Barnaby Rudge Manuscript: Chapters 1 to 7

h plu?? advance close to his questioner and pluck him by the s1eeve, "I didn't see the young lady you know. ???? ! ???? ! whew! There's the wind again --and rain -- well it is a night!" ? or at all discouraged ?? ??? ?? "Rough weather indeed!" observed the strange man ????? with something like a shudder. " You're used to it?" said Joe, catching at anything which seemed to promise a diversion of the subject. "Pretty well,"' replied returned the other. "About the young lady - has Mr Haredale a daughter?" " No, no," said the young fellow fretfully, "he's a single gentleman -- he's -- be quiet, can't you, man? Don't you see this talk is not relished yonder?" Regardless of this whispered remonstrance, and affecting not to hear it, his tormentor provokingly continued: "Single men have had daughters before now. Perhaps she may be his daughter, though he is not married." "What do you mean?" said Joe, adding in an undertone as he approached him again, " You'll come in for it presently, I know you will!" "I mean no harm" -- returned the traveller boldly, "and have said none that I know of. I ask a few questions -- as any stranger may, and not unnaturally -- about the inmates of a remarkable house in a neighbourhood which is new to me, and you are as

aghast and disturbed as if I were talking treason against King George. Perhaps you can tell me why, sir, for (as I say) I am a stranger, and this is Greek to me?" The latter observation was addressed to the obvious cause of Joe Willet's discomposure, who w?? had risen and was adjusting his riding-cloak preparatory to sallying abroad. Briefly replying that he could give him no information, the gentlema young man beckoned to Joe, and offering a piece handing him a piece of money in payment of his reckoning, hurried out followed attended by able young fellow Willet himself, who ?????? likening?? taking up a candle followed with a show of great attention to light him to the house-door. While Joe was absent on this errand, the elder ?? Willet and his three friends companions continued to smoke with profound gravity, and in a deep silence, each having his eyes fixed on a huge copper boiler wh? that was suspended over the fire. After a ????? some time John Willet slowly shook his head, and thereupon his friends slowly shook theirs; ??? they all looked at the boiler ???? dolefully then before but no man withdrew his eyes from the boiler, or ??? altered the ??? solemn expression of his countenance in the slightest degree. At length Joe returned -- very talkative and conciliatory, as though with a ?? strong presentiment that he was going to be found fault with.

as a boy-- that there's nothing now between a male baby and a man -- and that all the boys went out with his [Re??? of] blessed Majesty King George the Second." Roby "That's a very so[??] true observation, always excepting the young princes," said the parish clerk, who, as the representative of the church and state in that company, fe[??] was [???] w[??] fel[?] held himself bound to the [??] nicest loyalty. "If it's godly and righteous for boys, being of the ages of boys, to behave themselves like boys, then the young princes must be boys and cannot be otherwise." " Did you ever hear tell of mermaids, sir?" said Mr Willet. " Certainly I have," replied the clerk. "Very good," said Mr Willet. "According to the constitution of mermaids, so much of a mermaid as is not a woman must he a fish. According to the constitution of young princes, so much of a young prince (if anything) as is not actually an angel, must be godly and righteous. Therefore if it's becoming and godly and righteous in the young princes (as it is at their ages) that they should be boys, they are and must be boys, and cannot by possibility be anything else." This elucidation of a knotty point being received with such marks of approval as to put John Willet into a good humour, he contented himself with repeating to his son his command of silence, and addressing the stranger, said: "If you had asked your questions of a grown-up person -- of me or any of these