Barnaby Rudge — A Tale Of The Riots Of Eighty Read online

  They went up Parliament Street, past Saint Martin's church, and away by Saint Giles's to Tottenham Court Road, at the back of which, upon the western side, was then a place called the Green Lanes. This was a retired spot, not of the choicest kind, leading into the fields. Great heaps of ashes; stagnant pools, overgrown with rank grass and duckweed; broken turnstiles; and the upright posts of palings long since carried off for firewood, which menaced all heedless walkers with their jagged and rusty nails; were the leading features of the landscape: while here and there a donkey, or a ragged horse, tethered to a stake, and cropping off a wretched meal from the coarse stunted turf, were quite in keeping with the scene, and would have suggested (if the houses had not done so, sufficiently, of themselves) how very poor the people were who lived in the crazy huts adjacent, and how foolhardy it might prove for one who carried money, or wore decent clothes, to walk that way alone, unless by daylight.

  Poverty has its whims and shows of taste, as wealth has. Some of these cabins were turreted, some had false windows painted on their rotten walls; one had a mimic clock, upon a crazy tower of four feet high, which screened the chimney; each in its little patch of ground had a rude seat or arbour. The population dealt in bones, in rags, in broken glass, in old wheels, in birds, and dogs. These, in their several ways of stowage, filled the gardens; and shedding a perfume, not of the most delicious nature, in the air, filled it besides with yelps, and screams, and howling.

  Into this retreat, the secretary followed the two men whom he had held in sight; and here he saw them safely lodged, in one of the meanest houses, which was but a room, and that of small dimensions. He waited without, until the sound of their voices, joined in a discordant song, assured him they were making merry; and then approaching the door, by means of a tottering plank which crossed the ditch in front, knocked at it with his hand.

  “Muster Gashfordl” said the man who opened it, taking his pipe from his mouth, in evident surprise. “Why, who'd have thought of this here honour! Walk in, Muster Gashford—walk in, sir.”

  Gashford required no second invitation, and entered with a gracious air. There was a fire in the rusty grate (for though the spring was pretty far advanced, the nights were cold), and on a stool beside it Hugh sat smoking. Dennis placed a chair, his only one, for the secretary, in front of the hearth; and took his seat again upon the stool he had left when he rose to give the visitor admission.

  “What's in the wind now, Muster Gashford?” he said, as he resumed his pipe, and looked at him askew. “Any orders from head-quarters? Are we going to begin? What is it, Muster Gashford?”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing,” rejoined the secretary, with a friendly nod to Hugh. “We have broken the ice, though. We had a little spurt to-day—eh, Dennis?”

  “A very little one,” growled the hangman. “Not half enough for me.”

  “Nor me neither!” cried Hugh. “Give us something to do with life in it—with life in it, master. Ha, ha!”

  “Why, you wouldn't,” said the secretary, with his worst expression of face, and in his mildest tones, “have anything to do, with—with death in it?”

  “I don't know that,” replied Hugh. “I'm open to orders. I don't care; not I.”

  “Nor I!” vociferated Dennis.

  “Brave fellows!” said the secretary, in as pastor-like a voice as if he were commending them for some uncommon act of valour and generosity. “By the bye'—and here he stopped and warmed his hands: then suddenly looked up—'who threw that stone to-day?”

  Mr Dennis coughed and shook his head, as who should say, “A mystery indeed!” Hugh sat and smoked in silence.

  “It was well done!” said the secretary, warming his hands again. “I should like to know that man.”

  “Would you?” said Dennis, after looking at his face to assure himself that he was serious. “Would you like to know that man, Muster Gashford?”

  “I should indeed,” replied the secretary.

  “Why then, Lord love you,” said the hangman, in his hoarest chuckle, as he pointed with his pipe to Hugh, “there he sits. That's the man. My stars and halters, Muster Gashford,” he added in a whisper, as he drew his stool close to him and jogged him with his elbow, “what a interesting blade he is! He wants as much holding in as a thorough-bred bulldog. If it hadn't been for me to-day, he'd have had that “ere Roman down, and made a riot of it, in another minute.”

