Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
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 unconsciously riding fast
just now, in compliment I suppose to the pace of my thoughts, which were
travelling 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 in 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 grey 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 tranquillity 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 travellers pursued, and the light wind stirred yet more
softly than before, 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 intervening 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 bedchamber? Why, what company can this be for, I wonder!’
‘Some benighted horseman wending towards London, and deterred from
going on to-night by the marvellous tales of my friend the highwayman, I
suppose,’ said Edward.
‘He must be a horseman of good quality to have such accommodations. Your
bed too, sir--!’
‘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 towards the house.
A female servant was waiting at a side gate in the garden-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 armour, antlers, weapons
of the chase, and suchlike garniture. Here he paused, but not long; for
as he looked round, as if expecting the attendant to have followed, and
wondering 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 towards 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 licence which, if you are a brave man,
you will not abuse. You have compelled me to this course, and the fault
is yours--not mine.’
‘It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true man,
sir,’ retorted the other, ‘to tamper with the affections of a weak,
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 to be
gone.’
‘It is neither generous, nor honourable, nor the act of a true man to
play the spy,’ said Edward. ‘Your words imply dishonour, and I reject
them with the scorn they merit.’
‘You will find,’ said Mr Haredale, calmly, ‘your trusty 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 terrified 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
kindness 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 purchase one minute’s happiness for
whom I would gladly lay down my life; this house is the casket that
holds the precious 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 reject you,
and all of your kith and kin--all the false, hollow, heartless stock.’
‘High words, sir,’ said Edward, scornfully.
‘Words of purpose and meaning, as you will find,’ replied the other.
‘Lay them to heart.’
‘Lay you then, these,’ said Edward. ‘Your cold and sullen 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 nature 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 injurious 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 honour, and set your influence at nought. I leave her
with a confidence in her pure faith, which you will 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 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 gentleman’s despondency with
tenfold aggravation. They rode back to the Maypole without exchanging a
syllable, and arrived 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; the
smilingest, affablest gentleman I ever had to do with.’
‘Who, Willet?’ said Edward carelessly, as he dismounted.
‘Your worthy father, sir,’ replied John. ‘Your honourable, venerable
father.’
‘What does he mean?’ said Edward, looking with a mixture of alarm and
doubt, at Joe.
‘What DO 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 his eyes wide.
‘How very singular! Bless you, he’s been here 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 gentleman, in
green-and-gold. In your old room up yonder, sir. No doubt you can go in,
sir,’ said John, walking backwards into 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 murmuring that he had
changed his mind--forgotten something--and must return to London,
mounted his horse again and rode away; leaving the Willets, father and
son, looking at each other in mute astonishment.
Chapter 15
At noon next day, 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 stretch of accommodation at an
infinite distance behind, and suggested comparisons very much to the
disadvantage and disfavour 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
exchanged 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 particularly
favourable 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 dulness 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 water in fair
Fountain Court, and there are yet nooks and corners 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,
something 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 towards the Thames, and think of
baths and boats, and saunter on, despondent.
It was in a room in Paper Buildings--a row of goodly 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 garden 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 enormities with scornful
sidelong looks; on that a weazen old gentleman, ogling the nursery-maid,