Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
remark. ‘Where’s the good of putting things off? Strike while the iron’s
hot; that’s what I say.’
‘Ah!’ retorted Dennis, shaking his head, with a kind of pity for his
friend’s ingenuous youth; ‘but suppose the iron an’t hot, brother! You
must get people’s blood up afore you strike, and have ‘em in the humour.
There wasn’t quite enough to provoke ‘em to-day, I tell you. If you’d
had your way, you’d have spoilt the fun to come, and ruined us.’
‘Dennis is quite right,’ said Gashford, smoothly. ‘He is perfectly
correct. Dennis has great knowledge of the world.’
‘I ought to have, Muster Gashford, seeing what a many people I’ve helped
out of it, eh?’ grinned the hangman, whispering the words behind his
hand.
The secretary laughed at this jest as much as Dennis could desire, and
when he had done, said, turning to Hugh:
‘Dennis’s policy was mine, as you may have observed. You saw, for
instance, how I fell when I was set upon. I made no resistance. I did
nothing to provoke an outbreak. Oh dear no!’
‘No, by the Lord Harry!’ cried Dennis with a noisy laugh, ‘you went down
very quiet, Muster Gashford--and very flat besides. I thinks to myself
at the time “it’s all up with Muster Gashford!” I never see a man lay
flatter nor more still--with the life in him--than you did to-day. He’s
a rough ‘un to play with, is that ‘ere Papist, and that’s the fact.’
The secretary’s face, as Dennis roared with laughter, and turned his
wrinkled eyes on Hugh who did the like, might have furnished a study for
the devil’s picture. He sat quite silent until they were serious again,
and then said, looking round:
‘We are very pleasant here; so very pleasant, Dennis, that but for my
lord’s particular desire that I should sup with him, and the time being
very near at hand, I should be inclined to stay, until it would be
hardly safe to go homeward. I come upon a little business--yes, I do--as
you supposed. It’s very flattering to you; being this. If we ever
should be obliged--and we can’t tell, you know--this is a very uncertain
world’--
‘I believe you, Muster Gashford,’ interposed the hangman with a grave
nod. ‘The uncertainties as I’ve seen in reference to this here state of
existence, the unexpected contingencies as have come about!--Oh my eye!’
Feeling the subject much too vast for expression, he puffed at his pipe
again, and looked the rest.
‘I say,’ resumed the secretary, in a slow, impressive way; ‘we can’t
tell what may come to pass; and if we should be obliged, against our
wills, to have recourse to violence, my lord (who has suffered terribly
to-day, as far as words can go) consigns to you two--bearing in mind my
recommendation of you both, as good staunch men, beyond all doubt and
suspicion--the pleasant task of punishing this Haredale. You may do as
you please with him, or his, provided that you show no mercy, and no
quarter, and leave no two beams of his house standing where the builder
placed them. You may sack it, burn it, do with it as you like, but
it must come down; it must be razed to the ground; and he, and all
belonging to him, left as shelterless as new-born infants whom their
mothers have exposed. Do you understand me?’ said Gashford, pausing, and
pressing his hands together gently.
‘Understand you, master!’ cried Hugh. ‘You speak plain now. Why, this is
hearty!’
‘I knew you would like it,’ said Gashford, shaking him by the hand; ‘I
thought you would. Good night! Don’t rise, Dennis: I would rather find
my way alone. I may have to make other visits here, and it’s pleasant
to come and go without disturbing you. I can find my way perfectly well.
Good night!’
He was gone, and had shut the door behind him. They looked at each
other, and nodded approvingly: Dennis stirred up the fire.
‘This looks a little more like business!’ he said.
‘Ay, indeed!’ cried Hugh; ‘this suits me!’
‘I’ve heerd it said of Muster Gashford,’ said the hangman, ‘that he’d
a surprising memory and wonderful firmness--that he never forgot, and
never forgave.--Let’s drink his health!’
Hugh readily complied--pouring no liquor on the floor when he drank this
toast--and they pledged the secretary as a man after their own hearts,
in a bumper.
Chapter 45
While the worst passions of the worst men were thus working in the dark,
and the mantle of religion, assumed to cover the ugliest deformities,
threatened to become the shroud of all that was good and peaceful in
society, a circumstance occurred which once more altered the position of
two persons from whom this history has long been separated, and to whom
it must now return.
In a small English country town, the inhabitants of which supported
themselves by the labour of their hands in plaiting and preparing straw
for those who made bonnets and other articles of dress and ornament from
that material,--concealed under an assumed name, and living in a quiet
poverty which knew no change, no pleasures, and few cares but that
of struggling on from day to day in one great toil for bread,--dwelt
Barnaby and his mother. Their poor cottage had known no stranger’s foot
since they sought the shelter of its roof five years before; nor had
they in all that time held any commerce or communication with the old
world from which they had fled. To labour in peace, and devote her
labour and her life to her poor son, was all the widow sought. If
happiness can be said at any time to be the lot of one on whom a secret
sorrow preys, she was happy now. Tranquillity, resignation, and her
strong love of him who needed it so much, formed the small circle of her
quiet joys; and while that remained unbroken, she was contented.
