The four hundred and fifty women of the original
impulse had increased to several thousand. Dusk had long since
deepened into a night lit up with arc lamps and the golden radiance
of great gas-lamp clusters. Flares were lighted to enable the police
to see better what they were doing and who were their assailants.
But the women showed complete indifference to the horses; and the
horses with that exquisite forbearance that the horse can show to
the distraught human, did their utmost not to trample on small feet
and outspread hands.
Here and there humanity asserted itself. One policeman--helmetless,
his fair, blond face scratched and bleeding--had in berserkr rage
felled a young woman in the semi-darkness. He bore his senseless
victim into the shelter of some nook or cloister and turned on her
his bull's eye lantern. She was a beautiful creature, in private
life a waitress at a tea shop. Her hat was gone and her hair
streamed over her drooping face and slender shoulders. The policeman
overcome with remorse exclaimed--mentioning the Home Secretary's
name "---- be damned; this ain't the job for a decent man." The
Suffragette revived under his care. He escorted her home, resigned
from the police force, married her and I believe has lived happily
ever afterwards, if he was not killed in the War.
Vivie had struggled for about two hours to reach the precincts of
the House, with or without her banner.
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