 Preface of Barnaby Rudge, A Tale of the Riots of Eighty, by Charles Dickens. The late Mr. Waterton, having some time ago expressed his opinion that ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offered the few following words about my experience of these birds. The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I was at different times the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in London by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, good gifts, which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable, generally on horseback, and so terrified a new foundren dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known by the mere superiority of his genius to walk off un molested with the dog's dinner from before his face. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when in an evil hour his stable was newly painted. He observed the workman closely, so that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead, and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death. While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine in Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village public house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this sage was to administer to the effects of his predecessor by disinterring all the cheese and hapens he had buried in the garden, a work of immense labour and research to which he devoted all the energies of his mind. When he had achieved this task he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept that he would perch outside my window and drive imaginary horses with great skill all day. Perhaps even I never saw him at his best, for his former master sent his duty with him, and if I wished the bird to come out very strong would I be so good as to show him a drunken man, which I never did, having unfortunately none but sober people at hand. But I could hardly have respected him more, whatever the stimulating influences of this sight might have been. He had not the least respect, I am sorry to say, for me in return or for anybody but the cook, to whom he was attached, but only I fear as a policeman might have been. Once I met him unexpectedly about a half a mile from my house, walking down the middle of a public street, attended by a pretty large crowd and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under those trying circumstances I can never forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered by numbers. It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have been that he took some pernicious substance into his bill and thence into his maw, which is not improbable, seeing that he knew pointed the greater part of the garden wall by digging out the mortar, broke countless squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed in spinters the greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing. But after some three years he too was taken ill, and died before the kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with the sepulchral cry of, oh, oh! since then I have been ravenous. No account of the Gordon riots having been to my knowledge introduced into any work of fiction, and the subject presenting very extraordinary and remarkable features I was led to reject this tale. It is unnecessary to say that those shameful tumults, while they reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, and all who had act or part in them teach a good lesson, that what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought the commonest principles of right and wrong, that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution, that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate and unmerciful. All history teaches us. But perhaps we do not know it in our hearts too well to profit by even so humble an example as the no-propory riots of 1780. However imperfectly those disturbances are set forth in the following pages, they are impartially painted by one who has no sympathy with the Romish church, though he acknowledges, as most men do, some esteemed friends among the followers of its creed. In the description of the principal outrages, reference has been had to the best authorities of that time, such as they are. The account given in this tale of all the main features of the riots is substantially correct. Mr. Dennis's allusions to the flourishing condition of his trade in those days have their foundation in truth and not in the author's fancy. Any file of old newspapers or odd volume of the annual register will prove this with terrible ease. Even the case of Mary Jones, dwelt upon with so much pleasure by the same character, is no effort of invention. The facts were stated exactly as they are stated here in the House of Commons. Whether they afforded as much entertainment to the merry gentlemen assembled there, as some other most affecting circumstances of a similar nature mentioned by Sir Samuel Romaley, is not recorded. At the case of Mary Jones may speak the more emphatically for itself, I subjoin it as related by Sir William Meredith in a speech in Parliament on frequent executions made in 1777. Under this act, the shoplifting act, one Mary Jones was executed, whose case I shall just mention. It was at the time when press warrants were issued on the alarm about Falkland Islands. The woman's husband was pressed, their goods seized for some debts of his, and she, with two small children, turned into the streets, abegging. It is a circumstance not to be forgotten, that she was very young, under nineteen, and most remarkably handsome. She went to a linen draper's shop, took some coarse linen off the counter, and slipped it under her cloak. The shopman saw her, and she laid it down. For this she was hanged. Her defence was, I have the trial in my pocket. That she had lived in credit, and wanted for nothing, till a press gang came and stole her husband from her. But since then she had no bed to lie on, nothing to give her children to eat, and they were almost naked. And perhaps she might have done something wrong, for she hardly knew what she did. The parish officers testified the truth of this story. But it seems there had been a good deal of shoplifting about Ludgate. An example was thought necessary. This woman was hanged for the comfort and satisfaction of shopkeepers in Ludgate Street. When brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a frantic manner, as proved her mind to be in a distracted and desponding state. And the child was sucking at her breast, when she set out for Tyburn. End of Preface Chapter 1 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 1 In the year 1775 there stood upon the borders of Epping Forest, at a distance of about twelve miles from London, measuring from the standard in Corn Hill, or rather from the spot on or near to which the standard used to be in days of yore, a house of public entertainment called the Maypole, which fact was demonstrated to all such travellers as could neither read nor write. And at that time a vast number both of travellers and stay-at-homes were in this condition. By the emblem reared on the roadside over against the house, which, if not of those goodly proportions that Maypoles were wont to present in olden times, was a fair young ash, thirty feet in height, and straight as any arrow that ever English yeoman drew. The Maypole, by which term from henceforth is meant the house, and not its sign, the Maypole was an old building, with more gable ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day. Huge zigzag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous progress, and vast stables gloomy ruinous and empty. The place was said to have been built in the days of King Henry VIII, and it was a legend, not only that Queen Elizabeth had slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion to wit in a certain oak-paneled room with a deep bay window, but that next morning, while standing on a mounting-block before the door with one foot in the stirrup, the Virgin monarch had then and there boxed and cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty. The matter of fact, and doubtful folks of whom there were few among the Maypole customers, as unluckily there always are in every little community, were inclined to look upon this tradition as rather apocryphal, but whenever the landlord of that ancient hostelry appealed to the mounting-block itself as evidence, and triumphantly pointed out that there it stood in the same place to that very day, the doubters never failed to be put down by a large majority, and all true believers exalted as in a victory. Whether these and many other stories of the like-nature were true or untrue, the Maypole was really an old house, a very old house, perhaps as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which will sometimes happen with houses of an uncertain as with ladies of a certain age. Its windows were old diamond-pane lattices, its floors were sunken and uneven, its ceilings blackened by the hand of time and heavy with massive beams. Over the doorway was an ancient porch, quinkly and grotesquely carved, and here on summer evenings the more favoured customers smoked and drank, eye and sang many a good song too, sometimes reposing on two grim-looking high-backed settles, which, like the twin dragons of some fairy-tale, guarded the entrance to the mansion. In the chimneys of the disused rooms, swallows had built their nests for many a long year, and from earliest spring to latest autumn whole colonies of sparrows chirped and twitted in the eaves. There were more pigeons about the dreary stable-yard and outbuildings than anybody but the landlord could reckon up. The wheeling and circling flights of runts, fantails, tumblers and powders were perhaps not quite consistent with the grave and sober character of the building, but the monotonous cooing, which never ceased to be raised by some among them all day long, suited it exactly and seemed to lull it to rest. With its overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were nodding in its sleep. Indeed it needed no very great stretch of fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. The bricks of which it was built had originally been a deep dark red, but had grown yellow and discoloured like an old man's skin. The sturdy timbers had decayed like teeth, and here and there the ivy, like a warm garment to comfort it in its age, wrapped its green leaves closely round the time-worn walls. It was a hailed hearty age, though, still, and in the summer or autumn evenings, when the glow of the setting sun fell upon the oak and chestnut trees of the adjacent forest, the old house, partaking of its luster, seemed their fit companion and to have many good years of life in him yet. The evening with which we have to do was neither a summer nor an autumn one, but the twilight of a day in March, when the wind howled dismally among the bare branches of the trees, and rumbling in the wide chimneys and driving the rain against the windows of the Maypole Inn, gave such of its frequenters as chance to be there at the moment an undeniable reason for prolonging their stay, and caused the landlord to prophesy that the night would certainly clear at eleven o'clock precisely, which by a remarkable coincidence was the hour at which he always closed his house. The name of him upon whom the spirit of prophecy thus descended was John Willet, a burly, large-headed man with a fat face, which be tokened to profound obstinacy and slowness of