But this operation was postponed for a few moments by a newoccurrence. The blind man, whose ears were quicker than mostpeople"s sight, had been alarmed, before Barnaby, by a rustling inthe bushes, under cover of which the soldiers had advanced. Heretreated instantly--had hidden somewhere for a minute--andprobably in his confusion mistaking the point at which he hademerged, was now seen running across the open meadow.
An officer cried directly that he had helped to plunder a houselast night. He was loudly called on, to surrender. He ran theharder, and in a few seconds would have been out of gunshot. The word was given, and the men fired.
There was a breathless pause and a profound silence, during whichall eyes were fixed upon him. He had been seen to start at thedischarge, as if the report had frightened him. But he neitherstopped nor slackened his pace in the least, and ran on full fortyyards further. Then, without one reel or stagger, or sign offaintness, or quivering of any limb, he dropped.
Some of them hurried up to where he lay;--the hangman with them.
Everything had passed so quickly, that the smoke had not yetscattered, but curled slowly off in a little cloud, which seemedlike the dead man"s spirit moving solemnly away. There were a fewdrops of blood upon the grass--more, when they turned him over-thatwas all.
"Look here! Look here!" said the hangman, stooping one knee besidethe body, and gazing up with a disconsolate face at the officer andmen. "Here"s a pretty sight!"
"Stand out of the way," replied the officer. "Serjeant! see whathe had about him."
The man turned his pockets out upon the grass, and counted, besidessome foreign coins and two rings, five-and-forty guineas in gold.
These were bundled up in a handkerchief and carried away; the bodyremained there for the present, but six men and the serjeant wereleft to take it to the nearest public-house.
"Now then, if you"re going," said the serjeant, clapping Dennis onthe back, and pointing after the officer who was walking towardsthe shed.
To which Mr Dennis only replied, "Don"t talk to me!" and thenrepeated what he had said before, namely, "Here"s a pretty sight!"
"It"s not one that you care for much, I should think," observed theserjeant coolly.
"Why, who," said Mr Dennis rising, "should care for it, if Idon"t?"
"Oh! I didn"t know you was so tender-hearted," said the serjeant.
"That"s all!"
"Tender-hearted!" echoed Dennis. "Tender-hearted! Look at this man. Do you call THIS constitootional? Do you see him shotthrough and through instead of being worked off like a Briton?
Damme, if I know which party to side with. You"re as bad as theother. What"s to become of the country if the military power"s togo a superseding the ciwilians in this way? Where"s this poorfeller-creetur"s rights as a citizen, that he didn"t have ME inhis last moments! I was here. I was willing. I was ready. Theseare nice times, brother, to have the dead crying out against us inthis way, and sleep comfortably in our beds arterwards; werynice!"
Whether he derived any material consolation from binding theprisoners, is uncertain; most probably he did. At all events hisbeing summoned to that work, diverted him, for the time, from thesepainful reflections, and gave his thoughts a more congenialoccupation.
They were not all three carried off together, but in two parties;Barnaby and his father, going by one road in the centre of a bodyof foot; and Hugh, fast bound upon a horse, and strongly guarded bya troop of cavalry, being taken by another.
They had no opportunity for the least communication, in the short interval which preceded their departure; being kept strictly apart.
Hugh only observed that Barnaby walked with a drooping head amonghis guard, and, without raising his eyes, that he tried to wavehis fettered hand when he passed. For himself, he buoyed up hiscourage as he rode along, with the assurance that the mob wouldforce his jail wherever it might be, and set him at liberty. Butwhen they got into London, and more especially into Fleet Market,lately the stronghold of the rioters, where the military wererooting out the last remnant of the crowd, he saw that this hopewas gone, and felt that he was riding to his death.
