Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
them, it occurred to him with unusual precipitation that they must be
highwaymen; and had Hugh been armed with a blunderbuss, in place of his
stout cudgel, he would certainly have ordered him to fire it off at a
venture, and would, while the word of command was obeyed, have consulted
his own personal safety in immediate flight. Under the circumstances of
disadvantage, however, in which he and his guard were placed, he deemed
it prudent to adopt a different style of generalship, and therefore
whispered his attendant to address them in the most peaceable and
courteous terms. By way of acting up to the spirit and letter of this
instruction, Hugh stepped forward, and flourishing his staff before the
very eyes of the rider nearest to him, demanded roughly what he and his
fellows meant by so nearly galloping over them, and why they scoured the
king’s highway at that late hour of night.
The man whom he addressed was beginning an angry reply in the same
strain, when he was checked by the horseman in the centre, who,
interposing with an air of authority, inquired in a somewhat loud but
not harsh or unpleasant voice:
‘Pray, is this the London road?’
‘If you follow it right, it is,’ replied Hugh roughly.
‘Nay, brother,’ said the same person, ‘you’re but a churlish Englishman,
if Englishman you be--which I should much doubt but for your tongue.
Your companion, I am sure, will answer me more civilly. How say you,
friend?’
‘I say it IS the London road, sir,’ answered John. ‘And I wish,’ he
added in a subdued voice, as he turned to Hugh, ‘that you was in any
other road, you vagabond. Are you tired of your life, sir, that you go
a-trying to provoke three great neck-or-nothing chaps, that could keep
on running over us, back’ards and for’ards, till we was dead, and then
take our bodies up behind ‘em, and drown us ten miles off?’
‘How far is it to London?’ inquired the same speaker.
‘Why, from here, sir,’ answered John, persuasively, ‘it’s thirteen very
easy mile.’
The adjective was thrown in, as an inducement to the travellers to
ride away with all speed; but instead of having the desired effect, it
elicited from the same person, the remark, ‘Thirteen miles! That’s a
long distance!’ which was followed by a short pause of indecision.
‘Pray,’ said the gentleman, ‘are there any inns hereabouts?’ At the word
‘inns,’ John plucked up his spirit in a surprising manner; his fears
rolled off like smoke; all the landlord stirred within him.
‘There are no inns,’ rejoined Mr Willet, with a strong emphasis on the
plural number; ‘but there’s a Inn--one Inn--the Maypole Inn. That’s a
Inn indeed. You won’t see the like of that Inn often.’
‘You keep it, perhaps?’ said the horseman, smiling.
‘I do, sir,’ replied John, greatly wondering how he had found this out.
‘And how far is the Maypole from here?’
‘About a mile’--John was going to add that it was the easiest mile in
all the world, when the third rider, who had hitherto kept a little in
the rear, suddenly interposed:
‘And have you one excellent bed, landlord? Hem! A bed that you can
recommend--a bed that you are sure is well aired--a bed that has been
slept in by some perfectly respectable and unexceptionable person?’
‘We don’t take in no tagrag and bobtail at our house, sir,’ answered
John. ‘And as to the bed itself--’
‘Say, as to three beds,’ interposed the gentleman who had spoken before;
‘for we shall want three if we stay, though my friend only speaks of
one.’
‘No, no, my lord; you are too good, you are too kind; but your life is
of far too much importance to the nation in these portentous times, to
be placed upon a level with one so useless and so poor as mine. A great
cause, my lord, a mighty cause, depends on you. You are its leader and
its champion, its advanced guard and its van. It is the cause of our
altars and our homes, our country and our faith. Let ME sleep on a
chair--the carpet--anywhere. No one will repine if I take cold or fever.
Let John Grueby pass the night beneath the open sky--no one will
repine for HIM. But forty thousand men of this our island in the wave
(exclusive of women and children) rivet their eyes and thoughts on Lord
George Gordon; and every day, from the rising up of the sun to the going
down of the same, pray for his health and vigour. My lord,’ said the
speaker, rising in his stirrups, ‘it is a glorious cause, and must not
be forgotten. My lord, it is a mighty cause, and must not be endangered.
My lord, it is a holy cause, and must not be deserted.’
‘It IS a holy cause,’ exclaimed his lordship, lifting up his hat with
great solemnity. ‘Amen.’
‘John Grueby,’ said the long-winded gentleman, in a tone of mild
reproof, ‘his lordship said Amen.’
‘I heard my lord, sir,’ said the man, sitting like a statue on his
horse.
‘And do not YOU say Amen, likewise?’
To which John Grueby made no reply at all, but sat looking straight
before him.
‘You surprise me, Grueby,’ said the gentleman. ‘At a crisis like the
present, when Queen Elizabeth, that maiden monarch, weeps within
her tomb, and Bloody Mary, with a brow of gloom and shadow, stalks
triumphant--’
‘Oh, sir,’ cried the man, gruffly, ‘where’s the use of talking of Bloody
Mary, under such circumstances as the present, when my lord’s wet
through, and tired with hard riding? Let’s either go on to London, sir,
or put up at once; or that unfort’nate Bloody Mary will have more to
answer for--and she’s done a deal more harm in her grave than she ever
did in her lifetime, I believe.’
