12. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 441-482

Chapters 48-52

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As Mrs. Rudge and Barnaby decide what to do now, they find a recessed area on the bridge and sit down to rest. They notice that "a vast throng of persons were crossing the river from the Middlesex to the Surrey short, in unusual haste and evident excitement." Most of the men are wearing blue ribbon cockades in their hats of the kind John Grueby complained about wearing much earlier: an insignia of the Protestant Association. Although the people crossing seem to be in groups of two or three, the crowd finally grows so large that for two hours the bridge is jammed.

Finally, a man stops and sits beside them, and informs them that the crowd is made up of "Lord George Gordon's great association. This is the day that he presents the petition against the Catholics, God bless him!" Moreover, he says, "his lordship has declared he won't present it to the house at all, unless it is attended to the door by forty thousand good and true men at least." Barnaby grows excited, telling his mother, "You remember what the blind man said, about the gold. Here's a brave crowd!" Mrs. Rudge tries to calm him, but a hackney-coach stops and offers him a blue cockade. She tries to discourage the man from giving it to him, but he tosses it to Barnaby and says, "Make haste to St George's Fields."

As she pleads with Barnaby not to go, two men appear, walking along the other side of the road. They are Gashford and Lord George Gordon, and they persuade Barnaby to join them. Mrs. Rudge protests, "He is not in his right senses, he is not, indeed!" Gordon scolds her as an "unnatural mother" for speaking that way of her son, and Gashford calls her "a very sad picture of female depravity," and they succeed in getting Barnaby to follow them, with Mrs. Rudge, consumed with "fear and grief," trailing after them.

When they reach St. George's Fields, the crowd has gathered in regiments, marching with a variety of blue flags and singing hymns. Gordon suggests that they find one for Barnaby to join. Suddenly a man appears out of the crowd "and smote Barnaby on the shoulders with his heavy hand." It's Hugh, delighted to see him again, and he tells Gordon, "'He shall march, my lord, between me and Dennis; and she shall carry,' he added, taking a flag of a tired man who tendered it, 'the gayest silken streamer in this valiant army.'" As Mrs. Rudge cries out for Barnaby, Sim Tappertit also appears and protests, "Ladies are carrying off our gallant soldiers from their duty." Mrs. Rudge is "thrown to the ground; the whole field was in motion; Barnaby was whirled away into the heart of a dense mass of men, and she saw him no more."

 

Hugh plays on Barnaby's gullibility, assuring him that "His flag's the largest of the lot, the brightest too" and when he worries about his mother, he tells him, "I've provided for her, and sent half-a-dozen gentlemen, every one of 'em with a blue flag (but not half as fine as yours), to take her, in state, to a grand house all hung round with gold and silver banners." And he adds, "Money, cocked hats and feathers, red coats and gold lace; all the fine things there are, ever were, or will be; will belong to us if we are true to that noble gentleman." He whispers to Dennis, "the lad's a natural, and can be got to do anything, if you take him the right way."

The groups then proceed to Westminster, forming a "vast throng, sprinkled doubtless here and there with honest zealots, but composed for the most part of the very scum and refuse of London." Members of Parliament were forced to work their way through the mob:

Lords, commoners, and reverend bishops, with little distinction of person or party, were kicked and pinched and hustled; passed from hand to hand through various stages of ill-usage; and sent to their fellow-senators at last with their clothes hanging in ribands about them, their bagwigs torn off, themselves speechless and breathless, and their persons covered with the powder which had been cuffed and beaten out of their hair.... The mob raged and roared, like a mad monster as it was, unceasingly, and each new outrage served to swell its fury.... when the door of the House, partially and cautiously opened by those within for [Gordon's] admission, gave them a momentary glimpse of the interior, they grew more wild and savage, like beasts at the sight of prey, and made a rush against the portal which strained its locks and bolts in their staples, and shook the very beams.

There are two short flights of stairs on either side of "a kind of well, or unglazed skylight, for the admission of light and air into the lobby, which might be some eighteen or twenty feet below." (Dickens is better at giving the atmosphere and color of a setting than he is at describing it so one can visualize it.) Gordon appears at the head of one of the stairs from time to time to report on what is happening in the House. Barnaby, Hugh and Dennis are on the stairs, too, along with Gashford. The roar of the crowd is so loud that Hugh has to bellow for quiet so Gordon can be heard.

Then two men come from inside and push past Gordon to address the crowd. One is General Conway, and the other is Colonel Gordon -- who says he is Lord George's "near relation" -- and they both warn the mob that they are prepared to defend the House from anyone who dares to enter it. The crowd is at first intimidated -- they "faltered and stared at each other with irresolute and timid looks" -- but at a signal from Gashford, Hugh urges them on, and then "threw himself headlong over the bannisters into the lobby below. He had hardly touched the ground when Barnaby was at his side." Then the mob "threw themselves against the doors pell-mell and besieged the House in earnest."

But then a rumor that troops are approaching spreads through the crowd, and it begins to retreat in panic, carrying Hugh and Barnaby along with it, as "a large detachment of the Guards, both horse and foot, came hurrying up; clearing the ground before them so rapidly that the people seemed to melt away as they advanced." They "made straight towards Barnaby and Hugh, who had no doubt been pointed out as the two men who dropped into the lobby." Barnaby is sickened at the sight of blood, which the Guards had shed, but Hugh makes him stand his ground and he knocks a soldier from his charging horse with his flagpole, then the two of them run for the river, where they jump into a boat and make their escape. They learn that a magistrate had offered to withdraw the troops if the mob would disperse, and thereby put an end to the riot. Back on land, they narrowly miss an encounter with soldiers escorting the prisoners they had taken to Newgate, and make their way to The Boot.

They are joined at the tavern by Sim Tappertit and Dennis. The latter is disgusted at the ease with which the mob was persuaded to disperse, but he praises Hugh and Barnaby for their conduct. The group in The Boot grows smaller until only Dennis, Hugh and Barnaby are there when Gashford arrives. He tells them that Gordon's petition has been rejected by a vote of 192 to 6, and he starts ripping the blue cockade out of his hat. He also tells them that a reward may be offered for the apprehension of Barnaby and Hugh. The latter is still fired up, and he has persuaded Barnaby "that he was among the most virtuous and disinterested heroes in the world," so Gashford says, "I hear -- but I cannot say whether it be true or false -- that the men who are loitering in the streets to-night are half disposed to pull down a Romish chapel or two, and that they only want leaders." So Hugh, Dennis and Barnaby take the hint and rush out to where the action is.

Gashford then strolls about and listens to the rumors that are flying about. After a while, "a great many women and children came flying along the street -- often panting and looking back." He takes shelter in a house where he watches from an upstairs window as the torch-bearing mob passes, carrying the spoils they have taken from a Catholic church: "the vestments of priests, and rich fragments of altar furniture." Barnaby, Hugh and Dennis are at the head of the crowd, "their hands and faces jagged and bleeding with the wounds of rusty nails." The mob is filled with people who have been hurt by "falling bricks, and stones, and beams." It is "a dream of demon heads and savage eyes, and sticks and iron bars uplifted in the air, and whirled about."

Gashford goes back outside after the mob has passed, and hears a scream. Someone tells him "that a widow woman had descried her son among the rioters. 'Is that all?' said the secretary, turning his face homewards. 'Well! I think this looks a little more like business.'"

At the Vardens, Gabriel, his wife, and Miggs are waiting up for the arrival of Sim. Miggs has "arrived at that restless state and sensitive condition of the nervous system which are the result of long watching," and is annoying Gabriel with her twitches and sighs. Some time after two a.m. "there was a sound at the street door, as if somebody had fallen against the knocker by accident." Gabriel goes and admits the tattered and filthy Sim, who is drunk. When Sim says that he wasn't at the scene of the destruction of the Catholic churches, Gabriel says he's glad to hear it, "for if he had been, and it could be proved against him, Martha, your Great Association would have been to him the cart that draws men to the gallows and leaves them hanging in the air."

