis-
gust. " 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, a.nd every thing else you please,
where she'll wait till you come, and want for nothing."
"Ah!" p.aid 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 com-
panion 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 mian 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 any thing, 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 behavior toward
^ BARNABY RUDGE. 365
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 o'n 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 be-
tween them, rushed straightway ; Barnaby havmg given nis
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, where 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 fall-
ing 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 fos-
tered 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 froin
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
366 BARNABY RUDGE.
fellow-senators at last with their clothes hanging in ribbons
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
recognized by those who knev/ him best. The noise and
uproar were on the increase every moment. The air was
filled with execrations, hoots, and bowlings. 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 more threatening. Lord
George — preceded by a man who carried an immense peti-
tion 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 presenta-
tion — 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
disheveled hair, came straggling 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 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 rumor of disturbance, and was empty ; save that now
and then Lord George took his seat there, for the conven-
ience 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 l)ennis were posted.
THE PO.. SWKPT THE .,K .buVE T„. ..^p,,-, ,,,,,, ^.,„ ^^^
MAX S SADDLE WAS EMPTV jx AN OSTANT."
BARNABY RUDGE. 367
There were two flights, short, steep, and narrow, running
parallel to each other, and leading to two little doors com-
municating with a low passage which opened on a 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 arm upon the banister, and
his cheek resting upon his hand, with his usual crafty as-
pect. Whenever he varied this attitude in the slightest de-
gree — 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 immedi-
ately — 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
marvelous 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 di-
rectly.
^' I am afraid," he said, this time, " that we have little
reason, gentlemen, to hope for any redress from the pro-
ceedings of parliament. But we must redress our own griev-
ances, we must meet again, we must put our trust in Provi-
dence, and it will bless our endeavors."
This speech being a little more temperate than the last,
was not so favorably received. When the noise and exas-
peration were at their height, he came back once more,
368 BARNABY RUDGE.
and told them that the alarm had gone forth for many
miles round ; that when the king heard of their assemblage
together in that great body, he had no doubt his majesty
would send down private orders to h^ve their wishes com-
plied with ; and — with the manner c^ his speech as child-
ish, 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 gen-
tlemen turning to Lord George, spoke thus — in a loud voice
that they might hear him well, but quite coolly and collect-
edly.
" You may tell these people, if you please, my lord, that I
am General Conway, of Avhom 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 can not be
ignorant that there are men within these walls who are de-
termined 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, address-
ing 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 thres-
hold of the House of Commons, I swear to run my sword
that moment — not into i^.is, but into your body ! "
With that, they stepped back again, keeping their faces
toward the crowd ; took each an arm of the misguided no-
bleman ; 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 demeanor of both gen-
tlemen — 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
toward the door ; some of the faintest-hearted cried they
^ctd best go back, and called to those behind to give way ;
and the panic and confusion were increasing rapidly, when.
Gashford whispered Hugh.
BARNABY RUDGE. 369
•* What now ! " Hugh roared aloud, turning toward them,
" Why go back ? Where can you do better than here, boys ?
One good rush against these doors and one bellow 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 I "
Without the delay of an instant, he threw himself head-
long 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 them-
selves 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 rumor spread from mouth
to mouth that a messenger had been dispatched by wa-
ter 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 tram-
pling on fallen men and being trampled on in turn them-
selves, 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 ex-
hausted with their late exertions, formed likewise, though in
a very irregular and disorderly manner. The commanding
ofiicer 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
370 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 quarterstaff 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 sabers.
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 toward 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 mo- .
ment 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 37i
no clew 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 dispatch,
were soon out of any immediate danger.
As they glided down the river, they plainly heard the peo-
ple 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 pop-
ulace 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 the critical time, and fortunately for them-
selves 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 comphments on the
prowess he had shown,
" Which," said Dennis with an oath, as he rested his blud-
geon in a corner with his hat upon it, and took his seat at
372 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 con-
sider 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 hang-
man, in a tone of deep disgust, " it makes me blush for my
feller creetures. 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 mo-
ment, 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 expres-
sion of his face, the gloom of which was rather deepened
than dissipated by their grateful influence.
The company who were thus libeled 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 excite-
ment, many had quite lost their voices, and so much of their
strength that they could hardly stand. Then they were un-
certain what to do next, fearful of the conseqaences of what
tliey 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 a hour ; such of them as were
BARNABY RUDGE. 373
really honest and sincere, never after the morning's experi-
ence, to return, or to hold any communication with their
late companions. Others remained but to refresh them-
selves, and then went home desponding ; others who had
theretofore been regular in their attendance, avoided the
place altogether. The half-dozen prisoners whom the Guards
had taken were magnified by report into half a hundred at
least ; and their friends^ being faint and sober, so slackened
in their energy, and so drooped beneath these dispiriting in-
fluences, 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! yow 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 mild-
ness. " The streets are filled with blue cockades. I rather
thought you might have been among them, 1 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 rip-
ping off the blue cockade which he had worn all day ; at the
same time humming a psalm tune which had been very popu-
lar 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 ribbon in his hat.
374 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 bold-
ness. 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 liis ap-
prehension -y. and in case it should include another man who
dropped into the lobby from the stairs above," said Gash-
ford, 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 toward the door.
" Dennis — Barnaby — come on ; "
"Where? To do v;hat .?'' 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 375
across his thirsty h'ps. '^ 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 ardor ! " said the
smooth secretary, whom j\Ir. Dennis corroborated with sun-
dry 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 to-
gether — 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 can not
say whether it be true or false — that the men who are loiter-
ing 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 I 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 toward the busy town,
and walked into the streets.
They were filled with people, for the rumor 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 asain called out, and
376 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 opportu-
nity, 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 destruc-
tion 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 recognizable 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 quarreling among themselves ; some men-
acing 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 fall-
ing bricks, and stones, and beams ; one borne upon a shut-
ter, 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 377
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 toward
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 home-
ward. " Well ! I think this looks a little more like busi-
ness ! "
CHAPTER LI.
Promising as these outrages were to Gashford's view, and
much like business as they looked, they extended that night
no further. 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 pre-
servation 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, every thing wore its usual as-
pect. 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 pro-
tection 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
378 BARNABY RUDGE.
religious differences, they were every day in habits of confi-
dential, affectionate, and friendly intercourse, re-assured
them, even under the excesses that had been committed ;
and convinced them that they who were Protestants in any
thing but the name, were no more to be considered as abet-
tors 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 parlor.
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 re-
sult of long watching, did, by a constant rubbing and tweak-
ing 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 re-
currence 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 out-
side 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 run-
ning 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,
BARNABY RUDGE. 379
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 im-
possible. 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
further forward, and stop with a jerk ; then to nod a little
further forward, and to 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 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, mini ! there's Sim-
mun'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 yester-
day 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
380 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 any thing of the
real texture (either of his skin or apparel) that the eye could
discern ; he stalked haughtily into the parlor, and throwing
himself into a chair, and endeavoring 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 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 re-
peated, 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 man-
ner and appearance, and by the accounts of the rioters which
had reached her ears that night, to offer any retort, or to
BARNABY RUDGE. 381
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 in 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, every body saw me there. I was con-
spicuous, 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 until this storm has blown over. I
am not sure that I do right in screening him from the pun-
ishment 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 toward 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 min-
ute is of consequence. The light here, Miggs ! "
"Yes, yes, oh do ! Go to bed directly," cried the two
women together.
382 BAHNABY RUDGE.
Mr. Tappertit stood upon his feet, and pushing his chair
away to show that he needed no assistance, answered, sway-
ing 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 crum-
pled 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. 1
am well assured that the proprietor of this house is a staunch
and worthy friend of the cause.
*' George Gordon."
" What's this ? " said the locksmith, with an altered face.
" Something that will 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 fervor
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 383
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, blessed Sim-
mun ! 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
stay-laces, and strings of it's impossible to say what ; pant-
ing for breath, clasping her hands, turning her eyes upward,
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. / 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 door-
way. '* Do you hear me } Go to bed ! "
" I hear you, and defy you, Varden," rejoined Simon Tap-
pertit. " This night, sir, I have been in the country, plan-
ning 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 straigh : fj
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 'pren-
tice down, and bind him hand and foot ; but as he was loath
to hurt him in his then defenseless state, he contented him-
self with parrying his blows when he could, taking them in
perfect good part when he could not. and keeping between
384 BARNABY RUDGE.
him and the door, until a favorable opportunity should pre-
sent 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 walk-
ing steadily, can often run. Watching his time, Simon Tap-
pertit made a cunning shov\^ of falling back, staggered un-
expectedly forward, brushed past him, opened the door (he
knew the trick of that lock well), and Tiarted 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 all that silent hour
the streets were deserted, the air was cool, and the flying fig-
ure 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 locksmitli 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 ris-
ing 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 meanwliile, without
once stopping, tied 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 lookout 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 JMiggs
had been anxiously expecting his return.
Now Mrs. Varden (and by consequence Miss Miggs like-
wise) 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 385
was she in consequence, that while her husband was pur-
suing 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
half-pence, 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 every thing 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 dis-
turbances 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 out-
stretched hand, tore it into fragments, and threv/ 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
^^6 BARxVABY RUDGE.
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 de-
lay 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 sub-
dued, could not refrain from sundry stimulative coughs and
sniffs by the way, or from holding up her hands in astonish-
ment at the daring conduct of master.
CHAPTER LIL
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 any thing they
knew, were scattered beyond the hope of future union.
At The Boot, which, as has been shown, was in a manner
BARNABY RUDGE. 387
the head-quarters of the rioters, there were not upon this Fri-
day night, a dozen people. Some slept in the stable and out-
houses, 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
hay-stacks, or near the warmth of the 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 ordi-
nary 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 en-
camped 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 humor 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, look-
ing 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 hun-
dred times more than you need, because you will be fore-
most in every thing, and will do more than the rest."
*' For the matter of that, "returned Hugh, shaking back his
ragged hair and glancing toward 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 Avorth a dozen,
when you doubted him ? "
388 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 toward 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 /honorable 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 any body 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 by 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 an imperfect character, but the best on us is in-
complete in some point of view or another."
The subject of this dialogue and of these concluding re-
marks, which were uttered in a tone of philosophical medi-
tation, 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 arrange-
ment 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
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 w^th 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,
/ put him on duty there."
BARNABY RUDGE. 389
"Then there was an 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 1 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 expecta-
tion.
" The same man," said Hugh.
" That's your sort," cried Mr. Dennis, gayly 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 I "
" 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 had picked him out to guard this place to-
morrow while we're away, and that it's a great honor — and
390 ^ BARNABY RUDGE.
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, cap-
tain ! "
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 compan-
ions (who were carousing after their own tastes), and pro-
ceeded to enlighten Mr. Dennis in reference to to-morrow s
project.
'I'hat their conversation was an interesting one was ren-
dered 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
sliglit demonstration in the streets — just to keep the people's
hands in, as it was Sunday night, and the public might other-
wise be disappointed — and that he was free to accompany
them if he would.
BARNABY RlJDGE. 391
Without the slightest preparation, saving that they car-
ried clubs and vvore 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 ran-
dom. 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 great-
est rapidity, was the one to which Hugh and Barnaby be-
longed. This took its way toward Moorfields, where there
was a rich chapel, and in which neighborhood several Catho-
lic families were known to reside.
Beginning with the private houses so occupied, they broke
open the doors 3': a 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, pok-
ers, 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 law-
ful occupations with the utmost sobriety and good con-
duct.
In the same manner, they marched to the place of rendez-
vous agreed upon, made great fires in the fields, and reserv-
ing the most valuable spoils, burned the rest. Priesdy gar-
ments, images of saints, rich stuffs and ornaments, altar-fur-
niture 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
39^ BARNABY RUDGE.
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 demontrations were made
in honor 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 was no half smoldering
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 evi-
dence against them, felt that escape by that means was hope-
less, when their verv 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 wlicm the
government would, no doubt, prefer to any king's evidence
BARNABV RUDGE. 393
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 dis-
charged 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 be-
lieved, in a greater or less degree, that the government they
seemed to have paralyzed, 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 pov-
erty, 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 West-
minster, every symptom of order or preconcerted arrange-
ment among them vanished. When they divided into par-
ties 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 toward 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
labor, were seen to cast down their baskets of tools and be-
come 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 in-
fectious 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.
394 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 toward him.
" How do you do, Dennis ? " said Gashford, nodding. " I
hope you have suffered no inconvenience from your late ex-
ertions, 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 dintinct, eh, Dennis ? "
" Distinct ! " he answered, scratching his head and keeping
his eyes upon the secretary's face ; " I seem to hear it, Muster
Gashford, in my wery bones."
^' I am very glad your sense of hearing is so sharp, and
that I succeed in making myself so intelligible," said
Gashford, in his unvarying, even tone. " Where is your
friend ? "
Mr. Dennis looked round as in expectation of beholding
him asleep upon his bed of straw ; then remembering he had
seen him go out, replied :
*' I can't say where he is, Muster Gashford, I expected him
back afore now. I hope it isn't time that we was busy.
Muster Gashford ? "
" Nay," said the secretary, " who should know that as well
as you ? How can I tell you, Dennis ? You are perfect
master of your own actions, you know, and accountable to
nobody — except sometimes to the law, eh ? "
Dennis, who was very much baffled by the cool matter-of-
course manner of this reply, recovered his self-possession on
his professional pursuits being referred to, and pointing to-
ward 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 there 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 395
companion he was, he had been one of the most prepossess-
ing of men. '' Here he is, and safe too ! I am ghid 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 any thing 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 look-
ing at Gashford for an instant with a changed expression be-
fore 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 w^ouldyou 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 y >ur distinguished po-
sition, 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 ? "
" Mach. A great deal," replied the secretary. "Read
it."
" I told you, th*e first time I saw you, that I couldn't read,"
said Hugh, impatiently. " What in the devil's name's inside
" It is a proclamation from the king in council," said
Gashford, "dated to-day, and offering a reward of five hun-
dred pounds — five hundred pounds is a great deal of money,
and a large temptation to some people — to anyone 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,
396 BARNABY RUDGP:.
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 pahii 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 toward 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 leaned against the wall. " Mount
guard without loss of time, for we are off upon our expedi-
tion. 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 dispatch.
The look of mingled astonishment and anger which had ap-
peared in his face when he turned toward 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.
** Vo2^, too, of all men ! "
" Who would have supposed tha: /le would be so quick ? "
urged Gashford.
'' He's as quick sometimes— I don't mean with his hands,
BARNABY RUDGE. 397
for that you know, but with his head — as you or any man,"
said Hugh. " Dennis, it's time we were going ; they're
waiting for us ; I came to tell you. Reach me my stick and
belt. Here ! Lend a hand, master. Fling this over my
shoulder, and buckle it behind, will you ? "
" Brisk' as ever ! " said the secretary, adjusting it for him
as he desired.
*' A man need be brisk to-day, there's brisk work a-foot."
" There is, is there ? " said Gashford. He said it with
such a provoking assumption of ignorance that Hugh, look-
ing 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 ap-
pearing against us or any of our body any more ?"
" There's one we know of," returned Gashford, with an ex-
pressive 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 every thing 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 Gashfor-d, rising. '' I say — you
didn't find that your friend disapproved of to-day's little ex-
pedition ? 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 hang-
man.
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 — for-
get 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
393 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 s^ure
you will remember that he thirsts for your lives, and those of
all your brave companions. If you ever acted like stanch
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 fol-
lowed. They were yet in sight and hastening to that part of
the adjacent fields in which their fellows had already mus-
tered ; 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 cham-
pion 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 be-
took himself to Welbeck Street by a different path from that
which he knew the rioters would take, and sitting down be-
hind 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 neighboring
fields, and soon afterward 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 the Moorfields, proclaimed that
they Avere on their way to Chelsea, whence they would re-
turn in the same order, to make of the spoil they bore a
great bonfire near at hand. The second gave out that they
were Iwund for Wapping to destroy a chapel ; the third,
BARNABY RUDGE. 399
thaf their place of destination was East Smithfield, and their
object the same. All this was done in broad, bright, sum-
mer 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 every thing went on as usual.
There still remained the fourth body, and for that the sec-
retary 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 recognized 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 grace-
fully on his cane, smiling pleasantly, and displaying his dress
and person to the very best advantage, looked on m the most
tranquil state imaginable. For all that, and quick and
dextrous as he was, Gashford had seen him recognize 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 secretarv 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,
400 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 toward the east.
Heedless of the fresh air that blew upon his heated brow,
cf 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 tur-
moil of the town, the cheerful country breath that rustled
past to meet it, and to droop, and die ; he watched, and
watclied, tilll 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 mut-
tered restlessly. " Dog ! where is the redness in the sky you
promised me ! "
CHAPTER LIV.
Rumors 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 every-
where received with that appetite for the marvelous 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 per-
sons 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 intelli-
gence they received on all hands, as wholly fabulous and
absurd.
Mr. Willet — not so much, perhaps, on account of his hav-
ing argued and settled the matter with himself, as by reason
of his constitutional obstinacy — was one of those who posi-
tively refused to entertain the current topic for a moment.
On this very evening, and perhaps at the very time when
Gasliford kept his solitary watch, old John was so red in the
BARNABY RUDGE. 401
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, mut-
tering, " 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 to-
gether — 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 evidences 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, eying 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 rollick-
ing in his streets, than he'd stand being crowded over by his
own parliament ? "
" Yes, Johnny, but that's your sense — not your senses," said
the adventurous Mr. Parkes.
"Howdoj'^w know," retorted John, with great dignity.
" You're a contradicting pretty free, you are, sir. How do
you know which it is ? I am 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 frorn the argu-
ment. There 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
402 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 fur-
thest, off the stones. Besides you know some of the Catholic
gentlefolk 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 no-
body believes it."
" Well ! " said Solomon, rising, to divert the attention of
his two friends, who tittered at this retort ; ** believed or dis-
believed, it's true ; and true or not, if we mean to go to Lon-
don, 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 great-coats,
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, un-
til his sides were sore. When he had quite exhausted him-
self — 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
somber hues of night were falling fast upon the landscape,
and a few bright stars were already twinkling over head.
The birds were all cit roost, the daisies on the green had
BARNABY RUDGE. 403
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 fra-
grance 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, beside 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 v/hether 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
afterward depone that Mr. Willet in his consternation
uttered but one word, and called that up the stairs in a sten-
torian voice, six distinct times. But as this word w^as 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
labored under the same hallucination caused by excessive
fear ; and that their ears deceived them.
Be this as it may, John Willet, in whom the very utter-
most 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 s*":ll,
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.
404 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Halloo ! " 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 toward 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 I 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 con-
sciousness of having moved, iv» 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 mys-
tery, 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 dart-
ing 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 hew-
ing 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, wan-
tonly wasting, breaking, pulling down and tearing up ; noth-
ing quiet, nothing private ; men everywhere — above, below,
overhead, in the bedrooms, in the kitchen, in the yard, in the
stables — clambering in at the 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—
BARNABY RUDGE. 405
some veiling, some singing, some fighting, some breaking
glass and crockery, some laying the dust with the liquor they
couldn'<- 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 — swarm-
ing on Hke insects ; noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic,
anger, laughter, groans, plunder, fear, and ruin !
Nearly all the time while John looked on at this bewilder-
ing 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 whis-
pered 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 ; oth-
ers, that he should be reduced to a state of temporary in-
sensibility, by knocking him 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 of 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 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 wool-gathering, 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
4o6 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 impa-
tient 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, step-
ping toward 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 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, is
one may say, wouldn't it be better for all parties if we
BARNABY RUDGE. 407
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
clew), rejected this proposition for the second time, and
gave the word " Forward ! " which was echoed by a hun-
dred voices from without,
" To the Warren ! " shouted Dennis, as he ran out, fol-
lowed 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 around the despoiled and
plundered room, through whose shattered window the riot-
ers had thrust the Maypole itself — for even that had
been sawed down — lighted a torch, clapped the mute and
motionless John Willet on the back, and waving his light
about 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 flick-
ered 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
4o8 liARNABV RUDGE.
good fellows whose jollity had departed, and who couid
kindle with a friendly glow no more. John saw this deso-
lation, and yet saw it not. He was perfectly contented to
sit there, staring at it, and felt no more indignation or dis-
comfort in his bonds than if they had been robes of honor.
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 cau-
tious footstep — coming on toward the house. It stopped,
advanced again, and 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 ^ave a searching glance all around 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 sur-
prised 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. Johfi
T-eturned 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 lo the fashion of
the stranger's boots, got into Mr. Willet's rnind by some
BARNABY RUDGE. 409
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 nod-
ding 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 staid 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 him-
self ift 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 to-
ward 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 dread-
ful light, it was not the sound of distant shrieks and shouts
of triumph, it was not this dread invasion of the serenity and
4IO BARNABY RUDGE.
peace of night, that drove the man back as though a thun-
derbolt 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 in 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 traveled 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 glaive
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 specters 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 be-
ginning 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 ; every thing 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 im-
ploring glance at heaven, and so fell idly down with upturned
BARNABY RUDGE. 41 1
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 groveling 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 thr.t 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, :.nd advanced at a quick pace toward the
Warren. Rumor 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 reconnoiter, 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 sur-
round 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 dispatched to break open a toolshed in the garden ;
and during their absence on this errand, the remainder con-
tented 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 fore-
most 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 mais bore, each man in his
412 BARNABY RUDGE.
hand, a blazing brand. ^Vhirling these about their heads
they raised a loud shout, and fell to work upon the doors
and windows.
Amid 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 ad-
mitted 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 plat-
form 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 alarmed 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, echo-
ing their assailants' cries, and hoping in the confusion to be
taken for rioters themselves ; in which stratagem they suc-
ceeded, 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 afterward burned
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 labors 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 cliests, 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
BARNABV RUDGE. 413
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 noise-
less 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
favorite 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 ex-
ultations, which seemed to make the very rats who stood by
the old hoase 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 m 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 longtime ; 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 av/ay
no unresisting burdens. No one could say that this was
true or false, in such an uproar ; but where was Hugh !
414 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 dis-
appeared again — contrary to his wont, for he was always
first to advance, and last to go away — leaving them to fol-
low homeward 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 niglit
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 on their
heads and faces, blistering the skin with deep unseemly
burns. There were men who rushed up to the fire, and
paddled it with their hands as if it were 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 bot-
tle 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 learned mercy from, nor
sickened at these sights ; nor was the fierce, besotted, sense-
less 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
BARNAiBY kUDGE. 4*5
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 smoldering 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 favorite 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 near 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 in-
creasing every moment ; and that many families had al-
ready fled the city. One fellow who wore the popular color,
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 with-
out the distinguishing mark of all good and true men ; and
4i6 BARNABY RUDGE.
a third who rode on horseback, and was quite alone, ordered
them to throw each man a shilling, in his hat, toward 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 por-
tentous 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 burned fierce and were gloom-
ily 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 dis-
tance — 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 ad-
vised 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 toward
the fire, and not at him who spoke.
*' But sir — sir," cried the man, grasping at his rein more
BARNABY RUDGE. 417
tightly yet, " if you do go on, wear this bkie ribbon. 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 per-
suaded."
'* 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 ribbon 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 toward 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 doubt-
ful 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
4x8 BARNABY RUDGE.
himself. "Willet — Willet — where are my niece and serv-
ants— Willet ! "
Crying to him distractedly, he rushed into the bar. The
landlord bound and fastened to his chair ; the place disman-
tled, 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 War-
ren, too, Johnny — Mr. Haredale — oh, Johnny, what a pite-
ous 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 dis-
playing, 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 mut-
tered, 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 mat-
ter entirely between himself and his conscience. ^'AU 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 ?"
BARNABY RUDGE. 419
John knitted his brow ; looked downward, as if he were
mentally engaged in some arithmetical calculation ; then
upward, 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 lit-
tle 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 VVillet, 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 May-
pole.
" Please don't, Johnny ! "
" Your loss is great, and your misfortune a heavy one,"
said Mr. Haredale, looking restlessly toward 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 dread-
ful 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, ex-
claimed " Good gracious I "
430 BARNABY RUDGE.
" — 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 breath-
less 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 toward a pile of ruins, which that day's sun had
shown 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 manifestations of
impatience, disappointment, or surprised, gently relapsed
into the condition from which he had so imperfectly re-
covered.
Mr. Haredale tied his horse to the trunk of a tree, and
grasping his companion's arm, stole softly along the foot-
path, and into what had been the garden of the house. He
stopped for an instant to look upon its smoking w^alls, and at
the stars that shone through roof and floor upon the
heap of crumbling ashes, Solomon glanced timidly in his
face, but his Hps 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 Sol-
omon 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 shadow^ed nook with out-
stretched hands. Thus they made the circuit of the build-
ing ; 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 rawn, and hewn, and beaten down, beside.
BARNABY RUDGE. 421
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
ruins, 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
toward 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 disap-
peared.
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 some-
thing in Mr. Haredale's manner and his look, the recollec-
tion 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 hid-
den 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
422 BARNABY RUDGE
was because he nad 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 be-
low. 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 fore-
most one, kneeled 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 con-
ceal your own atrocious guilt. You, Rudge, double mur-
derer 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 tranquil-
lity. 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 thousand fold. He felt quite happy ; and as
he leaned upon his staff and mused, a bright smile overspread-
his face, and none but cheerful visions floated into his brain.
Had he no thoughts of her, whose sole delight he was,
and whom he had unconsciously plunged in such bitter sor-
row and such deep affliction ? Oh, yes. She was at the heart
of all his cheerful hopes and proud reflections. It was she
v/hom all this honor and distinction were to gladden ; the
BARNABY RUDGE. 423
joy and profit were for her. What deHght 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 ene-
mies, 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 ; 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 gayly 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 scatter-
ing 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. Some-
times 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 for-
bidding him to eat or drink upon his post, but had been, on
the contrary, supplied with a bottle of beer and a b'asket 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.
424 BARNABY RUDGE.
This call the bird obeyed with great alacrity ; crying, as he
siiled up to his master, " I'm a devil, I'm a Polly, I'm a ket-
tle, I'm a Protestant, No Popery ! " Having learned 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 forever. 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 ; some-
times flapping his wings, or barking ; and sometimes in a
kind of desperation drawing a multitude of corks, with extra-
ordinary viciousness.
Barnaby was so intent upon his favorite, 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 toward
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 recognized Lord George Gordon, before
whom he stood uncovered, with his eyes turned toward 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 ! "
*' Ah ? " said Lord George looking thoughtfully at him.
" And you ? "
" Oh ! They left me here to watch — to mount guard — to
keep every thing secure till they come back. I'll do it, sir,
for your sake. You're a good gentleman ; a kind gentleman
BARNABY RUDGE. 425
— 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 wonder-
ing 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 hop-
ping 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 as 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 ? "
426 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 ! "
'' 1 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 any thing I know. Mr. Gash-
ford 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 you reach home. The sooner the bet-
ter."
" If it comes to that, I say so too, my lord. Let Mr. Gash-
ford 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, ad-
dressing Barnaby, who had looked on and wondered while
this dialogue passed. *' He thinks you may be afraid to re-
main 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 / think."
" He's a coward, Grip, a coward," cried Barnaby, putting
BARNABY RUDGE. 427
the raven on the ground, and shouldering his staff. " Let
them come ! Gordon forever ! 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 €arried it to his
lips ; patted his horse's crest, as if the affection and admira-
tion he had conceived for the man extended to the animal
he rode ; then unfurling his flag, and proudly waving it, re-
sumed 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 exult-
ingly farewell ! — then cantered off at a brisk pace ; after glanc-
ing 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 impor-
tance 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 toward 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 toward the house at a rapid pace, and
motioning with their hands as though they urged its inmates
to retreat from some approaching danger. xAs 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
428 BARNABY RUDGE.
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, speed-
ily withdrew.
As yet there had been no symptoms 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 advanc-
ing — for they came on as one man — were soldiers. In a
very little time, Barnaby knew that they were a strong de-
tachment 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 some-
thing 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 reso-
lutely, and looked on undismayed.
Presently, they marched into the yard, and halted. The
commanding officer dispatched 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 Baruaby, deadly though he knew the
BARNABY RUDGE. 429
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 ; com-
pletely 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 of 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 cen-
ter, 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 strug-
gle. Another blow — another ! Down, mastered, wounded
in the nreast 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 vigor
while every body's attention was distracted, had plucked
away the straw from Hugh's bed, and turneiup 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 every thing that
was hidden there ; and carried away more than two men
430 BARNABY RJDCxE.
could lift. They handcuffed him and bound his arms,
searched him, and took away all he had. Nobody ques-
tioned or reproached him, or seemed to have much curios-
ity about him. The two men he had stunned were carried
off by their companions in the same business-like way in
which every thing 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 pris-
oner in the center.
When they came into the streets, he felt he was a sight ;
and looking up as they passed quickly along, could see peo-
ple running to the windows a little too late, and throwing
up the sashes to look after him. Sometimes he met a star-
ing 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 cam.e 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 leveled at his head ; and those
cold, bright, sharp, shining points turned toward him ; the
mere looking down at which, now that he was bound and
helpless, made the warm current of his life run cold.
CHAPTER LVni.
They were not long in reaching the barracks, for the offi-
cer who commanded the party was desirous to avoid the
rousing the people by the display of military force in the
streets, and was humanely anxious to give as little opportu-
nity as possible for any attempt at rescue ; knowing that it
must lead to bloodshed and loss of life, and that if the civil
BARNABY RUDGE. 431
authorities by whom he was accompanied, empowered him
to order his men to fire, many innocent persons would proba-
bly fall, whom curiosity or idleness had attracted to the spot.
He therefore led the party briskly on, avoiding with a mer-
ciful prudence the more public and crowded thoroughfares,
and pursuing those which he deemed least likely to be in-
fested by disorderly persons. This wise proceeding not only
enabled them to gain their quarters without any interrup-
tion, but completely baffled a body of rioters who had as-
sembled in one of the main streets, through which it was
considered certain they would pass, and who remained to-
gether 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 accouterments 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 an-
other 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 im-
perfect idea of the place, and would have remembered very
little about it. But as he was taken handcuffed across the
graveled area, nothing escaped his notice. The dry, arid
look of the dusty square, and of the bare brick building ;
the clothes hanging at soaie 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' quar-
ters, and the little scanty trees in front ; the drummer-boys
practicing 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 _ slily pointed
to their throats ; the spruce sergeant 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, furbish-
432 BARNABY RUDGE.
ing and brushing up their different articles of dress, who
stopped to look at him, and whose voices as they spoke to-
gether echoed loudly through the empty galleries and
passages ; — every thing, down to the stand of muskets be-
fore the guard-house, and the drum with a pipe-clayed belt
attached, in one corner, impressed itself upon his observa-
tion, as though he had noticed them in the same place a hun-
dred 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 further end, and looking toward
the door, tried to accustom himself to the gloom, which, com-
ing 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 at his going aw^ay
again it 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 conversa-
tion 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,
<Liid whcrj fh^ footsteps cQSL^^d, was answ^ering aloud some
BARNABY RUDGE. 433
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 raga-
muffins 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 anon-commissioned offi-
cer, 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 imperti-
nent, 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
v/ants 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 peo-
ple. Our people retire before the rioters. Stones are
thrown, insults are offered, not a shot's fired. ^^Why?
Because of the magistrates. D— n the magistrates ! "
When he had in some degree relieved his mind by cursmg
the magistrates in various other forms of speecl-i^ the man
434 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 conversa-
tion 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
ribbons 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 toward
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 sol-
dierly 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 435
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 weep-
ing — " 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 any thing 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-by,
Grip— good-by, 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-
by, old Grip ! good-by !
After some time, they came and unlocked the door, and
436 BARNABY RUDGE.
called to him to come out. He rose directly and com-
plied, 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 sol-
diers, 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 favorable 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 con-
tinually increasing. Here he was placed before a blind
gentleman, and asked if he wished to say any thing. 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 t
As they came nearer and nearer to the prison, the hoot-
ings 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, leveled his musket,
but the officer struck it upward 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 afterward he was
tossed about, and beaten to and fro, as though in a tem-
pestuous 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 437
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 every thing
was dark and gloomy, and he was standing in the prison
lobby ; the center 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, be-
neath 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 ob-
servation 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 indis-
posed to go away without him, and made toward the spot
where he stood concealed as though they were about to fol-
low 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 neighbors 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
toward a distant light ; guided by that, and by the sullen
glow of the fire behind him.
43^ BARNABY RUDGE.
As he drew nearer and nearer to the twinkling beacon
toward 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 vaga-
bonds, 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 postillion-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 toward 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 ?"
Every body 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 gur-
gling 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 any thing to eat, any of you ? I'm as rav-
enous as a hungry wolf. Which of you was in the larder —
come ? "
" I was, brother," said Dennis, pulling off his hat and fum-
bling 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 humor, for they all had drunk
deeply, and were as wild as he, they crowded about him.
BARNABY RUDGE.
439
while two of their number who had torches, held them up,
one on either side of him, that his banquet might not be dis-
patched in the dark. Mr. Dennis, having by this time suc-
ceeded 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 shall 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 cap-
tain," retorted his lieutenant, parting the men who stood be-
tween them, with his knife, that he might see him — " to re-
gale himself a little bit after such work as mine ? What a
hard captain ! What a strict captain ! What a tyrannical
captain ! Ha, ha, ha ! "
" I wish one of you fellers would hold a bottle to his mouth
to keep him quiet," said Simon, " unless you want the mili-
tary to be down upon us,"
" And what if they are down upon us ! " retorted Hugh,
" Who cares ? Who's afraid ? Let 'em come, / say, let 'em
come. The more, the merrier. Give me bold Barnaby at
my side, and we two will settle the military, without troub-
ling any of you. Barnaby's the man for the military. Barn-
aby's health."
But as the majority of those present were by no means anx-
ioiis for a second engagement that night, being already weary
and exhausted, they sided Avith Mr, Tappertit, and pressed
him to make haste with his supper, for they had already de-
layed 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, Httle
doves, I caged 'em — I caged 'em — one more peep ! "
He thrust the little man aside as he spoke, and mounting
440 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 strug-
gle, 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 afterward. 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 atti-
tude ; the rest got up behind, or ran by the side of the car-
riage, as they could ; some, in imitation of Hugh, endea-
vored to see the face he had praised so highly, and were re-
minded of their impertinence by hints from the cudgel of
Mr. Tappertit. Thus they pursued their journey by circui-
tous and winding roads ; preserving, except when they halted
to take breath, or to quarrel about the best way of Teaching
London, pretty good order and tolerable silence.
In the meantime, Dolly — beautiful, bewitching, captiva-
ting little Dolly — her hair disheveled, her dress torn,
her dark eyelashes wet with tears, her bosom heav-
ing — 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 strive 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 441
London when they set the threats of their guards at defi-
ance, 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, remem-
ber 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 un-
less society were quite unhinged, pursuit must be immedi-
ately commenced ; and that their 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 m.assacre of the Catholics that night
— no very w^ild 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 out-
ward 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 I 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 into a burst of tears, and she sobbed more bitterly
than ever.
As the night wore on, and they proceeded by ways which
442 BARNABY RUDGE.
were quite unknown to them — for they could recognize 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 women to
find, in their being borne they knew not whither by a band
of daring villahis who eyed them as some among these fel-
lows 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 furthest 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 lifted Miss Haredale's hand, and felt how
heavily it fell. " She's fainted."
" So much the better," growled Dennis — it was that ami-
able 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 toward
BARNABY RUDGE.
443
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 cot-
tage, 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 bet-
ter 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 list-
ener's ear, who could be insensible to the winning pettish-
ness which now and then displayed itself, even in the sin-
cerity 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 un-
consciousness of the blooming little beauty ? W^ho 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 woman," said Mr. Dennis,
" I ain'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."
" W^hy 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 favor. " Why, my dear, who'd
murder sich chickabiddies as you ? If you was to ask me,
now, whether you was brought here to be married, there
might be something in it."
And here he exchanged a grin with Hugh, who removed
his eyes from Dolly for the purpose.
*' No, no," said Dennis, " there'll be no murdering, my
pets. Nothing of that sort. Quite the contrary."
444 BARNABY RUDGE.
"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?"
" 1 do indeed, my dear," retorted Dennis. " It would be
very hard not to, with two such specimens afore my eyes.
Ha, ha ! Oh yes, 1 consider that. We all consider that,
miss."
He shook his head waggishly, leered at Hugh again, and
laughed very much, as if he had said a noble thing, and
rather thought he was coming out.
"There'll be no murdering, my dear. Not a bit on it. I
tell you what though, brother," said Dennis, cocking his hat
for the convenience of scratching his head, and looking
gravely at Hugh, "it's worthy of notice, as a proof of the
amazing equalness and dignity of our law, that it don't
make no distinction between men and women. I've heerd
the judge say, sometimes, to a highwayman or house-
breaker 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 house-
breaker, I should have made answer : ' What are you
talking of, my lord ? I showed the women as much consid-
eration 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 sur-
prised at the total — quite amazed, you would. There's a dig-
nified and equal thing ; a beautiful thing ! But we've no
security for its lasting. Now that they've begun to favor these
here Papists, I shouldn't wonder if they wenf and altered even
that^ one of these days. Upon my soul, I shouldn't."
The subject, perhaps from being of too exclusive and pro-
fessional 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 the
locksmith's daughter, unable any longer to suppress her
BARNABY RUDGE. 445
secret passion for himself, was about to give it full vent in its
intensity, and to declare that she was his forever, 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 behavior, but the
leader of a great people, the captain of a noble band, in which
these gentlemen are, as I may say, corporals and sergeants.
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 — S. Tappertit is all your
own ! "
As he said these words he advanced toward her. Dolly
retreated till she could go no further, 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 as 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 Hare-
446 BARNABY RUDGE
dale'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 ten-
fold 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
meantime, 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 hand-
some as the other, eh ? "
" Hush ! " said Hugh, hastily. " Don't you mention
names. It's a bad habit."
" I wouldn't like to be ///>;/, 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 years 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,
BARNABY RUDGE. 447
I'd strike him dead afore me ;' — ah, she did — and she'd have
done it too ! "
" Strike who dead ? " demanded Hugh.
" How should 1 know, brother?" answered Dennis. ^^S/ie
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
woviX^n you want to carry off, is there ? "
" N — no," returned that gentleman, stroking his grizzly
beard, which was some two inches long. " None in partik-
ler, I think."
" Very good," said Sim ; " then we'll find some other way
of making it up to you. As to you, old boy " — ne turned to
Hugh — " you shall have Miggs (her that I promised, 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 toward The Boot,
with the intention of passing the night in that place of ren-
dezvous, and of seeking the repose they so much needed
in the shelter of the 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
448 BARNABY RUDGE.
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
humors, took occasion to remonstrate with him on his impru-
dent behavior, 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 remon-
strances, 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 hap-
pened by great good luck to have roared and shouted him-
self into silence by this time. They were proceeding on-
ward without noise, when a scout who had been creeping
about the ditches all night, to warn any stragglers from en-
croaching further on what was now such dangerous ground,
peeped cautiously from his hiding-place, and called them
to stop.
" Stop ! and why ? " said Hugh.
Because (the scout replied) the house was filled with con-
stables 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 council together, on hearing tliis, 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, v/as for advanc-
ing 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, they said, of keeping him all
night in a place so weak and open to attack. Yielding to
BARNABY RUDGE. 449
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 center 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, huck-
sters, wagoners, and a motley crowd of buyers, sellers, pick-
pockets, vagrants, and idlers. The air was perfumed with
the stench of rotten leaves and faded fruit ; the refuse of
the butchers* stalls, and offal and garbage of a hundred
kinds. It was indispensable to most public conveniences in
those days, that they should be public nuisances likewise ;
and Fleet Market maintained the principle to admiration.
To this place, perhaps because its sheds and baskets were
a tolerable substitute for beds, or perhaps because it afforded
the means of a hasty barricade in case of need, many of the
rioters had straggled, not only that night, but for two or
three nights before. It was not 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 honorable 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 any thing about it ? "
Several cried that they did ; but the majority of the com-
pany 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
450 BARNABY kaDGE.
other, or by the scout, and knowing nothing of their own
knowledge.
''We left a man on guard there to-day," said Hugh, look-
ing 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 w^ant 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 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 toward 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. / 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 band-
BARNABY RUDGE. 451
age — and again facing sharply toward 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 re-assured by the demeanor 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 toward the door.
But Hugh and Dennis stood with their backs against it,
and kept them back, until the clamor 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 LXL
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 con-
veyance 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
452 BARNABY RUDGE.
murderer's committal to prison before day -break, 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 burned 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 ad-
dressed 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. 4^his
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 v^dth his own hands, and Avould have harnessed the
horses, but that the post-boy of the village — a soft-heat-ted,
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 453
by and see an honest gentleman who had done no wrong,
reduced to such extremity without doing what he could to
help him. Mr. Haredale shook him warmly by the hand,
and thanked him from his heart. In five minutes' time the
chaise was ready, and this good scapegrace in his saddle.
The murderer was put inside, the blinds were drawn up, the
sexton took his seat upon the bar, Mr. Haredale mounted
his horse and rode close beside the door ; and so they started
in the dead of night, and in profound silence, for London.
The consternation was so extreme that even the horses
which had escaped the flames at the Warren, could find no
friends to shelter them. They passed them on the road,
browsing on the stunted grass ; and the driver told them,
that the poor beasts had wandered to the village first, but
had been driven away, lest they should bring the vengeance
of the crowd on any of the inhabitants.
Nor was this feeling confined to such small places, where
the people were timid, ignorant, and unprotected. When
they came near London they met, in tlfe gray light of morn-
ing, more than one poor Catholic family, who, terrified by
the threats and warnings of their neighbors, 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 com-
pelled 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 await 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 gen-
tleman, 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
c>r 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 recognize Catholic acquaintances in the streets,
lest they should be marked by spies, and burned out, as it
was called, in consequence. One mild old man— a priest,
454 BARNABY RUDGE.
whose chapel was destroyed ; a very feeble, patient, inoffen-
sive 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 up-stairs,
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 gentle-
man, 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 burned 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 mag-
istrate'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 gentlemaUc
WILL YOU COME?"— "r
SAID THE LOKD MAYOR MOST EMPHATICALLY.
CERTAINLY NOT."
456
BARNABY RQDGE.
soul — and — body — oh, Lord ! — 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 dispatch
this matter on the instant."
" Oh dear me ! " cried the chief magistrate ; " these an't
business hours, you know — I wonder at you — how ungentle-
manly it is of you — you mustn't — you really mustn't. And
I suppose _>'^« 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 remon-
strance would be unavailing. The two clients retreated like-
wise, 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. " 1 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 dis-
tiller — Holborn Hill — you're heartily welcome, if you'll
come."
BARNABY RUDGE. 457
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, with-
out 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 rumored that Sir John was pro-
scribed by the rioters, a body of thief-takers had been keep-
ing v/atch in the house all night. To one of them Mr. Hare-
dale stated his business, which, appearing to the man of
sufficient moment to warrant his arousing the justice, pro-
cured him an immediate audience.
No time was lost in committingthemurderer 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 tarry-
ing to be asked no questions, they reached the prison with-
out 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, with-
out, 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
-riiiet in the bright morning, that he felt the weight upon
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BAKNABY KUDGE-
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" _ ' nnerbiE aiDong ib± nuns, and
-n I D^d — '^b£ crew £ long
breath,"£nd wiped bis forenead wsiiibk sleeve—- bs roice.''
- No ml-ei wbai. I don": know. I was onen ai me foot
of ibe nrrrei, wbere I cic iiLf _ _ . ^^^^^^
- At," said tbe blind maii. n>acing ri5 neaa wztn ^.^enec:
com-posiire, ~ I nndersiaiid. _^_„^^
-iclimbedthestan-, orsomDcnaf naswaslen; meannu
to hide tin be bad £one. Bm be beard me ; znd lo^Dwec
almost as soon as I sei foot upon tbe asns.
- Y011 mirb: bave bidden, in tbe wall and mrown inn.
d own, or stabbed bim," said the bbnd man. __ , ^ ^
" \K\^-' I - B^cween thai man and me, was anci»feoi^
^ oi;-! saw II, tbongb be did ,^^*^^ J^^i!^J^
beadabloodrband. It was in tne room abcjc^ Ar^-
I stood ^laiii^ ar each otbo- on tbe m^ c^ tte J™^
ani tero^^T^-ell be ra^ed bis band like ^^ tofl te
eve on me. I knew tbe chasr ^- .t^ d end ttex^
46o BARNABY RUDGE.
'' 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-tvventy 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 center of a busy crowd, uncon-
scious 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 backistairs 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 !
BARNABY RUDGE. 461
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 circum-
stance, 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 I 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. Every thing 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 toward it, so he, lying at the
bottom of his grave, could draw me near him when he would.
Was that fancy ? i:)id I like to go there, or did I strive and
wrestle with the power that forced me ? "
462 BARNABY RUDGE.
The blind man shrugged his shoulders, and smiled in
credulously. 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 every body (in particular with your wife,
who has brought you to this) ; and that you ask no greater
favor 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 any thing 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. Further, I am not an advo-
cate for killing men, and I don't think I should recommend
it or like it — for it's very hazardous — under any circum-
stances. 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. " Prom-
ise 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 affection-
ate 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 463
as usual, you would not have been here, and we should have
been better off. But that's apart from the business. She
is 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 induce-
ment to compliance, knowing that she was not pining to see
you), she left that place and traveled up to London."
*' How do you know ? "
" From my friend the noble captain — the illustrious gen-
eral — the bladder, Mr. Tappertit. I learned from him the
last time I saw him, which was yesterday, that your son who
is called Barnaby — not after his father 1 suppose "
" Death ! does that matter now ? "
" — You are impatient," said the blind man, calmly ; " it's
a gooa 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 re-
main 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 the best of all.' "
" What mockery is this ? "
" Very likely, she may reply in those words. ' No mock-
ery 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 hi-. ve 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
464 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 ! " saidStagg, 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 gentle-
man will lead a blind man (who has nothing in return but
prayers) to the prison-porch, and set him with his face to-
ward 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 toward 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 pon-
dering upon the hopes the recent conversation had awak-
ened ; 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 long-
ing thoughts of meadow-land and trees ; and with a burn-
ing 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-
BARNABY RUDGE. 465
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 mak-
ing 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
windoAv — he saw it very dimly, for the cell was dark and the
bars were heavy — and directly afterward, a man appeared,
and came toward him.
For the sense of loneliness he had, he might have been in
jail a year. Made eager by the hope of companionship,
he quickened his pace, and hastened to meet the man half
way
What was this ! His son !
They stood face to face, staring at each other. He
shrinking and cowed, despite himself ; Barnaby struggling
with his imperfect memory, and wondering where he had
seen that face before. He was not uncertain long, for sud-
denly he laid his hands upon him, and striving to bear him
to the ground, cried :
*' Ah ! I know ! You are the robber ! "
He said nothing in reply at first, but held down his head,
and struggled with him silently. Finding the younger man
too strong for him, he raised his face, looked close into his
eyes, and said :
" I am your father."
God knows what magic the name had for his ears ; but
Barnaby released his hold, fell back, and looked at him
aghast. Suddenly he sprung toward 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, witli her i)oor foolish boy ? And had
466 BARNABY RUDGE.
she really been so 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 inclosing
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 endeavored 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 dis-
patched 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 offense. These vaunts they took
care to make within the hearing of the soldiers ; and thty,
being naturally loath 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 467
lionest 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. Rumors of their disaffection, and of their
leaning toward 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 treat-
ing 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 in-
stantly 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 pub-
licly 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, White-
chapel and those quarters, wrote upon their doors or win-
dow 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 di-
vided—evidently in pursuance of a previous design— into sev-
eral parties. It must not be understood that this arrange-
ment 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 deter-
mined 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 compre-
hended 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 com-
panions had been taken in the riots, and a great number of
468 BARNABY RUDGE.
people who were relatives or friends of felons in the jail.
This last class included not only the most desperate and ut-
terly abandoned villains in London, but some who were com-
paratively 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 wo-
men, 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 tne walls, each carried on the shoul-
ders 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 betw^een ihem, 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, wav-
ing his comrades to be silent, " but come cown, and bring
the tools of your trade. We want you."
** Want me ! " cried the locksmith, glancing at the regi-
BARNABY RUDGE. 469
mental 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 lock-
smith.
" 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 stoop-
ing 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 leveled 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
Simmun's answer from his own lips. Speak to me, Simmun.
Speak to me ! "
Mr. Tappertit, who was not at all flattered by this compli-
ment, 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
470 BARNABV RUDGE.
gentlemen, I poured a mug of table-beer right down the
barrel."
The crowd gave a loud shout, which was followed by a
roar of laughter.
" It wouldn't go off not if you was to load it up to the
muzzle," screamed Miggs. " Simmun and gentlemen^ I'm
locked up in the front attic, through the little door on the right
hand when you think you've got to the very top of the stairs —
and up the flight of corner steps, being careful not to knock
your heads against the rafters, and not to tread on one side
in case you should fall into the two-pair bedroom through
the lath and plasture, which do not bear, but the contrairy.
Simmun and gentlemen, I've been locked up here for safety,
but my endeavors has always been, and always will be, to be
on the right side — the blessed side — and to pronounce the
Pope of Babylon, and all her inward and outward workings,
which is Pagin. My sentiments is of little consequences, I
know," cried Miggs, with additional shrillness, "for my posi-
tions is but a servant, and as sich, of humilities, still I gives
expressions to my feelings, and places my reliances on them
which entertains my own opinions ! "
Without taking much notice of these outpourings of Miss
Miggs after she had made her first announcement in relation
to the gun, the crowd raised a ladder against the window
where the locksmith stood, and, notwithstanding that he
closed, and fastened, and defended it manfully, soon forced
an entrance by shivering the glass and breaking in the
frames. After dealing a few stout blows about him, he found
himself defenseless, 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 lock-
smith, " who is far dearer to me than my life ; and you
may take my life if you will. I bless God that I have been
enabled to keep my wife free of this scene , and that He
has made me a man who will not ask mercy at such hands as
yours."
''And a wery game old gentlemen you are," said Mr.
BARNABY RUDGE.
471
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 years to come, eh ? "
The locksmith glanced at him disdainfully, but returned
no other answer.
" For my p^rt," said the hangman, who particularly fa-
vored the lamp-post suggestion, " I honor your principles.
They're mine exactly. In such sentiments as them," and
here he emphasized 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 Var-
den 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 pain 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 stanch old man, that he protested — almost with tears
in his eyes — that to balk 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 civil-
ized and enlightened crowd, to work him off. It was not
often, he observed, that they had it in their power to accommo-
date 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 honor to his feelings), he hoped they would
decide to accede to his proposition before going any further.
It was an experiment which, skillfully and dextrously per-
formed, 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,
472 BARNABY RUDGE.
Tr^ere received with great favor ; not so much, perhaps, be-
cause of the hangman's eloquence, as on account of the lock-
smith'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 gray head. He is an old man ; don't hurt
him ! "
The locksmith turned with a start, toward the place from
which the words had come, and looked hurriedly at the peo-
ple who were hanging on the ladder and clinging to each
other.
" Pay no respect to my gray 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 — ft« 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."
BARNABY RUDGE. 473
"When I do/' said the locksmith quietly, 'Sny hands shall
drop off at the wrists, and you shall wear them, Simon Tap-
pertit, on your shoulders for epaulets."
" We'll see that," cried Hugh, interposing, as the indigna-
tion of the crowd again burst forth. " You fill a basket with
the tools he'll want, while I bring him down stairs. Open the
door below, some of you. And light the great captain,
others I 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, accord-
ing to their custom, and carrying off such articles of valuefas
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 every thing 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 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 Sim-
mun'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 famtly.
'' My forever, ever blessed Simmun ! "
474 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Hold up, will you," said Mr. Tappertit, in a very unre-
sponsive tone, ^'I'U let you fall if you don't. What are you
sliding your feet off the ground for ? "
" My angel Simmuns ! " murmured Miggs — " He prom-
ised "
'' 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, notwith-
standing 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 loop-hole 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 clamor
until the intelligence was gradually diffused through the
BARNABY RUDGE. 475
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. " 1 am."
" You have got some friends of ours in your custody, mas-
" 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
every thing 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 ex-
hort you to disperse ; and to remind you that the conse-
quences 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 lock-
smith.
" Mr. Akerman," cried Gabriel, " Mr. Akerman."
" I will hear no more from any of you," replied the gov-
ernor, turning toward 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 al-
tered 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."
476 BARNABV RUDGE.
*' 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 un-
lawful act 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 be-
fore 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
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
locked from man to man, and face to face, and still, with
BARNABY RUDGE. 477
quickened breath and lessening color, 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 mon-
ster?" he articulated with great difficulty, and with many
oaths.
" Give me my daughter ! " cried the locksmith, who was
now as fierce as those who gathered round him. *' Give me
my daughter ! "
He was down again, and up, and down once more, and
buffeting with a score of them, who bandied him from hand
to hand, when one tall fellow, fresh from a slaughter-house,
whose dress and great thigh-boots smoked hot with grease
and blood, raised a pole-ax, 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 any thing — even to the
478 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 labored hith-
erto, 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 upon 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 wood-work 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 com-
bustible by wax and oil, besides the arts they had used, took
fire at once. The flames roared high and fiercely, blacken-
ing the prison-wall, and twining up it3 lofty front like burn-
ing serpents. At first they crowded round the blaze, and
ventured their exultation only in their looks ; but when it
grev/ 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 habi-
tation — when through the deep red heat and glow, the fire
BAilNABY RUDGE. 479
was seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to
its obdurate surface, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy
and soaring high into the sky, anon returning to fold it in
its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin — when it shone
and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of St.
Sepulcher's so often pointing to the hour of death, was legi-
ble as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glit-
tered in the unwonted light like something richly jeweled —
when blackened stone and somber 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 clamor,
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 win-
dow-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 flut-
tering upon the blazing pile ; still the fire was tended un-
ceasingly 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 sv/ooned
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 burned, were carried to an inn-yard close at
hand, and dashed with water from a pump ; of which buck-
ets full were passed from man to man among the crowd ; but
such was the strong desire of all to drink, and such the fight-
ing 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 toDoing: down, and raked the
48o BARNABY RUDGE.
fire about the door, which, although a sheet of flame, was
still a door fast lo<::ked and barred, and kept them out.
Great pieces of blazing wood were passed, besides, above the
peoples' 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 firebrands on the roof or down into the
yards within. In many instances their efforts were success-
ful ; 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
burned 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
time to live, the first to whom the dread of being burned oc-
curred, 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 that 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 frenzy of attachment to existence, as though each had
an honored and 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 mount-
ed on the shoulders of his brother, and tried to clamber up
the face of the high wall, guarded at the top with spikes and
BARNABY RUDGE. 481
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 pas-
sage in. At last, they cleft their way among the mob about
the door, though many men, a dozen times their match, had
tried in vain to do so, and were seen, in — yes, in — the fire,
striving to prize it down, with crowbars.
Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the
prison. The women who were looking on shrieked loudly,
beat their hands together, stopped their ears ; and many
fainted ; the men who were not near the walls and active in
the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the pavement of
the street, and did so with a haste and fury they could not
have surpassed if that had been the jail, and they were near
their object. Not one living creature in the throng was for
an instant still. The whole great mass were mad.
A shout ! Another ! Another yet, though few knew why,
or what it meant. But those around the gate had seen it
slowly yield, and drop from its topmost hinge. It hung on
that side by but one, but it was upright still, because of the
bar, and its having sunk, of its own weight, into the heap of
ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of the
doorway, through which could be descried a gloomy pas-
sage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire !
It burned 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 cin-
ders — 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 e-ntry. Hugh leaped 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
482 BARNABY RUDGE.
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
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 him-
self, and brought the fear upon him that he would be singled
out, and torn to pieces.
Once impressed with the terror of this conceit, every thing
tended to confirm and strengthen it. His double crime, the
circumstances under which it had been committed, the
length of time which had elapsed, and its discovery in spite
of all, made him, as it were, the visible object of the Al-
mighty's wrath. In all the crime and vice and moral gloom
of the great pest-house of the capital, he stood alone, marked
and singled out by his great guilt, a Lucifer among the
devils. The other prisoners were a host, hiding and shel-
tering 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 483
turnkeys to cluster round the cell and save him from the
fury of the rabble ; or put him in some dungeon under-
ground, no matter of what depth, how dark it was, or loath-
some, 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 by he saw, as he looked from his grated window, a
strange glimmering on the stone walls and pavements 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 por-
tion of the prison, which was blazing nigh, began to fall
before his door. Remembering that it opened outward, 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 clamor 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 clew to his place of confine-
ment. 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 tor-
tured 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 pas-
sages ; 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
484 BARNABY RUDGE.
out ; endeavoring to drag them by main force through gaps
and windows where a child could scarcely pass ; whooping
and yelling without a moment's rest ; and running through
the heat and flames as if they were cased in metal. By their
legs, their arms, the hair upon their heads, they dragged the
prisoners out. Some threw themselves upon their captives
as they got toward the door, and tried to file away their
irons ; some danced abut 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 dart-
ing 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 pris-
oners ran to and fro, who had lost themselves in the intrica-
cies 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 re-
move. 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 hammer-
ing at his door, inquired if there was 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 be-
gan to tear away the bars at the casement ; not only that,
BARNABY RUDGE. 485
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 any thing 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, hur-
ried 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 glanc-
ing 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 ac-
quaintance 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 was 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
486 BARNABY RUDGE.
fire), betook himself to the condemned cells, which were a
series of small, strong, dismal rooms, opening on a low gal-
lery, 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 w^ell se-
cured, he sat down upon a bench in the gallery, and sucked
the head of his stick with the utmost complacency, tranquil-
lity, and contentment.
It would have been strange enough, a man's enjoying him-
self in this quiet manner, while the prison was burning, and
such a tumult was cleaving the air, though he had been out-
side 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 of 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 humor, 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 they could not see who, gave vent to such piteous en-
treaties as wretches in their miserable condition may be sup-
posed to have been inspired with ; urging whoever it was to
set them at liberty, for the love of heaven ; and protesting
with great fervor, 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 dread-
ful and repulsive penalty ; which never turned a man in-
clined to evil, and has hardened thousands who were half
inclined to pood.
Mr. Dennis, who had been bred and matured in the good
BARNABY RUDGE. 487
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 phil-
osophy. 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 humor 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 inde-
cent row ? I wonder you an't ashamed of yourselves, I do."
He followed up this reproof by rapping every set of
knuckles one after the other, and having done so, resumed
his seat again with a cheerful countenance.
" You've had law," he said, crossing his legs and elevating
his eyebrows : " laws have been made a purpose for you ; a
wery handsome prison's been made a purpose for you ; a
parson's kept a purpose for you ; a constitootional officer's
appointed a purpose for you ; carts is maintained a purpose
for you — and yet you're not contented ! — Will yoM 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 honor 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 any thing could be
pleaded in justification, Mr. Dennis resumed in a sort of
coaxing tone :
488 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Now look'ee here, you four. I'm come here to take care
of you, and see that you an't burned, instead of the other
thing. It's no use your making any noise, for you won't be
found out by them as has broken in, and you'll only be
hoarse when you come to the speeches — which is a pity.
What I say in respect to the speeches always is, * Give it
mouth.' That's my maxim. Give it mouth. I've heerd,"
said the hangman, pulling off his hat to take his handker-
chief from the crown and wipe his face, and then putting it
on again a little more on one side than before, " I've heerd
a eloquence on them boards — you know what boards I mean
— and have heerd a degree of mouth given to them speeches,
that they was as clear as a bell, and as good as a play.
There's a pattern ! And always, when a thing of this
natur's to come off, what I stand up for, is a proper frame
of mind. Let's have a proper frame of mind, and we can go
through with it, creditable — pleasant — social. 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 sniveling. 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 afterward 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 489
iron rods two inches square, drove in the two other doors,
as if they had been but deal partitions, and stood at the end
of the gallery with only a bar or two between them and the
cells.
" Halloo ! " 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 pretense 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 every thing for your share — give me
my share. I want these four men left alone, I tell you I"
'' 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
W// 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 wi//
come m, 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 himselt, and held ajar. " Remember where you're com-
ing. That's all ?"
With that, he snook his likeness at Hugh, and giving him
a grin, compared with which his usual smile was amiable,
disappeared and shuv "he door.
49© BARNABY RUDGE.
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 vigor 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 convey-
ing them, astounded and bewildered, into the streets so full
of life — a spectacle they had never thought to see again, un-
til 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 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 gayety and joy. Many years afterward, old people
who lived in their youth near this part of the city, remem-
bered being in a great glare of light, within doors and with-
BARNABY RUDGE. 491
out, 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 recol-
lection, this one object remained ; alone, distinct, and well
remembered. Even in the unpracticed 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 proclama-
tion would probably be out upon the morrow, giving to the
military discretionary and unlimited power in the suppres-
sion of the riots ; that the sympathies of the king, the ad-
ministration, 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 burned, had for a time
492 BARISTABY RUDGE.
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 every
thing 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 refer-
ence to the past, and little hope as it afforded him in con-
nection with the subject of distress which lay nearest to his
heart ; and really thankful for the interest the minister ex-
pressed, and seemed to feel, in his condition ; Mr. Hare-
dale 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 chil-
dren, 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 re-
ward to all who would come and dig among the ruins of his
house he walked along the Strand ; too proud to expose him-
self 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 thought-
ful manner up and down, thinking of things that 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 vigor, on the
instant. If it were possible — if they should set the mur-
BARNABY RUDGE. 493
derer free — was he, after all he had undergone, to die with
the suspicion of having slain his own brother, dimly gather-
ing about him —
He had no consciousness of going to the jail ; but there
he stood, before it. There was a 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 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 were marked by the rioters, such intelli-
gence 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 honor. But come with us,
sir ; pray come with us."
John Grueby added no entreaties, but he adopted a differ-
ent 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.
494
BARNABY RUDGE.
Sensible, from a strange lightness in his head, and a diffi
culty in fixing his thoughts on any thing, 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 toward 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 insen-
sible ; 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 w^alk, 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 tw^o 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 Yintner,
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 de-
struction, that in comparison with these new tidings all the
previous disturbances sunk to nothinsr.
BARNABY RUDGE. 495
The first intelligence that came, was the taking of New-
gate, 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 afterward 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 re-
ceiving no reply (for Lord and Lady Mansfield were at that
moment escaping by the backway), forced an entrance accord-
ing 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 re-
ceived orders to fire, and leveling 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 uone were
496 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 peo-
ple, formed into a rude procession, having the bodies in
the front. That in this order they paraded off with a horri-
ble 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 High-
gate ; 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 humor, 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 them-
selves, 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 ex-
hibited at the window to the mob below, as the image of
some unholy saint which the late occupants had worshiped.
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 para-
pet of the house, and harangued the crowd from a pamphlet
circulated by ^h^ asspd^tion, relative to the true principles
BARNABY RUDGE. 497
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,
vv^ith the addition of the release of all the prisoners in the
New Jail at Clerkenwell, and as many robberies of passen-
gers in the streets as the crowd had leisure to indulge in,
were the scenes of which Mr. Haredale was happily uncon-
scious, 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 to 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 morn-
ing, every thing was dead and silent. The shops remained
unclosed, ofifices 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 foot-
steps ; the public ways were haunted rather than frequented ;
and round the smoking ruins people stood apart from one
another 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 Lambert 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
SGldieis were ^.osted before daylight. A body of Horse Guards
498 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 regi-
ments of artillery busied in strengthening the fortress and
preparing it for defense. A numerous detachment of sol-
diers 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 hand-
some apartments filled with armed men ; the furniture
hastily heaped away in corners, and made of little or no ac-
count, in the terror of the time — on arms glittering in city
chambers, among desks and stools, and dusty books — into
little smoky church-yards in odd lanes and by-ways, with sol-
diers lying down among the tombs, or lounging under the
shade of the one old tree, and their pile of muskets spark-
ling in the light — on solitary sentries pacing up and down in
court-yards, silent now, but yesterday resounding v/ith the
din and hum of business — everywhere on guard-rooms, gar-
risons, 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, and 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 im-
plored their jailer not to set them free, and to send them, if
BARNABY RUDGE. 499
need were, to some other place of custody. But they, refus-
ing 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
Nev/gate, there were some — a few, but there were some —
who sought their jailers out and delivered themselves up: pre-
ferring 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 attrac-
tion, 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 wall ; but
their fate did not deter others, for there they went in spite
of every thing, 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 endeavoring to re-
kindle the fire ; but in general they seemed to have no ob-
ject 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 mili-
tary 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 any
thing but gold.
A rumor had now got into circulation, too, which diffused
500 BARNABY RUDGfe.
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 loor.e. 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 fore-
see the worst, and drove many sane men nearly mad them-
selves.
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 meas-
ures, 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 direc-
tion 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 stair-
cases 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 com-
mons 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 501
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 direc-
tions, ordering chance stragglers home, and admonishing the
residents to keep within their houses, and, if any firing en-
sued, not to approach the windows. More chains were
drawn across such of the thoroughfares as were of a nature
to favor the approach of a great crowd, and at each of these
points a considerable fcM-ce was stationed. All these pre-
cautions 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, con-
tracting 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
502 BARNABY RUDGE.
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, u^iited at that spot, and
formed a mass so dense, that at eJery 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 cencentrated in one spot.
Full twenty times the rioters, headed by one man who
wielded an ax 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 tvv^enty 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 ax 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 ;
BARNABY RUDGE. 503
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 acces-
sion to his party, came back again, mad with liquor and ex-
citement, 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 sad-
dle) 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 rid-
ing up a flight of steps to make himself the more conspic-
uous 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 w^ould
be foiled, when a great shout proclaimed that a party were
coming round the other way ; and the dismal jingling of
those accursed fetters warned them next moment that they
too were led by Hugh. The soldiers had advanced into
Fleet Market and were dispersing the people there ; so that
they came on with hardly any check, and were soon before
the house.
'' All's over now," said the vintner. '' Fifty thousand
pounds will be scattered in a minute. We must save
ourselves. We can do no more, and shall have reason to be
thankful if we do as much."
Their first impulse was to clamber along the roofs of the
houses, and, knocking at some garret window for admission,
504
BARNABY RUDGE.
pass down that way into the street, and so escape. But
another fiercer cry from below, and a general upturning of
the face of the crowd, apprised them that they were dis-
covered, and even that Mr. Haredale was recognized ; 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 mut-
tered, as he turned toward Hugh and faced him without any
further effort of concealment ; *' this roof is high, and if w^e
close, we will die together ! "
" Madness," said the honest vintner, pulling him back,
"sheer madness. Hear reason, sir. My good sir, hear rea-
son. I could never make myself heard by knocking at a
window now ; and 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 conie 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 near-
est 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 assem-
blage ; 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. AH
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 505
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 fore-
most 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 pas-
sage 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 Ches-
ter, 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 gray 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 fel-
low. 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."
5o6 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 Ed-
ward 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 gen-
tleman, 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 dbout 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 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 oi!tside with the key in his pocket, and '
whom they had taken into their confidence. A party of the
crowd coming up the 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 507
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 nar-
row 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 with-
out 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, Barn-
aby 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 sud-
denly roused from sleep. Some moments elapsed before
they could distinctly remember where they were, or how they
got there ; or recollected that w^hile 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 luster of being his preserver
and truest friend. But his father's terror of remaining in
the streets, communicated itself to him when he compre-
hended 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, Barn-
aby kneeled 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
5o8 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 around 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 toward 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 dowm for the rest of the nigM.
They wandered to and fro when it was day, and onse
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 widov/hood ; he watched and
tended this man. But that a vague and shadowy crowd of
such ideas came slowly on him ; that they taught him to be
sorry when he looked upon his haggard face ; that they
overflowed his eyes when he stooped to kiss him ; that they
kept him waking in a tearful gladness, shading him from
the sun, fanning him with leaves, soothing him when he
started in his sleep — ah ! what a troubled sleep it was — and
wondering when she would come to join them and be happy,
is the truth. He sat beside him all that day ; listening for
her footsteps in every breath of air, looking for her shadow
on the gently-waving grass, twining the hedge flowers for
her pleasure when she came, and his when he aw^oke ; 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 dowm, 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,
BARNABY RUDGE. 509
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
toward the city, but could not reach it before the fires
began and made the night angry with her dismal luster.
When he entered the town — it might be that he was changed
by going there without his late companions, and on no vio-
lent 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 ten-
antless.
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 thousand-fold 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 recognized 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
5
BARNABY RUDGE.
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 ax, 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 around. " 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
tb.e 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 trap-
pings, 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 tak-
ing fire, and which could scarcely fail, if they were left to
burn^ to extend the conflagration immensely. The turn-
BARNABY RUDGE. 51 1
bling 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 reflec-
tions 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 par-
ticles, scorching and kindling all it fell upon ; the hot un-
wholesome vapor, the blight on every thing ; 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 soft-
ened 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 pave-
ment, 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 sprung up from their fiery draught, and
danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of suf-
focation, until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the
liquor that had killed them. Nor was even this the worst
or m.ost 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 a-light from head to foot ; who in their unen-
durable anguish and suffering, making for any thing 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 inclosed such
horrors ; and holding down his head that he might not even
512 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 retreat-
ing. 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 mo-
ments, 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 ansv/ered, putting away the hand which his
son, with a timid desire to propitiate 'lim, laid upon his
BARNABY RUDGf^:. 5tj
sleeve — "I want an answer, and yoii 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 tlis 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 ex-
pression on his face for a minute or more ; then glanced
slowly round as if he had lost something, and went shivering
back toward 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
St4 BARNABV RUDGE.
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 :o 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 to-
gether, 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 thoughtful-
ness. *' 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 gayly. " 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 man-
age that safely "
BARNABY RUDGE. 515
'* To be sure ! " said Barnaby. *' To be sure he will ! A
wise man, father, and one who can teach us to be rich. Oh !
1 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 sec-
ond 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
tliat whispered among the bouglis, 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 thougjht 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 cheat-
ing 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 re-
turned, 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 to\yard the shed.
" Why did you send hhn ? " 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 Tues-
day 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 pock-
ets.
5i6 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Have you-
— " Seen your 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 toward him. " No. Thus it is. She has been at
death's door since she lost her darling — has been insensi-
ble, 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 posi-
tion 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 ap-
pealed against us — which she did ; in really very pretty lan-
guage, I assure you. I advised her as a friend not to count
too much on assistance from any such distant quarter — rec-
ommended her to think of it — told her where I lived — said
I knew she would send to me before noon the 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.
" Y'ou 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. Halloo, bully ! "
** Death ! " said the other, holding him back. ''Will you
tell me what I arn to do ? "
*' Do ! Nothing easier. Make a moonlight flitting in two
hours' time with the young gentleman (he's quite ready to
go ; I have been giving him good advice as we came along),
and get as far from London as you can. Let me know
where you are, and leave the rest to me. She must come
round ; she can't hold out long ; and as to the chances of
your being retaken in the meanwhile, why it wasn't one man
BARNABY RUDGE. 517
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 drink-
ing. 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. Halloo, bully !
Halloo ! Halloo ! Drink, bully, drink. Where are ye
there ? Halloo ! "
With such vociferations, and with a boisterous manner
which bespoke his perfect abandonment to the general
license and disorder, he groped his way toward the shed,
where Hugh and Barnaby were sitting on the ground.
" But 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 offense, no offense," said that personage in a con-
ciliatory tone, as Hugh stopped in his draught, and eyed
him, with no pleasant look, from head to foot. " No offense,
brother. Barnaby here too, eh ? How are you, Barnaby ?
And two other gentlemen ! Your humble servant, gentle-
men. No offense to ^^^/ 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 of his knees had been renewed ; and where he
wanted buttons, he wore pins. Altogether, he had some-
thing the look of a tipstaff, or a bailiff's follower, desperately
5i8 BARNABY RUDGE.
•■
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
moldy pocket handkerchief, which looked like a decom-
posed 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 yes-
terday ? 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 threat-
ening.
''Your stick, then ; it's all one."
"Lord love you, brother, I meant nothing. You don't
understand me by half. I shouldn't wonder now," he added,
in the tone of a desponding and an injured man, '' but you
thought, because I wanted them chaps left in the prison,
that I was a-going to desert the banners ? "
Hugh told him, with an oath, that he had thought so.
" Well ! " said Mr. Dennis, mournfully, " if you an't enough
to make a man mistrust his feller-creeturs, I don't know
what is. Desert the banners ! Me ! Ned Dennis, as was
so christened by his own father ! — Is this ax your'n,
brother V
" 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 abstrac-
tion. " Might have hurt me ! and me exerting myself all
the time to the wery best advantage. Here's a world !
And you're not a-going to ask me to take a sup out of that
'ere bottle, eh ? "
BARNABV RUDCE. 519
Hugh passed it toward him. As lie 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 ax 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 con-
stitootional principles, you know ; you went and wiolated the
wery framework of society. I had sooner have given away
a trifle in charity than done this, I would upon my soul. —
If you'll keep fast hold on 'em, gentlemen, I think I can
make a shift to tie 'em better than you can."
But this question was postponed for a few moments by a
new occurrence. The blind m.an, 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 some-
where for a minute — and probably in his confusion mistak-
ing the point at which he had emerged, was now seen run-
ning 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, dur-
ing 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.
S20 BARNABV RUDGE.
Some of them hurried up to where he lay ; the hangman
with them. Every thing 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 my way," replied the 'officer. " Sergeant !
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 hand-
kerchief 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 toward 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 f/iis 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 be-
come of the country if the military power's to go supersed-
ing the ciwilians in this way ? Where's this poor feller-
creetur's rights as a citizen, that he didn't have me in his
last moments ? I was here. I was willing. I was ready.
These are nice times, brother, to have the dead crying out
against us in this way, and sleep comfortably in our beds
arterward ; wery nice ! "
Whether he derived any material consolation from bind-
ing the prisoners, is uncertain ; most probably he did. At
all events his being summoned to that work diverted him,
BARNABY RUDGE. 521
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
center 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 mili-
tary 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 dispatched this piece of business with-
out any personal hurt or inconvenience, and having now re-
tired 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, be bent his steps
toward 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 Provi-
dence. Look where he would, some heap of ruins afforded
him rich promises of a working off ; the whole town
appeared to have been plowed 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
fts purity, and the gallows in all its pristine usefulness and
moral grandeur, it would perhaps be going too far to assert
522 BARNABY RUDGE.
that Mr Dennis had ever distinctly contemplated and fore-
seen this happy state of things. He rather looked upon it
as one of those beautiful dispensations which are inscrutably
brought about for the behoof and advantage of good men.