apprehension, combined with a very strong reliance upon his own merits. It was John Willet's ordinary boast in his more placid moods and if he was slow he was sure, which assertion could in one sense at least be by no means gain-said, seeing that he was in everything unquestionably the reverse of fast, and with all one of the most dogged and positive fellows in existence, always sure that what he thought or said or did was right, and holding it as a thing quite settled and ordained by the laws of nature and providence, that anybody who said or did or thought otherwise must be inevitably, and of necessity, wrong. Mr. Willet walked slowly up to the window, flattened his fat nose against the cold glass, and shading his eyes that his sight might not be affected by the ruddy glow of the fire, looked abroad. Then he walked slowly back to his old seat in the chimney corner, and, composing himself in it with a slight shiver, such as a man would give way to and so acquire an additional relish for the warm blaze, said, looking round upon his guests, It all clear at eleven o'clock, now sooner and now later, not before and not onwards. And you may out that! said a little man in the opposite corner. And only's past the fool, and she rises at nine. John looked sedately and solemnly at his questioner until he had brought his mind to bear upon the whole of his observation, and then made answer in a tone which seemed to imply that the moon was peculiarly his business and nobody else's. Never you mind about the moon. Don't you chapel yourself about her. You let the moon alone, and I'll let you alone. No offence, I hope! said the little man. Again John waited leisurely until the observation had thoroughly penetrated to his brain, and then replying, No offence, as yet! Applied a light to his pipe, and smoked in placid silence. Now and then casting a side-long look at a man wrapped in a loose riding-coat, with huge cuffs ornamented with tarnished silver lace and large metal buttons, who sat apart from the regular frequenters of the house, and wearing a hat flapped over his face, which was still further shaded by the hand on which his forehead rested, looked unsociable enough. There was another guest who sat booted and spurred, at some distance from the fire also, and whose thoughts, to judge from his folded arms and knitted brows, and from the untasted liquor before him, were occupied with other matters than the topics under discussion, or the persons who discussed them. This was a young man of about eight and twenty, rather above the middle height, and though of somewhat slight figure, gracefully and strongly made. He wore his own dark hair, and was accoutered in riding-dress, which together with his large boots, resembling in shape and fashion those worn by our life-guardsmen at the present day, showed indisputable traces of the bad condition of the roads. But travel-stained though he was, he was well and even richly attired, and without being overdressed, looked a gallant gentleman. Lying upon the table beside him, as he had carelessly thrown them down, were a heavy riding-whip and a slouched hat, the latter worn no doubt as being best suited to the inclemency of the weather. There, too, were a pair of pistols in a holster case, and a short riding-cloak. Little if his face was visible, except the long dark lashes which concealed his downcast eyes, but an air of careless ease and natural gracefulness of demeanor pervaded the figure, and seemed to comprehend even those slight accessories which were all handsome and in good keeping. Towards this young gentleman the eyes of Mr. Willet wandered but once, and then as if in mute inquiry whether he had observed his silent neighbour. It was plain that John and the young gentleman had often met before. Finding that his look was not returned, or indeed observed by the person to whom it was addressed, John gradually concentrated the whole power of his eyes into one focus, and brought it to bear upon the man in the flapped hat, at whom he came to stare in course of time with an intensity so remarkable that it affected his fireside cronies, who all, as with one accord, took their pipes from their lips and stared with open mouths at the stranger likewise. The sturdy landlord had a large pair of dull fish-like eyes, and the little man who had hazarded the remark about the moon, and who was the parish clerk and bell-ringer of Chigwell, a village hard by, had little round black shiny eyes like beads. Moreover, this little man wore at the knees of his rusty black stitches, and on his rusty black coat, and all down his long flapped waistcoat, little queer buttons like nothing except his eyes, but so like them, that as they twinkled and glistened in the light of the fire, which shone too in his bright shoe-buckles, he seemed all eyes, from head to foot, and to be gazing with every one of them, at the unknown customer. No wonder that a man should grow restless under such an obvious, to say nothing of the eyes belonging to short Tom Cobb, the general chandler and post-office-keeper, and long Phil Parks, the ranger, both of whom, infected by the example of their companions, regarded him of the flapped hat no less attentively. The stranger became restless, perhaps from being exposed to this raking fire of eyes, perhaps from the nature of his previous meditations, most probably from the latter cause, for as he changed his position and looked hastily round, he started to find himself the object of such keen regard, and darted an angry and suspicious glance at the fireside group. It had the effect of immediately diverting all eyes to the chimney, except those of John Willet, who, finding himself, as it were, caught in the fact, and not being, as has been already observed, of a very ready nature, remained staring at his guests in a particularly awkward and disconcerted manner. Well, said the stranger, well, there was not much in well. It was not a long speech. I thought you gave an order, said the landlord, after a pause of two or three minutes for consideration. The stranger took off his hat and disclosed the hard features of a man of sixty or thereabouts, much weather-beaten and worn by time, and the naturally harsh expression of which was not improved by a dark handkerchief, which was bound tightly round his head, and, while it served the purpose of a wig, shaded his forehead and almost hid his eyebrows. If it were intended to conceal or divert attention from a deep gash, now healed into an ugly seam, which, when it was first inflicted, must have laid bare his cheekbone, the object was but indifferently attained, for it could easily fail to be noted at a glance. His complexion was of a cadaverous hue, and he had a grisly, jagged beard of some three-week state. Such was the figure, very meanly and poorly clad, that now rose from the seat, and stalking across the room sat down in a corner of the chimney, which the politeness or fears of the little clerk very readily assigned to him. The eye-wayman, whispered Tom Cobb to Parks the Ranger. Do you suppose eye-waymen don't dress handsomer than that? replied Parks. It's a better business than you think for, Tom, and eye-waymen don't need or use to be shabby. Take my word for it. Meanwhile the subject of their speculations had done due honour to the house by calling for some drink, which was promptly supplied by the landlord's son, Joe, a broad-shouldered, strapping young fellow of twenty, whom it pleased his father still to consider a little boy, and to treat accordingly. Stretching out his hands to warm them by the blazing fire, the man turned his head towards the company, and after running his eyes sharply over them, said in a voice well suited to his appearance. What else is that which stands a mile or so from here? Public house? said the landlord with his usual deliberation. Public house, father? exclaimed Joe. Where's the public house within a mile or so of the Maypole? He means a great house, a warren, naturally, of course. The old red brick house, sir, that stands in its own grounds? Aye, said the stranger. And that fifteen or twenty years ago stood in a park five times as broad, which with other and richer property has bit by bit changed hands and dwindled away. More's the pity, pursued the young man. Maybe, was the reply. But my question related to the owner, what it has been, I don't care to know. And what it is, I can see for myself. The heir apparent to the Maypole pressed his finger on his lips, and glancing at the young gentleman already noticed, who had changed his attitude when the house was first mentioned, replied in a lower tone, The owner's name is Haerdale, Mr. Geoffery Haerdale, and, again he glanced in the same direction as before, and a worthy gentleman, too. Paying his little regard to this admonitory cough, as to this significant gesture that had preceded it, the stranger pursued his questioning. I turn out of my way, come in here, and took the footpath that crosses the grounds. Who's the young lady that I saw entering a carriage? His daughter. Why, how should I know, honest man? replied Joe, contriving in the course of some arrangements about the hearth, to advance close to his questioner, and plucking by the sleeve. I didn't see the young lady, you know. Phew! There's the wind again, and rain. Well, it is a night. Rough weather indeed, observed the strange man. You're used to it, said Joe, catching at anything which seemed to promise a diversion of the subject. Pretty well, returned the other. About the young lady, as Mr. Herdile, a daughter. No, no, said the young fellow, fetfully. He's a single gentleman. He's—be quiet, can't you, man? Don't you see this talk is not relished, yonder? Regardless of this whispered remonstrance, and affecting not to hear it, his tormentor provokingly continued. Single man of our daughter's before now? Perhaps she may be his daughter, though he is not married. What do you mean? said Joe, adding in an undertone as he approached him again. You come in for it presently. I know you will. I mean no harm. Returned the traveller boldly. And I've said none that I know of. I ask a few questions, as any stranger may, and not one naturally, about the inmates of a remarkable house in a neighbourhood which is new to me, and you are as aghast and disturbed as if I were talking in treason against King George. Perhaps you can tell me why, sir, for, as I say, I am a stranger, and this is Greek to me. The latter observation was addressed to the obvious cause of Joe Willet's discomposure, who had risen and was adjusting his riding-cloak preparatory to sallying abroad. Briefly replying that he could give him no information, the young man beckoned to Joe, and handing him a piece of money in payment of his reckoning hurried out attended by young Willet himself, who, taking up a candle, followed to light him to the house-door. While Joe was absent on this errand, the elder Willet and his three companions continued to smoke with profound gravity, and in a deep silence each having his eyes fixed on a huge copper boiler that was suspended over the fire. After some time John Willet slowly shook his head, and there upon his friends slowly shook theirs, but no man withdrew his eyes from the boiler or altered the solemn expression of his countenance in the slightest degree. At length Joe returned, very talkative and conciliatory, as though with a strong presentiment that he was going to be found fault with. Such a thing as love is, he said, drawing a chair near the fire and looking