Another month had passed, and the end of August had nearly come, when Mr
Haredale stood alone in the mail-coach office at Bristol. Although but a
few weeks had intervened since his conversation with Edward Chester and
his niece, in the locksmith’s house, and he had made no change, in the
mean time, in his accustomed style of dress, his appearance was greatly
altered. He looked much older, and more care-worn. Agitation and anxiety
of mind scatter wrinkles and grey hairs with no unsparing hand; but
deeper traces follow on the silent uprooting of old habits, and severing
of dear, familiar ties. The affections may not be so easily wounded as
the passions, but their hurts are deeper, and more lasting. He was now a
solitary man, and the heart within him was dreary and lonesome.
He was not the less alone for having spent so many years in seclusion
and retirement. This was no better preparation than a round of social
cheerfulness: perhaps it even increased the keenness of his sensibility.
He had been so dependent upon her for companionship and love; she had
come to be so much a part and parcel of his existence; they had had so
many cares and thoughts in common, which no one else had shared; that
losing her was beginning life anew, and being required to summon up the
hope and elasticity of youth, amid the doubts, distrusts, and weakened
energies of age.
The effort he had made to part from her with seeming cheerfulness and
hope--and they had parted only yesterday--left him the more depressed.
With these feelings, he was about to revisit London for the last time,
and look once more upon the walls of their old home, before turning his
back upon it, for ever.
The journey was a very different one, in those days, from what the
present generation find it; but it came to an end, as the longest
journey will, and he stood again in the streets of the metropolis. He
lay at the inn where the coach stopped, and resolved, before he went
to bed, that he would make his arrival known to no one; would spend but
another night in London; and would spare himself the pang of parting,
even with the honest locksmith.
Such conditions of the mind as that to which he was a prey when he lay
down to rest, are favourable to the growth of disordered fancies, and
uneasy visions. He knew this, even in the horror with which he started
from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the
presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it
were, the witness of his dream. But it was not a new terror of the
night; it had been present to him before, in many shapes; it had haunted
him in bygone times, and visited his pillow again and again. If it had
been but an ugly object, a childish spectre, haunting his sleep, its
return, in its old form, might have awakened a momentary sensation of
fear, which, almost in the act of waking, would have passed away. This
disquiet, however, lingered about him, and would yield to nothing. When
he closed his eyes again, he felt it hovering near; as he slowly sunk
into a slumber, he was conscious of its gathering strength and purpose,
and gradually assuming its recent shape; when he sprang up from his bed,
the same phantom vanished from his heated brain, and left him filled
with a dread against which reason and waking thought were powerless.
The sun was up, before he could shake it off. He rose late, but not
refreshed, and remained within doors all that day. He had a fancy for
paying his last visit to the old spot in the evening, for he had been
accustomed to walk there at that season, and desired to see it under the
aspect that was most familiar to him. At such an hour as would afford
him time to reach it a little before sunset, he left the inn, and turned
into the busy street.
He had not gone far, and was thoughtfully making his way among the noisy
crowd, when he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and, turning, recognised
one of the waiters from the inn, who begged his pardon, but he had left
his sword behind him.
‘Why have you brought it to me?’ he asked, stretching out his hand, and
yet not taking it from the man, but looking at him in a disturbed and
agitated manner.
The man was sorry to have disobliged him, and would carry it back again.
The gentleman had said that he was going a little way into the country,
and that he might not return until late. The roads were not very safe
for single travellers after dark; and, since the riots, gentlemen had
been more careful than ever, not to trust themselves unarmed in lonely
places. ‘We thought you were a stranger, sir,’ he added, ‘and that you
might believe our roads to be better than they are; but perhaps you know
them well, and carry fire-arms--’
He took the sword, and putting it up at his side, thanked the man, and
resumed his walk.
It was long remembered that he did this in a manner so strange, and
with such a trembling hand, that the messenger stood looking after his
retreating figure, doubtful whether he ought not to follow, and watch
him. It was long remembered that he had been heard pacing his bedroom in
the dead of the night; that the attendants had mentioned to each other
in the morning, how fevered and how pale he looked; and that when this
man went back to the inn, he told a fellow-servant that what he had
observed in this short interview lay very heavy on his mind, and that he
feared the gentleman intended to destroy himself, and would never come
back alive.
