Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty
and paling; and even crutches taken from crippled beggars in the
streets; composed their arms. When all was ready, Hugh and Dennis, with
Simon Tappertit between them, led the way. Roaring and chafing like an
angry sea, the crowd pressed after them.
Instead of going straight down Holborn to the jail, as all expected,
their leaders took the way to Clerkenwell, and pouring down a quiet
street, halted before a locksmith’s house--the Golden Key.
‘Beat at the door,’ cried Hugh to the men about him. ‘We want one of his
craft to-night. Beat it in, if no one answers.’
The shop was shut. Both door and shutters were of a strong and sturdy
kind, and they knocked without effect. But the impatient crowd raising
a cry of ‘Set fire to the house!’ and torches being passed to the front,
an upper window was thrown open, and the stout old locksmith stood
before them.
‘What now, you villains!’ he demanded. ‘Where is my daughter?’
‘Ask no questions of us, old man,’ retorted Hugh, waving his comrades
to be silent, ‘but come down, and bring the tools of your trade. We want
you.’
‘Want me!’ cried the locksmith, glancing at the regimental dress he
wore: ‘Ay, and if some that I could name possessed the hearts of mice,
ye should have had me long ago. Mark me, my lad--and you about him do
the same. There are a score among ye whom I see now and know, who are
dead men from this hour. Begone! and rob an undertaker’s while you can!
You’ll want some coffins before long.’
‘Will you come down?’ cried Hugh.
‘Will you give me my daughter, ruffian?’ cried the locksmith.
‘I know nothing of her,’ Hugh rejoined. ‘Burn the door!’
‘Stop!’ cried the locksmith, in a voice that made them
falter--presenting, as he spoke, a gun. ‘Let an old man do that. You can
spare him better.’
The young fellow who held the light, and who was stooping down before
the door, rose hastily at these words, and fell back. The locksmith ran
his eye along the upturned faces, and kept the weapon levelled at the
threshold of his house. It had no other rest than his shoulder, but was
as steady as the house itself.
‘Let the man who does it, take heed to his prayers,’ he said firmly; ‘I
warn him.’
Snatching a torch from one who stood near him, Hugh was stepping forward
with an oath, when he was arrested by a shrill and piercing shriek, and,
looking upward, saw a fluttering garment on the house-top.
There was another shriek, and another, and then a shrill voice cried,
‘Is Simmun below!’ At the same moment a lean neck was stretched over
the parapet, and Miss Miggs, indistinctly seen in the gathering gloom
of evening, screeched in a frenzied manner, ‘Oh! dear gentlemen, let me
hear Simmuns’s answer from his own lips. Speak to me, Simmun. Speak to
me!’
Mr Tappertit, who was not at all flattered by this compliment, looked
up, and bidding her hold her peace, ordered her to come down and open
the door, for they wanted her master, and would take no denial.
‘Oh good gentlemen!’ cried Miss Miggs. ‘Oh my own precious, precious
Simmun--’
‘Hold your nonsense, will you!’ retorted Mr Tappertit; ‘and come down
and open the door.--G. Varden, drop that gun, or it will be worse for
you.’
‘Don’t mind his gun,’ screamed Miggs. ‘Simmun and gentlemen, I poured a
mug of table-beer right down the barrel.’
The crowd gave a loud shout, which was followed by a roar of laughter.
‘It wouldn’t go off, not if you was to load it up to the muzzle,’
screamed Miggs. ‘Simmun and gentlemen, I’m locked up in the front attic,
through the little door on the right hand when you think you’ve got to
the very top of the stairs--and up the flight of corner steps, being
careful not to knock your heads against the rafters, and not to tread on
one side in case you should fall into the two-pair bedroom through the
lath and plasture, which do not bear, but the contrairy. Simmun and
gentlemen, I’ve been locked up here for safety, but my endeavours has
always been, and always will be, to be on the right side--the blessed
side and to prenounce the Pope of Babylon, and all her inward and
her outward workings, which is Pagin. My sentiments is of little
consequences, I know,’ cried Miggs, with additional shrillness, ‘for my
positions is but a servant, and as sich, of humilities, still I gives
expressions to my feelings, and places my reliances on them which
entertains my own opinions!’
Without taking much notice of these outpourings of Miss Miggs after she
had made her first announcement in relation to the gun, the crowd
raised a ladder against the window where the locksmith stood, and
notwithstanding that he closed, and fastened, and defended it manfully,
soon forced an entrance by shivering the glass and breaking in the
frames. After dealing a few stout blows about him, he found himself
defenceless, in the midst of a furious crowd, which overflowed the room
and softened off in a confused heap of faces at the door and window.
They were very wrathful with him (for he had wounded two men), and
even called out to those in front, to bring him forth and hang him on
a lamp-post. But Gabriel was quite undaunted, and looked from Hugh and
Dennis, who held him by either arm, to Simon Tappertit, who confronted
him.
‘You have robbed me of my daughter,’ said the locksmith, ‘who is far
dearer to me than my life; and you may take my life, if you will. I
bless God that I have been enabled to keep my wife free of this scene;
and that He has made me a man who will not ask mercy at such hands as
yours.’
‘And a wery game old gentleman you are,’ said Mr Dennis, approvingly;
‘and you express yourself like a man. What’s the odds, brother, whether
it’s a lamp-post to-night, or a feather-bed ten year to come, eh?’