Sim reiterates that he wasn't at those places but that he was at Westminster and that he roughed up some of the members of Parliament: "'Who knows? This,' he added, putting his hand into his waistcoat-pocket and taking out a large tooth, at the sight of which both Miggs and Mrs Varden screamed, 'this was a bishop's. Beware, G. Varden!'" Gabriel says, "Be sorry for what you have done, and we will try to save you." He offers to clean him up and get him out of London, and says that Mrs. Varden's cousin in Canterbury can "give him work till this storm has blown over." But Sim defies his aid, and produces a letter signed by Gordon proclaiming that "the proprietor of this house is a staunch and worth friend to the cause." If Gabriel will keep the letter safe and write "No Popery" in chalk on his door for the next week, no harm will come to them. Then he bids them farewell. Mrs. Varden and Miggs try to prevent his leaving, and he threatens to pinch Miggs if she doesn't get out of the way.

"Release me," said Simon, struggling to free himself from her chaste, but spider-like embrace. "Let me go! I have made arrangements for you in an altered state of society, and mean to provide for you comfortably in life -- there! Will that satisfy you?"

"Oh Simmun!" cried Miss Miggs. "Oh my blessed Simmon! Oh mim! what are my feelings at this conflicting moment?" 

Gabriel continues to try to put some sense in Sim's head, but he resists the effort: "This night, sir, I have been in the country, planning an expedition which shall fill your bell-hanging soul with wonder and dismay. The plot demands my utmost energy." Finally, he manages to get to the door, and though Gabriel chases him down the street he can't catch up with him. He makes his way to The Boot where he knows he is awaited.

Gabriel returns to the house where he demands the little cash box which Mrs. Varden used for contributions to the Protestant Association, and which she has already decided to hide from him. She gives it up and he smashes it. "'That,' said the locksmith, 'is easily disposed of, and I would to Heaven that everything growing out of the same society could be settled as easily.'" Then he tears the letter from Gordon into pieces, sends Mrs. Varden and Miggs to bed, and goes to work in his shop.

At The Boot, Hugh and Dennis awake. Hugh is covered with scratches, and Dennis observes, "You hurt yourself a hundred times more than you need, because you will be foremost in everything, and will do more than the rest." But Hugh singles out Barnaby for praise: "What did I tell you about him? Did I say he was worth a dozen, when you doubted him?" But the only thing that bothers Dennis about Barnaby is that he washes himself so much. Barnaby is now standing sentry outside the tavern with his flagstaff. Sim is asleep still.

Hugh tells Dennis that he and Sim "have planned for to-morrow a roaring expedition, with good profit in it. Moreover Sim "has thoughts of carrying off a woman in the bustle, and -- ha ha ha! -- and so have I!" Dennis, who "as a general principle ... objected to women altogether," is not so enthusiastic about that part of it. The only thing is that Barnaby can't be part of it because "the people we mean to visit, were friends of his, once upon a time," so Hugh has persuaded him "that Lord George has picked him out to guard this place to-morrow while we're away."

Sim awakens, and Hugh suggests he have a drink -- "Another hair of the dog that bit you, captain!" He has enough money to pay for it because he has a stash "of gold and silver cups and candlesticks buried" under his bed. Sim, who is hung over, is not so enthusiastic about the drink, but he settles down with the other two to plan their escapade, and "their loud and frequent roars of laughter ... startled Barnaby on his post, and made him wonder at their levity."

At twilight, joined by others, they go out again "towards Moorfields, where there was a rich chapel, and in which neighbourhood several Catholic families were known to reside." They loot and vandalize the houses and the church.

Fifty resolute men might have turned them at any moment; a single company of soldiers could have scattered them like dust; but no man interposed, no authority restrained them, and, except by the terrified persons who fled from their approach, they were as little heeded as if they were pursuing their lawful occupations with the utmost sobriety and good conduct.

They build bonfires of the less valuable part of their looting, and dance around them till they are tired. As Hugh and the others are walking away from the scene, they encounter Gashford, who is disgusted with their antics. Hugh insists, "Fevers are never at their height at once. They must get on by degrees." Gashford wants something more than bonfires: "Can you burn nothing whole?"

Hugh counsels patience: "Wait but a few hours, and you shall see. Look for a redness in the sky, to-morrow night."

11. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 415-440

Chapters 45-47

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Barnaby and his mother have found "a small English country town" where they have been "living in a quiet poverty which knew no change, no pleasures, and few cares but that of struggling on from day to day in one great toil for bread." The hut in which they live is near the high road, but in a secluded area where few people came. Mrs. Rudge eagerly reads whatever newspapers she finds and listens to whatever talk about the outside world, but always with "the keenest anxiety and dread."

 Grip the raven is actually a source of income for them: People are amazed by his vocal tricks, and reward them with money. But Barnaby is restless and conscious of their poverty, though his mother warns him that gold "has brought such misery and suffering on your head and mine as few have known."

Then one day a man arrives at their hut, and Mrs. Rudge sees that he's blind. The reader knows that the odds of Dickens putting more than one ragged blind man in his novel are slim, and guesses that the man is Stagg, which means that his lodger, the sinister stranger, must be somewhere nearby. But Mrs. Rudge doesn't suspect anything at first, and offers him hospitality. He takes a few pence from his purse and sends Barnaby to buy some bread for him to take on his journey, but when Barnaby is gone, his manner changes, and he introduces himself as Stagg, and informs her, "A friend of mine who has desired the honour of meeting with you any time these five years past, has commissioned me to call upon you. I would be glad to whisper that gentleman's name in your ear." She realizes who the "friend" is, but allows him to tell her the name, after which "she paced up and down the room like one distracted."

"If you are very poor now, it's your own choice," he tells her. "You have friends who, in case of need are always ready to help you. My friend is in a more destitute and desolate situation than most men, and, you and he being linked together in a common cause, he naturally looks to you to assist him." He demands twenty pounds from her: "You, who can give up an annuity, can get that sum for him." He gives her twenty minutes to decide what to do, then sits down with his legs across the threshold to make sure no one enters or leaves without his knowledge.

Barnaby returns with the bread, and Stagg, who has bought along a jug of whiskey, gives some to him. Barnaby's eyes water and he coughs, but he says he likes it. And Stagg plays on Barnaby's desire to end their poverty, telling him that there are "A hundred ways" to get rich, but "not in solitary places like those you pass your time in, but in crowds, and where there's noise and rattle." Barnaby says that he and Grip like places like that.

Mrs. Rudge, overhearing this seduction of Barnaby, asks if she can talk to Stagg away from his hearing, and she asks if Stagg's "friend" has left London for good. Stagg says yes, "The truth is, widow, that hismaking a longer stay there might have had disagreeable consequences." She gives him six guineas, the savings, she says, of five years, and tells him that if he wants more -- which he does -- he will have to give her time to write for it. Stagg agrees to a week, and that he will meet her at the corner of the lane where they live "this day week at sunset." And he cautions her to think about Barnaby. She points him in the direction of the road, and he leaves.

When she returns to the hut, she tells Barnaby that he mustn't go out that night -- "There are ghosts and dreams abroad" -- and that they will leave tomorrow and go to London, to "lose ourselves in that wide place -- there would be some trace of us in any other town -- then travel on again, and find some new abode." The next morning they leave, though Barnaby sheds tears when he realizes he will have to leave behind the neighborhood dogs who have been his only friends there.

