Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
plundered room, through whose shattered window the rioters had thrust
the Maypole itself,--for even that had been sawn down,--lighted a torch,
clapped the mute and motionless John Willet on the back, and waving his
light above his head, and uttering a fierce shout, hastened after his
companions.
Chapter 55
John Willet, left alone in his dismantled bar, continued to sit staring
about him; awake as to his eyes, certainly, but with all his powers of
reason and reflection in a sound and dreamless sleep. He looked round
upon the room which had been for years, and was within an hour ago, the
pride of his heart; and not a muscle of his face was moved. The night,
without, looked black and cold through the dreary gaps in the casement;
the precious liquids, now nearly leaked away, dripped with a hollow
sound upon the floor; the Maypole peered ruefully in through the broken
window, like the bowsprit of a wrecked ship; the ground might have
been the bottom of the sea, it was so strewn with precious fragments.
Currents of air rushed in, as the old doors jarred and creaked upon
their hinges; the candles flickered and guttered down, and made long
winding-sheets; the cheery deep-red curtains flapped and fluttered idly
in the wind; even the stout Dutch kegs, overthrown and lying empty in
dark corners, seemed the mere husks of good fellows whose jollity had
departed, and who could kindle with a friendly glow no more. John saw
this desolation, and yet saw it not. He was perfectly contented to sit
there, staring at it, and felt no more indignation or discomfort in his
bonds than if they had been robes of honour. So far as he was personally
concerned, old Time lay snoring, and the world stood still.
Save for the dripping from the barrels, the rustling of such light
fragments of destruction as the wind affected, and the dull creaking of
the open doors, all was profoundly quiet: indeed, these sounds, like
the ticking of the death-watch in the night, only made the silence they
invaded deeper and more apparent. But quiet or noisy, it was all one
to John. If a train of heavy artillery could have come up and commenced
ball practice outside the window, it would have been all the same to
him. He was a long way beyond surprise. A ghost couldn’t have overtaken
him.
By and by he heard a footstep--a hurried, and yet cautious
footstep--coming on towards the house. It stopped, advanced again,
then seemed to go quite round it. Having done that, it came beneath the
window, and a head looked in.
It was strongly relieved against the darkness outside by the glare of
the guttering candles. A pale, worn, withered face; the eyes--but that
was owing to its gaunt condition--unnaturally large and bright; the
hair, a grizzled black. It gave a searching glance all round the room,
and a deep voice said:
‘Are you alone in this house?’
John made no sign, though the question was repeated twice, and he heard
it distinctly. After a moment’s pause, the man got in at the window.
John was not at all surprised at this, either. There had been so much
getting in and out of window in the course of the last hour or so, that
he had quite forgotten the door, and seemed to have lived among such
exercises from infancy.
The man wore a large, dark, faded cloak, and a slouched hat; he walked
up close to John, and looked at him. John returned the compliment with
interest.
‘How long have you been sitting thus?’ said the man.
John considered, but nothing came of it.
‘Which way have the party gone?’
Some wandering speculations relative to the fashion of the stranger’s
boots, got into Mr Willet’s mind by some accident or other, but they got
out again in a hurry, and left him in his former state.
‘You would do well to speak,’ said the man; ‘you may keep a whole skin,
though you have nothing else left that can be hurt. Which way have the
party gone?’
‘That!’ said John, finding his voice all at once, and nodding with
perfect good faith--he couldn’t point; he was so tightly bound--in
exactly the opposite direction to the right one.
‘You lie!’ said the man angrily, and with a threatening gesture. ‘I came
that way. You would betray me.’
It was so evident that John’s imperturbability was not assumed, but was
the result of the late proceedings under his roof, that the man stayed
his hand in the very act of striking him, and turned away.
John looked after him without so much as a twitch in a single nerve
of his face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the little
casks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; then
throwing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in his
hands and drained it into his throat. Some scraps of bread and meat were
scattered about, and on these he fell next; eating them with voracity,
and pausing every now and then to listen for some fancied noise outside.
When he had refreshed himself in this manner with violent haste, and
raised another barrel to his lips, he pulled his hat upon his brow as
though he were about to leave the house, and turned to John.
‘Where are your servants?’
Mr Willet indistinctly remembered to have heard the rioters calling to
them to throw the key of the room in which they were, out of window, for
their keeping. He therefore replied, ‘Locked up.’
‘Well for them if they remain quiet, and well for you if you do the
like,’ said the man. ‘Now show me the way the party went.’
This time Mr Willet indicated it correctly. The man was hurrying to the
door, when suddenly there came towards them on the wind, the loud
and rapid tolling of an alarm-bell, and then a bright and vivid glare
streamed up, which illumined, not only the whole chamber, but all the
country.