With a half-consciousness that his manner had attracted the man’s
attention (remembering the expression of his face when they parted),
Mr Haredale quickened his steps; and arriving at a stand of coaches,
bargained with the driver of the best to carry him so far on his road as
the point where the footway struck across the fields, and to await his
return at a house of entertainment which was within a stone’s-throw of
that place. Arriving there in due course, he alighted and pursued his
way on foot.
He passed so near the Maypole, that he could see its smoke rising from
among the trees, while a flock of pigeons--some of its old inhabitants,
doubtless--sailed gaily home to roost, between him and the unclouded
sky. ‘The old house will brighten up now,’ he said, as he looked towards
it, ‘and there will be a merry fireside beneath its ivied roof. It is
some comfort to know that everything will not be blighted hereabouts. I
shall be glad to have one picture of life and cheerfulness to turn to,
in my mind!’
He resumed his walk, and bent his steps towards the Warren. It was a
clear, calm, silent evening, with hardly a breath of wind to stir the
leaves, or any sound to break the stillness of the time, but drowsy
sheep-bells tinkling in the distance, and, at intervals, the far-off
lowing of cattle, or bark of village dogs. The sky was radiant with
the softened glory of sunset; and on the earth, and in the air, a deep
repose prevailed. At such an hour, he arrived at the deserted mansion
which had been his home so long, and looked for the last time upon its
blackened walls.
The ashes of the commonest fire are melancholy things, for in them there
is an image of death and ruin,--of something that has been bright, and
is but dull, cold, dreary dust,--with which our nature forces us to
sympathise. How much more sad the crumbled embers of a home: the casting
down of that great altar, where the worst among us sometimes perform
the worship of the heart; and where the best have offered up such
sacrifices, and done such deeds of heroism, as, chronicled, would put
the proudest temples of old Time, with all their vaunting annals, to the
blush!
He roused himself from a long train of meditation, and walked slowly
round the house. It was by this time almost dark.
He had nearly made the circuit of the building, when he uttered a
half-suppressed exclamation, started, and stood still. Reclining, in an
easy attitude, with his back against a tree, and contemplating the ruin
with an expression of pleasure,--a pleasure so keen that it overcame his
habitual indolence and command of feature, and displayed itself utterly
free from all restraint or reserve,--before him, on his own ground,
and triumphing then, as he had triumphed in every misfortune and
disappointment of his life, stood the man whose presence, of all
mankind, in any place, and least of all in that, he could the least
endure.
Although his blood so rose against this man, and his wrath so stirred
within him, that he could have struck him dead, he put such fierce
constraint upon himself that he passed him without a word or look. Yes,
and he would have gone on, and not turned, though to resist the Devil
who poured such hot temptation in his brain, required an effort scarcely
to be achieved, if this man had not himself summoned him to stop: and
that, with an assumed compassion in his voice which drove him well-nigh
mad, and in an instant routed all the self-command it had been
anguish--acute, poignant anguish--to sustain.
All consideration, reflection, mercy, forbearance; everything by which
a goaded man can curb his rage and passion; fled from him as he turned
back. And yet he said, slowly and quite calmly--far more calmly than he
had ever spoken to him before:
‘Why have you called to me?’
‘To remark,’ said Sir John Chester with his wonted composure, ‘what an
odd chance it is, that we should meet here!’
‘It IS a strange chance.’
‘Strange? The most remarkable and singular thing in the world. I never
ride in the evening; I have not done so for years. The whim seized me,
quite unaccountably, in the middle of last night.--How very picturesque
this is!’--He pointed, as he spoke, to the dismantled house, and raised
his glass to his eye.
‘You praise your own work very freely.’
Sir John let fall his glass; inclined his face towards him with an air
of the most courteous inquiry; and slightly shook his head as though he
were remarking to himself, ‘I fear this animal is going mad!’
‘I say you praise your own work very freely,’ repeated Mr Haredale.
‘Work!’ echoed Sir John, looking smilingly round. ‘Mine!--I beg your
pardon, I really beg your pardon--’
‘Why, you see,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘those walls. You see those tottering
gables. You see on every side where fire and smoke have raged. You see
the destruction that has been wanton here. Do you not?’
