17. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 653-738

Chapter 73 through Chapter the Last

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The riots are over, and Dickens sums up the death and destruction: "Upwards of two hundred had been shot dead in the streets. Two hundred and fifty more were lying, badly wounded, in the hospitals; of whom seventy or eighty died within a short time afterwards.... How many perished in the conflagrations, or by their own excesses, is unknown.... Seventy-two private houses and four strong jails were destroyed in the four great days of these riots." And so on. (The note points out that Dickens's figures are unreliable, and in the case of financial estimates, his numbers are inconsistent; more recent research also suggests that less than half that number of houses were destroyed.)

Barnaby is visited in his cell by his mother, and Grip is there to keep him company. (Grip's whereabouts at any given time, except when Dickens needs him to make a point, are a mystery. Did Barnaby carry him when he was marched off by the soldiers? A similar mystery attends the whereabouts of Miggs, whose departure from their place of captivity is not accounted for. Did she accompany the Vardens to the Black Lion? Did she stay to plague the gravely wounded Sim? She now disappears until the novel's end.) When Barnaby asks, "who cares for Grip?" the raven's reply is "Nobody," an exchange repeated twice, and a reminder that Grip was the inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's "Nevermore"-croaking raven.

"Will they take his life as well as mine?" said Barnaby. "I wish they would. If you and I and he could die together, there would be none to feel sorry, or to grieve for us. But do what they will, I don't fear them, mother!" 

He also asks why his mother shushed him when he mentioned his father, and she tells him, "the endeavour of my life has been to keep you two asunder.... The time has come when you must know it. He has shed the blood of one who loved him well, and trusted him, and never did him wrong in word or deed." Barnaby, whose fear of blood has been established, shudders and hides his bloodstain birthmark. She goes on to caution him, "Do not seem to know him, except as one who fled with you from the jail, and if they question you about him, do not answer them."

She leaves Barnaby because visitors are being told to go, but she decides to pay a last visit to her husband. She tells him that Barnaby is also in the prison, but he is indifferent to the fact: "He can no more aid me than I can aid him." She retorts that Barnaby was "brought here by your guilt; ... for he has been led astray in the darkness of his intellect, and that is the terrible consequence of your crime." (She seems to blame Barnaby's mental retardation -- if that's what it is -- on Rudge's crime, which he confessed to her during her pregnancy.) She urges him to pray for God's forgiveness, but instead he curses her and Barnaby.

Elsewhere, justice is being meted out, though unequally: "the timorous Lord Mayor, who was summoned that night before the Privy Council to answer for his conduct, came back contented; observing to all his friends that he had got off very well with a reprimand." Lord George Gordon has been sent to the Tower, charged with High Treason.

Dennis is in jail, but he remains sure that his previous work as hangman will be taken into consideration and "relieve him from the consequences of his late proceedings, and would certainly restore him to his old place in the happy social system." But when he is moved to Newgate, "where some of the ruined cells had been hastily fitted up for the safe keeping of rioters," he finds to his terror that he is forced to share a cell with the man he betrayed: Hugh.

 

Hugh is asleep when Dennis enters, and the frightened hangman cowers behind a chair until he awakes. When Hugh recognizes him, he grabs Dennis by the collar and shakes him as Dennis tries to claim that he was forced to betray him, or he would be shot, "and what a sight that would have been -- a fine young man like you!" He tries to persuade Hugh that they won't be convicted, and even if they are, hanging isn't so bad: "when it's well done, it's so neat, so skilful, so captiwating, if that don't seem too strong a word, that you'd hardly believe it could be brought to sich perfection." 

Hugh calms down, and accepts his fate: "I'd as soon die as live, or live as die. Why should I trouble myself to have revenge on you? To eat, and drink, and go to sleep, as long as I stay here, is all I care for.... That's all the care I have for myself. Why should I care for you?" Dennis suggests that Hugh should call on his friends and relations, but Hugh scoffs at that: "He talks of friends to me -- talks of relations to a man whose mother died the death in store for her son." Dennis is startled to hear this, and says, "you don't mean to say --." Hugh replies, "I mean to say ... that they hung her up at Tyburn." Dennis wants to hear more about this, but Hugh wants to go back to sleep. 

A month later, Sir John Chester is having his breakfast in bed and savoring the news that Hugh, Dennis and Barnaby have been sentenced to death. He notes that Barnaby would have been pardoned except for the testimony of the Lord Mayor's brother, who affirmed that Barnaby "was sane, and had, to his knowledge, wandered about the country with a vagabond parent, avowing revolutionary and rebellious sentiments." The Lord Mayor's brother is, of course, the "genuine John Bull" who had wanted to buy Grip after being entertained by him when Barnaby and Mrs. Rudge were on the road to London. "Grip little thought how much he had to answer for." Sir John is also entertained by the thought that Hugh "would make a very handsome preparation in Surgeons' Hall." (Executed criminals were turned over to the surgeons for dissection.) 

Sir John's breakfast is interrupted by a visit from Gabriel Varden, who tells him that he has just come from Newgate. This sends Sir John into a brief fit because Newgate is full of "jail-fevers, and ragged people, and bare-footed men and women, and a thousand horrors!" He orders Peak, his servant, to disinfect Gabriel and his surroundings with camphor. But once this is done, Sir John resumes his pleasant attitude. 

Gabriel informs Sir John that he was sent there by Dennis, who has some information for him. Upon learning that Hugh's mother was hanged, Dennis realized that he had been the executioner, and that the woman, a gipsy, had talked with him before her death, vowing, "If I had a dagger within these fingers and he was within my each, I would strike him dead before me, even now." Dennis asked who, and she said she meant the father of her boy. 

He asked her where it was, its name, and whether she had any wish respecting it. She had but one, she said. It was that the boy might live and grow, in utter ignorance of his father, so that no arts might teach him to be gentle and forgiving. When he became a man, she trusted to the God of their tribe to bring the father and son together, and revenge her through her child.

He learned no more from the woman, but years later a gipsy man was sentenced to death, and while he was in prison carved the likeness of Dennis on a stick, which he gave to the hangman. The gipsy told Dennis that he had know the woman who was hanged, and that she had been seduced and abandoned by "a fine gentleman," and was outcast from her tribe. He "told him, too, her real name, which only her own people and the gentleman for whose sake she had left them, knew. -- That name he will tell again, Sir John, to none but you." 

Gabriel now confronts Sir John with the assertion "that you believe this doomed man, Hugh, to be your son." Sir John lightly scoffs at the idea, but Gabriel tells him, "in a fantastic pattern on the stick, he had carved some letters, and when the hangman asked it, he bade him, especially if he should ever meet with her son in after life, remember that place well." The place is Chester. Sir John maintains his composure as Gabriel tells him that if he wants confirmation of the gipsy's revelation to Dennis, he must visit the hangman in his prison cell. And he notes that whereas Sir John remains estranged from his legitimate son, Edward, he still has years left in which to reconcile with him, whereas he has only a few hours left to make his peace with Hugh. 

Sir John dismisses Gabriel's revelations and recommendations with his usual airiness, but after Gabriel leaves, "the smile gave place to a haggard and anxious expression, like that of a weary actor jaded by the performance of a difficult part." (The simile comes naturally to the theater-loving Dickens.) But the anxious mood passes quickly. He consoles himself that he gave Hugh "very good advice. I told him he would certainly be hanged. I could have done no more if I had known of our relationship; and there are a great many fathers who have never done as much for their natural children." 

As Gabriel walks away, the clock strikes twelve, which he knows is the time when Rudge's execution was scheduled. Haredale was there to witness, and Gabriel now goes to meet him. His thoughts turn to tomorrow's executions, and his hope that he can still save Barnaby. "Barnaby was to die," Dickens now writes, and over the next two paragraphs repeats the phrase three more times, as a death-knell. (And as a sign to the sophisticated reader that Barnaby will do no such thing.)  

