It generally happens however that where a mere physical
impulse urges the people to insurrection, though it is often
an influence of slow growth and movement, the effects are more
violent and sometimes more obstinate than when they move under
the blended authority of moral and physical necessity, and mix
up together the rights and the wants of Man.
However this may be, on the morning after the conversation at
the Rising Sun which we have just noticed, the population
having as usual gone to their work, having penetrated the pit
and descended the shaft, the furnaces all blazing, the
chimneys all smoking,--suddenly there rose a rumour even in
the bowels of the earth, that the hour and the man had at
length arrived; the hour that was to bring them relief and the
man that was to bear them redress.
"My missus told it me at the pit-head when she brought me my
breakfast," said a pikeman to his comrade, and he struck a
vigorous blow at the broadseam on which he was working.
"It is not ten mile," said his companion. "They'll be here by
noon."
"There is a good deal to do in their way," said the first
pikeman. "All men at work after notice to be ducked, they
say, and every engine to be stopped forthwith.
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