John Willet, left alone in his dismantled bar, continued to sit
staring about him; awake as to his eyes, certainly, but with all his powers of
reason and reflection in a sound and dreamless sleep. He looked round upon the
room which had been for years, and was within an hour ago, the pride of his
heart; and not a muscle of his face was moved. The night, without, looked black
and cold through the dreary gaps in the casement; the precious liquids, now
nearly leaked away, dripped with a hollow sound upon the floor; the Maypole
peered ruefully in through the broken window, like the bowsprit of a wrecked
ship; the ground might have been the bottom of the sea, it was so strewn with
precious fragments. Currents of air rushed in, as the old doors jarred and
creaked upon their hinges; the candles flickered and guttered down, and made
long winding-sheets; the cheery deep-red curtains flapped and fluttered idly in
the wind; even the stout Dutch kegs, overthrown and lying empty in dark corners,
seemed the mere husks of good fellows whose jollity had departed, and who could
kindle with a friendly glow no more. John saw this desolation, and yet saw it
not. He was perfectly contented to sit there, staring at it, and felt no more
indignation or discomfort in his bonds than if they had been robes of honour. So
far as he was personally concerned, old Time lay snoring, and the world stood
still.
Save for the dripping from the barrels, the rustling of such light fragments
of destruction as the wind affected, and the dull creaking of the open doors,
all was profoundly quiet: indeed, these sounds, like the ticking of the
death-watch in the night, only made the silence they invaded deeper and more
apparent. But quiet or noisy, it was all one to John. If a train of heavy
artillery could have come up and commenced ball practice outside the window, it
would have been all the same to him. He was a long way beyond surprise. A ghost
couldn't have overtaken him.
By and by he heard a footstep--a hurried, and yet cautious footstep--coming
on towards the house. It stopped, advanced again, then seemed to go quite round
it. Having done that, it came beneath the window, and a head looked in.
It was strongly relieved against the darkness outside by the glare of the
guttering candles. A pale, worn, withered face; the eyes-- but that was owing to
its gaunt condition--unnaturally large and bright; the hair, a grizzled black.
It gave a searching glance all round the room, and a deep voice said:
'Are you alone in this house?'
John made no sign, though the question was repeated twice, and he heard it
distinctly. After a moment's pause, the man got in at the window. John was not
at all surprised at this, either. There had been so much getting in and out of
window in the course of the last hour or so, that he had quite forgotten the
door, and seemed to have lived among such exercises from infancy.
The man wore a large, dark, faded cloak, and a slouched hat; he walked up
close to John, and looked at him. John returned the compliment with interest.
'How long have you been sitting thus?' said the man.
John considered, but nothing came of it.
'Which way have the party gone?'
Some wandering speculations relative to the fashion of the stranger's boots,
got into Mr Willet's mind by some accident or other, but they got out again in a
hurry, and left him in his former state.
'You would do well to speak,' said the man; 'you may keep a whole skin,
though you have nothing else left that can be hurt. Which way have the party
gone?'
'That!' said John, finding his voice all at once, and nodding with perfect
good faith--he couldn't point; he was so tightly bound--in exactly the opposite
direction to the right one.
'You lie!' said the man angrily, and with a threatening gesture. 'I came that
way. You would betray me.'
It was so evident that John's imperturbability was not assumed, but was the
result of the late proceedings under his roof, that the man stayed his hand in
the very act of striking him, and turned away.
John looked after him without so much as a twitch in a single nerve of his
face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the little casks until a
few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; then throwing it down upon
the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in his hands and drained it into his
throat. Some scraps of bread and meat were scattered about, and on these he fell
next; eating them with voracity, and pausing every now and then to listen for
some fancied noise outside. When he had refreshed himself in this manner with
violent haste, and raised another barrel to his lips, he pulled his hat upon his
brow as though he were about to leave the house, and turned to John.
'Where are your servants?'
Mr Willet indistinctly remembered to have heard the rioters calling to them
to throw the key of the room in which they were, out of window, for their
keeping. He therefore replied, 'Locked up.'
'Well for them if they remain quiet, and well for you if you do the like,'
said the man. 'Now show me the way the party went.'
This time Mr Willet indicated it correctly. The man was hurrying to the door,
when suddenly there came towards them on the wind, the loud and rapid tolling of
an alarm-bell, and then a bright and vivid glare streamed up, which illumined,
not only the whole chamber, but all the country.
It was not the sudden change from darkness to this dreadful light, it was not
the sound of distant shrieks and shouts of triumph, it was not this dread
invasion of the serenity and peace of night, that drove the man back as though a
thunderbolt had struck him. It was the Bell. If the ghastliest shape the human
mind has ever pictured in its wildest dreams had risen up before him, he could
not have staggered backward from its touch, as he did from the first sound of
that loud iron voice. With eyes that started from his head, his limbs convulsed,
his face most horrible to see, he raised one arm high up into the air, and
holding something visionary back and down, with his other hand, drove at it as
though he held a knife and stabbed it to the heart. He clutched his hair, and
stopped his ears, and travelled madly round and round; then gave a frightful
cry, and with it rushed away: still, still, the Bell tolled on and seemed to
follow him--louder and louder, hotter and hotter yet. The glare grew brighter,
the roar of voices deeper; the crash of heavy bodies falling, shook the air;
bright streams of sparks rose up into the sky; but louder than them all-- rising
faster far, to Heaven--a million times more fierce and furious--pouring forth
dreadful secrets after its long silence-- speaking the language of the dead--the
Bell--the Bell!
