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16 - The War of The Worlds - H G Wells · Adventure Books Library

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Chapter sixteen, The Exodus from London. So you understand the roaring wave of
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fear that swept through the greatest city in the world just as Monday was dawning,
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the stream of flight rising swiftly to a torrent lashing in a foaming tumult
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round the railway stations, banked up into a horrible struggle about the shipping in
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the Thames, and hurrying by every available channel northward and eastward. By ten
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o'clock, the police organization, and by midday even the railway organizations were losing
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coherency, losing shape and efficiency, guttering, softening, running at last,
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in that swift liquefaction of the social body, all the railway lines north of
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the Thames and the Southeastern people at Cannon Street had been warned by midnight on
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Sunday, and trains were being filled. People were fighting savagely, standing room
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in the carriages even at two o'clock. By three people were being trampled and
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crushed, even in Bishopsgate Street, a couple of hundred yards or more from
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Liverpool Street station. Revolvers were fired, people stabbed, and the policemen who
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had been sent to direct the traffic exhausted and infuriated, were breaking the heads
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of the people they were called out to protect. And as the day advanced
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and the engine drivers and stokers refused to return to London, the pressure of
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the flight drove the people in an ever thickening multitude away from the stations and
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along the northward running roads. By midday a martian had been seen at Barnes,
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and a cloud of slowly sinking black vapor drove along the Thames and across
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the flats of Lambeth, cutting off all escape over the bridges. In its
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sluggish advance. Another bank drove over ealing and surrounded a little island of survivors
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on Castle Hill, alive but unable to escape. After a fruitless struggle to
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get aboard a Northwestern train at Chalk Farm, the engines of the trains that
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had loaded in the goods yard there plowed through shrieking people, and a dozen
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stalwart men fought to keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his furnace.
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My brother emerged upon the Chalk Farm road, dodged across through a hurrying swarm
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of vehicles, and had the luck to be foremost in the sack of a
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cycle shop. The front tire of the machine he got was punctured in dragging
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it through the window, but he got up and off, notwithstanding with no
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further injury than a cut wrist. The steep foot of Havistock Hill was impassable
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owing to several overturned horses, and my brother struck into Belsize Road, so
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he got out of the fury of the panic and skirting the Edgeware Road.
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Reached Edgeware about seven, fasting and wearied, but well ahead of the crowd
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along the road. People were standing in the roadway curious wondering. He was
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passed by a number of cyclists, some horsemen, and two motor cars.
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A mile from Edgeware, the rim of the wheel broke and the machine became
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unrideable. He left it by the roadside and trudged through the village. There
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were shops half opened in the main street of the place, and people crowded
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on the pavement and in the doorways and windows, staring, astonished at this
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extraordinary procession of fugitives that was beginning. He succeeded in getting some food at
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an inn. For a time he remained in Edgeware, not knowing what next
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to do. The flying people increased in number. Many of them, like
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my brother, seemed inclined to loiter in the place. There was no fresh
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news of the invaders from Mars at that time. The road was crowded,
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but as yet far from congeest. Most of the fugitives at that hour were
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mounted on cycles, but there were soon motor cars, handsome cabs and carriages
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hurrying along, and the dust hung in heavy clouds along the road to Saint
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Albans. It was perhaps a vague idea of making his way to Chelmsford,
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where some friends of his lived, that at last induced my brother to strike
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into a quiet lane running eastward. Presently he came upon a stile, and
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crossing it, followed a footpath northeastward. He passed near several farm houses and
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some little places whose names he did not learn. He saw few fugitives,
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until in a grass lane towards high Barnet he happened upon two ladies who became
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his fellow travelers. He came upon them just in time to save them.
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He heard their screams, and, hurrying round the corner, saw a couple
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of men struggling to drag them out of the little pony chaise in which they
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had been driving, while a third with difficulty held the frightened pony's head.
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One of the ladies, a short woman dressed in white, was simply screaming.
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The other, a dark, slender figure, slashed at the man,
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who gripped her arm with a whip she held in her disengaged hand. My
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brother immediately grasped the situation, shouted and hurried towards the struggle. One of
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the men desisted and turned towards him, and my brother, realizing from his
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antagonist's face, that a fight was unavoidable, and being an expert boxer,
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went into him forthwith and sent him down against the wheel of the chaise.
