 Chapter 81 of Barnaby-Rudge, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Barnaby-Rudge by Charles Dickens, Chapter 81. Another month had passed, and the end of August had nearly come when Mr. Herodale stood alone in the male coach office at Bristol. Although but a few weeks had intervened since his conversation with Edward Chester and his niece in the locksmith's house, and he had made no change in the meantime in his accustomed style of dress, his appearance was greatly altered. He looked much older and more care-worn. Agitation and anxiety of mind scatter wrinkles and gray hairs with no unsparing hand, but deeper traces follow on the silent uprooting of old habits and severing of dear familiar ties. The affections may not be so easily wounded as the passions, but their hurts are deeper and more lasting. He was now a solitary man, and the heart within him was dreary and loatsome. He was not the less alone for having spent so many years in seclusion and retirement. This was no better preparation than a round of social cheerfulness. Perhaps it even increased the keenness of his sensibility. He had been so dependent upon her for companionship and love, she had come to be so much a part and parcel of his existence. He had so many cares and thoughts in common which no one else had shared, that losing her was beginning life anew and being required to summon up the hope and elasticity of youth amid the doubts, distrusts, and weakened energies of age. The effort he had made depart from her with seeming cheerfulness and hope, and they had parted only yesterday, left him the more depressed. With these feelings he was about to revisit London for the last time and look once more upon the walls of their old home before turning his back upon it forever. The journey was a very different one in those days from what the present generation find it, but it came to an end as the longest journey will, and he stood again in the streets of the metropolis. He lay at the inn where the coach stopped and resolved before he went to bed that he would make his arrival known to no one, would spend but another night in London and would spare himself the pang of parting even with the honest locksmith. Such conditions of the mind as that to which he was a prey when he lay down to rest are favourable to the growth of disordered fancies and uneasy visions. He knew this even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object beyond the room which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream. But it was not a new terror of the night. It had been present to him before in many shapes. It had haunted him in bygone times and visited his pillow again and again. If it had been but an ugly object, a childish specter haunting his sleep, its return in its old form might have awakened a momentary sensation of fear which almost in the act of waking would have passed away. This disquiet, however, lingered about him and would yield to nothing. When he closed his eyes again he felt it hovering near as he slowly sunk into a slumber he was conscious of its gathering strength and purpose and gradually assuming its recent shape. When he sprang up from his bed the same phantom vanished from his heated brain and left him filled with a dread against which reason and waking thought were powerless. The sun was up before he could shake it off. He rose late but not refreshed and remained within doors all that day. He had a fancy for paying his last visit to the old spot in the evening, for he had been accustomed to walk there at that season and desired to see it under the aspect that was most familiar to him. At such an hour as would afford him time to reach it a little before sunset he left the inn and turned into the busy street. He had not gone far and was thoughtfully making his way among the noisy crowd when he felt a hand upon on his shoulder and turning recognized one of the waiters from the inn who begged his pardon but he had left his sword behind him. Why have you brought it to me? he asked, stretching out his hand and yet not taking it from the man but looking at him in a disturbed and agitated manner. The man was sorry to have disobliged him and would carry it back again. The gentleman had said that he was going a little way into the country and that he might not return until late. The roads were not very safe for single travelers after dark and since the riots gentlemen had been more careful than ever not to trust themselves unarmed in lonely places. We thought you were a stranger, sir, he added, and that you might believe our roads to be better than they are but perhaps you know them well and carry firearms. He took the sword and putting it up at his side thanked the man and resumed his walk. It was long remembered that he did this in a manner so strange and with such a trembling hand that the messenger stood looking after his retreating figure doubtful whether he ought not to follow and watch him. It was long remembered that he had been heard pacing his bedroom in the dead of the night that the attendants had mentioned to each other in the morning how fevered and how pale he looked and that when this man went back to the inn he told a fellow servant that what he had observed in this short interview lay very heavy on his mind and that he feared the gentleman intended to destroy himself and would never come back alive. With a half-consciousness that his manner had attracted the man's attention, remembering the expression of his face when they parted, Mr. Herodale quickened his steps and arriving at a stand of coaches bargained with the driver of the best to carry him so far on his road as the point where the footway struck across the fields and to await his return at a house of entertainment which was within a stone's throw of