She has kept back a guinea from their savings. "Moreover they had Grip, in company; and when they must otherwise have changed the guinea, it was but to make him exhibit outside an alehouse door, or in a village street, or in the grounds or gardens of a mansion of the better sort, and scores who would have given nothing in charity, were ready to bargain for more amusement from the talking bird." One day they reach an estate where they decide to try to exhibit Grip, but the owner denounces them as "vagrants and vagabonds" and threatens to have them arrested. When Grip pipes up, the man's curiosity is piqued. "'Take the vermin out, scoundrel,' said the gentleman, 'and let me see him.'" He then orders them to accompany him to the house.

On the way, he terrifies Barnaby by his "proud and course manner," and when he threatens to horsewhip him for not answering a question, Mrs. Rudge tells him "that her son was of weak mind." He refuses to believe it, "not a bit of it. It's an excuse not to work. There's nothing like flogging to cure that disorder. I'd make a difference in him in ten minutes, I'll be bound." She protests that she's telling the truth, and he retorts, "Then why don't you shut him up? we pay enough for county institutions, damn 'em. But thou'd rather drag him about to excite charity -- of course. Ay, I know thee."

Now, this gentleman had various endearing appellations among his intimate friends. By some he was called "a country gentleman of the true school," by some "a fine old country gentleman," by some "a sporting gentleman," by some "a thorough-bred Englishman," by some "a genuine John Bull"; but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it was a pity there were not more like him, and that because there were not, the country was going to rack and ruin every day.... He mistrusted the honesty of all poor people who could read and write, and had a secret jealousy of his own wife (a young lady whom he had married for what his friends called "the good old English reason," that her father's property adjoined his own) for possessing those accomplishments in a greater degree than himself. In short, Barnaby being an idiot, and Grip a creature of mere brute instinct, it would be very hard to say what this gentleman was.

It's a fine characterization of a type that unfortunately hasn't vanished from the scene but appears to have moved to America and joined some current political movements.

In the house, we meet his wife, "a lady much younger than himself, who had the appearance of being in delicate health, and not too happy." But Grip amuses her with his performance and "so delighted her husband that he burst into a roar of laughter, and demanded his price." When they refuse to sell the raven, the man is outraged: "These peole, who go tramping about the county a-pilfering and vagabondising on all hands, prefer to keep a bird, when a landed proprietor and a justice asks his price!" He orders them out, threatening to turn the dogs on them, and they hurry away.

"When they had nearly reached the lodge, another servant, emerging from the shrubbery, feigned to be very active in ordering them off, but this man put a crown into the widow's hand, and whispering that his lady sent it, thrust them gently from the gate." Mrs. Rudge is surprised when that stop at an alehouse later on the way to hear the man praised. And then Dickens indulges in some awkwardly conventional foreshadowing: "She little thought then, that a circumstance so slight would ever influence their future fortunes; but time and experience enlightened her in this respect."

As they near London, Barnaby asks his mother if they will see the blind man there: "I wish that we may meet with him again. What was it that he said of crowds? That gold was to be found where people crowded, and not among the trees and in such quiet places." She is disturbed when he returns to the point again and again, "that the blind man's visit, and indeed his words, had taken strong possession of his mind."

On Friday, June 2, 1780, they reach London and stand alone at the foot of Westminster Bridge. (A note points out that Dickens had put Stagg's arrival at Mrs. Rudge's hut in June earlier, an obvious inconsistency.)

7. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 259-297

Chapters 26-30

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Gabriel Varden tells Geoffrey Haredale that he isn't surprised at Mrs. Rudge's decision to forgo her annuity and disappear: He has, after all, witnessed her strange behavior earlier: "I say, in the passage of her house one evening after dark, the highwayman who robbed and wounded Mr Edward Chester, and on the same night threatened me." Moreover, he tells Haredale, she prevented him from apprehending the stranger. Haredale wonders if she has secretly married again: "Suppose she married incautiously -- it is not improbably, for her existence has been a lonely and monotonous one for many years -- and the man turned out a ruffian, she would be anxious to screen him, and yet would revolt from his crimes." Moreover, he wonders if it's possible that Mrs. Rudge had deceived them all along, "that this connection was formed in her husband's lifetime, and led to his and my brother's --"

Gabriel interrupts to protest: "Five-and-twenty years ago, where was there a girl like her? A gay, handsome, laughing, bright-eyed damsel!" He had courted her, and although he thinks she was too good for Rudge, he also thinks she was too good for himself. Haredale retreats from his suspicions, admitting that Varden's characterization of Mary Rudge is correct.

Varden has accompanied Haredale to the meeting at Mrs. Rudge's, but when they arrive they discover only John Chester at the house. He tells them that, as part of his plan to separate Edward and Emma, he has bought off Mrs. Rudge and Barnaby, giving them money and sending them away. "She appointed to see you here to-night, I know, but found it inconvenient, and couldn't wait. Here is the key of the door. I am afraid you'll find it inconveniently large; but as the tenement is yours, your good-nature will excuse that, Haredale, I am certain!"

Chester leaves Varden and Haredale, who are furious at this turn of events, but goes to Varden's house, where he is greeted by Sim Tappertit, who once again reminds Chester of the name of his enemy: Joseph Willet.  Sim admits Chester to the parlor, where Mrs. Varden, Dolly, and Miggs are sitting. Chester pretends to mistake Mrs. Varden for Dolly and to be amazed when Miggs cries out, "If he an't been and took Missis for her own daughter." Then he insists that Dolly must be Mrs. Varden's sister. "'My daughter, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs V., blushing with great juvenility." Dolly, however, has the sense to see through this flattery, and notes that "there was a broad, bold look of admiration in Mr Chester's face, refined and polished though it sought to be, which distressed her very much."

Chester goes on to pretend to piety when he sees Mrs. Varden's copy of the Protestant Manual: "My favourite book, dear madam." (So much for Lord Chesterfield's letters.) He lays it on thick, aware that "as hollow vessels produce a far more musical sound in falling than those which are substantial, so it will oftentimes be found that sentiments which have nothing in them make the loudest ringing in the world, and are the most relished.... Even Dolly ... could not help owning within herself that he was the sweetest-spoken gentleman she had ever seen."

He now presses his advantage by asking Mrs. Varden if he can speak with her privately, and they withdraw to an upstairs sitting-room. There he works his charm first to dissuade her from further support of Edward in his courting of Emma: "there are grave and weighty reasons, pressing family considerations, and apart even from these, points of religious difference, which interpose themselves, and render their union impossible; utterly im-possible." He tells her, moreover, that Edward "is bound by his duty to me, by his honour, by every solemn tie and obligation, to marry some one else." Of course, he doesn't specify that there is a particular "some one else" he is bound to marry, for there isn't. But naturally Mrs. Varden takes it that way, which instantly brands Edward in her mind as a cad.

On the other hand, Mrs. Varden feels a twinge where Emma is concerned: "if you take Miss Emma's lover away, sir, what becomes of the poor thing's heart then?" He assures her, "A marriage with my son, whom I should be compelled to disown, would be followed by yeas of misery; they would be separated, my dear madam, in a twelvemonth." And now he plays his trump card: He has heard that Dolly has been in the company of "a young man (I am sorry to say, a dissolute fellow, of very indifferent character) of whom I have heard Ned speak -- Bullet was it -- Pullet -- Mullet --" She identifies him as Joe Willet, and Chester goes in for the kill: "Suppose this Joseph Willet now, were to aspire to the affections of your charming daughter, and  were to engage them." Mrs. Varden is indignant at the thought.

And having achieve his goal (and Sim Tappertit's as well), Mr. Chester takes his leave. Only Dolly is not completely seduced: "For all his politeness and pleasant speaking, I am pretty sure he was making game of us, more than once." Mrs. Varden is so shocked by this that she bursts into tears.

