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Barnaby and his Mother
"He flaps his wings," said Barnaby, "as if there were strangers here, but Grip is wiser than to fancy that. Jump then!"
Harry Furniss
1910
14 cm x 9.2 cm (5 ½ by 3 ¾ inches), vignetted
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, The Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), facing VI, 128.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"How pale you are to-night!" said Barnaby, leaning on his stick. "We have been cruel, Grip, and made her anxious!"
Anxious in good truth, and sick at heart! The listener held the door of his hiding-place open with his hand, and closely watched her son. Grip — alive to everything his master was unconscious of — had his head out of the basket, and in return was watching him intently with his glistening eye.
"He flaps his wings," said Barnaby, turning almost quickly enough to catch the retreating form and closing door, "as if there were strangers here, but Grip is wiser than to fancy that. Jump then!"
Accepting this invitation with a dignity peculiar to himself, the bird hopped up on his master’s shoulder, from that to his extended hand, and so to the ground. Barnaby unstrapping the basket and putting it down in a corner with the lid open, Grip’s first care was to shut it down with all possible despatch, and then to stand upon it. Believing, no doubt, that he had now rendered it utterly impossible, and beyond the power of mortal man, to shut him up in it any more, he drew a great many corks in triumph, and uttered a corresponding number of hurrahs.
"Mother!" said Barnaby, laying aside his hat and stick, and returning to the chair from which he had risen, "I’ll tell you where we have been to-day, and what we have been doing, — shall I?"
She took his hand in hers, and holding it, nodded the word she could not speak. [Chapter XVII, 134]
Phiz in particular offered Harry Furniss several possible models for these central characters. In Chapter XVII in the original serial Barnaby Greets His Mother (see below) and Barnaby and Grip (see below) Phiz had provided later illustrators with useful models for the eponymous character, his loquacious pet, and his conflicted mother whose behaviour so frustrates Gabriel Varden — and the reader. Furniss has her take alarm about Barnaby's anecdote about trapping the mysterious stranger (in fact, Old Rudge), who she is well aware is overhearing their every word. Furniss has innovatively left the leaves on Barnaby's staff to represent Barnaby himself as a "natural," more comfortable in the woods and in Grip's company than in civilised society.
Left: Phiz's quaint realisation of the homecoming scene, with the mysterious stranger popping his head out from the closet: Barnaby Greets His Mother (17 April 1841). Right: F. O. C. Darley's extra-illustration of the famous pair in a country setting: Barnaby Rudge and Grip the Raven (1888).
Left: Phiz's engaging realisation of Barnaby's playful relationship with his pet, who often seems more knowing than his master: Barnaby and Grip (27 March 1841). Right: Eytinge's version of the the carefree boy and his care-worn mother: Barnaby and His Mother (1867).
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz and George Cattermole. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury and Evans, 1849.
_______. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Frontispieces by F. O. C. Darley. Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1865. 3 vols.
_______. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_______. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. VI.
Created 24 May 2020
Last modified 16 December 2020