The locksmith glanced at him disdainfully, but returned no other answer.
‘For my part,’ said the hangman, who particularly favoured the lamp-post
suggestion, ‘I honour your principles. They’re mine exactly. In such
sentiments as them,’ and here he emphasised his discourse with an oath,
‘I’m ready to meet you or any man halfway.--Have you got a bit of cord
anywheres handy? Don’t put yourself out of the way, if you haven’t. A
handkecher will do.’
‘Don’t be a fool, master,’ whispered Hugh, seizing Varden roughly by
the shoulder; ‘but do as you’re bid. You’ll soon hear what you’re wanted
for. Do it!’
‘I’ll do nothing at your request, or that of any scoundrel here,’
returned the locksmith. ‘If you want any service from me, you may spare
yourselves the pains of telling me what it is. I tell you, beforehand,
I’ll do nothing for you.’
Mr Dennis was so affected by this constancy on the part of the staunch
old man, that he protested--almost with tears in his eyes--that to baulk
his inclinations would be an act of cruelty and hard dealing to which
he, for one, never could reconcile his conscience. The gentleman, he
said, had avowed in so many words that he was ready for working off;
such being the case, he considered it their duty, as a civilised and
enlightened crowd, to work him off. It was not often, he observed, that
they had it in their power to accommodate themselves to the wishes of
those from whom they had the misfortune to differ. Having now found an
individual who expressed a desire which they could reasonably indulge
(and for himself he was free to confess that in his opinion that desire
did honour to his feelings), he hoped they would decide to accede to
his proposition before going any further. It was an experiment which,
skilfully and dexterously performed, would be over in five minutes, with
great comfort and satisfaction to all parties; and though it did not
become him (Mr Dennis) to speak well of himself he trusted he might
be allowed to say that he had practical knowledge of the subject, and,
being naturally of an obliging and friendly disposition, would work the
gentleman off with a deal of pleasure.
These remarks, which were addressed in the midst of a frightful din and
turmoil to those immediately about him, were received with great favour;
not so much, perhaps, because of the hangman’s eloquence, as on account
of the locksmith’s obstinacy. Gabriel was in imminent peril, and he knew
it; but he preserved a steady silence; and would have done so, if they
had been debating whether they should roast him at a slow fire.
As the hangman spoke, there was some stir and confusion on the ladder;
and directly he was silent--so immediately upon his holding his peace,
that the crowd below had no time to learn what he had been saying, or to
shout in response--some one at the window cried:
‘He has a grey head. He is an old man: Don’t hurt him!’
The locksmith turned, with a start, towards the place from which the
words had come, and looked hurriedly at the people who were hanging on
the ladder and clinging to each other.
‘Pay no respect to my grey hair, young man,’ he said, answering the
voice and not any one he saw. ‘I don’t ask it. My heart is green enough
to scorn and despise every man among you, band of robbers that you are!’
This incautious speech by no means tended to appease the ferocity of the
crowd. They cried again to have him brought out; and it would have gone
hard with the honest locksmith, but that Hugh reminded them, in answer,
that they wanted his services, and must have them.
‘So, tell him what we want,’ he said to Simon Tappertit, ‘and quickly.
And open your ears, master, if you would ever use them after to-night.’
Gabriel folded his arms, which were now at liberty, and eyed his old
‘prentice in silence.
‘Lookye, Varden,’ said Sim, ‘we’re bound for Newgate.’
‘I know you are,’ returned the locksmith. ‘You never said a truer word
than that.’
‘To burn it down, I mean,’ said Simon, ‘and force the gates, and set the
prisoners at liberty. You helped to make the lock of the great door.’
‘I did,’ said the locksmith. ‘You owe me no thanks for that--as you’ll
find before long.’
‘Maybe,’ returned his journeyman, ‘but you must show us how to force
it.’
‘Must I!’
‘Yes; for you know, and I don’t. You must come along with us, and pick
it with your own hands.’
‘When I do,’ said the locksmith quietly, ‘my hands shall drop off at the
wrists, and you shall wear them, Simon Tappertit, on your shoulders for
epaulettes.’
‘We’ll see that,’ cried Hugh, interposing, as the indignation of the
crowd again burst forth. ‘You fill a basket with the tools he’ll want,
while I bring him downstairs. Open the doors below, some of you. And
light the great captain, others! Is there no business afoot, my lads,
that you can do nothing but stand and grumble?’
They looked at one another, and quickly dispersing, swarmed over the
house, plundering and breaking, according to their custom, and carrying
off such articles of value as happened to please their fancy. They had
no great length of time for these proceedings, for the basket of tools
was soon prepared and slung over a man’s shoulders. The preparations
being now completed, and everything ready for the attack, those who
were pillaging and destroying in the other rooms were called down to the
workshop. They were about to issue forth, when the man who had been last
upstairs, stepped forward, and asked if the young woman in the garret
(who was making a terrible noise, he said, and kept on screaming without
the least cessation) was to be released?
For his own part, Simon Tappertit would certainly have replied in the
negative, but the mass of his companions, mindful of the good service
she had done in the matter of the gun, being of a different opinion, he
had nothing for it but to answer, Yes. The man, accordingly, went back
again to the rescue, and presently returned with Miss Miggs, limp and
doubled up, and very damp from much weeping.
As the young lady had given no tokens of consciousness on their way