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

“I have no doubt they will,” said the secretary.

“Well then, look here,” said the hangman. “If these Papists gets into power, and begins to boil and roast instead of hang, what becomes of my work! If they touch my work that's a part of so many laws, what becomes of the laws in general, what becomes of the religion, what becomes of the country!—Did you ever go to church, Muster Gashford?”

“Ever!” repeated the secretary with some indignation; “of course.”

“Well,” said the ruffian, “I've been once—twice, counting the time I was christened—and when I heard the Parliament prayed for, and thought how many new hanging laws they made every sessions, I considered that I was prayed for. Now mind, Muster Gashford,” said the fellow, taking up his stick and shaking it with a ferocious air, “I mustn't have my Protestant work touched, nor this here Protestant state of things altered in no degree, if I can help it; I mustn't have no Papists interfering with me, unless they come to be worked off in course of law; I mustn't have no biling, no roasting, no frying—nothing but hanging. My lord may well call me an earnest fellow. In support of the great Protestant principle of having plenty of that, I'll,” and here he beat his club upon the ground, “burn, fight, kill—do anything you bid me, so that it's bold and devilish—though the end of it was, that I got hung myself. —There, Muster Gashford!”

He appropriately followed up this frequent prostitution of a noble word to the vilest purposes, by pouring out in a kind of ecstasy at least a score of most tremendous oaths; then wiped his heated face upon his neckerchief, and cried, “No Popery! I'm a religious man, by G—!”

Gashford had leant back in his chair, regarding him with eyes so sunken, and so shadowed by his heavy brows, that for aught the hangman saw of them, he might have been stone blind. He remained smiling in silence for a short time longer, and then said, slowly and distinctly:

“You are indeed an earnest fellow, Dennis—a most valuable fellow— the staunchest man I know of in our ranks. But you must calm yourself; you must be peaceful, lawful, mild as any lamb. I am sure you will be though.”

“Ay, ay, we shall see, Muster Gashford, we shall see. You won't have to complain of me,” returned the other, shaking his head.

“I am sure I shall not,” said the secretary in the same mild tone, and with the same emphasis. “We shall have, we think, about next month, or May, when this Papist relief bill comes before the house, to convene our whole body for the first time. My lord has thoughts of our walking in procession through the streets—just as an innocent display of strength—and accompanying our petition down to the door of the House of Commons.”

“The sooner the better,” said Dennis, with another oath.

“We shall have to draw up in divisions, our numbers being so large; and, I believe I may venture to say,” resumed Gashford, affecting not to hear the interruption, “though I have no direct instructions to that effect—that Lord George has thought of you as an excellent leader for one of these parties. I have no doubt you would be an admirable one.”

“Try me,” said the fellow, with an ugly wink.

“You would be cool, I know,” pursued the secretary, still smiling, and still managing his eyes so that he could watch him closely, and really not be seen in turn, “obedient to orders, and perfectly temperate. You would lead your party into no danger, I am certain.”

“I'd lead them, Muster Gashford,'—the hangman was beginning in a reckless way, when Gashford started forward, laid his finger on his lips, and feigned to write, just as the door was opened by John Grueby.

“Oh!” said John, looking in; “here's another Protestant.”

“Some other room, John,” cried Gashford in his blandest voice. “I am engaged just now.”

But John had brought this new visitor to the door, and he walked in unbidden, as the words were uttered; giving to view the form and features, rough attire, and reckless air, of Hugh.

The secretary put his hand before his eyes to shade them from the glare of the lamp, and for some moments looked at Hugh with a frowning brow, as if he remembered to have seen him lately, but could not call to mind where, or on what occasion. His uncertainty was very brief, for before Hugh had spoken a word, he said, as his countenance cleared up:

“Ay, ay, I recollect. It's quite right, John, you needn't wait. Don't go, Dennis.”

“Your servant, master,” said Hugh, as Grueby disappeared.

“Yours, friend,” returned the secretary in his smoothest manner. “What brings YOU here? We left nothing behind us, I hope?”

Hugh gave a short laugh, and thrusting his hand into his breast, produced one of the handbills, soiled and dirty from lying out of doors all night, which he laid upon the secretary's desk after flattening it upon his knee, and smoothing out the wrinkles with his heavy palm.

“Nothing but that, master. It fell into good hands, you see.”

“What is this!” said Gashford, turning it over with an air of perfectly natural surprise. “Where did you get it from, my good fellow; what does it mean? I don't understand this at all.”

A little disconcerted by this reception, Hugh looked from the secretary to Dennis, who had risen and was standing at the table too, observing the stranger by stealth, and seeming to derive the utmost satisfaction from his manners and appearance. Considering himself silently appealed to by this action, Mr Dennis shook his head thrice, as if to say of Gashford, “No. He don't know anything at all about it. I know he don't. I'll take my oath he don't;” and hiding his profile from Hugh with one long end of his frowzy neckerchief, nodded and chuckled behind this screen in extreme approval of the secretary's proceedings.

“It tells the man that finds it, to come here, don't it?” asked Hugh. “I'm no scholar, myself, but I showed it to a friend, and he said it did.”

“It certainly does,” said Gashford, opening his eyes to their utmost width; “really this is the most remarkable circumstance I have ever known. How did you come by this piece of paper, my good friend?”

“Muster Gashford,” wheezed the hangman under his breath, “agin” all Newgate!”

Whether Hugh heard him, or saw by his manner that he was being played upon, or perceived the secretary's drift of himself, he came in his blunt way to the point at once.

“Here!” he said, stretching out his hand and taking it back; “never mind the bill, or what it says, or what it don't say. You don't know anything about it, master,—no more do I,—no more does he,” glancing at Dennis. “None of us know what it means, or where it comes from: there's an end of that. Now I want to make one against the Catholics, I'm a No-Popery man, and ready to be sworn in. That's what I've come here for.”

“Put him down on the roll, Muster Gashford,” said Dennis approvingly. “That's the way to go to work—right to the end at once, and no palaver.”

“What's the use of shooting wide of the mark, eh, old boy!” cried Hugh.

“My sentiments all over!” rejoined the hangman. “This is the sort of chap for my division, Muster Gashford. Down with him, sir. Put him on the roll. I'd stand godfather to him, if he was to be christened in a bonfire, made of the ruins of the Bank of England.”

With these and other expressions of confidence of the like flattering kind, Mr Dennis gave him a hearty slap on the back, which Hugh was not slow to return.

“No Popery, brother!” cried the hangman.

“No Property, brother!” responded Hugh.

“Popery, Popery,” said the secretary with his usual mildness.