 62. The prisoner, left to himself, sat down upon his bedstead, and resting his elbows on his knees and his chin upon his hands, remained in that attitude for hours. It would be hard to say of what nature his reflections were. They had no distinctness, and, saving for some flashes now and then, no reference to his condition or the train of circumstances by which it had been brought about. The cracks in the pavement of his cell, the chinks in the wall where stone was joined to stone, the bars in the window, the iron ring upon the floor, such things as these subsiding strangely into one another and awakening an indescribable kind of interest and amusement and grossed his whole mind. And although at the bottom of his every thought there was an uneasy sense of guilt and dread of death, he felt no more than that vague consciousness of it which a sleeper has of pain. It pursues him through his dreams, gnaws at the heart of all his fancied pleasures, robs the banquet of its taste, music of its sweetness, makes happiness itself unhappy, and yet is no bodily sensation, but a phantom without shape, or form, or visible presence, pervading everything but having no existence, recognisable everywhere, but nowhere seen or touched or met with face to face until the sleeper's past and waking agony returns. After a long time the door of his cell opened. He looked up, saw the blind man enter, and relapsed into his former position. Guided by his breathing, the visitor advanced to where he set, and stopping beside him and stouching out his hand to assure himself that he was right, remained for a good space, silent. This is bad, Raj, this is bad," he said at length. The prisoner shuffled with his feet upon the ground in turning his body from him, but made no other answer. How are you taken? he asked. And where? you never told me more than half your secret. No matter, I know it now. How was it, and where, eh? he asked again, coming still nearer to him. At chigwell, said the other, at chigwell, how came you there? Because I went there to avoid a man I stumbled on, he answered, because I was chased and driven there by him and fate, because I was urged to go there by something stronger than my own will. When I found him watching in the house she used to live in, night after night, I knew I never could escape him, never, and when I heard the bell, he shivered, muttered that it was very cold, paced quickly up and down the narrow cell, and sitting down again fell into his old posture. You are saying, said the blind man, after another pause, that when you heard the bell, let it be will you, he retorted in a hurried voice, it hangs there yet. The blind man turned a wistful and inquisitive face towards him, but he continued to speak without noticing him. Oh, I went to chigwell, in search of the mob. I'd been so hunted and beset by this man that I knew my only hope of safety lay in joining them. They had gone on before. I followed them when it left off. When what left off? The bell. They had quitted the place. I hoped that some of them might be still lingering among the ruins and was searching for them when I heard. He drew a long breath and wiped his forehead with a sleeve. His voice. Saying what? No matter what, I don't know. I was then at the foot of the turret, where I did the, I, said the blind man, nodding his head with perfect composure, I understand, I climbed the stair, or so much of it as was left, meaning to hide till he'd gone, but he heard me and followed almost as soon as I set foot upon the ashes. The amount of hidden in the wall and thrown him down or stabbed him, said the blind man, mind I, between that man and me, was one who led him on. I saw it, though he did not, and raised above his head a bloody hand. He was in the room above that. He and I stood clearing each other on the night of the murder, and before he fell he raised his hand like that and fixed his eyes on me. I knew the chase would end there. You have a strong fancy, said the blind man with a smile, strengthen yours with blood and see what it will come to. He groaned and rocked himself, and looking up for the first time said, in a low hollow voice, eight and twenty years, eight and twenty years he has never changed in all that time, never grown older nor altered in the least degree. He has been before me in the dark night and the broad sunny day, in the twilight, the moonlight, the sunlight, the light of fire and lamp and candle, and in the deepest gloom always the same, in company, in solitude, on land, on shipboard, sometimes leaving me alone for months, and sometimes always with me. I have seen him at sea come gliding in the dead of night along the bright reflection of the moon in the calm water, and I have seen him on keys and marketplaces with his hand uplifted, towering, the centre of a busy crowd, unconscious of the terrible form that had its silent stand among them. Fancy? Are you real? Am I? Are these iron fetters riveted on me by the smith's hammer, or are they fancies like and shatter at a blow? The blind man listened in silence. Fancy. Do I fancy that I killed him? Do I fancy that as I left the chamber where he lay, I saw the face of a man peeping from a dark door, who plainly showed me by his fearful looks that he suspected what I had done? Do I remember that I spoke fairly to him, that I drew nearer, nearer yet, with the odd knife in my sleeve? Do I fancy how he died? Did he stagger back into the angle of the wall into which I had hemmed him, and, bleeding inwardly, stand, not fail, a corpse before me? Did I see him for an instant as I see you now, erect and on his feet, but dead? The blind man, who knew that he had risen, motioned him to sit down again upon his bedstead, but he took no notice of the gesture. It was then, I thought, for the first time, a fastening the murder upon him. He was then I dressed him in my clothes, and dragged him down the back stairs to the piece of water. Do I remember listening to the bubbles that came rising up when I had rolled him in? Do I remember wiping the water from me face, and because the body splashed it there, in its descent, feeling as if it must be blood? Did I go home when I had done, and oh, my God, how long it took to do? Did I stand before my wife and tell her? Did I see her fall upon the ground, and when I stooped to razor, did she thrust me back with a force that cast me off as if I had been a child, staining the hand with which she cast my wrist? Is that fancy? Did she go down upon her knees, and call on Evan to witness that she and her unborn child renounced me from that hour, and did she, in words so solemn that they turned me cold? Me, fresh from the horrors my own hands had made, worn me to fly while there was time, although she would be silent, being my wretched wife, she would not shelter me. Did I go forth that night, abjured of God and man, and anchored deep in hell, to wander at my cable's length about the earth, and surely be drawn down at last? Why did you return? said the blind man. Why is blood red? I could no more help it, than I could live without breath. I struggled against the impulse, but I was drawn back through every difficult and adverse circumstance as by a mighty engine nothing could stop me. The day and hour were none of my choice, sleeping and waking, I had been among the old haunts for years, had visited my own grave. Why did I come back? Because this jail was gaping for me, and he stood back in it at the door. You were not known, said the blind man. I was a man who had been twenty-two years dead, no, I was not known. You should have kept your secret better. My secret? Mine? It was a secret. Any breath of air could whisper at its will. The stars had it in their twinkling. The water in its flowing, the leaves in their rustling, the seasons in their return. It lurked in strangers' faces and their voices. Everything had lips on which it always trembled. My secret? It was revealed by your own act at any rate, said the blind man. The act was not mine. I did it, but it was not mine. I was forced at times to wander round and round and round that spot. If you chained me up when the fit was on me, I should have broken away and gone there. As truly as the lodestone draws iron towards it, so he, lying at the bottom of his grave, could draw me near him when he would. Was that fancy? Did I like to go there, or did I strive and wrestle with the power that forced me? The blind man shrugged his shoulders and smiled incredulously. The prisoner again resumed his old attitude, and for a long time both were mute. I suppose, then, said his visitor at length breaking silence, that you are penitent and resigned, that you desire to make peace with everybody, in particular with your wife, who has brought you to this, and that you ask no greater favour and be carried to Tyburn as soon as possible. That being the case, I better take my leave, I'm not good enough to be company for you. Have I not told you, said the other fiercely, that I have striven and wrestled with the power that brought me here, as my whole life, for eight and twenty years, being one perpetual struggle and resistance, and do you think I want to lie down and die? You all men shrink from death, I, most of all. That's better said, that's better spoken, Raj, but I'll not call you that again, than anything you have said yet. Returned the blind man, speaking more familiarly, and laying his hands upon his arm. Lucky, I never killed a man myself, for I had never been placed in a position that made it worth my while. Father, I am not an advocate for killing men, I don't think I should recommend it or like it, for it's very hazardous under any circumstances. But, as you had the misfortune of getting into this trouble before I made your acquaintance, and as you have been my companion, and have been of use to me for a long time now, I overlooked that part of the matter, and am only anxious that you shouldn't die unnecessarily. Now, I do not consider that at present, it is at all necessary. What is left to me? Returned the prisoner, to eat my way through these walls and my teeth. Something easier than that, returned his friend. Promise me that you will talk no more of these fancies of yours, idle, foolish things quite beneath a man, and I'll tell you what I mean. Tell me, said the other. You're worthy lady, with the tender conscience, your scrupulous, virtuous, punctilious, but not blindly affectionate wife. What of her? Is now in London, a curse upon her, be she where she may. That's natural enough, if she had taken her annuity as usual, you would not have been here, and we should have been better off. But that's apart from the business. She's in London, scared, as I suppose, and have no doubt, by my representation when I waited upon her, that you were close at hand, which I, of course, urged only as an inducement to compliance, knowing that she was not pining to see you. She left that place, and travelled up to London. How do you know? From my friend, a noble captain, the illustrious general, the bladder, Mr. Tappetit, I learnt from him the last time I saw him, which was yesterday, that your son, who was called Barnaby, not after his father, I suppose, death, does that matter now? You are impatient, said the blind man calmly. It's a good sign, and looks like life. That your son