Strictly Dickens: Barnaby Rudge comes to a Close

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Hello and a very good morning. I've thought about how to do this and I've been overthinking it as I always do, overthink things. So I'm just going to keep it simple. I'm going to finish Barnaby Rudge this morning. It's my daughter's birthday, and that's not related, but it's on my mind. 9th of April. She's away today with her beloved little nephew, so she's happy where she is, and I'm looking forward to seeing her tomorrow. So today I'm going to be wrapping her presents and getting things ready for her return tomorrow. But in terms of Barnaby Raj, I was thinking, do I read it in the garden? Do I go down to uh Sherbourne Abbey? What's what's the best situation? And I've decided to record it with the microphone. Some of you like the ambient sounds more than others. I think some people like just the complete quiet. And to be honest, I when I listen to podcasts, I I vary too. Sometimes I I just like to hear a direct voice, and other times I don't mind, so it does vary. So I've decided to record with the microphone because I think it's lovely to finish the book just in in quiet. And for those of you who like a little bit of music or something as well, well, I suppose you're able to play that at the same time. I'm going to try for the respect of the book and to all of you to not say a word, no s no little titters, no whimpers, no nothing, and to just read the whole thing so as not to spoil it and so you can just enjoy the last few chapters. I haven't looked ahead, so I can't remember exactly how it pans out, but I trust Charles Dickens enough and my memory enough to know that it'll come together, I hope, so with a little pause and without further ado. Mr Varden sometimes turned to clap this friend upon the back or whisper in his ear a word of staunch encouragement, or cheer him with a smile, but his great care was to shield him from the pressure and force a passage for him to the Golden Key. Passive and timid, scared, pale and wondering, and gazing at the throng as if he were newly risen from the dead and felt himself a ghost among the living. Barnaby, not Barnaby in the spirit, but in the flesh and blood with pulses, sinews, nerves, and beating heart, and strong affections, clung to his stout old friend, and followed where he led, and thus, in course of time they reached the door, held ready for their entrance by no unwilling hands. Then, slipping in and shutting out the crowd by main force, Gabriel stood. Between Mr Haredale and Edward Chester, and Barnaby, rushing up the stairs, fell upon his knees beside his mother's bed. Such is the blessed end, sir, cried the panting locksmith to Mr Hedale, of the best days work we ever did. The rogues it's been hard fighting to get em away from them. I almost thought once or twice they'd have been too much for us with their kindness. They had striven all the previous day to rescue Barnaby from his impending fate. Failing in their attempts in the first quarter to which they addressed themselves, they renewed them in another, failing there likewise they began afresh at midnight and made their way not only to the judge and jury who had tried them, but to men of influence at court, to the young Prince of Wales, and even to the antechamber of the king himself, successful at last in awakening an interest in his favour and an inclination to inquire more dispassionately into his case, they had had an interview with the minister in his bed so late as eight o'clock that morning. The result of a searching inquiry, in which they who had known the poor fellow from his childhood, did other good service besides bringing it about, was that between eleven and twelve o'clock a free pardon to Barnaby Rodge was made out and signed, and entrusted to a horse soldier for instant conveyance to the place of execution. This courier reached the spot just as the cart appeared in sight, and Barnaby being carried back to jail, Mr Haidale, assured that all was safe, had gone straight from Bloomsbury Square to the Golden Quay, leaving to Gabriel the grateful task of bringing him home in triumph. I needn't say, observed the locksmith, when he had shaken hands with all the males in the house and hugged all the females five and forty times at least. That except among ourselves I didn't want to make a triumph of it, but directly we got into the street we were known and this hub began. Of the two, he added, as he wiped his crimson face, and after experience of both, I think I'd rather be taken out of my house by a crowd of enemies than escorted home by a mob of friends. It was plain enough, however, that this whole mere talk on Gabriel's part, and that the whole proceeding afforded him the keenest delight, for the people continuing to make a great noise without, and to cheer as if their voices were in the freshest order, and good for a fortnight, he sent upstairs for Grip, who had come home at his master's back and had acknowledged the favours of the multitude by drawing blood from every finger that came within his reach, and with the bird upon his arm, presented himself at the first floor window and waved his hat to gain and until it dangled by a shred between his fingers and thumb. This demonstration having been received with appropriate shouts, and silence being in some degree restored, he thanked them for their sympathy, and taking the liberty to inform them that there was a sick person in the house, proposed that they should give three cheers for King George, three more for old England, and three more for nothing in particular, as a closing ceremony. The crowd assenting substituted Gabriel Varden for the nothing particular, and gave him one over, for good measure, dispersed in high good humour. What congratulations were exchanged among the inmates at the Golden Quay when they were left alone, what an overflowing of joy and happiness there was among them, and how incapable it was of expression in Barnaby's own person, and how he went wildly from one to another until he became so far tranquilized as to stretch himself on the ground besides his mother's couch, and fell into a deep sleep, are matters that need not be told, and it is well that they happened to be of this class, for they would be very hard to tell were their narration ever so indispensable. Before leaving this bright picture, it may be well to glance at a dark and very different one which was presented to only a few eyes that same night. The scene was a churchyard, the time midnight, the persons Edward Chester, a clergyman, a grave digger, and the four bearers of a homely coffin. They stood about a grave which had been newly jut, and one of the bearers held up a dim lantern, the only light there which shed its feeble ray upon the book of prayer. He placed it for a moment on the coffin when he and his companions were about to lower it down. There was no inscription on the lid. The mould fell solemnly upon the last house of this nameless man, and the rattling dust left a dismal echo even in the accustomed ears of those who had borne it to its resting place. The grave was filled in to the top and trodden down. They all left the spot together. You never saw him living? asked the clergyman of Edward. Often years ago, not knowing him for my brother. Never since never. Yesterday he steadily refused to see me. It was urged upon him many times at my desire. Still he refused. That was hardened and unnatural. Do you think so? I infer that you do not. You are right. We hear