A Happy Scamper ‘Round Sherborne Museum; Barnaby Rudge; and a Saxon Wanderer

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hello, hello. It's a very good sunny morning here in Sherbourne. And I wonder how you are. It's Thursday, Thursday before Easter. And my daughter was born on Monday Thursday. And it's one of those things, Ma Day Thursdays as a child. You think, what are they trying to say? Morday? What does it mean? Um and we normally go to some of the services, but I'm not sure we're going to make many this year because everything's very busy. And as promised, I'm about to take you to the museum and show you around some of the items that we've got there. I think little town museums that are tucked away are really quite special, even if sometimes they just have, I don't know, a few coins or Roman artifacts, or it's just nice to see things, I think, in real life. And I think as you get older as well, perhaps these things just feel a bit more special. And I'm walking down cheap street, so I always think to myself, I'm walking down the side of a hill. Uh underneath us, it's just a hill doing its own thing. Um, and maybe one day it'll just return to what it naturally was. And uh it's a beautiful, lovely day. I'll leave it at that for the moment, and I'll see you in the museum. So I'm now in the first floor of the, not the first floor, the ground floor of the abbey, and it's where all the fossils are in the Roman Roman remnants. And as always with these places, there were two lovely ladies on reception. They're just volunteers, they chat together, they enjoy their time, and it's the kind of thing once my children have left home that I'll be volunteering to do. So we started with fossils, and let me tell you what we can see in front of me. Right, we have uh ammonite from the inferior oolite found in Cherboy. Lots of lovely uh fossils of molluscs, really lovely. I'm gonna take some photographs. There's one called a Parkinsonia, cut and polished to show the internal structure. It's extraordinary, it's like a you know snail shell, but it's flattened, and it's just amazing to think of that uh existing naturally. And now I'm gonna take you to the Roman desk, and there are fragments of indented beaker, fragment of a flanged bowl coated with red slip, fragment of colour-coated dish, box flu tile from a hypercaused system, and that was found at a place called Lengthy, which is in Sherbourne, but it's probably three-quarters of a mile from the centre. So a hypercause system found so close to here. Um and then in the same location, there was a Roman roofing tile with a dog footprint on it. So that's one fragment of stone mortar.

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That looks so similar to what I've been finding in my garden, but you know, it's mortar, mortar. Then we have mosaic tiles again found at lengthy. Some coins found here. Shows two short soldiers either side of the military standard.

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Animal bones, mainly sheep, pottery handles, and we've got plaster, Roman plaster remnant with thumbprint, flint nodules, and microliths, pottery shirts with one shallow rib.

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Then we have Thanian rare, which is AD 80 to 89. Found so close to here. That's wonderful. Goodness, it's got wonderful engravings of on the outside of figures. That'd be wonderful to find that in a code. There's a bronze belt buckle, which is perfect.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

It's just the I mean, but belt buckles have not changed for 2,000 years. I'll take a photo so you can see, you know, just a little strap. There's the buckle, there's the hook going across, and the holes. And then we've got a game of knuckle bones, and then a bronzed keyring with a ring and some uh a key attached to it that would go flat against your finger. So all you do is bend your uh knuckle, and then you can open a door. It's a shame in a way they don't make that now.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

And they also have a plan, a sort of sculpture of what what is this? Let me just pause it. Of course, it's the old castle, which of course I've taken you to.

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You can see the entrance to it uh by the river, by the river Yeo, and then a great big gate, castle gate. Um, and that's the north gate and entrance through the Barbican, the Barbican's all the way around it, and then on the inside there's the great tower, the courtyard, and all the various gatehouses. There's now something called touching the past. Please feel free to open this little cabinet of curiosities and hand all the objects. What do you think they are? What stories have they got to tell? That's lovely. Obviously, that's for children. So if I open it, I'm sure they don't mind me doing it. It's cute that they do this. So it's got, I mean, it's nice they trust you because they wouldn't really be able to see if people slipped one of these. So there's Victoria, can you hear me rum rummaging in it? It's got Victorian old pennies, a little whistle. There we are. Probably belong to a policeman.

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Um, a badge with the initial G on it. So these all look like Victorian things. A throughpence. A little pipe, beautiful pipe bowl. Some looks like some old plumbing pipes.

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Uh, a weight. The weights are lovely, aren't they? Because they feel so nice in one's hands. And some keys.

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And it looks like a a needle hook. Not silver, but turns silver, not heavy enough.

