“But, with submission, my lord, it is something more than sorrow I

seek,” Vaughan answered, too sore to hide his feelings. “You have owned

very candidly that I derived from you the impulse which has carried me

so far. Is it unreasonable if I venture to turn to you, when advised to

see one of the chiefs of my party?”

“Who,” Brougham asked with a quick look, “gave you that advice, Mr.

Vaughan?”

“Sir Charles Wetherell.”

“Um!” the Chancellor replied through pinched lips. And he stood, “they

had crossed Piccadilly and Berkeley Square, and had reached the corner

of Hill Street, where at No. 5, Brougham lived.

“I repeat, my lord,” Vaughan continued, “is it unreasonable if I apply

to you in these circumstances, rather——”

“Rather than to one of the whips?” Brougham said drily.

“Yes.”

“But I know nothing of the matter, Mr. Vaughan.”

But Vaughan was in no mood to put up with subterfuges. If the other did

not know, he should know. He had been all-powerful, it seemed, to bring

him in: was he powerless to keep him in? “There is a compact, I am

told,” he said, “under which the seat is to be surrendered—for this

turn, at any rate—to my cousin’s nominee.”

Brougham shrugged his shoulders, and looked at Mr. Cornelius. “Dear me,

dear me,” he said. “That’s not a thing of which I can approve. Far from

it! Far from it! But you must see, Mr. Vaughan, that I cannot meddle in

my position with arrangements of that kind. Impossible, my dear sir, it

is clearly impossible!”

Vaughan stared; and with some spirit and more temper, “But the spark,

my lord! I’m sure you won’t forget the spark?” he said.

For an instant a gleam of fun shone in the other’s eyes. Then he was

funereal again. “Before the Bill, and after the Bill, are two things,”

he said drily. “Before the Bill all is, all was impure. And in an

impure medium—you understand me, I am sure? You are scientific, I

remember. But after the Bill—to ask me, who in my humble measure, Mr.

Vaughan, may call myself its prime cause—to ask me to infringe its

first principles by interposing between the Electors and their rights,

to ask me to use an influence which cannot be held legitimate—no, Mr.

Vaughan, no!” He shook his head solemnly and finally. And then to Mr.

Cornelius, “Yes, I am coming, Mr. Cornelius,” he said. “I know I am

late.”

“I can wait,” said Mr. Cornelius.

“But I cannot. Good-day, Mr. Vaughan. Good-day,” he repeated, refusing

to see the young man’s ill-humour. “I am sorry that I cannot help you.

Or, stay!” he continued, halting in the act of turning away. “One

minute. I gather that you are a friend of Sir Charles Wetherell’s?”

“He has been a friend to me,” Vaughan answered sullenly.

“Ah, well, he is going to Bristol to hold his sessions—on the 29th, I

think. Go with him. Our fat friend hates me like poison, but I would

not have a hair of his head injured. We have been warned that there

will be trouble, and we are taking steps to protect him. But an

able-bodied young soldier by his side will be no bad thing. And upon my

honour,” he continued, eyeing Vaughan with impudent frankness—impudent

in view of all that had gone before—“upon my honour, I am beginning to

think that we spoiled a good soldier when we—eh!”

“The spark!” Mr. Cornelius muttered grimly.

“Good-day, my lord,” said Vaughan with scant ceremony; his blood was

boiling. And he turned and strode away, scarcely smothering an

execration. The two, who did not appear to be in a hurry after all,

remained looking after him. And presently Mr. Cornelius smiled.

“What amuses you?” Brougham asked, with a certain petulence. For at

bottom, and in cases where no rivalry existed, he was good-natured; and

in his heart he was sorry for the young man. But then, if one began to

think of the pawn’s feelings, the game he was playing would be spoiled.

“What is it?”

“I was thinking,” Mr. Cornelius answered slowly, “of purity.” He

sniffed. “And the Whigs!”

Meanwhile Arthur Vaughan was striding down Bruton Street with every

angry passion up in arms. He was too clever to be tricked twice, and he

saw precisely what had happened. Brougham—well, well was he called

Wicked Shifts!—reviewing the Borough List before the General Election,

had let his eyes fall on Sir Robert’s seats at Chippinge; and looking

about, with his customary audacity, for a means of snatching them, had

alighted on him—and used him for a tool! Now, he was of no farther use.

And, as the loss of his expectations rendered it needless to temporise

with him, he was contemptuously tossed aside.

And this was the game of politics which he had yearned to play! This

was the party whose zeal for the purity of elections and the

improvement of all classes he had shared, and out of loyalty to which

he had sacrificed a fortune! He strode along the crowded pavement of

Parliament Street—it was the fashionable hour of the afternoon and the

political excitement kept London full—his head high, his face flushed.

And unconsciously as he shouldered the people to right and left, he

swore aloud.

As he uttered the word, regardless in his anger of the scene about him,

his fixed gaze pierced for an instant the medley of gay bonnets and

smiling faces, moving chariots and waiting footmen, which even in those

days filled Parliament Street—and met another pair of eyes.

The encounter lasted for a second only. Then half a dozen heads and a

parasol intervened. And then—in another second—he was abreast of the

carriage in which Mary Vermuyden sat, her face the prettiest and her

bonnet the daintiest—Lady Worcester had seen to that—of all the faces

and all the bonnets in Parliament Street that day. The landau in which

she sat was stationary at the edge of the pavement; and on the farther

side of her reposed a lady of kind face and ample figure.

For an instant their eyes met again; and Mary’s colour, which had fled,

returned in a flood of crimson, covering brow and cheeks. She leaned

from the carriage and held out her white-gloved hand. “Mr. Vaughan!”

she said. And he might have read in her face, had he chosen, the

sweetest and frankest appeal. “Mr. Vaughan!”

But the moment was unlucky. The devil had possession of him. He raised

his hat and passed on, passed on wilfully. He fancied—afterwards, that

is, he fancied—that she had risen to her feet after he had gone by and

called him a third time in a voice at which the convenances of

Parliament Street could only wink. But he went on. He heard, but he

went on. He told himself that all was of a piece. Men and women, all

were alike. He was a fool who trusted any, believed in any, loved any.

XXVIII

ONCE MORE, TANTIVY!

Vaughan had been sore at heart before the meeting in Parliament Street.

