Then a voice was heard shouting:
"The watch! the watch! or some fellows with swords!"
Immediately the whole band broke up and rushed helter-skelter in all directions. Not that the bullies feared the watch one whit. The watchmen were mostly poor, old, worn-out men, who could do little or nothing to impose order upon these young braggarts. Indeed, they were so often maltreated themselves, that they just as often as not kept carefully away when cries were raised for help. But, having had their fun, the roisterers were ready to disperse themselves; for some of the citizens would rise in a white heat of rage, and take law into their own hands, in which case it happened that the disturbers of the peace came off second best. One of them had seen Tom's tall figure and the sword in his hand as he ran beneath a lamp, and had fancied that some more determined rescue than that afforded by the watch was to be given. So the band dispersed shouting and hooting; and Tom and Cale found them scattered ere they came up to them.
"But where is the woman?" asked Tom, looking round; "they have not surely carried her off?"
"Oh no--only sent her rolling down the hill in a barrel!" panted Cale; "it is a favourite pastime with the youths of London town. One party will put a barrel ready in yon doorway on purpose, and if it be not removed, it will like enough be used ere morning. We had best go in search of the poor creature; for ofttimes they are sore put to it to get free from the cask--if they be stout in person at least."
And, indeed, as they neared the foot of the hill, they heard a groaning and stifled crying for help; and, sure enough, they found a buxom woman, the wife of a respectable citizen, tightly wedged into the cask, and much shaken and bruised by her rapid transit down the hill, although, when released with some difficulty, she was able to walk home, escorted by her rescuers, and bitterly inveighing against the wickedness of the world in general and London's young bullies in particular.
"The best thing, good dame, is not to be abroad at such an hour alone," advised Cale.
"Yes, truly; and yet it was but the matter of a few streets; and it seems hard a woman may not sit beside a sick neighbour for a while without being served so on her way back. My husband was to have come for me; but must have been detained. Pray heaven he has not fallen in with a band of Mohocks, and had the nose of him split open--to say nothing of worse!"
"Are men really served so bad as that?" asked Tom, as the two turned back from the citizen's house whither they had escorted their grateful protegee.
"Worse sometimes," answered Cale, with a shake of the head. "Those Mohocks should be wiped out without mercy by the arm of the law; for mercy they show none. They have read of the horrid cruelties practised by the Indians whose name they bear, and they seek to do the like to the hapless victims whom ill-fortune casts in their way. There be men whose eyes they have gouged out, and whose noses have been cut off, whose brains have been turned by the terror and agony they have been through. And yet these men go free; and law-abiding citizens are allowed to quake in their beds at the sound of their voices in the street, or the sight of their badges even in broad daylight. I call it a sin and a shame that such things can be. Well, well, well, let us hope that, when the great Duke comes home, he may be able to put a stop to these things. Even in warfare, men say, he is merciful, and will permit no extortion and no cruelty. We citizens of London will give him a right royal welcome; perchance we may be able to crave a boon of him in return. He--or, rather, his wife--is all-powerful with our good Queen Anne; and she would not wish a hair of a man's head hurt could she but have her way."