Mrs. Rudge is at the prison with her son. Dennis and Hugh are on the other side of the courtyard from them, Hugh taking the events as they come, Dennis gibbering in terror. "Hugh's was the dogged desperation of a savage at the stake; the hangman was reduced to a condition little better, if any, than that of a hound with the halter round his neck." When Mrs. Rudge has to leave, she sends Barnaby for her bible, but the guards take her away before he returns. 

Dickens then describes the preparations for the executions, including the building of the gallows and the gathering of the crowds who are eager to witness. "A fairer morning never shone" on the day for the executions. Hugh and Dennis are to be hanged at Newgate, but Barnaby's execution is to take place in Bloomsbury Square. The clergyman who tries to pray with Hugh pronounces him "incorrigible," which Hugh admits he is: "Be no hypocrite, master! You make a merry-making of this, every month; let me be merry, too. If you want a frightened fellow there's one that'll suit you. Try your hand upon him." He means Dennis, of course, "who trembled so, that all his joints and limbs seemed racked by spasms." Barnaby is cheerfully resigned to his death. "The law had declared it so, and so it must be. The good minister had been greatly shocked, not a quarter of an hour before, at his parting with Grip. For one in his condition, to fondle a bird!" 

When called to have his shackles struck off, Hugh "passed out with the gait of a lion." Dennis, of course, has to be dragged out. He begs the prison attendants to check to see if his pardon is on the way, and he reminds them of his "service" as hangman -- maybe they've forgotten about it. But someone says, "since it may possibly produce in this unhappy man a better frame of mind, ... let me assure him that he was well known to have been the hangman, when his sentence was considered." He even pleads to be sent to Bloomsbury Square instead of Barnaby, just to buy a little more time. 

As the bell begins to toll twelve o'clock, Hugh is asked if he has any last words. At first he says no, and then he sees Barnaby. 

There was, for the moment, something kind, and even tender, struggling in his fierce aspect, as he wrong his poor companion by the hand. 

"I'll say this," he cried, looking firmly round, "that if I had ten lives to lose, and the loss of each would give me ten times the agony of the hardest death, I'd lay them all down -- ay, I would, though you gentlemen may not believe it -- to save this one. This one," he added, wringing [Barnaby's] hand again, "that will be lost through me."

....

"You see what I am -- more brute than man, as I have been often told -- but I had faith enough to believe, and did believe as strongly as any of you gentlemen can believe anything, that this one life would be spared. See what he is! -- Look at him!"

....

"What else should teach me -- me, born as I was born, and reared as I have been reared -- to hope for any mercy in this hardened, cruel, unrelenting place! Upon these human shambles, I, who never raised this hand in prayer till now, call down the wrath of God! On that black tree, of which I am the ripened fruit, I do invoke the curse of all its victims, past, and present, and to come. On the head of that man, who, in his conscience, owns me for his son, I leave the wish that he may never sicken on his bed of down, but die a violent death as I do now, and have the night-wind for his only mourner. To this I say, Amen, amen!"

His last gesture is to say that if anyone wants a dog, they'll find his "at the house I came from, and it wouldn't be easy to find a better. He'll whine at first, but he'll soon get over that. -- You wonder that I think about a dog just now.... If any man deserved it of me half as well, I'd think of him." He goes out to his execution, and Dennis is carried out after him, "and the crowd beheld the rest." 

Barnaby is taken out to the cart that will transport him to Bloomsbury Square, and he avoids looking at where Hugh and Dennis are hanging. Dickens then notes that two crippled boys were hanged at Bloomsbury Square, opposite the ruins of Lord Mansfield's house, and enumerates hangings of other boys and women that day. "In a word, those who suffered as rioters were, for the most part, the weakest, meanest, and most miserable among them. It was an exquisite satire upon the false religious cry which had led to so much misery, that some of these people owned themselves to be Catholics, and begged to be attended by their own priests." 

Meanwhile, John Willet and his son are at the Black Lion, where Joe tells his father that Edward Chester has made his fortune in the West Indies and plans to return there. He has assured Joe that he can provide employment for him, so Joe plans to take him up on the offer. But before his father can say anything, "Dolly Varden came running into the room, in tears, threw herself on Joe's breast without a word of explanation, and clasped her white arms round his neck." 

She more or less proposes to Joe, assuring him that it's all right with her father and mother, and he accepts. Joe asks his father, who is still not quite all there, if he knows who Dolly is, and urges him to say something "if it's only 'how d'ye do.'" All John Willet can muster is "Certainly, Joseph.... Oh yes! Why not?" And he sits there motionless for half an hour until he startles them with "a very loud and very short laugh," says "Certainly, Joseph. Oh yes! Why not?" again, and goes out for a walk. 

The damage to the Vardens' house has been repaired in the month since the riots, but "the house had a look of sadness and an air of mourning; which the neighbours, who in old days had often seen poor Barnaby go in and out, were at no loss to understand." Mrs. Rudge is there today, and Haredale and Edward Chester now arrive. Gabriel is out, and has been so all night, trying to get a reprieve for Barnaby. Haredale now confronts the issue that stands between him and Edward: "Sir, you still love my niece, and she is still attached to you." He leaves the room and comes back with Emma, giving them his blessing. He also tells them that when they leave England for the West Indies, he is going to the continent. "There are cloisters abroad; and now that the two great objects of my life are set at rest, I know no better home." 

He prepares to leave them together, but there is a great noise in the streets outside, and he and Edward go out to see what it is. Gabriel and Barnaby are being swept along by a great crowd of people, and when they finally make it to the house, Barnaby rushes upstairs to see his mother. Gabriel and Haredale had spent the night working on a reprieve for Barnaby, and had succeeded in obtaining a full pardon between eleven and twelve o'clock that morning. Haredale had gone straight to the Varden house to inform Mrs. Varden and Mrs. Rudge, and Gabriel had stayed behind to accompany Barnaby. 

That night Edward takes Hugh's body to a churchyard for burial. 

That evening, the Vardens, including son-in-law-to-be Joe Willet, are sitting down to tea when there's a knock on the door of the workshop, which had been closed that day. Joe goes to open it, and returns laughing. He is followed shortly by Miggs, accompanied by "a small boy and a very large box." Gabriel bursts out, "Damme, if it an't Miggs come back!" 

"Here's forgivenesses of injuries, here's amicablenesses!" she chortles. She has arrived under the mistaken impression that she will be welcomed back by the Vardens, and orders the boy, her nephew, to take her trunk upstairs. Gabriel asks his wife if she really wants this, and Mrs. Varden proclaims, "I am astonished -- I am amazed -- at her audacity. Let her leave the house this moment." 

Miggs, hearing this, let her end of the box fall heavily to the floor, gave a very loud sniff, crossed her arms, screwed down the corners of her mouth, and cried, in an ascending scale, "Ho, good gracious!" three distinct times. 

She then delivers herself of her usual Miggsish observations, such as, "It must be great vexations, 'specially considering how ill you always spoke of Mr Joe -- to have him for a son-in-law at last; and I wonder Miss Dolly can put up with him either, after being off and on for so many years with a coachmaker.... It an't so much of a catch, after looking out so sharp ever since she was a little chit, and costing such a deal in dress and show, to get a poor, common soldier, with one arm, is it, mim?" She bursts out in tears and pulls the hair of her nephew as she orders him to carry her box out again. So he runs off and leaves her with it in the street, where she "sat down upon her property to rest and grieve, until she could ensnare some other youth to help her home."

