Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty by Charles Dickens (best way to read e books TXT) 📖

very dark, and having recently accommodated a drunken deserter, by no means clean. Barnaby felt his way to some straw at the farther end, and looking towards the door, tried to accustom himself to the gloom, which, coming from the bright sunshine out of doors, was not an easy task.

There was a kind of portico or colonnade outside, and this obstructed even the little light that at the best could have found its way through the small apertures in the door. The footsteps of the sentinel echoed monotonously as he paced its stone pavement to and fro (reminding Barnaby of the watch he had so lately kept himself); and as he passed and repassed the door, he made the cell for an instant so black by the interposition of his body, that his going away again seemed like the appearance of a new ray of light, and was quite a circumstance to look for.

When the prisoner had sat sometime upon the ground, gazing at the chinks, and listening to the advancing and receding footsteps of his guard, the man stood still upon his post. Barnaby, quite unable to think, or to speculate on what would be done with him, had been lulled into a kind of doze by his regular pace; but his stopping roused him; and then he became aware that two men were in conversation under the colonnade, and very near the door of his cell.

How long they had been talking there, he could not tell, for he had fallen into an unconsciousness of his real position, and when the footsteps ceased, was answering aloud some question which seemed to have been put to him by Hugh in the stable, though of the fancied purport, either of question or reply, notwithstanding that he awoke with the latter on his lips, he had no recollection whatever. The first words that reached his ears, were these:

‘Why is he brought here then, if he has to be taken away again so soon?’

‘Why where would you have him go! Damme, he’s not as safe anywhere as among the king’s troops, is he? What WOULD you do with him? Would you hand him over to a pack of cowardly civilians, that shake in their shoes till they wear the soles out, with trembling at the threats of the ragamuffins he belongs to?’

‘That’s true enough.’

‘True enough!—I’ll tell you what. I wish, Tom Green, that I was a commissioned instead of a non-commissioned officer, and that I had the command of two companies—only two companies—of my own regiment. Call me out to stop these riots—give me the needful authority, and half-a-dozen rounds of ball cartridge—’

‘Ay!’ said the other voice. ‘That’s all very well, but they won’t give the needful authority. If the magistrate won’t give the word, what’s the officer to do?’

Not very well knowing, as it seemed, how to overcome this difficulty, the other man contented himself with damning the magistrates.

‘With all my heart,’ said his friend.

‘Where’s the use of a magistrate?’ returned the other voice. ‘What’s a magistrate in this case, but an impertinent, unnecessary, unconstitutional sort of interference? 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?’

‘When does he go before Sir John Fielding?’ asked the man who had spoken first.

‘To-night at eight o’clock,’ returned the other. ‘Mark what follows. The magistrate commits him to Newgate. Our people take him to Newgate. The rioters pelt our people. Our people retire before the rioters. Stones are thrown, insults are offered, not a shot’s fired. Why? Because of the magistrates. Damn the magistrates!’

When he had in some degree relieved his mind by cursing the magistrates in various other forms of speech, the man was silent, save for a low growling, still having reference to those authorities, which from time to time escaped him.

Barnaby, who had wit enough to know that this conversation concerned, and very nearly concerned, himself, remained perfectly quiet until they ceased to speak, when he groped his way to the door, and peeping through the air-holes, tried to make out what kind of men they were, to whom he had been listening.

The one who condemned the civil power in such strong terms, was a serjeant—engaged just then, as the streaming ribands in his cap announced, on the recruiting service. He stood leaning sideways against a pillar nearly opposite the door, and as he growled to himself, drew figures on the pavement with his cane. The other man had his back towards the dungeon, and Barnaby could only see his form. To judge from that, he was a gallant, manly, handsome fellow, but he had lost his left arm. It had been taken off between the elbow and the shoulder, and his empty coat-sleeve hung across his breast.

It was probably this circumstance which gave him an interest beyond any that his companion could boast of, and attracted Barnaby’s attention. There was something soldierly in his bearing, and he wore a jaunty cap and jacket. Perhaps he had been in the service at one time or other. If he had, it could not have been very long ago, for he was but a young fellow now.

‘Well, well,’ he said thoughtfully; ‘let the fault be where it may, it makes a man sorrowful to come back to old England, and see her in this condition.’

‘I suppose the pigs will join ‘em next,’ said the serjeant, with an imprecation on the rioters, ‘now that the birds have set ‘em the example.’

‘The birds!’ repeated Tom Green.

‘Ah—birds,’ said the serjeant testily; ‘that’s English, an’t it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Go to the guard-house, and see. You’ll find a bird there, that’s got their cry as pat as any of ‘em, and bawls “No Popery,” like a man—or like a devil, as he says he is. I shouldn’t wonder. The devil’s loose in London somewhere. Damme if I wouldn’t twist his neck round, on the chance, if I had MY way.’

The young man had taken two or three steps away, as if to go and see this creature, when he was arrested by the voice of Barnaby.

‘It’s mine,’ he called out, half laughing and half weeping—‘my pet, my friend Grip. Ha ha ha! Don’t hurt him, he has done no harm. I taught him; it’s my fault. Let me have him, if you please. He’s the only friend I have left now. He’ll not dance, or talk, or whistle for you, I know; but he will for me, because he knows me and loves me—though you wouldn’t think it—very well. You wouldn’t hurt a bird, I’m sure. You’re a brave soldier, sir, and wouldn’t harm a woman or a child—no, no, nor a poor bird, I’m certain.’

This latter adjuration was addressed to the serjeant, whom Barnaby judged from his red coat to be high in office, and able to seal Grip’s destiny by a word. But that gentleman, in reply, surlily damned him for a thief and rebel as he was, and with many disinterested imprecations on his own eyes, liver, blood, and body, assured him that if it rested with him to decide, he would put a final stopper on the bird, and his master too.