Barnaby Rudge — A Tale Of The Riots Of Eighty

by Charles Dickens

  “And how have you been employing yourself in the meanwhile?” quoth Sir John, lazily crossing his legs. “Where have you been? what harm have you been doing?”

  “No harm at all, master,” growled Hugh, with humility. “I have only done as you ordered.”

  “As I WHAT?” returned Sir John.

  “Well then,” said Hugh uneasily, “as you advised, or said I ought, or said I might, or said that you would do, if you was me. Don't be so hard upon me, master.”

  Something like an expression of triumph in the perfect control he had established over this rough instrument appeared in the knight's face for an instant; but it vanished directly, as he said—paring his nails while speaking:

  “When you say I ordered you, my good fellow, you imply that I directed you to do something for me—something I wanted done— something for my own ends and purposes—you see? Now I am sure I needn't enlarge upon the extreme absurdity of such an idea, however unintentional; so please—” and here he turned his eyes upon him— “to be more guarded. Will you?”

  “I meant to give you no offence,” said Hugh. “I don't know what to say. You catch me up so very short.”

  “You will be caught up much shorter, my good friend—infinitely shorter—one of these days, depend upon it,” replied his patron calmly. “By-the-bye, instead of wondering why you have been so long, my wonder should be why you came at all. Why did you?”

  “You know, master,” said Hugh, “that I couldn't read the bill I found, and that supposing it to be something particular from the way it was wrapped up, I brought it here.”

  “And could you ask no one else to read it, Bruin?” said Sir John.

  “No one that I could trust with secrets, master. Since Barnaby Rudge was lost sight of for good and all—and that's five years ago—I haven't talked with any one but you.”

  “You have done me honour, I am sure.”

  “I have come to and fro, master, all through that time, when there was anything to tell, because I knew that you'd be angry with me if I stayed away,” said Hugh, blurting the words out, after an embarrassed silence; “and because I wished to please you if I could, and not to have you go against me. There. That's the true reason why I came to-night. You know that, master, I am sure.”

  “You are a specious fellow,” returned Sir John, fixing his eyes upon him, “and carry two faces under your hood, as well as the best. Didn't you give me in this room, this evening, any other reason; no dislike of anybody who has slighted you lately, on all occasions, abused you, treated you with rudeness; acted towards you, more as if you were a mongrel dog than a man like himself?”

  “To be sure I did!” cried Hugh, his passion rising, as the other meant it should; “and I say it all over now, again. I'd do anything to have some revenge on him—anything. And when you told me that he and all the Catholics would suffer from those who joined together under that handbill, I said I'd make one of “em, if their master was the devil himself. I AM one of “em. See whether I am as good as my word and turn out to be among the foremost, or no. I mayn't have much head, master, but I've head enough to remember those that use me ill. You shall see, and so shall he, and so shall hundreds more, how my spirit backs me when the time comes. My bark is nothing to my bite. Some that I know had better have a wild lion among “em than me, when I am fairly loose—they had!”

  The knight looked at him with a smile of far deeper meaning than ordinary; and pointing to the old cupboard, followed him with his eyes while he filled and drank a glass of liquor; and smiled when his back was turned, with deeper meaning yet.

  “You are in a blustering mood, my friend,” he said, when Hugh confronted him again.

  “Not I, master!” cried Hugh. “I don't say half I mean. I can't. I haven't got the gift. There are talkers enough among us; I'll be one of the doers.”

  “Oh! you have joined those fellows then?” said Sir John, with an air of most profound indifference.

  “Yes. I went up to the house you told me of; and got put down upon the muster. There was another man there, named Dennis—”

  “Dennis, eh!” cried Sir John, laughing. “Ay, ay! a pleasant fellow, I believe?”

  “A roaring dog, master—one after my own heart—hot upon the matter too—red hot.”

  “So I have heard,” replied Sir John, carelessly. “You don't happen to know his trade, do you?”

  “He wouldn't say,” cried Hugh. “He keeps it secret.”

  “Ha ha!” laughed Sir John. “A strange fancy—a weakness with some persons—you'll know it one day, I dare swear.”

  “We're intimate already,” said Hugh.

  “Quite natural! And have been drinking together, eh?” pursued Sir John. “Did you say what place you went to in company, when you left Lord George's?”

  Hugh had not said or thought of saying, but he told him; and this inquiry being followed by a long train of questions, he related all that had passed both in and out of doors, the kind of people he had seen, their numbers, state of feeling, mode of conversation, apparent expectations and intentions. His questioning was so artfully contrived, that he seemed even in his own eyes to volunteer all this information rather than to have it wrested from him; and he was brought to this state of feeling so naturally, that when Mr Chester yawned at length and declared himself quite wearied out, he made a rough kind of excuse for having talked so much.

  “There—get you gone,” said Sir John, holding the door open in his hand. “You have made a pretty evening's work. I told you not to do this. You may get into trouble. You'll have an opportunity of revenging yourself on your proud friend Haredale, though, and for that, you'd hazard anything, I suppose?”