that place. Arriving there in due course he alighted and pursued his way on foot. He passed so near the maypole that he could see its smoke rising from among the trees while a flock of pigeons, some of its old inhabitants doubtless sailed gaily home to roost between him and the unclouded sky. The old house will brighten up now, he said, as he looked towards it and there will be a merry fireside beneath its ivied roof. It is some comfort to know that everything will not be blighted hereabouts. I shall be glad to have one picture of life and cheerfulness to turn to in my mind. He resumed his walk and bent his steps towards the warren. It was a clear calm, silent evening with hardly a breath of wind to stir the leaves to any sound to break the stillness of the time but drowsy sheep-bells tinkling in the distance and at intervals the far-off lowing of cattle or bark of village dogs. The sky was radiant with the softened glory of sunset and on the earth and in the air a deep repose prevailed. At such an hour he arrived at the deserted mansion which had been his home so long and looked for the last time upon its blackened walls. The traces of the commonest fire are melancholy things, for in them there is an image of death and ruin of something that has been bright and is but dull cold dreary dust with which our nature forces us to sympathize. How much more sad the crumbled embers of a home, the casting down of that great altar where the worst among us sometimes performed the worship of the heart and where the best have offered up such sacrifices and done such deeds of heroism as chronicled would put the proudest temples of old time with all their daunting annals to the blush. He roused himself from a long train of meditation and walked slowly round the house. It was by this time almost dark. He had nearly made the circuit of the building when he uttered a half-suppressed exclamation, started and stood still, reclining in an easy attitude with his back against the tree and contemplating the ruin with an expression of pleasure, a pleasure so keen that it overcame his habitual indolence and command of feature and displayed itself utterly free from all restraint or reserve, before him on his own ground and triumphing then as he had triumphed in every misfortune and disappointment of his life, stood the man whose presence of all mankind in any place and least of all in that he could the least endure. Although his blood so rose against this man and his wrath so stirred within him that he could have struck him dead, he put such fierce constraint upon himself that he passed him without a word or look. Yes, and he would have gone on and not turned, though to resist the devil who poured such hot temptation in his brain required an effort scarcely to be achieved if this man had not himself summoned him to stop. And that with an assumed compassion in his voice which drove him well nine mad and in an instant routed all the self-commanded had been anguished, acute poignant anguished to sustain. All consideration, reflection, mercy, forbearance, everything by which a goaded man can curb his rage and passion fled from him as he turned back. And yet he said, slowly and quite calmly, far more calmly than he had ever spoken to him before, why have you called to me? To remark, said Sir John Chester with his wanted composure, what an odd chance it is that we should meet here. It is a strange chance. Strange? The most remarkable and singular thing in the world. I never ride in the evening I have not done so for years. The whim seized me quite unaccountably in the middle of last night. How very picturesque this is! He pointed as he smoked to the dismantled house and raised his glass to his eye. You praise your own work very freely. Sir John let fall his glass, inclined his face towards him with an air of the most courteous inquiry, and slightly shook his head as though he were remarking to himself, I fear this animal is going mad. I say, you praise your own work very freely, repeated Mr. Haerdale, work, that good Sir John looking smilingly round, mine, I beg your pardon, I really beg your pardon. Well, you see, said Mr. Haerdale, those walls, you see those tottering gables, you see on every side where fire and smoke have raged, you see the destruction that has been wanton here, do you not? My good friend returned the night, gently checking his impatience with his hand. Of course I do, I see everything you speak of when you stand aside and do not interpose yourself between the view and me. I am very sorry for you. If I had not had the pleasure to meet you here, I think I should have written to tell you so. But you don't bear it as well as I had expected. Excuse me, no you don't, indeed. He pulled out his snuff box and addressing him with the superior air of a man who by reason of his higher nature has a right to read a moral lesson to another, continued. For you are a philosopher, you know, one of that stern and rigid school who are far above the weaknesses of mankind in general. You are removed a long way from the frailties of the crowd. You contemplate them from a height and rail at them with a most impressive bitterness. I have heard you. And shall again, said Mr. Haerdale. Thank you, returned the other. Shall we walk as we talk? The damp falls rather heavily. Well, as you please. But I grieve to say that I can spare you only a very few moments. I would, said Mr. Haerdale, be none. I would with all my soul you had been in paradise if such a monstrous lie could be enacted rather than here tonight. Nay, returned the other, really, you do yourself injustice. You are a rough companion, but I would not go so far to avoid you. Listen to me, said Mr. Haerdale. Listen to me. While you rail, inquired Sir John. While I deliver your infamy you