The permission
was granted: the multitude in order, each file under a chief
and each commander of the files obedient to a superior
officer, then made a progress through the beautiful gardens of
their beautiful hostess. They even passed through the forcing
houses and vineries. Not a border was trampled on, not a
grape plucked; and when they quitted the domain, they gave
three cheers for the fair castellan.
The Hell-cats and their following were of a different temper
to these gentle Lancashire insurgents. They destroyed and
ravaged; sacked and gutted houses; plundered cellars;
proscribed bakers as enemies of the people; sequestrated the
universal stores of all truck and tommy shops; burst open
doors, broke windows, destroyed the gas works, that the towns
at night might be in darkness; took union workhouses by storm,
burned rate-books in the market-place, and ordered public
distribution of loaves of bread and flitches of bacon to a
mob--cheering and laughing amid flames and rapine. In short
they robbed and rioted; the police could make no head against
them; there was no military force; the whole district was in
their possession: and hearing that a battalion of the
Coldstreams were coming down by a train, the Bishop ordered
all railroads to be destroyed, and if the Hell-cats had not
been too drunk to do his bidding and he too tipsy to repeat
it, it is probable that a great destruction of these public
ways might have taken place.
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