 72 The black lion was so far off, and occupied such a length of time in the getting-out, but notwithstanding the strong presumptive evidence she had about her of the late events being real and of actual occurrence, Dolly could not divest herself of the belief that she must be in a dream which was lasting all night. Nor was she quite certain that she saw and heard with her own proper senses, even when the coach, in the fullness of time, stopped at the black lion, and the host of that tavern approached in a gush of cheerful light to help them to dismount and give them hearty welcome. The two at the coach's door, one on one side, one upon the other, were already Edward Chester and Joe Willett, who must have followed in another coach. And this was such a strange and unaccountable proceeding, that Dolly was the more inclined to favour the idea of her being fast asleep. But when Mr. Willett appeared, old John himself, so heavy-headed and obstinate, and with such a double chin as the liveliest imagination could never in its boldest flights have conjured up in all its vast proportions, then she stood corrected, and unwillingly admitted to herself that she was broad awake. And Joe had lost an arm, he that well-made, handsome, gallant fellow. As Dolly glanced towards him, and thought of the pain he must have suffered, and the far-off places in which he had been wandering, and wondered who had been his nurse, and hoped that whoever it was she had been as kind and gentle and considerate as she would have been. The tears came rising to her bright eyes, one by one, little by little, until she could keep them back no longer, and so before them all wept bitterly. We are all safe now, Dolly, said her father kindly. We shall not be separated any more. Cheer up, my love, cheer up! The locksmith's wife knew better, perhaps, than he, what ailed her daughter. But Mrs. Varden, being quite an altered woman, for the riots had done that good, added her word to his, and comforted her with similar representations. Me, Hap, said Mr. Willet Sr., looking round upon the company, she's hungry. That's what it is. Depend upon it. I am myself. The black lion, who, like old John, had been waiting supper past all reasonable and conscionable hours, hailed this as a philosophical discovery of the profoundest and most penetrating kind, and the table being already spread, they sat down to supper straightway. The conversation was not of the liveliest nature, nor were the appetites of some among them very keen, but, in both these respects, old John more than atoned for any deficiency on the part of the rest, and very much distinguished himself. It was not in point of actual conversation that Mr. Willet shone so brilliantly, for he had none of his old cronies to tackle, and was rather timorous of venturing on Joe, having certain vague misgivings within him that he was ready on the shortest notice, and on receipt of the slightest defence, to fell the black lion to the floor of his own parlour, and immediately to withdraw to China, or some other remote and unknown region, there to dwell for evermore, or at least until he had got rid of his remaining arm and both legs, and perhaps an eye or so, into the bargain. It was for the peculiar kind of pantomime that Mr. Willet filled up every pause, and in this he was considered by the black lion, who had been his familiar for some years, quite to surpass and go beyond himself and outrun the expectations of his most admiring friends. The subject that worked in Mr. Willet's mind, and occasioned these demonstrations, was no other than his son's bodily disfigurement, which he had never yet got himself thoroughly to believe or comprehend. Shortly after their first meeting, he had been observed to wander in a state of great perplexity to the kitchen, and to direct his gaze towards the fire, as if in search of his usual adviser in all matters of doubt and difficulty. But there being no boiler at the black lion, and the rioters having so beaten and battered his own that it was quite unfit for further service, he wandered out again, in a perfect bog of uncertainty and mental confusion. And in that state took the strangest means of resolving his doubts, such as feeling the sleeve of his son's greatcoat, as deeming it possible that his arm might be there, looking at his own arms, and those of everybody else, as if to assure himself that two and not one was the usual allowance, sitting by the hour together in a brown study, as if he were endearing to recall Joe's image in his younger days, and to remember whether he really had in those times one arm or a pair, and employing himself in many other speculations of the same kind. Finding himself at this supper, surrounded by faces of which he had been so well acquainted in old times, Mr. Willet recurred to the subject with uncommon vigor, apparently resolved to understand it now or never. Sometimes, after every two or three mouthfuls, he laid down his knife and fork, and stared at his son with all his might, particularly at his maimed side. Then he looked slowly round the table until he caught some person's eye, when he shook his head with great solemnity, pat at his shoulder, winked, or as one may say, for winking was a very slow process with him, went to sleep with one eye for a minute or two, and so with another solemn shaking of his head, took up his knife and fork again, and went on eating. Sometimes he put his food into his mouth abstractedly, and with all his faculties concentrated on Joe, gazed at him in a fit of super-faction as he cut his meat with one hand until he was recalled to himself by symptoms of choking on his own part, and was by that means restored to consciousness. At other times he resorted to such small devices as asking him for the salt, the pepper, the vinegar, the mustard, anything that was on his maimed side, and watching him as he handed it. By dint of these experiments he did at last so satisfy and convince himself that after a longer silence than he had yet maintained, he laid down his knife and fork on either side his plate, drank a long draught from a tankard beside him, still keeping his eyes on Joe, and leaning backward in his chair and fetching a long breath, said, as he looked all round the board, It's been took off. By George, said the black lion, striking the table with his hand, he's got it. Yes, sir, said Mr. Willet, with the look of a man who felt that he had earned a compliment and deserved it. That's where it is. It's been took off. Tell him where it was done, said the black lion to Joe. At the defence of the savannah, Father. At the defence of the Salwanas, repeated Mr. Willet softly, again looking round the table. In America, where the war is, said Joe. In America, where the war is, repeated Mr. Willet. It was took off. In the defence of the Salwanas, in America, where the war is. Continuing to repeat these words to himself in a low tone of voice, the same information had been conveyed to him in the same terms at least 50 times before, Mr. Willet arose from table, walked round to Joe, felt his empty sleeve all the way up from the cuff to where the stump of his arm remained, shook his hand, lighted his pipe at the fire, took a long whiff, walked to the door, turned round once when he had reached it, wiped his left eye with the back of his forefinger, and said, in a faltering voice, my son's arm was took off at the defence of the Salwanas, in America, where the war is. In America, with which words, he withdrew, and returned no more that night. Indeed, on various pretenses, they all withdrew, one after another, save Dolly, who was left sitting there alone. It was a great relief to be alone, and she was crying to her heart's content when she heard Joe's voice at the end of the passage bidding somebody good night. Good night! Then he was going elsewhere to some distance, perhaps, to what kind of home could he be going, now that it was so late? She heard him walk along the passage and pass the door, but there was a hesitation in his footsteps. He turned back. Dolly's heart beat high. He looked in. Good night! He didn't say Dolly, but there was comfort in his not saying this pardon. Good night! Sub Dolly! I'm sorry you take on so much for what is past and gone, said Joe kindly. Doubt. I can't bear to see you do it. Think of it no longer. You are safe and happy now. Dolly cried the more. You must have suffered very much within these few days, and yet you're not changed, unless it's for the better. They said you were, but I don't see it. You were—you were always very beautiful, said Joe, but you are more beautiful than ever now. You are indeed. There could be no harm in my saying so, for you must know it. You are told so very often, I'm sure. As a general principal, Dolly did know it, and was told so very often. But the coachmaker had turned out years ago to be a special donkey, and whether she had been afraid of making similar discoveries in others, or had grown by dint of long custom to be careless of compliments generally, certain it is that although she cried so much, she was better pleased to be told so now than ever she had been in all her life. I shall bless your name, sobbed the locksmith's little daughter, as long as I live. I shall never hear it spoken, without feeling as if my heart were burst. I shall remember it in my prayers every night, and morning till I die. Will you? said Joe eagerly. Will you indeed? It makes me—well, it makes me very glad and proud to hear you say so. Dolly still sobbed, and held her handkerchief to her eyes. Joe still stood, looking at her. Your voice, said Joe, brings up old times so pleasantly that, for the moment, I feel as if that night—there could be no harm in talking of that night now— had come back, and nothing had happened in the meantime. I feel as if I hadn't suffered any hardships, but had knocked down poor Tom Cobb only yesterday, and had come to see you with more bundle and more shoulder, before running away. You remember? Remember. But she said nothing. She raised her eyes for