Rumours of the prevailing disturbances had, by this time, begun to be
pretty generally circulated through the towns and villages round London,
and the tidings were everywhere received with that appetite for the
marvellous and love of the terrible which have probably been among the
natural characteristics of mankind since the creation of the world.
These accounts, however, appeared, to many persons at that day--as
they would to us at the present, but that we know them to be matter of
history--so monstrous and improbable, that a great number of those who
were resident at a distance, and who were credulous enough on other
points, were really unable to bring their minds to believe that such
things could be; and rejected the intelligence they received on all
hands, as wholly fabulous and absurd.
Mr Willet--not so much, perhaps, on account of his having argued and
settled the matter with himself, as by reason of his constitutional
obstinacy--was one of those who positively refused to entertain the
current topic for a moment. On this very evening, and perhaps at the
very time when Gashford kept his solitary watch, old John was so red in
the face with perpetually shaking his head in contradiction of his three
ancient cronies and pot companions, that he was quite a phenomenon to
behold, and lighted up the Maypole Porch wherein they sat together, like
a monstrous carbuncle in a fairy tale.
‘Do you think, sir,’ said Mr Willet, looking hard at Solomon Daisy--for
it was his custom in cases of personal altercation to fasten upon the
smallest man in the party--‘do you think, sir, that I’m a born fool?’
‘No, no, Johnny,’ returned Solomon, looking round upon the little circle
of which he formed a part: ‘We all know better than that. You’re no
fool, Johnny. No, no!’
Mr Cobb and Mr Parkes shook their heads in unison, muttering, ‘No, no,
Johnny, not you!’ But as such compliments had usually the effect of
making Mr Willet rather more dogged than before, he surveyed them with a
look of deep disdain, and returned for answer:
‘Then what do you mean by coming here, and telling me that this evening
you’re a-going to walk up to London together--you three--you--and have
the evidence of your own senses? An’t,’ said Mr Willet, putting his pipe
in his mouth with an air of solemn disgust, ‘an’t the evidence of MY
senses enough for you?’
‘But we haven’t got it, Johnny,’ pleaded Parkes, humbly.
‘You haven’t got it, sir?’ repeated Mr Willet, eyeing him from top to
toe. ‘You haven’t got it, sir? You HAVE got it, sir. 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?’
‘Yes, Johnny, but that’s your sense--not your senses,’ said the
adventurous Mr Parkes.
‘How do you know?’ retorted John with great dignity. ‘You’re a
contradicting pretty free, you are, sir. How do YOU know which it is?
I’m not aware I ever told you, sir.’
Mr Parkes, finding himself in the position of having got into
metaphysics without exactly seeing his way out of them, stammered forth
an apology and retreated from the argument. There then ensued a silence
of some ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, at the expiration of which
period Mr Willet was observed to rumble and shake with laughter, and
presently remarked, in reference to his late adversary, ‘that he hoped
he had tackled him enough.’ Thereupon Messrs Cobb and Daisy laughed,
and nodded, and Parkes was looked upon as thoroughly and effectually put
down.
‘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?’
‘Ay, but then you know,’ returned Solomon Daisy, ‘his house is a goodish
way out of London, and they do say that the rioters won’t go more than
two miles, or three at the farthest, off the stones. Besides, you
know, some of the Catholic gentlefolks have actually sent trinkets and
suchlike down here for safety--at least, so the story goes.’
‘The story goes!’ said Mr Willet testily. ‘Yes, sir. The story goes that
you saw a ghost last March. But nobody believes it.’
‘Well!’ said Solomon, rising, to divert the attention of his two
friends, who tittered at this retort: ‘believed or disbelieved, it’s
true; and true or not, if we mean to go to London, we must be going at
once. So shake hands, Johnny, and good night.’
‘I shall shake hands,’ returned the landlord, putting his into his
pockets, ‘with no man as goes to London on such nonsensical errands.’
The three cronies were therefore reduced to the necessity of shaking his
elbows; having performed that ceremony, and brought from the house their
hats, and sticks, and greatcoats, they bade him good night and departed;
promising to bring him on the morrow full and true accounts of the real
state of the city, and if it were quiet, to give him the full merit of
his victory.
John Willet looked after them, as they plodded along the road in the
rich glow of a summer evening; and knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
laughed inwardly at their folly, until his sides were sore. When he had
quite exhausted himself--which took some time, for he laughed as slowly
as he thought and spoke--he sat himself comfortably with his back to the
house, put his legs upon the bench, then his apron over his face, and
fell sound asleep.
