Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty

by Charles Dickens

  Chapter 55

  John Willet, left alone in his dismantled bar, continued to sit staringabout him; awake as to his eyes, certainly, but with all his powers ofreason and reflection in a sound and dreamless sleep. He looked roundupon the room which had been for years, and was within an hour ago, thepride of his heart; and not a muscle of his face was moved. The night,without, looked black and cold through the dreary gaps in the casement;the precious liquids, now nearly leaked away, dripped with a hollowsound upon the floor; the Maypole peered ruefully in through the brokenwindow, like the bowsprit of a wrecked ship; the ground might havebeen the bottom of the sea, it was so strewn with precious fragments.Currents of air rushed in, as the old doors jarred and creaked upontheir hinges; the candles flickered and guttered down, and made longwinding-sheets; the cheery deep-red curtains flapped and fluttered idlyin the wind; even the stout Dutch kegs, overthrown and lying empty indark corners, seemed the mere husks of good fellows whose jollity haddeparted, and who could kindle with a friendly glow no more. John sawthis desolation, and yet saw it not. He was perfectly contented to sitthere, staring at it, and felt no more indignation or discomfort in hisbonds than if they had been robes of honour. So far as he was personallyconcerned, old Time lay snoring, and the world stood still.

  Save for the dripping from the barrels, the rustling of such lightfragments of destruction as the wind affected, and the dull creaking ofthe open doors, all was profoundly quiet: indeed, these sounds, likethe ticking of the death-watch in the night, only made the silence theyinvaded deeper and more apparent. But quiet or noisy, it was all oneto John. If a train of heavy artillery could have come up and commencedball practice outside the window, it would have been all the same tohim. He was a long way beyond surprise. A ghost couldn't have overtakenhim.

  By and by he heard a footstep--a hurried, and yet cautiousfootstep--coming on towards the house. It stopped, advanced again,then seemed to go quite round it. Having done that, it came beneath thewindow, and a head looked in.

  It was strongly relieved against the darkness outside by the glare ofthe guttering candles. A pale, worn, withered face; the eyes--but thatwas owing to its gaunt condition--unnaturally large and bright; thehair, a grizzled black. It gave a searching glance all round the room,and a deep voice said:

  'Are you alone in this house?'

  John made no sign, though the question was repeated twice, and he heardit distinctly. After a moment's pause, the man got in at the window.John was not at all surprised at this, either. There had been so muchgetting in and out of window in the course of the last hour or so, thathe had quite forgotten the door, and seemed to have lived among suchexercises from infancy.

  The man wore a large, dark, faded cloak, and a slouched hat; he walkedup close to John, and looked at him. John returned the compliment withinterest.

  'How long have you been sitting thus?' said the man.

  John considered, but nothing came of it.

  'Which way have the party gone?'

  Some wandering speculations relative to the fashion of the stranger'sboots, got into Mr Willet's mind by some accident or other, but they gotout again in a hurry, and left him in his former state.

  'You would do well to speak,' said the man; 'you may keep a whole skin,though you have nothing else left that can be hurt. Which way have theparty gone?'

  'That!' said John, finding his voice all at once, and nodding withperfect good faith--he couldn't point; he was so tightly bound--inexactly the opposite direction to the right one.

  'You lie!' said the man angrily, and with a threatening gesture. 'I camethat way. You would betray me.'

  It was so evident that John's imperturbability was not assumed, but wasthe result of the late proceedings under his roof, that the man stayedhis hand in the very act of striking him, and turned away.

  John looked after him without so much as a twitch in a single nerveof his face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the littlecasks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; thenthrowing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in hishands and drained it into his throat. Some scraps of bread and meat werescattered about, and on these he fell next; eating them with voracity,and pausing every now and then to listen for some fancied noise outside.When he had refreshed himself in this manner with violent haste, andraised another barrel to his lips, he pulled his hat upon his brow asthough he were about to leave the house, and turned to John.

  'Where are your servants?'

  Mr Willet indistinctly remembered to have heard the rioters calling tothem to throw the key of the room in which they were, out of window, fortheir keeping. He therefore replied, 'Locked up.'

  'Well for them if they remain quiet, and well for you if you do thelike,' said the man. 'Now show me the way the party went.'

  This time Mr Willet indicated it correctly. The man was hurrying to thedoor, when suddenly there came towards them on the wind, the loudand rapid tolling of an alarm-bell, and then a bright and vivid glarestreamed up, which illumined, not only the whole chamber, but all thecountry.

  It was not the sudden change from darkness to this dreadful light, itwas not the sound of distant shrieks and shouts of triumph, it was notthis dread invasion of the serenity and peace of night, that drove theman back as though a thunderbolt had struck him. It was the Bell. If theghastliest shape the human mind has ever pictured in its wildest dreamshad risen up before him, he could not have staggered backward from itstouch, as he did from the first sound of that loud iron voice. With eyesthat started from his head, his limbs convulsed, his face most horribleto see, he raised one arm high up into the air, and holding somethingvisionary back and down, with his other hand, drove at it as thoughhe held a knife and stabbed it to the heart. He clutched his hair,and stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round; then gave afrightful cry, and with it rushed away: still, still, the Bell tolled onand seemed to follow him--louder and louder, hotter and hotter yet.The glare grew brighter, the roar of voices deeper; the crash of heavybodies falling, shook the air; bright streams of sparks rose up into thesky; but louder than them all--rising faster far, to Heaven--a milliontimes more fierce and furious--pouring forth dreadful secrets after itslong silence--speaking the language of the dead--the Bell--the Bell!

