Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
‘I have come to and fro, master, all through that time, when there was
anything to tell, because I knew that you’d be angry with me if I stayed
away,’ said Hugh, blurting the words out, after an embarrassed silence;
‘and because I wished to please you if I could, and not to have you go
against me. There. That’s the true reason why I came to-night. You know
that, master, I am sure.’
‘You are a specious fellow,’ returned Sir John, fixing his eyes upon
him, ‘and carry two faces under your hood, as well as the best. Didn’t
you give me in this room, this evening, any other reason; no dislike
of anybody who has slighted you lately, on all occasions, abused you,
treated you with rudeness; acted towards you, more as if you were a
mongrel dog than a man like himself?’
‘To be sure I did!’ cried Hugh, his passion rising, as the other meant
it should; ‘and I say it all over now, again. I’d do anything to have
some revenge on him--anything. And when you told me that he and all
the Catholics would suffer from those who joined together under that
handbill, I said I’d make one of ‘em, if their master was the devil
himself. I AM one of ‘em. See whether I am as good as my word and turn
out to be among the foremost, or no. I mayn’t have much head, master,
but I’ve head enough to remember those that use me ill. You shall see,
and so shall he, and so shall hundreds more, how my spirit backs me
when the time comes. My bark is nothing to my bite. Some that I know had
better have a wild lion among ‘em than me, when I am fairly loose--they
had!’
The knight looked at him with a smile of far deeper meaning than
ordinary; and pointing to the old cupboard, followed him with his eyes
while he filled and drank a glass of liquor; and smiled when his back
was turned, with deeper meaning yet.
‘You are in a blustering mood, my friend,’ he said, when Hugh confronted
him again.
‘Not I, master!’ cried Hugh. ‘I don’t say half I mean. I can’t. I
haven’t got the gift. There are talkers enough among us; I’ll be one of
the doers.’
‘Oh! you have joined those fellows then?’ said Sir John, with an air of
most profound indifference.
‘Yes. I went up to the house you told me of; and got put down upon the
muster. There was another man there, named Dennis--’
‘Dennis, eh!’ cried Sir John, laughing. ‘Ay, ay! a pleasant fellow, I
believe?’
‘A roaring dog, master--one after my own heart--hot upon the matter
too--red hot.’
‘So I have heard,’ replied Sir John, carelessly. ‘You don’t happen to
know his trade, do you?’
‘He wouldn’t say,’ cried Hugh. ‘He keeps it secret.’
‘Ha ha!’ laughed Sir John. ‘A strange fancy--a weakness with some
persons--you’ll know it one day, I dare swear.’
‘We’re intimate already,’ said Hugh.
‘Quite natural! And have been drinking together, eh?’ pursued Sir John.
‘Did you say what place you went to in company, when you left Lord
George’s?’
Hugh had not said or thought of saying, but he told him; and this
inquiry being followed by a long train of questions, he related all that
had passed both in and out of doors, the kind of people he had seen,
their numbers, state of feeling, mode of conversation, apparent
expectations and intentions. His questioning was so artfully contrived,
that he seemed even in his own eyes to volunteer all this information
rather than to have it wrested from him; and he was brought to this
state of feeling so naturally, that when Mr Chester yawned at length and
declared himself quite wearied out, he made a rough kind of excuse for
having talked so much.
‘There--get you gone,’ said Sir John, holding the door open in his hand.
‘You have made a pretty evening’s work. I told you not to do this. You
may get into trouble. You’ll have an opportunity of revenging yourself
on your proud friend Haredale, though, and for that, you’d hazard
anything, I suppose?’
‘I would,’ retorted Hugh, stopping in his passage out and looking
back; ‘but what do I risk! What do I stand a chance of losing, master?
Friends, home? A fig for ‘em all; I have none; they are nothing to me.
Give me a good scuffle; let me pay off old scores in a bold riot where
there are men to stand by me; and then use me as you like--it don’t
matter much to me what the end is!’
‘What have you done with that paper?’ said Sir John.
‘I have it here, master.’
‘Drop it again as you go along; it’s as well not to keep such things
about you.’
Hugh nodded, and touching his cap with an air of as much respect as he
could summon up, departed.
Sir John, fastening the doors behind him, went back to his
dressing-room, and sat down once again before the fire, at which he
gazed for a long time, in earnest meditation.
‘This happens fortunately,’ he said, breaking into a smile, ‘and
promises well. Let me see. My relative and I, who are the most
Protestant fellows in the world, give our worst wishes to the Roman
Catholic cause; and to Saville, who introduces their bill, I have a
personal objection besides; but as each of us has himself for the first
article in his creed, we cannot commit ourselves by joining with a very
extravagant madman, such as this Gordon most undoubtedly is. Now really,
to foment his disturbances in secret, through the medium of such a very
apt instrument as my savage friend here, may further our real ends;
and to express at all becoming seasons, in moderate and polite terms,
a disapprobation of his proceedings, though we agree with him in
principle, will certainly be to gain a character for honesty and
uprightness of purpose, which cannot fail to do us infinite service, and
to raise us into some importance. Good! So much for public grounds. As
to private considerations, I confess that if these vagabonds WOULD make
some riotous demonstration (which does not appear impossible), and WOULD
inflict some little chastisement on Haredale as a not inactive man among
his sect, it would be extremely agreeable to my feelings, and would
amuse me beyond measure. Good again! Perhaps better!’
