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Barnaby Rudge: a tale of the Riots of 'eighty
BARNABY RUDGE
A TALE OF THE RIOTS OF 'EIGHTY
by Charles Dickens
Contibutor's Note:
I've left in archaic forms such as 'to-morrow' or 'to-day' as they
occured in my copy. Also please be aware if spell-checking, that
within dialog many 'mispelled' words exist, i.e. 'wery' for 'very', as
intended by the author.
D.L.
PREFACE
The late Mr Waterton having, some time ago, expressed his opinion that
ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offered the few
following words about my experience of these birds.
The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom
I was, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the
bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in
London, by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first,
as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, 'good gifts', which he improved
by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a
stable--generally on horseback--and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by
his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere
superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog's
dinner, from before his face. He was rapidly rising in acquirements
and virtues, when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He
observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint,
and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner, he ate
up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white
lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death.
While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine in
Yorkshire discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village
public-house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a
consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this Sage, was, to
administer to the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the
cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden--a work of immense
labour and research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind.
When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition
of stable language, in which he soon became such an adept, that he
would perch outside my window and drive imaginary horses with great
skill, all day. Perhaps even I never saw him at his best, for his
former master sent his duty with him, 'and if I wished the bird to
come out very strong, would I be so good as to show him a drunken
man'--which I never did, having (unfortunately) none but sober people
at hand.
But I could hardly have respected him more, whatever the stimulating
influences of this sight might have been. He had not the least
respect, I am sorry to say, for me in return, or for anybody but the
cook; to whom he was attached--but only, I fear, as a Policeman might
have been. Once, I met him unexpectedly, about half-a-mile from my
house, walking down the middle of a public street, attended by a
pretty large crowd, and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his
accomplishments. His gravity under those trying circumstances, I can
never forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to
be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered
by numbers. It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live
long, or it may have been that he took some pernicious substance into
his bill, and thence into his maw--which is not improbable, seeing
that he new-pointed the greater part of the garden-wall by digging out
the mortar, broke countless squares of glass by scraping away the
putty all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed, in splinters,
the greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing--but
after some three years he too was taken ill, and died before the
kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted,
and suddenly turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of
'Cuckoo!' Since then I have been ravenless.
No account of the Gordon Riots having been to my knowledge introduced
into any Work of Fiction, and the subject presenting very
extraordinary and remarkable features, I was led to project this Tale.
It is unnecessary to say, that those shameful tumults, while they
reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, and
all who had act or part in them, teach a good lesson. That what we
falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no
religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought the commonest
principles of right and wrong; that it is begotten of intolerance and
persecution; that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate and
unmerciful; all History teaches us. But perhaps we do not know it in
our hearts too well, to profit by even so humble an example as the 'No
Popery' riots of Seventeen Hundred and Eighty.
However imperfectly those disturbances are set forth in the following
pages, they are impartially painted by one who has no sympathy with
the Romish Church, though he acknowledges, as most men do, some
esteemed friends among the followers of its creed.
In the description of the principal outrages, reference has been had
to the best authorities of that time, such as they are; the account
given in this Tale, of all the main features of the Riots, is
substantially correct.
Mr Dennis's allusions to the flourishing condition of his trade in
those days, have their foundation in Truth, and not in the Author's
fancy. Any file of old Newspapers, or odd volume of the Annual
Register, will prove this with terrible ease.
Even the case of Mary Jones, dwelt upon with so much pleasure by the
same character, is no effort of invention. The facts were stated,
exactly as they are stated here, in the House of Commons. Whether they
afforded as much entertainment to the merry gentlemen assembled there,
as some other most affecting circumstances of a similar nature
mentioned by Sir Samuel Romilly, is not recorded.
That the case of Mary Jones may speak the more emphatically for
itself, I subjoin it, as related by SIR WILLIAM MEREDITH in a speech
in Parliament, 'on Frequent Executions', made in 1777.
