 CHAPTER 77 The time wore on. The noises in the streets became less frequent by degrees, until silence was scarcely broken save by the bells in church towers marking the progress, softer and more stealthy, while the city slumbered, of that great watcher with the hoary head who never sleeps or rests. In the brief interval of darkness and repose, which feverish towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed, and those who awoke from dreams lay listening in their beds, and longed for dawn, and wished the dead of the night were passed. As the street outside the jail's main wall, workmen came straggling at this solemn hour in groups of two or three, and meeting in the centre cast their tools upon the ground and spoke in whispers. Others soon issued from the jail itself, bearing on their shoulders planks and beams. These materials being all brought forth, the rest bestowed themselves, and the dull sound of hammers began to echo through the stillness. Here and there among this knot of labourers, one, with a lantern or a smoky link, stood by to light as fellows at their work, and by its doubtful aid some might be dimly seen taking up the pavement of the road, while others held great upright posts, or fixed them in the holes thus made for their reception. Some dragged slowly on towards the rest, an empty cart, which they brought rumbling from the prison-yard, while others erected strong barriers across the street. All were busily engaged. Their dusky figures, moving to and fro, at that unusual hour, so active and so silent, might have been taken for those of shadowy creatures toiling at midnight on some ghostly, unsubstantial work, which, like themselves, would vanish with the first gleam of day, and leave but mourning mist and vapour. While it was yet dark, a few lookers on collected, who had plainly come there for the purpose and intended to remain, even those who had to pass the spot on their way to some other place lingered and lingered yet, as though the attraction of that were irresistible. Meanwhile the noise of saw and mallet went on briskly, mingled with the clattering of boards on the stone pavement of the road, and sometimes with the workman's voices as they called to one another. However the chimes of the neighbouring church were heard, and that was every quarter of an hour, a strange sensation, instantaneous and indescribable, but perfectly obvious, seemed to pervade them all. Gradually a faint brightness appeared in the east, and the air, which had been very warm all through the night, felt cool and chilly. Though there was no daylight yet, the darkness was diminished, and the stars looked pale. The prison, which had been a mere black mass with little shape or form, put on its usual aspect, and ever and unknown a solitary watchman could be seen upon its roof, stopping to look down upon the preparations in the street. This man, from forming as it were a part of the jail, and knowing or being supposed to know all that was passing by then, became an object of as much interest, and as it eagerly looked for, and as awfully pointed out, as if he had been a spirit. By and by the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses with their signboards and inscriptions stood plainly out in the dull grey morning. Heavy stage wagons crawled from the in-yard opposite, and travellers peeped out, and as they rolled sluggishly away cast many a backward look towards the jail. And now the sun's first beams came glancing into the street, and the night's work, which in its various stages, and in the varied fancies of the lookers on, had taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form, a scaffold, and a gibbet. As the warmth of the cheerful day began to shed itself upon the scanty crowd, the murmur of tongues was heard, shutters were thrown open, and blinds drawn up, and those who had slept in rooms over against the prison, where places to see the execution were let at high prices, rose hastily from their beds. In some of the houses people were busy taking out the window-sashes for the better accommodation of spectators. In others the spectators were already seated, and beguiling the time with cards or drink or jokes among themselves. Some had purchased seats upon the housetops, and were already crawling to their stations from parapet and garret window. Some were yet bargaining for good places, and stood in them in a state of indecision, gazing at the slowly swelling crowd, and at the workmen as they rested listlessly against the scaffold, affecting to listen with indifference to the proprietor's eulogy of the commanding view his house afforded, and the surpassing cheapness of his terms. A fairer morning never shone. From the roofs and upper stories of these buildings, the spires of city churches and the great cathedral dome were visible, rising up beyond the prison, into the blue sky, and clad in the colour of light summer clouds, and showing in the clear atmosphere their every scrap of tracery and fretwork, and every niche and loophole. All was brightness and promise, accepting in the street below, into which, for it yet lay in shadow, the eye looked down as into a dark trench, where, in the midst of so much life and hope and renewal of existence, stood the terrible instrument of death. It seemed as if the very sun forbore to look upon it. But it was better, grim and somber in the shade, and when the day being more advanced, it stood confessed in the full glare and glory of the sun, with its black paint blistering, and its nooses dangling in the light, like loathsome garlands. It was better in the solitude and gloom of midnight, with a few forms clustering about it than in the freshness of the stir of morning, the centre of an eager crowd. It was better haunting the street like a spectre, when men were in their beds, and influencing perchance the city's dreams, and braving the broad day and thrusting its obscene presence upon their waking senses. Five o'clock had struck, six, seven, and eight. Along the two main streets at either end of the crossway, a living stream had now set in, rolling towards the marts of gain and business. Carts, coaches, wagons, trucks, and barrows, forced a passage through the outskirts of the throng, and plattered onward in the same direction. Some of these, which were public conveyances, and had come from a short distance in the country, stopped, and the driver pointed to the gibbet with his whip, though he might have spared himself the pains, for the heads of all the passengers were turned that way without his help, and the coach windows were stuck full of staring eyes. In some of the carts and wagons women might be seen glancing fearfully at the same unsightly thing, and even little children were held up above the people's heads to see what kind of a toy a gallows was, and learn how men were hanged. Two rioters were to die before the prison, who had been concerned in the attack upon it, and one directly afterwards in Bloomsbury Square. At nine o'clock a strong body of military marched into the street, and formed and lined a narrow passage into Hoban, which had been indifferently kept all night by constables. Through this another cart was brought, the one already mentioned had been employed in the construction of the scaffold, and wheeled up to the prison gate. These preparations made, the soldiers stood at ease, the officers lounged to and fro in the alley they had made, or talked together at the scaffold's foot, and the concourse which had been rapidly augmenting for some hours, and still received additions every minute, waited with an impatience which increased with every chime of St. Seppalko's clock for twelve at noon. By this time they had been very quiet, comparatively silent, save when the arrival of some new party at a window hitherto unoccupied gave them something new to look at or talk of. But as the hour approached a buzz and hum arose, which, deepening every moment, soon swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the air. No words or even voices could be distinguished in this clamour, nor did they speak much to each other, though such, as were better informed upon the topic than the rest, would tell their neighbours, perhaps, that they might know the hangman when he came out, by his being the shorter one, and that the man who was to suffer with him was named Hugh, and that it was Barnaby Rudge who would be hanged in Bloomsbury Square. The hum grew, as the time drew near, so loud, that those who were at the windows could not hear the church-clock strike, though it was close at hand. Nor had they any need to hear it, either, for they could see it in the people's faces. So surely, as another quarter chimed, there was a movement in the crowd, as if something had passed over it, as if the light upon them had been changed, in which the fact was readable as on a brazen dial, figured by a giant's hand. Three quarters passed eleven, the murmur now was deafening, yet every man seemed mute. Look where you would among the crowd. You saw strained eyes and lips compressed. It would have been difficult for the most vigilant observer to point this way or that, and say that yonder man had cried out. It was easy to detect the motion of lips in a seashell. Three quarters passed eleven. Many spectators who had retired from the windows came back refreshed, as though their watch had just begun. Those who had fallen asleep roused themselves, and every person in the crowd made one last effort to better his position, which