Almost at the same moment, a dozen
other points were forced, and at every one the crowd poured in like
water.
A few armed servant-men were posted in the hall, and when the rioters
forced an entrance there, they fired some half-a-dozen shots. But these
taking no effect, and the concourse coming on like an army of devils,
they only thought of consulting their own safety, and retreated, echoing
their assailants' cries, and hoping in the confusion to be taken
for rioters themselves; in which stratagem they succeeded, with the
exception of one old man who was never heard of again, and was said
to have had his brains beaten out with an iron bar (one of his fellows
reported that he had seen the old man fall), and to have been afterwards
burnt in the flames.
The besiegers being now in complete possession of the house, spread
themselves over it from garret to cellar, and plied their demon labours
fiercely. While some small parties kindled bonfires underneath the
windows, others broke up the furniture and cast the fragments down
to feed the flames below; where the apertures in the wall (windows no
longer) were large enough, they threw out tables, chests of drawers,
beds, mirrors, pictures, and flung them whole into the fire; while
every fresh addition to the blazing masses was received with shouts,
and howls, and yells, which added new and dismal terrors to the
conflagration.
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