round for sympathy. He has set off to walk to London, all await a London. His nag gone lame in riding out here this blessed afternoon, and comfortably littered down in our stable at this minute, and he given up a good ock supper in our best bed, because Miss Heardale had gone to a masquerade up in town, and he has set his heart upon seeing her. I don't think I could persuade myself to do that, beautiful as she is, but then I'm not in love. At least I don't think I am, and that's the whole difference. Is in love then, said the stranger. Rather, replied Joe, he'll never be more in love and may very easily be less. Silence, sir, cried his father. What a chap you are, Joe, said Long Parks. Such an inconsiderate lad, murmured Tom Cobb. Putting himself forward and ringing the very nose of his own father's face exclaimed the parish clerk metaphorically. What have I done? Reasoned poor Joe. Silence, sir, returned his father. What do you mean by talking? When you three people that are more than two or three times your age sit in still and silent and not dreaming of saying a word. Why, that's the proper time for me to talk, isn't it? Said Joe rebelliously. The proper time, sir, retorted his father. The proper time's no time. Ah, to be sure, muttered Parks nodding gravely to the other two men who nodded likewise, observing under their breaths that that was the point. The proper time's no time, sir, repeated John Willet. When I was your age, I never talked. I never wanted to talk. I listened and improved myself. That's what I did. For the matter of that, Phil, observed Mr. Willet, blowing a long thin spiral cloud of smoke out of the corner of his mouth, and staring at it abstractly as it floated away. For the matter of that, Phil, argument is a gift of nighter. If nighter, as gift in a man, is a gift of nighter, argument is a gift of nighter. If nighter, as gift in a man, with powers of argument, a man has a right to make the best of him, and has not a right to stand on false delicacy, and deny that he is so gifted. For that is a turning of his back on nighter, a floating of her, a sliding of her precious caskets, a proving of oneself to be a swine that isn't were for a scattering pearls before. The landlord pausing here for a very long time, Mr. Parkes naturally concluded that he had brought his discourse to an end, and therefore turning to the young man with some austerity exclaimed, You hear what your father says, Joe! You wouldn't much like to tackle him in argument, aren't you, sir? If! said John Wallet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the face of his interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in the capitals to apprise him that he had put in his awe, as the vulgar say, with unbecoming and irreverent haste, If! sir! Nighter, as fixed upon me, a gift of argument, Why should I not out it? And rather glory in the same. Yes, sir, I am a tough customer that way. You are right, sir. My toughness has been proved, sir, in this room many, and many a time, as I think you know. And, if you don't know, added John, putting his paper in his mouth again, So much the better! For I aren't proud, and am not going to tell you. A general murmur from his three cronies, and a general shaking of heads at the copper boiler, assured John Wallet that they had had good experience of his powers, and needed no further evidence to assure them of his superiority. John smoked with a little more dignity, and surveyed them in silence. It's all very fine talking! But a Joe who had been fidgeting in his chair with diverse and easy gestures, But if you mean to tell me that I'm never to open my lips, Silence, sir! roared his father, No, you never are. When your opinions wanted, you give it. When you spoke to, you speak. When your opinions not wanted, and you're not spoke to, don't you give an opinion, and don't you speak. The world's undergone a nice alteration since my time, certainly. My belief is that there aren't any boys left, that there isn't such a thing as a boy, that there's nothing now between a male baby and a man, and that all the boys went out with his blessed majesty King George II. That's a very true observation, always except in the young princes, said the parish clerk, who, as the representative of church and state in that company, held himself bound to the nicest loyalty. If it godly and righteous for boys, being of the ages of boys, to behave themselves like boys, then the young princes must be boys, and cannot be otherwise. Did you ever hear tell of mermaids, sir? said Mr. Willet. Certainly I have, replied the clerk. Very good, said Mr. Willet. According to the constitution of mermaids, so much of a mermaid, as is not a woman, must be a fish. According to the constitution of young princes, so much of a young prince, if anything, as is not actually an angel, must be godly and righteous. Therefore, if it's becoming and godly and righteous in the young princes, as it is at their ages, that they should be boys, they are and must be boys, and cannot by possibility be anything else. This elucidation of a knotty point being received with such marks of approval as to put John Willet into a good humour. He contented himself with repeating to his son his command of silence and addressing the stranger, said, If you had asked your questions of a grown-up person, of me or any of these gentlemen, you'd have had some satisfaction and wouldn't have wasted breath. Miss Airedale is Mr. Geoffrey Airedale's niece. Is her father alive? said the man carelessly. No! rejoined the landlord. He's not alive, and he is not dead. Not dead? cried the other. Not dead in a common sort of way, said the landlord. The cronies nutted to each other, and Mr. Parks remarked in an undertone shaking his head meanwhile as to who should say, Let no man contradict me, for I won't believe him, that John Willet was an amazing force tonight and fit to tackle a chief justice. The stranger suffered a short pause to elapse, and then asked abruptly, What do you mean? More than you think for, friend, returned John Willet, Perhaps there's more meaning in them words than you suspect. Perhaps there is, said the strange man gruffly. But what a devil do you speak in such mysteries for! You tell me first that a man is not alive, nor yet dead, then that he's not dead in a common sort of way, then that you mean a great deal more than I think for. To tell you the truth, you may do that easily. For so far as I can make out, you mean nothing. What do you mean, I ask again. That, returned the landlord, a little brought down from his dignity by the stranger's surliness, is a maypole story, and has been any time these four and twenty years. That story is Solomon Daisy's story. It belongs to the house, and nobody but Solomon Daisy has ever told it under this roof, or ever shall. That's more. The man glanced at the parish clerk, whose air of consciousness and importance plainly betokened him to be the person referred to, and observing that he had taken his pipe from his lips after a very long whiff to keep it alight, and was evidently about to tell his story without further solicitation, gathered his large coat about him, and shrinking further back almost lost in the gloom of the spacious chimney-corner, except when the flame, struggling from under a great faggot whose weight almost crushed it for the time, shot upward with a strong and sudden glare, and illumining his figure for a moment, seemed afterwards to cast it into deeper obscurity than before. By this flickering light, which made the old room with its heavy timbers and panelled walls, look as if it were built of polished ebony, undrawing and howling without, now rattling the latch and creaking the hinges of the stout, oaken door, and now driving at the casement as though it would beated in. By this light, and under circumstances so auspicious, Solomon Daisy began his tale. It was Mr. Ruben Haedile, Mr. Jeffery's elder brother. Here he came to a dead stop, and made so long a pause that even John Willet grew impatient and asked why he did not proceed, said Solomon Daisy, dropping his voice and appealing to the post-office keeper. What day of the month is this? The nineteenth. Of March, said the clerk bending forward. The nineteenth of March? That's very strange. In a low voice they all acquiesced, and Solomon went on. It was Mr. Ruben Haedile, Mr. Jeffery's elder brother. That twenty-two years ago was the owner of the Warren, which, as Joe has said, not that you remember it, Joe, for a boy like you can't do that, but because you often heard me say so, was then a much larger and better place and a much more valuable property than is now. His lady was lightly dead, and he was left with one child, the Miss Haedile you have been inquiring about, who was then scarcely a year old. Although the speaker addressed himself to the man who had shown so much curiosity about this same family, and made a pause here as if expecting some exclamation of surprise or encouragement, the latter made no remark, nor gave any indication that he heard or was interested in what was said. Solomon therefore turned to his old companions, whose noses were brightly illuminated by the deep red glow from the bowls of their pipes, assured by long experience of their attention, and resolved to show his sense of such indecent behaviour. Mr. Haedile, said Solomon, turning his back upon the strange man, left his place when his lady died, feeling it lonely like, and went up to London, where he stopped some months, but finding that place as lonely as this, as I suppose and I've always heard say, he suddenly came back again with his little girl to the Warren, bringing with him besides that day only two women servants, and his steward and a gardener. Mr. Daisy stopped to take a whiff at his pipe, which was going out, and then proceeded, at first in a snuffling tone, occasioned by keen enjoyment of the tobacco, and strong pulling at the pipe, and afterwards with increasing distinctness. Bringing with him two women servants, and his steward and a gardener, the rest stopped behind up in London, and went the follow next day. It happened at that night, an old gentleman who lived at Chigwell Row, and had long been poorly deceased, and an order came to me at half-after twelve o'clock at night to go and tell the passing-bell. There was a movement in the little group of listeners, sufficiently indicative of the strong repugnance any one of them would have felt to have turned out at such a time upon such an errand. The clerk felt and understood it, and pursued his theme accordingly. He was a dreary thing, especially as the grive-digger was lined up in his bed from long working in a damp soil, and sitting down to take his dinner on cold tombstones. And I was consequently under obligation to go alone, for it was too late to hope to get any other companion. However, I wasn't unprepared for it, as the old gentleman had often made it a request that the bell should be told as soon as possible after the breath was out of his body, and he had been expected to go for some days. I'll put as good a face upon it as I could, and mathling myself up, for it was mortal cold, started out with a lot of Atlanta in one end, and a key of the church in the other. At this point of the narrative, the dress of the strange man wrestled as if he had turned himself to hear more distinctly, slightly pointing over his shoulder, Solomon elevated his eyebrows, and nodded a silent inquiry to Joe whether this was the case. Joe shaded