He saw the stones torn up; he saw them used with good effect on the
unguarded back-door; he cried out in useless warning as he saw the
upper windows open, and aim taken among the crowd; but just then the
door gave way, and there was an involuntary forward motion in the
throng, so that no one was so disabled by the shots as to prevent
his forcing his way in with the rest. And now the sounds came veiled
by the walls as of some raging ravening beast growling over his
prey; the noise came and went--once utterly ceased; and Daniel
raised himself with difficulty to ascertain the cause, when again
the roar came clear and fresh, and men poured into the yard again,
shouting and rejoicing over the rescued victims of the press-gang.
Daniel hobbled up, and shouted, and rejoiced, and shook hands with
the rest, hardly caring to understand that the lieutenant and his
gang had quitted the house by a front window, and that all had
poured out in search of them; the greater part, however, returning
to liberate the prisoners, and then glut their vengeance on the
house and its contents.
From all the windows, upper and lower, furniture was now being
thrown into the yard. The smash of glass, the heavier crash of wood,
the cries, the laughter, the oaths, all excited Daniel to the
utmost; and, forgetting his bruises, he pressed forwards to lend a
helping hand. The wild, rough success of his scheme almost turned
his head. He hurraed at every flagrant piece of destruction; he
shook hands with every one around him, and, at last, when the
destroyers inside paused to take breath, he cried out,-'If a was as young as onest a was, a'd have t' Randyvowse down, and
mak' a bonfire on it. We'd ring t' fire-bell then t' some purpose.' No sooner said than done. Their excitement was ready to take the
slightest hint of mischief; old chairs, broken tables, odd drawers,
smashed chests, were rapidly and skilfully heaped into a pyramid,
and one, who at the first broaching of the idea had gone for live
coals the speedier to light up the fire, came now through the crowd
with a large shovelful of red-hot cinders. The rioters stopped to
take breath and look on like children at the uncertain flickering
blaze, which sprang high one moment, and dropped down the next only
to creep along the base of the heap of wreck, and make secure of its
future work. Then the lurid blaze darted up wild, high, and
irrepressible; and the men around gave a cry of fierce exultation,
and in rough mirth began to try and push each other in. In one of
the pauses of the rushing, roaring noise of the flames, the moaning
low and groan of the poor alarmed cow fastened up in the shippen
caught Daniel's ear, and he understood her groans as well as if they
had been words. He limped out of the yard through the now deserted
house, where men were busy at the mad work of destruction, and found
his way back to the lane into which the shippen opened. The cow was
dancing about at the roar, and dazzle, and heat of the fire; but
Daniel knew how to soothe her, and in a few minutes he had a rope
round her neck, and led her gently out from the scene of her alarm.
He was still in the lane when Simpson, the man-of-all-work at the
Mariners' Arms, crept out of some hiding-place in the deserted
outbuilding, and stood suddenly face to face with Robson.