Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
by one of his companions who knew him of old, at Chigwell; and that he
is now among the rioters.’
‘And what is that to me? If father and son be hanged together, what
comfort shall I find in that?’
‘Stay--stay, my friend,’ returned the blind man, with a cunning look,
‘you travel fast to journeys’ ends. Suppose I track my lady out, and say
thus much: “You want your son, ma’am--good. I, knowing those who tempt
him to remain among them, can restore him to you, ma’am--good. You must
pay a price, ma’am, for his restoration--good again. The price is small,
and easy to be paid--dear ma’am, that’s best of all.”’
‘What mockery is this?’
‘Very likely, she may reply in those words. “No mockery at all,” I
answer: “Madam, a person said to be your husband (identity is difficult
of proof after the lapse of many years) is in prison, his life in
peril--the charge against him, murder. Now, ma’am, your husband has been
dead a long, long time. The gentleman never can be confounded with him,
if you will have the goodness to say a few words, on oath, as to when he
died, and how; and that this person (who I am told resembles him in some
degree) is no more he than I am. Such testimony will set the question
quite at rest. Pledge yourself to me to give it, ma’am, and I will
undertake to keep your son (a fine lad) out of harm’s way until you have
done this trifling service, when he shall be delivered up to you, safe
and sound. On the other hand, if you decline to do so, I fear he will be
betrayed, and handed over to the law, which will assuredly sentence him
to suffer death. It is, in fact, a choice between his life and death. If
you refuse, he swings. If you comply, the timber is not grown, nor the
hemp sown, that shall do him any harm.”’
‘There is a gleam of hope in this!’ cried the prisoner.
‘A gleam!’ returned his friend, ‘a noon-blaze; a full and glorious
daylight. Hush! I hear the tread of distant feet. Rely on me.’
‘When shall I hear more?’
‘As soon as I do. I should hope, to-morrow. They are coming to say that
our time for talk is over. I hear the jingling of the keys. Not another
word of this just now, or they may overhear us.’
As he said these words, the lock was turned, and one of the prison
turnkeys appearing at the door, announced that it was time for visitors
to leave the jail.
‘So soon!’ said Stagg, meekly. ‘But it can’t be helped. Cheer up,
friend. This mistake will soon be set at rest, and then you are a man
again! If this charitable gentleman will lead a blind man (who has
nothing in return but prayers) to the prison-porch, and set him with his
face towards the west, he will do a worthy deed. Thank you, good sir. I
thank you very kindly.’
So saying, and pausing for an instant at the door to turn his grinning
face towards his friend, he departed.
When the officer had seen him to the porch, he returned, and again
unlocking and unbarring the door of the cell, set it wide open,
informing its inmate that he was at liberty to walk in the adjacent
yard, if he thought proper, for an hour.
The prisoner answered with a sullen nod; and being left alone again, sat
brooding over what he had heard, and pondering upon the hopes the recent
conversation had awakened; gazing abstractedly, the while he did so,
on the light without, and watching the shadows thrown by one wall on
another, and on the stone-paved ground.
It was a dull, square yard, made cold and gloomy by high walls, and
seeming to chill the very sunlight. The stone, so bare, and rough,
and obdurate, filled even him with longing thoughts of meadow-land and
trees; and with a burning wish to be at liberty. As he looked, he rose,
and leaning against the door-post, gazed up at the bright blue sky,
smiling even on that dreary home of crime. He seemed, for a moment, to
remember lying on his back in some sweet-scented place, and gazing at it
through moving branches, long ago.
His attention was suddenly attracted by a clanking sound--he knew what
it was, for he had startled himself by making the same noise in walking
to the door. Presently a voice began to sing, and he saw the shadow of
a figure on the pavement. It stopped--was silent all at once, as
though the person for a moment had forgotten where he was, but
soon remembered--and so, with the same clanking noise, the shadow
disappeared.
He walked out into the court and paced it to and fro; startling the
echoes, as he went, with the harsh jangling of his fetters. There was a
door near his, which, like his, stood ajar.
He had not taken half-a-dozen turns up and down the yard, when, standing
still to observe this door, he heard the clanking sound again. A face
looked out of the grated window--he saw it very dimly, for the cell was
dark and the bars were heavy--and directly afterwards, a man appeared,
and came towards him.
For the sense of loneliness he had, he might have been in jail a year.
Made eager by the hope of companionship, he quickened his pace, and
hastened to meet the man half way--
What was this! His son!
They stood face to face, staring at each other. He shrinking and cowed,
despite himself; Barnaby struggling with his imperfect memory, and
wondering where he had seen that face before. He was not uncertain long,
for suddenly he laid hands upon him, and striving to bear him to the
ground, cried:
‘Ah! I know! You are the robber!’
He said nothing in reply at first, but held down his head, and struggled
with him silently. Finding the younger man too strong for him, he raised
his face, looked close into his eyes, and said,
‘I am your father.’
God knows what magic the name had for his ears; but Barnaby released his
hold, fell back, and looked at him aghast. Suddenly he sprung towards
him, put his arms about his neck, and pressed his head against his
cheek.