He felt, as it were, personally referred to, in this prosperous
ripening for the gibbet ; and had never considered himself
so much the pet and favorite 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 con-
duct 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 v/ho were themselves in
danger, would certainly go for naught. 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 cer-
tainly 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 hang-
man, quickening his steps, now hastened into their society,
cursing the amorous natures of Hugh and Mr. Tappertit
with great earnestness 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 523
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 lier with
his forefinger, "come here — I won't hurt you. Come here,
my lamb, will you ? "
On hearing this tender epithet, Miss Miggs, who had left
off screaming when he opened his lips, and had listened to
him attentively, began again ; crying, " Oh, I'm his lamb !
He says I'm his lamb ! Oh gracious, why wasn't I born old
and ugly ! Why was I ever made to be the youngest of six,
and all of 'em dead and in their blessed graves, excepting
one married sister, which is settled in Golden Lion Court,
number twenty-sivin, second bell-handle on ih: ! "
" 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 I " cried Miss
Miggs, clasping her hands distractedly. " Any thing 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 shoul-
der, 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 sud-
denly and prematufrely into a chair, and designing to reas-
sure her by a little harmless jocularity, such as is adapted
to please and fascinate the sex, converted his right fore-
finger into an ideal brad-awl 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
524 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 toward Dolly. ''Mine^ good
gentleman ! "
This was just what Mr. Dennis wanted and expected.
"Ah ! " he said, looking so soothingly, not to say amor-
ously, on Miggs, that she sat, as she afterward 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. / saw as much
myself. It's her fault. She ivill entice 'em."
" I wouldn't," cried Miggs, folding her hands and looking
upward 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, shak-
ing her head with an air of self-denial which seemed to im-
ply 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 appear-
ances, 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 atten-
tion.
*' When was Simmuns here, I say ? " quoth Dennis, in her
ear.
BARNABY RUDGE. 525
"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 lightest 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 unfortunately," pursued Dennis, who observed
this ; " somebody else was fond of her too, you see ; and
even if he wasn't, somebody else is took for a rioter, audit'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
Simm-un's bane. That it was not his faults, but hers (mean-
ing Dolly's). That men did not see through these dreadful
arts as women did, and therefore w^as 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
toward all parties. But forasmuch as she knowed that Sim-
mun, 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 di^ incline toward prewentions.
Such, she added, was her free confessions. But as this was
private feelings, and might perhaps be looked upon as wen-
geance, 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.
*' Look'ee 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."
526 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 under tone 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 him-
self 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 in-
formation, whistled once, considered once, and finally slapped
his head once and nodded once, as if he had got the clew to
this mysterious removal, and so dismissed it. Then he im-
parted his design concerning Dolly to Miss Miggs, who was
taken more deaf than before, when he began ; and so re-
mained, all through.
The notable scheme was this. Mr. Dennis was immedi-
ately 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 wor-je 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, w^ould prob-
ably 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 muffin-
eer, or toast-rack), would more than cover it. Articles of
plate of every kind having been buried by the rioters in sev-
eral 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
ID the midst, the needful funds were close at hand, and
BARNABY RUDGE. 527
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 obliga-
tion 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 (^vhich 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
voung 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
528 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 con-
stant questioning of those who were newly arrived. They
had previously been quite reckless in their behavior ; often
making a great uproar ; quarreling among themselves, fight-
ing, 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 depart-
ures had hitherto been announced to the trembling cap-
tives.
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 afterward a
moaning noise. But they had no means of ascertaining the
truth : for any question or entreaty on their parts only pro-
voked 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 com-
munication with those who held them in durance.
It was sufficiently evident, both to Emma and to the lock-
smith'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 re-
vived, and deepened into a degree of aversion and abhor-
rence 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 color 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 van-
ities quite gone, she nestled all the livelong day in Emma
Haredale's bosom ; and, sometimes calling on her dear old
BARNABY RUDGE. 529
gray-haired father, sometimes on her mother, and some-
times even on her old home, pined slowly away, like a poor
bird in its cage.
Light hearts, light hearts, that float so gayly 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 laugh-
ter — 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 endeavoring to inspire her with some fortitude,
she increased her own ; and, though the nights were long,
and the days dismal, and she felt the wasting influence of
watching and fatigue, and had perhaps a more defined and
clear perception of their destitute condition and its worst
dangers, she uttered no complaint. Before the ruffians, in
whose power they were, she bore herself so calmly, and with
such an appearance, in the midst of all her terror, of a
secret conviction that they dared not harm her, that there
was not a man among them but held her in some degree of
dread ; and more than one believed she had a weapon hid-
den 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 hap-
piness to have her for a champion. Nor was this the only
comfort they derived at first from Miggs's presence and so-
ciety ; 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 doubtmg but
that every thing she said was true, and that she, like them,
was torn from all she loved, and agonized by doubt and ap-
prehension. 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
530 BARNABY RUDGE.
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, ten-fold
the amount of her subscriptions to the red-brick dwelling-
house, in the articles of peace of mind and a quiet con-
science. And, while on serious topics, Miss Miggs con-
sidered 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 be-
came, in that small chamber, rather a nuisance than a com-
fort, 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
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 murmur-
ing 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 cus-
tom 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
BARNABY RUDOK. 531
have told us of, and who have fallen into their hands, like
us, can exult in their cruelties ! "
" Personal consideration, 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 call-
ing the same through the key-hole 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 an increased energy. " Ally I.ooyer,
good gentlemen ! "
Even Dolly, cast down and disappointed as she was, re-
vived at this, and bade Miggs hold her rongue directly.
" Which was you pleased to observe, Miss Varden ? "
said Miggs, with a strong emphasis on the irrelative pro-
noun.
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
suppulchers, 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 the most
wonderful volubility, and with a shrillness perfectly deaf-
ening (especially when she jerked out the interjections),
Miss Miggs, from mere habit, and not because weeping
532
BARNABY RUDGE. .-
was at all oppropriate 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 Simm.uns.
What Emma Haredale and Dolly would have done, or
how long Miss Miggs, now that she had hoisted her true
colors, would have gone on waving them before their
astonished senses, it is impossible to tell. Nor is it neces-
sary to speculate on these matters, for a startling interrup-
tion occurred at that moment, which took their whole atten-
tion by storm.
This was a violent knocking at the door of the house, and
then its sudden bursting open ; which was immediately suc-
ceeded 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 per-
son an entire stranger, but they appealed to him neverthe-
less, and besought him, in impassioned language, to restore
them to their friends.
" For what other purpose am I here ? " he answered, clos-
ing the door, and standing with his back against it. '' With
what object have I made my way to this place, through dif-
ficulty 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 the 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 toward 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 w^ithin a few hours' jour-
ney. You will be restored to them, I hope, to-night."
BARNABV RUDGE. 533
" 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 sur-
prise. "// 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 a prisoner here."
" 1 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 re-
mained 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 lock-
smith'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 bid-
ding. 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 can not bear— believe me,
that I can not 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 con-
534
BARNABY RUDGE.
nections, 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 confine
ment ; and that I have forced my way here, sword in
hand, you see."
" You bring," said Emma, faltering, " some note or to-
ken from my uncle ? "
" No, he doesn't," cried Dolly, pointing at him earn-
estly ; " now I am sure he doesn't. Don't go with him for
the world ! "
** Hush, pretty fool — be silent," he replied, frowning
angrily upon her. " No, Miss Plaredale, I have no letter,
nor any token of any kind ; for while 1 sympathize with
you, and such as you, on whom misfortune so heavy and
so undeserved has fallen, I value my life. I carry, there-
fore, 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 intrusting me with one —
possibly because hp 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 dan-
ger 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.
Can not we " — and she drew Dolly closer to her — ■*' can not
we go together ? "
" The task of conveying one female in safety through such
scenes as we must encounter, to say nothing of attracting the
BARNABV RUDGE. 535
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 prom-
ise 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 honor. 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 toward 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, Avith 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
536 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 vv'as 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
toward 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 look-
ing 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, per-
haps."
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 537
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 Tap-
pertit, the recreant 'prentice, burned 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 wounds, 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 wholly 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 keep at a dis-
tance. 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, and 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 favor 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
538 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 toward 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 lockmith'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 w^as 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 offense,
to fell the Black Lion to the floor of his own parlor, and imme-
diately 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 per-
haps an eye or so, into the bargain. It was with a particular
kind of pantomime that Mr. Willet filled up every pause ; and
in this he was considered by tlie Black Lion, who had been
his familiar for some years, quite to surpass and go beyond
BARNABY RUDGE. 539
himself, and outrun the expectations of his most admiring
friends.
The subject that worked in Mr. Willet's mind, and occa-
sioned 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 direct his gaze toward
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 every body else, as if to assure
himself that two and not one was the usual allowance ; sit-
ting by the hour together in a brown study, as if he were en-
deavoring 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 his supper, surrounded by faces with
which he had been so well acquainted in old times, Mr,
Willet recurred to this subject with uncommon vigor ; ap-
parently 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 — particu-
larly at his maimed side ; then, he looked slowly round the
table until he caught some persons 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 him-
self 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— any thing that was on his
maimed side— and watching him as he handed it. By dint
540
BARNABY RUDGE.
of these experiments, he did at last so satisfy and convince
himself, that, after a longer silence than he had yet main-
tained, he laid down his knife and fork on either side of 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 around 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 defense of Savannah, father."
" At the defense of the Salwanners," repeated Mr. Willet,
softly ; again looking round the table,
" Jn America, where the war is," said Joe.
" In America, where the war is," replied Mr. Willet. ** It
was taken off in the defense 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 the 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 head ;
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 falter-
ing voice : *' My son's arm — was took off — at the defense of
the — Salwanners — in America — where the war is " — with
which words he withdrew, and returned no more that
night.
Indeed, on various pretenses, 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 pas-
sage, 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.
BARNABY RUDGE. 541
" Good-night ! " — he did not 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 beauti-
ful 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 mas told so
very often. But the coach-maker 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 remem-
ber 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 pleas-
antly, 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 meantime. 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 re-
member ? "
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
542 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 beside. But,
Dolly, I would rather have lost this other arm — ay, I would
rather have lost my head — than to have come back to find
you dead, or any thing 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 tlie
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 Lxxnr.
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 ;
1 S:iALL BLESS YOUR NAME," SOBBED THE LOCKSMITH S LITTLE DAUGH-
TER, "as long AS I LIVE."
BARNABY RUDGE. 543
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 class of society
who see with the greatest clearness into the darkest perspec-
tives, the town remained profoundly quiet. The strong mili-
tary force disposed in every advantageous quarter, and sta-
tioned at every commanding point, held the scattered frag-
ments of the mob in check ; the search after rioters was
prosecuted with unrelenting vigor ; 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. Upward of
two hundred had been shot 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 afterward.
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 cer-
tain. When the embers of the fires had been black and cold
for many weeks, the laborers' spades proved this, without a
doubt.
Seventy-two private houses and four strong jails were de-
stroyed 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 par-
tial estimate of disinterested persons, it exceeded one hun-
dred and twenty-five thousand pounds. For this immense
loss, compensation was soon afterward 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 Mans-
field 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
544 BARNABY RUDGE.
into its serious consideration. While this question was un-
der debate, Mr. Herbert, one of the members present, in-
dignantly 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 out into the street to pacify the mob with
the somewhat indefinite assurance that the House was pre-
pared to give them "the satisfaction they sought," was
actually held down in his seat by the combined force of sev-
eral 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 or-
dinary forms were for the time forgotten.
On the Thursday, both Houses had adjourned until the
following Monday se'nnight, declaring it impossible to pur-
sue their deliberations with the necessary gravity and free-
dom while they were surrounded by armed troops. And
now that the rioters were dispersed, the citizens were beset
by a new fear ; for, finding the public thoroughfares and all
their usual places of resort filled with soldiers intrusted with
the free use of fire and sword, they began to lend a greedy
ear to the rumors 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 declar-
ing all the rioters in custody would be tried by a special
commission in the due course of law, a fresh alarm was
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 afterward
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 545
timid and desponding breathed again. In Southwark, no
fewer than three thousand of the inhabitants formed them-
selves 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 mto
the nooks and corners of the town, and as if it were mustermg m
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 •, ' now 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 ? " i t -^
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 Barnaoy,
smoothing the bird's rumpled feathers with his hands.
" 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 m
through the bars, and shines in his bright eye as if a spark
from "those great hres 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 ? " ^ ■, • .u i,^
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.
546 BARNABY RUDGE.
"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, 'Met 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 get-
ting 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 ap-
proaching 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 547
he is alive and has come back to us. Where is he V
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. Be-
cause, dear Barnaby, the endeavor 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 gaz-
ing on the mild light, as the freest and most favored man in
all the spacious city ; and in his ill-remembered prayer, and
in the fragment of the childish hymn, with which he sung
548 BARNABY RUDGE.
and crooned himself asleep, there breathed as true a spirit
as ever studied homily expressed, or old cathedral arches
echoed.
As his mother crossed the 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 the pris-
oner. 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, any thing 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 549
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 an-
swered 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 mur-
der, is heavy on us now. You can not 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 endeavoring 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 real-
ized, 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
550 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 man-
ner, 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, wring-
ing 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 men-
aced 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, ban-
ished 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 con-
tented ; observing to all his friends that he had got off very
well with a reprimand, and repeating with huge satisfaction
his memorable defense before the council, " That such was
his temerity, he thought death would have been his por-
tion."
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
BARNABY RUDGE. 551
in the ditches, and fields, many unshrouded wretches lay
dead : envied by those who had been active in the disturb-
ances, and who pillowed their doomed heads in the tempo-
rary 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, amid 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 afterward to the Horse Guards, and then was
taken by way of Westminster Bridge, and back over London
Bridge (for the purpose of avoiding the main streets), to the
Tower, under the strongest guard ever known to enter its
gates with a single prisoner.
Of all his forty thousand men, not one remained to bear
him company. Friends, dependents, followers — none were
there. His fawning secretary had played the traitor ; and
he whose weakness had been goaded and urged on b- so
many for their own purposes, was desolate and alone.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
Mr. Dennis, having been made prisonor late in the even-
ing, was removed to a neighboring round-house for that
night, and carried before a justice for examination the next
day, Saturday. The charges against him being numerous
and weighty, and it being in particular proved, by the testi-
mony of Gabriel Varden, that he had shown a special de-
sire to take his life, he was committed for trial. Moreover,
he was honored with the distinction of being considered a
chief among the insurgents, and received from the magis-
trate's lips the complimentary assurance that he was in a
position of danger, and would do well to prepare himself for
the worst.
552 BARNABY RUDGE.
To say that Mr. Dennis's modesty was not somewhat start-
led by these honors, 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. In-
deed this gentleman's stoicism was of that not uncommon
kind, which enables a man to bear with exemplary fortitude
the affliction of his friends, but renders him, by way of coun-
terpoise, 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 hope-
ful 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 in-
creased. 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 crim-
inal constitution ; and how high he stood, in his official
capacity, in the favor 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 civilized 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 conse-
quences 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 agreea-
bly relieved their monotonous duties. In this spirit, he was
fettered with great care, and conveyed to the interior of the
prison.
BARNABY RUDGE. 553
" 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 any body ? "
" If you'd left me 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 talk-
ing of ? 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 con-
ductor 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.
" Halloo ! " 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
554 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 defense. There was nothing movable within it, but a
clumsy table which could not be displaced without noise,
and a heavy chair. Stealing on tiptoe toward 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 uncomforta-
ble 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 pave-
ment ; 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 appear-
ances, and blessing his stars with much fervor, 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 toward his
unexpected visitor. He looked lazily at him for some half-
dozen seconds without any aspect of surprise or recogni-
tion ; then suddenly jumped up, and with a great oath pro-
nounced his name.
" Keep off, brother, keep off ! " cried Dennis, dodging be-
hind 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 ! "
BARNABY RUDGE. 555
He whined out the last three words in such piteous ac-
cents, 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 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 scott-free. Unlikelier
things than that have come to pass. Even if we shouldn't,
and the chances fail, we can but be worked off at once ; and
when it's well done, it's so neat, so skillful, so captiwating, if
that don't seem too strong a word, that you'd hardly believe
it could be brought to sich perfection. Kill one's fellow-
creaturs off with muskets !— Pah ! " and his nature so re-
volted at the bare idea, that he spat upon the dungeon pave-
ment. . , . ,
His warming on this topic, which to one unacquainted with
his pursuits and tastes appeared like courage ; together with
556 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 argu-
ments 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.
It was him I wanted. As to me, what have I got by it?
Here we are, in one and the same plight."
" Look'ee, rascal," said Hugh, contracting his brow, ** I'm
not altogether such a shallow blade but I know you ex-
pected 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 (or jou .?"
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 toward 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. Any thing
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 beganc
"You must look up your friends — "
" My friends ? " cried Hugh, starting up and resting on
his hands. " Where are my friends ? "
BARNABY RUDGE. 557
'* 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 color.
" 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 toward the wall. After
two or three ineffectual twitches at his dress, which he was
hardy enough to venture upon, notwithstanding his danger-
ous humor, Mr. Dennis, who burned, 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 gray ; 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
558 BARNABY RUDGE.
toast stood upon a little table at his elbow ; books and news-
papers lay ready to his hand, upon the coverlet ; and, some-
times pausing to glance with an air of tranquil satisfaction
round the well-ordered room, and sometimes to gaze indo-
lently 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, solilo-
quized 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 him-
self at length to finish its chocolate, which was getting cold,
and ring the bell for more.
The new supply arriving, he took the cup from his serv-
ant'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 tea-spoon, '' 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 jus-
tices, 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 amus-
ing person beyond all doubt, in stating that my friend was
sane, and had, to his knowledge, wandered about the coun-
try with a vagabond parent, avowing revolutionary and re-
bellious 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 559
against poor Bariiaby, and solved the doubt that trembled
in his favor. Grip little thought how much he had to an-
swer 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 ex-
tremely. I hope they have taken care to bespeak him.
Peak, I am not at home, of course, to any body 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 ^fero-
longcd 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 can not possibly hear you. I told you 1
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 admit-
ted of no delay.
'' Let him in," said Sir John. " My good fellow," he
added, when the door was opened, " how come you to in-
trude 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, 1 do as-
sure you," returned the person he addressed. " If I have
taken any uncommmon 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 for-
get 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
56o BARNABY RUDGE.
becomes ! Varden to be sure — Mr. Varden the locksmith.
You have a charming wife, Mr. Varden, and a most beauti-
ful 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 fortu-
nate enough to convey, myself, the salute which I intrust
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 favor of you, though
I come on business. — Private," he added, with a glance at
the ttian who stood looking on, " and very pressing busi-
ness."
" I can not say you are the more welcome for being inde-
pendent, 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
Ifeen so, all my life. If I don't prepare 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 consid-
erate, and 1 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. Choco-
late, perhaps, you don't relish ? Well ! it ts 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 barefooted men and
women, and a thousand horrors ! Peak, bring the camphor
quick ! Heaven and earth, Mr. Varden, my dear, good soul,
how rc>f/l(i you come from Newgate ? "
BARNABY RUDGE. 561
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 toward 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 exor-
dium. Might I ask you to do me the favor 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 New-
gate ?"
** 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 lock-
smith.
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 occa-
sioned 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 mem-
ory 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
562 BARNABY RUDGE.
desires that you should know, and what yoa ought to know
without a moment's loss of time."
Sir John Chester settled himself in a position of greater re-
pose, 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 wit-
ness 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. Var-
den, 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 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 particu-
lar to communicate. 1 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 hang-
man), 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 had 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."
BARNABY RUDGE. 563
"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 discov-
ered 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 stead-
iness as the locksmith looked at him.
" They have been in prison now, a month. One conversa-
tion led to many more ; and the hangman soon found, from
a comparison of time, and place, and date, that he had exe-
cuted 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 mis-
taken ; for she was stopped in the commission of her very
first offense, and died for it. She was of gipsy blood, Sir
John "
It might have been the effect of a passing cloud which ob-
scured the sun, and cast the shadow on his face ; but the
knight turned deathly 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 clew 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 — "
c64 BARNABY RUDGE.
Sir John stretched out his hand toward 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 re-
specting 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
brmg 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 upward to the
sky, and never looked toward 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 toward him once. Sir
John ; and so she died, and he forgot her. But, some years
afterward, a man was sentenced to die the same death, who
was a gipsy too ; a sunburned, 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 Ty-
burn, and told him then that the woman 1 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 565
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 bril-
liant 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 per-
fectly trustworthy ! "
*'Sir John, Sir John," returned the locksnith, "at twelve
to-morrow these men die. Hear the few words I have to
add, and do not hope to deceive me ; for though I am a plain
man of humble station, and you are a gentleman of rank and
learning, the truth raises me to your level, and I know that
you anticipate the disclosure with which I am about to end,
and that you believe this doomed man, Hugh, to be your
son."
" Nay," said Sir John, bantering him with a gay air ; " the
wild gentleman, who died so suddenly, scarcely went as far
as that, I think ? "
** He did not,'' returned the locksmith, " for she haa
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 carved some let-
ters, 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 appear-
ance of infinite relish, and carefully wiped his lips upon- his
handkerchief.
S66 BARNABY RUDGE.
" Sir John," said the locksmith, " this is all that has beei
told 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 clew
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
can not 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 sup-
pose 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 any thing, it would be to
hasten his death, and insuring 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 in your pres-
ent 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 extrem-
ity, 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 /ii//i, Sir John : but that
twelve o'clock will soon be here, and soon be past forever."
** 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 567
quite captivating, that you had a little more worldly wis-
dom. 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 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 anx-
ious 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 scat-
tered links of the chain, I can afford to slight it.
Extremely distressing to be parent of such an uncouth creat-
ure ! Still, I gave him very good advice'. I told him he
would certainly be hanged. I could have done no more if
I known of our relationship ; and there are a great many
fathers who have never done as much for their natural chil-
dren. 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, ele-
gant 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
568 BARNABY RUDGE.
lear of decv.h that swallowed up all other thought, 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 man^- <!! 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 popu-
lation 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 w^ord 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 vrere startled by the awful sentence, or cared
to question its propriety. Just then, too, when the law had
BARNABY RUDGE. 569
been so flagrg,ntly 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
us hat, and wondered at her anguish. Grip uttered a feeble
croak, half in encouragement, it seemed, and half in remon-
strance, 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 even-
ing. 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 aot speaking. Barnaby knew that the jail was
a dull, sad, miserable place, and looked forward to to-mor-
row, as to a passage from it to something bright and beau-
tiful. 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 lilm 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 him-
self 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
570 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 jou do, young man," whined the miserable creature,
with an imploring gesture toward 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 any body give me
comfort ! "
" You ought to be the best, instead of the worst," said
Hugh, stopping before him. " Ha, ha, ha ! See the hang-
man, when it comes home to him ! "
"You don't know what it is," cried Dennis, actually writh-
ing as he spoke : " I do. That I should come to be worked
oft ! I ! I ! • That / 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
BARNABY RUDGE. ' S71
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 whole-
sale 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 un-
controllable 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 solid night — the shadow of death always
upon them, and yet so dim and faint, that objects the mean-
est and most trivial started from the gloom beyond, and
forced themselves upon the view — the impossibility of hold-
ing 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 nands 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,"
57^
BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 m,y 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, start-
ing 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 I " And uttering another yell, he fell in
a fit upon the ground.
" See the hangman when it comes liome to him ! " cried
Hugh again, as they bore him away — " Ha, ha, ha ! Cour-
age, bold Barnaby, what care we } Your hand ! They do
well to put us out of the world, for if we get 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
ouc 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 lesa
frequent by degrees, until silence was scarcely broken save
by the bells in church towers, marking the progress — softer
and more stealthy while the city slumbered — of that great
watcher with the hoary head, who never sleeps or rests. In
the brief interval of darkness and repose which feverish
towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed ; and those who
awoke from dreams lay listening in their beds, and longed
for dawn, and wished the dead of the night were past.
BARNABY RUDGE. 573
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 center, 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 mate-
rials 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 laborers, one with a
lantern or a smoky link, stood by to light his fellows at tiieir
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, toward 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 vapor.
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 theii v/ay to some
other place, lingered, and lingered yet, as though the at-
traction 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 neighboring church were heard
— and that was every quarter of an hour — a strange sensa-
tion, 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, £ind 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 soli-
tary 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
574 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 gray morning. Heavy stage wagons crawled from
the inn-yard opposite ; and travelers peeped out ; and as
they rolled sluggishly away, cast many a backward look
toward the jail. And now, the sun's first beams came glanc
ing into the street ; and the night's work, which, in its vari-
ous stages and in the varied fancies of the lookers-on, had
taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form — a scaf-
fold, and a gibbet.
As the warmth of the cheerful day began to shed itself
on the scanty crowd, the murmur of tongues was heard, shut-
ters 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 in-
difference 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 color 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 s^m
forbore to look up on it.
But it was better, grim and somber in the shade, than
when, the day being more advanced, it stood confessed in
BaRNABY RUDGE. 575
the full glare and glory of the sun, with its black paint blis-
tering, and its nooses dangling in the light like loathsome
garlands. It was better in the solitude and gloom of mid-
night with a few forms clustering about it, than in the fresh-
ness and the stir of morning : the center of an eager crowd.
It was better haunting the street like a specter, when men
\vere in their beds, and influencing perchance the city's
dreams, than braving the broad day, and thrusting its ob-
scene 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 toward 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 him-
self 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 eye% In some of the cnrts and wagons,
women might be seen, glancing fearfully at the same un-
sightly 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 afterward
in Bloomsbury Square. At nine o'clock, a strong body of
military marched into the street, and formed and lined a
narrow passage into Ho'born, 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
pri on-gate. These preparations made, th'j 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."
Sepulcher'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 aooroached a buzz and hum
576 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 clamor, nor did they speak
much to each other ; though such as were better informed
upon the topic than the rest, would tell their neighbors,
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 deaf-
ening, yet every man seemed mute. Look where you would
among the crowd, you saw straine^ eyes and lips com-
pressed ; 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 glit-
tered 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 hold-
ing on where the sudden loosening of any brick or stone
would dash them down into the street. The church tovver.
BARNABV RUDGE. 577
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 excite-
ment 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 ! / heard them gathering when I woke in
the night, and turned over on t'other side and fell asleep
again. \Vc 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 demeanor.
"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 break-
fast 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.**
578 BAkNABY RUDGE.
"Bless you," cried Barnaby, stepping lightly toward 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 ? V\' ill they see vie tremble ? "
Hugh gazed for a moment at his face, on which there was
a strange, unearthly smile ; and at his eyes, 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 bear-
ing, might have graced some lofty act of heroism ; some
voluntary sacrifice, born of a noble cause and pure enthu-
siasm ; 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 v/ant of air.
In the middle of this chamber, two smiths, v/ith hamme.rs,
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.
BARNABY RUDGE. 579
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,
groveling down upon his knees, and actually prostrating
himself upon the stone floor ; '' governor, dear governor —
honorable 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, clinching his
hands, and glaring round, and round, and round again ; '* will
no charitable person go and tell them ? "
" Mr. Akerman," said a gentleman who stood by, after a
moment's pause, " since it may possibly produce in this un-
happy 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 to-
ward 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 rcDrieve. One of us
58o BARNABY RUDGE.
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 pos-
session — that he could tell nothing unless they gave him
time, but must die with them on his mind ; and he con-
tinued 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 toward
the door. All was ready when the last chime came upon the
ear.
They told Hugh this, and asked if he had any thing 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 noiv ! "
" 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 gentleman—
BARNABY RUDGE. 581
"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 be-
lieve any thing, that this one life would be spared. See what
he is ! Look at him ! "
Barnaby had moved toward the door, and stood beckon-
ing 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 in-
spiration, ''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
his hand in prayer till now, call down the wrath of God !
On that black tree, of which I am the ripened fruit, I do in-
voke 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 toward 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 an-
swered :
" 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 serv-
ice for the dead, with something between sullen attention,
and quickened curiosity. As soon as he had passed the
582 BARNABY RUDGE.
door, his miserable associate was carried out ; and the crovvd
beheid the rest.
Barnaby would have mounted the steps at the same time
— indeed he would have gone before them, but in both at-
tempts 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 child-
ish 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 paralyzed 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 to 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 583
owned themselves to be Catholics, and begged to be attended
by their own priests.
One young man was hanged in Bishopsgate Street, whose
aged gray-headed father waited for him at the gallows,
kissed him at its foot when he arrived, and sat there, on
the ground, till tliey took him down. They would have
given him the body of his child ; but he had no hearse, nc
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 pro-
cess of cookery was favorable 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
\v^ 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. Con-
sequently, 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 par-
ticulj^'- o«*:asion — perhaps because he was, as it were, done
584 BARNABY RUDGE.
to a turn ; perhaps because he was in an unusually brigh*
state of mind ; perhaps because he had considered the sub-
ject so long ; perhaps because of all these favoring circum-
stances, 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 lurk-
ing 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 b,ad 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 dis-
covery, and that he had started, hunted down, fallen upon,
and knocked on the head, a perfectly original idea which
had never presented itself to any other man, alive or dead, he
laid down his pipe, rubbed his hands, and chuckled audibly.
** Why, father ! " cried Joe, entering at the moment,
*' you're in spirits to-day ! "
** It's nothing partickler," said Mr. Willet, chuckling
again. '' It's nothing at all partickler, Joseph. Tell me
something about the Salwanners." Having preferred this
request, Mr. Willet chuckled a third time, and after these
unusual demonstrations of levity, he put his pipe in his
mouth again.
'' What shall I tell you, father ? " asked Joe, laying his
hand upon his sire's shoulder, and looking down' into his
face. " That I have come back poorer than a church
mouse ? You know that. That I have come back maimed
and crippled ? You know that."
'' It was took off," muttered Mr. Willet, with his eyes upon
the fire, '' at the defense 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 585
Mr. Willet had been softly repeating to himself, in a mus-
ing tone, the words " defense of the Salwanners ; " but he
seemed embarrassed at having been overheard, and an-
swered " Nothing."
"Now look here, father. — Mr. Edward has come to En-
gland from the West Indies. When he was lost sight of (I
ran away on the same day, father), he made a voyage to one
of the islands, where a school-friend of his had settled ;
and, finding him, wasn't too proud to be employed on his
estate, and — and in short, got on well, and is prospering,
and has come over here on business of his own, and is going
back again speedily. Our returning nearly at the same time,
and meeting in the course of the late troubles, has been a
good thing every way ; for it has not only enabled us to do
old friends some service, but has opened a path in life for
me which I may tread without being a burden upon you.
To be plain, father, he can employ me ; I have satisfied
myself that I can be of real use to him ; and I am going to
carry my one arm away with him, and to make the most of it."
In the mind's eye of Mr. Willet, the West Indies, and in-
deed 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 en-
tertainment of a lively population. In what form of expres-
sion 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 tome, never
be distant, never again reprove me for the follies I have
long repented, or I shall die, Joe."
"/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
586 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 forbear-
ance ; if you had exulted only for one moment in your tri-
umph, I could have borne it better."
" Triumph ! " repeated Joe, with a smile which seemed to
say, *' 1 am a pretty figure for that."
" Yes, triumph," she cried, with her whole heart and soul
in her earnest voice, and gushing voice ; " 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 1 could re--
call 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 impas-
sioned language ; and so did that of his lips — yet he said
nothing, either.
'' And now, at last," cried Dolly, trembling with the fer-
vor of her speech, " if you were sick, and shattered in your
every limb ; if you were ailing, weak, and sorrowful ; if, in-
stead of being what you are, you were in every body'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 w^en 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 Avith my best affection
-and my most devoted love. I will : inrl^-ed I will ! "
BARNABY RUDGE. 587
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, un-
noticed, 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 inex-
plicable, 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 ? "
588 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 every body knows who is acquainted with the
relative bearings of Clerkenwell and W^hitechapel— 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 fresliened 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 worm -wood.
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 sad-
ness and an air of mourning ; which the neighbors, 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 589
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 pass-
ing 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 parlor, 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 houshold labors.
" 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 hesita-
tion, " 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 neverthe-
less I have had my share of sorrows — more than the com-
mon lot, perhaps, but I have borne them ill, I have broken
where I should have bent ; and have mused and brooded,
590
BARNABY RUDGE.
when my spirit should have mixed with all God's great cre-
ation. 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 re-
moved from it as it might, at first sight, seem to me. 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 — T am. sure you know — that I would not ex-
change it for any blessing life could yield me."
" You are frank, honorable 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," ob-
served Edward," that I have forgotten."
"You own a name," said Mr. Haredale, "I had deep
reason to remember. I was moved and goaded by recollec-
tions of personal wrong and injury, I know, but, even now,
I can not 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."
BARNABY RUDGE. 591
"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 can
not wish you were less partial ; for I have a pleasure in hear-
ing 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 1
have been together many years ; and although I believe that
in resigning her to you I put the seal upon her future hap-
piness, 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 some spirit, I acknowl-
edge to you both that the time has been when I connived at
treachery and falsehood — which if I did not perpetrate my-
self, 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 can not
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 any thing but undying affection and grati-
tude 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 ag^in
— not once or twice, but many times ; and you shall give *^ie
cheerful counsel, Emma."
" And you will take it ? " asked his niece.
592 BARNABY RUDGE.
*' 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 honor, on the plausi-
ble pretense that he is justified by the goodness of his end.
All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those
that can not, 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
wliicli 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 1 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 acclama-
tions, 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 that 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,"
BARNABY RUDGE. 593
But, before he could reach the door, and before Edward
could catch up his hat and follow him, they were again ar-
rested 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 fervor 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 hun-
dred 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-humor, 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 strug-
gle — troubled his peace of mind no more than if he had been
a straw upon the water's surface, he never once released his
firm grasp of an arm, drawn tight through his. He some-
times turned to clap his friend upon the back, or whisper in
his ear a word of stanch encouragement, or cheer him with
a smile ; but his great care was to shield him from the pres-
sure, 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 beat-
ing 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
594 BARNABY RUDGE.
ready for their entrance by no unwilling hands. Then slip-
ping in, and shutting out the crowd by main force, Gabriel
stood between Mr. Haredale and Edward Chester, and Bar-
naby, 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 inter-
est in his favor and an inclination to inquire more dispas^
sionately 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
knoAvn 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 intrusted to a horse soldier for in-
stant conveyance to the place of execution. This courier
reached the spot just as the cart appeared in sight ; and Bar-
naby 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 bring-
ing 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, / didn't want to make a triumph of it. But
directly we got into the street we were known, and this hub-
bub began. Of the two," he added, as he wiped his crimson
face, "and after experience of botl), I think Fd 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 595
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 master's back, and had
acknowledged the favors 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 win-
dow, 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 in particular ; and giving him one over, for good
measure, dispersed in high good humor.
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 per-
son ; and how he went wildly from one to another, until he
became so far tranquilized, 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 hap-
pened 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 church-yard ; the time, midnight ; the
persons, Edward Chester, a clergyman, a grave-digger, and
the four bearers of a lonely 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 mold fell solemnly upon the last house of this name-
less 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
596 BARNABY RUDGE.
" 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 J "
" 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 v/ashed 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 every thing that had hap-
pened, 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-parlor ; the rosiest, coziest,
merriest, heartiest, best-contented old buck m 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 waist-
coat smiling in every wrinkle, and his jovial humor peep-
ing 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 honor of
Dolly and Joseph Willet, who had gone out walking, and for
whom the tea-kettle had been singing gayly 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 um-
brellas, 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 de-
light, preserves and jams, crisp cake and other pastry, short
BARNABY RUDGE. 597
to eat, with cunning twists, and cottage loaves and rolls of
bread both white and brown, were all set forth in rich pro-
fusion ; in whose youth Mrs. V, herself had grown quite
young, and stood there in a gown of red and white ; sym-
metrical 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
center 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 whis-
per not to joke ; and how her color came and went in a little
restless flutter of happiness, which made her do every thing
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 lock-
smith 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 ral-
lied 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 per-
ception she had of the joke when she overcame it — the con-
fidential statements of Joe concerning the precise day and
hour when he was first conscious of being fond of Dolly,
and Dolly's blushing admission, 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 I
Then, there was a great deal to be said regarding Mrs.
Varden's doubts, and motherly alarms, and shrewd sus-
picions ; and it appeared that from Mrs. Varden's penetra-
tion 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
59S BARNABY RUDGE.
before the principals. She had said within herself (for she
remembered the exact words) " That young Willet is certainly
looking after our Dolly, and /must look after ///w." Accord-
ingly, she had looked after him, and had observed many
little circumstances (all of which she named) so exceedingly
minute that nobody else could make any thing out of them
even now ; and had, it seemed from first to last, displayed
the most unbounded tact and most consummate general-
ship.
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 pru-
dent, had found her pining in her own chamber. In short,
nothing was forgotten ; and every thing by some means or
other brought them back to the conclusion, that that was
the happiest hour in all their lives ; consequently, that every
thing 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 da\-,
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 for-
gotten 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 aftei
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 rush-
ing in on this same door being opened — that the knock was
repeated, in a yet more startling manner than before.
" Is any body going to open that door ? " cried the lock-
smith. " Or shall I come ? "
Upon that, Dolly went running back into the parlor, all
dimples and blushes ; and Joe opened it with a mighty noise,
and other superfluous demonstrations of being in a violent
hurry.
BARNABY RUDGE. 599
*' 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 afterward in the little dark passage between it and the
parlor, 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 conster-
nation :
" Damme, if it ain'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 pre-
cipitation that her bonnet flew off her head, burst into the
room, clasped her hands (in which she held a pair of pattens,
one in each), raised her eyes devotedly to the ceiling, and
shed a flood of tears.
" The old story ! " cried the locksmith, looking at her in
inexpressible desperation. " She was born to be a damper,
this young woman ! nothing can prevent it ! "
*' Ho, master, ho, mim ! " cried Miggs, " can I constrain my
feelings in these here once agin united moments ! Ho, Mr.
Warsen, here's blessedness among relations, sir ! Here's for-
givenesses 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'
6oo BARNABY RUDGE.
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,
Avhat 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 feeling — did she think as
her own Miggs would ever leave her ? Did she think as Miggs,
though she was but a servant, and knowed that servitudes
was no inheritances, would forgit that she was the humble
instruments as always made it comfortable between them
two when they fell out, and always told master of the meek-
ness 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 atashed by this cir-
cumstance, 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 shad-
ow of the second bell-handle on the right-hand door-post
— and with a plentiful use of her pocket handkerchief, ad-
dressed 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 lus 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 imperi-
ous 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 bless-
ing and her strong injunctions to mingle in his prayers a
supplication that he might in course of time grow up a lock-
BARNABY RUDGE. 6oi
smith, or a Mr. Joe, and to 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 ap-
pearance his faculties absorbed in the contemplation of the
sweetmeats — Miss Miggs signified to the company in gen-
eral that they were not to be uneasy, for she would soon re-
turn; and with her nephew's aid, prepared to bear her ward-
robe up the staircase.
*' My dear," said the locksmith to his w^fe. *' 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-gar-
ment, 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 Miss 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 scolCj 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 courtesy, and keeping her head
erect, her ear toward Mrs. Varden, and her eye on the rest
of the company, as she alluded to them in her remarks, pro-
ceeded :
" I'm quite delighted, I'm sure, to find sich independency,
feeling sorry though, at the same time, mim, that you should
6o2 BARNABY R.UDGE.
have been forced into submissions when you couldn't help
yourself — he, he, he ! It must be great vexations, 'specially
considering liow 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 coach-maker. But I have heerd say, that the
coach-maker thought twice about — he, he, he ! — and that he
told a young man as was a frind of his, that he hoped he
knowed better than to be drawed into that ; though she and
all the family did pull uncommon strong ! "
Here she paused for a reply, and receiving none, went on
as before.
'"' I have heerd say, mini, that the illness of some ladies
was all pretensions, and that they could faint away, stone
dead, whenever they had the inclinations so to do. Of
course I never see sich cases with my own eyes — ho no !
He, he, he ! Nor m.aster neither — ho no ! He, he, he ! I
have heerd the neighbors make remarks as some one as they
was acquainted with, was a poor good-natur'd mean-spirited
creetur, as went out fishing for a wife one day, and caught
a Tartar. Of course I never to my knowledge see the poor
person himself. Nor did you neither, mim — ho no. I
wonder who it can be — don't you, mim ? No doubt you do,
mim. Ho yes. He, he, he ! "
Again Miggs paused for a reply, and none being offered,
was so oppressed with teeming spite and spleen, that she
seemed like to burst.
"I'm glad Miss Dolly can laugh," cried Miggs, with a
feeble titter. ** I like to see folks a-laughing — so do you,
mim, don't you ? You was always glad to see people in
spirits, wasn't you, mim ? And you always did your best to
keep 'em cheerful, didn't you, mim ? Though there an't
such a great deal to laugh at now either ; is there, mim ? It
an't so much of a catch, after looking out 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, if it was me, though in-
stead 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 603
they could get, and think tliemselves well off too ; but her
vexation and chagrin being of that internally bitter sort
which finds no relief in words, and is aggravated to mad-
ness 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, de-
manded to know how long she was to stand there to be in-
sulted, 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 dis-
grace and provocation, the small boy, who had been all this
time gradually lashed into rebellion by the sight of unattain-
able 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 insnare some
other youth to help her home.
" It's a thing to laugh at, Martha, not to care for," whis-
pered the locksmith, as he followed his wife to the window,
and good-humoredly 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 inter-
vened since his conversation with Edward Chester and his
niece, in the locksmith's house, and he had made no change,
in the meantime, in his accustomed style of dress, his ap-
pearance was greatly altered. He looked much older, and
more careworn. Agitation and anxiety of mind scattered
wrinkles and gray hairs with no unsparing hand ; but deeper
traces follow on the silent uprooting of old habits, and sev-
ering 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 lonesonrie
6o4 BAkNABV RUUGE.
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 in-
creased 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, and distrusts, and weakened en-
ergies 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 home, before turning his back
upon it, forever.
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 part-
ing, 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 favorable 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 ter-
ror of the night ; it had been present to him before, in many
shapes ; it had haunted him in by-gone times, and visited
his pillow again and again. If it had been but an ugly ob-
ject, a childish specter, 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 slumber, he
was conscious of its gathering strength and purpose, and
gradually assuming its recent shape ; when he sprung up
from his bed, the same phantom vanished from his heated
BARNABY RUDGE. 605.
brain, and left him filled \yith a dread against which re.isot;
and waking thought were powerless.
The sun was up, before he could shake it off. He rose
Jate, 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, recognized 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 look-
ing 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 re-
turn until late. The roads were not very safe for single
travelers 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 remem-
bered 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 fel-
low-servant that what he had observed in this short inter-
view lay very heavy on his mind, and that he feared the gen-
tleman 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
6o6 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 gayly home to roost,
between him and the unclouded sky. " The old house will
brighten up now," he said, as he looked toward it, " and
there will be a merry fireside beneath its ivied roof. It is
some comfort to know that every thing 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 toward the War-
ren. 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 man-
sion 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 some-
thing that has been bright, and is but dull, cold, dreary
dust — with which our nature forces us to sympathize. How
much more sad the crumbled embers of a home : the cast-
ing down of that great altar, where the worst among us some-
times perform the worship of the heart ; and where the best
have offered up such sacrifices, and done such deeds of hero-
ism, as, chronicled, would put the proudest temples of old
Time, with all their vaunting annals, to the blush I
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
BARiNABY RUDGE. 607
indolence and command of feature, and displayed itself ut-
terly free from all restraint or reserve — before him, on his
own ground, and triumphing then, as he had triumphed in
ever/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 w^ould 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 an-
guish — to sustain.
All consideration, reflection, mercy, forbearance ; every
thing 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 com-
posure, " 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 tow^ard him
wdth an air of the most courteous inquiry ; and slightly
shook his head as though he were remarking to himself, " I
fear this animal in 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, 1 really beg your pardon — "
"Why, you see," said Mr. Haredale, " those walls. You
see those tottering gables. You see on every side where the
6o8 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 every
thing you speak of, when you stand aside, and do not inter-
pose 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, con-
tinued :
" For you are a philosopher, you know — one of that stern
and rigid school who are far above the weaknesses of man-
kind 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 in-
justice. 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, ana
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—
BARNABY RUDGE. 609
by the abduction and dishonor 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 suffi-
ciently — that 1 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 West-
minster 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. Assum-
ing 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 to 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, 1 am sure."
" Attend to me again, Sir John — but once," cried Mr. Hare-
dale ; " 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 that 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 sus-
pected) you had gone to tempt them, and found them flown.
To you I traced the insinuation that I alone reaped any har-
vest from my brother's death ; and all the foul attacks and
whispered calumnies that followed in its train. In every
6io BARNABY RUDGE.
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 sortof 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 a 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 lO 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 luster on his house ? "
" I have acted," cried Mr. Haredale, ** with honor 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 6ii
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 im-
plore you not to come within the reach of my sword to-
night. Oh ! why were you here at all ! Why have we met !
To-morrow would have cast us far apart forever.''
" That being the case," returned Sir John, without the
least emotion, " it is very fortunate that 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 honor 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 w(3unds. 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 phan-
tom of last night.
CHAPTER THE LAST.
A parting glance at such of the actors in this little his-
tory 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 estab-
lishment, known throughout Europe for the rigor and sever-
ity of its discipline, and for the merciless penitence it ex-
6i2 BARNABY RUDGE.
acted from those who nought 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 recognized 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 disor-
der, 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 investiga-
tion, 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 re-
proof or moderation, that a public subscription was set on
foot in Scotland to defray the cost of his defense.
For seven years afterward he remained, at the strong in-
tercession 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 Can-
terbury, for refusing to appear as a witness in the Ecclesias-
tical 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 (af-
ter 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 go-
ing 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
BARNABY RUDGE. 613
virtue of this sentence he was, in the month of December,
cast into Newgate for five years and ten months, and re-
quired beside to pay a large fine, and to furnish heavy
securities for his future good behavior.
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 con-
forming 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 first 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 mourn-
ers. The prisoners bemoaned his loss, and missed him ; for
though his means were not large, his charity was great, and
in bestowing alms upon 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 New-
gate.
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 ap-
pointment in the honorable corps of spies and eavesdrop-
pers employed by the government. As one of these wretch-
ed underlings, he did his drudgery, sometimes abroad, some-
times at home, and long endured the various miseries of
such a station. Ten or a dozen years ago — not more — a
meager, wan old man, diseased and miserably poor, was
6x4 BARNABY RUDGE.
found dead in his bed at an obscure inn in the Borough,
were he was quite unknown. He had taken poison. There
was no clew to his name ; but it was discovered from certain
entries in a pocket-book he carried, that he had been secre-
tary 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 dur-
ing the late alarms, had cost for his board and lodging four
pounds four per day, and every private soldier two and two-
pence 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 destitu-
tion, and the deepest misery, he made shift to stump back
to his old master, and beg for some relief. By the lock-
smith'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 vvidow 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 checkered 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 retal-
iate 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 mo-
BARNABY RUDGE. 615
ment, that the justices of the peace for Middlesex proclaimed
by public placard that they stood in need of a female turn-
key for the County Bridewell, and appointed a day and
hour for the inspection of candidates. Miss Miggs attend-
ing 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 afterward, remaining single all that
time. It was observed of this lady that while she was in-
flexible 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 occa-
sion, or on no occasion at all, with the fullest measure of her
wrath. Among other useful inventions which she practiced
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 farmyard — 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
6i6 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 cam-
paign ; or before the sergeant left off looking in there, now
and then ; or before they fatigued themselves, or each other,
b) 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 or 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 revelings at Christ-
mas, and celebrations of birthdays, wedding days, and all
manner of days, both at the Maypole and at the Golden
Key — if they are not notorious, what facts are ?
Mr. Willet the elder, having been by some extraordinary
means possessed vv'ith 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 di-
rectly. To this, his new habitation, Tom Cobb, Phil Parkes,
and Solornon 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 ac-
cidentally 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 be-
came 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 jo}' 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 sat-
isfaction.
BARNABY RUDGE. 617
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 alarm-
ing miracle had happened to Joe. Being promptly blooded,
however, by a skillful surgeon, he rallied ; and although the
doctors alfagreed, on his being attacked with symptoms of
apoplexy six months afterward, 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 un-
easiness, for a whole week, when he was suddenly restored
to consciousness by hearing the nurse whisper in his son's
ear that he was going. "I'm a-going, Joseph," said Mr.
Willet, turning round upon the instant, " to the Salwanners "
— and immediately gave up the ghost.
He left a large sum of money behind him ; even more than
he was supposed to have been worth, although the neighbors,
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 had regained his old health and
gayety. 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 free-
dom 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 pouUry
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 Hghter-hearted husbandman, a creature more popular v/ith
young and old, a blither or more happy soul than Barnaby;
6i8 BARNABY RUDGE.
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 numer-
ous 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 pretense, no matter
how full of promise and enjoyment, could he be persuaded to
set foot in the streets ; nor did he ever conquer his repug-
nance 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 a matter of un-
certainty ; but certain it is that for a whole year he never
indulged in ony other sound than a grave, decorous croak.
At the expiration of that term, the morning being bright
and sunny, he was heard to address himself to the horses in
the stable, upon the subject of the kettle, so often men-
tioned 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, /'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
practiced and improved himself in the vulgar tongue ; and
as he was a mere infant for a raven when Barnaby was gray,
he has very probably gone on talking to the present time.
THE
MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
CHAPTER I.
THE DAWN.
An ancient English cathedral tower ? How can the
ancient English cathedral tower be here ! The well-known
massive gray square tower of its old cathedral ? How can
that be here ! There is no spike of rusty iron in the air,
between the eye and it, from any point of the real prospect.
What is the spike that intervenes, and who has set it up ?
May be, it is set up by the sultan's orders for the impaling
of a horde of Turkish robbers, one by one. It is so, for
cymbals clash, and the sultan goes by to his palace in long
procession. Ten thousand cimeters flash in the sunlight,
and thrice ten thousand dancing- girls strew flowers. Then
follow white elephants caparisoned in countless gorgeous
colors, and infinite in number and attendants. Still, the
cathedral tower rises in the background, where it can not
be, and still no writhing figure is on the grim spike. Stay !
Is the spike so low a thing as the rusty spike on the top of
a post of an old bedstead that has tumbled all awry ? Some
vague period of drowsy laughter must be devoted to the
consideration of this possibility.
Shaking from head to foot, the man whose scattered con-
sciousness has thus fantastically pieced itself together, at
length rises, supports his trembling frame upon his arms,
and looks around. He is in the meanest and closest of
small rooms. Through the ragged window-curtain, the
light of early day steals in from a miserable court. He lies.
dressed, across a large unseemly bed, upon a bedstead that
has indeed given way under the weight upon it. Lying, also
dressed and also across the bed, not longwise, are a China-
620 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
man, a Lascar, and a haggard woman. The two first are in
a sleep or stupor ; the last is blowing at a kind of pipe, to
kindle it. And as she blows, and, shading it with her lean
hand, concentrates its red spark of light, it serves in the
dim morning as a lamp to show him what he sees of her.
"Another?" says this woman, in a querulous, rattling
whisper. " Have another ? "
He looks about him, with his hand to his forehead.
** Ye've smoked as many as five since ye come in at mid-
night," the woman goes on, as she chronically complains.
" Poor me, poor me, my head is so bad ! Them two come in
after ye. Ah, poor me, the business is slack, is slack ! Few
Chinamen about the docks, and fewer Lascars, and no ships
coming in, these say ! Here's another ready for ye, deary.
Ye'll remember, like a good soul, won't ye, that the market
price is dreffle high just now ? More nor three shillings and
sixpence for a thimbleful ! And ye'll remember that nobody
but me (and Jack Chinaman t'other side the court ; but he
can't do it as well as me) has the true secret of mixing it ?
Ye'll pay up according, deary, won't ye ? "
She blows at the pipe as she speaks, and, occasionally
bubbling at it, inhales much of its contents.
" Oh me, oh me, my lungs is weak, my lungs is bad ! It's
nearly ready for ye, deary. Ah, poor me, poor me, my
poor hand shakes like to drop off ! I see ye coming to, and
I ses to my poor self, ' I'll have another ready for him, and
he'll bear in mind the market price of opium, and pay
according.' Oh my poor head ! I make my pipes of old
penny ink-bottles, ye see, deary — this is one — and I fits in a
mouthpiece, this way, and I takes my mixter out of this
thimble with this little horn spoon ; and so I fills, deary.
Ah, my poor nerves ! I got heavens-hard drunk for sixteen
year afore I took to this ; but this don't hurt me, not to
speak of. And it takes away the hunger as well as wittles,
deary."
She hands him the nearly emptied pipe, and sinks back,
turning over on her face.
He rises unsteadily from the bed, lays the pipe upon the
hearthstone, draws back the ragged curtain, and looks with
repugnance at his three companions. He notices that the
woman has opium-smoked herself into a strange likeness of
the Chinaman. His form of cheek, eye, and temple, and his
color, are repeated in her. Said Chinaman convulsively
wrestles with ouc of his many gods, or devils, perhaps, and
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 621
snarls horribly. The Lascar laughs and dribbles at the
mouth. The hostess is still.
" What visions can she have?" the waking man muses, as
he turns her face toward him, and stands looking down at it.
" Visions of many butchers' shops, and public-houses, and
much credit ? Of an increase of hideous customers, and this
horrible bedstead set upright again, and this horrible court
swept clean ? What can she rise to, under any quantity of
opium, higher than that ! — Eh ?"
He bends down his ear, to listen to her mutterings.
*' Unintelligible ! "
As he watches the spasmodic shoots and darts that break
out of her face and limbs, like fitful lightning out of a dark
sky, some contagion in them seizes upon him : insomuch
that he has to withdraw himself to a lean arm-chair by the
hearth — placed there, perhaps, for such emergencies — and to
sit in it, holding tight, until he has got the better of this un-
clean spirit of imitation.
Then he comes back, pounces on the Chinaman, and, seiz-
ing him with both hands by the throat, turns him violently
on the bed. The Chinaman clutches the aggressive hands,
resists, gasps, and protests.
" What do you say ? "
A watchful pause.
" Unintelligible ! "
Slowly loosening his grasp as he listens to the incoherent
jargon with an attentive frown, he turns to the Lascar and
fairly drags him forth upon the floor. As he falls, the Las-
car starts into a half-risen attitude, glares with his eyes,
lashes about him fiercely with his arms, and draws a phantom
knife. It then becomes apparent that the woman has taken
possession of his knife, for safety's sake ; for, she too start-
ing up, and restraining and expostulating with him, the
knife is visible in her dress, not in his, when they drowsily
drop back, side by side.
There has been chattering and clattering enough between
them, but to no purpose. When any distinct word has been
flung into the air, it has had no sense or sequence. Where-
fore " unintelligible ! " is again the comment of the watcher,
made with some reassured nodding of his head, and a gloomy
smile. He then lays certain silver money on the table, finds
his hat, gropes his way down the broken stairs, gives a good-
morning to some rat-ridden doorkeeper, in bed in a black
hutch beneath the stairs, and passes out,^ ,
622 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
That same afternoon, the massive gray square tower of an
old cathedral rises before the sight of a jaded traveler. The
bells are going for daily vesper service, and he must needs
attend it, one would say, from his haste to reach the open
cathedral door. The choir are getting on their sullied white
robes, in a hurry, when he arrives among them, gets on his own
robe, and falls into the procession filing in to service. Then
the sacristan locks the iron-barred gates that divide the
sanctuary from the chancel, and all of the procession, having
scuttled into their places, hide their faces ; and then the in-
toned words, " When the Wicked Man — " rise among
groins of arches and beams of roof, awakening muttered
thunder.
CHAPTER II.
A DEAN, AND A CHAPTER ALSO.
Whosoever has observed that sedate and clerical bird, the
rook, may perhaps have noticed that when he Avings his way
homeward toward nightfall, in a sedate and clerical com-
pany, two rooks will suddenly detach themselves from the
rest, will retrace their flight for some distance, and will there
poise and linger — conveying to mere men the fancy that it is
of some occult importance to the body politic that this art-
ful couple should pretend to have renounced connection
with it.
Similarly, service being over in the old cathedral with the
square tower, and the choir scuffling out again, and divers
venerable persons of rook-like aspect dispersing, two of
these latter retrace their steps, and walk together in the
echoing close.
Not only is the day waning, but the year. The low sun
is fiery and yet cold behind the monastery ruin, and the Vir-
ginia creeper on the cathedral wall has showered half its
deep-red leaves down on the pavement. There has been
rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder goes among the
little pools on the cracked, uneven fiaas-stones, and through
the giant elm-trees as they shed a gust of tears. Their fallen
leaves lie strewn thickly about. Some of these leaves, in a
timid rush, seek sanctuary within the low arched cathedral
door ; but two men, coming out, resist them, and cast them
forth again with their feet ; tkis dxjfto, one of the Uvo locks
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 623
the door with a goodly key, and the other flits away with a
folio music-book.
" Mr. Jasper was that, Tope ' "
'*Yes, Mr. Dean."
" He has staid late."
" Yes, Mr. Dean. I have staid for him, your reverence.
He has been took a little poorly."
"Say 'taken,' Tope — to the dean," the younger rook
interposes in a low tone with this touch of correction, as
who should say, " You may offer bad grammar to the laity,
or the humbler clergy, not to the dean."
Mr. Tope, chief verger and showman, and accustomed
to be high with excursion-parties, declines with a silent lofti-
ness to perceive that any suggestion has been tendered to
him.
" And when and how has Mr. Jasper been taken— for, as
Mr. Crisparkle has remarked, it is better to say taken —
taken — " repeats the dean ; " when and how has Mr. Jas-
per been taken "
*' Taken, sir," Tope deferentially murmurs.
" — Poorly, Tope ? "
" Why, sir, Mr. Jasper was that breathed "
" I wouldn't say ' That breathed,' Tope," Mr. Crisparkle
interposes, with the same touch as before. " Not English —
to the dean."
" Breathed to that extent," the dean (not unflattered by
this indirect homage) condescendingly remarks, '' would be
preferable."
" Mr. Jasper's breathing was so remarkably short," thus
discreetly does Mr. Tope work his way round the sunken
rock, ** when he came in, that it distressed him mightily to
get his notes out ; which was perhaps the cause of his hav-
ing a kind of fit on him after a little. His memory grew
Dazed " — Mr. Tope, with his eyes on the Reverend Mr.
Crisparkle, shoots this word out, as defying him to improve
upon it — " and a dimness and giddiness crept over him as
strange as ever I saw : though he didn't seem to mind it
particularly, himself. However, a little time and a little
water brought him out of his Daze." Mr. Tope repeats the
word and its emphasis, with the air of saying, " As I Aave
made a success, I'll make it again."
" And Mr. Jasper has gone home quite himself, has he?"
asked the dean.
" Your revereue^, he hai gone howe ^uite hiaiself. And
624 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
I'm glad to see he's having his fire kindled up, for its chilly-
after the wet, and the cathedral had both a damp feel and a
damp touch this afternoon, and he was very shivery."
They all three looked toward an old stone gate-house
crossing the close, with an arched thoroughfare passing
beneath it. Through its latticed window, a fire shines out
upon the fast-darkening scene, involving in shadow the pen-
dent masses of ivy and creeper covering the building's front.
As the deep cathedral bell strikes the hour, a ripple of wind
goes through these at their distance, like a ripple of the
solemn sound that hums through tomb and tower, broken
niche and defaced statue, in the pile close at hand.
" Is Mr. Jasper's nephew with him ? " the dean asks.
"No, sir," replies the verger, "but expected. There's his
own solitary shadow betwixt his two windows — the one look-
ing this way, and the one looking down into the High Street
— drawing his own curtains now."
** Well, well," says the d^an, with a sprightly air of break-
ing up the little conference, " I hope Mr. Jasper's heart may
not be too much set upon his nephew. Our affections, how-
ever laudable, in this transitory world, should never master
us ; we should guide them, guide them. I find I am not
disagreeably reminded of my dinner, by hearing my dinner-
bell. Perhaps, Mr. Crisparkle, you will, before going home,
look in on Jasper ? "
" Certainly, Mr. Dean. And tell him that you had the
kindness to desire to know how he was ? "
" Ay ; do so, do so. Certainly. Wished to know how he
was. By all means. Wished to know how he was."
With a pleasant air of patronage, the dean as nearly cocks
his quaint hat as a dean in good spirits may, and directs lus
comely gaiters toward the ruddy dining-room of the snug
old red- brick house, where he is at present " in residence "
with Mrs. Dean and Miss Dean.
Mr. Crisparkle, minor canon, fair and rosy, and perpet-
ually pitching himself headforemost into all the deep run-
ning water in the surrounding country ; Mr. Crisparkle,
minor canon, early riser, musical, classical, cheerful, kind^
good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like ; Mr. Cris-
parkle, minor canon and good man, lately " coach " upon the
chief Pagan high-roads, but since promoted by a patron
(grateful for a well-taught son) to his present Christian
beat ; betakes himself to the gate-house, on bis way home to
his e.xrly tea, . ^ . . ^. . .
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DRoOD. 625
" Sorry to hear from Tope that you have not been well,
Jasper."
" Oh, it was nothing, nothing ! "
*' You look a little worn."
"Do I ? Oh, I don't think so. What is better, I don't
feel so. Tope has made too much of it, I suspect. It's his
trade to make the most of every thing appertaining to the
cathedral, you know."
" I may tell the dean — I call expressly from the dean —
that you are all right again ? "
The reply, with a slight smile, is, *' Certainly ; with my
respects and thanks to the dean,"
" I'm glad to hear that you expect young Drood."
"I expect the dear fellow every moment."
** Ah ! He will do you more good than a doctor, Jasper."
" More good than a dozen doctors ; for I love him dearly,
and I don't love doctors, or doctors' stuff."
Mr. Jasper is a dark man of some six-and-twenty, with
thick, lustrous, well-arranged black hair and wliisker. He
looks older than he is, as dark men often do. His voice is
deep and good, his face and figure are good, his manner is
a little somber. His room is a little somber, and may have
had its influence in forming his manner. It is mostly in
shadow. Even when the sun shines brilliantly, it seldom
touches the grand piano in the recess, or the folio music-
books on the stand, or the book-shelves on the wall, or the
unfinished picture of a blooming school-girl hanging over
the chimney-piece ; her flowing brown hair tied with a blue
ribbon, and her beauty remarkable for a quite childish,
almost babyish, touch of saucy discontent, comically con-
scious of itself. (There is not the least artistic merit in this
picture, which is a mere daub ; but it is clear that the painter
has made it humorously — one might almost say, revenge-
fully — like the original.)
" We shall miss you, Jasper, at the ' Alternate Musical
Wednesdays ' to-night ; but no doubt you are best at home.
Good-night. God bless you ! ' Tell me, shep-herds, te-e-ell
me ; tell me-e-e, have you seen (have you seen, have you
seen, have you seen) my-y-y Flo-o-ora pass this way ? * "
Melodiously good minor canon the Reverend Septimus
Crisparkle thus delivers himself in musical rhythm, as he
withdraws his amiable face from the doorway and conveys
it down stairs.
Sounds of recognition and greeting pass bet we<^n the Rev-
626 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
erend Septimus and somebody else, at the stair-foot. Mr.
Jasper listens, starts from his chair, and catches a young
fellow in his arms, exclaiming
" My dear Edwin ! "
*' My dear Jack ! So glad to see you ! "
" Get off your great-coat, bright boy, and sit down here in
your own corner. Your feet are not wet ? Pull your boots
off. Do pull your boots off."
" My dear Jack, I am as dry as a bone. Don't moddley-
coddley, there's a good fellow. I like any thing better than
being moddley-coddleyed."
With the check upon him of being unsympathetically
restrained in a genial outburst of enthusiasm, Mr. Jasper
stands still, and looks on intently at the young fellow, di-
vesting himself of his outer coat, hat, gloves, and so forth.
Once for all, a look of intentness and intensity — a look of
hungry, exacting, watchful, and yet devoted affection — is
always, now and ever afterward, on the Jasper face when-
ever the Jasper face is addressed in this direction. And
whenever it is so addressed, it is never, on this occasion
or on any other, dividedly addressed ; it is always con-
centrated.
" Now I am right, and now I'll take my corner, Jack. Any
dinner, Jack ? "
Mr. Jasper opens a door at the upper end of the room,
and discloses a small inner room pleasantly lighted and
prepared, wherein a comely dame is in the act of setting
dishes on table.
'^ What a jolly old Jack it is ! " cries the young fellow, with
a clap of his hands. *' Look here, Jack; tell me; whose
birthday is it?"
*' Not yours, I know," Mr. Jasper answers, pausing to
consider.
" Not mine, you know ? No ; not mine, /know ! Pussy's! "
Fixed as the look the young fellow meets is, there is yet
in it some strange power of suddenly including the sketch
over the chimney-piece.
" Pussy's, Jack ! We must drink many happy returns to
her. Come, uncle ; take your dutiful and sharp-set nephew
in to dinner."
As the boy (for he is little more) lays a hand on Jasper's
shoulder, Jasper cordially and gayly lays a hand on /lis shoul-
der, and so Marseillaise-M-ise they ^o in to dinner.
" And Lord ! Here's Mrs. Tope'! " cries the boy. " Love-
lier than ever I "
THE MVSTERV OF EDWIN DROOD. 627
"Never you mind me, Master Edwin," retorts the ver-
ger's wife ; " I can take care of myself."
" You can't. You're much too handsome. Give me a
kiss, because it's Pussy's birthday."
"I'd Pussy you, young man, if I was Pussy, as you call
her," Mrs.Tope blushingly retorts, after being saluted. "Your
uncle's too much wrapped up in you, that's where it is. He
makes so much of you that it's my opinion you think you've
only to call your Pussys by the dozen, to make 'em come."
" You forgot, Mrs. Tope," Mr. Jasper interposes, taking
his place at table with a genial smile, " and so do you, Ned,
that uncle and nephew are words prohibited here by com-
mon consent and express agreement. For what we are
going to receive. His holy name be praised ! "
" Done like the dean ! Witness, Edwin Drood I Please
to carve, Jack, for I can't."
This sally ushers in the dinner. Little to the present pur-
pose, or to any purpose, is said, while it is in course of being
disposed of. At length the cloth is drawn, and a dish of
walnuts and a decanter of rich-colored sherry are placed
upon the table.
" I say ! Tell me. Jack," the young fellow then flows on ;
" do you really and truly feel as if the mention of our rela-
tionship divided us at all ? I don't."
" Uncles as a rule, Ned, are so much older than their
nephews," is the reply, " that I have that feeling instinct-
ively."
" As a rule ? Ah, may be ! But what is a difference in
age of half a dozen years or so ; and some uncles, in large
families, are even younger than their nephews. By George,
I wish it was the case with us !
"Why?"
" Because if it was, I'd take the lead with you. Jack, and
be as wise as Begone dull care that turned a young man
gray, and begone dull care that turned an old man to clay.
Halloo, Jack ! Don't drink."
"Why not?"
"Ask why not, on Pussy's birthday, and no happy re-
turns proposed ! Pussy, Jack, and many of 'em ! Happy
returns, I mean."
Laying an affectionate and laughing touch on the boy's
extended hand, as if it were at once his giddy head and his
light heart, Mr. Jasper drinks the toast in silence.
" Hip, hip, hip, and nine times nine, and one to finish
628 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
with, and all that, understood. Hooray, hooray, hooray I
And now, Jack, let's have a little talk about Pussy. Two
pairs of nut-crackers ? Pass me one, and take the other."
Crack. " How's Pussy getting on. Jack ? "
" With her music ? Fairly."
*' What a dreadfully conscientious fellow you are, Jack !
But /know, Lord bless you ! Inattentive, isn't she?
" She can learn any thing, if she will."
" //she will ? Egad, that's it. But if she won't ? '*
Crack. On Mr. Jasper's part.
'* How's she looking, Jack ? "
Mr. Jasper's concentrated face again includes the por-
trait as he returns, *' Very like your sketch indeed."
" I am a little proud of it," says the young fellow, glanc-
ing up at the sketch with complacency, and then shutting
one eye, and taking a corrected prospect of it over a level
bridge of nut-cracker in the air, " Not badly hit off from
memory. But I ought to have caught that expression pretty
well, for I have seen it often enough."
Crack. On Edwin Drood's part.
Crack. On Mr. Jasper's part.
" In point of fact," the former resumes, after some silent
dipping among his fragments of walnut with an air of pique,
" I see it whenever I go to see Pussy. If I don't find it on
her face, I leave it there. You know I do, Miss Scornful
Pert. Booh ! " With a twirl of the nut-crackers at the
portrait.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Slowly, on Mr. Jasper's part.
Crack. Sharply on the part of Edwin Drood.
Silence on both sides.
" Have you lost your tongue, Jack?"
" Have you found yours, Ned ?"
*' No, but really ; — isn't it, you know, after all ! "
Mr. Jasper lifts his dark eyebrows inquiringly.
*' Isn't it unsatisfactory to be cut off from choice in such
a matter ? There, Jack ! I tell you ! If I could choose, I
would choose Pussy from all the pretty girls in the
world."
"But you have not got to choose."
" That's what I complain of. My dead-and-gone father
and Pussy's dead-and-gone father must needs marry us
together by anticipation. Why th^ — devil, I v/as going to
say, if it had been respectful to their memory — couldn't
they leave us alone ? "
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 629
" Tut, tut, dear boy," Mr. Jasper remonstrates, in a tone
of gentle deprecation.
"Tut, tut ? Yes, Jack, it's all very well for jou. You can
take it easily. Your life is not laid down to scale, and
lined and dotted out for you, like a surveyor's plan. You
have no uncomfortable suspicion that you are forced upon
any body, nor has any body an uncomfortable suspicion that
she is forced upon you, or that you are forced upon her.
You can choose for yourself. Life, ior you, is a plum with
the natural bloom on ; it hasn't been over-carefully wiped
off ior you — "
" Don't stop, dear fellow. Go on."
" Can 1 any how have hurt your feelings, Jack ? "
*' How can you have hurt ray feelings ? "
** Good heaven, Jack, you look frightfully ill ! There's a
strange film come over your eyes."
Mr. Jasper, with a forced smile, stretches out his right
hand, as if at once to disarm the apprehension and gain time
to get better. After a while he says faintly —
** I have been taking opium for a pain — an agony — that
sometimes overcomes me. The effects of the medicine steal
over me like a blight or a cloud, and pass. You see them
in the act of passing ; they will be gone directly. Look
away from me. They will go all the sooner,"
With a scared face the younger man complies, by casting
his eyes downward at the ashes on the hearth. Not relax-
ing his own gaze at the fire, but rather strengthening it with
a fierce, firm grip upon his elbow-chair, the elder sits for a
few moments rigid, and then, with thick drops standing on
his forehead, and a sharp catch of his breath, becomes as he
was before. On his so subsiding in his chair, his nephew
gently and assiduously tends him while he quite recovers.
When Jasper is restored, he lays a tender hand upon his
nephew's shoulder, and, in a tone of voice less troubled than
the purport of his words— indeed, with something of rail-
lery or banter in it — thus addresses him —
" There is said to be a hidden skeleton in every house ;
but you thought there was none in mine, dear Ned."
" Upon my life. Jack, I did think so. However, when I
come to consider that even in Pussy's house — if she had one
— and in mine — if I had one — "
" You were going to say (but that I interrupted you in
spite of myself) what a quiet life mine is. No whirl and
uproar around me, no distracting commerce or calculation,
630 THE MYSTERY OF EDWLN DROOD.
no risk, no change of place, myself devoted to the art I pur
sue, my business my pleasure."
" I really was going to say something of the kind, Jack ;
but you see, you, speaking of yourself, almost necessarily
leave out much that I should have put in. For instance ; I
should have put in the foreground your being so much re-
spected as lay precentor, or lay clerk, or whatever you call
it of this cathedral ; your enjoying the reputation of having
done such wonders with the choir ; your choosing your so-
ciety, and holding such an independent position in this queer
old place ; your gift of teaching (why, even Pussy, whodon't
like being taught, says there never was such a master as you
are !) and your connection."
*' Yes ; 1 saw what you were tending to. I hate it."
" Hate it, Jack ?" (Much bewildered.)
" I hate it. The cramped monotony of my existence
grinds me away by the grain. How does our service sound
to you ? "
" Beautiful ! Quite celestial."
" It often sounds to me quite devilish. I am so weary of
it. The echoes of my own voice among the arches seem to
mock me with my daily drudging round. No wretched
monk who droned his life away in that gloomy place, before
me, can have been more tired of it than I am. He could
take for relief (and did take) to carving demons out of the
stalls and seats and desks. What shall I do ? Must I take
to carving them out of my heart ? "
" I thought you had so exactly found your niche in life.
Jack," Edwin Drood returns, astonished, bending forward
in his chair to lay a sympathetic hand on Jasper's knee, and
looking at him with an anxious face.
" 1 know you thought so. They all think so."
" Well ; I suppose they do," says Edwin, meditating
aloud. " Pussy thinks so."
" When did she tell you that ? "
" The last time I was here. You remember when. Three
months ago."
" How did she phrase it ? "
" Oh ! She only said that she had become your pupil,
and that you were made for your vocation."
The younger man glances at the portrait. The elder sees
it in him.
"Anyhow, my dear Ned," Jasper resumes, as he shakes
his head with a grave cheerfulness, " I must subdue myself
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 631
to my vocation, which is much the same thing outwardly.
It's too late to find another now. This is a confidence be-
tween us."
" It shall be sacredly preserved, Jack."
" I have reposed it in you, because — "
*' I feel it, 1 assure you. Because we are fast friends, and
because you love and trust me, as I love and trust you.
Both hands. Jack."
As each stands looking into the other's eyes, and as the
uncle holds the nephew's hands, the uncle thus proceeds: —
*' You know now, don't you, that even a poor monotonous
chorister and grinder of music, in his niche, may be troubled
with some stray sort of ambition, aspiration, recklessness,
dissatisfaction, what shall we call it?"
" Yes, dear Jack."
" And you will remember ? "
" My dear Jack, I only ask you, am I likely to forget
what you have said with so much feeling ?"
" Take it as a warning, then."
In the act of having his hands released, and of moving a
step back, Edwin pauses for an instant to consider the ap-
plication of these last words. The instant over, he says,
sensibly touched :
'' I am afraid I am but a shallow, surface kind of fel-
low. Jack, and that my headpiece is none of the best. But
I needn't say I am young ; and perhaps I shall not grow
worse as I grow older. At all events, I hope I have some-
thing impressible within me, which feels — deeply feels — the
disinterestedness of your painfully laying your inner self
bare, as a warning to me."
Mr. Jasper's steadiness of face and figure becomes so
marvelous that his breathing seems to have stopped.
^' I couldn't fail to notice, Jack, that it cost you a great
effort, and that you were very much moved, and very unlike
your usual self. Of course, I knew that you were extremely
fond of me, but I really was not prepared for your, as I may
say, sacrificing yourself to me, in that way."
