Cometh the Hour, Cometh the Man: Strictly Dickens

Good evening 

This second episode includes only Chapter LXVII of Barnaby Rudge.  Is the tide turning?  Is a glimmer of light challenging the dark?  Let’s see…

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Hello and welcome to tonight's Strictly Dickens episode. I'm sitting in bed and I've got I've just had a lovely bath and a pot of El Grey tea. Not decaf, I know I should probably get decaf, but it doesn't seem to stop me sleeping. So I wish you all a lovely evening and let's commence with chapter what are we on sixty seven. When darkness broke away and morning began to dawn, the town wore a strange aspect indeed. Sleep had scarcely been thought of all night. The general alarm was so apparent in the faces of the inhabitants, and its expression was so aggravated by want of rest, few persons with any property to lose having dared to go to bed since Monday, that a stranger coming into the streets would have supposed some mortal pest or plague to have been raging. In place of the usual cheerfulness and animation of mourning, everything was dead and silent. The shops remained unopened, offices and warehouses were shut, the coach and chair stands were deserted. No carts or wagons rumbled through the slowly waking streets, and the early cries were all hushed. A universal gloom prevailed. Great numbers of people were out even at daybreak, but they flitted to and fro, as though they shrunk from the sound of their own footsteps. The public ways were haunted rather than frequented, and round the smoking ruins people stood apart from one another, and in silence, not venturing to condemn the rioters, or to be supposed to do so, even in whispers. At the Lord President's in Piccadilly, at Lambeth Palace, at the Lord Chancellor's in Great Ormond Street, in the Royal Exchange, the Bank, the Guild Hall, the Inns of Court, the Court of Law, the Courts of Law, and every chamber fronting the streets near Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament, parties of soldiers were posted before daylight. A body of horse guards paraded palace yard, an encampment was formed in the park, where fifteen hundred men and five battalions of militia were under arms. The tower was fortified, the drawbridges were raised, the cannon loaded and pointed, and two regiments of artillery busied in strengthening the fortress and preparing it for defence. A numerous detachment of soldiers were stationed to keep guard at the new river head which the people had threatened to attack, and where it was said they meant to cut off the main pipes, so that there might be no water for the extinction of the flames. In the poultry and on Cornhill and several other leading points, iron chains were drawn across the road, parties of soldiers were distributed in some of the old city churches while it was yet dark, and in several private houses, among them Lord Rockingham's in Graveness Square, which were blocked as though to sustain a siege, and had guns pointing from the windows. When the sun rose it shone into handsome apartments filled with armed men, the furniture hastily heaped away in corners, and made of little or no account in the terror of the time, on arms glittering in city chambers, among desks and stools and dusty books, into little smoky churchyards, in odd lanes and byways with soldiers lying down, among the tombs or lounging under the shade of one old tree, and their pile of muskets sparkling in the light, on solitary sentries pacing up and down in courtyards, silent now but yesterday resounding with the din and hum of business, everywhere on guard rooms, garrisons, and threatening preparations. As the day crept on still more unusual sights were witnessed in the streets, the gates of the King's Bench and Fleet Prons being opened at the usual hour, were found to have notices affixed on them, announcing that the rioters would come that night to burn them down. The wardens, too well knowing the likelihood there was of this promise being fulfilled, were fain to set their prisoners at liberty and give them leave to move their goods, so all day such of them as had any furniture, were occupied in conveying it to some place, some to that, and not a few to the broker's shops, where they gladly sold it for any wretched price those gentry chose to give. There were some broken men among these debtors, who had been in jail so long, and were so miserable and destitute of friends, so dead to the world, and utterly forgotten and uncared for, that they implored their jailers not to set them free, and to send them if need be to some other place of custody, but they, refusing to comply, lest they should incur the anger of the mob, turned them into the streets, where they wandered up and down, hardly remembering the ways untrodden by their feet so long and crying. Such an abject things these rotten hearted jails had made them as they slunk off in their rags, and dragged their slipshod feet along the