the world wonder every day at monsters of ingratitude. Did it never occur to you that it often looks for monsters of affection as though they were things, of course? They had reached the gate by this time, and bidding each other good night, departed on their separate ways. Chapter eighty That afternoon, when he had slept off his fatigue, and shaved and washed and dressed, and freshened himself from top to toe, when he had dined, comfort himself comforted himself with a pipe, an extra Toby, a nap in the great armchair, and a quiet chat with Mrs. Varden on everything that had happened, was happening or about to happen, within the sphere of their domestic concern, the locksmith sat himself down at the tea table in the little back parlour, the rosiest, coziest, merriest, heartiest, best contented old buck in Great Britain, or out of it. There he sat with his beaming eye on Mrs. V and his shining face suffused with gladness, and his capacious waistcoat smiling in every wrinkle, and his jovial humour, peeping from under the table in which the plumpness of his legs a sight to turn the vinegar of misanthropy into purest milk of human kindness. There he sat, watching his wife as she decorated the room with flowers for the greater honour of Dolly and Joseph Willet, who had gone out walking and for whom the tea kettle had been singing gayly on the hob full twenty minutes, chirping as never kettled chirped before, for whom the best service of real undoubted China, patterned with diverse round faced mandarins, holding up broad umbrellas, was now displayed in all its glory, to tempt Hugh's appetites a clear, transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool green lettuce leaves and fragrant cucumber reposed upon a shady table covered with a snow white cloth. For whose delight preserves and jams, crisp cakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cunning twists and cottage loaves and rolls of bread, both white and brown, were all set forth in rich profusion, in whose youth Mrs. V herself had grown quite young, and stood there in a gown of red and white, symmetrical in figure, buxome in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, faultless in ankle, laughing in face and mood, in all respects delicious to behold. There sat the locksmith among all and every these delights, the sun that shone upon them all, the centre of the system, the source of that light, heat, life, and frank enjoyment in the bright household world. And when had Dolly ever been the dolly of that afternoon, to see how she came in arm in arm with Joe, and how she made an effort not to blush or seem at all confused, and how she made believe she didn't care to sit on his side of the table, and how she coaxed the locksmith in a whisper not to joke, and how her colour came and went in a little restless flutter of happiness, which made her do everything wrong and yet so charmingly wrong that it was better than right. Why the locksmith could have looked on at this, as he mentioned to Mrs. Vardan when they had retired for the night for four and twenty hours at a stretch and never wished it done. The recollections too, with which they made merry over that long protracted tea, the glee with which the locksmith asked Joe if he remembered that stormy night at the Maypole when he had first asked after Dolly, the laugh they had all had about that night when she was going out to the party in the Sidan chair, the unmerciful manner in which they rallied Mrs. Varden about putting those flowers outside that very window, the difficulty Mrs. Varden found in joining the laugh against herself at first, and the extraordinary perception she had of the joke when she overcame it, the confidential statements of Joe concerning the precise day and hour when he was first conscious of being fond of Dolly, and Dolly's blushing admissions, half volunteered and half extorted as to the time from which she dated the discovery that she didn't mind Joe. Here was an exhaustless fund of mirth and conversation. Then there was a great deal to be said regarding Miss Varden's doubts and motherly alarms and shrewd suspicions, and it appeared that from Mrs. Varden's penetration and extreme sagacity that nothing had ever been hidden. She had known it all along, she had seen it from the first. She had always predicted it. She had been aware of it before the principles. She had said within herself as she remembered the exact words that young Willet is certainly looking after our Dolly, and I must look after him. Accordingly she had looked after him, and had observed many little circumstances, all of which she named, so exceedingly minute that nobody else could make anything out of them even now, and had, it seemed, from first to last, displayed the most unbounded tact and most consummate generalship. Of course the night when Joe would ride homeward by the side of the chase, and when Mrs. Varden would insist upon his going back again was not forgotten, nor the night when Dolly fainted on his name being mentioned, nor the times upon which, when Mrs. Varden, ever watchful and prudent, had found her pining in her own chamber. In short nothing was forgotten, and everything by some means or other, brought them back to the conclusion that that was the happiest hour in all their lives, consequently that everything must have occurred for the best, and nothing could be suggested which would have made it better. While they were in this full glow of such discourse as this, there came a startling knock at the door, opening from the street into the workshop which had been kept closed all that day, so that the house might be more quiet. Joe, as in duty bound, would hear of nobody but himself going to open it, and accordingly left the room for that purpose. It would have been odd enough, certainly, if Joe had forgotten the way to this door, and even if he had, as it was a pretty large one and stood straight before him, he could not easily have missed it, but Dolly, perhaps because she was in the flutter of spirits before mentioned, or perhaps because she thought he would not be able to open it with his one arm, she could have had no other reason, hurried out after him, and they stopped so long in the passage, no doubt owing to Joe's entreaties, that she would not expose herself to the draught of July air, which must infallibly come rushing in on this same door being opened, that the knock was repeated in a yet more startling manner than before. Is anybody going to open that door? cried the locksmith, or shall I come? Upon that Dolly went running back into the parlour, all dimples and blushes, and Joe opened it with a mighty noise and other superfluous demonstrations of being in a violent hurry. Well, said the locksmith when he reappeared, what is it, eh Joe? What are you laughing at? Nothing, sir, it's coming in. Who's coming in? What's coming in? Mrs. Varden, as much as a loss as her husband, could only shake her head in answer to his inquiring look, so the locksmith wheeled his chair around to command a better view of the room door, and stared at it with his eyes wide open, and a mingled expression of curiosity and wonder shining in his jolly face. Instead of some person or persons straightway appearing, diverse remarkable sounds were heard, first in the workshop and afterwards in the little dark passage between it and the parlour, as though some unwieldy chest or heavy piece of furniture were being brought in by an amount of human strength inadequate to the task. At length, after much struggling and bumping