Mr. Jasper, becoming a breathing man again without the
smallest stage of transition between the two extreme states,
lifts his shoulders, laughs, and waves his right arm.
" No ; don't put the sentiment away. Jack ; please don't ;
for I am very much in earnest. I have no doubt that that
unhealthy state of mind which you have so powerfully de-
scribed is attended with some real suffering, and is hard to
632 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
bear. But let me reassure you, Jack, as to the chances of
its overcomnig me. I don't think I am in the way of it. In
some few months less than another year, you know 1 shall
carry Pussy off from school as Mrs. Edwin Drood. I shall
then go engineering into the East, and Pussy with me. And
although we have our little tiffs now, arising out of a certain
unavoidable flatness that attends our love-making, owing to its
end all being settled beforehand, still I have no doubt of our
getting on capitally then when it's done and can't be helped.
In short, Jack, to go back to the old song I was freely quot-
ing at dinner (and who knows old songs better than you !),
my wife shall dance and I will sing, so merrily pass the day.
Of Pussy's being beautiful there can not be a doubt ; and
when you are good beside. Little Miss Impudence," once
more apostrophizing the portrait, " I'll burn your comic like-
ness and paint your music master another."
Mr. Jasper, with his hand to his chin, and with an expres-
sion of musing benevolence on his face, has attentively
watched every animated look and gesture attending the de-
livery of these words. He remains in that attitude after
they are spoken, as if in a kind of fascination attendant on
his strong interest in the youthful spirit that he loves so well.
Then he says, with a quiet smile :
"You won't be warned, then?"
" No, Jack."
" You can't be warned, then ? "
" No, Jack, not by you. Beside that I don't really con-
sider myself in danger, I don't like your putting yourself in
that position."
" Shall we go and walk in the church-yard ? "
** By all means. You won't mind my slipping out of it for
half a moment to the Nuns' House, and leaving a parcel
there ? Only gloves for Pussy ; as many pairs of gloves as
she is years old to-day. Rather poetical, Jack ? "
Mr. Jasper, still in the same attitude, murmurs, " ' Noth-
ing half so sweet in life,' Ned ! "
" Here's the parcel in my great-coat pocket. They must
be presented to-night, or the poetry is gone. It's against
regulations for me to call at night, but not to leave a packet.
I am ready. Jack ! "
Mr. Jasper dissolves his attitude, and they go out to-
gether.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 633
CHAPTER in.
THE nuns' house.
For sufficient reasons which this narrative will itself un-
fold as it advances, a fictitious name must be bestowed upon
the old cathedral town. Let it stand in these pages as
Cloisterham. It was once possibly known to the Druids by
another name, and certainly to the Romans by another, and
to the Saxons by another, and to the Normans by another ;
and a name more or less in the course of many centuries can
be of little moment to its dusty chronicles.
An ancient city Cloisterham, and no meet dwelling-place
for any one with hankerings after the noisy world. A mo-
notonous, silent city, deriving an earthy flavor throughout',
from its cathedral cript, and so abounding in vestiges of
monastic graves, that the Cloisterham children grow small
salad in the dust of abbots and abbesses, and make dirt-pies
of nuns and friars ; while every plowman in its outlying
fields renders to once puissant lord treasurers, archbish-
ops, bishops, and such like, the attention, which the_ ogre
in the story-book desired to render to his unbidden visitor,
and grinds their bones to make his bread.
A drowsy city Cloisterham, whose inhabitants seem to
suppose, with an inconsistency more strange than lare, that
all its changes lie behind it, and that there are no more to
come. A queer moral to derive from antiquity, yet older
than any traceable antiquity. So silent are the streets of
Cloisterham (though prone to echo on the smallest provoca-
tion), that of a summer day the sunblinds of its shops scarce
dare to flap in the south wind ; while the sun-browned
tramps who pass along and stare, quicken their limp a little,
that they may the sooner get beyond the confines of its
oppressive respectability. This is a feat not difficult of
achievement, seeing that the streets of Cloisterham city are
little more than one narrow street by which you get into it
and get out of it : the rest being mostly disappointing yards
with pumps in them and no thoroughfare — exception made
of the cathedral close, and a paved Quaker settlement, in
color and general conformation very like a Quakeress's
bonnet, up in a shady corner.
In a word, a city of another and a by-gone time is Cloi«-
634 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIxN DROOD.
terham, with its hoarse cathedral bell, its hoarse rooks hover-
ing about the cathedral tower, its hoarser and less distinct
rooks in the stalls far beneath. Fragments of old wall,
saint's chapel, chapter-house, convent, and monastery have
got incongruously or obstructively built into many of its
houses and gardens, much as kindred jumbled notions have
become incorporated into many of its citizens' minds. All
things in it are of the past. Even its single pawnbroker
takes in no pledges, nor has he for a long time, but offers
vainly an unredeemed stock for sale, of which the costlier
articles are dim and pale old watches apparently in a slow
perspiration, tarnished sugar-tongs with ineffectual legs, and
odd volumes of dismal books. The most abundant and the
most agreeable evidences of progressing life in Cloisterham
are the evidences of vegetable life in its many gardens ;
even its droopmg and despondent little theater has its poor
strip of garden, receiving the foul fiend, when he ducks
from its stage into the infernal regions, among scarlet beans
or oyster-shells, according to the season of the year.
In the midst of Cloisterham stands the Nuns' House ,
a venerable brick edifice whose present appellation doubt-
less is derived from the legend of its conventual uses.
On the trim gate inclosing its old court-yard is a re-
splendent brass plate flashing forth the legend : " Seminary
for Young Ladies. Miss Twinkleton." The house-front
is so old and worn, and the brass plate is so shining and star-
ing, that the general result has reminded imaginative stran-
gers of a battered old beau with a large modern eye-glass
stuck in his blind eye.
Whether the nuns of yore, being of a submissive rather
than a stiff-necked generation, habitually bent their contem-
plative heads to avoid collision with the beams in the low
ceilings of the many chambers of their house : whether
they sat in its long low windows, telling their beads for their
mortification instead of making necklaces of them for their
adornment ; whether they were ever walled up alive in odd
angles and jutting gables of the building for having some
ineradicable leaven of busy mother Nature in them which
has kept the fermenting world alive ever since ; — these may
be matters of interest to its haunting ghosts (if any), but
constitute no item in Miss Twinkleton's half-yearly accounts.
They are neither of Miss Twinkleton's inclusive regulars,
nor of her extras. The lady who undertakes the poetical
department of the establishment at so much (or so little) a
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 635
quarter, has no pieces in her list of recitals bearing on such
unprofitable questions.
As, in some cases of drunkenness, and in others of animal
magnetism, there are two states of consciousness which never
clas^h, but each of which pursues its separate course as though
it were continuous instead of broken (thus if I hide my watch
when 1 am drunk, I must be drunk again before I can remem-
ber where), so Miss Twinkleton has two distinct and separate
phases of being. Every night, the moment the young ladies
have retired to rest, does Miss Twinkleton smarten up hei
curls a little, brighten up her eyes a little, and become a spright-
lier Miss Twinkleton than the young ladies have ever seen.
Every night, at the same hour, does Miss Twinkleton resume
the topics of the previous night, comprehending the tenderer
scandal of Cloisterham, of which she has no knowledge what-
ever by day, and references to a certain season at Tunbridge
Wells (airily called by Miss Twinkleton in this state of her
existence " The Wells"), notably the season wherein a cer-
tain finished gentleman (compassionately called by Miss
Twinkleton in this state of her existence, " Foolish Mr. Por-
ters ") revealed a homage of the heart, whereof Miss Twmkle-
ton, in her scholastic state of existence, is as ignorant as a
granite pillar. Miss Twinkleton's companion in both states
of existence, and equally adaptable to either, is one Mrs.
Tisher, a deferential widow with a weak back, a chronic
sigh, and a suppressed voice, who looks after the young
ladies' wardrobes, and leads them to infer that she has seen
better days. Perhaps this is the reason why it is an article
of faith with the servants, handed down from race to race,
that the departed Tisher was a hairdresser.
The pet pupil of the Nuns' House is Miss Rosa Bud, of
course called Rosebud ; wonderfully pretty, wonderfully
childish, wonderfully whimsical. An awkward interest
(awkward because romantic) attaches to Miss Bud in the
minds of the young ladies, on account of its being known
to them that a husband has been chosen for her by will and
bequest, and that her guardian is bound down to bestow her
on that husband when he comes of age. Miss Twinkleton,
in her seminarial state of existence, has combated the
romantic aspect of this destiny by affecting to shake her
head over it behind Miss Bud's dimpled shoulders, and to
brood on the unhappy lot of that doomed little victim. But
with no better effect— possibly some unfelt touch of foolish
Mr. Porters has undermined the endeavor— than to evoke
6^6 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
from the young ladies a unanimous bedchamber cry of *'0h !
what a pretending o!d thing Miss Twinkleton is, my dear I "
The Nuns' House is never in such a state of flutter as
when this allotted husband calls to see little Rosebud. (It
is unanimously understood by the young ladies that he is
lawfully entitled to this privilege, and that if Miss Twinkle-
ton disputed it she would be instantly taken up and trans-
ported.) When his ring at the gate bell is expected, or takes
place, every young lady who can, under any pretense, look
out of window, looks out of window ; while every young
lady who is " practicing " practices out of time ; and the
French class becomes so demoralized that the mark goes
round as briskly as the bottle at a convivial party in the last
century.
On the afternoon of the day next after the dinner of two
at the Gate House the bell is rung with the usual fluttering
results.
*' Mr. Edwin Drood to see Miss Rosa."
This is the announcement of the parlor- maid in chief.
Miss Twinkleton, with an exemplary air of melancholy on
her, turns to the sacrifice, and says, " You may go^down, my
dear." Miss Bud goes down, followed by all eyes.
Mr. Edwin Drood is waiting in Miss Twinkleton's own
parlor — a dainty room, with nothing more directly scholastic
in it than a terrestrial and a celestial globe. These express-
ive machines imply (to parents and guardians) that even
when Miss Twinkleton retires into the bosom of privacy,
duty may at any moment compel her to become a sort of
Wandering Jewess, scouring the earth and soaring through
the skies in search of knowledge for her pupils.
The last new maid, who has never seen the young gentle-
man Miss Rosa is engaged to, and who is making his
acquaintance between the hinges of the open door, left open
for the purpose, stumbles guiltily down the kitchen stairs,
as a charming little apparition with its face concealed by a
little silk apron thrown over its head, glides into the par-
lor.
" Oh ! It is so ridiculous ! " says the apparition, stopping
and shrinking. " Don't, Eddy ! "'
** Don't what, Rosa?"
" Don't come any nearer, please. It is so absurd."
" What is absurd, Rosa .? "
"The whole thing is. It is so absurd to be an engaged
orphan ; and it is so absurd to have the girls and the serv-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 637
ants scuttling about after one, like mice in the wainscot ;
and it is so absurd to be called upon ! "
The apparition appears to have a thumb in the corner of
its mouth while making this complaint.
" You give me an affectionate reception, Pussy, I must
say."
"Well, I will in a minute, Eddy, but I can't just yet.
How are you?" (very shortly).
" I am unable to reply that I am much the better for
seeing you, Pussy, inasmuch as I see nothing of you,"
This second remonstrance brings a dark, bright, pouting
eye out from a corner of the apron ; but it swiftly becomes
invisible again, as the apparition exclaims, " Oh ! good
gracious, you have had half your hair cut off ! "
" I should have done better to have had my head cut off,
I think," says Edwin, rumpling the hair in question, with a
fierce glance at the looking-glass, and giving an impatient
stamp. " Shall I go ? "
" No, you needn't go just yet, Eddy. The girls would all
be asking questions why you went."
" Once for all, Rosa, will you uncover that ridiculous little
head of yours and give me a welcome ?"
The apron is pulled off the childish head, as its wsarer re-
plies, " You're very welcome, Eddy. There ! I'm sure that's
nice. Shake hands. No, I can't kiss you, because I've got
an acidulated drop in my mouth."
" Are you at all glad to see me. Pussy ? "
'*0h yes, I'm dreadfully glad. — Go and sit down. — Mish
Twinkleton."
It is the custom of that excellent lady, when these visits
occur, to appear every three minutes, either in her own per-
son or in that of Mrs. Tisher, and lay an offering on the
shrine of propriety by affecting to look for some desiderated
article. On the present occasion. Miss Twinkleton, grace-
fully gliding in and out, says, in passing, " How do you do,
Mr. Drood ? Very glad indeed to have the pleasure. Pray
excuse me. Tweezers. Thank you ! "
" I got the gloves last evening, Eddy, and I like them very
much. They are beauties."
" Well, that's something," the affianced replies, half grum-
bling. '' The smallest encouragement thankfully received^
And how did you pass your birthday, Pussy? "
" Delightfully ! Every body gave me a present. And we
had a feast. And we had a ball at night."
6sS THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" A feast and a ball, eh ? These occasions seem to go off
toleraljly well wiiliout me, Pussy."
'* De-lightfully ! " cries Rosa, in a quite spontaneous man-
ner, and without the least pretense of reserve.
*' Hah ! And what was the feast ? "
" Tarts, oranges, jellies and shrimps."
" Any partners at the ball ? "
" We danced with one another, of course, sir. But some
of the girls made game to be their brothers. It ii/as so
droll ! "
" Did any body make game to be — "
" To be you ? Oh dear, yes ! " cries Rosa, laughing with
great enjoyment. " That was the first thing done."
" I hope she did it pretty well," says Edwin, rather doubt-
fully.
" Oh ! It was excellent ! — I wouldn't dance with you,
you know."
Edwin scarcely seems to see the force of this ; begs to
know if he may take the liberty to ask why ?
" Because I was so tired of you," returns Rosa. But she
quickly adds, and pleadingly, too, seeing displeasure in his
face : " Dear Eddy, you were just as tired of me, you know."
" Did I say so, Rosa ? "
" Say so ! Do you ever say so ? No, you only showed it.
Oh, she did it so well ! " cries Rosa, in a sudden ecstasy wdth
her counterfeit betrothed.
" It strikes me that she must be a devilish impudent girl,"
says Edwin Drood. " And so. Pussy, you have passed your
last birthday in this old house."
" Ah, yes ! " Rosa vjlasps her hands, looks down with a
sigh, and shakes her head.
" You seem to be sorry, Rosa."
*' I am sorry for the poor old place. Somehow, I feel as if
it would miss me, when I am gone so far. away, so young."
'' Perhaps we had better stop short, Rosa ! "
She looks up at him with a swift, bright look ; next mo-
ment shakes her head, sighs, and looks down again.
" That is to say, is it. Pussy, that we are both resigned ? "
She nods her head again, and after a short silence, quaintly
bursts out with, " You know' we must be married, and mar-
ried from here, Eddy, or the poor girls will be so dreadfully
disappointed ! "
For the moment there is more of compassion, both for her
and for himself, in her affianced husband's face, than there
THE MVS lERV OF EDWIN DROOD. 639
is of love. He checks the look, and asks, *' Shall I take you
out for a walk, Rosa dear ? "
Rosa dear does not seem at all clear on this point, until
her face, which has been comically reflective, brightens.
'* Oh yes, Eddy ; let us go for a walk ! And I tell you what
we'll do. You shall pretend that you are engaged to some-
body else, and I'll pretend that I am not engaged to any body
and then we shan't quarrel."
" Do you think that will prevent our falling out, Rosa ? "
" I know it will. Hush ! Pretend to look out of window
-Mrs. Tisher ! "
Through a fortuitous concourse of accidents, the matronly
Tislier heaves in sight, says, in rustling through the room
like the legendary ghost of a dowager in silken skirts, " 1
hope I see Mr. Drood well ; though I needn't ask, if I may
judge from his complexion ? I trust I disturb no one ; but
there was a paper knife — Oh, thank you, I am sure ! " and
disappears with her prize.
" One other thing you must do, Eddy, to oblige me," says
Rosebud. " The moment we get into the street, you must
put me outside, and keep close to the house yourself, —
squeeze and graze yourself against it."
" By all means, Rosa, if you wish it. Might I ask why ? ''
" Oh, because I don't want the girls to see you."
" It's a fine day ; but would you like me to carry an um-
brella up ? "
" Don't be foolish, sir. You haven't got polished leather
boots on," pouting, with one shoulder raised.
" Perhaps that might escape the notice of the girls, even
if they did see me," remarks Edwin, looking down at his
boots with a sudden distaste for them.
*' Nothing escapes their notice, sir. And then I know
what would happen. Some of them would begin reflecting
on me by saying (for they are free) that they never will on
any account engage themselves to lovers without polished
leather boots. Hark ! Miss Twinkleton. I'll ask for
leave."
The discreet lady being indeed heard without, inquiring
of nobody in a blandly conversational tone as she advances,
*' Eh ? Indeed ? Are you quite sure you saw my mother-of-
pearl button-holder on the work-table in my room ? " is at
once solicited for walking leave, and graciously accords it.
And soon the young couple go out of the Nuns* House, tak-
ing all precautions against the discovery of the so vitally
640 THE MYSTERY OF EDWiN DROOD.
»
defective boots of Mr. Edwin Drood — precautions, let us
hope, effective for the peace of Mrs. Edwin Drood, that is
to be.
" Which way shall we take, Rosa ? "
Rosa replies, " I want to go to the Lumps-of-Delight
shop."
" To the—"
" A Turkish sweetmeat, sir. My gracious me ! don't you
understand any thing ? Call yourself an engineer, and not
know that ? "
'* Why, how should 1 know it, Rosa ? "
" Because I am very fond of them. But oh ! I forgot
what we are to pretend. No, you needn't know any thing
about them ; never mind."
So he is gloomily borne off to the Lumps-of-Delight shop,
where Rosa makes her purchase, and, after offering some to
him (which he rather indignantly declines), begins to par-
take of it with great zest, previously taking off and rolling
up a pair of little pink gloves, like rose-leaves, and occasion-
ally putting her little pink fingers to her rosy lips, to cleanse
them from the Dust of Delight that comes off the Lumps.
" Now, be a good-tempered Eddy, and pretend. And so
you are engaged ? "
" And so I am engaged.'*
" Is she nice? "
** Charming."
" Tall ? "
" Immensely tall ? " (Rosa being short.)
" Must be gawky, I should think," is Rosa's quiet com-
mentary.
" I beg your pardon : not at all," contradiction rising
in him. " What is termed a fine woman, a splendid woman."
*' Big nose, no doubt," is the quiet commentary again.
" Not a little one, certainly," is the quick reply. (Rosa's
being a little one.)
*' Long pale nose, with a red knob in the middle. /
know the sort of nose," says Rosa, with a satisfied nod, and
tranquilly enjoying the Lumps.
*' You {/o/i't know the sort of nose, Rosa," with some
warmth ; "because it's nothing of the kind."
" Not a pale nose, Eddy ? "
*' No." Determined not to assent.
** A red nose? Oh ! I don't like red noses However,
to be sure, she can always powder it."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 641
" She would scorn to powder it," says Edwin, becoming
heated.
'' Would she ? What a stupid thing she must be ! Is she
stupid in every thing ? "
*' No. In nothing."
After a pause, in which the whimsically wicked face has
not been unobservant of him, Rosa says, —
"And this most sensible of creatures likes the idea of
being carried off to Egypt ; does she, Eddy ? "
*' Yes. She takes a sensible interest in triumphs of engi-
neering skill, especially when they are to change the whole
condition of an undeveloped country."
" Lor ! " says Rosa, shrugging her shoulders, with a little
laugh of wonder.
" Do you object," Edwin inquires, with a majestic turn of
his eyes downward upon the fairy figure, — " do you object,
Rosa, to her feeling that interest ? "
"Object? My dear Eddy! But really. Doesn't she
hate boilers and things ? "
" I can answer for her not being so idiotic as to hate boil-
ers," he returns, with angry emphasis ; " though I can not
answer for her views about things, really not understanding
what things are meant."
" But don't she hate Arabs, and Turks, and Fellahs, and
people ? "
"Certainly not," very firmly.
" At least, she mint hate the Pyramids ? Come, Eddy ? "
" Why should she be such a little — tall, I mean— goose, as
to hate the Pyramids, Rosa? "
"Ah ! you should hear Miss Twinkleton," often nodding
her head, and much enjoying the Lumps, " bore about them,
and then you wouldn't ask. Tiresome old burying grounds !
Isises, and Ibises, and Cheopses, and Pharaohses ; who
cares about them ? And then there was Belzoni or some-
body, dragged out by the legs, half choked with bats and
dust. All the girls say serve him right, and hope it hurt
him, and wish he had been quite choked."
The two youthful figures, side by side, but not now arm
in arm, wander discontentedly about the old close ; and
each sometimes stops and slowly imprints a deeper footstep
in the fallen leaves.
" Well ! " says Edwin, after a lengthy silence. "Accord-
ing to custom. We can't get on, Rosa,"
Rosa tosses her head, and says she don't want to get on.
642 THE MYSTERV OF EDWIN DROOD.
*' That's a pretty sentiment, Rosa, considering."
" Considering what ? "
*' If I say what, you'll go wrong again."
" You'll go wrong, you mean, Eddy. Don't be ungener-
ous."
" Ungenerous ! I like that ! "
** Then I do?it like that, and so I tell you plainly," Rosa
pouts.
^' Now, Rosa, I put it to you. Who disparaged my profes-
sion, my destination "
" You are not going to be buried in the Pyramids, I
hope ? " she interrupts, arching her delicate eyebrows. *' You
never said you were. If you are, why haven't you mentioned
it to me ? I can't find out your plans by instinct."
** Now, Rosa, you know very well what I mean, my
dear."
" Well, then, why did you begin with your detestable red-
nosed giantess ? And she would, she would, she would,
she would, she would powder it ! " cried Rosa, in a little
burst of comical contradictory spleen.
*' Somehow or other, 1 never can come right in these dis-
cussions," says Edwin, sighing and becoming resigned.
" How is it possible, sir, that you ever can come right
when you're always wrong ? And as to Belzoni. I suppose
he's dead ; — I'm sure I hope he is — and how can his legs or
his chokes concern you ? "
'' It is nearly time for your return, Rosa. We have not
had a very happy walk, have we ? "
" A happy walk ? A detestably unhappy walk, sir. If I
go up-stairs the moment 1 get in and cry till I can't take my
dancing lesson, you are responsible, mind ! "
" Let us be friends, Rosa."
" Ah ! " cries Rosa, shaking her head and bursting into
real tears. " I wish we coind be friends ! It's because we
can't be friends, that we try one another so. I am a young
little thing, Eddy, to have an old heartache ; but I really,
really have sometimes. Don't be angry. I know you have
one yourself, too often. We should both of us have done
better, if What is to be had been left What might have been.
I am quite a serious little thing now, and not teasing you.
Let each of us forbear, tiiis one time, on our own account,
and on the other's ! "
Disarmed by this glimpse of a woman's nature in the spoiled
child, though for an instant disposed to resent it as seeming
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 643
to involve the enforced infliction of himself upon her, Ed-
win Drood stands Avatching her as she childishly cries and
sobs, with both hands to the handkerchief at her eyes, and
then — she becoming more composed, and indeed beginning,
in her young inconsistency, to laugh at herself for having
been so moved — leads her to a seat hard by under the elm-
trees.
'^ One clear word of understanding, Pussy dear. I am
not clever out of my own line — now I come to think of it, I
don't know that I am particularly clever in it — but I want to
do right. There is not — there may be — I really don't see
my way to what I want to say, but I must say it before we
part — there is not any other young "
" Oh no, Eddy ! It's generous of you to ask ; but no, no,
no ! "
They have come very near to the cathedral windows, and
at this moment the organ and the choir sound out sublimely.
As they sit listening to the solemn swell, the confidence of
last night rises in young Edwin Drood's mind, and he thinks
how unlike this music is to that discordance.
" I fancy I can distinguish Jack's voice," is his remark in
a low tone in connection with the train of thought.
" Take me back at once, please," urges his affianced,
quickly laying her light hand upon his wrist. " They will
all be commg out directly ; let us get away. Oh, what a re-
sounding chord ! But don't let us stop to listen to it ; let us
get away ! "
Her hurry is over, as soon as they have passed out of the
close. They go, arm in arm now, gravely and deliberately
enough, along the old High Street, to the Nuns' House. At
the gate, the street being within sight empty, Edwin bends
down his face to Rosebud's.
She remonstrates, laughing, and is a childish school-girl
again.
" Eddy, no ! I'm too sticky to be kissed. But give me
your hand, and I'll blow a kiss into that."
He does so. She breathes a light breath into it, and asks,
retaining it and looking into it :
'* Now say, what do you see ? "
*' See, Rosa ? "
*' Why, I thought you Egyptian boys could look into a
hand and see all sorts of phantoms ? Can't you see a happy
future ? "
For certain, neither of them sees a happy p-esent, as the
644 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
gate opens and closes, and one goes in and the other goes
away.
CHAPTER IV.
MR. SAPSEA.
Accepting the jackass as the type of self-sufficient
stupidity and conceit — a custom, perhaps, like some few-
other customs, more conventional than fair — then the
purest jackass in Cloisterham is Mr. Thomas Sapsea, auc-
tioneer.
Mr. Sapsea " dresses at " the dean ; has been bowed to
for the dean, in mistake ; has even been spoken to in the
street as my lord, under the impression that he was the bishop
come down unexpectedly, without his chaplain. Mr. Sapsea
is very proud of this, and of his voice, and of his style. He
has even (in selling landed property) tried the experiment
of slightly intoning in his pulpit, to make himself more like
what he takes to be the genuine ecclesiastical article. So,
in ending a sale by public auction, Mr. Sapsea finishes off
with an air of bestowing a benediction on the assembled
brokers, which leaves the real dean — a modest and worthy
gentleman — far behind.
Mr. Sapsea has many admirers ; indeed, the proposition is
carried by a large local majority, even including non-be-
iievers in his wisdom, that he is a credit to Cloisterham.
He possesses the great qualities of being portentous and
dull, and of having a roll in his speech, and another roll
in his gait ; not to mention a certain gravely flowing action
with his hands, as if he were presently going to confirm the
individual with whom he holds discourse. Much nearer
sixty years of age than fifty, with a flowing outline of
stomach, and horizontal creases in his waistcoat ; reputed
to be rich ; voting at elections in the strictly respectable
interest ; morally satisfied that nothing but he himself
has grown since he was a baby ; how can dunder-headed
Mr. Sapsea be otherwise than a credit to Cloisterham_ and
society ?
Mr. Sapsea's premises are in the High Street, over against
the Nuns' House. They are of about the period of the
Nuns' House, irregularly modernized here and there, as
steadily deteriorating generations found, more and more,
that they preferred air and light to fever and the plague.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 645
Over the doorway is a wooden effigy, about half life-size,
representing Mr. Sapsea's father in a curly wig and toga, in
the act of selling. The chastity of the idea, and the natural
appearance of the little finger, hammer, and pulpit, have
been much admired.
Mr. Sapsea sits in his dull ground-floor sitting-room, giv-
ing first on his paved back-yard, and then on his railed-off
garden. Mr. Sapsea has a bottle of port-wine on a table
before the fire — the fire is an early luxury, but pleasant on
a cool, chilly autumn evening — and is characteristically
attended by his portrait, his eight-day clock, and his weather-
glass. Characteristically, because he would uphold himself
against mankind, his weather-glass against weather, and his
clock against time.
By Mr. Sapsea's side on the table are a writing-desk and
writing materials. Glancing at a scrap of manuscript,
Mr. Sapsea reads it to himself with a lofty air, and then,
slowly pacing the room with his thumbs in the arm-holes of
his waistcoat, repeats it from memory ; so internally,
though with much dignity, that the word " Ethelinda " is
alone audible.
There are three clean wine-glasses in a tray on the table.
His serving-maid entering and announcing " Mr. Jasper is
come, sir," Mr. Sapsea waves " Admit him," and draws two
wine-glasses from the rank, as being claimed.
" Glad to see you, sir. I congratulate myself on having
the honor of receiving you here for the first time." Mr.
Sapsea does the honors of his house in this wise.
'' You are very good. The honor is mine and the self-
congratulation is mine."
*' You are pleased to say so, sir. But 1 do assure you that
it is a satisfaction to me to receive you in my humble home.
And that is what I would not say to every body." Ineffable
loftiness on Mr. Sapsea's part accompanies these words, as
leaving the sentence to be understood : " You will not easily
believe that your society can be a satisfaction to a man like
myself ; nevertheless it is."
'' I have for some time desired to know you, Mr. Sapsea."
" And I, sir, have long known you by reputation as a man
of taste. Let me fill your glass. I will give you, sir," says
Mr. Sapsea, filling his own —
" When the French come over.
May we meet them at Dover I *'
646 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
This was a patriotic toast in Mr. Sapsea's infancy, and liz
is therefore fully convinced of its being appropriate to any
subsequent era.
*'You can scarcely be ignorant, Mr. Sapsea," observes
Jasper, watching the auctioneer with a smile, as the latter
stretches out his legs before the fire, ** that you know the
world,"
" Well, sir," is the chuckling reply, " I think I know som^ "
thing of it — something of it."
'* Your reputation for that knowledge has always interested
and surprised me, and made me wish to know you. For
Cloisterham is a little place. Cooped up in it myself, I
know nothing beyond it, and feel it to be a very little
place."
" If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man,"
Mr. Sapsea begins, and then stops — " You will excuse my
calling you young man, Mr. Jasper ? You are much my
junior."
" By all means."
" If I have not gone to foreign countries, young man,
foreign countries have come to me. They have come to me
in the way of business, and I have improved upon my oppor-
tunities. Put it that I take an inventory, or make a cata-
logue. I see a French clock. I never saw him before in my
life, but I instantly lay my finger on him and say * Paris ! '
I see some cups and saucers of Chinese make, equally
strangers to me personally ; I put my finger on them, then
and there, and I say ' Pekin, Nankin, and Canton.' It is
the same with Japan, with Egypt, and with bamboo and san-
dal-wood from the East Indies ; I put my finger on them all.
I have put my finger on the North Pole before now, and
said, * Spear of Esquimaux make,' for half a pint of pale
sherry ! "
" Really ? A very remarkable way, Mr. Sapsea, of acquir-
ing a knowledge of men and things."
" 1 mention it, sir," Mr. Sapsea rejoins, witli unspeakable
complacency, " because, as I say, it don't do to boast of
what you are ; but show how you came to be it, and then
you prove it."
** Most interesting. We were to speak of the late Mrs.
Sapsea."
"We were, sir." Mr. Sapsea fills both glasses, and takes
the decanter into safekeeping again. " Before I consult
your opinion as a man of taste on this little trifle," hoklin:i
THE iMVSTERY OF EDWiN DROOD. 64V
it up, "which is but a trifle, and still has required some
thought, sir, some little fever of the brow, I ought perhaps
to describe the character of the late Mrs. Sapsea, now dead
three quarters of a year."
Mr. Jasper, in the act of yawning behind his wine glass,
puts down that screen and calls up a look of interest. It is
a little impaired in its expressiveness by his having a shut up
gape still to dispose of, with watering eyes.
'* Half a dozen years ago, or so," Mr, Sapsea proceeds,
" when I had enlarged ray mind up to — I will not say to
what it now is, for that might seem to aim at too much, but
up to the pitch of wanting another mind to be absorbed in it
— I cast my eye about me for a nuptial partner. Because, as
I say, it is not good for man to be alone."
Mr. Jasper appears to commit this original idea to mem-
ory.
" Miss Brobity at that time kept, I will not call it the rival
establishment to the establishment at the Nuns' House op-
posite, but I will call it the other parallel establishment down
town. The world did have it that she showed a passion for
attending my sales, when they took place on half-holidays,
or in vacation time. The world did put it about that she
admired my style. The world did notice that, as time
flowed by, my style became traceable in the dictation-exer-
cises of Miss Brobity's pupils. Young man, a whisper even
sprang up in obscure malignity, that one ignorant and be-
sotted churl (a parent) so committed himself as to object to
it by name. But I do not believe this. For is it likely that
any human creature in his right senses would so lay himself
open to be pointed at, by what I call the finger of scorn ? "
Mr. Jasper shakes his head. Not in the least likely. Mr.
Sapsea, in a grandiloquent state of absence of mind, seems
to refill his visitor's glass, which is full already, and does
really refill his own, which is empty.
'' Miss Brobity's being, young man, was deeply imbued
with homage to mind. She revered mind, when launched,
or, as I say, precipitated on an extensive knowledge of the
world. When I made my proposal, she did me the honor
to be so overshadowed with a species of awe, as to be able
to articulate only the two words, ' Oh Thou ! ' — meaning
myself. Her limpid blue eyes were fixed upon me, her
semi-transparent hands were clasped together, pallor over-
spread her aquiline features, and, though encouraged to
648 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
proceed, slie never did proceed a word further. I disposed
of the parallel establishment, by private contract, and we
became as nearly one as could be expected under the cir-
cumstances. But she never could, and she never did, find
a phrase satisfactory to her perhaps-too-favorable estimate
of my intellect. To the very last (feeble action of liver),
she addressed me in the same unfinished terms."
Mr. Jasper has closed his eyes as the auctioneer has
deepened his voice. He now abruptly opens them, and
says, in unison with the deepened voice, " Ah ! " — rather as
if stopping himself on the extreme verge of adding —
men !
*' I have been since," says Mr. Sapsea, with his legs
stretched out, and solemnly enjoying himself with the wine
and the fire, " what you behold me ; I have been since a
solitary mourner ; I have been since, as I say, wasting my
evening conversation on the desert air. I will not say that
I have reproached myself ; but there have been times when
I have asked myself the question, What if her husband had
been nearer on a level with her ? If she had not had to look
up quite so high, what might the stimulating action have
been upon the liver ? "
Mr. Jasper says, with an appearance of having fallen
into dreadfully low spirits, that he " supposes it was to
be."
" We can only suppose so, sir," Mr. Sapsea coincides.
"As I say, man proposes, heaven disposes. It may or may
not be putting the same thought in another form ; but that
is the way I put it."
Mr. Jasper murmurs assent.
'* And now, Mr. Jasper," resumes the auctioneer, produc-
ing his scrap of manuscript, *' Mrs. Sapsea's monument
haying had full time to settle and dry, let me take your
opinion, as a man of taste, on the inscription I have (as I
before remarked, not without some little fever of the brow)
drawn out for it. Take it in your own hand. The setting
out of the lines requires to be followed with the eye, as well
as the contents with the mind."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 649
Mr. Jasper, complying, sees and reads as follows :
ETHELINDA,
Reverential Wife of
MR. THOMAS SAPSEA,
AUCTIONEER, VALUER, ESTATE AGENT, ETC.
OF THIS CITY.
Whose Knowledge of the World,
Though somewhat extensive.
Never brought him acquainted with
A SPIRIT
More capable of
LOOKING. UP TO HIM.
STRANGER, PAUSE,
And ask thyself the question,
CANST THOU DO LIKEWISE?
If Not,
WITH A BLUSH RETIRE.
Mr. Sapsea having risen and stationed himself with his
back to the fire, for the purpose of observing the effect of
these lines on the countenance of a man of taste, conse-
quently has his face toward the door, when his serving-
maid, again appearing, announces, " Durdles is come, sir ! "
He promptly draws forth and fills the third wine-glass, as
being now claimed, and replies "Show Durdles in."
" Admirable ! " quoth Mr. Jasper, handing back the
paper.
"You approve, sir ? "
" Impossible not to approve. Striking, characteristic, and
complete."
The auctioneer inclines his head, as one accepting his
due and giving a receipt, and invites the entering Durdles
to take off that glass of wine (handing the same), for it will
warm him.
Durdles is a stone-mason chiefly in the gravestone, tomb,
and monument way, and wholly of their color from head to
foot. No man is better known in Cloisterham. He is the
chartered libertine of the place. Fame trumpets him a won-
derful workman — which for aught that any body knows, he
may be (as he never works) ; and a wonderful sot — which
every body knows he is. With the cathedral crypt he is
better acquainted than any living authority ; it may even be
than any dead one. It is said that the intimacy of this
650 THE IsIYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. '
acquaintance began in his habitually resorting to that secret
place, to lock out the Cloisterham boy-populace, and sleep off
the fumes of liquor ; he having ready access to the cathedral,
as contractor for rough repairs. Be this as it may, he does
know much about it, and in the demolition of impedimental
fragments of wall, buttress and pavement has seen strange
sights. He often speaks of himself in the third person ;
perhaps being a little misty as to his own identity when he
narrates ; perhaps impartially adopting the Cloisterham
nomenclature in reference to a character of acknowledged
distinction. Thus he will say, touching his strange sights,
'' Durdles come upon the old chap," in reference to a buried
magnate of ancient time and high degree, "by striking
right into the coffin with his pick. The old chap gave Dur-
dles a look with his open eyes, as much as to say, ' Is your
name Durdles ? Why, my man, I've been waiting for you
a devil of a time ! ' And then he turned to powder."
With a two foot rule always in his pocket, and a mason's
hammer all but ahvays in his hand, Durdles goes continually
sounding and tapping all about and about the cathedral ;
and whenever he says to Tope, '' Tope, here's another old
'un in here I " Tope announces it to the dean as an es-
tablished discovery.
In a suit of coarse flannel with horn buttons, a yellow
neckerchief with draggled ends, an old hat more russet-col-
ored than black, and laced boots of the hue of his stony
calling, Durdles leads a hazy, gipsy sort of life, carrying his
dinner about with him in a small bundle, and sitting on all
manner of tombstones to dine. This dinner of Durdles'
has become quite a Cloisterham institution ; not only be-
cause of his never appearing in public without it, but be-
cause of its having been, on certain renowned occasions,
taken into custody along with Durdles (as drunk and inca-
pable), and exhibited before the bench of justices at tlie
town hall. These occasions, however, have been few and
far apart, Durdles being as seldom drunk as sober. For the
rest, he is an old bachelor, and he lives in a little antiquated
hole of a house that was never finished, supposed to be
built, so far, of stones stolen from the city wall. To this
abode there is an approach, ankle-deep in stone chips, re-
sembling a petrified grove of tombstones, urns, draperies,
and broken columns, in all stages of sculpture. Herein two
journeymen incessantly chip, while other two journeymen,
who face each otiier, incessantly saw stone, dipping as
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 651
regularly in and out of their sheltering sentry-boxes, as
if they were mechanical figures emblematical of time and
death.
To Durdles, when he has consumed his glass of port, Mr.
Sapsea intrusts that precious effort of his muse. Durdles un-
feelingly takes out his two foot rule, and measures the lines
calmly, alloying them with stone-grit.
" This is for the monument, is it, Mr. Sapsea ?"
"The inscription. Yes." Mr. Sapsea waits for its effect
upon a common mind.
" It'll come in to an eighth of an inch," says Durdles.
" Your servant, Mr. Jasper. Hope I see you well."
" How are you, Durdles ? "
" I've got a touch of the tombatism on me, Mr. Jasper,
but that I must expect."
"You mean the rheumatism," says Sapsea, in a sharp tone.
(He is nettled by having his composition so mechanically
received.)
" No, I don't. I mean, Mr. Sapsea, the tombatism. It's
another sort of rheumatism. Mr. Jasper knows what Dur-
dles means. You get among them tombs afore it's well light
on a winter morning and keep on, as the catechism says, a
walking in the same all the days of your life, and j'd?//'ll know
what Durdles means."
" It's a bitter cold place," Mr. Jasper assents, with an an-
tipathetic shiver.
" And if it's bitter cold for you, up in the chancel, with a
lot of live breath smoking out about you, what the bitterness
is to Durdles, down in the crypt among the earthly damps
there, and the dead breath of the old 'uns," returns that in-
dividual, " Durdles leaves you to judge. Is this to be put
in hand at once, Mr. Sapsea ? "
Mr. Sapsea," with an author's anxiety to rush into publica-
tion, replies that it can not be out of hand too soon.
"You had better let me have the key, then," says Dur-
dles.
" Why, man, it is not to be put inside the monument ! "
" Durdles knows where it's to be put, Mr. Sapsea ; no man
better. Ask 'ere a man in Cloisterham whether Durdles
knows his work."
Mr. Sapsea rises, takes a key from a drawer, unlocks an
iron safe let into the vv^all, and takes from it another key.
" When Durdles puts a touch or a finish upon his work no
matter where, inside ov outside, Durdles likes to look at his
652 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
work all round, and see that his work is a-doing him credit,"
Durdles explains doggedly.
The key proffered him by the bereaved widower being a
large one, he slips his two-foot rule into a side pocket
of his flannel trowsers made for it, and deliberately opens
his flannel coat, and opens the mouth of a large breast-
pocket within it before taking the key to place in that repos-
itory.
*' Why, Durdles ! " exclaims Jasper, looking on amused.
** You are undermined with pockets ! "
"And I carries weight in 'em too, Mr. Jasper. Feel
those," producing two other large keys.
" Hand me Mr. Sapsea's likewise. Surely this is the
heaviest of the three."
" You'll find 'em much of a muchness, I expect," says
Durdles. " They all belong to monuments. They all open
Durdles's work. Durdles keeps the keys of his work mostly.
Not that they're much used."
"By the by," it comes into Jasper's mind to say, as he
idly examines the keys, " I have been going to ask you, many
a day, and have always forgotten. You know they some-
times call you Stony Durdles, don't you ? "
" Cloisterham knows me as Durdles, Mr. Jasper."
" I am aware of that, of course. But the boys some-
times "
" Oh ! If you mind them young imps of boys — " Durdles
gruffly interrupts.
" I don't mind them any more than you do. But there
was a discussion the other day among the choir, whether
Stony stood for Tony ; " clinking one key against another.
(" Take care of the wards, Mr. Jasper.")
" Or whether Stony stood for Stephen ; " clinking with a
change of keys.
(" You can't make a pitch-pipe of 'em, Mr. Jasper.")
"Or whether the name comes from your trade. How
stands the fact ? "
Mr. Jasper weighs the three keys in his hand, lifts his
head from his idly stooping attitude over the fire, anil
delivers the keys to Durdles with an ingenuous and friendly
face.
But the stony one is a gruff one likewise, and that hazy
state of his is always an uncertain state, highly conscious of
its dignity, and prone to take offense. He drops his two
keys back into his pocket one by one, and buttons them up ;
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 653
he takes his dinner-bundle from the chair-back on which he
hung it when he came in ; he distributes the weight he car-
ries, by tying the third key up in it, as though he were an
ostrich, and liked to dine off cold iron ; and he gets out of
the room, deigning no word of answer.
Mr. Sapsea then proposes a hit at backgammon, which,
seasoned with his own improving conversation, and term-
inating in a supper of cold roast beef and salad, beguiles the
golden evening until pretty late. Mr. Sapsea's wisdom
being, in its delivery to mortals, rather of the diffuse than
the epigrammatic order, is by no means expended even then,
but his visitor intimates that he will come back for more of
the precious commodity on future occasions, and Mr. Sap-
sea lets him off for the present, to ponder on the installment
ht carries away.
CHAPTER V.
MR. DURDLES AND FRIEND.
John Jasper, on his way home through the close, is
brought to a standstill by the spectacle of Stony Durdles,
dinner-bundle and all, leaning his back against the iron
railing of the burial ground inclosing it from the old cloister
arches ; and a hideous small boy in rags flinging stones at
him as a well defined mark in the moonlight. Sometimes
the stones hit him, and sometimes they miss him, but
Durdles seems indifferent to either fortune. The hideous
small boy, on the contrary, whenever he hits Durdles, blows
a whistle of triumph through a jagged gap convenient for
the purpose, in the front of his mouth, where half his teeth
are wanting ; and whenever he misses him, yelps out
" Mulled agin ! " and tries to atone for the failure by taking
a more correct and vicious aim.
" What are you doing to the man ? " demands Jasper,
stepping out into the moonlight from the shade.
" Making a cock-shy of him," replies the hideous small
boy.
"Give me those stones in your hand."
*'Yes, I'll give 'em you down your throat, if you come
a-ketching hold of me," says the small boy, shaking himself
loose, and backing. " I'll smash your eye, if you don't look
out ! '•
654 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" Baby-devil that you are, what has the man done to
yoii ? "
" He won't go home.''
**What is that to you ?"
" He gives me a 'apenny to pelt him home if I ketches
him out too late," says the boy. And then chants, like a
little savage, half stumbling and half dancing among the
rags and laces of his dilapidated boots :
" Widdy widdy wen '
I ket — ches — Im — out — ar— ter— ten,
Widdy widdy wy !
Then— E — don't — go — then — I — shy—
Widdy Widdy Wake-cock warning 1 "
— with a comprehensive sweep on the last word, and one
more delivery at Durdles.
This would seem to be a poetical note of preparation,
agreed upon as a caution to IXirdles to stand clear if he can
or to betake himself homeward.
John Jasper invites the boy with a beck of his head to
follow him (feeling it hopeless to drag him, or coax him)
and crosses to the iron railing where the Stony (and stoned)
One is profoundly meditating.
** Do you know this thing, this child ? " asks Jasper, at a
loss for a word that will define this thing.
'* Deputy," says Durdles, with a nod.
" Is that its — his — name ? "
" Deputy," assents Durdles.
" I'm man-servant up at the I'ravelers' Towpenny in Gas
Works Garding," this thing explains. " All us man-servants
at Travelers Lodgings is named Deputy. Wlien we're chock
full and the travelers all a-bed I come out for my 'elth."
Then, withdrawing in to the road, and taking aim, he re-
sumes —
** Widdy widdy wen !
I — ket — ches — Im — out—ar — ter — "
" Hold your hand," cries Jasper, ''and don t throw while
I stand so near him, or I'll kill you ! Come, Durdles ; let
me walk home with you to-night. Shail I carry vour bun-
dle ? "
" Not on any account," replies Durdles, adjusting it.
* Durdles was making his reflections here v/hen you come
up, sir, surrounded by his works, like a popular author. Your
own brother-in-law ; " introducing a sarcophagus within the
THE MYSTERY OF EDWJN DROOD. 655
railing, white and cold in the moonlight. " Ivlrs. Sapsea ; "
introducing the monument of that devoted wife. *' Late
incumbent ; " introducing the reverend gentleman's broken
column. " Departed assessed taxes ; " introducing a vase
and towel, standing on what might represent the cake of
soap, " Former pastry-cook and muffin-maker, much re-
spected ; " introducing gravestone. " All safe and sound
here, sir, and old Durdle's work ! Of the common folk that
is merely bundled up in turf and brambles, the less said, the
better. A poor lot, soon forgot."
" This creature, Deputy, is behind us," says Jasper, look-
ing back. '' Is he to follow us ? "
The relations between Durdles and Deputy are of a capri-
cious kind ; for, on Durdles's turning himself about with
the slow gravity of beery soddenness, Deputy makes a
pretty wide circuit into the road and stands on the defen-
sive.
" You never cried Widdy Warning before you begun to-
night,' says Durdles, unexpectedly reminded of, or imagin-
ing an injury.
" Yer lie, I did," says Deputy, in his only form of polite
contradiction.
" Own brother, sir," observes Durdles, turning himself
about again, and as unexpectedly forgetting his offense as
he had recalled or conceived it ; " own brother to Peter the
Wild Boy ! But I gave him an object in life."
'' At which he takes aim ?" Mr. Jasper suggests.
*' That's it, sir," returns Durdles, quite satisfied ; " at
which he takes aim. I took him in hand and gave him an
object. What was he before ? A destroyer. What work
did he do ? Nothing but destruction. What did he earn
by it ? Short terms in Cloisterham jail. Not a person, not
a piece of property, not a window, not a horse, nor a dog,
nor a cat, nor a bird, nor a fowl, nor a pig, but what he
stoned for want of an enlightened object before him. 1 put
that enlightened object before him, and now he can turn his
honest halfpenny by the three pennorth a week."
*' I wonder he has no competitors,"
'' He has plenty, Mr. Jasper, but he stones *em all away.
Now, I don't know what this scheme of mine comes to," pur-
sues Durdles, considering about it with the same sodden
gravity ; " I don't know what you may precisely call it. It
ain't a sort of a — scheme of a — national ^';ducation ?"
*' I should say not," replies Jasper.
656 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" / should say not," assents Durdles ; *' then we won't try
to give it a name."
" He still keeps behind us," repeats Jasper, looking over
his shoulder ; " is he to follow us ? "
" We can't help going round by the Travelers' Twopenny,
if we go the short way, which is the back v/ay," Durdles an-
swers, " and we'll drop him there."
So they go on ; Deputy as a rear rank of one, taking
open order, and invading the silence of the hour and place
by stoning every wall, post, pillar, and other inanimate
object, by the deserted way.
'' Is there any thing new down in the crypt, Durdles ? "
asks John Jasper.
" Any thing old, I think you mean," growls Durdles.
"^It ain't a spot for novelty."
*' Any new discovery on your part, I meant."
" There's a old 'un under the seventh pillar on the left as
you go down the broken steps of the little underground
chapel as formerly was, I make him out (so fur as I've made
him out yet) to be one of them old 'uns with a crook. To
judge from the size of the passages in the walls, and of the
steps and doors, by which they come and went, them crooks
must have been a good deal in the way of the old 'uns I Two
on 'em meeting promiscuous must have hitched one another
by the miter, pretty often, I should say.'
Without any endeavor to correct the literality of this opin-
ion, Jasper surveys his companion — covered from head to
foot with old mortar, lime, and stone-grit — as though he,
Jasper, were getting imbued with a romantic interest in
his weird life.
'' Yours is a curious existence."
Without furnishing the least cle\\^ to the question, whether
he receives this as a compliment or as quite the reverse,
Durdles gruffly answers, " Yours is another."
" Well ! Inasmuch as my lot is cast in the same old
earthy, chilly, never-changing place, Yes. But there is much
more mystery and interest in your connection with the cathe-
dral than in mine. Indeed, I am beginning to have some
idea of asking you to take me on as a sort of student, or free
'prentice, under you, and to let me go about with you some-
times, and see some of these odd nooks in which you pass
your days."
The Stony One replies, in a general way, all right. Every
body knows where to find Durdles when he's wanted. Vv hich,
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 657
if not strictly true, is approximately so, if taken to express
that Durdles may always be found in a state of vagabond-
age somewhere.
" What I dwell upon most," says Jasper, pursuing his sub-
ject of romantic interest, " is the remarkable accuracy with
which you would seem to find out where people are buried.
— What is the matter ? That bundle is in your way ; let me
hold it."
Durdles has stopped and backed a little (Deputy atten-
tive to all his movements, immediately skirmishing into the
road), and was looking about for some ledge or corner to
place his bundle on, when thus relieved of it.
" Just you give me my hammer out of that," says Durdles,
" and I'll show you."
Clink, clink. And his hammer is handed him.
** Now, look'ee here. You pitch your note, don't you, Mr.
Jasper ?"
" Yes."
" So I sound for mine. I take my hammer, and I tap."
(Here he strikes the pavement, and the attentive Deputy
skirmishes at a rather wider range, as supposing that his
head may be in requisition.) " I tap, tap, tap. Solid ! I
go on tapping. Solid still ! Tap again. Halloo ! Hol-
low ! Tap again, persevering. Solid in hollow ! Tap, tap,
tap, to try it better. Solid in hollow ; and inside solid, hol-
low again ! There you are ! Old 'un crumbled away in
stone coffin, in vault ! "
'' Astonishing ! "
" I have even done this," says Durdles, drawing out his
two-foot rule (Deputy meanwhile skirmishing nearer, as sus-
pecting that treasure may be about to be discovered, which
may somehow lead to his own enrichment, and the delicious
treat of the discoverers being hanged by the neck, on his
evidence, until they are dead). " Say that hammer of mine's
a wall — my work. Two ; four ; and two is six," measuring
on the pavement. " Six foot inside that wall is Mrs. Sapsea."
" Not really Mrs. Sapsea? "
" Say Mrs. Sapsea. Her wall's thicker, but say Mrs. Sap-
sea. Durdles taps that will represented by that hammer,
and says, after good sounding, * Something betwixt us ? '
Sure enough, some rubbish has been left in that same six-
foot space by Durdles's men ! "
Jasper opines that such accuracy " is a gift."
" I wouldn't have it at a gift," returns Durdles, by no
658 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD,
means receiving the observation in good part. " I worked
it out for myself. Durdles comes by his knowledge through
grubbing deep for it, and having it up by the roots when it
don't want to come. — Holloa, you Deputy !"
"Widdy!" is Deputy's shrill response, standing off
again.
" Catch that ha' penny. And don't let me see any more
of you to-night, after we come to the Travelers* Twopenny."
" Warning ! " returns Deputy, having caught the half-
penny, and appearing by this mystic word to express his
assent to the arrangement.
They have but to cross what was once the vineyard, be-
longing to what was once the monastery, to come into the
narrow back lane wherein stands the crazy wooden house of
two low stories currently known as the Travelers' Twopenny
— a house all warped and distorted, like the morals of the
travelers, with scant remains of a lattice-work porch over the
door, and also of a rustic fence before its stamped-out gar-
den ; by reason of the travelers being so bound to the f)rem-
ises by a tender sentiment (or so fond of having a fire by
the roadside in the course of the day), that they can never
be persuaded or threatened into departure, without violently
possessing themselves of some wooden forget-me-not, and
bearing it off.
The semblance of an inn is attempted to be given to this
wretched place by fragments of conventional red curtaining
in the windows, which rags are made muddily transparent
in the night-season by feeble lights of rush or cotton dip
burning dully in the close air of the inside. As Durdles
and Jasper come near, they are addressed by an inscribed
paper lantern over the door, setting forth the purport of the
house. They are also addressed by some half dozen other
hideous small boys — whether Twopenny lodgers, or followers
or hangers-on of such, who knows ? — who, as if attracted by
some carrion-scent of Deputy in the air, start into the moon-
light, as the vultures might gather in the desert, and in-
stantly fall to stoning him and one another,
"Stop, you young brutes," cries Jasper, angrily, *'and let
us go by ! "
This remonstrance being received with yells and flying
stones, according to a custom of late years comfortably es-
tablished among the police regulations of our English com-
munities, v/here Christians are stoned on all sides, as if the
days of Saint Stephen were revived, Durdles remarks of the
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 659
youn^^ savages, with some point that ** they haven't got an
object," and leads the way down the lane.
At the corner of the lane, Jasper, hotly enraged, checks
his companion and looks back. All is silent. Next mo-
ment, a stone coming rattling at his hat, a distant yell of
" Wakecock ! Warning ! " followed by a crow, as from
some infernally hatched chanticleer, apprising him under
whose victorious fire he stands, he turns the corner into
safety, and takes Durdles home : Durdles stumbling among
the litter of his stony yard as if he were going to turn head-
foremost into one of the unfinished tombs.
John Jasper returns by another way to his Gate House, and
entering softly with his key, finds his fire still burning. He
takes from a locked press a peculiar looking pipe, which he
fills — but not with tobacco — and, having adjusted the con-
tents of the bowl, very carefully, with a little instrument,
ascends an inner staircase of only a few steps, leading to
two rooms. One of these is his own sleeping-chamber, the
other is his nephew's. There is a light in each.
His nephew lies asleep, calm and untroubled. John
Jasper stands looking down upon him, his unlighted pipe
in his hand, for some time, with a fixed and deep attention.
Then, hushing his footsteps, he passes to his own room, lights
his pipe, and delivers himself to the specters it invokes at
midnight.
CHAPTER VL
PHILANTHROPY IN MINOR CANON CORNER.
The Reverend Septimus Crisparkle (Septimus, because
six little brother Crisparkles before him went out, one by
one, as they were born, like six little rush-lights, as they were
lighted) having broken the thin morning ice near Cloister-
ham Weir with his amiable head, much to the invigoration
of his frame, was now assisting his circulation by boxing at
a looking-glass with great science and prowess. A fresh
and healthy portrait the looking-glass presented of the Rev-
erend Septimus, feinting and dodging with the utmost art-
fulness, and hitting out from the shoulder with the utmost
straightness, while his radiant features teemed with inno-
cence, and soft-hearted benevolence beamed from his box-
ing-gloves.
It was scarcely breakfast-time yet, for Mrs. Crisparkle-—
66o THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
mother, not wife, of the Reverend Septimus — was only just
down, and waiting for the urn. Indeed, the Reverend Septi-
mus left off at this very moment to take the pretty old lady's
interesting face between his boxing-gloves and kiss it. Hav-
ing done so with tenderness, the Reverend Septimus turned to
again, countering with his left, and putting in his right, in a
tremendous manner.
" I say every morning of my life, that you'll do it at last.
Sept," remarked the old lady, looking on ; *' and so you
will."
" Do what, ma, dear ! "
" Break the pier-glass, or burst a blood-vessel.**
" Neither, please God, ma, dear. Here's wind, ma. Look
at this ! "
In a concluding round of great severity, the Reverend
Septimus administered and escaped all sorts of punishment,
and wound up by getting the old lady's cap into chancery —
such is the technical term used in scientific circles by the
learned in the noble art — with a lightness of touch that
hardly stirred the lightest lavender or cherry ribbon on it.
Magnanimously releasing the defeated, just in time to get
his gloves into a drawer, and feign to be looking out of
window in a contemplative state of mind when a servant en-
tered, the Reverend Septimus then gave place to the urn
and other preparatinns for breakfast. These completed,
and the two alone again, it was pleasant to see (or would
have been, if tliere had been any one to see it, which there
never was) the old lady standing to say the Lord's Prayer
aloud, and her son, minor canon nevertheless, standing
with head bent to hear it, he being within five years of
forty ; much as he had stood to hear the same words from
the same lips when he was within five months of four.
What is prettier than an old lady — except a young lady —
when her eyes are bright, when her figure is trim and com-
pact, when her face is cheerful and calm, when her dress is
as the dress of a china shepherdess : so dainty its colors, so
individually assorted to herself, so neatly molded on her ?
Nothing is prettier, thought the good minor canon fre-
quently, when taking his seat at table opposite his long-
widowed mother. Her thought at such times may be con-
densed into the two words that oftenest did duty together
in all her conversations : " My Sept ! '*
They were a good pair to sit breakfasting together in
Minor Canon Corner, Cloisterham. For Minor Canon Corner
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIx^ DROOD. 66r
was a quiet place in the shadow of the cathedral, which the
cawing of the rooks, the echoing footsteps of rare passers,
the sound of the cathedral bell, or the roll of the cathedral
organ, seemed to render more quiet than absolute silence.
Swaggering fighting men had had their centuries of ramping
and raving about Minor Canon Corner, and beaten serfs
had had their centuries of drudging and dying there, and
powerful monks had had their centuries of being sometimes
useful and sometimes harmful there, and, behold ! they were
all gone out of Minor Canon Corner, and so much the better.
Perhaps one of the highest uses of their ever having been
there, was, that there might be left behind that blessed air
of tranquillity which pervaded Minor Canon Corner, and
that serenely romantic state of the mind — productive for the
most part of pity and forbearance — which is engendered by
a sorrowful story that is all told, or a pathetic play that is
played out.
Red-brick walls harmoniously toned down in color by time,
strong-rooted ivy, latticed windows, paneled rooms, big
oaken beams in little places, and stone-walled gardens where
annual fruit yet ripened upon monkish trees, were the prin-
cipal surroundings of pretty old Mrs. Crisparkle and the Rev.
Septimus as they sat at breakfast.
"And what, ma, dear," inquired the minor canon, giving
proof of a wholesome and vigorous appetite, " does the letter
say ? "
The pretty old lady, after reading it, had just laid it down
upon the breakfast-cloth. She handed it over to her son.
Now, the old lady was exceedingly proud of her bright eyes
being so clear that she could read writing without spectacles.
Her son was also so proud of the circumstance, and so duti-
fully bent on her deriving the utmost possible gratification
from it, that he had invented the pretense that he himself
could not read writing without spectacles. Therefore he
now assumed a pair, of grave and prodigious proportions,
which not only seriously inconvenienced his nose and his
breakfast, but seriously impeded his perusal of the letter.
For he had the eyes of a microscope and a telescope com-
bined, when they were unassisted.
" It's from Mr. Honeythunder, of course," said the old
lady, folding her arms.
" Of course," assented her son. He then lamely read on ;
662 THE MYS lERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
•* Haven of Philanthropv, Chief OFt^icH?, London, WednesJav
"'Dear Madam —
" * I write in the—' In the what's this > What does he
write in ? "
**In the chair," said the old lady.
The Reverend Septimus took off his spectacles, that be
might see her face, as he exclaimed
*' Why, what should he write in ? '*
" Bless me, bless me, Sept," returned the old lady, *'' you
don't see the context ! Give it back to me, my dear." .
Glad to get his spectacles off (for they always made his
eyes water), her son obeyed, murmuring that his sight for
reading manuscript got worse and worse daily,
" * I write,' " his mother went on, reading very perspicuously
and precisely, " ' from the chair to which I shall probably
be confined for some hours.' "
Septimus looked at the row of chairs against the wall
with a half-protesting and half-appealing countenance.
" * We have,' " the old lady read on, with a little extra em-
phasis, " * a meeting of our Convened Chief Composite Com-
mittee of Central and District Philanthropists, at our Head
Haven as above ; and it is their unanimous pleasure that I
take the chair.'"
Septimus breathed more freely, and muttered, "Oh ! If
he comes to that^ let him."
" * Not to lose a day's post, I take the opportunity of a
long report being read, denouncing a public miscreant — ' "
** It is the most extraordinary thing," interposed the gentle
minor canon, laying down his knife and fork to rub his ear
in a vexed manner, "that these philanthropists are always
denouncing somebody. And it is another most extraordi-
nary thing that they are always so violently flush of miscre-
ants ! "
" * Denouncing a public miscreant ! ' " — the old lady
resumed, "* to get our little affair of business off my mind. I
have spoken with my two wards, Neville and Helena
Landless, on the subject of their defective education, and
they give in to the plan proposed , as I should have taken
good care they did, whether they liked it or not.' "
" And it is another most extraordinary thing," remarked
the minor canon in the same tone as before, that these
philanthropists are so given to seizing their fellow-creatures
by the scruff of the neck, and (as one may say) bumping
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 667,
them into the paths of peace. — I beg your pardon, ma, dear,
for interrupting."
" ' Therefore, dear madam, you will please prepare your
son, the Rev. Mr. Septimus, to expect Neville, as an inmate to
be read with, on Monday next. On the same day Helena
will accompany him to Cloisterham, to take up her quarters
at the Nuns' House, the establishment recommended by
yourself and son jointly. Please likewise to prepare for their
reception and tuition there. The terms in both cases are
understood to be exactly as stated to me in writing by your-
self, when I opened a correspondence with you on this
subject, after the honor of being introduced to you at your
sister's house in town here. With compliments to the Rev.
Mr. Septimus, I am, dear madam, your affectionate brother
(in philanthropy),
*' ' Luke Honeythunder.' "
" Well, ma," said Septimus, after a little more rubbing of
his ear, *'we must try it. There can be no doubt that v/e
have room for an inmate, and that I have time to bestow
upon him, and inclination too. I must confess to feeling
glad that he rather is not Mr. Honeythunder himself. Though
that seems wretchedly prejudiced — does it not ? — for I never
saw him. Is he a large man, ma ?"
" I should call him a large man, my dear," the old lady
replied, after some hesitation, " but that his voice is so much
larger."
"Than himself?"
*' Than anybody."
" Ha ! " said Septimus. And finished his breakfast as if
the flavor of the Superior Family Souchong, and also of the
ham and toast and eggs, were a little on the wane.,
Mrs. Crisparkle's sister, another piece of Dresden china,
and matching her so neatly that they would have made a
delightful pair of ornaments for the two ends of any capa-
cious old-fashioned chimney-piece, and by right should
never have been seen apart, was the childless wife of a cler-
gyman holding corporation preferment in London City.
Mr. Honeythunder, in his public character of Professor of
Philanthropy, had come to know Mrs. Crisparkle during the
last rematching of the china ornaments (in other words,
during her last annual visit to her sister), after a public
occasion of a philanthropic nature, when certain devoted
orphans of tender years had been glutted with plum buns,
664 'iHE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
and plump bumptiousness. These were all the antecedents
known in Minor Canon Corner of the coming pupils.
'T am sure you will agree with me, ma," said Mr. Cris-
parkle, after thinking the matter over, " that the first thing
to be done, is, to put these young people as much at their
ease as possible. There is nothing disinterested in the
notion, because we can not be at at our ease with them
unless they are at their ease with us. Now Jasper's nephew
is down here at present ; and like takes to like, and youth
takes to youth. He is a cordial young fellow, and we will
have him to meet the brother and sister at dinner. That's
three. We can't think of asking him, without asking Jasper.
That's four. And MissTwinkleton and the fairy bride that
is to be, and that's six. Add our two selves, and that's
eight. Would eight at a friendly dinner at all put you out,
ma?"
'* Nine would. Sept," returned the old lady, visibly nervous.
"My dear ma, I particularize eight."
"The exact size of the table and the room, my dear."
So it was settled that way ; and when Mr. Crisparkle
called with his mother upon Miss Twinkleton to arrange for
the reception of Miss Helena Landless at the Nuns' House,
the two other invitations having reference to that establish-
ment were proffered and accepted. Miss Twinkleton did,
indeed, glance at the globes, as regretting that they were
not formed to be taken out into society ; but became recon-
ciled to leave them behind. Instructions were then dis-
patched to the philanthropist fo,r the departure and arrival,
in good time for dinner, of Mr. Neville and Miss Helena ;
and stock for soup became fragrant in the air of Minor
Canon Corner.
In those days there was no railway to Cloisterham, and
Mr. Sapsea said there never would be. Mr. Sapsea said
more ; he said there never should be. And yet, marvelous
to consider, it has come to pass, in these days, that
express trains don't think Cloisterham worth stopping at,
but yell and whirl through on their larger errands, casting off
the dust of their wheels as a testimony against its insignifi-
cance. Some remote fragment of main line to somewhere
else, there was, which was going to ruin the morey market
if it failed, and church and state if it succeeded, and (not
of course) the constitution, whether or no ; but even that
had already so unsettled Cloisterham traffic, that the traffic
deserted the high road, came sneaking in from an unprece-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 665
dented part of the country by a back stable-way, for many
years labeled at the corner : "Beware of the Dog."
To this ignominious avenue of approach, Mr. Crisparkle
'repaired, awaiting the arrival of a short squat omnibus, with
a disproportionate heap of luggage on the roof — like a little
elephant with infinitely too much castle — which was then
the daily service between Cloisterham and external man-
kind. As this vehicle lumbered up, Mr. Crisparkle could
hardly see any thing else of it for a large outside passenger
seated on the box, with his elbows squared, and his hands
on his knees, compressing the driver into a most uncom-
fortably small compass and glowering about him with a
strongly marked face.
" Is this Cloisterham ? " demanded the passenger, in a
tremendous voice.
" It is," replied the driver, rubbing himself as if he ached,
after throwing the reins to the hostler. " And I was never
so glad to see it."
" Tell your master to make his box-seat wider then," re-
turned the passenger. " Your master is morally bound —
and ought to be legally, under ruinous penalties — to provide
for the comfort of his fellow-man."
The driver instituted, with the palms of his hands, a su-
perficial perquisition into the state of his skeleton ; which
seemed to make him anxious.
*' Have I sat upon you ?" asked the passenger.
"You have," said the driver, as if he didn't like it at all.
" Take that card, my friend."
" I think 1 won't deprive you on it," returned the driver,
casting his eyes over it with no great favor, without taking
it. " What's the good of it to me ? "
" Be a member of that society," said the passenger.
" What shall I get by it ? " asked the driver.
" Brotherhood," returned the passenger, in a ferocious
voice.
" Thank'ee," said the driver, very deliberately, as he got
down ; "my mother was contented with myself, and so am
I. I don't want no brothers."
" But you must have them," replied the passenger, also de-
scending. '■ whether you like it or not. I am your brother."
" I say," expostulated the driver, becoming more chafed
in tem;:er ; "not too fur. The worm ?£////, when "
But here Mr, Crisparkle interposed, remonstrating aside,
in a friendly voice, "Joe, Joe Joe ! Don't forget yourself,
666 THE MYS'I ERY OF EDAV-IN DROOD.
Joe, my good fellow ! " and then, when Joe peaceably touched
his hat, accosting the passenger with " Mr. Honeythunder? "
" That is my name, sir."
" My name is Crisparkle."
" Reverend Mr. Septimus ? Glad to see you, sir. Neville
and Helena are inside. Having a little succumbed of late,
under the pressure of my public labors, I thought I would
take a mouthful of fresh air, and come down with them, and
return at night. So you are the Reverend Mr. Septimus, are
you ? " surveying him on the whole with disappointment,
and twisting a double eye-glass by its ribbon, as if he were
roasting it ; but not otherwise using it. *' Hah ! I expected
to see you older, sir."
" I hope you will," was the good-humored reply.
" Eh ?" demanded Mr. Honeythunder.
*' Only a poor little joke. Not worth repeating.**
'* Joke ? Ay ; I never see a joke," Mr. Honeythunder
frowningly retorted. "A joke is wasted upon me, sir.
Where are they ? Helena and Neville, come here ! Mr,
Crisparkle has come down to meet you."
An unusually handsome lithe young fellow, and an un-
usually handsome lithe girl ; much alike ; both very dark,
and very rich in color ; she of almost the gipsy type ; some-
thing untamed about them both ; a certain air upon them of
hunter and huntress ; yet withal a certain air of being the
objects of the chase, rather than the followers. Slender,
supple, quick of eye and limb ; half shy, half defiant ; fierce
of look ; an indefinable kind of pause coming and going on
their whole expression, both of face and form, which might
be equally likened to the pause before a crouch, or a bound.
The rough mental notes made in the first five minutes by
Mr. Crisparkle would have read thus, verbatim.
He invited Mr. Honeythunder to dinner, w^ith a troubled
mind (for the discomfiture of the dear old china shepherd-
ess lay heavy on it), and gave his arm to Helena Landless.
Both she and her brother, as they walked all together through
the ancient streets, took great delight in what he pointed out
of the cathedral and monastery ruin, and wondered — so his
notes ran on — much as if they were beautiful barbaric cap-
tives brought from some wild tropical dominion. Mr.
Honeythunder walked in the middle of the road, shoulder-
ing the natives out of his w^ay, and loudly developing a
scheme he had for making a raid on all the unemployed
persons in the United Kingdom, laying them every one by
THE An STERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 667
the heels in jail, and forcing them, on pain of prompt ex-
termination, to become philanthropists.
Mrs. Crisparkle had need of her own share of philanthropy
when she beheld this very large and very loud excrescence
on the little party. Always something in the nature of a
boil upon the face of society, Mr. Honeythunder expanded
into an inflammatory wen in Minor Canon Corner. Though
it was not literally true, as was facetiously charged against
him by public unbelievers, that he called aloud to his
fellow-creatures, " Curse your souls and bodies, come here
and be blessed ! " still his philanthropy was of that gun-
powderous sort that the difference between it and animosity
was hard to determine. You were to abolish military force,
but you were first to bring all commanding officers who
had done their duty, to trial by court-martial for that of-
fense, and shoot them. You were to abolish war, but were
to make converts by making war upon them, and charging
them with loving war as the apple of their eye. You were
to have no capital punishment, but were first to sweep off
the face of the earth, all legislators, jurists, and judges who
were of the contrary opinion. You were to have universal
concord, and were to get it by eliminating all the people
who wouldn't, or conscientiously couldn't, be concordant.
You were to love your brother as yourself, but after an in-
definite interval of 'maligning him (very much as if you hated
him), and calling him all manner of names. Above all
things, you were to do nothing in private, or on your own
account. You were to go to the offices of the Haven of
Philanthropy, and put your name down as a member and a
professing philanthropist. Then you were to pay up your
subscription, get your card of membership and your ribbon
and medal, and were evermore to live upon a platform, and
evermore to say what Mr. Honeythunder said, and what
the treasurer said, and what the sub-treasurer said, and what
the committee said, and what the sub-committee said, and
what the secretary said, and what the vice-secretary said.
And this was usually said in the unanimously carried resolu-
tion under hand and seal, to the effect : " That this assem-
bled body of professing philanthropists views, with indig-
nant scorn and contempt, not unmixed with utter detestation
and loathing abhorrence,"— in short, the baseness of all
those who do not belong to it, and pledges itself to make as
many obnoxious statements as possible about them, without
being at all particular as to facts.
66S THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
The dinner was a most doleful breakdown. The philan-
thropist deranged the symmetry of the table, sat himself in
the way of the waiting, blocked up the thoroughfare, and
drove Mr. Tope (who assisted the parlor-maid) to the verge
of distraction by passing plates and dishes on, over his own
head. Nobody could talk to any body, because he held
forth to every body at once, as if the company had no indi-
vidual existence, but were a meeting. He impounded the
Reverend Mr. Septimus, as an official personage to be ad-
dressed, or kind of human peg to hang his oratorical hat
on, and fell into the exasperating habit, common among such
orators, of impersonating him as a wicked and weak oppo-
nent. Thus, he would ask, " And will you, sir, *now stultify
yourself by telling me" — and so forth, when the innocent
man had not opened his lips, nor meant to open them. Or
he would say, " Now see, sir, to what a position you are
reduced. I will leave you no escape. After exhausting all
the resources of fraud and falsehood, during years upon
years ; after exhibiting a combination of dastardly mean-
ness with ensanguined daring, such as the world has not
often witnessed ; you have now the hypocrisy to bend the
knee before the most degraded of mankind, and to sue and
whine and howl for mercy ! " Whereat the unfortunate
minor canon would look, in part indignant and in part per-
plexed ; while his worthy mother sat bridling, with tears
in her eyes, and the remainder of the party lapsed into a
sort of gelatinous state, in which there was no flavor or so-
lidity, and very little resistance.
But the gush of philanthropy that burst forth when the
departure of Mr. Honeythunder began to impend must have
been highly gratifying to the feelings of that distinguished
man. His coffee was produced, by the special activity of
Mr. Tope, a full hour before he wanted it. Mr. Crisparkle
sat with his watch in his hand, for about the same period,
lest he should overstay his time. The four young people
were unanimous in believing that the cathedral clock struck
three quarters, when it actually struck but one. Miss
Twinkleton estimated the distance to the omnibus at five-
and-twenty minutes' walk, when it was really five. The
affectionate kindness of the whole circle hustled hira into
his great-coat, and shoved him out into the moonlight, as if
he were a fugitive traitor with whom they sympathized and
a troop of horse were at the back door. Mr. Crisparkle
and his new charge, who took him to the omnibus, were so
THE MYSTERY OF EDWlN DROOD. 669
fervent in their apprehensions of hir, catching cold, that
they shut him up in it instantly and left him, with still half
an hour to spare.
CHAPTER VII.
