The golden cups, the candlesticks and the money they stole from the
burned chapels Hugh and the hangman buried under a heap of straw in the
tavern which they had made their headquarters, and left Barnaby to guard
the place. He counted this a sacred trust, and when soldiers came to
arrest all in the building he refused to fly in time. He even fought
them single-handed and felled two before he was knocked down with the
butt of a musket and handcuffed.
While he had been resisting, Grip had been busily plucking away the
straw from the hidden plunder; now his hoarse croak showed them the
hoard and they unearthed it all. At length, closing ranks around
Barnaby, they marched him off to a barracks, from which he was taken to
Newgate Prison, where a blacksmith put irons on his arms and legs, and
he and the raven were locked in a cell.
While Barnaby was guarding the tavern room, Hugh, egged on by his
master, Sir John Chester, had proposed the burning of The Warren, where
Haredale still lived with Emma, his niece, and Dolly Varden, now her
companion.
The crowd agreed gladly, since Haredale was a Catholic and that same day
in London had given evidence to the police against the rioters who had
burned the chapels. They rushed away, marched hastily across the fields,
tied the old host of the Maypole Inn to his chair, drank all the liquor
they could find and then rushed to The Warren. There they put the
servants to flight, burst in the doors, staved the wine-casks in the
cellar, split up the costly furniture with hammers and axes and set fire
to the building, so that it soon burned to the ground.
Haredale, in London, saw the red glare in the sky and rode post-haste to
the place, but found on his arrival only ruins and ashes. He believed
that Emma and Dolly had had time to escape to safety; but while he was
searching the grounds for some sign of them he saw in the starlight a
man hiding in a broken turret.
He drew his sword and advanced. As the figure moved into the light he
rushed forward, flung himself upon him and clutched his throat.
"Villain!" he cried in a terrible voice, "dead and buried as all men
supposed, at last, at last I have you! You, Rudge, slayer of my brother
and of his faithful servant! Double murderer and monster, I arrest you
in the name of God!"
Bound and fettered in his carriage, Haredale took Rudge back to London
and had him locked in Newgate Prison.
IV
BARNABY PROSPERS AT LAST
Haredale searched vainly next day for Emma and Dolly Varden. He could
not believe they had lost their lives in the burning building, yet he
was filled with anxiety because of their disappearance. Could he have
known what had happened he would have been even more fearful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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