Charles Dickens - Barnaby Rudge — A Tale Of The Riots Of Eighty

“Sir John,” returned the locksmith, gravely, “I will tell you, as nearly as I can, in the words he used to me, what he desires that you should know, and what you ought to know without a moment's loss of time.”

Sir John Chester settled himself in a position of greater repose, and looked at his visitor with an expression of face which seemed to say, “This is an amusing fellow! I'll hear him out.”

“You may have seen in the newspapers, sir,” said Gabriel, pointing to the one which lay by his side, “that I was a witness against this man upon his trial some days since; and that it was not his fault I was alive, and able to speak to what I knew.”

“MAY have seen!” cried Sir John. “My dear Mr Varden, you are quite a public character, and live in all men's thoughts most deservedly. Nothing can exceed the interest with which I read your testimony, and remembered that I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance with you. —I hope we shall have your portrait published?”

“This morning, sir,” said the locksmith, taking no notice of these compliments, “early this morning, a message was brought to me from Newgate, at this man's request, desiring that I would go and see him, for he had something particular to communicate. I needn't tell you that he is no friend of mine, and that I had never seen him, until the rioters beset my house.”

Sir John fanned himself gently with the newspaper, and nodded.

“I knew, however, from the general report,” resumed Gabriel, “that the order for his execution to-morrow, went down to the prison last night; and looking upon him as a dying man, I complied with his request.”

“You are quite a Christian, Mr Varden,” said Sir John; “and in that amiable capacity, you increase my desire that you should take a chair.”

“He said,” continued Gabriel, looking steadily at the knight, “that he had sent to me, because he had no friend or companion in the whole world (being the common hangman), and because he believed, from the way in which I had given my evidence, that I was an honest man, and would act truly by him. He said that, being shunned by every one who knew his calling, even by people of the lowest and most wretched grade, and finding, when he joined the rioters, that the men he acted with had no suspicion of it (which I believe is true enough, for a poor fool of an old “prentice of mine was one of them), he had kept his own counsel, up to the time of his being taken and put in jail.”

“Very discreet of Mr Dennis,” observed Sir John with a slight yawn, though still with the utmost affability, “but—except for your admirable and lucid manner of telling it, which is perfect—not very interesting to me.”

“When,” pursued the locksmith, quite unabashed and wholly regardless of these interruptions, “when he was taken to the jail, he found that his fellow-prisoner, in the same room, was a young man, Hugh by name, a leader in the riots, who had been betrayed and given up by himself. From something which fell from this unhappy creature in the course of the angry words they had at meeting, he discovered that his mother had suffered the death to which they both are now condemned. —The time is very short, Sir John.”

The knight laid down his paper fan, replaced his cup upon the table at his side, and, saving for the smile that lurked about his mouth, looked at the locksmith with as much steadiness as the locksmith looked at him.

“They have been in prison now, a month. One conversation led to many more; and the hangman soon found, from a comparison of time, and place, and dates, that he had executed the sentence of the law upon this woman, himself. She had been tempted by want—as so many people are—into the easy crime of passing forged notes. She was young and handsome; and the traders who employ men, women, and children in this traffic, looked upon her as one who was well adapted for their business, and who would probably go on without suspicion for a long time. But they were mistaken; for she was stopped in the commission of her very first offence, and died for it. She was of gipsy blood, Sir John—”

It might have been the effect of a passing cloud which obscured the sun, and cast a shadow on his face; but the knight turned deadly pale. Still he met the locksmith's eye, as before.

“She was of gipsy blood, Sir John,” repeated Gabriel, “and had a high, free spirit. This, and her good looks, and her lofty manner, interested some gentlemen who were easily moved by dark eyes; and efforts were made to save her. They might have been successful, if she would have given them any clue to her history. But she never would, or did. There was reason to suspect that she would make an attempt upon her life. A watch was set upon her night and day; and from that time she never spoke again—”

Sir John stretched out his hand towards his cup. The locksmith going on, arrested it half-way.

—'Until she had but a minute to live. Then she broke silence, and said, in a low firm voice which no one heard but this executioner, for all other living creatures had retired and left her to her fate, “If I had a dagger within these fingers and he was within my reach, I would strike him dead before me, even now!” The man asked “Who?” She said, “The father of her boy. "”

Sir John drew back his outstretched hand, and seeing that the locksmith paused, signed to him with easy politeness and without any new appearance of emotion, to proceed.

“It was the first word she had ever spoken, from which it could be understood that she had any relative on earth. “Was the child alive?” he asked. “Yes.” 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 the son together, and revenge her through her child. He asked her other questions, but she spoke no more. Indeed, he says, she scarcely said this much, to him, but stood with her face turned upwards to the sky, and never looked towards him once.”

Sir John took a pinch of snuff; glanced approvingly at an elegant little sketch, entitled “Nature,” on the wall; and raising his eyes to the locksmith's face again, said, with an air of courtesy and patronage, “You were observing, Mr Varden—”

“That she never,” returned the locksmith, who was not to be diverted by any artifice from his firm manner, and his steady gaze, “that she never looked towards him once, Sir John; and so she died, and he forgot her. But, some years afterwards, a man was sentenced to die the same death, who was a gipsy too; a sunburnt, swarthy fellow, almost a wild man; and while he lay in prison, under sentence, he, who had seen the hangman more than once while he was free, cut an image of him on his stick, by way of braving death, and showing those who attended on him, how little he cared or thought about it. He gave this stick into his hands at Tyburn, and told him then, that the woman I have spoken of had left her own people to join a fine gentleman, and that, being deserted by him, and cast off by her old friends, she had sworn within her own proud breast, that whatever her misery might be, she would ask no help of any human being. He told him that she had kept her word to the last; and that, meeting even him in the streets—he had been fond of her once, it seems—she had slipped from him by a trick, and he never saw her again, until, being in one of the frequent crowds at Tyburn, with some of his rough companions, he had been driven almost mad by seeing, in the criminal under another name, whose death he had come to witness, herself. Standing in the same place in which she had stood, he told the hangman this, and 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.”