'Under this act,' the Shop-lifting Act, 'one Mary Jones was executed,
whose case I shall just mention; it was at the time when press
warrants were issued, on the alarm about Falkland Islands. The woman's
husband was pressed, their goods seized for some debts of his, and
she, with two small children, turned into the streets a-begging. It is
a circumstance not to be forgotten, that she was very young (under
nineteen), and most remarkably handsome. She went to a linen-draper's
shop, took some coarse linen off the counter, and slipped it under her
cloak; the shopman saw her, and she laid it down: for this she was
hanged. Her defence was (I have the trial in my pocket), "that she had
lived in credit, and wanted for nothing, till a press-gang came and
stole her husband from her; but since then, she had no bed to lie on;
nothing to give her children to eat; and they were almost naked; and
perhaps she might have done something wrong, for she hardly knew what
she did." The parish officers testified the truth of this story; but
it seems, there had been a good deal of shop-lifting about Ludgate; an
example was thought necessary; and this woman was hanged for the
comfort and satisfaction of shopkeepers in Ludgate Street. When
brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a frantic manner, as
proved her mind to be in a distracted and desponding state; and the
child was sucking at her breast when she set out for Tyburn.'
Chapter 1
In the year 1775, there stood upon the borders of Epping Forest, at a
distance of about twelve miles from London--measuring from the
Standard in Cornhill,' or rather from the spot on or near to which the
Standard used to be in days of yore--a house of public entertainment
called the Maypole; which fact was demonstrated to all such travellers
as could neither read nor write (and at that time a vast number both
of travellers and stay-at-homes were in this condition) by the emblem
reared on the roadside over against the house, which, if not of those
goodly proportions that Maypoles were wont to present in olden times,
was a fair young ash, thirty feet in height, and straight as any arrow
that ever English yeoman drew.
The Maypole--by which term from henceforth is meant the house, and not
its sign--the Maypole was an old building, with more gable ends than a
lazy man would care to count on a sunny day; huge zig-zag chimneys,
out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come
in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted to it in its
tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous, and empty. The
place was said to have been built in the days of King Henry the
Eighth; and there was a legend, not only that Queen Elizabeth had
slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion, to wit, in a
certain oak-panelled room with a deep bay window, but that next
morning, while standing on a mounting block before the door with one
foot in the stirrup, the virgin monarch had then and there boxed and
cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty. The matter-of-fact
and doubtful folks, of whom there were a few among the Maypole
customers, as unluckily there always are in every little community,
were inclined to look upon this tradition as rather apocryphal; but,
whenever the landlord of that ancient hostelry appealed to the
mounting block itself as evidence, and triumphantly pointed out that
there it stood in the same place to that very day, the doubters never
failed to be put down by a large majority, and all true believers
exulted as in a victory.
Whether these, and many other stories of the like nature, were true or
untrue, the Maypole was really an old house, a very old house, perhaps
as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which will sometimes
happen with houses of an uncertain, as with ladies of a certain, age.
Its windows were old diamond-pane lattices, its floors were sunken and
uneven, its ceilings blackened by the hand of time, and heavy with
massive beams. Over the doorway was an ancient porch, quaintly and
grotesquely carved; and here on summer evenings the more favoured
customers smoked and drank--ay, and sang many a good song too,
sometimes--reposing on two grim-looking high-backed settles, which,
like the twin dragons of some fairy tale, guarded the entrance to the
mansion.
In the chimneys of the disused rooms, swallows had built their nests
for many a long year, and from earliest spring to latest autumn whole
colonies of sparrows chirped and twittered in the eaves. There were
more pigeons about the dreary stable-yard and out-buildings than
anybody but the landlord could reckon up. The wheeling and circling
flights of runts, fantails, tumblers, and pouters, were perhaps not
quite consistent with the grave and sober character of the building,
but the monotonous cooing, which never ceased to be raised by some
among them all day long, suited it exactly, and seemed to lull it to
rest. With its overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and
front bulging out and projecting over the pathway, the old house
looked as if it were nodding in its sleep. Indeed, it needed no very
great stretch of fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity.
