They were not long in reaching the barracks, for the officer
who commanded the party was desirous to avoid rousing the people by the display
of military force in the streets, and was humanely anxious to give as little
opportunity as possible for any attempt at rescue; knowing that it must lead to
bloodshed and loss of life, and that if the civil authorities by whom he was
accompanied, empowered him to order his men to fire, many innocent persons would
probably fall, whom curiosity or idleness had attracted to the spot. He
therefore led the party briskly on, avoiding with a merciful prudence the more
public and crowded thoroughfares, and pursuing those which he deemed least
likely to be infested by disorderly persons. This wise proceeding not only
enabled them to gain their quarters without any interruption, but completely
baffled a body of rioters who had assembled in one of the main streets, through
which it was considered certain they would pass, and who remained gathered
together for the purpose of releasing the prisoner from their hands, long after
they had deposited him in a place of security, closed the barrack-gates, and set
a double guard at every entrance for its better protection.
Arrived at this place, poor Barnaby was marched into a stone- floored room,
where there was a very powerful smell of tobacco, a strong thorough draught of
air, and a great wooden bedstead, large enough for a score of men. Several
soldiers in undress were lounging about, or eating from tin cans; military
accoutrements dangled on rows of pegs along the whitewashed wall; and some half-
dozen men lay fast asleep upon their backs, snoring in concert. After remaining
here just long enough to note these things, he was marched out again, and
conveyed across the parade-ground to another portion of the building.
Perhaps a man never sees so much at a glance as when he is in a situation of
extremity. The chances are a hundred to one, that if Barnaby had lounged in at
the gate to look about him, he would have lounged out again with a very
imperfect idea of the place, and would have remembered very little about it. But
as he was taken handcuffed across the gravelled area, nothing escaped his
notice. The dry, arid look of the dusty square, and of the bare brick building;
the clothes hanging at some of the windows; and the men in their shirt-sleeves
and braces, lolling with half their bodies out of the others; the green
sun-blinds at the officers' quarters, and the little scanty trees in front; the
drummer-boys practising in a distant courtyard; the men at drill on the parade;
the two soldiers carrying a basket between them, who winked to each other as he
went by, and slily pointed to their throats; the spruce serjeant who hurried
past with a cane in his hand, and under his arm a clasped book with a vellum
cover; the fellows in the ground- floor rooms, furbishing and brushing up their
different articles of dress, who stopped to look at him, and whose voices as
they spoke together echoed loudly through the empty galleries and passages;--
everything, down to the stand of muskets before the guard-house, and the drum
with a pipe-clayed belt attached, in one corner, impressed itself upon his
observation, as though he had noticed them in the same place a hundred times, or
had been a whole day among them, in place of one brief hurried minute.
He was taken into a small paved back yard, and there they opened a great
door, plated with iron, and pierced some five feet above the ground with a few
holes to let in air and light. Into this dungeon he was walked straightway; and
having locked him up there, and placed a sentry over him, they left him to his
meditations.
The cell, or black hole, for it had those words painted on the door, was very
dark, and having recently accommodated a drunken deserter, by no means clean.
Barnaby felt his way to some straw at the farther end, and looking towards the
door, tried to accustom himself to the gloom, which, coming from the bright
sunshine out of doors, was not an easy task.
There was a kind of portico or colonnade outside, and this obstructed even
the little light that at the best could have found its way through the small
apertures in the door. The footsteps of the sentinel echoed monotonously as he
paced its stone pavement to and fro (reminding Barnaby of the watch he had so
lately kept himself); and as he passed and repassed the door, he made the cell
for an instant so black by the interposition of his body, that his going away
again seemed like the appearance of a new ray of light, and was quite a
circumstance to look for.
When the prisoner had sat sometime upon the ground, gazing at the chinks, and
listening to the advancing and receding footsteps of his guard, the man stood
still upon his post. Barnaby, quite unable to think, or to speculate on what
would be done with him, had been lulled into a kind of doze by his regular pace;
but his stopping roused him; and then he became aware that two men were in
conversation under the colonnade, and very near the door of his cell.