‘My good friend,’ returned the knight, gently checking his impatience
with his hand, ‘of course I do. I see everything you speak of, when you
stand aside, and do not interpose yourself between the view and me. I
am very sorry for you. If I had not had the pleasure to meet you here,
I think I should have written to tell you so. But you don’t bear it as
well as I had expected--excuse me--no, you don’t indeed.’
He pulled out his snuff-box, and addressing him with the superior air of
a man who, by reason of his higher nature, has a right to read a moral
lesson to another, continued:
‘For you are a philosopher, you know--one of that stern and rigid school
who are far above the weaknesses of mankind in general. You are removed,
a long way, from the frailties of the crowd. You contemplate them from a
height, and rail at them with a most impressive bitterness. I have heard
you.’
--‘And shall again,’ said Mr Haredale.
‘Thank you,’ returned the other. ‘Shall we walk as we talk? The damp
falls rather heavily. Well,--as you please. But I grieve to say that I
can spare you only a very few moments.’
‘I would,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘you had spared me none. I would, with
all my soul, you had been in Paradise (if such a monstrous lie could be
enacted), rather than here to-night.’
‘Nay,’ returned the other--‘really--you do yourself injustice. You are a
rough companion, but I would not go so far to avoid you.’
‘Listen to me,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘Listen to me.’
‘While you rail?’ inquired Sir John.
‘While I deliver your infamy. You urged and stimulated to do your work
a fit agent, but one who in his nature--in the very essence of his
being--is a traitor, and who has been false to you (despite the sympathy
you two should have together) as he has been to all others. With hints,
and looks, and crafty words, which told again are nothing, you set on
Gashford to this work--this work before us now. With these same hints,
and looks, and crafty words, which told again are nothing, you urged
him on to gratify the deadly hate he owes me--I have earned it, I thank
Heaven--by the abduction and dishonour of my niece. You did. I see
denial in your looks,’ he cried, abruptly pointing in his face, and
stepping back, ‘and denial is a lie!’
He had his hand upon his sword; but the knight, with a contemptuous
smile, replied to him as coldly as before.
‘You will take notice, sir--if you can discriminate sufficiently--that I
have taken the trouble to deny nothing. Your discernment is hardly fine
enough for the perusal of faces, not of a kind as coarse as your speech;
nor has it ever been, that I remember; or, in one face that I could
name, you would have read indifference, not to say disgust, somewhat
sooner than you did. I speak of a long time ago,--but you understand
me.’
‘Disguise it as you will, you mean denial. Denial explicit or reserved,
expressed or left to be inferred, is still a lie. You say you don’t
deny. Do you admit?’
‘You yourself,’ returned Sir John, suffering the current of his
speech to flow as smoothly as if it had been stemmed by no one word of
interruption, ‘publicly proclaimed the character of the gentleman in
question (I think it was in Westminster Hall) in terms which relieve me
from the necessity of making any further allusion to him. You may
have been warranted; you may not have been; I can’t say. Assuming the
gentleman to be what you described, and to have made to you or any other
person any statements that may have happened to suggest themselves to
him, for the sake of his own security, or for the sake of money, or for
his own amusement, or for any other consideration,--I have nothing to
say of him, except that his extremely degrading situation appears to me
to be shared with his employers. You are so very plain yourself, that
you will excuse a little freedom in me, I am sure.’
‘Attend to me again, Sir John but once,’ cried Mr Haredale; ‘in your
every look, and word, and gesture, you tell me this was not your act. I
tell you that it was, and that you tampered with the man I speak of, and
with your wretched son (whom God forgive!) to do this deed. You talk of
degradation and character. You told me once that you had purchased the
absence of the poor idiot and his mother, when (as I have discovered
since, and then suspected) you had gone to tempt them, and had found
them flown. To you I traced the insinuation that I alone reaped any
harvest from my brother’s death; and all the foul attacks and whispered
calumnies that followed in its train. In every action of my life, from
that first hope which you converted into grief and desolation, you have
stood, like an adverse fate, between me and peace. In all, you have ever
been the same cold-blooded, hollow, false, unworthy villain. For the
second time, and for the last, I cast these charges in your teeth, and
spurn you from me as I would a faithless dog!’
With that he raised his arm, and struck him on the breast so that he
staggered. Sir John, the instant he recovered, drew his sword, threw
away the scabbard and his hat, and running on his adversary made a
desperate lunge at his heart, which, but that his guard was quick and
true, would have stretched him dead upon the grass.
