The Old Curiosity Club discussion
Barnaby Rudge
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BR Chapters 66-70
Mod
As the next day dawns, the city of London wears “a strange aspect indeed.” The riots and the night of destruction have stunned London’s public. Soldiers are in the streets and the citizens of London are milling about, scores of whom are displaced from their homes, and an unease hangs like a miasma over the entire metropolis. We read that some of the recently freed Newgate prisoners wanted to return to the prison rather than face another night free in the dangerous streets. Meanwhile, the mob have proclaimed their next targets of opportunity. There was even a rumour that the mob intended to “throw the gates of Bedlam open, and let all the madmen loose.” Soon the “dreaded night drew near again.” This chapter has a very intense tone of distrust and fear. As readers, we know that more is to come; what it will be and how destructive it will become we have yet to find out.
At seven o’clock the Privy Council issued a proclamation to employ the military and each soldier is issued thirty-six rounds of powder and ball. This suggests that the government is no longer willing to accept what has occurred. Individual homes take up arms and the streets are cleared. With all these actions and precautions the mob once again swells and takes to the streets. As night settles in the rioters “rose like a great sea” and soon fires were set and the chaos was unleashed once again. Dickens tells us that “[t]hat the streets were now a dreadful spectacle.”
Thoughts
To what extent do you think Dickens has captured the mood of London, the people, and the mob in the opening paragraphs of this chapter?
In terms of comparison, A Tale of Two Cities also has a mob scene, but that book is yet to come. Can you name any other novel that effectively portrays a mob scene? Did you find this other book more/less effective in capturing the mood of a mob?
We read that one of the preeminent leaders of the mob was Hugh and the target of his group was the vintner’s house where Haredale, Grueby, and the vintner have taken refuge. The fact that Grueby is now an employee of the vintner seems a bit of a stretch and a coincidence, but I am certain Dickens has something more up his literary sleeve for Grueby. In this chapter Dickens again portrays Hugh as a man driven who had “extreme audacity, and ... conviction”.
In order to get a better view of the riot Haredale and Langdale ascend to the roof of the house to watch the riot unfold. This vantage point also helps the reader become a witness to the evening’s unfolding events. Upon seeing the scene below the vintner soon understands his home will be destroyed and realizes that the only course of action is to flee across the roofs of adjoining buildings. Looking up to the roof Hugh recognizes Haredale, and Haredale urges the vintner to save himself. They flee to the basement and grope their way towards safety. And then the moment we have been waiting for ... in the basement, coming to rescue them, is none other than Joe Willet and Edward Chester. And how, do you say, could this happen? Well, remember when Joe Willet came to to pay the bill of the Maypole so many chapters ago? It was that vintner. And so the Dickens magic of coincidence works its way again. Joe tells us that it was Edward Chester who struck Hugh from his horse right in front of the mob. John Grueby gathers up everyone and helps them to enter by a back door, and then goes in search of the soldiers. Langdale leads the group to a safe exit from the house and into the night.
Thoughts
In this chapter Haredale and Langdale barely escape from the mob, and more specially from Hugh who was intent on harming them. We also have the return of Joe Willet and Edward who are rapidly assuming the role of saviours, if not heroes. Hugh is portrayed in this chapter as a leader of the mob and a man intent on creating as much havoc and destruction as possible.
Did you find that Dickens, in any way, portrayed Hugh in heroic terms is this chapter?
In what ways did Edward and Joe act as heroes in this chapter?
From earlier chapters we know that Edward Chester was in love with Emma Haredale, but they were halted in their affection for each other by their elders who held a grudge against each other. How can we see this chapter as a turning point in their relationship?
With Joe Willet back in the plot would you care to project what will happen next to him?
To what extent could this chapter a turning point in the story? Why?
What is the significance of the fact that the army was issued powder and shot?
Mod
Freed from Newgate prison, Barnaby and his father find themselves in the streets with files and tools to release themselves from their fetters. Even though Barnaby is reunited with his father, we are told that Barnaby looked upon Hugh as “his preserver and truest friend.” Barnaby and his father flee the area and end up resting in a poor shed. Barnaby assumes the role of protector and caregiver to his father and guards, kisses, and soothes him in his sleep. We at last get a firm indication that Barnaby is thinking about his mother as he wonders when “she will come to join them.” Barnaby listens for her footsteps and watches for her shadow. Barnaby is sent by his father to London in order to find the blind man and bring him back to his father. After getting the instructions of how to find him a few times from his father, Barnaby sets off to London. When he arrives in the city Barnaby finds himself changed in his attitude towards the riot. Dickens questions whether it was the time Barnaby had just passed in the solitude of the country, the absence of his rioter companions, or perhaps that he had no violent agenda. Whatever it was, Barnaby now thinks that London “seemed populated by a legion of devils.” Looking around, Barnaby sees the “cruel burning and destroying, the dreadful cries and stunning noises” and questions whether “they were the good lord’s noble cause!” Barnaby finds the blind man’s house closed and locked up.
Thoughts
Barnaby’s father is a double murderer and his friend Hugh is a central character in the mob violence surrounding the Gordon Riots. Which of these two characters do you think has caused the most harm to Barnaby? Is any sympathy created for either of these two men in this chapter?
Barnaby performs a nurturing role in the care of his father. What do you think Dickens’s purpose was in creating this scene?
We have had virtually no mention of Barnaby’s mother in several chapters. What is Dickens’s purpose in mentioning her in this chapter?
When Barnaby does not find the blind man he heads into a place in the city where he heard a great crowd was located in the hopes of finding Hugh and persuading him to avoid danger and return to the country with him. Barnaby soon finds both Hugh and the rioters but now the sights, sounds, and roars of the mob sicken him. As Barnaby approaches Hugh on horseback he witnesses Hugh as he fell headlong from his horse. Hugh is incensed and demands who unhorsed him, it Barnaby does not know. Barnaby drags Hugh from the scene of the riot which is occurring at the vintner’s house. This is a very interesting scene as Dickens has first shown us what the mob was like from within the vintner’s house in the previous chapter. As readers we are aware who has unhorsed Hugh but neither Hugh nor Barnaby nor anyone else in the mob does.
Hugh then wants to know where Dennis is. Apparently he has melted away from the mob earlier in the day and disappeared. Hugh makes in back to his horse, Barnaby mounts the horse as well, and together they ride away from the vintner’s house, but not before one last look where what the see is “one large, flowing blaze.” In a scene that predates the riots in A Tale of Two Cities we read that the vintner’s wine ran through the streets where dozens of men, women, and children “drank until they died.” The liquor had killed them. And so, on the last night of the riots, the destruction of London by the mob boomerangs and destroys many of the rioters themselves. Poetic justice? Barnaby reaches the country, helps Hugh off the horse, and sets the horse free. Then, he leads Hugh slowly forward.
Thoughts
This chapter brings the riots to a close, it presents the readers with much to think about. Did you enjoy the parallel sequencing of time in this chapter and the previous one where we get two perspectives on the attack on the vintner’s home? As readers we know that the vintner and Haredale are within the house as Hugh is attacking the house from the outside. We know who knocked Hugh off his horse.
Where, oh where, is Dennis? A mob attack on a wine storage establishment should have been of great interest to him.
We see Barnaby trying to help Hugh escape from the mob. What can account for Barnaby’s seemingly lack of interest in any more looting?
Mod
The chapter opens with some friction between Barnaby and his father. It seems that Mr Barnaby is becoming paranoid. As Barnaby approaches his father with Hugh, Mr Barnaby slinks off. When approached by Barnaby he accuses his son of meeting with his mother and plotting to betray him. In fact, Barnaby feels a touch of fear when talking to his father. Mr Barnaby wants to know where the blind man is and questions his son about the chosen hiding place. Mr Barnaby recoils at the sight of the blood on Hugh. Mr Barnaby then covers his head with a cloak to hide Hugh and his blood from his sight. This scene reminds me a bit of the reactions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to Duncan’s blood.
Meanwhile, Hugh is moaning and groaning, partly from his loss of blood, partly from the pain of falling off his horse, and probably in some agony due to his excessive drinking. No doubt somewhat confused and stressed himself, Barnaby strolls out into the fields and the sweet and pleasant air. His mind flashes back to his tranquil past and to wandering the fields with his friends the dogs accompanying him. We are told that Barnaby “had no consciousness, God help him, of having done wrong.” As our novel moves towards its conclusion Dickens is drawing clear comparisons between life in rural England and life in the city of London. Barnaby thinks how happy his mother, Hugh, his father and himself would be if they went to live “in some lonely place.” Soon, however, Barnaby’s musings are interrupted and he is once again approached by his father who demands Barnaby return to London and find the blind man. Barnaby disguises himself lest he be recognized in the streets of London and sets off again. During the day we read that Mr Barnaby’s mind is flashing back to the night of the murders. That night Barnaby returns again, this time with the blind man.