It has to be said here that although Dickens's characters are really just caricatures, he plays with them so skillfully that a reader can't help becoming indignant at John Chester's villainy, Mrs. Varden's credulousness, and the predicament into which he has cast Dolly, Joe, Edward and Emma.

Chester retires to "a noted coffee-house in Covent Garden" where he gloats (and stiffs the waiter). Then he returns home where he finds Hugh asleep on the staircase. While Hugh sleeps, Chester bends over and examines his face closely, observing the sleeping man "with a searching eye." The only reason for this action would seem to be that Chester has some suspicions about Hugh's identity, his true parentage. Finally he wakes Hugh, who tells him that he has had a "curious" dream in which Chester was a part. "'I hope it may never come true, master." It is "a comfort," he says, that we're not where I thought we were.' He looked round him as he spoke, and in particular looked above his head, as though he half expected to be standing under some object which had had existence in his dream." Dickens doesn't tell us what the object is: the gallows, perhaps?

They go into Chester's drawing room, where Hugh explains that he's there because Edward had tried to see Emma but was unsuccessful, so he left a "letter or some message" for Joe to deliver to her. But John Willet forbade Joe from delivering it: "He says (that's the old one does) that none of his people shall interfere and get him in trouble." Chester calls John Willet "a jewel ... and the better for being a dull one." Dolly also wrote Emma a message to tell her that she had lost the letter she was supposed to give to Edward, which Joe was also forbidden to deliver. Joe gave it to Hugh to deliver, but he now hands it over to Chester.

But to Hugh's surprise, Chester doesn't burn this letter as he did the one from Emma to Edward. Again he chides Hugh for breaking the law: "Don't you know that the letter you brought to me, was directed to my son who resides in this very place? And can you descry no difference between his letters and those addressed to other people?" Chester tells Hugh that he will deliver it, and asks when Emma usually walks in the garden at the Warren. Hugh tells him, and Chester cautions him not to show signs around other people that they have any prior acquaintance other than the casual one of Maypole servant and Maypole guest.

Hugh departs, and after reflecting "the plot thickens," Chester goes to bed and falls asleep, "but had not slept long when he started up and thought that Hugh was at the outer door, calling in a strange voice, very different from his own, to be admitted." He gets up and looks out, and even calls Hugh's name, but no one is there. Finally he falls asleep again. The plot thickens, indeed.

The next day Chester rides to the Warren to see Emma. Dickens uses the journey to moralize: "The thoughts of worldly men are for ever regulated by a moral law of gravitation, which, like the physical one, holds them down to earth. The bright glory of day, and the silent wonders of a starlit night, appeal to their minds in vain." So it is that Chester rides through a beautiful spring day, "so fair a world" redolent with "hope and promise," but takes no notice of it. He has "no greater thought of the day or the scene through which he moved, than that he was fortunate (being choicely dressed) to have such favourable weather. He smiled very complacently at such times, but rather as if he were satisfied with himself than with anything else."

He stops at the Maypole, where Hugh comes out to assist him at the same time that John Willet appears. Willet is "rather surprised by the quickness with which he appeared," and treats Hugh harshly. Then, after Chester observes that Hugh is "an active fellow," Willet orders Hugh to perform a trick for him: to hang Willet's wig from the weathercock, which Hugh does with "inconceivable rapidity" and then vaults on his horse and leaves. "There never was such a chap for flinging himself about and never hurting his bones," Willet comments. Chester asks about Joe, and Willet informs him, "My son, sir, is upon his patrole." This confuses Chester, "who naturally thought that being on patrole, implied walking about somewhere." Chester, it turns out, means that Joe is "on parole," or as he explains, "He is upon patrole of honour, sir, not to leave the premises," to keep him from "doing anything unpleasant in opposing your desires."

Chester makes his way to the Warren, where he finds Emma taking her walk and accosts her, introducing himself as "the father of him whom you honour and distinguish above all other men." She is a little alarmed, but he assures her, "Edward is well -- quite well. It is of him I wish to speak, certainly; but I have no misfortune to communicate." Then he says, "You have heard me described as cold-hearted, calculating, selfish --" But she assures him that neither Edward nor her uncle has ever spoken of him that way. Of her uncle she says, "It is not his nature to stab in the dark, nor is it mine to love such deeds." This is the opening Chester needs so he can proclaim, "apostrophising the air; 'it is this frank, ingenuous, noble nature, Ned, that you can wound so lightly. Shame -- shame upon you, boy!'"

She is angered at this, but he proceeds to flatter her in preparation for saying, "Miss Haredale, you are deceived; you are deceived by your unworthy lover, and my unworthy son." He gives her Dolly's note, claiming, "It reached my hands by chance, and by mistake, and should have accounted to you (as I am told) for my son's not answering some other note of yours." She responds to this as he hoped she would, as "something so very candid, so scrupulously honourable, so very truthful and just," and bursts into tears. He comforts her, and moves in for the kill:

"Edward seeks to break with you upon a false and most unwarrantable pretence. I have it on his own showing; in his own hand.... There lies on his desk at this present moment, ready for transmission to you, a letter, in which he tells you that our poverty -- our poverty; his and mine, Miss Haredale -- forbids him to pursue his claim upon your hand; in which he offers, voluntarily proposes, to free you from your pledge; and talks magnanimously (men do so, very commonly, in such cases) of being in time more worthy of your regard -- and so forth."

He puts it more bluntly: Edward, he says "not only jilts you ... but affects to make a merit and a virtue of the act."

Just as she is falling for this line, her uncle appears and demands an explanation for his presence. She leaves them, and Chester tells Haredale that he was informing Emma that his son has written a letter breaking off with her, "a boyish, honest, sentimental composition, which remains as yet in his desk, because he hasn't had the heart to send it.... If she receives Ned's letter by to-morrow noon, you may date their parting from to-morrow night." Haredale informs Chester that he is sorry he ever got involved with him. "When I am most remorseful for this treachery, I will think of you and your marriage, and try to justify myself in such remembrances, for having torn asunder Emma and your son, at any cost." We now learn that Haredale had been in love with the woman whom Chester married, or as Chester puts it, as he leaves Haredale, he "could not keep his mistress when he had won her, and threw me in her way to carry off the prize; I triumph in the present and the past." Chester also draws his sword, thinking how much he would enjoy crossing swords with Haredale, but puts the sword away and became "his unruffled self again."

Joe Willet, meanwhile, is suffering from his father's treatment more than ever, and John Willet's "Maypole cronies" aid and abet his harshness, praising him as "a father of the good old English sort" and claiming "that there were no new-fangled notions or modern ways in him; that he put them in mind of what their fathers were when they were boys," and so on. "In short, between old John and old John's friends, there never was an unfortunate young fellow so bullied, badgered, worried, fretted, and brow-beaten; so constantly beset, or made so tired of his life, as poor Joe Willet."

When Chester reaches the Maypole and his horse is brought out, Joe goes to help him, but is reined in by his father: "No breaking of patroles. How dare you come out of the door, sir, without leave?" But Joe also notices "the smile upon their visitor's face, and observes the pleasure his disgrace afforded him." He goes in and lays his head on his arms on a table and reflects that "but for Dolly, who I couldn't bear should think me the rascal they would make me out to be if I ran away, this house and I should part to-night."

That evening, the usual company of Willet's friends are at the Maypole, and Tom Cobb provokes Joe with another admonition to "obey his father in all things." Joe tells him, "don't talk to me," but Cobb sneers at him for talking back.

Crowding into one moment the vexation and the wrath of years, Joe started up, overturned the table, fell upon his long enemy, pummelled him with all his might and main, and finished by driving him with surprising swiftness against a heap of spittoons in one corner; plunging into which, head foremost, with a tremendous crash, he lay at full length among the ruins, stunned and motionless.