How long they had been talking there, he could not tell, for he had fallen
into an unconsciousness of his real position, and when the footsteps ceased, was
answering aloud some question which seemed to have been put to him by Hugh in
the stable, though of the fancied purport, either of question or reply,
notwithstanding that he awoke with the latter on his lips, he had no
recollection whatever. The first words that reached his ears, were these:
'Why is he brought here then, if he has to be taken away again so soon?'
'Why where would you have him go! Damme, he's not as safe anywhere as among
the king's troops, is he? What WOULD you do with him? Would you hand him over to
a pack of cowardly civilians, that shake in their shoes till they wear the soles
out, with trembling at the threats of the ragamuffins he belongs to?'
'That's true enough.'
'True enough!--I'll tell you what. I wish, Tom Green, that I was a
commissioned instead of a non-commissioned officer, and that I had the command
of two companies--only two companies--of my own regiment. Call me out to stop
these riots--give me the needful authority, and half-a-dozen rounds of ball
cartridge--'
'Ay!' said the other voice. 'That's all very well, but they won't give the
needful authority. If the magistrate won't give the word, what's the officer to
do?'
Not very well knowing, as it seemed, how to overcome this difficulty, the
other man contented himself with damning the magistrates.
'With all my heart,' said his friend.
'Where's the use of a magistrate?' returned the other voice. 'What's a
magistrate in this case, but an impertinent, unnecessary, unconstitutional sort
of interference? Here's a proclamation. Here's a man referred to in that
proclamation. Here's proof against him, and a witness on the spot. Damme! Take
him out and shoot him, sir. Who wants a magistrate?'
'When does he go before Sir John Fielding?' asked the man who had spoken
first.
'To-night at eight o'clock,' returned the other. 'Mark what follows. The
magistrate commits him to Newgate. Our people take him to Newgate. The rioters
pelt our people. Our people retire before the rioters. Stones are thrown,
insults are offered, not a shot's fired. Why? Because of the magistrates. Damn
the magistrates!'
When he had in some degree relieved his mind by cursing the magistrates in
various other forms of speech, the man was silent, save for a low growling,
still having reference to those authorities, which from time to time escaped
him.
Barnaby, who had wit enough to know that this conversation concerned, and
very nearly concerned, himself, remained perfectly quiet until they ceased to
speak, when he groped his way to the door, and peeping through the air-holes,
tried to make out what kind of men they were, to whom he had been listening.
The one who condemned the civil power in such strong terms, was a
serjeant--engaged just then, as the streaming ribands in his cap announced, on
the recruiting service. He stood leaning sideways against a pillar nearly
opposite the door, and as he growled to himself, drew figures on the pavement
with his cane. The other man had his back towards the dungeon, and Barnaby could
only see his form. To judge from that, he was a gallant, manly, handsome fellow,
but he had lost his left arm. It had been taken off between the elbow and the
shoulder, and his empty coat-sleeve hung across his breast.
It was probably this circumstance which gave him an interest beyond any that
his companion could boast of, and attracted Barnaby's attention. There was
something soldierly in his bearing, and he wore a jaunty cap and jacket. Perhaps
he had been in the service at one time or other. If he had, it could not have
been very long ago, for he was but a young fellow now.
'Well, well,' he said thoughtfully; 'let the fault be where it may, it makes
a man sorrowful to come back to old England, and see her in this condition.'
'I suppose the pigs will join 'em next,' said the serjeant, with an
imprecation on the rioters, 'now that the birds have set 'em the example.'
'The birds!' repeated Tom Green.
'Ah--birds,' said the serjeant testily; 'that's English, an't it?'
'I don't know what you mean.'
'Go to the guard-house, and see. You'll find a bird there, that's got their
cry as pat as any of 'em, and bawls "No Popery," like a man--or like a devil, as
he says he is. I shouldn't wonder. The devil's loose in London somewhere. Damme
if I wouldn't twist his neck round, on the chance, if I had MY way.'
The young man had taken two or three steps away, as if to go and see this
creature, when he was arrested by the voice of Barnaby.
'It's mine,' he called out, half laughing and half weeping--'my pet, my
friend Grip. Ha ha ha! Don't hurt him, he has done no harm. I taught him; it's
my fault. Let me have him, if you please. He's the only friend I have left now.
He'll not dance, or talk, or whistle for you, I know; but he will for me,
because he knows me and loves me--though you wouldn't think it--very well. You
wouldn't hurt a bird, I'm sure. You're a brave soldier, sir, and wouldn't harm a
woman or a child--no, no, nor a poor bird, I'm certain.'