The bricks of which it was built had originally been a deep dark red,
but had grown yellow and discoloured like an old man's skin; the
sturdy timbers had decayed like teeth; and here and there the ivy,
like a warm garment to comfort it in its age, wrapt its green leaves
closely round the time-worn walls.
It was a hale and hearty age though, still: and in the summer or
autumn evenings, when the glow of the setting sun fell upon the oak
and chestnut trees of the adjacent forest, the old house, partaking of
its lustre, seemed their fit companion, and to have many good years of
life in him yet.
The evening with which we have to do, was neither a summer nor an
autumn one, but the twilight of a day in March, when the wind howled
dismally among the bare branches of the trees, and rumbling in the
wide chimneys and driving the rain against the windows of the Maypole
Inn, gave such of its frequenters as chanced to be there at the moment
an undeniable reason for prolonging their stay, and caused the
landlord to prophesy that the night would certainly clear at eleven
o'clock precisely,--which by a remarkable coincidence was the hour at
which he always closed his house.
The name of him upon whom the spirit of prophecy thus descended was
John Willet, a burly, large-headed man with a fat face, which
betokened profound obstinacy and slowness of apprehension, combined
with a very strong reliance upon his own merits. It was John Willet's
ordinary boast in his more placid moods that if he were slow he was
sure; which assertion could, in one sense at least, be by no means
gainsaid, seeing that he was in everything unquestionably the reverse
of fast, and withal one of the most dogged and positive fellows in
existence--always sure that what he thought or said or did was right,
and holding it as a thing quite settled and ordained by the laws of
nature and Providence, that anybody who said or did or thought
otherwise must be inevitably and of necessity wrong.
Mr Willet walked slowly up to the window, flattened his fat nose
against the cold glass, and shading his eyes that his sight might not
be affected by the ruddy glow of the fire, looked abroad. Then he
walked slowly back to his old seat in the chimney-corner, and,
composing himself in it with a slight shiver, such as a man might give
way to and so acquire an additional relish for the warm blaze, said,
looking round upon his guests:
'It'll clear at eleven o'clock. No sooner and no later. Not before and
not arterwards.'
'How do you make out that?' said a little man in the opposite corner.
'The moon is past the full, and she rises at nine.'
John looked sedately and solemnly at his questioner until he had
brought his mind to bear upon the whole of his observation, and then
made answer, in a tone which seemed to imply that the moon was
peculiarly his business and nobody else's:
'Never you mind about the moon. Don't you trouble yourself about her.
You let the moon alone, and I'll let you alone.'
'No offence I hope?' said the little man.
Again John waited leisurely until the observation had thoroughly
penetrated to his brain, and then replying, 'No offence as YET,'
applied a light to his pipe and smoked in placid silence; now and then
casting a sidelong look at a man wrapped in a loose riding-coat with
huge cuffs ornamented with tarnished silver lace and large metal
buttons, who sat apart from the regular frequenters of the house, and
wearing a hat flapped over his face, which was still further shaded by
the hand on which his forehead rested, looked unsociable enough.
There was another guest, who sat, booted and spurred, at some distance
from the fire also, and whose thoughts--to judge from his folded arms
and knitted brows, and from the untasted liquor before him--were
occupied with other matters than the topics under discussion or the
persons who discussed them. This was a young man of about
eight-and-twenty, rather above the middle height, and though of
somewhat slight figure, gracefully and strongly made. He wore his own
dark hair, and was accoutred in a riding dress, which together with
his large boots (resembling in shape and fashion those worn by our
Life Guardsmen at the present day), showed indisputable traces of the
bad condition of the roads. But travel-stained though he was, he was
well and even richly attired, and without being overdressed looked a
gallant gentleman.
Lying upon the table beside him, as he had carelessly thrown them
down, were a heavy riding-whip and a slouched hat, the latter worn no
doubt as being best suited to the inclemency of the weather. There,
too, were a pair of pistols in a holster-case, and a short
riding-cloak. Little of his face was visible, except the long dark
lashes which concealed his downcast eyes, but an air of careless ease
and natural gracefulness of demeanour pervaded the figure, and seemed
to comprehend even those slight accessories, which were all handsome,
and in good keeping.