urged and stimulated to do your work a fit agent but one who in his nature in the very essence of his being is a traitor and who has been false to you despite the sympathy you two should have together as he has been to all others. With hints and looks and crafty words which told again are nothing you set on Gashford to this work. This work before us now. With these same hints and looks and crafty words which told again are nothing you urged him on to gratify the deadly hate he owes me. I have earned it, I thank heaven, for the abduction and dishonor of my niece. You did. I see denial in your looks, he cried abruptly pointing in his face and stepping back, and denial is a lie. He had his hand upon his sword but the night with a contemptuous smile replied to him as coldly as before. You will take notice, Sir, if you can discriminate sufficiently that I have taken the trouble to deny nothing. Your discernment is hardly fine enough for the perusal of faces of this course as your speech, nor has it ever been that I remember or in one face that I could name you would have read indifference, not to say disgust, somewhat sooner than you did. I speak of a long time ago but you understand me. Disguise it as you will, you mean denial. Denial explicit or reserved, expressed or left to be inferred is still a lie. You say you don't deny, do you admit? You yourself, returned Sir John, suffering the current of his speech to flow as smoothly as if it had been stemmed by no one word of interruption. Publicly proclaimed the character of the gentleman in question, I think it was in Westminster Hall, in terms which relieve me from the necessity of making any further allusion to him. You may have been warranted, you may not have been, I can't say. Assuming the gentleman to be what you described and to have made to you or any other person any statements that may have happened to suggest themselves to him as a security or for the sake of money or for his own amusement or for any other consideration, I have nothing to say of him except that his extremely degrading situation appears to me to be shared with his employers. You are so very plain yourself that you will excuse a little freedom in me, I am sure. Attend to me again, Sir John, but once, cried Mr. Haerdale, in your every look and word and gesture you tell me this was not your act. I tell you that it was and that you tampered with the man I speak of and with your wretched son whom God forgive to do this deed. You talk of degradation and character. You told me once that you had purchased the absence of the poor idiot and his mother when, as I have discovered since and then suspected, you had gone to tempt them and had found them flown. To you I traced the insinuation that I alone reaped any harvest from my brother's death and followed in its train. In every action of my life from that first hope which you converted into grief and desolation you have stood like an adverse fate between me and peace. In all you have ever been the same cold-blooded, hollow, false, unworthy villain. For the second time and for the last I cast these charges in your teeth and spurn you from me as I would a faithless dog. With that he raised his arm and he recovered drew his sword, threw away the scabbard and his hat and running on his adversary made a desperate lunge at his heart which but that his guard was quick and true would have stretched him dead upon the grass. In the act of striking him the torrent of his opponent's rage had reached a stop. He parried his rapid thrusts without returning them and called to him with a frantic kind of terror in his face to keep back. Not to-night, not to-night seeing that he lowered his weapon and that he would not thrust in turn Sir John lowered his. Not to-night, his adversary cried be warned in time. You told me he must have been in a sort of inspiration said Sir John quite deliberately though now he dropped his mask and showed his hatred in his face that this was the last time. Be assured it is. Did you believe our last meeting was forgotten? Did you believe that your every word was said for and was not well remembered? Do you believe that I have waited your time or you mine? What kind of man is he who entered with all his sickening cant of honesty and truth into a bond with me to prevent a marriage he affected to dislike? And when I had redeemed my part to the spirit and the letter sulked from his and brought the match about in his own time to rid himself of a burden he had grown tired of and cast a spurious luster on his house. I have acted, cried Mr. Haerdale with honor and in good faith. I do so now. Do not force me to renew this duel tonight. You said my wretched son, I think said Sir John with a smile. Poor fool. The dupe of such a shallow nave trapped into marriage by such an uncle and by such a niece he well deserves your pity. But he is no longer a son of mine. You are welcome to the prize your craft has made, sir. Once more, cried his opponent wildly stamping on the ground although you tear me from my better angel. I implore you not to come within the reach of my sword tonight. Oh, why were we here at all? Why have we met? Tomorrow would have cast us far apart forever. That being the case returned Sir John without the least emotion. It is very fortunate we have met tonight. Haerdale, I have always despised you, as you know, but I have given you credit for a species of brute courage. For the honor of my judgment which I had thought a good one I am sorry to find you a coward. Not another word was spoken on either side. They crossed swords though it was now quite dusk and attacked each other fiercely. They were well matched and each was thoroughly skilled in the management of his weapon. After a few seconds they grew hotter and more furious and pressing