Barnaby had been lured away from her by one of his companions, who knew him of old, at Chickwell, and that he is now among the writers. And what is that to me? If father and son be hanged together, what comfort shall I find in that? Stay, stay, my friend, returned the blind man, with a cunning look. You travel fast to journey's ends. Suppose I track my lady out, and say thus much, You want your son, Mum, good. I, knowing those who tempt him to remain among them, can restore him to you, Mum. Good. You must pay a price, Mum, for his restoration. Good again. The price is small, and easy to be paid, dear Mum. That's best of all. What mockery is this? Very likely she may reply in those words, no mockery at all. I answer, Madam, a person, said to be your husband, identity is difficult of proof after the lapse of many years, is in prison, his life in peril, a charge against him, murder. Now, Mum, your husband has been dead a long, long time. The gentleman never can be confounded with him. If you will have the goodness to say a few words on oath as to when he died and how, and that this person, who I am told resembles him in some degree, is no more he than I am. Such testimony will set the question quite at rest. Lead yourself to me to give it, Mum, and I will undertake to keep your son a fine lad, out of arm's way, until you have done this trifling service, when he shall be delivered up to you safe and sound. On the other end, if you decline to do so, I fear he will be betrayed, and handed over to the law, which will assuredly sentence him to suffer death. It is, in fact, a choice between his life and death. If you refuse, he swings. If you comply, the timber is not grown, nor the hemp sown, that shall do him any harm. There is a gleam of openness, cried the prisoner, a gleam, returned his friend, a noon blaze, a full and glorious daylight. Hush, I hear the tread of distant feet, rely on me, when shall I yearn more? As soon as I do, I should hope to-morrow. They are coming to say that our time for talk is over, I hear the jingle of the keys, not another word of this just now, or they may overhear us. As he said these words, the lock was turned, and one of the prison-turned-keys appearing at the door, announced that it was time for visitors to leave the jail. So soon, said Stag Meekly, but it can't be helped. Cheer up, friend! This mistake will soon be set at rest, and then you are a man again. If this charitable gentleman will lead a blind man, who has nothing in return but prayers, to the prison porch, and set him with his face towards the west, he will do a worthy deed. Thank you, good sir, I thank you very kindly. So saying, and pausing for an instant at the door to turn his grinning face towards his friend, he departed. When the officer had seen him to the porch, he returned, and again unlocking and unbarring the door of the cell, set it wide open, informing its inmate that he was at liberty to walk in the adjacent yard, if he thought proper, for an hour. The prisoner answered with a sullen nod, and being left alone again, set brooding over what he had heard, and pondering upon the hopes the recent conversation had awakened, gazing abstractedly the while he did so on the light without, and watching the shadows thrown by one wall on another, and on the stone-paved ground. It was a dull, square yard, made cold and gloomy by high walls, and seeming to chill the very sunlight. The stone, so bare and rough and obdurate, filled even him with longing thoughts of meadowland and trees, and with a burning wish to be at liberty. As he looked, he rose, and leaning against the door-post, gazed up at the bright blue sky, smiling even on that dreary home of crime. He seemed for a moment to remember lying on his back in some sweet-scented place, and gazing at it through moving branches, long ago. His attention was suddenly attracted by a clanking sound. He knew what it was, for he had startled himself by making the same noise in walking to the door. Presently a voice began to sing, and he saw the shadow of a figure on the pavement. It stopped, was silent all at once, as though the person for a moment had forgotten where he was, but soon remembered, and so with the same clanking noise the shadow disappeared. He walked out into the court, and pasted to and fro, startling the echoes as he went with the harsh jangling of his fetters. There was a door near his, which, like his, stood ajar. He had not taken a half a dozen turns up and down the yard. When standing still to observe this door, he heard the clanking sound again. A face looked out of the grated window. He saw it very dimly, for the cell was dark and the bars were heavy, and directly afterwards a man appeared and came towards him. For the sense of loneliness he had, he might have been in jail a year. Made eager by the hope of companionship, he quickened his pace, and hastened to meet the man half-way. What was this? His son? They stood face to face, staring at each other. He shrinking and cowed, despite himself. Barnaby struggling with his imperfect memory, and wondering where he had seen that face before. He was not uncertain long, for suddenly he laid hands upon him, and striving to bear him to the ground, cried, Ah! I know! You are the robber! He said nothing and replied first, but held down his head and struggled with him silently. Finding the younger man too strong for him, he raised his face, looked closely into his eyes and said, I am your father. God knows what magic the name had for his ears, but Barnaby released his hold, fell back, and looked at him aghast. Suddenly he sprung towards him, put his arms about his neck, and pressed his head against his cheek. Yes. Yes, he was. He was sure he was. But where had he been so long, and why had he left his mother by herself, or worse than by herself, with her poor, foolish boy? And had she really been as happy as they said? And where was she? Or she near there? She was not happy now, and he in jail? Ah! No! Not a word was said in answer. But Grip croaked loudly, and hopped about them round and round, as if enclosing them in a magic circle, and invoking all the powers of mischief. CHAPTER 63 During the whole of this day, every regiment in or near the metropolis was on duty in one or other part of the town. And the regulars and militia, in obedience to the orders which were sent to every barrack and station within twenty-four hours' journey, began to pour in by all the roads. But the disturbance had attained to such a formidable height, and the rioters had grown with impunity to be so audacious, that the sight of this great force, continually augmented by new arrivals, instead of operating as a check, stimulated them to outrages of greater hardyhood than any they had yet committed, and helped to kindle a flame in London, the like of which had never been beheld, even in its ancient and rebellious times. All yesterday, and on this day likewise, the commander-in-chief endeavoured to arouse the magistrates to a sense of their duty, and in particular the Lord Mayor, who was the faintest-hearted and most timid of them all. With this object, large bodies of the soldiery were several times dispatched to the mansion-house to await his orders. But as he could, by no threats or persuasions, be induced to give any, and as the men remained on the open street fruitlessly for any good purpose, and thrivingly for a very bad one, these laudable attempts did harm rather than good. For the crowd, becoming speedily acquainted with the Lord Mayor's temper, did not fail to take advantage of it by boasting that even the civil authorities were opposed to the papists, and could not find it in their hearts to molest those who were guilty of no other offence. These vaunts they took care to make within the hearing of the soldiers, and they, being naturally loathed to quarrel with the people, received their advances kindly enough, answering when they were asked if they desired to fire upon their countrymen, no, they would be damned if they did, and showing much honest simplicity and good nature. The feeling that the military were no popory men, and were ripe for disobeying orders and joining the mob, soon became very prevalent in consequence. Rumours of their disaffection, and of their leaning towards the popular cause, spread from mouth to mouth of the astonishing rapidity, and whenever they were drawn up idly in the streets or squares, there was sure to be a crowd about them, cheering and shaking hands, and treating them with a great show of confidence and affection. By this time, the crowd was everywhere. All concealment and disguise were laid aside, and they pervaded the whole town. If any man among them wanted money, he had but to knock at the door of a dwelling-house, or walk into a shop, and demand it in the rioter's name, and his demand was instantly complied with. The peaceable citizens being afraid to lay hands upon them, singly and alone, it may be easily supposed that when gathered together in bodies they were perfectly secure from interruption. They assembled in the streets, traversed them at their will and pleasure, and publicly concerted their plans. Business was quite suspended, the greater part of the shops were closed, most of the houses displayed a blue flag in token of their adherence to the popular side, and even the Jews in Houndstitch, Whitechapel, and those quarters, wrote upon their doors or window-shutters, this house is a true protestant. The crowd was the law, and never was the law held in greater dread, or more implicitly obeyed. It was about six o'clock in the evening, when a vast mob poured into Lincoln's in-fields by every avenue, and divided, evidently in pursuance of a previous design, into several parties. It must not be understood that this arrangement was known to the whole crowd, but that it was the work of a few leaders, who, mingling with the men as they came upon the ground, and calling to them to fall into this or that parry, affected it as rapidly as if it had been determined on by a council of the whole number, and every man had known his place. It was perfectly notorious to the assemblage, at the largest body, which comprehended about two-thirds of the whole, was designed for the attack on Newgate. It comprehended all the rioters who had been conspicuous in any of their formal proceedings, all those whom they recommended as daring hands and fit for the work, all those whose companions had been taken in the riots, and a great number of people who were relatives or friends of felons in the jail. This last class included not only the most desperate and utterly abandoned villains in London, but some who were comparatively innocent. There was more than one woman there, disguised in man's attire, and bent upon the rescue of a child or brother. There were the two sons of a man who lay under sentence of death, and who was to be executed along with three others on the next day but one. There was a great parry of boys whose fellow pickpockets were in the prison, and at the skirts of all, a score of miserable women, outcast from the world, seeking to release some other fallen creature as miserable as themselves, or moved by a general sympathy, perhaps, God knows, with all who were without hope and wretched. Old swords and pistols without ball or