Towards this young gentleman the eyes of Mr Willet wandered but once,
and then as if in mute inquiry whether he had observed his silent
neighbour. It was plain that John and the young gentleman had often
met before. Finding that his look was not returned, or indeed observed
by the person to whom it was addressed, John gradually concentrated
the whole power of his eyes into one focus, and brought it to bear
upon the man in the flapped hat, at whom he came to stare in course of
time with an intensity so remarkable, that it affected his fireside
cronies, who all, as with one accord, took their pipes from their
lips, and stared with open mouths at the stranger likewise.
The sturdy landlord had a large pair of dull fish-like eyes, and the
little man who had hazarded the remark about the moon (and who was the
parish-clerk and bell-ringer of Chigwell, a village hard by) had
little round black shiny eyes like beads; moreover this little man
wore at the knees of his rusty black breeches, and on his rusty black
coat, and all down his long flapped waistcoat, little queer buttons
like nothing except his eyes; but so like them, that as they twinkled
and glistened in the light of the fire, which shone too in his bright
shoe-buckles, he seemed all eyes from head to foot, and to be gazing
with every one of them at the unknown customer. No wonder that a man
should grow restless under such an inspection as this, to say nothing
of the eyes belonging to short Tom Cobb the general chandler and
post-office keeper, and long Phil Parkes the ranger, both of whom,
infected by the example of their companions, regarded him of the
flapped hat no less attentively.
The stranger became restless; perhaps from being exposed to this
raking fire of eyes, perhaps from the nature of his previous
meditations--most probably from the latter cause, for as he changed
his position and looked hastily round, he started to find himself the
object of such keen regard, and darted an angry and suspicious glance
at the fireside group. It had the effect of immediately diverting all
eyes to the chimney, except those of John Willet, who finding himself
as it were, caught in the fact, and not being (as has been already
observed) of a very ready nature, remained staring at his guest in a
particularly awkward and disconcerted manner.
'Well?' said the stranger.
Well. There was not much in well. It was not a long speech. 'I thought
you gave an order,' said the landlord, after a pause of two or three
minutes for consideration.
The stranger took off his hat, and disclosed the hard features of a
man of sixty or thereabouts, much weatherbeaten and worn by time, and
the naturally harsh expression of which was not improved by a dark
handkerchief which was bound tightly round his head, and, while it
served the purpose of a wig, shaded his forehead, and almost hid his
eyebrows. If it were intended to conceal or divert attention from a
deep gash, now healed into an ugly seam, which when it was first
inflicted must have laid bare his cheekbone, the object was but
indifferently attained, for it could scarcely fail to be noted at a
glance. His complexion was of a cadaverous hue, and he had a grizzly
jagged beard of some three weeks' date. Such was the figure (very
meanly and poorly clad) that now rose from the seat, and stalking
across the room sat down in a corner of the chimney, which the
politeness or fears of the little clerk very readily assigned to him.
'A highwayman!' whispered Tom Cobb to Parkes the ranger.
'Do you suppose highwaymen don't dress handsomer than that?' replied
Parkes. 'It's a better business than you think for, Tom, and
highwaymen don't need or use to be shabby, take my word for it.'
Meanwhile the subject of their speculations had done due honour to the
house by calling for some drink, which was promptly supplied by the
landlord's son Joe, a broad-shouldered strapping young fellow of
twenty, whom it pleased his father still to consider a little boy, and
to treat accordingly. Stretching out his hands to warm them by the
blazing fire, the man turned his head towards the company, and after
running his eye sharply over them, said in a voice well suited to his
appearance:
'What house is that which stands a mile or so from here?'
'Public-house?' said the landlord, with his usual deliberation.
'Public-house, father!' exclaimed Joe, 'where's the public-house
within a mile or so of the Maypole? He means the great house--the
Warren--naturally and of course. The old red brick house, sir, that
stands in its own grounds--?'
'Aye,' said the stranger.
'And that fifteen or twenty years ago stood in a park five times as
broad, which with other and richer property has bit by bit changed
hands and dwindled away--more's the pity!' pursued the young man.