"How terrified are the women!" said he; "but if the men were not almost equally so, order might be maintained. This is a sorry scene: I see fifty selfish brutes at this moment, each of whom, if I were near, I could conscientiously knock down. I see some women braver than some men. There is one yonder--Good God!"
While Graham was speaking, a young girl who had been very quietly and steadily clinging to a gentleman before us, was suddenly struck from her protector's arms by a big, butcherly intruder, and hurled under the feet of the crowd. Scarce two seconds lasted her disappearance. Graham rushed forwards; he and the gentleman, a powerful man though grey-haired, united their strength to thrust back the throng; her head and long hair fell back over his shoulder: she seemed unconscious.
"Trust her with me; I am a medical man," said Dr. John.
"If you have no lady with you, be it so," was the answer. "Hold her, and I will force a passage: we must get her to the air."
"I have a lady," said Graham; "but she will be neither hindrance nor incumbrance."
He summoned me with his eye: we were separated. Resolute, however, to rejoin him, I penetrated the living barrier, creeping under where I could not get between or over.
"Fasten on me, and don't leave go," he said; and I obeyed him.
Our pioneer proved strong and adroit; he opened the dense mass like a wedge; with patience and toil he at last bored through the flesh-and- blood rock--so solid, hot, and suffocating--and brought us to the fresh, freezing night.
"You are an Englishman!" said he, turning shortly on Dr. Bretton, when we got into the street.
"An Englishman. And I speak to a countryman?" was the reply.
"Right. Be good enough to stand here two minutes, whilst I find my carriage."
"Papa, I am not hurt," said a girlish voice; "am I with papa?"
"You are with a friend, and your father is close at hand."
"Tell him I am not hurt, except just in my shoulder. Oh, my shoulder! They trod just here."
"Dislocation, perhaps!" muttered the Doctor: "let us hope there is no worse injury done. Lucy, lend a hand one instant."
And I assisted while he made some arrangement of drapery and position for the ease of his suffering burden. She suppressed a moan, and lay in his arms quietly and patiently.
"She is very light," said Graham, "like a child!" and he asked in my ear, "Is she a child, Lucy? Did you notice her age?"
"I am not a child--I am a person of seventeen," responded the patient, demurely and with dignity. Then, directly after: "Tell papa to come; I get anxious."