an instant. It was but a glance—a little, tearful, timid glance. It kept Joe silent, though, for a long time. Will, he said stoutly, it was to be otherwise, and was. I had been abroad, fighting all the summer, and frozen up all the winter ever since. I have come back as poor in purse as I went, and crippled for life besides. But, Dolly, I would rather have lost this other arm. I would have rather have lost my head. Then I have come back to find you dead, or anything but what I always pictured you to myself, and what I always hoped and wished to find you. Thank God for all. Oh, how much and how keenly the little coquette of five years ago felt now. She had found her heart at last. Never having known its worth till now, she had never known the worth of his. How priceless it appeared! I did out once, said Joe in his homely way, that I might come back a rich man, and marry you. But I was a boy then, and have long known better than that. I am a poor, maimed, discharged soldier, and must be content to rub through life as I can. I can't say even now that I should be glad to see you married, Dolly. But I am glad, yes I am, and glad to think I can say so, to know that you are admired and courted, and can pick and choose for a happy life. It's a comfort to me, to know that you'll talk to your husband about me, and I hope the time will come when I may be able to like him, and to shake hands with him, and to come and see you as a poor friend who knew you when you were a girl. God bless you. His hand did tremble, but for all that he took it away again, and left her. End of Chapter 72. Chapter 73 of Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty By this Friday night, for it was on Friday in the riot week, that Emma and Dolly were rescued, by the timely aid of Joe and Edward Chester. The disturbances were entirely quelled, and peace and order were restored, and no one was able to do so, and no one was able to do so. But I am a poor, maimed, discharged soldier, and I am a poor, maimed, discharged soldier, and I am a poor, maimed, discharged soldier, and I am a poor, maimed, discharged soldier, entirely quelled, and peace and order were restored to the affrighted city. True, after what had happened, it was impossible for any man to say how long this better state of things might last, or how suddenly new outrages, exceeding even those so lately witnessed, might burst forth and fill its streets with ruin and bloodshed. For this reason, those who had fled from the recent tumults still kept at a distance, and many families hid the two unable to procure the means of flight, now availed themselves of the calm and withdrew into the country. The shops too, from Tyburn to Whitechapel, were still shut, and very little business was transacted in any of the places of great commercial resort. But, notwithstanding, and in spite of the melancholy forebodings of that numerous class of society, who see with the greatest clearness into the darkest perspectives, the town remained profoundly quiet. The strong military force, disposed in every advantageous quarter, and stationed at every commanding point, held a scattered fragments of the Malvin check. The search after rioters was prosecuted with unrelenting vigor, and if there were any among them so desperate and reckless as to be inclined, after the terrible scenes they had beheld, to venture forth again, they were so daunted by these resolute measures that they quickly shrunk into their hiding-places, and had no thought but for their safety. In a word, the crowd was utterly routed. Upwards of two hundred had been shot dead in the streets. Two hundred and fifty more were lying, badly wounded, in the hospitals, of whom seventy or eighty died within a short time afterwards. A hundred were already in custody, and more were taken every hour. How many perished in the conflagrations, or by their own excesses, is unknown, but that numbers found a terrible grave in the hot ashes of the flames they had kindled, or crept into vaults and cellars to drink in secret, or to nurse their sores, and never saw the light again, is certain. When the embers of the fires had been black and cold for many weeks, the laborer's spades proved this beyond a doubt. Seventy-two private houses, and four strong jails, were destroyed in the four great days of these riots. The total loss of property, as estimated by the sufferers, was one hundred and fifty-five thousand pounds. At the lowest and least partial estimate of disinterested persons, it exceeded one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. For this immense loss, compensation was soon afterwards made out of the public purse, in pursuance of a vote of the House of Commons, the sum being levied on the various wards in the city, on the county, and the borough of Southwark. Both Lord Mansfield and Lord Seville, however, who had been great sufferers, refused to accept of any compensation whatever. The House of Commons, sitting on Tuesday with locked and guarded doors, had passed a resolution to the effect that, as soon as the two months subsided, it would immediately proceed to consider the petitions presented from many of His Majesty's protestant subjects, and would take the same into its serious consideration. While this question was under debate, Mr. Herbert, one of the members present, indignantly rose and called upon the House to observe that Lord George Gordon was then sitting under the gallery with the blue cockade, the signal of rebellion in his hat. He was not only obliged by those who sat near to take it out, but offering to go into the street to pacify the mob with the somewhat indefinite assurance that the House was prepared to give them the satisfaction they sought, was actually held down in his seat by the combined force of several members. In short, the disorder and violence which rained triumphant out of doors penetrated into the Senate, and there, as elsewhere, terror and alarm prevailed, and ordinary forms were for the time forgotten. On the Thursday, both Houses had adjourned until the following Monday, Sir Knight, declaring it impossible to pursue their deliberations with the necessary gravity and freedom while they were surrounded by armed troops. And now that the rioters were dispersed, the citizens were beset with the new fear, for finding the public thoroughfares and all their usual places of resort filled with soldiers entrusted with the free use of fire and sword, they began to lend a greedy ear to the rumours which were afloat of martial law being declared, and to dismal stories of prisoners having been seen hanging on lampposts in Cheepside and Fleet Street. These terrors being promptly dispelled by a proclamation declaring that all the rioters in custody would be tried by a special commission in due course of law, a fresh alarm was engendered by it being whispered abroad that French money had been found on some of the rioters, and that the disturbances had been fomented by foreign powers who sought to compass the overthrow and ruin of England. This report, which was strengthened by the diffusion of anonymous hand-bills, but which, if it had any foundation at all, probably owed its origin to the circumstance of some few coins which were not English money, having been swept into the pockets of the insurgents with other miscellaneous booty that afterwards discovered on the prisoners or the dead bodies, caused a great sensation, and men's minds being in that excited state when they are most apt to catch at any shadow of apprehension was brooded about with much industry. All remaining quiet, however, during the whole of this Friday, and on this Friday night, and no new discoveries being made, confidence began to be restored, and the most timid and desponding breathed again. In Southwark no fewer than three thousand of the inhabitants formed themselves into a watch, and patrolled the streets every hour. Nor were the citizens slow to follow so good an example, and it being the manner of peaceful men to be very bold when the danger was over, they were abundantly fierce and daring, not scrupling to question the stoutest passenger with great severity, and carrying it with a very high hand over all errand boys, servant girls, and apprentices. As day deepened into evening, and darkness crept into the nooks and corners of the town, as if it were mustering in secret and gathering strength to venture into the open ways, Barnaby sat in his dungeon, wondering at the silence, and listening in vain for the noise and outcry which had ushered in the night of late. Beside him, with his hand in hers, sat one in whose companionship he felt at peace. She was worn and altered, full of grief and heavy-hearted, but the same to him. Mother, he said after a long silence, how long, how many days and nights shall I be kept here? Not many, dear. I hope not many. You hope? I, but your hoping will not undo these chains. I hope, but they don't mind that. Grip hopes, but who cares for Grip? The raven gave a short, dull, melancholy croak. It said, nobody, as plainly as a croak, could speak. Who cares for Grip, except you and me? said Barnaby, smoothing the birds' rumpled feathers with his hand. He never speaks in this place. He never says a word in jail. He sits and mopes all day in his dark corner, dozing sometimes, and sometimes looking at the light that creeps in through the bars, and shines in his bright eyes, as if a spark from those great fires had fallen into the room and was burning yet. But who cares for Grip? The raven croaked again. Nobody. And, by the way, said Barnaby, withdrawing his hand from the bird and laying it upon his mother's arm, as he looked eagerly in her face, if they kill me, they may, I heard it said they would, what will become of Grip when I am dead? The sound of the word, or the current of his own thoughts, suggested to Grip his old phrase, never say die. But he stopped short in the middle of it, drew a dismal cork, and subsided into a faint croak, as if he lacked the heart to get through the shortest sentence. Will