and bruising of the wall on both sides, the door was forced open, as by a battering ram, and the locksmith steadily regarding what appeared beyond, smote his thigh, elevated his eyebrows, opened his mouth, and cried in a loud voice, expressive of the utmost consternation Damn me if it ain't Mig's comeback. The young damsel whom he named no sooner heard these words than, deserting a very small boy and a very large box by which she was accompanied, and advancing with such precipitation that her bonnet flew off her head, burst into the room, clasped her hands in which she held a pair of patterns, one in each, raised her eyes devotedly to the ceiling, and shed a flood of tears. Ah the old story, cried the locksmith, looking at her in inexpressible desperation. She was born to be a damper this young woman. Nothing can prevent it. Oh master Oh Mim, cried Miggs, can I constrain my feelings in these here once again? United moments Oh Mr Varson, here's blessedness upon relations, sir. Here's forgiveness of injuries. Here's amicableness. The locksmith looked from his wife to Dolly, and from Dolly to Joe, and from Joe to Miggs, with his eyebrows still elevated and his mouth still open. When his eyes got back to Miggs, they rested on her, fascinated. Oh to think, cried Miggs with hysterical joy, that Mr Joe and dear Miss Dolly has really come together after all has been said and done contrary, to see them two, a setting along with him and a so pleasant in all respects so affable and mild and me not knowing of it, and not being in the ways to make no preparation for their teas. Oh what a cutting thing it is, and yet what sweet sensations is awoke within me. Either in clasping her hands again or in an ecstasy of pious joy, Miss Miggs clinked her patterns after the manner of a pair of cymbals at this juncture, and then resumed in the softest accents And did my misses think oh goodness did she think as her own Migs which supported her under so many trials and understood her nature were them as intended well but acted rough went so deep into her feelings? Did she think as her own Migs would ever leave her? Did she think as Miggs, though she was but a servant, and knowed what servitude was no inheritances, would forget that she was humble instruments, as always made it comfortable between them two when they fell out, and always told Master of the meekness and forgiveness of her blessed dispositions? Did she think as Miggs had no attachments? Did she think that wages was her only object? To none of these interrogatories whereof everyone One was more pathetically delivered than the last, did Mrs Varden answer one word, but Miggs, not at all abashed by this circumstance, turned to the small boy in attendance, her eldest nephew, son of her own married sister, born in Golden Lime Court, number twenty sivin, and bred in the very shadow of the second bell handle on the right hand doorpost, and with a plentiful use of her pocket handkerchief, addressed herself to him, requesting that on his return home, he would console his parents for the loss of her, his aunt, by delivering to them a faithful statement of his having left her in the bosom of that family with which, as his aforesaid parents well knew, her best affections were incorporated, that he would remind them that nothing less than her imperious sense of duty and devoted attachment to her old master and misses, likewise Miss Dolly and young Mr Joe, should ever have induced her to decline that pressing invitation which they, his parents, had, as he could testify, given her to lodge and board with them, free of all cost and charge for evermore, lastly, that he would help her with her box upstairs, and then repair straight home, bearing her blessing and her strong injunctions, to mingle in his prayers a supplication that he might in course of time, grow up a locksmith, or a mister Joe, and have Mrs. Varden's and Miss Dolly's for his relations and friends. Having brought this admonition to an end, upon which to say the truth, the young gentleman, for whose benefit it was designed, bestowed little or no heed, having to all appearance his faculties absorbed in the contemplation of the sweet meats, Miss Miggs signified to the company in general that they were not to be uneasy, for she would soon return, and with her nephew's aid prepared to bear her wardrobe up the staircase. My dear, said the locksmith to his wife, do you desire this? I desire it, she answered. I am astonished. I am amazed at her audacity. Let her leave the house this moment. Miggs, hearing this, let her end of the box fall heavily to the floor, gave a very loud sniff, crossed her arms, screwed down the corners of her mouth, and cried in an ascending scale Oh good gracious three distinct times. You hear what your mistress says, my love, remarked the locksmith. You had better go, I think. Stay, take this with you for the sake of old service. Miss Miggs clutched the banknote he took from his pocket book and held out to her, deposited it in a small red leather purse, put the purse in her pocket, displaying as she did so, a considerable portion of some undergarment made of flannel and more black cotton stocking than is commonly seen in public, and tossing her head as she looked at Mrs. Varden, repeated Oh good gracious I think you said that once before, my dear, observed the locksmith. Times as changed as they, Mim, cried Miggs, bridling. You can spare me now, can you? You can keep em down without me. You're not in wants of anyone to scold or throw the blame upon no longer, ain't you, Mim? I'm glad to find you've grown so independent. I wish you joy, I'm sure. With that she dropped a curtsy, and keeping her head erect, her ear towards Miss Varden, and her eye on the rest of the company as she alluded to them in her remarks, proceeded I'm quite delighted, I'm sure to find sit independency feeling sorry for at the same time, Mim, that you should have been forced into submissions when you couldn't help yourself, eh? It must be great vexations, especially considering how ill you always spoke of Mr Joe to have him for a son in law at last, and I wonder Miss Dolly can put up with him either, after being off and on so many years with a coachmaker. But I have heard her say that the coachmaker thought twice about it, hey, and that he told a young man, as was a better friend of his, that he hoped he know better than to be drawed into that, though she and all the family did pull uncommon strong. Here she paused for a reply, and receiving none went on as before. I have heard say, Mim, that the illness of some ladies was all pretensions, and that they could faint away stone dead whenever they had the inclinations to do so. Of course I never see such cases with my own eyes, oh no. Nor master, neither oh no, I've heard neighbours remark as someone as they were acquainted with for a poor good natured, mean spirited creatures went out fishing for a wife one day and caught a tartar. Of course I never knew to my knowledge, see the poor person himself, nor did you neither, Mim. Oh no, I wonder who it could be, don't you, Mim? No doubt you do, Mim, oh yes. Again Miggs paused for a reply, and none being offered was so oppressed with teeming spite and spleen that she seemed like to burst. I'm glad Miss Dolly can laugh, cried Miggs, with a feeble titter. I like to see folks are laughing. So do you, Mim, don't you? You was always glad to see people in spirits, wasn't you, Mim? And you always did your best to keep em cheerful, didn't you, Mim? Though there ain't such a