Another month passes, and it's the end of August. Haredale is getting ready to leave for the continent, but he decides to make one last visit to the ruins of the Warren. The sun is setting, and he walks around the building, then "uttered a half-suppressed exclamation, started, and stood still. Reclining, in an easy attitude, with his back against a tree, and contemplating the ruin with an expression of pleasure" was Sir John Chester, "the man whose presence, of all mankind, in any place, and least of all in that, he could least endure." Sir John comments on the ruins of Haredale's house, "How very picturesque this is!" Haredale replies, "You praise your own work very freely." Sir John protests that it isn't his work, but Haredale says, "you set on Gashford to this work -- this work before us now." And he puts his hand to his sword. "In all, you have been the same cold-blooded, hollow, false, unworthy villain. For the second time, and for the last, I cast these charges in your teeth, and spurn you from me as I would a faithless dog!" 

He strikes Sir John on the breast, and Sir John draws his sword and lunges at his heart. Haredale evades the blow and lowers his sword, then cries out, "In God's name, not to-night!" Sir John also lowers his weapon, but he continues to taunt Haredale, calling Edward a fool for being "trapped into marriage by such an uncle and such a niece." Haredale once again urges him not to provoke a duel that night, but when Sir John calls him a coward, the fight is on. Both men sustain wounds, but Haredale finally "plunged his sword through his opponent's body to the hilt." Even in dying, Sir John keeps up appearances, first regarding Haredale "with scorn and hatred in his look; but, seeming to remember, even then, that this expression would distort his features after death, he tried to smile, and, faintly moving his right hand, as if to hide his bloody linen in his vest, fell back dead." 

"Chapter the Last" rounds up everybody in the novel. 

• Haredale flees to the continent, enters a monastery known "for the rigour and severity of its discipline" and dies there. 
• Sir John's body is found two days later. His valet runs off with all the household cash and valuables, poses as a gentleman, almost marries an heiress, but dies of what is "vulgarly termed the jail fever."
• Lord George Gordon is found not guilty of High Treason, is excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, writes a libelous pamphlet about the Queen of France, converts to Judaism, is imprisoned for libel in Newgate, and dies there at the age of forty-three, faithfully served till his death by John Grueby. 
• Gashford becomes a spy for the government and dies in poverty, a suicide. 
• Sim Tappertit does time in prison after a hospital stay. Now with two wooden legs, he appeals to Gabriel Varden for assistance and is set up as a shoeblack, earning enough to take on two apprentices and marry "the widow of an eminent bone and rag collector." 
• Miggs becomes the turnkey of a women's prison. "It was observed of this lady that while she was inflexible and grim to all her female flock, she was particularly so to those who could establish any claim to beauty." 
• Joe Willet and Dolly Varden marry, but instead of going to the West Indies, they reopen the Maypole and make it a great success. They also have a farm, and numerous children. 
• John Willet is set up by his son with a cottage at Chigwell, where he entertains Tom Cobb, Phil Parkes and Solomon Daisy every night. "He never recovered the surprise the Rioters had given him, and remained in the same mental condition down to the last moment of his life. On his deathbed, his last words are "I'm a-going, Joseph, ... to the Salwanners" -- i.e., Savannah. Joe inherits a great deal of money on his death. 
• Barnaby and his mother live on Joe Willet's farm, tending the animals. He also seeks out Hugh's dog and takes care of him. 
• Edward and Emma return to England "with a family almost as numerous as Dolly's." 
• Grip is silent for a year after the experience in Newgate, but he regained his speech "and, as he was a mere infant for a raven when Barnaby was grey, he has very probably gone on talking to the present time."

16. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 613-652

Chapters 68-72

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Barnaby and his father make their way to the edge of the crowd and free themselves from the shackles. They move on to less inhabited parts of the city and find a shed where they spend the rest of the night and the following day. The following night, Rudge sends Barnaby in search of Stagg, but the blind man's house is empty.

After his release and his reunion with his father, Barnaby's view of the riots has changed: The town now seems "peopled by a legion of devils," and since he is no longer playing a leading role in the rioting, he sees it from a different perspective. He comes upon the mob besieging Langdale's house, and "there, in the midst, towering above them all, close before the house they were attacking now, was Hugh on horseback, calling to the rest!" He forces his way through the mob "and in time was nearly up with Hugh, who was savagely threatening some one, but whom or what he said, he could not, in the great confusion, understand. At that moment the crowd forced their way into the house, and Hugh -- it was impossible to see by what means, in such a concourse -- fell headlong down."

Hugh gets to his feet, but the blow (delivered, as we know, by Edward Chester) has left him confused, and the horse has kicked him in the head while he was down. After a moment he recognizes Barnaby and asks him where Dennis is, then collapses, "already frantic with drinking and with the wound in his head." The casks in the vintner's house have been breached and the street is running with their contents, some of it on fire. Hugh "crawled to a stream of the burning spirit which was pouring down the kennel, and began to drink as if it were a brook of water." Barnaby gets him to his feet, but he is unable to stand or walk, and he climbs up on the back of the horse. Barnaby leads the horse, which is still festooned with chains, away from the scene.

Dickens's descriptions of the riots have become increasingly more lurid, and they reach a peak here, with an account of people literally drinking themselves to death:

The gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps all round this fearful pond, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, women with children in their arms and babies at their breasts, and drank until they died. While some stooped with their lips to the brink and never raised their heads again, others sprang up from their fiery draught, and danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of their suffocation, until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the spirit that had killed them.... From the burning cellars, where they drank out of hats, pails, buckets, tubs, and shoes, some men were drawn, alive, but all alight from head to foot; who, in their unendurable anguish and suffering, making for anything that had the look of water, rolled, hissing, in this hideous lake, and splashed up liquid fire which lapped in all it met with as it ran along the surface, and neither spared the living nor the dead.

 

Barnaby leads the horse toward the shed where his father is, but stops about half a mile from it and removes the chains from the horse and sets it loose in the fields. Then he helps Hugh to the shed where his father, in a paranoid fit, accuses Barnaby of meeting with Mrs. Rudge and betraying him. Barnaby assures him that nothing of the sort has happened, and tells him that he was unable to find Stagg. Finally Barnaby is able to bring Rudge to his senses -- almost. He explains that Hugh "would have been killed if I had left him over yonder. They were firing guns and shedding blood. Does the sight of blood turn you sick, father? I see it does, by your face. That's like me -- What are you looking at?" Rudge is looking over Barnaby's head, where presumably he sees the ghost of the man he murdered.

They settle the unconscious Hugh in the shed and fall asleep, but Barnaby awakes early and is reminded by the pleasantness of the morning of better times, though "He had no consciousness, God help him, of having done wrong, nor had he any new perception of the merits of the cause in which he had been engaged, or those of the men who advocated it." His father also awakes, and sends him back into the city to look for the blind man, insisting that he must stay until he finds him, no matter how long it takes.

At sundown, Barnaby returns with Stagg. Rudge sends Barnaby to talk to Hugh, who is finally emerging from his stupor, and takes Stagg aside to hear that Mrs. Rudge has been hospitalized since her separation from Barnaby, but that she refuses to come to terms with Rudge, saying "that Heaven would help her and her innocent son; and that to Heaven she appealed against us." He advises Rudge to take Barnaby and get as far away from London as possible. He assures him that Mrs. Rudge will eventually give in. When Rudge asks how they will support themselves, Stagg slaps his pocket and says "the streets are running money," then calls out for Hugh to share the flask he has brought.

Hugh appears, "Exhausted, unwashed, unshorn, begrimed with smoke and dust, his hair clotted with blood, his voice quite gone, so that he spoke in whispers; his skin parched up by fever, his whole body bruised and cut, and beaten about." As Hugh is drinking from Stagg's flask, Dennis darkens the door of the hut and greets Barnaby by name, though he doesn't seem to know Stagg or Rudge. He explains that he knew from the sound of the chains on the horse which direction Hugh had taken. This is the first they've seen of each other since their encounter at the prison when Dennis was trying to keep the condemned men from being freed. Hugh asks, "Where did you go when you left me in the jail? Why did you leave me? And what did you mean by rolling your eyes and shaking your fist at me, eh?" Hugh has suspected that Dennis deserted the rioters, but Dennis denies it.