Thoughts
The beginning of this chapter gives us much insight into the nature of Barnaby. Once Barnaby is surrounded by a rural landscape his mind reverts to a more tranquil place. We also learn that Barnaby does not have much recall of the tumultuous times he has recently been involved in London with the mob. We also see that his father is becoming plagued, almost like Macbeth, with the images of those he has murdered.
To what extent do you think Barnaby should be pitied by the reading audience?
Do you think Mr Barnaby has any true or emotional attachment to his son?
This is the first time we have seen Hugh as being, in any way, subdued in nature. Is it only because of his injuries and loss of blood or is Dickens signalling something else in the beginning of this chapter?
The first information that Mr Barnaby wants is know from Stagg is whether Mrs Barnaby has been found, and, if so, will she say anything to save him. The answer from Stagg is a simple no. We do learn that Mrs Barnaby is heartbroken at the loss of her son, and that her health has suffered as a result. Mrs Barnaby believes that “Heaven will help her and her innocent son” Stagg suggests that Mr Barnaby and his son keep moving and that, in time, Mrs Barnaby will come round to their point of view. The next thing we know Dennis shows up but acts strangely. He did not want to enter the place they were staying and he is now dressed much like he was when he performed his duties as a hangman. Dennis tells the others that he found them due to the bells they had on their horses. Hugh questions Dennis as to where he went yesterday after he left the jail. As the conversation continues it is noticeable that Dennis's demeanour is slowly shifting. A trap! Dennis signals and a band of soldiers appear. Their friend Dennis has turned on his former rioter partners. He now claims to be acting on “constitootional princlples.” Another more simple way to phrase it is that Dennis has lead the soldiers to the place where they can capture two people who were rioting and one who is an escaped felon. It seems that the price on the heads of Hugh, Barnaby, and Mr Barnaby was more than Dennis could pass up. Dennis is an opportunist and he has just made himself some money and perhaps even provided himself with three men to hang. In all the confusion Stagg attempts to escape. Well, almost escape. He is asked to surrender by the soldiers and yet he keeps running. The order to fire is given and the troops do so. Stagg is killed. On his body is found rings and money, no doubt stolen during the looting of homes and businesses during the riots. Dennis is upset that he didn’t get to “work off” Stagg. Dickens has great fun with Dennis (in a black humour kind of way) when he has Dennis ramble on about the constitution and every man’s right to be hanged by Dennis. As the troops take the prisons away we are told that Barnaby attempted to wave at Hugh. For his part, Hugh envisions the mob will set him free him from jail just as the mob had previously freed Barnaby and his father earlier in the week. By the end of the chapter, however, Hugh is more realistic and realizes that he is “riding to his death.”
Thoughts
Barnaby and his father have been captured for the second time. To what extent do you think Dickens is overwriting the plot at this point in the novel?
We have finally had a bit of news about Mrs Barnaby. Do you think Dickens has keep her out of the story for too long?
What do you think the purpose was of having the troops shot and kill Stagg?
Dickens has clearly indicated how a rural setting is linked to a kinder and gentler Barnaby. Do you find Barnaby’s swings in character and personality to be annoying, enlightening, symbolic? To what extent could Dickens be making a larger comment on the nature of country versus city life?
Does anyone have any idea why Dickens created the character Stagg as blind?
Mod
Chapter 70 opens with a tone of casual brutality. Our friend Dennis the hangman feels no guilt in turning in his recent riot mates and eases his conscious by assuring himself that it was his constitutional duty to capture such miscreants as Hugh, Barnaby, and Barnaby’s father. Dennis has decided to retire into “the tranquil respectability” of private life and so he heads off to solace himself with “half an hour or so of female society.” I am sure that Emma, Dolly, and even Miggs will not be happy to see him. As he walks through the detritus of the London riots he does not see the destruction as much as an increased opportunity to “work off” many of the mob when they are captured. He does not see himself as in any danger himself as he reasons that he will not be identified as a participant in the mob’s activities. Even if he is identified, Dennis is convinced his usefulness as a hangman will grand him a free get out of jail card. Dennis does realize that the fact of the forceful detention of Dolly and Emma is not the brightest of his decisions, but he has confidence in his own quick intelligence.
When he arrives where Emma, Dolly, and Miggs are held Miggs launches into a self-delusional ramble. Miggs says that Simmuns is her own. What follows is a weirdly humorous sequence where Miggs cloying claims she is not “Wenus” and Dennis assures her she is. Dennis learns from Miggs that Tappertit was with the prisoners the day before and Dennis hints that it is Tappertit’s intention to take Dolly with him, not Miggs. Dennis tells Miggs that she was to be handed over to someone else. Dennis then insinuates that he will “get [Dolly] off” for her. With this revelation, Miggs brightens up considerably but then switches to the point that she does not want to seek vengeance on Sim. I winced and then chucked when Dennis then calls Miggs “sugar-stick.” Such an endearing phrase. During this and the following conversation Miggs has stopped her ears with her hand but remains remarkably aware of all Dennis has to say. I found this humorous and could picture the scene performed on stage. Indeed, consider the stage with Dolly and Emma cowering in the background, and Miggs and Dennis in the foreground with Miggs listening intently to everything Dennis has to say while keeping her ears apparently covered so she can hear nothing. With tragedy comes comedy in this chapter. Miggs thinks that Gashford was planning to remove Emma tomorrow night.
Thoughts
Why do you suppose Dennis wants to find out what everyone else is thinking and planning to do in this chapter?
Has your opinion changed about Dennis from reading his interactions with Miggs?
To what extent do you think Dickens wanted this chapter to be humourous? Why/why not?
Dennis has a plan for the removal of Dolly and Miggs. Dennis plans to get one of the rioters who, fearing for his life, would be glad of the opportunity to flee the country. The fact that this man would be with a beautiful woman would act as a further enhancement to the plan. How and what would happen to Dolly at the hands of this man “would rest entirely with himself.” Dennis seems very happy to dismiss any person’s life without a thought. This plan would certainly not favour the safety of Dolly in any way. If such an action did occur, Miggs saw it as a lesson to Varden and his wife. So much for loyalty.
The conversation ends, Dennis goes off to pursue his plan, and Miggs launches into a “burst of mental anguish” which Dolly attempts to sooth. As the chapter ends we realize that Miggs has conducted herself in an amazing fashion. Even with her ears plugged, she has heard every word that Dennis spoke.
Thoughts
How would you describe the conduct of Miggs? Is it humourous, annoying or some other word or phrase?
Things are looking grim for Dolly and Emma. Well, Miggs too, I guess, but it is hard to have much sympathy for her. What do you think will occur next? What is your reasoning?
Reflections
I wrote these recaps during the week of August 11-18. August 16th was the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Riots in Manchester. Barnaby Rudge was written some 180 years ago. The issue of people’s rights, their grievances, the way people demonstrate their dissent and the myriad of conflicting points of view that emerge in any arena of protest echo those of the Gordon Riots. If we go further back in history there are countless other examples of dissent as well.
Dickens is rightly seen as a champion of the poor, a writer who pointed out the flaws and weaknesses of government, the law, and those who hold the most power in society. Certainly, Dickens also saw how money influences a person’s life and beliefs.
Barnaby Rudge is one of two novels that are classified as historical fiction. The other is A Tale of Two Cities. At the completion of each novel the Curiosities generally have a week when we discuss the novel as a whole. As we move ever closer to the end of the novel perhaps one question to consider is to what extent can we - or should we - read Barnaby Rudge as an historical novel? To what extent can we see the novel as a reflection of the people and the times?
Whoop, I was right! The one-armed man was Joe!
As a gamer and huge fan of Skyrim, Stagg's trying to flee looked like the fleeing thief at the start of that game to me. I know, it's not really a literary contribution or anything, but somehow I wanted to share.
I must admit that I only started A Tale of Two Cities, and never read far. I'll give it another chance when it is it's time in this group. However, if I remember correctly, it starts with liquor of some kind falling from a cart, and people drinking it's puddles, just like they did in chapter 68. Anyway, I had this huge flashback somehow. What if it is some kind of symbolism as well? Like, people are willing to die and drink something dirty (I mean, I don't believe streets were much cleaner then than they are now, although the dirt might be of a different kind), as long as they are satisfied? People place intoxication above common sense? Something like that?
