Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
to knock the ashes out of his pipe, that he hoped Joe would thenceforth
learn to obey his father in all things; that he had found, that day, he
was not one of the sort of men who were to be trifled with; and that
he would recommend him, poetically speaking, to mind his eye for the
future.
‘I’d recommend you, in return,’ said Joe, looking up with a flushed
face, ‘not to talk to me.’
‘Hold your tongue, sir,’ cried Mr Willet, suddenly rousing himself, and
turning round.
‘I won’t, father,’ cried Joe, smiting the table with his fist, so that
the jugs and glasses rung again; ‘these things are hard enough to bear
from you; from anybody else I never will endure them any more. Therefore
I say, Mr Cobb, don’t talk to me.’
‘Why, who are you,’ said Mr Cobb, sneeringly, ‘that you’re not to be
talked to, eh, Joe?’
To which Joe returned no answer, but with a very ominous shake of the
head, resumed his old position, which he would have peacefully preserved
until the house shut up at night, but that Mr Cobb, stimulated by the
wonder of the company at the young man’s presumption, retorted with
sundry taunts, which proved too much for flesh and blood to bear.
Crowding into one moment the vexation and the wrath of years, Joe
started up, overturned the table, fell upon his long enemy, pummelled
him with all his might and main, and finished by driving him with
surprising swiftness against a heap of spittoons in one corner; plunging
into which, head foremost, with a tremendous crash, he lay at full
length among the ruins, stunned and motionless. Then, without waiting to
receive the compliments of the bystanders on the victory he had won, he
retreated to his own bedchamber, and considering himself in a state
of siege, piled all the portable furniture against the door by way of
barricade.
‘I have done it now,’ said Joe, as he sat down upon his bedstead and
wiped his heated face. ‘I knew it would come at last. The Maypole and
I must part company. I’m a roving vagabond--she hates me for
evermore--it’s all over!’
Chapter 31
Pondering on his unhappy lot, Joe sat and listened for a long time,
expecting every moment to hear their creaking footsteps on the stairs,
or to be greeted by his worthy father with a summons to capitulate
unconditionally, and deliver himself up straightway. But neither voice
nor footstep came; and though some distant echoes, as of closing doors
and people hurrying in and out of rooms, resounding from time to time
through the great passages, and penetrating to his remote seclusion,
gave note of unusual commotion downstairs, no nearer sound disturbed his
place of retreat, which seemed the quieter for these far-off noises, and
was as dull and full of gloom as any hermit’s cell.
It came on darker and darker. The old-fashioned furniture of the
chamber, which was a kind of hospital for all the invalided movables in
the house, grew indistinct and shadowy in its many shapes; chairs and
tables, which by day were as honest cripples as need be, assumed a
doubtful and mysterious character; and one old leprous screen of faded
India leather and gold binding, which had kept out many a cold breath of
air in days of yore and shut in many a jolly face, frowned on him with
a spectral aspect, and stood at full height in its allotted corner, like
some gaunt ghost who waited to be questioned. A portrait opposite the
window--a queer, old grey-eyed general, in an oval frame--seemed to
wink and doze as the light decayed, and at length, when the last faint
glimmering speck of day went out, to shut its eyes in good earnest, and
fall sound asleep. There was such a hush and mystery about everything,
that Joe could not help following its example; and so went off into
a slumber likewise, and dreamed of Dolly, till the clock of Chigwell
church struck two.
Still nobody came. The distant noises in the house had ceased, and
out of doors all was quiet; save for the occasional barking of some
deep-mouthed dog, and the shaking of the branches by the night wind.
He gazed mournfully out of window at each well-known object as it lay
sleeping in the dim light of the moon; and creeping back to his former
seat, thought about the late uproar, until, with long thinking of, it
seemed to have occurred a month ago. Thus, between dozing, and thinking,
and walking to the window and looking out, the night wore away; the grim
old screen, and the kindred chairs and tables, began slowly to reveal
themselves in their accustomed forms; the grey-eyed general seemed to
wink and yawn and rouse himself; and at last he was broad awake again,
and very uncomfortable and cold and haggard he looked, in the dull grey
light of morning.
The sun had begun to peep above the forest trees, and already flung
across the curling mist bright bars of gold, when Joe dropped from his
window on the ground below, a little bundle and his trusty stick, and
prepared to descend himself.
It was not a very difficult task; for there were so many projections and
gable ends in the way, that they formed a series of clumsy steps, with
no greater obstacle than a jump of some few feet at last. Joe, with his
stick and bundle on his shoulder, quickly stood on the firm earth, and
looked up at the old Maypole, it might be for the last time.
He didn’t apostrophise it, for he was no great scholar. He didn’t curse
it, for he had little ill-will to give to anything on earth. He felt
more affectionate and kind to it than ever he had done in all his life
before, so said with all his heart, ‘God bless you!’ as a parting wish,
and turned away.
He walked along at a brisk pace, big with great thoughts of going for
a soldier and dying in some foreign country where it was very hot and
sandy, and leaving God knows what unheard-of wealth in prize-money to
Dolly, who would be very much affected when she came to know of it;
and full of such youthful visions, which were sometimes sanguine and
sometimes melancholy, but always had her for their main point and
centre, pushed on vigorously until the noise of London sounded in his
ears, and the Black Lion hove in sight.