caused oppress against the sturdy barriers that made them bend and yield like twigs. The officers, who until now had kept together, fell into their several positions and gave the words of command. Swords were drawn, muskets shouldered, and the bright steel winding its way among the crowd gleamed and glittered in the sun like a river. Along this shining path two men came hurrying on, leading a horse which was speedily harnessed to the car to the prison door. Then a profound silence replaced the tumult that had so long been gathering, and a breathless pause ensued. Every window was now choked up with heads. The house tops teamed with people, clinging to chimneys, peering over gable ends, and holding on where the sudden loosening of any break or stone would dash them down into the street. The church tower, the church roof, the church yard, the prison leds, the very water spouts and lampposts, every inch of room swarmed with human life. At the first stroke of twelve the prison bell began to toll. Then the roar mingled now with cries of hats off and poor fellows, and from some specs in the great concourse with a shriek or groan burst forth again. It was terrible to see, if anyone in that distraction of excitement could have seen, the world of eager eyes all strained upon the scaffold and the beam. The hollow murmuring was heard within the jail as plainly as without. The three were brought forth into the yard together as it resounded through the air. They knew its import well. Dear here, cried Hugh, undaunted by the sound, they expect us. I heard them gather him and I awoke in the night and turned over on to the side and fell asleep again. We shall see how they welcome the hangman, now that it comes home to him. The ordinary, coming up at this moment, reproved him for his indecent mirth and advised him to alter his demeanour. Why, master? said Hugh, can I do better than bear it easily? You bear it easily enough? Oh, never tell me! he cried, as the other would have spoken, for all your sad look and your solemn air, you think little enough of it. They say you're the best maker of lobster salads in London. I've heard that, you see, before now. Is it a good one, this morning? Is your hand in? How does the breakfast look? I hope it was enough, at despair, for all this hungry company that will sit down to it when their sight's over. I fear, observed the clergyman shaking his head, that you are incorrigible. Where I am, returned Hugh sternly, be no hypocrite, master. You make a merry-making of this every month. Let me be merry, too. If you want a frightened fellow, there's one that'll suit you. Tie your end upon him. He pointed, as he spoke, to Dennis, who, with his legs trailing on the ground, was held between two men, and who trembled so that all his joints and limbs seemed wracked by spasms. Running from this wretched spectacle, he called to Barnaby, who stood apart. Watch here, Barnaby! Ha-ha! Don't be downcast, lad. Leave that to him. Bless you!" cried Barnaby, stepping lightly towards him. I'm not frightened, Hugh. I'm quite happy. I wouldn't desire to live now if they'd let me. Look at me. Am I afraid to die? Will they see me tremble? Hugh gazed for a moment at his face. On which there was a strange, unearthly smile, and at his eye, which sparkled brightly, and interposing between him and the ordinary, gruffly whispered to the latter, I wouldn't say much to him, Master, if I was you. Am I, spoil your appetite for breakfast, though you are used to it? He was the only one of the three who had washed or trimmed himself that morning. Neither of the others had done so since their doom was pronounced. He still wore the broken peacock's feathers in his hat, and all his usual scraps of finery were carefully disposed about his person. His kindling eye, his firm step, his proud and resolute bearing, might have graced some lofty act of heroism, some voluntary sacrifice, born of a noble cause and pure enthusiasm, rather than that felon's death. But all these things increased his guilt. They were mere assumptions. The law had declared it so, and so it must be. The good minister had been greatly shocked, not a quarter of an hour before, at his parting with Grip, for what in his condition to fondle a bird? Yard was filled with people, bluff civic functionaries, officers of justice, soldiers, the curious and such matters, and guests who had been bidden as to a wedding. He looked about him, nodded gloomily to some person in authority, who indicated with his hand in what direction he was to proceed, and clapping Barnaby on the shoulder, passed out with the gate of a lion. They entered a large room, so near to the scaffold, at the voices of those who stood about it could be plainly heard, some beseeching the javelin men to take them out of the crowd, others crying to those behind to stand back, for they were pressed to death and suffocating for want of air. In the middle of this chamber, two smiths with hammers stood beside an anvil. Hugh walked straight up to them and set his foot upon it with the sound as though it had been struck by a heavy weapon. Then, with folded arms, he stood to have his irons knocked off, scowling hortily round as those who were present eyed him narrowly and whispered to each other. It took so much time to drag Dennis in, that this ceremony was over with Hugh, and nearly over with Barnaby before he appeared. He no sooner came into the place he knew so well, however, and among faces with which he was so familiar, then he recovered strength and sense enough to clasp his hands and make a last appeal. Gentlemen! Good gentlemen! cried the abject creature, grovelling down upon his knees and actually prostrating himself upon the stone floor. Governor! Dear Governor! Honourable sheriffs! Worthy gentlemen! Thou mercy upon a wretched man that served his majesty and the law and parliament for so many years, and don't damn let me die because of a mistake! Dennis, said the Governor of the jail, You know what the course is, that the order came with the rest. You know that we could do nothing, even if we would. All I ask, sir, all I want and beg is time to make it sure! cried the trembling wretch, looking wildly round for sympathy. The king and government can't know it to me. I'm sure they can't know it to me, or they never would bring me to this dreadful slaughterhouse. They know my name, but they don't know it's the same man. Stronger execution for charity's sake, stop my execution, gentlemen, till they can be told that I've been hangmen here in our thirty year. Oh, no one go and tell them! he implored, clenching his hands and glaring round and round and round again. Well, no, general person go and tell them! Mr. Ackerman, said a gentleman who stood by after a moment's pause, and since it may possibly produce in this unhappy man a better frame of mind, even at this last minute, let me assure him that he was well known to have been the hangman when his sentence was considered. But, perhaps I think on that account, a punishment's not so great. Guy had a criminal shuffling towards the speaker on his knees and holding up his folded hands, whereas he's worse. He's worse a hundred times to me than any man. Let them know that, sir. Let them know that. They made it worse to me while giving me so much to do. Stop my execution till they know that. The governor beckoned with his hand, and the two men who had supported him before approached. He uttered a piercing cry. Wait! Wait! Only a moment. Only one moment more. Give me a last chance or a brief. One of us three is to get the Bloomsbury Square. Let me be the one. It may come in that time. It's sure to come. In the Lord's name, let me present the Bloomsbury Square. Don't hang me here. It's murder. They took him to the Anvil, but even then he could be heard above the clinking of the Smith's hammers and the horse raging of the crowd, crying that he knew of Hugh's birth, that his father was living and was a gentleman of influence and rank, that he had family secrets in his possession, that he could tell nothing unless they gave him time but must die with him on his mind, and he continued to rave in this sort until his voice failed him, and he sank down a mere heap of clothes between the two attendants. It was at this moment that the clock struck the first stroke of twelve, and the bell began to toll. The various officers with the two sheriffs at their head moved towards the door. All was ready when the last chime came upon the ear. They told Hugh this and asked if he had anything to say. To say, he cried, not I, I'm ready. Yes, he added, as his eye fell upon Barnaby. I have a word to say, too. Come here, the lad. There was for the moment something kind and even tender struggling in his fierce aspect as he wrung his poor companion by the hand. I'll say this, he cried, looking firmly round, that if I had ten lives to lose, and the loss of each would give me ten times the agony of the hardest death, I'd lay them all down. I, I would, now you gentlemen may not believe it, to save this one. This one, he added, bringing his hand again, that will be lost through me. Not through you, said the idiot mildly, don't say that. You are not to blame. You've always been very good to me. Hugh, we shall know what makes the stars shine now. I took him from her in a reckless mood. I didn't think what arm would come of it, said Hugh, laying his hand upon his head and speaking in a lower voice. I asked her pardon, and his. Look here, he added roughly in his former