Chapter 36
Gashford, with a smiling face, but still with looks of profounddeference and humility, betook himself towards his master's room,smoothing his hair down as he went, and humming a psalm tune. As heapproached Lord George's door, he cleared his throat and hummed morevigorously.
There was a remarkable contrast between this man's occupation at themoment, and the expression of his countenance, which was singularlyrepulsive and malicious. His beetling brow almost obscured his eyes;his lip was curled contemptuously; his very shoulders seemed to sneer instealthy whisperings with his great flapped ears.
'Hush!' he muttered softly, as he peeped in at the chamber-door. 'Heseems to be asleep. Pray Heaven he is! Too much watching, too much care,too much thought--ah! Lord preserve him for a martyr! He is a saint, ifever saint drew breath on this bad earth.'
Placing his light upon a table, he walked on tiptoe to the fire, andsitting in a chair before it with his back towards the bed, went oncommuning with himself like one who thought aloud:
'The saviour of his country and his country's religion, the friend ofhis poor countrymen, the enemy of the proud and harsh; beloved of therejected and oppressed, adored by forty thousand bold and loyal Englishhearts--what happy slumbers his should be!' And here he sighed, andwarmed his hands, and shook his head as men do when their hearts arefull, and heaved another sigh, and warmed his hands again.
'Why, Gashford?' said Lord George, who was lying broad awake, upon hisside, and had been staring at him from his entrance.
'My--my lord,' said Gashford, starting and looking round as though ingreat surprise. 'I have disturbed you!'
'I have not been sleeping.'
'Not sleeping!' he repeated, with assumed confusion. 'What can I sayfor having in your presence given utterance to thoughts--but they weresincere--they were sincere!' exclaimed the secretary, drawing his sleevein a hasty way across his eyes; 'and why should I regret your havingheard them?'
'Gashford,' said the poor lord, stretching out his hand with manifestemotion. 'Do not regret it. You love me well, I know--too well. I don'tdeserve such homage.'
Gashford made no reply, but grasped the hand and pressed it to his lips.Then rising, and taking from the trunk a little desk, he placed it ona table near the fire, unlocked it with a key he carried in his pocket,sat down before it, took out a pen, and, before dipping it in theinkstand, sucked it--to compose the fashion of his mouth perhaps, onwhich a smile was hovering yet.
'How do our numbers stand since last enrolling-night?' inquired LordGeorge. 'Are we really forty thousand strong, or do we still speak inround numbers when we take the Association at that amount?'
'Our total now exceeds that number by a score and three,' Gashfordreplied, casting his eyes upon his papers.
'The funds?'
'Not VERY improving; but there is some manna in the wilderness, my lord.Hem! On Friday night the widows' mites dropped in. "Forty scavengers,three and fourpence. An aged pew-opener of St Martin's parish, sixpence.A bell-ringer of the established church, sixpence. A Protestant infant,newly born, one halfpenny. The United Link Boys, three shillings--onebad. The anti-popish prisoners in Newgate, five and fourpence. A friendin Bedlam, half-a-crown. Dennis the hangman, one shilling."'
'That Dennis,' said his lordship, 'is an earnest man. I marked him inthe crowd in Welbeck Street, last Friday.'
'A good man,' rejoined the secretary, 'a staunch, sincere, and trulyzealous man.'
'He should be encouraged,' said Lord George. 'Make a note of Dennis.I'll talk with him.'
Gashford obeyed, and went on reading from his list:
'"The Friends of Reason, half-a-guinea. The Friends of Liberty,half-a-guinea. The Friends of Peace, half-a-guinea. The Friends ofCharity, half-a-guinea. The Friends of Mercy, half-a-guinea. TheAssociated Rememberers of Bloody Mary, half-a-guinea. The UnitedBulldogs, half-a-guinea."'
'The United Bulldogs,' said Lord George, biting his nails most horribly,'are a new society, are they not?'
'Formerly the 'Prentice Knights, my lord. The indentures of the oldmembers expiring by degrees, they changed their name, it seems, thoughthey still have 'prentices among them, as well as workmen.'
'What is their president's name?' inquired Lord George.
'President,' said Gashford, reading, 'Mr Simon Tappertit.'
'I remember him. The little man, who sometimes brings an elderly sisterto our meetings, and sometimes another female too, who is conscientious,I have no doubt, but not well-favoured?'
'The very same, my lord.'
'Tappertit is an earnest man,' said Lord George, thoughtfully. 'Eh,Gashford?'
'One of the foremost among them all, my lord. He snuffs the battle fromafar, like the war-horse. He throws his hat up in the street as if hewere inspired, and makes most stirring speeches from the shoulders ofhis friends.'