on each other inflicted and received several slight wounds. It was directly after receiving one of these in his arm that Mr. Haerdale was keen or thrust as he felt the warm blood spurting out plunged his sword through his opponent's body to the hilt. Their eyes met and were on each other as he drew it out. He put his arm about the dying man who repulsed him feebly and dropped upon the turf. Raising himself upon his hands he gazed at him for an instant with scorn and hatred in his look but seeming to remember even then that this expression would distort his smile, and faintly moving his right hand as if to hide his bloody linen in his vest fell back dead the phantom of last night. End of chapter 81 Chapter 82 of Barnaby Rudge This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens Chapter THE LAST A parting glance at such of the actors in this little history as it has not in the course of its events dismissed will bring it to an end. Mr. Haerdale fled that night. Before pursuit could be begun indeed before Sir John was traced or missed he had left the kingdom. Repairing straight to a religious establishment known throughout Europe for the rigor and severity of its discipline and for the merciless penitence that extracted from those who sought its shelter as a refuge from the world he took the vows which thenceforth shut him out from nature and his kind of remorseful years was buried in its gloomy cloisters. Two days elapsed before the body of Sir John was found as soon as it was recognized and carried home the faithful valet, true to his master's creed eloped with all the cash and movables he could lay his hands on and started as a finished gentleman upon his own account. In this career he met with great success and would certainly have married an heiress in the end but for an unlucky check of his peace. He sank under a contagious disorder very prevalent at that time and vulgarly termed the jail fever. Lord George Gordon, remaining in his prison in the tower until Monday the 5th of February in the following year was on that day solemnly tried at Westminster for high treason. Of this crime he was after a patient investigation declared not guilty upon the ground that there was no proof that many traitorous or unlawful intentions. Yet so many people were there still to whom those riots taught no lesson of reproof or moderation that a public subscription was set on foot in Scotland to defray the cost of his defense. For seven years afterwards he remained at the strong intercession of his friends comparatively quiet saving that he every now and then took occasion to display his zeal for the Protestant faith in some extravagant proceeding as opposed to the delight of its enemies and saving besides that he was formerly excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury for refusing to appear as a witness in the ecclesiastical court when cited for that purpose. In the year 1788 he was stimulated by some new insanity to write and publish an injurious pamphlet reflecting on the Queen of France in very violent terms. Being indicted for the libel and after various strange demonstrations at the court found guilty he fled into Holland in place of appearing to receive a sentence. From whence as the quiet burgamasters of Amsterdam had no relish for his company he was sent home again with all speed. Arriving in the month of July at Harwich and going thanks to Birmingham he made in the latter place in August a public profession of the Jewish religion and figured there as a Jew until he was arrested and brought back to London by virtue of this sentence he was in the month of December cast into Newgate for five years and ten months and required besides to pay a large fine and to furnish heavy securities for his future good behavior. After addressing in the mid-summer of the following year an appeal to the commiseration of the National Assembly of France which the English minister refused to sanction he composed himself to undergo his full term of punishment and to undergo nearly to his waist and conforming in all respects to the ceremonies of his new religion he applied himself to the study of history and occasionally to the art of painting in which in his younger days he had shown some skill. Deserted by his former friends and treated in all respects like the worst criminal in the jail he lingered on quite cheerful and resigned until the first of November 1793 when he died in his cell being then only three and forty years of age many men with fewer sympathies for the distressed and needy with less abilities and harder hearts have made a shining figure and left a brilliant fame he had his mourners the prisoners bemoaned his loss and missed him for though his means were not large his charity was great and in bestowing alms among them he considered the necessities of all alike and knew no distinction of sect or creed in the midst of the world who may learn something even from this poor crazy lord who died in Newgate to the last he was truly served by bluff John Groobie John was at his side before he had been four and twenty hours in the tower and never left him until he died he had one other constant attendant in the person of a beautiful Jewish girl who attached herself to him from feelings half religious half romantic but whose virtuous and disinterested character was beyond the censure even of the most sensorious Gashford deserted him of course he subsisted for a time upon his traffic in his master's secrets and this trade failing when the stock was quite exhausted procured an appointment in the honorable core of spies and eavesdroppers employed by the government as one of these wretched underlings he did his drudgery sometimes abroad, sometimes at home and long endured the various miseries ten or a dozen years ago