MORE CONFIDENCES THAN ONE.
"I know very little of that gentleman, sir," said Neville to
the minor canon as they turned back.
" You know very little of your guardian ? " the minor
canon repeated.
" Almost nothing."
" How came he '*
" To be my guardian ? I'll tell you, sir. I suppose you
know that we come (my sister and I) from Ceylon ? "
*' Indeed, no."
** 1 wonder at that. We lived with a stepfather there.
Our mother died there, when we were little children. We
have had a wretched existence. She made him our guardian,
and he was a miserly wretcli who grudged us food to eat, and
clothes to wear. At his death, he passed us over to this
man ; for no better reason that I know of, than his being a
friend or connection of his, whose name was always in print
and catching his attention."
" That was lately, I suppose ? "
"Quite lately, sir. This stepfather of ours was a cruel
brute as well as a grinding one. It was well he died when
he did, or I might have killed him."
Mr. Crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked
at his hopeful pupil in consternation.
" I surprise you, sir? " he said, with a quick change to a
submissive manner.
" You shock me ; unspeakably shock me."
The pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked
on, and then said, " You never saw him beat your sister, I
have seen him beat mine, more than once or twice, and I
never forgot it."
*' Nothing," said Mr. Crisparkle, " not even a beloved and
beautiful sister's tears under dastardly ill-usage," he became
less severe, in spite of himself, as his indignation rose, " could
justify thbse horrible expressions that you used."
" I am sorry I used them, and especially to you, sir, I
beg to recall them. I'ut permit me to s( t you right on one
6-/0 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
point. You spoke of my sister's tears. My sister would
have let him tear her to pieces, before she would have let
him believe that he could make her shed a tear."
Mr. Crisparkle reviewed those mental notes of his, and
was neither at all surprised to hear it, nor at all disposed to
question it.
" Perhaps you will think it strange, sir," — this was said in
a hesitating voice — " that I should so soon ask you to allow
me to confide in you, and to have the kindness to hear a
word or two from me in my defense ? "
" Defense ?" Mr. Crisparkle repeated. " You are not on
your defense, Mr. Neville."
" I think I am, sir. At least I know I should be, if you
were better acquainted with my character."
" Well, Mr. Neville," was the rejoinder. " What if you
leave me to find it out ? "
"Since it is your pleasure, sir," answered the young man,
with a quick change in his manner to sullen disappointment
— " since it is your pleasure to check me in my impulse, I
must submit."
There was that in the tone of this short speech which
made the conscientious man to whom it was addressed un-
easy. It hinted to him that he might, without meaning it,
turn aside a truthfulness beneficial to a iiiisshappen young
mind and perhaps to his own power of directing and im-
proving it. They were within sight of the lights of his win-
dows, and he stopped.
*' Let us turn back and take a turn or two up and down,
Mr. Neville, or you may not have time to finish what you
wish to say to me. You are hasty in thinking that I mean
to check you. Quite the contrary. I invite your confi-
dence."
" You have invited it, sir, without knowing it, ever since
I came^ here. I say ' ever since,' as if I had been here a
week ! The truth is, we came here (my sister and I) to
quarrel with you, and affront you, and break away again."
"Really ?" said Mr. Crisparkle, at a dead loss for any
thing else to say.
" You see, we could not know what you were beforehand,
sir ; could we ? "
"Certainly not," said Mr. Crisparkle.
"And having liked no one else with whom we have ever
been brought into contact, we had made up our minds not
to like you."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 671
' " Really ? " said Mr. Crisparkle again.
" But we do like you, sir, and we see an unmistakable dif-
ference between your house and your reception of us, and
any thing else we have ever known. This — and my hap-
pening to be alone with you — and every thing around us
seeming quiet and peaceful after Mr. Honeythunder's de-
parture — and Cloisterham being so old and grave and beau-
tiful, with the moon shining on it — these things inclined
me to open my heart."
" I quite understand, Mr. Neville. And it is salutary to
listen to such influences."
" In describing my own imperfections, sir, I must ask you
not to suppose that I am describing my sister's. She has
come out of the disadvantages of our miserable life as much
better than I am as that cathedral to\ver is higher tlian those
chimneys."
Mr. Crisparkle in his o\vii breast was not so sure of this.
" I have had, sir, from my earliest remembrance, to sup-
press a deadly and bitter hatred. This has made me secret
and revengeful. I have been always tyrannically held down
by the strong hand. This has driven me, in my weakness,
to the resource of being false and mean. I have been stinted
of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries
of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commoU'
est possessions of youth. This has caused me to be utterly
wanting in I do not know what emotions, or remembrances,
or good instincts — I have not even a name for the thing,
you see ! — ^that you have had to work upon in other young
men to whom you have been accustomed."
" This is evidently true. But this is not encouraging,"
thought Mr. Crisparkle, as they turned again.
*' And to finish with, sir : I have beeri brought up among
abject and servile dependents, of an inferior race, and I may
easily have contracted some affinity with them. Sometimes,
I don't know but that it may be a drop of what is tigerish
in their blood,"
" As in the case of that remark just now,** thought Mr.
Crisparkle.
" In a last word of reference to my sister, sir (we are twin
children), you ought to know, to her honor, that nothing in
our misery ever subdued her, ihough it often cowed me.
When we ran away from it (we ran away four times in six
years, to be soon brought back and cruelly punished), the
flight was always of her planning and leading. Each time
672 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
she dressed as a boy, and showed the daring of a man.
I take it we were seven years old when we first decamped ;
but I remember, when I lost the pocket-knife with which
she was to have cut her hair short, how desperately she tried
to tear it out, or bite it off. I have nothing further to say,
sir, except that I hope you will bear with me, and make
allowance for me."
'' Of that, Mr. Neville, you may be sure," returned the
minor canon. " I don't preach more than I can help, and
I will not repay your confidence with a sermon. But I en-
treat you to bear in mind, very seriously and steadily, that if
I am to do you any good, it can only be with your own
assistance ; and that you can only render that efficiently, by
seeking aid from heaven."
" I will try to do my part, sir."
** And, Mr. Neville, I will try to do mine. Here is my
hand on it. May God bless our endeavors ! "
They were now standing at liis house-door, and a cheer-
ful sound of voices and laughter was heard within.
" We will take one more turn before going in," said Mr.
Crisparkle, " for I want to ask you a question. When you
said you were in a changed mind concerning me, you spoke,
not only for yourself, but for your sister too."
*' Undoubtedly I did, sir."
** Excuse me, Mr. Neville, but I think you have had no
opportunity of communicating with your sister since I met
you. Mr. Honeythunder was very eloquent ; but perhaps
I may venture to say, without ill-nature, that he rather mon-
opolized the occasion. May you not have answered for your
sister without sufficient warrant ? "
Neville shook his head with a proud smile.
" You don't know, sir, yet, what a complete understanding
can exist between my sister and me, though no spoken word
— perhaps hardly as much as a look — may have passed be-
tween us. She not only feels as I have described, but she
very well knows that I am taking this opportunity of speak-
ing to you, both for her and myself."
Mr. Crisparkle looked in his face, with some incredulity ;
but his face expressed such absolute and firm conviction of
the truth of what he said, that Mr. Crisparkle looked at
the pavement, and mused, until they came to his door
again.
" I will ask for one more turn sir, this time," said the
young man, with a rather heightened color rising in his face.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWiN DROQD. 673
" But for Mr. Honeythunder's — I think you ( ailed it elo-
quence, sir?" (somewhat slyly).
*' I — yes, I called it eloquence," said Mr. Crisparkle.
"But for Mr. Honeythunder's eloquence, I might have
had no need to ask you what I am going to ask you. This
Mr. Edwin Drood, sir — I think that's the name ? "
. " Quite correct," said Mr. Crisparkle. " D-r-double o-d."
** Does he — or did he — read with you, sir ? "
" Never, Mr. Neville. He comes here visiting his rela-
tion, Mr. Jasper."
*' Is Miss Bud his relation too, sir ? '*
(" Now, why should he ask that, with sudden supercilious-
ness ? " thought Mr. Crisparkle.) Then he explained, aloud,
what he knew of the little story of their betrothal.
** Oh ! 7/iafs it, is it ? " said the young man. ** I under-
stand his air of proprietorship now ! "
This was said so evidently to himself, or to any body
rather than Mr. Crisparkle, that the latter instinctively felt
as if to notice it would be almost tantamount to noticing a
passage in a letter which he had read by chance over the
writer's shoulder. A moment afterward they re-entered the
house.
Mr. Jasper was seated at the piano as they came into his
drawing-room, and was accompanying Miss Rosebud while
she sung. It was a consequence of his playing the accom-
paniment with notes, and of her being a heedless little creat-
ure, very apt to go wrong, that he followed her lips most'
attentively, with his eyes as well as hands, carefully and
softly hinting the key-note from time to time. Standing
with an arm drawn round her, but with a face far more
intent on Mr. Jasper than on her singing, stood Helena, be-
tween whom and her brother an instantaneous recognition
passed, in which Mr. Crisparkle saw, or thought he saw, the
understanding that had been spoken of flash out. Mr. Ne-
ville then took his admiring station, leaning against the
piano, opposite the singer ; Mr. Crisparkle sat down by the
china shepherdess ; Edwin Drood gallantly furled and un-
furled Miss Twinkleton's fan ; and that lady passively
claimed that sort of exhibitor's proprietorship in the accom-
plishment on view, which Mr. Tope, the verger, daily
claimed in the cathedral service.
The song went on. It was a sorrowful strain of parting,
and the fresh young voice was very plaintive and tender.
As Jasper watched the pretty lips, and ever and again hinted
674 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOiJ.
the one note, as though it were a low whisper from himself,
the voice became less steady, until all at once the singer
broke into a burst of tears, and shrieked out, with her hands
over her eyes, " I can't bear this ! I am frightened 1 Take
me away ! "
With one swift turn of her lithe figure, Helena laid the
little beauty on a sofa, as if she had never caught her up.
Then, on one knee beside her, and with one hand upon her
rosy mouth, while with the other she appealed to all the rest,
Helena said to them, " It's nothing ; it's all over ; don't
speak to her for one minute, and she is well ! '*
Jasper's hands had, in the same instant, lifted themselves
from the keys, and were now poised above them, as though
he waited to resume. In that attitude he yet sat quiet, not
even looking round, when all the rest had changed their
places and were reassuring one another.
" Pussy's not used to an audience ; that's the fact," said
Edwin Drood. " She got nervous, and couldn't hold out.
Besides, Jack, you are such a conscientious master, and re-
quire so much, that I believe you make her afraid of you.
No wonder."
** No wonder," repeated Helena.
"There, Jack, you hear ! You would be afraid of him,
under similar circumstances, wouldn't you, Miss Land-
less ? "
" Not under any circumstances," returned Helena.
Jasper brought down his hands, looked over his shoulder,
and begged to thank Miss Landless for her vindication of his
character. Then he fell to dumbly playing, without striking
the notes, while his little pupil was taken to an open window
for air, and was otherwise petted and restored. When she
was brought back, his place was empty. " Jack's gone,
Pussy," Edwin told her. ''I am more than half afraid he
didn't like to be charged with being the monster who had
frightened you." But she answered never a word, and shiv-
ered, as if they had made her a little too cold.
Miss Twinkleton now^ opining that indeed these were late
hours, Mrs. Crisparkle, for finding ourselves outside the walls
of the Nuns' House, and that we who undertook the forma-
tion of the future wives and mothers of England (the last
words in a lower voice, as requiring to be communicated in
confidence) were really bound (voice coming up again) to set
abetter example than one of rakish habits, wrappers were put
in requisition, and the two young cavaliers volunteered to see
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 675
the ladies home. It was soon done, and the gate of the
Nuns' House closed upon them.
The boarders had retired, and only Mrs. Tisher in soli-
tary vigil awaited the new pupil. Her bedroom being
within Rosa's, very little introduction or explanation was
necessary, before she was placed in charge of lier new friend,
and left for the night.
" This is a blessed relief, my dear," said Helena. *' I have
been dreading all day, that I should be brought to bay at this
time."
*' There are not many of us," returned Rosa, " and we are
good-natured girls ; at least the others are ; I can answer for
them."
" I can answer for you," laughed Helena, searching the
lovely little face with her dark fiery eyes, and tenderly
caressing the small figure. " You will be a friend to me,
won't you ? "
" 1 hope so. But the idea of my being a friend to you
seems too absurd, though."
*' Why ? "
" Oh 1 I am such a mite of a thing, and you are so wom-
anly and handsome. You seem to have resolution and
power enough to crush me. I shrink into nothing by the
side of your presence even."
" I am a neglected creature, my dear, unacquainted with
all accomplishments, sensitively conscious that I have every
thing to learn, and deeply ashamed to own my ignorance."
" And yet you acknowledge every thing to me ! " said
Rosa.
" My pretty one, can I help it ? There is a fascination in
you."
" Oh ! Is there, though ?" pouted Rosa, half in jest and
half in earnest. " What a pity Master Eddy doesn't feel it
more ? "
Of course her relations toward that young gentleman had
been already imparted, in Minor Canon Corner.
*' Why, surely he must love you with all his heart ! " cried
Helena, with an earnestness that threatened to blaze into
ferocity if he didn't.
" Eh ? Oh, well, I suppose he does," said Rosa, pouting
again ; " I am sure I have no right to say he doesn't. Per-
haps it's my fault. Perhaps I am not as nice to him as I
ought to be. I don't think I am. But it is so ridiculous I "
Helena's eyes demanded what was.
676 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
*' We are," said Rosa, answering as if she had spoker.
" We are such a ridiculous couple. And we are always quar-
reling."
" Why ? "
'' Because we both know we are ridiculous, my dear ! "
Rosa gave that answer as if it were the most conclusive
answer in the world.
Helena's masterful look was intent upon her face for a
few moments, and then she impulsively put out both her
hands and said
" You will be my friend and help me ?"
" Indeed, my dear, I will," replied Rosa, in a tone of affec-
tionate childishness that went straight and true to her heart ;
" I will be as good a friend as such a mite of a thing can be
to such a noble creature as you. And be a friend to me,
please ; for I don't understand myself ; and I want a friend
who can understand me, very much indeed."
Helena Landless kissed her, and, retaining both her
hands, said
*' Who is Mr. Jasper ? "
Rosa turned aside her head in answering, '* Eddy's uncle,
and my music-master."
*' You do not love him ? "
"Ugh !" She put her hands up to her face, and shook
with fear or horror.
" You know that he loves you ? "
" Oh, don't, don't, don't ! " cried Rosa, dropping on her
knees, and clinging to her new resource. *' Don't tell me of
it ! He terrifies me. He haunts my thoughts, like a dread-
ful ghost. I feel that I am never safe from him. I feel as
if he could pass in though the wall when he is spoken of."
She actually did look round, as if she dreaded to see him
standing in the shadow behind her.
" Try to tell me more about it, darling."
" Yes, I will, I will. Because you are so strong. But hold
me the while, and stay with me afterward."
" My child ! You speak as if he had threatened you in
some dark way."
" He has never spoken to me about — that. Never."
" What has he done ? "
" He has made a slave of me with his looks. He has
forced me to understand him, without his saying a word :
and he has forced me to keep silence, without his uttering a
threat. When I play, he never moves his eyes from my liands.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 677
When 1 sing, he never moves his eyes from my lips. Wheir
he corrects me, and strikes a note, or a chord, or plays a
passage, he himself is in the sounds, whispering that he
pursues me as a lover, and commanding me to keep his
secret. I avoid his eyes, but he forces me to see them
without looking at them. Even when a glaze comes over
them (which is sometimes the case), and he seems to wander
away into a frightful sort of dream, in which he threatens
most, he obliges me to know it, and to know that he is sit-
ting close at my side, more terrible to me then than ever."
" What is this imagined threatening, pretty one ? What
is threatened ? "
" I don't know. I have never even dared to think o:^
wonder what it is."
*' And was this all, to-night ? "
" This was all ; except that to-night when he watched my
lips so closely as I was singing, besides feeling terrified, I
felt ashamed and passionately hurt. It was as if he kissed
rne, and I couldn't bear it, but cried out. You must never
breathe this to any one. Eddy is devoted to him. But you
said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any
circumstances, and that gives me — who am so much afraid
of him — courage to tell only you. Hold me ! Stay with
me ! I am too frightened to be left by myself."
The lustrous gipsy-face dropped over the clinging arms
and bosom, and the wild black hair fell down protectingly
over the childish form. There was a slumbering gleam of
fire in the intense dark eyes, though they were then softened
with compassion and admiration. Let whomsoever it most
concerned look well to it.
CHAPTER VIII.
DAGGERS DRAWN.
The two young men, having seen the damsels, their
charges, enter the court-yard of the Nuns' House, and find-
ing themselves coldly stared at by the brazen door-plate, as
if the battered old beau with the glass in his eye were inso-
lent, look at one another, looked along the perspective of the
moonlit street, and slowly walked away together.
" Do you stay here long, Mr. Drood ? " says Neville.
*' Not this time," is the careless answer. " I leave for Lon-
67S THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
don again to-morrow. But I shall be here, off and on, until
next midsummer ; then I shall take my leave of Cloisterham,
and England too ; for many a long day, I expect."
" Are you going abroad .•* "
" Going to wake up Egypt a little," is the condescending
answer.
*' Are you reading ? '*
" Reading ! " repeats Edwin Drood, with a touch of con-
tempt. *' No. Doing, workmg, engineering. My small
patrimony was left a part of the capital of the firm 1 am
with, by my father, a former partner ; and I am a charge
upon the firm until I come of age ; and then I step into my
modest share in the concern. Jack — you met him at dinner
— is, until then, my guardian and trustee."
" I heard from Mr. Crisparkleof your other good fortune."
*' What do you mean by my other good fortune ? "
Neville has made his remark in a v/atchfully advancing,
and yet furtive and shy m.anner, very expressive of that
peculiar air already noticed, of being at once hunter and
hunted. Edwin has made his retort with an abruptness not
at all polite. They stop and interchange a rather heated look.
" I hope," says Neville, '' there is no offense, Mr. Drood,
in my innocently referring to your betrothal ? "
" By George ! " cries Edwin, leading on again at a some-
what quicker pace. " Every body in this chattering old
Cloisterham refers to it. I wonder no public-house has been
set up, with my portrait for the sign of the Betrothed's Head.
Or Pussy's portrait. One or the other."
" I am not accountable for Mr. Crisparkle's mentioning
the matter to me, quite openly," Neville begins.
" No ; that's true ; you are not," Edwin Drood assents.
"But," resumes Neville, " I am accountable for mention-
ing it to you. And I did so, on the supposition that you
could not fail to be highly proud of it."
Now, there are these two curious touches of human nature
working the secret springs of this dialogue. Neville Land-
less is already enough impressed by little Rosebud to feel
indignant that Edwin Drood (far below her) should hold his
prize so lightly. Edwin Drood is already enough impressed
by Helena, to feel indignant that Helena's brother (far
below her) should dispose of him so coolly, and put him
out of the way so entirely.
However, the last remark had better be answered. So,
says Edwin ;
The mystery of edwin drood. 679
"I don't know, Mr. Neville" (adopting that mode of
address from Mr. Crisparkle), " that what people are proud-
est of they usually talk most about ; I don't know either,
that what they are proudest of they most like other people
to talk about. But I live a busy life, and I speak under
correction by you readers, who ought to know every thing, I
dare say do."
By this time they had both become savage ; Mr. Neville
out in the open, Edwin Drood under the transparent cover of
a popular tune, and a stop now and then to pretend to ad-
mire picturesque effects in the moonlight before him.
" It does not seem to me very civil in you," remarks Ne-
ville, at length, " to reflect upon a stranger who comes here,
not having had your advantages, to try to make up for lost
time. But, to be sure, / was not brought up in 'busy life,'
and my ideas of civility were formed among heathens."
" Perhaps the best civility, whatever kind of people we
are brought up among," retorts Edwin Drood, "is to mind
our own business. If you will set me that example, I
promise to follow it."
** Do you know that you take a great deal too much upon
yourself," is the angry rejoinder ; " and that in the part of the
world I come from, you would be called to account for
it ? "
" By whom, for instance ? " asks Edwin Drood, coming to
a halt, and surveying the other with a look of disdain.
But here a startling right hand is laid on Edwin's shoul-
der, and Jasper stands between them. For it would seem
that he, too, had strolled round by the Nuns' House, and has
come up behind them on the shadowy side of the road.
" Ned, Ned, Ned ! " he says. " We must have no more of
this. I don't like this. 1 have overheard high words be-
tween you two. Remember, my dear boy, you are almost
in the position of host to-night. You belong, as it were, to
the place, and in a manner represent it toward a stranger.
Mr. Neville is a stranger, and you should respect the obliga-
tions of hospitality. And, Mr. Neville," laying his left hand
on the inner shoulder of that young gentleman, and thus
walking on between them, hand to fjhoulder on either side,
" you will pardon me ; but 1 appeal to you to govern your
temper, too. Now, what is amiss ? But why ask ! Let there
be nothing amiss, and the question is superfluous. We are
all three on a good understanding, are we not ? "
After a silent struggle between the two young men who
68o T'HE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
shall speak last, Edwin Drood strikes in with, " So far as I
am concerned, Jack, there is no anger in me."
" Nor in me," says Neville Landless, though not so freely,
or perhaps so carelessly. " But if Mr. Drood knew all that
lies behind me, far away from here, he might know better
how it is that sharp-edged words have sharp edges to wound
me."
" Perhaps," says Jasper, in a smoothing manner, " we had
better not qualify our good understanding. We had better
not say any thing having the appearance of a remonstrance
or condition ; it might not seem generous. Frankly and
freely, you see there is no anger in Ned. Frankly and freely,
there is no anger in you, Mr. Neville ? "
" None at all, Mr. Jasper." Still, not quite so frankly or
so freely ; or, be it said once again, not quite so carelessly,
perhaps.
" All over then ! Now, my bachelor gate house is a few
yards from here, and the heater is on the fire, and the wine
and glasses are on the table, and it is not a stone's-throw
from Minor Canon Corner. Ned, you are up and away to-
morrow. We will carry Mr. Neville in with us, to take a
stirrup-cup."
" With all my heart, Jack."
And with all mine, Mr. Jasper." Neville feels it impos-
sible to say less, but would rather not go. He has an im-
pression upon him that he has lost hold of his temper ; feels
that Edwin Drood's coolness, so far from being infectious,
makes him red-hot.
Mr. Jasper, still walking in the center, hand to shoulder
on either side, beautifully turns the refrain of a drinking-
song, and they all go up to his rooms. There the first ob-
ject visible, when he adds the light of a lamp to that of the
fire, is the portrait over the chimney-piece. It is not an ob-
ject calculated to improve the understanding between the
two young men, as rather awkwardly reviving the subject of
their difference. Accordingly they both glance at it con-
sciously, but say nothing. Jasper, however (who would ap-
pear from his conduct to have gained but an imperfect clew
to the cause of their late high words), directly calls atten-
tion to it.
" You recognize that picture, Mr. Neville ?" shading the
lamp to throw the light upon it.
" I recognize it, but it is far from flattering the origi
nal."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIK DROOD. 68i
" Oh, you are hard upon it ! It was done by Ned, who
made me a present of it."
*' I am sorry for that, Mr. Drood." Neville apologizes,
with a real intention to apologize ; " if I had known I was
in the artist's presence "
"Oh, a joke, sir, a mere joke," Edwin cuts in, with a pro-
voking yawn. '' A little humoring of Pussy's points ! I'm
going to paint her gravely, one of these days, if she's good."
The air of leisurely patronage and indifference with which
this is said, as the speaker throws himself back in a chair
and clasps his hands at the back of his head, as a rest for it,
is very exasperating to the excitable and excited Neville.
Jasper looks observantly from the one to the other, slightly
smiles, and turns his back to mix a jug of mulled wine at
the fire. It seems to require much mixing and compound-
ing.
'* I suppose, Mr. Neville," says Edwin, quick to resent
the indignant protest against himself in the face of young
Landless, which is fully as visible as the portrait, or the fire,
or the lamp, — " 1 suppose that if you painted the picture of
your lady-love '*
" 1 can't paint," is the hasty interruption.
" That's your misfortune, and not your fault. You would
if you could. But if you could, I suppose you would make
her (no matter what she was in reality) Juno, Minerva, Diana,
and Venus, all in one. Eh ? "
" I have no lady-love, and I can't say."
" If I were to try my hand," says Edwin, with a boyish
boastfulness getting up in him, " on a portrait of Miss Land-
less — in earnest, mind you ; in earnest — you should see
what I could do ! "
*' My sister's consent to sit for it being first got, I suppose ?
As it never will be got, I am afraid I shall never see what
you can do. I must bear the loss."
Jasper turns round from the fire, fills a large goblet glass
for Neville, fills a large goblet glass for Edwm, and hands
each his own ; then fills for himself, saying : —
" Come, Mr. Neville, we are to drink to my nephew, Ned.
As it is his foot that is in the stirrup — metaphorically — our
stirrup-cup is to be devoted to him Ned, my dearest fellow,
my love ! "
Jasper sets the example of nearly emptying his glass, and
Neville follows it. Edwin Drood says, " Thank you boih
very much," and follows the double example.
682 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
"Look at him!" cries Jasper, stretching out his hand
admiringly and tenderly, though rallyingly too. *' See where
he lounges so easily, Mr. Neville ! The world is all before
him where to choose. A life of stirring work and interest, a
life of change and excitement, a life of domestic ease and
love ! Look at him ! "
Edwin Drood's face has become quickly and remarkably
flushed by the wine ; so has the face of Neville Landless.
Edwin still sits thrown back in his chair, making that rest of
clasped hands for his head.
" See how little he heeds it all ! " Jasper proceeds, in a
bantering vein. "It is hardly worth his while to pluck the
golden fruit that hangs ripe on the tree for him. And yet
consider the contrast, Mr. Neville. You and I have no
prospect of stirring work and interest, or of change and
excitement, or of domestic ease and love. You and I have
no prospect (unless you are more fortunate than I am, which
may easily be) but the tedious unchanging round of this dull
place."
** Upon my soul, Jack," says Edwin, complacently, '' I
feel quite apologetic for having my way smoothed as you
describe. But you know what I know, and it may not be so
very easy as it seems, after all. May it, Pussy ? " To the
portrait, with a snap of his thumb and finger. " We have
got to hit it off yet ; haven't we. Pussy ? You know what 1
mean. Jack."
His speech has become thick and indistinct. Jaspc*,
quiet and self-possessed, looks to Neville, as expecting his
answer or comment. When Neville speaks, his speech is
also thick and indistinct.
** It might have been better for Mr. Drood to have known
some hardships," he says, defiantly.
'' Pray," retorts Edwin, turning merely his eyes in that
direction — " Pray why might it have been better for Mr.
Drood to have known some hardships.'* "
" Ay," Jasper assents, with an air of interest ; '' let us
know why ? "
" Because they might have made him more sensible,"
says Neville, " of good fortune, that is not by any means
necessarily the result of his own merits."
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to his nephew for his rejoinder.
"Havejiw/ known hardships, may I ask?" says Edwin
Drood, sitting upright.
Mr. Jasper quickly looks to the other for his retort.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 683
"I have."
"And what have they ma.de you sensible of?"
Mr. Jasper's play of eyes, between the two, holds good
throughout the dialogue to the end.
" I have told you once before to night."
" You have done nothing of the sort."
" I tell you I have. That you take a great deal too much
upon yourself."
" You added something else to that, if I remember?"
'' Yes, I did say something else."
*' S'ay it again."
** I said that in the part of the world I come from, you
would be called to account for it."
" Only there ? " cries Edwin Drood, with a contemptuous
laugh. " A long way off, I believe ? Yes ; I see ! That
part of the world is at a safe distance."
" Say here, then," rejoins the other, rising in a fury.
" Say anywhere ! Your vanity is intolerable, your conceit
is beyond endurance, you talk as if you were some rare and
precious prize, instead of a common boaster. You are a
common fellow, and a common boaster."
" Pooh, pooh," says Edwin Drood, equally furious, but
more collected ; '' how should you know ? You may know
a black common fellow, or a black common boaster, when
you see him (and no doubt you have a large acquaintance
that way) ; but you are no judge of white men."
This insulting allusion to his dark skin infuriates Neville
to that violent degree that he flings the dregs of his wine at
Edwin Drood, and is in the act of flinging the goblet
after it when his arm is caught in the nick of time by Jas-
per.
*' Ned, my dear fellow ! " he cries in a loud voice ; " I en-
treat you, I command you to be still ! " There has been a
rush of all the three, and a clattering of glasses and over-
turning of chairs. " Mr. Neville, for shame ! Give this
glass to me. Open your hand, sir. I will have it ! "
But Neville throws him off, and pauses for an instant, in a
raging passion, with the goblet yet^ in his uplifted hand.
Then he dashes it down under the grate with such force
that the broken splinters fly out again in a shower ; and he
leaves the house.
When he first emerges into the night air, nothing around
him is still or steady ; nothing around him shows like what
it is ; he only knows that he stands with a bare head in th«
./
684 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
midst of a blood-red whirl, waiting to be struggled with, and
to struggle to the death.
But nothing happening, and the moon looking down upon
him as if he were dead after a fit of wrath, he holds his
steam-hammer beating head and heart, and staggers away.
Then he becomes half conscious of having heard himself
bolted and barred out, like a dangerous animal ; and thinks
what shall he do ?
Some wildly passionate ideas of the river dissolved under
the spell of the moonlight on the cathedral and the graves,
and the remembrance of his sister, and the thought of what
he owes to the good man who has but that very day won his
confidence and given him his pledge. He repairs to Minor
Canon Corner, and knocks softly at the door.
It is Mr. Crisparkle's custom to sit up last of the early
household, very softly touching his piano and practicing his
favorite parts in concerted vocal music. The south wind
that goes where it lists, by way of Minor Canon Corner on a
still night, is not more subdued than Mr. Crisparkle at such
times, regardful of the slumbers of the china shepherdess.
His knock is immediately answered by Mr. Crisparkle
himself. When he opens the door, candle in hand, his
cheerful face falls, and disappointed amazement is in it.
" Mr. Neville ! In this disorder ! Where have you
been ? "
" I have been to Mr. Jasper's, sir. With his nephew."
** Come in."
The minor canon props him by the elbow with a strong
hand (in a strictly scientific manner, worthy of his morning
trainings), and turns him into his own little book-room, and
shuts the door.
*' I have begun ill, sir. I have begun dreadfully ill."
" Too true. You are not sober, Mr. Neville."
" I am afraid I am not, sir, though I can satisfy you at
any other time that I have had very little indeed to drink,
and that it overcame me in the strangest and most sudden
manner."
*' Mr. Neville, Mr. Neville," says the minor canon, shak-
ing his head with a sorrowful smile, ** I have heard that said
before."
" I think — my mind is much confused, but I think — it is
equally true of Mr. Jasper's nephew, sir."
'■ Very likely," is the dry rejoinder.
*' Ws (Quarreled, sir. He insulted mc most grossly. H§
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 685
had heated that tigerish blood I told you of to-day, before
then."
** Mr. Neville," rejoins the minor canon, mildly, but
firmly, " I request you not to speak to me with that clenched
right hand. Unclench it, if you please."
" He goaded me, sir," pursues the young man, instantly
obeying, " beyond my power of endurance. I can not say
whether or not he meant it at first, but he did it. He cer-
tainly meant it at last. In short, sir," with an irrepressible
outburst, ** in the passion into which he lashed me, I would
have cut him down if I could, and I tried to do it."
'* You have clenched that hand again," is Mr. Crisparkle's
quiet commentary.
" I beg your pardon, sir."
*' You know your room, for I showed it to you before din-
ner ; but I will accompany you to it once more. Your arm,
if you please. Softly, for the house is all abed."
Scooping his hand into the same scientific elbow-rest as be-
fore, and backing it up with the inert strength of his arm, as
skillfully as a police expert, and with an apparent repose quite
unattainable by novices, Mr, Crisparkle conducts his pupil to
the pleasant and orderly old room prepared for him. Ar-
rived there the young man throws himself into a chair, and,
flinging his arms upon the reading table, rests his head upon
them with an air of wretched self-reproach.
The gentle minor canon has had it in his thoughts to leave
the room, without a word. But, looking round at the door,
and seeing this dejected figure, he turns back to it, touches it
with a mild hand, and says, " Good-night ! " A sob is his
only acknowledgment. He might have had many a worse ;
perhaps could have had few better.
Another soft knock at the outer door attracts his attention
as he goes down stairs. He opens it to Mr. Jasper, holding
in his hand the pupil's hat.
" We have had an awful scene with him," said Jasper, in a
low voice.
" Has it been so bad as that ? "
" Murderous ! "
Mr. Crisparkle remonstrates, " No, no, no. Do not use
such strong words."
'* He might have laid my dear boy dead at my feet. It is
no fault of his that he did not. But that I was, through the
mercy of God, swift and strong with him, he would have .cut
him down on my hearth,"
686 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
The phrase smites home.
" Ah ! " thinks Mr. Crisparkle. ** His own words ! "
*' Seeing what I have seen to-night, and hearing what I
have heard," adds Jasper, with great earnestness, " I shall
never know peace of mind when there is danger of these two
coming together with no one else to interfere. It was hor-
rible. There is something of the tiger in his dark blood."
" Ah ! " thinks Mr. Crisparkle. '' So he said."
" You, my dear sir," pursues Jasper, taking his hand, ''even
you have accepted a dangerous charge."
" You need have no fear for me, Jasper," returns Mr. Cris-
parkle, with a quiet smile. " I have none for myself."
** I have none for myself," returns Jasper, with an emphasis
on the last pronoun, " because I am not, nor am I in the way
of being, the object of his hostility. But you may be, and
my dear boy has been. Good-night ! "
Mr. Crisparkle goes in, with the hat that has so easily, so
almost imperceptibly, acquired the right to be hung up in his
hall, hangs it up, and goes thoughtfully to bed.
CHAPTER IX.
BIRDS IN THE BUSH.
Rosa, having no relation that she knew of in the world,
had, from the seventh year of her age, known no home but
the Nuns' House, and no other mother but Miss IVinkleton.
Her remembrance of her mother was of a pretty little creat-
ure like herself (not much older than herself it seemed to
her), who had been brought home in her father's arms,
drowned. The fatal accident had happened at a party of
pleasure. Every fold and color in the pretty summer dress,
and even the long wet hair, with scattered petals of ruined
flowers still clinging to it, as the dead young figure in its sad,
sad beauty lay upon the bed, were fixed indelibly in Rosa's
recollection. So were the wild despair and the subsequent
bowed-down grief of her poor young father, who died broken-
hearted on the first anniversary of that hard day.
'I'he betrothal of Rosa grew out of the soothing of his
year of mental distress by his fast friend and old college
companion, Drood : who likewise had been left a widower
in his youth. But he, too, went the &ileDt road into which
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 687
all earthly pilgrimages merge, some sooner and some later ;
and thus the young couple had come to be as they were.
The atmosphere of pity surrounding the little orphan girl
when she first came to Cloisterham had never cleared away.
It had taken brighter hues as she grew older, happier, pret-
tier ; now it had been golden, now roseate, and now azure ;
but it always adorned her with some soft light of its own.
The general desire to console and caress her had caused her
to be treated in the beginning as a child much younger than
her years ; the same desire had caused her to be still petted
when she was a child no longer. Who should be her favor-
ite ? who should anticipate this or that small present, or do
her this or that small service ? who should take her home for
the holidays ? who should write to her the oftenest when they
are separated ? and whom she would most rejoice to see again
when they were reunited ; — even these gentle rivalries were
not without their slight dashes of bitterness in the Nuns'
House. Well for the poor nuns in their day, if they hid no
harder strife under their veils and rosaries.
Thus Rosa had grown to be an amiable, giddy, willful,
winning little creature ; spoiled, in the sense of counting
upon kindness from all around her ; but not in the sense of
repaying it with indifference. Possessing an exhaustless
well of affection in her nature, its sparkling waters had
freshened and brightened the Nuns' House for years, and
yet its depths had never yet been moved ; what might betide
when that came to pass ; what developing changes might
fall upon the heedless head and light heart then, remained
to be seen.
By what means the news that there had been a quarrel
between the two young men over-night, involving even some
kind of onslaught by Mr. Neville upon Edwin Drood, got
into Miss Twinkleton's establishment before breakfast, it is
impossible to say. Whether it was brought in by the birds
of the air, or came blowing in with the very air itself, when
the casement windows were set open ; whether the baker
brought it kneaded into the bread, or the milkman delivered
it as part of the adulteration of his milk ; or the housemaids,
beating the dust out of their mats against the gate-posts,
received it in exchange deposited on the mats by the town
atmosphere ; certain it is that the news permeated every
gable of the old building before Miss Twinkleton was down,
and that Miss Twinkleton herself received it through Mrs.
Tisher, while yet in the act of dressing ; or (as she might
688 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
have expressed the phrase to a parent or guardian of a
mythological turn) of sacrificing to the Graces,
Miss Landless's brother had thrown a bottle at Mr. Edwin
Drood.
Miss Landless's brother had thrown a knife at Mr. Edwin
Drood.
A knife became suggestive of a fork, and Miss Landless's
brother had thrown a fork at Mr. Edwin Drood.
As in the governing precedent of Peter Piper, alleged to
have picked the peck of pickled pepper, it was held physi-
cally desirable to have evidence of the existence of the peck
of pickled pepper which Peter Piper was alleged to have
picked ; so, in this case, it was held psychologically import-
ant to know why Miss Landless's brother threw a bottle,
knife, or fork — or bottle, knife, and fork — for the cook had
been given to understand it was all three — at Mr. Edwin
Drood ?
Well, then. Miss Landless's brother had said he admired
Miss Bud. Mr. Edwin Drood had said to Miss Landless's
brother that he had no business to admire Miss Bud. Miss
Landless's brother had then ''up'd" (this was the cook's
exact information) with the bottle, knife, fork, and decanter
(the decanter now coolly flying at every body's head, with-
out the least introduction), and thrown them all at Mr
Edwin Drood.
Poor Little Rosa put a forefinger into each of her ears
when these rumors began to circulate, and retired into a
corner, beseeching not to be told any more ; but Miss Land-
less, begging permission of Miss Twinkleton to go and speak
with her brother, and pretty plainly showing that she would
take it if it were not given, struck out the more definite
course of going to Mr. Crisparkle's for accurate intelli-
gence.
When she came back (being first closeted with Miss
Twinkleton, in order that any thing objectionable in her
tidings might be retained by that discreet filter), she im-
parted to Rosa only what had taken place ; dweUing with a
flushed cheek on the provocation her brother had received,
but almost limiting it to that last gross affront as crowning
'* some other words between them," and, out of consideration
for her new friend, passing lightly over the fact that the
other words had originated in her lover's taking things in
general so very easily. To Rosa direct, she brought a
petition from her brother that she would forgive him ; and,
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 689
having delivered it with sisterly earnestness, made an end
of the subject.
It was reserved for Miss Twinkleton to tone down the
public mind of the Nuns' House. That lady, therefore,
entering in a stately manner what plebeians might have
called the school-room, but what, in the patrician language
of the head of the Nuns' House, was euphuistically, not to
say roundaboutedly, denominated " the apartment allotted
to study," and saying with a forensic air, " Ladies ! " all
rose. Mrs. Tisher at the same time grouped herself behind
her chief, as representing Queen Elizabeth's first historical
female friend at Tilbury Fort. Miss Twinkleton then pro-
ceeded to remark that Rumor, ladies, had been represented
by the Bard of Avon — needless were it to mention the im-
mortal Shakespeare, also called the Swan of his native river,
not improbably with some reference to the ancient super-
stition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will
please stand upright) sung sweetly on the approach of death,
for which we have no ornithological authority — Rumor,
ladies, had been represented by that bard — hem ! —
'* who drew
The celebrated Jew,"
as painted full of tongues. Rumor in Cloisterham (Miss Fer-
dinand will honor me with her attention) was no exception to
the great limner's portrait of Rumor elsewhere. A slight/ra-
cas between two young gentlemen occurring last night within
a hundred miles of these peaceful walls (Miss Ferdinand,
being apparently incorrigible, will have the kindness to write
out this evening, in the original language, the first four fa-
bles of our vivacious neighbor, Monsieur La Fontaine) had
been very grossly exaggerated by rumor's voice. In the
first alarm and anxiety arising from our sympathy with a
sweet young friend, not wholly to be dissociated from one
of the gladiators in the bloodless arena in question (the im-
propriety of Miss Reynolds's appearing to stab herself in
the band with a pin, is far too obvious, and too glaringly
unladylike to be pointed out), we descended from our
maiden elevation to discuss this uncongenial and this unfit
theme. Responsible inquiries having assured us that it was
but one of those " airy nothings" pointed at by the poet
(whose name and date of birth Miss Giggles will supply
within half an hour), we would now discard the subject, and
concentrate our minds upon the grateful labors of the day.
690 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
But the subject so survived all day, nevertheless, that
Miss Ferdinand got into new trouble by surreptitiously
clapping on a paper mustache at dinner-time, and going
through the motions of aiming a water-bottle at Miss Gig-
gles, who drew a table-spoon in defense.
Now, Rosa thought of this unlucky quarrel a great deal,
and thought of it with an uncomfortable feeling that she
was involved in it, as cause, or consequence, or what not,
through being in a false position altogether as to her mar-
riage engagement. Never free from such uneasiness when
she was with her affianced husband, it was not likely that
she would be free from it when they were apart. To-day,
too, she was cast in upon herself, and deprived of the relief
of talking freely with her new friend, because the quarrel
had been with Helena's brother, and Helena undisguisedly
avoided the subject as a delicate and difficult one to herself.
At this critical time, of all times, Rosa's guardian was an-
nounced as having come to see her,
Mr. Grewgious had been well selected for his trust, as a
man of incorruptible integrity, but certainly for no other
appropriate quality discernible on the surface. He was an
arid, sandy man, who, if he had been put into a grinding-mill,
looked as if he would have ground immediately into high-
dried snuff. He had a scanty fiat crop of hair, in color and
consistency like some very mangy yellow fur tippet ; it was
so unlike hair, that it must have been a wig, but for the stu-
pendous improbability of any body's voluntarily sporting
such a head. The little play of feature that his face pre-
sented was cut deep into it, in a few hard curves that made
it more like work ; and he had certain notches in his fore-
head, which looked as though nature had been about to
touch them into sensibility or refinement, when she had im-
patiently thrown away the chisel, and said, *' I really can
not be worried to finish off this man ; let him go as he is."
With too great length of throat at his upper end, and too
much ankle-bone and heel at his lower ; with an awkward
and hesitating manner ; with a shambling walk, and with
what is called a near sight — which perhaps prevented his
observing how much white cotton stocking he displayed to
the public eye, in contrast with his black suit — Mr. Grew-
gious still had some strange capacity in him "of making on
the whole an agreeable impression,
Mr. Grewgious was discovered by his ward, much dis-
comfited by being in Miss Twinkleton's company in Mis?
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 691
Twlnkleton's own sacred room. Dim forebodings of being
examined in something, and not coming well out of it, seemed
to oppress the poor gentleman when found in these circum-
stances.
" My dear, how do you do? I am glad to see you. My
dear, how much improved you are. Permit me to hand you
a chair, my dear."
Miss Twinkleton rose at her little writing-table, saying,
with general sweetness, as to the polite universe, *' Will you
permit me to retire ? "
" By no means, madam, on my account. I beg that you
will not move."
"I must entreat permission to movcy' returned Miss
Twinkleton, repeating the word with a charming grace ;
'^ but I will not withdraw, since you are so obliging. If I
wheel my desk to this corner window, shall I be in the
way ? "
" Madam ! In the way ! "
" You are very kind. Rosa, my dear, you will be under
no restraint, I am sure."
Here Mr. Grewgious, left by the fire with Rosa, said again,
" My dear, how do you do ? I am glad to see you, my
dear." And having waited for her to sit down, sat down
himself.
*' My visits," says Mr, Grewgious, " are, like those of the
angels — not that I compare myself to an angel."
" No, sir," said Rosa.
" Not by any means," assented Mr. Grewgious. " I merely
refer to my visits, which are few and far between. The
angels are, we know very well, up-stairs."
Miss Twinkleton looked round with a kind of stiff stare.
*' I refer, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, laying his hand
on Rosa's, as the possibility thrilled through his frame of his
otherwise seeming to take the awful liberty of calling Miss
Twinkleton my dear — " I refer to the other young ladies.'
Miss Twinkleton resumed her writing.
Mr. Grewgious, with a sense of not having managed his
opening point quite as neatly as he might have desired,
smoothed his head from back to front as if he had just
dived, and were pressing the water out — this smoothing ac-
tion, however supcTfluous, was habitual with him — and took
a pocket-book from his coat-pocket, and a stump of black-
lead pencil from his waistcoat-pocket,
'* I made," he said, turning the leaves—" I made a guid*
692 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
ing memorandum or so — as I usually do, for I have no con*
versational powers whatever — to which I will, with your per*
mission, my dear, refer. * Well and happy.' Truly. You
are well and happy, my dear ? You look so."
** Yes, indeed, sir," answered Rosa.
" For which," said Mr. Grewgious, with a bend of his
head toward the corner of the window, " our warmest ac-
knowledgments are due, and I am sure are rendered, to the
maternal kindness and the constant care and consideration
of the lady whom I have now the honor to see before me."
This point, again, made but a lame departure from Mr.
Grewgious, and never got to its destination ; for Miss Twink-
leton, feeling that the courtesies required her to be by this
time quite outside the conversation, was biting the end of
her pen, and looking upward, as waiting for the descent of
an idea from any member of the Celestial Nine who might
have one to spare.
Mr. Grewgious smoothed his smooth head again, and then
made another reference to his pocket-book ; lining out " well
and happy " as disposed of.
" ' Pounds, shillings, and pence ' is my next note. A dry
subject for a young lady, but an important subject too. Life
is pounds, shillings, and pence. Death is — " A sudden
recollection of the death of her two parents seemed to stop
him, and he said in a softer tone, and evidently inserting the
negative as an afterthought, " Death is not pounds, shillings,
and pence."
His voice was as hard and dry as himself, and fancy
might have ground it straight like himself, into high-dried
snuff. And yet, through the very limited means of expres-
sion that he possessed, he seemed to express kindness. If
nature had but finished him off, kindness might have been
recognized in his face at this moment. But if the notches
in his forehead wouldn't fuse together, and if his face would
work and couldn't play, what could he do, poor man !
" * Pounds, shillings, and pence.' You find your allow-
ance always sufficient for your wants, my dear ? "
Rosa wanted for nothing, and therefore it was ample.
** And you are not in debt ? "
Rosa laughed at the idea of being in debt. It seemed, to
her inexperience, a comical vagary of the imagination. Mr.
Grewgious stretched his near slight to be sure that this was
her view of the case. " Ah ! " he said, as comment, with
a furtive glance toward Miss Twinkleton, and lining cm
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DRuOD. 693
"pounds, shillings, and pence;" " I spoke of having got
among the angels ! So I did ! '*
Rosa felt what his next memorandum would prove to be,
and was blushing and folding a crease in her dress with one
embarrassed hand long before he found it.
'* ' Marriage.' Hem ! " Mr. Grewgious carried his smooth-
ing hand down over his eyes aiid nose, and even chin, before
drawing his chair a little nearer, and speaking a little more
confidentially : " I now touch, my dear, upon the point that
is the direct cause of my troubling you with the present visit.
Otherwise, being a particularly angular man, 1 should not
have intruded here. I am the last man to intrude into a
sphere for which I am so entirely unfitted. I feel, on these
premises, as if I was a bear— with the cramp— in a youthful
cotillon." ^ ...
His ungainliness gave him enough of the air of his simile
to set Rosa off laughing heartily.
'' It strikes you in the same light," said Mr. Grewgious
with perfect calmness. " Just so. To return to my memo-
randum. Mr. Edwin has been to and fro here, as was ar-
ranged. You have mentioned that in your quarterly letters
to me. And you like him, and he likes you."
" I like him very much, sir," rejoined Rosa.
" So I said, my dear," returned her guardian, for whose
ear the timid emphasis was much too fine. ** Good. And
you correspond ? "
'' We write to one another," said Rosa, pouting, as she re-
called their epistolary differences.
'' Such is the meaning that I attach to the word ' corre-
spond,' in this application, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious.
" Good. All goes well, time works on, and at this next
Christmas-time it will become necessary, as a matter of
form, to give the exemplary lady in the corner window,
to whom we are so much indebted, business notice
of your departure in the ensuing half year. Your re-
lations with her are far more than business relations,
no doubt ; but a residue of business remains in them, and
business is business ever. I am a particularly angular
man," proceeded Mr. Grewgious, as if it suddenly occurred
to him to mention it, " and I am not used to give any thing
away. If, for these two reasons, some competent proxy
would give you away, I should take it very kindly."
Rosa intimated, with her eyes on the ground, that shp
thought a substitute might be found, if required.
694 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" Surely, surely," said ^Mr. Grewgious. " For instance,
the gentleman who teaches dancing here — he would know
how to do it with graceful propriety. He would advance and
retire in a manner satisfactory to the feelings of the officiating
clergyman, and of yourself, and the bridegroom, and all
parties concerned. I am — I am a particularly angular man,"
said Mr. Grewgious, as if he had made up his mind to screw
it out at last, ''and should only blunder."
Rosa sat still and silent. Perhaps her mind had not got
quite so far as the ceremony yet, but was lagging on the way
there.
" Memorandum, * Will.' Now, my dear," said Mr. Grew-
gious, referring to his notes, disposing of marriage with
his pencil, and taking a paper from his pocket, " although I
have before possessed you with the contents of your father's
v/ill, I think it right at this time to leave a certified copy of
it in your hands. And although Mr. Edwin is also aware of
its contents, I think it right at this time likewise to place a
certified copy of it in Mr. Jasper's hands "
" Not in his own ? " asked Rosa, looking up quickly.
" Can not the copy go to Eddy himself .?"
" Why, yes, my dear, if you particularly wish it ; but I
spoke of Mr. Jasper as being his trustee."
*' I do particularly wish it, if you please," said Rosa, hur-
riedly and earnestly ; '' I don't like Mr. Jasper to come be-
tween us, in any way.
*' It is natural, I suppose," said Mr. Grewgious, *' that your
young husband should be all in all. Yes. You observe that
I say, I suppose. The fact is, I am a particularly unnatural
man, and I don't know from my own knowledge."
Rosa looked at him with some wonder.
"I mean," he explained, "that young ways were never my
ways. I was the only offspring of parents far advanced in
life, and I half believe I was born advanced in lite myself
No personality is intended toward the name you will so soon
change, when I remark that while the general growth of
people seem to have come into existence buds, I seem to
have come into existence a chip. I was a chip — and a very
dry one — when I first became aware of myself. Respecting
the other certified copy, your wish shall be complied with.
Respecting your inheritance, I think you know all. It is an
annuity of two hundred and fifty pounds. The savings upon
that annuity, and some other items to your credit, all duly
[tarried to account, with vouchers, will place you in possession
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 695
of a lump-suir of money, rather exceeding seventeen hun-
dred pounds. I am empowered to advance the cost of your
preparations lor your marriage out of that fund. All is
told."
'* Will you please tell me," said Rosa, taking the paper
with a prettily knitted brow, but not opening it, '' whether I
am right in what I am going to say .? I can understand
what you tell me so very much better than what I read in
law-writings. My poor papa and Eddy's father made their
agreement together, as very dear and firm and fast friends,
in order that we too might be very dear and firm and fast
friends after them ? "
" Just so."
" For the lasting good of both of us, and the lasting hap-
piness of both of us .'' "
"Just so."
*' That we might be to one another even much more than
they had been to one another ? "
'' Just so."
" It was not bound upon Eddy, and it was not bound upon
me, by any forfeit, in case "
" Don't be agitated, my dear. In the case that it brings
tears into your affectionate eyes even to picture to yourself,
— in the case of your not marrying one another — no, no for-
feiture on either side. You would then have been my ward
until you were of age. No worse would have befallen you.
Bad enough, perhaps ? "
"And Eddy?"
" He would have come into his partnership derived from
his father, and into its arrears to his credit (if any), on at-
taining his majority, just as now."
Rosa, with her perplexed face and knitted brow, bit the
corner of her attested copy, as she sat with her head on one
side, looking abstractedly on the floor, and smoothing it with
her foot.
" In short," said Mr. Grewgious, " this betrothal is a wish,
a sentiment, a friendly project, tenderly expressed on both
sides. That it was strongly felt, and that there was a lively
hope that it would prosper, there can be no doubt. When you
were both children, you began to be accustomed to it, and
it /las prospered. But circumstances alter cases ; and I
made this vibit to-day partly, indeed principally, to discharge
myself of the duty of telling you, my dear, that two young
people can only be betrothed in marriage (except as a mat*
696 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
ter of convenience, and therefore mockery and misery) of
their own free will, their own attachment, and their own as-
surance (it may or may not prove a mistaken one, but we
must take our chances of that) that they are suited to each
other and will make each other happy. Is it to be supposed,
for example, that if either of your fathers were living now,
and had any mistrust on that subject, his mind would not be
changed by the change of circumstances involved in the
change of your years? Untenable, unreasonable, inconclu-
sive, and preposterous ! "
Mr. Grewgious said all this as if he were reading it aloud ;
or, still more, as if he were repeating a lesson. So expres-
sionless of any approach to spontaneity were his face and
manner.
" I have now, my dear," he added, blurring out " Will "
with his pencil, " discharged myself of what is doubtless a
formal duty in this case, but still a duty in such a case.
Memorandum : 'Wishes.' My dear, is there any wish of
yours that I can further ? "
Rosa shook her head, with an almost plaintive air of hesi-
tation in want of help.
" Is there any instruction that I can take from you with
reference to your affairs ? "
" I — I should like to settle them with Eddy first, if you
please," said Rosa, plaiting the crease in her dress.
''Surely. Surely," returned Mr. Grewgious. "You two
should be of one mind in all things. Is the young gentle-
man expected shortly ?"
*' He has gone away only this morning. He will be back
at Christmas."
" Nothing could happen better. You will, on his return
at Christmas, arrange all matters of details with him ; you
will then communicate with me, and I will discharge myself
(as a mere business acquaintance) of my business responsi-
bilities toward the accomplished lady in the corner window.
T^xJy will accrue at that season." Blurring pencil once again.
" Memorandum : ' Leave.' Yes. I will now, my dear, take
my leave."
"Could I," said Ros ., rising, as he jerked out of his
chair in his ungainly way — " could I ask you most kindly
to come to me at Christmas, if I had any thing particular to
say to you ? "
*' Why, certainly, certainly," he rejoined, apparently — if
such a word can be used of one who had no apparent lights
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 697
or shadows about him — complmiented by the question. "As
a particularly angular man, I do not fit smoothly into the
social circle, and consequently I have no other engage-
ment at Christmas-time than to partake, on the twenty-fifth,
of a boiled turkey and celery sauce with a— with a particu-
larly angular clerk I have the good fortune to possess,
whose father being a Norfolk farmer, sends him up (the tur-
key up), as a present to me, from the neighborhood of
Norwich. I should be quite proud of your wishing to see
me, my dear. As a professional receiver of rents, so very
few people do wish to see me, that the novelty would be
bracing."
For his ready acquiescence, the grateful Rosa put her
hands upon his shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and instantly
kissed him.
*' Lord bless me," cried Mr. Grewgious. " Thank you, my
dear. The honor is almost equal to the pleasure. Miss
Twinkleton, madam, I have had a most satisfactory conver-
sation with my ward, and I will now release you from the
incumbrance of my presence."
" Nay, sir," rejoined Miss Twinkleton, rising with a gra-
cious condescension ; " say not incumbrance. Not so, by any
means. I can not permit you to say so."
" Thank you, madam. I have read in the newspapers,"
said Mr. Grewgious, stammering a little, " that when ^ a
distinguished visitor (not that I am one : far from it)
goes to a school (not that this is one ; far from it), he
asks for a holiday, or some sort of grace. It being now
the afternoon in the— college— of which you are the emi-
nent head, the young ladies might gain nothing except m
name, by having the rest of the day allowed them. But
if there is any young lady at all under a cloud, might I
solicit — "
**Ah, Mr. Grewgious, Mr. Grewgious!" cried Miss
Twinkleton, with a chastely rallying forefinger. " Oh, you
gentlemen, you gentlemen ! Fie for shame, that you are so
hard upon us poor maligned disciplinarians of our sex, for
your sakes ! But as Miss Ferdinand is at present weighed
down by an incubus,"— iVIiss Twinkleton might have said a
pen-and-ink-ubus of writing out Monsieur La Fontaine—
" go to her, Rosa, my dear, and tell her the penalty is re-
mitted, in deference to the intercession of your guardian, Mr.
Grewgious."
Miss Twinkleton here achieved a courtesy, suggestive ot
698 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
marvels happening to her respected legs^ and which she
came out of nobly, three yards behind her starting point.
As he held it incumbent upon him to call on Mr. Jasper
before leaving Cloisterham, Mr. Grewgious went to the Gate
House, and climbed its postern stair. But Mr. Jasper's
door being closed, and presenting on a slip of paper the word
" Catliedral," the fact of its being service-time was borne
into the mind of Mr. Grewgious. So, he descended the stair
again, and, crossing the close, paused at the great western
folding-door of the cathedral, which stood open on the fine
and bright, though short-lived, afternoon, for the airing of
the place.
" Dear me," said Mr. Grewgious, peeping in, " it's like
looking down the throat of old Time."
Old Time heaved a moldy sigh from tomb and arch and
vault ; and gloomy shadows began to deepen in corners ;
and damps began to rise from green patches of stone ; and
jewels, cast upon the pavement of the nave from stained
glass by the declining sun, began to perish. Within the
grill-gate of the chancel, up the steps surmounted loomingly
by the fast-darkening organ, white robes could be dimly
seen, and one feeble voice, rising and falling in a cracked
monotonous mutter, could at intervals be faintly heard. In
the free outer air, the river, the green pastures, and the
brown arable lands, the teeming hills and dales, were red-
dened by the sunset : while the distant little windows in
windmills and farm homesteads, shone, patches of bright
beaten gold. In the cathedral, all became gray, murky and
sepulchral, and the cracked, monotonous mutter went on like
a dying voice, until the organ and the choir burst forth, and
drowned it in a sea of music. Then the sea fell, and the
dying voice made another feeble effort, and then the sea rose
high, and beat its life out, and laslied the roof, and surged
among the arches, and pierced the heights of the great
tower ; and then the sea was dry, and all was still.
Mr. Grewgious had by that time walked to the chancel-
steps, where he met the living waters coming out.
" Nothing is the matter ? " Thus Jasper accosted him,
rather quickly. " You have not been sent for ? "
" Not at all, not at all, I came down of my own accord.
I have been to my pretty ward's, and I am now homeward-
bound again."
" You found her thriving ? "
" Blooming indeed. Most blooming. I merely came to
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 699
tell her, seriously, what a betrothal by deceased parent's
is."
" And what is it — according to your judgment ? "
Mr. Grewgious noticed the whiteness of the lips that asked
the question, and put it down to the chilling account of the
cathedral.
'' I merely came to tell her that it could not be considered
binding, against any such reason for its dissolution as a want
of affection, or want of disposition to carry it into effect, on
the side of either party."
" May I ask, ha you any special reason for telling her
that?"
Mr. Grewgious answered somewhat sharply, " The espe-
cial reason of doing my duty, sir. Simply that." Then he
added, " Come, Mr. Jasper ; 1 know your affection for your
nephew, and that you are quick to feel on his behalf. I as-
sure you that thi: implies not the least doubt of, or disrespect
to, your nephew."
" You could not," returned Jasper, with a friendly pres-
sure on his arm, as they walked on side by side, " speak
more handsomely."
Mr, Grewgious pulled off his hat to smooth his head, and,
having smoothed it, nodded it contentedly, and put his hat
on again.
" 1 will wager," said Jasper, smiling — his lips were still so
white that he was conscious of it, and bit and moistened
them while speaking — '* I will wager that she hinted no wish
to be released from Ned."
"And you will win your wager, if I do," retorted Mr.
Grewgious. " We should allow som.e margin for little maid-
enly delicacies in a young motherless creature, under such
circumstances, I suppose ; it is not in my line ; what do you
think ? "
" There can be no doubt of it."
"I am glad you say so. Because," proceeded Mr. Grew-
gious, who had all this time very knowingly felt his way
round to action on his remembrance of what she had said of
Jasper himself — " because she seems to have some little
delicate instinct that all preliminary arrangements had best
be made between Mr. Edwin Drood and herself, don't you
see ? She don't want us, don't you know ? "
Jasper touched himself on the breast, and said, somewhat
indistinctly, "You mean me."
yir. Grewgious touched himself on the breast, and said,
" I mean us. Therefore, let them have their little discus*
700 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
sions and councils together, when Mr. Edward Drood comes
back here at Christmas, and then you and I will step in, and
put the final touches to the business."
" So you settled with her that you would come back at
Christmas ? " observed Jasper. '' I see ! Mr. Grewgious,
as you quite fairly said just now, there is such an exceptional
attachment between my nephew and me, that I am more
sensitive for the dear, fortunate happy, happy fellow than
for myself. But it is only right that the young lady should
be considered, as you have pointed out, and that I should
accept my cue from you. I accept it. I understand that at
Christm.as they will complete their preparations for May,
and that their marriage will be put in final train by them-
selves, and that nothing will remain for us but to put our-
selves in train also, and have every thing ready for our
formal release from our trusts on Edwin's birthday."
"That is my understanding," assented Mr. Grewgious,
as they shook hands to part. " God bless them both ! "
" God save them both ! " cried Jasper.
" I said, bless them," remarked the former, looking back
over his shoulder.
" I said, save them," returned the latter. " Is there any
difference ? "
CHAPTER X.
SMOOTHING THE WAY.
It has been often enough remarked that women have
a curious power of divining the characters of men, which
would seem to be innate and instinctive ; seeing that it is
arrived at through no patient process of reasoning, that it
can give no satisfactory or sufficient account of itself, and
that it pronounces in the most confident manner even against
accumulated observation on the part of the other sex. But
it has not been quite so often remarked that this power
(fallible, like every other human attribute) is for the most
parJ; absolutely incapable of self-revision ; and that when
it had delivered an adverse opinion which by all human
lights is subsequently proved to have failed, it is undistin-
guishable from prejudice, in respect of its determination not
to be corrected. Nay, the very possibility of contradiction
or disproof, however remote, communicates to this femi-
nine judgment from the first, in nine cases out of ten, the
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 7^1
weakness attendant on the testimony of an interested wit-
ness ; so personally and strongly does the fair diviner con-
nect herself with her divination.
" Now, don't you think, ma, dear," said the minor canon
to his mother, one day as she sat at her knitting in his little
book-room, '' that you are rather hard on Mr. Neville ? "
" No, I do not. Sept," returned the old lady.
" Let us discuss it, ma."
" I have no objection to discuss it, Sept. I trust, my dear,
I am always open to discussion." There was a vibration in
the old lady's cap, as though she internally added, " And \
should like to see the discussion that would change my
mind ! "
" Very good, ma," said her conciliatory son. " There is
nothing like being open to discussion."
" I hope not, my dear, returned the old lady, evidently
shut to it.
"Well ! Mr. Neville, on that unfortunate occasion, com-
mits himself under provocation."
" And under mulled wine," added the old lady.
" I must admit the wine. Though I believe the two young
men were much alike in that regard."
" I don't ! " said the old lady.
" Why not, ma t "
" Because I (/o;i'/," said the old lady. " Still, I am quite
open to discussion."
"But, my dear ma, I can not see how we are to discuss,
if you take that line."
" Blame Mr. Neville for it, Sept, and not me," said the
old lady, with stately severity.
" My dear ma " Why Mr. Neville ? "
"Because," said Mi3o Crisparkle, retiring on first princi-
ples, " he came home intoxicated, and did great discredit to
this house, and showed gr at disrespect to this family."
"That is not to b- denied, ma. He was then, and he is
now, very sorry tor it.'
" But for Mr. Jasper's well-bred consideration in coming
up to me next day, after service, in the nave itself, with his
gown still on, and expressing his hope that I had not been
greatly alarmed or had my rest violently broken, I believe I
might never have heard of that disgraceful transaction," said
the old lady.
" To be candid, ma, I think I should have kept it from
you if 1 could, though I had not decidedly made up my
702 THE LIVGTLIIY CF EDWIN DROCD.
mind. I was following Jacpcr out to confer v/i.h him on the
subject, and to consider the expediency of his and my jointly
hushing the thing up on all accounts, when I found him
speaking to you. Then it was too late."
'* Too late, indeed, Sept. He was still as pale as gentle-
manly ashes at what had taken place in his rooms over
night."
" If I hai kept it from you, ma, you may be suie it would
have been for your peace and quiet, and for the good of the
young men, and in my best discharge of my duty according
to my lights,"
The old lady immediately walked across the room and
kissed him, saying, " Of course, my dear Sept, 1 am sure of
that."
*' However, it became the town-talk," said Mr. Crisparkle,
rubbing his ear, as his mother resumed her seat and her
knitting, "and passed out of my powe \"
" And I said then, Sept," returned the old lady, " that I
thought ill of Mr. Neville. And I say now, that 1 think ill
of Mn Neville. And I said then, and 1 say now, that I
iiope Mr. Neville may come to good, but I don't believe he
will" Here the cap vibrated again, considerably.
" I am sorry to hear you say so, ma — "
" I am sorry to say so, my dear," interposed the old lady,
knitting on firmly, " but I can't help it."
" — For," pursued the minor canon, "it is undeniable
that Mr. Neville is exceedingly industrious and attentive,
and that he improves apace, and that he has — 1 hope I may
say — an attachment to me."
" There is no merit in the last article, my dear," said the
old lady, quickly, " and if he says there is, 1 think the worse
of him for the boast."
" But, my dear ma, he never said there was."
" Perhaps not," returned the old lady ; " still, I don't see
that it greatly signifies."
There was no impatience in the pleasant look with which
Mr. Crisparkle contemplated the pretty old piece of china
as it knitted ; but there was, certainly, a humorous sense of
its not being a piece of china to argue with very closely.
" Besides, Sept. Ask yourself what he would be without
his sister. You know what an influence she has over him ;
you know what a capacity she has ; you know whatever he
reads with you, he reads with l^er. Give her her fair share
of your prai.e, and how much do you leave for him ? "
THE MVSrERV OF KDWTN DROOD. 703
At these words Mr. Crisparkle fell into a little reverie, in
which he thought of several things. He thought of the
times he had seen the brother and sister togeth-r in deep
converse over one of his own old college books ; now, in
the rimy mornings, when he made those sharpening pil-
grimages to Cloisterham Weir ; now, in the somber evenings,
when he faced the wind at sunset, having climbed his
favorite outlook — a beetling fragment of monastery ruin;
and the two studious figures passed below him along the
margin of the river, in which the town fires and lights already
shone, making the landscape bleaker. He thought how the
consciousness had stolen upon him that, in teaching one, he
was teaching two • and how he had almost insensibly adapted
his explanations t: bodi minds — that v.-ith which his own was
daily in contact, and that which he only approached throug!^
it. He thought of the gossip that had reached him from the
Nuns' House, to the effect that Helena, whom he had mis-
trusted as so proud and fierce, submitted herself to the fairy-
bride (as he called her), and learned from her what she kn^-v/.
He thought of the picturesque alliance between those two,
externally so very different. He thought — perhaps most of
all — could it be that these things were yet but so many weeks
old, and had become an integral part of his life ?
As, whenever the Reverend Septimus fell a-musing, his
good mother took it to be an infallible sign that he " wantea
support," the blooming old lady made all haste to the dining-
room closet, to produce from it the support embodied in a
glass of Constantia and a home-made biscuit. It was a
most wonderful closet, worthy of Cloisterham and of Minor
Canon Corner. Above it, a portrait of Handel in a flowing
wig beamed down at the spectator with a knowing air of
being up to the contents of the closet, and a musical air of
intending to combine all its harmonies in one delicious fugue.
No common closet with a vulgar door on hinges, openable
all at once, and leaving nothing to be disclosed by degrees,
this rare closet had a lock in mid-air, where two perpendicu-
lar slides met ; the one falling down, and the other pushing
up. The upper slide, on being pulled down (leaving the
lower a double mystery), revealed deep shelves of pickle-
jars, jam-pots, tin-canisters, spice-boxes, and agreeably out-
landish vessels of blue and vv'hite, the luscious lodgings of
preserved tamarinds and ginge.\ Every benevolent inhabi-
tant of this retreat had his name mscribed upon his stomach.
The pickles, in a uniform of rich brown, double-breasted,
704 THE MYSTERY OF EUVVIxN DROOD.
buttoned coat, and yellow or somber drab continuatic^is, an-
nounced their portly forms, in printed capitals, as Walnut,
Gherkin, Onion, (Cabbage, Cauliflower, Mixed, and other mem-
bers of that noble family. The jams, as being of a less mascu-
line temperament, and as wearing curl papers, announced
themselves in feminine caligraphy, like a soft whisper, to be
Raspberry, Gooseberry, Apricot, Plum, Damson, Apple, and
Peach. The scene closing on these charmers and the lower
slide ascendmg, oranges were revealed, attended by a mighty
japanned sugar-box, to temper their acerbity if unripe.
Home-made biscuits waited at the court of these powers,
accompanied by a goodly fragment of plum-cake, and vari-
ous slender ladies' fingers, to be dipped in sweet wine and
kissed. Lowest of ail, a compact leaden vault enshrined
the sweet wine and a stock of cordials : whence issued
whispers of Seville Orange, Lemon, Almond, and Caraway-
seed. There was a crowning air upon this closet of closets,
of having been for ages hummed through by the cathedral
bell and organ, until those venerable bees had made sublima-
ted honey of every thing in store : and it was always ob-
served that every dipper among the shelves (deep, as has
been noticed, and swallowing up head, shoulders, and elbows)
came forth again mello\v-faced,^and seeming to have under-
gone a saccharine transfiguration.
The Reverend Septimus yielded himself up quite as
willing a victim to a nauseous medicinal herb-closet, also
presided over by the china shepherdess, as to this glorious
cupboard. To what amazing infusions of gentian, pepper-
mint, gillyflower, sage, parsley, thyme, rue, rosemary, and
dandelion, did his courageous stomach submit itself ! In
what wonderful wrappers inclosing layers of dried leaves,
would he swathe his rosy and contented face, if his mother
suspected him of a toothache ! What botanical blotches
wpuld he cheerfully stick upon his cheek or forehead, if the
dear old lady convicted him of an imperceptible pimple
there ! Into this herbaceous penitentiary, situated on an
upper staircase landing — alow and narrow whitewashed cell,
where bunches of dried leaves hung from rusty hooks in the
ceiling, and were spread out upon shelves, in company with
portentous bottles — would the Reverend S.ptimus submis-
sively be led, like the highly popular lamb who has so long
and unresistingly been led to the slaughter, and there would
he, unlike that lamb, bore nobody but himself. Not even
doing tliat much, so that the old 'ady were busy and pleased,
THE MYSIKRV OF EDWIN DROOD. 705
he would quietly swallow what was given him, merely taking
a corrective dip of hands and face into the great bowl of
dried rose-leaves, and into the other great bowl of dried
lavender, and then would go out, as confident in the
sweetening powers of Cloisterham Weir and a wholesome
mind as Lady Macbeth was hopeless of those of all the seas
that roll.
In the present instance the good minor canon took his
glass of Constantia wdth an excellent grace and, so supported,
to his mother's satisfaction, applied himself to the remain-
ing duties of the day. In their orderly and punctual prog-
ress they brought round vesper service and twilight. The
cathedral being very cold, he set off for a brisk trot after
service ; the trot to end in a charge at his favorite fragment
of ruin, which was to be carried by storm, without a pause
^or breath.
He carried it in a masterly manner, and, not breathed even
then, stood looking down upon the river. The river at Clois-
terham is sufficiently near the sea to throw up oftentimes a
quantity of sea-weed. An unusual quantity had come in with
the last tide, and this, and the confusion of the water, and
the restless dipping and flapping of the noisy gulls, and an
angry light out seaward beyond the brown-sailed barges
that were turning black, foreshadowed a stormy night. In
his mind he was contrasting the wild and noisy sea with the
quiet harbor of Minor Canon Corner, when Helena and
Neville Landless passed below him. He had had the two
together in his thoughts all day, and at once climbed down to
speak to them together. The footmg was rough in an un-
certain light for any tread save that of a good climber ; but
the minor canon was as good a climber as most men, and
stood beside them before many good climbers v\ould have
been half-w^ay down.
"A wild evening. Miss Landless ! Do you not find your
usual walk with your brother too exposed and cold for the
time of year ? Or at all events when the sun is down, and
the weather is driving in from the sea ? "
Helena thought not. It was their favorite walk. It was
very retired.
" It is very retired," assented Mr. Crisparkle, laying hold of
his opportunity straightway, and walking on v.-ith them, '* It
is a place of all others where one can speak without inter-
ruption, as 1 wish to do. Mr. Neville, I believe you tell
your sister every thing that passes between us ? "
7o6 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" Every thing, sir."
" Consequently," said Mr. Crisparklc, *' your sister is aware
that I have repeatedly urged you to make some kind of
apology for that unfortunate occurrence which befell on
the night of your arrival here."
In saying it he looked to her, and not to him ; therefore
it was she, and not he, who replied
" Yes."
" I call it unfortunate, Miss Helena," resumed Mr. Cris-
parkle, "forasmuch as it certainly has engendered a prej-
udice against Neville. There is a notion about that he
is a dangerously passionate fellow, of an uncontrollable
and furious temper ; he is really avoided as such."
" I have no doubt he is, poor fellow," said Helena, with
a look of proud compassion at her brother, expressing c
deep sense of his being ungenerously treated. '' 1 should be
quite sure of it, from your saying so ; but what you tell me
is confirmed by suppressed hints and references that I meet
wdth every day."
*' Now," Mr. Crisparkle again resumed, in a tone of mild
though firm persuasion, '* is not this to be regretted, and
ought it not to be amended ? These are early days of Ne-
ville's in Cloisterham, and 1 have no fear of his not outliving
such a prejudice, and proving himself to have been misun-
derstood. But how much wiser to take action at once than
to trust to uncertain time ! Besides, apart from its being
politic, it is right. For there can be no question that Neville
w^as wrong."
" He was provoked," Helena submitted.
'' He was the assailant," Mr. Crisparkle submitted.