good deal to laugh at now neither is there, Mim. It ain't so much of a catch after looking out so sharp ever since she was a little chit and costing such a deal in dress and show to get a core poor common soldier with one arm is it, Mim? I shouldn't have a husband with one arm anyways. I would have two arms I would have two arms if it were me, though instead of Ans they only got ooks at the end like our dustman. Miss Miggs was about to add, and had indeed begun to add, that taking them in the abstract dustmen were far more eligible matches than soldiers, though to be sure, when people were past choosing they must take the best they could get, and think themselves well off too, but her vexation and chagrin, being of that internally bitter sort, which finds no relief in words and is aggravated to madness by want of contradiction, she could hold out no longer, and burst into a storm of sobs and tears. In this extremity she fell on the unlucky nephew, tooth and nail, and plucking a handful of hair from his head, demanded to know how long she was to stand there to be insulted, and whether or no he meant to help her to carry out the box again, and if he took a pleasure in hearing his family reviled, with other injuries of that nature, at which disgrace and provocation, the small boy, who had been all this time gradually lashed into rebellion by the sight of unattainable pastry, walked off indignant, leaving his aunt and the box to follow him at their leisure. Somehow or other, by dint of pushing and bullying, they did attain the street at last, where Miss Miggs, all bloused with the exertion of getting there, and with her sobs and tears, sat down upon her property to rest and grieve until she could ensnare some other youth to help her home. It's a thing to laugh at, Martha, not to care for, whispered the locksmith, as he followed his wife to the window, and good humouredly dried her eyes. What does it matter? You had seen your fault before. Come, bring up Toby again, my dear. Dolly shall sing us a song, and we'll be all the merrier for this interruption. Another month had passed, and the end of August had nearly come when Mr Haredale stood alone in the mail coach office at Bristol. Although but a few weeks had intervened since his conversation with Edward Chester and his niece in the locksmith's house, and he had made no change in the meantime, in his accustomed style of dress, his appearance was greatly altered. He looked much older and more care worn. Agitation and anxiety of mind scatter wrinkles and grey hairs with no unsparing hand, but deeper traces follow on the silent uprooting of old habits and severing of dear familiar ties. The affections may not be so easily wounded as the passions, but their hurts are deeper and more lasting. He was now a solitary man, and the heart within him was dreary and lonesome. He was not the less alone for having spent so many years in seclusion and retirement. This was no better preparation than a round of social cheerfulness. Perhaps it even increased the keenness of his sensibility. He had been so dependent upon her for companionship and love, she had come to be so much a part and parcel of his existence, they had had so many cares and thoughts in common, which no one else had shared, that losing her was beginning life anew, and being required to summon up the hope and elasticity of youth amid the doubts, distrusts, and weakened energies of age. The effort he had made to part with her, with seeming cheerfulness and hope, and they had parted only yesterday, left him the more depressed. With these feelings he was about to revisit London for the last time and look once more upon the walls of their own home before turning his back upon it for ever. The journey was a very different one in those days, from what the present generation find it, but it came to an end, as the longest journey will, and he stood again in the streets of the metropolis. He lay at the inn where the coach stopped, and resolved before he went to bed that he would make his arrival known to no one, would spend but another night in London, and would spare himself the pang of parting, even with the honest locksmith. Such conditions of the mind as to what as to which he was a prey when he lay down to rest, are favourable to the growth of disordered fancies and uneasy visions. He knew this even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object beyond the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream. But it was not a new terror of the night, it had been present to him before in many shapes, it had haunted him in bygone times, and visited his pillow again and again. If it had been but an ugly object, a childish spectre, haunting his sleep, its return in its old form might have awakened a momentary sensation of fear, which almost in the act of waking would have passed away. This disquiet, however, lingered about him and would yield to nothing. When he closed his eyes again he felt it hovering near. As he slowly sunk into a slumber, he was conscious of its gathering strength and purpose, and gradually assuming its recent shape. When he sprang up from his bed, the same phantom vanished from his heated brain, and left him filled with a dread against which reason and waking thought were powerless. The sun was up before he could shake it off. He rose late but not refreshed, and remained within doors all that day. He had a fancy for paying his last visit to the old spot in the evening, for he had been accustomed to walk there at that season, and desired to see it under the aspect that was most familiar to him. At such an hour as would afford him the time to reach it a little before sunset, he left the inn and turned into the busy street. He had not gone far and was thoughtfully making his way among the noisy crowd, when he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and turning recognised one of the waiters from the inn, who begged his pardon, but he had left his sword behind him. Why have you brought it to me? he asked, stretching out his hand, and yet not taking it from the man, but looking at him in a disturbed and agitated manner. The man was sorry to have disobliged him and would carry it back again. The gentleman had said that he was going a little way into the country, and that he might not return till late. The roads were not very safe for single travellers after dark, and since the rioters, gentlemen had been more careful than ever not to trust themselves unarmed in lonely places. We thought you were a stranger, sir, he added, and that you might believe our roads to be better than they are, but perhaps you know them well and carry firearms. He took the sword and pushing it up at his side, thanked the man and resumed his walk. It was long remembered that he did this in a manner so strange, and with such a trembling hand that the messenger stood looking after his retreating figure, doubtful whether he ought not to follow and watch him. It was long remembered that he had been heard pacing his bedroom in the dead of night, that the attendants had mentioned to each other in the morning how fevered and how pale he looked, and that when this man went back to the inn, he told a fellow servant that what he had observed in this short interview lay very heavy upon his mind, and that he feared the gentleman intended to destroy himself and would never come back alive. With a half consciousness that his manner had attracted the man's attention, remembering the expression of his face when they parted, Mr Haredale quickened