After that meeting he was in a mood to take any step which promised to

salve his self-esteem. The Chancellor, Lord Lansdowne, Sir Robert,

and—and Mary, all, he told himself, were against him. But they should

not crush him. He would prove to them that he was no negligible

quantity. Parliament was prorogued; the Long Vacation was far advanced;

the world, detained beyond its time, was hurrying out of town. He, too,

would go out of town; and he would go to Chippinge. There, in defiance

alike of his cousin and the Bowood interest, he would throw himself

upon the people. He would address himself to those whom the Bill

enfranchised, he would appeal to the future electors of Chippinge, he

would ask them whether the will of their great neighbours was to

prevail, and the claims of service and of gratitude were to go for

nothing. Surely at this time of day the answer could not be adverse!

True, the course he proposed matched ill with the party notions which

still prevailed. It was a complete breach with the family traditions in

which he had been reared. But in his present mood Vaughan liked his

plan the better for this. Henceforth he would be iron, he would be

adamant! And only by a little thing did he betray that under the iron

and under the adamant he carried an aching heart. When he came to book

his place, deliberately, wilfully, he chose to travel by the Bath road

and the White Lion coach, though he could have gone at least as

conveniently by another coach and another route. Thus have men ever,

since they first felt the pangs of love, rejoiced to press the dart

more deeply in the wound.

A dark October morning was brooding over the West End when he crossed

Piccadilly to take his place outside the White Horse Cellar. Now, as on

that distant day in April, when the car of rosy-fingered love had

awaited him ignorant, the coaches stood one behind the other in a long

line before the low-blind windows of the office. But how different was

all else! To-day the lamps were lighted and flickered on wet pavements,

the streets were windy and desolate, the day had barely broken above

the wet roofs, and on all a steady rain was falling. The watermen went

to and fro with sacks about their shoulders, and the guards, bustling

from the office with their waybills and the late parcels, were short of

temper and curt of tongue. The shivering passengers, cloaked to the

eyes in boxcoats and wrap-rascals, climbed silently and sullenly to the

roof, and there sat shrugging their shoulders to their ears. Vaughan,

who had secured a place beside the driver, cast an eye on all, on the

long dark vista of the street, on the few shivering passers; and he

found the change fitting. Let it rain, let it blow, let the sun rise

niggardly behind a mask of clouds! Let the world wear its true face! He

cared not how discordantly the guard’s horn sounded, nor how the

coachman swore at his cattle, nor how the mud splashed up, as two

minutes after time they jostled and rattled and bumped down the slope

and through the dingy narrows of Knightsbridge.

Perhaps to please him, the rain fell more heavily as the light

broadened and the coach passed through Kensington turnpike. The

passengers, crouching inside their wraps, looked miserably from under

dripping umbrellas on a wet Hammersmith, and a wetter Brentford. Now

the coach ploughed through deep mud, now it rolled silently over a bed

of chestnut or sycamore leaves which the first frost of autumn had

brought down. Swish, swash, it splashed through a rivulet. It was full

daylight now; it had been daylight an hour. And, at last, joyous sight,

pleasant even to the misanthrope on the box-seat, not far in front,

through a curtain of mist and rain, loomed Maidenhead—and breakfast.

The up night-coach, retarded twenty minutes by the weather, rattled up

to the door at the same moment. Vaughan foresaw that there would be a

contest for seats at the table, and, without waiting for the ladder, he

swung himself to the ground, and entered the house. Hastily doffing his

streaming overcoats, he made for the coffee-room, where roaring fires

and a plentiful table awaited the travellers. In two minutes he was

served, and isolated by his gloomy thoughts and almost unconscious of

the crowded room and the clatter of plates, he was eating his breakfast

when his next-door neighbour accosted him.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” he said in a meek voice. “Are you going to

Bristol, sir?”

Vaughan looked at the speaker, a decent, clean-shaven person in a black

high-collared coat, and a limp white neck-cloth. The man’s face seemed

familiar to him, and instead of answering the question, Vaughan asked

if he knew him.

“You’ve seen me in the Lobby, sir,” the other answered, fidgeting in

his humility. “I’m Sir Charles Wetherell’s clerk, sir.”

“Ah! To be sure!” Vaughan replied. “I thought I knew your face. Sir

Charles opens the Assizes to-morrow, I understand?”

“Yes, sir, if they will let him. Do you think that there is much

danger, sir?”

“Danger?” Vaughan answered with a smile. “No serious danger.”

“The Government did not wish him to go, sir,” the other rejoined with

an air of mystery.

“Oh, I don’t believe that,” Vaughan said.

“Well, the Corporation didn’t, for certain, sir,” the man persisted in

a low voice. “They wanted him to postpone the Assizes. But he doesn’t

know what fear is, sir. And now the Government’s ordered troops to

Bristol, and I’m afraid that’ll make ’em worse. They’re so set against

him for saying that Bristol was no longer for the Bill. And they’re a

desperate rough lot, sir, down by the Docks!”

“So I’ve heard,” Vaughan said. “But you may be sure that the

authorities will see that Sir Charles is well guarded!”

The clerk said nothing to that, although it was clear that he was far

from convinced, or easy. And Vaughan returned to his thoughts. But by

and by it chanced that as he raised his eyes he met those of a girl who

was passing his table on her way from the room; and he remembered with

a sharp pang how Mary had passed his table and looked at him, and

blushed; and how his heart had jumped at the sight. Why, there was the

very waiting-maid who had gone out with her! And there, where the April

sun had shone on her through the window, she had sat! And there, three

places only from his present seat, he had sat himself. Three seats

only—and yet how changed was all! The unmanly tears rose very near to

his eyes as he thought of it.

He sat so long brooding over this, in that mood in which a man recks

little of time, or of what befalls him, that the guard had to summon

him. And even then, as he donned his coats, with the “boots” fussing

about him, and the coachman grumbling at the delay, his memory was busy

with that morning. There, in the porch, he had stood and heard the

young waterman praise her looks! And there Cooke had stood and

denounced the Reform placard! And there——

“Let go!” growled the coachman, losing patience a last. “The

gentleman’s not coming!”

“I’m coming,” he answered curtly. And crossing the pavement in two

strides, he swung himself up hand over hand, as the stableman released

the horses. The coach started as his foot left the box of the wheel.

And something else started—furiously.

His heart. For in the place behind the coachman, in the very seat which

Mary Smith had occupied on that far-off April morning, sat Mary

Vermuyden! For an infinitely small fraction of a second, as he turned

himself to drop into his seat, his eyes swept her face. The rain had

ceased to fall, the umbrellas were furled; for that infinitely short

space his eyes rested on her features. Then his back was turned to her.

