Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
impelled by some strong motive to reach his journey’s end, on he swept
more like a hunted phantom than a man, nor checked his pace until,
arriving at some cross roads, one of which led by a longer route to
the place whence he had lately started, he bore down so suddenly upon a
vehicle which was coming towards him, that in the effort to avoid it he
well-nigh pulled his horse upon his haunches, and narrowly escaped being
thrown.
‘Yoho!’ cried the voice of a man. ‘What’s that? Who goes there?’
‘A friend!’ replied the traveller.
‘A friend!’ repeated the voice. ‘Who calls himself a friend and rides
like that, abusing Heaven’s gifts in the shape of horseflesh, and
endangering, not only his own neck (which might be no great matter) but
the necks of other people?’
‘You have a lantern there, I see,’ said the traveller dismounting, ‘lend
it me for a moment. You have wounded my horse, I think, with your shaft
or wheel.’
‘Wounded him!’ cried the other, ‘if I haven’t killed him, it’s no fault
of yours. What do you mean by galloping along the king’s highway like
that, eh?’
‘Give me the light,’ returned the traveller, snatching it from his hand,
‘and don’t ask idle questions of a man who is in no mood for talking.’
‘If you had said you were in no mood for talking before, I should
perhaps have been in no mood for lighting,’ said the voice. ‘Hows’ever
as it’s the poor horse that’s damaged and not you, one of you is welcome
to the light at all events--but it’s not the crusty one.’
The traveller returned no answer to this speech, but holding the light
near to his panting and reeking beast, examined him in limb and carcass.
Meanwhile, the other man sat very composedly in his vehicle, which was
a kind of chaise with a depository for a large bag of tools, and watched
his proceedings with a careful eye.
The looker-on was a round, red-faced, sturdy yeoman, with a double chin,
and a voice husky with good living, good sleeping, good humour, and good
health. He was past the prime of life, but Father Time is not always a
hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays
his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men
and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young
and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression
of the old fellow’s hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle
but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.
The person whom the traveller had so abruptly encountered was of
this kind: bluff, hale, hearty, and in a green old age: at peace with
himself, and evidently disposed to be so with all the world. Although
muffled up in divers coats and handkerchiefs--one of which, passed over
his crown, and tied in a convenient crease of his double chin, secured
his three-cornered hat and bob-wig from blowing off his head--there
was no disguising his plump and comfortable figure; neither did certain
dirty finger-marks upon his face give it any other than an odd and
comical expression, through which its natural good humour shone with
undiminished lustre.
‘He is not hurt,’ said the traveller at length, raising his head and the
lantern together.
‘You have found that out at last, have you?’ rejoined the old man. ‘My
eyes have seen more light than yours, but I wouldn’t change with you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mean! I could have told you he wasn’t hurt, five minutes ago. Give me
the light, friend; ride forward at a gentler pace; and good night.’
In handing up the lantern, the man necessarily cast its rays full on the
speaker’s face. Their eyes met at the instant. He suddenly dropped it
and crushed it with his foot.
‘Did you never see a locksmith before, that you start as if you had come
upon a ghost?’ cried the old man in the chaise, ‘or is this,’ he added
hastily, thrusting his hand into the tool basket and drawing out a
hammer, ‘a scheme for robbing me? I know these roads, friend. When I
travel them, I carry nothing but a few shillings, and not a crown’s
worth of them. I tell you plainly, to save us both trouble, that there’s
nothing to be got from me but a pretty stout arm considering my years,
and this tool, which, mayhap from long acquaintance with, I can use
pretty briskly. You shall not have it all your own way, I promise you,
if you play at that game. With these words he stood upon the defensive.
‘I am not what you take me for, Gabriel Varden,’ replied the other.
‘Then what and who are you?’ returned the locksmith. ‘You know my name,
it seems. Let me know yours.’
‘I have not gained the information from any confidence of yours, but
from the inscription on your cart which tells it to all the town,’
replied the traveller.
‘You have better eyes for that than you had for your horse, then,’ said
Varden, descending nimbly from his chaise; ‘who are you? Let me see your
face.’
While the locksmith alighted, the traveller had regained his saddle,
from which he now confronted the old man, who, moving as the horse moved
in chafing under the tightened rein, kept close beside him.
‘Let me see your face, I say.’
‘Stand off!’
‘No masquerading tricks,’ said the locksmith, ‘and tales at the club
to-morrow, how Gabriel Varden was frightened by a surly voice and a dark
night. Stand--let me see your face.’
Finding that further resistance would only involve him in a personal
struggle with an antagonist by no means to be despised, the traveller
threw back his coat, and stooping down looked steadily at the locksmith.
Perhaps two men more powerfully contrasted, never opposed each other
face to face. The ruddy features of the locksmith so set off and
heightened the excessive paleness of the man on horseback, that he
looked like a bloodless ghost, while the moisture, which hard riding had
brought out upon his skin, hung there in dark and heavy drops, like dews
of agony and death. The countenance of the old locksmith lighted up with
the smile of one expecting to detect in this unpromising stranger some
latent roguery of eye or lip, which should reveal a familiar person in
that arch disguise, and spoil his jest. The face of the other, sullen
and fierce, but shrinking too, was that of a man who stood at bay; while
his firmly closed jaws, his puckered mouth, and more than all a certain
stealthy motion of the hand within his breast, seemed to announce a
desperate purpose very foreign to acting, or child’s play.