Joe goes to his room and barricades the door with furniture, then thinks, "The Maypole and I must part company. I'm a roving vagabond -- she hates me for evermore -- it's all over!"

6. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 217-259

Chapters 21-25

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Dolly is happy to discover that the man who has accosted her on the way from the Warren to the Maypole is just Hugh. She doesn't stay happy for long: "The having him for an unbidden companion in so solitary a place, with the darkness fast gathering about them, renewed and even increased the alarm she had felt at first." Moreover, he looks at her "like a handsome satyr," and when she protests his walking so near to her, he draws even closer, "passing his harm about her waist, held her in his strong grasp as easily as if she had been a bird." He even addresses her as "Sweetlips."

"'Hugh,' cried the panting girl, 'good Hugh; if you will leave me I will give you anything -- everything I have -- and never tell one word of this to any living creature.'" He assures her that he intends to hold her to that promise: "Bring trouble on me, and I'll bring trouble and something more on them" -- meaning Dolly's family -- "in return....  I'd sooner kill a man than a dog any day. I've never been sorry for a man's death in all my life, and I have for a dog's."

She runs away, but he catches up with her. Then her cry for help is answered by a shout from Joe Willet. Hugh runs off, but warns her, "Tell him; and see what follows!" So when Joe arrives, and takes her in his arms, she tells him that she didn't know who the man was, and that "he began by begging, and went on to threats of robbery." Hugh has convinced her that if she reveals his identity, he will do harm to Joe. Then she discovers that both the letter and the bracelet Emma had given her are missing.

At the Maypole, Gabriel Varden lavishes praise and thanks on Joe for rescuing his daughter. John Willet, as usual, is unimpressed with anything his son has done, and "it occurred to him that if his son and heir had been seriously damaged in a scuffle, the consequences would assuredly have been expensive and inconvenient, and might perhaps have proved detrimental to the Maypole business." But Joe is determined to go back and hunt for the missing letter and bracelet. To Dolly's dismay, he calls for Hugh to help him. And when Hugh asks her to describe the man who attacked her, Dolly lies and says he wasn't as tall as Hugh and that he was wearing a loose coat and had his face covered with a handkerchief. The search, of course, is unsuccessful.

After dinner at the Maypole, the Vardens depart in their chaise, with Joe riding alongside. He is hopelessly smitten, and she vows that they will always be "friends from that time forth.... And when Joe said, not friends he hoped, Dolly was quite surprised, and said not enemies she hoped; and when Joe said, couldn't they be something much better than either, Dolly all of a sudden found out a star which was brighter than all the other stars, and begged to call his attention to the same, and was ten thousand times more innocent and unconscious than ever."

Joe's bliss is interrupted by the arrival of Hugh, who says he was sent by Joe's father to ride back with him. Joe is disgusted by the parental treatment, and goes along further with the Vardens, though Hugh follows. When he finally decides that it's time to leave them, he tells Dolly good night.

"Good night," said Dolly. She would have added, "Take care of that man, and pray don't trust him," but he had turned his horse's head, and was standing close to them.
...
What she thought about, going home; and whether the coachmaker held as favourable a place in her meditations as he had occupied in the morning, is unknown.

This is an instance of Dickens's coyness and his insouciance about point of view, for within the space of a very few lines he has first been in Dolly's thoughts -- reporting her desire to tell Joe not to trust Hugh -- and then contradicted himself by denying his ability to read them. Narrative finesse always takes a back seat in Dickens in favor of color and sentiment.

The Vardens arrive home safely, and Dolly breaks down in tears. This being Mrs. Varden's stock in trade, Dolly at first gets very little sympathy from her or from the sycophant Miggs. Dolly, Dickens notes, "was by no means accustomed to displays of this sort, rather learning from her mother's example to avoid them as much as possible." So when Dolly breaks down, Mrs. Varden's reaction is to make it all about herself. "To all such propositions Miggs assented freely." When it becomes apparent that Dolly is not comforted by their selfishness, "and seeing that she was really ill, both Mrs. Varden and Miggs were moved to compassion, and tended her in earnest." But as soon as Dolly begins to recover, once again it's Mrs. Varden who is the victim and the sufferer.

Afterward, Miggs brings Sim his supper in the workshop, and takes the opportunity to give her view on the events of the evening. Sim is at first not inclined to pay Miggs much attention: He "disliked Miss Miggs more when she laid her hand on her heart and panted for breath than at any other time, as her deficiency of outline was most apparent under such circumstances." ("Deficiency of outline" is a lovely Victorianism for flat-chestedness.) But he is incensed when Miggs badmouths Dolly: "The idea of interfering with her. What people can see in her to make it worth their while to do so, that's the joke -- he he he!" And she adds to his irritation when she praises Sim's archenemy: "But, oh upon my word and honour, young Joseph Willet is a brave one; and he do deserve her, that he do."

Sim now demands a full account of what happened, and Miggs obliges by telling him that Dolly "had been attacked by three or four tall men" and that Joe has "with his own single hand put them all the flight" and thereby earned "the eternal love and gratitude of Dolly Varden." Whereupon Sim vows, "His days are numbered" and orders Miggs to leave.

The next morning, John Chester is in his dressing room reading his bible: Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, with their Machiavellian advice on making one's way in society. He relishes each "captivating hypocrisy" and "superlative piece of selfishness." A servant enters to inform him that a man has arrived to return "the riding-whip you lost the other day." Chester gives the servant the word for the man to come up providing "he rubs his shoes for exactly five minutes first."

Hugh enters, "followed by a dog, as rough and sullen as himself." Chester studiously ignores him for several moments as he attends to his toilette. It's his way of taming Hugh, and it works: "Hard words he could have returned, violence he would have repaid with interest; but this cool, complacent, contemptuous, self-possessed reception, caused him to feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate arguments." Finally, Hugh asks, "am I the man that you privately left your whip with before you rode away from the Maypole, and told to bring it back whenever he might want to see you on a certain subject?" Chester grants that he is, and Hugh presents him with the letter he stole from Dolly. Chester then asks if Hugh stole anything else. He denies that he did so -- except for, he says, "a kiss" -- but Chester confronts him with his knowledge that Hugh stole the bracelet as well. How he knows this, we aren't told here, but it has the appropriate effect of cowing Hugh even further. But he lets Hugh have the bracelet, saying, "I am neither a thief, nor a receiver." Hugh protests this claim, "striking the letter with his heavy hand," but Chester coolly tell him that the letter is "quite another thing," and offers Hugh a drink.

The drink, which is quickly followed by several more, is another way of controlling Hugh, who says, "Give me enough of this ... and I'll do murder if you ask me!... What else has given me the strength and courage of a man, when men would have left me to die, a puny child?" Chester questions him about his age, and Hugh admits that he doesn't know. Whereupon Chester observes, "you are young enough to escape what I may call a natural death for some years to come. How can you trust yourself in my hands on so short an acquaintance, with a halter round your neck? What a confiding nature yours must be!"

Hugh is taken aback as Chester continues, "Robbery on the king's highway, my young friend, is a very dangerous and ticklish occupation," and if Hugh continues to confide in others that he has committed it, "I am afraid your career will be an extremely short one." In short, Chester has Hugh under his control. "Hugh's submission was complete. He dreaded him beyond description; and felt that accident and artifice had spun a web about him, which at a touch from such a master-hand as his, would bind him to the gallows."

Chester then reads the letter Emma wrote to Edward and burns it. He gives Hugh some money, and tells him that if other such information comes his way to bring it to him. "This was said with a smile which implied -- or Hugh thought it did -- 'fail to do so at your peril!' He answered that he would." And Chester tells him, "Your neck is as safe in my hands, my good fellow, as though a baby's fingers clasped it, I assure you."

