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

children, were sitting trembling among their goods in the open street, dreading the arrival of day and not knowing where to turn or what to do.

It was the same, they heard, with the public conveyances. The panic was so great that the mails and stage-coaches were afraid to carry passengers who professed the obnoxious religion. If the drivers knew them, or they admitted that they held that creed, they would not take them, no, though they offered large sums; and yesterday, people had been afraid to recognise Catholic acquaintance in the streets, lest they should be marked by spies, and burnt out, as it was called, in consequence. One mild old man—a priest, whose chapel was destroyed; a very feeble, patient, inoffensive creature—who was trudging away, alone, designing to walk some distance from town, and then try his fortune with the coaches, told Mr Haredale that he feared he might not find a magistrate who would have the hardihood to commit a prisoner to jail, on his complaint. But notwithstanding these discouraging accounts they went on, and reached the Mansion House soon after sunrise.

Mr Haredale threw himself from his horse, but he had no need to knock at the door, for it was already open, and there stood upon the step a portly old man, with a very red, or rather purple face, who with an anxious expression of countenance, was remonstrating with some unseen personage upstairs, while the porter essayed to close the door by degrees and get rid of him. With the intense impatience and excitement natural to one in his condition, Mr Haredale thrust himself forward and was about to speak, when the fat old gentleman interposed:

‘My good sir,’ said he, ‘pray let me get an answer. This is the sixth time I have been here. I was here five times yesterday. My house is threatened with destruction. It is to be burned down to-night, and was to have been last night, but they had other business on their hands. Pray let me get an answer.’

‘My good sir,’ returned Mr Haredale, shaking his head, ‘my house is burned to the ground. But heaven forbid that yours should be. Get your answer. Be brief, in mercy to me.’

‘Now, you hear this, my lord?’—said the old gentleman, calling up the stairs, to where the skirt of a dressing-gown fluttered on the landing-place. ‘Here is a gentleman here, whose house was actually burnt down last night.’

‘Dear me, dear me,’ replied a testy voice, ‘I am very sorry for it, but what am I to do? I can’t build it up again. The chief magistrate of the city can’t go and be a rebuilding of people’s houses, my good sir. Stuff and nonsense!’

‘But the chief magistrate of the city can prevent people’s houses from having any need to be rebuilt, if the chief magistrate’s a man, and not a dummy—can’t he, my lord?’ cried the old gentleman in a choleric manner.

‘You are disrespectable, sir,’ said the Lord Mayor—‘leastways, disrespectful I mean.’

‘Disrespectful, my lord!’ returned the old gentleman. ‘I was respectful five times yesterday. I can’t be respectful for ever. Men can’t stand on being respectful when their houses are going to be burnt over their heads, with them in ‘em. What am I to do, my lord? AM I to have any protection!’

‘I told you yesterday, sir,’ said the Lord Mayor, ‘that you might have an alderman in your house, if you could get one to come.’

‘What the devil’s the good of an alderman?’ returned the choleric old gentleman.

‘—To awe the crowd, sir,’ said the Lord Mayor.

‘Oh Lord ha’ mercy!’ whimpered the old gentleman, as he wiped his forehead in a state of ludicrous distress, ‘to think of sending an alderman to awe a crowd! Why, my lord, if they were even so many babies, fed on mother’s milk, what do you think they’d care for an alderman! Will YOU come?’

‘I!’ said the Lord Mayor, most emphatically: ‘Certainly not.’

‘Then what,’ returned the old gentleman, ‘what am I to do? Am I a citizen of England? Am I to have the benefit of the laws? Am I to have any return for the King’s taxes?’

‘I don’t know, I am sure,’ said the Lord Mayor; ‘what a pity it is you’re a Catholic! Why couldn’t you be a Protestant, and then you wouldn’t have got yourself into such a mess? I’m sure I don’t know what’s to be done.—There are great people at the bottom of these riots.—Oh dear me, what a thing it is to be a public character!—You must look in again in the course of the day.—Would a javelin-man do?—Or there’s Philips the constable,—HE’S disengaged,—he’s not very old for a man at his time of life, except in his legs, and if you put him up at a window he’d look quite young by candle-light, and might frighten ‘em very much.—Oh dear!—well!—we’ll see about it.’

‘Stop!’ cried Mr Haredale, pressing the door open as the porter strove to shut it, and speaking rapidly, ‘My Lord Mayor, I beg you not to go away. I have a man here, who committed a murder eight-and-twenty years ago. Half-a-dozen words from me, on oath, will justify you in committing him to prison for re-examination. I only seek, just now, to have him consigned to a place of safety. The least delay may involve his being rescued by the rioters.’

‘Oh dear me!’ cried the Lord Mayor. ‘God bless my soul—and body—oh Lor!—well I!—there are great people at the bottom of these riots, you know.—You really mustn’t.’

‘My lord,’ said Mr Haredale, ‘the murdered gentleman was my brother; I succeeded to his inheritance; there were not wanting slanderous tongues at that time, to whisper that the guilt of this most foul and cruel deed was mine—mine, who loved him, as he knows, in Heaven, dearly. The time has come, after all these years of gloom and misery, for avenging him, and bringing to light a crime so artful and so devilish that it has no parallel. Every second’s delay on your part loosens this man’s bloody hands again, and leads to his escape. My lord, I charge you hear me, and despatch this matter on the instant.’

‘Oh dear me!’ cried the chief magistrate; ‘these an’t business hours, you know—I wonder at you—how ungentlemanly it is of you—you mustn’t—you really mustn’t.—And I suppose you are a Catholic too?’

‘I am,’ said Mr Haredale.

‘God bless my soul, I believe people turn Catholics a’purpose to vex and worrit me,’ cried the Lord Mayor. ‘I wish you wouldn’t come here; they’ll be setting the Mansion House afire next, and we shall have you to thank for it. You must lock your prisoner up, sir—give him to a watchman—and—call again at a proper time. Then we’ll see about it!’

Before Mr Haredale could answer, the sharp closing of a door and drawing of its bolts, gave notice that the Lord Mayor had retreated to his bedroom, and that further remonstrance would be unavailing. The two clients retreated likewise, and the porter shut them out into the street.

‘That’s the way he puts me off,’ said the old gentleman, ‘I can get no redress and no help. What are you going to do, sir?’

‘To try elsewhere,’ answered Mr Haredale, who was by this time on horseback.

‘I feel for you, I assure you—and