"I was a schoolboy in Clifton, up above Bristol. I had been hearing of political disturbances, even of riots, of which I understood nothing, and for which I cared nothing. "But on one memorable Sunday afternoon I saw an object which was distinctly not political. It was an afternoon of sullen, autumn rain. The fog hung thick over the docks and lowlands. Glaring through the fog I saw a bright mass of flame, almost like a half-risen sun. That, I was told, was the gate of the new gaol on fire; that the prisoners had been set free. The fog rolled slowly upwards. Dark figures, even at that great distance, were flitting to and fro across what seemed the mouth of the fire. "The flames increased, multiplied at one point after another, till by ten o'clock that night one seemed to be looking down upon Dante's Inferno, and to hear the multitudinous moan and wail of the lost spirits, surging to and fro amid the sea of fire. "Right behind Brandon Hill rose the central mass of fire, till the little mound seemed converted into a volcano, from the peak of which the flame streamed up, not red above, but delicately green and blue, pale rose, and pearly white, while crimson sparks leapt and fell again in the midst of that rainbow, not of hope, but of despair; and dull explosions down below mingled with the roar of the mob, and the infernal hiss and crackle of the flames. "Higher and higher the fog was scorched upward by the fierce heat below, glowing through and through with red, reflected glare, till it arched itself into one vast dome of red-hot iron, fit roof for all the madness below; and beneath it, miles away, I could see the lonely tower of Dundry Church shining red--the symbol of the old Faith--looking down in stately wonder and sorrow upon the fearful birth-throes of a new age." * * * * * When morning dawned on Monday, help really seemed at hand, and five thousand men obeyed the call for the _posse comitatus_, and, furnished with a short staff and a strip of white linen round their arm as a badge, did good service for the restoration of order. Shops were all closed, business suspended, and the soldiers, and the naval and military pensioners, under Captain Cook, cleared the streets, and peace seemed in a fair way of being restored. Peace, and at what a price! Wreck and ruin everywhere; Queen's Square, a mass of burning rubbish, strewn, too, with the charred bodies of those who had fallen in the fray. At night, by order of the Mayor, the churches and houses were lighted up, and the soldiers guarded the streets. Transcriber's note: The footnote was placed, without an anchor, at this point in the original. [Footnote: _Vide_ "Charles Kingsley's Life," vol. i., p. 21.]