Her eyes had been fixed elsewhere, her face had been cold—she had not

seen him. So much, in the confused pounding rush of his thoughts, as he

sat tingling in every inch of his frame, he could remember; but nothing

else except that in lieu of the plain Quaker-like dress which Mary

Smith had worn—oh, dress to be ever remembered!—she was wearing rich

furs, with a great muff and a small hat of sable, and was Mary Smith no

longer.

Probably she had been there from the start, seated behind him under

cover of the rain and the umbrellas. If so—and he remembered that that

seat had been occupied when he got to his place—she had perceived his

coming, had seen him mount, had been aware of him from the first. She

could see him now, watch every movement, read his self-consciousness in

the stiff pose of his head, perceive the rush of colour which dyed his

ears and neck.

And he was planted there, he could not escape. And he suffered. Asked

beforehand, he would have said that his uppermost feeling in such

circumstances would be resentment. But, in fact, he could think of

nothing except that meeting in Parliament Street, and the rudeness with

which he had treated her. If he had not refused to speak to her, if he

had not passed her by, rejecting her hand with disdain, he might have

been his own master now; he would have been free to speak, or free to

be silent, as he pleased. And she who had treated him so ill would have

been the one to suffer. But, as it was, he was hot all over. The

intolerable _gêne_ of the situation rested on him and weighed him down.

Until the coachman called his attention to a passing waggon, and

pointed out a something unusual in its make; which broke the spell and

freed his thoughts. After that he began to feel a little of the wonder

which the coincidence demanded. How came she in the same seat, on the

same coach on which she had travelled before. He could not bring

himself to look round and meet her eyes. But he remembered that a

man-servant, doubtless in attendance on her, shared the hind seat with

the clerk who had spoken to him; and the middle-aged woman who sat with

her was doubtless her maid. Still, he knew Sir Robert well enough to be

sure that he would not countenance her journeying, even with this

attendance, on a public vehicle; and therefore, he argued, she must be

doing it without Sir Robert’s knowledge, and probably in pursuance of

some whim of her own. Could it be that she, too, wished to revive the

bitter-sweet of recollection, the memory of that April day? And, to do

so, had gone out of her way to travel on this cold wet morning on the

same coach, which six months before had brought them together?

If so, she must love him in spite of all. And in that case, what must

her feelings have been when she saw him take his place? What, when she

knew that she would not taste the bitter-sweet alone, but in his

company? What, when she foresaw that, through the day she would not

pass a single thing of all those well-remembered things, that milestone

which he had pointed out to her, that baiting-house of which she had

asked the name, that stone bridge with the hundred balustrades which

they had crossed in the gloaming—her eyes would not alight on one of

these, without another heart answering to every throb of hers, and

another breast aching as hers ached.

At that thought a subtle attraction, almost irresistible, drew him to

her, and he could have cried to her, under the pain of separation. For

it was all true. Before his eyes those things were passing. There was

the milestone which he had pointed out to her. And there the ruined

inn. And here were the streets of Reading opening before them, and the

Market Place, and the Bear Inn, where he had saved her from injury,

perhaps from death.

* * * * *

They were out of the town, they were clear of the houses, and he had

not looked, he had not been able to look at her. Her weakness, her

inconstancy deserved their punishment: but for all her fortune, to

recover all that he had lost and she had gained, he would not have

looked at her there. Yet, while the coach changed horses in the Square

before the Bear, he had had a glimpse of her—reflected in the window of

a shop; and he had marked with greedy eyes each line of her figure and

seen that she had wound a veil round her face and hat, so that,

whatever her emotions, she might defy curious eyes. And yet, as far as

he was concerned, she had done it in vain. The veil could not hide the

agitation, could not hide the strained rigidity of her pose, or the

convulsive force with which one hand gripped the other in her lap.

Well, that was over, thank God! For he had as soon seen a woman beaten.

The town was behind them; Newbury was not far in front. And now with

shame he began to savour a weak pleasure in her presence, in her

nearness to him, in the thought that her eyes were on him and her

thoughts full of him, and that if he stretched out his hand he could

touch her; that there was that between them, that there must always be

that between them, which time could not destroy. The coach was loaded,

but for him it carried her only: and for Mary he was sure that he

filled the landscape were it as wide as that which, west of Newbury,

reveals to the admiring traveller the whole wide vale of the Kennet. He

thrilled at the thought; and the coachman asked him if he were cold.

But he was far from cold; he knew that she too trembled, she, too,

thrilled. And a foolish exultation possessed him. He had hungry

thoughts of her nearness, and her beauty; and insane plans of snatching

her to his breast when she left the coach, and covering her with kisses

though a hundred looked on. He might suffer for it, he would deserve to

suffer for it, it would be an intolerable outrage. But he would have

kissed her, he would have held her to his heart. Nothing could undo

that.

Yet it was only in fancy that he was reckless, for still he did not

dare to look at her. And when they came at last to Marlborough, and

drew up at the door of the Castle Inn, where west-bound travellers

dined, he descended hurriedly and went into the coffee-room to secure a

place in a corner, whence he might see her enter without meeting her

eyes.

But she did not enter the house, soon or late. And a vain man might

have thought that she was not only bent on doing everything which she

had done on the former journey, but that it was not without intention

that she remained alone on the coach, exposed to his daring—if he chose

to dare. Not a few indeed, of his fellow-passengers, wandered out

before the time, and on the pretence of examining the façade of the

handsome old house, shot sidelong glances at the young lady, who,

wrapped in her furs and veiled to the throat, sat motionless in the

keen October air. But Vaughan was not of these; nor was he vain. When

he found that she did not come in, he decided that she would not meet

him, that she remained on the coach rather than sit in his company; and

forgetting the overture in Parliament Street, he remembered only her

fickleness and weakness. He fell to the depths. She had never loved

him, never, never!

On that he almost made up his mind to stay there; and to go on by the

next coach. His presence must be hateful to her, a misery, a torment,

he told himself. It was bad enough to force her to remain exposed to

the weather while others dined; it would be monstrous to go on and

continue to make her wretched.

But, before the time for leaving came, he changed his mind, and he went

out, feeling cowed and looking hard. He could not mount without seeing

her out of the corner of his eye; but the veil masked all, and left him

no wiser. The sun had burst through the clouds, and the sky above the

curving line of the downs was blue. But the October air was still

chilly, and he heard the maid fussing about her, and wrapping her up

more warmly. Well, it mattered little. At Chippenham, the carriage with

its pomp of postillions and outriders—Sir Robert was particular about

such things—would meet her; and he would see her no more.