They walked on in silence, until Hekna raised her
eyes to the minor canon's face, and said, almost reproach-
fully, "Oh, Mr. Crisparkle, would you have Neville throw
himself at young Drood's fee:-, or at Mr. Jasper's, who
maligns him every day ? In your heart you can not mean
it. From your heart you could not do it, if his case were
yours."
" I have represented to Mr. Crisparkle, Helena," said
Neville, with a glance of deference toward hie tutor,
" that if I could do it from my hear; I would. But I can
not, and I revolt from the pretense. You forget, how-
ever, that to put ihc cacc to Mr. Crisparkle as his own,
is to suppose Mr. Crisparkle to have done what I did,"
" 1 ask his pardon," said Helena.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 707
" You see," remarked Mr. Crisparkle, again laying hold
of his opportunity, though with a moderate and delicate
touch, " you both instinctively acknowledge that Neville
did wrong ! Then why stop short, and not otherwise ac-
knowledge it ?"
" Is there no difference," asked Helena, with a little fal-
tering in her manner, " between submission to a generous
spirit, and submission to a base or trivial one ? "
Before the worthy Minor Canon was quite ready with his
argument in reference to this nice distinction, Neville struck
in —
" Help me to clear myself with Mr. Crisparkle, Helena.
»Help me to convince him that I can not be the first to make
concessions without mockery and falsehood. My nature must
be changed before I can do so, and it is not changed. I am
sensible of inexpressible affront, and deliberate aggravation
of inexpressible affront, and I am angry. The plain truth
is, I am still as angry when I recall that night as I was that
night."
" Neville," hinted the minor canon, with a steady counte-
nance, " you have repeated that former action of your hands,
wliich I so much dislike."
'' I am sorry for it, sir, but it was involuntary. I con-
fessed that I was still as angry."
" And I confess," said Mr. Crisparkle, " that I hoped for
better things."
*' I am sorry to disappoint you, sir, but it would be far
worse to deceive you, and I should deceive you grossly if I
pretended that you had softened me in this respect. The
time may come when your powerful influence will do even
that with the difTficult pupil whose antecedents you know ;
but it has not come yet. Is this so, and in spite of my
struggles against myself, Helena ?"
She, whose dark eyes were watching the effect of what he
said on Mr. Crisparkle's face, replied — to Mr. Crisparkle,
not to him, '* It is so." After a short pause, she answered
the slightest look of inquiry conceivable, in her brother's
eyes, with as slight an affirmative bend of her own head ;
and he went on :
" I have never yet had the courage to say to you, sir, what
in full openness I ought to have said when you first talked
with me on this subject. It is not easy to say, and I have
been withheld by a fear of its seeming ridiculous, which is
very strong upon me down to this last moment, and might.
7o8 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
but for my sister, prevent my being quite open with you
even now. I admire Miss Bud, sir, so very much, that 1 can
not bear her being treated with conceit or indifference ; and
even if I did not feel that I had an injury against young
Drood on my own account, I should feel that I had an in-
jury against him on hers."
Mr. Crisparkle, in utter amazement, looked at Helena for
corroboration, and met in her expressive face full corrob-
oration, and a plea for advice.
" The young lady of whom you speak is, as you know,
Mr. Neville, shortly to be married," said Mr. Crisparkle,
gravely ; '' therefore your admiration, if it be of that special
nature which you seem to indicate, is outrageously mis-
placed. Moreover, it is monstrous that you should take upon
yourself to be the young lady's champion against her chosen
husband. Besides, you have seen them only once. The
young lady has become your sister's friend ; and I wonder
that your sister, even on her behalf, has not checked you in
this irrational and culpable fancy."
" She has tried, sir, but uselessly. Husband or no hus-
band, that fellow is incapable of the feeling with which I
am inspired toward the beautiful young creature whom he
treats like a doll. I say he is incapable of it as he is
unworthy of her. I say she is sacrificed in being bestowed
upon him ! I say that I love her, and despise and hate
him ! " This with a face so flushed, and a gesture so vio-
lent, that his sister crossed to his side and caught his arm,
remonstrating, " Neville, Neville ! "
Thus recalled to himself, he quickly became sensible of
having lost the guard he had set upon his passionate ten-
dency, and covered his face with his hand, as one repentant
and wretched.
Mr. Crisparkle, watching him attentively, and at the same
time meditating how to proceed, walked on for some paces
in silence. Then he spoke :
" Mr. Neville, Mr. Neville, I am sorely grieved to see in
you more traces of a character as sullen, angry, and wild, as
the night now closing in. They are of too serious an aspect
to leave me to the resource of treating the infatuation you
have disclosed as undeserving serious consideration. I give
it very serious consideration, and I speak to you accordingly.
This feud between you and young Drood must not go on. I
can not permit it to go any longer, knowing what I now know
from you, and you living under my roof. Whatever preju-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 709
diced and unauthorized constructions your blind and
envious wrath may put upon liis character, it is a frank,
good-natured character. [ know I can trust to it for that.
Now, pray observe what I am about to say. On reflection,
and on your sister's representation, I am willing to admit
that, in making peace with young Drood, you have a right
to be met half-way. I will engage that you shall be, and
even that young Drood shall make the first advance. This
condition fulfilled, you will pledge me the honor of a Chris-
tian gentleman that the quarrel is forever at an end on your
side. What may be in your heart when you give him your
hand, can only be known to the Searcher of all hearts ; but
it will never go well with you if there be any treachery
there. So far, as to that ; next as to what I must again
speak of as your infatuation. I understand it to have been
confided to me, and to be known to no other person save
your sister and yourself. Do I understand aright ? '*
Helena answered in a low voice, " It is only known to
us tliree who are here together."
" It is not at all known to the young lady, your friend ? "
" On my soul, no ! "
" I require you, then, co give me your similar and solemn
pledge, Mr. Neville, that it shall remain the secret it is, and
that you will take no othei action whatsoever upon it than
endeavoring (and that most earnestly) to erase it from your
mind. I will not tell you that it will soon pass ; I will not
tell you that it is the fancy of the moment ; I will not tell
you that such caprices have their rise and fall among the
young and ardent every hour ; I will leave you undisturbed
in the belief that it has few parallels or none, that it will abide
with you a long time, and that it will be very difficult to
conquer. So much the more weight shall I attach to
the pledge I require from you, when it is unreservedly
given."
The young man twice or thrice essayed to speak, but
failed,
" Let me leave you with your sister, whom it is time you
took home," said Mr. Crisparkle. " You will find me alone in
my room by and by."
" Pray do not leave us yet," Helena implored him. " An-
other minute."
" I should not," said Neville, pressing his hand upon his
face, "have needed so much as another minute, if you had been
less patient with me, Mr. Crisparkle, less considerate of me.
710 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
and less unpretendingly good and true. Oh, if in my child-
hood I had known such a guide ! "
'' Follow your guide now, Neville," murmured Helena,
"and follow him to heaven."
There was that in her tone which broke the good minor
canon's voice, or it w^ould have repudiated her exaltation of
him. As it was, he laid a finger on his lips, and looked
toward her brother.
*' To say that I give both pledges, Mr. Crisparkle, out of
my innermost heart, and to say that there is no treachery in
it, is to say nothing ! " Thus Neville, greatly moved. " I
beg your forgiveness for my miserable lapse into a burst of
passion."
*' Not mine, Neville, not mine. You know with whom
forgiveness lies as the highest attribute conceivable. Miss
Helena, you and your brother are twin children. You came
into this world with the same dispositions, and you passed
your younger days together surrounded by the same adverse
circumstances. What you have overcome in yourself, can
you not overcome in him ? You see the rock that lies in his
course. Who but you can keep him clear of it ?"
"Who but you, sir?" replied Helena, " What is my in-
fluence, or my weak wisdom, compared with yours ! "
" You have the wisdom of love," returned the minor
canon, "and it was the highest wisdom ever known upon
this earth, remember. As to mine — but the less said of that
commonplace commodity the better. Good-night."
She took the hand he offered her, and gratefully and
almost reverently raised it to her lips.
" Tut ! " said the minor canon, softly, " I am much over-
paid ! " And turned away.
Retracing his steps toward the cathedral close, he tried,
as he went along in the dark, to think out the best means of
bringing to pass what he had promised to effect, and what
must somehow be done. "I shall probably be asked to
marry them," he reflected, " and I would they were married
and gone ! But this presses first." He debated principally^
whether he should write to young Drood, or whether he
should speak to Jasper. The consciousness of being popu-
lar with the whole cathedral establishment inclined him to
the latter course, and the well-timed sight of the Gate House
decided him to take it. " I will strike while the iron is hot,"
he said, " and see him now."
Jasper was lying asleep on a couch before the fire, when.
IHE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 711
having ascended the postern-stair, and received no answer to
his knock at the door, Mr. Crisparkle gently turned the han-
dle and looked in. Long afterward he had cause to remem-
ber how Jasper sprung from the couch in a delirious state be-
tween sleeping and waking, crying out, " What is the mat-
ter ? Who did it ? "
" It is only I, Jasper. I am sorry to have disturbed you."
The glare of his eyes settled down into a look of recogni-
tion, and he moved a chair or two, to make a way to the fire-
side.
" I was dreaming at a great rate, and am glad to be dis-
turbed from an indigestive after-dinner sleep. Not to men-
tion that you are always welcome."
" Thank you. I am not confident," returned Mr. Cris-
parkle, as he sat himself down in the easy-chair placed for
him, " that my subject will at first sight be quite as welcome
as myself ; but I am a minister of peace, and I pursue my
subject in the interests of peace. In a word, Jasper, I want
to establish peace between these two young fellows."
A very perplexed expression took hold of Mr. Jasper" l,
face ; a very perplexing expression too, for Mr, Crisparkle
could make nothing of it.
" How ? " was Jasper's inquiry, in a low and slow voice,
• after a silence.
" For the * how ' I come to you. I want to ask you to do
me the great favor and service of interposing with your
nephew (I have already interposed with Mr. Neville), and
getting him to write you a short note, in his lively way, say-
ing that he is willing to shake hands. I know what a good-
natured fellow he is, and what influence you have with him.
And without in the least defending Mr. Neville, we must all
admit that he was b'tterly stung."
Jasper turned that perplexed face toward the fire. Mr.
Crisparkle, continuing to observe it, found it even more per-
plexing than before, inasmuch as it seemed to denote (which
could hardly be) some close internal calculation.
" I know that you are not prepossessed in Mr. Neville's
favor" the minor canon was going on, when Jasper stopped
him • —
" You have cause to say so. I am not, indeed."
" Undoubtedly, and I admit his lamentable violence of
temper, though I hope he and I will get the better of it be-
tween us. But I have exacted a very solemn promise from
him as to his future demeanor toward your nephew, if you do
kindlv interpose ; and I am sure he will keep it."
712 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" You are always responsible and trustworthy, Mr, Cris-
parkle. Do you really feel sure that you can answer for him
so confidently ?"
''I do."
The perplexed and perplexing look vanished.
" Then you relieve my mind of a great dread and a heavy
weight," said Jasper ; " I will do it."
Mr, Crisparkle, delighted by the swiftness and complete-
ness of his success, acknowledged it in the handsomest
terms,
*' I will do it," repeated Jasper, ''for the comfort of hav-
ing your guarantee against my vague and unfounded fears.
You will laugh — but do you keep a diary ? "
" A line for a day ; not more."
" A line for a day would be quite as much as my unevent-
ful life would need, heaven knows," said Jasper, taking a
book from a desk ; " but that my diary is, in fact, a diary of
Ned's life too. You will laugh at this entry ; you will guess
when it was made :
"'Past midnight. After what I have just now seen, I
have a morbid dread upon me of some horrible consequences
resulting to my dear boy, that I can not reason with or in any
way contend against. All my efforts are vain. The demo-
niacal passion of this Neville Landless, his strength in his
fury, and his savage rage for the destruction of its object,
appall me. So profound is the impression, that twice since
I have gone into my dear boy's room, to assure myself of his
sleeping safely, and not lying dead in his blood,*
" Here is another entry next miorning : —
" ' Ned up and away. Light-hearted and unsuspicious as
ever. He laughed when I cautioned him, and said he was
as good a man as Neville Landless any day, I told him
that might be, but he was not as bad a man. He continued
to make light of it, but I traveled with him as far as I could
and left him most unwillingly, I am unable to shake off
these dark intangible presentiments of evil — if feelings
founded upon startling facts are to be so called.'
"' Again and again," said Jasper, in conclusion, twirling
the leaves of the book before putting it by, " I have relapsed
into these moods, as other entries show. But I have now
your assurance at my back, and i^hall put it in my book, and
make it an antidote to mv black humors,"
TEiE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 713
" Such an antidote, I hope," returned Mr. Crisparkle, " as
will induce you before long to consign the black humors to
the flames. 1 ought to be the last to find any fault with you
this evening, when you have met my wishes so freely ; but I
must say, Jasper, that your devotion to your nephew has
made you exaggerative here."
" You are my witness," said Jasper, shrugging his shoul-
ders, " what my state of mind honestly was, that night, before
I sat down to write, and in what words I expressed it. You
remember objecting to a word I used as being too strong ?
It was a stronger word than any in my diary."
" Well, well, try the antidote," rejoined Mr. Crisparkle,
" and may it give you a brighter and better view of the case !
We will discuss it no more, now. I have to thank you for
myself, and I thank you sincerely."
" You shall find," said Jasper, as they shook hands, " that
I will not do the thing you wish me to do by halves. • I will
take care that Ned, giving way at all, shall give way
thoroughly."
On the third day after this conversation, he called on Mr.
Crisparkle with the following letter • —
*' My Dear Jack, —
" I am touched by your account of your interview with
Mr. Crisparkle, whom I much respect and esteem. At once
I openly say that I forgot myself on that occasion quite as
much as Mr. Landless did, and that I wish that by-gone to
be a by-gone, and all to be right again.
'* Look here, dear old boy. Ask Mr. Landless to dinner
on Christmas-eve (the better the day the better the deed),
and let there be only we three, and let us shake hands all
round there and then, and say no more about it.
*' My dear Jack,
** Ever your most affectionate,
" Edwin Drood.
" P.S. — Love to Miss Pussy at the next music lesson."
" You expect Mr. Neville, then ?" said Mr. Crisparkle.
" I count upon his coming," said Mr. Jasper.
714 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
CHAPTER XL
A PICTURE AND A RINGo
Behind the most ancient part of Holborn, London, where
certain gabled houses some centuries of age still stand look-
ing on the public way, as if disconsolately looking for the
Old Bourne that has long run dry, is a little nook composed
of two irregular quadrangles, called Staple Inn. It is one of
those nooks, the turning into which out of the clashing
streets imparts to the relieved pedestrian the sensation of
having put cotton in his ears and velvet soles on his boots.
It is one of those nooks wliere a few smoky sparrows twit-
ter in smoky trees, as though they called to one another,
** Let us play at country," and where a few feet of garden
mold and a few yards of gravel enable them to do that re-
freshing violence to their tiny understandings. Moreover, it
is one of those nooks which are legal nooks ; and it contains
a little hall, with a little lantern in its roof ; to what obstruct-
ive purposes devoted, and at whose expense, this history
knoweth not.
In the days when Cloisterham took offense at the existence
of a railroad afar off, as menacing that sensitive constitution
the property of us Britons ; the odd fortune of which sacred
institution it is to be in exactly equal degrees croaked about,
trembled for, and boasted of, whatever happens to any thing,
anywhere in the world ; in those days no neighboring archi-
tecture of lofty proportions had arisen to overshadow Staple
Inn. The westering sun bestowed bright glances on it, and
the south-west wind blew into it unimpeded.
Neither wind nor sun, however, favored Staple Inn, one
December afternoon toward six o'clock, when it was filled
with fog, and candles shed murky and blurred rays through
the windows of all its then- occupied sets of chambers ; nota-
bly, from a set of chambers in a corner house in the little
inner quadrangle, presenting in black and white over its uglv
portal the mysterious inscription : —
P
J T
^747-
In which set of chambers, never having troubled his head
about the inscription, unless to bethink himself at odd times
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 715
on glancing up at it, that haply it might mean Perhaps John
Thomas, or Perhaps Joe Tyler, sat Mr. Grewgious writing
byhis fire.
Who could have told, by looking at Mr. Grewgious, whether
he had ever known ambition or disappointment ? He had
been bred to the bar, and had laid himself out for chamber
practice ; to draw deeds ; " convey the wise it call," as Pistol
says. But conveyancing and he had made such a very in-
different marriage of it that they had separated by consent
— if there can be said to be separation where there has never
been coming together.
No. Coy conveyancing would not come to Mr. Grewgious.
She was wooed, not won, and they went their several v/ays.
But an arbitration being blown toward him by some unac-
countable wind, and he gaining great credit in it as one inde-
fatigable in seeking out right and doing right, a pretty fat re-
ceivership was next blown into his pocket by a wind more
traceable to its source. So, by chance, he had found his
niche. Receiver and agent now, to two rich estates, and de-
puting their legal business, in an amount worth having, to a
firm of solicitors on the floor below, he had snuffed out his
ambition (supposing him to have ever lighted it) and had
settled down with his snuffers for the rest of his life under
the dry vine and fig-tree of P. J. T., who planted in seven-
teen-forty-seven.
Many accounts and account-books, many files of corre-
spondence, and several strong boxes, garnished Mr. Grew-
gious's room. They can scarcely be represented as having
lumbered it, so conscientious and precise w^as their orderly
arrangement. The apprehension of dying suddenly and leav-
ing one fact or one figure with any incompleteness or obscur-
ity attaching to it, would have stretched Mr. Grewgious stone
dead any day. The largest fidelity to a trust was the life-
blood of the man. There are sorts of life-blood that course
more quickly, more gayly, more attractively ; but there is no
better sort in circulation.
There was no luxury in his room. Even its comforts were
limited to its being dry and warm, and having a snug though
faded fireside. What may be called its private life was con-
fined to the hearth and an easy-chair, and an old-fashioned
occasional round table that was brought out upon the rug
after business hours, from a corner where it elsewise remained
turned up like a shining mahogany shield. Behind it, when
standing thus on the defensive, was a clcoOt usur^ly contain'
7i6 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
ing something good to drink An outer room was the clerk's
room ; Mr. Grewgious's sleeping-room v/as across the com-
mon stair ; and he held some not empty cellarage at the
bottom of the common stair. Three hundred days in the
year, at least, he crossed over to the hotel in Furnival's Inn
for his dinner, and after dinner crossed back again, to make
the most of these simplicities until it should become broad
business day once more, with P. J. T., date seventeen-forty-
seven.
As Mr. Grewgious sat and wrote by his fire that afternoon,
so did the clerk of Mr. Grewgious sit and write by his fire.
A pale, puffy-faced, dark-haired person of thirty, with big
dark eyes that wholly wanted luster, and a dissatisfied doughy
complexion, that seemed to ask to be sent to the baker's,
this attendant was a mysterious being, possessed of some
strange power over Mr. Grewgious. As though he had been
called into existence, like a fabulous familiar, by a magic
spell which had failed when required to dismiss him, he stuck
tight to Mr. Grewgious's stool, although Mr. Grewgious's
comfort and convenience would manifestly have been ad-
vanced by dispossessing him. A gloomy person with tangled
locks, and a general air of having been reared under the
shadow of that baleful tree of Java which has given shelter
to more lies than the whole botanical kingdom, Mr. Grew-
gious, nevertheless, treated him with unaccountable consider-
ation.
"Now, Bazzard,'" said Mr. Grewgious, on the entrance of
his clerk, looking up from his papers as he arranged them
for the night, " what is in the wind besides fog .? "
" Mr. Drood," said Bazzard.
"What of him?"
" Has called," said Bazzard.
" You might have shown him in.'"
" I am doing it," said Bazzard.
The visitor came in accordingly.
" Dear me ! " said Mr. Grewgious, looking round his
pair of office candles. " I thought you had called and
merely left your name, and gone. How do you do, Mr.
Edwin ? Dear me, you're choking ! "
" It's this fog," returned Edwin, *' and it makes my eyes
smart like cayenne pepper."
** Is it really so bad as that ? Pray undo your v/rappers.
It's fortunate I have a good fire ; but Mr. Bazzard has taken
care of me/"
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 717
" No, I haven't," said Mr. Bazzard at the door„
" Ah ! Then it follows that I must have taken care of
myself without observing it," said Mr. Grewgious. " Pray
be seated in my chair. No. 1 beg ! Coming out of such
an atmosphere, in my chair."
Edwin took the easy-chair in the corner ; and the fog he
had brought in with him, and the fog he took off with his
great-coat and neck- shawl was speedily licked up by the
eager fire,
'^ I look," said Edwin, smiling, " as if I had come to stop."
" — By the by," cried Mr. Grewgious, "excuse my inter-
rupting you ; do stop. The fog may clear in an hour or
two. We can have dinner in from just across Holborn.
You had better take your cayenne pepper here than outside ;
pray stop and dine."
" You are very kind," said Edwin, glancing about him, as
though attracted by the notion of a new and relishing sort
of gipsy-party.
" Not at all," said Mr. Grewgious ; ''you are very kind to
join issue with a bachelor in chambers, and take pot-luck.
And I'll ask," said Mr. Grewgious, dropping his voice, and
speaking with a twinkling eye, as if inspired with a bright
thought,—" I'll ask Bazzard. He mightn't like it else.
Bazzard ! "
Bazzard reappeared.
" Dine presently with Mr. Drood and me."
" If I am ordered to dine, of course I will, sir," was the
gloomy answer.
" Save the man !" cried Mr. Grewgious. " You're not
ordered ; you're invited."
"Thank you, sir," said Bazzard ; "in that case I don't
care if do."
" That's arranged. And perhaps you wouldn't mind,"
said Mr. Grewgious, " stepping up to the hotel in Furnival's,
and asking them to send in materials for laying the cloth.
For dinner we'll have a tureen of the hottest and strongest
soup available, and we'll have the best made-dish that can
be recommended, and we'll have a joint (such as a haunch
of mutton), and we'll have a goose, or a turkey, or any little
stuffed thing of that sort that may happen to be in the
bill of fare— in short, we'll have whatever there is on
hand." . ^ .
These liberal directions Mr. Grewgious issued with his
usual air of reading an inventory, or repeating a lesson, or
7i8 THE MYSTERY OF EDWJN DROOD.
doing any thing else by rote. Bazzard, after drawing out
the round table, withdrew to execute them.
" I was a little delicate, you see," said Mr. Grewgious in
a lower tone, after his clerk's departure, "about employing
him in the foraging or commissariat department. Because
he mightn't like it."
" He seems to have his own way, sir," remarked Edwin.
" His own way ? " returned Mr. Grewgious. '' Oh, dear,
no ! Poor fellow, you quite mistake him. If he had his
own way, he wouldn't be here."
" I wonder where he would be ! " Edwin thought. But
he only thought it, because Mr. Grewgious came and stood
himself with his back to the other corner of the fire, and
his shoulder-blades against the chimney-piece, and collected
his skirts for easy conversation.
" I take it without having the gift of prophecy, that you
have done me the favor of looking in to mention that you
are going down yonder — where I can tell you, you are ex-
pected — and to offer to execute any little commission from
me to my charming ward, and perhaps to sharpen me up a
bit in any proceedings ? Eh, Edwin ? "
"I called, sir, before going down, as an act of attention."
*' Of attention !" said Mr. Grewgious. "Ah ! of course,
not of impatience ? "
" Impatience, sir ? "
Mr. Grewgious had meant to be arch — not that he in the
remotest degree expressed that meaning — and had brought
himself into scarcely supportable proximity with the fire, as
if to burn the fullest effect of his archness into himself, as
other subtle impressions are burned into hard metals. But
his archness suddenly flying before the composed face and
manner of his visitor, and only the fire remaining, he started
and rubbed himself.
*' I have lately been down yonder," said Mr. Grewgious,
rearranging his skirts ; '' and that was what I referred to
when I said I could tell you you are expected."
" Indeed, sir ! Yes, I knew that Pussy was looking out
for me."
*' Do you keep a cat down there ? " asked Mr. Grewgious.
Edwin colored a little as he explained, *' I call Rosa
Pussy."
" Oh, really," said Mr. Grewgious, smootliing down his
head, ''that's very affable."
Edwin glanced at his face, uncertain whether or no he
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 719
seriously objected to the appellation. But Edwin might as
well have glanced at the face of a clock.
** A pet name, sir," he explained again.
" Umps," said Mr, Grewgious, with a nod. But with
such an extraordinary compromise between an unqualified
assent and a qualified dissent, that his visitor was much
disconcerted.
" Did PRosa — " Edwin began, by way of recovering him-
self.
" PRosa ? " repeated Mr. Grewgious.
" I was going to say Pussy, and changed my mind ; — did
she tell you any thing about the Landlesses ? "
" No," said Mr. Grewgious. '' What is the Landlesses ?
An estate ? A villa ? A farm ? "
" A brother and sister. The sister is at the Nuns' House,
and has become a great friend of P "
" PRosa's," Mr. Grewgious struck in, with a fixed face.
" She is a strikingly handsome girl, sir, and I thought she
might have been described to you, or presented to you, per-
haps."
" Neither," said Mr. Grewgious. " But here is Bazzard."
Bazzard returned, accompanied by two waiters — an im-
movable waiter and a flying waiter ; and the three brought
in with them as much fog as gave a new roar to the fire.
The flying waiter, who had brought every thing on his
shoulders, laid the cloth with amazing rapidity and dex-
terity ; while the immovable waiter, who had brought noth-
ing, found fault with him. The flying waiter then highly
polished all the glasses he had brought, and the immovable
waiter looked through them. The flying waiter then flew
across Holborn for the soup, and flew back again, and then
took another flight for the made-dish and flew back again,
and then took another flight for the joint and poultry and
flew back again, and between whiles took supplementary
flights for a great variety of articles, as it was discovered
from time to time that the immovable waiter had forgotten
them all. But let the flying waiter cleave the air as he
might, he was always reproached on his return by the im-
movable waiter for bringing fog with him and being out of
breath. At the conclusion of the repast, by which time
the flying waiter was severely blown, the immovable
waiter gathered up the table-cloth under his arm with a
grand air, and, having sternly (not to say with indignation)
looked on at the flying waiter while he set clean glasses
720 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
round, directed a valedictory glance toward Mr. Grew-
gious, conveying, " Let it be clearly understood between us
that the. reward is mine, and that Nil is the claim of this
slave," and pushed the flying waiter before him out of the
room.
It was like a highly finished miniature painting represent-
ing My Lords of the Circumlocutional Department, Comi-
mandership-in-Chief of any sort, Government. It was quite
an edifying little picture to be hung on the line in the Na-
tional Gallery.
As the fog had been '.he proximate cause of this sumptu-
ous repast, so the fog served for its general sauce. To hear
the out-door clerks sneezing, wheezing, and beating their
feet on the gravel was a zest far surpassing Doctor Kitch-
ener's. To bid, with a shiver, the unfortunate flying w^aiter
shut the door before he had opened it, was a condiment of
a profounder flavor than Harvey. And here let it be noticed
parenthetically that the leg of this young man in its applica-
tion to the door evinced the finest sense of touch ; always
preceding himself and tray (with something of an angling
air about it) by some seconds, and always lingering after he
and the tray had disappeared, like Macbeth's leg when ac-
companying him off the stage with reluctance to the assas-
sination of Duncan
The host had gone below to the cellar, and had brought
up bottles of ruby, straw-colored, and golden drinks,
which had ripened long ago in lands where no fogs are,
and had since lain slumbering in the shade. Sparkling
and tingling after so long a nap, they pushed at their
corks to help the corkscrew (like prisoners helping rioters
to force their gates), and danced out gayly. If P. J. T. in
seventeen-forty-seven, or in any other year of his period,
drank such wines, then, for a certainty, P. J. T. was Pretty
Jolly Too.
Externally, Mr. Grewgious show^ed no signs of being
mellowed by these glowing vintages. Instead of his drink-
ing them, they might have been poured over him in his high-
dried snuff form, and run to waste, for any lights and shades
they caused to flicker over his face. Neither was his manner
influenced. But, in his wooden way, he had observant eyes
for Edwin ; and when, at the end of dinner, he motioned
Edw^n Vvack to his own easy-chair in the fireside corner, and
Edwan luxuriously sunk into it after very brief remonstrance.
Mr. Grewgious, as he turned his seat round toward the fire
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 721
too, and smoothed his head and face, might have been seen
looking at his visitor between his smoothing fingers.
" Bazzard ! " said Mr. Grewgious, suddenly turning to
him.
"I follow you, sir,'* returned Bazzard, who had done his
work of consuming meat and drink, in a workmanlike man-
ner, though mostly in speechlessness.
"I drink to you, Bazzard ; Mr. Edwin, success to Mr.
Bazzard ! "
" Success to Mr. Bazzard ! " echoes Edwin, with a totally
unfounded appearance of enthusiasm, and with the unspoken
addition, " What in, I wonder ! "
" And may ! " pursued Mr. Grewgious — '' I am not at lib-
erty to be definite — may ! — my conversational powers are so
very lim.ited that I know I shall not come well out of this —
may ! — it ought to be put imaginatively, but I have no im-
agination — may ! — the thorn of anxiety is as nearly the mark
IS I am likely to get — may it come out at last ! "
Mr. Bazzard, with a frowning smile at the fire, put a hand
into his tangled locks, as if the thorn of anxiety were there ;
^hen into his waistcoat, as if it were there ; then into his
pockets, as if it were there. In all these movements he was
closely followed by the eyes of Edwin, as if that young gen-
deman expected to see the thorn in action. It was not
produced, however, and Mr. Bazzard merely said, " I follow
you, sir, and I thank you.''
"I am going," said Mr. Grewgious, jingling his glass on
the table with one hand and bending aside under cover of
the other to whisper to Edwin, '' to drink to my ward. But
I put Bazzard first. He mightn't like it else."
This was said with a mysterious wink ; or what would
have been a wink if, in Mr. Grewgious's hands, it could have
been quick enough. So Edwin winked responsively without
the least idea what he meant by doing so.
"And nov/," said Mr. Grewgious, '* I devote a bumper to
the fair and fascinating Miss Pvosa. Bazzard, the fair and
fascinating Miss Rosa ! "
*' I follow you, sir," said Bazzard, " and I pledge you ! "
" And so do I ! " said Edwin.
" Lord bless me ! " cried Mr. Grewgious, breaking the
blank silence which of course ensued, though why these
pauses should come upon us when we have performed any
small social rite not directly inducive of self-examination or
mental despondency, who can tell ! '' I am a particularly
722 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD,
angular man, and yet I fancy (if I may use the word, not
having a morsel of fancy) that I could draw the picture of a
true lover's state of mind to-night."
^' Let us follow you, sir," said Bazzard, " and have the pic-
ture."
" Mr. Edwin will correct it where it's wrong," resumed
Mr. Grewgious, " and will throw in a few touches from the
life. I dare say it is wrong in many particulars, and wants
many touches from the life, for I was born a chip, and have
neither soft sympathies nor soft experiences. Well ! I haz-
ard the guess that the true lover's mind is completely
permeated by the beloved object of his affections, i hazard
the guess that her dear name is precious to him, can not be
heard or repeated without emotion, and is preserved sacred.
If he has any distinguishing appellation of fondness for her,
it is reserved for her and is not for common ears. A name
that it would be a privilege to call her by, being alone with
her own bright self, it would be a liberty, a coldness, an in-
sensibility, almost a breach of good faith, to flaunt else-
where."
It was wonderful to see Mr. Grewgious sitting bold up-
right, with his hands on his knees, continuously chopping
this discourse out of himself, much as a charity-boy with a
very good memory might get his catechism said, and evinc-
ing no correspondent emotion whatever, unless in a certain
occasional little tingling perceptible at the end of his nose.
" My picture," Mr. Grewgious proceeded, "' goes on to
represent (under correction from you, Mr. Edwin) the true
lover as ever impatient to be in the presence or vicinity of
the beloved object of his affections ; as caring very little for
his ease in any other society, and as constantly seeking that.
If I was to say seeking that as a bird seeks its nest, I should
make an ass of myself, because that would trench upon what
I understand to be poetry ; and I am so far from trenching
upon poetry at any time, that I never, to my knowledge,
got within ten thousand miles of it. And I am besides to-
tally unacquainted with the habits of birds, except the birds
of Staple Inn, who seek their nests on ledges and in gutter-
pipes and chimney-pots not constructed for them by the
beneficent hand of Nature. I beg, therefore, to be under-
stood as foregoing the bird's-nest. But my picture does
represent the true lover as having no existence separable from
that of the beloved object of his affections, and as living at
once a doubled life and a halved life. And if 1 do not
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 723
clearly express what I mean by that, it is either tor the rea-
son that having no conversational powers, I can r.ot express
what I mean, or that, having no meaning, I do not mean
what I fail to express. Which, to the best of my belief, is
not the case."
Edwin had turned red and turned white as certain points
of this picture came into the light. He now sat looking at
the fire, and bit his lip.
" The speculations of an angular man," resumed ^ Mr.
Grew^cious, still sitting and speaking exactly as before, "are
probably erroneous on so globular a topic. But I figure to
myself ^subject as before to Mr. Edwin's correction) that
there can be no coolness, no lassitude, no doubt, no indiffer-
ence, no half-fire and half-smoke state of mmd in a^ real
lover. Pray am I at all near the mark in my picture ? "
As abrupt in his conclusion as in his commencement and
progress, he jerked this inquiry at Edwin, and stopped when
one°might have supposed him in the middle of his oration.
'' I should say, sir," stammered Edwin, " as you refer the
question to me "
" Yes," said Mr. Grewgious, " I refer it to you as an au-
thority."
'' I should say then, sir," Edwin went on, embarrassed,
'' that the picture you have drawn is generally correct ; but
I submit that perhaps you may be rather hard upon the un-
lucky lover."
'' Likely so," assented Mr. Grewgious—" likely so. I am
a hard man in the grain."
" He may not show," said Edwin, " all he feels ; or he
may not "
There he stopped so long to find the rest of his sentence
that Mr. Grewgious rendered his difficulty a thousand tmies
the greater by unexpectedly striking in with,
" No, to be sure ; he miy not ! " ■
After that they all sat silent ; the silence of Mr. Bazzard
being occasioned by slumber.
" His responsibility is very great though," said Mr. Grew-
gious, at length, with his eyes on the fire-
Edwin nodded assent, with /lis eyes on the fire.
*' And let him be sure that he trifles with no one," said
Mr. Grewgious ; " neither with himself, nor with any other."
Edwin bit his lips again, and still sat looking at the
fire.
"He must not make a plaything of a treasure. Woe be-
724 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
tide him if he does ! Let him take that well to heart,"
said Mr. Grewgious.
Though he said these things in short sentences, much as
the supposititious charity-boy just now referred to might have
repeated a verse or two from the Book of Proverbs, there
was something dreamy (for so literal a man) in the way in
which he now shook his right forefinger at the live coals in
the grate, and again fell silent.
But not for long. As he sat upright and stiff in his chair,
he suddenly rapped his knees, like the carved image of
some queer Joss or other coming out of its reverie, and said,
*' We must finish this bottle, Mr. Edwin. Let me help you.
I'll help Bazzard, too, though he is asleep. He mightn't
like it else."
He helped them both, and helped himself, and drained his
glass, and stood it bottom upward on the table, as though
he had just caught a blue-bottle in it.
'' And now, Mr. Edwin," he proceeded, wiping his mouth
and hands upon his handkerchief, " to a little piece of busi-
ness. You received from me, the other day, a certified
copy of Miss Rosa's father's will. You knew its contents
before, but you received it from me as a matter of business.
I should have sent it to Mr. Jasper, but for Miss Rosa's
wishing it to come straight to you, in preference. You re-
ceived it ? "
" Quite safely, sir."
*' You should have acknowledged its receipt," said Mr.
Grewgious, *' business being business all the world over.
However, you did not."
*' I meant to have acknowledged it when I first came in
this evening, sir."
'* Not a business-like acknowledgment," returned Mr.
Grewgious ; " however, let that pass. Now, in that docu-
ment you have observed a few words of kindly allusion to
its being left to me to discharge a little trust, confided to me
in conversation, at such a time as I in my discretion may
think best."
"Yes, sir."
" Mr. Edwin, it came into my mind just now, when I was
looking at the fire, that I could, in my discretion, acquit
myself of that trust at no better time than the present.
Favor me with your attention half a minute."
He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, singled out by
the candle-liglit the key he wanted, and then, with a candle
THE MYSTEPvY OF EUWiN DRUOD. 725
in his hand, went to a bureau or escritoire, unlocked it,
touched the spring of a little secret drawer, and took from it
an ordinary ring-case made for a single ring. With this in
his hand he returned to his chair. As he held it up for the
young man to see, his hand trembled.
" Mr. Edwin, this rose of diamonds and rubies, delicately
set in gold, was a ring belonging to Miss Rosa's mother. It
was removed from her dead hand, in my presence, with
such distracted grief as I hope it may never be my lot to
contemplate again. Hard man as I am, I am not hard
enough for that. See how bright these stones shine 1 " open-
ing the case. '* And yet the eyes that were so much brighter,
and that so often looked upon them with a light and proud
heart, have been ashes among ashes, and dust among dust,
some years ! If I had any imagination (which it is needless
to say I have not), I might imagine that the lasting beauty
of these stones was almost cruel."
He closed the case again as he spoke.
" This ring was given to the young lady who was drowned
so early in her beautiful and happy career, by her husband,
when they first plighted their faith to one another. It was
he who removed it from her unconscious hand, and it was
he who, when his death drew very near, placed it in mirie.
The trust in which I received it was, that, you and Miss
Rosa growing to manhood and womanhood, and your be-
trothal prospering and coming to maturity, I should give it
to you to place upon her finger. Failing those desired re-
sults, it was to remain in my possession."
Some trouble was in the young man's face, and some in-
decision was in the action of his hands, as Mr. Grewgious,
looking steadfastly at him, gave him the ring.
" Your placing it on her finger," said Mr. Grewgious, ''will
be the solemn seal upon your strict fidelity to the living and
the dead. You are going to her to make the last irrevoca-
ble preparations for your marriage. Take it with you."
The young man took the little case and placed it in his
breast.
" If any thing should be amiss, if any thing should be
even slightly wrong, between you, if you should have any
secret consciousness, that you are committing yourself to
this step for no higher reason than because you have long
been accustomed to look forward to it ; then," said Mr.
Grewgious, " I charge you once more, by the living and by
the dead, to bring that ring back to me !
726 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Here Bazzard awoke himself by his own snoring ; and, as
is usual in such cases, sat apoplectically staring at vacancy,
as defying vacancy to accuse him of having been asleep.
" Bazzard ! " said Mr. Grewgious, harder than ever.
"I follow you, sir," said Bazzard, "and I have been fol-
lowing you."
** In discharge of a trust, I have handed Mr. Edwin Drood
a ring of diamonds and rubies. You see ? "
Edwin reproduced the little case and opened it ; and Baz-
zard looked into it.
** I follow you both, sir," returned Bazzard, *' and I wit-
ness the transaction."
Evidently anxious to get away and be alone, Edwin Drood
now resumed his outer clothing, muttering something about
time and appointments. The fog was reported no clearer
(by the flying waiter, Vvho alighted from a speculative flight
in the coffee interest), but he went out into it ; and Baz-
zard after his manner, " followed " him..
]\Ir. Grewgious, left alone, walked softly and slowly to and
fro for an hour and more. He was restless to-night and
seemed dispirited.
*' I hope I have done right," he said. " The appeal to
him seemed necessary. It was hard to lose the ring, and
yet it must have gone from me very soon."
He closed the empty little drawer with a i-igh, and shut
and locked the escritoire, and came back to the solitary fire-
side.
" Her ring," he went on. "Will it come back to me?
My mind hangs about her ring very uneasily to-night. But
that is explainable. I have had it so long, and I have prized
it so much ! I wonder "
He was in a wondering mood as well as a restless ; for,
though he checked himself at that point, and took another
walk, he resumed his wondering when he sat down again.
" I wonder (for the ten thousandth time, and what a weak
fool I, for what can it signify now !) whether he confided the
charge of their orphan child to me because he knew — good
God, how like her mother she has become !
" I wonder whether he ever so much as suspected that
some one doted on her at a hopeless, speechless distance,
when he struck in and won her ! I wonder vrhether it ever
crept into his mind who that unfortunate some one was !
" I wonder whether I sliall sleep to-night ! At all events
J will shut out the world with the bedclothes, and try."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 727
Mr. Grewgious crossed the staircase to his raw and foggy
bedroom, and was soon ready for bed. Dimly catching sight
of his face in the misty looking-glass, he held his candle to
it for a moment.
'* A likely some one, /<?//, to come into any body's thoughts
in such an aspect ? " he exclaimed. " There, there ! there !
Get to bed, poor man, and cease to jabber ! "
With that he extinguished his light, put up the bed-
clothes around him, and with another sigh shut out the
world. And yet there are such unexplored romantic nooks
in the unlikeliest men, that even old tinderous and touch-
woody P. J. T. Possibly Jabbered Thus, at some odd times,
in or ibout seventeen-forty-seven. •
CHAPTER Xn.
A NIGHT WITH DURDLES.
When Mr. Sapsea has nothing better to do, toward even-
ing, and finds the contemplation of his own profundity be-
coming a little monotonous in spite of the vastness of the
subject, he often takes an airing in the cathedral close and
thereabout. He likes to pass the church-yard with a swell-
ing air of proprietorship, and to encourage in his breast a
sort of benignant-landlord feeling in that he has been boun-
tiful toward that meritorious tenant, Mrs. Sapsea, and has
publicly given her a prize. He likes to see a stray face or
two looking in through the railings and perhaps reading his
inscription. Should he meet a stranger coming from the
church-yard with a quick step, he is morally convinced that
the stranger is *' with a blush retiring," as monumentally di-
rected.
Mr. Sapsea's importance has received enhancement, for
he has become Mayor of Cloisterham. Without mayors and
many of them, it can not be disputed that the whole frame-
work of society — Mr. Sapsea is confident that he invented
that forcible figure — would fall to pieces. Mayors have
been knighted for '* going up " with addresses ; explosive
machines intrepidly discharging shot and shell into the
English Grammar. Mr. Sapsea may " go up " with an ad-
dress. Rise, Sir Thomas Sapsea ! Of such is the salt of the
earth.
Mr. Sapsea has improved the acquaintance of Mr. Jasper,
728 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
since their first meeting to partake of port, epitaph, back-
gammon, beef, and salad. Mr. Sapsea has been received at
the Gate House with kindred hospitality ; and on that
occasion Mr. Jasper seated himself at the piano, and sung to
him, tickling his ears — figuratively, long enough to present a
considerable area for tickling. What Mr. Sapsea likes in
that young man is, that he is always ready to profit by the
wisdom of his elders, and that he is sound, sir, at the core.
In proof of which he sung to Mr. Sapsea that evening no
kickshaw ditties, favorites with national enemies, but gave
him the genuine George the Third home-brewed, exhorting
him (as " my brave boys") to reduce to a smashed condition
all other islands but this island, and all continents, penin-
sulas, isthmuses, promontories, and other geographical
forms of land soever, besides sweeping the seas in all direc-
tions. In short, he rendered it pretty clear that Providence
made a distinct mistake in originating so small a nation of
hearts of oak, and so many other verminous peoples,
Mr. Sapsea, walking slowly this moist evening near the
church-yard with his hands behind him, on the lookout for a
blushing and retiring stranger, turns a corner, and comes in-
stead into the goodly presence of the dean conversing with
the verger and Mr. Jasper. Mr. Sapsea makes his obeis-
ance, and is instantly stricken far more ecclesiastical than
any archbishop of York or Canterbury.
"You are evidently going to write a book about us, Mr.
Jasper," quoth the dean ; " to write a book about us. Well !
We are very ancient, and we ought to make a good book.
We are not so richly endowed in possessions as in age ; but
perhaps you will put that in your book, among other things,
and call attention to our wrongs."
Mr. Tope, as in duty bound, is greatly entertained by
this.
" I really have no intention at all, sir," replies Jasper, " of
turning author or archaeologist. It is but a whim of mine.
And even for my whim, Mr. Sapsea here is more account-
able than I am."
"How so, Mr. Mayor?" says the dean, with a nod of
good-natured recognition of his fetch. " How is that, Mr.
Mayor ? "
" I am not aware," Mr. Sapsea remarks, looking about him
for information, " to what the very reverend the dean does
me the honor of referring." And then falls to studying his
original in minute points of detail.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 729
" Durdles," Mr. Tope hints.
" Ay ! " the dean echoes ; " Durdles, Durdles ! "
" The truth is, sir," explains Jasper, *' that my curiosity in
. te man was first really stimulated by Mr. Sapsea. Mr.
bapsea's knowledge of mankind, and power of drawing out
whatever is recluse or odd about him, first led to my bestow-
ing a second thought upon the man : though of course I had
met him constantly about. You would not be surprised by
this, Mr. Dean, if you had seen Mr, Sapsea deal with him in
his own parlor as I did."
'* Oh ! " cries Sapsea, picking up the ball thrown to him
with ineffable complacency and pomposity ; " yes, yes. The
very reverend the dean refers to that ? Yes. I happened to
bring Durdles and Mr. Jasper together. I regard Durdles as
a character."
" A character, Mr. Sapsea, that with a few skillful touches
you turn inside out," says Jasper.
'' Nay, not quite that," returns the lumbering auctioneer.
" I may have a little influence over him, perhaps ; and a little
insight into his character, perhaps. The very reverend the
dean will please to bear in mind that I have seen the world."
Here Mr. Sapsea gets a little behind the dean, to inspect his
coat-buttons.
" Well ! " says the dean, looking about him to see what has
become of his copyist ; ** I hope, Mr. Mayor, you will use
your study and knowledge of Durdles to the good purpose of
exhorting him not to break our worthy and respected choir-
master's neck ; we can not afford it ; his head and voice are
much too valuable to us."
Mr. Tope is again highly entertained, and, having fallen
into respectful convulsions of laughter, subsides into a defer-
ential murmur, importing that surely any gentleman would
deem it a pleasure and an honor to have his neck broken in
return for such a compliment from such a source.
" I will take it upon myself, sir," observes Sapsea, loftily,
'* to answer for Mr. Jasper's neck. I will tell Durdles to be
careful of it. He will mind what /say. How is it at pres-
ent endangered ? " he inquires, looking about him with mag-
nificent patronage.
" Only by my making a moonlight expedition with Durdles
among the tombs, vaults, towers and ruins,'' returns Jasper.
" You remember sugoiesting when you brought us together,
fhat, as a lover of the picturesque, it might be worth my
«rhile?"
730 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
** /remember ! " replies the auctioneer. And the solemn
idiot really believes that he does remember.
" Profiting by your hint," pursues Jasper, *' I have had
some day-rambles with the extraordinary old fellow, and
v/e are to make a moonlight hole-and-corner exploration
to-night."
"And here he is," says the dean.
Durdles, with his dinner-bundle in his hand, is indeed be-
held slouching toward them. Slouching nearer, and per-
ceiving the dean, he pulls off his hat, and is slouching away
with it under his arm, when Mr. Sapsea stops him.
*' Mind you take care of my friend," is the injunction Mr.
Sapsea lays upon him.
'' What friend o' yourn is dead } " asks Durdles. " No or-
ders has come in for any friend o' yourn."
"I mean my live friend, there."
" Oh ! Him ? " says Durdles. '* He can take care of him-
self, can Mister Jasper ! "
" But do you take care of him too," says Sapsea.
Whom Durdles (there being command in his tone) surlily
surveys from head to foot.
" With submission to his reverence the dean, if you'll
mind what concerns you, Mr. Sapsea, Durdles he'll mind
what concerns him."
" You're out of temper," says Mr. Sapsea, winking to the
company to observe how smoothly he will manage him. " My
friend concerns me, and Mr. Jasper is my friend. And you
are my friend."
" Don't you get into a bad habit of boasting," retorts Dur-
dles with a grave, cautionary nod. "It'll grow upon you."
" You are out of temper," says Sapsea again, reddening,
but again winking to the conipany.
" I own to it," returns Durdles ; " I don't like liberties."
Mr. Sapsea winks a third wink to the company, as who
should say, " I think you will agree with me that I have set-
tled /lis business ; " and stalks out of the controversy.
Durdles then gives the dean a good-evening, and adding,
as he puts his hat on, " You'll find me at home. Mister Jars-
per, as agreed, when you want me ; I'm a-going home to
clean myself," soon slouches out of sight. This going home
to clean himself is one of the man's incomprehensible com-
promises with inexorable facts ; he, and his hat, and his
boots, and his clothes, never showing any trace of cleaning
but being uniformly in one condition of dust and grit.
THE MVilERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 731
The lamp-lighter now dotting the quiet close with specks
of fight, cand running at a great rate up and down his little
ladder with that object — his little ladder under the sacred
shadow of whose inconvenience generations had grown up,
and which all Cloisterham would have stood aghast at the
idea of abolishing — the dean withdraws to his dinner, Mr.
Tope to his tea, and Mr. Jasper to his piano. There, with
no light but that of the fire, he sits chanting choir music in a
low and beautiful voice for two or three hours ; in shorty
until it has been for some time dark, and the moon is about
to rise.
Then he closes his piano softly, softly changes his coat for
a pea-jacket with a goodly wicker-cased bottle in its largest
pocket, and putting on a low-crowned, flap-brimmed hat, goes
softly out. Why does he move so softly to-night ? No out-
ward reason is apparent for it. Can there be any sympa-
thetic reason crouching darkly within him ?
Repairing to Durdles's unfinished house, or hole in the city
wall, and seeing a light within it, he softly picks his course
among the gravestones, monuments, and stony lumber of the
yard, already touched here and there, sidewise, by the rising
moon. The two journeymen have left their two great saws
sticking in their blocks of stone ; and two skeleton journey-
men out of the Dance of Death might be grinning in the
shadow of their sheltering sentry-boxes about to slash away
at cutting out the gravestones of the next two people des-
tined to die in Cloisterham. Likely enough the two think
little of that now, being alive, and perhaps merry. Curious
to make a guess at the two — or say, at one of the two ! "
"Ho! Du.rdles!"
The light moves, and he appears with it at the door.
He would seem to have been "cleaning himself" with the
aid of a bottle, jug, and tumbler ; for no other cleansing
instruments are visible in the bare brick room with rafters
overhead and no plastered ceiling, into which he shows his
visitor.
"Are you ready ? "
"I am ready. Mister Jarsper. Let the old uns come out
if they dare when we go among their tombs. My spirits is
ready for 'em."
"Do you mean animal spirits, or ardent?"
" The one's the t'other," answered Durdles, " and I mean
'em both."
He takes a lantern from a hook, puts a match or two in his
732 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
pocket wherewith to light it, should there be need, and they
go out together, dinner-bundle and all.
Surely an unaccountable sort of expedition ! That Dur-
dles himself, who is always prowling among old graves and
ruins like a ghoul — that he should be stealing forth to climb
and dive and wander without an object, is nothing extraor-
dmary ; but that the choirmaster or any one else should
hold it worth his while to be with him, and to study moon-
light effects in such company, is another affair. Surely an
unaccountable sort of expedition therefore !
*' 'Ware that there mound by the yard-gate. Mister Jars-
per."
*'I see it. What is it?"
" Lime."
Mr. Jasper stops, and waits for him to come up, for he lags
behind. " What you call quick-lime ? "
"Ay !" says Durdles ; "quick enough to eat your boots.
With a little handy stirring, quick enough to eat your
bones."
They go on, presently passing the red windows of the
Travelers' T\voi)enny and emerging into the clear moon-
light of the Monks' Vineyard. This crossed, they come to
Minor Canon Corner, of which the greater part lies in shadow
until the moon shall rise higher in the sky.
The sound of a closing house-door strikes their ears, and
two men come out. These are Mr. Crisparkle and Neville.
Jasper, with a strange and sudden smile upon his face. Jays the
palm of his hand upon the breast of Durdles, stopping him
where he stands.
At that end of Minor Canon Corner the shadow is pro-
found in the existing state of the light ; at that end, too,
there is a piece of old dwarf wall, breast high, the only re-
maining boundary of what was once a garden, but is now the
thoroughfare. Jasper and Durdles would have turned tliis
wall in another instant, but stopping so short, stand behind
it.
" Those two are only sauntering," Jasper whispers ; " they
will go out into the moonlight soon. Let us keep quiet here,
or they will detain us, or want to join us, or what not."
Durdles nods assent, and falls to munching some fragments
from his bundle. Jasper folds his arms upon the top of the
wall, and, with his chin resting on them, Avatches. He takes
no note of the minor canon, but watches Neville, as though
his eyes were at the trigger of a loaded rifle, and he had cov-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 733
ered him, and were going to fire. A sense of destructive
power is so expressed in his face that even Durdles pauses
in his munching, and looks at him, with an unmunched some-
thing in his cheek.
Meanwhile Mr. Crisparkle and Neville walk to and fro,
quietly talking together. What they say can not be heard
consecutively, but Mr. Jasper has already distinguished his
own name more than once.
" This is the first day of the week," Mr. Crisparkle can be
distinctly heard to observe as they turn back, " and the last
day of the week is Christmas Eve."
** You may be certain of me, sir."
The echoes were favorable at those points, but as the two
approached, the sound of their talking becomes confused
again. The word " confidence," shattered by the echoes,
but still capable of being pieced together, is uttered by Mr.
Crisparkle. As they draw still nearer, this fragment of a
replr is heard : "Not deserved yet, but shall be, sir." As
they Lurn away again Jasper again hears his own name in
connection with the words from Mr. Crisparkle, *' Remem-
ber that I said I answered for you confidently." Then the
sound of their talk becomes confused again : they halt-
ing for a little while, and some earnest action on the part
of Neville succeeding. When they move once more, Mr.
Crisparkle is seen to look up at the sky, and to point before
him. They then slowly disappear, passing out into the moon-
light at the opposite end of the corner.
It is not until they are gone that Mr. Jasper moves. But
then he turns to Durdles, and bursts into a fit of laughter.
Durdles, who still has that suspended something in his
cheek, and who sees nothing to laugh at, stares at him until
Mr. Jasper lays his face down on his arms to have his laugh
out. Then Durdles bolts the something, as if desperately
resi-^ning himself to indigestion.
Among those secluded nooks there is very little stir or
movement after dark. There is little enough in the high-
tide of the day, but there is next to none at night. Besides
that the cheerful frequented High Street lies nearly parallel
to the spot (the old cathedral rising between the two), and
is the natural channel in which the Cloisterham traffic flo^vs,
a certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters,
and the church-yard, after dark, which not many people
care to encounter. Ask che first hundred citizens of Cloister-
ham, met at random in the streets at noon, if they believed
734 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
in ghosts, they would tell you no ; but put them to choose
at night between these eyry precincts and the thoroughfare
of shops, and you would find that ninety-nine declared for
the longer round and the more frequented way. The cause
of this is not to be found in any local superstition that
attaches to the precincts — albeit a mysterious lady, with a
child in her arms and a rope dangling from her neck, has
been seen flitting about there by sundry witnesses as intangi-
ble as herself — but it is to be sought in the innate shrinking
of dust with the breath of life in it from dust out of which
the breath of life has passed ; also, in the widely diffused,
and almost as widely unacknowledged, reflection : " If the
dead do, under any circumstances, become visible to the
living, these are such likely surroundings for the purpose
that I, the living, will get out of them as soon as I can."
Hence, when Mr. Jasper and Durdles pause to glance
around them, before descending into the crypt by a small
side door, of which the latter has a key, the whole expanse
of moonlight in their view is utterly deserted. One might
fancy that the tide of life was stemmed by Mr. Jasper's own
Gate House. The murmur of the tide is heard beyond ;
but no wave passes the archway, .over which his lamp
burns red behind his curtain, as if the building were a
light-house.
They enter, locking themselves in, descend the rugged
steps, and are down in the crypt. The lantern is not
wanted, for the moonlight strikes in at the groined windows,
bare of glass, the broken frames for which cast patterns on
the ground. The heavy pillars which support the roof en-
gender masses of black shade, but between them there are
lanes of light. Up and down these lanes they walk, Durdles
discoursing of the "old uns " he yet counts on disinterring,
and slapping a wall, in which he considers " a whole family
on 'em " to be stoned and earthed up, just as if he were a
familiar friend of the family. The taciturnity of Durdles
is for the time overcome by Mr. Jaspci s wicker bottle,
which circulates freely ; — in the sense, that is to say, that
its contents enter freely into Mr. Durdles's circulation,
while Mr. Jasper only rinses his mouth once, and casts forth
the rinsing.
They are to ascend the great tower. On the steps by
which they rise to the cathedral, Durdles pauses for new-
store of breath. The steps are very dark, but out of the
darkness they can see the lanes of light they have traversed.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWiN DROOD. 735
Durdles seats himself upon a step. Mr, Jasper seats him-
self upon another. The odor from the wicker bottle
(which has somehow passed into Durdles's keeping) soon
intimates that the cork has been taken out ; but this is
not ascertainable through the sense of sight, since neither
can descry the other. And yet, in talking, they turn to
one another, as though their faces could commune together.
" This is good stuff, Mister Jarsper ! "
*' It is very good stuff, I hope. I bought it on purpose."
" They don't show, you see, the old uns don't, Mister
Jarsper ! "
" It would be a more confused world than it is, if they
could."
*' Well, it would lead toward a mixing of things," Durdles
acquiesces ; pausing on the remark, as if the idea of ghosts
had not previously presented itself to him in a merely incon-
venient light, domestically, chronologically. " But do you
think there may be ghosts of other things, though not of
men and women ? "
*' What things ? Flower-beds and watering-pots ? Horses
and harness ? "
'' xNo. Sounds."
"What sounds?"
*' Cries."
" What cries do you mean ? Chairs to mend ? "
"No. I mean screeches. Now, I'll tell you, I^Iister
Jarsper. Wait a bit till I put the bottle right." Here the
cork is evidently taken out again, and replaced again.
" There ! Now it's right ! This time last year, only a few
days later, I happened to have been doing what was correct
by the season, in the way of giving it the welcome it had a
right to expect, when them town-boys set on me at their
worst. At length I gave 'em the slip and turned in here.
And here I fell asleep. And what woke me ? The ghost of
a cry. The ghost of one terrific shriek, which shriek was
followed by the ghost of the howl of a dog, a long, dismal,
woeful howl, such as a dog gives when a person's dead.
That was ?ny last Christmas Eve."
" What do you mean ? " is the very abrupt, and, one might
say, fierce retort.
" I mean that I made inquiries everywhere about, and
that no living ears but mine heard either that cry or that
howl. So I say they was both ghosts; though why they
came to me, I've never made out."
736 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
I thought you were another kind of man," says Jaspc;r,
scornfully.
" So I thought myself," answers Durdles, with his usual
composure ; "and yet I was picked out for it."
Jasper had risen suddenly, when he asked him what he
meant, and he now says, " Come, we shall freeze here ; lead
the way."
Durdles complies, not over-steadily ; opens the door at
the top of the steps with the key he has already used ; and
so emerges on the cathedral level, in a passage at the side
of the chancel. Here, the moonlight is so very bright again
that the colors of the nearest stained-glass window are
thrown upon their faces. The appearance of the uncon-
scious Durdles, holding the door open for his companion to
follow, as if from the grave, is ghastly enough, with a purple
band across his face, and a yellow splash upon his brow ;
but he bears the close scrutiny of his coinpanion in an insen-
sible way, although it is prolonged while the latter fumbles
among his pockets for a key confided to him that will open
an iron gate so to enable them to pass to the staircase of the
great tower.
" That and the bottle are enough for you to carry," he
says, giving it to Durdles, '^ hand your bundle to me ; I am
younger and longer-winded than you." Durdles hesitates
for a moment between bundle and bottle ; but gives the
preference to the bottle as being by far the better company,
and consigns the dry-weight to his fellow-explorer.
Then they go up the winding staircase of the great tower,
toilsomely, turning and turning, and lowering their heads to
avoid the stairs above, or the rough stone pivot around which
they twist. Durdles has lighted his lantern, by drawing
from the cold hard wall a spark of that mysterious fire which
lurks in every thing, and, guided by this speck, they clamber
up among the cobwebs and the dust. Their way lies through
strange places. Twice or thrice they emerge into level, low-
arched galleries, whence they can look down into the moon-
lit nave : and where Durdles, waving his lantern, shows the
dim angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seemmg to
watch their progress. Anon, they turn into narrow and
steeper staircases, and the night air begins to blow upon
them, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened
rook precedes the heavy beating of wings in a confined
space, and the beating down of dust and straws upon their
heads. At last, leaving their light behind a stair — for it
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 737
blows fresh up here — they look down on Cloisterliam, fair
to see in the moonlight ; its ruined habitations and sanctua-
ries of the dead, at the tower's base ; its moss-softened, red-
tiled roofs and red brick houses of the living, clustered
beyond ; its river winding down from the mist on the horizon,
as though tl\at were its source, and already heaving with a
restless knowledge of its approacii toward the sea.
Once again, an unaccountable expedition this ! Jasper
(always moving softly, with no visible reason) contemplates
the scene, and especially that stillest part of it which the
cathedral overshadows. But he contemplates Durdles quite
as curiously, and Durdles is by times conscious of his watch-
ful eyes.
Only by times, because Durdles is growing drowsy. As
aeronauts lighten the load they carry, when they wish to rise,
similarly Durdles has lightened the wicker bottle in coming
up. Snatches of sleep surprise him on his legs, and stop him
in his talk. A mild lit of ':alenture seizes him, in which he
deems that the ground, so fai below, is on a level with the tower,
and would as lief walk off the tower into the air as not.
Such is his state when they begin to come down. And as
aeronauts make themselves heavier when they wish to de-
scend, similarly Durdles charges himself with more liquid
from the wicker bottle, that he may come down the bet-
ter.
The iron gate attained and locked — but not Defore Dur-
dles has tumbled twice, and cut an eyebrow open once — they
descend into the crypt again, with the intent of issuing forth
as they entered. But, while returning among those lanes of
light, Durdles becomes so very uncertain, both of foot and
speech, that he half drops, half throws himself down, by one
of the heavy pillars, scarcely less heavy than itself, and in-
distinctly appeals to his companion for forty winks of a
second each.
** If you will have it so, or must have it so," replies Jasper,
" I'll not leave you here. Take them while I walk to and
fro."
Durdles is asleep at once ; and in his sleep he dreams a
dream.
It is not much of a dream, considering the vast extent of
the domains of dreamland, and their wonderful productions ;
it is only remarkable for being unusually restless, and un-
usually real. He dreams of lying there, asleep, and yet
counting his companion's footsteps as he v/alks to and fro.
738 THE MYSTERY OF EDWlN DROOD.
He dreams that the footsteps die away into distance of time
and of space, and that something touches him, and that
something falls from his hand. Then something clinks and
gropes about, and he dreams that he is alone for so long a
time, that the lanes of light take new directions as the moon
advances in her course. From succeeding unconsciousness,
he passes into a dream of slow uneasiness from cold, and
painfully awakes to a perception of the lanes of light — really
changed, as much as he had dreamed — and Jasper walking
among them, beating his hands and feet.
" Holloa ! " Durdles cries out, unmeaningly alarmed.
''Awake at last?" says Jasper, coming up to him. "Do
you know that your forties have stretched into thousands ?"
" No."
'' They have though."
''What's the time ?"
" Hark ! The bells are going in the tower ! "
They strike four quarters, and then the great bell strikes.
" Two ! " cries Durdles, scrambling up ; " why didn't you
try to wake me, Mister Jarsper ? "
*' I did. I might as well have tried to wake the dead ; —
your own family of dead, up in the corner there."
" Did you touch me ? "
" Touch you ? Yes. Shook you."
As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream,
he looks down on the pavement, and sees the key of the
crypt door lying close to where he himself lay.
"I dropped you, did I?" he says, picking it. up, and re-
calling that part of his dream. As he gathers himself again
into an upright position, or into a position as nearly upright
as he ever maintains, he is again conscious of being watched
by his companion.
''Well?" say Jasper, smiling. "Are you quite ready?
Pray don't hurry."
" Let me get my bundle right, Mister Jarsper, and I'm with
you."
As he ties it afresh, he is once more conscious that he is
very narrowly observed.
" What do you suspect me of, Mister Jarsper ? " he asks,
with drunken displeasure. " Let them as has any suspicions
of Durdles name 'em."
" Fve no suspicions of you, my good Mr. Durdles ; but I
have suspicions that my bottle was filled with something
stiffer than either of us supposed. And I also have suspi-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 739
cions," Jasper adds, taking it from the pavement and turn-
ing it bottom upward, " that it's empty."
Durdles condescends to laugh at this. Continuing to
chuckle when his laugh is over, as though remonstrant with
himself on his drinking powers, he rolls to the door and
unlocks it. They both pass out, and Durdles relocks it, and
pockets his key.
" A thousand thanks for a curious and interesting night,"
says Jasper, giving him his hand ; *'you can make your own
way home?"
" I should think so ! " answered Durdles. " If you was
to offer Durdles the affront to show him his way home, he
wouldn't go home.
Durdles wouldn't go home till morning,
And the}i Durdles wouldn't go home,
Durdles wouldn't." This, with the utmost defiance.
" Good-night, then."
" Good-night, Mister Jaisper."
Each is turning his own way, when a sharp whistle rends
the silence, and the jargon is yelped out : —
N " Widdy widdy wen .'
I — ket — ches — Im — out — ar — ter — ten,
Widdy widdy wy !
Then — E — don't — go — then — I— shy —
Widdy Widdy Wake-cock warning ! '*
Instantly afterward, a rapid fire of stones rattles at the
cathedral wall, and the hideous small boy is beheld oppo-
site, dancing in the moonlight.
'' What ! Is that baby-devil on the watch ! " cries Jas-
per, in a fury, so quickly roused, and so violent, that he
seems an older devil himself. " I shall shed the blood of
that impish wretch ! I know I shall do it ! " Regardless
of the fire, though it hits him more than once, he rushes at
Deputy, collars him, and tries to bring him across. But
Deputy is not to be so easily brought across. With a dia-
bolical insight into the strongest part of his position, he is
no sooner taken by the throat than he curls up his legs,
forces his assailant to hang him, as it were, and gurgles in
his throat, and screws his body, and twists, as already un-
dergoing the first agonies of strangulation. There is noth-
ing for it buf to drop him. He instantly gets himself to-
gether, backs over to Durdles, and cries to his assailant,
gnashing the great gap in front of his mouth with rage and
malice : .
740 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" I'll blind yer, s'elp me ! I'll stone yer eyes out, s'elp
me ! If I don't have yer eyesight, bellows me ! " at the
same time dodging behind Durdles, and snarling at Jasper,
now from this side of him, and now. from that ; prepared, if
pounced upon, to dart away in all manner of curvilinear
directions, and, if run down after all, to grovel in the dust,
and cry, " Now, hit me when I'm down I Do it ! "
" Don't hurt the boy, Mister Jarsper," urges Durdles,
shielding him. *' Recollect yourself."
" He followed us to-night, when we first came here ! "
''Yer lie, I didn't [ " replies Deputy, in his one form of
polite contradiction.
*' He has been prowling near us ever since ! "
" Yer lie, I haven't!" returns Deputy. "I'd only jist
come out for my 'elth when I see you two a-coming out of
the Kinfreederel. If —
I— ket — ches — Im — out — ar — ter — ten,"
(with the usual rhythm and dance, though dodging behind
Durdles), " it ain't my fault, is it ? "
" Take him home, then," retorts Jasper, ferociously, though
with a strong check upon himself, *' and let my eyes be rid
the sight of you ! "
Deputy, with another sharp whistle, at once expressing his
relief, and his commencement of a milder stoning of Mr.
Durdles, begins stoning that respectable gentleman home, as
if he were a reluctant ox. Mr. Jasper goes to his Gate House,
brooding. And thus, as every thing comes to an end, the
unaccountable expedition comes to an end — for the time.
CHAPTER XIII.
BOTH AT THEIR BEST.
Miss Twinkleton's establishment was about to undergo a
serene hush. The Christmas recess was at hand. What had
once, and at no remote period, been called, even by the
erudite Miss Twinkleton herself, " the half," but v/hat was
now called, as being more elegant, and more strictly col-
legiate, " the term," would expire to-morrow. A noticeable
relaxation of discipline had for some few days pervaded the
Nuns' House. Club suppers had occurred in the bedrooms,
and 9 dressed tongue had been carved with a pair of scis*
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 741
sors, and handed round with the curling-tongs. Portions of
marmalade had likewise been distributed on a service of
plates constructed of curl-paper ; and cowslip wine had been
quaffed from the small squat m.easuring glass in which little
Rickitts (a junior of weakly constitution) took her steel
drops daily. The housemaids had been bribed with various
fragments of ribbon, and sundry pairs of shoes more or less
down at heel, to make no mention of crumbs in the beds ;
the airiest costumes had been worn on these festive occa-
sions ; and the daring Miss Ferdinand had even surprised
the company with a sprightly solo on the comb-and-curl-
paper, until suffocated in her own pillow by two flowing-
haired executioners.
Nor were these the only tokens of dispersal. Boxes ap-
peared in the bedrooms (wliere they were capital at other
time), and a surprising amount of packing took place, out of
all proportion to the amount packed. Largess, in the form
of odds and ends of cold cream and pomatum, and also of
hairpins, was freely distributed among the attendants.
On charges of inviolable secrecy, confidences were inter-
changed respecting golden youth of England expected to
call, " at home," on the first opportunity. Miss Giggles
(deficient in sentiment) did indeed profess that she, for her
part, acknowledged such homage by making faces at the
golden youth ; but this young lady was outvoted by an im-
mense majority.
On the last night before a recess, it was always expressly
made a point of honor that nobody should go to sleep, and
that ghosts should be encouraged by all possible means.
This compact invariably broke down, and all the young
ladies went to sleep very soon and got up very early.
The concluding ceremony came off at twelve o'clock on
the day of departure ; when Miss Twinkleton, supported by
Mrs. Tisher, held a drawing-room in her own apartment (the
globes already covered with brown holland), where glasses
of white wine and plates of pound-cake were discovered on
the table. Miss Twinkleton then said. Ladies, another re-
volving year had brought us round to that festive period at
which the first feelings of our nature bounded in our — Miss
Twinkleton was annually going to add "bosoms," but an-
nually stopped on the brink of that expression, and substi-
tuted " hearts." Hearts; our hearts. Hem! Again, a re-
volving year, ladies, had brought us to a pause in our
studies — let us hope our greatly advanced studies — and,
742 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
like the mariner in his bark, the warrior in his ter.t, the cap-
tive in his dungeon, and the traveler in his various convey-
ances, we yearned for hon^e. Did we say, on such an occa-
sion, in the opening words of Mr. Addison's impressive
tragedy :
•' The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers.
And heavily in clouds brings on the day.
The great, th' important day — ? "
Not so. From horizon to zenith all was coleiir de rose^ for
all was redolent of our relations and friends. Might we find
ihe??i prospering as we expected ; might they find us prosper-
ing as they expected ! Ladies, we would now, with our love
to one another, wish one another good-by, and happiness,
until we meet again. And when the time should come for
our resumption of those pursuits which (here a general de-
pression set in all round), pursuits which, pursuits which —
then let us ever remember wiiat was said by the Spartan gen-
eral, in words too trite for repetition, at the battle it were
superfluous to specify.
The handmaidens of the establishment, in their best caps,
then handed the trays, and the young ladies sipped and
crumbled, and the bespoken coaches began to choke the
street. Then, leave-taking was not long about, and Miss
Twinkleton, in saluting each young lady's cheek, confided
to her an exceedingly neat letter, addressed to her next
friend-at-law, "with Miss Twinkleton's best compliments"
in the corner. This missive she handed with an air as if it
had not the least connection with the bill, but were some-
thing in the nature of a delicate and joyful surprise.
So many times had Rosa seen such dispersals, and so very
little did she know of any other home, that she was con-
tented to remain where she was, and was even better con-
tented than ever before, having her latest friend with her.
And yet her latest friendship had a blank place in it of
which she could not fail to be sensible. Helena Landless,
having been a party to her brother's revelation about Rosa,
and having entered into that compact of silence with Mr.
Crisparkle, shrunk from any allusion to Edwin Drood's
name. Why she so avoided it was mysterious to Rosa, but
she perfectly perceived the fact. But for the fact, she might
have relieved her own little perplexed heart of some of its
doubts and hesitations, by taking Helena into her confidence.
As it was, she had no such vent ; she could only ponder on
her own difficulties, and wonder more and more why this
avoidance of Kdwin"s name should last, now that she knew
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 743
of— for so much Helena had told her—that a good under-
standhig was to be re-established between the two young
men when Edwin came down.
It would have made a pretty picture, so many pretty girls
kissing Rosa in the cold porch of the Nuns' House, and that
sunny little creature peeping out of it (unconscious of sly
faces carved on spout and gable peeping at her), and wav-
ing farewells to the departing coaches, as if she represented
the spirit of rosy youth abiding in the place to keep it bright
and warm in its desertion. The hoarse High Street became
musical with the cry, in various silvery voices, " Good-by,
Rosebud, darling ! " and the effigy of Mr. Sapsea's father
over the opposite door-way seemed to say to mankind, ''Gen-
tlemen, favor me with yoiir attention to this charming little
las^ lot left behind, and bid with a worthy spirit of the occa-
sion ! " Then the staid street, so unwontedly sparkling,
youthful and fresh for a few rippling moments, ran dry, and
Cloisterham was itself again.
If Rosebud in her bower now waited Edwin Drood's com-
ing with an uneasy heart, Edwin for his part was uneasy too.
With far less force of purpose in his composition than the
childish beauty, crowned by acclamation fairy queen of Miss
Twinkleton's establishment, he had a conscience, and Mr.
Grewgious had pricked it. That gentleman's steady convic-
tions of what was right and what was wrong in such a case
as his were neither to be frowned aside nor lau-hed aside.
They would not be moved. But for the dinner in Staple
Inn, and but for the ring he carried in the breast-pocket of
his coat, he would have drifted into their wedding-day with-
out another pause for real thought, loosely trusting that all
would go well, left alone. But that serious putting him on
his truth to the living and the dead had brought him to a
check. He must either give the ring to Rosa, or he must
take it back. Once put into this narrowed way of action, it
was curious that he began to consider Rosa's claims upon
him more unselfishly than he had ever considered them be-
fore, and began to be less sure of himself than he had ever
been in all his easy-going days.
" I will be guided by what she says, and by how we get
on," was his decision, walking from the Gate House to the
Nuns' House. "Whatever comes of it, I will bear his words
in mind, and try to be true to the living and the dead."
