Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
The father’s face was slightly flushed and heated, but his manner was
quite unchanged, as he rang the bell again, and addressed the servant on
his entrance.
‘Peak--if that gentleman who has just gone out--’
‘I beg your pardon, sir, Mr Edward?’
‘Were there more than one, dolt, that you ask the question?--If that
gentleman should send here for his wardrobe, let him have it, do you
hear? If he should call himself at any time, I’m not at home. You’ll
tell him so, and shut the door.’
So, it soon got whispered about, that Mr Chester was very unfortunate
in his son, who had occasioned him great grief and sorrow. And the
good people who heard this and told it again, marvelled the more at his
equanimity and even temper, and said what an amiable nature that man
must have, who, having undergone so much, could be so placid and so
calm. And when Edward’s name was spoken, Society shook its head, and
laid its finger on its lip, and sighed, and looked very grave; and those
who had sons about his age, waxed wrathful and indignant, and hoped, for
Virtue’s sake, that he was dead. And the world went on turning round, as
usual, for five years, concerning which this Narrative is silent.
Chapter 33
One wintry evening, early in the year of our Lord one thousand seven
hundred and eighty, a keen north wind arose as it grew dark, and night
came on with black and dismal looks. A bitter storm of sleet, sharp,
dense, and icy-cold, swept the wet streets, and rattled on the trembling
windows. Signboards, shaken past endurance in their creaking frames,
fell crashing on the pavement; old tottering chimneys reeled and
staggered in the blast; and many a steeple rocked again that night, as
though the earth were troubled.
It was not a time for those who could by any means get light and warmth,
to brave the fury of the weather. In coffee-houses of the better sort,
guests crowded round the fire, forgot to be political, and told each
other with a secret gladness that the blast grew fiercer every minute.
Each humble tavern by the water-side had its group of uncouth figures
round the hearth, who talked of vessels foundering at sea, and all hands
lost; related many a dismal tale of shipwreck and drowned men, and
hoped that some they knew were safe, and shook their heads in doubt.
In private dwellings, children clustered near the blaze; listening with
timid pleasure to tales of ghosts and goblins, and tall figures clad
in white standing by bed-sides, and people who had gone to sleep in old
churches and being overlooked had found themselves alone there at the
dead hour of the night: until they shuddered at the thought of the dark
rooms upstairs, yet loved to hear the wind moan too, and hoped it would
continue bravely. From time to time these happy indoor people stopped to
listen, or one held up his finger and cried ‘Hark!’ and then, above the
rumbling in the chimney, and the fast pattering on the glass, was heard
a wailing, rushing sound, which shook the walls as though a giant’s hand
were on them; then a hoarse roar as if the sea had risen; then such a
whirl and tumult that the air seemed mad; and then, with a lengthened
howl, the waves of wind swept on, and left a moment’s interval of rest.
Cheerily, though there were none abroad to see it, shone the Maypole
light that evening. Blessings on the red--deep, ruby, glowing red--old
curtain of the window; blending into one rich stream of brightness, fire
and candle, meat, drink, and company, and gleaming like a jovial
eye upon the bleak waste out of doors! Within, what carpet like its
crunching sand, what music merry as its crackling logs, what perfume
like its kitchen’s dainty breath, what weather genial as its hearty
warmth! Blessings on the old house, how sturdily it stood! How did the
vexed wind chafe and roar about its stalwart roof; how did it pant
and strive with its wide chimneys, which still poured forth from their
hospitable throats, great clouds of smoke, and puffed defiance in its
face; how, above all, did it drive and rattle at the casement, emulous
to extinguish that cheerful glow, which would not be put down and seemed
the brighter for the conflict!
The profusion too, the rich and lavish bounty, of that goodly tavern! It
was not enough that one fire roared and sparkled on its spacious hearth;
in the tiles which paved and compassed it, five hundred flickering fires
burnt brightly also. It was not enough that one red curtain shut the
wild night out, and shed its cheerful influence on the room. In every
saucepan lid, and candlestick, and vessel of copper, brass, or tin
that hung upon the walls, were countless ruddy hangings, flashing and
gleaming with every motion of the blaze, and offering, let the eye
wander where it might, interminable vistas of the same rich colour. The
old oak wainscoting, the beams, the chairs, the seats, reflected it in
a deep, dull glimmer. There were fires and red curtains in the very eyes
of the drinkers, in their buttons, in their liquor, in the pipes they
smoked.
Mr Willet sat in what had been his accustomed place five years before,
with his eyes on the eternal boiler; and had sat there since the clock
struck eight, giving no other signs of life than breathing with a loud
and constant snore (though he was wide awake), and from time to time
putting his glass to his lips, or knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
and filling it anew. It was now half-past ten. Mr Cobb and long Phil
Parkes were his companions, as of old, and for two mortal hours and a
half, none of the company had pronounced one word.