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Right, I'll shut that up, and then I'm gonna go to the next floor, see what there is. Actually, I've missed the beginnings. Neolithic DIY cake. Well, of course, the beginnings of the fossil, but there's Neolithic here stuff here. So there's Neolithic pierced base of deer and antler, fragments of Bronze Age food vessels, fragments of weaving comb for making cloth, probably bronze or iron age. Let's see what it says. Tune's Lane Excavation, 2002. The site shows some of the most important evidence for pottery production in the late Bronze Age during the 12th to the 11th centuries BCE. They found burnt stone, broken vessels, and sherbs with post holes interpreted as roundhouses.

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There is also evidence for fuel and water sources and tools used in the pottery making process. The site was occupied from the early Bronze Age to the 14th century. Oh human remains of an infant one to three years old. Bronze Age, a Bronze Age infant. Teeth. Old teeth.

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Hardwork to fine polish, these are indicative of status. Some were found in the outer porch post hole of a hut, which may have been a special deposit.

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They're likely to have been imported from the Kimmeridge beds 55 kilometres away. So show evidence of a long distance contact. Very cute.

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And then there's a Neolithic polished hand axe found at Bradford Abbas. From two small hand axes to blades and scrapers, arrowheads.

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All from Trent. Well, we know Trent, don't we?

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That's the place I always go to and talk about King Charles. There's also deliciously a fragment of a stone pillar from the parish church of all hallows, once attached to the west end of the abbey. No traces of the original decoration. Right, I'm going to definitely take pictures of the these things for you. So there's an old Victorian-looking notice here from the inhabitants of the town of Sherbourne, Massachusetts, America, by its committee. And in Massachusetts, they shut they spell Sherbourne without the E on the end. So S-H-E-R-B-O-R-N. Let me read to you what it says. To the town of Sherbourne, England, from her American namesake. Greeting our forefathers, men of indomitable spirit and God-fearing lineage, made their habitation in the wilderness, and with the home feeling strong within them, gave their new abode the ancient name of Cherborn. We, their descendants, have received with filial pride tidings of the forthcoming celebration of the 1200th anniversary of the founding of the mother town, your glorious record of traditions and memories of a thousand years redeem our common heritage. We greet you on this memorable occasion with a message of esteem and goodwill, trusting that the ties of a common blood and a common tongue may, through the advancing ages, more closely bind town to town and nation to nation. May the spirit that existed in the eighth century in old England and that in the 17th century found echo in the wilds of New England be an inspiration to all our lineage, and may the coming years bring peace to all, peace, prosperity, and happiness by the grace of God, who for twelve hundred years has cherished the people of St. Eldham's on town. Done pursuant to a vote passed at the annual town meeting held. Oh, here we go, in March of March the 6th, in the year of our Lord, 1905. So that was just after Queen Victoria died. She died in 1901. So Edward VII would have been on the throne. George Chaffin, printer Sherbourne. That's lovely, isn't it? By the inhabitants of the town of Sherbourne, Massachusetts. And there are some beautiful clocks here, and it says long case clocks, Sherbourne had a strong and continuous tradition of clockmaking, although the fashion for long case clocks came late to Dorset. They were suited to the lifestyle of the county and were also the cheapest. The clock on the left was made around 1700 by Simon Aish, whose business was in Akerman Street. That's where, near where I live. He has a memorial stone in the abbey. The other was made in the early 19th century by John Bishop, watch and clockmaker, jeweller, and silversmith. They're beautiful. I might take a picture of both of them. And now there's a display about Dorset buttons. These were handmade from yarn, originally wrapped around a disc from a sheep horn, originated in Shaftesbury in the 1620s. We'll have to go to Shaftesbury. Buttoning became a major cottage industry in Dorset, providing work for thousands of women and children, but declined in the 1800s with the invention of Ashton's button-making machine, causing, it says here, misery and mass unemployment. Types of button include the high top, Dorset Knob, Dorset Might, and Singleton. They're very gorgeous, really attractive.

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Beautiful. And there's lots of information about glove making.

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And there's a sort of advert for Seeger brothers wanting women to come to work for them. And it says here, gloving is an ideal occupation for a woman, providing a source of income available throughout her life.

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And it says Sherbourne and also at Martuck at Somerset.