  “I would,” retorted Hugh, stopping in his passage out and looking back; “but what do I risk! What do I stand a chance of losing, master? Friends, home? A fig for “em all; I have none; they are nothing to me. Give me a good scuffle; let me pay off old scores in a bold riot where there are men to stand by me; and then use me as you like—it don't matter much to me what the end is!”

  “What have you done with that paper?” said Sir John.

  “I have it here, master.”

  “Drop it again as you go along; it's as well not to keep such things about you.”

  Hugh nodded, and touching his cap with an air of as much respect as he could summon up, departed.

  Sir John, fastening the doors behind him, went back to his dressing-room, and sat down once again before the fire, at which he gazed for a long time, in earnest meditation.

  “This happens fortunately,” he said, breaking into a smile, “and promises well. Let me see. My relative and I, who are the most Protestant fellows in the world, give our worst wishes to the Roman Catholic cause; and to Saville, who introduces their bill, I have a personal objection besides; but as each of us has himself for the first article in his creed, we cannot commit ourselves by joining with a very extravagant madman, such as this Gordon most undoubtedly is. Now really, to foment his disturbances in secret, through the medium of such a very apt instrument as my savage friend here, may further our real ends; and to express at all becoming seasons, in moderate and polite terms, a disapprobation of his proceedings, though we agree with him in principle, will certainly be to gain a character for honesty and uprightness of purpose, which cannot fail to do us infinite service, and to raise us into some importance. Good! So much for public grounds. As to private considerations, I confess that if these vagabonds WOULD make some riotous demonstration (which does not appear impossible), and WOULD inflict some little chastisement on Haredale as a not inactive man among his sect, it would be extremely agreeable to my feelings, and would amuse me beyond measure. Good again! Perhaps better!”

  When he came to this point, he took a pinch of snuff; then beginning slowly to undress, he resumed his meditations, by saying with a smile:

  “I fear, I DO fear exceedingly, that my friend is following fast in the footsteps of his mother. His intimacy with Mr Dennis is very ominous. But I h
ave no doubt he must have come to that end any way. If I lend him a helping hand, the only difference is, that he may, upon the whole, possibly drink a few gallons, or puncheons, or hogsheads, less in this life than he otherwise would. It's no business of mine. It's a matter of very small importance!”

  So he took another pinch of snuff, and went to bed.

  Chapter 41

  From the workshop of the Golden Key, there issued forth a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humoured, that it suggested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. No man who hammered on at a dull monotonous duty, could have brought such cheerful notes from steel and iron; none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted fellow, who made the best of everything, and felt kindly towards everybody, could have done it for an instant. He might have been a coppersmith, and still been musical. If he had sat in a jolting waggon, full of rods of iron, it seemed as if he would have brought some harmony out of it.

  Tink, tink, tink—clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause of the streets” harsher noises, as though it said, “I don't care; nothing puts me out; I am resolved to he happy. “ Women scolded, children squalled, heavy carts went rumbling by, horrible cries proceeded from the lungs of hawkers; still it struck in again, no higher, no lower, no louder, no softer; not thrusting itself on people's notice a bit the more for having been outdone by louder sounds—tink, tink, tink, tink, tink.

  It was a perfect embodiment of the still small voice, free from all cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind; footpassengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near it; neighbours who had got up splenetic that morning, felt goodhumour stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing; still the same magical tink, tink, tink, came gaily from the workshop of the Golden Key.

  Who but the locksmith could have made such music! A gleam of sun shining through the unsashed window, and chequering the dark workshop with a broad patch of light, fell full upon him, as though attracted by his sunny heart. There he stood working at his anvil, his face all radiant with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off his shining forehead—the easiest, freest, happiest man in all the world. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort. Toby looked on from a tall bench hard by; one beaming smile, from his broad nut-brown face down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their infirmities. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene. It seemed impossible that any one of the innumerable keys could fit a churlish strong-box or a prison-door. Cellars of beer and wine, rooms where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter— these were their proper sphere of action. Places of distrust and cruelty, and restraint, they would have left quadruple-locked for ever.

  Tink, tink, tink. The locksmith paused at last, and wiped his brow. The silence roused the cat, who, jumping softly down, crept to the door, and watched with tiger eyes a bird-cage in an opposite window. Gabriel lifted Toby to his mouth, and took a hearty draught.

  Then, as he stood upright, with his head flung back, and his portly chest thrown out, you would have seen that Gabriel's lower man was clothed in military gear. Glancing at the wall beyond, there might have been espied, hanging on their several pegs, a cap and feather, broadsword, sash, and coat of scarlet; which any man learned in such matters would have known from their make and pattern to be the uniform of a serjeant in the Royal East London Volunteers.

  As the locksmith put his mug down, empty, on the bench whence it had smiled on him before, he glanced at these articles with a laughing eye, and looking at them with his head a little on one side, as though he would get them all into a focus, said, leaning on his hammer:

  “Time was, now, I remember, when I was like to run mad with the desire to wear a coat of that colour. If any one (except my father) had called me a fool for my pains, how I should have fired and fumed! But what a fool I must have been, sure-ly!”

  “Ah!” sighed Mrs Varden, who had entered unobserved. “A fool indeed. A man at your time of life, Varden, should know better now.”