tone. You see this lad. They murmured yes, and seemed to wonder why he asked. That gentleman yonder, pointing to the clergyman, as often in the last few days, spoke to me of faith and strong belief. You see what I am, more brook than man, as I have been often told, but I had faith enough to believe, and did believe as strongly as any of you gentlemen can believe anything, that this one life would be spared. See what he is. Look at him. Barnaby had moved towards the door, and stood beckoning him to follow. If this was not faith and strong belief, cried Hugh, raising his right arm aloft, and looking upward like a savage prophet whom the near approach of death had filled with inspiration, where are they? What else should teach me? Me, born as I was born, and reared as I have been reared, to hope for any mercy in this hardened, cruel and relenting place upon these human shambles. I, who never raised this hand in prayer till now, called down the wrath of God, on that black tree of which I am the ripe and fruit, hard to invoke the curse of all its victims, past and present, and to come, on the head of that man who in his conscience owns me for his son. I leave the wish that he may never sicken on his bed of down, but die a violent death as I do now, and have the night wind for his only mourner. To this I say, Amen, Amen. His arm fell downward by his side. He turned and moved towards them with a steady step, the man he had been before. There is nothing more, said the Governor. Hugh motioned Barnaby not to come near him, though without looking in the direction where he stood and answered, there is nothing more. Move forward! Unless, said Hugh, glancing hurriedly back, unless any person here is a fancy for a dog, and not then unless it means to use him well. This one belongs to me at the house I come from, and it wouldn't be easy to find a better. He whined at first, but he'd soon get over that. He wondered, I think, about a dog just now, he added, with a kind of laugh. If any man deserved it of me half as well, I'd think of him. He spoke no more, but moved onward in his place with a careless air, though listening at the same time to the service for the dead, with something between sullen attention and quickened curiosity. As soon as he had passed the door, his miserable associate was carried out, and the crowd beheld the rest. Barnaby would have mounted the steps at the same time. Indeed, he would have gone before them, but in both attempts he was restrained, as he was to undergo the sentence elsewhere. In a few minutes the sheriffs reappeared. The same procession was again formed, and they passed through various rooms and passages to another door, that at which the cart was waiting. He held down his head to avoid seeing what he knew his eyes must otherwise encounter, and took his seat sorrowfully, and yet with something of a childish pride and pleasure in the vehicle. The officers fell into their places at the sides, in front and in the rear. The sheriffs' carriages rolled on, a guard of soldiers surrounded the whole, and they moved slowly forward through the throng and pressure toward Lord Mansfield's ruined house. It was a sad sight. All the show and strength and glitter assembled round one helpless creature, and sadder yet to note, as he rode along, how his wandering thoughts found strange encouragement in the crowded windows and the concourse in the streets, and how, even then, he felt the influence of the bright sky, and looked up smiling into its deep unfathomable blue. But there had been many such sights since the riots were over, some so moving in their nature, and so repulsive too, that they were far more calculated to awaken pity for the sufferers and respect for that law, whose strong arm seemed in more than one case to be as wantonly stretched forth now that all was safe, as it had been basely paralysed in time of danger. Two cripples, both mere boys, one with a leg of wood, one who dragged his twisted limbs along by the help of a crutch, were hanged in this same Bloonsbury square. As the guard was about to glide from under them, it was observed that they stood with their faces from, not to, the house they had assisted to despoil, and the misery was protracted that this omission might be remedied. Another boy was hanged in Bow Street, other young lads in various quarters of the town. Four wretched women, too, were put to death. In a word, those who suffered as rioters were, for the most part, the weakest, meanest, and most miserable among them. It was a most exquisite satire upon the false religious cry which had led to so much misery that some of these people owned themselves to be Catholics and begged to be attended by their own priests. One young man was hanged in Bishop's Gate Street, whose aged gray-headed father waited for him at the gallows, kissed him at his foot when he arrived, and sat there on the ground till they took him down. They would have given him the body of his child, but he had no hearse, no coffin, nothing to remove it in, being too poor, and walked meekly away beside the cart that took it back to prison, trying as he went to touch its lifeless hand. But the crowd had forgotten these matters, or cared little about them, if they lived in their memory. And while one great multitude fought and hustled to get near the gibbet before Newgate, for a parting look, another followed in the train of poor lost Barnaby, to swell the throng that waited for him on the spot. End of Chapter 77 Chapter 78 of Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Mil Nicholson Barnaby Rudge A Tale of the Riots of Eighty by Charles Dickens Chapter 78 On this same day, and about this very hour, Mr. Willet the Elder sat smoking his pipe in a chamber at the Black Lion. Although it was hot summer weather, Mr. Willet sat close to the fire. He was in a state of profound cogitation, with his own thoughts. And it was his custom at such times to stew himself slowly, under the impression that that process of cookery was favourable to the melting out of his ideas, which, when he began to simmer, sometimes oozed forth so copiously as to astonish even himself. Mr. Willet had been several thousand times comforted by his friends and acquaintance, with the assurance that for the loss he had sustained on the damage done to the maypole, he could come upon the county. But as this phrase happened to bear an unfortunate resemblance to the popular expression of coming on the parish, it suggested to Mr. Willet's mind no more consolatory visions than pauperism on an extensive scale, and ruin in a capacious aspect. Consequently, he had never failed to receive the intelligence with a rueful shake of the head or a dreary stare, and had been always observed to appear much more melancholy after a visit of condolence than at any other time in the whole four and twenty hours. It chanced, however, at sitting over the fire on this particular occasion, perhaps because he was, as it were, done to a turn, perhaps because he was in an unusually bright state of mind, perhaps because he had considered the subject so long, perhaps because of all these favouring circumstances taken together, it chanced that, sitting over the fire on this particular occasion, Mr. Willet did a far-off and in the remotest depths of his intellect perceive a kind of lurking hint or faint suggestion that out of the public purse they might issue funds for the restoration of the maypole to its former high place among the taverns of the earth. And this dim ray of light did so diffuse itself within him, and did so kindle up and shine, that at last he had it as plainly and visibly before him as the blaze by which he sat, and fully persuaded that he was the first to make the discovery, and that he had started, hunted down, fallen upon, and knocked on the head a perfectly original idea which had never presented itself to any other man alive or dead. He laid down his pipe, rubbed his hands, and chuckled audibly. Why, Father, cried Joe, entering at the moment, you're in spirits today. It's nothing particular, said Mr. Willet, chuckling again. It's nothing at all particular, Joseph. Tell me something about the cell-wonners. Having preferred this request, Mr. Willet chuckled a third time, and after these unusual demonstrations of levity he put his pipe in his mouth again. What shall I tell you, Father? asked Joe, laying his hand upon his sire's shoulder, and looking down into his face, that I have come back poorer than a church-mouse, you know that, that I have come back maimed and crippled, you know that. It was took off, muttered Mr. Willet, with his eyes upon the fire, at the defense of the cell-wonners in America, where the war is. Quite right, returned Joe, smiling, and leaning with his remaining elbow on the back of his father's chair. The very subject I came to speak to you about. A man with one arm, Father, is not of much use in the busy world. This was one of those vast propositions which Mr. Willet had never considered for an instant and required time to tackle. Therefore he made no answer. At all events, said Joe, he can't pick and choose his means of earning a livelihood, as another man may. He can't say I will turn my hand to this, or I won't turn my hand to that, but must take what he can do and be thankful it's no worse. What did you say? Mr. Willet had been softly repeating to himself, in amusing tone, the words, defense of the cell-wonners, but he seemed embarrassed at having been overheard and answered, nothing. Now look