But not for long: Barnaby sights the soldiers hiding behind a hedgerow. Dennis gives the signal and "the shed was filled with armed men; and a body of horse, galloping into the field, drew up before it." Dennis identifies Barnaby and Hugh as "them two young ones, gentlemen, that the proclamation puts a price on." And now he fingers Rudge, too, as "an escaped felon." Stagg, however, had heard the soldiers before Barnaby sighted them, and made his escape. He "was now seen running across the open meadow," and the soldiers fire and kill him. Dennis is disconsolate because here's someone he can't hang: "What's to become of the country if the military power's to go a superseding the ciwilians in this way?"

Barnaby and his father are marched off on foot, while Hugh is bound to a horse and guarded by cavalry. Hugh is certain that he'll be freed by the mob, but when they reach Fleet Market he sees that the military is in full control "and felt that he was riding to his death."

"Having taken up arms and resorted to deeds of violence, with the great main object of preserving the Old Baily in all its purity, and the gallows in all its pristine usefulness and moral grandeur," Dennis now goes to the house where Emma and Dolly -- and Miggs -- are being kept. Their abduction, he realizes, could still get him in trouble, and he needs to resolve that problem immediately. When he enters the room where the three women are confined, Miggs immediately makes a scene, while Dolly and Emma shrink into a corner. Dennis pays court to Miggs.

He asks when she saw Sim Tappertit last, and tells her that Sim had "meant all along to carry off" Dolly -- "And to hand you over to somebody else." So he hints that he will get Dolly "out of the way" if "you'll only be quiet and slip away at the right time." Then it occurs to him that he also has to deal with Emma, and that Gashford has designs on her. Miggs informs him that she had heard Hugh and Sim say that Emma "was to be removed alone (not by them, but by somebody else), to-morrow night." So he tells Miggs that he would find "some daring young fellow" among the rioters to carry off Dolly. "With regard to Dolly, the gentleman would exercise his own discretion. He would be bound to do nothing but to take her away, and keep her away. All other arrangements and dispositions would rest entirely with himself." Miggs is more than happy with this plan -- though she pretends not to have heard him at all -- and Dennis sets off to make his arrangements.

The next day, Emma, Dolly, and Miggs remain locked in the room, but they can hear coming and going in the outer room where the men guarding them had been stationed. The sounds are unusually subdued, however, in contrast to the boisterous noise that had been made while the riots were at their height. Then they hear moans, as if a sick man had been brought into the outer room. Dolly is particularly upset because she knows that both Hugh and Sim have their eyes on her, and the idea of having to yield to either of them is repugnant. Miggs becomes more annoying than ever when she decides that it is her duty to convert Emma to Protestantism.

When night comes, they are left in darkness -- before this, "their jailers had been regular in bringing food and candles"-- and they hear "now and then a moan which seemed to be wrung from a person in great pain, who made an effort to subdue it, but could not." Miggs's carrying-on provokes Dolly to tell her to hold her tongue, which instead unleashes from Miggs a wonderful Dickensian monologue:

"Ho yes! I am a abject slave, and a toiling, moiling, constant-working, always-being-found-fault-with, never-giving-satisfactions, nor-having-no-time-to-clean-oneself, potter's wessel -- an't I, miss! Ho yes! My situations is lowly, and my capacities is limited, and my duties is to humble myself afore the base degenerating daughters of their blessed mothers as is fit to keep companies with holy saints but is born to persecutions from wicked relations -- and to demean myself before them as is no better than Infidels -- an't it, miss! Ho yes! My only becoming occupations is to help young flaunting pagins to brush and comb and titiwate theirselves into whitening and seppulchres, and leave the young men to think that there an't a bit of padding in it nor no pinching ins nor fillings out nor pomatums nor deceits nor earthly wanities -- an't it, miss! Yes, to be sure it is -- ho yes!"

This diatribe is finally stilled by the sound of knocking at the house door, then a struggle in the outside room. Believing that someone has come to rescue them, Emma and Dolly cry out for help, and a man carrying a sword and a candle rushes into their room. He assures Dolly that her friends will be there soon, and tells Emma that her uncle "has succeeded where many of our creed have failed, and is safe -- has crossed the sea, and is out of Britain." But, he tells her, the soldiers have joined league with the rioters and the people are united against the Catholics, so that she will be unable to follow her uncle without his help. "I have the means of saving you; and in redemption of my sacred promise, made to him, I am here; pledged not to leave you until I have placed you in his arms."

Emma quite sensibly wants to make sure she can trust him and asks for "some note or token from my uncle." And Dolly is even more suspicious: "I am sure he doesn't. Don't go with him for the world!" The man calls her a "pretty fool" and says that he didn't bring anything in writing with him for fear it might lead to his capture, and that he never thought of some "other token, nor did Mr Haredale think of entrusting me with one -- possibly because he had good experience of my faith and honesty, and owed his life to me."

Dolly still isn't buying this, and begs Emma not to trust him. Emma suggests that Dolly go with them, and the man says transporting two women through the streets is impossible, and anyway, Dolly will be rescued shortly. Emma tells her, "I will trust to this gentleman," but Dolly clings to her in tears. The man then separates them and pulls Emma toward the door, calling out to someone outside, "are you ready?"

But the voice that answers his call isn't one that he expects to hear. "And in an instant he was felled like an ox in the butcher's shambles." Haredale and Mr. and Mrs. Varden rush into the room, and the women fall into their arms.

 

Behind them are Edward Chester and Joe Willet. Edward had knocked down the man (who is Gashford, of course) and Joe has his foot planted on his chest. Gashford tries to bargain with Haredale: He has incriminating information of all sorts about Lord George Gordon, but if he's ill-treated he won't reveal it. But Joe tells him to get up and leave: "you're waited for, outside." Gashford exits with "a baffled malevolence, yet with an air of despicable humility." 

As they leave through the outer room, they discover "Mr Dennis in safe keeping" and Sim Tappertit "burnt and bruised, and with a gun-shot wound in his body; and his legs -- his perfect legs, the pride and glory of his life, the comfort of his existence -- crushed into shapeless ugliness." 

They travel to the Black Lion tavern, where they are joined by John Willet, who is still not quite right in the head. Among other things, he is puzzled by his son's missing arm, "which he had never yet got himself thoroughly to believe, or comprehend." He stares at the empty sleeve and keeps finding ways of feeling it, until he concludes, "It's been took off!" The landlord of the Black Lion prompts Joe to tell his father where it happened: "At the defence of the Savannah, father," Joe says. (The siege of Savannah, Georgia, an attempt by American forces to take control of the city from the British, took place in September and October, 1779.)  Joe also explains that Savannah is "In America, where the war is." (We learn that "the same information had been conveyed to him in the same terms, at least fifty times before.") 

Finally, Dolly is left by herself and Joe comes to talk to her. After the night he came to see her, he tells her, "I have been abroad, fighting all the summer and frozen up all the winter, ever since. I have come back as poor in purse as I went, and crippled for life besides.... I did hope once ... that I might come back a rich man, and marry you. But I was a boy then, and have long known better than that.... It's a comfort to me to know that you'll talk to your husband about me; and I hope the time will come when I may be able to like him, and to shake hands with him, and to come and see you as a poor friend who knew you when you were a girl." And he leaves.  

13. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 483-534

Chapters 53-58

_____

Macbeth put it this way:  

I am in blood 
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, 
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

Dickens puts it this way: "the sense of having gone too far to be forgiven, held the timid together no less than the bold." So the rioters continue to do their mischief:  "They all hoped and believed, in greater or less degree, that the government they seemed to have paralysed, would, in its terror, come to terms with them in the end, and suffer them to make their own conditions." 


