Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
Welbeck Street, they came upon Gashford, who had been a witness of their
proceedings, and was walking stealthily along the pavement. Keeping up
with him, and yet not seeming to speak, Hugh muttered in his ear:
‘Is this better, master?’
‘No,’ said Gashford. ‘It is not.’
‘What would you have?’ said Hugh. ‘Fevers are never at their height at
once. They must get on by degrees.’
‘I would have you,’ said Gashford, pinching his arm with such
malevolence that his nails seemed to meet in the skin; ‘I would have you
put some meaning into your work. Fools! Can you make no better bonfires
than of rags and scraps? Can you burn nothing whole?’
‘A little patience, master,’ said Hugh. ‘Wait but a few hours, and you
shall see. Look for a redness in the sky, to-morrow night.’
With that, he fell back into his place beside Barnaby; and when the
secretary looked after him, both were lost in the crowd.
Chapter 53
The next day was ushered in by merry peals of bells, and by the firing
of the Tower guns; flags were hoisted on many of the church-steeples;
the usual demonstrations were made in honour of the anniversary of the
King’s birthday; and every man went about his pleasure or business as
if the city were in perfect order, and there were no half-smouldering
embers in its secret places, which, on the approach of night, would
kindle up again and scatter ruin and dismay abroad. The leaders of the
riot, rendered still more daring by the success of last night and by
the booty they had acquired, kept steadily together, and only thought of
implicating the mass of their followers so deeply that no hope of pardon
or reward might tempt them to betray their more notorious confederates
into the hands of justice.
Indeed, the sense of having gone too far to be forgiven, held the timid
together no less than the bold. Many who would readily have pointed out
the foremost rioters and given evidence against them, felt that escape
by that means was hopeless, when their every act had been observed by
scores of people who had taken no part in the disturbances; who had
suffered in their persons, peace, or property, by the outrages of the
mob; who would be most willing witnesses; and whom the government would,
no doubt, prefer to any King’s evidence that might be offered. Many of
this class had deserted their usual occupations on the Saturday morning;
some had been seen by their employers active in the tumult; others
knew they must be suspected, and that they would be discharged if they
returned; others had been desperate from the beginning, and comforted
themselves with the homely proverb, that, being hanged at all, they
might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. They all hoped and
believed, in a greater or less degree, that the government they seemed
to have paralysed, would, in its terror, come to terms with them in the
end, and suffer them to make their own conditions. The least sanguine
among them reasoned with himself that, at the worst, they were too many
to be all punished, and that he had as good a chance of escape as any
other man. The great mass never reasoned or thought at all, but were
stimulated by their own headlong passions, by poverty, by ignorance, by
the love of mischief, and the hope of plunder.
One other circumstance is worthy of remark; and that is, that from the
moment of their first outbreak at Westminster, every symptom of order
or preconcerted arrangement among them vanished. When they divided
into parties and ran to different quarters of the town, it was on the
spontaneous suggestion of the moment. Each party swelled as it went
along, like rivers as they roll towards the sea; new leaders sprang
up as they were wanted, disappeared when the necessity was over, and
reappeared at the next crisis. Each tumult took shape and form from the
circumstances of the moment; sober workmen, going home from their day’s
labour, were seen to cast down their baskets of tools and become rioters
in an instant; mere boys on errands did the like. In a word, a moral
plague ran through the city. The noise, and hurry, and excitement, had
for hundreds and hundreds an attraction they had no firmness to resist.
The contagion spread like a dread fever: an infectious madness, as yet
not near its height, seized on new victims every hour, and society began
to tremble at their ravings.
It was between two and three o’clock in the afternoon when Gashford
looked into the lair described in the last chapter, and seeing only
Barnaby and Dennis there, inquired for Hugh.
He was out, Barnaby told him; had gone out more than an hour ago; and
had not yet returned.
‘Dennis!’ said the smiling secretary, in his smoothest voice, as he sat
down cross-legged on a barrel, ‘Dennis!’
The hangman struggled into a sitting posture directly, and with his eyes
wide open, looked towards him.
‘How do you do, Dennis?’ said Gashford, nodding. ‘I hope you have
suffered no inconvenience from your late exertions, Dennis?’
‘I always will say of you, Muster Gashford,’ returned the hangman,
staring at him, ‘that that ‘ere quiet way of yours might almost wake a
dead man. It is,’ he added, with a muttered oath--still staring at him
in a thoughtful manner--‘so awful sly!’
‘So distinct, eh Dennis?’
‘Distinct!’ he answered, scratching his head, and keeping his eyes upon
the secretary’s face; ‘I seem to hear it, Muster Gashford, in my wery
bones.’
‘I am very glad your sense of hearing is so sharp, and that I succeed
in making myself so intelligible,’ said Gashford, in his unvarying, even
tone. ‘Where is your friend?’
Mr Dennis looked round as in expectation of beholding him asleep upon
his bed of straw; then remembering he had seen him go out, replied:
‘I can’t say where he is, Muster Gashford, I expected him back afore
now. I hope it isn’t time that we was busy, Muster Gashford?’
‘Nay,’ said the secretary, ‘who should know that as well as you? How
can I tell you, Dennis? You are perfect master of your own actions, you
know, and accountable to nobody--except sometimes to the law, eh?’
Dennis, who was very much baffled by the cool matter-of-course manner of
this reply, recovered his self-possession on his professional pursuits
being referred to, and pointing towards Barnaby, shook his head and
frowned.
