The lines wound through the streets and the churchyard, thousands waiting quietly to honor the dead.
As night fell, they crowded the floodlit Gothic cathedral in the heart of Dunblane, once a quiet town, now a synonym for horror.Prime Minister John Major stood Friday at the school gymnasium where a gunman killed 16 kindergartners and their teacher on Wednesday.
Major looked at the bullet-scarred scene of the disaster and said, "They must tear it down."
He added a wreath to the piles of flowers at the gates of Dunblane Primary School and endorsed plans for one minute's silence to be observed across the nation on Sunday, which is Mother's Day in Britain.
Then he tried to sum up Dun-blane's grief.
"I don't think it is possible to put into words what they have had to deal with," Major said.
Queen Elizabeth II switched her schedule and said she will come here on Sunday with her daughter Princess Anne instead of on Monday, when funerals are due to start.
In a new blow, Amie Adam, one of three badly wounded children who were airlifted to Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow, was listed in critical condition and returned to in-tensive care Friday after she suddenly had difficulty breathing.
Doctors were tending to Amie's plaster cast when "her color changed," said medical director Dr. Alister Miller. "She was getting rather breathless, so now she is receiving support . . . on a ventilator."
Doctors said that if Amie survives, she may be permanently disabled by a bullet that shattered her thigh bone.
Thomas Hamilton, 43, a rumored pedophile who was obsessed with guns, killed himself after mowing down the children and teachers.
Shortly before the massacre, Hamilton wrote a rambling letter to the queen, in which he denied he was a "pervert."
Major, accompanied by opposition leader Tony Blair, visited one wounded boy, Matthew Birnie, re-cuperating in a hospital from a shoulder wound.
But doctors kept the VIP party out of the main children's ward at Stirling Royal Infirmary, five miles from here. They said the three children in that ward, although improving physically, now showed signs of trauma.
"The children there are more emotional and more fragile today," said pediatrician Dr. Jack Beattie.
Matthew, however, was "keen to see this famous man," added Beattie. "He was jumping up and excited."
Four wounded children have been released from the hospital.
They included Stewart Weir, who was sitting up at home sharing toys with his younger sister on Friday. Stewart suffered two gunshot wounds in the leg.
School authorities are considering demolishing the gymnasium and replacing it with a memorial garden. Major promised money for a new gym.