Chester then asks if Hugh has any other name, and is told that he doesn't. He never knew his father and when he was six years old, "they hung my mother up at Tyburn for a couple of thousand men to stare at." He indicates his dog and says, "Such a dog as that, and one of the same breed, was the only living thing except me that howled that day.... Out of the two thousand odd -- there was a larger crowd for its being a woman -- the dog and I alone had any pity."

Hugh takes his leave with Chester's assurance that "you have a friend in me, on whose silence you may rely." Then Chester prepares to go out, reflecting, "I do not like their having hanged his mother. The fellow has a fine eye, and I am sure she was handsome. But very probably she was coarse -- red-nosed, perhaps, and had clumsy feet. Aye, it was all for the best, no doubt." He tells his servant to sprinkle perfume on the floor and air the chair in which Hugh sat, then is carried off in his sedan chair, "humming a fashionable tune."

The next morning, Chester has another visitor: Sim Tappertit. He wants to act as a spy on Edward and Emma, and as a reward to enlist Chester in his revenge against Joe Willet, "a villain at that Maypole, a monster in human shape, a vagabond of the deepest dye, that unless you get rid of, and have kidnapped and carried off at the very least -- nothing less will do -- will marry your son to that young woman." He claims that Joe "comes backwards and forwards to our house, libelling, and denouncing, and threatening you, and how I shudder when I hear him, you'd hate him worse than I do." When Sim takes his leave, Chester reflects, "I fear I may be obliged to make great havoc among these worthy people. A troublesome necessity! I quite feel for them." And he falls into "such a gentle, pleasant sleep, that it was quite infantine."

Mrs. Rudge and Barnaby make their way to Chigwell on foot, allowing Dickens to spend some time meditating on the careworn mother and her carefree son:

It is something to look upon enjoyment, so that it be free and wild and in the face of nature, though it is but the enjoyment of an idiot. It is something to know that Heaven has left the capacity of gladness in such a creature's breast; it is something to be assured that, however lightly men may crush that faculty in their fellows, the Great Creator of mankind imparts it even to his despised and slighted work. Who would not rather see a poor idiot happy in the sunlight, than a wise man pining in a darkened jail! 

Well, yes, if those are the alternatives offered. And he goes on for another paragraph, until we get to the purpose of Mrs. Rudge's journey. She is going to the Warren, which she left twenty-two years ago "after the event which had changed her whole existence." When they reach there, Haredale is walking in the garden and unlocks the gate to admit them. He tells her that he is worried that, because her husband had been his brother's steward, "and died in his service and defence, you have come in some sort to connect us with his murder." She insists that nothing could be further from the truth -- and in a tone that suggests that she knows a truth about the murder that he doesn't. He asks why she has made the journey when he would have been glad to come to see her instead, and she tells him, "I took my resolution but last night, and taking it, felt that I must not lose a day -- a day! an hour -- in having speech with you."

  They enter the house and go to the library, where Emma has been reading. She rises to greet them, "But the widow shrunk from her embrace as though she feared her, and sunk down trembling on a chair." She hesitates to tell them why she came -- "You will think my mind disordered" -- but finally says that she is there "to reject your aid from this moment, and to say that henceforth I launch myself upon the world, alone and unassisted, to sink or swim as Heaven may decree!" She proclaims it her duty to do so. "If I did not discharge it, I should be a base and guilty wretch. Having said that, my lips are sealed, and I can say no more."

Haredale is astonished that she is "determined to resign the annuity we settled on you twenty years ago -- to leave house, and home, and goods, and begin life anew -- and this, for some secret reason or monstrous fancy which is incapable of explanation, which only now exists, and has been dormant all this time?" All she can say in reply is, "You do not know ... to what uses it may be applied; into what hands it may pass. I do, and I renounce it." She intends to leave the house in Southwark tomorrow and to keep secret wherever she goes, and asks that if Barnaby shows up at the Warren, "do not tempt him to disclose it or have him watched when he returns; for if we are hunted, we must fly again." She will allow Haredale to visit her at the house tomorrow, and agrees to reconsider her decision, but she assures them that she won't change her mind.

"It was remarkable in the raven that during the whole interview he had kept his eye on [a book on the desk] with exactly the air of a very sly human rascal, who, under the mask of pretending to read hard, was listening to everything." They leave the Warren and wait for the coach back to London in the churchyard, "a quiet pretty spot, but a sad one for Barnaby's mother; for Mr Reuben Haredale lay there, and near the vault in which his ashes rested, was a stone to the memory of her own husband, with a brief inscription recording how and when he had lost his life."

5. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 167-217

Chapters 15-20

_____

John Chester has returned home to the Temple -- "a room in Paper Buildings -- a row of goodly tenements, shaded in front by ancient trees, and looking, at the back, upon the Temple Gardens." From the window as he breakfasts he sees his son, Edward, sitting on a bench. He has been waiting, apparently, to confront his father, and finally makes his move. John greets him with his usual languid affectation, and Edward launches into the substance of his visit: "I know where you were last night -- from being on the spot, indeed -- and whom you saw, and what your purpose was."

He reproaches his father for what he has done, insisting that he loves Emma Haredale, but his father scoffs, "you do nothing of the kind. You don't know anything about it. There's no such thing, I assure you." Edward says, "From my childhood I have been accustomed to luxury and idleness, and have been bred as though my fortune were large, and my expectations almost without a limit.... I have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit for nothing." He no longer wants to be dependent on his father and asks, "Will you give me the means of devoting such abilities and energies as I possess, to some worthy purpose?"

His father retorts that he has given him all that he can, which is "being of good family." He married Edward's mother for her money, which her father was willing to allow because the Chesters were socially superior ("I fear his father dealt in pork," John comments). "She stepped at once into the politest and best circles, and I stepped into a fortune which I assure you was very necessary to my comfort -- quite indispensable. Now, my good fellow, that fortune is among the things that have been. It is gone, Ned, and has been gone" for eighteen or nineteen years. He lives "upon an inconsiderable annuity and my past reputation." As for doing anything for Edward, he has given him an entree into society and now expects Edward to "provide for me in return" by marrying well.

Edward is indignant that his father wants him to be "A mere fortune-hunter!" But John shrugs it off as in the nature of things, and says he was amazed to find that Edward was unaware of it: "how you can ever have mistaken our positions and designs, I confess I cannot understand. I conceived, until I found your fancy for this girl, that all these points were tacitly agreed upon between us." Besides, "In a religious point of view alone, how could you ever think of uniting yourself to a Catholic, unless she was amazingly rich." Moreover, "The very idea of marrying a girl whose father was killed, like meat! Good God, Ned, how disagreeable! ... I really think the girl ought to have been put to death by the state to prevent its happening." Then he admits that he is "perhaps" teasing about this, but he leaves his son "in what appeared to be a kind of stupor."

Dickens then gives us a picture of London at night, where even "in the lightest thoroughfares, there was at every turn some obscure and dangerous spot whither a thief might fly or shelter, and few would care to follow; and the city being belted round by fields, green lanes, waste grounds, and lonely roads, dividing it at that time from the suburbs that have joined it since, escape, even when the pursuit was hot, was rendered easy."

This is a prelude to the reappearance of our mysterious stranger, who is a "man from whom many as uncouth and fierce as he, shrunk with an involuntary dread."

Directly it was dark, he was abroad -- never in company with any one, but always alone; never lingering or loitering, but always walking swiftly; and looking (so they said who had seen him) over his shoulder from time to time, and as he did so quickening his pace.

He has been noticed by others -- footpads, beggars, vagrants, grave-robbers -- and one of them ventured to tell him, "There are tales among us that you have sold yourself to the devil, and I know not what." The stranger replies, "We all have, have we not?" and warns him, "I carry arms which go off easily -- they have done so, before now -- and make it dangerous for strangers who don't know the trick of them, to lay hands upon me."