Gashford goes to The Boot in search of Hugh, but finds only Barnaby and Dennis. The latter claims he doesn't know where Hugh has gone, but he arrives shortly, with Barnaby welcoming him eagerly. Gashford gives them the news that the King in Council has offered a reward of five hundred pounds "to any one who will discover the person or persons most active in demolishing those chapels." He also announces that the rioters who were arrested have been arraigned, and that there are witnesses against them, "Among others, a gentleman who saw the work going on in Warwick Street; a Catholic gentleman; one Haredale." Hugh tries to shush Gashford, but Barnaby has overheard the name and turns around in surprise. Hugh is able to distract him, however, by urging him to get on guard, and especially to make sure that nobody finds what's under his bed. The name fades "from his memory, like breath from a polished mirror." 


Gashford is most concerned that the witnesses should be intimidated, and particularly Haredale, but Hugh needs no persuading, especially as he has been in communication with Sir John Chester about doing harm to Haredale -- as Gashford knows and alludes to in several references to "your friend." He reiterates: "No mercy, no quarter, no two beams of his house to be left standing where the builder placed them!" Hugh and Dennis hurry out, and Gashford goes to Gordon's house to watch as the rioters make their way to their various targets: Catholic chapels and homes. The group including Sim Tappertit, Dennis, and Hugh is the last to pass by. As Hugh goes by, he acknowledges a spectator on the other side of the street: Sir John. "Gashford had seen him recognise Hugh with the air of a patron." Then a carriage with a woman in it drives up, she and Sir John talk for a minute "in which it was apparent that he was vastly entertaining on the subject of the mob, he stepped lightly in, and was driven away." 


Gashford has his dinner and paces impatiently, and finally climbs upstairs and goes out on the roof, where he sits looking toward the east. 

"'Nothing but gloom in that direction, still!' he muttered restlessly. 'Dog! where is the redness in the sky, you promised me!'" 


At the Maypole, John Willet and his friends Cobb, Parkes, and Daisy are arguing about the riots. Willet maintains, "Don't I tell you that His blessed Majesty King George the Third would no more stand a rioting and rollicking in his streets, than he'd stand being crowed over by his own Parliament!" The others insists that there have been riots and destruction of churches and houses, but Willet is adamant: "'Do you suppose if all this was true, that Mr Haredale would be constantly away from home, as he is?' said John, after another silence. 'Do you think he wouldn't be afraid to leave his house with them two young women in it, and only a couple of men, or so?'" Solomon Daisy admits that the Warren is "a goodish way out of London" and that "some of the Catholic gentlefolks have actually sent trinkets and suchlike down here for safety -- at least so the story goes." Willet pooh-poohs even this: "The story goes that you saw a ghost last March. But nobody believes it."


And so the three friends decide to set out for London to see for themselves. Willet refuses even to shake their hands when they leave. After they have gone, he falls asleep, and when he wakes it is nighttime. Then he hears a sound "very faint and distant" that comes and goes and then gets louder and louder until "it burst into a distinct sound -- the voices, and the tramping feet of many men." His cook and housemaid are terrified and run "screaming upstairs" where they lock "themselves into one of the old garrets, -- shrieking dismally when they had done so, by way of rendering their place of refuge perfectly secret and secure." Willet shouts angrily at them but he uses only "one word, and called that up the stairs in a stentorian voice, six distinct times." The word is "a monosyllable, which, however inoffensive when applied to the quadruped it denotes, is highly reprehensible when used in connection with females of unimpeachable character." (The only word that comes to my mind that both applies to a quadruped and is "reprehensible" is "bitch." Even a veiled allusion to that word seems awfully daring in Dickens's day. And since there are two women in question, wouldn't the word have to be "bitches," which is not a monosyllable? Little help here?) 


Left alone in the Maypole, "John Willet, in whom the very uttermost extent of dull-headed perplexity supplied the place of courage, stationed himself in the porch, and waited for their coming up." He doesn't wait long before the mob attacks and manhandles him, but Hugh intervenes and tells them not to hurt him. And the surprise of the mob and of Hugh's presence in it seems to undo Willet completely: "Mr Willet looked at him, and saw it was Hugh; but he said nothing and thought nothing." From here on he seems to be stunned.

He sits "in an arm-chair, ... watching the destruction of his property, as if it were some queer play or entertainment." The Maypole is laid waste by the mob, "swarming on like insects: noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans, plunder, fear, and ruin!" Through it all, even though Hugh is among the most destructive of the rioters, he nevertheless protects Willet from bodily harm, "even when Mr Tappertit, excited by liquor, came up, and in assertion of his prerogative politely kicked John Willet on the shins, Hugh bade him return the compliment; and if old John had had sufficient presence of mind to understand this whispered direction, and to profit by it, he might no doubt, under Hugh's protection, have done so with impunity." 


Finally, the mob starts to move on toward their main goal, the Warren, and there is a debate about what to do with Willet, including burning down the inn with him in it. Hugh overrules all the ideas except tying him to his chair and leaving him there, and Dennis is sent for some rope. Dennis, however, is under the impression that they want the rope for his usual professional duty "and raising his eyes to the ceiling, looked all over it, and round the walls and cornice, with a curious eye." Hugh is surprised when he realizes what Dennis has in mind -- we are reminded that Hugh "was ignorant of his calling" -- and simply binds Willet to the chair, to Dennis's disappointment. 

Traumatized into a waking stupor, Willet sits in the middle of his ruined inn.

John saw this desolation, and yet saw it not. He was perfectly contented to sit there, staring at it, and felt no more indignation or discomfort in his bonds than if they had been robes of honour. So far as he was personally concerned, old Time lay snoring, and the world stood still.

Finally he hears a footstep and a man in "a large, dark, faded cloak, and a slouched hat" appears. It's the mysterious stranger, of course, though his identity won't be mysterious much longer. He asks which way the mob went, and when Willet nods in the opposite direction, the man says he's lying. Then he realizes that Willet is not in his right mind and refrains from striking him. He empties the remaining liquor in a cask into his mouth and voraciously eats some bread and meat that has been left behind. Finally, he asks again where the mob went, and Willet points him in the right direction. But just as he rushes out, an alarm bell begins to ring and "a bright and vivid glare streamed up, which illumined, not only the whole chamber, but all the county." But it's the bell rather than the brightness of the fire that terrifies the man. "He clutched his hair, and stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round.... There was murder in its every note -- cruel, relentless, savage murder -- the murder of a confiding man, by one who held his every trust."

The rioters, meanwhile, have breached the iron fence around the Warren and surrounded the house, "knocking violently at the doors, and calling to those within, to come down and open them on peril of their lives." No one answers, and they begin to break in, having raided the garden tool-shed for axes, hoes and other implements to use as weapons, and spreading fire from torch to torch so that "at least two-thirds of the whole roaring mass bore, each man in his hand, a blazing brand." Hugh and those closest to him concentrate on the turret where he had met Haredale in the company of John Willet. 

There are a few servants with arms in the hall, but they are so outnumbered that they pretend to be among the rioters and make their escape, "with the exception of one old man who was never heard of again, and was said to have had his brains beaten out with an iron bar ... and to have been afterwards burnt in the flames." The rampaging mob begins to destroy and set fire to everything, including one another, "kindling the building in so many parts that some had no time for escape, and were seen, with drooping hands and blackened faces, hanging senseless on the window-sills to which they had crawled, until they were sucked and drawn into the burning gulf." 

Although the alarm bell rang for a long time, no one came to fight the fire. "Some of the insurgents said that when it ceased, they heard the shrieks of women, and saw some garments fluttering in the air, as a party of men bore away no unresisting burdens." Finally, Hugh gives the signal to disperse, but not everyone is ready to leave.