they take his life as well as mine? said Barnaby. I wish they would. If you and I and he could die together, they would be known to feel sorry or to grieve for us. But do what they will. I don't fear them, mother. They will not harm you, she said, her tears choking her utterance. They never will harm you, when they know all. I am sure they never will. Oh, don't be too sure of that! cried Barnaby with a strange pleasure in the belief that she was self-deceived and in his own sagacity. They have marked me from the first. I heard them say so to each other when they brought me to this place last night. And I believe them. Don't you cry for me. They said that I was bold, and so I am, and so I will be. You may think that I'm silly, but I can die as well as another. I have done no harm, have I? he added quickly. None before heaven, she answered. Why then, said Barnaby, let them do their worst. You told me once, you—when I asked you what death meant, that it was nothing to be feared if we did no harm. Mother, you thought I had forgotten that. His merry laugh and playful manner smote her to the heart. She drew him closer to her, and besought him to talk to her in whispers, and to be very quiet. For it was getting dark, and their time was short, and she would soon have to leave him for the night. He will come to-morrow, said Barnaby. Yes, and every day, and they would never part again. He joyfully replied that this was well, and what he wished, and what he had felt quite certain she would tell him. And then he asked her where she had been so long, and why she had not come to see him when he had been a great soldier, and ran through the wild schemes he had had with their being rich and living prosperously, and with some faint notion in his mind that she was sad, and he had made her so, tried to console and comfort her, and talked of their former life and his old sports and freedom, little dreaming that every word he uttered only increased her sorrow, and that her tears fell faster at the freshened recollection of their lost tranquillity. Mother, said Barnaby, as they heard the man approaching to close the cells for the night, when I spoke to you just now about my father, you cried hush, and turned away your head. Why did you do so? Tell me why, in a word. You thought he was dead. You are not sorry that he is alive, and has come back to us. Where is he? Here? Do not ask anyone where he is, or speak about him. She made answer. Why not? said Barnaby, because he is a stern man and talks roughly. Well, I don't like him, or want to be with him by myself, but why not speak about him? Because I am sorry that he is alive, sorry that he has come back, and sorry that he and you have ever met. Because, dear Barnaby, the endeavour of my life has been to keep you two asunder. Father in son asunder, why? He has, she whispered in his ear, he has shed blood. The time has come when you must know it. He has shed the blood of one who loved him well, and trusted him, and never did him wrong in word or deed. Barnaby recoiled in horror, and glancing at his stained wrist for an instant, wrapped it, shuddering in his dress. But, she added hastily, as the key turned in the lock. Although we shun him, he is your father, dearest, and I am his wretched wife. They seek his life, and he will lose it. It must not be by our means. Nay, if we could win him back to penitence, we should be bound to love him yet. Do not seem to know him, except as one who fled with you from the jail, and if they question you about him, do not answer them. God be with you through the night, dear boy. God be with you. She tore herself away, and in a few seconds Barnaby was alone. He stood for a long time, rooted to the spot, with his face hidden in his hands, and flung himself, sobbing, on his miserable bed. But the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars looked out, and through the small compass of the great window, as through the narrow crevice of one good deed and a murky life of guilt, the face of heaven shone bright and merciful. He raised his head, gazed upward at the quiet sky, which seemed to smile upon the earth in sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, looked down in sorrow on the sufferings and evil deeds of men, and felt its peace sink deep into his heart. He, a poor idiot, caged in his narrow cell, was as much lifted up to God, while gazing on the mild light, as the freest and most favoured man in all the spacious city, and in his ill-remembered prayer, and in the fragment of the childish hymn with which he sung and crooned himself asleep, there breathed as true a spirit as ever studied homely expressed, or old cathedral arches echoed. As his mother crossed a yard on her way out, she saw through a greater door which separated it from another court, her husband, walking round and round, with his hands folded on his breast, and his head hung down. She asked the man who conducted her if she might speak a word with this prisoner. Yes, but she must be quick, for he was locking up for the night, and there was but a minute or so to spare. Saying this, he unlocked the door and bade her go in. It grated harshly, as it turned upon its hinges, but he was deaf to the noise, and still walked round and round a little court, without raising his head or changing his attitude in the least. She spoke to him, but her voice was weak and failed her. At length she put herself in his track, and when he came near, stretched out her hand and touched him. He started backward, trembling from head to foot. But seeing who it was, demanded why she came there. Before she could reply, he spoke again. Am I to live or die? Do you murder, too, or spare? My son, our son, she answered, is in this prison. Or is that to me? He cried, stamping impatiently on the stone pavement. I know it. You can no more aid me than aren't you going to aid him? If you are, come to talk of him, be gone. As he spoke, he resumed his walk, and hurried round the quarters before. When he came again to where she stood, he stopped and said, Am I to live or die? Do you repent? Oh, do you? She answered. Will you, while time remains? Do not believe that I could save you if I dared. Say if you would, he answered with an oath as he tried to disengage himself and pass on. Say if you would. Listen to me for one moment, she returned, but for a moment. I am but newly risen from a sick bed, from which I never hoped to rise again. The best among us think at such a time of good intentions, half-performed, and duties left undone. If I have ever, since that fatal night, omitted to pray for your repentance before death. If I omitted, even then, anything which might tend to urge it on you, when the horror of your crime was fresh. If, in our later meeting, I yielded to the dread that was upon me, and forgot to fall upon my knees and solemnly adjure you in the name of him you sent to his account with heaven, to prepare for the retribution which must come, and which is stealing on you now. I humbly before you, and in the agony of supplication in which you see me, beseech that you will let me make atonement. What is the meaning of your canteen words? he answered roughly. Speak, so thou may understand you. I will, she answered, I desire to. Bear with me for a moment more. The hand of him who set his curse on murder is heavy on us now. You cannot doubt it. Our son, our innocent boy, on whom his anger fell before his birth, is in this place in peril of his life, brought here by your guilt. Yes, by that alone, as heaven sees and knows, for he has been led astray in the darkness of his intellect, and that is the terrible consequence of your crime. If you come, woman-like, to load me with reproaches, he muttered, again endeavouring to break away. I do not. I have a different purpose. You must hear it. If not tonight, tomorrow, if not tomorrow, another time. You must hear it. Husband, escape is hopeless, impossible. You tell me, so do you. He said, raising his manacled hand and shaking it, you. Yes, she said, with indescribable earnestness. But why? To make me easy in this jail? To make the time, twix this and death, pass pleasantly? For my good. Yes, for my good, of course, he said, grinding his teeth and smiling at her with a livid face. Not to load you with reproaches, she replied, not to aggravate the tortures and miseries of your condition, not to give you one hard word, but to restore you to peace and hope. Husband, dear husband, if you will but confess this dreadful crime, if you will but implore forgiveness of heaven and of those whom you have wronged on earth, if you will dismiss these vain uneasy thoughts which never can be realised and will rely on penitence and on the truth, I promise you, in the great name of the Creator, whose image you have defaced, that he will comfort and console you. And for myself, she cried, clasping her hands and looking upward. I swear before him, as he knows my heart and reads it now, that from that hour I will love and cherish you, as I did of old, and watch you night and day in the short interval that will remain to us, and soothe you with my truest love and duty and pray with you that one threatening judgment may be arrested and that our boy may be spared to bless God in his poor way, in the free air and light. He fell back and gazed at her while she poured out these words, as though he were for a moment awed by her manner and knew not what to do. But anger and fear soon got the mastery of him, and he spurned her from him. Be gone! he cried. Leave me. You plot, do you? You plot to get speech with me, and let them know I am the man they say I am. A curse on you and your boy. On him the curse has already fallen. She replied, wringing her hands. Let it fall heavier. Let it fall on one and all. I hate you both. The worst has come to me. The only comfort that I seek or I can have will be the knowledge that it comes to you. Now go. She would have urged him gently even then, but he menaced her with his chain. I say go. I say it for the last time. That Gallow's has me in