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And I think Yeovil football team are called the Glovers, which would make sense. And now we come to something about Thomas Hardy. Sherbourne is named in Thomas Hardy's works as Sherton Abbas, with its main thoroughfare immortalised as Sheep Street. His novel, The Woodlanders, brackets 1887, is an intense evocation of the locality. And you remember I read about all this. The formerly ext I think I did in November and December. The formerly extensive woodland interspersed with orchards and the landscape of the White Heart Vale. The life cycle of the impassive woods provides a pastoral and melancholic backdrop for the converging destinies of the characters. Hardy depicts their livelihoods in great details, such as the copsework and cider making, using language to convey a dreamlike quality in contrast with the harshness of rural existence. Quote, the outskirts of outskirts of the town were just now abounding with apple gathering, and the blue stagnant air of autumn, which hung over everything, was heavy with a sweet cidery smell. The abbey and other medieval buildings on this clear, bright morning having the linear distinctness of architectural drawings. Sherbourne Castle features in Anna, Lady Baxby, a short story published in 1891 and set against the backdrop of the parliamentary siege during the Civil War. The story explores the conflicting claims of familial and sexual love. Maybe we should read that. I think that would be interesting, and then I could walk the walk and take you round where the the places where it features. Hardy took a great risk as an author, since he based the plot on his reading of an entry in Hutchins' history and antiquities of the County of Dorset, which relates to the prominent Digby family. Hardy was fascinated by rural customs, and he lent his enthusiastic support to the idea of Sherbour's folk pageant, as expressed in the note he wrote to Herbert James Seymour of Sherbourne Urban District Council in 1904. There's a letter here. What else? The note had been written on morning paper just after the recent death of Hardy's mother. Yes, you can see it's black-lined paper. It's lovely. Really nice. What else have we got? There's lots of textiles. There are dresses people used to wear. It's funny when you see the 19th century and well, yeah, they're basically 19th century dresses here. And when you look close up, they they they just look like something patched together, and but they would have been considered so wonderful and beautiful, and it just shows how we take for granted the standards of textiles that we have now. But the opposite is the case with men's dressing. I've just taken a photograph of a beautiful 18th-century waistcoat that's absolutely stunning, stitched with cornflowers, daisies, and roses around a continuous, sinuous stem. Really beautiful. And I only wish men would have the courage to wear things like that now because they look so stunning. Right, I'm going to end with the fairs, uh, information about the fairs and markets. Thursday has been a market day in Sherbourne since at least 1280, an event considered to be one of the most venerable institutions, not to say the most lively and picturesque, the town possesses. A Tuesday market was also granted in 1300, but this fell out of favour. There is now also a weekly Saturday market. From four original fairs, three time-honoured traditions evolved. Granted in 1240 by Henry III, St. Thomas's Fair was a six-day spectacular, focused on the feast day of 7th of July, known as the Green Fair. This was held near the former chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr at the top of Green Hill. Yes, it used to be the top of Cheap Street where everything was centered, and now it's at the bottom. I guess it was at the top when at a time when there were still shambles and still the bottom of Cheap Street would have been the noisiest and messiest and smelliest. So that was abolished in 1888. And then there's St. Swithin's Fair, which was granted to the Vicar of Sherbourne by Bishop Roger in the 11 in the 12th century and occurred over five days around the 15th of July, and was also named the Goosebury Fair, and held at a time when Gooseberries ripened and stalls were loaded with them for winemaking. That fair continued to be held in the town till the outbreak of the Second World War. Then the third one, which is the only one which remains, is called Pack Monday Fair, and I've been to many of these. It says it still joyously exists. I mean they say that, but it's a it's a dreadful fair and was associated with Abbot Ramsam, 1475 to 1504. It was originally a Michelmas fair for the hiring of farmhands at the start of the agricultural calendar, and like its counterparts, the sale of livestock. It was and still remains full of life and colour, heralded by rough music. So what they mean by that is the night before people at about three in the morning, a really noisy parade goes through Sherbourne waking everybody up by banging tins and so on. It says there's more information about Pac Monday Fair quote. So this 16th century commentary refers to the hawkers and surely hints at the derivation of the name Pac Monday. Ah, yes, carrieth it to sell in horse packs and foot packs, as exemplified in the figures of the peddler dolls. The word pack from the Middle English literally means a wrapped bundle of goods for travelling, a number of similar items of produce being sold together. Also, a group of people gathered in one place, as in a pack of people, or a person, here we go, of dubious character. Peddlers were considered to be the original distributors of the produce of the country, the first free traders. They were later required to pay an increasingly