Barnet

“ After a day or so of digging and scheming, Barnet found himself in the forefront of a battle. He had made his section of rifle pits chiefly along a line of deep, dry ditch that gave a means of inter-communication; he had had the earth scattered over the adjacent field, and he had masked his preparations with tussocks of corn and poppy. The hostile advance came blindly and unsuspiciously across the fields below and would have been very cruelly handled indeed, if some one away to the right had not opened fire too soon. ”

“ He was, says Barnet, a round-faced man, dressed very neatly in black—so neatly that it was amazing to discover he was living close at hand in a tent made of carpets—and he had ‘an urbane but insistent manner,’ a carefully trimmed moustache and beard, expressive eyebrows, and hair very neatly brushed.
‘No one goes into Paris,’ said Barnet.
‘But, Monsieur, that is very unenterprising,’ the man by the wayside submitted.
‘The danger is too great. The radiations eat into people’s skins.’
The eyebrows protested. ”

“ Downe, being so singular as to be quite sufficient to darken the pleasure of the impressionable solicitor to a cruel extent, if made known to him. But as Barnet could not set out on his journey to London, where his wife lay, for some hours (there being at this date no railway within a distance of many miles) , no great reason existed why he should leave the town.
Impulse in all its forms characterized Barnet, and when he heard the distant clock strike the hour of ten his feet began to carry him up the harbour-road with the manner of a man who must do something to bring himself to life. ”

“ The battle of Barnet was fought over again every morning, but they were not men-at-arms who contended together, nor was the subject of their contention the Crown of England. They were just famished travellers who struggled to get something to eat and drink before the guard made his appearance at the door, with the fateful cry, “Time’s up, gentlemen; take your seats please.” When the horn sounded in the yard, desperate men would rush forth with hands full of food, and finish their repasts as best they might on the coach. ”

“ Kit and Anthony grasping him by either shoulder.
"Take your man, master pursuivant," said Bottle, huskily. He and the Puritan then stopped, and seemed to thrust their prisoner slightly forward for Barnet's acceptance; but they still held his shoulders.
Barnet, whose left hand clasped a document, took a step toward the prisoner, who perforce remained motionless. Then the pursuivant paused, and stared at Hal with a mixture of bewilderment and slow-gathering dismay. The armed men craned their necks to see the object of their long pursuit. ”

“ Barnet (East) a pleasant village in Hertfordshire, near Whetstone and Enfield Chace, formerly much frequented on account of its medicinal spring, which was discovered in a neighbouring common about an hundred years ago. The church is a mean edifice; but the rectory is very beneficial.
Here is the fine seat of the Lord Trevor, to which Queen Elizabeth gave the name of Mount Pleasant.
Barnet’s yard, Mill bank.†
Baron’s Almshouse, in Elbow lane, Shadwell, was founded in the year 1682, by George Baron, for fifteen poor women, who also endowed it with 5l. 4s. per annum for bread. ”

“ It is, according to your taste and to the condition of your nerves, a pleasure or a martyrdom to be present at the great Fair of Barnet: that three days’ Pandemonium to which come all the lowest of the low, whom, paradoxically enough, that “noble animal, the friend of man,” attracts to himself. For Barnet is, above all other things, a Horse Fair. ”

“ It was Anthony's night to share Rumney's couch of straw; Kit Bottle's to watch for Barnet's men.
Master Marryott, sitting by the fire, was assailed by fears lest the pursuivant had abandoned the false chase. If not, it was strange, when the slow progress with the coach was considered, that he had not come in sight. Hal reassured himself by accounting for this in more ways than one. Barnet must have been detained long in recruiting men to join in the pursuit. He may have been hindered by lack of money, also, for he had left London without thought of further journey than to Welwyn. ”

“ At Barnet, however, he had been prevailed on to dismount, and send his steed away, that he might thus, as when he killed his horse at Towton, prove to his adherents that he was determined never to leave the field till he was either a conqueror or a corpse. Most unfortunate for the earl proved this deviation from his ordinary custom, when the day wore on and the men grew weary, and looked [Pg 294] in vain for the presence of their chief to cheer their spirits and sustain their courage. ”