pavement. Even of the three hundred prisoners who had escaped from Newgate there were some, a few, but there were some, who sought their jailers out and delivered themselves up, preferring imprisonment and punishment to the horrors of such another night as the last. Many of the convicts drawn back to their own old place of captivity by some indescribable attraction, or by a desire to exult over its downfall and glut their revenge by seeing it in ashes, actually went back in broad noon and loitered about the cells. Fifty were retaken at one time, on this next day within the prison walls, but their fate did not deter others, for they went in spite of everything, and there they were taken at two s and threes, twice or thrice a day all through the week. Of the fifty just mentioned, some were occupied in endeavouring to rekindle the fire, but in general they seemed to have no object in view, but to prowl and lounge about the old place, being often found asleep in the ruins, or sitting talking there, or even eating and drinking, as in a choice retreat. Beside the notices on the gates of the fleet and the king's bench, many similar announcements were left before one o'clock at noon at the houses of private individuals, and further the mob proclaimed their intention of seizing on the bank the mint, the arsenal at Woolwich, and the royal palaces. The notices were seldom delivered by more than one man, who, if it were at a shop, went in and laid it with a bloody threat, perhaps, upon the counter, or if it were a private house, knocked at the door and thrust it in the servant's hand. Notwithstanding the presence of the military in every quarter of the town and the great force in the park, these messengers did their errands with impunity all through the day. So did two boys who went down Hoburn alone, armed with bars taken from the railings of Lord Mansfield House, and demanding money from the riot for the rioters, so did a tall man on horseback, who made a collection for the same purpose in Fleet Street, and refused to take anything but gold. A rumour had now got into circulation too, which diffused a greater dread all through London, even than these publicly announced intentions of the rioters, though all men knew that if they were successfully effected there must ensue a natural bankruptcy and general ruin. It was said that they meant to throw the gates of Bedlam open and let all the madmen loose. This suggested such dreadful images to the people's minds, and was intended an act so fraught with new and unimaginable horrors in the contemplation that it beset them more than any loss or cruelty of which they could foresee the worst, and drove many same men nearly mad themselves. So the day passed on, the prisoners moving their goods, people running to and fro in the streets carrying away their property, groups standing in silence round the ruins, all business suspended, and the soldiers disposed, as has already been mentioned, remaining quite inactive. So the day passed on and dreaded night drew near again. At last, at seven o'clock in the evening, the privy council issued a solemn proclamation that it was now necessary to employ the military, and that the officers had most direct and effectual orders by an immediate exertion of their utmost force to repress the disturbances, and warning all good subjects of the king to keep themselves, their servants and apprentices within doors that night. Then there were delivered out to every soldier on duty thirty six rounds of powder and bowl, the drums beat, and the whole force was under arms at sunset. The city authorities stimulated by these vigorous measures, held a common council, passed a vote thanking the military associations who had tendered their aid to the civil authorities, accepted it and placed them under the direction of the two sheriffs. At the Queen's Palace a double guard, the yeomen on duty, the groom porters, and all other attendants, were stationed in the passages and on the staircases at seven o'clock, with strict instructions to be watchful on their posts all night, and all the doors were locked. The gentlemen of the temple and the other inns mounted guard within their gates, and strengthened them with the great stones of the pavement which they took up for this purpose. In Lincoln's Inn they gave up the hall and commons to the Northumberland militia, under the command of Lord Algernon Percy, was it organon? In some few of the city wards the Burgesses turned out, and without making a very fierce show looked brave enough. Some hundreds of stout gentlemen threw themselves armed to the teeth into the halls of the different companies, double locked and bolted all the gates and dared the rioters, among themselves, to come out at their peril. These arrangements being all made simultaneously, or nearly so, were completed by the time it got dark, and then the streets were comparatively clear, and were guarded at all the corners and chief avenues by the troops while the parties