reat was cut off from under them.
However, as the front-door had been forced, and this minor crowd, being
anxious to get at the liquor, had no fancy for losing time in breaking
down another, but had gone round and got in from Holborn with the rest,
the narrow lane in the rear was quite free of people. So, when they had
crawled through the passage indicated by the vintner (which was a mere
shelving-trap for the admission of casks), and had managed with some
difficulty to unchain and raise the door at the upper end, they emerged
into the street without being observed or interrupted. Joe still holding
Mr Haredale tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner, they
hurried through the streets at a rapid pace; occasionally standing aside
to let some fugitives go by, or to keep out of the way of the soldiers
who followed them, and whose questions, when they halted to put any,
were speedily stopped by one whispered word from Joe.
Chapter 68
While Newgate was burning on the previous night, Barnaby and his
father, having been passed among the crowd from hand to hand, stood in
Smithfield, on the outskirts of the mob, gazing at the flames like men
who had been suddenly roused from sleep. Some moments elapsed before
they could distinctly remember where they were, or how they got
there; or recollected that while they were standing idle and listless
spectators of the fire, they had tools in their hands which had been
hurriedly given them that they might free themselves from their fetters.
Barnaby, heavily ironed as he was, if he had obeyed his first impulse,
or if he had been alone, would have made his way back to the side of
Hugh, who to his clouded intellect now shone forth with the new lustre
of being his preserver and truest friend. But his father's terror
of remaining in the streets, communicated itself to him when he
comprehended the full extent of his fears, and impressed him with the
same eagerness to fly to a place of safety.
In a corner of the market among the pens for cattle, Barnaby knelt down,
and pausing every now and then to pass his hand over his father's face,
or look up to him with a smile, knocked off his irons. When he had seen
him spring, a free man, to his feet, and had given vent to the transport
of delight which the sight awakened, he went to work upon his own, which
soon fell rattling down upon the ground, and left his limbs unfettered.
Gliding away together when this task was accompl
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