  “And why not?” cried Hugh in a surly voice, as he overheard this last remark. “Where's the good of putting things off? Strike while the iron's hot; that's what I say.”

  “Ah!” retorted Dennis, shaking his head, with a kind of pity for his friend's ingenuous youth; “but suppose the iron an't hot, brother! You must get people's blood up afore you strike, and have “em in the humour. There wasn't quite enough to provoke “em today, I tell you. If you'd had your way, you'd have spoilt the fun to come, and ruined us.”

  “Dennis is quite right,” said Gashford, smoothly. “He is perfectly correct. Dennis has great knowledge of the world.”

  “I ought to have, Muster Gashford, seeing what a many people I've helped out of it, eh?” grinned the hangman, whispering the words behind his hand.

  The secretary laughed at this jest as much as Dennis could desire, and when he had done, said, turning to Hugh:

  “Dennis's policy was mine, as you may have observed. You saw, for instance, how I fell when I was set upon. I made no resistance. I did nothing to provoke an outbreak. Oh dear no!”

  “No, by the Lord Harry!” cried Dennis with a noisy laugh, “you went down very quiet, Muster Gashford—and very flat besides. I thinks to myself at the time “it's all up with Muster Gashford!” I never see a man lay flatter nor more still—with the life in him—than you did to-day. He's a rough “un to play with, is that “ere Papist, and that's the fact.”

  The secretary's face, as Dennis roared with laughter, and turned his wrinkled eyes on Hugh who did the like, might have furnished a study for the devil's picture. He sat quite silent until they were serious again, and then said, looking round:

  “We are very pleasant here; so very pleasant, Dennis, that but for my lord's particular desire that I should sup with him, and the time being very near at hand, I should he inclined to stay, until it would be hardly safe to go homeward. I come upon a little business—yes, I do—as you supposed. It's very flattering to you; being this. If we ever should be obliged—and we can't tell, you know—this is a very uncertain world'—

  “I believe you, Muster Gashford,” interposed the hangman with a grave nod. “The uncertainties as I've seen in reference to this here state of existence, the unexpected contingencies as have come about!—Oh my eye!” Feeling the subject much too vast for expression, he puffed at his pipe again, and looked the rest.

  “I say,” resumed the secretary, in a slow, impressive way; “we can't tell what may come to pass; and if we should be obliged, against our wills, to have recourse to violence, my lord (who has suffered terribly to-day, as far as words can go) consigns to you two—bearing in mind my recommendation of you both, as good staunch men, beyond all doubt and suspicion—the pleasant task of punishing this Haredale. You may do as you please with him, or his, provided that you show no mercy, and no quarter, and leave no two beams of his house standing where the builder placed them. You may sack it, burn it, do with it as you like, but it must come down; it must be razed to the ground; and he, and all belonging to him, left as shelterless as new-born infants whom their mothers have exposed. Do you understand me?” said Gashford, pausing, and pressing his hands together gently.

  “Understand you, master!” cried Hugh. “You speak plain now. Why, this is hearty!”

  “I knew you would like it,” said Gashford, shaking him by the hand; “I thought you would. Good night! Don't rise, Dennis: I would rather find my way alone. I may have to make other visits here, and it's pleasant to come and go without disturbing you. I can find my way perfectly well. Good night!”

  He was gone, and
had shut the door behind him. They looked at each other, and nodded approvingly: Dennis stirred up the fire.

  “This looks a little more like business!” he said.

  “Ay, indeed!” cried Hugh; “this suits me!”

  “I've heerd it said of Muster Gashford,” said the hangman, “that he'd a surprising memory and wonderful firmness—that he never forgot, and never forgave. —Let's drink his health!”

  Hugh readily complied—pouring no liquor on the floor when he drank this toast—and they pledged the secretary as a man after their own hearts, in a bumper.

  Chapter 45

  While the worst passions of the worst men were thus working in the dark, and the mantle of religion, assumed to cover the ugliest deformities, threatened to become the shroud of all that was good and peaceful in society, a circumstance occurred which once more altered the position of two persons from whom this history has long been separated, and to whom it must now return.