here, Father. Mr. Edwards has come to England from the West Indies. When he was lost sight of, I ran away on the same day, Father, he made a voyage to one of the islands, where a school friend of his had settled, and finding him wasn't too proud to be employed on his estate, and, in short, got on well, and his prospering, and has come over here on business of his own, and is going back again speedily. Our return in nearly at the same time, and meeting in the course of the late troubles, has been a good thing every way, for it has not only enabled us to do old friendsome service, but has opened a path in life for me, which I may tread without being a burden upon you. To be plain, Father, he can employ me. I satisfy myself that I can be of real use to him, and I am going to carry my one arm away with him, and to make the most of it. In the mind's eye of Mr. Willet, the West Indies, and indeed all foreign countries, were inhabited by savage nations who were perpetually burying pipes of peace, flourishing tomahawks and puncturing strange patterns in their bodies. He no sooner heard this announcement, therefore, than he leaned back in his chair, took his pipe from his lips, and stared at his son with as much dismay as if he already beheld him tied to a stake, and tortured for the entertainment of a lively population. In what form of expression his feelings would have found event, it is impossible to say, nor is it necessary. For before a syllable occurred to him, Dolly Varden came running into the room in tears, threw herself on Joe's breast without a word of explanation, and clasped her white arms round his neck. Dolly! cried Joe. Dolly! I call me that, call me that always, exclaimed the locksmith's little daughter. Never speak coldly to me, never be distant, never again reprove me for the follies I have long repented, or I shall die, Joe. I reprove you, said Joe. Yes, for every kind and honest word you uttered went to my heart. For you who have borne so much from me, for you who owe your sufferings and paint in my caprice, for you to be so kind, so noble to me, Joe. He could say nothing to her, not a syllable. There was an odd sort of eloquence in his one arm which had crept round her waist, but his lips were mute. If you had reminded me by word, only by one short word, sobbed Dolly, clinging yet closer to him, how little I deserved that you should treat me with so much forbearance, if you had exalted only for one moment in your triumph! I could have borne it better. Triumph! repeated Joe, with a smile which seemed to say, I am a pretty figure for that. Yes, triumph! she cried with her whole heart and soul in her earnest voice and gushing tears, for it is one. I am glad to think and know it is. I wouldn't be less humble, dear. I wouldn't be without the recollection of that last time we spoke together in this place. No, not if I could recall the past and make our parting yesterday. Did ever lover look as Joe looked now? Dear Joe, said Dolly, I always loved you. In my own heart I always did, although I was so vain and giddy. I hoped you would come back that night. I made quite sure you would. I prayed for it on my knees. Through all these long, long years I never once forgotten you, or left off hoping that this happy time might come. The eloquence of Joe's arm surpassed the most impassioned language, and so did that of his lips. Yet he said nothing, either. And now, at last, cried Dolly, trembling with the fervour of her speech, if you were sick and shattered in your every limb, if you were ailing, weak, and sorrowful, if, instead of being what you are, you were in everybody's eyes but mine, the wreck and ruin of a man, I would be your wife, dear love, with greater pride and joy, than if you were the statelyest Lord in England. What have I done? cried Joe, what have I done to meet with this reward? You have taught me, said Dolly, raising her pretty face to his, to know myself and your worth, to be something better than I was, to be more deserving of your true and manly nature. In years to come, dear Joe, you shall find that you have done so, for I will be not only now when we are young and full of hope, but when we have grown old and weary, your patient, gentle, never tiring wife. I will never know a wish or care beyond our home and you, and I would always study how to please you with my best affection and my most devoted love. I will, indeed I will. Joe could only repeat his former eloquence, but it was very much to the purpose. They know of this at home, said Dolly, for your sake I would leave even them, but they know it, and are glad of it, and are as proud of you as I am, and as full of gratitude. You'll not come and see me as a poor friend who knew me when I was a girl, will you, dear Joe? Well, it don't matter what Joe said in answer, but he said a great deal, and Dolly said a great deal, too, and he folded Dolly in his one arm pretty tight, considering that it was but one, and Dolly made no resistance. And if ever two people were happy in this world, which is not an utterly miserable one, with all its faults, we may, with some appearance of certainty, conclude that they were. To say that during these proceedings Mr. Willard, the elder, underwent the greatest emotions of astonishment of which our common nature is susceptible, to say that he was in a perfect paralysis of surprise, and that he wandered into the most stupendous and bear-to-four unattainable heights of complicated amazement, would be to shadow forth his state of mind in the feeblest and lamest terms. If a rock, an eagle, a griffin, a flying elephant, a winged sea-horse had suddenly appeared, and, taking him on its back, carried him bodily into the heart of the Salwanos, it would have been to him as an everyday occurrence, in comparison with what he now beheld. To be sitting quietly by, seeing and hearing these things, to be completely overlooked, unnoticed, and disregarded, while his son and a young lady were talking to each other in the most impassioned manner, kissing each other, and making themselves in all respects perfectly at home, was a position so tremendous, so inexplicable, so utterly beyond the widest range of his capacity of comprehension, that he fell into a lethargy of wonder, and could no more rouse himself than an enchanted sleeper in the first year of his very lease a century long. Father, said Joe, presenting Dolly, you know who this is. Mr. Willet looked first at her, then at his son, then back again at Dolly, and then made an ineffectual effort to extract a whiff from his pipe, which had gone out long ago. Say a word, Father, if it's only how'd he do? urged Joe. Certainly, uh, Joseph, answered Mr. Willet, oh yes, why not? To be sure, said Joe, why not? replied his father. Why not? And with this remark, which he uttered in a low voice, as though he were discussing some grave question with himself, he used the little finger, if any of his fingers can be said to have come under that denomination, of his right hand as a tobacco stopper, and was silent again. And so he sat for half an hour at least, although Dolly, in the most endearing of manners, hoped a dozen times that he was not angry with her. So he sat for half an hour, quite motionless, and looking all the while like nothing so much as a great Dutch pin or skittle. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly, and without the least notice, burst to the great consternation of the young people, into a very loud and very short laugh, and repeating, certainly Joseph, oh yes, why not? Went out for a walk. End of Chapter 78. Chapter 79 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 79. Old John did not walk near the Golden Key. For between the Golden Key and the Black Lion, there lay a wilderness of streets, as everybody knows who was acquainted with the relative bearings of Clarkinwell and Whitechapel, and he was by no means famous for pedestrian exercises. But the Golden Key lies in our way, though it was out of his. So to the Golden Key, this chapter goes. The Golden Key itself, fair emblem of the locksmith's trade, had been pulled down by the rioters and roughly trampled underfoot. But now it was hoisted up again in all the glory of a new coat of paint, and showed more bravely even than in days of yore. Indeed the whole house front was spruce and trim, and so freshened up throughout, that if there yet remained at large any of the rioters who had been concerned in the attack upon it, the sight of the old, goodly, prosperous dwelling so revived must have been to them as gall and wormwood. The shutters of the shop were closed, however, and the window-blinds above were all pulled down, and in place of its usual cheerful appearance the house had a look of sadness and an air of mourning, which the neighbours who in old days had often seen poor Barnaby go in and out were at no loss to understand. The door stood partly open, but the locksmith's hammer was unheard. The cat sat moping on the ashy forge, all was deserted, dark, and silent. On the threshold of this door Mr. Hairdale and Edward Chester met. The younger man gave place, and both passing in with the familiar air, which seemed to denote that they were tarrying there, or were well accustomed to go, to and fro, unquestioned, shut it behind them. Entering the old back parlour, and ascending the flight of stairs, abrupt and steep and quaintly fashioned as a bold, they turned into the best room, the pride of Mrs. Varden's heart, and erst the scene of Miggs's household