It was only eight o’clock then, and very much astonished the Black Lion
was, to see him come walking in with dust upon his feet at that early
hour, with no grey mare to bear him company. But as he ordered breakfast
to be got ready with all speed, and on its being set before him gave
indisputable tokens of a hearty appetite, the Lion received him, as
usual, with a hospitable welcome; and treated him with those marks
of distinction, which, as a regular customer, and one within the
freemasonry of the trade, he had a right to claim.
This Lion or landlord,--for he was called both man and beast, by reason
of his having instructed the artist who painted his sign, to convey
into the features of the lordly brute whose effigy it bore, as near a
counterpart of his own face as his skill could compass and devise,--was
a gentleman almost as quick of apprehension, and of almost as subtle a
wit, as the mighty John himself. But the difference between them lay in
this: that whereas Mr Willet’s extreme sagacity and acuteness were
the efforts of unassisted nature, the Lion stood indebted, in no small
amount, to beer; of which he swigged such copious draughts, that most of
his faculties were utterly drowned and washed away, except the one
great faculty of sleep, which he retained in surprising perfection.
The creaking Lion over the house-door was, therefore, to say the
truth, rather a drowsy, tame, and feeble lion; and as these social
representatives of a savage class are usually of a conventional
character (being depicted, for the most part, in impossible attitudes
and of unearthly colours), he was frequently supposed by the more
ignorant and uninformed among the neighbours, to be the veritable
portrait of the host as he appeared on the occasion of some great
funeral ceremony or public mourning.
‘What noisy fellow is that in the next room?’ said Joe, when he had
disposed of his breakfast, and had washed and brushed himself.
‘A recruiting serjeant,’ replied the Lion.
Joe started involuntarily. Here was the very thing he had been dreaming
of, all the way along.
‘And I wish,’ said the Lion, ‘he was anywhere else but here. The party
make noise enough, but don’t call for much. There’s great cry there, Mr
Willet, but very little wool. Your father wouldn’t like ‘em, I know.’
Perhaps not much under any circumstances. Perhaps if he could have known
what was passing at that moment in Joe’s mind, he would have liked them
still less.
‘Is he recruiting for a--for a fine regiment?’ said Joe, glancing at a
little round mirror that hung in the bar.
‘I believe he is,’ replied the host. ‘It’s much the same thing, whatever
regiment he’s recruiting for. I’m told there an’t a deal of difference
between a fine man and another one, when they’re shot through and
through.’
‘They’re not all shot,’ said Joe.
‘No,’ the Lion answered, ‘not all. Those that are--supposing it’s done
easy--are the best off in my opinion.’
‘Ah!’ retorted Joe, ‘but you don’t care for glory.’
‘For what?’ said the Lion.
‘Glory.’
‘No,’ returned the Lion, with supreme indifference. ‘I don’t. You’re
right in that, Mr Willet. When Glory comes here, and calls for anything
to drink and changes a guinea to pay for it, I’ll give it him for
nothing. It’s my belief, sir, that the Glory’s arms wouldn’t do a very
strong business.’
These remarks were not at all comforting. Joe walked out, stopped at
the door of the next room, and listened. The serjeant was describing
a military life. It was all drinking, he said, except that there were
frequent intervals of eating and love-making. A battle was the finest
thing in the world--when your side won it--and Englishmen always did
that. ‘Supposing you should be killed, sir?’ said a timid voice in one
corner. ‘Well, sir, supposing you should be,’ said the serjeant, ‘what
then? Your country loves you, sir; his Majesty King George the Third
loves you; your memory is honoured, revered, respected; everybody’s fond
of you, and grateful to you; your name’s wrote down at full length in a
book in the War Office. Damme, gentlemen, we must all die some time, or
another, eh?’
The voice coughed, and said no more.
Joe walked into the room. A group of half-a-dozen fellows had gathered
together in the taproom, and were listening with greedy ears. One of
them, a carter in a smockfrock, seemed wavering and disposed to enlist.
The rest, who were by no means disposed, strongly urged him to do so
(according to the custom of mankind), backed the serjeant’s arguments,
and grinned among themselves. ‘I say nothing, boys,’ said the serjeant,
who sat a little apart, drinking his liquor. ‘For lads of spirit’--here
he cast an eye on Joe--‘this is the time. I don’t want to inveigle you.
The king’s not come to that, I hope. Brisk young blood is what we
want; not milk and water. We won’t take five men out of six. We want
top-sawyers, we do. I’m not a-going to tell tales out of school, but,
damme, if every gentleman’s son that carries arms in our corps, through
being under a cloud and having little differences with his relations,
was counted up’--here his eye fell on Joe again, and so good-naturedly,
that Joe beckoned him out. He came directly.
‘You’re a gentleman, by G--!’ was his first remark, as he slapped him
on the back. ‘You’re a gentleman in disguise. So am I. Let’s swear a
friendship.’
Joe didn’t exactly do that, but he shook hands with him, and thanked him
for his good opinion.
‘You want to serve,’ said his new friend. ‘You shall. You were made for
it. You’re one of us by nature. What’ll you take to drink?’
‘Nothing just now,’ replied Joe, smiling faintly. ‘I haven’t quite made
up my mind.’