Thus they regarded each other for some time, in silence.
‘Humph!’ he said when he had scanned his features; ‘I don’t know you.’
‘Don’t desire to?’--returned the other, muffling himself as before.
‘I don’t,’ said Gabriel; ‘to be plain with you, friend, you don’t carry
in your countenance a letter of recommendation.’
‘It’s not my wish,’ said the traveller. ‘My humour is to be avoided.’
‘Well,’ said the locksmith bluntly, ‘I think you’ll have your humour.’
‘I will, at any cost,’ rejoined the traveller. ‘In proof of it, lay this
to heart--that you were never in such peril of your life as you have
been within these few moments; when you are within five minutes of
breathing your last, you will not be nearer death than you have been
to-night!’
‘Aye!’ said the sturdy locksmith.
‘Aye! and a violent death.’
‘From whose hand?’
‘From mine,’ replied the traveller.
With that he put spurs to his horse, and rode away; at first plashing
heavily through the mire at a smart trot, but gradually increasing in
speed until the last sound of his horse’s hoofs died away upon the wind;
when he was again hurrying on at the same furious gallop, which had been
his pace when the locksmith first encountered him.
Gabriel Varden remained standing in the road with the broken lantern in
his hand, listening in stupefied silence until no sound reached his ear
but the moaning of the wind, and the fast-falling rain; when he struck
himself one or two smart blows in the breast by way of rousing himself,
and broke into an exclamation of surprise.
‘What in the name of wonder can this fellow be! a madman? a highwayman?
a cut-throat? If he had not scoured off so fast, we’d have seen who was
in most danger, he or I. I never nearer death than I have been to-night!
I hope I may be no nearer to it for a score of years to come--if so,
I’ll be content to be no farther from it. My stars!--a pretty brag this
to a stout man--pooh, pooh!’
Gabriel resumed his seat, and looked wistfully up the road by which the
traveller had come; murmuring in a half whisper:
‘The Maypole--two miles to the Maypole. I came the other road from the
Warren after a long day’s work at locks and bells, on purpose that I
should not come by the Maypole and break my promise to Martha by looking
in--there’s resolution! It would be dangerous to go on to London without
a light; and it’s four miles, and a good half mile besides, to the
Halfway-House; and between this and that is the very place where one
needs a light most. Two miles to the Maypole! I told Martha I wouldn’t;
I said I wouldn’t, and I didn’t--there’s resolution!’
Repeating these two last words very often, as if to compensate for the
little resolution he was going to show by piquing himself on the great
resolution he had shown, Gabriel Varden quietly turned back, determining
to get a light at the Maypole, and to take nothing but a light.
When he got to the Maypole, however, and Joe, responding to his
well-known hail, came running out to the horse’s head, leaving the door
open behind him, and disclosing a delicious perspective of warmth and
brightness--when the ruddy gleam of the fire, streaming through the old
red curtains of the common room, seemed to bring with it, as part of
itself, a pleasant hum of voices, and a fragrant odour of steaming grog
and rare tobacco, all steeped as it were in the cheerful glow--when the
shadows, flitting across the curtain, showed that those inside had risen
from their snug seats, and were making room in the snuggest corner (how
well he knew that corner!) for the honest locksmith, and a broad glare,
suddenly streaming up, bespoke the goodness of the crackling log from
which a brilliant train of sparks was doubtless at that moment whirling
up the chimney in honour of his coming--when, superadded to these
enticements, there stole upon him from the distant kitchen a gentle
sound of frying, with a musical clatter of plates and dishes, and a
savoury smell that made even the boisterous wind a perfume--Gabriel
felt his firmness oozing rapidly away. He tried to look stoically at the
tavern, but his features would relax into a look of fondness. He turned
his head the other way, and the cold black country seemed to frown him
off, and drive him for a refuge into its hospitable arms.
‘The merciful man, Joe,’ said the locksmith, ‘is merciful to his beast.
I’ll get out for a little while.’
And how natural it was to get out! And how unnatural it seemed for a
sober man to be plodding wearily along through miry roads, encountering
the rude buffets of the wind and pelting of the rain, when there was
a clean floor covered with crisp white sand, a well swept hearth, a
blazing fire, a table decorated with white cloth, bright pewter flagons,
and other tempting preparations for a well-cooked meal--when there were
these things, and company disposed to make the most of them, all ready
to his hand, and entreating him to enjoyment!
Chapter 3
Such were the locksmith’s thoughts when first seated in the snug corner,
and slowly recovering from a pleasant defect of vision--pleasant,
because occasioned by the wind blowing in his eyes--which made it a
matter of sound policy and duty to himself, that he should take refuge
from the weather, and tempted him, for the same reason, to aggravate
a slight cough, and declare he felt but poorly. Such were still his