powder, sledge-hammers and knives, axes, sores, and weapons pillaged from the butcher's shops, a forest of iron bars and wooden clubs, long ladders for scaling the walls, each carried on the shoulders of a dozen men, lighted torches, toes smeared with pitch and tar and brimstone, staves roughly plucked from fence and pailing, and even crutches, taken from crippled beggars in the streets, composed their arms. When all was ready, Hugh and Dennis, with Simon tappatit between them, led the way, roaring and chafing like an angry sea, the crowd pressed after them. Instead of going straight down Hoburn to the jail, as all expected, their leaders took the way to Clarkinwell, and pouring down a quiet street, halted before a locksmith's house, the golden key. "'Beat at the door,' cried Hugh to the men about him. "'We want a one of his craft, and I—beat it in, if no one answers.' The shop was shut. Both door and shutters were of a strong and sturdy kind, and they knocked without effect. But the impatient crowd, raising a cry of set fire to the house, and torches being passed to the front, an upper window was thrown open, and the stout old locksmith stood before them. "'What now, you villains?' he demanded. "'Where is my daughter?' asked now, questions of us old men. We taunted Hugh, waving his comrades to be silent. "'But calm down. Bring the tools of your tried. We want you.' "'Want me?' cried the locksmith, glancing at the regimental dress he wore. "'I, and if some that I could name, possessed the hearts of mice, ye should have had me long ago. Mark me, my lad, and you about him do the same. There are a score among ye whom I see now and know, who are dead men from this hour. Be gone, and rob an undertaker's while you can. You'll want some coffins before long.' "'Will you come down?' cried Hugh. "'Will you give me my daughter, Ruffian?' cried the locksmith. "'I know nothing of her.' Hugh rejoined. "'Burn the door.' "'Stop!' cried the locksmith, and a voice had made them falter, presenting, as he spoke, a gun. "'Let an old man do that. You can spare him better.' The young fellow who held the light, and who was stooping down before the door, rose hastily at these words and fell back. The locksmith ran his eye along the upturned faces, and kept the weapon leveled at the threshold of his house. It had no rest than his shoulder, but was as steady as the house itself. "'Let the man who does it take heed to his prayers,' he said firmly. "'I warn him.'" Snatching a torch from one who stood near him, Hugh was stepping forward with an oath. When he was arrested by a shrill and piercing shriek, and looking upward, saw a fluttering garment on the housetop. There was another shriek, and another, and then a shrill voice cried, "'Is he sipping below?' The same moment a lean neck was stretched over the parapet, and Miss Miggs, indistinctly seen in the gathering gloom of evening, screeched in a frenzied manner, "'Ow, my dear gentleman, let me hear Simon's answer from his own loops. Speak to me, Simon, speak to me.'" Mr. Tabeted was not at all flattered by this compliment, and looked up, and bidding her hold her peace, ordered her to come down and open the door, for they wanted a master and would take no denial. "'Ow, dear gentleman,' cried Mr. Miggs, "'Ow, my own precious, precious, Simon!' "'How'd your nonsense, will you?' he tortured Mr. Tabeted, and came down out in a door. "'Gee, Varden, drop that gun, or it'll be the worst for you.'" "'How might his gun?' screamed Miggs. "'Simon and gentleman, I poured a maga-table beer right down the barrel.' The crowd gave a loud shout, which was followed by a roar of laughter. "'It wouldn't go off, not if you were to load it up to the muzzle,' screamed Miggs. "'Simon and gentleman, I'm locked up in the front attic, "'through the little door on the right hand, "'when you think you've got to the very top of the stairs, "'and at the flight of corner steps, "'being careful not to knock your heads against the rafters, "'and not to tread on one side, "'in case you should fall into two-pair bedrooms "'through the lathe and blaster, "'which do not bear but the contrary. "'Simon and gentleman, I've been locked up here for safety, "'but my endeavours has always been and always will be "'to be on the right side, the blessed side, "'and to pronounce the Pope of Babylon "'and all her inward and her outward workings, which is pagan. "'My sentiment is of little consequences, I know,' cried Miggs, "'with additional shornness, "'for my position is my servant, "'and her sitch of humility still argues expressions to my feelings "'and places my reliances on them, which entertains my own opinions.'" Without taking much notice of these outpourings of Miss Miggs after she had made her first announcement in relation to the gun, the crowd raised a ladder against the window, where the locksmith stood, and notwithstanding that he closed and fastened and defended it manfully, soon forced an entrance by shivering the glass and breaking in the frames. After dealing a few stout blows about him, he found himself defenceless in the midst of a furious crowd which overflowed the room and softened off in a confused heap of faces at the door and window. They were very wrathful with him, for he had wounded two men, and even called out to those in front to bring him forth and hang him on a lamppost. But Gabriel was quite undaunted, and looked from Hugh and Dennis, who held him by either arm, to Simon Tapetit, who confronted him. "'You have robbed me of my daughter,' said the locksmith, "'who is far dearer to me than my life, "'and you may take my life, if you will. "'I bless God that I have been enabled to keep my wife free "'of this scene, and that he has made me a man "'who will not ask mercy at such hands as yours.' "'A very game, old gentleman, you are,' said Mr. Dennis approvingly, "'and you express yourself like a man. "'Oopsy-hods, brother, whether it's a lamppost tonight "'or a feather-bed ten year acame,' the locksmith glanced at him disdainfully, but returned no other answer. "'For my part,' said the hangman, "'who particularly favoured the lamppost's suggestion, "'I honour your principles, they mine exactly. "'In such sentiments as them,' and here he emphasised his discourse with an oath, "'I'm ready to meet you or any man halfway. "'Have you got a bit of cord, anyway, as Andy? "'I don't put yourself out of the way, if you haven't. "'I think that you will do.' "'Doubt me a fool, master,' whispered Hugh, "'seizing Varden roughly by the shoulder, "'but do as you'll be'd. "'You'll soon hear what you're wanted for, do it.' "'I'll do nothing at your request, or that of any scoundrel here.' "'Return the locksmith. "'If you want any service from me, "'you may spare yourselves the pains of telling me what it is. "'I tell you beforehand, I'll do nothing for you.'" Mr. Dennis was so affected by this constancy on the part of the staunch old man that he protested, almost with tears in his eyes, that to balk his inclinations would be an act of cruelty and hard dealing to which he, for one, never could reconcile his conscience. The gentleman, he said, had avowed in so many words that he was ready for working off. Such being the case, he considered it their duty as a civilized and enlightened crowd to work him off. It was not often, he observed, that they had it in their power to accommodate themselves to the wishes of those from whom they had them as fortune to differ. Having now found an individual who expressed a desire which they could reasonably indulge, and for himself he was free to confess that in his opinion that desire did honor to his feelings, he hoped they would decide to exceed to his proposition before going any further. It was an experiment which, skillfully and dexterously performed, would be over in five minutes with great comfort and satisfaction to all parties. And though it did not become him, Mr. Dennis, to speak well of himself, he trusted he might be allowed to say that he had practical knowledge of the subject, and being naturally of an obliging and friendly disposition would work the gentleman off with a deal of pleasure. These remarks, which were addressed in the midst of a frightful din and turmoil to those immediately about him, were received with great favor, not so much perhaps because of the hangman's eloquence as an account of the locksmith's obstinacy. Gabriel was in imminent peril, and he knew it. But he preserved a steady silence, and would have done so if they had been debating whether they should roast him at a slow fire. As the hangman spoke, there was some stir and confusion on the ladder, and directly he was silent. So immediately upon his holding his peace, but the cry below had no time to learn what he had been saying or to shout in response. Someone at the window cried, "'He has a gray head! He is an old man! Down hurt him!'' The locksmith turned with a start towards the place from which the words had come, and looked hurriedly at the people who were hanging on the ladder and clinging to each other. "'Pay no respect to my gray hair, young man,' he said, answering the voice, and not anyone he saw. "'I don't ask it. My heart is green enough to scorn and despise every man among you, band of robbers that you are.'" This incautious speech by no means tended to appease the ferocity of the crowd. They cried again to have him brought out, and would have gone hard of the honest locksmith, but that he reminded them in answer that they wanted his services and must have them. "'So tell him what we want!' He said to Simon's appetite, "'And quickly, and open your ears, master, if you would ever use him after tonight.'" Gabriel folded his arms, which were now at liberty, and eyed his old prentice in silence. "'Lucky, Varden,' said Sim, "'we're bound for Newgate.' "'I know you are,' returned the locksmith, "'you never said a truer word than that.' "'To burn it down, I mean,' said Simon, "'and forced the gates and set the prisoners at liberty. "'You helped to make the lock of the great door.' "'I did,' said the locksmith, "'you owe me no thanks for that, "'as you'll find before long.' "'Maybe,' returned his journeyman, "'much you must show us how to force it.' "'Must I?' "'Yes, for you know, and I don't. "'You must come along with us, and pick it with your own hands.' "'When I do,' said the locksmith quietly, "'my hands shall drop off at the wrists, "'and you shall wear them, Simon, "'tap at it, on your shoulders for epilates.' "'We'll see that,' cried Hugh, interposing as the indignation of the crowd again burst forth. "'You, fill a basket with the tools you want, "'while I'll bring him downstairs. "'Open the doors below, some of you, "'and light the great captain others. "'Is there no business of foot my lads "'that you can do nothing but stand and grumble?' "'They looked at one another, "'and quickly dispersing, swarmed over the house, "'plundering and breaking, according to their custom, "'and carrying off such articles of value "'as happened to please their fancy. "'They had no great length of time for these proceedings, "'for the basket of tools was soon prepared "'and slung over a man's shoulders. "'The preparations being now completed "'and everything ready for the attack, "'those who were pillaging and destroying "'in the other rooms were called down