labours. Varden brought the mother here last evening, he told me, said Mr. Hairdale. She is above stairs now, in the room over here. Edward rejoined. Her grief, they say, is past all telling. I needn't add, for that you know beforehand, sir, that the care, humanity, and sympathy of these good people have no bounds. I am sure of that. Heaven have paid them for it, and for much more. Varden is out? He returned with your messenger, who arrived almost at the moment of his coming home himself. He was out the whole night. But that, of course, you know, he was with you the greater part of it. He was. Without him I should have lacked my right hand. He is an older man than I, but nothing can conquer him. The cheeriest, stoutest-hearted fellow in the world. He has a right to be. He has a right to be. A better creature never lived. He reaps what he has sown no more. It is not all men, said Edward, after a moment's hesitation, who have the happiness to do that. More than you imagine, returned Mr. Hairdale, we nought the harvest more than the seed time. You do so in me. In truth his pale and haggard face and gloomy bearing had so far influenced the remark that Edward was for the moment at a loss to answer him, said Mr. Hairdale. It was not very difficult to read a thought so unnatural. But you are mistaken, nevertheless. I have had my share of sorrows, more than the common lot, perhaps, but I have borne the mill. I have broken where I should have bent, and have mused and brooded when my spirit should have mixed with all God's great creation. The men who learn endurance are they who call the whole world brother. I have turned from the world, and I pay the penalty. Edward would have interposed, but he went on without giving him time. It is too late to evade it now. I sometimes think that if I had to live my life once more, I might amend his fault. Not so much, I discover, when I search my mind for the love of what is right, as for my own sake. But even when I make these better resolutions, I instinctively recoil from the idea of suffering again what I have undergone, and in these circumstance I find the unwelcome assurance that I should still be the same man, though I could cancel the past and begin anew with his experience to guide me. Nay, you make too sure of that, said Edward. You think so? Mr. Heardale answered. And I am glad you do. I know myself better, and therefore distrust myself more. Let us leave this subject for another, not so far removed from it as it might at first sight seem to be. Sir, you still love my niece, and she is still attached to you. I have that assurance from her own lips, said Edward, and you know, I am sure you know, that I would not exchange it for any blessing life could yield me. You are frank, honourable, and disinterested, said Mr. Heardale. You have forced the conviction that you are so, even on my once jaundiced mind, and I believe you. Wait here till I come back. He left the room as he spoke, but soon returned with his niece. On that first and only time, he said, looking from the one to the other, when we three stood together under her father's roof, I told you to quit it, and charged you never to return. It is the only circumstance arising out of our love, observed Edward, that I have forgotten. You own a name, said Mr. Heardale. I had deep reason to remember. I was moved and goaded by recollections of personal wrong and injury. I know, but even now I can't charge myself with having then or ever lost sight of a heartfelt desire for her true happiness, or with having acted, however much I was mistaken, with any other impulse, and the one pure, single earnest wish to be to her, as far as in my inferior nature lay, the father she had lost. Dear uncle, cried Emma, I have known no parent but you. I have loved the memory of others, but I have loved you all my life. Never was father kinder to his child than you have been to me, without the interval of one harsh hour, since I can first remember. You speak too fondly, he answered, and yet I can't wish you were less partial. For I have a pleasure in hearing those words, and shall have in calling them to mind when we are far as under, which nothing else could give me. Bear with me for a moment longer, Edward, for she and I have been together many years. And although I believe that in resigning her to you, I'll put the seal upon her future happiness, I'll find it needs an effort. He pressed her tenderly to his bosom, and after a minute's pause presumed. I have done you wrong, sir, and I ask your forgiveness, in no common phrase or sure sorrow but with earnestness and sincerity. In the same spirit I acknowledge to you both that the time has been when I connived at treachery and falsehood, which, if I did not perpetrate myself, are still permitted to rend you to asunder. You judge yourself too harshly, said Edward, let these things rest. They rise in judgment against me when I look back, and not now for the first time, he answered. I can't part from you without your full forgiveness, for busy life and I have little left in common now, and I have regrets enough to carry into solitude without addition to the stock. You bear a blessing from us both, said Emma, never mingle thoughts of me, of me who owe you so much love and duty, with anything but undying affection and gratitude for the past and bright hopes for the future. The future, returned her uncle, with a melancholy smile, is a bright word for you, and its image should be raised with cheerful hopes. Mine is of another kind, but it will be one of peace and free, I trust, from care or passion. When you quit England I shall leave it to. There are cloisters abroad, and now that the two great objects of my life are set at rest, I know no better home. You droop at that, forgetting that I am growing old, and that my course is nearly run. Well, we will speak of it again, not once or twice, but many times, and you shall give me cheerful counsel, Emma. And you will take it, asked his niece. I'll listen to it, he answered with a kiss, and it will have its weight be certain. What have I left to say? You have, of late, been much together. It is better and more fitting that the circumstances attendant on the past, which wrought your separation, and soared between you suspicion and distrust, should not be entered on by me. Much, much better, whispered Emma. I avow my share in them, said Mr. Heardell, though I held it, at the time, in detestation, let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means, though was it canot or bad, and may be counted so at once, and left alone. He looked from her to Edward, and said in a gentler tone, In goods and fortune you are now nearly equal. I have been her faithful steward, and to that remnant of a richer property which my brother left her, I desire to add, in token of my love, a poor pittance, scarcely worth the mention, for which I have no longer any need. I am glad you go abroad. Let our ill-fated house remain the ruin it is. When you return, after a few thriving years, you'll command a better, and a more fortunate one. We are friends. Edward took his extended hand, and grasped it heartily. You are neither slow nor cold in your response, said Mr. Heardell, doing the like by him, and when I look upon you now, and know you, I feel that I would choose you for her husband. Her father had a generous nature, and you would have pleased him well. I give her to you in his name, and with his blessing. If the world and I part in this act, we part on happier terms than we have lived for many a day. He placed her in his arms, and would have left the room, but that he was stopped in his passage to the door by a great noise at a distance which made them start and pause. It was a loud shouting mingled with boisterous acclamations that rent the very air. It drew nearer and nearer every moment, and approached so rapidly that even while they listened, it burst into a deafening confusion of sounds at the street corner. This must be stopped, quieted, said Mr. Heardell hastily. We should have foreseen this, and provided against it. I will go out to them at once. But before he could reach the door, and before Edward could catch up his hat and follow him, they were again arrested by a loud shriek from above stairs, and the locksmith's wife, bursting in, and fairly running into Mr. Heardell's arms, cried out, She knows it all, dear sir. She knows it all. We broke it out to her by degrees, and she's quite prepared. Having made this communication, and furthermore, thanked heaven with great fervour and heartiness, the good lady, according to the custom of matrons, and all occasions of excitement, fainted away directly. They ran to the window, drew up the sash, and looked into the crowded street. Among a dense mob of persons, of whom not one was for an instant still, the locksmith's ruddy face and burly form could be described, beating about as though he was struggling with a rough sea. Now he was carried back a score of yards, now onward nearly to the door, now back again, now forced against the opposite houses, now against those adjoining his own, now carried up a flight of steps, and greeted by the outstretched hands of half a hundred men, while the whole tumultuous concourse stretched their throats and cheered with all their might. Though he was really in a fair way to be torn to pieces in the general enthusiasm, the locksmith, nothing discomposed, echoed their shouts till he was as hoarse as they, and in a glow of joy and right good humour waved his