His pride weakened at that thought. She could never be anything to him

now; he had no longer the least notion of kissing her. But at

Chippenham, before she passed out of his life, he would speak to her.

Yes, he would speak. He did not know what he would say, but he would

not part from her in anger. He would tell her that, and bid her

good-bye. Later, he would be glad to remember that they had parted in

that way, and that he had forgiven!

While he thought of it they fell swiftly from the lip of the downs, and

rattling over the narrow bridge and through the stone-built streets of

Calne, were out again on the Bath road. After that, though they took

Black Dog hill at a slow pace, they seemed to be at Chippenham in a

twinkling. Before he could calm his thoughts the coach was rattling

between houses, and the wide straggling street was opening before them,

and the group assembled in front of the Angel to see the coach arrive

was scattering to right and left.

A glance told him that there was no carriage-and-four in waiting. And

because his heart was jumping so foolishly he was glad to put off the

moment of speaking to her. She would go into the house to wait for the

carriage, and when the coach, with its bustle and its many eyes, had

gone its way, he would be able to speak to her.

Accordingly, the moment the coach stopped he descended and hastened

into the house. He sent out the “boots” for his valise and betook

himself to the bar-parlour, where he called for something and jested

cheerily with the smiling landlady, who came herself to attend upon

him. He kept his back to the door which Mary must pass to ascend the

stairs, for well he knew the parlour of honour to which she would be

ushered. But though he listened keenly for the rustle of her skirts, a

couple of minutes passed and he heard nothing.

“You are not going on, sir?” the landlady asked. She knew too much of

the family politics to ask point-blank if he were going to Chippinge.

“No,” he replied; “no, I”—his attention wandered—“I am not.”

“I hope we may have the honour of keeping you tonight, sir?” she said.

“Yes, I”—was that the coach starting?—“I think I shall stay the night.”

And then, “Sir Robert’s carriage is not here?” he asked, setting down

his glass.

“No, sir. But two gentlemen have just driven in from Sir Robert’s in a

chaise. They are posting to Bath. One’s Colonel Brereton, sir. The

other’s a young gentleman, short and stout. Quite the gentleman, sir,

but that positive, the postboy told me, and talkative, you’d think he

was the Emperor of China! That’s their chaise coming out of the yard

now, sir.”

A thought, keen as a knife-stab, darted through Vaughan’s mind. In

three strides he was out of the bar-parlour, in three more he was at

the door of the Angel.

The coach was in the act of starting, the ostlers were falling back,

the guard was swinging himself up; and Mary Vermuyden was where he had

left her, in the place behind the coachman. And in the box-seat, the

very seat which he had vacated, was Bob Flixton, settling himself in

his wraps and turning to talk to her.

Vaughan let fall a word which we will not chronicle. It was true, then!

They were engaged! Doubtless Flixton had come to meet her, and all was

over. Fan-fa-ra! Fan-fa-ra! The coach was growing small in the

distance. It veered a little, a block of houses hid it, Vaughan saw it

again. Then in the dusk of the October evening the descent to the

bridge swallowed it, and he turned away miserable.

He walked a little distance from the door that his face might not be

seen. He did not tell himself that, because the view grew misty before

his eyes, he was taking the blow contemptibly; he told himself only

that he was very wretched, and that she was gone. It seemed as if so

much had gone with her; so much of the hope and youth and fortune, and

the homage of men, which had been his when he and she first saw the

streets of Chippenham together and he alighted to talk to Isaac White,

and mounted again to ride on by her side.

He was standing with his back to the inn thinking of this—and not

bitterly, but in a broken fashion—when he heard his name called, and he

turned and saw Colonel Brereton striding after him.

“I thought it was you,” Brereton said. But though he had not met

Vaughan for some months, and the two had liked one another, he spoke

with little cordiality, and there was a vague look in his face. “I was

not sure,” he added.

“You came with Flixton?” Vaughan said, speaking, on his side also,

rather dully.

“Yes, and meant to go on with him. But there’s no counting on men in

love,” Brereton continued with more irritation than the occasion seemed

to warrant. “He saw his charmer on the coach, and a vacant seat—and I

may find my way to Bath as I can.”

“They are to be married, I hear?” Vaughan said in the same dull tone

and with his face averted.

“I don’t know,” Brereton answered sourly. “What I do know is that I’m

not best pleased that he has left me. I heard Sir Charles Wetherell was

sleeping at your cousin’s last evening, and I posted there to see him

about the arrangements for his entry. But I missed him. He’s gone to

Bath for this evening. Well, I took Flixton with me because I didn’t

know Sir Robert and he did, and he’s supposed to be playing

aide-de-camp to me. But a fine aide-de-camp he’s like to prove, if this

is the way he treats me. You know Wetherell opens the Assizes at

Bristol tomorrow?”

“Yes, I saw his clerk on my way here.”

“There’ll be trouble, Vaughan!”

“Really?”

“Ay, really! And bad trouble! I wish it was over.” He passed his hand

across his brow.

“I heard something of it in London,” Vaughan answered.

“Not much, I’ll wager,” Brereton rejoined, with a brusqueness which

betrayed his irritation. “They don’t know much, or they wouldn’t be

sending me eighty sabres to keep order in a city of a hundred thousand

people! Enough, you see, to anger, and not enough to intimidate! It’s

just plain madness. It’s madness. But I’ve made up my mind! I’ve made

up my mind!” he repeated, speaking in a tone which betrayed the

tenseness of his nerves. “Not a man will I show if I can help it! Not a

man! And not a shot will I fire, whatever comes of it! I’ll be no

butcherer of innocent folk.”

“I hope nothing will come of it,” Vaughan answered, interested in spite

of himself. “You’re in command, sir, of course?”

“Yes, and I wish to heaven I were not! But there, there!” he continued,

pulling himself up as if he kept a watch on himself and feared that he

had said too much. “Enough of my business. What are you doing here?”

“Well, I was going to Chippinge.”

“Come to Bath with me! I shall see Wetherell, and you know him. You may

be of use to me. There’s half the chaise at your service, and I will

tell you about it, as we go.”

