Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
towards their silent neighhour, ‘except in respect of the robber
himself. What like was he, sir? Speak low, if you please. Barnaby means
no harm, but I have watched him oftener than you, and I know, little as
you would think it, that he’s listening now.’
It required a strong confidence in the locksmith’s veracity to lead any
one to this belief, for every sense and faculty that Barnaby possessed,
seemed to be fixed upon his game, to the exclusion of all other things.
Something in the young man’s face expressed this opinion, for Gabriel
repeated what he had just said, more earnestly than before, and with
another glance towards Barnaby, again asked what like the man was.
‘The night was so dark,’ said Edward, ‘the attack so sudden, and he so
wrapped and muffled up, that I can hardly say. It seems that--’
‘Don’t mention his name, sir,’ returned the locksmith, following his
look towards Barnaby; ‘I know HE saw him. I want to know what YOU saw.’
‘All I remember is,’ said Edward, ‘that as he checked his horse his
hat was blown off. He caught it, and replaced it on his head, which
I observed was bound with a dark handkerchief. A stranger entered the
Maypole while I was there, whom I had not seen--for I had sat apart for
reasons of my own--and when I rose to leave the room and glanced round,
he was in the shadow of the chimney and hidden from my sight. But, if he
and the robber were two different persons, their voices were strangely
and most remarkably alike; for directly the man addressed me in the
road, I recognised his speech again.’
‘It is as I feared. The very man was here to-night,’ thought the
locksmith, changing colour. ‘What dark history is this!’
‘Halloa!’ cried a hoarse voice in his ear. ‘Halloa, halloa, halloa! Bow
wow wow. What’s the matter here! Hal-loa!’
The speaker--who made the locksmith start as if he had been some
supernatural agent--was a large raven, who had perched upon the top of
the easy-chair, unseen by him and Edward, and listened with a polite
attention and a most extraordinary appearance of comprehending every
word, to all they had said up to this point; turning his head from one
to the other, as if his office were to judge between them, and it were
of the very last importance that he should not lose a word.
‘Look at him!’ said Varden, divided between admiration of the bird and a
kind of fear of him. ‘Was there ever such a knowing imp as that! Oh he’s
a dreadful fellow!’
The raven, with his head very much on one side, and his bright eye
shining like a diamond, preserved a thoughtful silence for a few
seconds, and then replied in a voice so hoarse and distant, that it
seemed to come through his thick feathers rather than out of his mouth.
‘Halloa, halloa, halloa! What’s the matter here! Keep up your spirits.
Never say die. Bow wow wow. I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil.
Hurrah!’--And then, as if exulting in his infernal character, he began
to whistle.
‘I more than half believe he speaks the truth. Upon my word I do,’
said Varden. ‘Do you see how he looks at me, as if he knew what I was
saying?’
To which the bird, balancing himself on tiptoe, as it were, and moving
his body up and down in a sort of grave dance, rejoined, ‘I’m a devil,
I’m a devil, I’m a devil,’ and flapped his wings against his sides as
if he were bursting with laughter. Barnaby clapped his hands, and fairly
rolled upon the ground in an ecstasy of delight.
‘Strange companions, sir,’ said the locksmith, shaking his head, and
looking from one to the other. ‘The bird has all the wit.’
‘Strange indeed!’ said Edward, holding out his forefinger to the raven,
who, in acknowledgment of the attention, made a dive at it immediately
with his iron bill. ‘Is he old?’
‘A mere boy, sir,’ replied the locksmith. ‘A hundred and twenty, or
thereabouts. Call him down, Barnaby, my man.’
‘Call him!’ echoed Barnaby, sitting upright upon the floor, and staring
vacantly at Gabriel, as he thrust his hair back from his face. ‘But who
can make him come! He calls me, and makes me go where he will. He goes
on before, and I follow. He’s the master, and I’m the man. Is that the
truth, Grip?’
The raven gave a short, comfortable, confidential kind of croak;--a most
expressive croak, which seemed to say, ‘You needn’t let these fellows
into our secrets. We understand each other. It’s all right.’
‘I make HIM come?’ cried Barnaby, pointing to the bird. ‘Him, who never
goes to sleep, or so much as winks!--Why, any time of night, you may see
his eyes in my dark room, shining like two sparks. And every night, and
all night too, he’s broad awake, talking to himself, thinking what he
shall do to-morrow, where we shall go, and what he shall steal, and
hide, and bury. I make HIM come! Ha ha ha!’
On second thoughts, the bird appeared disposed to come of himself. After
a short survey of the ground, and a few sidelong looks at the ceiling
and at everybody present in turn, he fluttered to the floor, and went
to Barnaby--not in a hop, or walk, or run, but in a pace like that of
a very particular gentleman with exceedingly tight boots on, trying to
walk fast over loose pebbles. Then, stepping into his extended hand,
and condescending to be held out at arm’s length, he gave vent to a
succession of sounds, not unlike the drawing of some eight or ten dozen
of long corks, and again asserted his brimstone birth and parentage with
great distinctness.
The locksmith shook his head--perhaps in some doubt of the creature’s
being really nothing but a bird--perhaps in pity for Barnaby, who by
this time had him in his arms, and was rolling about, with him, on the
ground. As he raised his eyes from the poor fellow he encountered those
of his mother, who had entered the room, and was looking on in silence.