his eyes with his hand and appeared into the corner, but could make out nothing, and so shook his head. It was just such a night as this, blowing arraken, raining heavily, and very dark. I often think now, darker than I ever saw it before or since. That may be even my fancy, but the houses were all closed shut, and the folks in doors, and perhaps there was only one other man who knows how dark it really was. I got into the church, chained the door back so that it should keep a jar, fought to tell the truth. I didn't like to be shut in there alone, and put in my lantern on the stone seat in the little corner where the bare rope is, sat down beside it to trim the candle. I sat down to trim the candle, and when I had done so, I could not persuade myself to get up again and go about my work. I don't know how it was, but I thought of all the ghost stories I had ever heard, even those that I had heard when I was a boy at school, and forgotten long ago. And they didn't come any mind one after another, but all crowd in it once like. I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in a year, it might be that very night for anything I knew, all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the edge of their own graves till morning. This made me think how many people I had known were buried between the church door and the church yard gate, and what a dreadful feat it would be to have to pass among them and know them again, so earthy and unlike themselves. I had known all the niches and arches in the church from a child. Still, I couldn't persuade myself that those were their natural shadows which I saw on the pavement, but felt sure there were some ugly figures hiding among them and peeping out. Thinking on in this way, I began to think of the old gentleman who was just dead, and I could have sworn as I looked up the dark chensel that I saw him in his usual place, wrapping his shroud about him and shivering as if he felt it cold. All this time I sat listening and listening and hardly dared to breathe. At length I started up and took the bell-robe and me hands. At that minute they rang, not that bell, for I had hardly touched the rope, but another. I heard the ringing of another bell and a deep bell too, plainly. It was only for instant, and even then the wind carried the sound away, but I heard it. I listened for a long time, but it rang no more. I had heard of corpse candles, and at last I persuaded myself that this must be a corpse bell tolling of itself at midnight for the dead. I told me bell how or how long I don't know and ran home to bed as fast as I could touch the ground. I was up early next morning, after a restless night, and told the story to my neighbours. Some were serious and some made light of it. I don't think anybody believed it real, but that morning Mr Ruben Heardale was found murdered in his bed-chamber and in his hand was a piece of the cord attached to an alarm bell outside the roof, which hung in his room and had been cut asunder no doubt by the murderer when he seized it. That was the bell I heard. A bureau was found opened and a cash-box which Mr Heardale had brought down that day and was supposed to contain a large sum of money was gone. The steward and gardener were both missing and both suspected for a long time, but they were never found. They were hunted far and wide and far enough they might have looked for poor Mr Raj the steward, whose body, scarcely to be recognised by his clothes and the watch and ring he wore, was found months afterwards at the bottom of a piece of water in the grounds with a deep gash in his breast where he had been stabbed with a knife. He was only partly dressed and agreed that he had been sitting up reading in his own room where there were many traces of blood and was suddenly fallen upon and killed before his master. Everybody now knew that the gardener must be the murderer and now he has never been heard of from that date of this. He will be. Mark my words. The crime was committed this day two and twenty years on the night need of March 1,753. On the night need of March in some year, no matter when, I know it. I am sure of it, for we have always in some strange way or other been brought back to the subject on that day ever since. On the 19th of March in some year sooner or later that man will be discovered. End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of Barnaby-Rudge A Tale of the Riots of Eighty This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Recorded by Mill Nicholson. Barnaby-Rudge A Tale of the Riots of Eighty by Charles Dickens. Chapter 2 A Strange Story said the man who had been the cause of the narration. Stranger still if it comes about as you predict. Is that all? A question so unexpected netled Solomon Daisy not a little. By dint of relating the story very often and ornamenting it according to Village Report with a few flourishes suggested by the various hearers from time to time he had come by degrees to tell it with great effect. And is that all after the climax was not what he was accustomed to? Is that all? he repeated. Yes, that's all sir. And enough too I think. I think so too. My horse young man is but a pack hired from a roadside post in house but he must carry me to London tonight. Tonight? said Joe. Tonight! returned the other. Won't you stare at? This tavern would seem to be a house of call for all the gaping idlers of the neighbourhood. At this remark which evidently had referenced to the scrutiny he had undergone as mentioned in the foregoing chapter the eyes of John Willet and his friends were diverted with marvellous rapidity to the copper boiler again. Not so with Joe who being a metalsome fellow returned the strangers angry glance for the steady look and rejoined. It is not a very bold thing to wonder at your going on tonight. Surely you have been asked such a harmless question in an inn before and in better weather than this. I thought you might not know the way as you seem strange to this part. The way? repeated the other irritably. Yes. Do you know it? Oh, I'll find it. replied the man waving his hand and turning on his heel. Landlord, take the reckoning ear. John Willet did as he was desired for on that point he was seldom slow except in the particulars of giving change and testing the goodness of any piece of coin that was profit to him by the application of his teeth and tongue or some other test or in doubtful cases by a long series of tests terminating in its rejection. The guest then wrapped his garments about him so as to shelter himself as effectually as he could from the rough weather and without any word or sign of farewell he took himself to the stable yard. Here Joe who had left the room on the conclusion of their short dialogue was protecting himself and the horse from the rain under the shelter of the penthouse roof. He's pretty much of my opinion said Joe patting the horse upon the neck I'll wager that your stopping here tonight would please him better than it would please me. He and I are of different opinions as we have been more than once in our way here was the short reply. So I was thinking before you came out for he has felt your spurs, poor beast. The stranger adjusted his coat colour about his face and made no answer. You'll know me again I see he said marking the young fellow's earnest gaze when he had sprung into the saddle. The man's worth knowing master who travels a road he don't know mount me down a jaded horse and leaves good quarters to do it on such a night as this. Here I have sharp eyes and a sharp tongue I find. Both I hope by nature but the last grows rusty sometimes or want of using. Use their first less too and keep their sharpness for your sweet arts boy said the man. So saying he shook his hand from the bridle struck him roughly on the head with the butt end of his whip and galloped away dashing through the mud and darkness with a headlong speed which few badly mounted horsemen would have cared to venture even had they been thoroughly acquainted with the country and which to one who knew nothing of the way he rode was attended at every step with great hazard and danger. The roads even within 12 miles of London were at that time ill paved seldom repaired and very badly made. The way this rider traversed had been ploughed up by the wheels of heavy wagons and rendered rotten rusts and thaws of the preceding winter or possibly of many winters. Great holes and gaps had been worn into the soil which being now filled with water from the late rains were not easily distinguishable even by day and a plunge into any one of them might have brought down a sureer footed horse and the poor beast now urged forward to the utmost extent of his powers. Sharp flints and stones rolled from under his hoofs continually the rider could scarcely see beyond the animal's head or farther on either side than his own arm would have extended. At that time too all the roads in the neighbourhood of the metropolis were infested by foot-pads or highwaymen and it was a night of all others in which any evil disposed person of this class might have pursued his unlawful calling with little fear of detection. Still the traveller dashed forward at the same reckless pace regardless alike of the dirt and wet which flew about his head the profound darkness of the night and the probability of encountering some desperate characters abroad. At every turn and angle even where a deviation from the direct course might have been least expected and could not possibly be seen until he was close upon it he guided the bridle with an unearing hand and kept the middle of the road. Thus he sped onward raising himself in the stirrups leaning his body forward until it almost touched the horse's neck and flourishing his heavy whip above his head with the fervour of a madman. There are times when the elements being an unusual commotion those who are bent on daring enterprises or agitated by great thoughts whether of good or evil feel a mysterious sympathy with the tumult of nature and are roused into corresponding violence. In the midst of thunder lightning and storm many tremendous deeds have been committed men self-possessed before have given a sudden loose to passions they could no longer control the demons of wrath and despair have striven to emulate those who ride the whirlwind and direct the storm and man lashed into madness with the roaring winds and boiling waters has become for the time as wild and merciless as the elements themselves. Whether the traveller was possessed by thoughts which the fury of the night had heated and stimulated into a quicker current or was merely impelled by some strong motive to reach his journey's end on he swept more like a hunted phantom than a man nor checked his pace until arriving at some crossroads one of which led by a longer route to the place whence he had lately started he bore down so suddenly upon a vehicle which was coming towards him to avoid it he well nigh pulled his horse upon his haunches and narrowly escaped being thrown yo ho! cried the voice of a man what's that? who goes there? my friend replied the traveller a friend repeated the voice who calls himself a friend and rides like that abusing heaven's gifts and the shape of horse-flesh and endangering not only his own neck which might be no great matter but the necks of other people you have a lantern there I see said the traveller dismounting lend it me for a moment you have wounded my horse I think with your shaft or wheel wounded him cried the other if I