It was not the sudden change from darkness to this dreadful light, it
was not the sound of distant shrieks and shouts of triumph, it was not
this dread invasion of the serenity and peace of night, that drove the
man back as though a thunderbolt had struck him. It was the Bell. If the
ghastliest shape the human mind has ever pictured in its wildest dreams
had risen up before him, he could not have staggered backward from its
touch, as he did from the first sound of that loud iron voice. With eyes
that started from his head, his limbs convulsed, his face most horrible
to see, he raised one arm high up into the air, and holding something
visionary back and down, with his other hand, drove at it as though
he held a knife and stabbed it to the heart. He clutched his hair,
and stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round; then gave a
frightful cry, and with it rushed away: still, still, the Bell tolled on
and seemed to follow him--louder and louder, hotter and hotter yet.
The glare grew brighter, the roar of voices deeper; the crash of heavy
bodies falling, shook the air; bright streams of sparks rose up into the
sky; but louder than them all--rising faster far, to Heaven--a million
times more fierce and furious--pouring forth dreadful secrets after its
long silence--speaking the language of the dead--the Bell--the Bell!
What hunt of spectres could surpass that dread pursuit and flight! Had
there been a legion of them on his track, he could have better borne it.
They would have had a beginning and an end, but here all space was full.
The one pursuing voice was everywhere: it sounded in the earth, the air;
shook the long grass, and howled among the trembling trees. The
echoes caught it up, the owls hooted as it flew upon the breeze, the
nightingale was silent and hid herself among the thickest boughs:
it seemed to goad and urge the angry fire, and lash it into madness;
everything was steeped in one prevailing red; the glow was everywhere;
nature was drenched in blood: still the remorseless crying of that awful
voice--the Bell, the Bell!
It ceased; but not in his ears. The knell was at his heart. No work of
man had ever voice like that which sounded there, and warned him that it
cried unceasingly to Heaven. Who could hear that bell, and not know what
it said! There was murder in its every note--cruel, relentless, savage
murder--the murder of a confiding man, by one who held his every trust.
Its ringing summoned phantoms from their graves. What face was that,
in which a friendly smile changed to a look of half incredulous horror,
which stiffened for a moment into one of pain, then changed again into
an imploring glance at Heaven, and so fell idly down with upturned
eyes, like the dead stags’ he had often peeped at when a little child:
shrinking and shuddering--there was a dreadful thing to think of
now!--and clinging to an apron as he looked! He sank upon the ground,
and grovelling down as if he would dig himself a place to hide in,
covered his face and ears: but no, no, no,--a hundred walls and roofs of
brass would not shut out that bell, for in it spoke the wrathful voice
of God, and from that voice, the whole wide universe could not afford a
refuge!
While he rushed up and down, not knowing where to turn, and while he
lay crouching there, the work went briskly on indeed. When they left the
Maypole, the rioters formed into a solid body, and advanced at a quick
pace towards the Warren. Rumour of their approach having gone before,
they found the garden-doors fast closed, the windows made secure, and
the house profoundly dark: not a light being visible in any portion of
the building. After some fruitless ringing at the bells, and beating
at the iron gates, they drew off a few paces to reconnoitre, and confer
upon the course it would be best to take.
Very little conference was needed, when all were bent upon one desperate
purpose, infuriated with liquor, and flushed with successful riot.
The word being given to surround the house, some climbed the gates, or
dropped into the shallow trench and scaled the garden wall, while others
pulled down the solid iron fence, and while they made a breach to
enter by, made deadly weapons of the bars. The house being completely
encircled, a small number of men were despatched to break open a
tool-shed in the garden; and during their absence on this errand, the
remainder contented themselves with knocking violently at the doors, and
calling to those within, to come down and open them on peril of their
lives.
No answer being returned to this repeated summons, and the detachment
who had been sent away, coming back with an accession of pickaxes,
spades, and hoes, they,--together with those who had such arms already,
or carried (as many did) axes, poles, and crowbars,--struggled into the
foremost rank, ready to beset the doors and windows. They had not at
this time more than a dozen lighted torches among them; but when these
preparations were completed, flaming links were distributed and passed
from hand to hand with such rapidity, that, in a minute’s time, at
least two-thirds of the whole roaring mass bore, each man in his hand,
a blazing brand. Whirling these about their heads they raised a loud
shout, and fell to work upon the doors and windows.
Amidst the clattering of heavy blows, the rattling of broken glass, the
cries and execrations of the mob, and all the din and turmoil of the
scene, Hugh and his friends kept together at the turret-door where Mr
Haredale had last admitted him and old John Willet; and spent their
united force on that. It was a strong old oaken door, guarded by good
bolts and a heavy bar, but it soon went crashing in upon the narrow
stairs behind, and made, as it were, a platform to facilitate their
tearing up into the rooms above. Almost at the same moment, a dozen
other points were forced, and at every one the crowd poured in like
water.
A few armed servant-men were posted in the hall, and when the rioters
forced an entrance there, they fired some half-a-dozen shots. But these