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It was no time for pugilistic chivalry, and my brother laid him quiet with
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a kick and gripped the collar of the man who pulled at the slender lady's
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arm. He heard the clatter of the hoofs the whip stung across his face.
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A third antagonist struck him between the eyes and the man he held.
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Wrenched himself free and made off down the lane in the direction from which he
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had come. Partly stunned, he found himself facing the man who had held
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the horse's head, and became aware of the chaise receding from him down the
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lane, swaying from side to side, and with the women in it looking
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back. The man before him, a burly ruff tried to close, and
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he stopped him with a blow in the face. Then, realizing that he
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was deserted, he dodged round and made off down the lane after the chaise,
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with the sturdy man close behind him, and the fugitive, who had
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turned now following remotely. Suddenly he stumbled and fell. His immediate pursuer went
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headlong, and he rose to his feet to find himself with a couple of
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antagonists. Again. He would have had little chance against them, had not
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the slender lady very pluckily pulled up and returned to his help. It seems
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she had had a revolver all this time, but it had been under the
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seat when she and her companion were attacked. She fired at six yards distance,
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narrowly missing my brother. The less courageous of the robbers made off,
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and his companion followed him, cursing his cowardice. They both stopped in sight
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down the lane, where the third man lay insensible. Take this, said
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the slender lady, and she gave my brother her revolver. Go back to
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the chaise, said my brother, wiping the blood from his split lip.
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She turned without a word. They were both panting, and they went back
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to where the lady in white struggled to hold back the frightened pony. The
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robbers had evidently had enough of it. When my brother looked again, they
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were retreating. I'll sit here, said my brother if I may, and
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he got upon the empty front seat. The lady looked over her shoulder.
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Give me the reins, she said, and laid the whip along the pony's
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side. In another moment, a bend in the road hid the three men
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from my brother's eyes. So quite unexpectedly, my brother found himself, panting,
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with a cut mouth, a bruised jaw, and blood stained knuckles,
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driving along an unknown lane with these two women. He learned they were the
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wife and the younger sister of a surgeon living at Stanmore, who had come
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in the small hours from a dangerous case at Pinna and heard at some railway
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station on his way of the Martian Advance. He had hurried home roused the
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women. Their servant had left them two days before, packed some provisions,
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put his revolver under the seat, luckily for my brother, and told them
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to drive on to Edgeware, with the idea of getting a train there.
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He stopped behind to tell the neighbors he would overtake them, he said,
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at about half past four in the morning, and now it was nearly nine,
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and they had seen nothing of him. They could not stop in Edgeware
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because of the growing traffic through the place, and so they had come into
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this lane. That was the story they told my brother in fragments. When
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presently they stopped again nearer to New Barnet, he promised to stay with them
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at least until they could determine what to do, or until the missing man
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arrived, and professed to be an expert shot with the revolver, a weapon
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strange to him. In order to give them confidence, they made a sort
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of encampment by the wayside, and the pony became happy in the hedge.
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He told them of his own escape out of London and all that he knew
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of these martians and their ways. The sun crept higher in the sky,
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and after a time their talk died out and gave place to an uneasy state
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of anticipation, several wayfarers came along the lane, and of these my brother
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gathered such news as he could. Every broken answer he had deepened his impression
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of the great disaster that had come on humanity, deepened his persuasion of the
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immediate necess for prosecuting this flight. He urged the matter upon them. We
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have money, said the slender woman, and hesitated. Her eyes met my
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brothers, and her hesitation ended, So have I, said my brother.
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She explained that they had as much as thirty pounds in gold besides a five
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pound note, and suggested that with that they might get upon a train at
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Saint Alban's or New Barnet. My brother thought that was hopeless, seeing the
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fury of the Londoners to crowd upon the trains, and broached his own idea
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of striking across Essex towards harriage, and thence escaping from the country altogether.
