rom that which he knew the rioters
would take, and sitting down behind a curtain in one of the upper
windows of Lord George Gordon's house, waited impatiently for their
coming. They were so long, that although he knew it had been settled
they should come that way, he had a misgiving they must have changed
their plans and taken some other route. But at length the roar of voices
was heard in the neighbouring fields, and soon afterwards they came
thronging past, in a great body.

However, they were not all, nor nearly all, in one body, but were, as he
soon found, divided into four parties, each of which stopped before the
house to give three cheers, and then went on; the leaders crying out in
what direction they were going, and calling on the spectators to join
them. The first detachment, carrying, by way of banners, some relics
of the havoc they had made in Moorfields, proclaimed that they were on
their way to Chelsea, whence they would return in the same order, to
make of the spoil they bore, a great bonfire, near at hand. The second
gave out that they were bound for Wapping, to destroy a chapel; the
third, that their place of destination was East Smithfield, and their
object the same. All this was done in broad, bright, summer day. Gay
carriages and chairs stopped to let them pass, or turned back to avoid
them; people on foot stood aside in doorways, or perhaps knocked and
begged permission to stand at a window, or in the hall, until the
rioters had passed: but nobody interfered with them; and when they had
gone by, everything went on as usual.

There still remained the fourth body, and for that the secretary looked
with a most intense eagerness. At last it came up. It was numerous, and
composed of picked men; for as he gazed down among them, he recognised
many upturned faces which he knew well--those of Simon Tappertit, Hugh,
and Dennis in the front, of course. They halted and cheered, as the
others had done; but when they moved again, they did not, like them,
proclaim what design they had. Hugh merely raised his hat upon the
bludgeon he carried, and glancing at a spectator on the opposite side of
the way, was gone.

Gashford followed the direction of his glance instinctively, and
saw, standing on the pavement, and wearing the blue cockade, Sir John
Chester. He held his hat an inch or two above his head, to propitiate
the mob; and, resting gracefully on his cane, smiling pleasantly, and
displaying his dress and pers