She was quite white in the face, even to her lips, but had wholly
subdued her emotion, and wore her usual quiet look. Varden fancied as he
glanced at her that she shrunk from his eye; and that she busied herself
about the wounded gentleman to avoid him the better.
It was time he went to bed, she said. He was to be removed to his own
home on the morrow, and he had already exceeded his time for sitting up,
by a full hour. Acting on this hint, the locksmith prepared to take his
leave.
‘By the bye,’ said Edward, as he shook him by the hand, and looked from
him to Mrs Rudge and back again, ‘what noise was that below? I heard
your voice in the midst of it, and should have inquired before, but our
other conversation drove it from my memory. What was it?’
The locksmith looked towards her, and bit his lip. She leant against the
chair, and bent her eyes upon the ground. Barnaby too--he was listening.
--‘Some mad or drunken fellow, sir,’ Varden at length made answer,
looking steadily at the widow as he spoke. ‘He mistook the house, and
tried to force an entrance.’
She breathed more freely, but stood quite motionless. As the locksmith
said ‘Good night,’ and Barnaby caught up the candle to light him down
the stairs, she took it from him, and charged him--with more haste and
earnestness than so slight an occasion appeared to warrant--not to stir.
The raven followed them to satisfy himself that all was right below,
and when they reached the street-door, stood on the bottom stair drawing
corks out of number.
With a trembling hand she unfastened the chain and bolts, and turned
the key. As she had her hand upon the latch, the locksmith said in a low
voice,
‘I have told a lie to-night, for your sake, Mary, and for the sake of
bygone times and old acquaintance, when I would scorn to do so for my
own. I hope I may have done no harm, or led to none. I can’t help the
suspicions you have forced upon me, and I am loth, I tell you plainly,
to leave Mr Edward here. Take care he comes to no hurt. I doubt the
safety of this roof, and am glad he leaves it so soon. Now, let me go.’
For a moment she hid her face in her hands and wept; but resisting the
strong impulse which evidently moved her to reply, opened the door--no
wider than was sufficient for the passage of his body--and motioned him
away. As the locksmith stood upon the step, it was chained and locked
behind him, and the raven, in furtherance of these precautions, barked
like a lusty house-dog.
‘In league with that ill-looking figure that might have fallen from a
gibbet--he listening and hiding here--Barnaby first upon the spot last
night--can she who has always borne so fair a name be guilty of such
crimes in secret!’ said the locksmith, musing. ‘Heaven forgive me if I
am wrong, and send me just thoughts; but she is poor, the temptation
may be great, and we daily hear of things as strange.--Ay, bark away, my
friend. If there’s any wickedness going on, that raven’s in it, I’ll be
sworn.’
Chapter 7
Mrs Varden was a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper--a
phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to
make everybody more or less uncomfortable. Thus it generally happened,
that when other people were merry, Mrs Varden was dull; and that
when other people were dull, Mrs Varden was disposed to be amazingly
cheerful. Indeed the worthy housewife was of such a capricious nature,
that she not only attained a higher pitch of genius than Macbeth, in
respect of her ability to be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
loyal and neutral in an instant, but would sometimes ring the changes
backwards and forwards on all possible moods and flights in one short
quarter of an hour; performing, as it were, a kind of triple bob major
on the peal of instruments in the female belfry, with a skilfulness and
rapidity of execution that astonished all who heard her.
It had been observed in this good lady (who did not want for personal
attractions, being plump and buxom to look at, though like her
fair daughter, somewhat short in stature) that this uncertainty of
disposition strengthened and increased with her temporal prosperity; and
divers wise men and matrons, on friendly terms with the locksmith and
his family, even went so far as to assert, that a tumble down some
half-dozen rounds in the world’s ladder--such as the breaking of the
bank in which her husband kept his money, or some little fall of that
kind--would be the making of her, and could hardly fail to render her
one of the most agreeable companions in existence. Whether they were
right or wrong in this conjecture, certain it is that minds, like
bodies, will often fall into a pimpled ill-conditioned state from
mere excess of comfort, and like them, are often successfully cured by
remedies in themselves very nauseous and unpalatable.
Mrs Varden’s chief aider and abettor, and at the same time her principal
victim and object of wrath, was her single domestic servant, one Miss
Miggs; or as she was called, in conformity with those prejudices of
society which lop and top from poor hand-maidens all such genteel
excrescences--Miggs. This Miggs was a tall young lady, very much
addicted to pattens in private life; slender and shrewish, of a rather
uncomfortable figure, and though not absolutely ill-looking, of a sharp
and acid visage. As a general principle and abstract proposition, Miggs
held the male sex to be utterly contemptible and unworthy of notice;
to be fickle, false, base, sottish, inclined to perjury, and wholly
undeserving. When particularly exasperated against them (which, scandal
said, was when Sim Tappertit slighted her most) she was accustomed to
wish with great emphasis that the whole race of women could but die off,
in order that the men might be brought to know the real value of the
blessings by which they set so little store; nay, her feeling for her
order ran so high, that she sometimes declared, if she could only have
good security for a fair, round number--say ten thousand--of young