  In a small English country town, the inhabitants of which supported themselves by the labour of their hands in plaiting and preparing straw for those who made bonnets and other articles of dress and ornament from that material,—concealed under an assumed name, and living in a quiet poverty which knew no change, no pleasures, and few cares but that of struggling on from day to day in one great toil for bread,—dwelt Barnaby and his mother. Their poor cottage had known no stranger's foot since they sought the shelter of its roof five years before; nor had they in all that time held any commerce or communication with the old world from which they had fled. To labour in peace, and devote her labour and her life to her poor son, was all the widow sought. If happiness can be said at any time to be the lot of one on whom a secret sorrow preys, she was happy now. Tranquillity, resignation, and her strong love of him who needed it so much, formed the small circle of her quiet joys; and while that remained unbroken, she was contented.

  For Barnaby himself, the time which had flown by, had passed him like the wind. The daily suns of years had shed no brighter gleam of reason on his mind; no dawn had broken on his long, dark night. He would sit sometimes—often for days together on a low seat by the fire or by the cottage door, busy at work (for he had learnt the art his mother plied), and listening, God help him, to the tales she would repeat, as a lure to keep him in her sight. He had no recollection of these little narratives; the tale of yesterday was new to him upon the morrow; but he liked them at the moment; and when the humour held him, would remain patiently within doors, hearing her stories like a little child, and working cheerfully from sunrise until it was too dark to see.

  At other times,—and then their scanty earnings were barely sufficient to furnish them with food, though of the coarsest sort,— he would wander abroad from dawn of day until the twilight deepened into night. Few in that place, even of the children, could be idle, and he had no companions of his own kind. Indeed there were not many who could have kept up with him in his rambles, had there been a legion. But there were a score of vagabond dogs belonging to the neighbours, who served his purpose quite as well. With two or three of these, or sometimes with a full half-dozen barking at his heels, he would sally forth on some long expedition that consumed the day; and though, on their return at nightfall, the dogs would come home limping and sore-footed, and almost spent with their fatigue, Barnaby was up and off again at sunrise with some new attendants of the same class, with whom he would return in like manner. On all these travels, Grip, in his little basket at his master's back, was a constant member of the party, and when they set off in fine weather and in high spirits, no dog barked louder than the raven.

  Their pleasures on these excursions were simple enough. A crust of bread and scrap of meat, with water from the brook or spring, sufficed for their repast. Barnaby's enjoyments were, to walk, and run, and leap, till he was tired; then to lie down in the long grass, or by the growing corn, or in the shade of some tall tree, looking upward at the light clouds as they floated over the blue surface of the sky, and listening to the lark as she poured out her brilliant song. There were wild-flowers to pluck—the bright red poppy, the gentle harebell, the cowslip, and the rose. There were birds to watch; fish; ants; worms; hares or rabbits, as they darted across the distant pathway in the wood and so were gone: millions of living things to have an interest in, and lie in wait for, and clap hands and shout in memory of, when they had disappeared. In default of these, or when they wearied, there was the merry sunlight to hunt out, as it crept in aslant through leaves and boughs of trees, and hid far down—deep, deep, in hollow places— like a silver pool, where nodding branches seemed to bathe and sport; sweet scents of summer air breathing over fields of beans or clover; the perfume of wet leaves or moss; the life of waving trees, and shadows always changing. When these or any of them tired, or in excess of pleasing tempted him to shut his eyes, there was slumber in the midst of all these soft delights, with the gentle wind murmuring like music in his ears, and everything around melting into one delicious dream.

  Their hut—for it was little more—stood on the outskirts of the town, at a short distance from the high road, but in a secluded place, where few chance passengers strayed at any season of the year. It had a plot of garden-ground attached, which Barnaby, in fits and starts of working, trimmed, and kept in order. Within doors and without, his mother laboured for their common good; and hail, rain, snow, or sunshine, found no difference in her.

