Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
ourselves in that wide place--there would be some trace of us in any
other town--then travel on again, and find some new abode.’
Little persuasion was required to reconcile Barnaby to anything that
promised change. In another minute, he was wild with delight; in
another, full of grief at the prospect of parting with his friends the
dogs; in another, wild again; then he was fearful of what she had said
to prevent his wandering abroad that night, and full of terrors and
strange questions. His light-heartedness in the end surmounted all his
other feelings, and lying down in his clothes to the end that he might
be ready on the morrow, he soon fell fast asleep before the poor turf
fire.
His mother did not close her eyes, but sat beside him, watching. Every
breath of wind sounded in her ears like that dreaded footstep at the
door, or like that hand upon the latch, and made the calm summer night,
a night of horror. At length the welcome day appeared. When she had made
the little preparations which were needful for their journey, and had
prayed upon her knees with many tears, she roused Barnaby, who jumped up
gaily at her summons.
His clothes were few enough, and to carry Grip was a labour of love. As
the sun shed his earliest beams upon the earth, they closed the door of
their deserted home, and turned away. The sky was blue and bright.
The air was fresh and filled with a thousand perfumes. Barnaby looked
upward, and laughed with all his heart.
But it was a day he usually devoted to a long ramble, and one of the
dogs--the ugliest of them all--came bounding up, and jumping round him
in the fulness of his joy. He had to bid him go back in a surly tone,
and his heart smote him while he did so. The dog retreated; turned
with a half-incredulous, half-imploring look; came a little back; and
stopped.
It was the last appeal of an old companion and a faithful friend--cast
off. Barnaby could bear no more, and as he shook his head and waved his
playmate home, he burst into tears.
‘Oh mother, mother, how mournful he will be when he scratches at the
door, and finds it always shut!’
There was such a sense of home in the thought, that though her own eyes
overflowed she would not have obliterated the recollection of it, either
from her own mind or from his, for the wealth of the whole wide world.
Chapter 47
In the exhaustless catalogue of Heaven’s mercies to mankind, the power
we have of finding some germs of comfort in the hardest trials must ever
occupy the foremost place; not only because it supports and upholds
us when we most require to be sustained, but because in this source of
consolation there is something, we have reason to believe, of the divine
spirit; something of that goodness which detects amidst our own evil
doings, a redeeming quality; something which, even in our fallen nature,
we possess in common with the angels; which had its being in the old
time when they trod the earth, and lingers on it yet, in pity.
How often, on their journey, did the widow remember with a grateful
heart, that out of his deprivation Barnaby’s cheerfulness and affection
sprung! How often did she call to mind that but for that, he might have
been sullen, morose, unkind, far removed from her--vicious, perhaps, and
cruel! How often had she cause for comfort, in his strength, and hope,
and in his simple nature! Those feeble powers of mind which rendered him
so soon forgetful of the past, save in brief gleams and flashes,--even
they were a comfort now. The world to him was full of happiness; in
every tree, and plant, and flower, in every bird, and beast, and tiny
insect whom a breath of summer wind laid low upon the ground, he had
delight. His delight was hers; and where many a wise son would have
made her sorrowful, this poor light-hearted idiot filled her breast with
thankfulness and love.
Their stock of money was low, but from the hoard she had told into the
blind man’s hand, the widow had withheld one guinea. This, with the few
pence she possessed besides, was to two persons of their frugal habits,
a goodly sum in bank. Moreover they had Grip in company; and when they
must otherwise have changed the guinea, it was but to make him exhibit
outside an alehouse door, or in a village street, or in the grounds or
gardens of a mansion of the better sort, and scores who would have given
nothing in charity, were ready to bargain for more amusement from the
talking bird.
One day--for they moved slowly, and although they had many rides in
carts and waggons, were on the road a week--Barnaby, with Grip upon his
shoulder and his mother following, begged permission at a trim lodge to
go up to the great house, at the other end of the avenue, and show his
raven. The man within was inclined to give them admittance, and was
indeed about to do so, when a stout gentleman with a long whip in his
hand, and a flushed face which seemed to indicate that he had had his
morning’s draught, rode up to the gate, and called in a loud voice and
with more oaths than the occasion seemed to warrant to have it opened
directly.
‘Who hast thou got here?’ said the gentleman angrily, as the man threw
the gate wide open, and pulled off his hat, ‘who are these? Eh? art a
beggar, woman?’
The widow answered with a curtsey, that they were poor travellers.
‘Vagrants,’ said the gentleman, ‘vagrants and vagabonds. Thee wish to be
made acquainted with the cage, dost thee--the cage, the stocks, and the
whipping-post? Where dost come from?’
She told him in a timid manner,--for he was very loud, hoarse, and
red-faced,--and besought him not to be angry, for they meant no harm,
and would go upon their way that moment.
‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ replied the gentleman, ‘we don’t allow
vagrants to roam about this place. I know what thou want’st--stray
linen drying on hedges, and stray poultry, eh? What hast got in that
basket, lazy hound?’