In the act of striking him, the torrent of his opponent’s rage had
reached a stop. He parried his rapid thrusts, without returning them,
and called to him, with a frantic kind of terror in his face, to keep
back.
‘Not to-night! not to-night!’ he cried. ‘In God’s name, not tonight!’
Seeing that he lowered his weapon, and that he would not thrust in turn,
Sir John lowered his.
‘Not to-night!’ his adversary cried. ‘Be warned in time!’
‘You told me--it must have been in a sort of inspiration--’ said Sir
John, quite deliberately, though now he dropped his mask, and showed his
hatred in his face, ‘that this was the last time. Be assured it is! Did
you believe our last meeting was forgotten? Did you believe that your
every word and look was not to be accounted for, and was not well
remembered? Do you believe that I have waited your time, or you mine?
What kind of man is he who entered, with all his sickening cant of
honesty and truth, into a bond with me to prevent a marriage he affected
to dislike, and when I had redeemed my part to the spirit and the
letter, skulked from his, and brought the match about in his own time,
to rid himself of a burden he had grown tired of, and cast a spurious
lustre on his house?’
‘I have acted,’ cried Mr Haredale, ‘with honour and in good faith. I do
so now. Do not force me to renew this duel to-night!’
‘You said my “wretched” son, I think?’ said Sir John, with a smile.
‘Poor fool! The dupe of such a shallow knave--trapped into marriage by
such an uncle and by such a niece--he well deserves your pity. But he
is no longer a son of mine: you are welcome to the prize your craft has
made, sir.’
‘Once more,’ cried his opponent, wildly stamping on the ground,
‘although you tear me from my better angel, I implore you not to come
within the reach of my sword to-night. Oh! why were you here at all! Why
have we met! To-morrow would have cast us far apart for ever!’
‘That being the case,’ returned Sir John, without the least emotion, ‘it
is very fortunate we have met to-night. Haredale, I have always despised
you, as you know, but I have given you credit for a species of brute
courage. For the honour of my judgment, which I had thought a good one,
I am sorry to find you a coward.’
Not another word was spoken on either side. They crossed swords, though
it was now quite dusk, and attacked each other fiercely. They were
well matched, and each was thoroughly skilled in the management of his
weapon.
After a few seconds they grew hotter and more furious, and pressing on
each other inflicted and received several slight wounds. It was directly
after receiving one of these in his arm, that Mr Haredale, making a
keener thrust as he felt the warm blood spirting out, plunged his sword
through his opponent’s body to the hilt.
Their eyes met, and were on each other as he drew it out. He put his
arm about the dying man, who repulsed him, feebly, and dropped upon the
turf. Raising himself upon his hands, he gazed at him for an instant,
with scorn and hatred in his look; but, seeming to remember, even then,
that this expression would distort his features after death, he tried
to smile, and, faintly moving his right hand, as if to hide his bloody
linen in his vest, fell back dead--the phantom of last night.
Chapter the Last
A parting glance at such of the actors in this little history as it has
not, in the course of its events, dismissed, will bring it to an end.
Mr Haredale fled that night. Before pursuit could be begun, indeed
before Sir John was traced or missed, he had left the kingdom. Repairing
straight to a religious establishment, known throughout Europe for the
rigour and severity of its discipline, and for the merciless penitence
it exacted from those who sought its shelter as a refuge from the world,
he took the vows which thenceforth shut him out from nature and
his kind, and after a few remorseful years was buried in its gloomy
cloisters.
Two days elapsed before the body of Sir John was found. As soon as
it was recognised and carried home, the faithful valet, true to his
master’s creed, eloped with all the cash and movables he could lay his
hands on, and started as a finished gentleman upon his own account. In
this career he met with great success, and would certainly have married
an heiress in the end, but for an unlucky check which led to his
premature decease. He sank under a contagious disorder, very prevalent
at that time, and vulgarly termed the jail fever.
Lord George Gordon, remaining in his prison in the Tower until Monday
the fifth of February in the following year, was on that day solemnly
tried at Westminster for High Treason. Of this crime he was, after a
patient investigation, declared Not Guilty; upon the ground that there
was no proof of his having called the multitude together with any
traitorous or unlawful intentions. Yet so many people were there, still,
to whom those riots taught no lesson of reproof or moderation, that a
public subscription was set on foot in Scotland to defray the cost of
his defence.