hat until the daylight shone between its brim and crown. But in all the bandings from hand to hand, and strivings to and fro, and sweepings here and there, which, saving that he looked more jolly and more radiant after every struggle, troubled his peace of mind no more than if he had been a straw upon the water's surface. He never once released his firm grasp of an arm, drawn tight through his. He sometimes turned to clap this friend upon the back, or whisper in his ear a word of staunch encouragement, or cheer him with a smile. But his great care was to shield him from the pressure, and force a passage for him to the golden key. Passive and timid, scared, pale and wondering, and gazing at the throng as if he were newly risen from the dead, and felt himself a ghost among the living, Barnaby. Not Barnaby in the spirit, but in flesh and blood, with pulses, sinews, nerves and beating heart, and strong affections, clung to his stout old friend, and followed where he led. And thus in course of time they reached the door, held ready for their entrance by no unwilling hands. Then slipping in, and shutting out the crowd by main force, Gabriel stood between Mr. Hairdale and Edward Chester, and Barnaby, rushing up the stairs, fell upon his knees beside his mother's bed. Such is the blessed end, sir, cried the panting locksmith to Mr. Hairdale, of the best days' work we ever did, the rogues. It's been hard fighting to get away from him. I almost thought, once or twice, they'd have been too much for us, with their kindness. They had striven all the previous day to rescue Barnaby from his impending fate. Failing in their attempts and the first quarter to which they addressed themselves, they renewed them in another. Failing there, likewise, they began afresh at midnight, and made their way not only to the judge and jury who had tried him, but to men of influence at court, to the young Prince of Wales, and even to the anti-chamber of the King himself. Successful at last, an awakening and interest in his favour, and an inclination to inquire more dispassionately into his case, they had had an interview with the Minister in his bed, so late as eight o'clock that morning. The result of a searching inquiry, in which they, who had known the poor fellow from his childhood, did other good service, besides bringing it about, was that between eleven and twelve o'clock, a free pardon to Barnaby-Rudge was made out and signed and entrusted to a horse soldier for instant conveyance to the place of execution. This carrier reached the spot, just as the cart appeared in sight, and Barnaby, being carried back to jail, Mr Herdale, assured that all were safe, had gone straight from Bloomsbury Square to the Golden Key, leaving to Gabriel the grateful task of bringing him home in triumph. I needn't say, observed the locksmith, when he had shaken hands with all the males in the house, and hugged all the females five and forty times at least. That, except among ourselves, I didn't want to make a triumph of it. But, directly we got into the street we were known, and this hubbub began. Of the two, he added as he wiped his crimson face, and after experience of both, I think I'd rather be taken out of my house by a crowd of enemies than escorted home by a mob of friends. It was plain enough, however, that this was mere talk on Gabriel's part, and that the whole proceeding afforded him the keenest delight, for the people continuing to make a great noise without, and to cheer as if their voices were in the freshest order, and good for a fortnight, he sent upstairs for Grip, who had come home at his master's back, and had acknowledged the favours of the multitude by drawing blood from every finger that came within his reach, and with a bird upon his arm, presented himself at the first floor window, and waved his hat again until it dangled by a shred between his finger and thumb. This demonstration, having been received with appropriate shouts, and silence being in some degree restored, he thanked them for their sympathy, and taking the liberty to inform them that there was a sick person in the house, proposed that they should give three cheers for King George, three more for Old England, and three more for Nothing Particular as a closing ceremony. The crowd ascending, substituted Gabriel Varden for the Nothing Particular, and giving him one over for good measure, dispersed in high good humour. What congratulations were exchanged among the inmates of the Golden Key when they were left alone! What an overflowing of joy and happiness there was among them! How incapable it was of expression in Barnaby's own person, and how he went wildly from one to another, until he became so far tranquilised as to stretch himself on the ground beside his mother's couch, and fall into a deep sleep. Are matters that need not be told. And it is well they happen to be of this class, for they would be very hard to tell were their narration ever so indispensable. Before leaving this bright picture, it may be well to glance at a dark and very different one, which was presented to only a few eyes that same night. The scene was a churchyard, the time midnight, the persons Edward Chester, a clergyman, a grave digger, and the four bearers of a homely coffin. They stood about a grave, which had been newly dug, and one of the bearers held up a dim lantern, the only light there, which shed its feeble ray upon the book of prayer. He placed it for a moment on the coffin, when he and his companions were about to lower it down. There was no inscription on the lid. The mould fell solemnly upon the last house of this nameless man, and the rattling dust left a dismal echo, even in the accustomed ears of those who had borne it to its resting place. The grave was filled into the top, and trodden down. They all left the spot together. You never saw him living, asked the clergyman of Edward. Often years ago, not knowing him for my brother. Never since? Never. Yesterday he steadily refused to see me. It was urged upon him many times at my desire. Still he refused. That was hardened and unnatural. Do you think so? I infer that you do not. You're right. We hear the world wonder every day at monsters of ingratitude. Did it never occur to you that it often looks for monsters of affection, as though they were things of course? They had reached the gate by this time, and bidding each other good night, departed on their separate ways. End of Chapter 79. Chapter 80 of Barnaby Ranch, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Mill Nicholson. Barnaby Ranch, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty, by Charles Dickens. Chapter 80. That afternoon, when he had slept off his fatigue, had shaved and washed and dressed, and freshened himself from top to toe, when he had dined, comforted himself with a pipe, an extra toby, a nap in the great armchair, and a quiet chat with Mrs. Barden on everything that had happened, was happening, or about to happen, within the sphere of their domestic concern, the locksmith sat himself down at the tea-table in the little back parlour, the rosiest, coziest, merriest, heartiest, best-contented old buck in Great Britain or out of it. There he sat with his beaming eye on Mrs. V, and his shining face suffused with gladness, and his capacious waistcoat smiling in every wrinkle, and his jovial humour peeping from under the table in the very plumpness of his legs, a sight to turn the vinegar of misanthropy into purest milk of human kindness. There he sat, watching his wife as she decorated the room with flowers for the greater honour of Dolly and Joseph Willet, who had gone out walking, and for whom the tea-catle had been singing gaily on the hob full twenty minutes, chirping as never-catle-chirped before, for whom the best service of real, undoubted china, patterned with diverse, round-faced mandarins holding up broad umbrellas, was now displayed in all its glory, to tempt whose appetites a clear, transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool green lettuce leaves and fragrant cucumber, reposed upon a shady table, covered with a snow-white cloth, for whose delight preserves and jams, crisp cakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cunning twists and cottage loaves and rolls of bread, both white and brown, were all set forth in rich profusion. In whose youth Mrs. V herself had grown quite young, and stood there in a gown of red and white, symmetrical in figure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, faultless in ankle, laughing in face and mood, in all respects delicious to behold. There sat the locksmith, among all and every these delights, the sun that shone upon them all, the centre of the system, the source of light, heat, life, and frank enjoyment in the bright household world. And when had Dolly ever been the Dolly of that afternoon? To see how she came in, arm in arm with Joe, and how she made an effort not to blush or seem it all confused, and how she may believe she didn't care to sit on his side of the table, and how she coaxed the locksmith in a whisper not to joke, and how her colour came and went in a little restless flutter of happiness, which made her do everything wrong, and yet so charmingly wrong that it was better than right. Why, the locksmith could have looked on at this, as he mentioned to Mrs. Varden when they retired for the night, for four and twenty hours at a stretch, and never wished it done. The recollections, too, with which they made merry over that