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The Watch Crying out the Hour
George Cattermole
10 April 1841 (eighteenth illustration in the series)
9.7 x 8.3 cm. vignetted
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, The Bradbury & Evans single-volume edition of December 1849, Chapter Thirteen, Vol. III, 21.
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There were many other characteristics — not quite so disagreeable — about the thoroughfares of London then, with which they had been long familiar. Some of the shops, especially those to the eastward of Temple Bar, still adhered to the old practice of hanging out a sign; and the creaking and swinging of these boards in their iron frames on windy nights, formed a strange and mournful concert for the ears of those who lay awake in bed or hurried through the streets. Long stands of hackney-chairs and groups of chairmen, compared with whom the coachmen of our day are gentle and polite, obstructed the way and filled the air with clamour; night-cellars, indicated by a little stream of light crossing the pavement, and stretching out half-way into the road, and by the stifled roar of voices from below, yawned for the reception and entertainment of the most abandoned of both sexes; under every shed and bulk small groups of link-boys gamed away the earnings of the day; or one more weary than the rest, gave way to sleep, and let the fragment of his torch fall hissing on the puddled ground.
Then there was the watch with staff and lantern crying the hour, and the kind of weather; and those who woke up at his voice and turned them round in bed, were glad to hear it rained, or snowed, or blew, or froze, for very comfort’s sake. [Chapter 16, III, 21-22]
Three chapters and twenty pages have passed since Cattermole's last illustration in the serial novel, and two character-and-situation illustrations by Phiz — Mr. Haredale Interrupts the Lovers (Ch. XIV), and Mr. Chester Takes his Ease at his Inn (Ch. XV) have intervened. Before, we were at The Warren near Chigwell with Joe Willet and Edward Chester, calling upon Emmma Haredale; now Dickens uses Cattermole's atmospheric illustration of the Watch crying the hour in a markedly nocturnal and urban setting to re-introduce the dangerous stranger whom we encountered in the opening chapters, the dirty, coarse-featured ruffian whom even the grave-robbers, footpads, beggars and highwaymen of the metropolis fear. Thus, Dickens uses Cattermole's stylish illustration to shift the scene from Chester's fashionable chambers in The Temple to less savoury haunts, and prepare readers for the scene in Chapter XVII between the Rudges in Southwark: Barnaby Greets His Mother (17 April 1841). The identity of the mysterious stranger is about to be revealed.
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz') and George Cattermole. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury & Evans, 1849.
Vann, J. Don. "Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock, 13 February 1841-27 November 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 65-6.
Created 4 January 2006
Last modified 14 December 2020