"
Then he began to look out for a chance of edging to the right
across the road. But once in the stream he seemed to lose volition,
to become a part of that dusty rout. They swept through Chipping
Barnet with the torrent; they were nearly a mile beyond the centre of
the town before they had fought across to the opposite side of the
way. It was din and confusion indescribable; but in and beyond the
town the road forks repeatedly, and this to some extent relieved the
stress.
They struck eastward through Hadley, and there on either side of
the road, and at another place farther on they came upon a great
multitude of people drinking at the stream, some fighting to come at
the water. And farther on, from a lull near East Barnet, they saw
two trains running slowly one after the other without signal or
order--trains swarming with people, with men even among the coals
behind the engines--going northward along the Great Northern Railway.
My brother supposes they must have filled outside London, for at that
time the furious terror of the people had rendered the central
termini impossible.
Near this place they halted for the rest of the afternoon, for the
violence of the day had already utterly exhausted all three of them.
They began to suffer the beginnings of hunger; the night was cold, and
none of them dared to sleep.
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