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 person to the very best advantage, looked on
in the most tranquil state imaginable.
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