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Missus Elphinstone, that was the name of the woman in white, would listen
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to no reasoning, and kept calling upon George. But her sister in law
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was astonishingly quiet and deliberate, and at last agreed to my brother's suggestion,
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so designing to cross the Great North Road. They went on towards Barney,
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my brother leading the pony, to save it as much as possible. As
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the sun crept up the sky, the day became excessively hot, and under
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foot a thick, whitish sand grew, burning and blinding, so that they
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traveled only very slowly. The hedges were gray with dust, and as they
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advanced towards Barnet, a tumultuous murmuring grew stronger. They began to meet more
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people. For the most part, these were staring before them, murmuring indistinct
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questions, jaded, haggard, unclean. One man in evening dress passed them
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on foot, his eyes on the ground. They heard his voice, and
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looking back at him, saw one hand clutched in his hair and the other
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beating invisible things. His paroxysm of rage over, he went on his way
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without once looking back. As my brother's party went on towards the cross roads
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to the south of Barnet, they saw a woman approaching the road across some
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fields on their left, carrying a child and with two other children, And
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then passed a man in dirty black with a thick stick in one hand and
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a small portmanteau in the other. Then round the corner of the lane,
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from between the villas that guarded it, at its confluence with the high road,
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came a little cart, drawn by a sweating black pony and driven by
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a sallow youth in a bowler hat gray with dust. There were three girls
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east end factory girls, and a couple of little children crowded in the cart.
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This'll take us round Edgeware, asked the driver, wild eyed, white
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faced, And when my brother told him it would if he turned to the
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left, he whipped up at once, without the formality of thanks. My
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brother noticed a pale gray smoke or haze rising among the houses in front of
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them, and veiling the white facade of a terrace beyond the road that appeared
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between the backs of the villas. Missus Elphins and suddenly cried out at a
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number of tongues of smoky red flame leaping up above the houses in front of
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them against the hot blue sky. The tumultuous noise resolved itself now into the
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disorderly mingling of many voices, the gride of many wheels, the creaking of
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wagons, and the staccato of hoofs. The lane came round sharply, not
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fifty yards from the cross roads. Good heavens, cried, missus elfinstone,
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what is this you are driving us into? My brother stopped for the main
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road was a boiling stream of people, a torrent of human beings rushing northward,
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one pressing on another. A great bank of dust, white and luminous
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in the blaze of the sun, made everything within twenty feet of the ground
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gray and indistinct, and was perpetually renewed by the hurrying feet of a dense
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crowd of horses, and of men and women on foot, and by the
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wheels of vehicles of every description. Way. My brother heard voices crying make
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way. It was like riding into the smoke of a fire. To approach
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the meeting point of the lane and road. The crowd roared like a fire,
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and the dust was hot and pungent, and indeed, a little way
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up the road a villa was burning and sending rolling masses of black smoke across
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the road. To add to the confusion, two men came past them,
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then a dirty woman carrying a heavy bundle and weeping A lost retriever dog with
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hanging tongue circled dubiously round them, scared and wretched, and fled at my
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brother's threat. So much as they could see of the road London Wood.
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Between the houses to the right was a tumultuous stream of dirty, hurrying people
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pent in between the villas on either side the black heads. The crowded forms
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grew into distinctness as they rushed towards the corner. Hurry passed and merged their
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individuality again in a receding multitude that was swallowed up at last in a cloud
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of dust. Go On, go on, cried the voices way way.
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One man's hands pressed on the back of another. My brother stood at the
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pony's head, irresistibly attracted, he advanced slowly, pace by pace down the
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lane. Edgeware had been a scene of confusion chalk Farm, a riotous tumult
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but this was a whole population and movement. It is hard to imagine that
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host It had no character of its own. The figures poured out past the
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corner and receded with their backs to the group in the lane. Along the
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margin came those who were on foot, threatened by the wheels, stumbling in
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the ditches, blundering into one another. The carts and carriages crowded close upon
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one another, making little way for those swifter and more impatient vehicles that darted
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forward every now and then when an opportunity showed itself of doing so, sending
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the people scattering against the fences and gates of the villas. Push on was
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the cry, push on, they are coming. In one cart stood a
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blind man in the uniform of the Salvation Army, gesticulating with his crooked fingers
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and bawling eternity, eternity. His voice was hoarse and very loud, so
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that my brother could hear him long after he was lost to sight in the
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dust. Some of the people who crowded in the carts whipped stupidly at their
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horses and quarreled with other drivers. Some sat motionless, staring at nothing with
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miserable eyes. Some gnawed their hands with thirst, or lay prostrate in the
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bottoms of their conveyances. The horses bits were covered with foam, their eyes
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bloodshot. There were cabs, carriages, shop cars, wagons beyond counting,
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a mail cart, a road cleaner's cart marked vestry of Saint Pancras, a
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huge timber wagon crowded with ruffs. A brewer's dray rumbled by with its two
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near wheels splashed with fresh blood. Clear the way, cried the voices,
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Clear the way, eternity, eternity came echoing down the road. There were
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sad, haggard women tramping by, well dressed with children, that cried and
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stumbled, their dainty clothes smothered in dust, their weary faces smeared with tears.