his grasp, and it is a black phantom that may urge me on to something more. Be gone! O cursey hour thou was born, the man I slew, and all the living world. In a paroxysm of wrath and terror, and the fear of death, he broke from her, and rushed into the darkness of his cell, where he cast himself jangling down upon the stone floor, and smooted with his ironed hands. The man returned to lock the dungeon door, and having done so carried her away. On that warm, barmy night in June they were glad faces and light hearts in all quarters of the town, and sleep banished by the late horrors was doubly welcomed. On that night families made merry in their houses, and greeted each other on the common danger they had escaped. And those who had been denounced ventured into the streets, and they who had been plundered, got good shelter. Even the timorous Lord Mayor, who was summoned that night before the Privy Council to answer for his conduct, came back contented, observing to all his friends that he had got off very well with a reprimand, and repeating with huge satisfaction his memorable defence before the council. At such was his temerity he thought death would have been his portion. On that night too more of the scattered remnants of the mob were traced to their lurking places, and taken. And in the hospitals, and deep among the ruins they had made, and in the ditches and fields, many unshrouded wretches lay dead, envied by those who had been active in the disturbances, and who pillowed their doomed heads in the temporary jails. And in the tower, in a dreary room whose thick stone walls shut out the hum of life, and made a stillness which the records left by former prisoners with those silent witnesses seemed to deepen and intensify, remorsel for every act that had been done by every man among the cruel crowd, feeling for the time their guilt his own, and their lives put in peril by himself, and finding amidst such reflections little comfort in fanaticism, or in his fancied call, sat the unhappy author of all, Lord George Gordon. He had been made prisoner that evening. If he are sure it's me you want, he said to the officers who waited outside with the warrant for his arrest on a charge of high treason, I am ready to accompany you. Which he did without resistance. He was conducted first before the privy council, and afterwards to the horse guards, and then was taken by way of Westminster Bridge and back over London Bridge for the purpose of avoiding the main streets to the tower under the strongest guard ever known to enter its gates with a single prisoner. Of all his forty thousand men, not one remained to bear him company. Friends, dependents, followers, none were there. His forning secretary had played the traitor, and he whose weakness had been goaded and urged on by so many for their own purposes was desolate and alone. End of Chapter 73 Chapter 74 of Barnaby Rudge A Tale of the Riots of Eighty This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Mill Nicholson Barnaby Rudge A Tale of the Riots of Eighty by Charles Dickens Chapter 74 Mr. Dennis, having been made prisoner late in the evening, was removed to a neighbouring roundhouse for that night, and carried before a justice for examination on the next day Saturday. The charges against him being numerous and weighty, and it being in particular proved by the testimony of Gabriel Varden, that he had shown a special desire to take his life, he was committed for trial. Moreover he was honoured with the distinction of being considered a chief among the insurgents, and received from the magistrates lips the complimentary assurance that he was in a position of imminent danger, and would do well to prepare himself for the worst. To say that Mr. Dennis's modesty was not somewhat startled by these honours, or that he was altogether prepared for so flattering a reception, would be to claim for him a greater amount of stoical philosophy than even he possessed. Indeed, this gentleman's stoicism was of that not uncommon kind, which enables a man to bear with exemplary fortitude the afflictions of his friends, but renders him, by way of counter-poise, rather selfish and sensitive, in respect of any that happened to befall himself. It is therefore no disparagement to the great officer in question to state, without disguise or concealment, that he was at first very much alarmed, and that he betrayed diverse emotions of fear, until his reasoning powers came to his relief, and set before him a more hopeful prospect. In proportion, as Mr. Dennis exercised these intellectual qualities with which he was gifted, in reviewing his best chances of coming off handsomely, and with small personal inconvenience, his spirits rose, and his confidence increased. When he remembered the great estimation in which his office was held, and the constant demand for his services, when he bethought himself how the statute book regarded him as a kind of universal medicine applicable to men, women and children of every age and variety of criminal constitution, and how high he stood in his official capacity in the favour of the Crown, and both Houses of Parliament, the Mint, the Bank of England, and the Judges of the Land. When he recollected that whatever ministry was in or out, he remained their peculiar pet and panacea, and that for his sake England stood single and conspicuous among the civilised nations of the earth. When he called these things to mind and dwelt upon them, he felt certain that the national gratitude must relieve him from the consequences of his late proceedings, and would certainly restore him to his old place in the happy social system. With these crumbs, or as one may say, with these whole loaves of comfort to regale upon, Mr Dennis took his place among the escort that awaited him, and repaired to jail with a manly indifference. Arriving at Newgate, where some of the ruined cells had been hastily fitted up for the safe-keeping of rioters, he was warmly received by the turn-keys, as an unusual and interesting case, which agreeably relieved them anotonous duties. In this spirit he was fettered with great care and conveyed into the interior of the prison. Brother! cried the hangman, as following an officer he traversed under these novel circumstances the remains of passages with which he was well acquainted. Am I going to be along with anybody? If you'd have left more walls standing, you'd have been alone, was a reply. As it is, we're cramped for room and you'll have company. Well, returned Dennis, I don't object to company, brother. I rather like company. I was formed for society, I was. That's rather a pity, and it, said the man. No, I said Dennis. I'm not aware that it is. Why should it be a pity, brother? Well, I don't know, said the man, carelessly. I thought that was what you meant, being formed for society and being cut off in your flower. You know, I say, interposed the other quickly. What are you talking of? Don't. Who's there going to be cut off in their flowers? No, nobody particular. I thought you was, perhaps, said the man. Mr. Dennis wiped his face, which had suddenly grown very hot, and remarking in a tremulous voice to his conductor that he had always been fond of his joke, followed him in silence until he stopped at a door. This is my quarters, is it? he asked facetiously. This is the shop, sir, replied his friend. He was walking in, but not with the best possible grace, when he suddenly stopped and started back. Hello? said the officer. You're nervous? Nervous, whispered Dennis in great alarm. Will I, maybe, shut the door? I will, when you're in, returned the man. But I can't go in there, whispered Dennis. I can't be shut up with that man. Do you want me to be thralled, brother? The officer seemed to entertain no particular desire on the subject one way or the other, but briefly remarking that he had his orders and intended to obey them, pushed him in, turned the key, and retired. Dennis stood trembling with his back against the door, and involuntarily, raising his arm to defend himself, stared at a man, the only other tenant of the cell, who lay stretched at his full length upon a stone bench, and who paused in his deep breathing as if he were about to wake. But he rolled over on one side, let his arm fall negligently down, drew alongside, and murmuring indistinctly, fell fast asleep again. Relieved in some degree by this, the hangman took his eyes for an instant from the slumbering figure, and glanced round the cell in search of some vantage ground or weapon of defence. There was nothing movable within it, but a clumsy table, which could not be displaced without noise, and a heavy chair. Stealing on tiptoe towards this latter piece of furniture, he retired with it into the remotest corner, and in trenching himself behind it, watched the enemy with the utmost vigilance and caution. The sleeping man was Hugh, and perhaps it was not unnatural for Dennis to feel in a state of very uncomfortable suspense, and to wish with his whole soul that he might never wake again. Tired of standing, he crouched down in his corner after some time, and rested on the cold pavement. But although Hugh's breathing still proclaimed that he was sleeping soundly, he could not trust him out of his sight for an instant. He was so afraid of him, and of some sudden onslaught, that he was not content to see his closed eyes through the chair-back, but every now and then rose stulfily to his feet, and peered at him with outstretched neck, to assure himself that he really was still asleep, and was not about to spring upon him when he was off his guard. He slept so long and so soundly, that Mr. Dennis began to think he might sleep on until the turnkey visited them. He was congratulating himself upon these promising appearances, and blessing his stars with much fervour, when one or two unpleasant symptoms manifested themselves, such as another motion of the arm, another sigh, a restless tossing of the head. Then, just as it seemed that he was about to fall heavily to the ground from his