haven't killed him it's no fault of yours what do you mean by galloping along the king's highway like that eh? give me the light the traveller returned the traveller snatching it from his hand and don't ask idle questions a man who is in no mood for talking if you had said you were in no mood for talking before I should perhaps have been in no mood for lighting how so ever as it's the poor horse that's damaged and not you one of you is welcome to the light at all events but it's not the crusty one the traveller returned no answer to this speech but holding the light near to his panting and reeking beast examined him in limb and carcass meanwhile the other man sat very composedly in his vehicle which was a kind of chaise with a depository for a large bag of tools and watched his proceedings with a careful eye the looker on was a round red-faced sturdy yeoman with a double chin and a voice husky with good living good humour and good health he was past the prime of life but far the time is not always a hard parent and though he tarries for none of his children often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well making them old men and women inexorably enough but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigor with such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well spent life the person whom the traveller had so abruptly encountered was of this kind bluff, hail, hearty and in a green old age at peace with himself and evidently disposed to be so with all the world although muffled up in diverse coats and handkerchiefs one of which passed over his crown and tied in a convenient crease of his double chin secured his three cornered hat and bob wig from blowing off his head there was no disguising his plump and comfortable figure neither did certain dirty finger marks upon his face give it any other than an odd and comical expression through which it's natural good humour shone with undiminished lustre he is not hurt said the traveller at length raising his head and the lantern together you have found that out at last have you we joined the old man my eyes have seen more light than yours but I wouldn't change with you what do you mean mean? I could have told you he wasn't hurt five minutes ago give me the light friend ride forward at a gentler pace and good night in handing up the lantern the man necessarily cast its rays full on the speaker's face his eyes met at the instant he suddenly dropped it and crushed it with his foot did you never see a locksmith before that you start as if you had come upon a ghost cried the old man in the chaise or is this he added hastily thrusting his hand into the tool basket and drawing out a hammer a scheme for robbing me I know these roads friend when I travel them I carry nothing but a few shillings and not a crown's worth of them I tell you plainly to save us both trouble that there's nothing to be got from me but a pretty stout arm considering my ears and this tool which my app from long acquaintance with I can use pretty briskly you shall not have it all your own way I promise you if you play at that game with these words he stood upon the defensive I am not what you take me for Gabriel Varden replied the other then what and who are you returned the locksmith you know my name it seems let me know yours I am not going the information from any confidence of yours but from the inscription on your cart which tells it to all the town replied the traveller you have better eyes for that than you had for your horse then said Varden, descending nimbly from his chaise who are you let me see your face while the locksmith alighted the traveller had regained his saddle from which he now confronted the old man who moving as the horse moved in chafing under the titan drain kept close beside him let me see your face I say stand off no masquerading tricks said the locksmith in tales at the club tomorrow how Gabriel Varden was frightened by a surly voice in a dark night stand let me see your face finding that further resistance would only involve him in a personal struggle with an antagonist by no means to be despised the traveller threw back his coat and stooping down looked steadily at the locksmith perhaps two men more powerfully contrasted and posed each other face to face the ruddy features of the locksmith so set off and heightened the excessive painless of the man on horseback that he looked like a bloodless ghost while the moisture which hard riding had brought out upon his skin hung there in dark and heavy drops like dews of agony and death the countenance of the old locksmith lighted up with the smile of one expecting to detect in this unpromising stranger some latent roguery of eye or lip which should reveal a familiar person in that arched disguise and spoil his jest the face of the other sullen and fierce but shrinking too was that of a man who stood at bay while his firmly closed jaws his puckered mouth and more than all a certain stealthy motion of the hand within his breast seemed to announce a desperate purpose very foreign to acting or child's play thus they regarded each other for some time in silence he said when he had scanned his features I don't know you don't desire to return the other muffling himself as before I don't said Gabriel to be playing with you friend you don't carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation it's not my wish said the traveller my humour is to be avoided well said the locksmith blankly I think you'll have your humour I will at any cost rejoin the traveller improve of it lie this start that you were never in such peril of your life as you have been within these few moments when you are within five minutes of breathing your last you will not be nearer death than you have been tonight I said the sturdy locksmith I and a violent death from whose hand for mine replied the traveller with that he put spurs to his horse and rode away at first plashing heavily through the mire at a smart trot but gradually increasing in speed until the last sound of his horse's hoofs died away upon the wind when he was again hurrying on at the same furious gallop which had been his pace when the locksmith first encountered him Gabriel Varden remained standing in the road with the broken lantern in his hand listening in stupefied silence until no sound reached his ear and the fast falling rain when he struck himself one or two smart blows in the breast by way of rousing himself and broke into an exclamation of surprise what in the name of wonder can this fellow be a mad man a high women a cut fruit if he had not scoured off so fast we'd have seen who was in most danger he or I I never nearer death than I have been tonight I hope I may be no nearer to it for a score of years to come if so I'll be content to be no farther from it my stars a pretty brag this to a stout man poo-poo-poo-poo Gabriel resumed his seat and looked wistfully up the road by which the traveller had come murmuring in a half whisper they're my pal two miles to the maypole I came the other road from the Warren after a long day's work at locks and bells on purpose that I should not come by the maypole and break my promise to Martha by looking in there's resolution it will be dangerous to go to London without a light and it's four miles in a good half mile besides to the halfway house and between this and that is the very place where one needs a light most two miles to the maypole I told Martha I wouldn't I said I wouldn't and I didn't there's resolution repeating these two last words very often as if to compensate for the little resolution he was going to show by peeking himself on the great resolution he had shown Gabriel Varden quietly turned back determining to get a light at the maypole and to take nothing but a light when he got to the maypole however and Joe responding to his well known hail came running out to the horse's head leaving the door open behind him and disclosing a delicious perspective of warmth and brightness when the ruddy gleam of the fire streaming through the old red curtains of the common room seemed to bring with it as part of itself a pleasant hum of voices and a fragrant odour of steaming grog and rare tobacco all steeped as it were in the cheerful glow when the shadows flitting across the curtain showed that those inside had risen from their snug seats and were making room in the snuggest corner how well he knew that corner for the honest locksmith and a broad glare suddenly streaming up bestowed the goodness of the crackling log from which a brilliant train of sparks was doubtless at that moment whirling up the chimney in honour of his coming when super added to these enticements there stole upon him from the distant kitchen a gentler sound of frying with a musical clatter of plates and dishes and a savoury smell that made even the boisterous wind a perfume Gabriel felt his firmness oozing rapidly away he tried to look stoically at the tavern but his features were relaxed into a look of fondness he turned his head the other way and the cold black country seemed to frown him off and drive him for a refuge into its hospitable arms the merciful man Joe said the locksmith is merciful to his beast I'll get out for a little while and how natural it was to get out and how unnatural it seemed for a sober man to be plotting wearily along through myery roads encountering the rude buffets of the wind and pelting of the rain when there was a clean floor covered with crisp white sand a well-swept hearth a blazing fire a table decorated with white cloth bright pewter flagons and other tempting preparations for a well-cooked meal when there were these things and company disposed to make the most of them all ready to his hand and in treating him to enjoyment End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 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 3 Such were the locksmith's thoughts when first seated in the snug corner and slowly recovering from a pleasant defective vision pleasant because occasioned by the wind blowing in his eyes which made it a matter of sound policy and duty to himself that he should take refuge from the weather and tempted him for the same reason to aggravate a slight cough and declare he felt but poorly Such were still his thoughts more than a full hour afterwards when supper over he still sat with shining jovial face in the same warm nook to the cricket-like chirrup of little Solomon Daisy and bearing no unimportant or slightly respected part in the social gossip around the maypole fire I wish he may be an honest man, that's all said Solomon winding up a variety of speculations relative to the stranger concerning whom Gabriel had compared notes to the company and so raised a grave discussion I wish he may be an honest man so we all do I suppose don't we? observed the locksmith I don't said Joe no cried Gabriel no he struck me with his whip the coward when he was mounted and eye afoot and I should be better pleased that he turned out what I think him and what may that be Joe no good Mr. Varden you may shake your head father but I say no good and will say no good and would say no good a hundred times over if that would bring him back to have the dropping he deserves whole your tongue sir said John Willet I won't father it's all along of you that he ventured to do what he did seeing me treated like a child and put down like a fool he plucks up a heart and has a fling at a fellow that he thinks and may well think too hasn't a grain of spirit but he's