Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
answered at intervals by an inclination of the head, half-way between a
nod of acquiescence, and a bow of most profound respect.
In the abstract there was nothing very remarkable in this pair, for
servility waiting on a handsome suit of clothes and a cane--not to speak
of gold and silver sticks, or wands of office--is common enough. But
there was that about the well-dressed man, yes, and about the other
likewise, which struck Mr Haredale with no pleasant feeling. He
hesitated, stopped, and would have stepped aside and turned out of his
path, but at the moment, the other two faced about quickly, and stumbled
upon him before he could avoid them.
The gentleman with the cane lifted his hat and had begun to tender an
apology, which Mr Haredale had begun as hastily to acknowledge and walk
away, when he stopped short and cried, ‘Haredale! Gad bless me, this is
strange indeed!’
‘It is,’ he returned impatiently; ‘yes--a--’
‘My dear friend,’ cried the other, detaining him, ‘why such great speed?
One minute, Haredale, for the sake of old acquaintance.’
‘I am in haste,’ he said. ‘Neither of us has sought this meeting. Let it
be a brief one. Good night!’
‘Fie, fie!’ replied Sir John (for it was he), ‘how very churlish! We
were speaking of you. Your name was on my lips--perhaps you heard me
mention it? No? I am sorry for that. I am really sorry.--You know our
friend here, Haredale? This is really a most remarkable meeting!’
The friend, plainly very ill at ease, had made bold to press Sir John’s
arm, and to give him other significant hints that he was desirous of
avoiding this introduction. As it did not suit Sir John’s purpose,
however, that it should be evaded, he appeared quite unconscious of
these silent remonstrances, and inclined his hand towards him, as he
spoke, to call attention to him more particularly.
The friend, therefore, had nothing for it, but to muster up the
pleasantest smile he could, and to make a conciliatory bow, as Mr
Haredale turned his eyes upon him. Seeing that he was recognised, he put
out his hand in an awkward and embarrassed manner, which was not mended
by its contemptuous rejection.
‘Mr Gashford!’ said Haredale, coldly. ‘It is as I have heard then. You
have left the darkness for the light, sir, and hate those whose opinions
you formerly held, with all the bitterness of a renegade. You are an
honour, sir, to any cause. I wish the one you espouse at present, much
joy of the acquisition it has made.’
The secretary rubbed his hands and bowed, as though he would disarm
his adversary by humbling himself before him. Sir John Chester again
exclaimed, with an air of great gaiety, ‘Now, really, this is a
most remarkable meeting!’ and took a pinch of snuff with his usual
self-possession.
‘Mr Haredale,’ said Gashford, stealthily raising his eyes, and
letting them drop again when they met the other’s steady gaze, ‘is too
conscientious, too honourable, too manly, I am sure, to attach unworthy
motives to an honest change of opinions, even though it implies a doubt
of those he holds himself. Mr Haredale is too just, too generous, too
clear-sighted in his moral vision, to--’
‘Yes, sir?’ he rejoined with a sarcastic smile, finding the secretary
stopped. ‘You were saying’--
Gashford meekly shrugged his shoulders, and looking on the ground again,
was silent.
‘No, but let us really,’ interposed Sir John at this juncture, ‘let us
really, for a moment, contemplate the very remarkable character of this
meeting. Haredale, my dear friend, pardon me if I think you are not
sufficiently impressed with its singularity. Here we stand, by no
previous appointment or arrangement, three old schoolfellows, in
Westminster Hall; three old boarders in a remarkably dull and shady
seminary at Saint Omer’s, where you, being Catholics and of necessity
educated out of England, were brought up; and where I, being a promising
young Protestant at that time, was sent to learn the French tongue from
a native of Paris!’
‘Add to the singularity, Sir John,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘that some of you
Protestants of promise are at this moment leagued in yonder building, to
prevent our having the surpassing and unheard-of privilege of teaching
our children to read and write--here--in this land, where thousands of
us enter your service every year, and to preserve the freedom of which,
we die in bloody battles abroad, in heaps: and that others of you, to
the number of some thousands as I learn, are led on to look on all men
of my creed as wolves and beasts of prey, by this man Gashford. Add
to it besides the bare fact that this man lives in society, walks the
streets in broad day--I was about to say, holds up his head, but that he
does not--and it will be strange, and very strange, I grant you.’
‘Oh! you are hard upon our friend,’ replied Sir John, with an engaging
smile. ‘You are really very hard upon our friend!’
‘Let him go on, Sir John,’ said Gashford, fumbling with his gloves. ‘Let
him go on. I can make allowances, Sir John. I am honoured with your
good opinion, and I can dispense with Mr Haredale’s. Mr Haredale is a
sufferer from the penal laws, and I can’t expect his favour.’
‘You have so much of my favour, sir,’ retorted Mr Haredale, with a
bitter glance at the third party in their conversation, ‘that I am
glad to see you in such good company. You are the essence of your great
Association, in yourselves.’
‘Now, there you mistake,’ said Sir John, in his most benignant way.
‘There--which is a most remarkable circumstance for a man of your
punctuality and exactness, Haredale--you fall into error. I don’t belong
to the body; I have an immense respect for its members, but I don’t
belong to it; although I am, it is certainly true, the conscientious
opponent of your being relieved. I feel it my duty to be so; it is a
most unfortunate necessity; and cost me a bitter struggle.--Will you try
this box? If you don’t object to a trifling infusion of a very chaste
scent, you’ll find its flavour exquisite.’