narrow bed, Hugh's eyes opened. It happened that his face was turned directly towards his unexpected visitor. He looked lazily at him for some half dozen seconds without any aspect of surprise or recognition. Then suddenly jumped up, and with a great oath pronounced his name. Keep off, brother! Keep off! cried Dennis, dodging behind the chair. Don't do me a mischief. I'm a prisoner like you, or I haven't the free use of my limbs. I'm quite an old man. Don't hurt me! He wind out the last three words in such piteous accents, that Hugh, who had dragged away the chair, and aimed to blow at him with it, checked himself, and bait him get up. I'll get up, certainly, brother! cried Dennis, anxious to propitiate him by any means in his power. I'll comply with any request of yours, I'm sure. There, I'm up now. What can I do for you? Only say the word, and I'll do it. What can you do for me? cried Hugh, catching him by the collar with both hands, and shaking him as though he were bent on stopping his breath by that means. What have you done for me? The best? The best it could be done! returned the hangman. Hugh made him no answer, but shaking him in a strong grip, until his teeth chattered in his head, cast him down upon the floor, and flung himself on the bench again. If it wasn't for the comfort it is to meet to see you here, he muttered, I'd have crushed your head against it, I would. It was some time before Dennis had breath enough to speak, but as soon as he could resume his propitiatory strain, he did so. I did the best it could be done, brother! he whined. I did indeed. I was forced with two bayonets, and I don't know how many bullets on each side of me to point you out. If you hadn't been taken you'd have been shot, and what a sight that would have been a fine young man like you. Will it be a better sight now? asked Hugh, raising his head with such a fierce expression that the other does not answer him just then. A deal better, said Dennis Meekly, after pause. First there's all the chances of the law, and they're five hundred strong. We may get off scot-free, unlikely of things than that have come to pass. Even if we shouldn't, and their chances fail, we can but be worked off once, and when it's well done, it's so neat, so skilful, so captivating, if that don't seem too strong a word, that you'd hardly believe it could be brought to such perfection. Cure one's fellow creatures off with muskets, and his nature so revolted at the bare idea that he spat upon the dungeon pavement. His warming on this topic, which to one unacquainted with his pursuits and tastes appeared like courage, together with his artful suppression of his own secret hopes, and mention of himself as being in the same condition with Hugh, did more to soothe that ruffian than the most elaborate arguments could have done, or the most abject submission. He rested his arms upon his knees, and stooping forward, looked from beneath his shaggy hair at Dennis with something of a smile upon his face. The fact is, brother," said the hangman, in a tone of greater confidence, that you got into bad company. The man that was with you was looked after more than you, and it was him I wanted. As to me, what have I got by it? Here we are, in one and the same plight. Lucky rascal," said Hugh, contracting his brows, I'm not altogether such a shallow blade, but I know you were expected to get something by it, or you wouldn't have done it. But it's done, and your ear, and it will soon be all over with you and me, and I'd as soon die as live, or live as die. Or should I trouble myself to have revenge on you? To eat and drink and get to sleep as long as I stay here is all I care for. If there was but a little more Santnerbask in, then, and find its way into this cursey place, I'd lie in it all day, not trouble myself to sit or stand at once. That's all the care I have for myself. Why should I care for you? Finishing the speech with a growl like the yawn of a wild beast, he stretched himself upon the bench again and closed his eyes once more. After looking at him in silence for some moments, Dennis, who was greatly relieved to find him in this mood, drew the chair towards his rough couch and sat down near him, taking the precaution, however, to keep out of the range of his brawny arm. Well said, brother. Nothing could be better said, he ventured to observe. We'll eat and drink of the best and sleep our best and make the best of it every way. Anything can be got for money. Let's spend it merrily. I said to you, coiling himself into a new position, where is it? Why, they took mine from me at the lodge, said Mr. Dennis, but mine's a peculiar case. Is it? They took mine, too. Why, then, I'll tell you what, brother, Dennis began, you must look up your friends. My friends, cried he, starting up and resting on his hands, where are my friends? Your relations, then, said Dennis. Laughed Hugh, waving one arm above his head, he talks of friendliness to me, talks of relations to a man whose mother died the death in store for her son and left him a hungry brat without a facing you in all the world. He talks of this to me. Brother, cried the hangman, whose features underwent a sudden change. You don't mean a say. I mean a say, Hugh went opposed, that they hung her up at Tyburn. What was good enough for her is good enough for me. Let them do the like by me as soon as they please, the sooner the better. Say no more to me, I'm going to sleep, but I want to speak to you. I want to hear more about that, said Dennis, changing colour. If you're a wise man, growl Hugh, raising his head to look at him with a frown, you'll hold your tongue, and I'll tell you I'm going to sleep. Dennis venturing to say something more in spite of this caution, the desperate fellow struck at him with all his force, and, missing him, lay down again with many muttered oaths and imprecations, and turned his face towards the wall. After two or three ineffectual twitches at his dress, which he was hardy enough to venture upon, notwithstanding his dangerous humour, Mr. Dennis, who burnt, for reasons of his own, to pursue the conversation, had no alternative but to sit as patiently as he could, waiting his further pleasure. End of Chapter 74. Chapter 75 of Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Mill Nicholson. Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty by Charles Dickens. Chapter 75. A month has elapsed, and we stand in the bed-chamber of Sir John Chester. Through the half-opened window the temple garden looks green and pleasant, the placid river, gay with boat and barge, and dimpled with the plash of many an awe, sparkles in the distance, the sky is blue and clear, and the summer air steals gently in, filling the room with perfume. The very town, the smoky town, is radiant, high roofs and steeple-tops, wont to look black and sullen, smile a cheerful grey. Every old gilded vein and ball and cross glitters anew in the bright morning sun, and, high among them all, St Paul's towers up, showing its lofty crest in burnished gold. Sir John was breakfasting in bed. His chocolate and toast stood upon a little table at his elbow, books and newspapers lay ready to his hand upon the coverlet, and, sometimes pausing to glance with an air of tranquil satisfaction round the well-ordered room, and sometimes to gaze indolently at the summer sky, he ate and drank and read the news luxuriously. The cheerful influence of the morning seemed to have some effect even upon his equitable temper. His manner was unusually gay, his smile more placid and agreeable than usual, his voice more clear and pleasant. He laid down the newspaper he had been reading, leaned back upon his pillow with the air of one who resigned himself to a train of charming recollections, and, after a pause, soliloquized as follows. And my friend of the centaur goes the way of his mama. I am not surprised, and his mysterious friend Mr. Dennis likewise. I am not surprised, and my old postman, exceedingly free and easy young madman of Chigwell, I am quite rejoiced. It's the very best thing that could possibly happen to him. After delivering himself of these remarks, he fell again into his smiling train of reflection, from which he roused himself at length to finish his chocolate, which was getting cold, and ring the bell for more. The new supplier arriving, he took the cup from his servant's hand, and saying with a charming affability, I am obliged to you, Peake. Dismissed him. It is a remarkable circumstance, he mused, dallying lazily with the teaspoon, that my friend, the madman, should have been within an ace of escaping on his trial, and it was a good stroke of chance, or, as the world would say, a providential occurrence, that the brother of my Lord Mayor should have been in court, with other country justices, into whose very dense heads curiosity had penetrated. Although the brother of my Lord Mayor was decidedly wrong, and established his near relationship to that amusing person beyond all doubt, in stating that my friend was sane, and had, to his knowledge, wandered about the country with a vagabond parent, allowing revolutionary and rebellious sentiments. I am not the less obliged to him for volunteering that evidence. These insane creatures make such very odd and embarrassing remarks, that they really ought to be hanged for the comfort of society. The country justice had indeed turned the wavering scale against poor Barnaby. And solved the doubt that trembled in his favour. Grip brittle thought how much he had to answer for. They will be a singular party, said Sir John, leaning his head upon his hand and sipping his chocolate. A very curious party. The hangman himself, the centaur, and the madman. The centaur would make a very handsome preparation in Surgeon's Hall, and would benefit signs extremely. I hope they have taken care to bespeak him. Peake, I am not at home, of course, to any body but the hairdresser. This reminder to his servant was called forth by a knock at the door, which the man hastened to open. After a prolonged