his steps, and arriving at a stand of coaches, bargained with the driver of the best to carry him so far on his road as the point where the footway struck across the fields, and to await his return at a house of entertainment which was within a stone's throw of that place. Arriving there in due course, he alighted and pursued his way on foot. He passed so near the May pole that he could see its smoke rising from among the trees, while a flock of pigeons, some of its old inhabitants, doubtless, sailed gayly home to roost between him and the unclouded sky. The old house will brighten up now, he said, as he looked towards it, and there will be a merry fireside beneath its ivid roof. It is some comfort to know that everything will not be blighted hereabouts. I shall be glad to have one picture of life and cheerfulness to turn to in my mind. He resumed his walk and bent his steps towards the warren. It was a clear, calm, silent evening, with hardly a breath of wind to stir the leaves, or any sound to break the stillness of the time, but drowsy sheep bells tinkling in the distance, and at intervals the far off lowing of cattle or bark of village dogs. The sky was radiant with the softened glory of sunset, and on the earth and in the air a deep repose prevailed. At such an hour he arrived at the deserted mansion which had been his home so long, and looked for the last time upon its blackened walls, the ashes of the commonest fire. Are melancholy things, for in them there is an image of death and ruin, of something that has been bright, and it is but dull, cold, dreary dust, with which our nature forces us to sympathise, how much more sad the crumbled embers of a home, the casting down of that great altar, where the worst among us sometimes perform the worship of the heart, and where the best have offered up such sacrifices, and done such deeds of heroism as, chronicled, would put the proudest temples of old time with all their vaunting annals to the blush. He roused himself from a long train of meditation and walked slowly around the house. It was by this time almost dark. He had nearly made the circuit of that building, when he uttered a half suppressed exclamation, started and stood still, reclining in an easy attitude with his back against a tree, and contemplating the ruin with an expression of pleasure, a pleasure so keen that it overcame his habitual indolence and command of feature, and displayed itself utterly free from all restraint or reserve before him on his own ground and triumphing then, as he had triumphed in every misfortune and disappointment of his life, stood the man whose presence of all mankind, in any place, and least of all in that he could the least endure. Although his blood so rose against this man, and his wrath so stirred within him that he could have struck him dead, he put such fierce constraint upon himself that he passed him without another word or look, yes, and he would have gone on and not turned, though to resist the devil who poured out such hot temptation in his brain, required an effort scarcely to be achieved, if this man had not himself summoned him to stop, and that with an assumed compassion in his voice, which drove him well nigh mad, and in an instant routed all the self command it had been anguish, acute, poignant anguish to sustain. All consideration, reflection, mercy, forbearance, everything by which a goaded man can curb his rage and passion fled from him as he turned back, and yet he said, slowly and quite calmly, far more calmly than he had ever spoken to him before. Why have you called to me? To remark, said Sir John Chester, with his wonted composure, what an odd chance it is that we should meet here. It is a strange chance. Strange? The most remarkable and singular thing in the world. I never ride in the evening. I have not done so for years. The whim seized me quite unaccountably in the middle of last night. How very picturesque this is. He pointed, as he spoke, to the dismantled house and raised his glass to his eye. You praise your own work very freely. Sir John let fall his glass, inclined his face towards him with an air of the most courteous inquiry, and slightly shook his head as though he was remarking to himself I fear this animal is going mad. I say you praise your own work very freely, repeated Mr Haredale. Work, echoed Sir John, looking smilingly round. Mine, I beg your pardon, I really beg your pardon. Why you see, said Mr Haredale, those walls, you see those tottering gables, you see on every side where fire and smoke have raged. You see the destruction that has been wanton here, do you not? My good friend, returned the knight, gently checking his impatience with his hand. Of course I do. I see everything you speak of when you stand aside and do not interpose yourself between the view and me. I am very sorry for you. If I had not had the pleasure to meet you here, I think I should have written to tell you so, but you don't bear it as well as I'd expected. Excuse me, no, you don't indeed. He pulled out his snuff box and addressing him, with the superior air of a man, who, by reason of his higher nature, has a right to read a moral lesson to another, and continued, for you are a philosopher, you know, one of that stern and rigid school who are far above the weaknesses of mankind in general. You are removed a long way from the frailties of the crowd. You contemplate them for a moment. From a height and rail at them with a most impressive bitterness. I've heard you. And shall again, said Mr Haredale. Thank you, returned the other. Shall we walk as we talk? The damp fools, rather heavily Well, as you please, but I grieve to say I can only spare you a few minutes. I would, said Mr Haredale, you had spared me none, I would, with all my soul, you had been in paradise if such a monstrous lie could be enacted, rather than here tonight. Nay, returned the other, really you do yourself injustice. You're a rough companion, but I would not go so far as to avoid you. Listen to me, said Mr Haredale, listen to me. While you rail, inquired Sir John, while I deliver your infamy, you urged and stimulated to do your work a fit agent, but one who is in his nature, in the very essence of his being, a traitor who has been false to you, despite the sympathy you two should have been together, as he had been to all others, with hints and looks and crafty words, which told again and nothing. You set on, Gashford, to this work, this work before us now, with these same hints and looks and crafty words, which told again and nothing, you urged him on to gratify the deadly hate he owes me. I have earned it, I thank heaven, by the abduction and dishonour of my niece. You did. I see denial in your looks, he cried, abruptly pointing in his face, and stepping back, and denial is a lie. He had his hand upon his sword, but the knight, with a contemptuous smile, replied to him as coldly as before. You'll take notice, sir, if you can discriminate sufficiently that I have taken the trouble to deny nothing. Your discernment is hardly fine enough for the perusal of faces, not of a kind as coarse as your speech, nor has it ever been that I remember, or in one face that I could name you would have read indifference, not to say disgust, somewhat sooner than you did. I speak of a long time ago, but you understand me. Disguise it as you will, you mean denial. Denial explicit or reserved, expressed or left to be inferred is still a lie. You say you don't deny, do you admit? You yourself, returned Sir John, suffering