'Make a note of Tappertit,' said Lord George Gordon. 'We may advance himto a place of trust.'
'That,' rejoined the secretary, doing as he was told, 'is all--exceptMrs Varden's box (fourteenth time of opening), seven shillings andsixpence in silver and copper, and half-a-guinea in gold; and Miggs(being the saving of a quarter's wages), one-and-threepence.'
'Miggs,' said Lord George. 'Is that a man?'
'The name is entered on the list as a woman,' replied the secretary. 'Ithink she is the tall spare female of whom you spoke just now, mylord, as not being well-favoured, who sometimes comes to hear thespeeches--along with Tappertit and Mrs Varden.'
'Mrs Varden is the elderly lady then, is she?'
The secretary nodded, and rubbed the bridge of his nose with the featherof his pen.
'She is a zealous sister,' said Lord George. 'Her collection goes onprosperously, and is pursued with fervour. Has her husband joined?'
'A malignant,' returned the secretary, folding up his papers. 'Unworthysuch a wife. He remains in outer darkness and steadily refuses.'
'The consequences be upon his own head!--Gashford!'
'My lord!'
'You don't think,' he turned restlessly in his bed as he spoke, 'thesepeople will desert me, when the hour arrives? I have spoken boldly forthem, ventured much, suppressed nothing. They'll not fall off, willthey?'
'No fear of that, my lord,' said Gashford, with a meaning look, whichwas rather the involuntary expression of his own thoughts than intendedas any confirmation of his words, for the other's face was turned away.'Be sure there is no fear of that.'
'Nor,' he said with a more restless motion than before, 'of their--butthey CAN sustain no harm from leaguing for this purpose. Right is onour side, though Might may be against us. You feel as sure of that asI--honestly, you do?'
The secretary was beginning with 'You do not doubt,' when the otherinterrupted him, and impatiently rejoined:
'Doubt. No. Who says I doubt? If I doubted, should I cast awayrelatives, friends, everything, for this unhappy country's sake; thisunhappy country,' he cried, springing up in bed, after repeating thephrase 'unhappy country's sake' to himself, at least a dozen times,'forsaken of God and man, delivered over to a dangerous confederacy ofPopish powers; the prey of corruption, idolatry, and despotism! Who saysI doubt? Am I called, and chosen, and faithful? Tell me. Am I, or am Inot?'
'To God, the country, and yourself,' cried Gashford.
'I am. I will be. I say again, I will be: to the block. Who says asmuch! Do you? Does any man alive?'
The secretary drooped his head with an expression of perfectacquiescence in anything that had been said or might be; and Lord Georgegradually sinking down upon his pillow, fell asleep.
Although there was something very ludicrous in his vehement manner,taken in conjunction with his meagre aspect and ungraceful presence, itwould scarcely have provoked a smile in any man of kindly feeling; oreven if it had, he would have felt sorry and almost angry with himselfnext moment, for yielding to the impulse. This lord was sincere in hisviolence and in his wavering. A nature prone to false enthusiasm, andthe vanity of being a leader, wer
e the worst qualities apparent in hiscomposition. All the rest was weakness--sheer weakness; and it isthe unhappy lot of thoroughly weak men, that their very sympathies,affections, confidences--all the qualities which in better constitutedminds are virtues--dwindle into foibles, or turn into downright vices.
Gashford, with many a sly look towards the bed, sat chuckling at hismaster's folly, until his deep and heavy breathing warned him that hemight retire. Locking his desk, and replacing it within the trunk (butnot before he had taken from a secret lining two printed handbills), hecautiously withdrew; looking back, as he went, at the pale face ofthe slumbering man, above whose head the dusty plumes that crowned theMaypole couch, waved drearily and sadly as though it were a bier.
Stopping on the staircase to listen that all was quiet, and to take offhis shoes lest his footsteps should alarm any light sleeper who mightbe near at hand, he descended to the ground floor, and thrust one of hisbills beneath the great door of the house. That done, he crept softlyback to his own chamber, and from the window let another fall--carefullywrapt round a stone to save it from the wind--into the yard below.
They were addressed on the back 'To every Protestant into whose handsthis shall come,' and bore within what follows:
'Men and Brethren. Whoever shall find this letter, will take it as awarning to join, without delay, the friends of Lord George Gordon. Thereare great events at hand; and the times are dangerous and troubled. Readthis carefully, keep it clean, and drop it somewhere else. For King andCountry. Union.'
'More seed, more seed,' said Gashford as he closed the window. 'Whenwill the harvest come!'
Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty Page 37