  What hunt of spectres could surpass that dread pursuit and flight! Hadthere been a legion of them on his track, he could have better borne it.They would have had a beginning and an end, but here all space was full.The one pursuing voice was everywhere: it sounded in the earth, the air;shook the long grass, and howled among the trembling trees. Theechoes caught it up, the owls hooted as it flew upon the breeze, thenightingale was silent and hid herself among the thickest boughs:it seemed to goad and urge the angry fire, and lash it into madness;everything was steeped in one prevailing red; the glow was everywhere;nature was drenched in blood: still the remorseless crying of that awfulvoice--the Bell, the Bell!

  It ceased; but not in his ears. The knell was at his heart. No work ofman had ever voice like that which sounded there, and warned him that itcried unceasingly to Heaven. Who could hear that bell, and not know whatit said! There was murder in its every note--cruel, relentless, savagemurder--the murder of a confiding man, by one who held his every trust.Its ringing summoned phantoms from their graves. What face was that,in which a friendly smile changed to a look of half incredulous horror,which stiffened for a moment into one of pain, then changed again intoan imploring glance at Heaven, and so fell idly down with upturnedeyes, like the dead stags' he had often peeped at when a little child:shrinking and shuddering--there was a dreadful thing to think ofnow!--and clinging to an apron as he looked! He sank upon the ground,and grovelling down as if he would dig himself a place to hide in,covered his face and ears: but no, no, no,--a hundred walls and roofs ofbrass would not shut out that bell, for in it spoke the wrathful voiceof God, and from that voice, the whole wide universe could not afford arefuge!

  While he rushed up and down, not knowing where to t
urn, and while helay crouching there, the work went briskly on indeed. When they left theMaypole, the rioters formed into a solid body, and advanced at a quickpace towards the Warren. Rumour of their approach having gone before,they found the garden-doors fast closed, the windows made secure, andthe house profoundly dark: not a light being visible in any portion ofthe building. After some fruitless ringing at the bells, and beatingat the iron gates, they drew off a few paces to reconnoitre, and conferupon the course it would be best to take.

  Very little conference was needed, when all were bent upon one desperatepurpose, infuriated with liquor, and flushed with successful riot.The word being given to surround the house, some climbed the gates, ordropped into the shallow trench and scaled the garden wall, while otherspulled down the solid iron fence, and while they made a breach toenter by, made deadly weapons of the bars. The house being completelyencircled, a small number of men were despatched to break open atool-shed in the garden; and during their absence on this errand, theremainder contented themselves with knocking violently at the doors, andcalling to those within, to come down and open them on peril of theirlives.

  No answer being returned to this repeated summons, and the detachmentwho had been sent away, coming back with an accession of pickaxes,spades, and hoes, they,--together with those who had such arms already,or carried (as many did) axes, poles, and crowbars,--struggled into theforemost rank, ready to beset the doors and windows. They had not atthis time more than a dozen lighted torches among them; but when thesepreparations were completed, flaming links were distributed and passedfrom hand to hand with such rapidity, that, in a minute's time, atleast two-thirds of the whole roaring mass bore, each man in his hand,a blazing brand. Whirling these about their heads they raised a loudshout, and fell to work upon the doors and windows.

  Amidst the clattering of heavy blows, the rattling of broken glass, thecries and execrations of the mob, and all the din and turmoil of thescene, Hugh and his friends kept together at the turret-door where MrHaredale had last admitted him and old John Willet; and spent theirunited force on that. It was a strong old oaken door, guarded by goodbolts and a heavy bar, but it soon went crashing in upon the narrowstairs behind, and made, as it were, a platform to facilitate theirtearing up into the rooms above. Almost at the same moment, a dozenother points were forced, and at every one the crowd poured in likewater.

  A few armed servant-men were posted in the hall, and when the riotersforced an entrance there, they fired some half-a-dozen shots. But thesetaking no effect, and the concourse coming on like an army of devils,they only thought of consulting their own safety, and retreated, echoingtheir assailants' cries, and hoping in the confusion to be takenfor rioters themselves; in which stratagem they succeeded, with theexception of one old man who was never heard of again, and was saidto have had his brains beaten out with an iron bar (one of his fellowsreported that he had seen the old man fall), and to have been afterwardsburnt in the flames.