What hunt of spectres could surpass that dread pursuit and flight! Had there
been a legion of them on his track, he could have better borne it. They would
have had a beginning and an end, but here all space was full. The one pursuing
voice was everywhere: it sounded in the earth, the air; shook the long grass,
and howled among the trembling trees. The echoes caught it up, the owls hooted
as it flew upon the breeze, the nightingale was silent and hid herself among the
thickest boughs: it seemed to goad and urge the angry fire, and lash it into
madness; everything was steeped in one prevailing red; the glow was everywhere;
nature was drenched in blood: still the remorseless crying of that awful
voice--the Bell, the Bell!
It ceased; but not in his ears. The knell was at his heart. No work of man
had ever voice like that which sounded there, and warned him that it cried
unceasingly to Heaven. Who could hear that hell, and not know what it said!
There was murder in its every note--cruel, relentless, savage murder--the murder
of a confiding man, by one who held his every trust. Its ringing summoned
phantoms from their graves. What face was that, in which a friendly smile
changed to a look of half incredulous horror, which stiffened for a moment into
one of pain, then changed again into an imploring glance at Heaven, and so fell
idly down with upturned eyes, like the dead stags' he had often peeped at when a
little child: shrinking and shuddering--there was a dreadful thing to think of
now!--and clinging to an apron as he looked! He sank upon the ground, and
grovelling down as if he would dig himself a place to hide in, covered his face
and ears: but no, no, no,--a hundred walls and roofs of brass would not shut out
that bell, for in it spoke the wrathful voice of God, and from that voice, the
whole wide universe could not afford a refuge!
While he rushed up and down, not knowing where to turn, and while he lay
crouching there, the work went briskly on indeed. When they left the Maypole,
the rioters formed into a solid body, and advanced at a quick pace towards the
Warren. Rumour of their approach having gone before, they found the garden-doors
fast closed, the windows made secure, and the house profoundly dark: not a light
being visible in any portion of the building. After some fruitless ringing at
the bells, and beating at the iron gates, they drew off a few paces to
reconnoitre, and confer upon the course it would be best to take.
Very little conference was needed, when all were bent upon one desperate
purpose, infuriated with liquor, and flushed with successful riot. The word
being given to surround the house, some climbed the gates, or dropped into the
shallow trench and scaled the garden wall, while others pulled down the solid
iron fence, and while they made a breach to enter by, made deadly weapons of the
bars. The house being completely encircled, a small number of men were
despatched to break open a tool-shed in the garden; and during their absence on
this errand, the remainder contented themselves with knocking violently at the
doors, and calling to those within, to come down and open them on peril of their
lives.
No answer being returned to this repeated summons, and the detachment who had
been sent away, coming back with an accession of pickaxes, spades, and hoes,
they,--together with those who had such arms already, or carried (as many did)
axes, poles, and crowbars,-- struggled into the foremost rank, ready to beset
the doors and windows. They had not at this time more than a dozen lighted
torches among them; but when these preparations were completed, flaming links
were distributed and passed from hand to hand with such rapidity, that, in a
minute's time, at least two-thirds of the whole roaring mass bore, each man in
his hand, a blazing brand. Whirling these about their heads they raised a loud
shout, and fell to work upon the doors and windows.
Amidst the clattering of heavy blows, the rattling of broken glass, the cries
and execrations of the mob, and all the din and turmoil of the scene, Hugh and
his friends kept together at the turret-door where Mr Haredale had last admitted
him and old John Willet; and spent their united force on that. It was a strong
old oaken door, guarded by good bolts and a heavy bar, but it soon went crashing
in upon the narrow stairs behind, and made, as it were, a platform to facilitate
their tearing up into the rooms above. Almost at the same moment, a dozen other
points were forced, and at every one the crowd poured in like water.
A few armed servant-men were posted in the hall, and when the rioters forced
an entrance there, they fired some half-a-dozen shots. But these taking no
effect, and the concourse coming on like an army of devils, they only thought of
consulting their own safety, and retreated, echoing their assailants' cries, and
hoping in the confusion to be taken for rioters themselves; in which stratagem
they succeeded, with the exception of one old man who was never heard of again,
and was said to have had his brains beaten out with an iron bar (one of his
fellows reported that he had seen the old man fall), and to have been afterwards
burnt in the flames.
