Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
‘Clothes!’ echoed Barnaby, looking close into his face, and falling
quickly back. ‘Ha ha! Why, how much better to be silly, than as wise
as you! You don’t see shadowy people there, like those that live in
sleep--not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, nor swift ghosts
when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see men
stalking in the sky--not you! I lead a merrier life than you, with all
your cleverness. You’re the dull men. We’re the bright ones. Ha! ha!
I’ll not change with you, clever as you are,--not I!’
With that, he waved his hat above his head, and darted off.
‘A strange creature, upon my word!’ said the guest, pulling out a
handsome box, and taking a pinch of snuff.
‘He wants imagination,’ said Mr Willet, very slowly, and after a long
silence; ‘that’s what he wants. I’ve tried to instil it into him, many
and many’s the time; but’--John added this in confidence--‘he an’t made
for it; that’s the fact.’
To record that Mr Chester smiled at John’s remark would be little to the
purpose, for he preserved the same conciliatory and pleasant look at all
times. He drew his chair nearer to the fire though, as a kind of hint
that he would prefer to be alone, and John, having no reasonable excuse
for remaining, left him to himself.
Very thoughtful old John Willet was, while the dinner was preparing; and
if his brain were ever less clear at one time than another, it is but
reasonable to suppose that he addled it in no slight degree by shaking
his head so much that day. That Mr Chester, between whom and Mr
Haredale, it was notorious to all the neighbourhood, a deep and bitter
animosity existed, should come down there for the sole purpose, as it
seemed, of seeing him, and should choose the Maypole for their place
of meeting, and should send to him express, were stumbling blocks John
could not overcome. The only resource he had, was to consult the boiler,
and wait impatiently for Barnaby’s return.
But Barnaby delayed beyond all precedent. The visitor’s dinner was
served, removed, his wine was set, the fire replenished, the hearth
clean swept; the light waned without, it grew dusk, became quite dark,
and still no Barnaby appeared. Yet, though John Willet was full of
wonder and misgiving, his guest sat cross-legged in the easy-chair, to
all appearance as little ruffled in his thoughts as in his dress--the
same calm, easy, cool gentleman, without a care or thought beyond his
golden toothpick.
‘Barnaby’s late,’ John ventured to observe, as he placed a pair of
tarnished candlesticks, some three feet high, upon the table, and
snuffed the lights they held.
‘He is rather so,’ replied the guest, sipping his wine. ‘He will not be
much longer, I dare say.’
John coughed and raked the fire together.
‘As your roads bear no very good character, if I may judge from my son’s
mishap, though,’ said Mr Chester, ‘and as I have no fancy to be knocked
on the head--which is not only disconcerting at the moment, but places
one, besides, in a ridiculous position with respect to the people who
chance to pick one up--I shall stop here to-night. I think you said you
had a bed to spare.’
‘Such a bed, sir,’ returned John Willet; ‘ay, such a bed as few, even
of the gentry’s houses, own. A fixter here, sir. I’ve heard say that
bedstead is nigh two hundred years of age. Your noble son--a fine young
gentleman--slept in it last, sir, half a year ago.’
‘Upon my life, a recommendation!’ said the guest, shrugging his
shoulders and wheeling his chair nearer to the fire. ‘See that it be
well aired, Mr Willet, and let a blazing fire be lighted there at once.
This house is something damp and chilly.’
John raked the faggots up again, more from habit than presence of mind,
or any reference to this remark, and was about to withdraw, when a
bounding step was heard upon the stair, and Barnaby came panting in.
‘He’ll have his foot in the stirrup in an hour’s time,’ he cried,
advancing. ‘He has been riding hard all day--has just come home--but
will be in the saddle again as soon as he has eat and drank, to meet his
loving friend.’
‘Was that his message?’ asked the visitor, looking up, but without the
smallest discomposure--or at least without the show of any.
‘All but the last words,’ Barnaby rejoined. ‘He meant those. I saw that,
in his face.’
‘This for your pains,’ said the other, putting money in his hand, and
glancing at him steadfastly.’This for your pains, sharp Barnaby.’
‘For Grip, and me, and Hugh, to share among us,’ he rejoined, putting
it up, and nodding, as he counted it on his fingers. ‘Grip one, me two,
Hugh three; the dog, the goat, the cats--well, we shall spend it pretty
soon, I warn you. Stay.--Look. Do you wise men see nothing there, now?’