By this time Mr Willet, who had never heard so many words spoken
together at one time, or delivered with such volubility and emphasis as
by the long-winded gentleman; and whose brain, being wholly unable to
sustain or compass them, had quite given itself up for lost; recovered
so far as to observe that there was ample accommodation at the Maypole
for all the party: good beds; neat wines; excellent entertainment
for man and beast; private rooms for large and small parties; dinners
dressed upon the shortest notice; choice stabling, and a lock-up
coach-house; and, in short, to run over such recommendatory scraps of
language as were painted up on various portions of the building, and
which in the course of some forty years he had learnt to repeat with
tolerable correctness. He was considering whether it was at all possible
to insert any novel sentences to the same purpose, when the gentleman
who had spoken first, turning to him of the long wind, exclaimed, ‘What
say you, Gashford? Shall we tarry at this house he speaks of, or press
forward? You shall decide.’
‘I would submit, my lord, then,’ returned the person he appealed to,
in a silky tone, ‘that your health and spirits--so important, under
Providence, to our great cause, our pure and truthful cause’--here his
lordship pulled off his hat again, though it was raining hard--‘require
refreshment and repose.’
‘Go on before, landlord, and show the way,’ said Lord George Gordon; ‘we
will follow at a footpace.’
‘If you’ll give me leave, my lord,’ said John Grueby, in a low voice,
‘I’ll change my proper place, and ride before you. The looks of the
landlord’s friend are not over honest, and it may be as well to be
cautious with him.’
‘John Grueby is quite right,’ interposed Mr Gashford, falling back
hastily. ‘My lord, a life so precious as yours must not be put in peril.
Go forward, John, by all means. If you have any reason to suspect the
fellow, blow his brains out.’
John made no answer, but looking straight before him, as his custom
seemed to be when the secretary spoke, bade Hugh push on, and followed
close behind him. Then came his lordship, with Mr Willet at his bridle
rein; and, last of all, his lordship’s secretary--for that, it seemed,
was Gashford’s office.
Hugh strode briskly on, often looking back at the servant, whose horse
was close upon his heels, and glancing with a leer at his holster
case of pistols, by which he seemed to set great store. He was a
square-built, strong-made, bull-necked fellow, of the true English
breed; and as Hugh measured him with his eye, he measured Hugh,
regarding him meanwhile with a look of bluff disdain. He was much older
than the Maypole man, being to all appearance five-and-forty; but was
one of those self-possessed, hard-headed, imperturbable fellows, who, if
they are ever beaten at fisticuffs, or other kind of warfare, never know
it, and go on coolly till they win.
‘If I led you wrong now,’ said Hugh, tauntingly, ‘you’d--ha ha
ha!--you’d shoot me through the head, I suppose.’
John Grueby took no more notice of this remark than if he had been deaf
and Hugh dumb; but kept riding on quite comfortably, with his eyes fixed
on the horizon.
‘Did you ever try a fall with a man when you were young, master?’ said
Hugh. ‘Can you make any play at single-stick?’
John Grueby looked at him sideways with the same contented air, but
deigned not a word in answer.
‘--Like this?’ said Hugh, giving his cudgel one of those skilful
flourishes, in which the rustic of that time delighted. ‘Whoop!’
‘--Or that,’ returned John Grueby, beating down his guard with his whip,
and striking him on the head with its butt end. ‘Yes, I played a little
once. You wear your hair too long; I should have cracked your crown if
it had been a little shorter.’
It was a pretty smart, loud-sounding rap, as it was, and evidently
astonished Hugh; who, for the moment, seemed disposed to drag his new
acquaintance from his saddle. But his face betokening neither malice,
triumph, rage, nor any lingering idea that he had given him offence;
his eyes gazing steadily in the old direction, and his manner being as
careless and composed as if he had merely brushed away a fly; Hugh was
so puzzled, and so disposed to look upon him as a customer of almost
supernatural toughness, that he merely laughed, and cried ‘Well done!’
then, sheering off a little, led the way in silence.
Before the lapse of many minutes the party halted at the Maypole door.
Lord George and his secretary quickly dismounting, gave their horses to
their servant, who, under the guidance of Hugh, repaired to the stables.
Right glad to escape from the inclemency of the night, they followed
Mr Willet into the common room, and stood warming themselves and drying
their clothes before the cheerful fire, while he busied himself with
such orders and preparations as his guest’s high quality required.
As he bustled in and out of the room, intent on these arrangements, he
had an opportunity of observing the two travellers, of whom, as yet, he
knew nothing but the voice. The lord, the great personage who did the
Maypole so much honour, was about the middle height, of a slender make,
and sallow complexion, with an aquiline nose, and long hair of a reddish
brown, combed perfectly straight and smooth about his ears, and slightly
powdered, but without the faintest vestige of a curl. He was attired,
under his greatcoat, in a full suit of black, quite free from any
ornament, and of the most precise and sober cut. The gravity of his
dress, together with a certain lankness of cheek and stiffness of
deportment, added nearly ten years to his age, but his figure was that
of one not yet past thirty. As he stood musing in the red glow of
the fire, it was striking to observe his very bright large eye, which
betrayed a restlessness of thought and purpose, singularly at variance
with the studied composure and sobriety of his mien, and with his
quaint and sad apparel. It had nothing harsh or cruel in its expression;
neither had his face, which was thin and mild, and wore an air of
melancholy; but it was suggestive of an indefinable uneasiness; which
infected those who looked upon him, and filled them with a kind of pity