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