For seven years afterwards he remained, at the strong intercession of
his friends, comparatively quiet; saving that he, every now and then,
took occasion to display his zeal for the Protestant faith in some
extravagant proceeding which was the delight of its enemies; and saving,
besides, that he was formally excommunicated by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, for refusing to appear as a witness in the Ecclesiastical
Court when cited for that purpose. In the year 1788 he was stimulated by
some new insanity to write and publish an injurious pamphlet, reflecting
on the Queen of France, in very violent terms. Being indicted for the
libel, and (after various strange demonstrations in court) found guilty,
he fled into Holland in place of appearing to receive sentence: from
whence, as the quiet burgomasters of Amsterdam had no relish for his
company, he was sent home again with all speed. Arriving in the month of
July at Harwich, and going thence to Birmingham, he made in the latter
place, in August, a public profession of the Jewish religion; and
figured there as a Jew until he was arrested, and brought back to London
to receive the sentence he had evaded. By virtue of this sentence he
was, in the month of December, cast into Newgate for five years and ten
months, and required besides to pay a large fine, and to furnish heavy
securities for his future good behaviour.
After addressing, in the midsummer of the following year, an appeal to
the commiseration of the National Assembly of France, which the English
minister refused to sanction, he composed himself to undergo his full
term of punishment; and suffering his beard to grow nearly to his waist,
and conforming in all respects to the ceremonies of his new religion, he
applied himself to the study of history, and occasionally to the art
of painting, in which, in his younger days, he had shown some skill.
Deserted by his former friends, and treated in all respects like the
worst criminal in the jail, he lingered on, quite cheerful and resigned,
until the 1st of November 1793, when he died in his cell, being then
only three-and-forty years of age.
Many men with fewer sympathies for the distressed and needy, with less
abilities and harder hearts, have made a shining figure and left a
brilliant fame. He had his mourners. The prisoners bemoaned his loss,
and missed him; for though his means were not large, his charity was
great, and in bestowing alms among them he considered the necessities of
all alike, and knew no distinction of sect or creed. There are wise men
in the highways of the world who may learn something, even from this
poor crazy lord who died in Newgate.
To the last, he was truly served by bluff John Grueby. John was at his
side before he had been four-and-twenty hours in the Tower, and never
left him until he died. He had one other constant attendant, in the
person of a beautiful Jewish girl; who attached herself to him
from feelings half religious, half romantic, but whose virtuous and
disinterested character appears to have been beyond the censure even of
the most censorious.
Gashford deserted him, of course. He subsisted for a time upon his
traffic in his master’s secrets; and, this trade failing when the stock
was quite exhausted, procured an appointment in the honourable corps
of spies and eavesdroppers employed by the government. As one of these
wretched underlings, he did his drudgery, sometimes abroad, sometimes at
home, and long endured the various miseries of such a station. Ten or a
dozen years ago--not more--a meagre, wan old man, diseased and miserably
poor, was found dead in his bed at an obscure inn in the Borough, where
he was quite unknown. He had taken poison. There was no clue to his
name; but it was discovered from certain entries in a pocket-book he
carried, that he had been secretary to Lord George Gordon in the time of
the famous riots.
Many months after the re-establishment of peace and order, and even when
it had ceased to be the town-talk, that every military officer, kept at
free quarters by the City during the late alarms, had cost for his board
and lodging four pounds four per day, and every private soldier two and
twopence halfpenny; many months after even this engrossing topic was
forgotten, and the United Bulldogs were to a man all killed, imprisoned,
or transported, Mr Simon Tappertit, being removed from a hospital
to prison, and thence to his place of trial, was discharged by
proclamation, on two wooden legs. Shorn of his graceful limbs, and
brought down from his high estate to circumstances of utter destitution,
and the deepest misery, he made shift to stump back to his old master,
and beg for some relief. By the locksmith’s advice and aid, he was
established in business as a shoeblack, and opened shop under an archway
near the Horse Guards. This being a central quarter, he quickly made a
very large connection; and on levee days, was sometimes known to have
as many as twenty half-pay officers waiting their turn for polishing.
Indeed his trade increased to that extent, that in course of time he
entertained no less than two apprentices, besides taking for his wife
the widow of an eminent bone and rag collector, formerly of Millbank.