The besiegers being now in complete possession of the house, spread
themselves over it from garret to cellar, and plied their demon labours
fiercely. While some small parties kindled bonfires underneath the windows,
others broke up the furniture and cast the fragments down to feed the flames
below; where the apertures in the wall (windows no longer) were large enough,
they threw out tables, chests of drawers, beds, mirrors, pictures, and flung
them whole into the fire; while every fresh addition to the blazing masses was
received with shouts, and howls, and yells, which added new and dismal terrors
to the conflagration. Those who had axes and had spent their fury on the
movables, chopped and tore down the doors and window frames, broke up the
flooring, hewed away the rafters, and buried men who lingered in the upper
rooms, in heaps of ruins. Some searched the drawers, the chests, the boxes,
writing-desks, and closets, for jewels, plate, and money; while others, less
mindful of gain and more mad for destruction, cast their whole contents into the
courtyard without examination, and called to those below, to heap them on the
blaze. Men who had been into the cellars, and had staved the casks, rushed to
and fro stark mad, setting fire to all they saw--often to the dresses of their
own friends--and kindling the building in so many parts that some had no time
for escape, and were seen, with drooping hands and blackened faces, hanging
senseless on the window-sills to which they had crawled, until they were sucked
and drawn into the burning gulf. The more the fire crackled and raged, the
wilder and more cruel the men grew; as though moving in that element they became
fiends, and changed their earthly nature for the qualities that give delight in
hell.
The burning pile, revealing rooms and passages red hot, through gaps made in
the crumbling walls; the tributary fires that licked the outer bricks and
stones, with their long forked tongues, and ran up to meet the glowing mass
within; the shining of the flames upon the villains who looked on and fed them;
the roaring of the angry blaze, so bright and high that it seemed in its
rapacity to have swallowed up the very smoke; the living flakes the wind bore
rapidly away and hurried on with, like a storm of fiery snow; the noiseless
breaking of great beams of wood, which fell like feathers on the heap of ashes,
and crumbled in the very act to sparks and powder; the lurid tinge that
overspread the sky, and the darkness, very deep by contrast, which prevailed
around; the exposure to the coarse, common gaze, of every little nook which
usages of home had made a sacred place, and the destruction by rude hands of
every little household favourite which old associations made a dear and precious
thing: all this taking place--not among pitying looks and friendly murmurs of
compassion, but brutal shouts and exultations, which seemed to make the very
rats who stood by the old house too long, creatures with some claim upon the
pity and regard of those its roof had sheltered:--combined to form a scene never
to be forgotten by those who saw it and were not actors in the work, so long as
life endured.
And who were they? The alarm-bell rang--and it was pulled by no faint or
hesitating hands--for a long time; but not a soul was seen. Some of the
insurgents said that when it ceased, they heard the shrieks of women, and saw
some garments fluttering in the air, as a party of men bore away no unresisting
burdens. No one could say that this was true or false, in such an uproar; but
where was Hugh? Who among them had seen him, since the forcing of the doors? The
cry spread through the body. Where was Hugh!
'Here!' he hoarsely cried, appearing from the darkness; out of breath, and
blackened with the smoke. 'We have done all we can; the fire is burning itself
out; and even the corners where it hasn't spread, are nothing but heaps of
ruins. Disperse, my lads, while the coast's clear; get back by different ways;
and meet as usual!' With that, he disappeared again,--contrary to his wont, for
he was always first to advance, and last to go away,--leaving them to follow
homewards as they would.
It was not an easy task to draw off such a throng. If Bedlam gates had been
flung wide open, there would not have issued forth such maniacs as the frenzy of
that night had made. There were men there, who danced and trampled on the beds
of flowers as though they trod down human enemies, and wrenched them from the
stalks, like savages who twisted human necks. There were men who cast their
lighted torches in the air, and suffered them to fall upon their heads and
faces, blistering the skin with deep unseemly burns. There were men who rushed
up to the fire, and paddled in it with their hands as if in water; and others
who were restrained by force from plunging in, to gratify their deadly longing.
On the skull of one drunken lad--not twenty, by his looks--who lay upon the
ground with a bottle to his mouth, the lead from the roof came streaming down in
a shower of liquid fire, white hot; melting his head like wax. When the
scattered parties were collected, men-- living yet, but singed as with hot
irons--were plucked out of the cellars, and carried off upon the shoulders of
others, who strove to wake them as they went along, with ribald jokes, and left
them, dead, in the passages of hospitals. But of all the howling throng not one
learnt mercy from, or sickened at, these sights; nor was the fierce, besotted,
senseless rage of one man glutted.
Slowly, and in small clusters, with hoarse hurrahs and repetitions of their
usual cry, the assembly dropped away. The last few red- eyed stragglers reeled
after those who had gone before; the distant noise of men calling to each other,
and whistling for others whom they missed, grew fainter and fainter; at length
even these sounds died away, and silence reigned alone.
Silence indeed! The glare of the flames had sunk into a fitful, flashing
light; and the gentle stars, invisible till now, looked down upon the blackening
heap. A dull smoke hung upon the ruin, as though to hide it from those eyes of
Heaven; and the wind forbore to move it. Bare walls, roof open to the
sky--chambers, where the beloved dead had, many and many a fair day, risen to
new life and energy; where so many dear ones had been sad and merry; which were
connected with so many thoughts and hopes, regrets and changes--all gone.
Nothing left but a dull and dreary blank--a smouldering heap of dust and
ashes--the silence and solitude of utter desolation.
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