He pointed in the direction of Ely with his whip, and at that moment Zita heard a roar of voices, followed by an explosion of firearms borne upon the wind. In fact, the rioters had reached the metropolis of the Fens. They had let the waggon precede the marching body. The front board had been notched to receive the fowling-pieces, and the insurgent labourers, on reaching the main street, had announced their entry by a discharge of firearms and a ringing shout, calculated to strike terror into the hearts of the citizens.
Zita did not remain long inactive, listening to the sounds of uproar in the distance.
'Sharp! a pail!' she called to the quaking kitchen-maid. 'There is no reason why you should be idle, or I either, because a parcel of men are making fools of themselves.'
'A pail? What can you want a pail for at such a time as this?' asked Mrs. Tunkiss. 'You ought to be down on your knees praying.'
'You would want a pail, and soap, and water, and a scrubbing-brush, Leehanna, if you had been drawn out into the yard, and had had a score of bumpkins sitting on your back and kicking your sides with their dirty boots. I am not going to let my van remain all night in its present condition, to have the clay caked over it in the morning, just because wheat is up and wages down, and folks don't like to have it so. I will clean the van before I go to bed.'
Mrs. Tunkiss and Sarah were too much overcome to render assistance. Sarah was shaking and jerking in every limb, and Leehanna had got down her Bible to read about the fire and brimstone rained on the cities of the plain, and the escape of Lot, and to conceive herself to be a female Lot. Zita furnished herself with what she required, and set vigorously to work, commenting as she went on upon the bruises and scratches in the varnish and paint, which the sides of the van had received from the boots of those who invaded it that evening.
She was engaged on the roof of the van, when, all at once, her thoughts took a different direction, and, kneeling upright, scrubbing-brush in one hand and a piece of soap in the other, she exclaimed—
'That was impudence, if you please! to tell me he did not approve of Pip going after Kainie, and that he will do his utmost to make her happy! Does he think he can have us both? That may be fen ways, it isn't caravan morals. Hark!—what is that?'
She could hear the alarm bell of Ely Minster pealing.
'There was a song of father's that I mind,' said Zita, still kneeling upright, 'and if Mark had only been brought up in a van instead of desultory-like on the Fens, he'd have learned the things he ought to do, and the things he ought to leave alone, taught him by songs and other ways.' She sang—