• Rosa was dressed for walking. She expected him. It
was a bright frosty day, and Miss Twinkleton had already
744 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
graciously sanctioned fresh air. Thus they got out together
before it became necessary for either Miss Twinkleton, or
the deputy high-priest, Mrs. Tisher, to lay even so much
as one of those usual offerings on the shrine of propriety.
" My dear Eddy," said Rosa, when they had turned out
of the High Street, and had got among the quiet walks in the
neighborhood of the cathedral and the river, " I want to say
something very serious to you. I have been thinking about
it for a long, long time."
" I want to be serious with you too, Rosa, dear. I mean
to be serious and earnest."
" Thank you, Eddy. And you will not think me unkind
because I begin, will you ? You will not think I speak for
myself only because I speak first ? That would not be gen-
erous, would it ? And I know you are generous I "
He said, '' I hope 1 am not ungenerous to you, Rosa." He
called her Pussy no more. Never again.
" And there is no fear," pursued Rosa, " of our quarrel-
ing, is there ? Because, Eddy," clasping her hand on his
arm, " we have so much reason to be very lenient to each
other ! "
" We will be, Rosa."
" That's a dear good boy ! Eddy, let us be courageous.
Let us change to brother and sister from this day forth."
" Never husband and wife } "
" Never ! "
Neither spoke again for a little while. But after that pause
he said, with some effort :
" Of course I know that this has been in both our minds,
Rosa, and of course I am in honor bound to confess freely
that it does not originate with you."
" No, nor with you, dear," she returned, with pathetic
earnestness. " It has sprung up between us. You are not
truly happy in our engagement ; I am not truly liappy in it.
Oh, I am so sorry, so sorry ! " And there she broke into
tears.
" I am deeply sorry too, Rosa. Deeply sorry for you."
" And I for you, poor boy ! And I for you ! "
This pure young feeling, this gentle and forljearing feeling
of each toward the other, brought with it its reward in a
softening light tliat seemed to shine on their position. The
relations between them did not look willful, or capricious, or
a failure, in such a light : they became elevated into some-<
thing more self-denying, honorable, affectionate and true.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, 745
" If we knew yesterday," said Rosa, as she dried her eyes,
" and we did know yesterday, and on many, many yesterdays,
that we were far from right together in those relations which
were not of our own choosing, what better could we do to-
day than change them ? It is natural that we should be
sorry, and you see how sorry we both are ; but how much
better to be sorry now than then ! "
"When, Rosa?"
" When it would be too late. And then we should be
angry, besides."
Another silence fell upon them,
"And you know," said Rosa, innocently, "you couldn't
like me then ; and you can always like me now, for I shall
not be a drag upon you, or a worry to you. And I can
always like you now, and your sister will not tease or trifle
with you. I often did when I was not your sister, and I beg
your pardon for it."
" Don't let us come to that, Rosa ; or I shall want more
pardoning than I like to think of."
" No, indeed, Eddy ; you are too hard, my generous boy,
upon yourself. Let us sit down, brother, on these ruins,
and let me tell you how it was with us. I think I know, for
I have considered about it very much since you were here
last time. You liked me, didn't you '( You thought I was a
nice little thing ?"
" Every body thinks that, Rosa."
" Do they ? " She knitted her brow musingly for a
moment, and then flashed out with the bright little induc-
tion : " Well ; but say they do. Surely it was not enough
that you should think of me only as other people did ; now,
was it ? "
The point was not to be got over. It was not enough.
" And that is just what I mean ; that is just how it was
with us," said Rosa. "You liked me very well, and you had
grown used to me, and had grown used to the idea of our
being married. You accepted the situation as an inevitable
kind of thing, didn't you? It was to be, you thought, and
why discuss or dispute it."
It was new and strange to him to have himself presented
to himself so clearly, in a glass of her holding up. He had
always patronized her, in his superiority to her share of
woman's wit. Was that but another instance of something
'radically amiss in the terms on which they had been gliding
toward the life-long bondage
746 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" All this that I say of yon is true of me as well, Eddy.
Unless it was, I might not be bold enough to say it. Only,
the difference between us was, that by little and little there
crept into my mind a habit of thinking about it, instead of
dismissing it. My life is not so busy as yours, you see, and
I have not so many things to think of. So I thought about
it very much, and I cried about it very much too (though
that was not your fault, poor boy) ; when all at once my
guardian came down to prepare for my leaving the Nuns'
House. I tried to hint to him that I was not quite settled
in my mind, but I hesitated and failed, and he didn't under-
stand me. But he is a good, good man. And he put before
me so kindly, and yet so strongly, how seriously we ought to
consider, in our circumstances, that I resolved to speak to
you the next moment we were alone and grave. And if I
seemed to come to it easily just now, because I came to it
all at once, don't think it was so really, Eddy, for oh, it was
very, very hard, and oh, I am very, very sorry ! "
Her full heart broke into tears again. He put his arm
about her waist, and they walked by the river-side together.
" Your guardian has spoken to me, too, Rosa dear. I saw
him before I left London." His right hand was in his
breast, seeking the ring ; but he checked it as he thought,
" If I am to take it back, why should I tell her of it ? "
*' And that made you more serious about it, didn't it,
Eddy ? And if I had not spoken to you, as 1 have, you
would have spoken to me ? I hope you can tell me so ? I
don't like it to be all my doing, though it is so much better
for us."
" Yes, I should have spoken ; I should have put every
thing before you ; I came intending to do it. But I never
could have spoken to you as you have spoken to me, Rosa."
*' Don't say you mean so coldly or unkindly, Eddy, please,
if you can helj) it."
*' I mean so sensibly and delicately, so wisely and affec-
tionately."
" That's my dear brother ! " She kissed his hand in a
little rapture. '' The dear girls will be dreadfully disap-
pointed," added Rosa, laughing, with the dew-drops glisten-
ing in her bright eyes. *' They have looked forward to it
so, poor pets ! "
" Ah ! But I fear it will be a worse disappointment to
Jack," said Edwin Drood, wath a start. "I never thought
of Jack ! "
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 747
Her swift and intent look at him as he said the words,
could no more be recalled than a flash of lightning can.
But it appeared as though she would have instantly recalled
it, if she could ; but she looked down, confused, and breathed
quickly.
" You don't doubt it's being a blow to Jack, Rosa ? "
She merely replied, and that evasively and hurriedly, why
should she ? She had not thought about it. He seemed to
her, to have so little to do with it.
'* My dear child ? Can you suppose that any one so
wrapped up in another — Mrs. Tope's expression ; not mine
— as Jack is in me, could fail to be struck all of a heap by
such a sudden and complete change in my life ? I say sud-
den, because it will be sudden to hii7i, you know."
She nodded twice or thrice, and her lips parted as if she
would have assented. But she uttered no sound, and he?
breathing was no slower.
" How shall I tell Jack ! " said Edwin, ruminating. If
he had been less occupied with the thought, he must have
seen her singular emotion. *' I never thought of Jack. It
must be broken to him, before the town-crier knows it. 1
dine with the dear fellow to-morrow and next day — Christ-
mas Eve and Christmas Day — but it would never do to
spoil his feast days. He always worries about me, and
molley-coddles in the merest trifles. The news is sure to
overset him. How on earth shall this be broken to Jack ! "
'' He must be toldj I suppose ? " said Rosa.
" My dear Rosa ! Who ought to be in our confidence, if
not Jack ?"
" My guardian promised to come down, if I should write
and ask him. I am going to do so. Would you like to leave
it to him ? "
"A bright idea!" cried Edwin. "The other trustee.
Nothing more natural. He comes down, he goes to Jack,
he relates what we have agreed upon, and he states our case
better than we could. He has already spoken feelingly to
you, he has already spoken feelingly to me, and he'll put the
whole thing feelingly to Jack. That's it ! I am not a cow-
ard, Rosa, but to tell you a secret, I am a little afraid of
Jack."
" No, no ! You are not afraid of him ? " cried Rosa, turn-
ing white and clasping her hands.
'* Why, Sister Rosa, Sister Rosa, what do you see from
the turret ?" said Edwin, rallying her. " My dear girl I "
748 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
'* You frightened me."
" Most unintentionally, but I am as sorry as if I had meant
to do it. Could you possibly suppose for a moment, from
any loose way of speaking of mine, that I was literally afraid
of the dear, fond fellow ? What I mean is, that he is sub-
ject to a kind of paroxysm or fit — I saw him in it once —
and I don't know but that so great a surprise, coming upon
him direct from me, whom he is so wrapped up in, might
bring it on perhaps. Which — and this is the secret, I was
going to tell you — is another reason for your guardian's
making the communication. He is so steady, precise, and
exact, that he will talk Jack's thoughts into shape in no
time ; whereas with me Jack is always impulsive ana hur-
ried, and, I may say, almost womanish."
Rosa seemed convinced. Perhaps from her own very
different point of view of "Jack," she felt comforted and
protected by the interposition of Mr. Grewgious between
herself and him.
And now, Edwin Drood's right hand closed again upon
the ring in its little case, and again was checked by the con-
sideration : " It is certain, now, that I am to give it back to
him ; then why should I tell her of it ? " That pretty sym-
pathetic nature which could be so sorry for him in the blight
of their childish hopes of happiness together, and could so
quietly find itself alone in a new world to weave fresh wreaths
of such flowers as it might prove to bear, the old world's
flowers being withered, would be grieved by those sorrowful
jewels ; and to what purpose ? Why should it be ! They
were but a sign of broken joys and baseless projects ; in
their very beauty, they were (as the unlikeliest of men had
said) almost a cruel satire on the loves, hopes, plans, of
humanity, which are able to forecast nothing, and are so
much brittle dust. Let them be. He would restore them
to her guardian when he came down ; he, in his turn, would
restore them to the cabinet from which he had unwillingly
taken them ; and there, like old letters or old vows, or records
of old aspirations come to nothing, they would be disre-
garded, until, being valuable, they were sold into circulation
again, to repeat their former round.
Let them be. Let them lie unspoken of, in his breast.
However distinctly or indistinctly he entertained these
thoughts, he arrived at the conclusion, Let them be. Among
the mighty store of wonderful chains that are forever forg-
in^, day and night, in the vast iron-works of time and cir-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 749
cumstance, there was one chain forged in the moment
of that small conclusion, riveted to the foundations of
heaven and earth, and gifted with invincible force to hold
and drag.
They walked on by the river. They began to speak of
their separate plans. He would quicken his departure from
Englar.d, and she would remain where she was, at least as
long as Helena remained. The poor dear girls should have
their disappointment broken to them gently, and, as the
first preliminary. Miss Twinkleton should be confided in by
Rosa, even in advance of the reappearance of Mr. Grewgious,
It should be made clear in all quarters that she and Edwin
were the best of friends. There had never been so serene
an understanding between them since they were first affi-
anced. And yet there was one reservation on each side ;
on hers, that she intended through her guardian to with-
draw herself immediately from the tuition of her music-
master ; on his, that he did already entertain some wander-
ing speculations whether it might ever come to pass that he
would know more of Miss Landless.
The bright frosty day declined as they walked and spoke
together. The sun dipped in the river far behind them,
and the old city lay red before them, as their walk drew to
a close. The moaning water cast its sea- weed duskily at
their feet, when they turned to leave its margin ; and the
rooks hovered above them with hoarse cries, darker splashes
in the darkening air.
" I will prepare Jack for my flitting soon," said Edwin, in
a low voice, " and I will but see your guardian when he
comes, and then go before they speak together. It will be
better done without my being by. Don't you think so ? "
" Yes."
" We know we have done right, Rosa ? "
" Yes."
" We know we are better so, even now ? "
" And shall be far, far better so by and by."
Still, there was that lingering tenderness in their hearts
toward the old positions they were relinquishing, that they
prolonged their parting. When they came among the elm-
trees by the cathedral, where they had last sat together,
they stopped, as by consent, and Rosa raised her face to his,
as she had never raised it in the old days — for they were
pld already.
^' God blvss you, dear ! Good-by ! "
750 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" God bless you, dear ! Good-by ! "
They kissed each other, fervently.
'' Now, please take me home, Eddy, and let me be by
myself."
" Don't look round, Rosa," he cautioned her, as he drew
her arm through his, and led her away. " Didn't you see
Jack ? "
" No ! Where ? "
" Under the trees. He saw us, as we took leave of each
other. Poor fellow ! he little thinks we have parted. This
will be a blow to him, I am much afraid ! "
She hurried on, without resting, and liurried on until they
had passed under the Gate House into the street ; once there,
she asked —
" Has he followed us ? You can look without seeming to.
Is he behind ? "
'* No. Yes ! he is ! He has just passed out under the
gateway. The dear sympathetic old fellow likes to keep us
in sight. I am afraid he will be bitterly disappointed ! "
She pulled hurriedly at the pendent handle of the hoarse
old bell, and the gate soon opened. Before going in, she
gave him one last wide wondering look, as if she would have
asked him with imploring emphasis, '' Oh ! don't you under-
stand ? " And out of that look he vanished from her view.
CHAPTER XIY.
WHEN SHALL THESE THREE MEET AGAIN ?
Christmas Eve in Cloisterliam. A few strange faces in
the streets ; a few other faces, half strange and half familiar,
once the faces of Cloisterham children, now the faces of
men and women who came back from the outer world at
long intervals to find the city wonderfully shrunken in size,
as if it had not washed by any means well in the meanwhile.
To these, the striking of the cathedral clock, and the cawing
of the rooks from the cathedral tower, are like voices of their
nursery time. To such as these, it has happened in their
dying hours afar off, that they have imagined their chamber
floor to be strewn with the autumnal leaves from the elm-
trees in the close ; so have the rustling sounds and fresh
scents of their earliest impressions revived, when the circle
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 751
of their lives was very nearly traced, and the beginning and
the end were drawing close together.
Seasonable tokens are about. Red berries shine here and
there in the lattices of Minor Canon Corner : Mr. and Mrs.
Tope are daintily sticking sprigs of holly into tlie carvings
and sconces of the cathedral stalls, as if they were sticking
them into the coat-buttonholes of the dean and chapter.
Lavish profusion is in the shops : particularly in the articles
of currants, raisins, spices, candied peel, and moist sugar.
An unusual air of gallantry and dissipation is abroad ;
evinced in an immense bunch of mistletoe hanging in the
green-grocer's shop doorway, and a poor little twelfth cake,
culminating in the figure of a harlequin — such a very poor
little twelfth cake, that one would rather call it a twenty-
fourth cake, or a forty-eighth cake— to be raffled for at the
pastry-cook's, terms one shilling per member. Public amuse-
ments are not wanting. The wax-work which made so deep
an impression on the reflective mind of the emperor of
China is to be seen by particular desire during Christmas
week only, on the premises of the bankrupt livery-stable
keeper up the lane ; and a new grand comic Christmas
pantomime is to be produced at the theater ; the latter
heralded by the portrait of Signor Jacksonini the clown,
saying, " How do you do to-morrow," quite as large as life,
and almost as miserably. In short, Cloisterham is up and
doing ; though from this description the High School and
Miss Twinkleton's are to be excluded. From the former
establishment the scholars have gone home, every one of
them in love with one of Miss Twinkleton's young ladies
(who knows nothing about it) ; and only the handmaidens
flutter occasionally in the windows of the latter. It is
noticed, by the by, that these damsels become, within the
limits of decorum, more skittish when thus intrusted with
the concrete representation of their sex, than when dividing
the representation with Miss Twinkleton's young ladies.
Three are to meet at the Gate House to-night. How
does each one of the three get through the day ?
Neville Landless, though absolved from his books for the
time by Mr. Crisparkle — whose fresh nature is by no means
insensible to the charms of a holiday — reads and writes in
his quiet room, with a concentrated air, until it is two hours
past noon. He then sets himself to clearing his table, to
arranging \iU books, and to tearing up and burninpt his stray
752 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
papers. He makes a clean sweep of all untidy accumula-
tions, puts all his drawers in order, and leaves no note or
scrap of paper undestroyed, save such memoranda as bear
directly on his studies. This done, he turns to his ward-
robe, selects a few articles of ordinary wear — among them,
change of stout shoes and socks for walking — and packs
these in a knapsack. This knapsack is new, and he bought
it in the High Street yesterday. He also purchased, at the
same time and at the same place, a heavy walking-stick,
strong in the handle for the grip of the hand, and iron-shod.
He tries this, swings it, poises it, and lays it by, with the
knapsack, on a window-seat. By this time his arrangements
are complete.
He dresses for going out, and is in the act of going — in-
deed, has left his room, and has met the minor canon on the
staircase, coming out of his bedroom upon the same story —
when he turns back again for his walking-stick, thinking he
will carry it now. Mr. Crisparkle, who has paused on the
staircase, sees it in his hand on his immediately reappearing,
takes it from him, and asks him with a smile how he chooses
a stick.
'* Really I don't know that I understand the subject," he
answers. " I chose it for its weight."
" Much too heavy, Neville ; inuch too heavy."
" To rest upon in a long walk, sir ? "
" Rest upon ? " repeats Mr. Crisparkle, throwing himself
into pedestrian form. " You don't rest upon it ; you merely
balance with it."
" I shall know better with practice, sir. I have not lived
in a walking country, you know."
" True," says Mr. Crisparkle. *' Get into a little training, ,
and we will have a few score miles together. I should leave
you nowhere now. Do you come back before dinner ?"
" I think not, as we dine early."
, Mr. Crisparkle gives him a bright nod and a cheerful
good-by, expressing (not without intention) absolute confi-
dence and ease.
Neville repairs to the Nuns' House, and requests that
Miss Landless may be informed that her brother is there, by
appointment. He waits at the gate, not even crossing the
threshold ; for he is on his parole not to put himself in Rosa's
way.
His sister is at least as mindful of the obligation they have
taken on themselves, as he can be, and loses not a moment
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 753
in joining him. They meet affectionately, avoid lingenng
there, and walk toward the upper inland country.
" I am not going to tread upon forbidden ground, Helena,"
says Neville, when they have walked some distance and are
turning ; " you will understand in another moment that I
can not help referring to — what shall I say — my infatuation."
" Had you better not avoid it, Neville ? You know that
I can hear nothing."
" You can hear, my dear, what Mr. Crisparkle has heard
and heard with approval."
" Yes ; I can hear so much."
" Well, it is this. I am not only unsettled and unhappy
myself, but I am conscious of unsettling and interfering with
other people. How do I know that, but for my unfortunate
presence, you, and — and— the rest of that former party, our
engaging guardian excepted, might be dining cheerfully in
Minor Canon Corner to-morrow ? Indeed, it probably would
be so. I can see too well that I am not high in the old
lady's opinion, and it is easy to understand what an irksome
clog I must be upon the hospitalities of her orderly house —
especially at this time of year — when I must be kept asunder
from this person, and there is such a reason for my not
being brought into contact with that person, and an unfavor-
able reputation has preceded me wdth such another person,
and so on. I have put this very gently to Mr. Crisparkle,
for I know his self-denying ways ; but still I have put it.
What I have laid much greater stress upon at the same time,
is, that I am engaged in a miserable struggle with myself,
and that a little change and absence may enable me to come
through it the better. So, the weather being bright and
hard, 1 am going on a walking expedition, and intend taking
myself out of every body's way (my own included I hope) to-
morrow morning."
" When to come back ?"
" In a fortnight."
" And going quite alone ? "
" I am much better without company, even if there were
any one but you to bear me company, my dear Helena."
" Mr. Crisparkle entirely agrees, you say ? "
'' Entirely. I am not sure but that at first he w^as inclined
to think it rather a moody scheme, and one that might do a
brooding mind harm. But we took a moonlight walk last
Monday night to talk it over at leisure, and I represented
the case to him as it really is. I showed him that I do want
754 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
to conquer myself, and that, this evening \vell got over, it is
surely better that I should be away from here just now than
here. I could hardly help meeting certain people walking
together here, and that could do no good, and is certainly
not the way to forget. A fortnight hence, that chance will
probably be over, for the time ; and when it again arises for
the last time, why, I can again go away. Further, I really
do feel hopeful of bracing exercise and wholesome fatigue.
You know that Mr. Crisparkle allows such things their full
weight in the preservation of his own sound mind in his own
sound body, and that his just spirit is not likely to maintain
one set of natural laws for himself and another for me. He
yielded to my view of the matter, v/hen convinced that I was
honestly in earnest, and so, with his full consent, I start
to-morrow morning. Early enough to be not only out of
the streets, but out of hearing of the bells, when the good
people go to church."
Helena thinks it over, and thinks well of it. Mr, Cris^
parkle doing so, she would do so ; but she does originally,
out of her own mind, think well of it as a healthy project,
denoting a sincere endeavor, and an active attempt, at self-
correction. She is inclined to pity him, poor fellow, for
going away solitary on the great Christmas festival ; but she
feels it much more to the purpose to encourage him. And
she does encourage him.
He will write to her?
He will write to her every alternate day, and tell her all
his adventures.
Does he send clothes on in advance of him ?
" My dear Helena, no. Travel like a pilgrim, with wallet
and staff. My wallet — or my knapsack — is packed, and
ready for strapping on ; and here is my staff."
He hands it to her ; she makes the same remark as Mr.
Crisparkle, that it is very heavy ; and gives it back to him,
asking what wood it is? Iron-wood.
Up to this point he has been extremely cheerful. Per-
haps the having to carry his case with her, and therefore to
present it in its brightest aspect, has roused his spirits.
Perhaps the having done so with success is followed by a
revulsion. As the day closes in, and the city lights begin to
spring up before them, he grows depressed.
" I wish I were not going to this dinner, Helena."
" Dear Neville, is it worth while to care much about it ?
Think how soon it will be over."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 755
" How soon it will be over," he repeats, gloomily. " Yes.
But I don't like it."
There may be a moment's awkwardness, she cheeringly
represents to him, but it can only last a moment. He is
quite sure of himself.
" I wish I felt as sure of every thing else as I feel of my-
self," he answers her.
*' How strangely you speak, dear ! What do you mean ? "
" Helena, I don't know, I only know that I don't like it.
What a strange dead weight there is in the air ? "
She calls his attention to those copperous clouds beyond
the river, and says that the wind is rising. He scarcely
speaks again until he takes leave of her at the gate of the
Nuns' House. She does not immediately enter when they
have parted, but remains looking after him along the street.
Twice he passes the Gate House, reluctant to enter. At
length, the cathedral clock chiming one quarter, with a
rapid turn he hurries in.
And so he goes up the postern stair.
Edwin Drood passes a solitary day. Something of deeper
moment than he had thought has gone out of his life, and
in the silence of his own chamber he wept for it last night.
Though the image of Miss Landless still hovers in the back-
ground of his mind, the pretty little affectionate creature, so
much firmer and wiser than he had supposed, occupies its
stronghold. It is with some misgiving of his own unworthi-
ness that he thinks of her, and of what they might have been
to one another, if he had been more in earnest sometime
ago ; if he had set a higher value on her ; if instead of
accepting his fortune in life as an inheritance of course, he
had studied the right way to its appreciation and enhance-
ment. And still for all this, and though there is a sharp
heartache in all this, the vanity and caprice of youth sustain
that handsome figure of Miss Landless in the background
of his mind.
That was a curious look of Rosa's when they parted at
the gate. Did it mean that she saw below the surface of his
thoughts, and down into their twilight aepths ? Scarcely
that, for it was a look of astonished and keen inquiry. He
decides that he can not understand it, though it was remark-
ably expressive.
As he only waits for Mr. Grewgious now, and will depart
immediately after having seen him, he takes a sauntering leave
756 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
of the ancient city and its neighborhood. He recalls the time
when Rosa and he walked here or there, mere children, full
of the dignity of being engaged. Poor children ! he thinks,
with a pitying sadness.
Finding that his watch has stopped, he turns into the
jeweler's shop to have it wound and set. The jeweler is
knowing on the subject of a bracelet, which he begs leave
to submit, in a general and quite aimless way. It would
suit (he considers) a young bride to perfection ; especially
if of a rather diminutive style of beauty. Finding the brace-
let but coldly looked at, the jeweler invites attention to a
tray of rings for gentlemen ; here is a style of ring now, he
remarks ; a very chaste signet ; which gentlemen are much
given to purchasing when changing their condition. A ring
of a very responsible appearance. With the date of their
wedding-day engraved inside, several gentlemen have pre-
ferred it to any other kind of memento.
The rings are as coldly viewed as the bracelet. Edwin
tells the tempter that he wears no jewelry but his watch
and chain, which were his father's, and his shirt-pin.
"That I was aware of," is the jeweler's reply, "for Mr.
Jasper dropped in for a watch-glass the other day, and, in
fact, I showed these articles to him, remarking that if he
should wish to make a present to a gentleman relative, on any
particular occasion — But he said with a smile that he had
an inventory in his mind of all the jewelry his gentleman
relative ever wore ; namely, his watch and chain and his
shirt-pin." Still (the jeweler considers) that might not
apply to all times, though applying to the present time.
" Twenty minutes past two, Mr. Drood, I set your watch at.
Let me recommend you not to let it run down, sir."
Edwin takes his watch, puts it on and goes out, thinking,
" Dear old Jack ! If I were to make an extra crease in my
neckcloth, he would think it worth noticing ! "
He strolls about and about, to pass the time until the din-
ner hour. It somehow happens that Cloisterham seems re-
proachful to him to-day ; has fault to find with him, as if lie
had not used it well ; but is far more pensive with him than
angry. His wonted carelessness is replaced by wistful look-
ing at and dwelling upon, all the old landmarks. He will
soon be far away, and may never see them again, he thinks.
Poor youth ! Poor youth !
As dusk draws on, he paces the Monks' Vineyard. He
has walked to and fro, full half an hour by the cathedral
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 757
chimes, and it has closed in dark, before he becomes quite
aware of a woman crouching on the ground near a wicket
gate in a corner. The gate commands a cross by-path,
Httle used in the gloaming ; and the figure must have been
there all the time, though he has but gradually and lately
made it out.
He strikes into that path, and walks up to the wicket.
By the light of a lamp near it, he sees that the woman is of
a haggard appearance, and that her weazen chin is resting
on her hands, and that her eyes are staring— with an unwink-
ing, blind sort of steadfastness — before her.
Always kindly, but moved to be unusually kind this even-
ing, and having bestowed kind words on most of the chil-
dren and aged people he has met, he at once bends down,
and speaks to this woman.
" Are you ill ? "' .
" No, deary," she answers, without looking at him, and
with no departure from her strange blind stare.
" Are you blind ? "
" No, deary."
*' Are you lost, homeless, faint ? What is the matter, that
you stay here in the cold so long, without moving?"
By slow and stiff efforts she appears to contract her vision
until it can rest upon him ; and then a curious film passes
over her, and she begins to shake.
He straightens himself, recoils a step, and looks down at
her in a dread amazement ; for he seems to know her.
** Good heaven ! "' he thinks, next moment. " Like Jack
that night ! " j i •
As he looks down at her, she looks up at him and whim-
pers, ''My lungs is weakly ; my lungs is dreffle bad. Poor
me, poor me, my cough is rattling dry ! " And coughs m
confirmation horribly,
'' Where do you come from ?"
" Come from London, deary." (Her cough still rending
her.)
" Where are you going to ? "
" Back to London, deary. I came here, looking for a
needle in a haystack, and I an't found it. Look'ee, deary ;
give me three and sixpence, and don't you be ateared for me.
I'll get back to London then, and trouble no one. I'm m a
business. Ah me ! It's slack, it's slack, and times is very
bad !— but I can make a shift to live by it."
*' Do you eat opium ? "
;58 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
*' Smokes it," she replies with difficulty, still racked by
her cough. ** Give me three and sixpence, and I'll lay it out
well, and get back. If you don't give me three and six-
pence, don't give me a brass farden. And if you do give
me three and sixpence, deary, 1 11 tell you something."
He counts the money from his pocket, and puts it in her
hand. She instantly clutches it tight, and rises to her feet
with a croaking laugh of satisfaction.
" Bless ye ! Hark'ee, dear genl'mn. What's your chris'en
name ? "
"Edwin."
" Ed'.vm, Edwin, Edwin," she repeats, trailing off into a
drowsy repetition of the word, and then asks suddenly, " Is
the short of that name Eddy ?'*
"It is sometimes called so," he replies, witn the color
starting to his face.
" Don't sweethearts call it so ? " she asks, pondering.
" How should I know ? "
" Haven't you a sweetheart, upon your soul ? "
" None."
She is moving away with another " Bless ye, and
thank'ee, deary!" when he adds, "You were to tell me
something ; you may as well do so."
" So I was, so I was. Well, then. W^hisper. You be
thankful that your name ain't Ned."
He looks at her quite steadily as he asks, " Why ? "
" Because it's a bad name to have just now."
*' How a bad name ? "
** A threatened name. A dangerous name."
"The proverb says that threatened men live long," he
tells her lightly.
" Then Ned — so threatened is he, wherever he may be
while I am a-talking to you, deary — should live to all
eternity ! " replies the woman.
She has leaned forward to say it in his ear, with her
forefinger shaking before his eyes, and now huddles her-
s<5lf together, and with another " Bless ye, thank'ee ! "
goes awiiy in the direction of the Travelers' Lodging House.
This is not an inspiriting close to a dull day. Alone,
in a sequestered place, surrounded by vestiges of old time
and decay, it rather has a tendency to call a shudder into
being. He makes for the better-lighted streets, and re-
solves as he walks on, to say nothing of this to-night,
but to mention it to Jack (who alone calls him Ned), as
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 759
an odd coincidence, to-morrow ; of course only as a coin-
cidence, and not as any thing better worth remembering.
Still it holds to him as many things much better worth re-
membering never did. He has another mile or so to linger
out before the dinner hour ; and, when he walks over the
bridge and by the river, the woman's words are in the
rising wind, in the angry sky, in the troubled water, in
the flickering lights. There is some solemn echo of them,
even in the cathedral chime, which strikes a sudden sur-
prise to his heart as he turns in under the archway of the
Gate House.
And so he goes up the postern stair.
John Jasper passes a more agreeable and cheerful day
than either of his guests. Having no music lessons to give
in the holiday season, his time is his own, but for the
cathedral services. He is early among the shopkeepers,
ordering little table luxuries that his nephew likes. His
nephew will not be with him long, he tells his provision
dealers, and so must be petted and made much of. While
oat on his hospitable preparations, he looks in on Mr.
Sapsea, and mentions that dear Ned and that inflamma-
ble young spark of Mr. Crisparkle's are to dine at the
Gate House to-day and make up their difference Mr.
Sapsea is by no means friendly toward the inflammable
young spark. He says that his complexion is " Un-
English." And when Mr. Sapsea has once declared any
thing to be Un-Englisli, he considers that thing everlast-
ingly sunk in the bottomless pit.
John Jasper is truly sorry to hear Mr. Sapsea speak thus,
for he knows right well that Mr. Sapsea never speaks with-
out a meaning, and that he has a subtle trick of jjeing right.
Mr. Sapsea (by a very remarkable coincidence) is of ex-
actly that opinion.
Mr. Jasper is in beautiful voice this day. In the pathetic
supplication to have his heart inclined to keep this law, he
quite astonishes his fellows by his melodious power. He has
never sung difficult music with such skill and h irmony as in
this day's anthem. His nervous temperament is occasion-
ally prone to take difficult music a little too quickly ; to-day,
his time is perfect.
These results are probably attained through a grand com-
posure of the spirits. The mere mechanism of his throat is
a little tender, for he wears, both with his singing-robe and
76o THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
with his ordinary dress, a large black scarf of strong close-
woven silk slung loosely round his neck. But his compo-
sure is so noticeable, that Mr. Crisparkle speaks of it as
they come out from vespers.
" I must thank you, Jasper, for the pleasure with which I
have heard you to-day. Beautiful ! Delightful ! You could
not have so outdone yourself, I hope, without being wonder-
fully well."
" I am wonderfully well."
" Nothing unequal," says the minor canon, with a smooth
motion of his hand, nothing unsteady, nothing forced, noth-
ing avoided ; all thoroughly done in a masterly manner,
with perfect self command."
*' Thank you. I hope so, if it is not too much to say."
" One would think, Jasper, you had been trying a new
medicine for that occasional indisposition of yours."
" No, really ? That's well observed ; for I have."
" Then stick to it, my good fellow," says Mr. Crisparkle,
clapping him on the shoulder with friendly encouragement
— " stick to it."
"I will."
" I congratulate you," Mr. Crisparkle pursues, as they come
out of the cathedral, '' on all accounts."
*' Thank you again. I will walk round to the corner with
you, if you don't object ; I have plenty of time before my
company come ; and I want to say a word to you, which I
think you will not be displeased to hear."
" What is it ? "
"Well. We were speaking the other evening of my black
humors."
Mr. Crisparkle's face falls, and he shakes his head deplor-
ingly.
" I said, you know, that I should make you an antidote to
those black humors ; and you said you hoped I would con-
sign them to the flames."
" And I still hope so, Jasper."
" With the best reason in the world ! I mean to burn this
year's diary at the year's end."
"Because you — ?" Mr. Crisparkle brightens greatly as he
thus begins.
*' You anticipate me. Because I feel that I have been
out of sorts, gloomy, bilious, brain-oppressed, whatever
it may be. You said that I had been exaggerative. So I
have."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 761
Mr. Crisparkle's brightened face brightens still more.
** I couldn't see it then, because I 7vas out of sorts ; but I
am in a healthier state now, and I acknowledge it with gen-
uine pleasure. I made a great deal of a very little ; that's
the fact."
" It does me good," cries Mr. Crisparkle, " to hear you
say it ! "
" A man leading a monotonous life," Jasper proceeds, "and
getting his nerves, or his stomach, out of order, dwells upon
an idea until it loses its proportions. That was my case with
the idea in question. So I shall burn the evidence of my
case, when the book is full, and begin the next volume with
a clearer vision."
" This is better," says Mr. Crisparkle, stopping at the
steps of his own door to shake hands, " than I could have
hoped ! "
" Why, naturally," returns Jasper. " Y'ou had but little
reason to hope that I should become more like yourself.
You are always training yourself to be, mind and body, as
clear as crystal, and you always are, and never change ;
whereas, I am a muddy, solitary, moping weed. However, I
have got over that mope. Shall I wait, while you ask if Mr.
Neville has left for my place ? If not, he and I may walk
around together."
" I think," says Mr. Crisparkle, opening the entrance door
with his key, " that he left some time ago ; at least I know he
left, and I think he has not come back. But I'll inquire.
You won't come in ? "
" My company wait," says Jasper, with a smile.
The minor canon disappears, and in a few moments re-
turns. As he thought, Mr. Neville has not come back ; in-
deed as he remembers now, Mr. Neville said he would prob-
ably go straight to the Gate House.
" Bad manners in a host ! " says Jasper. " My company
will be there before me ! What will you bet that I don't find
my company embracing ? "
" I will bet— or I would if I ever did bet," returns Mr.
Crisparkle, " that your company will have a gay entertainer
this evening."
Jasper nods, and laughs good-night !
He retraces his steps to the cathedral door, and turns
down past it to the Gate House. He sings, in a low voice
and with delicate expression, as he walks along. It still
seems as if a false note were not within his power to-night,
762 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
and as if nothing could hurry or retard him. Arriving thus
under the arched entrance of his dwelling, he pauses for an
instant in the shelter to pull off that great black scarf, and
hang it in a loop upon his arm. For that brief time, his face
is knitted and stern. But it immediately clears, and he re-
sumes his singing, and his way.
And so he goes up the postern stair.
The red light burns steadily all the evening in the light-
house on the margin of the tide of busy life. Softened
sounds and hum of traffic pass it and flow on irregularly into
the lonely precincts ; but very little else goes by, save vio-
lent rushes of wind. It comes on to blow a boisterous gale.
The precincts are never particularly well lighted ; but the
strong blasts of wind blowing out many of the lamps (in
some instances shattering the frames too, and bringing the
glass rattling to the ground), they are unusually dark to-
night. The darkness is augmented and confused by fly-
ing dust from the earth, dry twigs from the trees, and great
ragged fragments from the rooks' nests up in the tower.
The trees themselves so toss and creak, as this tangible part
of the darkness madly whirls about, that they seem in peril
of being torn out of the earth ; while ever and again a crack,
and a rushing fall, denote that some large branch has yielded
to the storm.
No such power of wind has blown for many a winter night.
Chimneys topple in the streets, and people hoM to posts and
corners, and to one another, to keep themselves upon their
feet. The violent rushes abate not, but increase in frequency
and fury until at midnight, when the streets are empty, the
storm goes thundering along them, rattling at all the latches,
and tearing at all the shutters, as if warning the people to get
up and fly with it, rather than have the roofs brought down
upon their brains.
Still the red light burns steadily. Nothing is steady but
the red light.
All through the night the wind blows, and abates not.
But early in the morning, when there is barely enough light
in the east to dim the stars, it begins to lull. From that
time, with occasional wild cliarges, like a wounded monster
dying, it drops and sinks ; and at full daylight it is dead.
It is then seen that the hands of the cathedral clock are
torn off ; that lead from the roof has been stripped away,
rolled up, and blown into the close ; and that some stones
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DkOOD. 763
have been displaced upon the summit of the great tower.
Christmas morning though it be, it is necessary to send up
workmen to ascertain the extent of the damage done. These
led by Durdles, go aloft ; while Mr. Tope and a crowd of
early idlers gather down in Minor Canon Corner, shading
their eyes and watching for their appearance up there.
This cluster is suddenly broken and put aside by the hands
of Mr. Jasper ; all the gazing eyes are brought down to the
earth by his loudly inquiring of Mr. Crisparkle, at an open
window :
*' Where is my nephew ? "
*' He has not been here. Is he not with you ? "
"No. He went down to the river last night with Mr.
Neville, to look at the storm, and has not been back. Call
Mr. Neville ! "
" He left this morning, early."
Left this morning, early ? Let me in, let me in ! "
There is no more looking up at the tower, now. All the
assembled eyes are turned on Mr. Jasper, white, half-dressed,
panting, and clinging to the rail before the minor canon's
house.
CHAPTER XV.
IMPEACHED.
Neville Landless had started so early and walked at so
good a pace, that when the church bells began to ring in
Cloisterham for morning service, he was eight miles away.
As he wanted his breakfast by that time, having set forth on
a crust of bread, he stopped at the next roadside tavern to
refresh.
Visitors in want of breakfast — unless they were horses or
cattle, for which class of guests there was preparation enough
in way of water-trough and hay — were so unusual at the
sign of The Tilted Wagon, that it took a longtime to get the
wagon into the track of tea and toast and bacon. Neville, in
the interval, sitting in a sanded parlor, wondering in how
long a time after he had gone, the sneezy fire of damp fagots
would begin to make any body else warm.
Indeed, The Tilted Wagon, as a cool establishment on the
top of a hill, where the ground before the door was puddled
with damp hoofs and trodden straw ; where a scolding
landlady slapped a moist baby (with one red sock on and
764 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
one wanting) in the bar ; v/here the cheese was cast aground
upon a shelf, in company with a moldy table-cloth and a
green-handled knife, in a sort of cast-iron canoe ; where the
pale-faced bread shed tears of crumb over its shipwreck in
another canoe ; where the family linen, half washed and
half dr^ed, led a public life of lying about; where every
thing to dring was drunk out of mugs, and every thing else
was suggrstive of a rhyme to mugs. I'he Tilted Wagon,
all these things considered, hardly kept its painted promise
of providing good entertainment for man and beast. How-
ever, man in the present case, was not critical, but took
what entertainment he could get, and went on again after
a longer rest than he needed.
He stopped at some quarter of a mile from the house, hesi-
tating whether to pursue the road, or to follow a cart track
between two hi.^h hedgerows, which ltd across the slope of a
breezy heath, and evidently struck out. into the road by and
by. He decided in favor of this latter track, and pursued
it with some toil ; the rise being steep, and the way worn
into deep ruts.
He was laboring along, when he became aware of some
other pedestrians behind him. As they were coming up at a
faster pace than his, he stood aside, against one of the high
banks, to let them pass. But their manner was very curious.
Only four of them passed. Other four slackened speed, and
loitered as intending to follow him when he should go on.
The remainder of the party (half a dozen perhaps) turned,
and went back at a great rate.
He looked at the four behind him, and he looked at the
four before him. They all returned his look. He resumed
his way. The four in advance went on, constantly looking
back ; the four in the rear came closing up.
When they all ranged out from the narrow track upon the
open slope of the heath, and this order was maintained, let
him diverge as he would to either side, there was no longer
room to doubt that he was beset by these fellows. He
stopped, as a last test, and they all stopped.
" Why do you attend upon me in this way ?" he asked the
whole body. " Are you a pack of thieves } "
" Don't answer him," said one of the number ; he did not
see which. " Better be quiet."
'' Better be quiet ? " repeated Neville. '' Who said so ? "
Nobody replied.
''It's good advice, whichever of you skulkers gave it/' he
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 765
went on angrily. " I will not submit to be penned in be-
tween four men here and four men there. I wish to pass,
and I mean to pass, those four in front."
They were all standing still, himself included.
" If eight men, or four men, or two men, set upon one,"
he proceeded, growing more enraged, " the one has no chance
but to set his mark upon some of them. And by the Lord
rU do it, if I am interrupted any further ! "
Shouldering his heavy stick, and quickening his pace, he
shot on to pass the four ahead. The largest and strongest
man of the number changed swiftly to the side on which he
came up, and dextrously closed with him. and went down
with him ; but not before the heavy stick had descended
smartiy.
"Let him be ?" said this man in a suppressed voice, as
they struggled together on the grass. " Fair play ! His is
the build of a girl to mine, and he's got a weight strapped to
his back besides. Let him alone. Fll manage him."
After a little rolling about, in a close scuffle, which caused
the faces of both to be besmeared with blood, the man took
his knee from Neville's chest, and rose saying, '' There !
Now take him arm in arm, any two of you ! "
It was immediately done.
" As to our being a pack of thieves, Mr. Landless," said
the man, as he spat out some blood, and wiped more from
his face, " you know better than that, at midday. ^ We
wouldn't have touched you, if you hadn't forced us. We're
going to take you round to the high road, anyhow, and
you'll find help enough against thieves there, if you want it.
Wipe his face, somebody ; see how it's a trickling down
him 1 "
When his face was cleansed, Neville recognized m the
speaker, Joe, driver of the Cloisterham omnibus, whom he
had seenbutoncc, and that on the day of his arrival
" And what I recommend you for the present, is, don't
talk, Mr. Landless. You'll find a friend waiting for you, at
the high road — gone ahead by the other way when we split
into two parties— and you had much better say nothing till
you come up with him. Bring that stick along, somebody
else, and let's be moving ! "
Utterly bewildered, Neville stared around him, and said
not a word. Walking between his two conductors, who held
his arms in theirs, he went on, as in a dream, until they
came again into the high-road, and into the midst of a little
766 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROGD.
group of people. The men who had turned back were among
the group, and its central figures were Mr. jasper and Mr.
Crisparkle. Neville's conductors took him up to the
minor canon, and there released him, as an act of defer-
ence to that gentleman.
*' What is all this, sir ? What is the matter ? I feel as if
I had lost my senses ! " cried Neville, the group closing in
around him.
'* Where is my nephew ?" asked Mr. Jasper, wildly.
''Where is your nephew ? " repeated Neville. " Why do
you ask me ? "
" I ask you," retorted Jasper, " because you were the last
Derson in his company, and he is not to be found."
*' Not to be found ! " cried Neville, aghast.
*' Stay, stay," said Mr. Crisparkle. "Permit me, Jasper.
Mr. Neville, you are confounded ; collect your thoughts ; it
is of great importance that you should collect your thoughts ;
attend to me."
" I will try, sir, but I seem mad."
" You left Mr. Jasper's last night, with Edwin Drood? "
" Yes."
"At what hour?"
" Was it at twelve o'clock ? " asked Neville, with his hand
to his confused head, and appealing to Jasper.
" Quite right," said Mr. Crisparkle ; " the hour Mr. Jas-
per has already named to me. You went down to the river
together ? "
" Undoubtedly. To see the action of the wind there."
" What followed ? How long did you stay there ? "
" About ten minutes ; I should say not more. We then
walked together to your house, and he took leave of me at
the door."
" Did he say that he was going down to the river
again ? "
" No. He said that he was going straight back."
The bystanders looked at one another, and at Mr. Cris-
parkle. To whom, Mr. Jasper, who had been intensely
watching Neville, said, in a low, distinct, suspicious voice,
" What are those stains upon his dress ? "
All eyes were turned toward the blood upon the clothes.
*' And here are the same stains upon this stick ! " said Jas-
per, taking it from the hand of the man who held it. " I
know the stick to be his, and he carried it last night. What
does this mean ? "
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 767
" In the name of God, say what it means, Neville ! " urged
Mr. Crisparkle.
"That man and I," said Neville, pointing out his late
adversary, " had a struggle for the stick just now, and you
may see the same marks on him, sir. What was I to suppose,
when I found myself molested by eight people ? Could I
dream of the true reason when they would give me none at
all ? "
They admitted that they had thought it discreet to be
silent, and that the struggle had taken place. And yet the
very men who had seen it looked darkly at the smears which
the bright cold air had already dried.
" We must return, Neville," said Mr. Crisparkle ; " of
course you will be glad tc come back to clear yourself ? "
" Of course, sir.
" Mr. Landless will visdk at my side," the minor canon
continued, looking around him. " Come, Neville ! "
They set forth on the walk back ; and the others, with
one exception, straggled after them at various distances.
Jasper walked on the other side of Neville, and never quitted
that position. He was silent, while Mr. Crisparkle more
than once repeated his former questions, and while Neville
repeated his former answers ; also, while they both hazarded
some explanatory conjectures. He was obstinately silent,
because Mr. Crisparkle's manner directly appealed to him
to take some part in the discussion, and no appeal would
move his fixed face. When they drew near to the city, and
it was suggested by the minor canon that they might do
well in calling on the mayor at once, he assented with a
stern nod ; but he spake no word until they stood in Mr.
Sapsea's parlor.
Mr. Sapsea being informed by Mr. Crisparkle of the cir-
cumstances under which they desired to make a voluntary
statement before him, Mr. Jasper broke silence by declaring
that he placed his whole reliance, humanly speaking, on Mr.
Sapsea's penetration. There was no conceivable reason vv^hy
his nephew should have suddenly absconded, unless Mr.
Sapsea could suggest one, and then he would defer. There
was no intelligible likelihood of his having returned to the
river, and been accidentally drowned in the dark, unless it
should appear likely to Mr. Sapsea, and then again he would
defer. He washed his hands as clean as he could of all hor-
rible suspicions, unless it should appear to Mr. Sapsea that
some such were inseparable from his last companion before
768 THE MYS I'ERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
his disappearance (not on good terms with previously), and
then, once more, he would defer. His own state of mind, he
being distracted with doubts, and laboring under dismal ap-
prehensions, was not to be safely trusted ; but Mr. Sapsca's
was.
Mr. Sapsea expressed his opinion that the case had a dark
look; in short (and here his eyes rested full on Neville's
countenance), an Un-English complexion. Having made
this grand point, he wandered into a denser haze and maze
of nonsense than even a mayor might have been expected to
disport himself in, and came out of it with the brilliant dis-
covery that to take the life of a fellow-creature was to take
something that didn't belong to you. He wavered whether or
no he should at once issue his warrant for the committal of Ne-
ville Landless to jail, under circumstances of grave suspicion ;
and he might have gone so far as to do it but for the indig-
nant protest of the minor canon, who undertook for the young
man's remaining in his own house, and being produced by
his own hands, whenever demanded. Mr. Jasper then
understood Mr. Sapsea to suggest that the river should be
dragged, that its banks should be rigidly examined, that
particulars of the disappearance should be sent to all out-
lying places and to London, and that placards and adver-
tisements should be widely circulated imploring Edwin
Drood, if for any unknown reason he had withdrawn him-
self from his uncle's home and society, to take pity on that
loving kinsman's sore bereavement and distress, and some-
how inform him that he was yet alive. Mr. Sapsea was
perfectly understood, for this was exactly his meaning
(though he had said nothing about it) ; and measures were
taken toward all these ends immediately.
It would be difficult to determine which was the more
oppressed with horror and amazement, Neville Landless or
John Jasper. But that Jasper's position forced him to be
active, while Neville's forced him to be passive, there would
have been nothing to choose between them. Each was
bowed down and broken.
With the earliest light of the next morning, men were at
work upon the river, and other men — most of whom volun-
teered for the service — were examining the banks. All the
livelong day the search went on ; upon the river, with barge
and pole, and drag and net ; upon the muddy and rushy
shore, with jackboot, hatchet, spade, rope, dogs, and all
imaginable appliances. Even at night the river was specked
THE MYSTERY 0F_EDW1M DROOD. 769
with lanterns, and lurid with fires ; far-off creeks, into which
the tide washed as it changed, had their knots of watchers,
listening to the lapping of the stream, and looking out for
any burden it might bear ; remote shingly causeways near
the sea, and lonely points off which there was a race of water,
had their unwonted flaring cressets and rough-coated figures
when the next day dawned ; but no trace of Edwin Drood
revisited the light of the sun.
All that day, again the search went on. Now in barge
and boat ; and now ashore among the osiers, or tramping
amid mud and stakes and jagged stones in low-lying
places, where solitary watermarks and signals of strange
shapes showed like specters, John Jasper vv'orked and toiled.
But to no purpose ; for still no trace of Edwin Drood
revisited the light of the sun.
Setting his watches for that night again, so that vigilant
eyes should be kept on every change of tide, he went home
exhausted. Unkempt and disordered, bedaubed with mud
that had dried upon him, and with much of his clothing
torn to rags, he had but just dropped into his easy-chair,
when Mr. Grewgious stood before him. *' This is strange
news," said Mr. Grewgious.
" Strange and fearful news."
Jasper had merely lifted up his heavy eyes to say it, and
now dropped them again, as he drooped, worn out, over one
side of his easy-chair.
Mr. Grewgious smoothed his head and face, and stood
looking at the fire.
" How is your ward ? " asked Jasper, after a time, in a
faint, fatigued voice.
" Poor little thing ! You may imagine her condition."
" Have you seen his sister ? " inquired Jasper, as be-
fore.
" Whose ? "
The curtness of the counter-question, and the cool, slow
manner in which, as he put it, Mr. Grewgious moved his
eyes from the fire to his companion's face, might at any other
time have been exasperating. In his depression and exhaus-
tion, Jasper merely opened his eyes to say, " The suspected
young man's."
" Do you suspect him ? " asked Mr. Grewgious.
'* I don't know what to think. I can not make up my
mind."
" Nor T," said Mr. Grewgious. "But as you spoke of him
770 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
as the suspected young man, I thought you had made up
your mind. — I have just left Miss Landless."
'' What is her state .? "
"" Defiance of all suspicion, and unbounded faith in her
brother,"
" Poor thing ! "
"However," pursued Mr. Grewgious, "it is not of her
that I came to speak. It is of my ward. I have a com-
munication to make that will surprise you. At least it has
surprised me."
Jasper, with a groaning sigh, turned wearily in his chair.
" Shall I put it off till to-morrow ? " said Mr. Grewgious.
" Mind ! I warn you, that I think it will surprise you ! "
More attention and concentration came into John Jasper's
eyes as they caught sight of Mr. Grewgious smoothing his
head again, and again looking at the fire ; but now, with a
compressed and determined mouth.
'* What IS it ? " demanded Jasper, becoming upright in
his chair.
" To be sure," said Mr. Grewgious, provokingly slowly
and internally, as he kept his eyes on the fire, " I might
have known it sooner ; she ga.ve me the opening ; but I am
such an exceedingly angular man that it never occurred to
me ; I took all for granted."
" What is it ? " demanded Jasper, once more.
Mr. Grewgious, alternately opening and shutting the
palms of his hands as he a\ armed them at the fire, and look-
ing fixedly at him sideways, and never changing either his
action or his look in all that followed, went on to reply.
" This young couple, the lost youth and Miss Rosa, my
ward, though so long betrothed, and so long recognizing
their betrothal, and so near being married "
Mr. Grev.'gious saw a staring white face and two quiver-
ing white lips, in the easy-chair, and saw two muddy hands
gripping its sides. But for the hands, he might have
thought he had never seen the face.
" — This young couple came gradually to the discovery
(made on both sides pretty equally, I think) that they
would be happier and better, both in their present and their
future lives, as affectionate friends, or say rather as brother
and sister, than as husband and wife."
Mr. Grewgious saw a lead-colored face in the easy-chair,
and on its surface dreadful starting drops or bul^l^lcs, as if
of steel.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 771
" This young couple formed at length the healthy resolu-
tion of interchanging their discoveries, openly, sensibly, and
tenderly. They met for that purpose. After some innocent
and generous talk, they agreed to dissolve their existing,
and their intended, relations, forever and ever."
Mr. Grewgious saw a ghastly figure rise, open-mouthed,
from the easy-chair and lift its outspread hands toward
its head.
" One of this young couple, and that one your nephew,
fearful, however, that in the tenderness of your affection for
him you would be bitterly disappointed by so wide a depart-
ure from his projected life, forbore to tell you the secret, for
a few days, and left it to be disclosed by me, when I should
come down to speak to you, and he would be gone. I speak
to you, and he is gone."
Mr. Grewgious saw the ghastly figure throw back its head,
clutch its hair with its hands, and turn with a writhing ac-
tion from him.
'' 1 have now said all I have to say, except that this
young couple parted, firmly, though not without tears and
sorrow, on the evening when you last saw them together."
Mr. Grewgious heard a terrible shriek, and saw no ghastly
figure, sitting or standing ; saw nothing but a heap of torn
and miry clothes upon the floor.
Not changing his action even then, he opened and shut
the palms of his hands as he warmed them, and looked
down at it.
CHAPTER XVI.
DEVOTED.
When John Jasper recovered from his fit or swoon, he
found himself being tended by Mr, and Mrs. Tope, whom
his visitor had summoned for the purpose. His visitor,
wooden of aspect, sat stifHy in a chair, v/ith his hands upon
his knees, watching his recovery.
" There ! You've come to nicely now, sir," said the tear-
ful Mrs. Tope ; " you were thoroughly worn out, and no
wonder ! "
" A man," said Mr. Grewgious, with his usual air of re-
peating a lesson, " can not have his rest broken, and his
mind cruelly tormented, and his body overtaxed by fatigue,
without being thoroughly worn out."
772 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" I fear I have alarmed you ? " Jasper apologized faintly,
when he was helped into his easy-chair.
" Not at all, I thank you," answered Mr. Grewgious.
*' You are too considerate."
" Not at all, I thank you," answered Mr. Grewgious
;:gain.
"You must take some wine, sir," said Mrs. Tope, *'and
the jelly that I had ready for you, and that you wouldn't
put your lips to at noon, though I warned you what would
come of it, you know, and you not breakfasted ; and you
must have a wing of the roast fowl that has been put back
twenty times if it's been put back once. It shall all be on
table in five minutes, and this good gentleman belike will
stop and see you take it."
This good gentleman replied with a snort, which might
mean yes, or no, or any thing, or nothing, and which Mrs.
Tope would have found highly mystifying, but that her at-
tention was divided by the service of the table.
"You will take something with me? " said Jasper, as the
jcloth was laid.
" I couldn't get a morsel down my throat, I thank you,"
answered Mr. Grewgious.
Jasper .both ate and drank almost voraciously. Combined
with the hurry in his mode of doing it, was an evident in-
difference to the taste of what he took, suggesting that he
ate and drank to fortify himself against any other failure of
the spirits, far more than to gratify his palate. Mr. Grew-
gious in the meantime sat upright, with no expression in
his face, and a hard kind of imperturbably polite protest
all over him , as though he would have said, ic, reply to some
invitation to discourse, " I couldn't originate the faintest
approach to an observation on any subject whatever, I thank
you."
" Do you know," said Jasper, when he had pushed away
his plate and glass, and had sat meditating for a few min-
utes — " do you know that I find some crumbs of comfort in
the communication with which you have so much amazed
me?"
''''Do you ? " returned Mr. Grewgious ; pretty plainly add-
ing the unspoken clause, " I don't, I thank you ! "
" After recovering from the shock of a piece of news of
my dear boy so entirely unexpected, and so destructive of
all the castles I had built for him ; and after having had
time to think of it ; yes."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 773
" I shall be glad to pick up your crumbs," said Mr. Grew-
gious, dryly.
*' Is there not, or is there — if I deceive myself, tell me so,
and shorten my pain — is there not, or is there, hope that,
finding himself in this new position, and becoming sensi-
tively alive to the awkward burden of explanation, in this
quarter, and that, and the other, with which it would load
him, he avoided the awkwardness, and took flight ? "
** Such a thing might be," said Mr. Grewgious, pondering.
*' Such a thing has been. I have read of cases in which
people, rather than face a seven days' wonder, and have to
account for themselves to the idle and importunate, have
taken themselves away, and been long unheard of."
'* I believe such things have happened," said Mr. Grew-
gious, pondering still.
"When I had, and could have, no suspicion," pursued
Jasper, eagerly following the new track, " that the dear lost
boy had withheld any thing from me — uiost of all, such a
leading matter as this — what gleam of light was there for me
in the whole black sky ? When I supposed that his intended
wife was here, and his marriage close at hand, how could I
entertain the possibility of his voluntarily leaving this place,
in a manner that would be so unaccountable, capricious, and
cruel ? But now that I know what you have told me, is
there no little chink through which day pierces ? Suppos-
ing him to have disappeared of his own act, is not his disap-
pearance more accountable and less cruel ? 'i'he fact of his
having just parted from your ward is in itself a sort of reason
for his going away. It does not make his mysterious de-
parture the less cruel to me, it is true ; but it relieves it of
cruelty to her."
Mr. Grewgious could not but assent to this.
*' And even as to me," continued Jasper, still pursuing the
new track, with ardor, and, as he did so, brightening with
hope, " he knew that you were coming to me ; he knew that
you were intrusted to tell me what you have told me ; if
your doing so has awakened a new train of thought in my
perplexed mind, it reasonably follows that, from the same
premises, he might have foreseen the inferences that I should
draw. Grant that he did foresee them ; and even the
cruelty to me — and who am I ! — John Jasper, music mas-
ter ! — vanishes."
Once more, Mr. Grewgious could not but assent to this.
" I have had my distrusts, and terrible distrusts they have
774 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
been," said Jasper ; ** but your disclosure, overpowering as
it was at first — showing rne that my own dear boy had had a
great disappointing reservation from me, who so fondly
loved him — kindles hope within me. You do not extinguish
it when I state it, but admit it to be a reasonable hope. I
begin to believe it possible " — here he clasped his hands —
*' that he may have disappeared from among us of his own ac-
cord, and that he may yet be alive and well ! "
Mr. Crisparkle came in at the moment, to whom Mr. Jas-
per repeated :
" I begin to believe it possible that he may have disap-
peared of his own accord, and may yet be alive and well ! "
Mr. Crisparkle. taking a seat, and inquiring " Why so ? "
Mr. Jasper repeated the arguments he had just set forth. If
they had been less plausible than they were, the good minor
canon's mind would have been in a state of preparation to re-
ceive them, as exculpatory of his unfortunate pupil. But
he, too, did really attach great importance to the lost young
man's having been, so immediately before his disappearance,
placed in a new and embarrassing relation toward every one
acquainted with his projects and affairs ; and the fact seemed
to him to present the question in a new light.
" I stated to Mr. Sapsea, when we waited on him," said Jas-
per, as he really had done, " that there was no quarrel
or difference between the two young men at their last meet-
ing. We all know that their first meeting was, unfortunately,
very far from amicable ; but all went smoothly and quietly
when they were last together at my house. My dear boy
was not in his usual spirits ; he was depressed — I noticed
that — and I am bound henceforth to dwell upon the circum-
stance the more, now that I know there was a special reason
for his being depressed — a reason, moreover, which may pos-.
sibly have induced him to absent himself."
" I pray to heaven it may turn out so ! " exclaimed Mr.
Crisparkle.
*' / pray to heaven it may turn out so ! " repeated Jasper.
*' You know — and Mr. Grewgious should now know likewise
— that I took a great prepossession against Mr. Neville
Landless, arising out of his furious conduct on that first oc-
casion. You know that I came to you extremely apprehen-
sive, on my dear boy's behalf, of his mad violence. You
know that I even entered in my diary, and showed the entry
to you, that I had dark forebodings against him. Mr. Grew-
gious ought to be possessed of the whole case. He shall n©t,
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 775
through any suppression of mine, be informed of a part of
it, and kept in ignorance of another part of it. I wish him
to be good enough to understand that the communication
he has made to me has hopefully influenced my mind, in
spite of its having been, before this mysterious occurrence
took place, profoundly impressed against young Landless."
This fairness troubled the minor canon much. He felt
that he was not as open in his own dealing. He charged
against himself reproachfully that he had suppressed, so far,
tlie two points of a second strong outbreak of temper against
Edwin Drood on the part of Neville, and of the passion of
jealousy having, to his own certain knowledge, flamed up in
Neville's breast against him. He was convinced of Neville's
innocence of any part in the ugly disappearance, and yet so
many little circumstances combined so wofully against him,
that he dreaded to add two more to their cumulative weight.
He was among the truest of men ; but he had been balanc-
ing in his mind, much to its distress, whether his volunteer-
ing to tell these two fragments of truth, at this time, would
not be tantamount to a piecing together of falsehood in the
place of truth.
However, here was a model before him. He hesitated no
longer. Addressing Mr. Grewgious, as one placed in au-
thority by the revelation he had brought to bear on the mys-
tery (and surpassingly angular Mr. Grewgious became when
he found himself in that unexpected position), Mr. Crisparkle
bore his testimony to Mr. Jasper's strict sense of justice, and,
expressing his absolute confidence in the complete clearance
of his pupil from the least taint of suspicion, sooner or later,
avowed that his confidence in that young gentleman had
been formed, in spite of his confidential knowledge that his
temper was of the hottest and fiercest, and that it w^as di-
rectly incensed against Mr. Jasper's nephew, by the circum-
stance of his romantically supposing himself to be enamored
of the same young lady. The sanguine reaction manifest in
Mr. Jasper was proof even against this unlooked-for decla-
ration. It turned him paler ; but he repeated that he would
cling to the hope he had derived from Mr. Grewgious ; and
that if no trace of his dear boy were found leading to the
dreadful inference that he had been made away with, that
he would cherish unto the last stretch of possibility, the
idea that he might have absconded of his own wild will.
Now, it fell out that Mr. Crisparkle, going away from this
conference still very uneasy in his mind, and very much
776 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
troubled on behalf of the young man whom he held as a
kind of prisoner in his own house, took a memorable night
walk.
He walked to Cloisterham Weir.
He often did so, and consequently there was nothing re-
markable in his footsteps tending that way. But the pre-
occupation of his mind so hindered him from planning any
walk, or taking heed of the objects he passed, that his first
consciousness of being near the weir was derived from the
sound of the falling water close at hand.
'* How did I come here ? " was his first thought, as he
stopped.
" Why did I come here ? " was his second.
Then he stood intently listening to the water. A familiar
passage in his reading, about airy tongues that syllable men's
names, rose so unbidden to his ear, that he put it from him
with his hand, as if it were tangible.
It was starlight. The weir was full two miles above the
spot to which the young men had repaired to watch the
storm. No search had been made up here, for the tide had
been running strongly down at that time of the night of
Christmas Eve, and the likeliest places for the discovery of
a body, if a fatal accident had happened under such circum-
stances, all lay — both when the tide ebbed, and when it
flowed again — between that spot and the sea. The water
came over the weir, with its usual sound on a cold starlight
night, and little could be seen of it ; yet Mr. Crisparkle had
a strange idea that something unusual hung about the place.
He reasoned with himself : What was it ? where was it ?
Put it to the proof. Which sense did it address ?
No sense reasoned any thing unusual there. He listened
again, and his sense of hearing again checked the water
coming over the weir, with its usual sound on a cold star-
light night.
Knowing very well that the mystery with which his mind
was occupied might of itself give the place this haunted air,
he strained those hawk's eyes of his for the correction of his
sight. He got closer to the weir, and peered at its well-
known posts and timbers. Nothing in the least unusual was
remotely shadowed forth. But he resolved that he would
come back early in the morning.
The weir ran through his broken sleep all night, and he
was back again at sunrise. It was a bright frosty morning.
The whole composition before him, when he stood where he
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 777
had stood last night, was clearly discernible in its minutest
details. He had surveyed it closely for some minutes, and
was about to withdraw his eyes, when they were attracted
keenly to one spot.
He turned his back upon the weir, and looked far away
at the sky, and at the earth, and then looked again at that
one spot. It caught his sight again immediately, and he
concentrated his vision upon it. He could not lose it now,
though it was but such a speck in the landscape. It fasci-
nated his sight. His hands began plucking off his coat.
For it struck him that at that spot — a corner of the weir —
something glistened, which did not move and come over with
the glistening water-drops, but remained stationary.
He assured himself of this, he threw off his clothes, he
plunged into the icy water, and swam for the spot. Climb-
ing the timbers, he took from them, caught among their
interstices by its chain, a gold watch, bearing engraved upon
its back, E. D.
He brought the watch to the bank, swam to the weir again,
climbed it, and dived off. He knew every hole and corner
of all the depths, and dived and dived and dived, until he
could bear the cold no more. His notion was that he would
find the body ; but he only found a shirt-pin sticking in
some mud and ooze.
With these discoveries he returned to Cloisterham, and
taking Neville Landless with him, went straight to the
mayor. Mr. Jasper was sent for, the watch and shirt-pin
identified. Neville was detained, and the wildest frenzy
and fatuity of evil report arose against him. He was of that
vindictive and violent nature that, but for his poor sister,
who alone had influence over him, and out of whose sight
he was never to be trusted, he would be in the daily com-
mission of murder. Before coming to England he had
caused to be whipped to death sundry " natives" — nomadic
persons, encamping now in Asia, now in Africa, now in the
West Indies, and now at the North Pole — vaguely supposed
in Cloisterham to be always black, always of great virtue,
always calling themselves me, and every body else niassa or
missi'e (according to sex), and always reading tracts of the
obscurest meaning, in broken English, but always under-
standing them in the purest mother tongue. He had nearly
brought Mrs. Crisparkle's gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave. (Those original expressions were Mr. Sapsea's.) He
had repeatedly said he would have Mr. Crisparkle's life-
778 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
He had repeatedly said he would have every body's life, and
become in effect the last man. He had been brought dov/n
to Cloisterham from London by an eminent philanthropist,
and why ? Because that philanthropist had expressly de-
clared, " I owe it to my fellow-creatures tliat he should be,
in the words of Bentham, where he is the cause of the great-
est danger to the smallest number."
These dropping shots from the blunderbusses of blunder-
headedness might not have hit him in a vital place. But
he had to stand against a train and well directed fire of
arms of precision too. He had notoriously threatened
the lost young man, and had, according to the showing
of his own faithful friend and tutor, who strove so hard for
him, a cause of bitter animosity (created by himself and
stated by himself) against that ill-starred fellow. He had
armed himself with an offensive weapon for the fatal night,
and he had gone off early in the morning, after making prep-
arations for departure. He liad been found with traces of
blood on him ; truly, they might have been Vvholly caused as
he represented, but they might not, also. On a se-irch-war-
rant being issued for the examination of his room, clothes,
and so forth, it was discovered that he had destroyed all
his papers, and rearranged all his possessions, on the
very afternoon of the disappearance. The watch found
at the weir was challenged by the jeweler as the one
he had wound and set for Edwin Drood, at twenty
minutes past two on that same afternoon ; and it had
run down, before being cast into the water ; and it v/as
the jeweler's positive opinion that it had never been re-
wound. This would justify the hypothesis that the watch
was taken from him not long after he left Mr. Jasper's
hojse at midnight, in company with the last person seen
with him, and that it had been thrown away after being re-
tained some hours. Why thrown away ? If he had been
murdered, and so artfully disfigured, or concealed, or both,
as that the murderer hoped identification to be impossible,
except from something that he wore, assuredly the murderer
would seek to remove from the body the most lasting, the
best known, and the most easily recognizable things upon it.
Those things would be the watch and shirt-pin. As to his
opportunity of casting them intb the river ; if he were the
object of these suspicions, they were easy. For he had been
seen by many persons wandering about on that side of the
city — indeed on all sides of it — in a miserable and seemingly
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 779
half-distracted manner. As to the choice of the spot, obvi-
ously such criminating evidence had better take its chance
of being found anywhere, rather than upon himself or in his
possession. Concerning the reconciliatory nature of the
appointed meeting between the two young men, very little
could be made of that, in young Landless's favor ; for it
distinctly appeared that the meeting originated, not with
him, but wnth Mr. Crisparkle, and that it was urged on by
Mr. Crisparkle : and who could say how unwillingly, or in
what ill-conditioned mood, his enforced pupil had gone to
it ? The more his case was looked into, the weaker it be-
came in every point. Even the broad suggestion that tlie
lost young man had absconded was rendered additionally
improbable on the showing of the young lady from whom he
liad so lately parted ; for, what did she say, Avith great earn-
estness and sorrow, when interrogated : That he had, ex-
pressly and enthusiastically planned with her, that he would
await the arrival of her guardian, Mr. Grewgious. And yet,
be it observed, he disappeared before that gentleman arrived.
On the suspicions thus urged and supported, Neville was
detained and re-detained, and the search was pressed on
every hand, and Jasper labored night and day. But noth-
ing more was found. No discovery being made which
proved the lost man to be dead, it at length became neces-
sary to release the person suspected of having made away
with him. Neville was set at large. Then a consequence
ensued which Mr. Crisparkle had too well foreseen. Neville
must leave the place, for the place shunned him and cast
him out. Even had it not been so, the dear old china shep-
herdess would have worried herself to death with fears for
her son, and with general trepidation occasioned by their
having such an inmate. Even had that not been so, the
authority to which the minor canon deferred officially would
have settled the point.
"Mr. Crisparkle," quoth the dean, *'* hurnan justice may
err, but it must act according to its lights. The days of
taking sanctuary are past. This young man must not take
sanctuary with us."
" You mean that he must leave my house, sir ? "
" Mr, Crisparkle," returned the prudent dean, '' I claim no
authority in your house. I merely confer with you, on the
painful necessity you find yourself under, of depriving this
young man of the great advantages of your counsel and in-
struction."
78o THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
"It is very lamentable, sir," Mr. Crisparkle represented.
" Very much so," the dean assented.
" And if it be a necessity," Mr. Crisparkle faltered.
"As you unfortunately find it to be — " returned the dean.
Mr. Crisparkle bowed submissively. "It is hard to pre-
judge his case, sir, but I am sensible that "
" Just so. Perfectly. As you say, Mr. Crisparkle," in-
terposed the dean, nodding his head smoothly, " there is
nothing else to be done. No doubt, no doubt. There is no
alternative, as your good sense has discovered."
" I am entirely satisfied of his perfect innocence, sir,
nevertheless."
"We-e-ell !" said the dean, in a more confidential tone,
and slightly glancing around him, " I would not say so, gen-
erally. Not generally. Enough of suspicion attaches to
him to — no, I think I would not say so, generally."
Mr. Crisparkle bowed again.
" It does not become us, perhaps," pursued the dean, " to
be partisans. Not partisans. We clergy keep our hearts
warm and our heads cool, and we hold a judicious middle
course."
"I hope you do not object, sir, to my having stated in
public, emphatically, that he will reappear here, whenever
any new suspicion may be awakened, or any new circum-
stance may come to light in this extraordinary matter ? "
" Not at all," returned the dean. " And yet, do you know,
I don't think," with a very nice and neat emphasis on those
two words, " 1 dont think I would state it, emphatically.
State it ? Ye-e-es ! But emphatically ? No-o-o. I think
not. In point of fact, Mr. Crisparkle, keeping our hearts
warm and our heads cool, we need do nothing emphat-
ically."
So Minor Canon Row knew Neville Landless no more,
and he went whithersoever he would, or could, with a blight
upon his name end fame.
It was not until then that John Jasper silently resumed his
place in the choir. Haggard and red-eyed, his hopes plainly
had deserted him, his sanguine mood was gone, and all his
worst misgivings had come back. A day or two afterward,
while unrobing, he took his diary from a pocket of his coat,
turned the leaves, and with an impressive look, and without
one spoken word, handed this entry to Mr. Crisparkle to
read :
*' My dear boy is murdered. The discovery of the watch
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 781
and shirt-pin convinces me that he was murdered that night,
and that this jewelry was taken from him to prevent identifi-
cation by its means. All the delusive hopes I had founded
on his separation from his betrothed wife, I give to the
winds. They perish before this fatal discovery. I now
swear, and record the oath on this page, That I nevermore
will discuss this mystery with any human creature, until I
hold the clew to it in my hand. That I never will relax
in my secrecy or in my search. That I will fasten the
crime of the murder of my dear, dear boy upon the mur-
derer. And that I devote myself to his destruction."
CHAPTER XVII.
PHILANTHROPY, PROFESSIONAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL.
Full half a year had come and gone, and Mr. Crisparkle
sat in a waiting-room in the London chief offices of the
Haven of Philanthropy, until he could have audience of Mr.
Honeythunder.
In his college-days of athletic exercises, Mr. Crisparkle
had" known professors of the noble art of fisticuffs, and had
attended two or three of their gloved gatherings. He had
.now an opportunity of observing that as to the phrenologi-
cal formation of the backs of their heads, the professing
philanthropists were uncommonly like the pugilists. In
the development of all those organs which constitute, or
attend, a propensity to "pitch into" your fellow-creatures,
the philanthropists were remarkably favored. There were
several professors passing in and out, with exactly the ag-
gressive air upon them of being ready for a turn-up with
any novice who might happen to be on hand, that Mr.
Crisparkle well remembered in the circles of the fancy.
Preparations were in progress for a moral little mill some-
where on the rural circuit, and other professors were back-
ing this or that heavy-weight as good for such or such
speech-making hits, so very much after the manner of the
sporting publicans that the intended resolutions might have
been rounds. In an official manager of these displays much
celebrated for his platform tactics, Mr. Crisparkle recog-
nized (in a suit of black) the counterpart of a deceased
benefactor of his species, an eminent public character, once
known to fame as Frosty-faced Fogo, who in days of yore
782 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
superintended the formation of the magic circle with the
ropes and stakes. There were only three conditions of
resemblance wanting between these professors and those.
Firstly, the philanthropists were in very bad training ;
much too fleshy, and presenting, both in face and figure, a
superabundance of what is known to pugilistic experts as
suet pudding. Secondly, the philanthropists had not the
good temper of the pugilists, and used worse language.
Thirdly, their fighting code stood in great need of revision,
as empowering them not only to bore their man to the
ropes, but to bore him to the confines of distraction ; also,
to hit him when he was down, hit him anywhere and any-
how, kick him, stamp upon him, gouge him, and maul him
behind his back without mercy. In these last particulars
the professors of the noble art were much nobler than the
professors of philanthropy.
