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

They alighted at the street corner, and dismissing their conveyance, walked to the house. To their first knock at the door there was no response. A second met with the like result. But in answer to the third, which was of a more vigorous kind, the parlour window-sash was gently raised, and a musical voice cried:

“Haredale, my dear fellow, I am extremely glad to see you. How very much you have improved in your appearance since our last meeting! I never saw you looking better. HOW do you do?”

Mr Haredale turned his eyes towards the casement whence the voice proceeded, though there was no need to do so, to recognise the speaker, and Mr Chester waved his hand, and smiled a courteous welcome.

“The door will be opened immediately,” he said. “There is nobody but a very dilapidated female to perform such offices. You will excuse her infirmities? If she were in a more elevated station of society, she would be gouty. Being but a hewer of wood and drawer of water, she is rheumatic. My dear Haredale, these are natural class distinctions, depend upon it.”

Mr Haredale, whose face resumed its lowering and distrustful look the moment he heard the voice, inclined his head stiffly, and turned his back upon the speaker.

“Not opened yet,” said Mr Chester. “Dear me! I hope the aged soul has not caught her foot in some unlucky cobweb by the way. She is there at last! Come in, I beg!”

Mr Haredale entered, followed by the locksmith. Turning with a look of great astonishment to the old woman who had opened the door, he inquired for Mrs Rudge—for Barnaby. They were both gone, she replied, wagging her ancient head, for good. There was a gentleman in the parlour, who perhaps could tell them more. That was all SHE knew.

“Pray, sir,” said Mr Haredale, presenting himself before this new tenant, “where is the person whom I came here to see?”

“My dear friend,” he returned, “I have not the least idea.”

“Your trifling is ill-timed,” retorted the other in a suppressed tone and voice, “and its subject ill-chosen. Reserve it for those who are your friends, and do not expend it on me. I lay no claim to the distinction, and have the self-denial to reject it.”

“My dear, good sir,” said Mr Chester, “you are heated with walking. Sit down, I beg. Our friend is—”

“Is but a plain honest man,” returned Mr Haredale, “and quite unworthy of your notice.”

“Gabriel Varden by name, sir,” said the locksmith bluntly.

“A worthy English yeoman!” said Mr Chester. “A most worthy yeoman, of whom I have frequently heard my son Ned—darling fellow— speak, and have often wished to see. Varden, my good friend, I am glad to know you. You wonder now,” he said, turning languidly to Mr Haredale, “to see me here. Now, I am sure you do.”

Mr Haredale glanced at him—not fondly or admiringly—smiled, and held his peace.

“The mystery is solved in a moment,” said Mr Chester; “in a moment. Will you step aside with me one instant. You remember our little compact in reference to Ned, and your dear niece, Haredale? You remember the list of assistants in their innocent intrigue? You remember these two people being among them? My dear fellow, congratulate yourself, and me. I have bought them off.”

“You have done what?” said Mr Haredale.

“Bought them off,” returned his smiling friend. “I have found it necessary to take some active steps towards setting this boy and girl attachment quite at rest, and have begun by removing these two agents. You are surprised? Who CAN withstand the influence of a little money! They wanted it, and have been bought off. We have nothing more to fear from them. They are gone.”

“Gone!” echoed Mr Haredale. “Where?”

“My dear fellow—and you must permit me to say again, that you never looked so young; so positively boyish as you do to-night—the Lord knows where; I believe Columbus himself wouldn't find them. Between you and me they have their hidden reasons, but upon that point I have pledged myself to secrecy. She appointed to see you here to-night, I know, but found it inconvenient, and couldn't wait. Here is the key of the door. I am afraid you'll find it inconveniently large; but as the tenement is yours, your goodnature will excuse that, Haredale, I am certain!”

Mr Haredale stood in the widow's parlour with the door-key in his hand, gazing by turns at Mr Chester and at Gabriel Varden, and occasionally glancing downward at the key as in the hope that of its own accord it would unlock the mystery; until Mr Chester, putting on his hat and gloves, and sweetly inquiring whether they were walking in the same direction, recalled him to himself.

“No,” he said. “Our roads diverge—widely, as you know. For the present, I shall remain here.”

“You will be hipped, Haredale; you will be miserable, melancholy, utterly wretched,” returned the other. “It's a place of the very last description for a man of your temper. I know it will make you very miserable.”

“Let it,” said Mr Haredale, sitting down; “and thrive upon the thought. Good night!”

Feigning to be wholly unconscious of the abrupt wave of the hand which rendered this farewell tantamount to a dismissal, Mr Chester retorted with a bland and heartfelt benediction, and inquired of Gabriel in what direction HE was going.

“Yours, sir, would be too much honour for the like of me,” replied the locksmith, hesitating.

“I wish you to remain here a little while, Varden,” said Mr Haredale, without looking towards them. “I have a word or two to say to you.”

“I will not intrude upon your conference another moment,” said Mr Chester with inconceivable politeness. “May it be satisfactory to you both! God bless you!” So saying, and bestowing upon the locksmith a most refulgent smile, he left them.

“A deplorably constituted creature, that rugged person,” he said, as he walked along the street; “he is an atrocity that carries its own punishment along with it—a bear that gnaws himself. And here is one of the inestimable advantages of having a perfect command over one's inclinations. I have been tempted in these two short interviews, to draw upon that fellow, fifty times. Five men in six would have yielded to the impulse. By suppressing mine, I wound him deeper and more keenly than if I were the best swordsman in all Europe , and he the worst. You are the wise man's very last resource,” he said, tapping the hilt of his weapon; “we can but appeal to you when all else is said and done. To come to you before, and thereby spare our adversaries so much, is a barbarian mode of warfare, quite unworthy of any man with the remotest pretensions to delicacy of feeling, or refinement.”

He smiled so very pleasantly as he communed with himself after this manner, that a beggar was emboldened to follow for alms, and to dog his footsteps for some distance. He was gratified by the circumstance, feeling it complimentary to his power of feature, and as a reward suffered the man to follow him until he called a chair, when he graciously dismissed him with a fervent blessing.

“Which is as easy as cursing,” he wisely added, as he took his seat, “and more becoming to the face. —To Clerkenwell, my good creatures, if you please!” The chairmen were rendered quite vivacious by having such a courteous burden, and to Clerkenwell they went at a fair round trot.

Alighting at a certain point he had indicated to them upon the road, and paying them something less than they expected from a fare of such gentle speech, he turned into the street in which the locksmith dwelt, and presently stood beneath the shadow of the Golden Key. Mr Tappertit, who was hard at work by lamplight, in a corner of the workshop, remained unconscious of his presence until a hand upon his shoulder made him start and turn his head.