“ The name Barnet is a corruption of the Saxon153 Bergnet, signifying a little hill; the site of the town then forming a small rising in the midst of the great forest; the prefix Chipping = market is a word of Scandinavian origin, represented in the Swedish Jonköping and the Danish Kjøbenhavn = (Copenhagen) . Barnet was the scene of a battle in 1471, when the Yorkists defeated the Lancastrians, killing their leader, Warwick the king-maker. ”

“ But it happened—so prone is circumstance to run to coincidence, as every man perceives daily in his own life—that Roger Barnet, too, had his special hindrances. That part of the chase which had culminated in his almost catching Hal at the hostelry near the Newark cross-road, had been delayed at the outset by the delivery of the queen's letters. And in the subsequent pursuit, when Hal's several impediments had given the pursuivant the best opportunities, Master Barnet had suffered most annoying checks. ”

“ Barnaby street, Tooley street, Southwark.
Barnes, a village in Surrey, almost encompassed by the Thames. It lies between Mortlake and Barn Elms, and is seven miles from London, and five from Kingston.
Barnet, a market town in Hertfordshire, situated in the road to St. Alban’s, eleven miles from London, on the top of a hill, whence it is called High Barnet, and also Chipping, or Cheaping Barnet, from King Henry the Second’s granting the monks of St. Alban’s the privilege of holding a market here; the word Cheap, or Chepe, being an ancient word for a market. ”

“ On the journey thither, these two groups of riders had been more than once in sight of each other. Both Marryott and Barnet had observed that Captain Bottle and the Puritan were serving Mistress Hazlehurst as escort,—a circumstance that seemed to the pursuivant quite natural, since the lady was no friend of Marryott's and the two men were, in Barnet's belief, Marryott's betrayers. Barnet himself had offered to let her ride under his protection on the southward journey; but she had refused, and had watched in silence, with Kit and Anthony, the departure of the prisoner from Foxby Hall. ”

“ Barnet became aware of an excitement in the newspaper kiosks at the corners of the square. Something very sensational had been flashed upon the transparencies. Forgetting for a moment his penniless condition, he made his way over a bridge to buy a paper, for in those days the papers, which were printed upon thin sheets of metallic foil, were sold at determinate points by specially licensed purveyors. Half over, he stopped short at a change in the traffic below; and was astonished to see that the police signals were restricting vehicles to the half roadway. ”

“ This brought us to Barnet in next to no time. We were still doing forty as we entered the town, and would have run out of it at twenty-five after we'd passed the church and the police station—would have, I say, but for one little fact, and that was a fat sergeant of police right in the middle of the road, with his hand held up like a leg of mutton, and a voice that might have been hailing a burglar.
"Here, you," he cried, as I drew up, "who have you got in that car?"
"Why," says I, "who should I have but somebody who has a right to be there? Ask his lordship for himself." ”

“ Barnet, to say the truth, appeared to entertain an opposite sentiment on the subject, and on such occasions frequently expressed himself audibly, though indefinitely, in reference to 'a parcel of girls.' As it was not easy to ruffle her sweet temper, however, Florence generally reconciled the young gentleman to his fate after a few minutes, and they strolled on amicably: Lady Skettles and Sir Barnet following, in a state of perfect complacency and high gratification. ”

“ I like to know my fellow men in general, Sir Barnet. What does Terence say? Any one who is the parent of a son is interesting to me."
"Has Mrs Blimber any wish to see any remarkable person?" asked Sir Barnet, courteously.
Mrs. Blimber replied, with a sweet smile and a shake of her sky-blue cap, that if Sir Barnet could have made her known to Cicero, she would have troubled him ”

“ Barnet was a man with a rich capacity for misery, and there is no doubt that he exercised it to its fullest extent now. The events that had, as it were, dashed themselves together into one half-hour of this day showed that curious refinement of cruelty in their arrangement which often proceeds from the bosom of the whimsical god at other times known as blind Circumstance. That his few minutes of hope, between the reading of the first and second letters, had carried him to extraordinary heights of rapture was proved by the immensity of his suffering now. ”