long protracted tea, the glee with which the locksmith asked Joe if he remembered that stormy night at the maypole when he first asked after Dolly, the laugh they all had about that night when she was going out to the party in the sedan chair, the unmerciful manner in which they rallied Mrs. Varden about putting those flowers outside that very window, the difficulty Mrs. Varden found in joining the laugh against herself, at first, and the extraordinary perception she had of the joke when she overcame it, the confidential statements of Joe concerning the precise day and hour when he was first conscious of being fond of Dolly, and Dolly's blushing admissions, half volunteered, and half extorted, as to the time from which she dated the discovery that she didn't mind Joe. Here was an exhaustless fund of mirth and conversation. Then there was a great deal to be said regarding Mrs. Varden's doubts, and motherly alarms, and shrewd suspicions, and it appeared that from Mrs. Varden's penetration and extreme sagacity nothing had ever been hidden. She had known it all long. She had seen it from the first. She had always predicted it. She had been aware of it before the principles. She had said within herself, for she remembered the exact words, that young Willet is certainly looking after our Dolly, and I must look after him. Accordingly she had looked after him, and had observed many little circumstances, all of which she named, so exceedingly minute, that nobody else could make anything out of them even now, and had it seemed from first to last displayed the most unbounded tact and most consummate generalship. Of course the night when Joe would ride homeward by the side of the chaise, and when Mrs. Varden would insist upon his going back again, was not forgotten. Nor the night when Dolly fainted on his name being mentioned. Nor the times upon times when Mrs. Varden ever watchful and prudent had found her pining in her own chamber. In short, nothing was forgotten, and everything by some means or other brought them back to the conclusion that that was the happiest hour in all their lives. Consequently that everything must have occurred for the best, and nothing could be suggested which would have made it better. While they were in the full glow of such discourse as this, there came a startling knock at the door, opening from the street into the workshop, which had been kept closed all day that the house might be more quiet. Joe, as in duty bound, would hear of nobody but himself going to open it, and accordingly left the room for that purpose. It would have been odd enough certainly if Joe had forgotten the way to this door, and even if he had, as it was a pretty large one, and stood straight before him, he could not easily have missed it. But Dolly, perhaps because she was in the flutter of spirits before mentioned, or perhaps because she thought he would not be able to open it with his one arm, she could have had no other reason, hurried out after him, and they stopped so long in the passage, no doubt owing to Joe's entreaties, that she would not expose herself to the draught of July air which must infallibly come rushing in on this same door being opened, that the knock was repeated, in a yet more startling manner than before. Is anybody going to open that door? cried the locksmith, or shall I come? Upon that Dolly went running back into the parlour, all dimples and blushes, and Joe opened it with a mighty noise and other superfluous demonstrations of being in a violent hurry. Well, said the locksmith, when he reappeared, what is it? Hey, Joe, what are you laughing at? Nothing, sir, it's coming in. Who's coming in? What's coming in? Mrs. Varden, as much at a loss as her husband, could only shake her head in answer to his inquiring look. So the locksmith wheeled his chair round to command a better view of the room door, and stared at it with his eyes wide open, and a mingled expression of curiosity and wonder shining in his jolly face. Instead of some person or person's straight way appearing, diverse remarkable sounds were heard, first in the workshop, and afterwards in the little dark passage between it and the parlour, as though some unwieldy chest or heavy piece of furniture were being brought in, by an amount of human strength inadequate to the task. At length, after much struggling and humping and bruising of the wall on both sides, the door was forced open as by a battering ram. And the locksmith, steadily regarding what appeared beyond, smote his thigh, elevated his eyebrows, opened his mouth, and cried in a loud voice expressive of the utmost consternation, damn, if it aren't migs come back! The young damsel whom he named no sooner heard these words, then deserting a small boy in a very large box by which she was accompanied, and advancing with such precipitation that her bonnet flew off her head, burst into the room, clasped her hands in which she held a pair of patterns, one in each, raised her eyes devotedly to the ceiling, and she had a flood of tears. The old story, cried the locksmith, looking at her in inexpressible desperation. She was born to be a damper, this young woman. Nothing can prevent it. Oh, master, oh, ma'am! cried migs. Can I constrain my feelings in these here once again united moments? Mr. Watson, his blessedness among relations, sir, his forgiveness of injuries, his amicablenesses. The locksmith looked from his wife to Dolly, and from Dolly to Joe, and from Joe to migs, with his eyebrow still elevated and his mouth still open. When his eyes got back to migs, they rested on her, fascinated. To think, cried migs with hysterical joy, that Mr. Joe and dear Miss Dolly has rarely come together after all has been said and contrary, to see them two are settling along with him, and her, so pleasant and in all respects so affable and mild, and me not knowing of it, and not being in the ways to make no preparations for their teas. What a cat in thing it is, and yet what sweet sensations is awoke within me. Either in clasping her hands again, or in an ecstasy of pious joy, Miss Migs clinked her patterns after the manner of a pair of symbols at this juncture, and then resumed in the softest accents. And did my Mrs. think, oh, goodness, did she think, as her own migs, which supported her under so many trials, and understood her nature, when them as intended well but acted rough, went so deep into her feelings, did she think, as her own migs, would ever leave her? Did she think as migs, though she was but a servant, and now that servitude was now inheritances, would forget that she was the humble instruments as always made it comfortable between them two when they fell out, and always tell master of the meekness and forgiveness of her blessed dispositions? Did she think as migs had no attachments? Did she think that wages was her only object? To none of these interrogatories, whereof every one was more pathetically delivered than the last, did Mrs. Varden answer one word. But migs, not at all abashed by this circumstance, turned to the small boy in attendance, her eldest nephew, son of her own married sister, born in Golden Lion Court No. 27, and bred in the very shadow of the second bell handle on the right-hand door-post, and with a plentiful use of her pocket-hanker-chief addressed herself to him, requesting that on his return home he would console his parents for the loss of her, his aunt, by delivering to them a faithful statement of his having left her in the bosom of that family, with which, as his aforesaid parents well knew, her best affections were incorporated, that he would remind them that nothing less than her imperious sense of duty, and devoted attachment to her old master and mrs., likewise Ms. Dolly and young Mr. Joe, should ever have induced her to decline that pressing invitation which they, his parents, had, as he could testify given her, to lodge and board with them, free of all cost and charge, for evermore. Lastly, that he would help her with her box upstairs, and then repair straight home, bearing her blessing and her strong injunctions to mingle in his prayers a supplication that he might in course of time grow up a locksmith, or a Mr. Joe, and have mrs. Varden's and ms. Dolly's for his relations and friends. Having brought this admonition to an end, upon which, to say the truth, the young gentleman for whose benefit it was designed, bestowed little or no heed, having to all appearance his faculties absorbed in the contemplation of the sweetmeats. Ms. Miggs signified to the company in general, that they were not to be uneasy, for she would soon return, and with her nephew's aid, prepared to bear her wardrobe up the staircase. My dear, said the locksmith to his wife, do you desire this? I desire it, she answered. I am astonished. I am amazed at her audacity. Let her leave the house this moment. Miggs, hearing this, let her end of the box fall heavily to the floor, gave a very loud sniff, crossed her arms, screwed down the corners of her mouth, and cried in an ascending scale, How gracious! Three distinct times. You hear what your mistress says my love? remarked the locksmith. You had better go, I think. Stay, take this with you for the sake of old service. Ms. Miggs clutched the bank note he took from his pocket-book, and held out to her. Deposited it in a small red-leather purse, put the purse in her pocket, displaying as she did so a considerable portion of some undergarment made of flannel, and more black cotton stocking than is