All the elements of dissatisfaction were combined at the period of our tale, and the high price of wheat produced an explosion; but it was Ephraim Beamish who applied the match.
He had been expelled his office as keeper of a mill by the Commissioners, and his enforced idleness gave him leisure to pass from one centre of discontent to another, to stir up the embers, fan them to a white heat, and organise a general outbreak. On a preconcerted day, the labourers rose, and with them was combined a large body of men of no particular calling, who had no particular grievance, and no particular end in view.
No suspicion of danger was entertained by the employers, and when the dissatisfied broke out in open riot, they were taken by surprise and were unprepared to offer resistance.
Bodies of men assembled at Mildenhall, Soham, Isleham, Downham, and Littleport, and the order was given that they were to march upon Ely, and on their way were to extort from the farmers promise of higher wage and cheaper corn. In Ely contributions were to be exacted from the Bishop, the canons, and all the wealthy and well-to-do citizens. The mills were to be wrecked and the banks plundered.
At the head of the whole movement was Beamish, but he was more especially to act as commander over the Littleport detachment.
Having got the men together,—the poachers and wild-duck fowlers armed with their guns, the labourers with cudgels,—he endeavoured to marshal them into some sort of discipline and subjection to orders. But this he found more difficult than to bring the men together. He found the men were not amenable to command, and were indisposed to confine themselves to exacting contributions. Fortified by their numbers, they attacked the grocer's shop, the vicarage, and the home of a retired farmer in Littleport, broke in the doors and pillaged them.
Having tasted the pleasures of plunder, they were prepared to sack and wreck any house whence they thought liquor or money was to be got.
It was in vain that Ephraim Beamish endeavoured to control the unwieldy body of men. Quot homines, tot sententiæ. And as each man in the disorderly love-feasts at Corinth had his prophecy, his psalm, and his interpretation, so in this assemblage of peasants, each had his opinion as to where lay the blame for the distress or discomfort under which he laboured, each had his private grudge to avenge, each his special need which he sought to satisfy, and all were united in equal determination not to submit to dictation from Beamish or any other man.
The tavern at Littleport could hardly escape, although it had been a rendezvous of the dissatisfied. The mob rushed towards it to break in and seize on the contents of the cellar. In vain did Beamish protest that they were injuring a good cause by their disorderly conduct; all desired drink, and none paid heed to his remonstrance.