Tales from Dickens by Charles Dickens (books you need to read TXT) 📕
- Author: Charles Dickens
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This villainous sneak, knowing that the daring of the rioters had reached its limit, and that they must soon be scattered and captured, and thinking to buy pardon for himself by a piece of treachery, without delay brought soldiers, who surrounded the shed. The blind man, attempting to run away, was shot dead, and the others, Rudge, Hugh and poor, innocent Barnaby, were captured.
Then, well satisfied with his work, Dennis set out for the house where Simon Tappertit had confined Emma Haredale and Dolly Varden. The hangman wanted them well out of the way, so they could not testify that he had helped to burn The Warren and to kidnap them. He had thought of a plan to have them taken to a boat in the river and conveyed where their friends would never find them, and to carry them off he chose Gashford, Lord George Gordon's secretary, who was the more willing as he had fallen in love with Emma's beauty.
But this wicked plan was never to be carried out. The very hour that Gashford came on this pitiless errand, while he roughly bade Emma prepare to depart, the doors flew open. Men poured in, led by Edward Chester, who knocked Gashford down; and in another moment Emma was clasped in her uncle's embrace, and Dolly, laughing and crying at the same time, fell into the arms of her father. Their place of concealment had been discovered a few hours before, and the three men had lost no time in planning their capture.
Dennis the hangman, in spite of his previous treachery, caught in the trap, was taken straight-way to jail, and Simon Tappertit, wounded and raging, watched Dolly's departure from the floor, where he lay with his wonderful legs, the pride and glory of his life, broken and crushed into shapeless ugliness. The famous riots were over. Lord George Gordon was a prisoner, hundreds were being arrested, and London was again growing quiet.
Mrs. Rudge, poor mother! at last found Barnaby where he lay chained in his cell and condemned to death. Day after day she never left him, while Varden, the locksmith, and Haredale worked hard for his release. They carried his case even to the King, and at the last moment, while he rode on his way to execution, his pardon was granted.
Of the rest who died on the scaffold, Rudge, the murderer, was hanged, cursing all men to the last; Maypole Hugh died glorying in his evil life and with a jest on his lips, and Dennis, the hangman, was dragged to the gallows cringing and shrieking for mercy.
A few weeks later Emma Haredale was married to Edward Chester and sailed with him back to the West Indies, where he had established a flourishing business.
Before this, however, his father, Sir John Chester, was well punished for his hard heart and bad deeds by the discovery that Maypole Hugh, the hostler, was really his own unacknowledged son, whose mother he had deserted many years before. But even this blow, and the marriage of his son Edward to the niece of his lifelong enemy, did not soften him. He still hated Haredale with his old venom and loved to go to the ruins of The Warren and gloat over its destruction.
On one of these visits he met and taunted Haredale beyond all endurance. The two men drew their swords and fought a duel, which ended by Haredale's running Sir John through the heart. Haredale left England at once, entered a convent in a foreign country and spent his few remaining years in penance and remorse.
Lord George Gordon, the poor deluded noble who had been the cause of all this disorder, finally died, harmless and quite crazy, in Newgate Prison. Simon Tappertit, in spite of his active part in the riots, was luckier, for he got off with two wooden legs and lived for many years, a corner boot-black.
Joe, of course, married Dolly Varden, and the locksmith gave her such a generous marriage portion that he was able to set up in business, succeeding his father as landlord of the old Maypole Inn, and there they lived long and happily.
Barnaby Rudge, after the death of his father, gradually became more rational and was everywhere a great favorite with old and young. He and his mother lived always on the Maypole farm, and there were never two more contented souls than they.
As for Grip, the raven, he soon forgot his jail experience and grew sleek and glossy again. For a whole year he never uttered a word till one sunny morning he suddenly broke out with, "I'm a devil, I'm a devil, I'm a devil!" in extraordinary rapture. From that time on he talked more and more, and as he was only one hundred and fifty years old when Barnaby was gray headed (a mere infant for a raven) he is very probably talking yet.
THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELDPublished 1849–1850
James Steerforth Schoolmates and friends of David's Mr. Micawber A London friend of David's Always "waiting for something to turn up" "Mr. Dick" A simple-minded relative of Miss Betsy Trotwood's Mr. Wickfield Miss Betsy's lawyer Agnes His daughter Uriah Heep His clerk Later, his partner Doctor Strong David's schoolmaster in Dover Dora Spenlow The daughter of David's employer and his "child-wife" DAVID COPPERFIELD I
DAVID'S EARLY UPS AND DOWNS
There was once a little boy by the name of David Copperfield, whose father had died before he was born. The night he was born his great-aunt, Miss Betsy Trotwood—a grim lady with a black cap tied under her chin and a great gold watch chain—came to the house to ask his mother to name the baby, which she took for granted was a girl, after her; but as soon as she found it was a boy she flounced out in anger and never came back again.
The first thing David remembered was living in a big country house in England with his pretty, golden-haired mother and with Peggotty, his nurse, a red-faced, kindly woman, with a habit of wearing her dresses so tight that whenever she hugged him some buttons would fly off the back. He loved his mother dearly—so dearly that when a tall, handsome man named Murdstone began to come to see her in the evenings David was jealous and sad. Mr. Murdstone acted as if he liked him, and even took him riding on his horse; but there was something in his face that David could not like.
One summer day David was sent off with Peggotty for a two weeks' visit to her brother's house in Yarmouth. Yarmouth was a queer fishing town on the sea-coast, and the house they went to was the queerest thing in it. It was made of an old barge, drawn up high and dry on the beach. It had a chimney on one side and little windows, and there were sea-shells around the door. David's room was in the stern, and the window was the hole which the rudder had once passed through. Everything smelled of salt water and lobsters, and David thought it was the most wonderful house in the world.
He soon made friends with the family—Mr. Peggotty, a big fisherman with a laugh like a gale of wind; Ham, his nephew, a big, overgrown boy who carried David from the coach on his back, and Mrs. Gummidge, who was the widow of Mr. Peggotty's drowned partner.
And, last of all, there was a beautiful little girl with curly hair and a string of blue beads around her neck whom they called Little Em'ly. She was an orphan niece of Peggotty's. None of these people belonged to Mr. Peggotty, but, though he was only a poor fisherman himself, he was so kind that he gave them all a home. David played with little Em'ly, and went out in the boat with Mr. Peggotty, and enjoyed his visit greatly, though he grew anxious to see his mother again.
He had no idea what had happened to her till he got back home with Peggotty. Then he found why he had been sent off on his visit. While he was away his mother had married Mr. Murdstone.
David found things sadly altered after this. Mr. Murdstone was a hard, cruel master. He cared nothing for the little boy and was harsh to him in everything. He even took away David's own cozy bedroom and made him sleep in a gloomy chamber. When he was sad Mr. Murdstone called him obstinate and locked him up and forbade his mother to pet or comfort him.
David's mother loved him, but she loved her new husband, too, and it was a most unhappy state of things. To make it worse, Mr. Murdstone's sister came to live with them. She was an unlovely old maid with big black eyebrows, and liked David no better than her brother did.
After this there were no more pleasant hours of sitting with his mother or walking with her to church, for Mr. Murdstone and his sister kept them apart. The only happy moments David spent were in a little upper room where there was a collection of books left by his dead father. He got some comfort from reading these.
Mr. Murdstone made David's mother give him hard tasks and lessons to do, and when David recited them he and his sister both sat and listened. To feel their presence and disapproval confused the little fellow so much that even when he knew his lesson he failed.
One day when he came to recite he saw Mr. Murdstone finishing the handle of a whip he had been making. This frightened him so that he could scarcely remember a word. Mr. Murdstone grasped him then and led him to his room to whip him.
Poor little David was so terrified that he hardly knew what he was doing, and in his agony and terror, while the merciless blows were falling, he seized the hand that held him and bit it as hard as he could. Mr. Murdstone then beat him almost to death and locked him in the room.
He was kept there for five days with only bread and milk to eat. Every day he was taken down for family prayers and then taken back again, and during prayers he was made to sit in a corner where he could not even see his mother's face. He had to sit all day long with nothing to do but think of Mr. Peggotty's house-boat and of little Em'ly and wish he was there. The last night Peggotty, his nurse, crept up and whispered through the keyhole that Mr. Murdstone was going to send him away the next day to a school near London.
The next morning he started in a carrier's cart. His mother was so much in awe of Mr. Murdstone that she hardly dared kiss David good-by, and he saw nothing of Peggotty. But as he was crying, Peggotty came running from behind a hedge
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