Vaughan at that moment cared little where he went, and after the

briefest hesitation, he consented. A few minutes later they started

together. It happened that as they drove in the last of the twilight

over the long stone bridge, an open car drawn by four horses and

containing a dozen rough-looking men overtook them and raced them for a

hundred yards.

“There’s another!” Brereton said, rising with an oath and looking after

it. “I was told that two had gone through!”

“What is it? Who are they?” Vaughan asked, leaning out on his side to

see.

“Midland Union men, come to stir up the Bristol lambs!” Brereton

answered. “They may spare themselves the trouble,” he continued

bitterly. “The fire will need no poking, I’ll be sworn!”

And brought back to the subject, he never ceased from that moment to

talk of it. It was plain to anyone who knew him that a nervous

excitability had taken the place of his usual thoughtfulness. Long

before they reached Bath, Vaughan was sure that, whatever his own

troubles, there was one man in the world more unhappy than himself,

more troubled, less at ease; and that that man sat beside him in the

chaise.

He believed that Brereton exaggerated the peril. But if his fears were

well-based, then he agreed that the soldiers sent were too few.

“Still a bold front will do much!” he argued.

“A bold front!” Brereton replied feverishly. “No, but management may!

Management may. They give me eighty swords to control eighty thousand

people! Why, it’s my belief”—and he dropped his voice and laid his hand

on his companion’s arm,—“that the Government wants a riot! Ay, by G—d,

it is! To give the lie to Wetherell and prove that the country, and

Bristol in particular, is firm for the Bill!”

“Oh, but that’s absurd!” Vaughan answered; though he recalled what

Brougham had said.

“Absurd or not, nine-tenths of Bristol believe it,” Brereton retorted.

“And I believe it! But I’ll be no butcher. Besides, do you see how I am

placed? If in putting down this riot which is in the Government

interest, and is believed to be fostered by them, I exceed my duty by a

jot, I am a lost man! A lost man! Now do you see?”

“I can’t think it’s as bad as that,” Vaughan said.

XXIX

AUTUMN LEAVES

Miss Sibson paused to listen, but heard nothing. And disappointed, and

with a sigh, she spread a clean handkerchief over the lap of her gown

and helped herself to part of a round of buttered toast.

“She’ll not come,” she muttered. “I was a fool to think it! An old fool

to think it!” And she bit viciously into the toast.

It was long past her usual tea-time, yet she paused a second time to

listen, before she raised her first cup of tea to her lips. A covered

dish which stood on a brass trivet before the bright coal fire gave

forth a savoury smell, and the lamplight which twinkled on sparkling

silver and old Nantgarw, discovered more than the tea-equipage. The red

moreen curtains were drawn before the windows, a tabby cat purred

sleepily on the hearth; in all Bristol was no more cosy or more

cheerful scene. Yet Miss Sibson left the savoury dish untouched, and

ate the toast with less than her customary appetite.

“I shall set,” she murmured, “‘The Deceitfulness of Riches’ for the

first copy when the children return. And for the second ‘Fine Feathers

Make Fine Birds!’ And”—she continued with determination, though there

was no one to be intimidated—“for the third, ‘There’s No Fool Like an

Old Fool!’”

She had barely uttered the words when she set down her cup. The roll of

distant wheels had fallen on her ears. She listened for a few seconds,

then she rose in haste and rang the bell. “Martha,” she said when the

maid appeared, “are the two warming-pans in the bed?”

“To be sure, Ma’am.”

“And well filled?” Miss Sibson spoke suspiciously.

“The sheets are as nigh singeing as you’d like, Ma’am,” the maid

answered. “You can smell ’em here! I only hope,” she continued, with a

quaver in her voice, “as we mayn’t smell fire before long!”

“Smell fiddlesticks!” Miss Sibson retorted. Then “That will do,” she

continued. “I will open the door myself.”

When she did so the lights of the hackney-coach which had stopped

before the house disclosed first Mary Vermuyden in her furs, standing

on the step; secondly, Mr. Flixton, who had placed himself as near her

as he dared; and thirdly and fourthly, flanking them at a distance of a

pace or two, a tall footman and a maid.

“Good gracious!” Miss Sibson exclaimed, dismay in her tone.

“Yes,” Mary answered, almost crying. “They would come! I said I wished

to come alone. Good-night, Mr. Flixton!”

“Oh, but I—I couldn’t think of leaving you like this!” the Honourable

Bob answered. He had derived a minimum of satisfaction from his ride on

the coach, for Mary had shown herself of the coldest. And if he was to

part from her here he might as well have travelled with Brereton.

Besides, what the deuce was afoot? What was she doing here?

“And Baxter is as bad,” Mary said plaintively. “As for Thomas——”

“Beg pardon, Ma’am,” the man said, touching his hat, “but it is as much

as my place is worth.”

The maid, a woman of mature years, said nothing, but held her ground,

the image of stolid disapproval. She knew Miss Sibson. But Bristol was

strange to her; and the dark windy square, with its flickering lights,

its glimpses of gleaming water and skeleton masts, and its unseen but

creaking windlasses, seemed to her, fresh from Lady Worcester’s, a most

unfitting place for her young lady.

Miss Sibson cut the knot after her own fashion. “Well, I can’t take you

in,” she said bluffly. “This gentleman,” pointing to Mr. Flixton, “will

find quarters for you at the White Lion or the Bush. And your mistress

will see you to-morrow. Thomas, bring in your young lady’s trunk.

Good-night, sir,” she added, addressing the Honourable Bob. “Miss

Vermuyden will be quite safe with me.”

“Oh, but I say, Miss Sibson!” he remonstrated. “You can’t mean to take

the moon out of the sky like this, and leave us in the dark? Miss

Vermuyden——”

“Good-night,” Mary said, not a whit placated by the compliment. And she

slipped past Miss Sibson into the passage.

“Oh, but it’s not safe, you know!” he cried. “You’re not a hundred

yards from the Mansion House here. And if those beggars make trouble

to-morrow—positively there’s no knowing what will happen!”

“We can take care of ourselves, sir,” Miss Sibson replied curtly.

“Good-night, sir!” And she shut the door in his face.

The Honourable Bob glared at it for a time, but it remained closed and

dark. There was nothing to be done save to go. “D——n the woman!” he

cried. And he turned about.

It was something of a shock to him to find the two servants still at

his elbow, patiently regarding him. “Where are we to go, sir?” the maid

asked, as stolid as before.

“Go?” cried he, staring. “Go? Eh? What? What do you mean?”

“Where are we to go, sir, for the night? If you’ll please to show us,

sir. I’m a stranger here.”

