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Mr. Haredale Defies the Mob
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
17 July 1841
4 ½ x 3 ¼ inches (11.6 x 8.4 cm), vignetted
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, The Bradbury & Evans single-volume edition of December 1849, Chapter the Forty-third, Vol. III, 188.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Mr. Haredale had stood calmly on the brink of the steps, until they made this demonstration, when he looked round contemptuously, and walked at a slow pace down the stairs. He was pretty near the boat, when Gashford, as if without intention, turned about, and directly afterwards a great stone was thrown by some hand, in the crowd, which struck him on the head, and made him stagger like a drunken man.
The blood sprung freely from the wound, and trickled down his coat. He turned directly, and rushing up the steps with a boldness and passion which made them all fall back, demanded:
"Who did that? Show me the man who hit me."
Not a soul moved; except some in the rear who slunk off, and, escaping to the other side of the way, looked on like indifferent spectators.
"Who did that?’ he repeated. ‘Show me the man who did it. Dog, was it you? It was your deed, if not your hand — I know you."
"He threw himself on Gashford as he said the words, and hurled him to the ground. There was a sudden motion in the crowd, and some laid hands upon him, but his sword was out, and they fell off again.
"My lord — Sir John," — he cried, "draw, one of you — you are responsible for this outrage, and I look to you. Draw, if you are gentlemen." With that he struck Sir John upon the breast with the flat of his weapon, and with a burning face and flashing eyes stood upon his guard; alone, before them all.
"For an instant, for the briefest space of time the mind can readily conceive, there was a change in Sir John’s smooth face, such as no man ever saw there. The next moment, he stepped forward, and laid one hand on Mr. Haredale’s arm, while with the other he endeavoured to appease the crowd.
"My dear friend, my good Haredale, you are blinded with passion — it’s very natural, extremely natural — but you don’t know friends from foes."
"I know them all, sir, I can distinguish well —" he retorted, almost mad with rage. "Sir John, Lord George — do you hear me? Are you cowards?"
"Never mind, sir," said a man, forcing his way between and pushing him towards the stairs with friendly violence, "never mind asking that. For God’s sake, get away. What can you do against this number? And there are as many more in the next street, who’ll be round directly," — indeed they began to pour in as he said the words — "you’d be giddy from that cut, in the first heat of a scuffle. Now do retire, sir, or take my word for it you’ll be worse used than you would be if every man in the crowd was a woman, and that woman Bloody Mary. Come, sir, make haste — as quick as you can."
Mr. Haredale, who began to turn faint and sick, felt how sensible this advice was, and descended the steps with his unknown friend’s assistance. [Chapter the Forty-third, 187-88]
The instalment suddenly shifts from the stately architectural subject (Westminster Hall) and painterly style of George Cattermole to Phiz's vigorous realisation of the dramatic confrontation on the water steps behind Westminster Hall, with the heroic Haredale defying the mob. The altercation between Haredale, Gashford, Sir John Chester, and Lord George Gordon, with a mob of his supportersin the background, after an unpleasant meeting inside Westminster Hall. The animosity between the incensed Haredale, who has just been pelted with a rock (afterwards we learn thrown by Hugh), and his former school-friends from St. Omer's Seminary in Artois, France (not Paris, as Dickens implies), Gashford and Chester, is palpable in Phiz's illustration. This argument, erupting into violence, escalates the tension dramatically from the previous meeting of these characters in the quiet interior scene, Cattermole's A Chance Meeting in Westminster Hall (see below) in the same chapter.
Representatives of a larger mob of some hundreds stand immediately behind Sir John and Lord George. The secretary, Gashford, cringes at Haredale's feet, and the Gordon adherent with common sense, John Grueby, remonstrates with Hardedale, urging him to catch a boat for the other shore at once. The fate of Haredale at this moment hangs in the balance, and his decision (for which, of course, one must consult the text) will determine whether the mob tears him to pieces or whether he will escape to Southwark across the river.
Left: Cattermole's original serial illustration of the beginning of the altercation inside Westmister Hall: A Chance Meeting in Westminster Hall (17 July 1841). Right: Fred Barnard's more vigorous realisation of the subsequent confrontation of Haredale, a staunch Catholic, and the ultra-Protestant Lord Gordon and his suite, "He retort!" cried Haredale. "Look you here, my lord. Do you know this man?" (1874).
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz') and George Cattermole. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury & Evans, 1849.
________. Barnaby Rudge. Ed. Kathleen Tillotson. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz') and George Cattermole. The New Oxford Illustrated Dickens. London: Oxford University Press. 1954, rpt. 1987.
________. Barnaby Rudge — A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. VII.
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.
Vann, J. Don. "Charles Dickens. Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock, 13 February-27 November 1841." New York: MLA, 1985. 65-66.
Last modified 26 December 2020