‘Hush!’ cried Barnaby.
‘Ah! Do hush about that, Muster Gashford,’ said the hangman in a low
voice, ‘pop’lar prejudices--you always forget--well, Barnaby, my lad,
what’s the matter?’
‘I hear him coming,’ he answered: ‘Hark! Do you mark that? That’s his
foot! Bless you, I know his step, and his dog’s too. Tramp, tramp,
pit-pat, on they come together, and, ha ha ha!--and here they are!’ he
cried, joyfully welcoming Hugh with both hands, and then patting him
fondly on the back, as if instead of being the rough companion he was,
he had been one of the most prepossessing of men. ‘Here he is, and safe
too! I am glad to see him back again, old Hugh!’
‘I’m a Turk if he don’t give me a warmer welcome always than any man
of sense,’ said Hugh, shaking hands with him with a kind of ferocious
friendship, strange enough to see. ‘How are you, boy?’
‘Hearty!’ cried Barnaby, waving his hat. ‘Ha ha ha! And merry too,
Hugh! And ready to do anything for the good cause, and the right, and
to help the kind, mild, pale-faced gentleman--the lord they used so
ill--eh, Hugh?’
‘Ay!’ returned his friend, dropping his hand, and looking at Gashford
for an instant with a changed expression before he spoke to him. ‘Good
day, master!’
‘And good day to you,’ replied the secretary, nursing his leg.
‘And many good days--whole years of them, I hope. You are heated.’
‘So would you have been, master,’ said Hugh, wiping his face, ‘if you’d
been running here as fast as I have.’
‘You know the news, then? Yes, I supposed you would have heard it.’
‘News! what news?’
‘You don’t?’ cried Gashford, raising his eyebrows with an exclamation
of surprise. ‘Dear me! Come; then I AM the first to make you acquainted
with your distinguished position, after all. Do you see the King’s Arms
a-top?’ he smilingly asked, as he took a large paper from his pocket,
unfolded it, and held it out for Hugh’s inspection.
‘Well!’ said Hugh. ‘What’s that to me?’
‘Much. A great deal,’ replied the secretary. ‘Read it.’
‘I told you, the first time I saw you, that I couldn’t read,’ said Hugh,
impatiently. ‘What in the Devil’s name’s inside of it?’
‘It is a proclamation from the King in Council,’ said Gashford, ‘dated
to-day, and offering a reward of five hundred pounds--five hundred
pounds is a great deal of money, and a large temptation to some
people--to any one who will discover the person or persons most active
in demolishing those chapels on Saturday night.’
‘Is that all?’ cried Hugh, with an indifferent air. ‘I knew of that.’
‘Truly I might have known you did,’ said Gashford, smiling, and folding
up the document again. ‘Your friend, I might have guessed--indeed I did
guess--was sure to tell you.’
‘My friend!’ stammered Hugh, with an unsuccessful effort to appear
surprised. ‘What friend?’
‘Tut tut--do you suppose I don’t know where you have been?’ retorted
Gashford, rubbing his hands, and beating the back of one on the palm of
the other, and looking at him with a cunning eye. ‘How dull you think
me! Shall I say his name?’
‘No,’ said Hugh, with a hasty glance towards Dennis.
‘You have also heard from him, no doubt,’ resumed the secretary, after a
moment’s pause, ‘that the rioters who have been taken (poor fellows) are
committed for trial, and that some very active witnesses have had the
temerity to appear against them. Among others--’ and here he clenched
his teeth, as if he would suppress by force some violent words that rose
upon his tongue; and spoke very slowly. ‘Among others, a gentleman
who saw the work going on in Warwick Street; a Catholic gentleman; one
Haredale.’
Hugh would have prevented his uttering the word, but it was out already.
Hearing the name, Barnaby turned swiftly round.
‘Duty, duty, bold Barnaby!’ cried Hugh, assuming his wildest and most
rapid manner, and thrusting into his hand his staff and flag which leant
against the wall. ‘Mount guard without loss of time, for we are off upon
our expedition. Up, Dennis, and get ready! Take care that no one turns
the straw upon my bed, brave Barnaby; we know what’s underneath it--eh?
Now, master, quick! What you have to say, say speedily, for the little
captain and a cluster of ‘em are in the fields, and only waiting for us.
Sharp’s the word, and strike’s the action. Quick!’
Barnaby was not proof against this bustle and despatch. The look of
mingled astonishment and anger which had appeared in his face when he
turned towards them, faded from it as the words passed from his memory,
like breath from a polished mirror; and grasping the weapon which Hugh
forced upon him, he proudly took his station at the door, beyond their
hearing.
‘You might have spoiled our plans, master,’ said Hugh. ‘YOU, too, of all
men!’
‘Who would have supposed that HE would be so quick?’ urged Gashford.
‘He’s as quick sometimes--I don’t mean with his hands, for that you
know, but with his head--as you or any man,’ said Hugh. ‘Dennis, it’s
time we were going; they’re waiting for us; I came to tell you. Reach
me my stick and belt. Here! Lend a hand, master. Fling this over my
shoulder, and buckle it behind, will you?’
‘Brisk as ever!’ said the secretary, adjusting it for him as he desired.
‘A man need be brisk to-day; there’s brisk work a-foot.’
‘There is, is there?’ said Gashford. He said it with such a provoking
assumption of ignorance, that Hugh, looking over his shoulder and
angrily down upon him, replied:
‘Is there! You know there is! Who knows better than you, master, that