of officers rode up and down in all directions, ordering chance stragglers home and admonishing the residents to keep within their houses, and if any firing ensued not to approach the windows. More chains were drawn across such of the thoroughfares as were of a nature to favour the approach of a great crowd, and at each of these points a considerable force was stationed. All these precautions having been taken, and it was now quite dark, those in command awaited the result in some anxiety, and not without a hope that such vigilant demonstrations might of themselves dishearten the populace and prevent any new outrages. But in this reckoning they were cruelly mistaken, for in half an hour or less, as though the setting in of night had been their preconcerted signal, the rioters, having previously in small parties, prevented the lighting of the street lamps, rose like a great sea, and that in so many places at once, and with such inconceivable fury that those who had had the direction of the troops knew not, at first, where to turn or what to do. One after another new fires blazed up in every quarter of the town, as though it were the intention of the insurgents to wrap the city in a circle of flames which, contracting, by degrees should burn the whole to ashes. The crowd swarmed and roared in every street, and none but the rioters and soldiers being out of doors, it seemed to the latter as if all London were arrayed against them, and they stood alone against the town. In two hours six and thirty fires were raging, six and thirty great conflagrations. Among them the Borough Clink in Thuley Street, the King's Bench, the Fleet, and the New Bridewell. In almost every street there was a battle, and every quarter the muskets and the troops were heard above the shouts and tumult of the mob. The firing began in the poultry, where the chain was drawn across the road, and where nearly a score of people were killed on the first discharge, their bodies having been hastily carried into St. Mildred's Church by the soldiers, the latter fired again, and following fast upon the crowd who began to give way when they saw the execution that was done, formed across Cheapside and charged them at the point of the bayonet. The streets were now a dreadful spectacle. The shouts of the rabble, the shrieks of the women, the cries of the wounded and the constant firing formed a deafening and awful accompaniment to the sights which every corner presented. Wherever the road was obstructed by the chains, there were there the fighting and the loss of life were greatest. But there were hot what there was hot work and bloodshed in almost every leading thoroughfare. At Hoburn Bridge and on Hoburn Hill the confusion was greater than in any other part, for the crowd that poured out of the city in two great streams, one by Ludgate Hill and one by Newgate Street, united at that spot and formed a mass so dense that at every volley the people seemed to fall in heaps. At this place a large detachment of soldiery were posted, who fired, now up Fleet Market, now up Hoburn, now up Snow Hill, constantly raking the streets in every direction. At this place too, several large fires were burning, so that all the terrors of that terrible night seemed to be concentrated in one spot. Full twenty times the rioters, headed by one man who wielded an axe in his right hand, and bestrode a brewer's horse of great size and strength, comparisoned with fetters taken out of Newgate, which clanked and jingled as he went, made an attempt to force a passage at this point and fire the Vintner's house. Full twenty times they were repulsed with loss of life, and still came back again, and though the fellow at their head was marked and singled out by all, and was a conspicuous object as the only rioter on horseback, not a man could hit him. So surely as the smoke cleared away, so surely that there was he, calling hoarsely to his companions, brandishing his axe above his head, and dashing on as though he bore a charmed life, and was proof against ball and powder. This man was Hugh, and in every part of the riot he was seen. He headed two attacks upon the bank, helped to break open the toll houses on Blackfriars Bridge, and cast the money into the street, fired two of the prisons with his own hand, was here and was there and everywhere, always foremost, always active, striking at the soldiers, cheering on the crowd, making his horse's iron music heard through all the yell and uproar, but never hurt or stopped. Turn him at one place and he made a new struggle in another, force him to retreat at this point, and he advanced on that directly. Driven from Hoburn for the twentieth time, he rode at the head of a great crowd straight upon St. Paul's, attacked a guard of soldiers who kept watch over a body of prisoners within the iron railings, forced them to retreat, rescued the men that they had in custody, and with this accession to his party, came back again mad with liquor and