For Barnaby himself, the time which had flown by, had passed him like
the wind. The daily suns of years had shed no brighter gleam of reason
on his mind; no dawn had broken on his long, dark night. He would sit
sometimes--often for days together on a low seat by the fire or by the
cottage door, busy at work (for he had learnt the art his mother plied),
and listening, God help him, to the tales she would repeat, as a lure
to keep him in her sight. He had no recollection of these little
narratives; the tale of yesterday was new to him upon the morrow; but
he liked them at the moment; and when the humour held him, would remain
patiently within doors, hearing her stories like a little child, and
working cheerfully from sunrise until it was too dark to see.
At other times,--and then their scanty earnings were barely sufficient
to furnish them with food, though of the coarsest sort,--he would wander
abroad from dawn of day until the twilight deepened into night. Few
in that place, even of the children, could be idle, and he had no
companions of his own kind. Indeed there were not many who could have
kept up with him in his rambles, had there been a legion. But there were
a score of vagabond dogs belonging to the neighbours, who served his
purpose quite as well. With two or three of these, or sometimes with a
full half-dozen barking at his heels, he would sally forth on some
long expedition that consumed the day; and though, on their return at
nightfall, the dogs would come home limping and sore-footed, and almost
spent with their fatigue, Barnaby was up and off again at sunrise with
some new attendants of the same class, with whom he would return in like
manner. On all these travels, Grip, in his little basket at his master’s
back, was a constant member of the party, and when they set off in fine
weather and in high spirits, no dog barked louder than the raven.
Their pleasures on these excursions were simple enough. A crust of bread
and scrap of meat, with water from the brook or spring, sufficed for
their repast. Barnaby’s enjoyments were, to walk, and run, and leap,
till he was tired; then to lie down in the long grass, or by the growing
corn, or in the shade of some tall tree, looking upward at the light
clouds as they floated over the blue surface of the sky, and
listening to the lark as she poured out her brilliant song. There were
wild-flowers to pluck--the bright red poppy, the gentle harebell, the
cowslip, and the rose. There were birds to watch; fish; ants; worms;
hares or rabbits, as they darted across the distant pathway in the wood
and so were gone: millions of living things to have an interest in, and
lie in wait for, and clap hands and shout in memory of, when they had
disappeared. In default of these, or when they wearied, there was the
merry sunlight to hunt out, as it crept in aslant through leaves and
boughs of trees, and hid far down--deep, deep, in hollow places--like
a silver pool, where nodding branches seemed to bathe and sport; sweet
scents of summer air breathing over fields of beans or clover; the
perfume of wet leaves or moss; the life of waving trees, and shadows
always changing. When these or any of them tired, or in excess of
pleasing tempted him to shut his eyes, there was slumber in the midst
of all these soft delights, with the gentle wind murmuring like music in
his ears, and everything around melting into one delicious dream.
Their hut--for it was little more--stood on the outskirts of the town,
at a short distance from the high road, but in a secluded place, where
few chance passengers strayed at any season of the year. It had a plot
of garden-ground attached, which Barnaby, in fits and starts of working,
trimmed, and kept in order. Within doors and without, his mother
laboured for their common good; and hail, rain, snow, or sunshine, found
no difference in her.
Though so far removed from the scenes of her past life, and with so
little thought or hope of ever visiting them again, she seemed to have
a strange desire to know what happened in the busy world. Any old
newspaper, or scrap of intelligence from London, she caught at with
avidity. The excitement it produced was not of a pleasurable kind, for
her manner at such times expressed the keenest anxiety and dread; but it
never faded in the least degree. Then, and in stormy winter nights, when
the wind blew loud and strong, the old expression came into her face,
and she would be seized with a fit of trembling, like one who had an
ague. But Barnaby noted little of this; and putting a great constraint
upon herself, she usually recovered her accustomed manner before the
change had caught his observation.
Grip was by no means an idle or unprofitable member of the humble
household. Partly by dint of Barnaby’s tuition, and partly by pursuing a
species of self-instruction common to his tribe, and exerting his powers
of observation to the utmost, he had acquired a degree of sagacity
which rendered him famous for miles round. His conversational powers and
surprising performances were the universal theme: and as many
persons came to see the wonderful raven, and none left his exertions
unrewarded--when he condescended to exhibit, which was not always,
for genius is capricious--his earnings formed an important item in the
common stock. Indeed, the bird himself appeared to know his value well;
for though he was perfectly free and unrestrained in the presence of
Barnaby and his mother, he maintained in public an amazing gravity,
and never stooped to any other gratuitous performances than biting
the ankles of vagabond boys (an exercise in which he much delighted),
killing a fowl or two occasionally, and swallowing the dinners of
various neighbouring dogs, of whom the boldest held him in great awe and
dread.
Time had glided on in this way, and nothing had happened to disturb or
change their mode of life, when, one summer’s night in June, they were
in their little garden, resting from the labours of the day. The widow’s
work was yet upon her knee, and strewn upon the ground about her; and
Barnaby stood leaning on his spade, gazing at the brightness in the