Mr. Crisparkle was so completely lost in musing on these
similarities and dissimilarities, at the same time watching
the crowd which came and went by, always, as it seemed,
on errands of antagonistically snatching something from
somebody, and never giving any thing to any body : that
his name was called before he heard it. On his at length
responding, he was shown by a miserably shabby and under-
paid stipendiary philanthropist (who could hardly have
done worse if he had taken service with a declared enemy
of the human race) to Mr. Honeythunder's room.
" Sir," said Mr. Honeythunder in his tremendous voice,
like a school-master issuing orders to a boy of whom he had
a bad opinion, "sit down."
Mr. Crisparkle seated himself.
Mr. Honeythunder, having signed the remaining few score
of a few thousand circulars, calling upon a corresponding
number of families without means to come forward, stump
up instantly, and be philanthropist, or go to the devil,
another shabby stipendiary philanthropist (highly disinter-
ested, if in earnest) gathered these into a basket and walked
off with them.
'' Now, Mr. Crisparkle," said Mr. Honeythunder, turn-
ing his chair half round toward him when they were
alone, and squaring his arms with his hands on his knees,
and his brows knitted, as if he added, I am going to
make short work of you — " now, Mr. Crisparkle, we en-
tertain different views, you and I, sir, of the sanctity of
human life."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 783
" Do we ? " returned the minor canon.
"We do, sir."
"Might I ask you," said the minor canon, "what are
your views on that subject ? "
" That human life is a thing to be held sacred, sir."
" Might I ask you," pursued the minor canon as before,
" what you suppose to be my views on that subject ? "
" By George, sir ! " returned the philanthropist, squaring
his arms still more, as he frowned on Mr. Crisparkle : *' they
are best known to yourself."
" Readily admitted. But you began by saying that we
took different views, you know. Therefore (or you could
not say so) you must have set up some views as mine.
Pray, what views have you set up as mine ? "
" Here is a man — and a young man," said Mr. Honey-
thunder, as if that made the matter infinitely worse, and he
could have easily borne the loss of an old one : " swept off
the face of the earth by a deed of violence. What do you
call that ? "
" Murder," said the minor canon.
" What do you call the doer of that deed, sir ? "
" A murderer," said the minor canon.
" I am glad to hear you admit so much, sir," retorted Mr.
Honeythunder, in his most offensive manner ; " and I can-
didly tell you that I didn't expect it." Here he lowered
heavily at Mr. Crisparkle again.
" Be so good as to explain what you mean by those very
unjustifiable expressions."
" I don't sit here, sir," returned the philanthropist, raismg
his voice to a roar, '' to be browbeaten."
" As the only other person present, no one can possibly
know that better than I do," returned the minor canon very
quietly. " But I interrupt your explanation."
"Murder ! " proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, in a kind of
boisterous reverie, with his platform folding of his arms, and
his platform nod of abhorrent refleclion after each short sen-
timent of a word. " Bloodshed ! Abel ! Cain ! I hold no
terms with Cain. I repudiate with a shudder the red hand
when it is offered me."
Instead of instantly leaping into his chair and cheermg
himself hoarse, as the brotherhood in public meeting assem-
bled would infallibly have done on this cue, Mr. Crisparkle
merely reversed the quiet crossing of his legs, and said
mildly, '' Don't let me interrupt your explanation — vhen you
begin it."
784 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" The Commandments say no murder. NO murder,
sir I " proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, platlormally pausing
as if he took Mr, Crisparkle to task for having distinctly
asserted that they said, You may do a little murder and then
leave off.
" And they also say, you shall bea:t no false witness," ob-
served Mr. Crisparkle.
" Enough ! " bellowed Mr. Honeythunder, with a solem-
nity and severity that would have brought the house down
at a meeting, " E — e — nough ! My late wards being now
of age, and I being released from a trust which I can not
contemplate without a thrill of horror, there are the accounts
which you have undertaken to accept on their behalf, and
theie is a statement of the balance which you have underta-
ken to receive, and which you can not receive too soon.
And let me tell you, sir, I wish, that as a man and a minor
canon, you were better employed," with a nod. " Better
employed," with another nod. " Bet — ter em — ployed,"
with another, and the three nods added up.
Mr. Crisparkle rose, a little heated in the face, but with
perfect command of himself.
" Mr. Honeythunder," he said, taking up the papers re-
ferred to, " my being better or worse employed than I am
at present is a matter of taste and opinion. You might
think me better employed in enrolling myself a member of
your society."
" Ay, indeed, sir ! " retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shaking
his head in a threatening manner. *' It would have been
better for you if you had done that long ago."
*' I think otherwise."
" Or," said Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head again,
*' I might think one of your profession better employed
in devoting himself to the discovery and punishment of
guilt than in leaving that duty to be undertaken by a layman."
" I may regard my profession from a point of view which
teaches me that its first duty is toward those who are in neces-
sity and tribulation, who are desolate and oppressed," said Mr.
Crisparkle, " However, as I have quite clearly satisfied my-
self that it is no part of my profession to make jjrofessions,
I say no more of that. But I owe it to Mr. Neville, and to
Mr. Neville's sister (and in a much lower degree to myself),
to say to you that I k»07a I was in the full possession and un-
derstanding of Mr. Neville's mind and heart at the time of this
occurrence ; and that, without in the least coloring or con-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 785
cealing what was to be deplojr^d in him and required to be
corrected, I feel certain that his tale is true. Feeling that
certainty, I befriend him. As long as that certainty shall last,
I will befriend him. And if any consideration could shake
me in this resolve, I should be so ashamed of myself for my
meanness that no man's good opinion — no, nor no woman's
— so gained, could compensate me for the loss of my
own."
Good fellow ! Manly fellow ! And he was so modest, too.
There was no more self-assertion in the minor canon than
in the school-boy who stood in the breezy play-fields keep-
ing a wicket. He was simply and stanchly true to his duty
alike in the large case and in the small. So all true souls
ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever
will be. There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.
" Then who did you make out did the deed ? " asked Mr.
Honeythunder, turning on him abruptly.
" Heaven forbid," said Mr. Crisparkle, " that in my de-
sire to clear one man I should lightly criminate another ! I
accuse no one."
'* Tcha ! " ejaculated Mr. Honeythunder with great dis-
gust ; for this was by no means the principle on which the
philanthropic brotherhood usually proceeded. "And, sir,
you are not a disinterested witness, we must bear in mind."
" How am I an interested one ? " inquired Mr. Crisparkle,
smiling innocently, at a loss to imagine.
" There was a certain stipend, sir, paid to you for your
pupil, which may have warped your judgment a bit," said
Mr. Honeythunder, coarsely.
" Perhaps I expect to retain it still ! " Mr. Crisparkle re-
turned, enlightened ; *' do you mean that too ? "
" Well, sir," returned the professional philanthropist, get-
ting up, and thrusting his hands down into his trowsers'
pockets, " I don't go about measuring people for caps. If
people find I have any about me that fit 'em, they can put
'em on and wear 'em, if they like. That's their lookout,
not mine."
Mr. Crisparkle eyed him with a just indignation, and took
him to task thus :
" Mr. Honeythunder, I hoped when I came in here that
I might be under no necessity of commenting on the
introduction of platform manners or maneuvers among the
decent forbearances of private life. But you have given
me such a specimen of both, that I should be a fit subject
786 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
for both if I remained silent respecting them. They are de-
testable."
"They don't suit you, I dare say, sir,"
"They are," repeated Mr. Crisparkle, without noticing
the interruption, " detestable. They violate equally the
justice that should belong to Christians, and the restraints
that should belong to gentlemen. You assume a great crime
to have been committed by one whom I, acquainted with
the attendant circumstances, and having numerous reasons
on my side, devoutly believe to be innocent of it. Because
I differ from you on that vital point, what is your platform
resource ! Instantly to turn upon me, charging that I have
no sense of the enormity of the crime itself but am its aider
and abettor! So, another time — taking me as representing
your opponent in other cases — you set up a platform credul-
ity : a moved and seconded and carried-unanimously pro-
fession of faith in some ridiculous delusion or mischievous
imposition. I decline to believe it, and you fall back upon
your platform resource of proclaiming that I believe noth-
ing ; that because I will not bow down to a false God of
your making, I deny the true God ! Another time, you
make the platform discovery that war is a calamity, and you
propose to abolish it by a string of twisted resolutions tossed
into the air like the tail of a kite. I do not admit the dis-
covery to be yours in the least, and 1 have not a grain of
faith in your remedy. Again your platform resource of
representing me as reveling in -he horrors of a battle-field
like a fiend incarnate ! Another time, in another of your
undiscriminating platform rushes, you would punish the
sober for the drunken. I claim consideration for the
comfort, convenience, and refreshment of the sober ; and
you presently make platform proclamation that I have a de-
praved desire to turn heaven's creatures into swine and
wild beasts ! In all such cases your movers, and your sec-
onders, and your supporters — your regular professors of all
degrees — run amuck like so many mad Malays ; habitually
attributing the lowest and basest motives with the utmost
recklessness (let me call your attention to a recent instance
in yourself for which you should blush), and quoting figures
which you know to be as willfully one-sided as a statement of
any complicated account that should be all creditor side
and no debtor, or all debtor side and no creditor. There-
fore it is, Mr. Honeythunder, that I consider the platform a
sufficiently bad example, and a sufficiently bad school, even
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 787
in public life ; but hold that, carried into private life, it
becomes an unendurable nuisance."
*' These are strong words, sir ! " exclaimed the philanthro-
pist.
" I hope so," said Mr. Crisparkle. " Good-morning."
He walked out of the Haven at a great rate, but soon fell
into his regular brisk pace, and soon had a smile upon his
face as he went along, wondering what the china shepherdess
would have said if she had seen him pounding Mr. Honey-
thunder in the late little lively affair. For Mr. Crisparkle
had just enough of harmless vanity to hope that he had hit
hard, and to glow with the belief that he had trimmed the
philanthropic jacket pretty handsomely.
He took himself to Staple Inn, but not to P. J. T., and
Mr. Grewgious. Full many a creaking stair he climbed before
he reached some attic rooms in a corner, turned the latch of
their unbolted door, and stood beside the table of Neville
Landless.
An air of retreat and solitude hung about the rooms and
about their inhabitant. He was much worn, and so were
they. I'heir sloping ceilings, cumbrous rusty locks and grates,
and heavy wooden bins and beams, slowly moldering withal,
had a prisonous look, and he had the haggard face of a pris-
oner. Yet the sunlight shone in at the ugly garret window
which had a penthouse to itself thrust out among the tiles ;
and on the cracked and smoke-blackened parapet beyond,
some of the deluded sparrows of the place rheumatically
hopped, like little feathered cripples who had left their
':rutches in their nests ; and there was a play of living leaves
at hand that changed the air and made an imperfect
sort of music in it that would have been melody in the
country.
The rooms were sparely furnished, but with good store of
books. Every thing expressed the abode of a poor student.
That Mr. Crisparkle had either been chooser, lender, or
donor of the books, or that he combined the three characters,
might have been easily seen in the friendly beam of his eyes
upon them as he entered.
'* How goes it, Neville ? "
" I am in good heart, Mr. Crisparkle, and working
away."
*' I wish your eyes were not quite so large and not quite so
bright," said the minor canon, slowly releasing the hand he
had taken in his.
788 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" They brighten at the sight of you," returned Neville.
" If you were to fall away from me, they would soon be
dull enough."
** Rally, rally ! " urged the other, in a stimulating tone.
" Fight for it, Neville ! "
" If I were dying, I feel as if a word from you would rally
me ; if my pulse had stopped, I feel as if your touch would
make it beat again," said Neville. "But I have rallied and
am doing famously."
Mr. Crisparkle turned him with his face a little more to-
ward the light.
'* I want to see a ruddier touch here, Neville," he said, in-
dicating his own healthy cheek by way of pattern ; " I want
more sun to shine upon you."
Neville drooped suddenly as he replied in a lowered voice,
" I am not hardy enough for that yet. I may become so, but
I can not bear it yet. If 5'ou had gone through those Cloister-
ham streets as I did ; if you had seen, as I did, those averted
eyes, and the better sort of people silently giving me too much
room to pass, that I might not touch them or come near them,
you would not think it quite unreasonable that I can not go
about in the daylight."
'' My poor fellow I " said the minor canon, in a tone so
purely sympathetic that the young man caught his hand ; "i
never said it was unreasonable : never thought so. But I
should like you to do it."
" And that would give me the strongest motive to do it.
But I can not yet. I can not persuade myself that the eyes
of even the stream of strangers I pass in this vast city look
at me without suspicion. I feel marked and tainted, even
when I go out — as I do only — at night. But the darkness
covers me then, and I take courage from it."
Mr. Crisparkle laid a hand upon his shoulder, and stood
looking down at him.
" If I could have changed my name," said Neville, " I
would have done so. But, as you wisely pointed out to me, I
can't do that, for it would look like guilt. If I could have
gone to some distant place, I might have found relief in that,
but the thing is not to be thought of for the same reason.
Hiding and escaping would be the construction in either case.
It seems a little hard to be so tied to a stake, and innocent ;
but I don't complain."
'* And you must expect no miracle to help you, Neville,"
said Mr. Crisparkle, compassionately.
THE iMYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 789
" No, sir, I know that. The ordinary fulhiess of time and
circunastances is all I have to trust to."
" It will right you at last, Neville."
** So I believe, and I hope I may live to know it.'*
But perceiving that the despondent mood into which he
was falling cast a shadow on the minor canon, and (it may
be) feeling that the broad hand upon his shoulder was not
then quite as steady as its own natural strength' had ren-
dered it when it first touched him just now, he brightened
and said
" Excellent circumstances for study anyhow ! and you
know, Mr. Crisparkle, what need I have of study in all ways.
Not to mention that you have advised me to study for the
difficult profession of the law, specially, and that of course,
I am guiding myself by the advice of such a friend and
helper. Such a good friend and helper ! "
He took the fortifying hand from his shoulder, and kissed
it. Mr. Crisparkle beamed at the books, but not so brightly
as when he had entered.
" I gather from your silence on the subject that my late
guardian is adverse, Mr. Crisparkle ? "
The minor canon answered, " Your late guardian is a — a
most unreasonable person, and it s'o-nifies nothing to any
reasonable person whether he is ^^verse or /^rverse or the
reverse."
"Well for me that I have enough with economy to live
upon," sighed Neville, half wearily and half cheerily, *' while
I wait to be learned and wait to be righted ! Else I might
have proved the proverb that w^hile the grass grows the steed
starves ! "
He opened some books as he said it, and was soon im-
mersed in their interleaved and annotated passages, while
Mr. Crisparkle sat beside him, expounding, correcting, and
advising. The minor canon's cathedral duties made these
visits of his difficult to accomplish, and only to be compassed
at intervals of many weeks. But they w^ere as serviceable
as they were precious to Neville Landless.
When they had got through such studies as they had in
hand, they stood leaning on the window-sill, and looking
down upon the patch of garden. " Next week," said Mr.
Crisparkle, " you will cease to be alone, and will have a de-
voted companion."
"And yet," returned Neville, " this seems an uncongenial
place to bring my sister to ! "
790 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" Don't think so," said the minor canon. *' There is duty
to be done here ; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and
courage wanted here."
"I meant," explained Neville, "that the surroundings are
so dull and unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suit-
able friend or society here."
" You have only to remember," said Mr. Crisparkle, " that
you are here yourself, and that she has to draw you into the
sunlight."
They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crispar-
kle began anew.
" When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that
your sister had risen out of the disadvantages of your past
lives as superior to you as the tower of Cloisterham cathe-
dral is higher than the chimneys of Minor Canon Corner.
Do you remember that ! "
" Right well."
*' I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic
flight. No matter what I think now. What I would empha-
size is, that under the head of pride your sister is a great
and opportune example to you."
*' Under all heads that are included in the composition
of a fine character, she is."
" Say so ; but take this one. Your sister has learned how
to govern what is proud in her nature. She can dominate
it even when it is wounded through her sympathy with you.
No doubt she has suffered deeply in those same streets
where you suft'ered deeply. No doubt her life is darkened
by the cloud that darkens yours. But bending her pride
into a grand composure that is not haughty or aggressive, but
is sustained confidence in you and the truth, she has won
her way through those streets until she passes along them
as high in the general respect as any one who treads them.
Every day and hour of her life since Edwin Drood's disap-
pearance, she has faced malignity and folly — for you — as
only a brave nature well directed can. So it will be willi
her to the end. Another and weaker kind of pride might
sink broken-hearted, but never such a pride as hers : whicli
knows no shrinking, and can get no mastery over her."
The pale cheek beside him flushed under the comparison
and the hint implied in it. " I will do all I can to imitate
her," said Neville.
" Do so, and be a truly brave man as she is a truly brave
woman," answered Mr. Crisparkle, stoutly.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 791
dark. Will you go my way with me, when it is quite dark ?
Mind ! It is not I who wait for darkness."
Neville replied that he would accompany him directly.
But Mr. Crisparkle said he had a moment's call to make on
Mr. Grewgious as an act of courtesy, and would run across
to that gentleman's chambers, and rejoin Neville on his
own doorstep if he would come down there to meet him.
Mr. Greu'gious, bolt upright as usual, sat taking his wine
in the dusk at his open window ; his wine-glass and decanter
on the round table at his elbow ; himself and his legs on the
window-seat ; only one hinge in his whole body, like a boot-
jack.
"How do you do, reverend sir ?" said Mr. Grewgious,
with abundant offers of hospitality which were as cordially
declined as made. " And how is your charge getting on
over the way in the set that I had the pleasure of recom-
mending to you as vacant and eligible ? "
Mr. Crisparkle replied suitably.
"I am glad you approve of them," said Mr. Grev/gious,
" because I entertain a sort of fancy for having him under
my eye."
As Mr. Grewgious had to turn his eye up considerably,
before he could see the chambers, the phrase was to be
taken figuratively and not literally.
''And how did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir .? " said
Mr. Grewgious.
Mr. Crisparkle had left him pretty well.
" And where did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir ? "
Mr. Crisparkle had left him at Cloisterham.
** And when did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir ? "
That morning.
" Umps ! " said Mr. Grewgious, " He didn't say that he
was coming, perhaps ? "
"Coming where ?"
"Anywhere, for instance ?" said Mr. Grewgious.
"No."
" Because here he is," said Mr. Grewgious, who had asked
all these questions with his preoccupied glance directed out
at window. " And he don't look agreeable, does he ? "
Mr. Crisparkle was craning toward the window, when
Mr. Grewgious added :
" If you will kindly step round here behind me in the
gloom of the room, and will cast your eye at the second
floor landing window, in yonder house, I think you will
792 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
hardly fail to see a slinking individual in whom I recognize
our local friend."
'* You are right ! " cried Mr. Crisparkle.
" Umps ! " said Mr. Grewgious. Then he added, turning
his face so abruptly that his head nearly came into collision
with Mr. Crisparkle's, "What should you say that our local
friend was up to ? "
The last passage he had been shown in the diary returned
on Mr. Crisparkle's mind with the force of a strong recoil,
and he asked Mr. Grewgious if he thought it possible that
Neville was to be harassed by the keeping of a watch upon
him ? "
" A watch," repeated Mr. Grewgious, musingly. " Ay ! "
" Which would not only of itself haunt and torture his
life," said Mr. Crisparkle, warmly, " but would expose him
to the torment of a perpetually reviving suspicion, whatever
he might do, or wherever he might go ? "
" Ay ! " said Mr. Grewgious, musingly still. " Do I see him
waiting for you ? "
" No doubt you do."
" Then would you have the goodness to excuse my get-
ting up to see you out, and to go out to join him, and to go
the way that you were going, and to take no notice oi oui
local friend ? " said Mr. Grewgious. '' I entertain a sort ol
fancy for having him under my eye to-night, do you know ? "
Mr. Crisparkle, with a significant nod, complied, and, re.
joining Neville, went away with him. They dined together,
and parted at the yet unfinished and undeveloped railwa)f
station : Mr. Crisparkle to get home ; Neville to walk the
streets, cross the bridges, make a wide round of the city in
the friendly darkness, and tire himself out.
It was midnight when he returned from his solitary expe-
dition, and climbed his staircase. The night was hot, and
the windows of the staircase were all wide open. Coming to
the top, it gave him a passing chill of surprise (there being
no rooms but his up there) to find a stranger sitting on the
window-sill, more after the manner of a venturesome glazier
than an amateur ordinarily careful of his neck ; in fact, so
much more outside the window than inside, as to suggest
the thought that he must have come up by the water-spout
instead of the stairs.
The stranger said nothing until Neville put his key in his
door ; then, seeming to make sure of his identity from the
action, he spoke ;
THE xMYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 793
^* I beg your pardon," he said, coming from the window
with a frank and smiling air, and a prepossessing address :
"the beans."
Neville was quite at a loss.
''Runners," said the visitor. "Scarlet. Next door at the
back."
"Oh! " returned Neville. " And the mignonnette and wall-
flower ? "
*' The same," said the visitor.
" Pray walk in."
"Thank you."
Neville lighted his candle, and the visitor sat down. A
handsome gentleman, with a young face, but an older fig-
are in its robustness and its breadth of shoulder ; say a man
of eight-and-twenty, or, at the utmost, thirty : so extremely
sunburned that the contrast between his brown visage and the
white forehead shaded out of doors by his hat, and the
glimpses of white throat below the neckerchief, would have
been almost ludicrous but for his broad temples, bright
blue eyes, clustering brown hair, and laughing teeth.
"I have noticed," said he ; — "my name is Tartar."
Neville inclined his head.
" I have noticed (excuse me) that you shut yourself up a
good deal, and that you seem to like my garden aloft here.
If you would like a little more of it, I could throw out a
few lines and stays between my windows and yours, which
the runners would take to directly. And I have some
boxes, both of mignonnette and wall-flower, that I could
shove on along the gutter (wiih a boat-hook I have by me)
to your windows, and draw back again when they wanted
watering or gardening, and shove on again when they were
ship shape, so that they would cause you no trouble. I
couldn't take this liberty without asking your permission, so
I venture to ask it. Tartar, corresponding set, next door."
" You are very kind."
"Not at all. I ought to apologize for looking in so late.
But having noticed (excuse me) that you generally walk out
at night, I thought I should inconvenience you least by
awaiting your return. I am always afraid of inconvenienc-
ing busy men, being an idle man."
" I should not have thought so, from your appearance."
" No ? I take it as a compliment. In fact, I was bred
in the Royal Navy, and was first lieutenant when I quitted
it. But an uncle, disappointed in the service, leaving me
794 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
his property on condition that I left the navy, I accepted
the fortune and resigned my commission."
*' Lately, I presume ! "
"Well, I had had twelve or fifteen years of knocking
about first. I came here some nine months before you ; 1
had had one crop before you came. I chose this place
because, having served last in a little corvette, I knew I
should feel more at home where I had constant opportunity
of knocking my head against the ceiling. Besides, it would
never do for a man who had been aboard ship from his boy-
hood to turn luxurious all at once. Besides, again : having
been accustomed to a very short allowance of land all my
life, I thought I'd feel my way to the command of a landed
estate by beginning in boxes."
Whimsically as this was said, there was a touch of merry
earnestness in it that made it doubly whimsical.
" However," said the lieutenant, " I have talked quite
enough about myself. It is not my way I hope ; it has
merely been to present myself to you naturally. If you will
allow me to take the liberty I have described, it will be a
charity, for it will give me something more to do. And
you are not to suppose that it will entail any interruption or
intrusion on you, for that is far from my intention."
Neville replied that he was greatly obliged, and that he
thankfully accepted the kind proposal.
*' I am very glad to take your windows in tow," said the
lieutenant. *' From what I have seen of you when I have
been gardening at mine, and you have been looking on, I
have thought you (excuse me) rather too studious and deli-
cate ! May I ask, is your health at all affected ?"
" I have undergone some mental distress," said Neville,
confused, '' which has stood me in the stead of illness."
'* Pardon me," said Mr. Tartar.
With the greatest delicacy he shifted his ground to the
windows again, and asked if he could look at one of them.
On Neville's opening it, he immediately sprung out, as if he
were going aloft with a whole watch in an emergency, and
were setting a bright example.
'* For heaven's sake ! " cried Neville, " don't do that !
Where are you going, Mr. Tartar? You'll be dashed to
pieces !"
"All well!" said the lieutenant, coolly looking about
him on the housestop. " All taut and trim here. Those
lines and stays shall be rigged before you turn out in the
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOl). 795
morning. May 1 take this short cut home and say, good-
night ? "
" Mr. Tartar," urged Neville. " Pray ! It makes me giddy
to see you ! "
But Mr. Tartar, with a wave of his hand and the deftness
of a cat, had already dipped through his scuttle of scarlet
runners without breaking a leaf, and " gone beloW."
Mr. Grewgious, his bedroom window-blind held aside
with his hand, happened at that moment to have Neville's
chambers under his eye for the last time that night. For-
tunately his eye was on the front of the house and not the
back, or this remarkable appearance and disappearance
might have broken his rest, as a phenomenon. But Mr.
Grewgious seeing nothing there, not even a light in the win-
dows, his gaze wandered from the windows to the stars, as if
it would have read in them something that was hidden from
him. Many of us would if we could ; but none of us so
much as know our letters in the stars yet — or seem likely
to do it in this state of existence — and few languages
can be read until their alphabets are mastered.
CHAPTER XVni.
A SETTLER IN CLOISTERHAM.
At about this time a stranger appeared in Cloisterham ; a
white-haired personage with black eyebrows. Being but-
toned up in a tightish blue surtout, with a buff waistcoat
and gray trowsers, he had something of a military air ; but
he announced himself at the Crozier (the orthodox hotel,
where he put up with a portmanteau) of an idle dog who
lived upon his means ; and he further announced that he
had a mind to take a lodging in the picturesque old city for
a month or two, with a view of settling down there altogether.
Both announcements were made in the coffee-room of the
Crozier, to all whom it might, or might not, concern, by the
stranger as he stood with his back to the empty fireplace,
waiting for his fried sole, veal cutlet, and pint of sherry.
And the waiter (business being chronically slack at the
Crozier) represented all whom it might or might not con-
cern, and absorbed the whole of the information.
This gentleman's white head was unusually large, and
his shock of white hair was unusually thick and ample. " I
796 THE MYSTERY OF EDWTiN DROOD,
suppose, waiter," he said, shaking his shock of hair, as a
Newfoundland dog might shake his before sitting down to
dinner, " that a fair lodging for a single buffer might be
found in these parts, eh ?"
The waiter had no doubt of it.
'' Something old," said the gentleman. " Take my hat
down for a moment from that peg, will you ? No, I don't
want it : look into it. What do you see written there ? "
The waiter read, " Datchery."
" Now vou know my name," said the gentleman — " Dick
Datchery. Hang it up again. I was saying something old
is what I should prefer, something odd and out of the way ;
something venerable, architectural, and inconvenient."
" We have a good choice of inconvenient lodgings in the
town, sir, I think," replied the waiter, with modest confi-
dence in its resources that way ; " indeed, I have no doubt
that we could suit you that far, however particular you
might be. But a architectural lodging ! " That seemed to
trouble the waiter's head, and he shook it.
" Any thing cathedraly now," Mr. Datchery suggested.
" Mr. Tope," said the waiter, brightening, as he rubbed his
chin with his hand, " would be the likeliest party to inform
in that line."
" Who is Mr. Tope ?" inquired Dick Datchery.
The waiter explained that he was the verger, and that
Mrs. Tope had indeed once upon a time let lodgings her-
self — or offered to let them ; but that, as nobody had ever
taken them, Mrs. Tope's window-bill, long a Cloisterham
institution, had disappeared ; probably had tumbled down
one day, and never been put up again.
"I'll call on Mrs. Tope," said Mr.. Datchery, "after din-
ner."
So, when he had done his dinner, he was duly directed to
the spot, and sallied out for it. But the Crozier being an
hotel of a most retiring disposition, and the waiter's direc-
tions being fatally precise, he soon became bewildered, and
went boggling about and about the cathedral tower, when-
ever he could catch a glimpse of it, with a general impression
on his mind that Mrs. Tope's was somewhere very near it,
and that, like the children in the game of hot boiled beans
and very good butter, he was warm in his search when he
saw the tower, and cold when he didn't see it.
He was getting very cold indeed when he came upon a
fragment of burial ground in which an unhappy sheep was
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 797
grazing. Unhappy, because a hideous small boy was ston-
ing it through the railings, and had already lamed it in one
leg, and was much excited by the benevolent sportsmanlike
purpose of breaking its other three legs, and bringing it
down.
" Tt *im ag'in ! " cried the boy, as the poor creature leaped,
"and made a dint in his wool ! "
" Let him be I " said Mr. Datchery. " Don't you see you
have lamed him ? "
" Yer lie," returned the sportsman, " 'E went and lamed
'isself. I see 'im do it, and I giv' 'im a shy as a widdy-
warning to 'im not to go a-bruisin' 'is master's mutton any
more."
" Come here."
" I won't ; I'll come when yer can ketch me."
"Stay there then, and show me which is Mr. Tope's."
" 'Ow can I stay here and show you which is Topeseses,
when Topeseses is t'other side the Kinfreederal, and over
the crossings, and round ever so many corners ! Stoo-pid !
Ya-a-ah ! "
" Show me where it is, and I'll give you something."
" Come on, then ! "
This brisk dialogue concluded, the boy led the way, and
by and by stopped at some distance from an arched passage,
pointing.
" Lookie yonder. You see that there winder and door ? "
" That's Tope's ? "
"Yer lie ; it ain't. That's Jarsper's."
"Indeed?" said Mr. Datchery, with a second look of
some interest
" Yes, and I ain't a-goin' no nearer Tm, I tell yer."
"Why not?"
" 'Cos I ain't a-going to be lifted off my legs and *ave my
braces bust and be choked ; not if I knows it, and not by
'im. Wait till I set a jolly good flint a-flyin' at the back o'
'is jolly old 'ed some day ! Now look t'other side the
harch ; not the side where Jarsper's door is ; t'other side."
" I see."
" A little way in, o' that side, there's a low door, down
two steps. That's Topeseses with 'is name on a hoval
plate."
" Good. See here," said Mr. Datchery, producmg a shil-
ling. " You owe me half of this."
" Yer lie ; I don't owe yer nothing ; I never seen yer."
79B THE MYSTP:RY of EDWIN DROOD.
*' I tell you you owe me half of this, because 1 have no six-
pence in my pocket. So the next time you meet m.e you
shall do something else for me, to pay me."
" All right, give us 'old."
" What is your name, and where do you live ? "
" Deputy. Travelers' Twopenny, 'cross the green."
The boy instantly darted off with the shilling, lest Mr.
Datchery sliould repent, but stopped at a safe distance, on
the happy chance of his being uneasy in his mind about it,
to goad him with a demon dance expressive of its irrev-
ocability.
Mr. Datchery, taking off his hat to give that shock of
vv'hite hair of his another shake, seemed quite resigned, and
betook himself whither he had been directed.
Mr. Tope's official dwelling, communicating by an upper
stair with Mr. Jasper's (hence Mr. Tope's attendance on
that gentleman), was of very modest proportions, and par-
took of the character of a cool dungeon. Its ancient walls
were massive, and its rooms rather seemed to have been dug
out of them than to have been designed beforehand with
any reference to them. The main door opened at once on
a chamber of no describable shape, with a groined roof,
which, in its turn, opened on another chamber of no de-
scriba^e shape, with another groined roof. Their windows
small and in the thickness of the walls, these two chambers,
close as to their atmosphere and swarthy as to their illumi-
nation by natural light, were the apartments which Mrs.
Tope had so long offered to an unappreciative city. Mr.
Datchery, however, was more appreciative. He found that
if he sat with the main door open he would enjoy the pass-
ing society of all comers to and fro by the gate-way, and
would have light enough. He found that if Mr. and Mrs.
Tope, living overhead, used for their own egress and in-
gress a little side stair that came plump into the precincts
by a door opening outward, to the surprise and inconven-
ience of a limited public of pedestrians in a narrow way, he
would be alone, as in a separate residence. He found the
rent moderate, and every thing as quaintly inconvenient as
he could desire. He agreed, therefore, to take the lodging
then and there, and money down, possession to be had next
evening on condition that reference was permitted him to
Mr. Jasper as occupying the Gate House, of which, on the
other side of the gate-way, the verger's hole in the wall was
an appanage or subsidiary part.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 799
The poor dear gentleman was very solitary and very sad,
Mrs. Tope said, but she had no doubt he would " speak for
her." Perhaps Mr. Datchery had heard something of what
had occurred there last winter ?
Mr. Datchery had as confused a knowledge of the event
m question, on trying to recall it, as he well could have.
He begged Mrs. Tope's pardon when she found it incum-
bent on her to correct him in every detail of his summary of
the facts, but pleaded that he was merely a single buffer get-
ting through life upon his means as idly as he could, and
that so many people were so constantly making away with
so many other people, as to render it difficult for a buffer
of an easy temper to preserve the circumstances ot the
several cases unmixed in his mind.
Mr. Jasper proving willing to speak for Mrs. Tope, Mr.
Datchery, who had sent up his card, was invited to ascend
the postern staircase. The mayor was there, Mrs. Tope
said ; but he was not to be regarded in the light of com-
pany, as he and Mr. Jasper were great friends.
" I beg pardon," said Mr. Datchery, making a leg with his
hat under his arm, as he addressed himself equally to both
gentlemen ; " a selfish precaution on my part and not per-
sonally inter'=:sting to any body but myself. But as a buffer
living on his means, and having an idea of doing it in this
lovely place in peace and quiet, for remaining span of life,
beg to ask if the Tope family are quite respectable ? "
Mr. Jasper could answer for that without the slightest
hesitation.
*' That is enough, sir," said Mr. Datchery.
" My friend, the mayor," added Mr, Jasper, presenting
Mr. Datchery with a courtly motion of his hand toward that
potentate, *' whose recommendation is actually much more
important to a stranger than that of an obscure person like
myself, will testify in their behalf, I am sure."
" The worshipful the mayor," said Mr. Datchery, with a
low bow, " places me under an infinite obligation."
*' Very good people, sir, Mr. and Mrs. Tope," said Mr.
Sapsea, with condescension. " Very good opinions. Very
well behaved. Very respectful. Much approved by the
dean and chapter."
*' The worshipful the mayor gives them a character," said
Mr. Datchery, " of which they may indeed be proud. I
would ask his honor (if I might be permitted) whether there
are not many objects of great interest in the city which is
under his beneficent swav ?" -
8oo THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" We are, sir," returned Mr. Sapsea, "an ancient city, and
an ecclesiastical city. We are a constitutional city, as it be-
comes such a city to be, and we uphold and maintain our
glorious privileges."
" His honor," said Mr. Datchery, bowing, " inspires me
with a desire to know more of the city, and confirms me in
my inclination to end my days in the city."
" Retired from the army, sir ? " suggested Mr. Sapsea.
*' His honor the mayor does me too much credit," re-
turned Mr. Datchery.
" Navy, sir ? " suggested Mr. Sapsea.
"Again," repeated Mr. Datchery, "his honor the mayor
does me too much credit."
" Diplomacy is a fine profession," said Mr. Sapsea, as a
general remark.
*' There, I confess, his honor the mayor is too many for
me," said Mr. Datchery, with an ingenuous smile and bow ;
" even a diplomatic bird must fall to such a gun."
Now, this was very soothing. Here was a gentleman of a
great — not to say a grand — address, accustomed to rank and
dignity, really setting a fine example how to behave to a
mayor. There was something in that third-person style of
being spoken to, that Mr. Sapsea found particularly recog-
nizant of his merits and position.
" But I crave pardon," said Mr. Datchery. " His honor
the mayor will bear with me, if for a moment I have been
deluded into occupying his time, and have forgotten the
humble claims upon my own of my hotel, the Crozier."
" Not at all, sir," said Mr. Sapsea. " I am returning
home, and if you would like to take the exterior of our
cathedral in your way, I shall be glad to point it out."
" His honor the mayor," said Mr. Datchery, *' is more than
kind and gracious."
As Mr. Datchery, when he had made his acknowledgments
to Mr. Jasper, could not be induced to go out of the room be
fore the worshipful, the worshipful led the way down stairs,
Mr. Datchery following with his hat under his arm, and his
shock of white hair streaming in the evening breeze.
" Might I ask his honor," said Mr. Datchery, " whether
that gentleman we have just left is the gentleman of whom I
have heard in the neighborhood as being much afflicted by
the loss of a nephew, and concentrating his life on avenging
the loss?"
" That is the gentleman. John Jasper, sir."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 8oi
** Would his honor allow me to inquire whether there are
strong suspicions of any one ? "
" More than suspicions, sir," returned Mr. Sapsea, " all
but certainties."
" Only think now ! " cried Mr. Datchery.
" But proof, sir, proof must be built up stone by stone,"
said the mayor. " As I say, the end crowns the work. It is
not enough that justice should be morally certain ; she must
be immorally certain — legally, that is."
" His honor," said Mr. Datchery, "reminds me of the na-
ture of the law. Immoral ! How true ! "
"As I say, sir," pompously went on the mayor, "the arm
of the law is a strong arm, and a long arm. That is the way
I put it. A strong arm and a long arm."
" How forcible ! — And yet, again, how true ! " murmured
Mr. Datchery.
" And without betraying what I call the secrets of the
prison-house," said Mr. Sapsea, " the secrets of the prison-
house is the term I used on the bench."
" And what other term than his honor's would express it,"
said Mr. Datchery.
" Without, I say, betraying them, I predict to you, know-
ing the iron v, ill of the gentleman we have just left (I take
the bold step of calling it iron, on account of its strength),
that in this case the long arm will reach, and the strong arm
will strike. This is our cathedral, sir. The best judges are
pleased to admire it, and the best among our townsmen own
to being a little vain of it."
All this time Mr. Datchery had walked with his hat under
his arm, and his white hair streaming. He had an odd mo-
mentary appearance upon him of having forgotten his hat,
when Mr. Sapsea now touched it ; and he clapped his hand up
to his head as if with some vague expectation of finding an-
other hat upon it.
" Pray be covered, sir," entreated Mr. Sapsea ; magnifi-
cently implying, " I shall not mind it, I assure you."
" His honor is very good, but I do it for coolness," said
Mr. Datchery.
Then Mr. Datchery admired the cathedral, and Mr. Sapsea
pointed it out as if he himself had invented and build it ;
there w^ere a few details indeed of which he did not approve,
but those he glossed over, as if the workmen had made mis-
takes in his absence. The cathedral disposed of, he led
the way by the church-yard, and stopped to extol the beauty
g02 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
of the evening — by chance — in the immediate vicinity of
Mrs. Sapsea's epitaph.
" And by the by," said Mr. Sapsea, appearing to descend
from an elevation to remember it all of a sudden, like Apollo
shooting down from Olympus to pick up his forgotten lyre,
'"'that is one of our small lions. The partiality of our
people has made it so, and strangers have been seen
taking a copy of it now and then. I am not a judge of
it myself, for it is a little work of my own. But it was
troublesome to turn, sir ; I may say, difficult to turn with
elegance."
Mr. Datchery became so ecstatic over Mr. Sapsea's com-
position that, in spite of his intention to end his days in Clois-
terliam, and therefore his probably having in reserve many
opportunities of copying it, he would have transcribed it into
his pocket-book on the spot, but for the slouching toward
them of its material producer and perpetuator, Durdles, whom
Mr. Sapsea hailed, not sorry to show him a bright example
of behavior to superiors.
" Ah, Durdles ! This is the mason, sir ; one of our
Cloisterham worthies ; every body here knows Durdles. Tvlr.
Datchery, Durdles ; a gentleman who is going to settle here."
" I wouldn't do it if I was him," growled Durdles. " We're
a heavy lot."
" You surely don't speak for yourself, Mr. Durdles," re-
turned Mr. Datchery, " any more than for his honor."
" Who is his honor ? " demanded Durdles.
" His honor the mayor."
" I never was brought afore him," said Durdles, with any
thing but the look of a loyal subject of the mayoralty, "and
it'll be time enough for me to honor him when I am. Until
which, and when, and where :
' Mr. Sapsea is his name,
England is his nation,
Cloisterham's his dv/elling-place,
Aukshneer's his occupation.* "
Here, Deputy (preceded by a flying oyster-shell) appeared
upon the scene, and requested to have the sum of threepence
instantly '* chucked " to him by Mr. Durdles, whom he had
been vainly seeking up and down, as lawful wages overdue.
While that gentleman, with his bundle under his arm, slowly
found and counted out the money, Mr. Sapsea informed the
new settler of Durdles's habits, pursuits, abode, and reputa-
tion. " I suppose a curious stranger might come to see you
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 803
and your works, Mr. Durdles, at any odd time ? " said Mr
Datchery upon that.
" Any gentleman is welcome to come and see me any even-
ing if he brings liquor for two with him," returned Durdles,
with a penny between his teeth and certain half-pence in
his hands. '' Or if he likes to make it twice two, he'll be
doubly welcome."
" I shall come. Master Deputy, what do you owe me > "
"A job."
" Mind you pay me honestly with the job of showing me
Mr. Durdles's house when 1 want to go there."
Deputy, with a piercing broadside of whistle through the
whole gap of his mouth, as a receipt in full for all arrears,
vanished.
The worshipful "and the worshiper then passed on
together until they parted, with many ceremonies, at the
worshipful's door ; even then, the worshiper carried his
hat under his arm, and gave his streaming white hair to the
breeze.
Said Mr. Datchery to himself that night, as he looked at
his white hair in his gas-lighted looking-glass over the coffee-
room chimney-piece at the Crozier, and shook it out : " For
a single buffer, of an easy temper, living idly on his means,
I have had a rather busy afternoon ! "
CHAPTER XIX.
SHADOW ON THE SUN-DIAL.
Again Miss Twinkleton has delivered her valedictory ad-
dress, with the accompaniments of white wine and pound-
cake, and again the young ladies have departed to their sev-
eral homes. Helena Landless has left the Nuns' House to
attend her brother's fortunes, and pretty Rosa is alone.
Cloisterham is so bright and sunny in these summer days,
that the cathedral and the monastery- ruin show as if their
strong walls were transparent, A soft glow seems to shine
from within them rather than upon them from without, such
is their mellowness as they look forth on the hot cornfields
and the smoking roads that distantly wind among them.
The Cloisterham gardens blush with ripening fruit. Time
was when travel-stained pilgrims rode in clattering parties
through the city's welcome shades ; time is when wayfarers,
8o4 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
leading a gipsy life between haymaking time and harvesl-.
and looking as if they were just made of dust of the earth,
so very dusty are they, lounge about on cool doorsteps, try-
ing to mend their unmendable shoes, or giving them to the
city kennels as a hopeless job, and seeking others in the
bundles that they carry, along with their yet unused sickles
swathed in bands of straw. At all the more public pumps
there is much cooling of bare feet, together with much bub-
bling and gurgling of drinking with hand to spout on the
part of these Bedouins ; the Cloisterham police meanwhile
looking askant from their beats with suspicion, and manifest
impatience that the intruders should depart from within the
civic bounds, and once more fry themselves on the simmer-
ing high-roads.
On the afternoon of such a day, when the last cathedral
service is done, and when that side of the High Street on
which the Nuns' House stands is in grateful shade, save
where its puaint old garden opens to the west between the
boughs of trees, a servant informs Rosa, to her terror, that
Mr. Jasper desires to see her.
If he had chosen his time for finding her at a disadvan-
tage, he could have done no better. Perhaps he has chosen
it. Helena Landless is gone, Mrs. Tisher is absent on leave,
Miss Twinkleton (in her amateur state of existence) has
contributed herself and a veal-pie to a picnic.
** Oh, why, why, why did you say I was at home ? " cries
Rosa, helplessly.
The maid replies that Mr. Jasper never asked the ques-
tion. That he said he knew she was at home, and begged
she might be told that he asked to see her.
" What shall I do ? what shall I do ! " thinks Rosa, clasp-
ing her hands.
Possessed by a kind of desperation, she adds in the next
breath that she will come to Mr. Jasper in the garden. She
shudders at the thought of being shut up with him in the
house ; but many of its windows command the garden, and
she can be seen as well as neard there, and can shriek in the
free air and run away. Such is the wild idea that flutters
through her mind.
She has never seen him since the fatal night, except when
she was questioned before the mayor, and then he was pres-
ent in gloomy watchfulness, as representing his lost nephew
and burning to avenge him. She hangs her garden-hat on
her arm, and goes out. The moment she sees him from the
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 805
porch, leaning on the sun-dial, the old horrible feeling of be-
ing compelled by him asserts its hold upon her. She feels
that she would even then go back, but that he draws her feet
toward him. She can not resist, and sits down, with her
head bent, on the garden-seat beside the sun-dial. She can
not look up at him for abhorrence, but she has perceived
that he is dressed in deep mourning. So is she. It was not
so at first ; but the lost has long been given up, and mourned
for, as dead.
He would begin by touching her hand. She feels the in-
tention, and draws her hand back. His eyes are then fixed
upon her, she knows, though her own see nothing but the
grass.
" I have been waiting," he begins, " for some time, to be
summoned back to my duty near you."
After several times forming her lips, which she knows he
is closely watching, into the shape of some other hesitating
reply, and then into none, she answers, " Duty, sir ? "
" The duty of teaching you, serving you as your faithful
music-master."
" I have left off that study."
" Not left off, I think. Discontinued. I was told by your
guardian that you disconti'-.ued it under the shock that we
have all felt so acutely. When will you resume ? "
" Never, sir."
'* Never ? You could have done no more if you had loved
my dear boy."
"I did love him ! " cries Rosa, with a flash of anger.
** Yes ; but not quite— not quite in the right way, shall I
say ! Not in the intended and expected way. Much as my
dear boy was, unhappily, too self-conscious and self-satisfied
(I'll draw no parallel between him and you in that respect)
to love as he should have loved, or as any one in his place
would have loved ; must have loved ! "
She sits in the same still attitude, but shrinking a little
more.
" Then to be told that you discontinued your study with
me, was to be politely told 'that you abandoned it altogether?"
he suggested.
'' Yes," says Rosa, with sudden spirit. " The politeness
was my guardian's, not mine. I told him that I was re-
solved to leave off, and that I was determined to stand by
my resolution."
" And you still are?"
8o6 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
"I still am, sir. And I beg not to be questioned anymore
about it. At all events, I will not answer any more ; I have
that in my power."
She is so conscious of his looking at her with a gloating
admiration of the touch of anger on her, and the fire and
animation it brings with it, that even as her spirit rises, it
falls again, and she struggles w^ith a sense of shame, affront,
and fear, much as she did that night at the piano.
" I will not question you any more, since you object to it
so much ; I will confess."
" I do not wish to hear you, sir," cries Rosa, rising.
This time he does touch her with his outstretched hand.
In shrinkmg from it, she shrinks into her seat again.
*' We must sometimes act in opposition to our wishes," he
tells her in a low voice. " You must do so now, or do more
harm to others than you can ever set right."
" What harm ?"
*' Presently, presently. You question me, you see, and
surely that's not fair when you forbid me to question you.
Nevertheless, I will answer the question presently. Dearest
Rosa ! Charming Rosa ! "
She starts up again.
This time he does not touch her. But his face looks so
wicked and menacing, as he stands leaning against the sun-
dial — setting, as it were, his black mark upon the very face
of day — that her flight is arrested by horror as she looks at
him.
*' I do not forget how many windows command a view
of us," he says, glancing toward them, "I will not touch
you again, I will come no nearer to you than I am. Sit down
and there will be no mighty w^onder in your music-master's
leaning idly against a pedestal and speaking with you, re-
membering all tliat has happened and our shares in it. Sit
dowMi, my beloved."
She would have gone once more — was all but gone — and
once more his face darkly threatening what would follow if
she went, has stopped her. Looking at him with the expres-
sion of the instant frozen on her face, she sits down on the
seat again.
" Rosa, even when my dear boy was affianced to you, I
loved you madly ; even when I thought his happiness in
having you for his wife was certain, I loved you madly ;
even w^hen I strove to make him more ardently devoted to
you, I loved you madly ; even when he gave me the picture
THE MVSTERV OF EDWIN DROOD. 807
of your lovely face so carelessly traduced by him, which I
feigned to hang always in my sight for his sake, but wor-
shiped in torment for years, I loved you madly. In the dis-
tasteful work of the day, in the wakeful misery of the night,
girded by sordid realities, or wandering through i)aradises
and hells of visions into which I rushed, carrying your image
in my arms, I loved you madly."
If any thing could make his words more hideous to her
than they are in themselves, it would be the contrast be-
tween the viulence of his look and delivery, and the com-
posure of his assumed attitude.
" 1 endured it all in silence. So long as you were his, or
so long as I supposed you to*be his, I hid m'y secret loyally.
Did I not ? "
This lie, so gross, while the mere words in which it is told
are so true, is more than Rosa can endure. She answers,
with kindling indignation, " You were as false throughout,
sir, as you are now. You were false to him, daily and
hourly. You know that you made my life unhappy by your
pursuit of me. You know that you made me afraid to open
his generous eyes, and that you forced me, for his own
trusting, good, good sake, to keep the truth from him,
that you were a bad, bad man ! "
His preservation of his easy attitude rendering his working
features and his convulsive hands absolutely diabolical, he
returns with a fierce extreme of admiration :
" How beautiful you are ! You are more beautiful in
anger than in repose. I don't ask you for your love ; give
me yourself and your hatred ; give me yourself and that
pretty rage ; give me yourself and that enchanting scorn ; it
will be enough for me." •
Impatient tears rise to the eyes of the trembling little
beauty, and her face flames ; but as she again rises to leave
him in indignation, and seek protection witlnn the house, he
stretches out his hand toward the porch, as though he in-
vited her to enter it.
" I told you, you rare charmer, you sweet witch, that you
must stay and hear me, or do more harm than can ever be
undone. You asked me what harm. Stay, and I will tell
you. Go, and I will do it ! "
Again Rosa quails before his threatening face, though in-
nocent of its meaning, and she remains. Her panting
breathing comes and goes as if it would choke her ; but
with a repressive hand upon her bosom, she remains.
8o8 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" I have made my confession that my love is mad. It is
so mad that, had the ties between me and my dear lost boy
been one silken thread less strong, I might have swept even
him from your side when you favored him."
A film comes over the eyes she raises for an instant, as
though he had turned her faint.
" Even him," he repeats. *' Yes, even him ! Rosa, you
see me and you hear me. Judge for yourself whether any
other admirer shall love you and live, whose life is in my
hand."
" What do you mean ? "
" I mean to show you how mad my love is. It was hawked
through the late inquiries by Mr. Crisparkle, that young
Landless had confessed to him that he was a rival of my lost
boy. That is an inexpiable offense in my eyes. The same
Mr. Crisparkle knows under my hand that I have devoted
myself to the murderer's discovery and destruction, be he
whom he might, and that I determined to discuss the mys-
tery with no one until I should hold the clew in which to
entangle the murderer as if in a net. I have since worked
patiently to wind and wind it round him ; and it is slowly
winding as I speak."
" Your belief, if you believe in the criminality of Mr.
Landless, is not Mr. Crisparkle's belief ; and he is a good
man," Rosa retorts.
" My belief is my own ; and I reserve it, worshiped of
my soul ! Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even
against an innocent man, that, directed, sharpened, and point-
ed, they may slay him. One wanting link discovered by
perseverance against a guilty man proves his guilt, however
sliglit its evidence before, and he dies. Young Landless
stands in deadly peril either way."
" If you really suppose," Rosa pleads with him, turning
paler, ** that I favor Mr. Landless, or that Mr. Landless has
ever in any way addressed himself to me, you are wrong."
He puts that from him with a slighting action of his hand
and a curled lip.
*' I was going to show you how madly I love you. More
madly now than ever, for I am willing to renounce the sec-
ond object that has arisen in my life to divide it with you ;
and henceforth to have no object in existence but you only.
Miss Landless has become your bosom friend. You care
for her peace of mind ? "
'' I love her deary "
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. F09
" You care for her good name ? '*
" I have said, sir, I love her dearly."
" I am unconsciously," he observes, with a smile, as he
folds his hands upon the sun-dial and leans his chin upon
them, so that his talk would seem from the windows (faces
occasionally come and go there) to be of the airiest and
playfulest — " I am unconsciously giving offense by question-
ing again. I will simply make statements, therefore, and not
put questions. You do care for your bosom friend's good
name, and you do care for her peace of mind. Then remove
the shadow of the gallows from her, dear one ! "
" You dare propose to me to "
" Darling, I dare propose to you. Stop there. If it be
bad to idolize you, I am the worst of men ; if it be good, I
am the best. My love for you is above all other love, and
my truth to you is above all other truth. Let me have hope
and favor, and I am a forsworn man for your sake."
Rosa puts her hands to her temples, and, pushing back her
hair, looks wildly and abhorrently at him, as though she
were trying to piece together what it is his deep purpose to
present to her only in fragments.
** Reckon up nothing at this moment, angel, but the sacri-
fices that I lay at those dear feet, which I could fall down
among the vilest ashes and kiss, and put upon my head as a
poor savage might. There is my fidelity to my dear boy
after death. Tread upon it ! "
With an action of his hands, as though he cast down
something precious.
" There is the inexpiable offense against my adoration of
you. Spurn it ! "
With a similar action.
" There are my labors in the cause of a just vengeance
for six toiling months. Crush them ! "
With another repetition of the action.
** There is my past and my present wasted life. There is
the desolation of my heart and my soul. There is my peace ;
there is my despair. Stamp them into the dust, so that you
take me, were it even mortally hating me ! "
The frightful vehemence of the man, now reaching its
full height, so additionally terrifies her as to break the spell
that has held her to the spot. She swiftly moves toward
the porch ; but in an instant he is at her side, and speaking
in her ear.
" Rosa, I am self- repressed again. I am walking ajmly
8io THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
beside you to the house. I shall wait for some encourage-
ment and hope. I shall not strike too soon. Give me a
sign that you attend to me."
She slightly and constrainedly moves her hand.
" Not a word of this to any one, or it will bring down the
blow, as certainly as night follows day. Another sign that
you attend to me."
She moves her hand once more.
*' I love you, love you, love you. If you were to cast me
off now — but you will not — you would never be rid of me.
No one should come between us. 1 would pursue you to
the death."
The handmaid coming out to open the gate for him, he
quietly pulls off his hat as a parting salute, and goes away
with no greater show of agitation than is visible in the effigy
of Mr. Sapsea's father opposite. Rosa faints in going up-
stairs, and is carefully carried to her room and laid down on
her bed. A thunder-storm is coming on, the maids say, ind
the hot and stifling air has overset the pretty dear ; no won-
der ; they have felt their own knees all of a tremble all day
long.
CHAPTER XX.
A FLIGHT.
Rosa no sooner came to herself than the whole of the late
interview was before her. It even seemed as if it had pur-
sued her into her insensibility, and she had not had a mo-
ment's unconsciousness of it. What to do, she was at a
frightened loss to know ; the only one clear thought in her
mind was, that she must fly from this terrible man.
But where could she take refuge, and how' could she go ?
She had never breathed her dread of him to any one but
Helena. If she went to Helena and told her what had
passed, that very act might bring down the irreparable mis-
chief that he had threatened he had the power, and that she
knew he had the will, to do. The more fearful he appeared
to her excited memory and imagination, the more alarming
her responsibility appeared ; seeing diat a slight mistake on
her part, either in action or delay, might let his malevo-
lence loose on Helena's brother.
Rosa's mind throughout the last six monchs had been
stormily confused. A half-formed, wholly unexpressed sus-
THE MYSrERY OF EDWIN DROOD. Sii
picion tossed in it, now heaving itself up, and now sinking
into the deep ; now gaining palpability, and now losing it.
His self-absorption in his nephew when he was alive, and
his unceasing pursuit of the inquiry how he came by his
death, if he were dead, were themes so rife in the place that
no one appeared able to suspect the possibility of foul play
at his hands. She had asked herself the question, " Am I
so wicked in my thoughts as to conceive a wickedness that
others can not imagine ? " Then she had considered, Did
the suspicion come of her previous recoiling from him be-
fore the fact ? And if so, was not that a proof of its base-
lessness? Then she had reflected, "What motive could
he have, according to my accusation ? " She was ashamed
to answer in her mind, " The motive of gaining me I " And
covered her face as if the lightest shadow of the idea of
founding murder on such an idle vanity were a crime almost
as great.
She ran over in her mind again all that he had said by
the sun-dial in the garden. He had persisted in treating
the disappearance as murder, consistently with his whole
public course since the finding of the watch and shirt-pin.
If he were afraid of the crime being traced out, would he
not rather encourage the idea of a voluntary disappearance ?
He had even declared that if the ties between him and his
nephew had been less strong, he might have swept " even
him " away from her side. Was that like his having really
done so ? He had spoken of laying his six months' labors in
the cause of a just vengeance at her feet. Would he have
done that, with that violence of passion, if they were a pre-
tense ? Would he have ranged them with his desolate heart
and soul, his wasted life, his peace, and his despair ? The
very first sacrifice that he represented himself as making for
her was his fidelity to his dear boy after death. Surely these
facts were strong against a fancy that scarcely dared to hint
itself. And yet he was so terrible a man ! In short, the
poor girl (for what could she know of the criminal intellect,
which its own professed students perpetually misread, be-
cause they persist in trying to reconcile it with the average
intellect of average men, instead of identifying it as a hor-
rible wonder apart), could get by no road to any other con-
clusion than that he was a terrible man, and must be fled
from.
She had been Helena's stay and corafort during the whole
time. She had constantly assured her of her full belief in
8i2 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
her brother's innocence, and of her sympathy with him in
his misery. But she had never seen him since the disap-
pearance, nor had Helena ever spoken one word of his
avowal to Mr. Crisparkle in regard of Rosa, though as a part
of the interest of the case it was well known far and wide.
He was Helena's unfortunate brother to her, and nothing
more. The assurance she had given her odious suitor was
strictly true, though it would have been better (she con-
sidered now) if she could have restrained herself from so
giving it. Afraid of him as the bright and delicate little
creature was, her spirit swelled at the thought of his know-
ing it from her own lips.
But where was she to go ? Anywhere beyond his reach,
was no reply to the question. Somewhere must be thought
of. She determined to go to her guardian, and to go imme-
diately. The feeling she had imparted to Helena on the
night of their first confidence was so strong upon her — the
feeling of not being safe from him, and of the solid walls of
the old convent being powerless to keep out his ghostly fol-
lowing of her — that no reasoning of her own could calm her
terrors. The fascination of repulsion had been upon her so
long, and now culminated so darkly, that she felt as if he
had power to bind her by a spell. Glancing out at window,
even now, as she rose to dress, the sight of the sun-dial, on
which he had leaned when he declared himself, turned her
cold, and made her shrink from it, as though he had in-
vested it with some awful quality from his own nature.
She wrote a hurried note to Miss Twinkleton, saying that
she had sudden reason for wishing to see her guardian
promptly, and had gone to him ; also, entreating the good
lady not to be uneasy, for all was well with her. She hur-
ried a few quite useless articles into a very little bag, left the
note in a conspicuous place, and went out, softly closing the
gate after her.
It was the first time she had ever been even in Cloister-
ham High Street alone. But knowing all its ways and
windings very well, she hurried straight to the corner from
which the omnibus departed. It was at that very moment
going off.
** Stop and take me, if you please, Joe. I am obliged to
go to London."
In less than another minute she was on her road to the
railway, under Joe's protection. Joe waited on her when
she got there, put her safely into the railway carriage, and
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 813
handed in the very little bag after her, as though it were
some enormous trunk, hundred weights heavy, which she
must on no account endeavor to lift.
" Can you go round when you get back, and tell Miss
Twinkleton that you saw me safely off, Joe ? "
'* It shall be done, miss."
" With my love, please, Joe."
" Yes, miss — and I wouldn't mind having it myself ! "
But Joe did not articulate the last clause ; only thought it.
Now that she was whirling away for London in real
earnest, Rosa was at leisure to resume the thoughts which
her personal hurry had checked. The indignant thought
that his declaration of love soiled her ; that she could only
be cleansed from the stain of its impurity by appealing to
the honest and true ; supported her for a time against her
fears, and confirmed her in her hasty resolution. But as the
evening grew darker and darker, and the great city im-
pended nearer and nearer, the doubts usual in such cases
began to arise. Whether this was not a wild proceeding
after all ; how Mr. Grewgious might regard it ; whether she
should find him at the journey's end ; how she would act if
he were absent ; what might become of her, alone, in a
place so strange and crowded ; how if she had but waited
and taken counsel first ; whether, if she could now go back,
she would not do it thankfully : a multitude of such uneasy
speculations disturbed her, more and more as they accumu-
lated. At length the train came into London over the house-
tops ; and down below lay the gritty streets with their yet
unneeded lamps aglow, on a hot light summer night.
" Hiram Grewgious, Esquire, Staple Inn, London." This
v/as all Rosa knew of her destination, but it was enough to
send her rattling away again in a cab, through deserts of
gritty streets, where many people crowded at the corners of
courts and by-ways to get some air, and where many other
people walked with a miserably monotonous noise of shuf-
fling feet on hot paving-stones, and where all the people and
all their surroundings were so gritty and so shabby.
There was music playing here and there, but it did not
enliven the case. No barrel-organ mended the matter, and
no big drum beat dull care away. Like the chapel bells
that were also going here and there, they only seemed to
evoke echoes from brick surfaces, and dust from everything
As to the flat wind instruments, they seemed to have cracked
their hearts and souls in pining for their country.
814 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Her jingling conveyance stopped at last at a fast-closed
gate-way which appeared to belong to somebody who had
gone to bed very early, and was much afraid of house-
breakers ; Rosa, discharging her conveyance, timidly knocked
at this gate- way, and was let in, very little bag and all, by a
watchman.
" Does Mr. Grewgioiis live here ? "
" Mr. Grewgious lives there, miss," said the watchman,
pointing further in.
So Rosa went further in, and when the clocks were strik-
ing ten, stood on P. J. T.'s doorsteps, wondering what P. J.
T. had done with his street door.
Guided by the painted name of Mr. Grewgious, she went
up-stairs and softly tapped several times. But no one
answering, and Mr. Grewgious's door-handle yielding to her
touch, she went in, and saw her guardian sitting on a
windov/-seat, at an open window, with a shaded lamp placed
far from him on a table in a corner.
Rosa drew nearer to him in the twilight of the room. He
saw her, and he said in an undertone, " Good heaven ! "
Rosa fell upon his neck, with tears, and then he said,
returning her embrace
** My child, my child ! I thought you were your mother !
But what, what, what," he added, soothingly, '"has hap-
pened? My dear, what has brought you here .^ Who has
brought you here ?"
"No one. I came alone."
" Lord bless me ! " ejaculated Mr. Grewgious. '* Came
alone ! Why didn't you write to me to come and fetch you ? "
" I had no time. I took a sudden resolution. Poor,
poor Eddy ! "
'' Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow ! "
" His uncle has made love to me. I can not bear it," said
Rosa, at once with a burst of tears, and a stamp of her little
foot ; " I shudder with horror of him, and I have come to
you to protect me and all of us from him, if you will ! "
" I will ! " cried Mr. Grewgious, with a sudden rush of
amazing energy. " Damn him !
* Confound his politics,
Frustrate his knavish tricks,
On the« his hope« to fix ? '
Damn him again ! "
After this most extraordinary outburst, Mr. Grewgious,
quite beside himself, plungt^d about the room, to all appear-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 815
ance undecided whether he was in a fit of loyal enthusiasm,
or combative denunciation.
He stopped and said, wiping his face, " I beg your pardon,
my dear, but you will be glad to know I feel better. Tell
me no more just now, or I might do it again. You must be
refreshed and cheered. What did you take last ? Was it
breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or supper ? And what will
you take next ? Shall it be breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or
supper ? "
The respectful tenderness with which, on one knee before
her, he helped her to remove her hat, and disentangle her
pretty hair from it, was quite a chivalrous sight. Yet who,
knowing him only on the surface, would have expected chiv-
alry — and of the true sort, too : not the spurious — from Mr.
Grewgious ?
'* Your rest, too, must be provided for," he went on,
" and you shall have the prettiest chamber in Furnival's.
Your toilet must be provided for, and you shall have every
thing that an unlimited head-chambermaid — by which
expression I mean a head-chambermaid not limited as to
outlay — can procure. Is that a bag ? " He looked hard at
it ; sooth to say, it required hara looking at to be seen at all
in a dimly lighted room : " and is it your propery, my dear ? "
" Yes, sir. I brought it with me."
*' it is not an extensive bag," said Mr. Grewgious, can-
didly, " though admirably calculated to contain a day's pro-
vision for a canary-bird. Perhaps you brought a canarv-
bird?"
Rosa smiled, and shook her head.
" If you had he should have been made welcome," said
Mr. Grewgious, " and I think he would have been pleased to
be hung upon a nail outside and pit himself against our
Staple sparrows ; whose execution must be admitted to be
not quite equal to their intention. Which is the case v/ith
so many of us ! You didn't say what meal, my dear. Have
a nice jumble of all meals."
Rosa thanked him, but said she could only take a cup of
tea. 'Mr. Grewgious, after several times running out, and in
again, to mention such supplementary items as marmalade,
eggs, water-cresses, salted fish, and frizzled ham, ran across
to Furnival's without his hat, to give his various directions.
And soon afterward they were realized in practice, and the
board was spread.
"Lord bless my soul ! " cried Mr. Grewgious, putting the
8i6 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
lamp upon it, and taking his seat opposite Rosa ; '* what
a new sensation for a poor old angular bachelor, to be
sure ! "
Rosa's expressive little eyebrows asked him what he
meant ?
" The sensation of having a sweet young presence in the
place that whitewashes it, paints it, papers it, decorates it
with gilding, and makes it glorious," said Mr. Grewgious.
" Ah me ! Ah me ! "
As there was something mournful in his sigh, Rosa, in
touching him with his tea-cup, ventured to touch him with
her small hand too.
" Thank you, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious. " Ahem !
Let's talk."
" Do you always live here, sir ? " asked Rosa.
" Yes, my dear."
" And always alone ? "
"Always alone ; except that I have daily company in a
gentleman by the name of Bazzard ; my clerk."
^^ He doesn't live here*? "
" No, he goes his ways after office hours. In fact, he is
off duty here, altogether, just at present ; and a firm down
stairs with which I have business relations lend me a substi-
tute. But it would be extremely difficult to replace Mr.
Bazzard."
" He must be very fond of you," said Rosa.
" He bears up against it with commendable fortitude if he
is," returned Mr. Grewgious, after considering the matter.
" But I doubt if he is. Not particularly so. You see, he is
discontented, poor fellow."
"■ Why isn't he contented ? " was the natural inquiry.
'' Misplaced," said Mr. Grewgious, with great mystery.
Rosa's eyebrows resumed their inequisitive and perplexed
expression.
"So misplaced," Mr. Grewgious went on, "that I feel
constantly apologetic toward him. And he feels (though
he doesn't mention it) that I have reason to be."
Mr. Grewgious had by this time grown so very mysterious,
that Rosa did not know how to go on. While she was
thinking about it, Mr; Grewgious suddenly jerked out of
himself for the second time :
" Let's talk. We were speaking of Mr. Bazzard. It's a
secret, and, moreover, it is Mr. Bazzard's secret ; but the
sweet presence at my table makes me so unusually expansive,
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 817
that I feel I must impart it in inviolable confidence. What
do you think Mr. Bazzard has done?"
** Oh dear ! " cried Rosa, drawing her chair a little nearer,
and her mind reverting to Jasper, "nothing dreadful, I
hope ?"
" He has written a play," said Mr. Grewgious, in a solemn
whisper. "A tragedy."
Rosa seemed much relieved.
"And nobody," pursued Mr. Grewgious, in the same tone,
''will hear, on any account whatever, of bringing it out."
Rosa looked reflective, and nodded her head slowly ; as
who should say, '^ Such things are, and why are they ! "
" Now, you know," said Mr. Grewgious, *' / couldn't
write a play."
" Not a bad one, sir ? " asked Rosa, innocently, with her
eyebrows again in action.
" No. If I was under sentence of decapitation, and was
about to be instantly decapitated, and an express arrived
with a pardon for the condemned convict Grewgious if he
wrote a play, I should be under the necessity of resuming
the block and begging the executioner to proceed to extrem-
ities — meaning," said Mr. Grewgious, passing his hand
under his chin, " the singular number, and this extremity."
Rosa appeared to consider what she would do if the awk-
ward supposititious case were hers.
" Consequently," said Mr. Grewgious, " Mr. Bazzard
would have a sense of my inferiority to himself under any
circumstances ; but when I am hio master, you know, the
case is greatly aggravated."
Mr. Grewgious shook his head seriously, as if he felt the
offense to be a little too much, though of his own commit-
ting.
" How came you to be his master, sir ? " asked Rosa.
" A question that naturally follows," said Mr. Grewgious.
"Let's talk. Mr. Bazzard's father, being a Norfolk farmer,
would have furiously laid about him with a flail, a pitchfork,
and every agricultural implement available for assaulting
purposes, on the slightest hint of his son's having written a
play. So the son, bringing to me the father's rent (which I
receive), imparted his secret, and pointed out that he was
determined to pursue his genius, and that it would put
him in peril of starvation, and that he was not formed for
it."
" For pursuing his genius, sir ? "
8i8 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" No, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, '' for starvation. It
was impossible to deny the position that Mr. Bazzard was
not formed to be starved, and Mr. Bazzard then pointed
out that it was desirable that I should stand between him and
a fate so perfectly unsuited to his formation. In that way
Mr. Bazzard became my clerk, and he feels it very much."
*'I am glad he is grateful," said Rosa.
" I didn't quite mean that, my dear. I mean that he
feels the degradation. There are some other geniuses that
Mr. Bazzard has become acquainted with, who have also
written tragedies, which likewise nobody will on any account
whatever hear of bringing out, and these choice spirits ded-
icate their plays to one another in a highly panegyrical man-
ner, Mr. Bazzard has been the subject of one of these
dedications. Now, you know, /never had a play dedicated
to vie ! "
Rosa looked at him as if she would have liked him to be
the recipient of a thousand dedications.
" Which again, naturally, rubs against the grain of Mr.
Bazzard," said Mr. Grewgious. " He is very short with me
sometimes, and then I feel that he is meditating, * This
blockhead is my master ! A fellow who couldn't write a
tragedy on pain of death, and who will never have one
dedicated to him with the most complimentary congratula-
tions on the high position he has taken in the eyes of pos-
terity ! ' Very trying, very trying. However, in giving
him directions, I reflect beforehand, ' Perhaps he may not
like this,' or ' He might take it ill if I asked that,' and so
we get on very well. Indeed, better than I could have
expected."
" Is the tragedy named, sir ? " asked Rosa.
''Strictly between ourselves," answered Mr. Grewgious,
" it has a dreadfully appropriate name. It is called the
Thorn of Anxiety. But Mr. Bazzard hopes — and I hope —
that it will come out at last."
It was not hard to divine that Mr. Grewgious had related
the Bazzard history thus fully, at least quite as much for the
recreation of his ward's mind from the subject that had
driven her there, as for the gratification of his own tendency
to be social and communicative. " And now, my dear," he
said at this point, ," if you are not too tired to tell me more
of what passed to-day, but only if you feel quite able — I
should be glad to hear it. I may digest it the better, if I
sleep on it to-night."
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 819
^ Rosa, composed now, gave him a faithful account of the
interview. Mr. Grewgious often smoothed his head while
It was in progress, and begged to be told a second time
those parts which bore on Helena and Neville. When Rosa
had finished, he sat, grave, silent, and meditative, for a
while.
"Clearly narrated," was his only remark at last, ''and I
hope, clearly put away here," smoothing his head again.
**See, my dear," taking her to the open window,." where
they live ! The dark windows over yonder."
I' I may go to Helena to-morrow } " asked Rosa.
" 1 should like to sleep on that question to-night," he an-
swered, doubtfully. " But let me take you to your own rest,
for you must need it."
\Yith that, Mr. Grewgious helped her to get her hat on
again, and hung upon his arm the very little bag that was of
no earthly use, and led her by the hand (with a certain
stately awkwardness, as if he were going to walk a minute)
across Holborn, and into Furnival's Inn. At the hotel
door, he confided her to the unlimited head- chambermaid,
and said that while she went up to see her room, he would
remain below, in case she should wish it exchanged for an-
other, or should find that there was any thing she wanted.
Rosa's room was airy, clean, comfortable, almost gay. The
unlimited had laid in every thing omitted from the very
little bag (that is to say, every thing she could possibly
need), and Rosa tripped down the great many stairs again,
to thank her guardian for his thoughtful and affectionate
care of her.
" .-^^^ \ ?^l' "'^>' dear," said Mr. Grewgious, infinitely
gratified ; " it is I who thank you for your charming confi-
dence and for your charming company. Your breakfast
will be provided for you in a neat, compact and graceful lit-
tle sitting-room (appropriate to your figure), and 1 will come
to you at ten o'clock in the morning. I hope you don't feel
very strange indeed, in this strange place."
" Oh no, I feel so safe ! "
"Yes, you may be sure that the stairs are fire- proof,"
said Mr. Grewgious, "and that any outbreak of the devour-
ing element would be perceived and suppressed by the watch-
men."
" I did not mean that," Rosa replied. " I mean, I feel so
safe from him."
" 7'here is a stout gate of iron bars to keep him out," said
820 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Mr. Grewgious smiling, "and Furnival's is fire-proof and
specially watched and lighted, and / live over the way ! "
In the stoutness of his knight errantry, he seemed to think
the last-named protection all-sufficient. In the same spirit,
he said to the gate-porter as he went out, " If some one
staying in the hotel should wish to send across the road to
me in the night, a crown will be ready for the messenger."
In the same spirit, he walked up and down outside the iron
gate for the best part of an hour, with some solicitude ; oc-
casionally looking in between the bars, as if he had laid a
dove in a high roost in a cage of lions, and had it on his
mind that she might tumble out.
CHAPTER XXI.
ARECOGNITION.
Nothing occurred in the night to flutter the tired dove, and
the dove arose refreshed. With Mr. Grewgious, when the
clock struck ten in the morning, came Mr. Crisparkle, who
had come at one plunge out of the river at Cloisterham.
" Miss Twinkleton was so uneasy, Miss Rosa," he ex-
plained to her, " and came round to ma and me with your
note, in such a state of wonder, that to quiet her, I volun-
teered on this service by the very first train to be caught in
the morning. I wished at the time that you had come to
me ; but now I think it best that you did as you did, and
came to your guardian."
