Chapter XV OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN INTO THE FIRE There was a meeting in Trafalgar Square that day. Some people thought they had a grievance, and resolved to air it. No matter what the grievance was; the world is very full of them, and too many of them are hard and stern, and old and deep, difficult to be removed. But the authorities had decided that this particular grievance should not be aired in this particular way; they would permit no meeting to be held in Trafalgar Square. The result was, contests with the police. The people with the grievance tried hard to air it; there were ugly rushes, the excitement spread, and in the neighbourhood adjoining there was something very like a riot. One procession of the people with a grievance making for the Square, had been met by the police and turned aside. Part of the processioners had been turned into Piccadilly, and were being driven along that thoroughfare, helter skelter, just as the procession which escorted Bertie and his captor approached. The policeman saw his danger, and tried to turn aside. It was too late. The fugitives coming tumultuously along, and seeing only a single constable, made a rush in his direction. In a moment Bertie found himself the centre of a pushing, yelling, struggling crowd, with the policeman holding on to him like grim death. Above the tumult could be distinguished the accents of the landlady of the "Rising Sun." "I'm the landlady of the 'Rising Sun,' and I've kept the house respectable these six-and-twenty years--ten long years a widow, and sixteen years a respectable married woman--and it's a sin and a shame that a respectable female----" But the crowd was no respecter of persons; the lady was hustled on one side, where her voice was heard no more. Bertie became conscious that a contest was going on for the possession of himself. The policeman stuck to him with extraordinary tenacity; with equal tenacity the crowd endeavoured to drag him away. Bertie suffered. Without wasting any time in inquiring as to the rights of the case, his new friends did their best to deprive the law of its prey. But they directed their efforts with misguided zeal. If they had left him to his fate, Bertie could only have suffered imprisonment at the worst; now he ran a risk of being drawn and quartered. They apparently did their best to drag his arms and legs out of their sockets; he felt his clothes giving way in all directions. Through all the heat and turmoil he felt that if this was town he preferred the country.