Some of the fleeing multitude looked like townspeople, but the majority plainly were peasants.

And of these latter at least half wore wooden shoes so that the sound of their feet on the cobbled roadbed made a clattering chorus that at times almost drowned out the hiccuping voices of the guns behind them.
Occasionally there would be a man shoving a barrow, with a baby and possibly a muddle of bedclothing in the barrow together.

Every woman carried a burden of some sort, which might be a pack tied in a cloth or a cheap valise stuffed to bursting, or a baby--though generally it was a baby; and nearly every man, in addition to his load of belongings, had an umbrella under his arm.

In this rainy land the carrying of umbrellas is a habit not easily shaken off; and, besides, most of these people had slept out at least one night and would probably sleep out another, and an umbrella makes a sort of shelter if you have no better.

I figure I saw a thousand umbrellas if I saw one, and the sight of them gave a strangely incongruous touch to the thing.
Yes, it gave a grotesque touch to it.