How long he slept, matters not; but it was for no brief space, for
when he awoke, the rich light had faded, the sombre hues of night were
falling fast upon the landscape, and a few bright stars were already
twinkling overhead. The birds were all at roost, the daisies on the
green had closed their fairy hoods, the honeysuckle twining round the
porch exhaled its perfume in a twofold degree, as though it lost its
coyness at that silent time and loved to shed its fragrance on the
night; the ivy scarcely stirred its deep green leaves. How tranquil, and
how beautiful it was!
Was there no sound in the air, besides the gentle rustling of the
trees and the grasshopper’s merry chirp? Hark! Something very faint and
distant, not unlike the murmuring in a sea-shell. Now it grew louder,
fainter now, and now it altogether died away. Presently, it came again,
subsided, came once more, grew louder, fainter--swelled into a roar. It
was on the road, and varied with its windings. All at once it burst into
a distinct sound--the voices, and the tramping feet of many men.
It is questionable whether old John Willet, even then, would have
thought of the rioters but for the cries of his cook and housemaid,
who ran screaming upstairs and locked 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. These two females did
afterwards depone that Mr Willet in his consternation uttered but one
word, and called that up the stairs in a stentorian voice, six distinct
times. But as this word was a monosyllable, which, however inoffensive
when applied to the quadruped it denotes, is highly reprehensible when
used in connection with females of unimpeachable character, many persons
were inclined to believe that the young women laboured under some
hallucination caused by excessive fear; and that their ears deceived
them.
Be this as it may, 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. Once, it dimly occurred
to him that there was a kind of door to the house, which had a lock and
bolts; and at the same time some shadowy ideas of shutters to the lower
windows, flitted through his brain. But he stood stock still, looking
down the road in the direction in which the noise was rapidly advancing,
and did not so much as take his hands out of his pockets.
He had not to wait long. A dark mass, looming through a cloud of dust,
soon became visible; the mob quickened their pace; shouting and whooping
like savages, they came rushing on pell mell; and in a few seconds he
was bandied from hand to hand, in the heart of a crowd of men.
‘Halloa!’ cried a voice he knew, as the man who spoke came cleaving
through the throng. ‘Where is he? Give him to me. Don’t hurt him. How
now, old Jack! Ha ha ha!’
Mr Willet looked at him, and saw it was Hugh; but he said nothing, and
thought nothing.
‘These lads are thirsty and must drink!’ cried Hugh, thrusting him back
towards the house. ‘Bustle, Jack, bustle. Show us the best--the very
best--the over-proof that you keep for your own drinking, Jack!’
John faintly articulated the words, ‘Who’s to pay?’
‘He says “Who’s to pay?”’ cried Hugh, with a roar of laughter which was
loudly echoed by the crowd. Then turning to John, he added, ‘Pay! Why,
nobody.’
John stared round at the mass of faces--some grinning, some fierce, some
lighted up by torches, some indistinct, some dusky and shadowy: some
looking at him, some at his house, some at each other--and while he was,
as he thought, in the very act of doing so, found himself, without any
consciousness of having moved, in the bar; sitting down in an arm-chair,
and watching the destruction of his property, as if it were some queer
play or entertainment, of an astonishing and stupefying nature, but
having no reference to himself--that he could make out--at all.
Yes. Here was the bar--the bar that the boldest never entered without
special invitation--the sanctuary, the mystery, the hallowed ground:
here it was, crammed with men, clubs, sticks, torches, pistols; filled
with a deafening noise, oaths, shouts, screams, hootings; changed all at
once into a bear-garden, a madhouse, an infernal temple: men darting
in and out, by door and window, smashing the glass, turning the taps,
drinking liquor out of China punchbowls, sitting astride of casks,
smoking private and personal pipes, cutting down the sacred grove of
lemons, hacking and hewing at the celebrated cheese, breaking open
inviolable drawers, putting things in their pockets which didn’t belong
to them, dividing his own money before his own eyes, wantonly wasting,
breaking, pulling down and tearing up: nothing quiet, nothing private:
men everywhere--above, below, overhead, in the bedrooms, in the kitchen,
in the yard, in the stables--clambering in at windows when there were
doors wide open; dropping out of windows when the stairs were handy;
leaping over the bannisters into chasms of passages: new faces and
figures presenting themselves every instant--some yelling, some singing,
some fighting, some breaking glass and crockery, some laying the dust
with the liquor they couldn’t drink, some ringing the bells till they
pulled them down, others beating them with pokers till they beat them
into fragments: more men still--more, more, more--swarming on like
insects: noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans,
plunder, fear, and ruin!
