Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
‘Whatever you please, Sim, but get to bed. Every minute is of
consequence. The light here, Miggs!’
‘Yes yes, oh do! Go to bed directly,’ cried the two women together.
Mr Tappertit stood upon his feet, and pushing his chair away to show
that he needed no assistance, answered, swaying himself to and fro, and
managing his head as if it had no connection whatever with his body:
‘You spoke of Miggs, sir--Miggs may be smothered!’
‘Oh Simmun!’ ejaculated that young lady in a faint voice. ‘Oh mim! Oh
sir! Oh goodness gracious, what a turn he has give me!’
‘This family may ALL be smothered, sir,’ returned Mr Tappertit, after
glancing at her with a smile of ineffable disdain, ‘excepting Mrs V.
I have come here, sir, for her sake, this night. Mrs Varden, take this
piece of paper. It’s a protection, ma’am. You may need it.’
With these words he held out at arm’s length, a dirty, crumpled scrap of
writing. The locksmith took it from him, opened it, and read as follows:
‘All good friends to our cause, I hope will be particular, and do no
injury to the property of any true Protestant. I am well assured that
the proprietor of this house is a staunch and worthy friend to the
cause.
GEORGE GORDON.’
‘What’s this!’ said the locksmith, with an altered face.
‘Something that’ll do you good service, young feller,’ replied his
journeyman, ‘as you’ll find. Keep that safe, and where you can lay your
hand upon it in an instant. And chalk “No Popery” on your door to-morrow
night, and for a week to come--that’s all.’
‘This is a genuine document,’ said the locksmith, ‘I know, for I have
seen the hand before. What threat does it imply? What devil is abroad?’
‘A fiery devil,’ retorted Sim; ‘a flaming, furious devil. Don’t you put
yourself in its way, or you’re done for, my buck. Be warned in time, G.
Varden. Farewell!’
But here the two women threw themselves in his way--especially Miss
Miggs, who fell upon him with such fervour that she pinned him against
the wall--and conjured him in moving words not to go forth till he was
sober; to listen to reason; to think of it; to take some rest, and then
determine.
‘I tell you,’ said Mr Tappertit, ‘that my mind is made up. My bleeding
country calls me and I go! Miggs, if you don’t get out of the way, I’ll
pinch you.’
Miss Miggs, still clinging to the rebel, screamed once vociferously--but
whether in the distraction of her mind, or because of his having
executed his threat, is uncertain.
‘Release me,’ said Simon, struggling to free himself from her chaste,
but spider-like embrace. ‘Let me go! I have made arrangements for you in
an altered state of society, and mean to provide for you comfortably in
life--there! Will that satisfy you?’
‘Oh Simmun!’ cried Miss Miggs. ‘Oh my blessed Simmun! Oh mim! what are
my feelings at this conflicting moment!’
Of a rather turbulent description, it would seem; for her nightcap
had been knocked off in the scuffle, and she was on her knees upon
the floor, making a strange revelation of blue and yellow curl-papers,
straggling locks of hair, tags of staylaces, and strings of it’s
impossible to say what; panting for breath, clasping her hands, turning
her eyes upwards, shedding abundance of tears, and exhibiting various
other symptoms of the acutest mental suffering.
‘I leave,’ said Simon, turning to his master, with an utter disregard of
Miggs’s maidenly affliction, ‘a box of things upstairs. Do what you
like with ‘em. I don’t want ‘em. I’m never coming back here, any more.
Provide yourself, sir, with a journeyman; I’m my country’s journeyman;
henceforward that’s MY line of business.’
‘Be what you like in two hours’ time, but now go up to bed,’ returned
the locksmith, planting himself in the doorway. ‘Do you hear me? Go to
bed!’
‘I hear you, and defy you, Varden,’ rejoined Simon Tappertit. ‘This
night, sir, I have been in the country, planning an expedition which
shall fill your bell-hanging soul with wonder and dismay. The plot
demands my utmost energy. Let me pass!’
‘I’ll knock you down if you come near the door,’ replied the locksmith.
‘You had better go to bed!’
Simon made no answer, but gathering himself up as straight as he could,
plunged head foremost at his old master, and the two went driving out
into the workshop together, plying their hands and feet so briskly that
they looked like half-a-dozen, while Miggs and Mrs Varden screamed for
twelve.
It would have been easy for Varden to knock his old ‘prentice down,
and bind him hand and foot; but as he was loth to hurt him in his then
defenceless state, he contented himself with parrying his blows when he
could, taking them in perfect good part when he could not, and keeping
between him and the door, until a favourable opportunity should present
itself for forcing him to retreat up-stairs, and shutting him up in his
own room. But, in the goodness of his heart, he calculated too much upon
his adversary’s weakness, and forgot that drunken men who have lost
the power of walking steadily, can often run. Watching his time, Simon
Tappertit made a cunning show of falling back, staggered unexpectedly
forward, brushed past him, opened the door (he knew the trick of that
lock well), and darted down the street like a mad dog. The locksmith
paused for a moment in the excess of his astonishment, and then gave
chase.
