Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
something even plaintive in his wan and haggard aspect. But, the absence
of the soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one; and
in this unfortunate being its noblest powers were wanting.
His dress was of green, clumsily trimmed here and there--apparently by
his own hands--with gaudy lace; brightest where the cloth was most
worn and soiled, and poorest where it was at the best. A pair of tawdry
ruffles dangled at his wrists, while his throat was nearly bare. He had
ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock’s feathers, but they were
limp and broken, and now trailed negligently down his back. Girt to his
side was the steel hilt of an old sword without blade or scabbard; and
some particoloured ends of ribands and poor glass toys completed the
ornamental portion of his attire. The fluttered and confused disposition
of all the motley scraps that formed his dress, bespoke, in a scarcely
less degree than his eager and unsettled manner, the disorder of his
mind, and by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened the more
impressive wildness of his face.
‘Barnaby,’ said the locksmith, after a hasty but careful inspection,
‘this man is not dead, but he has a wound in his side, and is in a
fainting-fit.’
‘I know him, I know him!’ cried Barnaby, clapping his hands.
‘Know him?’ repeated the locksmith.
‘Hush!’ said Barnaby, laying his fingers upon his lips. ‘He went out
to-day a wooing. I wouldn’t for a light guinea that he should never go
a wooing again, for, if he did, some eyes would grow dim that are now as
bright as--see, when I talk of eyes, the stars come out! Whose eyes are
they? If they are angels’ eyes, why do they look down here and see good
men hurt, and only wink and sparkle all the night?’
‘Now Heaven help this silly fellow,’ murmured the perplexed locksmith;
‘can he know this gentleman? His mother’s house is not far off; I had
better see if she can tell me who he is. Barnaby, my man, help me to put
him in the chaise, and we’ll ride home together.’
‘I can’t touch him!’ cried the idiot falling back, and shuddering as
with a strong spasm; ‘he’s bloody!’
‘It’s in his nature, I know,’ muttered the locksmith, ‘it’s cruel to ask
him, but I must have help. Barnaby--good Barnaby--dear Barnaby--if you
know this gentleman, for the sake of his life and everybody’s life that
loves him, help me to raise him and lay him down.’
‘Cover him then, wrap him close--don’t let me see it--smell it--hear the
word. Don’t speak the word--don’t!’
‘No, no, I’ll not. There, you see he’s covered now. Gently. Well done,
well done!’
They placed him in the carriage with great ease, for Barnaby was strong
and active, but all the time they were so occupied he shivered from head
to foot, and evidently experienced an ecstasy of terror.
This accomplished, and the wounded man being covered with Varden’s own
greatcoat which he took off for the purpose, they proceeded onward at
a brisk pace: Barnaby gaily counting the stars upon his fingers, and
Gabriel inwardly congratulating himself upon having an adventure now,
which would silence Mrs Varden on the subject of the Maypole, for that
night, or there was no faith in woman.
Chapter 4
In the venerable suburb--it was a suburb once--of Clerkenwell, towards
that part of its confines which is nearest to the Charter House, and in
one of those cool, shady streets, of which a few, widely scattered
and dispersed, yet remain in such old parts of the metropolis,--each
tenement quietly vegetating like an ancient citizen who long ago retired
from business, and dozing on in its infirmity until in course of time it
tumbles down, and is replaced by some extravagant young heir, flaunting
in stucco and ornamental work, and all the vanities of modern days,--in
this quarter, and in a street of this description, the business of the
present chapter lies.
At the time of which it treats, though only six-and-sixty years ago,
a very large part of what is London now had no existence. Even in the
brains of the wildest speculators, there had sprung up no long rows of
streets connecting Highgate with Whitechapel, no assemblages of palaces
in the swampy levels, nor little cities in the open fields. Although
this part of town was then, as now, parcelled out in streets, and
plentifully peopled, it wore a different aspect. There were gardens
to many of the houses, and trees by the pavement side; with an air of
freshness breathing up and down, which in these days would be sought
in vain. Fields were nigh at hand, through which the New River took its
winding course, and where there was merry haymaking in the summer time.
Nature was not so far removed, or hard to get at, as in these days; and
although there were busy trades in Clerkenwell, and working jewellers
by scores, it was a purer place, with farm-houses nearer to it than many
modern Londoners would readily believe, and lovers’ walks at no great
distance, which turned into squalid courts, long before the lovers of
this age were born, or, as the phrase goes, thought of.
In one of these streets, the cleanest of them all, and on the shady
side of the way--for good housewives know that sunlight damages their
cherished furniture, and so choose the shade rather than its intrusive
glare--there stood the house with which we have to deal. It was a modest
building, not very straight, not large, not tall; not bold-faced, with
great staring windows, but a shy, blinking house, with a conical roof
going up into a peak over its garret window of four small panes of
glass, like a cocked hat on the head of an elderly gentleman with one
eye. It was not built of brick or lofty stone, but of wood and plaster;
it was not planned with a dull and wearisome regard to regularity,
for no one window matched the other, or seemed to have the slightest
reference to anything besides itself.