yearly licence fee, and this, coupled with the opening up of travel through the railways, forced the practice of peddling to die away. The 1841 census listed 97 peddlating in Dorset. There's not that many for the whole county. Travelling the county, they sold small household goods and knick-knacks to isolated communities, important conduits of articles and ideas, both traditional and revolutionary, and maybe illegal. Women peddlers, known as notion nannies, I never heard of that, brought news and gossip along with the goods, as likely to tell your fortune or offer herbal remedies. It was a precarious way for a woman with no references to avoid the workhouse. Her difference from mainstream society was marked by her customary, here we go, red cloak, a hint at magic and secrets, little red ridinghood. These peddlers were often stigmatized and met in a new parish with a mixture of curiosity and fear. The heady excitement created by the anarchic arrival of peddlers and travellers was a feature of Pac Monday. One resident remembered that the fair in 1930 was the highlight of the year, half of Sherborne folk taking part, village folk riding in on their bikes, and several hundred gypsies descending with their horses for sale. It was a good time for settling away. Old grudges and after the fair, dozens of windows would be smashed and not many dustbin lids. Ah, yes, I'm sure it's the dustbin lids that they used to bang as well. A high spot was the fighting outside the pubs afterwards. And this is the quote I can remember seeing two women going at it outside the new inn. Me and all my mates thought that was bloody marvellous. The police cells would be filled for several days afterwards. Since the mid-1800s, headlines in local papers have crowned worst fare ever, either in terms of the bad weather, the quality of the livestock, or the taudiness of the peddler's goods. But the people still loved it. Another resident recently described the day as one of reunion and gathering with friends and relatives coming from across the country and meeting up in one of the local pubs. It's a very strange day. If you haven't experienced it, you need to come to the Sherbourne Pack Fair. It's there's a kind of mad excitement about it. Really, really odd. Lots of weird stuff goes on, that's what I can say. So I'm now back at home. What's this on? 23 minutes. I'm so sorry it's another late one. It's been usual gretel chaos. But I'm so content because husband's been utterly kind tonight. And despite the fact that you know he works hard and we've got a lot of pressure on his time. He's given not given me, but he's taken over the kind of everything this evening, so I can sit up here and do some recording, which I really, really enjoy doing. There's something about reading from beautiful books that's very therapeutic. And so let's continue. Alright, it's 842 Thursday, Maund Day Thursday. I'm sitting upstairs. Everybody else is busy downstairs. But it's quiet here. I've just got Mr. Cat. I've got the candle and I've got my water and I've got you. So sit now quietly if you can, shut your eyes if you can. And let everything fall away just for the next uh half an hour or even just five minutes. Imagine that you have nothing to solve, no problem to fix. You've got nothing to do. Anyone needs anything from you and I'm here just to make you and your life happier and more peaceful. The wanderer who liveth alone longeth for mercy, maker's mercy, though he must traverse tracts of sea, sick at heart, trouble with oars ice cold waters, the ways of exile weird is set fast. Thus spoke such a grasshopper, old griefs in his mind, cold slaughters, the death of dear kinsmen Alone am I driven each day before daybreak, to give my cares utterance. Bind it in fetters, this since long ago the grounds shroud and wrapped my gold friend, wretched I went thence, winter wearied over the waves bound, dreary I sought hall of a gold giver, where far or near I might find him who in Meadhall might take heed of me, furnish comfort to a friendless man, win me with cheer, he knows who makes trial, how harsh and bitter is care for companion to him who hath few friends to shield him, track ever taketh him, never the talked gold, not earthly glory, but cold heart's cave, he minds him of all men of treasure giving, how in his youth his gold friend gave him to feast, fallen all this joy He knows this who is forced to forego his lord's, his friend's counsels to lack them for long, oft sorrow and sleep, banded together, come to bind the lone outcast. He thinks in his heart then that he has his lord claspeth and kisseth, and on knee layeth hand on head, as he had at other whiles in days now gone, when he enjoyed the gift stool, awakeneth after this friendless man, seeeth before him fallow waves, sea birds bathing, broading out feathers, snow and hail swirl, hoarfrost falling, then all the heavier his heart's wounds, sore for his loved lord, sorrow freshens. Remembered kinsman press through his mind, he singeth out gladly, scanneth eagerly men from the same hearth, they swim away, sailors ghosts bring not many known songs there, care grows fresh in him, who shall send forth too often over locked waves his weary spirit. Therefore I may not think throughout this world why cloud cometh not on my mind when I think over all the life of earls, how at a stroke they have given up whole mood proud thanes, so this middle earth each of all days ageth and falleth, wherefore no man grows wise without he have his share of winters. A wise man holds out, he is not too hot headed, nor too hasty in speech, nor too weak a warrior, not wanting in forethought, nor too greedy of goods, nor too glad, nor too mild, nor ever too eager to boast ere he knows all. A man should forbear