“Oh! This is too much!” the Honourable Bob cried, finding himself on a

sudden a family man. “Go? I don’t care if you go to——” But there he

paused. He put the temptation to tell them to go to blazes from him.

After all, they were Mary’s servants. “Oh, very well! Very well!” he

resumed, fuming. “There, get in! Get in!” indicating the hackney-coach.

“And do you,” he continued, turning to Thomas, “tell him to drive to

the White Lion. Was there ever? That old woman’s a neat artist, if ever

I saw one!”

And a moment later Flixton trundled off, boxed in with the mature maid,

and vowing to himself that in all his life he had never been so diddled

before.

Meanwhile, within doors—for farce and tragedy are never far apart—Mary,

with her furs loosened, but not removed, was resisting all Miss

Sibson’s efforts to restrain her. “I must go to her!” she said with

painful persistence. “I must go to her at once, if you please, Miss

Sibson. Where is she?”

“She is not here,” Miss Sibson said, plump and plain.

“Not here!” Mary cried, springing from the chair into which Miss Sibson

had compelled her. “Not here!”

“No. Not in this house.”

“Then why—why did she tell me to come here?” Mary cried dumbfounded.

“Her ladyship is next door. No, my dear!” And Miss Sibson interposed

her ample form between Mary and the door. “You cannot go to her until

you have eaten and drunk. She does not expect you, and there is no need

of such haste. She may live a fortnight, three weeks, a month even! And

she must not, my dear, see you with that sad face.”

Mary gave way at that. She sat down and burst into tears.

The schoolmistress knew nothing of the encounter in Parliament Street,

nothing of the meeting on the coach. But she was a sagacious woman, and

she discerned something more than the fatigue of the journey, something

more than grief for her mother, in the girl’s depression. She said

nothing, however, contenting herself with patting her guest on the

shoulder and gently removing her wraps and shoes. Then she set a

footstool for her in front of the fire and poured out her tea, and

placed hot sweetbread before her, and toast, and Sally Lunn. And when

Mary, touched by her kindness, flung her arms round her neck and kissed

her, she said only, “That’s better, my dear, drink your tea, and then I

will tell you all I know.”

“I cannot eat anything.”

“Oh, yes, you can! After that you are going to see your mother, and

then you will come back and take a good night’s rest. To-morrow you

will do as you like. Her ladyship is with an old servant next door,

through whom she first heard of me.”

“Why did she not remain in Bath?” Mary asked.

“I cannot tell you,” Miss Sibson answered. “She has whims. If you ask

me, I should say that she thought Sir Robert would not find her here,

and so could not take you from her.”

“But the servants?” Mary said in dismay. “They will tell my father. And

indeed——”

“Indeed what, my dear?”

“I do not wish to hide from him.”

“Quite right!” Miss Sibson said. “Quite right, my dear. But I fancy

that that was her ladyship’s reason. Perhaps she thought also that when

she—that afterwards I should be at hand to take care of you. As a

fact,” Miss Sibson continued, rubbing her cheek with the handle of a

teaspoon, a sure sign that she was troubled, “I wish that your mother

had chosen another place. You don’t ask, my dear, where the children

are.”

Mary looked at her hostess. “Oh, Miss Sibson!” she exclaimed,

conscience-stricken. “You cannot have sent them away for my sake?”

“No, my dear,” Miss Sibson answered, noting with satisfaction that Mary

was making a meal. “No, their parents have removed them. The Recorder

is coming to-morrow, and he is so unpopular on account of this nasty

Bill—which is setting everyone on horseback whether they can ride or

not—and there is so much talk of trouble when he enters, that all the

foolish people have taken fright and removed their children for the

week. It’s pure nonsense, my dear,” Miss Sibson continued comfortably.

“I’ve seen the windows of the Mansion House broken a score of times at

elections, and not another house in the Square a penny the worse! Just

an old custom. And so it will be to-morrow. But the noise may disturb

her ladyship, and that’s why I wish her elsewhere.”

Mary did not answer, and the schoolmistress, noting her spiritless

attitude and the dark shadows under her eyes, was confirmed in her

notion that here was something beyond grief for the mother whom the

girl had scarcely known. And Miss Sibson felt a tug at her own

heartstrings. She was well-to-do and well considered in Bristol, and

she was not conscious that her life was monotonous. But the gay scrap

of romance which Mary’s coming had wrought into the dull patchwork of

days, long toned to the note of Mrs. Chapone, was welcome to her. Her

little relaxations, her cosy whist-parties, her hot suppers to follow,

these she had: but here was something brighter and higher. It stirred a

long-forgotten youth, old memories, the ashes of romance. She loved

Mary for it.

To rouse the girl, she rose from her chair. “Now, my dear,” she said,

“you can go to your room, if you will. And in ten minutes we will step

next door.”

Mary looked at her with grateful eyes. “I am glad now,” she said, “I am

glad that she came here.”

“Ah!” the schoolmistress answered, pursing up her lips. And she looked

at the girl uncertainly. “It’s odd,” she said, “I sometimes think that

you are just—Mary Smith.”

“I am!” the other answered warmly. “Always Mary Smith to you!” And the

old woman took the young one to her arms.

A quarter of an hour later Mary came down, and she was Mary Smith in

truth. For she had put on the grey Quaker-like dress in which she had

followed her trunk from the coach-office six months before. “I

thought,” she said, “that I could nurse her better in this than in my

new clothes!” But she blushed deeply as she spoke: for if she had this

thought she had others also in her mind. She might not often wear that

dress, but she would never part with it. Arthur Vaughan’s eyes had

worshipped it; his hands had touched it. And in the days to come it

would lie, until she died, in some locked coffer, perfumed with

lavender, and sweet with the dried rose-leaves of her dead romance. And

on one day in the year she would visit it, and bury her face in its

soft faded folds, and dream the old dreams.

It was but a step to the door of the neighbouring house. But the

distance, though short, steadied the girl’s mind and enabled her to

taste that infinity of the night, that immensity of nature, which, like

a fathomless ocean, islands the littleness of our lighted homes. The

groaning of strained cordage, the creaking of timbers, the far-off

rattle of a boom came off the dark water that lipped the wharves which

still fringe three sides of the Square. Here and there a rare gas-lamp,

lately set up, disclosed the half-bare arms of trees, or some vague

opening leading to the Welsh Back. But for all the two could see, as

they glided from the one door to the other, the busy city about them,

seething with so many passions, pregnant with so much danger, hiding in

its entrails the love, the fear, the secrets of a myriad lives, might

have been in another planet.

