It was one of the hempen torches.

Now, at last, I had got in the midst of that small body of men, "the rioters." They were a mere handful--not above two score--apparently the relics of the band which had attacked the mill, joined with a few plough-lads from the country around.

But they were desperate; they had come up the Coltham road so quietly, that, except this faint murmur, neither I nor any one in the town could have told they were near.

Wherever they had been ransacking, as yet they had not attacked my father's house; it stood up on the other side the road--barred, black, silent.
I heard a muttering--"Th' old man bean't there."-- "Nobody knows where he be." No, thank God! "Be us all y'ere ?" said the man with the torch, holding it up so as to see round him.

It was well then that I appeared as Jem Watkins.