The shop--for it had a shop--was, with reference to the first floor,
where shops usually are; and there all resemblance between it and any
other shop stopped short and ceased. People who went in and out didn’t
go up a flight of steps to it, or walk easily in upon a level with the
street, but dived down three steep stairs, as into a cellar. Its floor
was paved with stone and brick, as that of any other cellar might be;
and in lieu of window framed and glazed it had a great black wooden flap
or shutter, nearly breast high from the ground, which turned back in
the day-time, admitting as much cold air as light, and very often more.
Behind this shop was a wainscoted parlour, looking first into a paved
yard, and beyond that again into a little terrace garden, raised some
feet above it. Any stranger would have supposed that this wainscoted
parlour, saving for the door of communication by which he had entered,
was cut off and detached from all the world; and indeed most strangers
on their first entrance were observed to grow extremely thoughtful, as
weighing and pondering in their minds whether the upper rooms were only
approachable by ladders from without; never suspecting that two of
the most unassuming and unlikely doors in existence, which the most
ingenious mechanician on earth must of necessity have supposed to be
the doors of closets, opened out of this room--each without the smallest
preparation, or so much as a quarter of an inch of passage--upon two
dark winding flights of stairs, the one upward, the other downward,
which were the sole means of communication between that chamber and the
other portions of the house.
With all these oddities, there was not a neater, more scrupulously tidy,
or more punctiliously ordered house, in Clerkenwell, in London, in all
England. There were not cleaner windows, or whiter floors, or brighter
Stoves, or more highly shining articles of furniture in old mahogany;
there was not more rubbing, scrubbing, burnishing and polishing, in the
whole street put together. Nor was this excellence attained without some
cost and trouble and great expenditure of voice, as the neighbours
were frequently reminded when the good lady of the house overlooked and
assisted in its being put to rights on cleaning days--which were usually
from Monday morning till Saturday night, both days inclusive.
Leaning against the door-post of this, his dwelling, the locksmith
stood early on the morning after he had met with the wounded man, gazing
disconsolately at a great wooden emblem of a key, painted in vivid
yellow to resemble gold, which dangled from the house-front, and swung
to and fro with a mournful creaking noise, as if complaining that it had
nothing to unlock. Sometimes, he looked over his shoulder into the shop,
which was so dark and dingy with numerous tokens of his trade, and so
blackened by the smoke of a little forge, near which his ‘prentice
was at work, that it would have been difficult for one unused to such
espials to have distinguished anything but various tools of uncouth make
and shape, great bunches of rusty keys, fragments of iron, half-finished
locks, and such like things, which garnished the walls and hung in
clusters from the ceiling.
After a long and patient contemplation of the golden key, and many such
backward glances, Gabriel stepped into the road, and stole a look at the
upper windows. One of them chanced to be thrown open at the moment,
and a roguish face met his; a face lighted up by the loveliest pair of
sparkling eyes that ever locksmith looked upon; the face of a pretty,
laughing girl; dimpled and fresh, and healthful--the very impersonation
of good-humour and blooming beauty.
‘Hush!’ she whispered, bending forward and pointing archly to the window
underneath. ‘Mother is still asleep.’
‘Still, my dear,’ returned the locksmith in the same tone. ‘You talk as
if she had been asleep all night, instead of little more than half an
hour. But I’m very thankful. Sleep’s a blessing--no doubt about it.’ The
last few words he muttered to himself.
‘How cruel of you to keep us up so late this morning, and never tell us
where you were, or send us word!’ said the girl.
‘Ah Dolly, Dolly!’ returned the locksmith, shaking his head, and
smiling, ‘how cruel of you to run upstairs to bed! Come down to
breakfast, madcap, and come down lightly, or you’ll wake your mother.
She must be tired, I am sure--I am.’
Keeping these latter words to himself, and returning his daughter’s nod,
he was passing into the workshop, with the smile she had awakened still
beaming on his face, when he just caught sight of his ‘prentice’s brown
paper cap ducking down to avoid observation, and shrinking from the
window back to its former place, which the wearer no sooner reached than
he began to hammer lustily.
‘Listening again, Simon!’ said Gabriel to himself. ‘That’s bad. What in
the name of wonder does he expect the girl to say, that I always catch
him listening when SHE speaks, and never at any other time! A bad habit,
Sim, a sneaking, underhanded way. Ah! you may hammer, but you won’t beat
that out of me, if you work at it till your time’s up!’
So saying, and shaking his head gravely, he re-entered the workshop, and
confronted the subject of these remarks.
‘There’s enough of that just now,’ said the locksmith. ‘You needn’t make
any more of that confounded clatter. Breakfast’s ready.’
‘Sir,’ said Sim, looking up with amazing politeness, and a peculiar
little bow cut short off at the neck, ‘I shall attend you immediately.’
‘I suppose,’ muttered Gabriel, ‘that’s out of the ‘Prentice’s Garland or
the ‘Prentice’s Delight, or the ‘Prentice’s Warbler, or the Prentice’s
Guide to the Gallows, or some such improving textbook. Now he’s going to
beautify himself--here’s a precious locksmith!’
Quite unconscious that his master was looking on from the dark corner by
the parlour door, Sim threw off the paper cap, sprang from his seat,