murmur of question and answer, he returned. And as he cautiously closed the room door behind him, a man was heard to cough in the passage. Now, it is of no use, Peake, said Sir John, raising his hand in deprecation of his delivering any message. I am not at home. I cannot possibly hear you. I told you I was not at home, and my word is sacred, and you never do as you are desired. Having nothing to oppose to this reproof, the man was about to withdraw, when the visitor, who had given occasion to it, probably rendered impatient by delay, not with his knuckles at the chamber door, and called out that he had urgent business with Sir John Chester, which admitted of no delay. Let him in, said Sir John. My good fellow, he added, when the door was opened. How come you to intrude yourself in this extraordinary manner upon the privacy of a gentleman? How can you be so wholly destitute of self-respect as to be guilty of such a remarkable little breeding? My business, Sir John, is not of a common kind, I do assure you, returned the person he addressed. If I have taken any uncommon course to get admission to you, I hope I shall be pardoned on that account. Well, we shall see, we shall see, returned Sir John, whose face cleared up when he saw who it was, and whose pre-possessing smile was now restored. I am sure we have met before, he added in his winning tone, but really I forget your name. My name is Gabriel Vardin, Sir. Vardin, of course Vardin, returned Sir John, tapping his forehead. Dear me, how very defective my memory becomes! Vardin, to be sure, Mr. Vardin the locksmith. You have a charming wife, Mr. Vardin, and a most beautiful daughter. They are well. Gabriel thanked him, and said they were. I rejoice to hear it, said Sir John, commend me to them when you return, and say that I wished I were fortunate enough to convey myself the salute which I entrust you to deliver. And what, he asked very sweetly, after moments pause, can I do for you? You may command me freely. I thank you, Sir John, said Gabriel, with some pride in his manner, but I have come to ask no favour of you, though I come on business, private. He added with a glance at the man who stood looking on, and very pressing business. I cannot say you are the more welcome for being independent, and having nothing to ask of me, returned Sir John graciously, for I should have been happy to render you a service. Still, you are welcome on any terms. Oblige me with some more chocolate-peak, and don't wait. The man retired, and left them alone. Sir John, said Gabriel, I am a working man, and have been so all my life. If I don't prepare you enough for what I have to tell, if I come to the point too abruptly, and give you a shock which a gentleman could have spared you, or at all events lessened very much, I hope you will give me credit for meaning well. I wish to be careful and considerate, and I trust that in a straightforward person like me, you'll take the will for the deed. Mr. Varden, returned the other, perfectly composed under this exordium, I beg you will take a chair. A chocolate, perhaps? You don't relish? Well, it is an acquired taste, no doubt. Sir John, said Gabriel, who had acknowledged for the bow the invitation to be seated, but had not availed himself of it. Sir John, he dropped his voice, and drew nearer to the bed. I am just now, come from Newgate. Good, get! cried Sir John hastily sitting up in bed. From Newgate? Mr. Varden, how could you be so very imprudent as to come from Newgate? Newgate, where there are jail-fevers and ragged people and barefooted men and women, and a thousand horrors. Peek, bring the camphor quick. Heaven and earth, Mr. Varden, my dear good soul, how could you come from Newgate? Gabriel returned no answer, but looked on in silence while Peek, who had entered with the hot chocolate, ran to a draw, and returning with a bottle, sprinkled his master's dressing-gown and the bedding, and besides moistening the locksmith himself, plentifully described a circle round about him on the carpet. When he had done this, he again retired. And Sir John, reclining in an easy attitude upon his pillow, once more turned a smiling face towards his visitor. You will forgive me, Mr. Varden, I am sure, for being at first a little sensitive, both on your account and my own. I confess I was startled, notwithstanding your delicate exhortation. Might I ask you to do me the favour not to approach any nearer? You have rarely come from Newgate. The locksmith inclined his head. Indeed. And now, Mr. Varden, all exaggeration and embellishment apart, said Sir John Chester confidentially as he sipped his chocolate, what kind of place is Newgate? A strange place, Sir John, returned the locksmith, of a sad and dullful kind. A strange place where many strange things are heard and seen, but few more strange than that I come to tell you of. The case is urgent. I am sent here. Not, no, no, not from the jail. Yes, Sir John, from the jail. And, my good, credulous, open-hearted friend, said Sir John, sitting down his cap and laughing, by whom? By a man called Dennis, for many years the hangman, and tomorrow morning the hanged, returned the locksmith. Sir John had expected, had been quite certain from the first, that he would say he had come from Hugh, and was prepared to meet him on that point. But this answer occasioned him a degree of astonishment, which, for the moment, he could not, with all his command of feature, prevent his face from expressing. He quickly subdued it, however, and said in the same light tone, and what does the gentleman require of me? My memory may be at fault again, but I don't recollect, that I ever had the pleasure of an introduction to him, or that I ever numbered him among my personal friends, I do assure you, Mr. Varden. Sir John, returned the locksmith gravely, I will tell you, as nearly as I can, in the words he used to me, what he desires that you should know, and what you ought to know without a moment's loss of time. Sir John Chester settled himself in a position of greater repose, and looked at his visitor with an expression of face, which seemed to say, this is an amusing fellow, I'll hear him out. You may have seen in the newspapers, sir, said Gabriel, pointing to the one which lay by his side, that I was a witness against this man, upon his trial some day since, and that it was not his fault that I was alive and able to speak to what I knew. May have seen, cried Sir John, my dear Mr. Varden, you are quite a public character, and live in all men's thoughts most deservedly. Nothing can exceed the interest with which I read your testimony, and remembered that I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance with you. I hope we shall have your portrait published. This morning, sir, said the locksmith, taking no notice of these compliments, early this morning a message was brought to me from Newgate, at this man's request, desiring that I would go and see him, for he had something particular to communicate. I needn't tell you that he was no friend of mine, and that I had never seen him until the rioters beset my house. Sir John fanned himself gently with the newspaper, and nodded. I knew, however, from the general report, presumed Gabriel, that the order for his execution tomorrow went down to the prison last night, and looking upon him as a dying man, I complied with his request. You are quite a Christian, Mr. Varden, said Sir John, and in that amiable capacity you increased my desire that you should take a chair. He said, continued Gabriel, looking steadily at the night, that he had sent to me because he had no friend or companion in the whole world, being the common hangman, and because he believed, from the way in which I had given my evidence, that I was an honest man, and would act truly by him. He said that, being shunned by everyone who knew his calling, even by people of the lowest and most wretched grade, and finding, when he joined the rioters, at the men he acted with, had no suspicion of it, which I believe is true enough, for a poor fool of an old apprentice of mine was one of them. He had kept his own counsel, up to the time of his being taken and put in jail. Very discreet of Mr. Dennis, observed Sir John with a slight yawn, though still with the utmost affability, but, except for your admirable and lucid manner of telling it, which is perfect, not very interesting to me. When, pursued the locksmith, quite unabashed, and wholly regardless of these interruptions, when he was taken to the jail, he found that his fellow prisoner in the same room was a young man, Hugh by name, a leader in the riots who had been betrayed and given up by himself. From something which fell from this unhappy creature in the course of the angry words they had at meeting, he discovered that his mother had suffered the death to which they both are now condemned. The time was very short, Sir John. The knight laid down his paper fan, replaced his cup upon the table at his side, and, saving for the smile that lurked about his mouth, looked at the locksmith with as much steadiness as the locksmith looked at him. They have been in prison now a month. One conversation led to many more, and the hangman soon found, from a comparison of time and place and dates, that he had executed the sentence of the law upon this woman himself. She had been tempted by want, as so many people are, into the easy crime of passing forged notes. She was young and handsome, and the traders who employ men, women and children in this traffic looked upon her as one who was well adapted for their business, and who would probably go on without suspicion for a long time. But they were mistaken, for she was stopped in the commission of her very first offence, and died for it. She was of gypsy blood, Sir John. It might have been the effect of a passing cloud which obscured the sun, and cast a shadow on his face, but the knight turned deadly pale. Still he met the locksmith's eye as before. She was of gypsy blood, Sir John, repeated Gabriel, and had a high free