'' I did think of you," Rosa told him ; "but Minor Canon
Corner was so near him "
" I understand. It was quite natural."
"I have told Mr. Crisparkle," said Mr. Grewgious, "all
that you told me last night, my dear. Of course I should
have written to him immediately ; but his coming was most
opportune. And it was particularly kind of him to come,
for he had but just gone."
" Have you settled," asked Rosa, appealing to them both,
" what is to be done for Helena and her brother ?"
" Why really," said Mr. Crisparkle, " I am in great per-
plexity. If even Mr. Grewgious, whose head is much longer
than mine, and who is a whole night's cogitation in advance
of me, is undecided, what must I be ! "
The unlimited here put her head in at the door — after
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 821
having rapped, and having been authorized to present her-
self, announcing that a gentleman wished for a word with
another gentleman named Crisparkle, if any such gentleman
were there. If no such gentleman were there, he begged
pardon for being mistaken.
" Such a gentleman is here," said Mr. Crisparkle, "but is
engaged just now."
'* Is it a dark gentleman ? " interposed Rosa, retreating on
her guardian.
" No, miss, more of a brown gentleman."
'' You are sure not with black hair ? " asked Rosa, taking
courage.
" Quite sure of that, miss. Brown hair and blue eyes."
" Perhaps," hinted Mr. Grewgious, with habitual caution,
"it might be well to see him, reverend sir, if you don't ob-
ject. When one is in a difficulty or at a loss, one never
knows in what direction a way out may chance to open. It
is a business principle of mine, in such a case, not to close
up any direction, but to keep an eye on every direction that
may present itself. I could relate an anecdote in point, but
that it would be premature."
" If Miss Rosa will allow me then ! Let the gentleman
come in," said Mr. Crisparkle.
The gentleman came in ; apologized, with a frank but
modest grace, for not finding Mr. Crisparkle alone ; turned
to Mr, Crisparkle, and smilingly asked the unexpected ques-
tion, " Who am I ? "
" You are the gentleman I saw smoking under the trees
in Staple Inn a few minutes ago."
" True. There I saw you. Who else am I ? "
Mr. Crisparkle concentrated his attention on a handsome
face, much sunburned ; and the ghost of some departed boy,
seemed to rise gradually and dimly in the room.
The gentleman saw a struggling recollection lighten up
the minor canon's features, and smiling again, said, "What
will you have for breakfast this morning ? You are out of
jam."
" Wait a moment ! " cried Mr. Crisparkle, raising his right
hand. " Give me another instant ! Tartar ! "
The two shook hands with the greatest heartiness, and
then went the wonderful length— for Englishmen — of laying
their hands, each on the other's shoulders, and looking joy-
fully each into the other's face.
" My old fag ! " said Mr. Crisparkle.
822 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" My old master ! " said Mr. Tartar.
" You saved me from drowning ! " said Mr. Crisparkle.
" After which you took to swimming, you know ! " said
Mr. Tartar.
" God bless my soul ! " said Mr- Crisparkle.
" Amen ! " said Mr. Tartar.
And then they fell to shaking hands most heartily again.
" Imagine," exclaimed Mr. Crisparkle, with glistening
eyes — " Miss Rosa Bud and Mr. Grewgious — imagine Mr.
Tartar, when he was the smallest of juniors, diving for me,
catching me, a big heavy senior, by the hair of the head, and
striking out for the shore with me like a water-giant ! "
" Imagine my not letting him sink, as I was his fag ! "
said Mr. Tartar. " But, the truth being that he was my best
protector and friend, and did me more good than all the
masters put together, an irrational impulse seized me to pick
him up or go down with him."
" Hem ! Permit me, sir, to have the honor," said Mr.
Grewgious, advancing with extended hand, *' for an honor I
truly esteem it. I am proud to make your acquaintance. I
hope you didn't take cold. I hope you were not inconve-
nienced by swallowing too much water. How have you been
since ?"
It was by no means apparent that Mr. Grewgious knew
what he said, though it was very apparent that he meant to
say something highly friendly and appreciative.
If heaven, Rosa thought, had but sent such courage and
skill to her poor mother's aid ! And he to have been so
slight and young then !
" I don't wish to be complimented upon it, I thank you,
but I think I have an idea," Mr. Grewgious announced
after taking a jog-trot or two across the room, so unexpected
and unaccountable that they had all stared at him, doubtful
whether he was choking or had the cramp. " I ////;//^ I have
an idea. I believe I have had the pleasure of 'seeing Mr.
Tartar's name as tenant of the top set in the house next the
top set in the corner ? "
*' Yes, sir," returned Mr. Tartar. *' You are right so far."
'' I am right so far," said Mr. Grewgious. *' Tick that
off," which he did, with his right thumb on his left. " Might
you happen to know the name of your neighbor in the top
set on the other side of the party-wall ? " coming very close
to Mr. Tartar, to lose nothing of his face, in his shortness of
sight.
THE xMYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 823
" Landless."
** Tick that off," said Mr. Grewgious, taking another trot
and then coming back. " No personal knowledge, I sup-
pose, sir ? "
'' Slight, but some."
"Tick that off," said Mr, Grewgious, taking another trot
and again coming back " Nature of knowledge, Mr. Tar-
tar?"
" I thought he seemed to be a young fellow in a poor way,
and I asked his leave — only within a day or so — to share
my flowers up there with him ; that is to say, to extend my
flower-garden to his windows."
" Would you have the kindness to take seats ? " said Mr.
Grewgious. *' I /lare an idea."
They complied ; Mr. Tartar none the less readily for be-
ing all abroad ; and Mr. Grewgious, seated in the center,
with his hands upon his knees, thus stated his idea with his
usual manner of having got the statement by heart.
*' I can not as yet make up my mind whether it is prudent
to hold open communication under present circumstances,
and on the part of the fair member of the present com-
pany, with Mr. Neville or Miss Helena. I have reason
to know that a local friend of ours (on whom I beg to be-
stow a passing but a hearty malediction, with the kind per-
mission of my reverend friend) sneaks to and fro, and dodges
up and down. When not doing so himself, he may have
some informant skulking about, in the person of a watch-
man, porter, or such-like hanger-on of Staple. On the other
hand, Miss Rosa very naturally wishes to see her friend, Miss
Helena, and it would seem important that at least Miss
Helena (if not her brother too, through her) should privately
know from Miss Rosa's lips what has occurred and what has
been threatened. Am I agreed with generally in the views
I take ? "
" I entirely coincide with them," said Mr. Crisparkle, who
had been very attentive.
" As I have no doubt I should," added Mr. Tartar, smal-
ing, " if I understood them."
" Fair and softly, sir," said Mr. Grewgious ; '* we shall
fully confide in you directly, if you will favor us with your
permission. Now, if your local friend should have any in-
formant on the spot, it is tolerably clear that such informant
can only be set to watch the chambers in the occupation of
Mr. Neville. He, reporting to our local friend, who comes
8?4 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
and goes there, our local friend would supply for himself,
from his own previous knowledge, the identity of the parties.
Nobody can be set to watch all Staple, or to concern him-
self with comers and goers to other sets of chambers, unless,
indeed, mine."
" I begin to understand to what you tend," said Mr. Cris-
parkle, " and highly approve of your caution."
" I needn't repeat that I know nothing yet of the why and
wherefore," said Mr. Tartar ; *' but I also understand to
what you tend, so let me say at once that my chambers are
freely at your disposal."
" There ! " cried Mr. Grewgious, smoothing his head tri-
umphantly. " Now we have all got the idea. You have it,
my dear ? "
" I think I have," said Rosa, blushing a little as Mr. Tar-
tar looked quickly toward her.
" You see, you go over to Staple with Mr. Crisparkle and
Mr. Tartar," said Mr. Grewgious ; *' I going in and out, and
out and in, alone in my usual way ; you go up with those
gentlemen to Mr. Tartar's rooms ; you look into Mr. Tar-
tar's flower-garden ; you wait for Miss Helena's appearance
there, or you signify to Miss Helena that you are close by ;
and you communicate with her freely, and no spy can be the
wiser."
" I am very much afraid I shall be "
" Be what, my dear ? " asks Mr. Grewgious, as she hesi-
tated. " Not frightened ? "
*' No, not that," said Rosa, shyly ; ** in Mr. Tartar's way.
We seem to be appropriating Mr, Tartar's residence so very
coolly."
" I protest to you," returned that gentleman, " that I shall
think the better of it forevermore if your voice sounds in it
only once."
Rosa, not quite knowing what to say about that, cast down
her eyes, and, turning to Mr. Grewgious, dutifully asked if
she should put her hat on. Mr. Grewgious being of opinion
that she could not do better, she withdrew for the purpose.
Mr. Crisparkle took the opportunity of giving Mr. Tartar a
summary of the distress of Neville and his sister. The op-
portunity was quite long enough, as the hat happened to re-
quire a little extra fitting on.
Mr. Tartar gave his arm to Rosa, and Mr. Crisparkle
walked, detached, in front.
" Poor, poor Eddy ! " thought Rosa, as they went along.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 825
M^. Tartar Avaved his right hand as he bent his head down
over Rosa, talking in an animated way.
" It was not so powerful or so sun-browned when it saved
Mr. Crisparkle," thought Rosa, glancing at it ; " but it must
have been very steady and determined even then."
Mr. Tartar told her he had been a sailor, roving every-
where for years and yo^-iT.
" When are you going to sea again ? " asked Rosa.
" Never ! "
Rosa wondered what the girls would say if they could see
her crossing the wide street on the sailor's arm. And she
fancied that the passers-by must think her very little and
very helpless contrasted with the strong figure that could
have caught her up and carried her out of any danger, miles
and miles, without resting.
She was thinking, further, that his far-seeing blue eyes
looked as if they had been used to watch danger afar off,
and to watch it without flinching, drawing nearer and nearer :
when, happening to raise her own eyes, she found that he
seemed to be thinking something about the77i.
This a little confused Rosebud, and may account for her
never afterward quite knowing how she ascended (with his
help) to his garden in the air, and seemed to get into a mar-
velous country that came into sudden bloom like the coun-
try on the summit of the magic bean stalk. May it flourish
forever !
CHAPTER XXII.
A GRITTY STATE OF THINGS COMES ON.
Mr. Tartar's chambers were the neatest, the cleanest,
and the best ordered chambers ever seen under the sun,
moon and stars. The floors were scrubbed to that extent,
that you might have supposed the London blacks emanci-
pated forever, and gone out of the land for good. Every
inch of brass work in Mr. Tartar's possession was polished
and burnished until it shone like a brazen mirror. No speck,
nor spot, nor spatter, soiled the purity of any of Mr. Tartar's
household goods, large, small, or middle-sized. His sit-
ting-room was like the admiral's cabin ; his bath-room was
like a dairy ; his sleeping-chamber, fitted all about with
lockers and drawers, was like a seedsman's shop ; and his
nicely balanced cot just stirred in the midst as if it breathed.
826 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Every thing belonging to Mr. Tartar had quarters of its own
assigned to it ; his maps and charts had their quarters ; his
books had theirs ; his brushes had theirs ; his boots had
theirs ; his clothes had theirs ; his case bottles had theirs ;
his telescopes and other instruments had theirs. Every thing
was readily accessible. Shelf, bracket, locker, hook, and
drawer were equally within reach, and were equally con-
trived with a view to avoiding waste of room, and providing
some snug inches of stowage for something that would have
exactly fitted now^here else. His gleaming little service of
plate was so arranged upon his sideboard as that a slack salt-
spoon would have instantly betrayed itself ; his toilet imple-
ments were so arranged upon his dressing table as that a
toothpick of slovenly deportment could have been reported
at a glance. So with the curiosities he had brought home
from the various voyages. Stuffed, dried, repolished, or
otherwise preserved, according to their kind : birds, fisli^s,
reptiles, arms, articles of dress, shells, sea-w^eeds, grasses or
memorials of coral reef ; each was displayed in its especial
place, and each could have been displayed in no better place.
Paint and varnish seemed to be kept somew^here out of sight,
in constant readiness to obliterate stray finger-marks w^here-
ever any might become perceptible in Mr. Tartar's cham-
bers. No man-of-war was ever kept more spick and span
from careless touch. On this bright summer day a neat
awning was rigged over Mr. Tartar's flower-garden as only
a '.ailjr could rig it ; and there was a sea-going air upon the
wh )\e effect, so delightfully complete that the flower-garden
might have appertained to stern-windows afloat, and the
whole concern might have bowled away gallantly with all on
board, if Mr. Tartar had only clapped to his lips the speak-
ing-trumpet that was slung in a corner, and given hoarse
orders to have the anchor up, look alive there, men, and get
all sail upon her !
Mr. Tartar, doing the honors of this gallant craft, was of
a piece with the rest. When a man rides an amiable hobby
that shies at nothing and kicks nobody, it is only agreeable
to find him riding it with a humorous sense of the droll side
of the creature. When the man is a cordial and an earnest
man by nature, and wdthal is perfectly fresh and genuine, it
may be doubted whether he is ever seen to greater advantage
than at such a time. So Rosa would have naturally thought
(even if she hadn't been conducted over ship with all the
homage due to the first lady of the admiralty, or the first
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOI). 827
fairy of the sea), that it was charming to see and hear Mr,
Tartar half laughing at, and half rejoicing, in his various con-
trivances. So Rosa would have naturally thought, anyhow,
that the sunburneds ailor showed to great advantage when, the
inspection finished, he delicately withdrew out of his admi-
ral's cabin, beseeching her to consider herself its queen, and
waving her free of his flower-garden with the hand that had
had Mr. Crisparkle's life in it.
" Helena ! Helena Landless ! Are you there ? "
" Who speaks to me ? Not Rosa ? " Then a second hand-
some face appearing.
" Yes, my darling ! "
" Why, how did you come here, dearest ? "
**/ — I don't quite know," said Rosa with a blush ; "un-
less I am dreaming ! "
Why with a blush ? For their two faces were alone with
the other flowers. Are blushes among the fruits of the country
of the magic bean stalk ?
'' lam not dreaming," said Helena, smiling. " I should
take more for granted if I were. How do we come together
— or so near together — so very unexpectedly ? "
Unexpectedly indeed, among the dingy gables and chim-
ney-pots of P, J, T,'s connection, and the flowers that had
sprung from the salt sea. But Rosa, waking, told in a hurry
how they came to be together, and all the why and wherefore
of that matter.
" And Mr. Crisparkle is here," said Rosa, in rapid conclu-
sion ; " and could you believe it ? Long ago, he saved his
life ! "
'' I could believe any such thing of Mr. Crisparkle," re-
turned Helena, with a mantling face.
(More blushes in the bean stalk country !)
"Yes, but it wasn't Mr. Crisparkle," said Rosa, quickly
putting in the correction.
" I don't understand, love."
" It was very nice of Mr. Crisparkle to be saved," said
Rosa, " and he couldn't have shown his high opinion of Mr.
Tartar more expressively. But it was Mr. Tartar who saved
him."
Helena's dark eyes looked very earnestly at the bright
face among the leaves, and she asked, in a slower and more
thoughtful tone :
" Is Mr. Tartar with you now, dear ? "
" No ; because he has given up his rooms to me — to us, I
mean. It is such a beautiful place ! "
828 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" Is it ? "
" It is like the inside of the most exquisite ship that ever
sailed. It is like — it is like "
'* Like a dream ? " suggested Helena.
Rosa answered with a little nod, and smelled the flowers.
Helena resumed, after a short pause of silence, during
which she seemed (or it was Rosa's fancy) to compassionate
somebody : " My poor Neville is reading in his own room,
the sun being so very bright on this side just now, I think
he had better not know that you are so near."
*' Oh, I think so, too ! " cried Rosa, very readily.
" I suppose," pursued Helena, doubtfully, "that he must
know by and by all you have told me ; but I am not sure.
Ask Mr. Crisparkle's advice, my darling. Ask him whether
I may tell Neville as much or as little of what you have
told me as I think best."
Rosa subsided into her state-cabin, and propounded the
question. The minor canon was for the free exercise of
Helena's judgment.
" I thank him very much," said Helena, when Rosa
emerged again with her report. " Ask him whether it would
be best to wait until any more maligning and pursuing of
Neville on the part of this v/retch shall disclose itself, or to
try to anticipate it ; I mean, so far as to find out whether
any such goes on darkly about us ? "
The minor canon found this point so difficult to give a
confident opinion on, that, after two or three attempts and
failures, he suggested a reference to Mr. Grewgious. Helena
acquiescing, he betook himself (with a most unsuccessful
assumption of lounging indifference) across the quadrangle
to P. J. T.'s, and stated it. Mr. Grewgious held decidedly
to the general principle that if you could steal a march upon
a brigand or a wild beast, you had better do it ; and he also
held decidedly to the special case that John Jasper was a
wild beast in combination.
Thus advised, Mr. Crisparkle came back again and
reported to Rosa, who in her turn reported to Helena.
She, now steadily pursuing her train of thought at her
window, considered thereupon.
'^ We may count on Mr. Tartar's readiness to help us,
Rosa ? " she inquired.
Oh yes ! Rosa shyly thought so. Oh yes, Rosa shyly
believed she could answer for it. But should she ask Mr.
Crisparkle ? " I think your authority on the point as good
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 829
as his. my dear," said Helena, sedately, " and you needn't
dl-sappear again for that." Odd of Helena !
** You see, Neville," Helena pursued after more reflection,
*' knows no one else here : he has not so much as exchanged
a word with any one else here. If Mr. Tartar would call to
see him openly and often ; if he would spare a minute for
the purpose, frequently; if he would even do so, almost daily ;
something might come of it."
" Something might come of it, dear ? " repeated Rosa,
surveying her friend's beauty with a highly perplexed face.
" Something might ?"
'' If Neville's movements are really watched, and if the
purpose really is to isolate him from all friends and acquaint-
ance, and wear his daily life out, grain by grain (which
would seem to be the threat to you), does it not appear
likely," said Helena, '* that his enemy would in some way
communicate with Mr. Tartar to warn him off from Neville ?
In which case we might not only know the fact, but might
know from Mr. Tartar what the terP"»s of the communication
were."
'' I see ! " cried Rosa. And immediately darted into her
state-cabin again.
Presently her pretty face reappeared, with a greatly
heightened color, and she said that she had told Mr. Cris-
parkle, and that Mr. Crisparklehad fetched in Mr. Tartar, and
that Mr. Tartar — ** who is waiting now in case you want him,"
added Rosa, with a half-look back, and in not a little con-
fusion, between the inside of the state-cabin and out — had
declared his readiness to act as she suggested, and to enter on
his task that very day.
'* 1 thank him from my heart," said Helena. ^' Pray tell
him so."
Again not a little confused between the flower-garden
and the cabin, Rosa dipped in with her message, and dip-
ped out again with more assurances from Mr. Tartar, and
stood wavering in a divided state between Helena and him,
which proved that confusion is not always necessarily
awkward, but may sometimes present a very pleasant
appearance.
** And now, darling," said Helena, " we will be mindful
of the caution that has restricted us to this interview for the
present, and will part. I hear Neville moving too. Are you
going back ? "
'To Miss Twinkleton's ?" asked Rosa.
Bso THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" Yes."
*'0h, I could never go there any more; I couldn'tj
indeed, after that dreadful interview ! " said Rosa.
" Then where are you going, pretty one ? "
" Now I come to think of it, I don't know," said Rosa.
" I have settled nothing at all yet, but my guardian will take
care of me. Don't be uneasy, dear. I shall be sure to be
somewhere."
(It did seem likely.)
" And I shall hear of my Rosebud from Mr. Tartar ! " in-
quired Helena.
' Yes, I suppose so ; from — " Rosa looked back again in
a flutter, instead of supplying the name. " But tell me one
thing before we part, dearest Helena. Tell me that you are
sure, sure, sure, I couldn't help it."
''Help it, love?"
" Help making him malicious and revengeful. I couldn't
hold any terms with him, could 1 ? "
"You know how I love you, darling," answered Helena,
with indignation, "but I would sooner see you dead at his
wicked feet."
" That's a great comfort to me ! And you will tell your
poor brother so, won't you ? And you will give him my remem-
brance and my sympathy ? And you will ask him not to hate
me ?
With a mournful shake of the head, as if that would be
quite a superfluous entreaty, Helena lovingly kissed her two
hands to her friend, and her friend's two hands were kissed
to her, and then she saw a third hand (a brown one) appear
among the flowers and leaves, and help her friend out of
sight.
The refection that Mr. Tartar produced in the admiral's
cabin by merely teaching the spring knob of a locker and
the handle of a drawer was a dazzhng, enchanted repast.
Wonderful macaroons, glittering liquors, magically pre-
served tropical spices, and jellies of celestial tropical fruits,
displayed themselves profusely at an instant's notice. But
Mr. Tartar could not make time stand still ; and time, with
his hard-hearted fleetness, strode on so fast that Rosa was
obliged to come down from the bean stalk country to earth,
and her guardian's chambers.
" And now, my dear," said Mr. Grewgious, " what is to be
done next ? To put the same thought in another form :
what is to be done with you ? "
THE iMYSTERV OK EUWIN DROOJ). 8>i
Rosa could only look apologetically sensible of being
very much in her own way, and in every body else's. Some
passing idea of living, fire-proof, up a good many stairs in
Furnival's Inn for the rest of her life was the only thing in
the nature of a plan that occurred to her.
" It has come into my thoughts," said Mr. Grevvgious," that
as the respected lady,*Miss Twinkleton, occasionally repairs
to London in the recess, with the view of extending her con-
nection, and being available for interviews with metropoli-
tan parents if any — whether, until we have time in which
to turn ourselves round, we might invite Miss Twinkleton
to come and stay with you for a month ? "
" Stay where, sir ? "
'^ Whether," explained Mr. Grewgious, "we might take a
furnished lodging in town for a month, and invite Miss
Twinkleton to assume the charge of you in it for that
period ? "
*' And afterward ? " hinted Rosa.
" And afterward," said Mr. Grewgious, " we should be
no worse off than we are now."
" I think that might smooth the way," assented Rosa.
"Then let us," said Mr. Grewgious, rising, " go and look
for a furnished lodging. Nothing could be more accepta-
ble to me than the sweet presence of last evening for ali the
remaining evenings of my existence ; but these are not fit
surroundings for a young lady. Let us set out in quest of
adventures, and look for a furnished lodging. In the mean-
time, Mr. Crisparkle here, about to return home immedi-
ately, will, no doubt, kindly see Miss Tv/inkleton, and invite
that lady to co operate in our plan."
Mr. Crisparkle, willingly accepting the commission, took
his departure ; Mr. Grewgious and his ward set forth on
their expedition.
As Mr, Grewgious'sidea of looking at a furnished lodging
was to get on the opposite side of the street to a house with
a suitable bill in the window, and stare at it ; and then work
his way tortuously to the back of the house, and stare at
that ; and then not go in, but make similar trials of another
house, with the same result, their progress was but slow.
At length he bethought himself of a widowed cousin, divers
times removed, of Mr. Bazzard's, who had once solicited his
influence in the lodger world, and who lived in Southamp-
ton Street, Bloomsbury Square. This lady's name, stated in
uncompromising capitals of coi.nderable size on a bra?s
8^2 THE MYSTERY OF EDWlN DROOD.
door-plate, and yet not lucidly as to sex or condition, was
BiLLlCKIN.
Personal faintness and an overpowering personal candor
were the distinguishing features of Mrs. Billickin's organiza-
tion. She came languishing out of her own exclusive back
parlor, witH the air of having been expressly brought to for
the purpose from an accumulation of several swoons.
" 1 hope 1 see you well, sir," said Mrs. Billickin, recog-
nizing her visitor with a bend.
'* Thank you, quite well. And you, ma'am ? " returned
Mr. Grewgious.
*' I am well," said Mrs. Billickin, becoming aspirational
with excess of faintness, " as I hever ham."
" My ward and an elderly lady," said Mr. Grewgious,
*' wish to find a genteel lodging for a month or so. Have
you any apartments available, ma'am ? "
" Mr. Grewgious," returned Mrs. Billickin, " I will not de-
ceive you ; far from it. I ^ave apartments available."
This, with the air of adding, " Convey me to the stake, if
you will, but while I live, I will be candid."
"And now, what apartments, ma'am ? " asked Mr. Grew-
gious, cozily. To tame a certain severity apparent on the
part of Mrs. Billickin.
" There is this sitting-room — which call what you will, it
is the front parlor, miss," said Mrs. Billickin, impressing
Rosa into the conversation ; " the back parlor being what I
cling to and never part with ; and there is two bedrooms at
the top of the 'ouse with gas laid on. I do not tell you that
your bedroom floors is firm, for firm they are not. The
gas-fitter himself allowed that, to make a firm job, he must
go right under your jistes, and it were not worth the outlay
as a yearly tenant so to do. The piping is carried above
your jistes, and it is best that it should be made known to
you."
Mr. Grewgious and Rosa exchanged looks of some dismay,
though they had not the least idea what latent horrors this
carriage of the piping might involve. Mrs. Billickin put her
hand to her heart, as having eased it of a load.
"Well ! The roof is all right, no doubt," said Mr. Grew-
gious, plucking up a little.
" Mr. Grewgious," returned Mrs. Billickin, " if I was to
tell you, sir, that to have nothink above you is to have a floor
above you, I should put a deception upon you which I will
not do. No, sir. Your slates will rattle loose at that ele»
THE MYSTERY OF EDUliN DROOD. ii^^
wation in windy weather, do your utmost, best or worst ! I
defy you, sir, be you what you may, to keep your slates tight,
try how you can." Here Mrs. Billickin, having been warm
wath Mr. Grewgious, cooled a little not to abuse the moral
power she held over him. *' Consequent," proceeded Mrs.
Billickin, more mildly, but still firmly in her incorruptible
candor — '' consequent it would be worse than of no use for
me to trapse and travel up to the top of the 'ouse with you,
and for you to say, 'Mrs. Billickin, what stain do I notice in
the ceiling, for a stain I do consider it ? ' And for me to
answer, ' I do not understand you, sir.' No, sir, I will not
be so underhand. I do understand you before you p'int it
out. It is the wet, sir. It do come in, and it do not come
in. You may lay dry there half your life-time, but the time
will come, and it is best that you should know it, when a
dripping sop would be no name for you."
Mr. Grew^gious looked much disgraced by being prefigured
in this pickle.
** Have you any other apartments, ma'am ? " he asked.
" Mr. Grewgious," returned Mrs. Billickin, with much
solemnity, " I have. You ask me have I, and my open and
my honest answer air, I have. The first and second floors
is wacant, and sweet rooms."
" Come, come ! There's nothing against theniy* said Mr.
Grew^gious, comforting himself.
** Mr. Grewgious," replied Mrs. Billickin, '' pardon me,
there is the stairs. Unless your mind is prepared for the
stairs, it will lead to inevitable disappointment. You can
not, miss," said Mrs. Billickin, addressing Rosa, reproach-
fully, " place a first floor, and far less a second, on the level
footing of a parlor. No, you can not do it, miss ; it is
beyond your power, and wherefore try ? "
Mrs. Billickin put it very feelingly, as if Rosa had shown a
headstrong determination to hold the untenable position.
** Can we see these rooms, ma'am ?" inquired her guard-
ian.
'' Mr. Grewgious," returned Mrs. Billickin, *' you can. I
will not disguise it from you, sir, you can."
Mrs. Billickin then sent into her back parlor for her shawl
(it being a state fiction dating from immemorial antiquity,
that she could never go anywhere without being wrapped
up), and, having been enrolled by her attendant, led the
way. She made various genteel pauses on the stairs for
breath, and clutched at her heart in the drawing-room as if
834 THt: MVSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
it had very nearly got loose, and she had caught it in the act
of taking wing.
'* And the second floor?" said Mr. Grewgious, on finding
the first satisfactory.
" Mr. Grewgious," replied Mrs. Billickin, turning upon
him with ceremony, as if the time had now come when a
distinct understanding on a difficult point must be arrived
at, and a solemn confidence established, *' the second floor
is over this."
" Can we see that, too, ma'am ? "
" Yes, sir," returned Mrs. Billickin, " it is open as the
day."
That also proving satisfactory, Mr. Grewgious retired into
a window with Rosa for a few words of consultation, and
then, asking for pen and ink, sketched out a line or two of
agreement. In the mean time Mrs. Billickin took a seat,
and delivered a kind of index to, or abstract of, the general
question.
" Five-and-forty shillings per week by the month certain
at the time of year," said Mrs. Billickin, " is only reasona-
ble to both parties. It is not Bond Street nor yet St. James's
Palace ; but it is not pretended that it is. Neither is it at-
tempted to be denied — for why should it ? — that the arch-
ing leads to a mews. Mewses must exist. Respecting at-
tendance ; two is kep' at liberal wages. Words /ms arisen
as to tradesmen, but dirty shoes on fresh hearth-stoning was
attributable, and no wish for a commission on your orders.
Coals is either Ify the fire, or per the scuttle." She empha-
sized the prepositions as marking a subtle but immense dif-
ference. " Dogs is not viewed with favior. Besides litter,
they gets stole, and sharing suspicions is apt to creep in, and
unpleasantness takes place."
By this time Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines and
his earnest-money ready. " I have signed it for the ladies,
ma'am," he said, " and you'll have the goodness to sign it
for yourself. Christian and surname, there, if you please."
" Mr. Grewgious," said Mrs. Billickin, in a new burst of
candor, " no, sir. You must excuse the Christian name."
Mr. Grewgious stared at her.
** The door-plate is used as a protection," said Mrs. Bil-
lickin, "and acts as such, and go from it I will not."
Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.
*' No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as
this 'ouse is known indefinite as Billickin's, and so long as
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 835
it is a doubt with the riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin',
near the street door or down the airy, and what his weight
and size, so long I feel safe. But commit myself to a soli-
tary female statement, no, miss ! Nor would you for a
moment wish," said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of
injury, '* to take that advantage of your sex, if you was not
brought to it by inconsiderate example."
Rosa, reddening as if she had made some most disgrace-
ful attempt to overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grew-
gious to rest content with any signature. And, accordingly,
in a baronical way, the sign manual Billickin got appended
to the document.
Details were then settled for taking possession on the next
day but one, when Miss Twinkleton might be reasonably ex-
pected ; and Rosa went back to Furnival's Inn on her
guardian's arm.
Behold Mr. Tartar walking up and down Furnival's Inn,
(becking himself when he saw them coming, and advancing
toward them !
" It occurred to me," hinted Mr. TaUar, '' that we might
go up the river, the weather being so delicious and the tide
serving. I have a boat of my own at the Temple Stairs."
** I have not been up the river for this many a day," said
Mr. Grewgious, tempted.
'' I was never up the river," added Rosa.
Within half an hour they were setting this matter right by
going up the river. The tide was running with them, the
afternoon was charming, Mr. Tartar's boat was perfect.
Mr. Tartar and Lobley (Mr. Tartar's man) pulled a pair of
oars. Mr. Tartar had a yacht, it seemed, lying somewhere
down by Greenhithe ; and Mr. Tartar's man had charge of
this yacht, and was detached upon his present service. He
was a jolly favored man, with tawny hair and whiskers, and
a big red face. He was the dead image of the sun in old
wood cuts, his hair and whiskers answering for rays all
round him. Resplendent in the bow of the boat, he was a
shining sight, with a man-of-war's man's shirt on — or off ac-
cording to opinion — and his arms and breast tattooed all
sorts of patterns. Lobley seemed to take it easily, and so
did Mr. Tartar ; yet their oars bent as they pulled, and the
boat bounded under them. Mr. Tartar talked as if he were
doing nothing, to Rosa, who was really doing nothing, and
to Mr. Grewgious, who was doing this much, that he steered
all wrong ; but what did that matter^ when a turn of Mr.
836 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Tartar's skillful wrist, or a mere grin of Mr. Lobley's over
the bow, put all to rights ! The tide bore them on in the
gayest and most sparkling manner, until they stopped to dine
in some everlastingly green garden, needing no matter-of-
fact identification here, and then the tide obligingly turned
— being devoted to that party alone for that day ; and as
they floated idly among some osier beds, Rosa tried v.-hat
she could do in the rowing way, and came off splendidly,
being much assisted ; and^ Mr. Grewgious tried what he
could do, and came off on his back, doubled up with an oar
under his chin, being not assisted at all. Then there was
an interval of rest under boughs (such rest !) what time Mr.
Lobley mopped, and, arranging cushions, stretchers, and the
like, danced the tight-rope the whole length of the boat like
a man to whom shoes were a superstition and stockings
slavery ; and then came the sweet return among delicious
odors of limes in bloom, and musical ripplings ; and all too
soon the great black city cast its shadow on the waters, and
its dark bridges spanned them as death spans life, and the
everlastingly green garden seemed to be left for everlasting,
unregainable and far away.
" Can not people get through life without gritty stages, I
wonder ! " Rosa thought next day, when the town was
very gritty again, and every thing had a strange and an
uncomfortable appearance of seeming to wait for some-
thing that wouldn't come. No. She began to think that
now the Cloisterham school-days had glided past and gone,
the gritty stages would begin to set in at intervals and make
themselves wearily known !
Yet what did Rosa expect ? Did she expect Miss
Twinkleton ? Miss Twinkleton duly came. Forth from
her back parlor issued the Billirkin to receive Miss Twinkle-
ton, and war was in the Billickin's eye from that fell
moment.
Miss Twinkleton brought a quantity of luggage with her,
having all Rosa's as well as her own. The Billickin took
it ill that Miss Twinkleton's mind, being sorely disturbed
by this luggage, failed to take in her personal identity with
that clearness of perception which was due to its demands.
Stateliness mounted her gloomy throne upon the Billickin's
brow in consequence. And when Miss Twinkleton, in
agitation, taking stock of her trunks and packages, of
which she had seventeen, particularly counted in the Bil-
lickin herself as number eleven, the B. found it necessary to
repudiate.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 837
"Things can not too soon be put upon the footing," said
she, with a candor so demonstrative as to be almost obtru-
sive, " that the person of the ouse is not a box nor yet a
bundle, nor a carpet-bag. No, I am 'ily obleeged to you,
Miss Twinkleton, nor yet a beggar."
The last disclaimer had reference to Miss Twinkleton's
distractedly pressing two-and-sixpence on her instead of
the cabman.
Thus cast off, Miss Twinkleton wildly inquired, '' which
gentleman " was to be paid ? ~ There being two gentlemen
in that position (Miss Twinkleton having arrived with two
cabs), each gentleman, on being paid, held forth his two-
and-sixpence on the flat of his open hand, and with a
speechless stare and a dropped jaw displayed his wrong to
heaven and earth. Terrified by this alarming spectacle, Miss
Twinkleton placed another shilling in each hand, at the
same time appealing to the law in flurried accents and re-
counting her luggage, this time with the two gentlemen in,
who caused the total to come out complicated. Meanwhile
the two gentlemen, each looking very nard at the last shil-
ling grumblingly, as if it might become eighteenpence if he
kept his eyes on it, descended the doorsteps, ascended their
carriages, and drove away, leaving Miss Twinkleton on a
bonnet-box in tears.
The Billickin beheld this manifestation of weakness with-
out sympathy, and gave directions for '' a young man to be
got in " to wrestle with the luggage. When that gladiator
had disappeared from the arena, peace ensued, and the new
lodgers dined.
But the Billickin had somehow come to the knowledge
that Miss Twinkleton kept a school. The leap from that
knowledge to the inference that Miss Twinkleton set her-
self to teach her something was easy, '' But you don't do
it," soHloquized the Billickin ; ''/am not your pupil, what-
ever she," meaning Rosa, "may be, poor thing ! "
Miss Twinkleton, on the other hand, having changed her
dress and recovered her spirits, was animated by a blind
desire to improve the occasion in all ways, and to be as
serene a model as possible. In a happy compromise be-
tween her two states of existence she had already become,
with her work-basket before her, the equably vivacious com-
panion with a slight judicious flavoring of information, when
the Billickin announced herself.,
" I will not hide from you, ladies," said the B., enveloped
838 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
in the shawl of state, " for it is not my character to hide,
neither my motives, nor my actions, that I take the liberty
to look in upon you to express a 'ope that your dinner was
to your liking. Though not professed but plain, still her
wages should be a sufficient object to her to stimulate to
soar above mere roast and biled."
*'We dined very well indeed," said Rosa, ''thank you."
"Accustomed," said Miss Twinkleton, with a gracious
air, which to the jealous ears of the Billickin seemed to add
" My good woman/' — " accustomed to a liberal and nutri-
tious, yet plain and salutary diet, we have found no reason to
bemoan our absence from the ancient city and the methodi-
cal household in which the quiet routine of our lot has
been hitherto cast."
" I did think it well to mention to my cook," observed
the Billickin, with a gush of candor, " which I 'ope you will
agree with, Miss Twinkleton, was a right precaution, that
the young lady being used to what we should consider here
but poor diet, had better be brought forward by degrees.
For a rush from scanty feeding to generous feeding, and
from what you may call messing to what you may call method,
do require a power of constitution, which is not often
found in youth, particularly when undermined by boarding-
school ! "
It will be seen that the Billickin now openly pitted herself
against Miss Twinkleton, as one whom she had fully ascer-
tained to be her natural enemy.
" Your remarks," returned Miss Twinkleton, from a re-
mote moral eminence, " are well-meant, I have no doubt ;
but you will permit me to observe that they develop a mis-
taken view of the subject, which can only be imputed to
your extreme want of accurate information."
" My information," retorted the Billickin, throwing in an
extra syllable for the sake of emphasis at once polite and
painful— "my information, Miss Twinkleton, were my
own experience, which I believe is usually considered to be
good guidance. But whether so or not, I was put in youth
to a very genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no
less a lady than yourself, of about your own age, or, it may be
some years younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from
the table which has run through my life."
" Very likely," said Miss Twinkleton, still from her dis-
tant eminence ; " and very much to be deplored. Rosa,
my dear, how are you getting on v'^h your work ? "
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 839
" Miss Twinkleton," resumed the Billickin, in a courtly
manner, " before retiring on the 'int, as a lady should, I wish
to ask of yourself as a lady, whether I am to consider that
my words is doubted ? "
*' I am not aware on what ground you cherish such a sup-
position," began Miss Twinkleton, when the Billickin neatly
stopped her.
" Do not, if you please, put suppositions betwixt my lij)s,
where none sech have been imparted by myself ! Your flow
of words is great. Miss Twinkleton, and no doubt is expected
from you by your pupils, and no doubt is considered worth
the money. No doubt, I am sure. But not paying for flows
of words, and not asking to be favored with them here, I
wish to repeat my question."
" If you refer to the poverty of your circulation," began
Miss Twinkleton, when again the Billickin nearly stopped
her.
" I have used no such expressions."
" If you refer then to the poorness of your blood."
" Brought upon me," stipulated t'ne Billickin, expressly,
" at a boarding-school."
'' Then," resumed Miss Twinkleton, " all I can say is, that
I am bound to believe on your asseveration that it is very
poor indeed. I can not forbear adding, that if that unfortu-
nate circumstance influences your conversation, it is much
to be lamented, and it is eminently desirable that your blood
were richer. Rosa, my dear, how are you getting on with
your work ? "
*' Ahem ! before retiring, miss," proclaimed the Billickin
to Rosa, loftily canceling Miss Twinkleton, " I should wish
it to be understood betv/een yourself and me that my trans-
actions in future is with you alone. I know no elderly lady
here, miss, none older than yourself."
** A highly desirable arrangement, Rosa, my dear," ob-
served Miss Twinkleton.
*' It is not, miss," said the Billickin, with a sarcastic smile,
" that I possess the mill I have heard of, in which old single
ladies could be ground up young (what a gift it would be to
some of us !) but that I limit myself to you totally."
" When I have any desire to communicate a request to the
person of the house, Rosa, my dear," observed Miss
Twinkleton, with majestic cheerfulness, " I will make it
known to you, and you will kindly undertake, I am sure,
that it is conveyed to the proper quarter."
840 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
" Good-evening, miss," said the Billickin, at once affec-
tionately and distantly. " Being alone in my eyes, I wish
you good-evening with best wishes, and do not find myself
drove, I am truly appy to say, into expressing my contempt
for any individual, unfortunately for yourself belonging to
you."
The Billickin gracefully withdrew with this parting speech,
and from that time Rosa occupied the restless position of
shuttlecock between these two battledores. Nothing could
be done without a smart match being played out. Thus, on
the daily arising question of dinner, Miss Twinkleton would
say, the three being present together :
*' Perhaps, my love, you will consult with the person of
the house whether she can procure us a lamb's fry ; or, fail-
ing that, a roast fowl."
On which tlie Billickin would retort (Rosa not having
spoken a word), " If you was better accustomed to butcher's
meat, miss, you would not entertain the idea of a lamb's fry.
Firstly, because lambs has long been sheep, and, secondly,
because there is such things as killing-days, and there is not.
As to roast fowls, miss, why you must be quite surfeited
with roast fowls, letting alone your buying, when you market
for yourself, the agedest of poultry with the scaliest of legs,
quite as if you was accustomed to picking 'em out for cheap-
ness. Try a little inwention, miss. Use yourself to 'ouse-
keeping a bit. Come now, think of somethink else."
To this encouragement, offered with the indulgent tolera-
tion of a wise and liberal expert. Miss Twinkleton would
rejoin, reddening
" Or, my dear, you might propose to the person of the
house a duck."
'* Well, miss ! " the Billickin would exclaim (still no word
being spoken by Rosa), " you do surprise me when you
speak of ducks ! Not to mention that they are getting out
of season and very dear, it really strikes to my heart to see
you have a duck, for the breast, which is the only delicate
cuts in a duck, always goes in a direction which I can not im-
agine where, and your own plate comes down so miserably
skin-and-bony ! Try again, miss. Think more of yourself
and less of others. A dish of sweet-breads now, or a bit of
mutton. Somethink at which you can get your equal chance."
Occasionally the game would wax very brisk indeed, and
would be kept up with a smartness rendering such an en-
counter as this quite tame. But the Billickin almost invaria-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 841
bly made by far the higher score, and would come in with
side hits of the most unexpected and extraordinary descrip-
tion, when she seemed without a chance.
All this did not improve the gritty state of things in Lon-
don, or the air that London had acquired in Rosa's eyes of
waiting for something that never came. Tired of working
and conversing with Miss Twinkleton, she suggested work-
ing and reading ; to which Miss Twinkleton readily assented,
as an admirable reader, of tried powers. But Rosa soon
made the discovery that Miss Twinkleton didn't read fairly.
She cut the love scenes, interpolated passages in praise of
female celibacy, and was guilty of other glaring pious
frauds. As an instance in point, take the glowing passage :
" * Ever dearest and best adored,* said Edward, clasping the
dear head to his breast, and drawing the silken hair through
his caressing fingers, from which he suffered it to fall like
golden rain ; * ever dearest and best adored, let us fly from
the unsympathetic world and the sterile coldness of the
stony-hearted, to the rich warm paradise of trust and love.' "
Miss Twinkleton's fraudulent version tamely ran thus :
" * Ever engaged to me, with the consent of our parents on
both sides, and the approbation of the silver-haired rector of
the district,' said Edward, respectfully raising to his lips the
taper fingers so skillful in embroidery, tambour, crochet,
and other truly feminine arts ; ' let me call on thy papa ere
to-morrow's dawn has sunk into the west, and propose a
suburban establishment, lowly it may be, but within our
means, where he will be always welcome as an evening guest,
and where every arrangement shall invest economy and con-
stant interchange of scholastic acquirements with the attri-
butes of the ministering angel to domestic bliss.' "
As the days crept on and nothing happened, the neighbors
began to say that the pretty girl at Billickin's, who looked so
wistfully and so much out of the gritty windows of the
drawing-room, seemed to be losing her spirits. The pretty
girl might have lost them but for the accident of lighting on
some books of voyages and sea-adventure. As a compensa-
tion against their romance, Miss Twinkleton, reading aloud,
made the most of all the latitudes and longitudes, bearings,
winds, and currents, offsets, and other statistics (which she
felt to be none the less improving because they expressed
nothing whatever to her) ; while Rosa, listening intently,
made the most of what was nearest to her heart. So they
both did better than before.
842 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
CHAPTER XXni.
THE DAWN AGAIN.
Although Mr. Crisparkle and John Jasper met daily under
the cathedral roof, nothing at any time passed between them
bearing reference to Edwin Drood after the time, more than
half a year gone by, when Jasper mutely showed the minor
canon the conclusion and the resolution entered in his diary.
It is not likely that they ever met, though so often, without
the thoughts of each reverting to the subject. It is not
likely that they ever met, though so often, without a sensa-
tion on the part of each that the other was a perplexing
secret to him. Jasper as the denouncer and pursuer of Ne-
ville Landless, and Mr. Crisparkle as his consistent advo-
cate and protector, must at least have stood sufficiently in
opposition to have speculated with keen interest on the
steadiness and next direction of the other's designs. But
neither ever broached the theme.
False pretense not being in the minor canon's nature, he
doubtless displayed openly that he would at any time have
revived the subject and even desired to discuss it. The de-
termined reticence of Jasper, however, was not to be so ap-
proached. Impassive, moody, solitary, resolute, so concen-
trated on one idea, and on its attendant fixed purpose, that
he would share it with no fellow-creature, he lived apart from
human life. Constantly exercising an art which brought him
into mechanical harmony with others, and which could not
have been pursued unless he and they had been in the nicest
mechanical relations and unison, it is curious to consider that
the spirit of the man was in moral accordance or interchange
with nothing around him. This, indeed, he had confided to
his lost nephew before the occasion for his present inflexi-
bility arose.
That he must know of Rosa's abrupt departure, and that
he must divine its cause, was not to be doubted. Did he
suppose that he had terrified her into silence, or did he sup-
pose that she had imparted to any one — to Mr. Crisparkle
himself, for instance — the particulars of his last interview
with her? Mr. Crisparkle could not determine this in his
mind. He could not but admit, however, as a just man, that
it was not, of itself, a crime to fall in love with Rosa, any
more than it was a crime to offer to set love above revenge.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOI). 843
The dreadful suspicion of Jasper which Rosa was so
shocked to have received into her imagination, appeared to
have no harbor in Mr. Crisparkle's. If it ever haunted
Helena's thoughts, or Neville's, neither gave it one spoken
word of utterance. Mr. Grewgious took no pains to conceaJ
his implacable dislike of Jasper, yet he never referred it, how-
ever distantly, to such a source. But he was a reticent as
well as an eccentric man ; and he made no mention of a cer-
tain evening when he warmed his hands at the Gate House
fire, and looked steadily down upon a certain heap of torn
and miry clothes upon the floor.
Drowsy Cloisterham, whenever it awoke to a passing recon-
sideration of a story above six months old and dismissed by
the bench of magistrates,^ was pretty equally divided in
opinion whether John Jasper's beloved nephew had been
killed by his treacherously passionate rival, or in an open
struggle ; or had, for his own purposes, spirited himself away.
It then lifted up its head to notice that the bereaved Jasper
was still ever devoted to discovery and revenge ; and then
dozed off again. This was the condition ui matters all
round, at the period to which the present history has now
attained.
The cathedral doors have closed for the night, and the
choir-master, on a short leave of absence for two or three
services, sets his face toward London. He travels thither
by the means by which Rosa traveled, and arrives, as Rosa
arrived, on a hot, dusty evening.
His traveling baggage is easily carried in his hand, and he
repairs with it, on foot, to a hybrid hotel in a little square
behind Aldersgate Street, near the General Post-office. It is
hotel, boarding-house, or lodging-house, at its visitor's option.
It announces itself in the new railway advertisers, as a novel
enterprise timidly beginning to spring up. It bashfully, al-
most apologetically, gives the traveler to understand that it
does not expect him, on the good old constitutional hotel plan,
to order a pint of sweet blacking for his drinking, and throw
it away ; but insinuates that he may have his boots blacked
instead of his stomach, and may be also have bed, breakfast,
attendance, and a porter up all night, for a certain fixed
charge. From these and similar promises many true Britons
in the lowest spirits deduce that the times are leveling times,
except in the article of high-roads, of which there will shortly
not be one in England.
He eats without appetite, and soon goes forth again. East-
844 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
ward and still eastward through the stale streets he takes his
way until he reaches his destination ; a miserable court spe-
cially miserable among many such.
He ascends a broken staircase, opens a door, looks into a
dark, stifling room, and says, " Are you alone here ? "
" Alone, deary ; worse luck for me and better for you,"
replies a croaking voice. " Come in, come in, whoever you
be ; I can't see you till I light a match, yet I seem to know
the sound of your speaking. I am acquainted with you,
ain't I?"
*' Light your match, and try."
" So I will, deary, so I will ; but my hand that shakes, as
I can't lay it on the match all in a moment. And I cough so
that, put my matches where I nfay, I never find them there.
They jump and start, as I cough and cough, like live things.
Are you off a voyage, deary ? "
*' No."
" Not sea-faring ? "
" No."
** Well, there's land customers and there's water customers.
I'm a mother to both. Different from Jack Chinaman,
t'other side the court. He ain't a father to neither. It ain't
in him. And he ain't got the true secret of mixing, though
he charges as much as me that has, and more if he can get
it. Here's a match, and now where's the candle ? If my
cough takes me, I shall cough out twenty matches afore I
gets a light."
But she finds the candle, and lights it before the cough
comes on. It seizes her in the moment of success, and she
sits down rocking herself to and fro, and gasping at inter-
vals. " Oh, my lungs is awful bad, my lungs is wore away
to cabbage-nets ! " until the fit is over. During its continu-
ance she has had no power of sight, or any other power not
absorbed in the struggle ; but as it leaves her, she begins to
strain her eyes, and as soon as she is able to articulate, she
cries staring :
"Why, it's you ! "_
" Are you so surprised to see me ? "
" I thought I never should have seen you again, deary. I
thought you was dead and gone to heaven."
" Why ? "
" I didn't suppose you could have kept away, alive, so
long, from the poor old soul with the real receipt for mix-
in rr it. And you are in mourning too ! Why didn't you
come and have a pipe or two of comfort ? Did they
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 845
leave you money, perhaps, and so you didn't want com-
fort ? "
" No !."
" Who was they as died, deary ? "
" A relative."
" Died of what, lovey ? "
"Probably, death."
^ " We are short to-night ! " cries the woman, with a propi-
tiatory laugh. ''Short and snappish we are! But we're
out of^^sorts for want of a smoke. We've got the all-overs,
haven't us, deary ? But this is the place to cure 'em in ; this
is the ^lace where the all-overs is smoked off ! "
" You may make ready then," replies the visitor, " as soon
as you like."
He divests himself of his shoes, loosens his cravat, and
lies across the foot of the squalid bed, with his head resting
on his left hand.
" Now you begin to look like yourself," says the woman,
approvingly. " Now I begin to know my old customer in-
deed ! Been trying to mix for yourself this long time, pop-
pet ? "
"I have been taking it now and then in my own way."
" Never take it in your own way. It ain't good for trade,
and it ain't good for you. Where's my ink-bottle, and
Where's my thimble, and where's my little spoon ? He's
going to take it in a 'artful form now, my deary dear ! "
Entering on her process, and beginning to bubble and
blow at the faint spark inclosed in the hollow of her hands,
she speaks from time to time in a tone of snuffling satisfac-
tion, without leaving off. When he speaks, he does so with-
out looking at her, and as if his thoughts were already roam-
ing away by anticipation.
** I've got a pretty many smokes ready for you, first and
last, haven't I, chuckey ? "
" A good many."
" When you first come, you was quite new to it ; warn't
ye ? "
'* Yes, I was easily disposed of, then."
" But you got on in the world, and was able by and by to
take your pipe with the best of 'em, warn't ye ? "
** Ay. And the worst."
" It's just ready for you. What a sweet singer you was
when you first come ! Used to drop your head, and sing
yourself off, like a bird ! It's leady for you now, deary."
846 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
He takes it from her with great care, and puts the mouth«
piece to his lips. She seats herself beside him, ready to re-
fill the pipe. After inhaling a few whiffs in silence, he
doubtingly accosts her with :
" Is it as potent as it used to be ? "
*' What do you speak of, deary ? "
** What should I speak of, but what I have in my month ? "
" It's just the same. Always the identical same."
" It doesn't taste so. And it's slower."
You've got more used to it, you see."
" That may be the cause, certainly. Look here!" He
stops, becomes dreamy and seems to forget that he,,lias in-
vited her attention. She bends over him, and speaks in his
ear.
" I'm attending to you. Says you just now, look here.
Says I now, I am attending to ye. We was talking just be-
fore of your being used to it."
" I know all that. I was only thinking. Look here. Sup-
pose you had something in your mind ; something you were
going to do."
** Yes, deary ; something I was going to do ? "
*' But had not quite determined to do."
" Yes, deary."
" Might or might not do, you understand."
** Yes." With the point of a needle she stirs the contents
of the bowl.
** Should you do it in your fancy when you were lying
here doing this ? "
She nods her head. " Over and over again."
" Just like me ! I did it over and over again. I have
done it hundreds and thousands of times in this room."
" It's to be hoped it was pleasant to do, deary."
*' It was pleasant to do ! "
He says this with a savage air, and a spring start at her.
Quite unmoved, she retouches and replenishes the contents
of the bowl with her little spatula. Seeing her intent upon
the occupation, he sinks into his former attitude.
" It was a journey, a difficult and dangerous journey.
That was the subject in my mind. A hazardous and peril-
ous journey, over abysses where a slip would be destruction.
Look down, look down ! You see what lies at the bottom
there ? "
He has darted forward to say it, and to point at the ground
as though at some imaginary object far beneath. The
J J J J
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 847
woman looks at him as his spasmodic face approaches close
to hers, and not at his pointing. She seems to know what
the influence of her perfect quietude will be ; if so she has
not miscalculated it, for he subsides again.
" Well ; I have told you, I did it, here, hundreds and
thousands of times. What do I say ? I did it millions and
billions of times. I did it so often and through such vast
expanses of time, that when it was really done, it seemed not
worth the doing, it was done so soon."
" That's the journey you have been away upon ? " she
quietly remarks.
He glares at her as he smokes ; and then, his eyes becom-
ing filmy, answers : " That's the journey."
Silence ensues. His eyes are sometimes closed and some-
times open. The woman sits beside him very attentive to
the pipe, which is all the while at his lips.
" I'll warrant," she observes, when he has been looking
fixedly at her for some consecutive moments, with a singular
appearance in his eyes of seeming to see her a long way off,
instead of so near him — " I'll warrant you made the journey
in a many ways, when you made it so often ? "
" No; always in one way."
" Always in the same way ? "
"Ay."
" In the way in which it was really made at last ? "
"Ay."
"And always took the same pleasure in harping on it?"
"Ay."
For the time he appears unequal to any other reply than
this lazy monosyllabic assent. Probably to assure herself
that it is not the assent of a mere automaton, she reverses
the form of her next sentence.
" Did you never get tired of it, deary, and try to call up
something else for a change ? "
He struggles into a sitting posture, and retorts upon her :
''What do you mean? What did I want? What did I
come for ? "
She gently lays him back again, and, before returning him
the instrument he has dropped, revives the fire in it with her
own breath ; then says to him coaxingly :
" Sure, sure, sure ! Yes, yes, yes ! Now I go along with
you. You was too quick for me. I see now. You come o'
purpose to take the journey. Why, I might have knowi^ ii
through its standing by you so,"
84S J'HE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
He answers first with a laugh, and then with a passionate
setting of his teeth : *' Yes, I came on purpose. When I
could not bear my life I came to get the relief, and I got it.
It WAS one ! It was one ! " This repetition with extraordi-
nary vehemence, and the snarl of a wolf.
She observes him very cautiously, as though mentally feel-
ing her way to her next remark. It is : *' There was a fel-
low-traveler, deary."
*' Ha, ha, ha ! " He breaks into a ringing laugh, or rather
yell.
" To think," he cries, "how often fellow-traveler, and yet
not know it ! To think how many times he went the jour-
ney, and never saw the road ! "
The woman kneels upon the floor, with her arms crossed
on the coverlet of the bed, close by him, and her chin upon
them. In this crouching attitude she watches him. The
pipe is falling from his mouth. She puts it back, and laying
her hand upon his chest, moves him slightly from side to
side. Upon that he speaks, as if she had spoken.
" Yes ! I always made the journey first, before the changes
of colors and the great landscapes and glittering processions
began. They couldn't begin till it was off my mind ! I had
no room till then for any thing else."
Once more he lapses into silence. Once more she lays her
hand upon his chest, and moves him slightly to and fro, as
a cat might stimulate a half-slain mouse. Once more he
speaks, as if she had spoken.
*' What ? I told you so. When it comes to be real at
last, it is so short that it seems unreal for the first time.
Hark ! "
" Yes, deary. I'm listening."
"Time and place are both at hand."
He is on his feet speaking in a whisper, and as if in the
dark.
*' Time, place, and fellow-traveler," she suggests, adopting
his tone, and holding him softly by the arm.
*' How could the time be at hand unless the fellow-traveler
was ? Hush ! The journey's made. It's over."
" So soon ? " ^
" That's what I said to you. So soon. Wait a little.
This is a vision. I shall sleep it off. It has been too short
and easy. I must have a better vision than this ; this is the
poorest of all. No struggle, no consciousness of peril, no
entreaty — and yet I never saw f/iaJ before." With a start.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 849
" Saw what, deary ? "
" Look at it ! Look what a poor, mean, miserable thing
it is ! That must be real. It's over ! "
He has accompanied this incoherence with some wild, un-
meaning gestures ; but they trail off into the progressive
inaction of stupor, and he lies a log upon the bed.
The woman, however, is still inquisitive. With a repeti-
tion of her cat-like action, she slightly stirs his body again,
and listens ; stirs again, and listens ; whispers to it and
listens. Finding it past all rousing for the time, she slowly
gets upon her feet, with an air of disappointment, and flicks
the face with the back of her hand in the turning from it.
But she goes no further away from it than the chair upon
the hearth. She sits in it, with an elbow on one of its arms,
and her chin upon her hand, intent upon him. " I heard ye
say once," she croaks, under her breath — " when I was lying
where you're lying, and you were making your speculations
upon me, ' unintelligible ! ' I heard you say so, of two more
than me. But don't ye be too sure always ; d^n't ye be too
sure, beauty ! " *
Unwinking, cat-like, and intent, she presently adds :
" Not so potent as it once was ? Ah ! Perhaps not at first.
You may be more right there. Practice makes perfect. I
may have learned the secret how to make ye talk, deary."
He talks no more, whether or no. Twitching in an ugly
way from time to time, both as to his face and limbs, he lies
heavy and silent. The wretched candle burns down ; the
woman takes its expiring end between her fingers, lights
another at it, crams the guttering, frying morsel deep into
the candlestick, and rams it home with the new candle, as if
she were loading some ill-savored and unseemly weapon of
witchcraft ; the new candle, in its turn, burns down ; and
still he lies insensible. At length, what remains of the last
candle is blown out, and daylight looks into the room.
It has not looked very long, when he sits up chilled and
shaking, slowly recovers consciousness of where he is, and
makes himself ready to depart. The woman receives what
he pays her with a grateful " Bless ye, bless ye, deary ! "
md seems, tired out, to begin making herself ready for sleep
-is he leaves the room.
But seeming maybe false or true. It is false in this case,
for the moment the stairs have ceased to creak under his
tread, she glides after him, muttering emphatically, " I'll not
miss ye twice ' "
8so THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
There is no egress from the court but by its entrance.
With a v/eird peep from the doorway she watches for his
looking back. He does not look back before disappearing,
with a wavering step. She follows him, peeps from the
court, sees him still faltering on without looking back, and
holds him in view.
He repairs to the back of Aldergate Street, where a door
immediately opens to his knocking. She crouches in another
doorway, watching that one, and easily comprehending that
he puts up temporarily at that house. Her patience is un-
exhausted by[hours. For sustenance she can, and does, buy
bread within a hundred yards, and milk as it is carried past
her.
He comes forth again at noon, having changed his dress,
but carrying nothing in his hand, and having nothing carried
for him. He is not going back into the country, therefore,
just yet. She follows him a little way, hesitates, instantane-
ously turns confidently, and goes straight into the house he
has quitted.
" Is this gentleman from Cloisterham in-doors ?"
"Just gone "out."
" Unlucky. When does the gentleman return to Cloister-
ham ? "
** At six this evening."
*' Bless ye and thank ye. May the Lord prosper a busi-
ness where a civil question, even from a poor soul, is so
civilly answered !"
" I'll not miss ye twice ! '* repeats the poor soul in the
street, and not so civilly. " I lost ye last where that omnibus
you got into nigh your journey's end plied betwixt the station
and the place. I wasn't so much as certain that you even
went right on to the place. Now I know he did. My gen-
tleman from Cloisterham, I'll be there before ye and bide
your coming. I've sworn my oath that I'll not miss ye
twice ! "
Accordingly, that same evening the poor soul stands in
Cloisterham, High Street, looking at the many quaint gables
of the Nuns' House, and getting through the time as she
best can until nine o'clock ; at which hour she has reason
to suppose that the arriving omnibus passengers may have
some interest for her. The friendly darkness, at that hour,
renders it easy for her to ascertain whether this be so or
not ; and it is so, for the passenger not to be missed twice
arrives among the rest.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DRUOl). 851
" Now, let me see what becomes of you. Go on ! "
An observation addressed to the air. And yet it might
be addressed to the passenger, so compliantly does he go on
along the High Street until he comes to an arched gate-way,
at which he unexpectedly vanishes. The poor soul quickens
her pace ; is swift, and close upon him entering under the
gate-way ; but only sees a postern staircase on one side of it,
and on the other side an ancient vaulted room in which a
large-headed, gray-haired gentleman is vvriting, under the
odd circumstances of sitting open to the thoroughfare and
eying all who pass, as if he were toll-taker of the gate-way ;
though the way is free.
" Halloo ! " he cries in a low voice, seeing her brought to
a stand-still ; ** who are you looking for ? "
" There was a gentleman passed inhere this minute, sir."
" Of course there was. What do you want with him ? "
" Where do he live, deary ?"
" Live ? Up that staircase."
" Bless ye ! Whisper. What's his name, deary ? "
" Surname Jasper, Christian name John. Mr. John Jasper."
" Has he a calling, good gentleman ? "
" Calling ? Yes. Sings in the choir."
** In the spire ? "
"Choir."
*' What's that ? "
Mr. Datchery rises from his papers, and comes to his door-
step. " Do you know what a cathedral is ? " he asks, jocosely.
The woman nods.
" What is it ? "
She looks puzzled, casting about in her mind to find a
definition, when it occurs to her that it is easier to point out
the substantial object itself, massive against the dark blue
sky and the early stars.
" That's the answer. Go in there at seven to-morrow
morning, and you may see Mr. John Jasper, and hear him
too."
" Thank ye ! Thank ye ! "
The burst of triumph in which she thanks him does not
escape the notice of the single buffer of an easy temper
living idly on his means. He glances at her ; clasps his
hands behind him, as the wont of such buffers is ; and
lounges along the echoing precincts at her side.
"Or," he suggests, with a backward hitch of his head,
" you can go up at once to Mr. Jasper's rooms there."
852 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
The woman eyes him with a cunning smile, and shakes
her head.
" Oh ! You don't want to speak to him ? "
She repeats her dumb reply, and forms with her lips a
soundless " No."
" You can admire him at a distance three times a day,
whenever you like. It's a long way to come for that,
though."
The woman looked up quickly. If Mr. Datchery thinks
she is to be so induced to declare where she comes from,
he is of a much easier temper than she is. But she acquits
him of such an artful thought, as he lounges along, like the
chartered bore of the city, with his uncovered gray hair
blowing about, and his purposeless hands rattling the loose
money in the pockets of his trowsers.
The chink of the money has an attraction for her greedy
ears. " Wouldn't you help me to pay for my Travelers' Lodg-
ing, dear gentleman, and to pay my way along ? I am a
poor soul, I am indeed, and troubled with a grievous cough."
" You know the Travelers' Lodging, I perceive, and are
making directly for it," is Mr. Datchery's bland comment,
still rattling his loose money. " Been here often, my good
woman ? "
"Once in all my life."
"Ay, ay?"
They have arrived at the entrance to the Monks' Vine-
yard. An approriate remembrance, presenting an exemplary
model for imitation, is revived in the woman's mind by the
sight of the place. She stops at the gate, and says energet-
ically —
"By this token, though you mayn't believe it,' That a
young gentleman gave me three-and-sixpence as I was
coughing my breath away on this very grass. I asked him
for three and-sixpence, and he gave it me."
" Wasn't it a little cool to name your sum ? " hints Mr
Datchery, still rattling. " Isn't it customary to leave the
amount open ? Mightn't it have had the appearance, to the
young gentleman, only the appearance, that he was rather
dictated to ?"
" Look'ee here, deary," she replies, in a confidential and
persuasive tone, " I wanted the money to lay it out on a med-
icine as does me good, and as I deal in. I told the young
gentleman so, and he gave it me, and I laid it out honest to
the last brass farden. I want to lay out the same sum in the
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 853
same way now ; and if you'll give it me, I'll lay it out honest
to the last brass farden again, upon my soul ! "
*' What's the medicine ? "
'' I'll be honest with you beforehand, as well as after. It's
opium."
Mr. Datchery, with a sudden change of countenance, gives
her a sudden look.
*' It's opium, deary. Neither more nor less. And it's like
a human creetur so far, that you always hear what can be
said against it, but seldom what can be said in its praise."
Mr. Datchery begins very slowly to count out the sum de-
manded of him. Greedily watching his hands, she continues
to hold forth on the great example set him.
** It was last Christmas Eve, just arter dark, the once that I
was here afore, when the young gentleman gave me the three-
and-six."
Mr. Datchery stops in his counting, finds he has counted
wrong, shakes his money together, and begins again.
" And the young gentleman's name," she adds, " was Ed-
win."
Mr. Datchery drops some money, stoops to pick it up, and
reddens with the exertion as he asks
" How do you know the young gentleman's name ? "
" I asked him for it, and he told it me. I only asked him
the two questions, what was his chris'en name, and whether
he'd a sweetheart? And he answered, Edwin, and he
hadn't."
Mr. Datchery pauses with the selected coins in his hand,
rather as if he were falling into a brown study of their value,
and couldn't bear to part with them. The woman looks at
him distrustfully, and with her anger brewing for the event
of his thinking i3etter of the gift ; but he bestows it on her
as if he were abstracting his mind from the sacrifice, and
with many servile thanks she goes her way.
John Jasper's lamp is kindled and his light-house is shining
when Mr. Datchery returns alone toward it. As mariners on
a dangerous voyage, approaching an iron-bound coast, may
look along the beams of the Avarning light to the haven lying
beyond it that may never be reached, so Mr. Datchery's
wistful gaze is directed to this beacon, and beyond.
His object in now revisiting his lodging is merely to put
on the hat which seems so superfluous an article in his ward-
robe. It is half-past ten by the cathedral clock, when he
walks out into the precincts again ; he lingers and looks
854 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
about him, as though, the enchanted hour when Mr. Durdles
may be stoned home having struck, he had some expecta-
tion of seeing the imp who is appointed to the mission of
stoning him.
In effect, that power of evil is abroad. Having nothing
living to stone at the moment, he is discovered by Mr.
Datchery in the unholy office of stoning the dead, through
the railings of the church-yard. The imp finds this a relish-
ing and piquing pursuit ; firstly, because their resting place
is announced to be sacred ; and, secondly, because the tall
headstones are sufficiently like themselves, on their beat in
the dark, to justify the delicious fancy that they are hurt
when hit.
Mr. Datchery hails him with : " Halloo, Winks ! "
He acknowledges the hail with ! " Halloo, Dick ! " Their
acquaintance seemingly having been established on a familiar
footing.
" But I say," he remonstrates, " don't yer go a-making
my name public. I never means to plead to no name, mind
yer. When they says to me in the lock-up, a-going to put
me down in the book, ' What's your name ? ' T says to them,
'Find out.' Likewise when they says, 'What's your re-
ligion ? ' I says, ' Find out.' "
Which, it may be observed in passing, it would be im-
mensely difficult for the state, however statistical, to do.
" Asides which," adds the boy, ** there ain't no family of
Winkses."
"I think there must be."
"Yer lie, there ain't. The Travelers give me the name on
account of my getting no settled sleep and being knocked up
all night ; whereby 1 gets one eye roused open afore Eve
shut the other. That's what winks means. Deputy's the
nighest name to indict me by ; but yer wouldn't catch me
pleading to that, neither."
" Deputy be it always then. We two are good friends ; eh,
Deputy ? "
;; Jolly good."
"I forgave you the debt you owed me when we first be-
came acquainted, and many of my sixpences have come your
way since ; eh, Deputy ? "
" Ah ! And what's more, yer ain't no friend o' Jasper's.
What did he go a-histing me off my legs for ? "
*' What, indeed ! But never mind him now. A shilling of
mine, is going your way to-night. Deputy. You have just
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DKOOD. 855
taken in a lodger I have been speaking to ; an infirm woman
with a cough.
" Puffer," assents Deputy, with a shrewd leer of recogni-
lion, and smoking an imaginary pipe, with his head very
much on one side, and his eyes very much out of their
places : '' Hopeum Puffer."
" What is her name ? "
" 'Er royal highness the Princess Puffer."
" She has some other name than that ; where does she
live ? "
" Up in London. Among the Jacks."
" The sailors ? "
" I said so ; Jacks. And Chayner men. And hother
knifers."
" I should like to know, through you, exactly where she
lives."
'* All right. Give us 'old."
A shilling passes ; and, in that spirit of confidence which
should pervade all business transactions betwe'^n principals
of honor, this piece of business is considered done.
" But here's a lark ! " cried Deputy. " Where did yer
think 'er royal highness is a-going to, to-morrow morning ?
Blest if she ain't a-goin' to the Kin-free-der-el ! " He
greatly prolongs the word in his ecstasy, and smites his leg,
and doubles himself up in a fit of shrill laughter.
'' How do you know that, Deputy ? "
" 'Cos she told me so just now. She said she must be
hup and hout o' purpose. She ses, * Deputy, I must 'ave a
early wash, and make myself as swell as I can, for I'm a
goin' to take a turn at the Kin-free-der-el!'" He sep-
arates the syllables with his former zest, and, not finding his
sense of the ludicrous sufficiently relieved by stamping about
on the pavement, breaks into a slow and stately dance, per-
haps supposed to be performed by the dean.
Mr. Datchery receives the communication with a well-
satisfied, though a pondering face, and breaks up the confer-
ence. Returning to his quaint lodging, and sitting long over
the supper of bread and cheese, and salad and ale which Mrs.
Tope has left prepared for him, he still sits when his supper
is finished. At length he rises, throws open the door of a
corner cupboard, and refers to a few uncouth chalked strokes
on its inner side.
" I like," says Mr. Datchery, ''the old tavern way of kec])-
ing scores. Illegible, except to the scorer. The scorer not
856 THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
committed, the second debited with what is against him.
Hum ; ha ! A very small score this ; a very poor score ? "
He sighs over the contemplation of its poverty, takes a bit
of chalk from one of the cupboard shelves, and pauses with
it in his hand, uncertain what addition to make to the ac-
count.
" I think a moderate stroke," he concludes, "is all I am
justified in scoring up ; " so, suits the action to the word,
closes the cupboard and goes to bed.
A brilliant morning shines on the old city. Its antiqui-
ties and ruins are surpassingly beautiful, with the lusty ivy
gleaming in the sun, and the rich trees waving in the balmy
air. Changes of glorious light from moving boughs, songs
of birds, scents from gardens, woods, and fields — or, rather,
from one great garden of the whole cultivated island in its
yielding time — penetrate into the cathedral, subdue its earthy
odor, and preach the resurrection and the life. The cold
stone tombs of centuries ago grow warm ; and flecks of
brightness dart into the sternest marble corners of the build-
ing, fluttering their light wings.
Comes Mr. Tope with his large keys and yawningly
unlocks and sets open. Come Mrs. Tope and attendant
sweeping sprites. Come, in due time, organist and bellows-
boy, peeping down from the reed curtains in the loft, fear-
lessly flapping dust from books up at that remote elevation,
and whisking it from stops and pedals. Come sundry rooks,
from various quarters of the sky, back to the great tower ;
who may be presumed to enjoy vibration, and to know that
bell and organ are going to give it them. Come a very small
and straggling congregation, indeed ; chiefly from Minor
Canon Corner and the precincts. Come Mr, Crisparkle,
fresh and bright ; and his ministering brethren not quite so
fresh and bright. Come the choir in a hurry (always in a
hurry, and struggling into their nightgowns at the last mo-
ment, like children shirking bed), and comes John Jasper
leading their line. Last of all comes Mr. Datchery into a
stall, one of a choice empty collection very much at his serv-
ice, and glancing about him for her royal highness the
Princess Puffer.
The service is pretty well advanced before Mr. Datchery
can discern her royal highness. But by that time he has
made her out, in the shade. She is behind a pillar, care-
fully withdrawn from the choir-master's view, but regards
him with the closest attention. All unconscious of her pres-
THE MYSTERY OF EDWliN DROOD. 85/
ence, he chants and sings. She grins when he is most
musically fervid, and — yes, Mr. Datchery sees her do it !—
shakes her fist at him behind the pillar's friendly shelter.
Mr. Datchery looks again to convince himself. Yes,
again ! As ugly and withered as one of the fantastic carv-
ings on the under brackets of the stall seats, as malignant as
the evil one, as hard as the big brass eagle holding the
sacred books upon his wings (and, according to the sculptor's
representation of his ferocious attributes, not at all con-
verted by them), she hugs herself in her lean arms, and then
shakes both fists at the leader of the choir.
And at that moment, outside the grated door of the choir,
having eluded the vigilance of Mr. Tope by shifty resources
in which he is an adept, Deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through
the bars, and stares astounded from the threatener to the
threatened.
The service comes to an end, and the servitors disperse
to breakfast. Mr. Datchery accosts his last new acquaint-
ance outside, when the choir (as much in a hurry to get
their bed-gowns off, as they were ,but now to get them on)
have scuffled away.
" Well, mistress. Good-morning. You have seen him ? "
*' /'ve seen him, deary ; /'ve seen him ! "
"And you know him ?"
" Know him ! Better far than all the reverend parsons
put together know him."
Mrs. Tope's care has spread a very neat, clean breakfast
ready for her lodger. Before sitting down to it, he opens
his corner cupboard door ; takes his bit of chalk from its
shelf ; adds one thick line to the score, extending from the
top of the cupboard door to the bottom ; and then falls to
with an appetite.
4i !}! 4c « t^
14 DAY USE
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED
LOAN DEPT.
This book is due on the last date stamped below, or
on the date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.
?JiNov'58WH
NOV 12 1958 L
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