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With many of these came men, sometimes helpful, sometimes lowering, and
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savage, fighting side by side with them, pushed some weary street outcast in
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faded black rags, wide eyed, loud voiced, and foul mouthed. There
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were sturdy workmen thrusting their way along, wretched, unkempt men clothed like clerks
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or shopmen, struggling spasmodically, a wounded soldier. My brother noticed men dressed
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in the clothes of railway porters. One wretched creature in a night shirt with
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a coat thrown over it, but varied as its composition was certain things all
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that host had in common. There were fear and pain on their faces,
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and fear behind them. A tumult up the road, a quarrel for a
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place in a wagon, sent the whole host of them quickening their pace.
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Even a man so scared and broken that his knees bent under him, was
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galvanized for a moment into renewed activity. The heat and dust had already been
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at work upon this multitude. Their skins were dry, their lips black and
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cracked. They were all thirsty, weary, and footsore, and amid them
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various cries one heard, disputes, reproaches, groans of weariness and fatigue.
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The voices of most of them were hoarse and weak. Through it all ran
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a afrain way way The Martians are coming. Few stopped and came aside from
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that flood. The lane opened slantingly into the main road, with a narrow
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opening, and had a delusive appearance of coming from the direction of London.
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Yet a kind of eddy of people drove into its mouth. Weaklings elbowed out
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of the stream, who for the most part rested but a moment before plunging
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into it again. A little way down the lane, with two friends bending
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over him, lay a man with a bare leg, wrapped about with bloody
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rags. He was a lucky man to have friends. A little old man
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with a gray military mustache and a filthy black frock coat limped out and sat
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down beside the trap, removed his boot, his sock was blood stained,
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shook out a pebble and hobbled on again. And then a little girl of
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eight or nine, all alone, threw herself under the hedge close by my
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brother, weeping, I can't go on, I can't go on. My
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brother woke from his torpor of astonishment and lifted her up, speaking gently to
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her, and carried her to Miss Elfinstone. So soon as my brother touched
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her, she became quite still, as if frightened. Ellen shrieked a woman
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in the crowd, with tears in her voice. Ellen, and the child
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suddenly darted away from my brother, crying, mother. They are coming,
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said a man on horseback, riding past along the lane. Out of the
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way, there bawled a coachman towering high, and my brother saw a closed
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carriage turning into the lane. The people crushed back on one another to avoid
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the horse. My brother pushed the pony in chaise back into the hedge,
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and the man drove by and stopped at the turn of the way. It
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was a carriage with a pole for a pair of horses. But only one
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was in the traces. My brother saw dimly through the dust. The two
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men lifted out something on a white stretcher and put it gently on the grass
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beneath the privet hedge. One of the men came running to my brother.
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Where is there any water? He said, he is dying fast and very
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thirsty. It is Lord Garrick. Lord Garrick, said my brother, the
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chief justice. The water, he said, There may be a tap,
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said my brother, in some of the houses we have no water. I
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dare not leave my people. The man pushed against the crowd towards the gate
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of the corner house. Go On, said the people, thrusting at him.
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They are coming. Go on. Then my brother's attention was distracted by
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a bearded, eagle faced man lugging a small hand, which split even as
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my brother's eyes rested on it, and disgorged a mass of sovereigns that seemed
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to break up into separate coins as it struck the ground. They rolled hither
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and thither among the struggling feet of men and horses. The man stopped and
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looked stupidly at the heap, and the shaft of a cab struck his shoulder.
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And sent him reeling. He gave a shriek and dodged back, and
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a cartwheel shaved him narrowly. Way, cried the men all about him,
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make way. So soon as the cab had passed, he flung himself with
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both hands open upon the heap of coins and began thrusting handfuls in his pocket.
