Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
future dwelling, if I am to live in peace, must be a secret. If my poor
boy should ever stray this way, do not tempt him to disclose it or have
him watched when he returns; for if we are hunted, we must fly again.
And now this load is off my mind, I beseech you--and you, dear Miss
Haredale, too--to trust me if you can, and think of me kindly as you
have been used to do. If I die and cannot tell my secret even then (for
that may come to pass), it will sit the lighter on my breast in that
hour for this day’s work; and on that day, and every day until it comes,
I will pray for and thank you both, and trouble you no more.’
With that, she would have left them, but they detained her, and with
many soothing words and kind entreaties, besought her to consider what
she did, and above all to repose more freely upon them, and say what
weighed so sorely on her mind. Finding her deaf to their persuasions, Mr
Haredale suggested, as a last resource, that she should confide in Emma,
of whom, as a young person and one of her own sex, she might stand in
less dread than of himself. From this proposal, however, she recoiled
with the same indescribable repugnance she had manifested when they met.
The utmost that could be wrung from her was, a promise that she would
receive Mr Haredale at her own house next evening, and in the mean time
reconsider her determination and their dissuasions--though any change on
her part, as she told them, was quite hopeless. This condition made at
last, they reluctantly suffered her to depart, since she would neither
eat nor drink within the house; and she, and Barnaby, and Grip,
accordingly went out as they had come, by the private stair and
garden-gate; seeing and being seen of no one by the way.
It was remarkable in the raven that during the whole interview he
had kept his eye on his book with exactly the air of a very sly human
rascal, who, under the mask of pretending to read hard, was listening to
everything. He still appeared to have the conversation very strongly in
his mind, for although, when they were alone again, he issued orders for
the instant preparation of innumerable kettles for purposes of tea, he
was thoughtful, and rather seemed to do so from an abstract sense of
duty, than with any regard to making himself agreeable, or being what is
commonly called good company.
They were to return by the coach. As there was an interval of full two
hours before it started, and they needed rest and some refreshment,
Barnaby begged hard for a visit to the Maypole. But his mother, who had
no wish to be recognised by any of those who had known her long ago, and
who feared besides that Mr Haredale might, on second thoughts, despatch
some messenger to that place of entertainment in quest of her, proposed
to wait in the churchyard instead. As it was easy for Barnaby to buy
and carry thither such humble viands as they required, he cheerfully
assented, and in the churchyard they sat down to take their frugal
dinner.
Here again, the raven was in a highly reflective state; walking up and
down when he had dined, with an air of elderly complacency which was
strongly suggestive of his having his hands under his coat-tails; and
appearing to read the tombstones with a very critical taste. Sometimes,
after a long inspection of an epitaph, he would strop his beak upon the
grave to which it referred, and cry in his hoarse tones, ‘I’m a devil,
I’m a devil, I’m a devil!’ but whether he addressed his observations to
any supposed person below, or merely threw them off as a general remark,
is matter of uncertainty.
It was a quiet pretty spot, but a sad one for Barnaby’s mother; for Mr
Reuben Haredale lay there, and near the vault in which his ashes rested,
was a stone to the memory of her own husband, with a brief inscription
recording how and when he had lost his life. She sat here, thoughtful
and apart, until their time was out, and the distant horn told that the
coach was coming.
Barnaby, who had been sleeping on the grass, sprung up quickly at the
sound; and Grip, who appeared to understand it equally well, walked
into his basket straightway, entreating society in general (as though
he intended a kind of satire upon them in connection with churchyards)
never to say die on any terms. They were soon on the coach-top and
rolling along the road.
It went round by the Maypole, and stopped at the door. Joe was from
home, and Hugh came sluggishly out to hand up the parcel that it called
for. There was no fear of old John coming out. They could see him from
the coach-roof fast asleep in his cosy bar. It was a part of John’s
character. He made a point of going to sleep at the coach’s time. He
despised gadding about; he looked upon coaches as things that ought
to be indicted; as disturbers of the peace of mankind; as restless,
bustling, busy, horn-blowing contrivances, quite beneath the dignity of
men, and only suited to giddy girls that did nothing but chatter and go
a-shopping. ‘We know nothing about coaches here, sir,’ John would say,
if any unlucky stranger made inquiry touching the offensive vehicles;
‘we don’t book for ‘em; we’d rather not; they’re more trouble than
they’re worth, with their noise and rattle. If you like to wait for ‘em
you can; but we don’t know anything about ‘em; they may call and they
may not--there’s a carrier--he was looked upon as quite good enough for
us, when I was a boy.’
She dropped her veil as Hugh climbed up, and while he hung behind, and
talked to Barnaby in whispers. But neither he nor any other person
spoke to her, or noticed her, or had any curiosity about her; and so, an
alien, she visited and left the village where she had been born, and had
lived a merry child, a comely girl, a happy wife--where she had known
all her enjoyment of life, and had entered on its hardest sorrows.
Chapter 26
‘And you’re not surprised to hear this, Varden?’ said Mr Haredale.
‘Well! You and she have always been the best friends, and you should
understand her if anybody does.’