  The besiegers being now in complete possession of the house, spreadthemselves over it from garret to cellar, and plied their demon laboursfiercely. While some small parties kindled bonfires underneath thewindows, others broke up the furniture and cast the fragments downto feed the flames below; where the apertures in the wall (windows nolonger) were large enough, they threw out tables, chests of drawers,beds, mirrors, pictures, and flung them whole into the fire; whileevery fresh addition to the blazing masses was received with shouts,and howls, and yells, which added new and dismal terrors to theconflagration. Those who had axes and had spent their fury on themovables, chopped and tore down the doors and window frames, broke upthe flooring, hewed away the rafters, and buried men who lingered in theupper rooms, in heaps of ruins. Some searched the drawers, the chests,the boxes, writing-desks, and closets, for jewels, plate, and money;while others, less mindful of gain and more mad for destruction, casttheir whole contents into the courtyard without examination, and calledto those below, to heap them on the blaze. Men who had been into thecellars, and had staved the casks, rushed to and fro stark mad, settingfire to all they saw--often to the dresses of their own friends--andkindling the building in so many parts that some had no time forescape, and were seen, with drooping hands and blackened faces, hangingsenseless on the window-sills to which they had crawled, until they weresucked and drawn into the burning gulf. The more the fire crackled andraged, the wilder and more cruel the men grew; as though moving in thatelement they became fiends, and changed their earthly nature for thequalities that give delight in hell.

  The burning pile, revealing rooms and passages red hot, through gapsmade in the crumbling walls; the tributary fires that licked the outerbricks and stones, with their long forked tongues, and ran up to meetthe glowing mass within; the shining of the flames upon the villains wholooked on and fed them; the roaring of the angry blaze, so bright andhigh that it seemed in its rapacity to have swallowed up the very smoke;the living flakes the wind bore rapidly away and hurried on with, likea storm of fiery snow; the noiseless breaking of great beams of wood,which fell like feathers on the heap of ashes, and crumbled in the veryact to sparks and powder; the lurid tinge that overspread the sky,and the darkness, very deep by contrast, which prevailed around; theexposure to the coarse, common gaze, of every little nook which usagesof home had made a sacred place, and the destruction by rude hands ofevery little household favourite which old associations made a dearand precious thing: all this taking place--not among pitying looks andfriendly murmurs of compassion, but brutal shouts and exultations,which seemed to make the very rats who stood by the old house too long,creatures with some claim upon the pity and regard of those its roof hadsheltered:--combined to form a scene never to be forgotten by those whosaw it and were not actors in the work, so long as life endured.

  And who were they? The alarm-bell rang--and it was pulled by no faint orhesitating hands--for a long time; but not a soul was seen. Some of theinsurgents said that when it ceased, they heard the shrieks of women,and saw some garments fluttering in the air, as a party of men bore awayno unresisting burdens. No one could say that this was true or false, insuch an uproar; but where was Hugh? Who among them had seen him, sincethe forcing of the doors? The cry spread through the body. Where wasHugh!

  'Here!' he hoarsely cried, appearing from the darkness; out of breath,and blackened with the smoke. 'We have done all we can; the fire isburning itself out; and even the corners where it hasn't spread, arenothing but heaps of ruins. Disperse, my lads, while the coast'sclear; get back by different ways; and meet as usual!' With that, hedisappeared again,--contrary to his wont, for he was always first toadvance, and last to go away,--leaving them to follow homewards as theywould.

  It was not an easy task to draw off such a throng. If Bedlam gates hadbeen flung wide open, there would not have issued forth such maniacs asthe frenzy of that night had made. There were men there, who danced andtrampled on the beds of flowers as though they trod down human enemies,and wrenched them from the stalks, like savages who twisted human necks.There were men who cast their lighted torches in the air, and sufferedthem to fall upon their heads and faces, blistering the skin with deepunseemly burns. There were men who rushed up to the fire, and paddledin it with their hands as if in water; and others who were restrained byforce from plunging in, to gratify their deadly longing. On the skull ofone drunken lad--not twenty, by his looks--who lay upon the ground witha bottle to his mouth, the lead from the roof came streaming down in ashower of liquid fire, white hot; melting his head like wax. When thescattered parties were collected, men--living yet, but singed as withhot irons--were plucked out of the cellars, and carried off upon theshoulders of others, who strove to wake them as they went along, withribald jokes, and left them, dead, in the passages of hospitals. But ofall the howling throng not one learnt mercy from, or sickened at, thesesights; nor was the fierce, besotted, senseless rage of one man glutted.

  Slowly, and in small clusters, with hoarse hurrahs and repetitionsof their usual cry, the assembly dropped awa
y. The last few red-eyedstragglers reeled after those who had gone before; the distant noise ofmen calling to each other, and whistling for others whom they missed,grew fainter and fainter; at length even these sounds died away, andsilence reigned alone.

  Silence indeed! The glare of the flames had sunk into a fitful, flashinglight; and the gentle stars, invisible till now, looked down upon theblackening heap. A dull smoke hung upon the ruin, as though to hide itfrom those eyes of Heaven; and the wind forbore to move it. Bare walls,roof open to the sky--chambers, where the beloved dead had, many andmany a fair day, risen to new life and energy; where so many dear oneshad been sad and merry; which were connected with so many thoughts andhopes, regrets and changes--all gone. Nothing left but a dull and drearyblank--a smouldering heap of dust and ashes--the silence and solitude ofutter desolation.