There were men who rushed up to the fire, and paddled in it with their hands as if in water; and others who where retrained by force from plunging in, to gratify their deadly longing. On the skull of one drunken lad -- not twenty, by his looks -- who lay upon the ground with a bottle to his mouth, the lead from the roof came streaming down in a shower of liquid fire, white hot; melting his head like wax.

John Willet's friends from the Maypole have continued their journey toward London, hearing reports of continued destruction along the way, and being warned that they should wear blue cockades in their hats if they want to escape harm. As they get nearer to the city, they see "No Popery" chalked on almost every door. 

At a tollbooth a horseman rides up from the city and calls for the gate to be opened. The gatekeeper comes out and notices that the sky is lighted up by another fire. "At this, the three turned their heads, and saw in the distance -- straight in the direction whence they had come -- a broad sheet of flame, casting a threatening light upon the clouds." The horseman, who is Haredale, realizes what is on fire and urges the gatekeeper to open the gate. The gatekeeper recognizes and urges him not to go -- "You will be murdered" -- or at least to wear a blue cockade to protect himself, handing him the one from his own hat. When the three friends join in urging him to do so, Haredale recognizes Solomon Daisy, and asks him to come with him. Daisy gets on the horse behind him and they ride on till they reach the Maypole. 

They find the destruction at the inn and the demented Willet still bound to the chair. Daisy is distraught "That the Maypole bar should come to this, and we should live to see it!" But Willet stares "at him with an unearthly glare, and display[s], by every possible symptom, entire and complete unconsciousness." Daisy asks if they beat him, and finally Willet seems to come to his senses: "If they'd only had the goodness to murder me, I'd have thanked 'em kindly." As Haredale is untying the ropes, Willet says, "let's go and pitch ourselves in the nighest pool of water as is deep enough to hold us; for our day is over!" 

Haredale asks if he had seen Emma, but Willet says no. "'They rode away, I trust in Heaven, before these dreadful scenes began,' said Mr Haredale, who, between his agitation, his eagerness to mount his horse again, and the dexterity with which the cords were tied, had scarcely yet undone one knot." Then Willet asks them, "either of you gentlemen -- see a -- a coffin anywheres, did you?" He tells them, "a dead man called a little time ago, on his way yonder. I could have told you what name was on the plate, if he had brought his coffin with him, and left it behind." 

Haredale realizes the significance of what Willet is saying, and hurries off with Solomon Daisy in tow. When they reach the house, Haredale draws his sword and they search all around the house for signs of life. He calls the names of his servants but gets no response. They stop at the foot of the turret where "a part of the staircase still remained, winding upward from a great mound of dust and cinders." Then they hear a faint noise, and Haredale covers Daisy's mouth and signals for him to stay there and be silent. Then he enters the turret with his sword drawn. Daisy stays below and watches, "And now a figure was dimply visible; climbing very softly; and often stopping to look down." Daisy looks at a place illuminated by the moonlight where if the figure continues to ascend it will appear. When it finally does, and looks around, "The horror-stricken clerk uttered a scream that pierced the air, and cried, 'The ghost! The ghost!'" Then Haredale appears and grabs the figure by the throat. 

"Villain!" cried Mr Haredale, in a terrible voice.... "Dead and buried, as all men supposed through your infernal arts, but reserved by Heaven for this -- at last -- at last -- I have you. You, whose hands are red with my brother's blood, and that of his faithful servant, shed to conceal your own atrocious guilt -- You, Rudge, double murderer and monster, I arrest you in the name of God, who has delivered you into my hands. No. Though you had the strength of twenty men," he added, as the murderer writhed and struggled, "you could not escape me or loosen my grip tonight!" 

 Barnaby has stood guard at The Boot, with Grip as his companion. (Has anyone else wondered about Grip all this time? Where was he when Barnaby was in the middle of the mob, or ransacking a church?) Now Grip is busying himself with "scattering the straw, hiding under it such small articles as had been casually left about, and haunting Hugh's bed, to which he seemed to have taken a particular attachment." He has also learned to say "No Popery!" 


Lord George Gordon and John Grueby ride up. Gordon talks with Barnaby a while, and listens as he explains that Grip is "my brother, Grip is -- always with me -- always talking -- always merry -- eh, Grip?" Unfortunately, Gordon doesn't know what to make of Barnaby, and when he asks Grueby, the servant says Barnaby is mad. This bothers Gordon, perhaps because he himself is mad, and he gets angry at Grueby, who says, "look at his dress, look at his eyes, look at his restless way, hear him cry 'No Popery!' Mad, my lord.... Stark, staring, raving, roaring mad." Gordon turns on him: "You are an ill-conditioned, most ungrateful fellow, ... a spy, for anything I know.... You will leave me to-night -- nay, as soon as we reach home. The sooner the better." 


Grueby accepts this verdict, knowing that Gashford is in part behind it, but he is concerned about Barnaby, too. "He had better get to a place of safety if he can, poor creature." He tells Barnaby, "I think, young man, ... that the soldiers may turn out and take you; and that if they do, you will certainly be hung by the neck till you're dead -- dead -- dead. And I think you had better go from here, as fast as you can. That's what I think." But Barnaby retorts with, "Let them come! Gordon for ever!" Which pleases Gordon, of course: "This a madman!" he says to Grueby. And to Barnaby, "I am proud to be the leader of such men as you." It's a case of the mad leading the mad. Gordon rides off, "glancing angrily round to see that his servant followed." Grueby does follow, "but not before he had again warned Barnaby to retreat." 


Barnaby continues his patrol. Late in the afternoon, some men arrive to warn the inmates of The Boot that soldiers are on their way, and everybody but Barnaby and an old woman clears out. Five minutes later the soldiers arrive. One of them is the man whom Barnaby knocked off his horse with his flagstaff at Westminster. There are two civilians as well. Barnaby is ordered to surrender, but he stands in the doorway holding his flagpole crosswise. The soldiers move in, and Barnaby fends them off with his pole until finally he is struck with the butt of a gun and taken prisoner. 


Then an officer expresses surprise: Grip "had plucked away the straw from Hugh's bed, and turned up the loose ground with his iron bill.... Golden cups, spoons, candlesticks, coined guineas -- all the riches were revealed." Barnaby is marched away by four soldiers with fixed bayonets: "those cold, bright, sharp, shining points turned towards him: the mere looking down at which, now that he was bound and helpless, made the warm current of his life run cold." 


He is taken to a barracks where a double guard is set for him. He dozes for a while and then hears two men talking about him. One is a sergeant and the other is a civilian called Tom Green. The sergeant is protesting that the magistrates have not given the military the authority to quell the riots: "Here's a proclamation. Here's a man referred to in that proclamation. Here's proof against him, and a witness on the spot. Damme! Take him out and shoot him, sir. Who wants a magistrate?" Tom Green asks when Barnaby goes before Sir John Fielding, the presiding magistrate. The sergeant says eight p.m., but he expects that when Barnaby is committed to Newgate Prison, the soldiers will be attacked by the mob and forced to retreat because the magistrates haven't given them order to fire on the rioters. 


Barnaby peeks out at the men, and sees that Tom Green "was a gallant, manly, handsome fellow, but he had lost his left arm." His bearing suggests that he had once been a soldier. And he says, "it makes a man sorrowful to come back to old England, and see her in this condition." Then when the sergeant says that they have a bird in the guard-house that "bawls 'No Popery,' like a man -- or like a devil, as he says he is," Tom Green starts to go take a look at the bird when Barnaby calls out that it's his friend Grip: "He's the only friend I have left now." And he begs them not to hurt him. The sergeant taunts him with a threat to kill the bird and him as well, and Barnaby angrily replies, "Kill anything you can, and so revenge yourself on those who with their bare hands untied could do as much to you!" Barnaby rarely sounds "idiotic," but here he breaks character entirely, at least until he begins to cry, and mutter, "Good bye, Grip -- good bye, dear old Grip!" He has noticed that the one-armed man seemed sympathetic, but he does nothing to help him at this point. 