‘I ask your pardon, sir,’ rejoined the locksmith. ‘I didn’t say I
understood her. I wouldn’t have the presumption to say that of any
woman. It’s not so easily done. But I am not so much surprised, sir, as
you expected me to be, certainly.’
‘May I ask why not, my good friend?’
‘I have seen, sir,’ returned the locksmith with evident reluctance,
‘I have seen in connection with her, something that has filled me with
distrust and uneasiness. She has made bad friends, how, or when, I don’t
know; but that her house is a refuge for one robber and cut-throat at
least, I am certain. There, sir! Now it’s out.’
‘Varden!’
‘My own eyes, sir, are my witnesses, and for her sake I would be
willingly half-blind, if I could but have the pleasure of mistrusting
‘em. I have kept the secret till now, and it will go no further than
yourself, I know; but I tell you that with my own eyes--broad awake--I
saw, in the passage of her house one evening after dark, the highwayman
who robbed and wounded Mr Edward Chester, and on the same night
threatened me.’
‘And you made no effort to detain him?’ said Mr Haredale quickly.
‘Sir,’ returned the locksmith, ‘she herself prevented me--held me, with
all her strength, and hung about me until he had got clear off.’ And
having gone so far, he related circumstantially all that had passed upon
the night in question.
This dialogue was held in a low tone in the locksmith’s little parlour,
into which honest Gabriel had shown his visitor on his arrival. Mr
Haredale had called upon him to entreat his company to the widow’s, that
he might have the assistance of his persuasion and influence; and out of
this circumstance the conversation had arisen.
‘I forbore,’ said Gabriel, ‘from repeating one word of this to anybody,
as it could do her no good and might do her great harm. I thought and
hoped, to say the truth, that she would come to me, and talk to me about
it, and tell me how it was; but though I have purposely put myself
in her way more than once or twice, she has never touched upon the
subject--except by a look. And indeed,’ said the good-natured locksmith,
‘there was a good deal in the look, more than could have been put into a
great many words. It said among other matters “Don’t ask me anything”
so imploringly, that I didn’t ask her anything. You’ll think me an old
fool, I know, sir. If it’s any relief to call me one, pray do.’
‘I am greatly disturbed by what you tell me,’ said Mr Haredale, after a
silence. ‘What meaning do you attach to it?’
The locksmith shook his head, and looked doubtfully out of window at the
failing light.
‘She cannot have married again,’ said Mr Haredale.
‘Not without our knowledge surely, sir.’
‘She may have done so, in the fear that it would lead, if known, to some
objection or estrangement. Suppose she married incautiously--it is not
improbable, for her existence has been a lonely and monotonous one for
many years--and the man turned out a ruffian, she would be anxious to
screen him, and yet would revolt from his crimes. This might be. It
bears strongly on the whole drift of her discourse yesterday, and would
quite explain her conduct. Do you suppose Barnaby is privy to these
circumstances?’
‘Quite impossible to say, sir,’ returned the locksmith, shaking his head
again: ‘and next to impossible to find out from him. If what you suppose
is really the case, I tremble for the lad--a notable person, sir, to put
to bad uses--’
‘It is not possible, Varden,’ said Mr Haredale, in a still lower tone of
voice than he had spoken yet, ‘that we have been blinded and deceived by
this woman from the beginning? It is not possible that this connection
was formed in her husband’s lifetime, and led to his and my brother’s--’
‘Good God, sir,’ cried Gabriel, interrupting him, ‘don’t entertain such
dark thoughts for a moment. Five-and-twenty years ago, where was there a
girl like her? A gay, handsome, laughing, bright-eyed damsel! Think what
she was, sir. It makes my heart ache now, even now, though I’m an old
man, with a woman for a daughter, to think what she was and what she is.
We all change, but that’s with Time; Time does his work honestly, and
I don’t mind him. A fig for Time, sir. Use him well, and he’s a hearty
fellow, and scorns to have you at a disadvantage. But care and suffering
(and those have changed her) are devils, sir--secret, stealthy,
undermining devils--who tread down the brightest flowers in Eden, and do
more havoc in a month than Time does in a year. Picture to yourself for
one minute what Mary was before they went to work with her fresh
heart and face--do her that justice--and say whether such a thing is
possible.’
‘You’re a good fellow, Varden,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘and are quite right.
I have brooded on that subject so long, that every breath of suspicion
carries me back to it. You are quite right.’
‘It isn’t, sir,’ cried the locksmith with brightened eyes, and sturdy,
honest voice; ‘it isn’t because I courted her before Rudge, and failed,
that I say she was too good for him. She would have been as much too
good for me. But she WAS too good for him; he wasn’t free and frank
enough for her. I don’t reproach his memory with it, poor fellow; I only
want to put her before you as she really was. For myself, I’ll keep her
old picture in my mind; and thinking of that, and what has altered her,
I’ll stand her friend, and try to win her back to peace. And damme,
sir,’ cried Gabriel, ‘with your pardon for the word, I’d do the same if
she had married fifty highwaymen in a twelvemonth; and think it in the
Protestant Manual too, though Martha said it wasn’t, tooth and nail,
till doomsday!’
If the dark little parlour had been filled with a dense fog, which,
clearing away in an instant, left it all radiance and brightness, it