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He promptly turned the point aside
W. H. C. Groome
1907
12.2 x 7.9 cm, (4 ¾ by 3 ⅛ inches), framed
Lithograph
Dickens's Master Humphrey's Clock (frontispiece), referencing page 31.
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Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham.
During these proceedings, Master Graham had stood apart, strictly confining himself to the duty imposed upon him, and taking little heed of anything beyond. He stepped forward now as a richly-dressed gentleman on foot, followed by a single attendant, was seen advancing up the hill.
As this person drew nearer, the crowd stopped their clamour, and bent forward with eager looks. Master Graham standing alone in the gateway, and the stranger coming slowly towards him, they seemed, as it were, set face to face. The nobleman (for he looked one) had a haughty and disdainful air, which bespoke the slight estimation in which he held the citizen. The citizen, on the other hand, preserved the resolute bearing of one who was not to be frowned down or daunted, and who cared very little for any nobility but that of worth and manhood. It was perhaps some consciousness on the part of each, of these feelings in the other, that infused a more stern expression into their regards as they came closer together.
"Your rapier, worthy sir!"
At the instant that he pronounced these words Graham started, and falling back some paces, laid his hand upon the dagger in his belt.
"You are the man whose horse I used to hold before the Bowyer’s door? You are that man? Speak!"
"Out, you ’prentice hound!" said the other.
You are he! I know you well now!" cried Graham. "Let no man step between us two, or I shall be his murderer." With that he drew his dagger, and rushed in upon him.
The stranger had drawn his weapon from the scabbard ready for the scrutiny, before a word was spoken. He made a thrust at his assailant, but the dagger which Graham clutched in his left hand being the dirk in use at that time for parrying such blows, promptly turned the point aside. They closed. The dagger fell rattling on the ground, and Graham, wresting his adversary’s sword from his grasp, plunged it through his heart. As he drew it out it snapped in two, leaving a fragment in the dead man’s body. ["First Night of the Giant Chronicles," pp. 37-38]
Dickens's period tale relies far too heavily on coincidence to be entirely plausible. Nevertheless, Groome convincingly renders the figures of Mistress Alice's aristocratic seducer (the elaborately dressed Elizabethan gentleman in the foreground) and her devoted preserver, her father's old apprentice, Hugh (dressed in more somber colours and wielding a dirk). The somewhat peculiar situation involves the respectable tradesman, High Graham, standing near the Lud Gate, on the hill near Old Saint Paul's Cathedral. He has been charged with the responsibility, under a recent proclamation by Queen Elizabeth the First, of checking the length of the sword of each gallant entering the city. Her Majesty's intention is to check unnecessary bloodshed and public disorder by permitting nobody to enter whose Spanish rapier is more than three standard feet. The obnoxious aristocrat who refuses to give up his rapier is the same person who had absconded with Mistress Alice twenty years before.
The citizens have yet to intervene to save Master Hugh, and his antagonist is yet to fall dead, impaled by his own sword. Groome has invented a soldier with a partisan who has been guarding (we presume) the Lud Gate, but has not shown the nobleman's attendant who attempts to come to his master's aid. The bystanders seem transfixed as the scene plays out.
Left: Harry Furniss's focus is on the bowyer's daughter, not the devoted apprentice: The Penitent's Return (1910). Centre: George Cattermole's headpiece alerts reader's to the outcome of Master Graham's devotion: Death of Master Graham (4 April 1840). Fred Barnard in the Household Edition leads off with an early scene from the story: At such times, . . . the Bowyer’s daughter would look timidly back at Hugh (1879).
Davis, Paul. "Master Humphrey's Clock." Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to his Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998. P. 238.
Dickens, Charles. Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by George Cattermole and Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). London: Chapman and Hall, 4 April 1840 — 4 December 1841.
_______. Master Humphrey's Clock. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Reprinted Pieces, and Other Stories. With thirty illustrations by L. Fildes, E. G. Dalziel, and F. Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. XX. Pp. 253-306.
_______. Master Humphrey's Clock and Pictures from Italy. With eight illustrations by W. H. C. Groome. Collins Pocket Editions. London and Glasgow: Collins Clear-type Press, 1907. Vol. XLIX. Pp. 1-168.
_______. Barnaby Rudge and Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. Volume VI. London: Educational Book, 1910.
Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture Book: A Record of the Dickens Illustrators. "Ch. XIV. Master Humphrey's Clock ." The Charles Dickens Library. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Pp. 259-265.
Created 8 August 2022