Barnaby is taken to Bow Street, where "a blind gentleman" -- i.e., Fielding, who was Henry Fielding's half-brother -- sends him to Newgate. As the sergeant had predicted, the mob attacks the soldiers taking him to the prison, but they succeed in getting him there. A "set of heavy irons" are riveted on him and he is taken to a cell. There he is joined by "Grip, who, with his head drooping and his deep black plumes rough and rumpled, appeared to comprehend and to partake, his master's fallen fortunes." 

8. Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens, pp. 297-342

Chapters 31-35

_____

Barricaded in his room, Joe waits to be confronted by his father for his assault on Cobb, but when morning comes, he climbs out of his window and leaves, looking "up at the old Maypole, it might be for the last time." He reaches the Black Lion pub in London, where he learns that a recruiting sergeant is signing men up. The recruiter is eager to have him, but Joe wants to wait until that evening, so that he has time to talk to Dolly. The recruiter promises that if he does sign, he'll leave London the next day: "You'll go abroad -- a country where it's all sunshine and plunder -- the finest climate in the world." That sounds to Joe exactly like what he wants. "Needs must when the devil drives; and the devil that drives me is an empty pocket and an unhappy home."

By evening, he has spent all his money on food, while waiting for a time when Mrs. Varden usually goes out to a lecture. He finds Dolly alone (or so he thinks).

Dolly welcomes him in her father's workshop, but when he tells her he is there "to say good-bye -- to say good-bye for I don't know how many years; perhaps for ever. I am going abroad," she reacts coldly. "Dolly released her hand and said, 'Indeed!' She remarked in the same breath that it was a fine night, and in short, betrayed no more emotion than the forge itself." Unfortunately for Joe, "that gallant coachmaker had vowed but the night before that Miss Varden held him bound in adamantine chains." She is expecting to be wooed, not to be forced to confront reality.

Joe had small experience in love affairs, and had no notion how different young ladies are at different times; he had expected to take Dolly up again at the very point where he had left her after that delicious evening ride, and was no more prepared for such an alteration than to see the sun and moon change places.

So even though he now declares, "I love you dearly, with all my heart and soul; with as much truth and earnestness as ever man loved woman in this world, I do believe," Dolly is expecting more. She "was a coquette by nature, and a spoilt child," convinced that "The coachmaker would have been dissolved in tears, and ... done all kinds of poetry." The truth of what she has done by not begging him to stay is slow to hit her. After he has left, she waits for him to come back, looks out into the street, waits some more and then "went upstairs humming a tune, bolted herself in, laid her head down on her bed, and cried as if her heart would break."

After she has gone, Sim comes out from his hiding place in triumph, admires his legs in the mirror, and proclaims, "Tremble, Willet, and despair. She's mine! She's mine!"

Joe goes to the recruiting sergeant and signs up, and the next morning, "The party embarked in a passage-boat bound for Gravesend, whence they were to proceed on foot to Chatham; the wind was in their favour, and they soon left London behind them; a mere dark mist -- a giant phantom in the air."

Dickens announces the parallel father-son story, that of Edward and John Chester, with "Misfortunes, saith the adage, never come singly."

Phiz underscores a point: Notice the picture of Abraham sacrificing Isaac above John Chester.

John and Edward Chester are dining together, the father trying to cheer up the son. But when Edward calls him "father," John protests, "for Heaven's sake don't call me by that obsolete and ancient name. Have some regard for delicacy. Am I grey, or wrinkled, do I go on crutches, have I lost my teeth, that you adopt such a mode of address? Good God, how very coarse!" And Edward only makes it worse when he protests, "I was about to speak to you from my heart, sir." For John, the heart is only "the centre of the blood-vessels and all that sort of thing.... How can you be so very vulgar and absurd? These anatomical allusions should be left to gentlemen of the medical profession. They are really not agreeable in society.... Men are sometimes stabbed to the heart, shot to the heart; but as to speaking from the heart, or to the heart, or being warm-hearted, or cold-hearted, or broken-hearted, or being all heart, or having no heart -- pah! these things are nonsense, Ned."

Edward, perhaps to put an end to his father's lecture, says, "No doubt." But John continues, narrowing his focus to Emma: "No doubt in your mind she was all heart once. Now she has none at all." Edward protests that though she appears to have changed, it was "by vile means, I believe." John insists, "She supposed you to be rich, or at least rich enough; and found you poor. Marriage is a civil contract; people marry to better their worldly condition and improve appearances; it is an affair of house and furniture, of liveries, servants, equipage, and so forth. The lady being poor and you poor also, there is an end of the matter." Dickens certainly wants us to believe that this is John Chester's heartless materialism, and therefore to be dismissed, but modern readers may find some uncomfortable truths in it. And then he goes on to a revelation:

"Edward, my father had a son, who being a fool like you, and, like you, entertaining low and disobedient sentiments, he disinherited and cursed one morning after breakfast. The circumstance occurs to me with a singular clearness of recollection this evening. I remember eating muffins at the time, with marmalade. He led a miserable life (the son, I mean) and died early; it was a happy release on all accounts; he degraded the family very much." 

This would seem to be a significant revelation to Edward: that he had an uncle who went astray. Perhaps his father is only making it up as a warning, but in a novel filled with hints and secrets, such as the identity of the mysterious stranger who robbed Edward and threatens Mrs. Rudge, or the parentage of Hugh and John Chester's motive for his intense scrutiny of Hugh's face, it also give the reader a license to speculate. But only for a moment, for John now responds to his son's plea for an audience to his concerns with a bitter dismissal: "if, in short, you are resolved to take your own course, you must take it, and my curse with it."

Now it's Edward's turn to surprise us: "'The curse may pass your lips,' said Edward, 'but it will be but empty breath. I do not believe that any man on earth has greater power to call one down upon his fellow -- least of all, upon his own child -- than he has to make one drop of rain or flake of snow fall from the clouds above us at his impious bidding." This is the kind of skepticism about melodramatic devises such as paternal curses that we would normally expect from John Chester, not from Edward. But John Chester naturally knows how to turn it back on his son: "You are so very irreligious, so exceedingly undutiful, so horribly profane.... Return to this roof no more, I beg you. Go, sir, since you have no moral sense remaining; and go to the Devil, at my express desire. Good day."

Edward leaves, "and turned his back upon the house for ever." So with both Joe and Edward cast adrift upon the world, Dickens now jumps ahead five years, from 1775 to 1780. 

It's a night of terrible weather, and Joe Willet, Tom Cobb, and Phil Parkes are waiting for their companion, Solomon Daisy, in the coziness of the Maypole kitchen. Dickens makes much of the contrast between the warm, quiet interior and the cold, windy night outside, so much so that it's almost an inversion of the disjunction between nature and humanity that we saw earlier when John Chester was making his way inattentively through a beautiful spring day. It is half past ten at night, and Willet is snoring -- although he is awake: "his breathing was pretty much the same, awake or asleep, saving that in the latter case he sometimes experienced a slight difficulty in respiration" (which we would call apnea).

Over the chimney there is a poster of "a youth of tender years running away very fast." After Joe's disappearance, Willet had distributed these, offering a reward of five pounds, but he "obstinately peristed, despite the advice and entreaties of his friends, in describing his son as a 'young boy;' and furthermore as being from eighteen inches to a couple of feet shorter than he really was," with the result that he has had delivered to him "at various times and at a vast expense, ... some five-and-forty runaways varying from six years old to twelve."