Mary owned the calming influence of the night and the stars, and before

the door opened to Miss Sibson’s knock, the blush had faded from her

cheek. It was with solemn thoughts that she went up the wide oaken

staircase, still handsome, though dusty and fallen from its high

estate. The task before her, the scene on the threshold of which she

trod, brought the purest instincts of her nature into play. But her

guide knocked, someone within the room bade them enter, and Mary

advanced. She saw lights and a bed—a four-poster, heavily curtained.

And half blinded by her tears, she glided towards the bed—or was

gliding, when a querulous voice arrested her midway.

“So you are come!” it said. And Lady Sybil, who, robed in a silken

dressing-gown, was lying on a small couch in a different part of the

room, tossed a book, not too gently, to the floor. “What stuff! What

stuff!” she ejaculated wearily. “A schoolgirl might write as good!

Well, you are come,” she continued. “There,” as Mary, flung back on

herself, bent timidly and kissed her, “that will do! That will do! I

can’t bear anyone near me! Don’t come too near me! Sit on that chair,

where I can see you!”

Mary beat back her tears and obeyed with a quivering lip. “I hope you

are better,” she said.

“Better!” her mother retorted in the same peevish tone. “No, and shall

not be!” Then, with a shrill scream, “Heavens, child, what have you got

on?” she continued. “What have you done to yourself? You look like a

_sœur de Charité!_”

“I thought that I could nurse you better in this,” Mary faltered.

“Nurse me!”

“Yes, I——”

“Rubbish!” Lady Sybil exclaimed with petulant impatience. “You nurse?

Don’t be silly! Who wants you to nurse me? I want you to amuse me. And

you won’t do that by dressing yourself like a dingy death’s-head moth!

There, for Heaven’s sake,” with a catch in her voice which went to

Mary’s heart, “don’t cry! I’m not strong enough to bear it. Tell me

something! Tell me anything to make me laugh. How did you trick Sir

Robert, child? How did you escape? That will amuse me,” with a

mirthless laugh. “I wish I could see his solemn face when he hears that

you are gone!”

Mary explained that the summons had found her in London; that her

father was not there, but that still she had had to beat down Lady

Worcester’s resistance before she could have her way and leave.

“I don’t know her,” Lady Sybil said shortly.

“She was very kind to me,” Mary answered.

“I dare say,” in the same tone.

“But she would not let me go until I gave her my address.”

Lady Sybil sat up sharply. “And you did that?” she shrieked. “You gave

it her?”

“I was obliged to give it,” Mary stammered, “or I could not have left

London.”

“Obliged? Obliged?” Lady Sybil retorted, in the same passionate tone.

“Why, you fool, you might have given her fifty addresses! Any address!

Any address but this! There!” Lady Sybil continued sullenly, as she

sank back and pressed her handkerchief to her lips. “You’ve done it

now. You’ve excited me. Give me those drops! There! Are you blind?

Those! Those! And—and sit farther from me! I can’t breathe with you

close to me!”

After which, when Mary, almost heartbroken, had given her the medicine,

and seated herself in the appointed place, she turned her face to the

wall and lay silent and morose, uttering no sound but an occasional

sigh of pain.

Meantime, to eyes that could read, the room told her story, and told it

eloquently. The table beside the couch was strewn with rose-bound

Annuals and Keepsakes, and a dozen volumes bearing the labels of more

than one library; books opened only to be cast aside. Costly toys and

embroidered nothings, vinaigrettes and scent-bottles, lay scattered

everywhere; and on other tables, on the mantelpiece, on the floor, a

litter of similar trifles elbowed and jostled the gloomy tokens of

illness. Near the invalid’s hand lay a miniature in a jewelled frame,

while a packet of letters tied with a fragment of gold lace, and a buhl

desk half-closed upon a broken fan told the same tale of ennui, and of

a vanity which survived the charms on which it had rested. The lesson

was not lost on the daughter’s heart. It moved her to purest pity; and

presently, wrung by a sigh more painful than usual, she crept to the

couch, sank on her knees, and pressed her cool lips to the wasted hand

which hung from it. Even then for a time her mother did not move or

take notice. But slowly the weary sighs grew more frequent, grew to

sobs—how much less poignant!—and her weak arm drew Mary’s head to her

bosom.

And by-and-by the arm tightened its hold and gripped her convulsively,

the sobs grew deeper and shook the worn form at each respiration; and

presently, “Ah, God, what will become of me?” burst from the depths of

the poor quaking heart, too proud hitherto to make its fear known.

“What will become of me?”

That cry pierced Mary like a knife, but its confession of weakness made

mother and daughter one. Her feeble arms could not avert the approach

of the dark shadow, whose coming terrified though it could not change.

But what human love could do, what patient self-forgetfulness might

teach, she vowed that she would do and teach; and what clinging hands

might compass to delay the end, her hands should compass. When Miss

Sibson’s message, informing her that it was time to return, was brought

to her, she shook her head, smiling, and locked the door. “I shall be

your nurse, after all!” she said. “I shall not leave you.” And before

midnight, with a brave contentment, for which Lady Sybil’s following

eyes were warrant, she had taken possession of the room and all its

contents; she had tidied as much as it was good to tidy, she had knelt

to heat the milk or brush the hearth, she had smoothed the pillow, and

sworn a score of times that nothing, no Sir Robert, no father, no force

should tear her from this her duty, this her joy—until the end.

No memory of her dull childhood, or of the days of labour and servitude

which she owed to the dying woman, no thought of the joys of wealth and

youth which she had lost through her, rose to mar the sincerity of her

love. Much less did such reflections trouble her on whose flighty mind

they should have rested so heavily. So far indeed was this from being

the case, that when Mary stooped to some office which the mother’s

fastidiousness deemed beneath her, “How can you do that?” Lady Sybil

cried peevishly. “I’ll not have you do it! Do you hear me, girl? Let

some servant see to it! What else are they for!”

“But I used to do it every day at Clapham,” Mary answered cheerfully.

She had not spoken before, aware of the reproach which her words

conveyed, she could have bitten her tongue.

But Lady Sybil did not wince. “Then why did you do it?” she retorted,

“Why did you do it? Why were you so foolish as to stoop to such things?