not more a meager one old man diseased and miserably poor was found dead in his bed at an obscure inn in the burrow where he was quite unknown he had taken poison there was no clue to his name but it was discovered from certain entries in a pocketbook he carried that he had been secretary to lord George Gordon in the time of the famous riots many months after the reestablishment of peace and order he ceased to be the town talk that every military officer kept at free quarters by the city during the late alarms had cost for his board and lodging four pounds per day and every private soldier two and two pence half penny many months after even this engrossing topic was forgotten and the united bulldogs were to a man all killed, imprisoned, or transported Mr. Simon Tapritit being removed from a hospital trial was discharged by proclamation on two wooden legs shorn of his graceful limbs and brought down from his high estate to circumstances of utter destitution and the deepest misery he made shift to stump back to his old master and beg for some relief by the locksmiths advice and aid he was established in business as a shoe black and opened shop under an archway near the horse guards this being a central quarter quickly made a very large connection and on levy days was sometimes known to have as many as twenty half pay officers waiting their turn for polishing indeed his trade increased to that extent that in course of time he entertained no less than two apprentices besides taking for his wife the widow of an eminent bone and rag collector formerly of mill bank with this lady who assisted in the business he lived in great domestic happiness only checkered by those little storms which served to clear the atmosphere of wedlock and brighten its horizon in some of these gusts of bad weather Mr. Tappertitt would in the assertion of his prerogative so far forget himself as to correct his lady with a brush or boot or shoe while she but only in extreme cases would retaliate by taking off his legs and leaving him exposed to the derision of those urchins who delight in mischief miss miggs baffled in all her schemes matrimonial and otherwise and cast upon a thankless undeserving world turned very sharp and sour and did at length become so acid and did so pinch and slap and tweak the hair and noses of the youth of golden lion court that she was by one consent expelled that sanctuary and desired to bless some other spot of earth in preference it chanced at that moment that the justices of the peace for middle sex proclaimed by public placard that they stood in need of a female turnkey for the county to ride well and appointed a day and hour for the inspection of candidates miss miggs attending at the time appointed was instantly chosen and selected from 124 competitors and at once promoted to the office which she held until her deceased more than 30 years afterwards remaining single all that time it was observed of this lady that while she was inflexible and grim to all her female flock she was particularly so to those who could establish any claim to beauty and it was often remarked as a proof of her indomitable virtue and severe chastity that to such as had been frail she showed no mercy always falling upon them on the slightest occasion or on no occasion at all with the fullest measure of her wrath among other useful inventions which she practiced upon this class of offenders and bequeathed the posterity was the art of inflicting an exquisitely vicious poke with a key in the small of the back near the spine she likewise originated a mode of treading by accident in patents on such as had small feet also very remarkable for its ingenuity and previously quite unknown it was not very long you may be sure before joe willett and dolly varden were made husband and wife and with a handsome summon bank for the locksmith could afford to give his daughter a good dowry reopened to the maypole it was not very long you may be sure a red faced little boy was seen staggering about the maypole passage and kicking up his heels on the green before the door it was not very long counting by years before there was a red faced little girl another red faced little boy and a whole troop of girls and boys so that go to chig will when you would there would surely be seen either in the village street or on the green or frolicing in the farm yard for it was a farm now as well as a tavern more small joes and small dollies then could be easily counted it was not a very long time before these appearances ensued but it was a very long time before joe looked five years older or dolly either or the locksmith either or his wife either for cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks depend upon it it was a long time too before there was such a country in as the maypole in all England indeed it is a great question whether to this hour or ever will be it was a long time too for never as the proverb says as a long day before they forgot to have an interest in wounded soldiers at the maypole or before joe admitted to refresh them for the sake of his old campaign or before the sergeant left off looking in there now and then or before they fatigued themselves or each other by talking on these occasions of battles and sieges and hard weather and hard service longing to a soldier's life as to the great silver snuff box which the king sent joe with his own hand because of his conduct in the riots what guest ever went to the maypole without putting finger and thumb into that box and taking a great pinch though he had never taken a pinch of snuff before and almost sneezed himself into convulsions even then as to the purple-faced vintner where is the man who lived in those times and never saw him at the maypole to all appearance as much at home in the best