‘Grip, Grip, Grip--Grip the clever, Grip the wicked, Grip the
knowing--Grip, Grip, Grip,’ cried the raven, whom Barnaby had shut up
on the approach of this stern personage. ‘I’m a devil I’m a devil I’m a
devil, Never say die Hurrah Bow wow wow, Polly put the kettle on we’ll
all have tea.’
‘Take the vermin out, scoundrel,’ said the gentleman, ‘and let me see
him.’
Barnaby, thus condescendingly addressed, produced his bird, but not
without much fear and trembling, and set him down upon the ground; which
he had no sooner done than Grip drew fifty corks at least, and then
began to dance; at the same time eyeing the gentleman with surprising
insolence of manner, and screwing his head so much on one side that he
appeared desirous of screwing it off upon the spot.
The cork-drawing seemed to make a greater impression on the gentleman’s
mind, than the raven’s power of speech, and was indeed particularly
adapted to his habits and capacity. He desired to have that done again,
but despite his being very peremptory, and notwithstanding that Barnaby
coaxed to the utmost, Grip turned a deaf ear to the request, and
preserved a dead silence.
‘Bring him along,’ said the gentleman, pointing to the house. But Grip,
who had watched the action, anticipated his master, by hopping on before
them;--constantly flapping his wings, and screaming ‘cook!’ meanwhile,
as a hint perhaps that there was company coming, and a small collation
would be acceptable.
Barnaby and his mother walked on, on either side of the gentleman on
horseback, who surveyed each of them from time to time in a proud and
coarse manner, and occasionally thundered out some question, the tone
of which alarmed Barnaby so much that he could find no answer, and, as
a matter of course, could make him no reply. On one of these occasions,
when the gentleman appeared disposed to exercise his horsewhip, the
widow ventured to inform him in a low voice and with tears in her eyes,
that her son was of weak mind.
‘An idiot, eh?’ said the gentleman, looking at Barnaby as he spoke. ‘And
how long hast thou been an idiot?’
‘She knows,’ was Barnaby’s timid answer, pointing to his
mother--‘I--always, I believe.’
‘From his birth,’ said the widow.
‘I don’t believe it,’ cried the gentleman, ‘not a bit of it. It’s an
excuse not to work. There’s nothing like flogging to cure that disorder.
I’d make a difference in him in ten minutes, I’ll be bound.’
‘Heaven has made none in more than twice ten years, sir,’ said the widow
mildly.
‘Then why don’t you shut him up? we pay enough for county institutions,
damn ‘em. But thou’d rather drag him about to excite charity--of course.
Ay, I know thee.’
Now, this gentleman had various endearing appellations among his
intimate friends. By some he was called ‘a country gentleman of the true
school,’ by some ‘a fine old country gentleman,’ by some ‘a sporting
gentleman,’ by some ‘a thorough-bred Englishman,’ by some ‘a genuine
John Bull;’ but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it
was a pity there were not more like him, and that because there were
not, the country was going to rack and ruin every day. He was in the
commission of the peace, and could write his name almost legibly; but
his greatest qualifications were, that he was more severe with poachers,
was a better shot, a harder rider, had better horses, kept better dogs,
could eat more solid food, drink more strong wine, go to bed every night
more drunk and get up every morning more sober, than any man in the
county. In knowledge of horseflesh he was almost equal to a farrier, in
stable learning he surpassed his own head groom, and in gluttony not
a pig on his estate was a match for him. He had no seat in Parliament
himself, but he was extremely patriotic, and usually drove his voters
up to the poll with his own hands. He was warmly attached to church
and state, and never appointed to the living in his gift any but a
three-bottle man and a first-rate fox-hunter. He mistrusted the honesty
of all poor people who could read and write, and had a secret jealousy
of his own wife (a young lady whom he had married for what his friends
called ‘the good old English reason,’ that her father’s property
adjoined his own) for possessing those accomplishments in a greater
degree than himself. In short, Barnaby being an idiot, and Grip a
creature of mere brute instinct, it would be very hard to say what this
gentleman was.
He rode up to the door of a handsome house approached by a great flight
of steps, where a man was waiting to take his horse, and led the way
into a large hall, which, spacious as it was, was tainted with the
fumes of last night’s stale debauch. Greatcoats, riding-whips, bridles,
top-boots, spurs, and such gear, were strewn about on all sides, and
formed, with some huge stags’ antlers, and a few portraits of dogs and
horses, its principal embellishments.
Throwing himself into a great chair (in which, by the bye, he often
snored away the night, when he had been, according to his admirers, a
finer country gentleman than usual) he bade the man to tell his mistress
to come down: and presently there appeared, a little flurried, as it
seemed, by the unwonted summons, a lady much younger than himself, who
had the appearance of being in delicate health, and not too happy.
‘Here! Thou’st no delight in following the hounds as an Englishwoman
should have,’ said the gentleman. ‘See to this here. That’ll please thee
perhaps.’
The lady smiled, sat down at a little distance from him, and glanced at
Barnaby with a look of pity.
‘He’s an idiot, the woman says,’ observed the gentleman, shaking his
head; ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Are you his mother?’ asked the lady.
She answered yes.
‘What’s the use of asking HER?’ said the gentleman, thrusting his hands
into his breeches pockets. ‘She’ll tell thee so, of course. Most likely