[Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens]@TWC D-Link bookBarnaby Rudge CHAPTER 65 15/15
The crowd fell off, as if they had been laid out for burial, and had risen in their shrouds; and many were seen to shudder, as though they had been actually dead men, when they chanced to touch or brush against their garments. At the bidding of the mob, the houses were all illuminated that night--lighted up from top to bottom as at a time of public gaiety and joy.
Many years afterwards, old people who lived in their youth near this part of the city, remembered being in a great glare of light, within doors and without, and as they looked, timid and frightened children, from the windows, seeing a FACE go by.
Though the whole great crowd and all its other terrors had faded from their recollection, this one object remained; alone, distinct, and well remembered.
Even in the unpractised minds of infants, one of these doomed men darting past, and but an instant seen, was an image of force enough to dim the whole concourse; to find itself an all-absorbing place, and hold it ever after. When this last task had been achieved, the shouts and cries grew fainter; the clank of fetters, which had resounded on all sides as the prisoners escaped, was heard no more; all the noises of the crowd subsided into a hoarse and sullen murmur as it passed into the distance; and when the human tide had rolled away, a melancholy heap of smoking ruins marked the spot where it had lately chafed and roared..
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