boast making until his fierced mind fully knows which way his spleen shall expend itself. A wise man may grasp how ghastly it shall be when all this world's wealth standeth waste, even as now in many places over the earth, walls stand, wind beaten, hung with hoar frost, ruined habitations, the wine halls crumble, their wielders lie bereft of bliss, the band all fallen, proud by the war, war took off some, carried them on their course hence, one a bird bore over the high sea, one the hoar wolf dealt to death, one his drear cheeked earl stretched in an earthen trench. The maker of men hath so marred this dwelling that human laughter is not heard about it and idle stand these old giant works A man who on these walls wisely look to sander deeply on this dark life, would think back to the blood spilt here, weigh it in his wit, his word would be this Where is that horse now? Where are those men? Where is the horde sharer? Where is the house of the feast? Where is the hall's uproar? Alas bright cup, alas burnished fighter, alas proud prince, how that time has passed, dark under night's helm, as though it had never been There stands in the stead of staunch thanes a towering wall wrought with worm shapes, the earls are off taken by the ash spears point, that thirsty weapon, their weird is glorious, storms break on the stone hillside, the ground bound by driving sleet, winter's wrath, then oneness cometh, night's shade spreadeth, sendeth from north the rough hail to harry mankind. In the earth realm all is crossed, Weird's will changeth the world, wealth is lent us, friends are lent us, man is lent, kin is lent, all this earth's frame shall stand empty. So spoke the sage in his heart. He sat apart in thought Good is he who keeps faith, nor should care too fast be out of a man's breast before he first know the cure. A warrior fights on bravely, well it is for him who seeks forgiveness, the heavenly father's solace, in whom all our fastness stands. And now we finish with this episode with Barnaby Rudge Charles Dickens, chapter seventy three By this Friday night, for it was on Friday in the riot week that Emma and Dolly were rescued by the timely aid of Joe and Edward Chester. The disturbances were entirely quelled and peace and order were restored to the affrighted city. True, after what had happened it was impossible for any man to say how long this better state of things might last, or how suddenly new outrages exceeding even those so lately witnessed, might burst forth and fill its streets with ruin and bloodshed. For this reason those who had fled from the recent tumults still kept at a distance, and many families, hitherto unable to procure the means of flight, now availed themselves of the calm and withdrew into the country. The shops too from Tyburn to Whitechapel were still shut, and very little business was transacted in any of the places of great commercial resort, but notwithstanding and in spite of the melancholy forebodings of that numerous class of society who see with the greatest clearness into the darkest perspectives, the town remained profoundly quiet. The strong military force, disposed in every advantageous quarter and stationed at every commanding point, held the scattered fragments of the mob in check. The search after rioters was prosecuted with unrelenting vigour, and if there were any among them so desperate and reckless as to be inclined after the terrible scenes they had beheld, to venture forth again, they were so daunted by these resolute measures that they quickly shrunk into their hiding places and had no thought but for their personal safety. In a word, the crowd was utterly routed. Upwards of two hundred had been shot dead in the streets, two hundred and fifty more were lying badly wounded in the hospitals, of whom seventy or eighty died within a short time afterwards. A hundred were already in custody, and more were taken every hour. How many perished in the conflagration or by their own excesses is unknown, but that numbers found a terrible grave in the hot ashes of the flames they had kindled, or crept into vaults and cellars to drink in secret, or to nurse their sores and never saw the light again is certain. When the embers of the fires had been black and cold for many weeks, the labourers' spades proved this beyond a doubt. Seventy two private houses and four strong jails were destroyed in the four great days of these riots. The total loss of property, as estimated by the sufferers, was one hundred and fifty five thousand pounds. At the lowest and least partial estimate of disinterested persons, it exceeded one hundred and twenty five thousand pounds. For this immense loss compensation was soon afterwards made out of the public purse in pursuance of a vote of the House of Commons, the sum being levied on the various wards in the city, on the county and in the borough of Southwark. Both Lord Mansfield and Lord Saville, however, who had been great sufferers, refused to accept accept any compensation whatever. The House of Commons, sitting on Tuesday with locked and guarded doors, had passed a resolution to the effect that as soon as the tumult subsided is it tumults, it would be immediately proceed it would immediately proceed to consider the petitions presented from many of his Majesty's Protestant subjects, and would take the same into its serious consideration. While this question was under debate, Mr Herbert, one of the members present, indignantly rose and called upon the house to observe that Lord George Gordon was then sitting under the gallery with the blue cockade, the signal of rebellion in his hat. He was not only obliged by those who sat near to take it out, but offering to go into the street to pacify the mob with somewhat indefinite