[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Fred Barnard —> Barnaby Rudge —> Next]
Then seating himself, under a spreading honeysuckle, and stretching his legs across the threshold so that no person could pass in or out without his knowledge, he took from his pocket a pipe, flint, steel and tinder-box, and began to smoke.
Fred Barnard
1874
17.4 cm by 13 cm, framed
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty, Vol. VII of the Household Edition, Ch. XLV, facing 177.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Then seating himself, under a spreading honeysuckle, and stretching his legs across the threshold so that no person could pass in or out without his knowledge, he took from his pocket a pipe, flint, steel and tinder-box, and began to smoke. It was a lovely evening, of that gentle kind, and at that time of year, when the twilight is most beautiful. Pausing now and then to let his smoke curl slowly off, and to sniff the grateful fragrance of the flowers, he sat there at his ease — as though the cottage were his proper dwelling, and he had held undisputed possession of it all his life — waiting for the widow’s answer and for Barnaby’s return. [Chapter XLV, 177]
This version of Stagg, Old Rudge's landlord and confidant, does much resemble the gre-bearded loon of Phiz's original illustration, Lighting the Noble Captain, Ch. XVIII. That scurrilous character who conducted Sim through the dark alley was a mere scarecrow; this cadger is decidedly more substantial physically. Dickens introduces Stagg on the evening that Sim Tappertit leaves the meeting of the Apprentice Knights, and Old Rudge asks to take shelter in his cellar. Now Stagg emerges as his tenant's ruthless negotiator, extorting Mary Rudge for a sizable sum (twenty pounds), which he seems to think she can receive from the Haredales. Whereas Phiz had reintroduced Stagg in this chapter in company with the widow, Barnard offers a study of the disreputable character by himself.
Phiz's theatrical description of Stagg's attempting to extort twenty pounds from Mary Rudge: Stagg's Demand, 24 July 1841 (Part 24).
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz and George Cattermole. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841.
_______. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
________. Barnaby Rudge — A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. VII.
________. The Dickens Souvenir Book. London: Chapman & Hall, 1912.
Hammerton, J. A. "Ch. XIV. Barnaby Rudge." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition, illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. 213-55.
Created 20 August 2020
Last modified 18 December 2020