to the workshop. "'They were about to issue forth, "'and the man who had been last upstairs "'stepped forward and asked if the young woman "'in the garret, who was making a terrible noise, "'he said, and kept on screaming "'without the least cessation, was to be released. "'For his own part, Simon Tappeted "'would certainly have replied in the negative. "'But the mass of his companions, "'mindful of the good service she had done "'in the matter of the gun, "'being of a different opinion, "'he had nothing for it but to answer, yes. "'The man accordingly went back again to the rescue "'and presently returned with Ms. Miggs, "'limp and doubled up, "'and very damp from much weeping. "'As the young lady had given no tokens "'of consciousness on their way downstairs, "'the bearer reported her either dead or dying, "'and being at some loss what to do with her "'was looking round for a convenient bench "'or heap of ashes on which to place her senseless form "'when she suddenly came upon her feet "'by some mysterious means, thrust back her hair, "'stared wildly at Mr. Tappeted, cried, "'My Simon's life is not a victim,' "'and dropped into his arms with such promptitude "'that he staggered and reeled some paces back "'beneath his lovely burden.' "'How bother,' said Mr. Tappeted. "'Yeah, catch hold of her somebody. "'Lock her up again, she'd never ought to have been let out.' "'My Simon,' cried Ms. Miggs in tears and faintly, "'my forever, ever-blessed Simon.' "'Held up, will you?' said Mr. Tappeted "'in a very unresponsive tone. "'I'll let you fall if you don't. "'What are you sliding your feet off the ground for?' "'My angel, Simon's,' murmured Miggs. "'He promised.' "'Promised?' "'Well, and I'll keep my promise,' answered Simon Tasterly. "'I mean to provide for you, don't I? "'Stand up.' "'Where am I to go? "'Who is to be calmer me after my actions of this night?' cried Miggs. "'What resting place is now remains but in the silent tombses.' "'I wish you was in the silent tombses, I do,' cried Mr. Tappeted. "'And boxed up tight in a good strong one.' "'Ear,' he cried to one of the bystanders, "'and whose ear he whispered for a moment, "'take her off, will you? "'You understand where?' The fellow nodded, and taking her in his arms, notwithstanding her broken protestations and her struggles, which led to species of opposition involving scratches, who was much more difficult of resistance, carried her away. They who were in the house poured out into the street. Locksmith was taken to the head of the crowd and required to walk between his two conductors. The whole body was put in rapid motion, and without any shouts or noise, they bore down straight on Newgate, and halted in a dense mass before the prison gate. End of Chapter 63 Chapter 64 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 64 Breaking the silence they had hitherto preserved, they raised a great cry as soon as they were ranged before the jail, and demanded to speak to the governor. This visit was not wholly unexpected. For his house, which front of the street, was strongly barricaded. The wicked gate of the prison was closed up, and at no loophole or grating was any person to be seen. Before they had repeated their summons many times, a man appeared upon the roof of the governor's house, and asked what it was they wanted. Some said one thing, some another, and some only groaned and hissed. It being now nearly dark, and the house high, many persons in the throng were not aware that anyone had come to answer them, and continued their clamour until the intelligence was gradually diffused through the whole concourse. Ten minutes or more elapsed before any one voice could be heard with tolerable distinctness. During which interval, the figure remained perched alone against the summer evening sky, looking down into the troubled street. "'Oh, you,' said Hugh at length, "'Mr. Eikerman, a head-gile I rear?' "'Of course he is, brother,' whispered Dennis. But Hugh, without minding him, took his answer from the man himself. "'Yes,' he said, "'I am. "'You've got some friends of ours in your custody, master.' "'I have a good many people in my custody.' He glanced downward as he spoke into the jail, and the feeling that he could see into the different yards, and that he overlooked everything which was hidden from their view by the rugged walls, so lashed and goaded the mob that they howled like wolves. "'Deliver up our friends,' said Hugh, "'and you might keep the rest. "'It's my duty to keep them all. "'I shall do my duty. "'If you don't sell the doors open, we shall break them down,' said Hugh, "'for we will have the riders out.' "'All I can do,' good people, Eikerman replied, "'is to exhort you to disperse "'and to remind you that the consequences "'of any disturbance in this place "'will be very severe "'and bitterly repented by most of you "'when it is too late.' He made as though he would retire when he said these words, but he was checked by the voice of the locksmith. "'Mr. Eikerman,' cried Gabriel, "'Mr. Eikerman, "'I will hear no more from any of you,' replied the governor, "'turning towards the speaker and waving his hand. "'But I am not one of them,' said Gabriel. "'I am an honest man, Mr. Eikerman, "'a respectable tradesman. "'Gabriel Vard and the locksmith, you know me?' "'You, among the crowd,' cried the governor "'in an altered voice, "'brought here by force, "'brought here to pick the lock of the great door for them, "'which joined the locksmith. "'Bear witness for me, Mr. Eikerman, "'that I refuse to do it, "'and that I will not do it "'come what may of my refusal. "'If any violence is done to me, "'please to remember this.' "'Is there no way of helping you?' said the governor. "'None, Mr. Eikerman. "'You'll do your duty, and I'll do mine. "'Once again, you robbers and cut-throats,' said the locksmith, "'turning round upon them. "'I refuse. "'Howl till your horse. "'I refuse.' "'Stay, stay,' said the jailer hastily. "'Mr. Varden, I know you for a worthy man, "'and one who would do no unlawful act except upon compulsion. "'Upon compulsion, sir,' "'interposed the locksmith, "'who felt that the tone in which this was said "'conveyed the speaker's impression that he had ample excuse "'for yielding to the furious multitude "'who beset and hemmed him in on every side, "'and among whom he stood, an old man quite alone. "'Upon compulsion, sir, I'll do nothing.' "'Where is that man?' said the keeper anxiously, "'who spoke to me just now?' "'Here,' you replied. "'Do you know what the guilt of murder is, "'and that by keeping that honest tradesman at your side "'you endanger his life?' "'We know it very well,' he answered. "'For what else did we bring him here? "'Let's have our friends, master, and you shall have your friend. "'Is that fair, lads?' "'The mob replied to him with a loud hurrah. "'You see how it is, sir,' cried Varden. "'Keep him out in King George's name. "'Remember what I have said. "'Good night.' "'There was no more parley. "'A shower of stones and other missiles "'compelled the keeper of the jail to retire, "'and the mob, pressing on and swarming round the walls, "'forced Gabriel Varden close up to the door. "'In vain the basket of tools was laid upon the ground before him, "'and he was urged in turn by promises, by blows, "'by offers of reward, and threats of instant death "'to do the office for which they had brought him there. "'No,' cried the sturdy locksmith. "'I will not.' He had never loved his life so well as then, but nothing could move him. The savage faces that glared upon him, look where he would, the cries of those who thirsted like wild animals for his blood, the sight of men pressing forward and trampling down their fellows as they strove to reach him, and struck at him above the heads of other men, with axes and with iron bars, all failed to daunt him. He looked from man to man, and face to face, and still with quickened breath and lessening colour, cried firmly, "'I will not.' Dennis dealt him a blow upon the face, which felled him to the ground. He sprung up again like a man in the prime of life, and with blood upon his forehead caught him by the throat. "'You cowardly dog!' He said, "'Give me my daughter. Give me my daughter.'" They struggled together. Some cried, kill him, and some, but they were not near enough, strove to trample him to death. Tug as he would at the old man's wrists, the hangman could not force him to unclench his hands. "'Is this all a return? You make me, you ungrateful monster!' He articulated with great difficulty, and with many oaths. "'Give me my daughter!' cried the locksmith, who was now as fierce as those who gathered round him. "'Give me my daughter!' He was down again, and up, and down once more, and buffeting with a score of them who bandied him from hand to hand, and one tall fellow, fresh from a slaughter-house, whose dress and great thigh-boots smoked hot with grease and blood, raised a poleaxe, and, swearing a horrible oath, aimed it at the old man's uncovered head. At that instant, and in the very act, he fell himself, as if struck by lightning, and over his body a one-armed man came darting to the locksmith's side. The man was with him, and both caught the locksmith roughly in their grasp. "'Leave him to us!' they cried to Hugh, struggling as they spoke, to force a passage backwards through the crowd. "'Leave him to us! Why do you waste your whole strength on such as he, when a couple of men can finish him in as many minutes? You lose time! Remember the prisoners? Remember Barnaby!' The cry ran through the mob, hammers began to rattle on the walls, and every man strove to reach the prison and be among the foremost rank. Fighting their way through the press and struggle, as desperately as if they were in the midst of enemies rather than their own friends, the two men retreated with the locksmith between them, and dragged him through the very heart of the concourse. And now the strokes began to fall like hail upon the gate, and on the strong building. For those who could not reach the door spent their fierce rage on anything, even on the great blocks of stone which shivered their weapons into fragments and made their hands and arms to tingle as if the walls were active in their stout resistance, and dealt them back their blows. The clash of iron ringing upon iron mingled with the deafening tumult and sounded high above it, as the great sledgehammers rattled on the nailed and plated door. The sparks flew off in showers. Men worked in gangs, and at short intervals relieved each other, that all their strength might be devoted to the work. But they stood the portal still, as grim and dark and strong as ever, and saving for the dints upon its battered surface, quite unchanged. While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task, and some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried to clamber to the summit of the walls, they were too short to scale, and some again engaged a body of police a hundred strong and beat them back and trod them underfoot by force of numbers. Others besieged the house on which the jailer had appeared, and driving in the door brought out his furniture, and piled it up against the prison gate, to make a bonfire which should burn it down. As soon as this device was understood, all those