assurance that the house was prepared to give them the satisfaction they sought, was actually held down in his seat by the combined force of several members. In short, the disorder and violence which reigned triumphant out of doors penetrated into the Senate, and there, as elsewhere, terror and alarm prevailed, and ordinary forms were for the time forgotten. On the Thursday both houses had adjourned until the following Monday, declaring it impossible to pursue their deliberations with the necessary gravity and freedom while they were surrounded by armed troops, and now that the rioters were dispersed, the citizens were beset with a new fear, for finding the public thoroughfares and all their usual places of resort filled with soldiers entrusted with the free use of fire and sword, they began to lend a greedy ear to the rumours which were afloat of martial law being declared, and to dismal stories of prisoners having been seen hanging on lamp posts in Cheapside and Fleet Street, these terrors being promptly dispelled by a plot proclamation declaring that all the rioters in custody would be tried by a special commission in due course of law, a fresh alarm was engendered by its being whispered abroad that French money had been found on some of the rioters, and that the disturbances had been fermented by foreign powers who sought to compass the overthrow and ruin of England. It's always the French that were blamed in anything that happened. This report, which was strengthened by the diffusion of anonymous hand bills, but which, if it had any foundation at all, probably owed its origin to the circumstance of a few coins which were not English money, having been swept into the pockets of the insurgents, with some other miscellaneous booty, and afterwards discovered on the prisoners or the dead bodies, caused a great sensation, and men's minds being in that excited state when they are most apt to catch at any shadow of apprehension, was bruted about with much industry. All remaining quiet, however, during the whole of this Friday, and on this Friday night, and no new discoveries being made, confidence began to be restored, and the most timid and desponding breathed again. In Southwark, nay fewer than three thousand of the inhabitants formed themselves into a watch and patrolled the streets every hour, nor were the citizens slow to follow so good an example, and it being the manner of peaceful men to be very bold when the danger is over, they were abundantly fierce and daring, not scrupling to question the stoutest passenger with the greatest severity, and carrying it out with a very high hand over all errand boys, servant girls and apprentices. As day deepened into the evening and darkness crept into the nooks and corners of the town, as if it were mustering in secret and gathering strength to venture into the open ways, Barnaby sat in his dungeon, wondering at the silence and listening in vain for the noise and outcry which had ushered in the night of late. Beside him with his hand in hers sat one in whose companionship he felt at peace. She was worn and altered, full of grief and heavy hearted, but the same to him. Mother, he said, after a long silence, how long how many days and nights shall I be kept here? Not many, dear, I hope not many. You hope aye, but your hoping will not undo these chains. I hope, but they don't mind that. The raven gave a short, dull, melancholy croak. It said Nobody as plainly as a croak could speak. Who cares for grip excepting you and me? said Barnaby, smoothing the bird's rumpled feathers with his hands. He never speaks in this place and he never says a word in jail. He sits and mopes all day in this dark corner, dozing sometimes and sometimes looking at the light that creeps in through the bars. And shines in his bright eye as if a spark from those great fires had fallen into the room and was burning yet. But who cares for grip? The raven croaked again. Nobody And by the way, said Barnaby, withdrawing his hand from the bird and laying it upon his mother's arm, as he looked eagerly in her face, if they kill me they may. I heard it said they would. What becomes of grip when I am dead? The sound of the word or the current of his own thoughts, suggested to Grip his old phrase never say die, but he stopped short in the middle of it, drew a dismal cork, and subsided into a faint croak, as if he lacked the heart to get through the shortest sentence. Will they take his life as well as mine? said Barnaby. I wish they would. If you and I and he could die together, there would be none to feel sorry or to grieve for us. But do what they will I don't fear them, mother. They will not harm you, she said, her tears choking her utterance. They will never harm you when they know all I am sure they never will. Oh don't you be too sure of that? cried Barnaby, with a strange pleasure in his belief that she was self deceived, and in his own sagacity. They have marked me, mother from the first. I heard them say so to each other when they brought me to this place last night, and I believe them. Don't you cry for me? They said I was bold and so I am, and so I will be. You may think I am silly, but I can die as well as any other. I have done no harm, have I? he added more quickly. None before heaven, she answered. Why then, said Barnaby, let them do their worst. You told me once, you, when I asked you what death meant, that it was nothing to be feared if we did no harm. Ha, mother, you thought I'd forgotten that. His merry laugh and playful manner smote her to the heart. She drew him closer to her and besought him to talk to her in whispers, and to be very quiet, for it was getting dark, and their time was short, and she would soon have to leave him for the night. You'll come to