As a gamer and huge fan of Skyrim, Stagg's trying to flee looked like the fleeing thief at the start of that game to me. I know, it's not really a literary contribution or anything, but somehow I wanted to share.
I must admit that I only started A Tale of Two Cities, and never read far. I'll give it another chance when it is it's time in this group. However, if I remember correctly, it starts with liquor of some kind falling from a cart, and people drinking it's puddles, just like they did in chapter 68. Anyway, I had this huge flashback somehow. What if it is some kind of symbolism as well? Like, people are willing to die and drink something dirty (I mean, I don't believe streets were much cleaner then than they are now, although the dirt might be of a different kind), as long as they are satisfied? People place intoxication above common sense? Something like that?
Jantine wrote: "Whoop, I was right! The one-armed man was Joe!As a gamer and huge fan of Skyrim, Stagg's trying to flee looked like the fleeing thief at the start of that game to me. I know, it's not really a li..."
Jantine, how did you figure that out or even guess that the one-armed man was Joe? That would never have occurred to me. Good for you.
Now my next question is: How are they (Haredale, Varden) going to find Emma and Dolly? I know they will but I can't imagine how. The next question is: Where is Mrs. Rudge? So, I am anxious to read on. I guess my only complaint about this process is the waiting to read the next week's chapters. My first group read on Goodreads, I actually just went ahead and finished the book and abandoned the group. I am doing better with Dickens thus far, but it is difficult for me with certain books.
I do love all the great comments and insights. Thanks to everyone.
Mod
As a gamer and huge fan of Skyrim, Stagg's trying to flee looked like the fleeing thief at the start of that game to me. I know, it's not really a li..."
Hi Jantine
It is never a problem to make connections. That’s what EM Forster told us to do! And who are we to argue with him ... ? :-)
Your memory is right about A Tale of Two Cities. There is a wine cask that breaks on a street, and there are many people who drink the spilt wine and it is a massive symbol. It is a great scene.
Mod
As a gamer and huge fan of Skyrim, Stagg's trying to flee looked like the fleeing thief at the start of that game to me. I know, it's..."
Hi Bobbie
One of the great things about Dickens is how he manages to bring the plots of his novels together in the end. Sometimes he uses wizardry, sometimes coincidence, and sometimes by pointing out to us what he has been making obvious throughout the novel but the reader seemed to have missed.
You are so right about needing to know but being made to wait as a reader. We must remember that all of Dickens’s major novels were written in either weekly or, more commonly, monthly parts. He needed to keep us readers in suspense so we would buy the next instalment. Every soap opera on TV today and most TV series contain story lines that often have both a problem-resolution plot and an ongoing story line occurring at the same time.
I’m a big fan of the original NCIS series which as been on the air for some 18 years. The writers have teased us viewers with the fact that Ziva, a great character who was supposedly killed some years ago, is still alive. The last episode of this past year had her return to warn of danger ahead for the team. And then, poof, season ended and I can’t wait for the new season to begin.
There is an overused phrase that Dickens’s friend and author Wilkie Collins said to describe how to write a Victorian serial novel for a reading audience. It is “make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.” So true!
Bobbie wrote: "my next question is: How are they (Haredale, Varden) going to find Emma and Dolly? I know they will but I can't imagine how. The next question is: Where is Mrs. Rudge?..."My guess is that Joe and Ned will be the ones to rescue Dolly and Emma, thus removing any doubts as to their worthiness, and they will all live happily ever after. But we must wait to see how CD accomplishes this feat. And what of Miggs? She and Tappertit surely can't ride off into the sunset together (though it may be a crueler sentence for Sim than hanging would be).
Where IS Mrs. Rudge? It can't be so easy as that she's returned to her London house, can it? That makes the most sense, and Haredale hasn't been on watch there since she's returned to town, so it's probable. She'd have to go somewhere where Barnaby might think to look for her.
Did anyone else notice this paragraph in chapter 69?"Well," said Mr. Dennis, mournfully, "if you an't enough to make a man mistrust his feller-creeturs, I don't know what is. Desert the banners! Me! Ned Dennis, as was so christened by his own father! - Is this axe your'n, brother?"
Is it just a coincidence that Dennis's first name is Ned, and that Edward Chester's nick-name is also Ned? As horrible a father as Chester is, I think I'd rather share a gene pool with him than Dennis. Awful options, though!
The return of Joe and Ned (Chester, not Dennis) has been long-awaited, and the escape from the vintner's house was gripping. But I've about had it with the riots - and the rioters, for that matter - and I'm hoping that we'll now get back to the family stories. I don't mind a good action film if it's got a good story behind it but, when reading, I find it more challenging to follow text that is mostly descriptive with little dialogue. Humor, bucolic scenes, and happy families always draw me in more than mayhem and destruction. But warmth and light are always appreciated more after we've been out in the cold darkness, so a bit of chaos is necessary.
Dickens seems to emphasize through both Gruesby and Barnaby that Gordon is not to blame and should not be held responsible for the rioters. I don't know how this jibes with history, but as readers of a work of fiction, how do all of you react to that? If I'm to give Gordon any leeway here, the least he must do for my satisfaction is get out there on his pulpit, denounce the rioters, call for calm, and insist that anyone violating the peace be arrested and prosecuted for their crimes. Dickens hasn't shown Gordon doing that.
[FYI - Off topic]Bobbie wrote: "I am anxious to read on. I guess my only complaint about this process is the waiting to read the next week's chapters. My first group read on Goodreads, I actually just went ahead and finished the book and abandoned the group...."
Bobbie - I won't tell if you read ahead. ;-) You just need to be careful about spoilers. I try not to do it for that reason, and also because the more I read, the more I'll forget about that week's selection when discussion time comes.
I've been in other groups that are not structured at all. The book is announced and people comment on it or not as they see fit - sometimes on the book as a whole, sometimes on sections if it's a longer book. But for me, they all pale in comparison the structure we have here, where we are all discussing (if not actually reading) at the same pace. And no other group I've belonged to has had such meaty, thought-provoking discussions!
When I'm ahead on the reading schedule, I use the extra time for non-Dickens reading. But when life gets hectic, this slower pace is greatly appreciated!
Bobbie wrote: "JJantine, how did you figure that out or even guess that the one-armed man was Joe? That would never have occurred to me. Good for you. "
It might have been because I've read more Dickens, in combination with the discussions here. I noticed how everyone longed for Edward and Joe getting involved in the story again (or at least everyone was curious where the heck they were), and lo and behold, here is this mysterious one-armed man that has a connection to the army! Oh wait, Joe went into the army to disappear, didn't he? Like I said last week, I think it is very Dickens to let us as a reader think afterwards "yes, off course, I could have known!" ;-)
It might have been because I've read more Dickens, in combination with the discussions here. I noticed how everyone longed for Edward and Joe getting involved in the story again (or at least everyone was curious where the heck they were), and lo and behold, here is this mysterious one-armed man that has a connection to the army! Oh wait, Joe went into the army to disappear, didn't he? Like I said last week, I think it is very Dickens to let us as a reader think afterwards "yes, off course, I could have known!" ;-)
I am having trouble though remembering what was said about this mysterious one armed man. I would like to go back and read those spots but don't know where to find them. And as for reading ahead, I don't really do it because as you said, Mary Lou, if I do read ahead I forget what was in what section and forget what we need to comment on. I have been reading a little cozy mystery series in between the sections and that has worked nicely.
Mod
So, from a point of view of dramaturgy, Staggs could have been of further use to the author, but apparently Dickens thought that he had got the most out of that character ... Nevertheless, I think it very strange that a cunning man like Staggs should try to run away like that, with the odds being so strongly against him. Would he not be clever enough to await a better opportunity.
His blindness makes him even more fascinating to me. First because the deprivation of the important visual sense must have honed other senses in him, and so I find it very believable that he is able to manipulate Barnaby and his mother so easily. Maybe, a person's tone and manner of speaking tell him more things than are accessible to other people's perception. Second, I was fascinated by what he said about people's expectations as to a blind man's moral qualities. In a way, this is true: Somehow, we tend to expect members of minorities - such as people with disabilities - to be more patient, more caring and more virtuous. In a way, this is a strange kind of prejudice, one that Staggs has learned to turn to his own advantage.