the current of his speech to flow as smoothly as if it had been stemmed by no one word of interruption, publicly proclaimed the character of the gentleman in question, I think it was in Westminster Hall, in terms which relieve me from the necessity of making any farther allusion to him. You may have been warranted, you may not have been, I can't say, assuming the gentleman to be what you described, and to have made you to you or any other person any statements that may have happened, to suggest themselves to him for the sake of his own security, or for the sake of money, or for his own amusement or for any other consideration. I have nothing to say of him, except that his extremely degrading situation appears to me to be shared with his employers. You are so very plain yourself that you will excuse a little freedom in me, I'm sure. Attend to me again, Sir John, but once, cried Mr Haredale. In your every look and word and gesture, you tell me this was not your act. I tell you that it was, and that you tampered with the man I speak of, and with your wretched son, whom God forgive, to do this deed. You talk of deck degradation and character. You told me once that you had purchased the absence of the poor idiot and his mother, when, as I have discovered since and then suspected, that you had gone to tempt them and found them flown. To you I traced the insinuation that I alone reaped any harvest from my brother's death, and all the foul attacks and whispered calumnies that followed in its train, in every action of my life from the first hope which you converted into grief and desolation, you have stood like an adverse fate between me and peace. In all you have ever been the same, cold blooded, hollow, false, unworthy villain. For the second time and for the last I cast these charges in your teeth, and spurn ye from me, as I would a faithless dog. With that he raised his arm and struck him on the breast so that he staggered. Sir John, the instant he recovered, drew his sword, threw away the scabbard and his hat, and running on his adversary made a desperate lunge at his heart, which, but that his guard was quick and true, would have stretched him dead upon the grass. In the act of striking him the torrent of his opponent's rage had reached a stop. He parried his rapid thrusts without returning them, and called to him with a frantic kind of terror in his face, to keep back. Not tonight not tonight, in God's name not tonight. Seeing that he lowered his weapon and that he would not thrust in turn, Sir John lowered his. Not to night, his adversary cried, be warned in time. You told me it must have been in a sort of inspiration, said Sir John quite deliberately, though now he dropped his mask and showed his hatred in his face. That this was the last time. Be assured it is. Did you believe our last meeting was forgotten? Did you believe that your every word and look was not to be accounted for and was not well remembered? Do you believe that I have wasted your time or you mine? What kind of a man is he who entered with all this sickening cant of honesty and truth into a bond with me to prevent a marriage he affected to dislike, and when I had redeemed my part to the spirit and letter skulked from his, and brought the match about in his own time, to rid himself of a burden he had grown tired of, and cast a spurious lustre on his house. I have acted, cried Mr Haredale, with honour and in good faith. I do so now, do not force me to renew this jewel to night. You said my wretched son, I think, said Sir John with a smile, poor fool, the dupe of such a shallow knave, trapped into marriage by such an uncle and such a niece, he well deserves your pity, but he is no longer a son of mine, you're welcome to the prize your craft has made, sir. Once more, cried his opponent, wildly stamping on the ground, although you tear me from my better angel, I implore you not to come within the reach of my sword tonight. Oh why were you here at all? Why have we met? Tomorrow would have cast us far apart forever. Well that being the case, returned Sir John, without the least emotion, it is very fortunate we have met tonight. Heredale, I have always despised you as you know, but I have given you credit for a species of brute courage. For the honour of my judgment, which I had thought a good one, I am sorry to find you a coward. Not another word was spoken on either side. They crossed swords, though it was now quite dusk, and attacked each other fiercely. They were well matched, and each was thoroughly skilled in the management of his weapon. After a few seconds they grew hotter and more furious, and pressing on each other, inflicted and received several slight wounds. It was directly after receiving one of these in his arm that Mr Haredale, making a keener thrust, as he felt the warm blood spurting out, plunged his sword through his opponent's body to the hilt. Their eyes met and were on each other as he drew it out. He put his arm about the dying man, who repulsed him feebly and dropped upon the turf. Raising himself upon his hands he gazed at him for an instant, with scorn and hatred in his look, but seeming to remember even then that this expression would distort his features after death, he tried to smile, and faintly moving his right hand as if to hide his bloody linen in his vest, fell back dead, the phantom of last night. Chapter The Last A parting glance at such of the actors in this little history, as it has not, in the course of its event dismissed, will bring it to an end. Mr Haredale fled that night before pursuit could be begun, indeed before Sir John was traced or missed, he had left the kingdom, repairing straight to a religious establishment known throughout Europe for the rigour and severity of its discipline, and for the merciless penitence it exacted from those who sought its shelter as a refuge from the world, he took the vows which thenceforth shut him out from nature and his kind, and after a few remorseful years was buried in its gloomy cloisters. Two days elapsed before the body of Sir John was found. As soon as it was recognised and carried home, the faithful valet, true to his master's creed, eloped with all the cash and moveables he could lay his hands on, and started as a Finnish gentleman upon his own account. In this career he met with great success and would certainly have married an heiress in the end, but for an unlucky check which led to his premature decease, he sank under a contagious disorder, very prevalent at that time, and vulgarly termed the jail fever. Lord George Gordon, remaining in his prison in the tower until Monday the fifth of February in the following year, was on that day solemnly tried at Westminster for high treason. Of this crime he was, after a patient investigation, declared not guilty upon the grounds that there was no proof of his having called for the multitude together with any traitorous or unlawful intentions. Yet so many people were there still to whom these riots taught no lesson or reproof or moderation, that a public subscription was set on foot in Scotland to defray the cost of his defence. For seven years afterwards he remained at the strong intercession of his friends, comparatively quiet, saving that he, every now and then, took occasion to display his zeal for the Protestant faith in some extravagant proceeding which was the delight of its enemies, and saving besides that he was formally excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury for refusing to appear as a witness in the