‘I ask your pardon, Sir John,’ said Mr Haredale, declining the proffer
with a motion of his hand, ‘for having ranked you among the humble
instruments who are obvious and in all men’s sight. I should have done
more justice to your genius. Men of your capacity plot in secrecy and
safety, and leave exposed posts to the duller wits.’
‘Don’t apologise, for the world,’ replied Sir John sweetly; ‘old friends
like you and I, may be allowed some freedoms, or the deuce is in it.’
Gashford, who had been very restless all this time, but had not once
looked up, now turned to Sir John, and ventured to mutter something to
the effect that he must go, or my lord would perhaps be waiting.
‘Don’t distress yourself, good sir,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘I’ll take my
leave, and put you at your ease--’ which he was about to do without
ceremony, when he was stayed by a buzz and murmur at the upper end of
the hall, and, looking in that direction, saw Lord George Gordon coming
in, with a crowd of people round him.
There was a lurking look of triumph, though very differently expressed,
in the faces of his two companions, which made it a natural impulse
on Mr Haredale’s part not to give way before this leader, but to stand
there while he passed. He drew himself up and, clasping his hands behind
him, looked on with a proud and scornful aspect, while Lord George
slowly advanced (for the press was great about him) towards the spot
where they were standing.
He had left the House of Commons but that moment, and had come straight
down into the Hall, bringing with him, as his custom was, intelligence
of what had been said that night in reference to the Papists, and what
petitions had been presented in their favour, and who had supported
them, and when the bill was to be brought in, and when it would be
advisable to present their own Great Protestant petition. All this he
told the persons about him in a loud voice, and with great abundance
of ungainly gesture. Those who were nearest him made comments to each
other, and vented threats and murmurings; those who were outside the
crowd cried, ‘Silence,’ and ‘Stand back,’ or closed in upon the rest,
endeavouring to make a forcible exchange of places: and so they came
driving on in a very disorderly and irregular way, as it is the manner
of a crowd to do.
When they were very near to where the secretary, Sir John, and Mr
Haredale stood, Lord George turned round and, making a few remarks of
a sufficiently violent and incoherent kind, concluded with the usual
sentiment, and called for three cheers to back it. While these were in
the act of being given with great energy, he extricated himself from
the press, and stepped up to Gashford’s side. Both he and Sir John being
well known to the populace, they fell back a little, and left the four
standing together.
‘Mr Haredale, Lord George,’ said Sir John Chester, seeing that the
nobleman regarded him with an inquisitive look. ‘A Catholic gentleman
unfortunately--most unhappily a Catholic--but an esteemed acquaintance
of mine, and once of Mr Gashford’s. My dear Haredale, this is Lord
George Gordon.’
‘I should have known that, had I been ignorant of his lordship’s
person,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘I hope there is but one gentleman in England
who, addressing an ignorant and excited throng, would speak of a large
body of his fellow-subjects in such injurious language as I heard this
moment. For shame, my lord, for shame!’
‘I cannot talk to you, sir,’ replied Lord George in a loud voice, and
waving his hand in a disturbed and agitated manner; ‘we have nothing in
common.’
‘We have much in common--many things--all that the Almighty gave us,’
said Mr Haredale; ‘and common charity, not to say common sense and
common decency, should teach you to refrain from these proceedings. If
every one of those men had arms in their hands at this moment, as they
have them in their heads, I would not leave this place without telling
you that you disgrace your station.’
‘I don’t hear you, sir,’ he replied in the same manner as before; ‘I
can’t hear you. It is indifferent to me what you say. Don’t retort,
Gashford,’ for the secretary had made a show of wishing to do so; ‘I can
hold no communion with the worshippers of idols.’
As he said this, he glanced at Sir John, who lifted his hands and
eyebrows, as if deploring the intemperate conduct of Mr Haredale, and
smiled in admiration of the crowd and of their leader.
‘HE retort!’ cried Haredale. ‘Look you here, my lord. Do you know this
man?’
Lord George replied by laying his hand upon the shoulder of his cringing
secretary, and viewing him with a smile of confidence.
‘This man,’ said Mr Haredale, eyeing him from top to toe, ‘who in his
boyhood was a thief, and has been from that time to this, a servile,
false, and truckling knave: this man, who has crawled and crept through
life, wounding the hands he licked, and biting those he fawned upon:
this sycophant, who never knew what honour, truth, or courage meant; who
robbed his benefactor’s daughter of her virtue, and married her to break
her heart, and did it, with stripes and cruelty: this creature, who has
whined at kitchen windows for the broken food, and begged for halfpence
at our chapel doors: this apostle of the faith, whose tender conscience
cannot bear the altars where his vicious life was publicly denounced--Do
you know this man?’
‘Oh, really--you are very, very hard upon our friend!’ exclaimed Sir
John.
‘Let Mr Haredale go on,’ said Gashford, upon whose unwholesome face the
perspiration had broken out during this speech, in blotches of wet; ‘I
don’t mind him, Sir John; it’s quite as indifferent to me what he says,
as it is to my lord. If he reviles my lord, as you have heard, Sir John,
how can I hope to escape?’