“Yah!” roared the crowd, and they pressed on.
“Banks, what shall we do?” whispered Glaire; “they’ll murder us.”
“They won’t murder me,” said the foreman, stolidly.
“But they will me. What shall we do?”
“Faight,” said the foreman, sturdily.
“I can’t fight. I’ll promise them anything,” groaned the young man. “Here, my lads,” he cried, “I’ll promise you—”
“Yah! You wean’t keep your promises,” roared those nearest. “Down with them. Get hold of him, Harry.”
The big workman made a dash at Richard Glaire, and got him by the collar, dragging him from the wall just as the foreman, who tried to get before him, was good-humouredly baffled by half-a-dozen men, who took his blows for an instant, and then held him helpless against the bricks.
It would have gone hard with the young owner of the works, for an English mob, when excited and urged to action, is brutal enough for the moment, before their manly feelings resume their sway, and shame creeps in to stare them in the face. He would probably have been hustled, his clothes torn from his back, and a rain of blows have fallen upon him till he sank exhausted, when he would have been kicked and trampled upon till he lay insensible, with half his ribs broken, and there he would have been left.
“Police! Where are the police?” shouted the young man.