Short Fiction · Chapter
VI: Arrested explained
Judge Harbottle attends the theater at Drury Lane and plans to return home with two cronies.
What happens
Judge Harbottle attends the theater at Drury Lane and plans to return home with two cronies. However, when he enters his coach, he finds himself seized by two armed strangers. The coach travels across a desolate moor, where he sees a gigantic gallows with skeletons and a hangman who calls out for a rope for the Judge. He also recognizes a former footman, Dingly Chuff, who had died in prison. The Judge is powerless and terrified as the coach continues.
Themes in this chapter
Guilt and Retribution
The Judge's abduction and the appearance of the dead footman and the gallows suggest a supernatural retribution for his past misdeeds.
Supernatural and the Uncanny
The eerie moor, the gigantic gallows, and the reappearance of a dead servant create a supernatural atmosphere of horror and unreality.
Characters to notice
- Judge Harbottle
The Judge is the central figure in this chapter, attending the play and then being abducted by armed strangers in his own coach.
- Tom Chuff
Tom Chuff appears as the footman Dingly Chuff, a former servant of the Judge who died in prison, now seen at the coach window.
Key passages
“Judge Harbottle went this night to the play at Drury Lane.”
Judge Harbottle attended a performance at the Drury Lane theatre that evening.
Sets the scene for the chapter's events.
“The Judge suddenly felt himself roughly seized and thrust from his corner into the middle of the seat, and opening his eyes, instantly he found himself between his two companions.”
The Judge was abruptly grabbed and shoved into the center of the seat, and when he opened his eyes, he saw two strangers beside him.
Describes the moment of the Judge's abduction.
“It was a gigantic gallows beside the road; it stood three-sided, and from each of its three broad beams at top depended in chains some eight or ten bodies...”
A massive three-sided gallows stood by the road, with several bodies hanging in chains from each beam.
Highlights the horrifying vision the Judge witnesses.