One question remains for me: Why should the blind villain have wanted to tie his fate to Mr. Rudge's? Why did he help him? And how did he ever find Mrs. Rudge and Barnaby?
Mod
"Well," said Mr. Dennis, mournfully, "if you an't enough to make a man mistrust his feller-creeturs, I don't know what is. Desert the banners! ..."
As far as I know, there was really a hangman called Edward Dennis at the time of the Gordon riots, and Dickens simply put him into the book, changing the man's character to a certain extent, however.
Mod
Dickens certainly was a champion of the poor and a critic of social and political injustices, but it is interesting that he is wholeheartedly on the side of the authorities in Barnaby Rudge. He criticizes certain weak and opportunistic officials, like the Mayor of London, and reactionaries like the country "gentleman", but he advocates the repression of the riots through the military - whose hands were tied at first by the lack of decision on the authorities' part - unquestioningly. Likewise, two of the positive characters, Joe and Edward, are soldiers.
In Tale of Two Cities, this is similar: The narration dwells on the horrors and cruelties that arise when the suppressed masses resort to violence even though he concedes that they have many reasons for being dissatisfied with their lives.
Dickens is clearly a man of reform and not of revolution, isn't he?
Mod
Up to this moment, I have always considered Miggs a purely comic character. In real life, she would be a terrible person to have around, but so far, in the novel she has always provided satirical humour. In this scene, though, while there is a lot of humour in that Dennis and Miggs seem to arrive at an understanding without ever stating their intentions in so many words, the nature of their understanding is so horrible that Miggs has made it into the league of villains in this chapter. At the same time, this enhances her importance in the novel.
Mod
As a gamer and huge fan of Skyrim, Stagg's trying to flee looked like the fleeing thief at the start of that game to me. I know, it's not really a li..."
I used to play "Morrowind" for quite a while, Jantine, but unlike the first two parts of "Gothic", I never finished it. When I played computer games, I was more attracted to strategy games like "Civilization" and "Total War" (Rome, Medieval and the one set in the 18th century).
Tristram wrote: "About Staggs: When I read the passage of how he tried to escape and was shot down by the soldiers, I couldn't help thinking that he was wasted in a way. He is one of the most interesting villains i..."Staggs was an interesting villain, wasn't he? Seemingly so unassuming. Dickens always seems to have one or two minor characters in his books that seem short-changed, and whom I'd love to know more about. Staggs is that character in Rudge
You (and Dickens) are right about people's assumptions when it comes to the disabled. I wonder why that is? It's really kind of a fascinating phenomenon. We have a large deaf community and I frequently had to serve them in a previous position I held. I learned very quickly (and sadly) that their disability did not make them kinder people. It shouldn't be surprising really - why wouldn't someone with challenges feel bitter? In quite a few cases, it was used to manipulate, or feign a lack of knowledge of our policies and standards of conduct. And I also learned that just because someone is deaf doesn't mean he can't make quite a ruckus when he's angry! (Deaf people are surprisingly noisy!)
Anyhow, I found it very interesting that Dickens took the time to comment on what seems to be a common misconception. Maybe he, like I, was so surprised to come to that realization that he made Staggs blind just to explore it a bit.
Mod
Hi Tristram
I agree. Stagg is an interesting and somewhat perplexing creation. He acts as a tenuous link between Tappertit and his crew and Mr Rudge but these two subsets of characters don't really link in any meaningful way in the novel besides being the “bad guys.” How he is able to track down Barnaby and his mother like a bloodhound is rather astounding given the fact he is blind.
His death was a surprise to me as well. Being shot was a surprise. Could it be Dickens did not want to send a blind man to the gallows? Still, being killed as he was is equally inglorious. I don’t recall him being part of the most violent of the Gordon mob. He certainly was not a featured rioter like Duncan, Hugh, or Barnaby. Would his fate have even been hanging?
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The rioters at work
Chapter 66
Phiz
Text Illustrated:
There being now a great many parties in the streets, each went to work according to its humour, and a dozen houses were quickly blazing, including those of Sir John Fielding and two other justices, and four in Holborn—one of the greatest thoroughfares in London—which were all burning at the same time, and burned until they went out of themselves, for the people cut the engine hose, and would not suffer the firemen to play upon the flames. At one house near Moorfields, they found in one of the rooms some canary birds in cages, and these they cast into the fire alive. The poor little creatures screamed, it was said, like infants, when they were flung upon the blaze; and one man was so touched that he tried in vain to save them, which roused the indignation of the crowd, and nearly cost him his life.
At this same house, one of the fellows who went through the rooms, breaking the furniture and helping to destroy the building, found a child’s doll—a poor toy—which he exhibited at the window to the mob below, as the image of some unholy saint which the late occupants had worshipped. While he was doing this, another man with an equally tender conscience (they had both been foremost in throwing down the canary birds for roasting alive), took his seat on the parapet of the house, and harangued the crowd from a pamphlet circulated by the Association, relative to the true principles of Christianity! Meanwhile the Lord Mayor, with his hands in his pockets, looked on as an idle man might look at any other show, and seemed mightily satisfied to have got a good place.
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To the rescue
Chapter 67
Phiz
Text Illustrated:
The vaults were profoundly dark, and having no torch or candle—for they had been afraid to carry one, lest it should betray their place of refuge—they were obliged to grope with their hands. But they were not long without light, for they had not gone far when they heard the crowd forcing the door; and, looking back among the low-arched passages, could see them in the distance, hurrying to and fro with flashing links, broaching the casks, staving the great vats, turning off upon the right hand and the left, into the different cellars, and lying down to drink at the channels of strong spirits which were already flowing on the ground.
They hurried on, not the less quickly for this; and had reached the only vault which lay between them and the passage out, when suddenly, from the direction in which they were going, a strong light gleamed upon their faces; and before they could slip aside, or turn back, or hide themselves, two men (one bearing a torch) came upon them, and cried in an astonished whisper, ‘Here they are!’
At the same instant they pulled off what they wore upon their heads. Mr Haredale saw before him Edward Chester, and then saw, when the vintner gasped his name, Joe Willet.
Ay, the same Joe, though with an arm the less, who used to make the quarterly journey on the grey mare to pay the bill to the purple-faced vintner; and that very same purple-faced vintner, formerly of Thames Street, now looked him in the face, and challenged him by name.
‘Give me your hand,’ said Joe softly, taking it whether the astonished vintner would or no. ‘Don’t fear to shake it; it’s a friendly one and a hearty one, though it has no fellow. Why, how well you look and how bluff you are! And you—God bless you, sir. Take heart, take heart. We’ll find them. Be of good cheer; we have not been idle.’
There was something so honest and frank in Joe’s speech, that Mr Haredale put his hand in his involuntarily, though their meeting was suspicious enough. But his glance at Edward Chester, and that gentleman’s keeping aloof, were not lost upon Joe, who said bluntly, glancing at Edward while he spoke:
‘Times are changed, Mr Haredale, and times have come when we ought to know friends from enemies, and make no confusion of names. Let me tell you that but for this gentleman, you would most likely have been dead by this time, or badly wounded at the best.’
‘What do you say?’ cried Mr Haredale.
‘I say,’ said Joe, ‘first, that it was a bold thing to be in the crowd at all disguised as one of them; though I won’t say much about that, on second thoughts, for that’s my case too. Secondly, that it was a brave and glorious action—that’s what I call it—to strike that fellow off his horse before their eyes!’
‘What fellow! Whose eyes!’
‘What fellow, sir!’ cried Joe: ‘a fellow who has no goodwill to you, and who has the daring and devilry in him of twenty fellows. I know him of old. Once in the house, HE would have found you, here or anywhere. The rest owe you no particular grudge, and, unless they see you, will only think of drinking themselves dead. But we lose time. Are you ready?’
‘Quite,’ said Edward. ‘Put out the torch, Joe, and go on. And be silent, there’s a good fellow.’
‘Silent or not silent,’ murmured Joe, as he dropped the flaring link upon the ground, crushed it with his foot, and gave his hand to Mr Haredale, ‘it was a brave and glorious action;—no man can alter that.’
Both Mr Haredale and the worthy vintner were too amazed and too much hurried to ask any further questions, so followed their conductors in silence. It seemed, from a short whispering which presently ensued between them and the vintner relative to the best way of escape, that they had entered by the back-door, with the connivance of John Grueby, who watched outside with the key in his pocket, and whom they had taken into their confidence. A party of the crowd coming up that way, just as they entered, John had double-locked the door again, and made off for the soldiers, so that means of retreat was cut off from under them.