ecclesiastical court when cited for that purpose. In the year seventeen eighty eight he was stimulated by some new insanity to write and publish an injurious pamphlet reflecting on the Queen of France in very violent terms. Being indicted for the libel and after various strange demonstrations in court, found guilty, he fled into Holland in place of appearing to receive sentence, from whence, as the quiet burgomasters of Amsterdam had no relish for his company, he was sent home again with all speed. Arriving in the month of July at Harwich and going thence to Birmingham, he made in the latter place in August, a public profession of the Jewish religion, and figured there as a Jew until he was arrested and brought back to London to receive the sentence he had evaded. By virtue of this sentence he was in the month of December, cast into Newgate for five years and ten months, and required besides to pay a large fine and to furnish heavy securities for his future good behaviour. After addressing in the midsummer of the following year an appeal to the commiseration of the National Assembly of France, which the English minister refused to sanction, he composed himself to undergo his full term of punishment, and suffering his beard to grow nearly to his waist, and conforming in all respects to the ceremonies of his new religion, he applied himself to the study of history and occasionally to the art of painting, in which in his younger days he had shown some skill. Deserted by his former friends, and treated in all respects like the worst criminal in the jail, he lingered on quite cheerful and resigned until the first of November seventeen ninety three, when he died in his cell, being then only three and forty years of age. Many men with fewer sympathies for the distressed and needy, with less abilities and harder hearts, have made a shining figure and left a brilliant fame. He had his mourners. The prisoners bemoaned his loss and missed him, for though his means were not large, his charity was great, and in bespowing alms among them he considered the necessities of all alike, and knew no distinction of sect or creed. There are wise men in the highways of the world who may learn something even from this poor crazy lord who died in Newgate. To the last he was truly served by Bluff John Gruby. John was at his side before he had been four and twenty hours in the tower, and never left him until he died. He had one other constant attendant in the person of a beautiful Jewish girl who attached herself to him from her feelings half religious, half romantic, but whose virtuous and disinterested character appears to have been beyond the censure even of the most censorious. Gashford deserted him, of course. He subsisted for a time upon his traffic in his master's secrets, and this trade failing when the stock was quite exhausted, procured an appointment in the honourable corps of spies and eavesdroppers employed by the government. As one of these wretched underlings he did his drudgery, sometimes abroad, sometimes at home, and long endured the various miseries of such a station. Ten or a dozen years ago, not more, a meager, one old man, diseased and miserably poor, was found dead in his bed at an obscure inn in the borough, where he was quite unknown. He had taken poison. There was no clue to his name, but it was discovered from certain entries in a pocket book he carried that he had been secretary to Lord George Gordon in the time of the famous riots. Many months after the reestablishment of peace and order, and even when it had ceased to be the town talk that every military officer kept at free quarters by the city during the late alarms, had cost for his board and lodging four pounds four per day, and every private soldier two, and two pence halfpenny many months after. Even this engrossing topic was forgotten, and the united bulldogs were to a man all killed, imprisoned or transported. Mr Simon Tappet, being removed from a hospital to prison, and thence to his place of trial, was discharged by proclamation on two wooden legs, shorn of his graceful limbs and brought down from his high estate to circumstances of utter destitution and the deepest misery, he made shift to stump back to his old master and beg for some relief. By the locksmith's advice and aid, he was established in business as a shoe black and opened shop under an archway near the horse guards. This being a central quarter, he quickly made a very large connection, and on levee days was sometimes known to have had as many as twenty half pay officers waiting their turn for polishing. Indeed his trade increased to that extent that in course of time he entertained no less than two apprentices, besides taking for his wife the widow of an eminent bone and rag collector, formerly of Millbank. With this lady who assisted in the business he lived in great domestic happiness, only checkered by those little storms which served to clear the atmosphere fear of wedlock and brighten its horizon. In some of these gusts of bad weather, Mr Tappertit would, in the assertion of his prerogative, so far forget himself as to correct his lady with a brush or boot or shoe, while she, but only in extreme cases, would retaliate by taking off his legs and leaving him exposed to the derision of those urchins who delight in mischief. Miss Miggs, baffled in all her schemes, matrimonial and otherwise, and cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour, and did at length become so acid and did so pinch and slap and tweak the hair and noses of the youth of Golden Lion Court, that she was by one consent expelled that sanctuary, and desired to bless some other spot of earth in preference. It chanced at that moment that the justices of the peace for Middlesex proclaimed by public placard that they stood in need of a female turnkey for the county bridewell, and appointed a day and hour for the inspection of candidates. Miss Miggs attending at the time appointed, was instantly chosen and selected from one hundred and twenty four competitors, and at once promoted to the office which she held until her decease, more than thirty years afterwards, remaining single all that time. It was observed of this lady that while she was inflexible and grim to all her female flock, she was particularly so to those who could establish any claim to beauty, and it was often remarked as a proof to her indomitable virtue and severe chastity, that to such as had been frail she showed no mercy, always falling upon them on the slightest occasion, or on no occasion at all, with the fullish fullest measure of her wrath. Among other useful inventions which she practised upon this class of offenders and bequeathed to posterity, was the act of inflicting an exquisitely vicious poke or dig with the wards of a key and the small of the back near the spine. She likewise originated a mode of treading by accident in patterns, on such as had small feet, also very remarkable for its ingenuity and previously quite unknown. It was not very long, you may be sure, before Joe Willet and Dolly Varden were made husband and wife, and with a handsome sum in bank, for the locksmith could afford to give his daughter a very good dowry, reopened the Maypole. It was not very long, you may be sure, before a red faced little boy was seen staggering about the Maypole passage, and kicking up his heels on the green before the door. It was not very long, counting by years, before there was a red faced little girl, another red faced little boy, and a whole troop of girls