He bent eagerly down on one knee, and gazed intently at the smoke, which
was rolling up the chimney in a thick black cloud. John Willet, who
appeared to consider himself particularly and chiefly referred to under
the term wise men, looked that way likewise, and with great solidity of
feature.
‘Now, where do they go to, when they spring so fast up there,’ asked
Barnaby; ‘eh? Why do they tread so closely on each other’s heels, and
why are they always in a hurry--which is what you blame me for, when I
only take pattern by these busy folk about me? More of ‘em! catching to
each other’s skirts; and as fast as they go, others come! What a merry
dance it is! I would that Grip and I could frisk like that!’
‘What has he in that basket at his back?’ asked the guest after a few
moments, during which Barnaby was still bending down to look higher up
the chimney, and earnestly watching the smoke.
‘In this?’ he answered, jumping up, before John Willet could
reply--shaking it as he spoke, and stooping his head to listen. ‘In
this! What is there here? Tell him!’
‘A devil, a devil, a devil!’ cried a hoarse voice.
‘Here’s money!’ said Barnaby, chinking it in his hand, ‘money for a
treat, Grip!’
‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!’ replied the raven, ‘keep up your spirits.
Never say die. Bow, wow, wow!’
Mr Willet, who appeared to entertain strong doubts whether a customer in
a laced coat and fine linen could be supposed to have any acquaintance
even with the existence of such unpolite gentry as the bird claimed
to belong to, took Barnaby off at this juncture, with the view of
preventing any other improper declarations, and quitted the room with
his very best bow.
Chapter 11
There was great news that night for the regular Maypole customers, to
each of whom, as he straggled in to occupy his allotted seat in the
chimney-corner, John, with a most impressive slowness of delivery, and
in an apoplectic whisper, communicated the fact that Mr Chester was
alone in the large room upstairs, 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 Godsend. Here was a good,
dark-looking mystery progressing under that very roof--brought home to
the fireside, as it were, and enjoyable without the smallest pains
or trouble. It is extraordinary what a zest and relish it gave to the
drink, and how it heightened the flavour of the tobacco. Every man
smoked his pipe with a face of grave and serious delight, and looked at
his neighbour with a sort of quiet congratulation. Nay, it was felt
to be such a holiday and special night, that, on the motion of little
Solomon Daisy, every man (including John himself) put down his sixpence
for a can of flip, which grateful beverage was brewed with all despatch,
and set down in the midst of them on the brick floor; both that it might
simmer and stew before the fire, and that its fragrant steam, rising
up among them, and mixing with the wreaths of vapour from their pipes,
might shroud them in a delicious atmosphere of their own, and shut
out all the world. The very furniture of the room seemed to mellow and
deepen in its tone; the ceiling and walls looked blacker and more highly
polished, the curtains of a ruddier red; the fire burnt clear and high,
and the crickets in the 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 Barnaby himself, who slept,
or, to avoid being beset with questions, feigned to sleep, in the
chimney-corner; the other, Hugh, who, sleeping too, lay stretched upon
the bench on the opposite side, in the full glare of the blazing fire.
The light that fell upon this slumbering form, showed it in all its
muscular and handsome proportions. It was that of a young man, of a hale
athletic figure, and a giant’s strength, whose sunburnt face and swarthy
throat, overgrown with jet black hair, might have served a painter for
a model. Loosely attired, in the coarsest and roughest garb, with scraps
of straw and hay--his usual bed--clinging here and there, and mingling
with his uncombed locks, he had fallen asleep in a posture as careless
as his dress. The negligence and disorder of the whole man, with
something fierce and sullen in his features, gave him a picturesque
appearance, that attracted the regards even of the Maypole customers who
knew him well, and caused Long Parkes to say that Hugh looked more like
a poaching rascal to-night than ever he had seen him yet.
‘He’s waiting here, I suppose,’ said Solomon, ‘to take Mr Haredale’s
horse.’
‘That’s it, sir,’ replied John Willet. ‘He’s not often in the house, you
know. He’s more at his ease among horses than men. I look upon him as a
animal himself.’
Following up this opinion with a shrug that seemed meant to say, ‘we
can’t expect everybody to be like us,’ John put his pipe into his mouth
again, and smoked like one who felt his superiority over the general run
of mankind.
‘That chap, sir,’ said John, taking it out again after a time, and
pointing at him with the stem, ‘though he’s got all his faculties
about him--bottled up and corked down, if I may say so, 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 certainly endeavour to do,
if you interrupt me when I’m making observations.--That chap, I was
a saying, though he has all his faculties about him, 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 offences, as showing how
wide awake our government is--that chap that 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