When he came to this point, he took a pinch of snuff; then beginning
slowly to undress, he resumed his meditations, by saying with a smile:
‘I fear, I DO fear exceedingly, that my friend is following fast in the
footsteps of his mother. His intimacy with Mr Dennis is very ominous.
But I have no doubt he must have come to that end any way. If I lend
him a helping hand, the only difference is, that he may, upon the whole,
possibly drink a few gallons, or puncheons, or hogsheads, less in this
life than he otherwise would. It’s no business of mine. It’s a matter of
very small importance!’
So he took another pinch of snuff, and went to bed.
Chapter 41
From the workshop of the Golden Key, there issued forth a tinkling
sound, so merry and good-humoured, that it suggested the idea of some
one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. No man who hammered
on at a dull monotonous duty, could have brought such cheerful notes
from steel and iron; none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted
fellow, who made the best of everything, and felt kindly towards
everybody, could have done it for an instant. He might have been a
coppersmith, and still been musical. If he had sat in a jolting waggon,
full of rods of iron, it seemed as if he would have brought some harmony
out of it.
Tink, tink, tink--clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause of
the streets’ harsher noises, as though it said, ‘I don’t care; nothing
puts me out; I am resolved to be happy.’ Women scolded, children
squalled, heavy carts went rumbling by, horrible cries proceeded from
the lungs of hawkers; still it struck in again, no higher, no lower,
no louder, no softer; not thrusting itself on people’s notice a bit the
more for having been outdone by louder sounds--tink, tink, tink, tink,
tink.
It was a perfect embodiment of the still small voice, free from
all cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind;
foot-passengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near
it; neighbours who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good-humour
stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite
sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing; still the same
magical tink, tink, tink, came gaily from the workshop of the Golden
Key.
Who but the locksmith could have made such music! A gleam of sun shining
through the unsashed window, and chequering the dark workshop with a
broad patch of light, fell full upon him, as though attracted by his
sunny heart. There he stood working at his anvil, his face all radiant
with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off
his shining forehead--the easiest, freest, happiest man in all the
world. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and
falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort.
Toby looked on from a tall bench hard by; one beaming smile, from his
broad nut-brown face down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The
very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and
seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their
infirmities. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene.
It seemed impossible that any one of the innumerable keys could fit a
churlish strong-box or a prison-door. Cellars of beer and wine, rooms
where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter--these
were their proper sphere of action. Places of distrust and cruelty, and
restraint, they would have left quadruple-locked for ever.
Tink, tink, tink. The locksmith paused at last, and wiped his brow. The
silence roused the cat, who, jumping softly down, crept to the door,
and watched with tiger eyes a bird-cage in an opposite window. Gabriel
lifted Toby to his mouth, and took a hearty draught.
Then, as he stood upright, with his head flung back, and his portly
chest thrown out, you would have seen that Gabriel’s lower man was
clothed in military gear. Glancing at the wall beyond, there might
have been espied, hanging on their several pegs, a cap and feather,
broadsword, sash, and coat of scarlet; which any man learned in such
matters would have known from their make and pattern to be the uniform
of a serjeant in the Royal East London Volunteers.
As the locksmith put his mug down, empty, on the bench whence it had
smiled on him before, he glanced at these articles with a laughing eye,
and looking at them with his head a little on one side, as though he
would get them all into a focus, said, leaning on his hammer:
‘Time was, now, I remember, when I was like to run mad with the desire
to wear a coat of that colour. If any one (except my father) had called
me a fool for my pains, how I should have fired and fumed! But what a
fool I must have been, sure-ly!’
‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs Varden, who had entered unobserved. ‘A fool indeed. A
man at your time of life, Varden, should know better now.’
‘Why, what a ridiculous woman you are, Martha,’ said the locksmith,
turning round with a smile.
‘Certainly,’ replied Mrs V. with great demureness. ‘Of course I am. I
know that, Varden. Thank you.’
‘I mean--’ began the locksmith.
‘Yes,’ said his wife, ‘I know what you mean. You speak quite plain
enough to be understood, Varden. It’s very kind of you to adapt yourself
to my capacity, I am sure.’
‘Tut, tut, Martha,’ rejoined the locksmith; ‘don’t take offence at
nothing. I mean, how strange it is of you to run down volunteering, when
it’s done to defend you and all the other women, and our own fireside
and everybody else’s, in case of need.’
‘It’s unchristian,’ cried Mrs Varden, shaking her head.
‘Unchristian!’ said the locksmith. ‘Why, what the devil--’
Mrs Varden looked at the ceiling, as in expectation that the consequence