excitement, and hallooing them on like a demon. It would have been no easy task for the most careful rider to sit a horse in the midst of such a throng and tumult, and though this madman rolled upon his back, he had no saddle, like a boat upon the sea, he never for an instant lost his seat or failed to guide him where he would, through the very thickest of the press, over dead bodies and burning fragments, now on the pavement, now on the road, now riding up a flight of steps, to make himself the more conspicuous to his party, and now forcing a passage through a mass of human beings so closely squeezed together that it seemed as if the edge of a knife could scarcely part them. On he went, as though he could surmount all obstacles by the mere exercise of his will, and perhaps his not being shot was in some degrees attributable to this very circumstance, for his extreme audacity and the conviction that he must be one of those to whom the proclamation referred, inspired the soldiers with the desire to take him alive and diverted many an aim which otherwise might have been more near the mark. The Vintner and Mr Hairedale, unable to sit quietly, listening to the noise without seeing what went on, had climbed to the roof of the house, and hiding behind a stack of chimneys, were looking cautiously down into the street, almost hoping that after so many repulses, the rioters would be foiled when a great shout proclaimed that a party were coming round the other way, and the dismal jingling of those accursed fetters warned them next moment that they too were led by Hugh. The soldiers had advanced into Fleet Market and were dispersing the people there so that they came on with hardly any check, and were soon before the house. Oh's all's over now, said the Vintner. Fifty thousand pounds will be scattered in a minute. We must save ourselves. We can do no more, and shall have reason to be thankful if we do as much. Their first impulse was to clamber along the roofs of the houses, and knocking at some garret window for admission, pass down that way into the street and so to escape, but another fierce cry from below and a general upturning of the faces of the crowd apprised them that they were discovered, and even that Mr Haredale was recognised, for Hugh, seeing him plainly in the bright glare of the fire, which in that part made it as light as day, called to him by his name, and swore to have his life. Leave me here, said Mr Hedale, and in heaven's name, my good friend, save yourself. Come on, he muttered as he turned towards Hugh, and faced him without any further effort of concealment. This roof is high, and if we close we will die together. Madness, said the honest Vintner, pulling him back. Sheer madness Hear reason, sir. My good sir, hear reason. I could never make myself heard by knocking at a window now, and even if I could no one will be bold enough to connive at my escape. Through the cellars there's a kind of passage into the back street by which we roll casks in and out. We shall have time to get down there before they can force an entry. Do not delay an instant, but come with me for both our sakes, for mine, my dear good sir. As he spoke and drew Mr Haredale back, they had both a glimpse of the street. It was but a glimpse, but it showed them the crowd, gathering and clustering round the house, some of the armed men pressing to the front to break down the doors and windows. Some bringing brands from the nearest fire, some with lifted faces following their course upon the roof, and pointing them out to their companions, all raging and roaring like the flames they lighted up. They saw some men thirsting for the treasures of strong liquor, which they knew were stored within. They saw others who had been wounded sinking down into the opposite doorways and dying, solitary wretches in the midst of all the vast assemblage, here a frightened woman trying to escape, and there a lost child, and there a drunken ruffian, unconscious of the death wound on his head, raving and fighting to the last. All these things and even such trivial trivial incidents as a man with his hat off, or turning round or stooping down, or shaking hands with another, they marked distinctly, yet in a glance so brief that in the act of stepping back, they lost the whole, and saw but the pale faces of each other and the red sky above them. Mr Haredale yielded to the entreaties of his companion, more because he was resolved to defend him than for any thought he had of his own life, or any care he entertained for his own safety, and quickly re entering the house they descended the stairs together. Loud blows were thundering on the shutters, crowbars were already thrust beneath the door, the glass fell from the sashes, a deep light shone through every crevice, and they heard the voices of the foremost in the crowd, so close to every chink and keyhole that they seemed to be hoarsely whispering their threats into their very ears. They had but a moment reached the