mistaken as I'll show him and as I'll show all of you before long does the boy know what he's a saying of cried the astonished John Willet father returned Joe I know what I say and mean better than you do when you hear me I can bear with you but I cannot bear the contempt that you're treating me in the way you do brings upon me from others every day look at other young men of my age have they no liberty no will no right to speak are they obliged to sit mum chance and to be ordered about till they are the laughing stock of young and old I am a byword all over Chigwell and I say fair am I saying so now than waiting till you are dead and I've got your money I say that before long I shall be driven to break such bounds and that when I do it won't be me that you'll have to blame but your own self and no other John Willet was so amazed by the exasperation and boldness of his hopeful son that he sat as one bewildered staring in a ludicrous manner at the boiler to collect his tardy thoughts and invent an answer the guests scarcely less disturbed were equally at a loss and at length with a variety of muttered half-expressed condolences and pieces of advice rose to depart being at the same time slightly muddled with liquor the honest locksmith alone addressed a few words of coherent and sensible advice to both parties urging John Willet to remember that Joe was nearly arrived at man's estate and should not be ruled with too tight a hand and exhorting Joe himself to bear with his father's caprices and rather endeavour to turn them aside by temperate remonstrance than by ill-timed rebellion this advice was received as such advice usually is on John Willet it made almost as much impression as on the sign outside the door while Joe, who took it in the best part himself more obliged than he could well express but politely intimated his intention nevertheless of taking his own course uninfluenced by anybody he have always been a very good friend to me, Mr Varden he said as they stood without in the porch and the locksmith was equipping himself for his journey home I take it very kind of you to say all this but the time has nearly come when the maypole and I must part company roving stones gather no moss Joe said Gabriel nor milestones much replied Joe I'm little better than one here and see as much of the world then what would you do Joe pursued the locksmith stroking his chin reflectively what could you be where could you go you see I must trust a chance Mr Varden a bad thing to trust to Joe I don't like it I always tell my girl when we talk about a husband for her never to trust a chance but to make sure beforehand that she has a good man and true and then chance will neither make her nor break her what are you fidgeting about there Joe nothing gone in the harness I hope no no said Joe finding however something very engrossing to do in the way of strapping and buckling Miss Dolly quite well hearty thanky she looks pretty enough to be well and good too she's always both sir so she is thank god I hope said Joe after some hesitation that you won't tell the story against me this of my having been beat like the boy they'd make of me at all events till I have met this man again and settle the account it'll be a better story then why who should I tell it to returned Gabriel they know it here and I'm not likely to come across anybody else who would care about it that's that's true enough said the young fellow with a sigh I quite forgot that yes that's true so saying he raised his face which was very red no doubt from the exertion of strapping and buckling as a fore said and giving the reins to the old man who had by this time taken his seat sighed again and bade him good night good night cried Gabriel now think better of what we have just been speaking of and don't be rash there's a good fellow I have an interest in you and wouldn't have you cast yourself away good night returning his cheery farewell with cordial goodwill Joe Willet lingered until the sound of wheels ceased to vibrate in his ears and then shaking his head mournfully re-entered the house Gabriel Varden went his way towards London thinking of a great many things and most of all of flaming terms in which to relate his adventure and so account satisfactorily to Mrs. Varden for visiting the Maple despite certain solemn covenants between himself and that lady thinking begets not only thought but drowsiness occasionally and the more the locksmith thought the more sleepy he became a man may be very sober or at least firmly set upon his legs on that neutral ground which lies between the confines of perfect sobriety and slight tipsiness and yet feel a strong tendency to mingle up present circumstances with others which have no manner of connection with them to confound all consideration of persons things times and places and to jumble his disjointed thoughts together and a kind of mental kaleidoscope producing combinations as unexpected as they are transitory this was Gabriel Varden's state as nodding in his dog-sleep and leaving his horse to pursue a road with which he was well acquainted he got over the ground unconsciously and drew nearer and nearer home he had roused himself once when the horse stopped until the turnpike gate was opened and had cried a lusty good night to the toll-keeper but then he awoke out of a dream about picking a lock in the stomach of the great mogul and even when he did awake mixed up the turnpike man with his mother-in-law who had been dead twenty years it was not surprising therefore that he soon relapsed and jogged heavily along quite insensible to his progress and now he approached the great city which lay outstretched before him like a dark shadow on the ground reddening the sluggish air with a deep dull light the toll of labyrinths of public ways and shops and swarms of busy people approaching nearer and nearer yet this halo began to fade and the causes which produced it slowly to develop themselves long lines of poorly lighted streets might be faintly traced with here and there a lighter spot where lamps were clustered round a square or market or round some great building after a time these grew more distinct and the lamps themselves were visible slight yellow specks that seemed to be rapidly snuffed out one by one as intervening obstacles hid them from the sight then sounds arose the striking of church clocks the distant bark of dogs the hum of traffic in the streets then outlines might be traced tall steeples looming in the air and piles of unequal roof suppressed by chimneys then the noise swelled into a louder sound and forms grew more distinct and numerous still and London visible in the dark by its own fate light and not by that of heaven was at hand the locksmith however all unconscious of its near vicinity still jogged on half sleeping and half waking when a loud cry at no great distance ahead roused him with a start for a moment or two he looked about him like a man who had been transported to some strange country in his sleep but soon recognising familiar objects rubbed his eyes lazily and might have relapsed again but that the cry was repeated not once or twice or thrice but many times and each time if possible with increased vehemence thoroughly aroused Gabriel who was a bold man and not easily daunted made straight to the spot urging on his stout little horse as if for life or death the matter indeed looked sufficiently serious for coming to the place whence the cries had proceeded he described the figure of a man extended in an apparently lifeless state upon the pathway and hovering round him another person with a torch in his hand which he waved in the air with a wild impatience redoubling meanwhile those cries for help which had brought the locksmith to the spot what's here to do said the old man alighting how's this what Barnaby the bearer of the torch shook his long loose hair back from his eyes and thrusting his face eagerly into that of the locksmith fixed upon him a look which told his history at once you know me Barnaby said Varden he nodded not once or twice but a score of times and that with a fantastic exaggeration for an hour but the locksmith held up his finger and fixing his eyes sternly upon him caused him to desist then pointed to the body with an inquiring look there's blood upon him said Barnaby with a shudder it makes me sick howl came it there demanded Varden steel steel he replied fiercely imitating with his hand the thrust of a sword is he robbed said the locksmith Barnaby caught him by the arm and nodded yes then pointed towards the city oh said the old man bending over the body and looking round as he spoke into Barnaby's pale face strangely lighted up by something that was not intellect rubber made off that way did he well well never mind that just now hold your torch this way a little further off so now stand quiet while I try to see what harm is done with these words he applied himself to a closer examination of the prostrate form while Barnaby holding the torch as he had been directed looked down in silence fascinated by interest or curiosity but repelled nevertheless by some strong and secret horror which convulsed him in every nerve as he stood at that moment half shrinking back and half bending forward both his face and figure were full in the strong glare of the link and as distinctly revealed as though it had been broad day he was about three and twenty years old and though rather spare of a fair height and strong make his hair of which he had a great profusion was red and hanging in disorder about his face and shoulders gave to his restless looks and expression quite unearthly enhanced by the paleness of his complexion and the glassy lustre of his large protruding eyes startling as his aspect was the features were good and there was something even plaintive in his one and haggard aspect but the absence of the soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one and in this unfortunate being its noblest powers were wanting his dress was of green clumsily trimmed here and there apparently by his own hands with gaudy lace brightest where the cloth was most worn and soiled and poorest where it was at the best a pair of taudry ruffles dangled at his wrists was nearly bare he had ornamented his hat with a cluster of peacock's feathers but they were limp and broken and now trailed negligently down his back Gert to his side was the steel-hilt of an old sword without blade or scabbard and some party-coloured ends of ribbons and poor-glass toys completed the ornamental portion of his attire the fluttered and confused disposition of all the mockly scraps that formed be spoke in a scarcely less degree than his eager and unsettled manner the disorder of his mind and by a grotesque contrast set off and heightened the more impressive wildness of his face Barnaby said the locksmith after a hasty but careful inspection this man is not dead but he has a wound in his side and is in a fainting fit I know him I know him cried Barnaby clapping his hands know him repeated the locksmith hush! said Barnaby laying his fingers upon his lips he went out today out wooing I wouldn't for a light guinea that he should never go out wooing again for if he did some eyes would grow dim that are now as bright as the sea when I talk of eyes the stars come out whose eyes are they if they are angels' eyes why did they look down here and see good men hurt and only wink and sparkle all the night now heaven help this silly fellow remembered the perplexed locksmith can