This latter adjuration was addressed to the serjeant, whom Barnaby judged
from his red coat to be high in office, and able to seal Grip's destiny by a
word. But that gentleman, in reply, surlily damned him for a thief and rebel as
he was, and with many disinterested imprecations on his own eyes, liver, blood,
and body, assured him that if it rested with him to decide, he would put a final
stopper on the bird, and his master too.
'You talk boldly to a caged man,' said Barnaby, in anger. 'If I was on the
other side of the door and there were none to part us, you'd change your
note--ay, you may toss your head--you would! Kill the bird--do. Kill anything
you can, and so revenge yourself on those who with their bare hands untied could
do as much to you!'
Having vented his defiance, he flung himself into the furthest corner of his
prison, and muttering, 'Good bye, Grip--good bye, dear old Grip!' shed tears for
the first time since he had been taken captive; and hid his face in the straw.
He had had some fancy at first, that the one-armed man would help him, or
would give him a kind word in answer. He hardly knew why, but he hoped and
thought so. The young fellow had stopped when he called out, and checking
himself in the very act of turning round, stood listening to every word he said.
Perhaps he built his feeble trust on this; perhaps on his being young, and
having a frank and honest manner. However that might be, he built on sand. The
other went away directly he had finished speaking, and neither answered him, nor
returned. No matter. They were all against him here: he might have known as
much. Good bye, old Grip, good bye!
After some time, they came and unlocked the door, and called to him to come
out. He rose directly, and complied, for he would not have THEM think he was
subdued or frightened. He walked out like a man, and looked from face to face.
None of them returned his gaze or seemed to notice it. They marched him back
to the parade by the way they had brought him, and there they halted, among a
body of soldiers, at least twice as numerous as that which had taken him
prisoner in the afternoon. The officer he had seen before, bade him in a few
brief words take notice that if he attempted to escape, no matter how favourable
a chance he might suppose he had, certain of the men had orders to fire upon
him, that moment. They then closed round him as before, and marched him off
again.
In the same unbroken order they arrived at Bow Street, followed and beset on
all sides by a crowd which was continually increasing. Here he was placed before
a blind gentleman, and asked if he wished to say anything. Not he. What had he
got to tell them? After a very little talking, which he was careless of and
quite indifferent to, they told him he was to go to Newgate, and took him away.
He went out into the street, so surrounded and hemmed in on every side by
soldiers, that he could see nothing; but he knew there was a great crowd of
people, by the murmur; and that they were not friendly to the soldiers, was soon
rendered evident by their yells and hisses. How often and how eagerly he
listened for the voice of Hugh! There was not a voice he knew among them all.
Was Hugh a prisoner too? Was there no hope!
As they came nearer and nearer to the prison, the hootings of the people grew
more violent; stones were thrown; and every now and then, a rush was made
against the soldiers, which they staggered under. One of them, close before him,
smarting under a blow upon the temple, levelled his musket, but the officer
struck it upwards with his sword, and ordered him on peril of his life to
desist. This was the last thing he saw with any distinctness, for directly
afterwards he was tossed about, and beaten to and fro, as though in a
tempestuous sea. But go where he would, there were the same guards about him.
Twice or thrice he was thrown down, and so were they; but even then, he could
not elude their vigilance for a moment. They were up again, and had closed about
him, before he, with his wrists so tightly bound, could scramble to his feet.
Fenced in, thus, he felt himself hoisted to the top of a low flight of steps,
and then for a moment he caught a glimpse of the fighting in the crowd, and of a
few red coats sprinkled together, here and there, struggling to rejoin their
fellows. Next moment, everything was dark and gloomy, and he was standing in the
prison lobby; the centre of a group of men.
A smith was speedily in attendance, who riveted upon him a set of heavy
irons. Stumbling on as well as he could, beneath the unusual burden of these
fetters, he was conducted to a strong stone cell, where, fastening the door with
locks, and bolts, and chains, they left him, well secured; having first, unseen
by him, thrust in Grip, who, with his head drooping and his deep black plumes
rough and rumpled, appeared to comprehend and to partake, his master's fallen
fortunes.
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