With this lady (who assisted in the business) he lived in great domestic
happiness, only chequered by those little storms which serve to clear
the atmosphere of wedlock, and brighten its horizon. In some of these
gusts of bad weather, Mr Tappertit would, in the assertion of his
prerogative, so far forget himself, as to correct his lady with a brush,
or boot, or shoe; while she (but only in extreme cases) would retaliate
by taking off his legs, and leaving him exposed to the derision of those
urchins who delight in mischief.
Miss Miggs, baffled in all her schemes, matrimonial and otherwise, and
cast upon a thankless, undeserving world, turned very sharp and sour;
and did at length become so acid, and did so pinch and slap and tweak
the hair and noses of the youth of Golden Lion Court, that she was by
one consent expelled that sanctuary, and desired to bless some other
spot of earth, in preference. It chanced at that moment, that the
justices of the peace for Middlesex proclaimed by public placard that
they stood in need of a female turnkey for the County Bridewell, and
appointed a day and hour for the inspection of candidates. Miss Miggs
attending at the time appointed, was instantly chosen and selected from
one hundred and twenty-four competitors, and at once promoted to
the office; which she held until her decease, more than thirty years
afterwards, remaining single all that time. It was observed of this lady
that while she was inflexible and grim to all her female flock, she was
particularly so to those who could establish any claim to beauty: and
it was often remarked as a proof of her indomitable virtue and severe
chastity, that to such as had been frail she showed no mercy; always
falling upon them on the slightest occasion, or on no occasion at all,
with the fullest measure of her wrath. Among other useful inventions
which she practised upon this class of offenders and bequeathed to
posterity, was the art of inflicting an exquisitely vicious poke or dig
with the wards of a key in the small of the back, near the spine. She
likewise originated a mode of treading by accident (in pattens) on
such as had small feet; also very remarkable for its ingenuity, and
previously quite unknown.
It was not very long, you may be sure, before Joe Willet and Dolly
Varden were made husband and wife, and with a handsome sum in bank (for
the locksmith could afford to give his daughter a good dowry), reopened
the Maypole. It was not very long, you may be sure, before a red-faced
little boy was seen staggering about the Maypole passage, and kicking up
his heels on the green before the door. It was not very long, counting
by years, before there was a red-faced little girl, another red-faced
little boy, and a whole troop of girls and boys: so that, go to Chigwell
when you would, there would surely be seen, either in the village
street, or on the green, or frolicking in the farm-yard--for it was a
farm now, as well as a tavern--more small Joes and small Dollys than
could be easily counted. It was not a very long time before these
appearances ensued; but it WAS a VERY long time before Joe looked five
years older, or Dolly either, or the locksmith either, or his wife
either: for cheerfulness and content are great beautifiers, and are
famous preservers of youthful looks, depend upon it.
It was a long time, too, before there was such a country inn as the
Maypole, in all England: indeed it is a great question whether there has
ever been such another to this hour, or ever will be. It was a long time
too--for Never, as the proverb says, is a long day--before they forgot
to have an interest in wounded soldiers at the Maypole, or before Joe
omitted to refresh them, for the sake of his old campaign; or before
the serjeant left off looking in there, now and then; or before they
fatigued themselves, or each other, by talking on these occasions of
battles and sieges, and hard weather and hard service, and a thousand
things belonging to a soldier’s life. As to the great silver snuff-box
which the King sent Joe with his own hand, because of his conduct in the
Riots, what guest ever went to the Maypole without putting finger and
thumb into that box, and taking a great pinch, though he had never taken
a pinch of snuff before, and almost sneezed himself into convulsions
even then? As to the purple-faced vintner, where is the man who lived in
those times and never saw HIM at the Maypole: to all appearance as much
at home in the best room, as if he lived there? And as to the feastings
and christenings, and revellings at Christmas, and celebrations of
birthdays, wedding-days, and all manner of days, both at the Maypole and
the Golden Key,--if they are not notorious, what facts are?