he know this gentleman his mother's house is not far off I'd better see if she can tell me who he is Barnaby my man help me to put him in the chaise and we'll ride home together I can't touch him cried the idiot falling back and shattering as with the strong spasm he's bloody it's in his nature I know muttered the locksmith it's cruel to ask him but I must have help Barnaby good Barnaby dear Barnaby if you know this gentleman for the sake of his life and everybody's life that loves him help me to raise him and lay him down cover him then wrap him close don't let me see it smell it hear the word don't speak the word don't no no I'll not there you see he's covered now gently well done well done they placed him in the carriage with great ease for Barnaby was strong and active but all the time they were so occupied he shivered from head to foot and evidently experienced an ecstasy of terror this accomplished and the wounded man being covered with Varden's own great coat which he took off for the purpose they proceeded onward at a brisk pace Barnaby gaily counting the stars upon his fingers and Gabriel inwardly congratulating himself upon having an adventure now which would silence Mrs. Varden on the subject of the maypole for that night there was no faith in woman End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 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 4 In the venerable suburb it was a suburb once of Clarkinwell towards that part of its confines which is nearest to the Charter House and in one of those cool shady streets few widely scattered and dispersed yet remain in such old parts of the metropolis each tenement quietly vegetating like an ancient citizen who long ago retired from business and dozing on in its infirmity until in course of time it tumbles down and is replaced by some extravagant young air flaunting in stucco and ornamental work and all the vanities of modern days In this quarter in a street of this description the business of the present chapter lies At the time of which it treats though only six and sixty years ago a very large part of what is London now had no existence Even in the brains of the wildest speculators they had sprung up no long rows of streets connecting Highgate with Whitechapel no assemblages of palaces in the swampy levels nor little cities in the open fields Although this part of town was then as now parceled out in streets and plentifully peopled it wore a different aspect There were gardens to many of the houses and trees by the pavement side with an air of freshness breathing up and down which in these days would be sought in vain Fields were nigh at hand through which the new river took its winding course and where there was merry hay-making in the summer time Nature was not so far removed or hard to get at as in these days and although there were busy trades in Clark and Well and working jewelers by scores it was a purer place with farmhouses nearer to it than many modern Londoners would readily believe and lovers walks at no great distance which turned into squalid courts long before lovers of this age were born or as the phrase goes thought of In one of these streets the cleanest of them all and on the shady side of the way for good housewives know that sunlight damages their cherished furniture and so choose the shade rather than its intrusive glare There stood the house with which we have to deal It was a modest building not very straight not large not tall not bold-faced with great staring windows with a conical roof going up into a peak over its garret window of four small panes of glass like a cocked hat on the head of an elderly gentleman with one eye It was not built of brick or lofty stone but of wooden plaster It was not planned with a dull and wearisome regard to regularity for no one window matched the other or seemed to have the slightest reference to anything besides itself The shop, for it had a shop was, with reference to the first floor where shops usually are and there all resemblance between it and any other shop stopped short and ceased People who went in and out didn't go up a flight of steps to it or walk easily in upon a level with the street but dived down three steep stairs as into a cellar Its floor was paved with stone and brick as that of any other cellar might be and in lieu of window-framed and glazed it had a great black wooden flap or shutter nearly breast-high from the ground which turned back in the daytime admitting as much cold air as light and very often more Behind this shop was a wainscoted parlor looking first into a paved yard and beyond that again into a little terrace garden raised some feet above it Any stranger would have supposed that this wainscoted parlor saving for the door of communication which he had entered was cut off and detached from all the world and indeed most strangers on their first entrance were observed to grow extremely thoughtful as weighing and pondering in their minds whether the upper rooms were only approachable by ladders from without Never suspecting that two of the most unassuming and unlikely doors in existence which the most ingenious mecanition on earth must have necessity have supposed to be the doors of closets opened out of this room each without the smallest preparation or so much as a quarter of an inch of passage upon two dark winding flights of stairs the one upward the other downward which were the sole means of communication between that chamber and the other portions of the house With all these oddities there was not a neater more scrupulously tidy or more punctiliously ordered house in Clarkinwell, in London in all England they were not cleaner windows or whiter floors or brighter stoves or more highly shining articles of furniture in old mahogany there was not more rubbing, scrubbing, burnishing and polishing in the whole street put together nor was this excellence attained without some cost and trouble and great expenditure of voice as the neighbours were frequently reminded when the good lady of the house overlooked and assisted in its being put to rights on cleaning days which were usually from Monday morning till Saturday night both days inclusive Leni against the doorpost of this, his dwelling the locksmith stood early on the morning after he had met with the wounded man gazing disconsolently at a great wooden emblem of a key painted in vivid yellow to resemble gold which dangled from the house front and swung to and fro with a mournful creaking noise as if complaining that it had nothing to unlock sometimes he looked over his shoulder into the shop which was so dark and dingy with numerous tokens of his trade and so blackened by the smoke of a little forge near which his prentice was at work that it would have been difficult for one unused to such espiles to have distinguished anything but various tools of uncouth make and shape great bunches of rusty keys fragments of iron half finished locks and such like things which garnished the walls and hung in clusters from the ceiling after long and patient contemplation of the golden key and many such backward glances Gabriel stepped into the road and stole a look at the upper windows one of them chanced to be thrown open at the moment and a roguish face smet his a face lighted up by the loveliest pair of sparkling eyes that ever locksmith looked upon the face of a pretty laughing girl dimpled and fresh and healthful the very impersonation of good humour and blooming beauty hush she whispered bending forward and pointing archly to the window underneath mother is still asleep still my dear returned the locksmith in the same tone you talk as if she had been asleep all night instead of little more than half an hour but I'm very thankful sleep's a blessing no doubt about it the last few words he muttered to himself how cruel of you to keep us up so late this morning and never tell us where you were or send us word said the girl ah dolly dolly returned the locksmith shaking his head and smiling how cruel of you to run upstairs to bed come down to breakfast madcap and come down lightly or you'll wake your mother she must be tired I am sure I am keeping these latter words to himself and returning his daughter's nod he was passing to the workshop with the smile she had awakened still beaming on his face when he just caught sight of his Prentice's brown paper cap and a little bit of motivation and shrinking from the window back to its former place which the wearer no sooner reached and he began to hammer lustily listening again Simon said Gabriel to himself that's bad what in the name of wonder does he expect the girl to say that I always catch him listening when she speaks and never at any other time with her handed way ah you may hammer but you won't beat that out of me if you work at it till your time's up so saying and shaking his head gravely he re-entered the workshop and confronted the subject of these remarks there's enough of that just now said the locksmith you needn't make any more of that confounded clatter breakfast ready sin said sim looking up with amazing politeness and a peculiar little bow cut short off at the neck I shall attend you immediately I suppose muttered Gabriel that's out of the Prentice's garland or the Prentice's delight or the Prentice's warbler or the Prentice's guide to the gallows or some such improving textbook now always going to beautify himself here's a precious locksmith quite unconscious that his master was looking on from the dark corner by the parlor door sim threw off the paper cap sprang from his seat and in two extraordinary steps something between skating and minuet dancing bounded to a washing place at the other end of the shop and there removed from his face and hands or traces of his previous work practising the same step all the time for the utmost gravity this done he drew from some concealed place a little scrap of looking glass and with its assistance arranged his hair and ascertained the exact state of a little carp-oncle on his nose having now completed his toilet he placed the fragment of mirror on a low bench and looked over his shoulder at so much of his legs as could be reflected in that small compass with the greatest possible complacency and satisfaction sim, as he was called in the locksmith's family or Mr. Simon Tapetit as he called himself and required all men to style him out of doors on holidays and Sundays out was an old-fashioned thin-faced sleek-haired sharp-nosed small-eyed little fellow very little more than five feet high and thoroughly convinced in his own mind that he was above the middle size rather tall, in fact, than otherwise of his figure which was well enough formed though somewhat of the leanest he entertained the highest admiration and with his legs which in knee-breaches were perfect curiosities of littleness he was enraptured to a degree amounting to enthusiasm he also had some majestic shadowy ideas which had never been quite fathomed by his intimate friends and the power of his eye indeed he had been known to go so far as to boast that he could utterly quell and subdue the haughtiest beauty by a simple process which he termed eyeing her over but it must be added neither of this faculty nor of the power he claimed to have through the same gift of vanquishing and heaving down dumb animals even in a rabid state had he ever furnished evidence satisfactory and conclusive it may be inferred from these premises that in the small body of Mr. Tapetit there was locked up an ambitious and