On February 9th the artist received the following request:—
"Will you, for No. 49, do the locksmith's house, which was described in No. 48? I mean the outside. If you can, without hurting the effect, shut up the shop as though it were night, so much the better. Should you want a figure, an ancient watchman in or on his box, very sleepy, will be just the thing for me.
"I have written to Chapman and requested him to send you a block of a long shape, so that the house may come upright, as it were."
From this note, and a subsequent one in which Dickens commands the artist to put "a penny pistol to Chapman's head and demand the blocks of him," we learn that Cattermole had by this time accustomed himself to copying his designs upon wood, and could dispense with that kind of assistance. His drawing of the dilapidated but picturesque old country inn, "The Boot," whither the rioters resorted, is, I believe, a direct transcript from an old print representing the place as it appeared at the time referred to, 1780; the woodcut is in reverse of the print.[33] Here are two letters (dated July 28th and August 6th, 1841, respectively) that fairly bristle with details of scenes, in chapters liv. and lvi., which the artist was desired to depict:—
"Can you do for me by Saturday evening—I know the time is short, but I think the subject will suit you, and I am greatly pressed—a party of rioters (with Hugh and Simon Tappertit conspicuous among them) in old John Willet's bar, turning the liquor taps to their own advantage, smashing bottles, cutting down the grove of lemons, sitting astride on casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls, eating the great cheese, smoking sacred pipes, &c., &c.; John Willet fallen backward in his chair, regarding them with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them, with none of the Maypole customers at his back?
"It's in your way, and you'll do it a hundred times better than I can suggest it to you, I know."
"Here's a subject for the next number.... The rioters went, sir, from John Willet's bar (where you saw them to such good purpose) straight to the Warren, which house they plundered, sacked, burned, pulled down as much of it as they could, and greatly damaged and destroyed. They are supposed to have left it about half-an-hour. It is night, and the ruins are here and there flaming and smoking. I want—if you understand—to show one of the turrets laid open—the turret where the alarm-bell is, mentioned in No. 1; and among the ruins (at some height if possible) Mr. Haredale just clutching our friend, the mysterious file, who is passing over them like a spirit; Solomon Daisy, if you can introduce him, looking on from the ground below.
"Please to observe that the M. F. wears a large cloak and slouched hat. This is important, because Browne will have him in the same number, and he has not changed his dress meanwhile. Mr. Haredale is supposed to have come down here on horseback pell-mell; to be excited to the last degree. I think it will make a queer picturesque thing in your hands.... P.S.—When you have done the subject, I wish you'd write me one line and tell me how, that I may be sure we agree."
In sending to Dickens for approval a sketch of the ruined home of Mr. Haredale, the artist enclosed the following letter, now printed for the first time:—