Barnaby Rudge Chapter 42

In which the loyal Royal East London Volunteers, with Serjeant Varden among them, display their martial discipline before succumbing to jovial revelry, and Mr Haredale, newly arrived and burdened with a solemn purpose, confides to Varden his intent to vigilantly watch over a forsaken house by night. Together they traverse its dusty, melancholy rooms, where the silence and shadows evoke memories of vanished lives, and the locksmith is left to ponder the weight of mysteries that haunt his friend’s restless spirit.