He makes his way over London Bridge and into Southwark where he sees Mrs. Rudge out shopping and follows her home, then makes his way inside with her. He demands food and drink, and she identifies him as "the robber on the Chigwell road ... And nearly a murderer then." He admits as much. He also tells her that he won't hurt her, "But I will not be taken alive; and so surely as you threaten me above your breath, I fall a dead man on this floor," and takes out a pistol. She brings him food and drink, "and he ate with the voracity of a famished hound." Then they hear a noise outside, and she tells him, "Hark to that foot upon the ground. Do you tremble to hear it! It is my son, my idiot son." The man tells her to let him in, "I fear him less than the dark, houseless night." But she refuses: "Evil will fall upon him, if you stand eye to eye."

It's clear, of course, that Mrs. Rudge recognizes him, and that he has more significance to her than Dickens is willing to let on at this point -- or willing to do more than hint at. The excessive melodrama of the scene -- the man's villainous poses, Mrs. Rudge's cries to heaven -- is a result of the evasiveness about the character's identity. As a mystery, it's a flimsy one, a weakness in the armature of the novel that makes Barnaby Rudge one of the less successful of Dickens's novels. But we have to play along with it for a while.

When Barnaby calls out to be let in, the man recognizes his voice: "It was he who grappled with me in the road." He grabs a knife from the table and hides in the closet just as Barnaby raises the window and climbs in.

Barnaby remains ignorant of the man hiding in the closet, but the raven, which he has carried in a basket on his back, doesn't: "Grip -- alive to everything his master was unconscious of -- had his head out of the basket, and in return was watching him with his glistening eye." Barnaby tells his mother that he has been doing something today but "it's a secret, mind, and only known to me, and Grip, and Hugh. We had the dog with us, but he's not like Grip, clever as he is, and doesn't guess it yet, I'll wager." Then he notices his mother's uneasiness, and grows frightened: "'There's -- there's none of this about, is there?" and he clasps the birthmark on his wrist. (See chapter 5.) She calms him, and he continues with his story: He and Hugh have been waiting in the forest with a dog that they plan to sic onto the man who attacked Edward Chester. Barnaby wraps an handkerchief around his head and pulls his coat around him "and stood up before her: so like the original he counterfeited, that the dark figure peering out behind him might have passed for his own shadow." Barnaby vows that they'll catch the man and bring him to London for trial and to be hanged "if we have luck. So Hugh says."

Mrs. Rudge is naturally even more upset by all of this, and she tries to get Barnaby to go to bed, but he says he prefers to lie by the fire and watch "the wild faces" in the coals. He has supper and asks his mother if it's his birthday because "I have always seen you -- I didn't let you know it, but I have -- on the evening of that day grow very sad. I have seen you cry when Grip and I were most glad; and look frightened with no reason; and I have touched your hand, and felt that it was cold -- as it is now."

Finally, Barnaby falls asleep by the fire. "The widow, scarcely venturing to breathe, rose from her seat. The man glided from the closet, and extinguished the candle. Grip begins to chatter noisily, but it doesn't wake Barnaby. The man looks at Barnaby and says, "In him, of whose existence I was ignorant until to-night, I have you in my power.... I am destitute and starving, and a wanderer upon the earth. I may take a sure and slow revenge." And he points at Barnaby as he leaves.

The man goes in search of a place to spend the night and "was passing down a mean street, when from an alley close at hand some shouts of revelry arose, and there came straggling forth a dozen madcaps, whooping and calling to each other." Thinking he can find a public house to spend the night in, he looks for the place they came from, and dodges into a doorway when he hears people talking and a man comes forward with a light.

It's "a young man of small stature and uncommon self-importance, dressed in an obsolete and very gaudy fashion." In other words, it's Sim Tappertit leaving a meeting of the 'Prentice Knights, having his way lighted by Stagg. From his hiding place, the man can see that Stagg is blind, but Stagg's hearing is sharp and he senses the man's presence. After Sim has left, the man approaches Stagg and asks for lodging, and being refused, begs him for it and offers payment. Stagg gives in and finds a room for him in the cellar, but after the man falls asleep, Stagg kneels down beside him and passes "his hand lightly but carefully over his face and person." Then he waits and listens by the man until daylight.

Dolly Varden, by William Powell Frith, 1842

It has been three days since Dolly disappointed Joe Willet by deserting him for a party, and she is still cherishing memories of it, including being flirted with by a young coachmaker. Edward Chester arrives at the Vardens as they are having breakfast, to ask if Dolly will take a message for him to the Warren. But Mrs. Varden associates the Warren with the Maypole and uses this occasion to throw a very funny fit. (Mrs. Varden's fit seems even funnier after the dreary melodrama at Mrs. Rudge's.) 

Mrs Varden wept, and laughed, and sobbed, and shivered, and hiccoughed, and choked; and said she knew it was very foolish but she couldn't help it; and that when she was dead and gone, perhaps they wouldn't be sorry for it -- which really under the circumstances did not appear quite so probable as she seemed to think -- with a great deal more to the same effect. In a word, she passed with great decency through all the ceremonies incidental to such occasions; and being supported upstairs, was deposited in a highly spasmodic state on her own bed, where Miss Miggs shortly afterwards flung herself upon the body.

The whole display takes place because Mrs. Varden really wants to accompany Dolly and her husband on the trip to the Warren, but she wants to be begged to do so. And finally, "the locksmith humbled himself, and the end was gained." And when she comes downstairs "decked out for the journey, she really looked as if nothing had happened, and appeared in the very best health imaginable." As for Dolly, she wears "a little straw hat trimmed with cherry-coloured ribbons, and worn the merest trifle on one side -- just enough in short to make it the wickedest and most provoking head-dress that ever malicious milliner devised." (The Dolly Varden style, including a flat straw hat trimmed with cherry-colored ribbons, became fashionable in the 1870s.)

On their way out of the city, the Vardens pass the young coachmaker on the street, and he is obviously smitten. The trip takes a long time because they make numerous stops at taverns along the way, and though Mrs. Varden is "all affability and delight," she is silently collecting evidence against her husband. Finally they reach the Maypole, where Joe Willet makes a dash to help the Vardens out of the coach, "to Mr Willet's mighty and inexpressible indignation." Joe gets "a glimpse of happiness" when he helps Dolly get out, having her in his arms "for a space of time no longer than you could count one in."

There follows a celebration of the Maypole's bar, another Dickensian tribute to snugness and coziness. "It is a poor heart that never rejoices -- it must have been the poorest, weakest, and most watery heart that ever beat, which would not have warmed towards the Maypole bar. Mrs Varden's did directly. She could no more have reproached John Willet among those household gods, the kegs and bottles, lemons, pipes, and cheese, than she could have stabbed him with his own bright carving-knife."

Dolly meanwhile heads for the Warren, with which she is familiar from her childhood friendship with Emma, though she holds her breath and tiptoes past the library on her way to Emma's room. There, Emma reads and rereads Edward's letter, while Dolly admires herself in a mirror and "could not help wondering whether the coachmaker suffered very much, and quite pitied the poor man."

Emma is upset by the contents of Edward's letter, but Dolly "set it down in her own mind that all this came from Miss Haredale's being so constant, and that if she would only take on with some other young gentleman -- just in the most innocent way possible, to keep her first lover up to the mark -- she would find herself inexpressibly comforted." Emma gives her a reply to take to Edward "and endowed her moreover with a pretty little bracelet as a keepsake."

On her way out, however, Dolly is met at the library door by Haredale, who forces her to confess that she had delivered a letter to Emma from Edward Chester. She bursts into tears when she confesses, but when he asks if she is carrying a reply for Edward, she says she won't part with it. He assures her that he doesn't want the letter, and then asks her if she would like to come stay at the Warren as a companion for Emma. She says she will have to ask her family. He tells her to do so and sends her on her way.