However, as the front-door had been forced, and this minor crowd, being anxious to get at the liquor, had no fancy for losing time in breaking down another, but had gone round and got in from Holborn with the rest, the narrow lane in the rear was quite free of people. So, when they had crawled through the passage indicated by the vintner (which was a mere shelving-trap for the admission of casks), and had managed with some difficulty to unchain and raise the door at the upper end, they emerged into the street without being observed or interrupted. Joe still holding Mr Haredale tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner, they hurried through the streets at a rapid pace; occasionally standing aside to let some fugitives go by, or to keep out of the way of the soldiers who followed them, and whose questions, when they halted to put any, were speedily stopped by one whispered word from Joe.
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The rabble's orgy
Chapter 68
Phiz
Text Illustrated:
The vintner’s house with a half-a-dozen others near at hand, was one great, glowing blaze. All night, no one had essayed to quench the flames, or stop their progress; but now a body of soldiers were actively engaged in pulling down two old wooden houses, which were every moment in danger of taking fire, and which could scarcely fail, if they were left to burn, to extend the conflagration immensely. The tumbling down of nodding walls and heavy blocks of wood, the hooting and the execrations of the crowd, the distant firing of other military detachments, the distracted looks and cries of those whose habitations were in danger, the hurrying to and fro of frightened people with their goods; the reflections in every quarter of the sky, of deep, red, soaring flames, as though the last day had come and the whole universe were burning; the dust, and smoke, and drift of fiery particles, scorching and kindling all it fell upon; the hot unwholesome vapour, the blight on everything; the stars, and moon, and very sky, obliterated;—made up such a sum of dreariness and ruin, that it seemed as if the face of Heaven were blotted out, and night, in its rest and quiet, and softened light, never could look upon the earth again.
But there was a worse spectacle than this—worse by far than fire and smoke, or even the rabble’s unappeasable and maniac rage. The gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps all round this fearful pond, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, women with children in their arms and babies at their breasts, and drank until they died. While some stooped with their lips to the brink and never raised their heads again, others sprang up from their fiery draught, and danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of suffocation, until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the liquor that had killed them. Nor was even this the worst or most appalling kind of death that happened on this fatal night. From the burning cellars, where they drank out of hats, pails, buckets, tubs, and shoes, some men were drawn, alive, but all alight from head to foot; who, in their unendurable anguish and suffering, making for anything that had the look of water, rolled, hissing, in this hideous lake, and splashed up liquid fire which lapped in all it met with as it ran along the surface, and neither spared the living nor the dead. On this last night of the great riots—for the last night it was—the wretched victims of a senseless outcry, became themselves the dust and ashes of the flames they had kindled, and strewed the public streets of London.
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Carrying off the prisoners
Chapter 69
George Cattermole
Text Illustrated:
‘There!’ said Dennis, who remained untouched among them when they had seized their prisoners; ‘it’s them two young ones, gentlemen, that the proclamation puts a price on. This other’s an escaped felon.—I’m sorry for it, brother,’ he added, in a tone of resignation, addressing himself to Hugh; ‘but you’ve brought it on yourself; you forced me to do it; you wouldn’t respect the soundest constitootional principles, you know; you went and wiolated the wery framework of society. I had sooner have given away a trifle in charity than done this, I would upon my soul.—If you’ll keep fast hold on ‘em, gentlemen, I think I can make a shift to tie ‘em better than you can.’
But this operation was postponed for a few moments by a new occurrence. The blind man, whose ears were quicker than most people’s sight, had been alarmed, before Barnaby, by a rustling in the bushes, under cover of which the soldiers had advanced. He retreated instantly—had hidden somewhere for a minute—and probably in his confusion mistaking the point at which he had emerged, was now seen running across the open meadow.
An officer cried directly that he had helped to plunder a house last night. He was loudly called on, to surrender. He ran the harder, and in a few seconds would have been out of gunshot. The word was given, and the men fired.
There was a breathless pause and a profound silence, during which all eyes were fixed upon him. He had been seen to start at the discharge, as if the report had frightened him. But he neither stopped nor slackened his pace in the least, and ran on full forty yards further. Then, without one reel or stagger, or sign of faintness, or quivering of any limb, he dropped.
Some of them hurried up to where he lay;—the hangman with them. Everything had passed so quickly, that the smoke had not yet scattered, but curled slowly off in a little cloud, which seemed like the dead man’s spirit moving solemnly away. There were a few drops of blood upon the grass—more, when they turned him over—that was all.
‘Look here! Look here!’ said the hangman, stooping one knee beside the body, and gazing up with a disconsolate face at the officer and men. ‘Here’s a pretty sight!’
‘Stand out of the way,’ replied the officer. ‘Serjeant! see what he had about him.’
The man turned his pockets out upon the grass, and counted, besides some foreign coins and two rings, five-and-forty guineas in gold. These were bundled up in a handkerchief and carried away; the body remained there for the present, but six men and the serjeant were left to take it to the nearest public-house.
‘Now then, if you’re going,’ said the serjeant, clapping Dennis on the back, and pointing after the officer who was walking towards the shed.
To which Mr Dennis only replied, ‘Don’t talk to me!’ and then repeated what he had said before, namely, ‘Here’s a pretty sight!’
‘It’s not one that you care for much, I should think,’ observed the serjeant coolly.
‘Why, who,’ said Mr Dennis rising, ‘should care for it, if I don’t?’
‘Oh! I didn’t know you was so tender-hearted,’ said the serjeant. ‘That’s all!’
‘Tender-hearted!’ echoed Dennis. ‘Tender-hearted! Look at this man. Do you call THIS constitootional? Do you see him shot through and through instead of being worked off like a Briton? Damme, if I know which party to side with. You’re as bad as the other. What’s to become of the country if the military power’s to go a superseding the ciwilians in this way? Where’s this poor feller-creetur’s rights as a citizen, that he didn’t have ME in his last moments! I was here. I was willing. I was ready. These are nice times, brother, to have the dead crying out against us in this way, and sleep comfortably in our beds arterwards; wery nice!’
Whether he derived any material consolation from binding the prisoners, is uncertain; most probably he did. At all events his being summoned to that work, diverted him, for the time, from these painful reflections, and gave his thoughts a more congenial occupation.
They were not all three carried off together, but in two parties; Barnaby and his father, going by one road in the centre of a body of foot; and Hugh, fast bound upon a horse, and strongly guarded by a troop of cavalry, being taken by another.
They had no opportunity for the least communication, in the short interval which preceded their departure; being kept strictly apart. Hugh only observed that Barnaby walked with a drooping head among his guard, and, without raising his eyes, that he tried to wave his fettered hand when he passed. For himself, he buoyed up his courage as he rode along, with the assurance that the mob would force his jail wherever it might be, and set him at liberty. But when they got into London, and more especially into Fleet Market, lately the stronghold of the rioters, where the military were rooting out the last remnant of the crowd, he saw that this hope was gone, and felt that he was riding to his death.
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"No offence, no offence," said that personage in a conciliatory tone
Chapter 69
Fred Barnard
Text Illustrated:
Exhausted, unwashed, unshorn, begrimed with smoke and dust, his hair clotted with blood, his voice quite gone, so that he spoke in whispers; his skin parched up by fever, his whole body bruised and cut, and beaten about, Hugh still took the flask, and raised it to his lips. He was in the act of drinking, when the front of the shed was suddenly darkened, and Dennis stood before them.
‘No offence, no offence,’ said that personage in a conciliatory tone, as Hugh stopped in his draught, and eyed him, with no pleasant look, from head to foot. ‘No offence, brother. Barnaby here too, eh? How are you, Barnaby? And two other gentlemen! Your humble servant, gentlemen. No offence to YOU either, I hope. Eh, brothers?’
Notwithstanding that he spoke in this very friendly and confident manner, he seemed to have considerable hesitation about entering, and remained outside the roof. He was rather better dressed than usual: wearing the same suit of threadbare black, it is true, but having round his neck an unwholesome-looking cravat of a yellowish white; and, on his hands, great leather gloves, such as a gardener might wear in following his trade. His shoes were newly greased, and ornamented with a pair of rusty iron buckles; the packthread at his knees had been renewed; and where he wanted buttons, he wore pins. Altogether, he had something the look of a tipstaff, or a bailiff’s follower, desperately faded, but who had a notion of keeping up the appearance of a professional character, and making the best of the worst means.
‘You’re very snug here,’ said Mr Dennis, pulling out a mouldy pocket-handkerchief, which looked like a decomposed halter, and wiping his forehead in a nervous manner.