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A horse rose close upon him, and in another moment, half rising,
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he had been borne down under the horse's hoofs. Stop, screamed my
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brother, and, pushing a woman out of his way, tried to clutch
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the bit of the horse. Before he could get to it, he heard
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a scream under the wheels, and saw through the dust the rim passing over
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the poor wretch's back. The driver of the card slashed his whip at my
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brother, who ran round behind the cart. The multitudinous shouting confused his ears.
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The man was writhing in the dust among his scattered money, unable to
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rise, for the wheel had broken his back, and his lower limbs lay
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limp and dead. My brother stood up and yelled at the next driver,
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and a man on a black horse came to his assistance. Get him out
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of the road, said he, and clutching the man's collar with his free
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hand. My brother lugged him sideways, but he still clutched after his money
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and regarded my brother fiercely, hammering at his arm with a handful of gold.
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Go On, go On, shouted angry voices. Behind way Way,
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There was a smash as the pole of a carriage crashed into the cart that
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the man on horseback ssid. My brother looked up, and the man with
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the gold twisted his head round and bit the wrist that held his collar.
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There was a concussion, and the black horse came staggering sideways, and the
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cart horse pushed beside it. A hoof missed my brother's foot by a hair's
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breadth. He released his grip on the fallen man and jumped back. He
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saw anger changed to terror on the face of the poor wretch on the ground,
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and in a moment he was hidden, and my brother was borne backward
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and carried past the entrance of the lane and had to fight hard in the
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torrent to recover it. He saw Miss Elphinstone covering her eyes, and a
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little child with all the child's want of sympathetic imagination, staring with dilated eyes
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at a dusty something that lay black and still ground and crushed under the rolling
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wheels. Let us go back, he shouted, and began turning the pony
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round. We cannot cross this hell, he said, and they went back
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a hundred yards the way they had come, until the fighting crowd was hidden.
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As they passed the bend in the lane, my brother saw the face
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of the dying man in the ditch under the privet, deadly white and drawn
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and shining with perspiration. The two women sat silent, crouching in their seat
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and shivering. Then beyond the bend, my brother stopped again. Miss Elphinstone
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was pale and white, and her sister in law sat weeping, too wretched
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even to call upon George. My brother was horrified and perplexed. So soon
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as they had retreated, he realized how urgent and unavoidable it was to attempt
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this crossing. He turned to Miss Elphinstone, suddenly resolute. We must go
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that way, he said, and led the pony round again. For the
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second time that day, This girl proved her quality to force their way into
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the torrent of people. My brother plunged into the traffic and held back a
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cab horse while she drove the pony across its head. A wagon locked wheels
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for a moment and ripped a long splinter from the chaise. In another moment,
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they were caught and swept forward by the stream. My brother, with
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the cabman's whip marks red across his face and hands, scrambled into the chaise
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and took the reins from her. Point the revolver at the man behind,
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he said, giving it to her if he presses us too hard. No
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pointed at his horse. Then he began to look for a chance of edging
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to the right across the road, But once in the stream he seemed to
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lose volition to become a part of that dusty route. They swept through Chipping
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Barnet with the torrent. They were nearly a mile beyond the center of the
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village. Before they had fought across to the opposite side of the way.
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It was din and confusion indescribable. But in and beyond the town the road
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forks repeatedly, and this to some extent relieved the stress. They struck eastward
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through Hadley and there on either side of the road, and at another place
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farther on they came upon a great multitude of people drinking at the stream,
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some fighting to come at the water. And farther on from a lull near
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East Barnet, they saw two trains running slowly, one after the other,
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without signal or order. Trains swarming with people, with men even among the
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coals behind the engines going northward along the Great Northern Line. My brother supposes
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they must have filled outside London, for at that time the furious terror of
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the people had rendered the central termini impossible. Near this place they halted for
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the rest of the afternoon, for the violence of the day had already utterly
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exhausted all three of them. They began to suffer the beginnings of hunger.
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The night was cold, and none of them dared to sleep, And in
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the evening many people came hurrying along the road near by their stopping place,
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fleeing from unknown dangers before them, and going in the direction from which my
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brother had come. End of Section sixteen.