This man, who was swinging his arms about, and gesticulating energetically, was shouting in a hoarse voice. His words were disconnected, and hard to catch, but “Downtrodden,”—“bloated oligarchs,”—“British pluck”—“wucking-man”—“slavery”—and “mesters,” reached the vicar’s ears as he drew nearer.
Suddenly there was a movement in the crowd, and the speaker seemed to be hustled from the top of the stone post which he had chosen for his rostrum, and then, amid yells and hootings, it seemed that the crowd had surrounded a couple of men who had been hemmed in while making their way towards the great gates, and they now stood at bay, with their backs to the high brick wall, while the mob formed a semicircle a few feet from them.
It was rather hard work, and wanted no little elbowing, but, without a moment’s hesitation, the vicar began to force his way through the crowd; and as he got nearer to the hemmed in men, he could hear some of the words passing to and fro.
“Why, one of them is my friend, Mr Richard Glaire,” said the vicar to himself, as he caught sight of the pale trembling figure, standing side by side with a heavy grizzled elderly workman, who stood there with his hat off, evidently bent on defending the younger man.
“Yow come out o’ that, Joe Banks, an’ leave him to us,” roared a great bull-headed hammerman, who was evidently one of the ringleaders.
“Keep off, you great coward,” was the answer.
“Gie him a blob, Harry; gie him a blob,” shouted a voice.
“My good men—my good men,” faltered Richard Glaire, trying to make himself heard; but there was a roar of rage and hatred, and the men pressed forward, fortunately carrying with them the vicar, and too intent upon their proposed victims to take any notice of the strange figure elbowing itself to the front.
“Where are the police, Banks—the police?”
“Yah! He wants the police,” shouted a shrill voice, which came from the man in the red waistcoat. “He’s trampled down the rights of man, and now he wants the brutal mummydons of the law.”