who had laboured hitherto cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap, which reached halfway across the street, and were so high at those who threw more fuel on the top, gut up by ladders. When all the keeper's goods were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, they smeared it with the pitch and tar, and rosin they had brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round the prison door they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. This infernal christening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches, and with blazing tow, and then stood by, awaiting the result. The furniture, being very dry, and rendered more combustible by wax and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison wall, and twining up its lofty front like burning serpents. At first they crowded round the blaze, and vented their exaltation only in their looks, but when it grew hotter and fiercer, when it crackled, leaped and rawred like a great furnace, when it shone upon the opposite houses and lighted up not only the pale and wandering faces of the windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation. When through the deep red heat and glow the fire was seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate surface, now gliding off with fierce skin constancy, and soaring high into the sky, and non-returning to folded in its burning grasp and lurid to its ruin, when it shone and gleamed so brightly at the church-clock of St. Sepulchre's, so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day, and the vein upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted light like something richly jewelled. When blackened stone and somber brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone like burnished gold dotting the longest distance in the fiery vista with their specks of brightness, when wall and tower and roof and chimney-stack seemed drunk, and in a flickering glare appeared to reel and stagger, when scores of objects never seen before burst out upon the view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect. Then the mob began to join the whirl, and with loud yells and shouts and clamour, such as happily as seldom heard, bestowed themselves to feed the fire and keep it at its height. Although the heat was so intense, that the paint on the houses over against the prism parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils, as it were from excessive torture, broke and crumbled away, although the glass fell from the window-sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs blistered the unconscious hand that touched them, and the sparrows and the eaves took wing, and rendered giddy by the smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile. Still the fire was tended unceasingly my busy hands, and round it men were going always. They never slackened in their zeal, or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard that those in front had much adieu to say themselves from being thrust in, if one man swooned or dropped a dozen struggled for his place, and that although they knew the pain and thirst and pressure to be unendurable. Those who fell down in fainting fits, and were not crushed or burnt, were carried to an in-yard close at hand, and dashed with water from a pump, of which buckets full were passed from man to man among the crowd. But such was the strong desire of all to drink, and such the fighting to be first, that for the most part the whole contents were spilled upon the ground without the lips of one man being moistened. Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those who were nearest to the pile heaped up again the burning fragments that came toppling down, and raked the fire about the door, which although a sheet of flame, were still a door fast locked and barred, and kept them out. Great pieces of blazing wood were passed, besides, above the people's heads, to such a stir about the ladders, and some of these climbing up to the topmost stave, and holding on with one hand by the prison wall exerted all their skill and force to cast these fire-brands on the roof, or down into the yards within. In many instances their efforts were successful, which occasioned a new and appalling addition to the horrors of the scene, for the prisoners within, seeing from between their bars at the fire-court in many places, and thrived fiercely, and being all locked up in strong cells for the night, began to know that they were in danger of being burnt alive. This terrible fear, spreading from cell to cell and from yard to yard, vented itself in such dismal cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks for help, that the whole jail resounded with the noise, which was loudly heard even above the shouting of the mob, and roaring of the flames, and was so full of agony and despair, that it made the boldest tremble. It was remarkable that these cries began in that quarter of the jail which fronted Newgate Street, where it was well known the men who were to suffer death on Thursday were confined. And not only were these four, who had so shorter time to live, the first to whom the dread of being burnt occurred, but they were throughout the most important at a wall, for they could be plainly heard, notwithstanding the great thickness of the walls, crying that the wind set that way, and that the flames would shortly reach them, and calling to the offices of the jail to come and quench the fire from a cistern which was in their yard, and full of water. Judging from what the crowd outside the walls could hear from time to time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for help, and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of attachment to existence, as though each had an honoured, happy life before him, instead of eight and forty hours of miserable imprisonment, and then a violent and shameful death. But the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men, when they heard, or fancy that they heard, their father's voice, is past description. After wringing their hands and rushing to and fro as if they were stark mad, one mounted on the shoulders of his brother, and tried to clamber up the face of the high wall, guarded at the top with spikes and points of iron. And when he fell among the crowd, he was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted up again and fell again, and, when he found the feet impossible, began to beat the stones and tear them with his hands, as if he could that way make a breach in the strong building and force a passage in. At last they cleft their way among the mob about the door, though many men a dozen times their match had tried in vain to do so, and were seen in, yes in, the fire, striving to prise it down with crowbars. Nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison. The women who were looking on shrieked loudly, beat their hands together, stopped their ears, and many fainted. The men who were not near the walls and active in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the pavement of the street, and did so with a haste and fury they could not have surpassed if that had been the jail, and they were near their object. Not one living creature in the throng was for an instant still. The whole great mass were mad. A shout. Another. Another yet though few knew why or what it meant, but those around the gate had seen it slowly yield and drop from its topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but it was upright still, because of the bar, and its having sunk of its own weight into the heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of the doorway, through which could be described a gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. Pile up the fire. It burnt fiercely. The door was red hot, and the gap wider. They vainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seemed to pass along the roof. It was plain the jail could hold out no longer. The keeper and his officers and their wives and children were escaping. Pile up the fire. The door sank down again. It settled deeper in the cinders. Tottered, yielded, was down. As they shouted again, they fell back, for a moment, and left a clear space about the fire that lay between them and the jail entry. Hugh leapt upon the blazing heap and scattering a train of sparks into the air, and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon his dress, dashed into the jail. The hangman followed, and then so many rushed upon their track that the fire got trodden down and thinly strewn about the street. But there was no need of it now. For, inside and out, the prison was in flames. End of Chapter 64 Chapter 65 of Barnaby Rudge A Tale of the Riots of 80 This Libra Vox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Mill Nicholson Barnaby Rudge A Tale of the Riots of 80 by Charles Dickens Chapter 65 During the whole course of the terrible scene, which was now at its height, one man in the jail suffered a degree of fear and mental torment, which had no parallel in the endurance even of those who lay under sentence of death. When the rioters first assembled before the building, the merger was roused from sleep. If such slumbers as his may have that blessed name, by the roar of voices, and the struggling of a great crowd, he started up as these sounds met his ear, and, sitting on his bedstead, listened. After a short interval of silence, the noise burst out again. Still listening attentively, he made out in course of time that the jail was besieged by a furious multitude. His guilty conscience instantly arrayed these men against himself, and brought the fear upon him that he would be singled out and torn to pieces. Once impressed with the terror of this conceit, everything tended to confirm and strengthen it. His double crime, the circumstances under which it had been committed, the length of time that had elapsed, and its discovery in spite of all, made him, as it were, the visible object of the Almighty's wrath. In all the crime and vice and moral gloom of the great pest-house of the capital, he stood alone, marked and singled out by his great guilt, a Lucifer among the devils. The other prisoners were a host, hiding and sheltering each other, a crowd, like that without the walls. He was one man against the whole united concourse, a single, solitary, lonely man from whom the very captives in the jail fell off and shrunk appalled. It might be that the intelligence of his capture, having been brooted abroad, they had come there purposely to drag him out and kill him in the street, or it might be that they were the rioters and in pursuance of an old design had come to sack the prison, but in either case he had no belief or hope that they would spare him. Every shout they raised and every sound they made was a blow upon his heart. As the attack went on he grew more wild and frantic in his terror, tried to pull away the bars that guarded the chimney and prevented him from climbing up, called loudly on the turn keys to clust around the cell and save him from the fury of the rabble, or put him in some dungeon underground, no matter of what depth, how dark it was or loathsome or beset with rats and creeping things, so that it hid him and was hard to find. But no one came, or answered him. Fearful even while he cried