A mob is usually a creature of very mysterious existence,
particularly in a large city. Where it comes
from or whither it goes, few men can tell. Assembling
and dispersing with equal suddenness, it is as difficult
to follow to its various sources as the sea itself;
nor does the parallel stop here, for the ocean is
not more fickle and uncertain, more terrible when
roused, more unreasonable, or more cruel.
The people who were boisterous at Westminster upon
the Friday morning, and were eagerly bent upon the
work of devastation in Duke Street and Warwick Street
at night, were, in the mass, the same. Allowing
for the chance accessions of which any crowd is morally
sure in a town where there must always be a large
number of idle and profligate persons, one and the
same mob was at both places. Yet they spread themselves
in various directions when they dispersed in the afternoon,
made no appointment for reassembling, had no definite
purpose or design, and indeed, for anything they knew,
were scattered beyond the hope of future union.
At The Boot, which, as has been shown, was in a manner
the head-quarters of the rioters, there were not,
upon this Friday night, a dozen people. Some
slept in the stable and outhouses, some in the common
room, some two or three in beds. The rest were
in their usual homes or haunts. Perhaps not a
score in all lay in the adjacent fields and lanes,
and under haystacks, or near the warmth of brick-kilns,
who had not their accustomed place of rest beneath
the open sky. As to the public ways within the
town, they had their ordinary nightly occupants, and
no others; the usual amount of vice and wretchedness,
but no more.
The experience of one evening, however, had taught
the reckless leaders of disturbance, that they had
but to show themselves in the streets, to be immediately
surrounded by materials which they could only have
kept together when their aid was not required, at
great risk, expense, and trouble. Once possessed
of this secret, they were as confident as if twenty
thousand men, devoted to their will, had been encamped
about them, and assumed a confidence which could not
have been surpassed, though that had really been the
case. All day, Saturday, they remained quiet.
On Sunday, they rather studied how to keep their men
within call, and in full hope, than to follow out,
by any fierce measure, their first day’s proceedings.
‘I hope,’ said Dennis, as, with a loud
yawn, he raised his body from a heap of straw on which
he had been sleeping, and supporting his head upon
his hand, appealed to Hugh on Sunday morning, ’that
Muster Gashford allows some rest? Perhaps he’d
have us at work again already, eh?’
‘It’s not his way to let matters drop,
you may be sure of that,’ growled Hugh in answer.
’I’m in no humour to stir yet, though.
I’m as stiff as a dead body, and as full of
ugly scratches as if I had been fighting all day yesterday
with wild cats.’