Mr Willet the elder, having been by some extraordinary means possessed
with the idea that Joe wanted to be married, and that it would be well
for him, his father, to retire into private life, and enable him to live
in comfort, took up his abode in a small cottage at Chigwell; where
they widened and enlarged the fireplace for him, hung up the boiler,
and furthermore planted in the little garden outside the front-door, a
fictitious Maypole; so that he was quite at home directly. To this, his
new habitation, Tom Cobb, Phil Parkes, and Solomon Daisy went regularly
every night: and in the chimney-corner, they all four quaffed, and
smoked, and prosed, and dozed, as they had done of old. It being
accidentally discovered after a short time that Mr Willet still appeared
to consider himself a landlord by profession, Joe provided him with
a slate, upon which the old man regularly scored up vast accounts for
meat, drink, and tobacco. As he grew older this passion increased upon
him; and it became his delight to chalk against the name of each of his
cronies a sum of enormous magnitude, and impossible to be paid: and such
was his secret joy in these entries, that he would be perpetually seen
going behind the door to look at them, and coming forth again, suffused
with the liveliest satisfaction.
He never recovered the surprise the Rioters had given him, and remained
in the same mental condition down to the last moment of his life. It was
like to have been brought to a speedy termination by the first sight of
his first grandchild, which appeared to fill him with the belief that
some alarming miracle had happened to Joe. Being promptly blooded,
however, by a skilful surgeon, he rallied; and although the doctors
all agreed, on his being attacked with symptoms of apoplexy six months
afterwards, that he ought to die, and took it very ill that he did
not, he remained alive--possibly on account of his constitutional
slowness--for nearly seven years more, when he was one morning found
speechless in his bed. He lay in this state, free from all tokens
of uneasiness, for a whole week, when he was suddenly restored to
consciousness by hearing the nurse whisper in his son’s ear that he was
going. ‘I’m a-going, Joseph,’ said Mr Willet, turning round upon the
instant, ‘to the Salwanners’--and immediately gave up the ghost.
He left a large sum of money behind him; even more than he was supposed
to have been worth, although the neighbours, according to the custom of
mankind in calculating the wealth that other people ought to have saved,
had estimated his property in good round numbers. Joe inherited the
whole; so that he became a man of great consequence in those parts, and
was perfectly independent.
Some time elapsed before Barnaby got the better of the shock he had
sustained, or regained his old health and gaiety. But he recovered
by degrees: and although he could never separate his condemnation and
escape from the idea of a terrific dream, he became, in other respects,
more rational. Dating from the time of his recovery, he had a better
memory and greater steadiness of purpose; but a dark cloud overhung his
whole previous existence, and never cleared away.
He was not the less happy for this, for his love of freedom and interest
in all that moved or grew, or had its being in the elements, remained
to him unimpaired. He lived with his mother on the Maypole farm, tending
the poultry and the cattle, working in a garden of his own, and helping
everywhere. He was known to every bird and beast about the place, and
had a name for every one. Never was there a lighter-hearted husbandman,
a creature more popular with young and old, a blither or more happy soul
than Barnaby; and though he was free to ramble where he would, he never
quitted Her, but was for evermore her stay and comfort.
It was remarkable that although he had that dim sense of the past, he
sought out Hugh’s dog, and took him under his care; and that he never
could be tempted into London. When the Riots were many years old,
and Edward and his wife came back to England with a family almost as
numerous as Dolly’s, and one day appeared at the Maypole porch, he knew
them instantly, and wept and leaped for joy. But neither to visit them,
nor on any other pretence, no matter how full of promise and enjoyment,
could he be persuaded to set foot in the streets: nor did he ever
conquer this repugnance or look upon the town again.
Grip soon recovered his looks, and became as glossy and sleek as ever.
But he was profoundly silent. Whether he had forgotten the art of Polite
Conversation in Newgate, or had made a vow in those troubled times to
forego, for a period, the display of his accomplishments, is matter of
uncertainty; but certain it is that for a whole year he never indulged
in any other sound than a grave, decorous croak. At the expiration of
that term, the morning being very bright and sunny, he was heard to
address himself to the horses in the stable, upon the subject of the
Kettle, so often mentioned in these pages; and before the witness who
overheard him could run into the house with the intelligence, and add
to it upon his solemn affirmation the statement that he had heard him
laugh, the bird himself advanced with fantastic steps to the very door
of the bar, and there cried, ‘I’m a devil, I’m a devil, I’m a devil!’
with extraordinary rapture.
From that period (although he was supposed to be much affected by the
death of Mr Willet senior), he constantly practised and improved himself
in the vulgar tongue; and, as he was a mere infant for a raven when
Barnaby was grey, he has very probably gone on talking to the present
time.