Terrified as they already were, I could imagine their tension boiling over into hysteria, wordlessness and in some cases madness when they were stuffed into slave ships like fish into buckets, hauled across the seas and sold—if they survived—at auctions.

to delude their reluctating consciences

The onlookers thought that Mrs. Trudge was about to take her innocent offspring to the House of Commons, and those out of hat-pin range murmured, Shime, Give the kids a chawnce.

It blew off the mud from the roads that were mirish, / It blew off the grass from the turf where it grew, […]