and boys, so that go to Chigwell when you would, they would surely be seen either in the village street or on the green, or frolicking in the farmyard, for it was a farm now as well as a tavern, more small Joe's and small Dolly's than could be easily counted. It was not a very long time before these appearances ensued, but it was a very long time before Joe looked five years older, or Dolly either, or the locksmith either, or his wife either, for cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and our famous preservers of youthful looks depend upon it. It was a long time too before there was such a country inn as the Maypole in all England. Indeed it is a great question whether there has ever been another to this hour or ever will be. It was a long time too, for never, as the proverb says, it is a long day before they forgot to have an interest in wounded soldiers at the Maypole, or Or before Joe omitted to refresh them for the sake of his old campaign, or before the sergeant left off looking in there now and then, or before they fatigued themselves or each other by talking on these occasions of battles and sieges and hard weather and hard service and a thousand things belonging to a soldier's life? As to the great silver snuff box which the king sent Joe with his own hand because of his conduct in the riots, what guest ever went to the Maypole without putting finger and thumb into that box and taking a great pinch, though he had never taken a pinch of snuff before, and almost sneezed himself into convulsions even then. As to the purple faced Vintner, where is the man who lived in those times and never saw him at the Maypole, to all appearance as much at home in the best room as if he lived there, and as to the feastings and christenings and revellings at Christmas and celebrations of birthdays, wedding days, and all manner of days, both at the Maypole and Golden Quay, if they are not notorious, what facts are? Mr Willet the Elder, having been by some extraordinary means possessed with the idea that Joe wanted to be married and that it would be well for him, his father, to retire into private life and enable him to live in comfort, took up his abode in a small cottage at Chigwell, where they widened and enlarged the fireplace for him, hung up the boiler, and furthermore planted in the little garden outside the front door a fictitious maple, so that he was quite at home directly. To this his new habitation, Tom Cobb, Phil Parks, and Solomon Daisy, went regularly every night, and in the chimney corner they all four quaffed and smoked and prosed and dozed as they had done of old, it being accidentally discovered after a short time that Mr Willet still appeared to consider himself a landlord by profession. Joe provided him with a slate upon which the old man regularly scored up vast accounts for meat, drink and tobacco. As he grew older this passion increased upon him, and it became his delight to chalk against the name of his cronies, a sum of enormous magnitude, and impossible to be paid, and such was his secret joy in these entries that he would be perpetually seen going behind the door to look at them, and coming forth again, suffused with the liveliest satisfaction. He never recovered the surprise the rioters had given him, and remained in the same mental condition down to the last moment of his life. It was like to have been brought to a speedy termination by the first sight of his first grandchild, which appeared to fill him with a belief that some alarming miracle had happened to Joe. Being promptly blooded, however, by a skillful surgeon, he rallied, and although the doctors all agreed on his being attacked with symptoms of apoplexy six months afterwards, that he ought to die and that he took it very ill that he did not, he remained alive, possibly on account of his constitutional slowness for nearly seven years more, when he was one morning found speechless in his bed. He lay in this state free from all tokens of uneasiness for a whole week, when he was suddenly restored to consciousness by hearing the nurse whisper in his son's ear that he was going. I'm a going, Joseph, said Mr Willet, turning round upon the instant, to the Sal Runners and immediately gave up the ghost. He left a large sum of money behind him, even more than he was supposed to have been worth, although the neighbors, according to the custom of mankind, in calculating the wealth that other people ought to have saved, had estimated his property in good round numbers. Joe inherited the whole so that he became a man of great consequence in those parts and was perfectly independent. Some time elapsed before Barnaby got the better of the shock he had sustained, or regained his old health and gayety, but he recovered by degrees, and although he could never separate his condemnation and escape from the idea of a terrific dream, he became in other respects more rational. Dating from the time of his recovery, he had a better memory and greater steadiness of purpose, but a dark cloud overhung his whole previous existence, and never cleared away. He was not the less happy for this, for his love of freedom and interest in all that moved or grew, or had its being in the elements, remained to him unimpaired. He lived with his mother on the Maypole farm, tending the poultry and the cattle, working in a garden of his own and helping everywhere. He was known to every bird and beast about the place, and had a name for every one. Never was there a lighter hearted husbandsman, a creature more popular with young or old, a blither or more happy soul than Barnaby, and though he was free to ramble where he would, he never quitted her, but was for evermore her stay and comfort. It was remarkable that, although he had had that dim sense of the past, he sought out Hugh's dog and took him under the his care, and that he never could be tempted into London, when the riots were many years old and Edward and his wife came back to England with a family almost as numerous as Dolly's, and one day appeared at the Maypole Porch, he knew them instantly and wept and leaped for joy, but neither to visit them nor on any other pretence, no matter how full of promise and enjoyment could he be persuaded to set foot in the streets, nor did he ever conquer his repugnance or look upon the town again. Gripp soon recovered his looks and became as glossy and sleek as ever, but he was profoundly silent, whether he had forgotten the art of polite conversation in Newgate or had made a vow in those troubled times to forgo for a period the display of his accomplishments is matter of uncertainty, but certain it is that for a whole year he never indulged in any other sound than a grave, decorous croak. At the expiration of that term, the morning being very bright and sunny, he was heard to address himself to the horses in the stable upon the subject of the kettle so often mentioned in these pages, and before the witness who overheard him could run into the house with the intelligence, and add to it upon him upon his solemn affirmation, the statement that he had heard him laugh, the bird himself advanced with fantastic steps to the very door of the bar, and there cried I'm a devil, I'm a devil with extraordinary rapture. From that period, although he was supposed to be much affected by the death of Mr Willet Sr., he constantly practised and improved himself in the vulgar tongue, and as he was a mere infant for a raven when Barnaby was grey, he has very probably gone on talking to the present time. The end of