Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
house by a crowd of enemies, than escorted home by a mob of friends!’
It was plain enough, however, that this was mere talk on Gabriel’s part,
and that the whole proceeding afforded him the keenest delight; for
the people continuing to make a great noise without, and to cheer as if
their voices were in the freshest order, and good for a fortnight, he
sent upstairs for Grip (who had come home at his master’s back, and had
acknowledged the favours of the multitude by drawing blood from every
finger that came within his reach), and with the bird upon his arm
presented himself at the first-floor window, and waved his hat again
until it dangled by a shred, between his finger and thumb. This
demonstration having been received with appropriate shouts, and silence
being in some degree restored, he thanked them for their sympathy; and
taking the liberty to inform them that there was a sick person in the
house, proposed that they should give three cheers for King George,
three more for Old England, and three more for nothing particular, as
a closing ceremony. The crowd assenting, substituted Gabriel Varden
for the nothing particular; and giving him one over, for good measure,
dispersed in high good-humour.
What congratulations were exchanged among the inmates at the Golden
Key, when they were left alone; what an overflowing of joy and happiness
there was among them; how incapable it was of expression in Barnaby’s
own person; and how he went wildly from one to another, until he became
so far tranquillised, as to stretch himself on the ground beside his
mother’s couch and fall into a deep sleep; are matters that need not be
told. And it is well they happened to be of this class, for they would
be very hard to tell, were their narration ever so indispensable.
Before leaving this bright picture, it may be well to glance at a dark
and very different one which was presented to only a few eyes, that same
night.
The scene was a churchyard; the time, midnight; the persons, Edward
Chester, a clergyman, a grave-digger, and the four bearers of a homely
coffin. They stood about a grave which had been newly dug, and one of
the bearers held up a dim lantern,--the only light there--which shed
its feeble ray upon the book of prayer. He placed it for a moment on the
coffin, when he and his companions were about to lower it down. There
was no inscription on the lid.
The mould fell solemnly upon the last house of this nameless man; and
the rattling dust left a dismal echo even in the accustomed ears of
those who had borne it to its resting-place. The grave was filled in to
the top, and trodden down. They all left the spot together.
‘You never saw him, living?’ asked the clergyman, of Edward.
‘Often, years ago; not knowing him for my brother.’
‘Never since?’
‘Never. Yesterday, he steadily refused to see me. It was urged upon him,
many times, at my desire.’
‘Still he refused? That was hardened and unnatural.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I infer that you do not?’
‘You are right. We hear the world wonder, every day, at monsters of
ingratitude. Did it never occur to you that it often looks for monsters
of affection, as though they were things of course?’
They had reached the gate by this time, and bidding each other good
night, departed on their separate ways.
Chapter 80
That afternoon, when he had slept off his fatigue; had shaved, and
washed, and dressed, and freshened himself from top to toe; when he had
dined, comforted himself with a pipe, an extra Toby, a nap in the great
arm-chair, and a quiet chat with Mrs Varden on everything that had
happened, was happening, or about to happen, within the sphere of their
domestic concern; the locksmith sat himself down at the tea-table in
the little back-parlour: the rosiest, cosiest, merriest, heartiest,
best-contented old buck, in Great Britain or out of it.
There he sat, with his beaming eye on Mrs V., and his shining face
suffused with gladness, and his capacious waistcoat smiling in every
wrinkle, and his jovial humour peeping from under the table in the very
plumpness of his legs; a sight to turn the vinegar of misanthropy into
purest milk of human kindness. There he sat, watching his wife as she
decorated the room with flowers for the greater honour of Dolly and
Joseph Willet, who had gone out walking, and for whom the tea-kettle
had been singing gaily on the hob full twenty minutes, chirping as
never kettle chirped before; for whom the best service of real undoubted
china, patterned with divers round-faced mandarins holding up broad
umbrellas, was now displayed in all its glory; to tempt whose
appetites a clear, transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool green
lettuce-leaves and fragrant cucumber, reposed upon a shady table,
covered with a snow-white cloth; for whose delight, preserves and jams,
crisp cakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cunning twists, and
cottage loaves, and rolls of bread both white and brown, were all set
forth in rich profusion; in whose youth Mrs V. herself had grown quite
young, and stood there in a gown of red and white: symmetrical in
figure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, faultless in ankle,
laughing in face and mood, in all respects delicious to behold--there
sat the locksmith among all and every these delights, the sun that shone
upon them all: the centre of the system: the source of light, heat,
life, and frank enjoyment in the bright household world.
And when had Dolly ever been the Dolly of that afternoon? To see how she
came in, arm-in-arm with Joe; and how she made an effort not to blush or
seem at all confused; and how she made believe she didn’t care to sit on
his side of the table; and how she coaxed the locksmith in a whisper not
to joke; and how her colour came and went in a little restless flutter
of happiness, which made her do everything wrong, and yet so charmingly
wrong that it was better than right!--why, the locksmith could have
looked on at this (as he mentioned to Mrs Varden when they retired for
the night) for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and never wished it
done.
