From this inn, Gabriel Varden, stout-hearted old locksmith of Clerkenwell, jogged steadily home on a chaise, half sleeping and half waking, on a certain rough evening in March.
A loud cry roused him with a start, just where London begins, and he descried a man extended in an apparently lifeless state wounded upon the pathway, and, hovering round him, another person, with a torch in his hand, which he waved in the air with a wild impatience.
"What's here to do?" said the old locksmith. "How's this? What, Barnaby! You know me, Barnaby?"
The bearer of the torch nodded, not once or twice, but a score of times, with a fantastic exaggeration.
"How came it here?" demanded Varden, pointing to the body.
"Steel, steel, steel!" Barnaby replied fiercely, imitating the thrust of a sword.
"Is he robbed?" said the blacksmith.
Barnaby caught him by the arm, and nodded "Yes," pointing towards the city.
"Oh!" said the old man. "The robber made off that way, did he? Now let's see what can be done."
They covered the wounded man with Varden's greatcoat, and carried him to Mrs. Rudge's house hard by. On his way home Gabriel congratulated himself on having an adventure which would silence Mrs. Varden on the subject of the Maypole for that night, or there was no faith in woman.