Although he had had no rest upon the previous night, and had
watched with little intermission for some weeks past, sleeping only in the day
by starts and snatches, Mr Haredale, from the dawn of morning until sunset,
sought his niece in every place where he deemed it possible she could have taken
refuge. All day long, nothing, save a draught of water, passed his lips; though
he prosecuted his inquiries far and wide, and never so much as sat down, once.
In every quarter he could think of; at Chigwell and in London; at the houses
of the tradespeople with whom he dealt, and of the friends he knew; he pursued
his search. A prey to the most harrowing anxieties and apprehensions, he went
from magistrate to magistrate, and finally to the Secretary of State. The only
comfort he received was from this minister, who assured him that the Government,
being now driven to the exercise of the extreme prerogatives of the Crown, were
determined to exert them; that a proclamation would probably be out upon the
morrow, giving to the military, discretionary and unlimited power in the
suppression of the riots; that the sympathies of the King, the Administration,
and both Houses of Parliament, and indeed of all good men of every religious
persuasion, were strongly with the injured Catholics; and that justice should be
done them at any cost or hazard. He told him, moreover, that other persons whose
houses had been burnt, had for a time lost sight of their children or their
relatives, but had, in every case, within his knowledge, succeeded in
discovering them; that his complaint should be remembered, and fully stated in
the instructions given to the officers in command, and to all the inferior
myrmidons of justice; and that everything that could be done to help him, should
be done, with a goodwill and in good faith.
Grateful for this consolation, feeble as it was in its reference to the past,
and little hope as it afforded him in connection with the subject of distress
which lay nearest to his heart; and really thankful for the interest the
minister expressed, and seemed to feel, in his condition; Mr Haredale withdrew.
He found himself, with the night coming on, alone in the streets; and destitute
of any place in which to lay his head.
He entered an hotel near Charing Cross, and ordered some refreshment and a
bed. He saw that his faint and worn appearance attracted the attention of the
landlord and his waiters; and thinking that they might suppose him to be
penniless, took out his purse, and laid it on the table. It was not that, the
landlord said, in a faltering voice. If he were one of those who had suffered by
the rioters, he durst not give him entertainment. He had a family of children,
and had been twice warned to be careful in receiving guests. He heartily prayed
his forgiveness, but what could he do?
Nothing. No man felt that more sincerely than Mr Haredale. He told the man as
much, and left the house.
Feeling that he might have anticipated this occurrence, after what he had
seen at Chigwell in the morning, where no man dared to touch a spade, though he
offered a large reward to all who would come and dig among the ruins of his
house, he walked along the Strand; too proud to expose himself to another
refusal, and of too generous a spirit to involve in distress or ruin any honest
tradesman who might be weak enough to give him shelter. He wandered into one of
the streets by the side of the river, and was pacing in a thoughtful manner up
and down, thinking of things that had happened long ago, when he heard a
servant-man at an upper window call to another on the opposite side of the
street, that the mob were setting fire to Newgate.
To Newgate! where that man was! His failing strength returned, his energies
came back with tenfold vigour, on the instant. If it were possible--if they
should set the murderer free--was he, after all he had undergone, to die with
the suspicion of having slain his own brother, dimly gathering about him--
He had no consciousness of going to the jail; but there he stood, before it.
There was the crowd wedged and pressed together in a dense, dark, moving mass;
and there were the flames soaring up into the air. His head turned round and
round, lights flashed before his eyes, and he struggled hard with two men.
'Nay, nay,' said one. 'Be more yourself, my good sir. We attract attention
here. Come away. What can you do among so many men?'
'The gentleman's always for doing something,' said the other, forcing him
along as he spoke. 'I like him for that. I do like him for that.'
They had by this time got him into a court, hard by the prison. He looked
from one to the other, and as he tried to release himself, felt that he tottered
on his feet. He who had spoken first, was the old gentleman whom he had seen at
the Lord Mayor's. The other was John Grueby, who had stood by him so manfully at
Westminster.
'What does this mean?' he asked them faintly. 'How came we together?'
'On the skirts of the crowd,' returned the distiller; 'but come with us. Pray
come with us. You seem to know my friend here?'
'Surely,' said Mr Haredale, looking in a kind of stupor at John.
'He'll tell you then,' returned the old gentleman, 'that I am a man to be
trusted. He's my servant. He was lately (as you know, I have no doubt) in Lord
George Gordon's service; but he left it, and brought, in pure goodwill to me and
others, who are marked by the rioters, such intelligence as he had picked up, of
their designs.'
--'On one condition, please, sir,' said John, touching his hat. No evidence
against my lord--a misled man--a kind-hearted man, sir. My lord never intended
this.'
'The condition will be observed, of course,' rejoined the old distiller.
'It's a point of honour. But come with us, sir; pray come with us.'
John Grueby added no entreaties, but he adopted a different kind of
persuasion, by putting his arm through one of Mr Haredale's, while his master
took the other, and leading him away with all speed.
Sensible, from a strange lightness in his head, and a difficulty in fixing
his thoughts on anything, even to the extent of bearing his companions in his
mind for a minute together without looking at them, that his brain was affected
by the agitation and suffering through which he had passed, and to which he was
still a prey, Mr Haredale let them lead him where they would. As they went
along, he was conscious of having no command over what he said or thought, and
that he had a fear of going mad.
