"Quick, and let us see."
In a few moments they had reached a little wayside village.
There they found children screaming and women wringing their hands. In
the high road lay articles of furniture, huddled together, thrown in
heaps one on another, and broken into fragments in the fall. A
sergeant and company of musketeers were even then in the midst of this
pitiful work of devastation, turning the people out of their little
thatched cottages and flinging their poor sticks of property out after
them. Everywhere were tumult and ruin. Old people were lying on the
cold earth by the wayside. They had been born in these houses; they
had looked to die in these homes; but houses and homes were to be
theirs no more. Amidst the wreck strode the gaunt figure of a factor,
directing and encouraging, and firing off meantime a volley of
revolting oaths.
"What's the name of this place?" asked Ralph of a man who stood, with
fury in his eyes, watching the destruction of his home.
"Hollowbank," answered the man between his teeth.
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