It was an excellent season for a run, for at that silent hour the
streets were deserted, the air was cool, and the flying figure before
him distinctly visible at a great distance, as it sped away, with a long
gaunt shadow following at its heels. But the short-winded locksmith had
no chance against a man of Sim’s youth and spare figure, though the day
had been when he could have run him down in no time. The space between
them rapidly increased, and as the rays of the rising sun streamed upon
Simon in the act of turning a distant corner, Gabriel Varden was fain
to give up, and sit down on a doorstep to fetch his breath. Simon
meanwhile, without once stopping, fled at the same degree of swiftness
to The Boot, where, as he well knew, some of his company were lying,
and at which respectable hostelry--for he had already acquired the
distinction of being in great peril of the law--a friendly watch had
been expecting him all night, and was even now on the look-out for his
coming.
‘Go thy ways, Sim, go thy ways,’ said the locksmith, as soon as he could
speak. ‘I have done my best for thee, poor lad, and would have saved
thee, but the rope is round thy neck, I fear.’
So saying, and shaking his head in a very sorrowful and disconsolate
manner, he turned back, and soon re-entered his own house, where Mrs
Varden and the faithful Miggs had been anxiously expecting his return.
Now Mrs Varden (and by consequence Miss Miggs likewise) was impressed
with a secret misgiving that she had done wrong; that she had, to the
utmost of her small means, aided and abetted the growth of disturbances,
the end of which it was impossible to foresee; that she had led remotely
to the scene which had just passed; and that the locksmith’s time for
triumph and reproach had now arrived indeed. And so strongly did Mrs
Varden feel this, and so crestfallen was she in consequence, that while
her husband was pursuing their lost journeyman, she secreted under her
chair the little red-brick dwelling-house with the yellow roof, lest it
should furnish new occasion for reference to the painful theme; and now
hid the same still more, with the skirts of her dress.
But it happened that the locksmith had been thinking of this very
article on his way home, and that, coming into the room and not seeing
it, he at once demanded where it was.
Mrs Varden had no resource but to produce it, which she did with many
tears, and broken protestations that if she could have known--
‘Yes, yes,’ said Varden, ‘of course--I know that. I don’t mean to
reproach you, my dear. But recollect from this time that all good things
perverted to evil purposes, are worse than those which are naturally
bad. A thoroughly wicked woman, is wicked indeed. When religion goes
wrong, she is very wrong, for the same reason. Let us say no more about
it, my dear.’
So he dropped the red-brick dwelling-house on the floor, and setting his
heel upon it, crushed it into pieces. The halfpence, and sixpences,
and other voluntary contributions, rolled about in all directions, but
nobody offered to touch them, or to take them up.
‘That,’ said the locksmith, ‘is easily disposed of, and I would to
Heaven that everything growing out of the same society could be settled
as easily.’
‘It happens very fortunately, Varden,’ said his wife, with her
handkerchief to her eyes, ‘that in case any more disturbances should
happen--which I hope not; I sincerely hope not--’
‘I hope so too, my dear.’
‘--That in case any should occur, we have the piece of paper which that
poor misguided young man brought.’
‘Ay, to be sure,’ said the locksmith, turning quickly round. ‘Where is
that piece of paper?’
Mrs Varden stood aghast as he took it from her outstretched hand, tore
it into fragments, and threw them under the grate.
‘Not use it?’ she said.
‘Use it!’ cried the locksmith. No! Let them come and pull the roof about
our ears; let them burn us out of house and home; I’d neither have the
protection of their leader, nor chalk their howl upon my door, though,
for not doing it, they shot me on my own threshold. Use it! Let them
come and do their worst. The first man who crosses my doorstep on such
an errand as theirs, had better be a hundred miles away. Let him look to
it. The others may have their will. I wouldn’t beg or buy them off, if,
instead of every pound of iron in the place, there was a hundred weight
of gold. Get you to bed, Martha. I shall take down the shutters and go
to work.’
‘So early!’ said his wife.
‘Ay,’ replied the locksmith cheerily, ‘so early. Come when they may,
they shall not find us skulking and hiding, as if we feared to take our
portion of the light of day, and left it all to them. So pleasant dreams
to you, my dear, and cheerful sleep!’
With that he gave his wife a hearty kiss, and bade her delay no longer,
or it would be time to rise before she lay down to rest. Mrs Varden
quite amiably and meekly walked upstairs, followed by Miggs, who,
although a good deal subdued, could not refrain from sundry stimulative
coughs and sniffs by the way, or from holding up her hands in
astonishment at the daring conduct of master.
Chapter 52
A mob is usually a creature of very mysterious existence, particularly
in a large city. Where it comes from or whither it goes, few men
can tell. Assembling and dispersing with equal suddenness, it is as
difficult to follow to its various sources as the sea itself; nor does
the parallel stop here, for the ocean is not more fickle and uncertain,
more terrible when roused, more unreasonable, or more cruel.
The people who were boisterous at Westminster upon the Friday morning,
and were eagerly bent upon the work of devastation in Duke Street and
Warwick Street at night, were, in the mass, the same. Allowing for the
chance accessions of which any crowd is morally sure in a town where
there must always be a large number of idle and profligate persons,
one and the same mob was at both places. Yet they spread themselves
in various directions when they dispersed in the afternoon, made no
appointment for reassembling, had no definite purpose or design, and
indeed, for anything they knew, were scattered beyond the hope of future
union.
At The Boot, which, as has been shown, was in a manner the head-quarters
of the rioters, there were not, upon this Friday night, a dozen people.
Some slept in the stable and outhouses, some in the common room, some