‘Not snug enough to prevent your finding us, it seems,’ Hugh answered, sulkily.
‘Why I’ll tell you what, brother,’ said Dennis, with a friendly smile, ‘when you don’t want me to know which way you’re riding, you must wear another sort of bells on your horse. Ah! I know the sound of them you wore last night, and have got quick ears for ‘em; that’s the truth. Well, but how are you, brother?’
He had by this time approached, and now ventured to sit down by him.
‘How am I?’ answered Hugh. ‘Where were you yesterday? Where did you go when you left me in the jail? Why did you leave me? And what did you mean by rolling your eyes and shaking your fist at me, eh?’
‘I shake my fist!—at you, brother!’ said Dennis, gently checking Hugh’s uplifted hand, which looked threatening.
‘Your stick, then; it’s all one.’
‘Lord love you, brother, I meant nothing. You don’t understand me by half. I shouldn’t wonder now,’ he added, in the tone of a desponding and an injured man, ‘but you thought, because I wanted them chaps left in the prison, that I was a going to desert the banners?’
Hugh told him, with an oath, that he had thought so.
‘Well!’ said Mr Dennis, mournfully, ‘if you an’t enough to make a man mistrust his feller-creeturs, I don’t know what is. Desert the banners! Me! Ned Dennis, as was so christened by his own father!—Is this axe your’n, brother?’
‘Yes, it’s mine,’ said Hugh, in the same sullen manner as before; ‘it might have hurt you, if you had come in its way once or twice last night. Put it down.’
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"Tender-hearted!", echoed Dennis. "Tender-hearted! Look at this man.
Chapter 69
Fred Barnard
Text Illustrated:
An officer cried directly that he had helped to plunder a house last night. He was loudly called on, to surrender. He ran the harder, and in a few seconds would have been out of gunshot. The word was given, and the men fired.
There was a breathless pause and a profound silence, during which all eyes were fixed upon him. He had been seen to start at the discharge, as if the report had frightened him. But he neither stopped nor slackened his pace in the least, and ran on full forty yards further. Then, without one reel or stagger, or sign of faintness, or quivering of any limb, he dropped.
Some of them hurried up to where he lay;—the hangman with them. Everything had passed so quickly, that the smoke had not yet scattered, but curled slowly off in a little cloud, which seemed like the dead man’s spirit moving solemnly away. There were a few drops of blood upon the grass—more, when they turned him over—that was all.
‘Look here! Look here!’ said the hangman, stooping one knee beside the body, and gazing up with a disconsolate face at the officer and men. ‘Here’s a pretty sight!’
‘Stand out of the way,’ replied the officer. ‘Serjeant! see what he had about him.’
The man turned his pockets out upon the grass, and counted, besides some foreign coins and two rings, five-and-forty guineas in gold. These were bundled up in a handkerchief and carried away; the body remained there for the present, but six men and the serjeant were left to take it to the nearest public-house.
‘Now then, if you’re going,’ said the serjeant, clapping Dennis on the back, and pointing after the officer who was walking towards the shed.
To which Mr Dennis only replied, ‘Don’t talk to me!’ and then repeated what he had said before, namely, ‘Here’s a pretty sight!’
‘It’s not one that you care for much, I should think,’ observed the serjeant coolly.
‘Why, who,’ said Mr Dennis rising, ‘should care for it, if I don’t?’
‘Oh! I didn’t know you was so tender-hearted,’ said the serjeant. ‘That’s all!’
‘Tender-hearted!’ echoed Dennis. ‘Tender-hearted! Look at this man. Do you call THIS constitootional? Do you see him shot through and through instead of being worked off like a Briton? Damme, if I know which party to side with. You’re as bad as the other. What’s to become of the country if the military power’s to go a superseding the ciwilians in this way? Where’s this poor feller-creetur’s rights as a citizen, that he didn’t have ME in his last moments! I was here. I was willing. I was ready. These are nice times, brother, to have the dead crying out against us in this way, and sleep comfortably in our beds arterwards; wery nice!’
Whether he derived any material consolation from binding the prisoners, is uncertain; most probably he did. At all events his being summoned to that work, diverted him, for the time, from these painful reflections, and gave his thoughts a more congenial occupation.
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You are Wenus, you know
Chapter 70
Phiz
Text Illustrated:
‘Sit down,’ said the hangman.
Suiting the action to the word, he thrust her rather suddenly and prematurely into a chair, and designing to reassure her by a little harmless jocularity, such as is adapted to please and fascinate the sex, converted his right forefinger into an ideal bradawl or gimlet, and made as though he would screw the same into her side—whereat Miss Miggs shrieked again, and evinced symptoms of faintness.
‘Lovey, my dear,’ whispered Dennis, drawing his chair close to hers. ‘When was your young man here last, eh?’
‘MY young man, good gentleman!’ answered Miggs in a tone of exquisite distress.
‘Ah! Simmuns, you know—him?’ said Dennis.
‘Mine indeed!’ cried Miggs, with a burst of bitterness—and as she said it, she glanced towards Dolly. ‘MINE, good gentleman!’
This was just what Mr Dennis wanted, and expected.
‘Ah!’ he said, looking so soothingly, not to say amorously on Miggs, that she sat, as she afterwards remarked, on pins and needles of the sharpest Whitechapel kind, not knowing what intentions might be suggesting that expression to his features: ‘I was afraid of that. I saw as much myself. It’s her fault. She WILL entice ‘em.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ cried Miggs, folding her hands and looking upwards with a kind of devout blankness, ‘I wouldn’t lay myself out as she does; I wouldn’t be as bold as her; I wouldn’t seem to say to all male creeturs “Come and kiss me”’—and here a shudder quite convulsed her frame—‘for any earthly crowns as might be offered. Worlds,’ Miggs added solemnly, ‘should not reduce me. No. Not if I was Wenis.’
‘Well, but you ARE Wenus, you know,’ said Mr Dennis, confidentially.
‘No, I am not, good gentleman,’ answered Miggs, shaking her head with an air of self-denial which seemed to imply that she might be if she chose, but she hoped she knew better. ‘No, I am not, good gentleman. Don’t charge me with it.’
Up to this time she had turned round, every now and then, to where Dolly and Miss Haredale had retired and uttered a scream, or groan, or laid her hand upon her heart and trembled excessively, with a view of keeping up appearances, and giving them to understand that she conversed with the visitor, under protest and on compulsion, and at a great personal sacrifice, for their common good. But at this point, Mr Dennis looked so very full of meaning, and gave such a singularly expressive twitch to his face as a request to her to come still nearer to him, that she abandoned these little arts, and gave him her whole and undivided attention.
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Broadstairs.
Nineteenth August
1841.
My Dear George.
When Hugh and a small body of the rioters cut off from the Warren unbeknown to their pals, they forced into a ramshackle post-chaise Dolly Varden and Emma Haredale, and bore them away with all possible rapidity; one of their company driving, and the rest running beside the chaise, climbing up behind, sitting on the top, lighting the way with their torches &c &c. If you can express the woman inside without shewing them--as by a fluttering veil, a delicate arm or so forth, appearing at the half closed window--so much the better. Mr. Tappertit stands on the steps, which are partly down, and hanging on to the window with one hand, and extending the other with great magesty, addresses a few works of encouragement to the driver and attendents. Hugh sits upon the bar in front--the driver sitting postilion wise--and turns round to look through the window behind him at the little doves within. The gentleman behind are also curious to catch a glimpse of the ladies--one of those who are running at the side, may be gently rebuked for his curiosity by the cudgel of Hugh. So they cut away, Sir, as fast as they can.
Always Faithfully,
Charles DIckens
John Willet's bar is noble.
We take it for granted that cousin and baby are hearty.--Our loves to them.
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Chapter 66
Phiz
Text Illustrated:
There being now a great many parties in the streets, each went to work according to its humour, and a dozen houses were quickly blazing, in..."
This illustration reminds me a bit of a Bruegel. Lots of people involved in all sorts of various activities. I was able to enlarge the illustration on my iPad. It is amazing how Browne was able to include so much of a narrative into the illustration.
In the top left side is an interesting bit where we have some furniture being flung out a window. That's not all. It appears we have a child being tossed out the window as well. Gruesome and a touch humourous at the same time.
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Broadstairs.
Nineteenth August
1841.
My Dear George.
When Hugh and a small body of the rioters cut off from the Warren unbeknown to their pals, they forced into a..."