commonly seen in public. And, tossing her head, as she looked at Mrs. Varden, repeated, How gracious! I think you said that once before, my dear. Observed the locksmith. Times has changed, haste they, Mim? Cried Miggs, bridling. You can spare me now, can you? You can keep them down without me. You're not in wants of any wonder's gold, or throw the blame upon no longer, aren't you, Mim? I'm glad to find you've grown so independent. I wish you'd jolly, I'm sure. With that she dropped a curtsy, and keeping her head erect, her ear towards Mrs. Varden, and her eye on the rest of the company, as she alluded to them in her remarks, proceeded. I quite delighted, I'm sure, to find such independency. Feeling sorry, though, at the same time, Mim, that you should have been forced into submissions, when you couldn't help yourself. He must be great fixations, especially considering how ill you always spoke of Mr. Joe, to have him for a son-in-law at last. And I wonder, Miss Dolly can put up with him either, after being off and on for so many years with a coachmaker. But I have, he would say, that the coachmaker thought twice about his he-he-he, and that he told a young man, as was a friend of his, that he hoped he known better than to be drawn into that, though she and all the family did pull uncommon strong. Here she paused for a reply, and receiving none went on as before. I have here, say, Mim, that the illnesses of some ladies was all pretensions, and that they could faint away stone-dead whenever they had the inclination so to do. Of course I'll never cease its cases with my own eyes, oh no! Nor master either, oh no! I have here the neighbours, make remark, as someone, as they was acquainted with, was a poor, good-nated, mean-spirited creature, as went out fishing for a wife one day, and caught a tartar. Of course I never, to my knowledge, see the poor person himself. Nor did you neither, Mim, oh no! I wonder who it can be, don't you, Mim? No doubt you do, Mim, oh yes! Again Migs paused for a reply, and none being offered, was so oppressed with teeming spite and spleen, that she seemed like to burst. I'm glad Miss Dolly can laugh, cried Migs with a feeble titter. I like to see folks laughing, so do you, Mim, don't you? He was always glad to see people in spirit, wasn't you, Mim? And you always did your best to keep him cheerful, didn't you, Mim? Though there aren't such a great deal to laugh at now, either is there, Mim? It aren't so much of a catch, after looking out so sharp ever since she was a little chid, and costing such a deal in dress and show, to get a poor, common soldier with one arm, is it, Mim? I would never have spent with one arm, anyways. I would have two arms. I would have two arms, if it was me. Though, instead of hands, they'd only got hooks at the end, like our dustman. Miss Migs was about to add, and had indeed begun to add, that, taking them in the abstract, dustmen were far more eligible matches than soldiers, though, to be sure, when people were past choosing, they must take the best they could get, and think themselves well off too. But her vexation and chagrin being of that internally bitter sort, which finds no relief in words. And, as aggravated to madness by want of contradiction, she could hold out no longer, and burst into a storm of sobs and tears. In this extremity she fell on the unlucky nephew, tooth and nail, and, plucking a handful of hair from his head, demanded to know how long she was to stand there to be insulted, and whether or no he meant to help her to carry out the box again. And if he took a pleasure in hearing his family reviled, with other inquiries of that nature, at which disgrace and provocation of the small boy, who had been all this time gradually lashed into rebellion by the sight of unattainable pastry, walked off indignant, leaving his aunt and the box to follow at their leisure. Somehow or other, by dint of pushing and pulling, they did attain the street at last. Where Miss Miggs, or blouse with the exertion of getting there, and with her sobs and tears, sat down upon her property to rest and grieve, until she could ensnare some other youth to help her home. It's a thing to laugh at, Martha, not to care for. Whispered the locksmith, as he followed his wife to the window, and good-humidly dried her eyes. What does it matter? You had seen your fault before? Come, bring up Toby again, my dear. Dolly shall sing us a song, and we'll be all the merrier for this interruption. END OF CHAPTER EIGHTY Another month had passed, and the end of August had nearly come, when Mr. Hairdale 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 lonesome. 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, they had 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 to part 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 spectre, haunting his sleep, it's 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 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 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 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 travellers 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. Heardale 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 ivy-droof. 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, or 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 ashes 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 sympathise. 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 vaunting annals, to the blush. He arrived 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 a 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 nigh mad, and in an instant routed all the self-command, it had been anguish, acute, poignant anguish, to sustain. All consideration, reflection, mercy, ferberance, 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 spoke 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, echoed Sir John, looking smilingly round. Mine, I beg your pardon. I really beg your pardon. Why, 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 do not bear it as well as I had expected. Excuse me, no, you do not indeed. He pulled out his snuff-box, and dressing 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 and general. You are removed a long way from the frailties of the crowd. You contemplate them from a height, and rail at them with the most impressive bitterness I have heard you. And shall again, said Mr. Heardale, 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. Heardale, you had spared me none. I would with all my soul you had been in paradise, if such a monstrous lie could be enacted, rather than here to-night. Nay, returned the other, rarely, you do yourself injustice. You are a rough companion, but I would not go so far to avoid you. Listen to me, said Mr. Heardale, 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, and the very essence of his being, is a traitor, and who has been false to you, despite the sympathy you too should have together, as he has been to all others. With ints, and looks, and crafty words, which told again on nothing, you set on Gashford to this work, this work before us now. With these same ints, and looks, and crafty words, which told again on nothing, you urged him on to gratify the deadly hate he owes me. I have earned it. I thank heaven by the abduction and dishonour 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, not of a kindest course as your speech, nor has it ever been that I remember. Or, in one face that I could name, you would have read in difference, 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. A 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 illusion 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, for the sake of his own 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 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 would purchase 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 all the foul attacks and whispered calamities that 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 spurned you from me as I would a faithless dog. With that he raised his arm, and struck him on the breast, so that he staggered. Sir John, the instant 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, he cried, in God's name, 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 it must have been 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 and look was not to be accounted 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 can't 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. Heardale, with honour, and in good faith. I do so now. Do not force me to renew this duel to-night. You said my wretched son, I think, said Sir John with a smile. Poor fool! A dupe of such a shallow nave, trapped into marriage by such an uncle, and by such a niece, he well deserves your pity. That 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 to-night. Oh, why were you here at all? Why have we met? Tomorrow would have cast us far apart for ever. That being the case, returns a John without the least emotion, it is very fortunate we have met to-night. Heardale, I have always despised you, as you know, but I have given you credit for a species of brute courage. For the honour of my judgement, 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. Heardale, making a keener 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 features after death, he tried to smile, and, faintly moving his right hand, as if to hide his bloody linen in his vest, fell back dead. THE FANTOM OF LAST NIGHT