“ And, moreover, a fight might give the man he seeks a chance to die by sword or pistol, whereas 'tis a point of honor with Barnet to take his prisoner well and whole to London. He is a feeder of headsman's blocks and hangman's nooses! Ay, he has chosen to wait; 'tis certain now."
"How know'st thou?"
"He is filling his tobacco-pipe, and motioning one of his men for use of a slow-match. When Roger sits down to smoke, he hath made up his mind for a season of waiting. And there is no man can out-wait Roger Barnet when he is sucking his Nicotian. ”

“ Barnet Fair comes on a Wednesday, and, of all the days that are in the year, there is not one that can come up to it; leastways, I mean with the thousands wot move in that spear of life the same as your humble servant. ”

“ While Roger Barnet thinks the man he wants is in this house, he will wait to starve him out, though he wait till doomsday. And if he learns 'tis not his man that he hath been chasing, he will infer that the other man is by that time 'scaped, and he will wait still for the man that has tricked him. He will carry some victim back to London for this, be sure on't!"
Kit had come down from the trestle, and was standing with Hal at the fireplace. ”

“ But when traitors are subtle fellows that flee and disguise themselves, these loutish constables' knaves, that watch for hunted men in front of ale-houses, are sad servants of the state, God wot!—and I have seen with these eyes a letter to that effect, from Lord Burleigh to Sir Francis, when this same Barnet and I were a-hunting the Babington rascals."25
"Then this Barnet is like to keep on our track?" interrogated Hal.
"Yea, that he is! 'Tis meat and drink to the [Pg 132] rogue, this man-hunting! He takes a pride in it, and used to boast he had never yet lost his game. ”

“ Never was a man more free from sham heroics.
§ 6.
Barnet welcomed the appearance of the atomic engine with the zest of masculine youth in all fresh machinery, and it is evident that for some time he failed to connect the rush of wonderful new possibilities with the financial troubles of his family. "I knew my father was worried," he admits. ”

“ In Barnet’s old birthplace vivacious young children with bones like india-rubber had grown up to be stable men and women, men and women had dried in the skin, stiffened, withered, and sunk into decrepitude ”

“ Those gaping bodies on the snow tell how Rumney's gang fared 'gainst men firing from inside these stout walls. Barnet thinks he has the hare mewed up, and 'tis as cheap to wait for't to venture out as 'tis to risk flesh and blood in trying to come at it. ”

“ Roger Barnet, now that thy taking is but matter of time, will not make terms. He is no man for concessions or half-way meetings."
"But he hath much to gain by my offer: the time saved, the certainty of taking his man alive and without loss to his own party, the greater ease of carrying one prisoner than many to London. He should be glad of pretext to be rid of the underlings."
"Truly said, in sooth. But the nature of the man is against making treaty with an opponent, e'en though to his own advantage."
Marryott thought for a moment. ”

“ Reaching the ford, Barnet told me that our party had spent several hours in crossing, and was encamped three miles ahead. He took me over the river in his canoe, my mule swimming behind. Half a mile down the road. I met Ellis and Treadaway.
"Ah ha!" said Dan, "we were looking for you. I told the boys not to be uneasy. There are men in our crowd who would have blundered upon some Rebel, told all about us, and so alarmed the country and brought out the Home Guards; but I knew you were discreet enough to take care of yourself, and not endanger us. Let us breakfast at this Union house." ”

“ At Barnet they manages to suit all parties, and gives em a opportunity of pairin' off so as to suit their tastes. For instance, while the missus went to the wax work, me and Simmons was in the next tent having a game at skittles; then we took a turn in Sluggers' sparrin'-booth, while the ladies passed a pleasant 'arf-hour in the Star Ghost carawan and got their blood froze for a penny, which, considerin the 'eat of the afternoon, wasn't dear. After that, by way of restorin' their sperits, they went to see the four-legged duck and the big-headed child and the livin' skellington ”