Dickens certainly has a clear visual image of what he wants to appear in the illustration. These are quite detailed instructions for the illustration. Is this Dickens being very helpful to Cattermole or is he micro-managing?
Peter wrote: "Did you find that Dickens, in any way, portrayed Hugh in heroic terms is this chapter?"Yes! He seems almost mythic:
Full twenty times, the rioters, headed by one man who wielded an axe in his right hand, and bestrode a brewer’s horse of great size and strength, caparisoned with fetters taken out of Newgate, which clanked and jingled as he went, made an attempt to force a passage at this point, and fire the vintner’s house. Full twenty times they were repulsed with loss of life, and still came back again; and though the fellow at their head was marked and singled out by all, and was a conspicuous object as the only rioter on horseback, not a man could hit him. So surely as the smoke cleared away, so surely there was he; calling hoarsely to his companions, brandishing his axe above his head, and dashing on as though he bore a charmed life, and was proof against ball and powder.
This man was Hugh; and in every part of the riot, he was seen.
Then next thing you know, he's out to murder innocent Haredale, and on his face slurping liquor from the street. So much for heroism.
I don't know what to make of Hugh, or even what I'm supposed to make of Hugh, and I have felt this way repeatedly as I read this book. I can't think what Dickens is trying to do with him.
On the other hand, he sure does an excellent job of evading stereotypes, and in that sense he's refreshing.
Mary Lou wrote: "I've about had it with the riots - and the rioters, for that matter ..."To my surprise, I'm with you, Mary Lou. I started out this book mentioning I admire the riot scenes (Tale of Two Cities is one of my favorites), and there are still some arresting moments here--the rioters drinking themselves to death, and Hugh on his horse come to mind. But I feel like this has just gone on too long, and I find myself wanting some plot, please.
And I miss Mr. Chester. And Barnaby bores me. He really does. I just don't find him all that believable.
But I'm glad to see Joe come back, and happy that Edward has been heroic. I'm hoping things take a turn in the next chapters, and we get the romances happily resolved, plus lots more Hugh and the return of Chester Sr. Oh, and locksmith Varden, of course. There really are a lot of good characters in this book.
Tristram wrote: "About Staggs: When I read the passage of how he tried to escape and was shot down by the soldiers, I couldn't help thinking that he was wasted in a way. He is one of the most interesting villains i..."This does make me appreciate Staggs more, and I agree he seems very oddly cut off. If this were a television serial and not a book, I'd think his actor quit.
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Thank you very much again for the splendid choice of illustrations you provided. I really love the ones by Barnard this week, mainly because of how he presents Dennis the hangman. There is a German expression called "Ohrfeigengesicht", which means a face that looks so dishonest and shifty that you'd like to slap it - and I must say that Barnard ennobles Dennis with exactly that kind of face. Seeing how he behaves in the novel, I think that nature would have tagged such a face on the hangman, as an act of kindness towards people who have to deal with Dennis and should be warned.
As to Hugh and the question of heroism: I still cannot understand his inveterate hatred for Mr. Haredale and why he would want to take that gentleman's life. Instead, I remember another scene, namely the one when the rioters were ransacking the Maypole Inn. I noticed that it was Hugh who, for all his taking part in the destruction of the Maypole, saw to it that nobody physically hurt his old master. Hugh had him be bound and humiliated but he made sure that nobody hurt or killed him. Dennis would probably have acted very differently, had he been in Hugh's shoes.
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Broadstairs.
Nineteenth August
1841.
My Dear George.
When Hugh and a small body of the rioters cut off from the Warren unbeknown to their pals, they fo..."
As much as I love reading Dickens, I think he must have been a pain in the neck to work with, being intrusive and hard to please. Yes, that is definitely an instance of micro-managing. It reminds me of a colleague of mine whom I gave a lift to school, and who constantly gave me unsought-for advice on traffic lights, speed and such things. After ten minutes, I pulled my car off the road, left the driver's seat, got in the back of the car and said, "Go ahead!"
He didn't, though, but at least kept his mouth shut during the rest of the ride. I needn't add that I did not give him a lift back :-)
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You just described teachers. ;-)
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No wonder you teach English instead of German, no one could say words like that.
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Like this perhaps?
“The Triumph of Death”
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Mod
He had finished his work of charity before he next wrote of Barnaby Rudge, but he was fetching up his lee-way lazily. "I am getting on" (29th of April) "very slowly. I want to stick to the story; and the fear of committing myself, because of the impossibility of trying back or altering a syllable, makes it much harder than it looks. It was too bad of me to give you the trouble of cutting the number, but I knew so well you would do it in the right places. For what Harley would call the 'onward work' I really think I have some famous thoughts." There is an interval of a month before the next allusion: "Solomon's expression" (3nd of June) "I meant to be one of those strong ones to which strong circumstances give birth in the commonest minds. Deal with it as you like. . . . Say what you please of Gordon" (I had objected to some points in his view of this madman, stated much too favorably as I thought), "he must have been at heart a kind man, and a lover of the despised and rejected, after his own fashion. He lived upon a small income, and always within it; was known to relieve the necessities of many people; exposed in his place the corrupt attempt of a minister to buy him out of Parliament; and did great charities in Newgate. He always spoke on the people's side, and tried against his muddled brains to expose the profligacy of both parties. He never got anything by his madness, and never sought it. The wildest and most raging attacks of the time allow him these merits: and not to let him have 'em in their full extent, remembering in what a (politically) wicked time he lived, would lie upon my conscience heavily. The libel he was imprisoned for when he died, was on the Queen of France; and the French government interested themselves warmly to procure his release,—which I think they might have done, but for Lord Grenville." I was more successful in the counsel I gave against a fancy he had at this part of the story, that he would introduce as actors in the Gordon riots three splendid fellows who should order, lead, control, and be obeyed as natural guides of the crowd in that delirious time, and who should turn out, when all was over, to have broken out from Bedlam; but, though he saw the unsoundness of this, he could not so readily see, in Gordon's case, the danger of taxing ingenuity to ascribe a reasonable motive to acts of sheer insanity. The feeblest parts of the book are those in which Lord George and his secretary appear.
He left for Scotland after the middle of June, but he took work with him. "You may suppose I have not done much work; but by Friday night's post from here I hope to send the first long chapter of a number and both the illustrations; from Loch Earn on Tuesday night, the closing chapter of that number; from the same place on Thursday night, the first long chapter of another, with both the illustrations; and, from some place which no man ever spelt but which sounds like Ballyhoolish, on Saturday, the closing chapter of that number, which will leave us all safe till I return to town." Nine days later he wrote from "Ballechelish," "I have done all I can or need do in the way of Barnaby until I come home, and the story is progressing (I hope you will think) to good strong interest. I have left it, I think, at an exciting point, with a good dawning of the riots. In the first of the two numbers I have written since I have been away, I forget whether the blind man, in speaking to Barnaby about riches, tells him they are to be found in crowds. If I have not actually used that word, will you introduce it? A perusal of the proof of the following number (70) will show you how, and why." "Have you," he wrote shortly after his return (29th July), "seen No. 71? I thought there was a good glimpse of a crowd, from a window—eh?" He had now taken thoroughly to the interest of his closing chapters, and felt more than ever the constraints of his form of publication. "I am warming up very much" (on the 5th August from Broadstairs) "about Barnaby. Oh! if I only had him, from this time to the end, in monthly numbers. N'importe! I hope the interest will be pretty strong,—and, in every number, stronger." Six days later, from the same place: "I was always sure I could make a good thing of Barnaby, and I think you'll find that it comes out strong to the last word. I have another number ready, all but two slips. Don't fear for young Chester. The time hasn't come——there we go again, you see, with the weekly delays. I am in great heart and spirits with the story, and with the prospect of having time to think before I go on again." A month's interval followed, and what occupied it will be described shortly. On the 11th September he wrote, "I have just burnt into Newgate, and am going in the next number to tear the prisoners out by the hair of their heads. The number which gets into the jail you'll have in proof by Tuesday." This was followed up a week later: "I have let all the prisoners out of Newgate, burnt down Lord Mansfield's, and played the very devil. Another number will finish the fires, and help us on towards the end. I feel quite smoky when I am at work. I want elbow-room terribly." To this trouble, graver supervened at his return, a serious personal sickness not the least; but he bore up gallantly, and I had never better occasion than now to observe his quiet endurance of pain, how little he thought of himself where the sense of self is commonly supreme, and the manful duty with which everything was done that, ailing as he was, he felt it necessary to do. He was still in his sick-room (22nd October) when he wrote, "I hope I sha'n't leave off any more, now, until I have finished Barnaby." Three days after that, he was busying himself eagerly for others; and on the 2nd of November the printers received the close of Barnaby Rudge.
