A rush of lads and young men passed them as he spoke—shouting—
"Pull 'em down—turn 'em out!"
Andrews and Winnington pursued, but were soon forced back by a retreating movement of those in front. Winnington's height enabled him to see over the heads of the crowd.
"The police are keeping a ring," he reported to his companion—"they seem to have got it in hand! Ah! now they've seen me—they'll let us through."
Meanwhile the shouts and booing of the hostile portion of the audience—just augmented by a number of rough-looking men from the neighbouring brickfields—prevented most of the remarks delivered by the male speaker on the cart from reaching the audience.
"Cowards!" said an excited woman's voice—"that's all they can do!—howl like wild beasts—that's all they're fit for!"
Winnington turned to see a tall girl, carrying an armful of newspapers. She had flaming red hair, and she wore a black and orange scarf, with a cap of the same colours. "Foster's daughter," he thought, wondering. "What happens to them all!" For he had known Kitty Foster from her school days, and had never thought of her except as a silly simpering flirt, bent on the pursuit of man. And now he beheld a maenad, a fury.
Suddenly another woman's voice cut across the others—
"Aren't you ashamed of those colours! Go home—and take them off. Go home and behave like a decent creature!"
Heads were turned—to see a middle-aged woman of quiet dress and commanding aspect, sternly pointing to the astonished Kitty Foster. "Do you see that girl?"—the woman continued, addressing her neighbours,—"she's got the 'Daughters'' colours on. Do you know what the Daughters have been doing in town? You've seen about the destroying of letters in London. Well, I'll tell you what that means. I had a little servant I was very fond of. She left me to go and live near her sister in town. The sister died, and she got consumption. She went into lodgings, and there was no one to help her. She wrote to me, asking me to come to her. Her letter was destroyed in one of the pillar-boxes raided—by those women—" She pointed. "Then she broke her heart because she thought I'd given her up. She daren't write again. And now I've found her out—in hospital—dying. I've seen her to-day. If it hadn't have been for these demented creatures she might ha' lived for years."