The distiller lived, as he had told him when they first met, on Holborn Hill,
where he had great storehouses and drove a large trade. They approached his
house by a back entrance, lest they should attract the notice of the crowd, and
went into an upper room which faced towards the street; the windows, however, in
common with those of every other room in the house, were boarded up inside, in
order that, out of doors, all might appear quite dark.
They laid him on a sofa in this chamber, perfectly insensible; but John
immediately fetching a surgeon, who took from him a large quantity of blood, he
gradually came to himself. As he was, for the time, too weak to walk, they had
no difficulty in persuading him to remain there all night, and got him to bed
without loss of a minute. That done, they gave him cordial and some toast, and
presently a pretty strong composing-draught, under the influence of which he
soon fell into a lethargy, and, for a time, forgot his troubles.
The vintner, who was a very hearty old fellow and a worthy man, had no
thoughts of going to bed himself, for he had received several threatening
warnings from the rioters, and had indeed gone out that evening to try and
gather from the conversation of the mob whether his house was to be the next
attacked. He sat all night in an easy-chair in the same room--dozing a little
now and then--and received from time to time the reports of John Grueby and two
or three other trustworthy persons in his employ, who went out into the streets
as scouts; and for whose entertainment an ample allowance of good cheer (which
the old vintner, despite his anxiety, now and then attacked himself) was set
forth in an adjoining chamber.
These accounts were of a sufficiently alarming nature from the first; but as
the night wore on, they grew so much worse, and involved such a fearful amount
of riot and destruction, that in comparison with these new tidings all the
previous disturbances sunk to nothing.
The first intelligence that came, was of the taking of Newgate, and the
escape of all the prisoners, whose track, as they made up Holborn and into the
adjacent streets, was proclaimed to those citizens who were shut up in their
houses, by the rattling of their chains, which formed a dismal concert, and was
heard in every direction, as though so many forges were at work. The flames too,
shone so brightly through the vintner's skylights, that the rooms and staircases
below were nearly as light as in broad day; while the distant shouting of the
mob seemed to shake the very walls and ceilings.
At length they were heard approaching the house, and some minutes of terrible
anxiety ensued. They came close up, and stopped before it; but after giving
three loud yells, went on. And although they returned several times that night,
creating new alarms each time, they did nothing there; having their hands full.
Shortly after they had gone away for the first time, one of the scouts came
running in with the news that they had stopped before Lord Mansfield's house in
Bloomsbury Square.
Soon afterwards there came another, and another, and then the first returned
again, and so, by little and little, their tale was this:-- That the mob
gathering round Lord Mansfield's house, had called on those within to open the
door, and receiving no reply (for Lord and Lady Mansfield were at that moment
escaping by the backway), forced an entrance according to their usual custom.
That they then began to demolish the house with great fury, and setting fire to
it in several parts, involved in a common ruin the whole of the costly
furniture, the plate and jewels, a beautiful gallery of pictures, the rarest
collection of manuscripts ever possessed by any one private person in the world,
and worse than all, because nothing could replace this loss, the great Law
Library, on almost every page of which were notes in the Judge's own hand, of
inestimable value,--being the results of the study and experience of his whole
life. That while they were howling and exulting round the fire, a troop of
soldiers, with a magistrate among them, came up, and being too late (for the
mischief was by that time done), began to disperse the crowd. That the Riot Act
being read, and the crowd still resisting, the soldiers received orders to fire,
and levelling their muskets shot dead at the first discharge six men and a
woman, and wounded many persons; and loading again directly, fired another
volley, but over the people's heads it was supposed, as none were seen to fall.
That thereupon, and daunted by the shrieks and tumult, the crowd began to
disperse, and the soldiers went away, leaving the killed and wounded on the
ground: which they had no sooner done than the rioters came back again, and
taking up the dead bodies, and the wounded people, formed into a rude
procession, having the bodies in the front. That in this order they paraded off
with a horrible merriment; fixing weapons in the dead men's hands to make them
look as if alive; and preceded by a fellow ringing Lord Mansfield's dinner-bell
with all his might.
The scouts reported further, that this party meeting with some others who had
been at similar work elsewhere, they all united into one, and drafting off a few
men with the killed and wounded, marched away to Lord Mansfield's country seat
at Caen Wood, between Hampstead and Highgate; bent upon destroying that house
likewise, and lighting up a great fire there, which from that height should be
seen all over London. But in this, they were disappointed, for a party of horse
having arrived before them, they retreated faster than they went, and came
straight back to town.
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.
Such were the accounts brought to the old vintner by his servants as he sat
at the side of Mr Haredale's bed, having been unable even to doze, after the
first part of the night; too much disturbed by his own fears; by the cries of
the mob, the light of the fires, and the firing of the soldiers. Such, with the
addition of the release of all the prisoners in the New Jail at Clerkenwell, and
as many robberies of passengers in the streets, as the crowd had leisure to
indulge in, were the scenes of which Mr Haredale was happily unconscious, and
which were all enacted before midnight.
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