Finally a cry is heard outside and Solomon Daisy enters, terror-stricken and for a moment unable to speak. Willet decides the way to get him to tell them what has happened is to bully him: "Tell us what's the matter, sir, ... or I'll kill you.... How dare you look like that?" Finally Daisy is able to tell them "to lock the house-door and close and bar the shutters of the room, without a moment's loss of time." They follow his advice, and he begins to moan, "Why did I leave this house to-night! On the nineteenth of March -- of all nights in the year, on the nineteenth of March!" This is the anniversary of the murder of Reuben Haredale, twenty-seven years ago. He tells them that he realized that he had forgotten to wind the clock in the church, and he went to do it, even though the storm was raging outside, and no one else was about. When he got there, he realized it was the nineteenth of March, and "at the very same moment, I heard a voice outside the tower -- rising from among the graves." It was the kind of cry one might give "if something dreadful followed us in a dream, and came upon us unawares; and then it died off: seeming to pass quite round the church."

When he opened the church door to leave, "there crossed me -- so close, that by stretching out my finger I could have touched it -- something in the likeness of a man. It was bare-headed to the storm. It turned its face without stopping, and it fixed its eyes on mine. It was a ghost -- a spirit." He falls back weakly as the others demand "Whose?" but only Willet hears the answer: "'Gentlemen,' said Mr Willet after a long pause, 'you needn't ask. The likeness of a murdered man. This is the nineteenth of March.'"

Receiving this news, they all vow to keep it to themselves. But after they leave, Willet decides that he has to share this information with Geoffrey Haredale as soon as possible. So he summons Hugh, who complains about going out at midnight in a storm, but whom Willet needs to lead him through the darkness to the Warren. When they reach it, the place is dark except for a light in one of the towers, which Willet realizes is "Mr Reuben's own apartment, God be with us! I wonder his brother likes to sit there, so late at night -- on this night too." Hugh scoffs at this: "Is it less warm or dry, because a man was killed there?" Willet begins "to think it just barely possible that he was something of a dangerous character, and that it might be advisable to get rid of him one of these days."

Haredale lets them in, and they climb the stairs to the room, though Haredale asks Hugh to wait outside. "He has an evil eye," he tells Willet. After Willet tells him what Solomon Daisy saw, Haredale says it was a good idea to keep it secret, though he regards the story as "a foolish fancy on he part of this weak-brained man, bred in his fears and superstition. But Miss Haredale, though she would know it to be so, would be disturbed by it if it reached her ears."

When Willet prepares to leave, Haredale offers Hugh a drink, and when he gives it to him, Hugh "threw part of it upon the floor." Willet scolds him, but Hugh says, "'I'm drinking a toast... to this house and its master.' With that he muttered something to himself, and drank the rest, and setting down the glass, preceded them without another word." Willet is "scandalised" by this. And when they leave, Willet notices that Haredale's "face had changed so much and grown so haggard since their entrance, that he almost seemed another man."

Willet and Hugh take to the road again, but are suddenly almost run down by three men on horseback. They stop and ask if this is the road to London. "'If you follow it right, it is,' replied Hugh roughly." The man who asked calls Hugh's manner "churlish," but Willet assures them it is, and then scolds Hugh for provoking "three great neck-or-nothing chaps, that could keep on running over use, back'ards and for'ards, till we was dead, and then take our bodies up behind 'em, and drown us ten miles off." When he informs the men that London is thirteen miles away, they decide it's too far to ride that night, and ask for an inn, which Willet is happy to answer.

One of the men then asks if Willet has "one excellent bed, landlord? Hem! A bed that you can recommend -- a bed that you are sure is well aired -- a bed that has been slept in by some perfectly respectable and unexceptionable person?" And he launches into a long speech about how "forty thousand men of this our island in the wave (exclusive of women and children) rivet their eyes and thoughts on Lord George Gordon; and every day, from the rising up of the sun to the going down of the same, pray for his health and vigour." And so on. He insists that only Gordon needs the bed: "Let me sleep on a chair -- the carpet -- anywhere. No one will repine if I take cold or fever." And as for the third man, "Let John Grueby pass the night beneath the open sky -- no one will repine for him."

Willet, "who had never heard so many words spoken together at one time, or delivered with such volubility and emphasis as by the long-winded gentleman," assures them that he has accommodations for all three of them. And we learn that the three men are Gordon, his secretary Gashford ("the long-winded gentleman"), and his servant, John Grueby. Gordon says they will follow Willet and Hugh to the Maypole, but Grueby doesn't like Hugh's looks and insists on riding ahead with him. As they proceed, Hugh sizes Grueby up:

He was a square-built, strong-made, bull-necked fellow, of the true English breed; and as Hugh measured him with his eye, he measured Hugh, regarding him meanwhile with a look of bluff disdain. He was much older than the Maypole man, being to all appearance five-and-forty; but was one of those self-possessed, hard-headed, imperturbable fellows, who, if they are ever beaten at fisticuffs, or other kind of warfare, never know it, and go on coolly till they win.

Which is pretty much what happens now, as Hugh decides to challenge Grueby on his skill with a cudgel, waving his about and receiving a blow on the head from the butt end of Grueby's whip. Grueby comments, "You wear your hear too long; I should have cracked your crown if it had been a little shorter." Hugh meditates on escalating the combat, but backs down, recognizing that he was dealing with "a customer of almost supernatural toughness."

 Willet shows them to the Maypole, where he observes that Gordon is "about the middle height, of a slender make, and sallow complexion, with an aquiline nose, and long hair of a reddish brown, combed perfectly straight and smooth about his ears, and slightly powdered, but without the faintest vestige of a curl." He is "not yet thirty," and "his face ... was thin and mild, and wore an air of melancholy; but it was suggestive of an indefinable uneasiness." Gashford "was taller, angularly made, high-shouldered, bony, and ungraceful.... His manner was smooth and humble, but very sly and slinking. He wore the aspect of a man who was always lying in wait for something that wouldn't come to pass; but he looked patient -- very patient -- and fawned like a spaniel dog." (Dickens will do this better when he creates Uriah Heep, though "lying in wait for something that wouldn't come to pass" is quite wonderful.)

When they are settled in, Gordon and Gashford look back on what Gashford calls "the blessed work of a most blessed day," and Gordon prompts the secretary to tell him how he moved the Protestants of Suffolk: "They cried to be led against the Papists, they vowed a dreadful vengeance on their heads, they roared like men possessed." He goes on to say, "when you cried 'Perish the Pope and all his base adherents; the penal laws against them shall never be repealed while Englishmen have hearts and hands' -- and waved your own an touched your sword; and when they cried, 'No Popery!' and you cried 'No; not even if we wade in blood,' and they threw up their hats and cried 'Hurrah! not even if we wade in blood; No Popery! Lord George! Down with the Papists -- Vengeance on their heads.'"

Gordon seems to be under Gashford's spell. He even asks, "But -- dear Gashford -- did I really say all that?" Gashford assures him he did, and he reminds him that he, Gashford, had been "stricken by the magic of his eloquence in Scotland but a year ago, [and] abjured the errors of the Romish church." Gordon continues to be in something of a daze, and to need Gashford's reassurance. He has "a heightened colour" and puts a "fevered hand" on Gashford's shoulder; "struggling through his Puritan's demeanour, was something wild and ungovernable which broke through all restraint." Meanwhile, Gashford is taking more than his share of the mulled wine.

Willet and Grueby arrive to show "the deluded lord into his chamber." Gashford falls asleep by the fire, only to be awakened by Grueby, who is concerned about his master's state of mind: "'Between Bloody Marys, and blue cockades, and glorious Queen Besses, and no Popery, and Protestant associations, and making of speeches,' pursued John Grueby, ... 'my lord's half off his head.... One of these evenings, when the weather gets warmer and Protestants are thirsty, they'll be pulling London down, -- and I never heard that Bloody Mary went as far as that.'"