bottom of the cellar steps and shut the door behind them when the mob broke in. The vaults were profoundly dark, and having no torch or candle, for they had been afraid to carry one lest it should betray their place of refuge, they were obliged to grope with the hat with their hands, but they were not long without light, for they had not gone far when they heard the crowd, forcing the door, and looking back among along the low arched passages, could see them in the distance hurrying to and fro, with flashing links, broaching the casks, staving the great vats, turning off upon the right hand and the left into the different cellars, and lying down to drink at the channels of strong spirits which were already flowing on the ground. They hurried on not the less quickly for this, and had reached the only vault which lay between them and the passage out, when suddenly from the direction in which they were going, a strong light gleamed upon their faces, and before they could slip aside or turn back or hide themselves, two men, one bearing a torch, came upon them and cried in an astonished whisper here they are. At the same time they pulled off what they wore upon their heads. Mr Haredale saw before him Edward Chester, and then saw, when the Vintner gasped his name, Joe Willet. Aye, the same Joe, though with an arm the less, who used to make the courtly journey on the grey mare to pay the bill to the purple faced Vintner, and on that very same purple faced Vintner, formerly of Thames Street, now looked him in the face and challenged him by his name. Give me your hand, said Joe softly, taking it whether the astonished Vintner would or no. Don't fear to shake it, it's a friendly one and a hearty one, though it has no fellow. Why how well you look and how bluff you are, and you, God bless you, sir, take heart, take heart, we'll find them. Be of good cheer. We have not been idle. There was something so honest and frank in Joe's speech that Mr Haredale put his hand in his involuntarily, though their meeting was suspicious enough, but his glance at Edward Chester and that gentleman's keeping aloof were not lost upon Joe, who said bluntly, glancing at Edward while he spoke Times are changed, Mr Haredale, and times have come back we ought to know, friends from enemies, and make no confusion of names. Let me tell you that, but for this gentleman, you would most likely have been dead by this time, or badly wounded at the best. Why do you say that? asked Mr Hedale. I say, said Joe, first that it was a bold thing to be in the crowd, at all disguised as one of them, though I won't say much about that on second thoughts, for that's my case too. Secondly, that it was a brave and glorious action, that's what I call it, to strike that fellow off his horse before their eyes. What fellow? Whose eyes? What fellow, sir? cried Joe. A fellow who has no good will to you, and who has the daring and devilry in him of twenty fellows. I know him of old. Once in the house he would have found you here or anywhere. The rest owe you no particular grudge, and unless they see you will only think of drinking themselves dead. But we lose time. Are you ready? Quite, said Edward. Put on the torch, Joe, and go on, and be silent. There's a good fellow. Silent or not silent, murmured Joe, as he dropped the flaring link upon the ground, crushed it with his foot, and gave his hand to Mr Haredale. It was a brave and glorious action. No man can alter that. Both Mr Hairedale and the worthy Vintner were too amazed and too much hurried to ask any further questions, so followed their conductors in silence. It seemed from a short whispering which presently ensued between them and the Vintner relative to the best way of escape, that they had entered by the back door with the connivance of Joe Gruby, who watched outside with the key in his pocket, and whom they had taken into their confidence. A part of the crowd coming up that way just as they entered, John had double locked the door again and made off for the soldiers so that means of retreat was cut from under them. However, as the front door had been forced and this minor crowd, being anxious to get at the liquor, had no fancy for losing time in breaking down another, but had gone round and got in from Hoban with the rest. The narrow lane in the rear was quite free of people, so when they had crawled through the passage, indicated by the vintner, which was a mere shelving trap for the admission of casks, and had managed with some difficulty to unchain and raise the door at the upper end, they emerged into the street without being observed or interrupted, Joe still holding Mr Haidale tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner. They hurried through the streets at a rapid pace, occasionally standing aside to let some fugitives go by, or to keep out of the way of the soldiers who followed them, and whose questions, when they halted to put any, were speedily stopped by one whispered word from Joe. Good night.