aspiring soul a certain liquors confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions will ferment and fret and chafe in their imprisonment so the spiritual essence or soul of Mr. Tapetit would sometimes fume within that precious cask his body until with great foam and froth and splutter it would force a vent and carry all before it it was his custom to remark in reference to any one of these occasions that his soul had got into his head and in this novel kind of intoxication many scrapes and mishaps befell him which he had frequently concealed with no small difficulty from his worthy master Sim. Tapetit among the other fancies upon which his before mentioned soul was forever feasting regaling itself and which fancies like the liver of Prometheus grew as they were fed upon had a mighty notion of his order and had been heard by the servant made openly expressing his regret that the Prentices no longer carried clubs wherewith to mace the citizens that was his strong expression he was likewise reported to have said that in former times a stigma had been cast upon the body by the execution of George Barnwell to which they should not have basely submitted but should have demanded him of the legislature temperately at first then by an appeal to arms if necessary to be dealt with as they in their wisdom might think fit these thoughts always led him to consider what a glorious engine the Prentices might yet become if they had but a master spirit at their head and then he would darkly and to the terror of his hearers hint at certain reckless fellows that he knew of and at a certain lion heart ready to become their captain who once a foot would make the Lord Mayor tremble on his throne in respect to dress and personal decoration Sim Tabetit was no less of an adventurous and enterprising character he had been seen beyond dispute to pull off ruffles of the finest quality at the corner of the street on Sunday nights and to put them carefully in his pocket before returning home it was quite notorious that on all great holiday occasions it was his habit to exchange his plain steel knee-buckles for a pair of glittering paste under cover of a friendly post planted most conveniently in that same spot add to this that he was in years just 20 in his looks much older and in conceit at least 200 that he had no objection to be gestured with touching the reputation of his master's daughter and had even when called upon at a certain obscure tavern to pledge the lady whom he honoured with his love toasted with many winks and leers a fair creature whose Christian name he said began with the D and as much as known of Sim Tabetit who has by this time followed the locksmith into breakfast as is necessary to be known in making his acquaintance it was a substantial meal for over and above the ordinary tea equipage the board creaked beneath the weight of a jolly round of beef a ham of the first magnitude and sundry towers of buttered Yorkshire cake piled slice upon slice in most alluring order there was also a goodly jug of well-browned clay fashioned into the form of an old gentleman not by any means unlike the locksmith a top of whose bald head was a fine white froth answering to his wig indicative beyond dispute of sparkling home-brewed ale but better far than fair home-brewed or Yorkshire cake or ham or beef or anything to eat or drink that earth or air or water can supply they're sat presiding over all the locksmith's rosy daughter before whose dark eyes even beef grew insignificant and malt became as nothing fathers should never kiss their daughters when young men are by it's too much there are bound to human endurance so thought Sim tabited when Gabriel drew those rosy lips to his those lips within Sims reach from day to day and yet so far off he had a respect for his master but he wished the Yorkshire cake might choke him father said the locksmith's daughter when this salute was over he had a seat to table what is this I hear about last night all true my dear true is the gospel doll young Mr Chester robbed and lying wounded in the road when you came up I Mr Edward and beside him Barnaby calling for help with all his might it was well it happened as it did for the roads a lonely one the hour was late and the night being cold and poor Barnaby even less sensible than usual from surprise and fright the young gentleman might have met his death in a very short time I dread to think of it cried his daughter with a shudder oh how did you know him know him returned the locksmith I didn't know him how could I I have never seen him often as I had heard and spoken of him I took him to Mrs Wudges and she no sooner saw him and the truth came out miss Emma father if this news should reach her enlarged upon as it is sure to be she will go distracted why looky there again how a man suffers for being good natured said the locksmith miss Emma was with her uncle at the masquerade at Carlisle house where she had gone as the people at the Warren told me sorely against her will what does your blockhead father when he and Mrs Rudge have laid their heads together but goes there when he ought to be a bed makes interest with his friend the doorkeeper slips him on a mask and domino and mixes with the maskers and like himself to do so cried the girl putting her fair arm round his neck and giving him a most enthusiastic kiss like himself repeated Gabriel affecting to grumble but evidently delighted with the party had taken and with her praise very like himself so your mother said however he mingled with the crowd and prettily worried and bad did he was I warned you with people squeaking don't you know me and I found you out and all that kind of nonsense in his ears he might have wandered on till now but in a little room there was a young lady who had taken off a mask on account of the place being very warm and was sitting there alone and that was she said his daughter hastily and that was she replied the locksmith and I know soon a whisper to her what the matter was a softly doll and with nearly as much art as you could have used yourself and she gave us a kind of scream and faints away what did you do what happened next asked his daughter why the mask came flocking round with a gentle noise and hubbub and I thought myself in luck to get clear off that's all rejoined the locksmith what happened when I reached home you may guess if you didn't hear it ah well it's a poor heart that never rejoices put Toby this way my dear this Toby was the brown jug of which previous mention has been made applying his lips to the worthy old gentleman's benevolent forehead the locksmith who had all this time been ravaging among the eatables kept them there so long at the same time raising the vessel slowly in the air that at length Toby stood on his head upon his nose when he smacked his lips and set him on the table again with fond reluctance although Sim tappeted had taken no share in this conversation no part of it being addressed to him he had not been wanting in such silent manifestations of astonishment as he deemed most compatible with the favourable display of his eyes regarding the pause which now ensued as a particularly advantageous opportunity for doing great execution with them upon the locksmith's daughter who he had no doubt was looking at him in mute admiration he began to screw and twist his face and especially those features into such extraordinary hideous and unparalleled contortions that Gabriel who happened to look towards him was stricken with amazement why what the devil's the matter with the lad cried the locksmith is he choking oh! demanded Sim with some disdain who? why you returned his master what do you mean by making those horrible faces over your breakfast faces are matters of taste sir said Mr. Tappeted rather discomforted not the less so because he saw the locksmith's daughter smiling Sim rejoined Gabriel laughing heartily don't be a fool for I'd rather see you in your senses these young fellows he added turning to his daughter are always committing some folly or another there was a quarrel between Joe Willett and old John last night I can't say Joe was much in fault either he'll be missing one of these mornings and will have gone away upon some wild goose errand seeking his fortune why what's the matter doll you are making faces now the girls are as bad as the boys every bit it's the tea said Dolly turning alternately very red and very white the effect of a slight scald so very hot Mr. Tappeted looked immensely big at a quart and low from the table and breathed hard is that all returned the locksmith put some more milk in it yes I am sorry for Joe because he is a likely young fellow and gains upon one every time one sees him but he'll start off you'll find indeed he told me as much himself indeed cried Dolly in a faint voice indeed is the tea tickling your throat still my dear said the locksmith but before his daughter could make him any answer she was taken with a troublesome cough and it was such a very unpleasant cough that when she left off the tears were starting in her bright eyes the good-natured locksmith was still patting her on the back and applying such gentle restoratives when a message arrived from Mrs. Varden making known to all whom it might concern that she felt too much indisposed to rise after her great agitation and anxiety of the previous night and therefore desired to be immediately accommodated with the little black teapot of strong mixed tea a couple of rounds of buttered toast a middling-sized dish of beef and ham cut thin and the Protestant manual in two volumes post-Octavo like some other ladies who in remote ages flourished upon this globe Mrs. Varden was most devout when most ill-tempered whenever she and her husband were at unusual variance then the Protestant manual was in high feather knowing from experience what these requests portended the triumvirate broke up Dolly to see the orders executed with Alderspatch Gabriel to some out-of-door work in his little shays and Sim to his daily duty in the workshop to which retreat he carried the big look although the loaf remained behind indeed the big look increased immensely and when he had tied his apron on became quite gigantic it was not until he had several times walked up and down with folded arms the most strides he could take and had kicked a great many small articles out of his way at his lip began to curl at length a gloomy derision came upon his features and he smiled uttering meanwhile with supreme contempt the monosyllable Joe eye-eyed her over while he talked about the fellow he said and that was of course the reason of her being confused Joe he walked up and down again much quicker than before and if possible with longer strides sometimes stopping to take a glance at his legs and sometimes to jerk out and cast from him another Joe in the course of a quarter of an hour or so he again assumed the paper cap and tried to work no, it could not be done I will do nothing today said Mr. Tabeted dashing it down again but grind I'll grind up all the tools grinding will suit my present humour well Joe the grindstone was soon in motion the sparks were flying off in showers this was the occupation for his heated spirit wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa something will come of this said Mr. Tabeted pausing as if in triumph and wiping his heated face upon his sleeve something will come of this I hope it might be human gore wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa End of Chapter 4