On that night, families made merry in
their houses, and greeted each other on the common danger they had
escaped; and those who had been denounced, ventured into the streets;
and they who had been plundered, got good shelter. Even the timorous
Lord Mayor, who was summoned that night before the Privy Council to
answer for his conduct, came back contented; observing to all his
friends that he had got off very well with a reprimand, and repeating
with huge satisfaction his memorable defence before the Council, 'that
such was his temerity, he thought death would have been his portion.'
On that night, too, more of the scattered remnants of the mob were
traced to their lurking-places, and taken; and in the hospitals, and
deep among the ruins they had made, and in the ditches, and fields, many
unshrouded wretches lay dead: envied by those who had been active in
the disturbances, and who pillowed their doomed heads in the temporary
jails.
And in the Tower, in a dreary room whose thick stone walls shut out
the hum of life, and made a stillness which the records left by former
prisoners with those silent witnesses seemed to deepen and intensify;
remorseful for every act that had been done by every man among the cruel
crowd; feeling for the time their guilt his own, and their lives put in
peril by himself; and finding, amidst such reflections, little comfort
in fanaticism, or in his fancied call; sat the unhappy author of
all--Lord George Gordon.
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