Yes, yes, he was; he was sure he was. But where had he been so long, and
why had he left his mother by herself, or worse than by herself, with
her poor foolish boy? And had she really been as happy as they said?
And where was she? Was she near there? She was not happy now, and he in
jail? Ah, no.
Not a word was said in answer; but Grip croaked loudly, and hopped
about them, round and round, as if enclosing them in a magic circle, and
invoking all the powers of mischief.
Chapter 63
During the whole of this day, every regiment in or near the metropolis
was on duty in one or other part of the town; and the regulars and
militia, in obedience to the orders which were sent to every barrack and
station within twenty-four hours’ journey, began to pour in by all the
roads. But the disturbance had attained to such a formidable height, and
the rioters had grown, with impunity, to be so audacious, that the sight
of this great force, continually augmented by new arrivals, instead of
operating as a check, stimulated them to outrages of greater hardihood
than any they had yet committed; and helped to kindle a flame in
London, the like of which had never been beheld, even in its ancient and
rebellious times.
All yesterday, and on this day likewise, the commander-in-chief
endeavoured to arouse the magistrates to a sense of their duty, and in
particular the Lord Mayor, who was the faintest-hearted and most timid
of them all. With this object, large bodies of the soldiery were several
times despatched to the Mansion House to await his orders: but as he
could, by no threats or persuasions, be induced to give any, and as the
men remained in the open street, fruitlessly for any good purpose, and
thrivingly for a very bad one; these laudable attempts did harm rather
than good. For the crowd, becoming speedily acquainted with the Lord
Mayor’s temper, did not fail to take advantage of it by boasting that
even the civil authorities were opposed to the Papists, and could not
find it in their hearts to molest those who were guilty of no other
offence. These vaunts they took care to make within the hearing of the
soldiers; and they, being naturally loth to quarrel with the people,
received their advances kindly enough: answering, when they were asked
if they desired to fire upon their countrymen, ‘No, they would be damned
if they did;’ and showing much honest simplicity and good nature.
The feeling that the military were No-Popery men, and were ripe for
disobeying orders and joining the mob, soon became very prevalent in
consequence. Rumours of their disaffection, and of their leaning towards
the popular cause, spread from mouth to mouth with astonishing rapidity;
and whenever they were drawn up idly in the streets or squares, there
was sure to be a crowd about them, cheering and shaking hands, and
treating them with a great show of confidence and affection.
By this time, the crowd was everywhere; all concealment and disguise
were laid aside, and they pervaded the whole town. If any man among them
wanted money, he had but to knock at the door of a dwelling-house, or
walk into a shop, and demand it in the rioters name; and his demand
was instantly complied with. The peaceable citizens being afraid to lay
hands upon them, singly and alone, it may be easily supposed that
when gathered together in bodies, they were perfectly secure from
interruption. They assembled in the streets, traversed them at their
will and pleasure, and publicly concerted their plans. Business was
quite suspended; the greater part of the shops were closed; most of the
houses displayed a blue flag in token of their adherence to the popular
side; and even the Jews in Houndsditch, Whitechapel, and those quarters,
wrote upon their doors or window-shutters, ‘This House is a True
Protestant.’ The crowd was the law, and never was the law held in
greater dread, or more implicitly obeyed.
It was about six o’clock in the evening, when a vast mob poured
into Lincoln’s Inn Fields by every avenue, and divided--evidently in
pursuance of a previous design--into several parties. It must not be
understood that this arrangement was known to the whole crowd, but that
it was the work of a few leaders; who, mingling with the men as they
came upon the ground, and calling to them to fall into this or that
parry, effected it as rapidly as if it had been determined on by a
council of the whole number, and every man had known his place.
It was perfectly notorious to the assemblage that the largest body,
which comprehended about two-thirds of the whole, was designed for
the attack on Newgate. It comprehended all the rioters who had been
conspicuous in any of their former proceedings; all those whom they
recommended as daring hands and fit for the work; all those whose
companions had been taken in the riots; and a great number of people
who were relatives or friends of felons in the jail. This last class
included, not only the most desperate and utterly abandoned villains in
London, but some who were comparatively innocent. There was more than
one woman there, disguised in man’s attire, and bent upon the rescue
of a child or brother. There were the two sons of a man who lay under
sentence of death, and who was to be executed along with three
others, on the next day but one. There was a great party of boys whose
fellow-pickpockets were in the prison; and at the skirts of all, a score
of miserable women, outcasts from the world, seeking to release some
other fallen creature as miserable as themselves, or moved by a general
sympathy perhaps--God knows--with all who were without hope, and
wretched.
Old swords, and pistols without ball or powder; sledge-hammers, knives,
axes, saws, and weapons pillaged from the butchers’ shops; a forest of
iron bars and wooden clubs; long ladders for scaling the walls, each
carried on the shoulders of a dozen men; lighted torches; tow smeared
with pitch, and tar, and brimstone; staves roughly plucked from fence