morrow, said Barnaby. Yes, and every day, and they would never part again. Again. He joyfully replied that this was well, and what he wished, and what he felt quite certain she would tell him, and then he asked her where she had been so long, and why she had not come to see him when he was a great soldier, and ran through the wild schemes he had had for their being rich and living prosperously, and with some faint notion in his mind that she was sad, and he had made her so, tried to console and comfort her, and talked of their former life and his old sports and freedom, little dreaming that every word he uttered only increased her sorrow, and that her tears fell faster at the freshened recollection of their lost tranquillity. Mother, said Barnaby, as they heard the man approaching so close to close the cells for the night, when I spoke to you just now about my father, you cried hush and turned your head away. Why did you do so? Tell me why, in a word, you thought he was dead? You're not sorry that he is alive and has come back to us. Where is he? Here Do not ask anyone where he is or speak about him, she made answer. Why not? said Barnaby. Because he is a stern man and talks roughly Well, I don't like him or want to be with him by myself, but why not speak about him? Because I'm sorry that he is alive, sorry that he has come back, and sorry that he and you have ever met. Because dear Barnaby, the endeavour of my life has been to keep you two asunder. Father and son asunder? Why? He has, she whispered in his ear. He has shed blood. The time has come when you must know it. He has shed the blood of one who loved him well, and trusted him, and never did him any wrong in word or deed. Barnaby recoiled in horror, and glancing at his stained wrist for an instant, wrapped it, shuddering in his dress. But, she added hastily, as the key turned in the lock, and although we shun him, he is your father, dearest, and I am his wretched wife. They seek his life and he will lose it. It must not be by our means. Nay, if we could win him back to penitence, we should be bound to love him yet. Do not seem to know him except as one who fled with you from the jail, and if they question you about him, do not answer them. God be with you through the night, dear boy, God be with you. She tore herself away, and in a few seconds Barnaby was alone. He stood for a long time rooted to the spot, with his face hidden in his hands. Then he flung himself sobbing upon his miserable bed. But the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars looked out, and through the small compass of the grated window as old as though the narrow crevice of one good deed in a murky life of guilt, the face of heaven shone bright and merciful. He raised his head, gazed upward at the quiet sky, which seemed to smile upon the earth in sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, looked down in sorrow on the sufferings and evil deeds of men, and felt its peace sink deep into his heart. He, a poor idiot, caged in his narrow cell, was as much lifted up to God while gazing on the mild light, as the freest and most favoured man in all the spacious city, and in his ill remembered prayer and in the fragment of his childish hymn, with which he sung and crooned himself asleep, there breathed as true a spirit as ever studied, homily expressed or old cathedral arches echoed. As his mother crossed a yard on her way out, she saw through a grated door which separated it from another court, her husband walking round and round, with his hands folded on his breast and his head hung down. She asked the man who conducted her if she might speak a word with this prisoner. Yes, but she must be quick for he was locking up for the night, and there was but a minute or two to spare. Saying this he unlocked the door and bade her go in. It grated harshly as it turned upon the hinges, but he was deaf to the noise and still walked round and round the little court, without raising his head or changing his attitude in the least. She spoke to him, but her voice was weak and failed her. At length she put herself in his track, and when he came near, stretched out her hand and touched him. He started backwards, trembling from head to foot, but seeing who it was, demanded why she had come here. Before she could reply he spoke again Am I to live or die? Do you do murder to or spare? My son, our son, she answered, is in this prison. What is that to me? he cried, stamping impatiently on the stone pavement. I know it he can no more aid me than I can aid him. If you are come to talk of him, be gone. As he spoke he resumed his walk and hurried round the court as before. When he came again to where she stood, he stopped and said Am I to live or die? Do you repent? Oh do you? she answered, will you while time remains? Do you not believe that I could save you if I dared? Say if you would, he answered with an oath, as he tried to disengage himself and pass on. Say if you would listen to me for one moment, she returned, but for a moment. I am but newly risen from a sick bed from which I never hope to rise again. The best among us think at such a time of good intentions half performed, and duties left undone, if I have ever, since that fatal night, omitted to pray for your repentance before death, if I omitted even then anything which might tend to urge it on, when you, the horror of your crime was fresh, if in our later meeting I yielded to the dread that was upon me, and forgot to fall upon my knees and solemnly adjure you, in the name of him you sent to his account with heaven, to prepare for the retribution which must come and which is stealing on you now. I humbly before you and in the agony of supplication in which you see me, beseech that you will let me make