Whether people, by dint of sitting together in the same place and the
same relative positions, and doing exactly the same things for a great
many years, acquire a sixth sense, or some unknown power of influencing
each other which serves them in its stead, is a question for philosophy
to settle. But certain it is that old John Willet, Mr Parkes, and Mr
Cobb, were one and all firmly of opinion that they were very jolly
companions--rather choice spirits than otherwise; that they looked at
each other every now and then as if there were a perpetual interchange
of ideas going on among them; that no man considered himself or his
neighbour by any means silent; and that each of them nodded occasionally
when he caught the eye of another, as if he would say, ‘You have
expressed yourself extremely well, sir, in relation to that sentiment,
and I quite agree with you.’
The room was so very warm, the tobacco so very good, and the fire so
very soothing, that Mr Willet by degrees began to doze; but as he had
perfectly acquired, by dint of long habit, the art of smoking in his
sleep, and as his breathing was pretty much the same, awake or asleep,
saving that in the latter case he sometimes experienced a slight
difficulty in respiration (such as a carpenter meets with when he is
planing and comes to a knot), neither of his companions was aware of the
circumstance, until he met with one of these impediments and was obliged
to try again.
‘Johnny’s dropped off,’ said Mr Parkes in a whisper.
‘Fast as a top,’ said Mr Cobb.
Neither of them said any more until Mr Willet came to another knot--one
of surpassing obduracy--which bade fair to throw him into convulsions,
but which he got over at last without waking, by an effort quite
superhuman.
‘He sleeps uncommon hard,’ said Mr Cobb.
Mr Parkes, who was possibly a hard-sleeper himself, replied with some
disdain, ‘Not a bit on it;’ and directed his eyes towards a handbill
pasted over the chimney-piece, which was decorated at the top with a
woodcut representing a youth of tender years running away very fast,
with a bundle over his shoulder at the end of a stick, and--to carry
out the idea--a finger-post and a milestone beside him. Mr Cobb likewise
turned his eyes in the same direction, and surveyed the placard as if
that were the first time he had ever beheld it. Now, this was a document
which Mr Willet had himself indited on the disappearance of his son
Joseph, acquainting the nobility and gentry and the public in general
with the circumstances of his having left his home; describing his dress
and appearance; and offering a reward of five pounds to any person or
persons who would pack him up and return him safely to the Maypole at
Chigwell, or lodge him in any of his Majesty’s jails until such time as
his father should come and claim him. In this advertisement Mr Willet
had obstinately persisted, despite the advice and entreaties of his
friends, in describing his son as a ‘young boy;’ and furthermore as
being from eighteen inches to a couple of feet shorter than he really
was; two circumstances which perhaps accounted, in some degree, for its
never having been productive of any other effect than the transmission
to Chigwell at various times and at a vast expense, of some
five-and-forty runaways varying from six years old to twelve.
Mr Cobb and Mr Parkes looked mysteriously at this composition, at each
other, and at old John. From the time he had pasted it up with his own
hands, Mr Willet had never by word or sign alluded to the subject, or
encouraged any one else to do so. Nobody had the least notion what his
thoughts or opinions were, connected with it; whether he remembered it
or forgot it; whether he had any idea that such an event had ever taken
place. Therefore, even while he slept, no one ventured to refer to it in
his presence; and for such sufficient reasons, these his chosen friends
were silent now.
Mr Willet had got by this time into such a complication of knots,
that it was perfectly clear he must wake or die. He chose the former
alternative, and opened his eyes.
‘If he don’t come in five minutes,’ said John, ‘I shall have supper
without him.’
The antecedent of this pronoun had been mentioned for the last time
at eight o’clock. Messrs Parkes and Cobb being used to this style of
conversation, replied without difficulty that to be sure Solomon was
very late, and they wondered what had happened to detain him.
‘He an’t blown away, I suppose,’ said Parkes. ‘It’s enough to carry a
man of his figure off his legs, and easy too. Do you hear it? It blows
great guns, indeed. There’ll be many a crash in the Forest to-night, I
reckon, and many a broken branch upon the ground to-morrow.’
‘It won’t break anything in the Maypole, I take it, sir,’ returned old
John. ‘Let it try. I give it leave--what’s that?’
‘The wind,’ cried Parkes. ‘It’s howling like a Christian, and has been
all night long.’
‘Did you ever, sir,’ asked John, after a minute’s contemplation, ‘hear
the wind say “Maypole”?’
‘Why, what man ever did?’ said Parkes.
‘Nor “ahoy,” perhaps?’ added John.
‘No. Nor that neither.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Mr Willet, perfectly unmoved; ‘then if that
was the wind just now, and you’ll wait a little time without speaking,
you’ll hear it say both words very plain.’
Mr Willet was right. After listening for a few moments, they could
clearly hear, above the roar and tumult out of doors, this shout
repeated; and that with a shrillness and energy, which denoted that it
came from some person in great distress or terror. They looked at each
other, turned pale, and held their breath. No man stirred.
It was in this emergency that Mr Willet displayed something of that
strength of mind and plenitude of mental resource, which rendered him
the admiration of all his friends and neighbours. After looking at
Messrs Parkes and Cobb for some time in silence, he clapped his two
hands to his cheeks, and sent forth a roar which made the glasses dance
and rafters ring--a long-sustained, discordant bellow, that rolled
onward with the wind, and startling every echo, made the night a hundred
times more boisterous--a deep, loud, dismal bray, that sounded like a