to them of attracting attention, he was silent. By and by he saw as he looked from his great at window, a strange glimmering on the stone walls and pavement of the yard. It was feeble at first, and came and went as though some officers with torches were passing to and fro upon the roof of the prison. Soon it reddened, and lighted brands came whirling down, spattering the ground with fire and burning sullenly in corners. One rolled beneath a wooden bench and set it in a blaze, another caught a waterspout, and so went climbing up the wall, leaving a long straight track of fire behind it. After a time a slow thick shower of burning fragments from some upper portion of the prison which was blazing nigh began to fall before his door. Remembering that it opened outwards, he knew that every spark which fell upon the heap, and in the act lost its bright life, and died an ugly speck of dust and rubbish, helped to entomb him in a living grave. Still, though the jail resounded with cheeks and cries for help, though the fire bounded up as if each separate flame had had a tiger's life, and roared as though in every one there were a hungry voice, though the heat began to grow intense and the air suffocating and the clamour without increased, and the danger of his situation even from one merciless element was every moment more extreme. Still he was afraid to raise his voice again, lest the crowd should break in, and should of their own ears or from the information given them by the other prisoners get the clue to his place of confinement. Thus fearful alike of those within the prison and of those without, of noise and silence, light and darkness, of being released and being left there to die, he was so tortured and tormented that nothing man has ever done to man, and the horrible caprice of power and cruelty exceeds his self-inflicted punishment. Now, now the door was down. Now they came rushing through the jail, calling to each other in the vaulted passages, clashing the iron gates dividing yard from yard, beating at the doors of cells and wards, wrenching off boats and locks and bars, tearing down the doorposts to get men out, endeavouring to drag them by main force through gaps and windows where a child could scarcely pass, hooping and yelling without a moment's rest, and running through the heat and flames as if they were cased in metal. By their legs, their arms, their hair upon their heads, they dragged the prisoners out. Some threw themselves upon the captives as they got towards the door, and tried to file away their irons. Some danced about them with a frenzied joy and rent their clothes and were ready, as it seemed, to tear them limb from limb. Now a party of a dozen men came darting through the yard, into which the murderer cast fearful glances from his darkened window, dragging a prisoner along the ground, whose dress they had nearly torn from his body in their mad eagerness to set him free, and who was bleeding and senseless in their hands. Now a score of prisoners ran to and fro, who had lost themselves on the intricacies of the prison, and were so bewildered with the noise and glare that they knew not where to turn or what to do, and still cried out for help as loudly as before. And on, some famished wretch, whose theft had been a loaf of bread, or scrap of butcher's meat, came skulking past barefooted, going slowly away because that jail, his house, was burning, not because he had any other, or had friends to meet, or old haunts to revisit, or any liberty to gain, but liberty to starve and die. And then a knot of highwaymen went tooping by, conducted by the friends they had among the crowd, who muffled their fetters as they went along, with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them in coats and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles, and held it to their lips, because of their handcuffs, which there was no time to remove. All this, and heaven knows how much more, was done amidst a noise, a hurry, and distraction, like nothing that we know of, even in our dreams, which seemed forever on the rise, and never to decrease for the space of a single instant. He was still looking down from his window upon these things, when a band of men with tortures, ladders, axes, and many kinds of weapons poured into the yard, and hammering at his door, inquired if there were any prisoner within. He left the window when he saw them coming, and drew back into the remotest corner of the cell. But although he returned them no answer, they had a fancy that someone was inside, for they presently set ladders against it, and began to tear away the bars of the casement. Not only that, indeed, but with pickaxes, to hew down the very stones and the wall. As soon as they had made a breach at the window, large enough for the admission of a man's head, one of them thrust in a torch, and looked all round the room. He followed this man's gaze until it rested on himself, and heard him demand why he had not answered, but made him no reply. In the general surprise and wonder they were used to this. Without saying anything more, they enlarged the breach until it was large enough to admit the body of a man, and then came dropping down upon the floor, one after another, until the cell was full. They caught him up among them, handed him to the window, and those who stood upon the ladders passed him down upon the pavement of the yard. Then the rest came out, one after another, and, bidding him fly and lose no time, or the way would be choked up, hurried away to rescue others. It seemed not a minute's work from first to last. He staggered to his feet, incredulous of what had happened, when the yard was filled again, and a crowd rushed on, hurrying Barnaby among them. In another minute, not so much, another minute, the same instant with no lapse or interval between. He and his son were being passed from hand to hand, through the dense crowd in the street, and were glancing backward at a burning pile which someone said was Newgate. From the moment of their first entrance into the prison, the crowd dispersed themselves about it, and swarmed to every chink and crevice, as if they had a perfect acquaintance with its innermost parts, and bore in their minds an exact plan of the whole. For this immediate knowledge of the place they were, no doubt, in a great degree indebted to the hangman, who stood in the lobby, directing some to go this way, some that, and some the other, and who materially assisted in bringing about the wonderful rapidity with which the release of prisoners was affected. But this functionary of the law reserved one important piece of intelligence, and kept it snugly to himself. When he had issued his instructions relative to every other part of the building, and the mob were dispersed from end to end, and busy at their work, he took a bundle of keys from a kind of cupboard in the wall, and going by a kind of passage near the chapel, it joined the Governor's house and was then on fire, but took himself to the Gundem cells, which were a series of small, strong, dismal rooms, opening on a low gallery, guarded at the end at which he entered by a strong iron wicket, and at its opposite extremity by two doors and a thick grate. Having double-locked the wicket, and assured himself that the other entrances were well secured, he sat down on a bench in the gallery, and sucked the head of his stick with the utmost complacency, tranquillity, and contentment. It would have been strange enough a man's enjoying himself in this quiet manner, while the prison was burning, and such a tumult was cleaving the air, though he had been outside the walls. But here, in the very heart of the building, and moreover with the prayers and cries of the four men under sentence, sounding in his ears, and their hands stretched out through the gratings in their cell doors, clasped and frantic in treaty before his very eyes, it was particularly remarkable. Indeed, Mr. Dennis appeared to think it an uncommon circumstance, and to banter himself upon it, for he thrust his hat on one side, as some men do when they are in a waggish humour, sucked the head of his stick with a higher relish, and smiled, as though he would say, Dennis, you're a rum dog, you're a queer fellow, you're capital company, Dennis, and quite a character. He sat in this way for some minutes, while the four men in the cells who were certain that somebody had entered the gallery, but could not see who, gave vent to such piteous entreaties as wretches in their miserable condition they be supposed to have been inspired with, urging whoever it was to set them at liberty for the love of heaven, and protesting with great fervour, and truly enough perhaps for the time, that if they escaped, they would amend their ways, and would never, never, never again do wrong before God or man, but would lead penitent and sober lives, and sorrowfully repent the crimes they had committed. The terrible energy with which they spoke would have moved any person, no matter how good or just, if any good or just person, could have strayed into that sad place that night, to have set them at liberty, and while he would have left any other punishment to its free cause, to have saved them from this last dreadful and repulsive penalty, which never turned a man inclined to evil, and has hardened thousands who are half inclined to good. Mr. Dennis, who had been bred and nurtured in the good old school, and had administered the good old laws on the good old plan, always once and sometimes twice every six weeks for a long time bore these appeals with a deal of philosophy. Being at last, however, rather disturbed in his pleasant reflection by their repetition, he rapped at one of the doors with his stick and cried, Old you noise there, will you? At this they all cried together that they were to be hanged on the next day but one, and again implored his aid. Aid? For what? said Mr. Dennis, playfully wrapping the knuckles of the hand nearest him. To save us, they cried. Oh, certainly, said Mr. Dennis, winking at the wall in the absence of any friend with whom he could humour the joke. So you want to be worked all for, you brothers? Unless we have released tonight, one of them cried, we are dead men. Oh, I tell you what it is, said the hangman, gravely. I'm afraid, my friend, that you're not in that ear state of mind that's suitable to your condition then. You're not going to be released. Don't think it. Will you leave off that ear in decent row? I wonder you aren't ashamed of yourselves, I do. He followed up this reproof by wrapping every set of knuckles one after the other, and having done so, resumed his seat again with a cheerful countenance. You've had law, he said, crossing his legs and elevating his eyebrows. Laws have been made a purpose for you, a worry and some prisons being made a purpose for you, a parson's kept a purpose for you, a constitutional officer's appointed a purpose for you, courts is maintained a purpose for you, and yet you're not contented. Will you hold that noise, you sir, in the furthest? A groan was the only answer. So well, as art and make out, said Mr Dennis, and a tone of mingled badonage and remonstrance, there is not a man among you. I begin to think I'm on the opposite side and among the ladies, though for the matter of