Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
west, and singing softly to himself.
‘A brave evening, mother! If we had, chinking in our pockets, but a few
specks of that gold which is piled up yonder in the sky, we should be
rich for life.’
‘We are better as we are,’ returned the widow with a quiet smile. ‘Let
us be contented, and we do not want and need not care to have it, though
it lay shining at our feet.’
‘Ay!’ said Barnaby, resting with crossed arms on his spade, and looking
wistfully at the sunset, ‘that’s well enough, mother; but gold’s a good
thing to have. I wish that I knew where to find it. Grip and I could do
much with gold, be sure of that.’
‘What would you do?’ she asked.
‘What! A world of things. We’d dress finely--you and I, I mean; not
Grip--keep horses, dogs, wear bright colours and feathers, do no more
work, live delicately and at our ease. Oh, we’d find uses for it,
mother, and uses that would do us good. I would I knew where gold was
buried. How hard I’d work to dig it up!’
‘You do not know,’ said his mother, rising from her seat and laying her
hand upon his shoulder, ‘what men have done to win it, and how they have
found, too late, that it glitters brightest at a distance, and turns
quite dim and dull when handled.’
‘Ay, ay; so you say; so you think,’ he answered, still looking eagerly
in the same direction. ‘For all that, mother, I should like to try.’
‘Do you not see,’ she said, ‘how red it is? Nothing bears so many stains
of blood, as gold. Avoid it. None have such cause to hate its name as
we have. Do not so much as think of it, dear love. It has brought such
misery and suffering on your head and mine as few have known, and God
grant few may have to undergo. I would rather we were dead and laid down
in our graves, than you should ever come to love it.’
For a moment Barnaby withdrew his eyes and looked at her with wonder.
Then, glancing from the redness in the sky to the mark upon his wrist
as if he would compare the two, he seemed about to question her with
earnestness, when a new object caught his wandering attention, and made
him quite forgetful of his purpose.
This was a man with dusty feet and garments, who stood, bare-headed,
behind the hedge that divided their patch of garden from the pathway,
and leant meekly forward as if he sought to mingle with their
conversation, and waited for his time to speak. His face was turned
towards the brightness, too, but the light that fell upon it showed that
he was blind, and saw it not.
‘A blessing on those voices!’ said the wayfarer. ‘I feel the beauty of
the night more keenly, when I hear them. They are like eyes to me. Will
they speak again, and cheer the heart of a poor traveller?’
‘Have you no guide?’ asked the widow, after a moment’s pause.
‘None but that,’ he answered, pointing with his staff towards the sun;
‘and sometimes a milder one at night, but she is idle now.’
‘Have you travelled far?’
‘A weary way and long,’ rejoined the traveller as he shook his head. ‘A
weary, weary, way. I struck my stick just now upon the bucket of your
well--be pleased to let me have a draught of water, lady.’
‘Why do you call me lady?’ she returned. ‘I am as poor as you.’
‘Your speech is soft and gentle, and I judge by that,’ replied the man.
‘The coarsest stuffs and finest silks, are--apart from the sense of
touch--alike to me. I cannot judge you by your dress.’
‘Come round this way,’ said Barnaby, who had passed out at the
garden-gate and now stood close beside him. ‘Put your hand in mine.
You’re blind and always in the dark, eh? Are you frightened in the dark?
Do you see great crowds of faces, now? Do they grin and chatter?’
‘Alas!’ returned the other, ‘I see nothing. Waking or sleeping,
nothing.’
Barnaby looked curiously at his eyes, and touching them with his
fingers, as an inquisitive child might, led him towards the house.
‘You have come a long distance,’ said the widow, meeting him at the
door. ‘How have you found your way so far?’
‘Use and necessity are good teachers, as I have heard--the best of any,’
said the blind man, sitting down upon the chair to which Barnaby had
led him, and putting his hat and stick upon the red-tiled floor. ‘May
neither you nor your son ever learn under them. They are rough masters.’
‘You have wandered from the road, too,’ said the widow, in a tone of
pity.
‘Maybe, maybe,’ returned the blind man with a sigh, and yet with
something of a smile upon his face, ‘that’s likely. Handposts and
milestones are dumb, indeed, to me. Thank you the more for this rest,
and this refreshing drink!’
As he spoke, he raised the mug of water to his mouth. It was clear, and
cold, and sparkling, but not to his taste nevertheless, or his thirst
was not very great, for he only wetted his lips and put it down again.
He wore, hanging with a long strap round his neck, a kind of scrip or
wallet, in which to carry food. The widow set some bread and cheese
before him, but he thanked her, and said that through the kindness of
the charitable he had broken his fast once since morning, and was not
hungry. When he had made her this reply, he opened his wallet, and took
out a few pence, which was all it appeared to contain.
‘Might I make bold to ask,’ he said, turning towards where Barnaby stood
looking on, ‘that one who has the gift of sight, would lay this out for
me in bread to keep me on my way? Heaven’s blessing on the young feet
that will bestir themselves in aid of one so helpless as a sightless
man!’