The recollections, too, with which they made merry over that long
protracted tea! The glee with which the locksmith asked Joe if he
remembered that stormy night at the Maypole when he first asked after
Dolly--the laugh they all had, about that night when she was going out
to the party in the sedan-chair--the unmerciful manner in which they
rallied Mrs Varden about putting those flowers outside that very
window--the difficulty Mrs Varden found in joining the laugh against
herself, at first, and the extraordinary perception she had of the joke
when she overcame it--the confidential statements of Joe concerning the
precise day and hour when he was first conscious of being fond of Dolly,
and Dolly’s blushing admissions, half volunteered and half extorted, as
to the time from which she dated the discovery that she ‘didn’t mind’
Joe--here was an exhaustless fund of mirth and conversation.
Then, there was a great deal to be said regarding Mrs Varden’s doubts,
and motherly alarms, and shrewd suspicions; and it appeared that from
Mrs Varden’s penetration and extreme sagacity nothing had ever been
hidden. She had known it all along. She had seen it from the first. She
had always predicted it. She had been aware of it before the principals.
She had said within herself (for she remembered the exact words) ‘that
young Willet is certainly looking after our Dolly, and I must look
after HIM.’ Accordingly, she had looked after him, and had observed many
little circumstances (all of which she named) so exceedingly minute that
nobody else could make anything out of them even now; and had, it
seemed from first to last, displayed the most unbounded tact and most
consummate generalship.
Of course the night when Joe WOULD ride homeward by the side of the
chaise, and when Mrs Varden WOULD insist upon his going back again,
was not forgotten--nor the night when Dolly fainted on his name being
mentioned--nor the times upon times when Mrs Varden, ever watchful and
prudent, had found her pining in her own chamber. In short, nothing was
forgotten; and everything by some means or other brought them back to
the conclusion, that that was the happiest hour in all their lives;
consequently, that everything must have occurred for the best, and
nothing could be suggested which would have made it better.
While they were in the full glow of such discourse as this, there came a
startling knock at the door, opening from the street into the workshop,
which had been kept closed all day that the house might be more quiet.
Joe, as in duty bound, would hear of nobody but himself going to open
it; and accordingly left the room for that purpose.
It would have been odd enough, certainly, if Joe had forgotten the way
to this door; and even if he had, as it was a pretty large one and stood
straight before him, he could not easily have missed it. But Dolly,
perhaps because she was in the flutter of spirits before mentioned, or
perhaps because she thought he would not be able to open it with his one
arm--she could have had no other reason--hurried out after him; and they
stopped so long in the passage--no doubt owing to Joe’s entreaties
that she would not expose herself to the draught of July air which must
infallibly come rushing in on this same door being opened--that the
knock was repeated, in a yet more startling manner than before.
‘Is anybody going to open that door?’ cried the locksmith. ‘Or shall I
come?’
Upon that, Dolly went running back into the parlour, all dimples and
blushes; and Joe opened it with a mighty noise, and other superfluous
demonstrations of being in a violent hurry.
‘Well,’ said the locksmith, when he reappeared: ‘what is it? eh Joe?
what are you laughing at?’
‘Nothing, sir. It’s coming in.’
‘Who’s coming in? what’s coming in?’ Mrs Varden, as much at a loss as
her husband, could only shake her head in answer to his inquiring look:
so, the locksmith wheeled his chair round to command a better view of
the room-door, and stared at it with his eyes wide open, and a mingled
expression of curiosity and wonder shining in his jolly face.
Instead of some person or persons straightway appearing, divers
remarkable sounds were heard, first in the workshop and afterwards
in the little dark passage between it and the parlour, as though some
unwieldy chest or heavy piece of furniture were being brought in, by an
amount of human strength inadequate to the task. At length after much
struggling and humping, and bruising of the wall on both sides, the
door was forced open as by a battering-ram; and the locksmith, steadily
regarding what appeared beyond, smote his thigh, elevated his eyebrows,
opened his mouth, and cried in a loud voice expressive of the utmost
consternation:
‘Damme, if it an’t Miggs come back!’
The young damsel whom he named no sooner heard these words, than
deserting a small boy and a very large box by which she was accompanied,
and advancing with such precipitation that her bonnet flew off her head,
burst into the room, clasped her hands (in which she held a pair of
pattens, one in each), raised her eyes devotedly to the ceiling, and
shed a flood of tears.
‘The old story!’ cried the locksmith, looking at her in inexpressible
desperation. ‘She was born to be a damper, this young woman! nothing can
prevent it!’
‘Ho master, ho mim!’ cried Miggs, ‘can I constrain my feelings in these
here once agin united moments! Ho Mr Warsen, here’s blessedness
among relations, sir! Here’s forgivenesses of injuries, here’s
amicablenesses!’
The locksmith looked from his wife to Dolly, and from Dolly to Joe, and
from Joe to Miggs, with his eyebrows still elevated and his mouth still