that I've seen a many ladies face it out in a manner that did honour to the sex. You, in number two, don't grind empty theals, worse menors, said the hangman, wrapping at the door with a stick. I've never seen in this place a four. I'm ashamed of you, you're a disgrace to the baili. After pausing for a moment to hear if anything could be pleaded in justification, Mr Dennis resumed in a sort of coaxing tone. Now, look here, you four. I'll come here to take care of you and see that you aren't burnt, instead of the other thing. It's no use you'll make in any noise, for you won't be found out by them as they've broken in, and you'll only be hoarse when you come to the speeches, which is a pity. What I say in respect to the speeches always is, give it mouth. That's my maxim. Give it mouth. I veered, said the hangman, pulling off his hat to take his handkerchief from the crown and wipe his face and then putting it on again a little more on one side than before. I heard a eloquent on them boards, you know what boards I mean, and I've heard a degree of mouth given to them speeches, that they was as clear as a bell and as good as a play. There's a pattern. And in all ways, when a thing of this nature's to come off, what I stand up for is a proper frame of mind. Let's have a proper frame of mind, and we can go through with it, creditable, pleasant, sociable. What will you do, and I address myself in particular to you and the furthest, never snivel. Are sooner by off, there are looms by it, see a man tear his clothes, a purpose to spy on them before they come to me, then find him snivelling. He's turned to want a better frame of mind, every way. While the hangman addressed them to this effect, in the tone and with the air of a pastor and familiar conversation with his flock, the noise had been in some degree subdued, for the rioters were busy in conveying the prisoners to the session's house, which was beyond the main walls of the prison, though connected with it, and the crowd were busy too in passing them from thence along the street. But when he had got thus far in his discourse, the sound of voices in the yard showed plainly that the mob had returned, and were coming that way, and directly afterwards a violent crashing at the great below gave note of their attack upon the cells as they were called at last. It was in vain the hangman ran from door to door and covered the greats one after another with his hat and futile efforts to stifle the cries of the four men within. It was in vain he dogged their outstretched hands and beat them with his stick, or menaced them with new and lingering pains in the execution of his office, the place resounded with their cries. These together with the feeling that they were now the last men in the jail, so worked upon and stimulated the besiegers that in an incredibly short space of time, they forced the strong great down below, which was formed of iron rods two inches square, drove in the two other doors, as if they had been but deal partitions, and stood at the end of the gallery with only a bar or two between them and the cells. Hello, cried Hugh, who was the first to look into the dusky passage. Dennis before us, well done, oh boy, be quick and open here, for we shall be suffocated in the smoke going out. Go out at once, then, said Dennis. What do you want here? Want, echoed Hugh, the four men. Four devils, cried the hangman. Don't you know they're left for death on Thursday? Don't you respect the law, the constitution? Nothing, let the four men be. Is this a time for joking? cried Hugh. Do you hear him? Pull away these bars that have got fixed between the door and the ground, and let us in. Brother, said the hangman, in a low voice, as he stooped under pretense of doing what Hugh desired, but only looked up in his face. Can't you leave these here four men to me, if I have the whim? You do what you like, and have what you like of everything for your share. Give me my share. I want these four men left alone, I tell you. Pull the bars down, or stand out of the way, was Hugh's reply. You can turn the crowd, if you like. You know that well enough, brother, said the hangman, slowly. What? You will come in, will you? Yes. You won't let these men alone, and leave them to me? You've no respect for nothing, haven't you? said the hangman, retreating to the door by which he had entered, and regarding his companion with a skull. You will come in, will you, brother? I tell you, yes. Or what the devil ills you. Where are you going? No matter where I'm going. Rejoined the hangman, looking in again at the iron wicket, but he had nearly shut upon himself, and held a jar. Remember where you're coming. That's all. With that he shook his likeness at Hugh, and giving him a grin, compared with which his usual smile was amiable, disappeared, and shut the door. Hugh paused no longer, but goaded alike by the cries of the convicts, and by the impatience of the crowd, warned the man immediately behind him, the way was only wide enough for one abreast, to stand back and wielded a sledgehammer with such strength, that after a few blows the iron bent and broke, and gave them free admittance. If the two sons of one of these men, of whom mention has been made, were furious in their zeal before, they had now the wrath and vigor of lions. Calling to the man within each cell, to keep as far back as he could, lest the axes crashing through the door should wound him, a party went to work upon each one, to beat it in by sheer strength, and force the bolts and staples from their hold. But although these two lads had the weakest party, and the worst armed, and did not begin until after the others, having stopped to whisper to him through the grate, that door was the first open, and that man was the first out. As they dragged him into the gallery, to knock off his irons, he fell down among them, a mere heap of chains, and was carried out in that state on men's shoulders, with no sign of life. The release of these four wretched creatures, and conveying them, astounded and bewildered into the streets so full of life, a spectacle they had never thought to see again, until they emerged from solitude and silence upon that last journey, when the air should be heavy with the pent-up breath of thousands, and the streets and houses should be built and roofed with human faces, not with bricks and tiles and stones, was the crowning horror of the scene. Their pale and haggard looks and hollow eyes, their staggering feet and hands stretched out as if to save themselves from falling, their wandering and uncertain air, the way they heaved and gasped for breath, as though in water, when they were first plunged into the crowd, all marked them for the men. No need to say this one was doomed to die, for there were the words broadly stamped and branded on his face. The crowd fell off, as if they had been laid out for burial, and had risen in their shrouds, and many were seen to shudder, as though they had been actually dead men, when they chanced to touch or brush against their garments. At the bidding of the mob, the houses were all illuminated that night, lighted up from top to bottom, as at a time of public gaiety and joy. Many years afterwards, all people who lived in their youth near this part of the city, remembered being in a great glare of light, within doors and without, and as they looked, timid and frightened children, from the windows, seeing a face go by. Though the whole great crowd and all its other terrors had faded from their recollection, this one object remained, alone, distinct, and well remembered. Even in the unpracticed minds of infants, one of these doomed men darting past, and but an instant scene was an image of force enough to dim the whole concourse, to find itself an all-absorbing place and hold it ever after. When this last task had been achieved, the shouts and cries grew fainter. The clank of fetters, which had resounded on all sides as the prisoners escaped, was heard no more. All the noises of the crowd subsided into a horse and sullen murmur, as it passed into the distance. And when the human tide had rolled away, a melancholy heap of smoking ruins marked the spot where it had lately chafed and roared. End of Chapter 65 Chapter 66 of Barnaby Rudge A Tale of the Riots of Eighty This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Mill Nicholson Barnaby Rudge A Tale of the Riots of Eighty by Charles Dickens Chapter 66 Although he had had no rest upon the previous night, and had watched with little intermission for some weeks past, sleeping only in the day by starts and snatches, Mr. Haerdale from the dawn of morning until sunset sought his niece in every place where he deemed it possible she could have taken refuge. All day long nothing save a draft of water past his lips, though he prosecuted his inquiries far and wide and never so much as sat down once. In every quarter he could think of, at Chigwell and in London, at the houses of the tradespeople with whom he dealt, and of the friends he knew, he pursued his search. A prey to the most harrowing anxieties and apprehensions he went from magistrate to magistrate, and finally to the secretary of state. The only company received was from this minister, who assured him that the government, being now driven to the exercise of the extreme prerogatives of the Crown, were determined to exert them, that a proclamation would probably be out upon the morrow, giving to the military discretionary and unlimited power in the suppression of the riots, that the sympathies of the King, the Administration, and both houses of Parliament, and indeed of all good men of every religious persuasion, were strongly with the injured Catholics, and that justice should be done them at any cost or hazard. He told him moreover that other persons whose houses had been burnt, had for a time lost sight of their children or their relatives, but had in every case within his knowledge succeeded in discovering them, that his complaint should be remembered, and fully stated in the instructions given to the officers in command, and to all the inferior murmudons of justice, and that everything could be done to help him, should be done for the good will and in good faith. Grateful for this consolation, feeble as it was and its reference to the past, and little hope as it afforded him in connection with the subject of distress, which lay nearest to his heart, and really thankful for the interest the minister expressed, and seemed to feel in his condition Mr. Heardale withdrew. He found himself, with the night coming on, alone in the streets, and destitute of any place in which to lay his head. He entered an hotel near Charing Cross, and ordered some refreshment and a bed. He saw that his faint and worn appearance attracted the attention of the landlord and his waiters, and thinking that they might suppose him to be penniless, took out his purse, and laid it on the table. It was not that. The landlord said, in a faltering voice. If he were one of those who had suffered by the rioters, he durst not give him entertainment. He had a family of children, and had been twice warned to be careful in receiving guests. He heartily prayed his forgiveness, but what could he do? Nothing. No man felt that more sincerely than Mr. Heardale. He told a