Barnaby looked at his mother, who nodded assent; in another moment he
was gone upon his charitable errand. The blind man sat listening with an
attentive face, until long after the sound of his retreating footsteps
was inaudible to the widow, and then said, suddenly, and in a very
altered tone:
‘There are various degrees and kinds of blindness, widow. There is the
connubial blindness, ma’am, which perhaps you may have observed in
the course of your own experience, and which is a kind of wilful and
self-bandaging blindness. There is the blindness of party, ma’am, and
public men, which is the blindness of a mad bull in the midst of a
regiment of soldiers clothed in red. There is the blind confidence of
youth, which is the blindness of young kittens, whose eyes have not yet
opened on the world; and there is that physical blindness, ma’am, of
which I am, contrairy to my own desire, a most illustrious example.
Added to these, ma’am, is that blindness of the intellect, of which we
have a specimen in your interesting son, and which, having sometimes
glimmerings and dawnings of the light, is scarcely to be trusted as a
total darkness. Therefore, ma’am, I have taken the liberty to get him
out of the way for a short time, while you and I confer together, and
this precaution arising out of the delicacy of my sentiments towards
yourself, you will excuse me, ma’am, I know.’
Having delivered himself of this speech with many flourishes of manner,
he drew from beneath his coat a flat stone bottle, and holding the cork
between his teeth, qualified his mug of water with a plentiful infusion
of the liquor it contained. He politely drained the bumper to her
health, and the ladies, and setting it down empty, smacked his lips with
infinite relish.
‘I am a citizen of the world, ma’am,’ said the blind man, corking his
bottle, ‘and if I seem to conduct myself with freedom, it is therefore.
You wonder who I am, ma’am, and what has brought me here. Such
experience of human nature as I have, leads me to that conclusion,
without the aid of eyes by which to read the movements of your soul
as depicted in your feminine features. I will satisfy your curiosity
immediately, ma’am; immediately.’ With that he slapped his bottle on its
broad back, and having put it under his garment as before, crossed his
legs and folded his hands, and settled himself in his chair, previous to
proceeding any further.
The change in his manner was so unexpected, the craft and wickedness
of his deportment were so much aggravated by his condition--for we are
accustomed to see in those who have lost a human sense, something in its
place almost divine--and this alteration bred so many fears in her whom
he addressed, that she could not pronounce one word. After waiting, as
it seemed, for some remark or answer, and waiting in vain, the visitor
resumed:
‘Madam, my name is Stagg. A friend of mine who has desired the honour of
meeting with you any time these five years past, has commissioned me to
call upon you. I should be glad to whisper that gentleman’s name in your
ear.--Zounds, ma’am, are you deaf? Do you hear me say that I should be
glad to whisper my friend’s name in your ear?’
‘You need not repeat it,’ said the widow, with a stifled groan; ‘I see
too well from whom you come.’
‘But as a man of honour, ma’am,’ said the blind man, striking himself on
the breast, ‘whose credentials must not be disputed, I take leave to say
that I WILL mention that gentleman’s name. Ay, ay,’ he added, seeming
to catch with his quick ear the very motion of her hand, ‘but not aloud.
With your leave, ma’am, I desire the favour of a whisper.’
She moved towards him, and stooped down. He muttered a word in her
ear; and, wringing her hands, she paced up and down the room like one
distracted. The blind man, with perfect composure, produced his bottle
again, mixed another glassful; put it up as before; and, drinking from
time to time, followed her with his face in silence.
‘You are slow in conversation, widow,’ he said after a time, pausing in
his draught. ‘We shall have to talk before your son.’
‘What would you have me do?’ she answered. ‘What do you want?’
‘We are poor, widow, we are poor,’ he retorted, stretching out his right
hand, and rubbing his thumb upon its palm.
‘Poor!’ she cried. ‘And what am I?’
‘Comparisons are odious,’ said the blind man. ‘I don’t know, I don’t
care. I say that we are poor. My friend’s circumstances are indifferent,
and so are mine. We must have our rights, widow, or we must be bought
off. But you know that, as well as I, so where is the use of talking?’
She still walked wildly to and fro. At length, stopping abruptly before
him, she said:
‘Is he near here?’
‘He is. Close at hand.’
‘Then I am lost!’
‘Not lost, widow,’ said the blind man, calmly; ‘only found. Shall I call
him?’
‘Not for the world,’ she answered, with a shudder.
‘Very good,’ he replied, crossing his legs again, for he had made as
though he would rise and walk to the door. ‘As you please, widow. His
presence is not necessary that I know of. But both he and I must live;
to live, we must eat and drink; to eat and drink, we must have money:--I
say no more.’
‘Do you know how pinched and destitute I am?’ she retorted. ‘I do not
think you do, or can. If you had eyes, and could look around you on this
poor place, you would have pity on me. Oh! let your heart be softened by
your own affliction, friend, and have some sympathy with mine.’
The blind man snapped his fingers as he answered:
‘--Beside the question, ma’am, beside the question. I have the softest
heart in the world, but I can’t live upon it. Many a gentleman lives
well upon a soft head, who would find a heart of the same quality a very
great drawback. Listen to me. This is a matter of business, with which
sympathies and sentiments have nothing to do. As a mutual friend, I wish
to arrange it in a satisfactory manner, if possible; and thus the
case stands.--If you are very poor now, it’s your own choice. You have
friends who, in case of need, are always ready to help you. My friend is
in a more destitute and desolate situation than most men, and, you and
he being linked together in a common cause, he naturally looks to you to
assist him. He has boarded and lodged with me a long time (for as I