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"Do you think that I would bother myself long about a house I had no interest in, or drag Rudge from his warm rug to save some ungrateful neighbor from a possible burglary? No, it is my house which some rogue has chosen to enter.
It was a happy day for Joseph Rudge and his wife when their children were restored to them as strong and well as ever; and truly grateful were they to Heaven for the mercy which had been shown them. Rough old Mat shed tears of joy when he took little Mary in his arms.
'How now! he cried. 'Barnaby Rudge! Why, where have you been hiding for these hundred years? Barnaby had been thinking within himself that the smell of the trodden grass brought back his old days at cricket, when he was a young boy and played on Chigwell Green. Confused by this sudden and boisterous address, he stared in a bewildered manner at the man, and could scarcely say 'What! Hugh!
After a long time the door of his cell opened. He looked up; saw the blind man enter; and relapsed into his former position. Guided by his breathing, the visitor advanced to where he sat; and stopping beside him, and stretching out his hand to assure himself that he was right, remained, for a good space, silent. 'This is bad, Rudge. This is bad, he said at length.
I was at the station-house the night Uncle David came in. He was always called Uncle David, even by the urchins who followed him in the street; so I am showing him no disrespect, gentleman though he is, by giving him a title which as completely characterized him in those days, as did his moody ways, his quaint attire and the persistence with which he kept at his side his great mastiff, Rudge.
I can't live without Rudge, and I will not live in any other place than in the old home of my ancestors." I was by this time following him out. "You have failed to answer the suggestion I made you a minute since," I hazarded. "Will you pardon me if I put it now as a question? Your niece, Mrs. Jeffrey, seemed to have everything in the world to make her happy, yet she took her life.
Successful, at last, in awakening an interest in his favour, they had an interview with the minister in his bed as late as eight o'clock that morning. The result of a searching inquiry was that, between eleven and twelve o'clock, a free pardon to Barnaby Rudge was made out and signed, and Gabriel Varden had the grateful task of bringing him home in triumph with an enthusiastic mob.
He belonged to one Barnaby Rudge, and many people fancied that the Devil himself was disguised under his sable plumage. But poor Grip has drawn his last cork, and has been forced to 'say die' at last. This other raven, hardly less curious, is that in which the soul of King George I. revisited his lady-love, the Duchess of Kendall."
"Very hard, in a case like this, to follow out what one knows to be true," answered Rudge. "Yes, Joseph; but this is just a case where we have to show our faith. I know that God loves us and that keeps me up," said Sarah, though her voice trembled as she spoke.
The chief drawback to this life is, that people long accustomed to it do not take readily to any other, and this made Joseph not wish that Sam should follow it. Joseph Rudge and his family had for some time been living in the new hut, about twenty miles from the head station.
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