man as much, and left the house. Feeling that he might have anticipated this occurrence, after what he had seen at Chigwell in the morning, where no man dared to touch a spade, though he offered a large reward to all who would come and dig among the ruins of his house, he walked along the strand, too proud to expose himself to another refusal, and of too generous a spirit to involve and distress or ruin any honest tradesman who might be weak enough to give him shelter. He wandered into one of the streets by the side of the river, and was pacing in a thoughtful manner up and down, thinking of things that had happened long ago, when he heard a servant man at an upper window call to another on the opposite side of the street, that the mob were setting fire to Newgate. To Newgate? Where that man was? His failing strength returned, his energies came back with tenfold vigor on the instant. If it were possible, if they should set the murderer free, was he, after all he had undergone, to die with the suspicion of having slain his own brother, dimly gathering about him? He had no consciousness of going to the jail, but there he stood before it. There was the crowd wedged and pressed together in a dense, dark, moving mass, and there were the flames soaring up into the air. His head turned round and round, lights flashed before his eyes, and he struggled hard with two men. Nay, nay! said one. Be more yourself, my good sir! We attract attention here. Come away! What can you do among so many men? The gentleman's always for doing something, said the other, forcing him along as he spoke. I like him for that. I do like him for that. They had by this time got him into a court, hard by the prison. He looked from one to the other, and as he tried to release himself, felt that he tottered on his feet. He who had spoken first was the old gentleman whom he had seen at the Lord Mayor's. The other was John Groobie, who had stood by him so manfully at Westminster. What does this mean? He asked them faintly. How came we together? On the skirts of the crowd, returned the distiller, but come with us. Pray, come with us. You seem to know my friend here. Surely, said Mr. Heardale, looking in a kind of stupor at John, he'll tell you then, returned the old gentleman, that I am a man to be trusted. He's my servant. He was lately, as you know I have no doubt, in Lord George Gordon's service, but he left it and brought in pure good will to me and others who are marked by the rioters such intelligence as he had picked up of their designs. O' Morn condition, please, sir, said John, touching his hat. No evidence against my Lord, a misled man, a kind-hearted man, sir. My Lord never intended this. The condition will be observed, of course, rejoined the old distiller. It's a point of honour. But come with us, sir. Pray, come with us. John Groobie added no entreaties, but he adopted a different kind of persuasion, by putting his arm through one of Mr. Heardale's, while his master took the other, and leading him away with all speed. Sensible from a strange lightness in his head, and a difficulty in fixing his thoughts on anything, even to the extent of bearing his companions in his mind for a minute together, without looking at them, that his brain was affected by the agitation and suffering through which he had passed, and to which he was still a prey. Mr. Heardale let them lead him where they would. As he went along, he was conscious of having no command over what he said or thought, and that he had a fear of going mad. The distiller lived, as he had told him when they first met, on Hoburn Hill, where he had great storehouses and drove a large trade. They approached his house by a back entrance, lest they should attract the notice of the crowd, and went into an upper room which faced towards the street. The windows, however, in common with those of every other room in the house, were boarded up inside, in order that, out of doors, all might appear quite dark. They laid him on a sofa in this chamber, perfectly insensible, but John immediately fetching a surgeon who took from him a large quantity of blood, he gradually came to himself. As he was for the time too weak to walk, they had no difficulty in persuading him to remain there all night, and got him to bed without loss of a minute. That done they gave him cordial and some toast, and presently a pretty strong composing draught, under the influence of which he soon fell into a lethargy, and for a time forgot his troubles. The vintner, who was a very hearty old fellow and a worthy man, had no thoughts of going to bed himself, for he had received several threatening warnings from the rioters, and had indeed gone out that evening to try and gather from the conversation of the mob, whether his house was to be the next attacked. He sat all night in an easy chair in the same room, dozing a little now and then, and received from time to time the reports of John Groobie, and two or three other trustworthy persons in his employ, who went out into the streets as scouts, and for whose entertainment an ample allowance of good cheer, which the old vintner, despite his anxiety, now and then attacked himself, was set forth in an adjoining chamber. These accounts were of as sufficiently alarming nature from the first, but as the night wore on they grew so much worse, and involved such a fearful amount of riot and destruction, that in comparison with these new tidings, all the previous disturbances sunk to nothing. The first intelligence that came was of the taking of Newgate, and the escape of all the prisoners whose track, as they made up Hobon and into the adjacent streets, was proclaimed to those citizens who were shut up in their houses by the rattling of their chains, which formed a dismal concert, and was heard in every direction as though so many forges were at work. The flames too shone so brightly through the vintner's skylights, at the rooms and staircases below were nearly as light as in broad day, while a distant shouting of the mob seemed to shake the very walls and ceilings. At length they were heard approaching the house, and some minutes of terrible anxiety ensued. They came close up, and stopped before it, but after giving three loud yells went on, and although they returned several times that night, creating new alarms each time, they did nothing there, having their hands full. Shortly after they had gone away for the first time, one of the scouts came running in with the news that they had stopped before Lord Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury Square. Soon afterwards there came another, and another, and then the first returned again, and so, by little and little, their tale was this. At the mob gathering round Lord Mansfield's house, had called on those within to open the door, and receiving no reply, but Lord and Lady Mansfield were at that moment escaping by the back way, forced an entrance according to their usual custom. That they then began to demolish the house with great fury, and setting fire to it in several parts involved in a common ruin, the whole of the costly furniture, the plate and jewels, a beautiful gallery of pictures, the rarest collection of manuscripts ever possessed by any one private person in the world, and worse than all, because nothing could replace this loss, the great Law Library, on almost every page of which were notes in the judge's own hand of inestimable value, being the results of the study and experience of his whole life. That while they were howling and exalting round the fire, a troop of soldiers with a magistrate among them came up, and being too late, for the mischief was by that time done, began to disperse the crowd. At the riot act being read, and the crowd still resisting, the soldiers received orders to fire, and levelling their muskets shot dead at the first discharge, six men and a woman, and wounded many persons, and loading again directly fired another volley, but over the people's heads it was supposed as none were seen to fall. That thereupon, and daunted by the shrieks and tumult, the crowd began to disperse, and the soldiers went away, leaving the killed and wounded on the ground, which they had no sooner done, and the rioters came back again, and taking up the dead bodies, and the wounded people, formed into a rude procession, having the bodies in the front, that in this order they paraded off for the horrible merriment, fixing weapons in the dead men's hands to make them look as if alive, and preceded by a fellow ringing Lord Mansfield's dinner bell with all his might. The scouts reported further, that this party meeting with some others, who had been at similar work elsewhere, they all united into one, and drafting off a few men with the killed and wounded marched away to Lord Mansfield's country-seat at Caenwood, between Hampstead and Highgate, bent upon destroying that house likewise, and lighting up a great fire there, which from that height should be seen all over London. But in this they were disappointed, for a party of horse having arrived before them, they retreated faster than they went, and came straight back to town. There being now a great many parties in the streets, each went to work according to its humour, and a dozen houses were quickly blazing, including those of Sir John Fielding, and two other justices, and four in Hoban, one of the greatest thoroughfares in London, which were all burning at the same time, and burned until they were out of themselves, for the people cut the engine hose, and would not suffer the firemen to play upon the flames. At one house near Moorfield's, they found in one of the rooms some canary birds in cages, and these they cast into the fire alive. The poor little creatures screamed, it was said, like infants, when they were flung upon the blaze, and one man was so touched that he tried in vain to save them, which roused the indignation of the crowd, and nearly cost him his life. At this same house, one of the fellows who went through the rooms, breaking the furniture and helping to destroy the building, found a child's doll, a poor toy, which he exhibited at the window to the mob below, as the image of some unholy saint which the late occupants had worshipped. While he was doing this, another man with an equally tender conscience, they had both been foremost in throwing down the canary birds for roasting alive. Took his seat on the parapet of the house, and her rang the crowd from a pamphlet, circulated by the association, relative to the true principles of Christianity. Meanwhile, the Lord Mayor, with his hands in his pockets, looked on as an idle man might look at any other show, and seemed mightily satisfied to have got a good place. Such were the accounts brought to the old vintner by his servants, as he sat at the side of Mr Heardale's bed, having been unable even to doze, after the first part of the night, too much disturbed by his own fears, by the cries of the mob, the light of the fires, and the firing of the soldiers. Such were the addition of the release of all the prisoners in the new jail at Clarkinwell, and as many robberies of passengers in the streets, as the crowd had leisure to indulge in, where the scenes of which Mr Heardale was happily unconscious, and which were all enacted before midnight.