room as if he lived there and as to the feastings and christenings and revelings at Christmas and celebrations of birthdays wedding days and all manner of days both at the maypole and the golden key if they are not notorious what facts are Mr. Willett the Elder, having been by some extraordinary means possessed with the idea that joe wanted to be married and that it would be well for him his father to retire into private life and enable him to live in comfort he took up his abode in a small cottage at Chigwell where they widened and enlarged the fireplace for him hung up the boiler and furthermore planted in the little garden outside the front door a fictitious maypole so that he was quiet at home directly to this his new habitation Tom Cobb, Phil Parks, and Solomon Daisy went regularly every night and in the chimney corner they all four quaffed and smoked and prosed and dozed as they had done of old being accidentally discovered after a short time that Mr. Willett still appeared to consider himself a landlord by profession joe provided him with a slate upon which the old man regularly scored up vast accounts for meat, drink, and tobacco as he grew older this passion increased upon him and it became his delight to chalk against the name of each of his cronies a sum of enormous magnitude and impossible to be paid and such was his secret joy in these entries that he would be perpetually seen going behind the door to look at them and coming forth again suffused with the liveliest satisfaction he never recovered the surprise the rioters had given him and remained in the same mental condition down to the last moment of his life it was like to have been brought to a speedy termination by the first sight of his first grandchild which appeared to fill him with the belief that some alarming miracle had happened to joe being promptly blooded however by a skillful surgeon he rallied and although the doctors all agreed on his being attacked with symptoms of apoplexy six months afterwards that he ought to die and took it very ill that he did not he remained alive possibly an account of his constitutional slowness for nearly seven years more when he was one morning found speechless in his bed he lay in this state free from all tokens of uneasiness for a whole week when he was suddenly restored to consciousness by hearing the nurse whisper in his son's ear that he was going I'm a going Joseph," said Mr. Willet turning round upon the instant to the sawaners and immediately gave up the ghost he left a large sum of money behind him even more than he was supposed to have been worth although the neighbors according to the custom of mankind and calculating the wealth that other people ought to have saved had estimated his property in good round numbers joe inherited the whole so that he became a man of great consequence and was perfectly independent some time elapsed before Barnaby got the better of the shock he had sustained or regained his old health and gaiety but he recovered by degrees and although he could never separate his condemnation and escape from the idea of a terrific dream he became in other respects more rational dating from the time of his recovery he had a better memory and greater steadiness of purpose but a dark cloud overhung his whole previous existence and never cleared away he was not the less happy for this for his love of freedom and interest in all that moved or grew or had its being in the elements remained to him unimpaired he lived with his mother on the Maypole farm tending the poultry and the cattle working in a garden of his own and helping everywhere he was known to every bird and beast about the place and had a name for every one never was there a lighter hearted husbandman a creature more popular with young and old a blither or more happy soul than Barnaby and though he was free to ramble where he would he never quitted her but was forevermore her stay in comfort it was remarkable that although he had that dim sense of the past he sought out Hugh's dog and took him under his care and that he never could be tempted into London when the riots were many years old and Edward and his wife came back to England with a family almost as numerous as Dollies and one day appeared at the Maypole porch he knew them instantly and wept and leaped for joy but neither to visit them nor on any other pretense no matter how full of promise and enjoyment could he be persuaded to sit foot in the streets nor did he ever conquer this repugnance or look upon the town again Grip soon recovered his looks and became as glossy and sleek as ever but he was profoundly silent whether he had forgotten the art of polite conversation in Newgate or had made a vow in those troubled times to forgo for a period the display of his accomplishments as matter of uncertainty but certain it is that for a whole year he never indulged in any other sound than a grave decorous croak at the expiration of that term the morning being very bright and sunny he was heard to address himself to the horses in the stable upon the subject of the kettle so often mentioned in these pages and before the witness who overheard him and his intelligence and added to it upon his solemn affirmation the statement that he had heard him laugh the bird himself advanced with fantastic steps to the very door of the bar and there cried I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a devil with extraordinary rapture from that period although he was supposed to be much affected by the death of Mr. Willett Sr he constantly practiced and improved himself in the vulgar tongue and as he was a mere infant he has very probably gone on talking to the present time End of Chapter 81 End of Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens Recording by Deborah Lynn