Nearly all the time while John looked on at this bewildering scene, Hugh
kept near him; and though he was the loudest, wildest, most destructive
villain there, he saved his old master’s bones a score of times. Nay,
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.
At length the band began to reassemble outside the house, and to call
to those within, to join them, for they were losing time. These murmurs
increasing, and attaining a high pitch, Hugh, and some of those who yet
lingered in the bar, and who plainly were the leaders of the troop, took
counsel together, apart, as to what was to be done with John, to keep
him quiet until their Chigwell work was over. Some proposed to set the
house on fire and leave him in it; others, that he should be reduced
to a state of temporary insensibility, by knocking on the head; others,
that he should be sworn to sit where he was until to-morrow at the same
hour; others again, that he should be gagged and taken off with them,
under a sufficient guard. All these propositions being overruled, it was
concluded, at last, to bind him in his chair, and the word was passed
for Dennis.
‘Look’ee here, Jack!’ said Hugh, striding up to him: ‘We are going to
tie you, hand and foot, but otherwise you won’t be hurt. D’ye hear?’
John Willet looked at another man, as if he didn’t know which was the
speaker, and muttered something about an ordinary every Sunday at two
o’clock.
‘You won’t be hurt I tell you, Jack--do you hear me?’ roared Hugh,
impressing the assurance upon him by means of a heavy blow on the back.
‘He’s so dead scared, he’s woolgathering, I think. Give him a drop of
something to drink here. Hand over, one of you.’
A glass of liquor being passed forward, Hugh poured the contents down
old John’s throat. Mr Willet feebly smacked his lips, thrust his hand
into his pocket, and inquired what was to pay; adding, as he looked
vacantly round, that he believed there was a trifle of broken glass--
‘He’s out of his senses for the time, it’s my belief,’ said Hugh, after
shaking him, without any visible effect upon his system, until his keys
rattled in his pocket. ‘Where’s that Dennis?’
The word was again passed, and presently Mr Dennis, with a long cord
bound about his middle, something after the manner of a friar, came
hurrying in, attended by a body-guard of half-a-dozen of his men.
‘Come! Be alive here!’ cried Hugh, stamping his foot upon the ground.
‘Make haste!’
Dennis, with a wink and a nod, unwound the cord from about his person,
and raising his eyes to the ceiling, looked all over it, and round the
walls and cornice, with a curious eye; then shook his head.
‘Move, man, can’t you!’ cried Hugh, with another impatient stamp of his
foot. ‘Are we to wait here, till the cry has gone for ten miles round,
and our work’s interrupted?’
‘It’s all very fine talking, brother,’ answered Dennis, stepping towards
him; ‘but unless--’ and here he whispered in his ear--‘unless we do it
over the door, it can’t be done at all in this here room.’
‘What can’t?’ Hugh demanded.
‘What can’t!’ retorted Dennis. ‘Why, the old man can’t.’
‘Why, you weren’t going to hang him!’ cried Hugh.
‘No, brother?’ returned the hangman with a stare. ‘What else?’
Hugh made no answer, but snatching the rope from his companion’s hand,
proceeded to bind old John himself; but his very first move was so
bungling and unskilful, that Mr Dennis entreated, almost with tears
in his eyes, that he might be permitted to perform the duty. Hugh
consenting, he achieved it in a twinkling.
‘There,’ he said, looking mournfully at John Willet, who displayed no
more emotion in his bonds than he had shown out of them. ‘That’s what I
call pretty and workmanlike. He’s quite a picter now. But, brother, just
a word with you--now that he’s ready trussed, as one may say, wouldn’t
it be better for all parties if we was to work him off? It would read
uncommon well in the newspapers, it would indeed. The public would think
a great deal more on us!’
Hugh, inferring what his companion meant, rather from his gestures than
his technical mode of expressing himself (to which, as he was ignorant
of his calling, he wanted the clue), rejected this proposition for the
second time, and gave the word ‘Forward!’ which was echoed by a hundred
voices from without.
‘To the Warren!’ shouted Dennis as he ran out, followed by the rest. ‘A
witness’s house, my lads!’
A loud yell followed, and the whole throng hurried off, mad for pillage
and destruction. Hugh lingered behind for a few moments to stimulate
himself with more drink, and to set all the taps running, a few of which
had accidentally been spared; then, glancing round the despoiled and
plundered room, through whose shattered window the rioters had thrust
the Maypole itself,--for even that had been sawn down,--lighted a torch,
clapped the mute and motionless John Willet on the back, and waving his
light above his head, and uttering a fierce shout, hastened after his
companions.