spirit. This and her good looks, and her lofty manner, interested some gentlemen who were easily moved by dark eyes, and efforts were made to save her. They might have been successful, if she would have given them any clue to her history. But she never would, or did. There was reason to suspect that you would make an attempt upon her life. A watch was set upon her night and day, and from that time she never spoke again. Sir John stretched out his hand towards his cup. The locksmith going on arrested it halfway, until she had but a minute to live. Then she broke silence, and said in a low firm voice, which no one heard but this executioner, for all other living creatures had retired, and left her to her fate. If I had a dagger within these fingers, and he was within my reach, I would strike him dead before me even now. The man asked, who? She said, the father of her boy. Sir John drew back his outstretched hand, and seeing that the locksmith paused, signed to him with easy politeness, and without any new appearance of emotion, to proceed. It was the first word she had ever spoken, from which it could be understood that she had any relative on earth. Was the child alive? He asked. Yes. He asked her where it was, its name and whether she had any wish respecting it. She had but one, she said. It was that the boy might live and grow in utter ignorance of his father, so that no arts might teach him to be gentle and forgiving. When he became a man, she trusted to the God of their tribe, to bring the father and the son together, and revenge her through her child. He asked her other questions, but she spoke no more. Indeed, he says, she scarcely said this much to him, but stood with her face turned upwards to the sky, and never looked towards him once. Sir John took a pinch of snuff, glanced approvingly at an elegant little sketch entitled Nature on the Wall, and raising his eyes to the locksmith's face again, said, with an air of courtesy and patronage, knew we're observing, Mr. Barton, that she never returned the locksmith, who was not to be diverted by any artifice from his firm manner and his steady gaze, that she never looked towards him once, Sir John, and so she died, and he forgot her. But some years afterwards a man was sentenced to die the same death who was a gypsy too, a sunburnt, swarthy fellow, almost a wild man, and while he lay in prison under sentence, he who had seen the hangman more than once while he was free, cut an image of him on his stick by way of braving death, and showing those who attended on him how little he cared or thought about it. He gave this stick into his hands a tie-burn, and told him then that the woman I have spoken of had left her own people to join a fine gentleman, and that being deserted by him, and cast off by her old friends, she had sworn within her own proud breast, that whatever her misery might be she would ask no help of any human being. He told him that she had kept her word to the last, and that meeting even him in the streets, he had been fond of her once it seems. She had slipped from him by a trick, and he never saw her again until, being in one of the frequent crowds at tie-burn, with some of his rough companions, he had been driven almost mad by seeing in the criminal under another name whose death he had come to witness herself, standing in the same place in which she had stood. He told the hangman this, and told him too her real name, which only her own people and the gentleman for whose sake she had left them knew. That name he will tell again, Sir John, to none but you. To none but me, exclaimed the night, pausing in the act of raising his cup to his lips with a perfectly steady hand, and curling up his little finger for the better display of a brilliant ring with which it was ornamented. But me, my dear Mr. Varden, how very preposterous to select me for his confidence, with you it is elbow too, who are so perfectly trustworthy. Sir John, return the locksmith, at twelve tomorrow these men die. Here the few words I have to add, and do not hope to deceive me. For though I am a plain man of humble station, and you are a gentleman of rank and learning, the truth raises me to your level, and I know that you anticipate the disclosure of which I am about to end, and that you believe this doomed man Hugh to be your son. Nay, said Sir John, bantering him with the gay air. Wild gentleman, who died so, sadly, scarcely went as far as that, I think. He did not, returned the locksmith, for she had bound him by some pledge, known only to these people, and which the worst among them respect, not to tell your name. But in a fantastic pattern on the stick, he had carved some letters, and when the hangman asked it, he bade him, especially if he should ever meet with her son in afterlife. Remember that place well. What a place! Chester. The knight finished his cup of chocolate with an appearance of infinite relish, and carefully wiped his lips upon his handkerchief. Sir John, said the locksmith, this is all that has been told to me, but since these two men have been left for death, they have conferred together closely. See them, and hear what they can add. See this Dennis, and learn from him what he has not trusted to me. If you, who hold the clue to all, want corroboration, which you do not, the means are easy. And to what, said Sir John Chester, rising on his elbow after smoothing the pillow for its reception, my dear, good-natured, estimable Mr. Varden, with whom I cannot be angry, if I would, to what does all this tend? I take you for a man, Sir John, and I suppose it tends to some pleading of natural affection in your breast. Returned the locksmith, I suppose to the straining of every nerve, and the exertion of all the influence you have, or can make, in behalf of your miserable son, and the man who has disclosed his existence to you. At the worst, I suppose, to your seeing your son, and awakening him to a sense of his crime and danger. He has no such sense now. Think what his life must have been, when he said in my hearing, that if I moved you to anything, it would be to hastening his death, and ensuring his silence, if you had it in your power. And have you, my good Mr. Varden, said Sir John, in a tone of mild reproof, have you rarely lived to your present age, and remain so very simple and credulous, as to approach a gentleman of established character with such credentials as these, from desperate men in their last extremity, catching at any straw? Oh, dear! Oh, fie, fie! The locksmith was going to interpose, but he stopped him. On any other subject, Mr. Varden, I shall be delighted, I shall be charmed, to converse with you, but I owe it to my own character not to pursue this topic for another moment. Think better of it, Sir, when I am gone, return the locksmith, think better of it, Sir. Although you have thrice within as many weeks turned your lawful son, Mr. Edward, from your door, you may have time, you may have years to make your peace with him, Sir John, but that twelve o'clock will soon be here, and soon be passed forever. I thank you very much. Return the night, kissing his delicate hand to the locksmith, for your guileless advice, and I only wish my good soul, although your simplicity is quite captivating, that you had a little more worldly wisdom. I never so much regret at the arrival of my hairdresser as I do at this moment. God bless you. Good morning. You will not forget my message to the ladies, Mr. Varden. Peek, show Mr. Varden to the door. Gabriel said no more, but gave the night a parting look and left him. As he quitted the room, Sir John's face changed, and the smile gave place to a haggard and anxious expression, like that of a weary actor jaded by the performance of a difficult part. He rose from his bed with a heavy sigh, and wrapped himself in his morning gown. So she kept her word. He said, and was constant to her threat. I would I had never seen that dark face of hers. I might have read these consequences in it from the first. This affair would make a noise abroad if it rested on better evidence. But, as it is, and by not joining the scattered links of the chain, I can afford to slight it. Extremely distressing to be the parent of such an uncouth creature. Still, I gave him very good advice. I told him he would certainly be hanged. I could have done no more if I had known of our relationship. And there are a great many fathers who have never done as much for their natural children. The hairdresser may come in, Peake. The hairdresser came in, and saw in Sir John Chester, whose accommodating conscience was soon quieted by the numerous precedents that occurred to him in support of his last observation, the same imperturbable, fascinating, elegant gentleman he had seen yesterday, and many yesterdays before. End of Chapter 75 Chapter 76 of Barnaby Raj, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty As the locksmith walked slowly away from Sir John Chester's chambers, he lingered under the trees which shaded the path, almost hoping that he might be summoned to return. He had turned back thrice, and still loitered at the corner, when the clock struck twelve. It was a solemn sound, and not merely for its reference to tomorrow, for he knew that in that chime the murderer's knell was rung. He had seen him pass along the crowded street, amidst the execration of the throng, and marked his quivering lip and trembling limbs, the ashy hue upon his face, his clammy brow, the wild distraction of his eye, the fear of death that swallowed up all other thoughts, and gnawed without cessation at his heart and brain. He had marked the wandering look, seeking for hope and finding, turn where it would, despair. He had seen the remorseful, pitiful, desolate creature, riding with his coffin by his side to the gibbet. He knew that, to the last, he had been an unyielding, obdurate man, that in the savage terror of his condition he had hardened, rather than relented, to his wife and child, and at the last words which had passed his white lips were