  Though so far removed from the scenes of her past life, and with so little thought or hope of ever visiting them again, she seemed to have a strange desire to know what happened in the busy world. Any old newspaper, or scrap of intelligence from London, she caught at with avidity. The excitement it produced was not of a pleasurable kind, for her manner at such times expressed the keenest anxiety and dread; but it never faded in the least degree. Then, and in stormy winter nights, when the wind blew loud and strong, the old expression came into her face, and she would be seized with a fit of trembling, like one who had an ague. But Barnaby noted little of this; and putting a great constraint upon herself, she usually recovered her accustomed manner before the change had caught his observation.

  Grip was by no means an idle or unprofitable member of the humble household. Partly by dint of Barnaby's tuition, and partly by pursuing a species of self-instruction common to his tribe, and exerting his powers of observation to the utmost, he had acquired a degree of sagacity which rendered him famous for miles round. His conversational powers and surprising performances were the universal theme: and as many persons came to see the wonderful raven, and none left his exertions unrewarded—when he condescended to exhibit, which was not always, for genius is capricious—his earnings formed an important item in the common stock. Indeed, the bird himself appeared to know his value well; for though he was perfectly free and unrestrained in the presence of Barnaby and his mother, he maintained in public an amazing gravity, and never stooped to any other gratuitous performances than biting the ankles of vagabond boys (an exercise in which he much delighted), killing a fowl or two occasionally, and swallowing the dinners of various neighbouring dogs, of whom the boldest held him in great awe and dread.

  Time had glided on in this way, and nothing had happened to disturb or change their mode of life, when, one summer's night in June, they were in their little garden, resting from the labours of the day. The widow's work was yet upon her knee, and strewn upon the ground about her; and Barnaby stood leaning on his spade, gazing at the brightness in the west, and singing softly to himself.

  “A brave evening, mother! If we had, chinking in our pockets, but a few specks of that gold which is piled up yonder in the sky, we should be rich for life.”

  “We are better as we are,” returned the widow with a quiet smile. “Let us be contented, and we do not want and need not care to have it, though it lay shining at our feet.”

  “Ay!” said Barnaby, resting with crossed arms on his spade, and looking wistfully at the sunset, that's well enough, mother; but gold's a good thing
to have. I wish that I knew where to find it. Grip and I could do much with gold, be sure of that.”

  “What would you do?” she asked.

  “What! A world of things. We'd dress finely—you and I, I mean; not Grip—keep horses, dogs, wear bright colours and feathers, do no more work, live delicately and at our ease. Oh, we'd find uses for it, mother, and uses that would do us good. I would I knew where gold was buried. How hard I'd work to dig it up!”

  “You do not know,” said his mother, rising from her seat and laying her hand upon his shoulder, “what men have done to win it, and how they have found, too late, that it glitters brightest at a distance, and turns quite dim and dull when handled.”

  “Ay, ay; so you say; so you think,” he answered, still looking eagerly in the same direction. “For all that, mother, I should like to try.”

  “Do you not see,” she said, “how red it is? Nothing bears so many stains of blood, as gold. Avoid it. None have such cause to hate its name as we have. Do not so much as think of it, dear love. It has brought such misery and suffering on your head and mine as few have known, and God grant few may have to undergo. I would rather we were dead and laid down in our graves, than you should ever come to love it.”

  For a moment Barnaby withdrew his eyes and looked at her with wonder. Then, glancing from the redness in the sky to the mark upon his wrist as if he would compare the two, he seemed about to question her with earnestness, when a new object caught his wandering attention, and made him quite forgetful of his purpose.

  This was a man with dusty feet and garments, who stood, bareheaded, behind the hedge that divided their patch of garden from the pathway, and leant meekly forward as if he sought to mingle with their conversation, and waited for his time to speak. His face was turned towards the brightness, too, but the light that fell upon it showed that he was blind, and saw it not.

  “A blessing on those voices!” said the wayfarer. “I feel the beauty of the night more keenly, when I hear them. They are like eyes to me. Will they speak again, and cheer the heart of a poor traveller?”