r and Margaret went to the upper windows to see it; and
when the attacks upon the shutters seemed to have ceased, Enderby joined
them. There were very few faces among the crowd that were known even to
Charles, whose business it was, in his own opinion, to know everybody.
Mr Tucker was evidently only looking on from a distance. Mrs
Plumstead had been on the spot, but was gone--terrified into quietness
by the fire, into which the rioters had threatened to throw her, if she
disturbed their proceedings. She had professed to despise the idea of a
ducking in the brook; but a scorching in the fire was not to be braved;
so no more was heard of her this night. Three or four of the
frequenters of the public-house were on the spot; but though they lent a
hand to throw fresh loads of fuel on the fire, they did not take their
pipes from their mouths, nor seem to be prime movers in the riot. The
yellow blaze lighted up a hundred faces, scowling with anger or grinning
with mirth, but they were all strange--strange as the incidents of the
day. A little retired from the glare of the fire, was a figure,
revealed only when the flame shot up from being freshly fed--Sir William
Hunter on horseback with his immovable groom behind him. How long he
had been there, nobody in the house could tell; nor whether he had
attempted to do anything in behalf of peace and quiet. There he sat, as
if looking on for his amusement, and forgetting that he had any business
with the scene.

It was no wonder that Dr Levitt was not yet visible. If he should
arrive by dawn, that was all that could be expected. But where were Mr
Grey and Sydney? Where was Mr Rowland? Like some of Mr Hope's other
neighbours, who ought to have come to his aid on such an occasion, these
gentlemen were detained at home by the emotions of their families.
Sydney Grey was locked up by his tender mother as securely as Mr Hope's
prisoner; and all the boy's efforts to break the door availed only to
bruise him full as seriously as the mob would have done. His father was
detained by the tremors of his wife, the palpitations of Sophia, and the
tears and sobs of the twins, all of which began with the certainty of
the first stone having been thrown, and were by no means abated by the
sight of the reflection of the flames on the sky. Mr Grey found it
really impossible to leave his family, as he afterwards said. He
consoled himself with the thought that he had done the best he could,