  “Why, what a ridiculous woman you are, Martha,” said the locksmith, turning round with a smile.

  “Certainly,” replied Mrs V. with great demureness. “Of course I am. I know that, Varden. Thank you.”

  “I mean—” began the locksmith.

  “Yes,” said his wife, “I know what you mean. You speak quite plain enough to be understood, Varden. It's very kind of you to adapt yourself to my capacity, I am sure.”

  “Tut, tut, Martha,” rejoined the locksmith; “don't take offence at nothing. I mean, how strange it is of you to run down volunteering, when it's done to defend you and all the other women, and our own fireside and everybody else's, in case of need.”

  “It's unchristian,” cried Mrs Varden, shaking her head.

  “Unchristian!” said the locksmith. “Why, what the devil—”

  Mrs Varden looked at the ceiling, as in expectation that the consequence of this profanity would be the immediate descent of the four-post bedstead on the second floor, together with the best sitting-room on the first; but no visible judgment occurring, she heaved a deep sigh, and begged her husband, in a tone of resignation, to go on, and by all means to blaspheme as much as possible, because he knew she liked it.

  The locksmith did for a moment seem disposed to gratify her, but he gave a great gulp, and mildly rejoined:

  “I was going to say, what on earth do you call it unchristian for? Which would be most unchristian, Martha—to sit quietly down and let our houses be sacked by a foreign army, or to turn out like men and drive “em off? Shouldn't I be a nice sort of a Christian, if I crept into a corner of my own chimney and looked on while a parcel of whiskered savages bore off Dolly—or you?”

  When he said “or you,” Mrs Varden, despite herself, relaxed into a smile. There was something complimentary in the idea. “In such a state of things as that, indeed—” she simpered.

  “As that!” repeated the locksmith. “Well, that would be the state of things directly. Even Miggs would go. Some black tambourineplayer, with a great turban on, would be bearing HER off, and, unless the tambourine-player was proof against kicking and scratching, it's my belief he'd have the worst of it. Ha ha ha! I'd forgive the tambourine-player. I wouldn't have him interfered with on any account, poor fellow. “ And here the locksmith laughed again so heartily, that tears came into his eyes—much to Mrs Varden's indignation, who thought the capture of so sound a Protestant and estimable a private character as Miggs by a pagan negro, a circumstance too shocking and awful for contemplation.

  The picture Gabriel had drawn, indeed, threatened serious consequences, and would indubitably have led to them, but luckily at that moment a light footstep crossed the threshold, and Dolly, running in, threw her arms round her old father's neck and hugged him tight.

  “Here she is at last!” cried Gabriel. “And how well you look, Doll, and how late you are, my darling!”

  How well she looked? Well? Why, if he had exhausted every laudatory adjective in the dictionary, it wouldn't have been praise enough. When and where was there ever such a plump, roguish, comely, bright-eyed, enticing, bewitching, captivating, maddening little puss in all this world, as Dolly! What was the Dolly of five years ago, to the Dolly of that day! How many coachmakers, saddlers, cabinet-makers, and professors of other useful arts, had deserted their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and, most of all, their cousins, for the love of her! How many unknown gentlemen—supposed to be of mighty fortunes, if not titles—had waited round the corner after dark, and tempted Miggs the incorruptible, with golden guineas, to deliver offers of marriage folded up in love-letters! How many disconsolate fathers and substantial tradesmen had waited on the locksmith for the same p
urpose, with dismal tales of how their sons had lost their appetites, and taken to shut themselves up in dark bedrooms, and wandering in desolate suburbs with pale faces, and all because of Dolly Varden's loveliness and cruelty! How many young men, in all previous times of unprecedented steadiness, had turned suddenly wild and wicked for the same reason, and, in an ecstasy of unrequited love, taken to wrench off door-knockers, and invert the boxes of rheumatic watchmen! How had she recruited the king's service, both by sea and land, through rendering desperate his loving subjects between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five! How many young ladies had publicly professed, with tears in their eyes, that for their tastes she was much too short, too tall, too bold, too cold, too stout, too thin, too fair, too dark—too everything but handsome! How many old ladies, taking counsel together, had thanked Heaven their daughters were not like her, and had hoped she might come to no harm, and had thought she would come to no good, and had wondered what people saw in her, and had arrived at the conclusion that she was “going off” in her looks, or had never come on in them, and that she was a thorough imposition and a popular mistake!

  And yet here was this same Dolly Varden, so whimsical and hard to please that she was Dolly Varden still, all smiles and dimples and pleasant looks, and caring no more for the fifty or sixty young fellows who at that very moment were breaking their hearts to marry her, than if so many oysters had been crossed in love and opened afterwards.

  Dolly hugged her father as has been already stated, and having hugged her mother also, accompanied both into the little parlour where the cloth was already laid for dinner, and where Miss Miggs— a trifle more rigid and bony than of yore—received her with a sort of hysterical gasp, intended for a smile. Into the hands of that young virgin, she delivered her bonnet and walking dress (all of a dreadful, artful, and designing kind), and then said with a laugh, which rivalled the locksmith's music, “How glad I always am to be at home again!”