All at once, however, there was a lull.
“The worst is over, I think,” a professor ventured to remark.
He was mistaken, the worst was to come. The rioters had found out that the big hall doors were closed against them.
“Why should they be shut out? Had not they as good a right to be inside as any?”
Certainly they had. “Hurrah! lads, hurrah!”
In another minute they were crowding, in two dense bodies, up the two stairs that converged in front of the folding doors. Here they loudly knocked, and demanded admittance. This was refused.
Then all the force the rioters could command was applied to that door. The locks and bolts, it is true, held good, but each half gave way simultaneously at its hinges. Down with a crash went the door, and in rushed the mob.
“Now, lads, out with your hammers.”
The students friendly to the Lord Rector rallied and fought well, but were speedily beaten, and had to seek refuge in flight.
The Lord Rector himself, during the scrimmage, is said to have received a wound in the nose from a piece of splintered wood.