This tale was Dickens's first attempt out of the sphere of the life of the day and its actual manners. Begun during the progress of Oliver Twist, it had been for some time laid aside; the form it ultimately took had been comprised only partially within its first design; and the story in its finished shape presented strongly a special purpose, the characteristic of all but his very earliest writings. Its scene is laid at the time when the incessant execution of men and women, comparatively innocent, disgraced every part of the country; demoralizing thousands, whom it also prepared for the scaffold. In those days the theft of a few rags from a bleaching-ground, or the abstraction of a roll of ribbons from a counter, was visited with the penalty of blood; and such laws brutalized both their ministers and victims. It was the time, too, when a false religious outcry brought with it appalling guilt and misery. These are vices that leave more behind them than the first forms assumed, and they involve a lesson sufficiently required to justify a writer in dealing with them. There were also others grafted on them. In Barnaby himself it was desired to show what sources of comfort there might be, for the patient and cheerful heart, in even the worst of all human afflictions; and in the hunted life of his outcast father, whose crime had entailed not that affliction only but other more fearful wretchedness, we have as powerful a picture as any in his writings of the inevitable and unfathomable consequences of sin. But, as the story went on, it was incident to these designs that what had been accomplished in its predecessor could hardly be attained here, in singleness of purpose, unity of idea, or harmony of treatment; and other defects supervened in the management of the plot. The interest with which the tale begins has ceased to be its interest before the close; and what has chiefly taken the reader's fancy at the outset almost wholly disappears in the power and passion with which, in the later chapters, the great riots are described. So admirable is this description, however, that it would be hard to have to surrender it even for a more perfect structure of fable.
There are few things more masterly in any of his books. From the first low mutterings of the storm to its last terrible explosion, this frantic outbreak of popular ignorance and rage is depicted with unabated power. The aimlessness of idle mischief by which the ranks of the rioters are swelled at the beginning; the recklessness induced by the monstrous impunity allowed to the early excesses; the sudden spread of this drunken guilt into every haunt of poverty, ignorance, or mischief in the wicked old city, where the rich materials of crime lie festering; the wild action of its poison on all, without scheme or plan of any kind, who come within its reach; the horrors that are more bewildering for this complete absence of purpose in them; and, when all is done, the misery found to have been self-inflicted in every cranny and corner of London, as if a plague had swept over the streets: these are features in the picture of an actual occurrence, to which the manner of the treatment gives extraordinary force and meaning. Nor, in the sequel, is there anything displayed with more profitable vividness than the law's indiscriminate cruelty at last, in contrast with its cowardly indifference at first; while, among the casual touches lighting up the scene with flashes of reality that illumine every part of it, may be instanced the discovery, in the quarter from which screams for succor are loudest when Newgate is supposed to be accidentally on fire, of four men who were certain in any case to have perished on the drop next day.
The story, which has unusually careful writing in it, and much manly upright thinking, has not so many people eagerly adopted as of kin by everybody, as its predecessors are famous for; but it has yet a fair proportion of such as take solid form within the mind and keep hold of the memory. To these belong in an especial degree Gabriel Varden and his household, on whom are lavished all the writer's fondness and not a little of his keenest humor. The honest locksmith with his jovial jug, and the tink-tink-tink of his pleasant nature making cheerful music out of steel and iron; the buxom wife, with her plaguy tongue that makes every one wretched whom her kindly disposition would desire to make happy; the good-hearted plump little Dolly, coquettish minx of a daughter, with all she suffers and inflicts by her fickle winning ways and her small self-admiring vanities; and Miggs the vicious and slippery, acid, amatory, and of uncomfortable figure, sower of family discontents and discords, who swears all the while she wouldn't make or meddle with 'em "not for a annual gold-mine and found in tea and sugar:" there is not much social painting anywhere with a better domestic moral than in all these; and a nice propriety of feeling and thought regulates the use of such satire throughout. No one knows more exactly how far to go with that formidable weapon, or understands better that what satirizes everything, in effect satirizes nothing.
Tristram wrote: "I noticed that it was Hugh who, for all his taking part in the destruction of the Maypole, saw to it that nobody physically hurt his old master. Hugh had him be bound and humiliated but he made sure that nobody hurt or killed him. Dennis would probably have acted very differently, had he been in Hugh's shoes."Yes, and Hugh releases the condemned prisoners that Dennis wants to keep around to hang. Dennis as a foil makes Hugh look a lot better.
But you can't get past his treatment of Haredale and Dolly.
OK, I'm moving him up past Chester as the most interesting character in the book.
I must admit, I also had kind of enough of the riots. Talking of Dutch painters, the rioting part also reminds me of the paintings Jeroen Bosch made of hell. Especially the 'too much going on, too much detail, too much horror'-part. It is overwhelming to a point I long for a bit of plot and 'normal' things, but it is intriguing at the same time!
Mod
Like this perhaps?
“The Triumph of Death”
Pieter Bruegel the Elder"
Kim
Yes indeed. There are so many different vignettes all wrapped up under one theme. You can spend a lot of time searching out all the details.
Mod
Jantine
Ah, yes. Bosch created so many highly disturbing paintings as well.
After viewing the “riot” illustrations I think we all need a rest in calmer places.
Mod
Julie
Yes.
As we near the end of the novel it is a great idea to ask all the Curiosities about their most interesting character in the novel.
Mod
He had finished his work of charity before he next wrote of Barnaby Rudge, but he was fetching up his lee-way lazily. "I am getting on" (29th of ..."
Kim
Wow. Thanks for tracking down this information. It gives us a very interesting and insightful view of how Dickens thought about and created his magic.
When I read that he was sending parts of novels through the mail it made me both shutter and get excited. What faith in the postal system. What a chance since he would not have had any backup copies saved on a “stick” or in the cloud. (Whatever the “cloud” is.)
Different times for sure.
Mod
You just described teachers. ;-)"
I know ... guilty as charged.
Hello Curiosities
Where has the summer gone? And, for that matter, can you believe we are rapidly closing in on the final chapters of Barnaby Rudge? I hope you have enjoyed the novel so far. How will Dickens finish off his tale? Let’s see what’s up in this week’s chapters.
Chapter 66 opens with the reader learning that Mr Haredale is spending every waking moment searching for his niece Emma. So far he has had no success, but he does learn that the government intends to bring the riots to an end. Haredale seeks a night’s rest in a hotel but the proprietor, fearing reprisals from the rioters, refuses to give him a room. Haredale’s wanderings lead him to Newgate where he reminds himself that his brother’s murderer is housed within. Haredale soon finds himself in a struggle with two men who steer him away from the jail. One of these men turns out to be Mr Langdale the old wine merchant he first saw at the Lord Mayor’s and the second man is none other than John Grueby who is now the wine merchant’s servant. Their purpose is to get Haredale away from the rioters for his own safety. We learn that Grueby has information about the rioters and their plans but defends Lord George as being “a misled man - a kind man.” The two men take Haredale to the distiller’s house. The men fetch a surgeon to attend to the ailing Haredale.
The three wait and wonder in the dark whether the vintner’s home and business will be attacked by the mob. They learn that Newgate has be taken by the mob, that the prisoners had escaped, and one section of the mob has broken into Lord Mansfield’s home and destroyed his Law Library. While this was occurring the troops arrived and the Riot Act was read. The troops fired upon the crowd and people were killed. Still the mob rioted and still more homes were ransacked and set on fire. Naturally, I must note that in one instance the rioters “found in one of the rooms some canary birds in cages, and these [the mob] cast into the fire alive.” One of the mob who took pity on the birds was almost killed by his fellow rioters. Surely chaos rules the streets of London.
Thoughts
This is a short chapter but does serve a very important function in terms of plot advancement. Why do you think Dickens has Haredale rescued from the mob in front of Newgate?
What is the significance that his rescuers are Grueby and Langdale who we have met much earlier in the novel?
Grueby and Haredale go to Langdale’s home. What do you think may occur to his home in the forthcoming chapters? What are your reasons for this supposition?
We learn in this chapter that not only has Newgate prison been breached by the mob but also that the prisoners have been released. How might this fact become important in the chapters to come?
Do you think there is any symbolic significance to the anecdote in the chapter about the caged birds that were thrown into the fires of the riots? If so, who might the caged birds represent?