on to the very best advantage, looked on
in the most tranquil state imaginable. For all that, and quick and
dexterous as he was, Gashford had seen him recognise Hugh with the air
of a patron. He had no longer any eyes for the crowd, but fixed his keen
regards upon Sir John.

He stood in the same place and posture until the last man in the
concourse had turned the corner of the street; then very deliberately
took the blue cockade out of his hat; put it carefully in his pocket,
ready for the next emergency; refreshed himself with a pinch of snuff;
put up his box; and was walking slowly off, when a passing carriage
stopped, and a lady's hand let down the glass. Sir John's hat was off
again immediately. After a minute's conversation at the carriage-window,
in which it was apparent that he was vastly entertaining on the subject
of the mob, he stepped lightly in, and was driven away.

The secretary smiled, but he had other thoughts to dwell upon, and
soon dismissed the topic. Dinner was brought him, but he sent it down
untasted; and, in restless pacings up and down the room, and constant
glances at the clock, and many futile efforts to sit down and read, or
go to sleep, or look out of the window, consumed four weary hours. When
the dial told him thus much time had crept away, he stole upstairs to
the top of the house, and coming out upon the roof sat down, with his
face towards the east.

Heedless of the fresh air that blew upon his heated brow, of the
pleasant meadows from which he turned, of the piles of roofs and
chimneys upon which he looked, of the smoke and rising mist he vainly
sought to pierce, of the shrill cries of children at their evening
sports, the distant hum and turmoil of the town, the cheerful country
breath that rustled past to meet it, and to droop, and die; he watched,
and watched, till it was dark save for the specks of light that twinkled
in the streets below and far away--and, as the darkness deepened,
strained his gaze and grew more eager yet.

'Nothing but gloom in that direction, still!' he muttered restlessly.
'Dog! where is the redness in the sky, you promised me!'

Chapter 54

Rumours of the prevailing disturbances had, by this time, begun to be
pretty generally circulated through the towns and villages round London,
and the tidings were everywhere received with that appetite for the
marvellous and love of the terrible which have probably been among the
natural characteristics of man