At The Boot, which, as has been shown, was in a manner the head-quarters
of the rioters, there were not, upon this Friday night, a dozen people.
Some slept in the stable and outhouses, some in the common room, some
two or three in beds. The rest were in their usual homes or haunts.
Perhaps not a score in all lay in the adjacent fields and lanes, and
under haystacks, or near the warmth of brick-kilns, who had not their
accustomed place of rest beneath the open sky. As to the public ways
within the town, they had their ordinary nightly occupants, and no
others; the usual amount of vice and wretchedness, but no more.
The experience of one evening, however, had taught the reckless leaders
of disturbance, that they had but to show themselves in the streets, to
be immediately surrounded by materials which they could only have kept
together when their aid was not required, at great risk, expense, and
trouble. Once possessed of this secret, they were as confident as if
twenty thousand men, devoted to their will, had been encamped about
them, and assumed a confidence which could not have been surpassed,
though that had really been the case. All day, Saturday, they remained
quiet.
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