As she is crossing the grounds, she hears a rustling in the hedges and is frightened. Then "the bushes crackled and snapped, and a man came plunging through them, close before her."

3. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 86-118

Chapters 5-8

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Varden goes to Mrs. Rudge's house in Southwark, near London Bridge, to check on the wounded Edward Chester. Mary Rudge is "about forty -- perhaps two or three years older -- with a cheerful aspect, and a face that had once been pretty." There is a family resemblance between her and Barnaby, "but where in his face there was wildness and vacancy, in hers there was the patient composure of long effort and quiet resignation." In addition, there is "the faintest, palest shadow of some look, to which an instant of intense and most unutterable horror only could have given birth." Those who knew her before her husband was murdered "recollected how the change had come, and could call to mind that when her son was born, upon the very day the deed was known, he bore upon his wrist what seemed a smear of blood but half washed out."

Varden learns that Edward's father has visited him. He also makes reference to "our other friend, ... sharpest and cunningest of all the sharp and cunning ones." This is Dickens being coy, just as he was coy about the identity of Edward Chester as the preoccupied young man at the Maypole. Varden is referring to Barnaby's raven, whom we meet in the next chapter. Mrs. Rudge tells him that the raven is in Barnaby's room.

They are interrupted by the sound of someone knocking at the shutter, and Varden offers to go check it out. But Mrs. Rudge insists on going to see by herself. As she does so, "the knocking came again, and a voice close to the window -- a voice the locksmith seemed to recollect, and to have some disagreeable association with -- whispered 'Make haste.'"

The wind rumbling in the chimney made it difficult to hear what passed, but he could tell that the door was opened, that there was the tread of a man upon the creaking boards, and then a moment's silence -- broken by a suppressed something which was not a shriek, or groan, or cry for help, and yet might have been either or all three; and the words "My God!" uttered in a voice it chilled him to hear. 

He rushes out and sees the horrified Mrs. Rudge staring at the man he had nearly collided with on the road, the stranger from the Maypole, who immediately runs away. Varden pursues him, but Mrs. Rudge calls him back: "Do not touch him on your life. I charge you, come back. He carries other lives besides his own. Come back!" She drags him back into the house where she bolts every door.

Although he begs her to tell him who the man is, she refuses, telling him that she doesn't dare say anything more about him and to swear not to "let a word or look between us, recall this circumstance." She leaves him alone, puzzling about the matter, and he finally persuades himself "it may be nothing." Then Barnaby enters to tell him "I dreamed just now that something -- it was in the shape of a man -- followed me -- came softly after me -- wouldn't let me be -- but was always hiding and crouching, like a cat in dark corners, waiting till I should pass.... Nearer, nearer, nearer -- I ran faster -- leaped -- sprung out of bed, and to the window -- and there, in the street below -- but he is waiting for us. Are you coming?"

Varden tries to figure out if there is a connection between Barnaby's dream and what has just happened, but Barnaby leads him upstairs to see Edward Chester. Varden asks Chester to tell him what happened after he left the Maypole: He says he was overtaken on the road by a rider who asked the way to London and then tried to run him down. The man's hat was blown off and Chester saw that the man's head was wrapped in a dark handkerchief. He hadn't seen the stranger at the Maypole clearly, "But, if he and the robber were two different persons, their voices were strangely and most remarkably alike; for directly the man addressed me in the road, I recognised his speech again." Varden realizes that this was the same man whom he had just seen downstairs.

But now they are interrupted by the raven, who has been listening to their conversation and begins to chatter and make noise. Varden asks Barnaby to call the raven, but Barnaby insists "He calls me, and makes me go where he will. He goes on before, and I follow. He's the master, and I'm the man. Is that the truth, Grip?" Mrs. Rudge enters the room, and Chester asks about the noise he heard earlier. Varden tells him it was a drunk who "mistook the house, and tried to force an entrance."

When Varden takes his leave, he tells Mrs. Rudge that he told a lie for her sake, and worries about leaving Chester there: "I doubt the safety of this roof, and am glad he leaves it so soon." And as he walks away, he hears the raven barking like a dog and thinks, "If there's any wickedness going on, that raven's in it, I'll be sworn."

At Varden's house, he is being awaited by his wife, "a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper -- a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make everybody more or less uncomfortable.... [Her] chief aider and abettor, and at the same time her principal victim and object of wrath, was her single domestic servant, one Miss Miggs ... [who] held the male sex to be utterly contemptible and unworthy of notice." So he is not exactly greeted pleasantly when he gets home. Still, Varden reflects, "all of us have our faults. I'll not be hard upon hers. We have been man and wife too long for that."

Meanwhile, his apprentice, Sim Tappertit, has made a copy of the house key, so he can sneak out after Varden goes to bed. He goes to a street "of more than questionable character" and enters "a low-browed doorway [that] led into a blind court, or yard, profoundly dark, unpaved, and reeking with stagnant odours." He enters a house where he is greeted as "the captain" and goes to the cellar, a damp room where "the air was sickening, tainted, and offensive. It seemed, from one strong flavour which was uppermost among the various odours of the place, that it had, at no very distant period, been used as a storehouse for cheeses." The proprietor of the place, named Stagg, is blind.

It seems that Tappertit is the presiding figure of a group of apprentices known as the 'Prentice Knights. He is saluted by Stagg with "drink, noble governor. Death to all masters, life to all 'prentices, and love to all fair damsels. Drink, brave general, and warm your gallant heart!" Tappertit takes the glass and "Stagg then dropped on one knee, and gently smoothed the calves of [Tappertit's] legs, with an air of humble admiration." Tappertit is gratified by this appreciation of "his favourite limbs."

He then enters a room where the others are gathered and is handed a human thigh-bone, "a sceptre and staff of authority," and climbs up on "a large table, whereon a chair of state, cheerfully ornamented with a couple of skills, was placed ready for his reception." Another man enters with a large book and sits on a lower chair on the table.

A ceremony follows to induct a new apprentice in the organization:

"Mark Gilbert. Age, nineteen. Bound to Thomas Curzon, hosier, Golden Fleece, Aldgate. Loves Curzon's daughter. Cannot say that Curzon's daughter loves him. Should think it probable. Curzon pulled his ear last Tuesday week." 

Captain Tappertit orders a black mark put beside Curzon's name, and after additional information about the master's offenses, ups it to three black crosses, though he doesn't respond to Gilbert's specific request that the 'Prentice Knights burn Curzon's house down and help him carry off his daughter. He then leads the novice through oaths of fealty to the Constitution, Church, State "and everything established -- but the masters." And he describes "their general objects; which were briefly vengeance on their Tyrant Masters ... and the restoration ... of their ancient rights and holidays; for neither of which objects were they now quite ripe, being barely twenty strong, but which they pledged themselves to pursue with fire and sword when needful."

After the novice is welcomed to the society, Tappertit collects from him a wax impression of the novice's door-key, "for he had constructed secret door-keys for the whole society, and perhaps owed something of his influence to that mean and trivial circumstance -- on such slight accidents do even men of mind depend!" He also has the secretary of the group "write and post against the wall, a notice, proscribing one Joseph Willet (commonly known as Joe) of Chigwell; forbidding all 'Prentice Knights to succour, comfort, or hold communion with him; and requiring them, on pain of excommunication, to molest, hurt, wrong, annoy, and pick quarrels with the said Joseph, whensoever and wheresoever they, or any of them, should happen to encounter him."

After the group breaks up and heads for home as dawn is breaking, Stagg mutters, "Farewell, brave general. Bye, bye, illustrious commander. Good luck go with you for a -- conceited, bragging, empty-headed, duck-legged idiot."