curses on them as his enemies. Mr. Haerdale had determined to be there and see it done. Nothing but the evidence of his own senses could satisfy that gloomy thirst for retribution, which had been gathering upon him for so many years. The locksmith knew this, and when the chimes had ceased to vibrate, Haerdale had a way to meet him. For these two men, he said, as he went, I can do no more. Heaven have mercy on them. Alas, I say I can do no more for them, but whom can I help? Mary Rudge will have a home, and a firm friend when she most wants one. But Barnaby, poor Barnaby, willing Barnaby, what aid can I render him? There are many, many men of sense, God forgive me, cried the honest locksmith, stopping in a narrow count to pass his hand across his eyes. I could better afford to lose than Barnaby. We have always been good friends, but I never knew till now how much I loved the lad. There were not many in the great city who thought of Barnaby that day, otherwise than as an actor in a show which was to take place tomorrow. But if the whole population had had him in their minds, and had wished his life to be spared, not one among them could have done so with a purer zeal or greater singleness of heart than the good locksmith. Barnaby was to die. There was no hope. It is not the least evil attendant upon the frequent exhibition of this last dread punishment of death, that it hardens the minds of those who deal it out, and makes them, though they be amiable men in other respects, indifferent to or unconscious of their great responsibility. The word had gone forth that Barnaby was to die. It went forth every month for lighter crimes. It was a thing so common that very few were startled by the awful sentence or cared to question its propriety. Just then, too, when the law had been so flagrantly outraged, its dignity must be asserted. The symbol of its dignity stamped upon every page of the criminal statute book was the gallows, and Barnaby was to die. They had tried to save him. The locksmith had carried petitions and memorials to the fountainhead with his own hands, but the well was not one of mercy, and Barnaby was to die. From the first his mother had never left him, save at night, and with her beside him he was, as usual, contented. On this last day he was more elated and more proud than he had been yet, and when she dropped the book she had been reading to him aloud, and fell upon his neck, he stopped in his busy task of folding a piece of crepe about his hat, and wondered at her anguish. Grip uttered a feeble croak, half in encouragement it seemed, and half in remonstrance, but he wanted heart to sustain it, and lapsed abruptly into silence. With them who stood upon the brink of the great gulf which none can see beyond, time, so soon to lose itself in vast eternity, rolled on like a mighty river, swollen and rapid as it nears the sea. It was morning, but now, they had sat and talked together in a dream, and he was evening. The dreadful hour of separation, which even yesterday had seemed so distant, was at hand. They walked out into the courtyard, clinging to each other, but not speaking. Barnaby knew that the jail was a dull, sad, miserable place, and looked forward to tomorrow, as to a passage from it to something bright and beautiful. He had a vague impression, too, that he was expected to be brave, that he was a man of great consequence, and that the prison people would be glad to make him weep. He trod the ground more firmly as he thought of this, and bade her take heart, and cry no more, and feel how steady his hand was. They call me silly, mother. They shall see tomorrow. Dennis and Hugh were in the courtyard. Hugh came forth from his cell as they did, stretching himself as though he had been sleeping. Dennis sat upon a bench in a corner, with his knees and chin huddled together, and rocked himself to and fro, like a person in severe pain. The mother and son remained on one side of the court, and these two men upon the other. Hugh strode up and down, glancing fiercely every now and then at the bright summer sky, and looking round, when he had done so, at the walls. No reprieve! No reprieve! Nobody comes near us! It's only the night left now! moaned Dennis faintly as he rang his hands. Do you think they'll reprieve me in the night, brother? I've known reprieves come in the night before now. I've known them come as late as five, six and seven o'clock in the morning. Do you think there's a good chance yet? Don't you? Say you do, say you do, young man! Wine the miserable creature with an imploring gesture towards Barnaby, or I shall go mad! Better be mad and signier, said Hugh, go mad! But tell me what you think! Somebody tell me what you think! cried the wretched object, so mean and wretched and despicable that even pity's self might have turned away at sight of such a being and the likeness of a man. Isn't there a chance for me? Isn't there a good chance for me? Isn't he likely they might be doing this to frighten me? Don't you think it is? He almost shrieked as he rang his hands. Won't anybody give me comfort? You ought to be the best, instead of the worst, said Hugh, stopping before him. See the young man when it comes home to him! You don't know what it is! cried Dennis, actually writhing as he spoke. I do! that I should come to be worked off! I, I, that I should come! And why not? said Hugh, as he thrust back his matted hair to get a better view of his late associate. How often, before I knew your trade, did I hear you talking of this as if it was a treat? I am inconsistent, screamed the miserable creature. I talk so again if I was a hangman. Some other man has got my old opinions at this minute that makes it worse. Somebody is longing to work me off. I know by myself that somebody must be. He'll soon have his longing, said Hugh, resuming his walk. Think of that and be quiet. Although one of these men displayed in his speech and bearing the most reckless hardyhood, and the other, in his every word and action, testified such an extreme of abject cowardice that it was humiliating to see him, it would be difficult to say which of them would most have repelled and shocked an observer. Hugh's was the dogged desperation of a savage at the stake. The hangman was reduced to a condition little better, if any, than that of a hound with the halter round his neck. Yet, as Mr. Dennis knew and could have told him, these were the two commonest states of mind in persons brought to their paths. Such was the wholesome growth of the seed sown by the law, that this kind of harvest was usually looked for as a matter of course. In one respect they all agreed, the wandering and uncontrollable train of thought suggesting sudden recollections of things distant and long forgotten and remote from each other, the vague, restless craving for something undefined which nothing could satisfy, the swift flight of the minutes fusing themselves into hours as if by enchantment, the rapid coming of the solemn night, the shadow of death always upon them, and yet so dim and faint, that objects the meanest and most trivial started from the gloom beyond, and forced themselves upon the view. The impossibility of holding the mind, even if they had been so disposed to penitence and preparation, or of keeping it to any point while one hideous fascination tempted it away. These things were common to them all, and varied only in their outward tokens. Fetch me the book I left within upon your bed. She said to Barnaby, as the clock struck, kiss me first. He looked in her face, and saw there that the time was come. After a long embrace, he tore himself away, and ran to bring it to her, bidding her not to stir till he came back. He soon returned, for a shriek recalled him, but she was gone. He ran to the yard gate, and looked through. They were carrying her away. She had sent her heart would break. It was better so. Don't you think? Whimpered Dennis, creeping up to him as he stood with his feet rooted to the ground, gazing at the blank walls. Don't you think there's still a chance? It's a dreadful end. It's a terrible end for a man like me. Don't you think there's a chance? I don't mean for you. I mean for me. Don't let him hear us, meaning you. He's so desperate. Now then, said the officer who had been lounging in and out with his hands in his pockets, and yawning as if he were in the last extremity for some subject of interest, his time to turn in, boys. Not yet, cried Dennis. Not yet. Not for an hour yet. I say your watch goes different from what it used to, returned the man. Once upon a time, it was always too fast. He's got the other fault now. My friend, cried the wretched creature falling on his knees. My dear friend, you always were my dear friend. There's some mistake. Some letter has been mislaid, or some messenger has been stopped upon the way. He may have fallen dead. I saw a man once fall down dead in the street, myself, and he had papers in his pocket. Send you inquire. Let somebody go to inquire. They never will hang me. I never can. Yes, they will. He cried, starting to his feet with the terrible scream. They will hang me by a trick, and keep the pardon back. It's a plot against me. I shall lose my life. And uttering another yell, he fell in a fit upon the ground. See the Angman when it comes out to him. Cried to you again as they bore him away. Courage, bold Barnaby. What can we? Your end. They do well to put us out of the world. For if we got loose a second time, we wouldn't let them off so easy, eh? Another shake. A man can die but once. If you wake up in the night, sing that out lustily before we sleep again. Barnaby glanced once more through the grate into the empty yard, and then watched Hugh as he strode to the steps leading to his sleeping cell. He heard him shout and burst into a roar of laughter, and saw him flourish his head. Then he turned away himself, like one who walked in his sleep, and, without any sense of fear or sorrow, lay down on his palate, listening for the clock to strike again. End of chapter seventy-six