atonement. What is the meaning of your canting words? he answered roughly. Speak so I may understand you. I will, she answered. I desire to. The hand of him who set his curse on murder is heavy on us now. You cannot doubt it. Our son, our innocent boy, on whom his anger fell before his birth, is in this place in peril of his life, brought here by your guilt, yes by that alone, as heaven sees and knows, for he has been led astray in the darkness of his intellect, and that is a terrible consequence of your crime. If you come woman like to load me with reproaches, he muttered, again endeavouring to break away. I do not, I have a different purpose. You must hear it. If not tonight, tomorrow, if not tomorrow at another time, you must hear it. Husband, escape is hopeless, impossible. You tell me so, do you? he said, raising his manacled hand and shaking it. You Yes, she said, with indescribable earnestness. But why? To make me easy in this jail, to make that time twixt this and death pass pleasantly for my good, yes, for my good, of course, he said, grinding his teeth and smiling at her with a livid face. Not to load you with reproaches, she replied, not to aggravate your tortures and miseries of your condition, not to give you one hard word, but to restore you to peace and hope. Husband, dear husband, if you will but confess this dreaded crime, if you will but implore forgiveness of heaven and of those whom you have wronged on earth, if you will dismiss these vain uneasy thoughts, which never can be realized, and will rely on penitence and on the truth, I promise you in the great name of the Creator whose image you have defaced, and that he will comfort and console you, and for myself, she cried, clasping her hands and looking upward, I swear before him, as he knows my heart and reads it now, that from that hour I will love you and cherish you as I did of old, and watch you night and day in the short interval that will remain to us, and soothe you with my truest love and duty, and pray with you that one threatening judgment may be arrested, and that our boy may be spared to bless God in his poor way in the free air and light. He fell back and gazed at her while she poured out these words as though he were for a moment awed by her manner and knew not what to do. But anger and fear soon got the mastery of him, and he spurned her from him. Be gone, he cried, leave me, you plot, do you? You plot to get speech with me, and let them know I am the man they say I am, a curse on you and your boy. On him the curse has already fallen, she replied, wringing her hands. Let it fall heavier, let it fall on one and all. I hate you both. The worst has come to me. The only comfort that I seek or can have will be the knowledge that it comes to you. Now go. She would have urged him gently even then, but he menaced her with his chain. I say go, and I say it for the last time. The gallows has me in its grasp, and it's a black phantom that may urge me on to something more be gone. I curse the hour I was born, the man I slew and all the living world. In a paroxysm of wrath and terror and the fear of death he broke from her and rushed into the darkness of his cell, where he cast himself jangling down on the stone floor, and smote it with his iron hands. The man returned to lock the dungeon door, and having done so carried her away. On that warm, balmy night in June there were glad faces and light hearts in all quarters of the town, and sleep, banished by the late horrors, was doubly welcomed. On that night families made merry in their houses and greeted each other on the common danger they had escaped, and those who had been denounced ventured into the streets, and they who had been plundered got good shelter. Even the timorous Lord Mayor, who was summoned that night before the privy council to answer for his conduct, came back contented, observing to all his friends that he had got off very well with a reprimand, and repeating with huge satisfaction his memorable defence before the council, that such was his temerity he thought death would have been his portion. On that night too, more of the scattered remnants of the mob were traced to their lurking places and taken, and in the hospitals and deep among the ruins they had made, and in the ditches and the fields many unshrouded wretches lay dead, envied by those who had been active in the disturbances, and who pillowed their doomed heads in the temporary jails, and in the tower in a dreary room whose thick stain walls shut out the hum of life, and made a stillness which the records left by former prisoners with those silent witnesses seemed to deepen and intensify, remorseful for every act that had been done by every man among the cruel crowd, feeling for the time their guilt his own, and their lives put in peril by himself, and finding amid such reflections little comfort in fanaticism or in his fancied cell sat the unhappy author of all, Lord George Gordon. He had been made prisoner that evening. If you are sure it's me you want, he said to the officer who waited outside with the warrant for his arrest on a charge of high treason, I am ready to accompany you, which he did without resistance. He was conducted first before the privy council and afterwards to the horse guards, and then was taken by way of Westminster Bridge and back over London Bridge for the purpose of avoiding the main streets, to the tower, under the strongest guard ever known to enter its gates with a single prisoner. Of all his forty thousand men, not one remained to bear him company. Friends, dependents, followers, none were there. His fawning secretary had played the traitor, and he whose weakness had been goaded and urged on by so many for their own purposes, was desolate and alone.