I’m sure you didn’t get your poor spirit from me! And Vermuyden was as

stiff as a poker! But there! I remember the prince saying once that

ladies went out of fashion with hoops, and gentlemen with snuffboxes.

You make me think he was right. Oh, clumsy!” she continued, raising her

voice, “now you are turning the light on my face! Do you wish to see me

hideous?”

Mary moved it. “Is that better, mother?” she asked.

Lady Sybil cast a resentful glance at her. “There, there, let it be!”

she said. “You can’t help it. You’re like your father. He could never

do anything right! I suppose I am doomed to have none but helpless

people about me.”

And so on, and so on. Like many invalids, she was most lively at night,

and she continued to complain through long restless hours, with the

candles burning lower and lower, and the snuffers coming into more

frequent request. Until with the chill before the dawn she fell at last

into a fitful sleep; and Mary, creeping to the close-curtained windows

to cool her weary eyes, peeped out and saw the grey of the morning.

Outside, the Square was beginning to discover its half-bare trees and

long straight rows of houses. Through openings, here and there, the

water glimmered mistily; and on the height facing her, the tall tower

of St. Mary Redcliffe rose above the roofs and pointed skywards. Little

did Mary think what the day would bring forth in that grey deserted

place on which she looked; or in what changed conditions, under what

stress of mind and heart, she would, before the sun set twice, view

that Square.

XXX

THE MAYOR’S RECEPTION IN QUEEN’S SQUARE

The day, of which Mary watched the cloudy opening from her mother’s

window, was drawing to a close; and from a house in the same Square—but

on the north side, whereas Miss Sibson’s was on the west—another pair

of eyes looked out, while a heart, which a few hours before had been as

sore as hers, rose a little at the prospect. Arthur Vaughan, ignorant

of her proximity—to love’s shame be it said—sat in a window on the

first floor of the Mansion House, and, undismayed by the occasional

crash of glass, watched the movements of the swaying, shouting, mocking

crowd; a crowd, numbering some thousands, which occupied the middle

space of the Square, as well as the roadways, clustered upon the

Immortal Memory, overflowed into the side streets, and now joined in

one mighty roar of “Reform! Reform!” now groaned thunderously at the

name of Wetherell. Behind Vaughan in the same room, the drawing-room of

the official residence, some twenty or thirty persons argued and

gesticulated; at one time approaching a window to settle a debated

point, at another scattering with exclamations of anger as a stone fell

or some other missile alighted among them.

“Boo! Boo!” yelled the mob below. “Throw him out! Reform! Reform!”

Vaughan looked down on the welter of moving faces. He saw that the

stone-throwers were few, and the daredevils, who at times adventured to

pull up the railings which guarded the forecourt, were fewer. But he

saw also that the mass sympathised with them, egged them on, and

applauded their exploits. And he wondered what would happen when night

fell, and wondered again why the peaceable citizens who wrangled behind

him made light of the position. The glass was flying, here and there an

iron bar had vanished from the railings, night was approaching. For him

it was very well. He had accompanied Brereton to Bristol to see what

would happen, and for his part, if the adventure proved to be of the

first class, so much the better. But the good pursy citizens behind

him, who, when they were not deafening the little Mayor with their

counsels, were making a jest of the turmoil, had wives and daughters,

goods and houses within reach. And in their place he felt that he would

have been far from easy.

By and by it appeared that some of them shared his feelings. For

presently, in a momentary lull of the babel outside, a voice he knew

rose above those in the room.

“Nothing? You call it nothing?” Mr. Cooke—for his was the voice—cried.

“Nothing, that his Majesty’s Judge has been hooted and pelted from

Totterdown to the Guildhall? Nothing, that the Recorder of Bristol has

been hunted like a criminal from the Guildhall to this place! You call

it nothing, sir, that his Majesty’s Commission has been flouted for six

hours past by all the riffraff of the Docks? And with half of decent

Bristol looking on and applauding!”

“Oh, no, no!” the little Mayor remonstrated. “Not applauding, Mr.

Cooke!”

“Yes, sir, applauding!” Cooke retorted with vigour.

“And teach Wetherell a lesson!” someone in the background muttered.

The man spoke low, but Cooke heard the words and wheeled about. “There,

sir, there!” he cried, stuttering in his indignation. “What do you say

to that? Here, in your presence, the King’s Judge is insulted. But I

warn you,” he continued, “I warn you all! You are playing with fire!

You are laughing in your sleeves, but you’ll cry in your shirts! You,

Mr. Mayor, I call upon you to do your duty! I call upon you to summon

the military and give the order to clear the streets before worse comes

of it.”

“I don’t—I really don’t—think that it is necessary,” the Mayor answered

pacifically. “I have seen as bad as this at half a dozen elections, Mr.

Cooke.”

The Town-clerk, a tall, thin man, who still wore his gown though he had

laid aside his wig, struck in. “Quite true, Mr. Mayor!” he said. “The

fact is, the crowd thinks itself hardly used on these occasions if it

is not allowed to break the windows and do a little mischief on the

lower floor.”

“By G—d, I’d teach it a lesson then!” Cooke retorted. “It seems to me

it is time someone did!”

Two or three expressed the same opinion, though they did so with less

decision. But the main part smiled at Cooke’s heat as at a foolish

display of temper. “I’ve seen as much half a dozen times,” said one,

shrugging his shoulders. “And no harm done!”

“I’ve seen worse!” another answered. “And after all,” the speaker added

with a wink, “it is good for the glaziers.”

Fortunately, Cooke did not hear this last. But Vaughan heard it, and he

judged that the rioters had their backers within as well as without;

and that within, as without, the notion prevailed that the Government

would not be best pleased if the movement were too roughly checked. An

old proverb about the wisdom of dealing with the beginnings of mischief

occurred to him. But he supposed that the authorities knew their

business and Bristol, and, more correctly than he, could gauge the mob

and the danger, of both of which they made so light.

Still he wondered. And he wondered more three minutes later. Two

servants brought in lights. Unfortunately the effect of these was to

reveal the interior of the room to the mob, and the change was the

signal for a fusillade of stones so much more serious and violent than

anything which had gone before that a quick _sauve qui peut_ took

place. Vaughan was dislodged with the others—he could do no good by

remaining; and in two minutes the room was empty, and the mob were

celebrating their victory with peals of titanic laughter, accompanied

by fierce cries of “Throw him out! Throw out the d——d Recorder!

Reform!”

Meanwhile the company, with one broken head and one or two pale faces,

had taken refuge on the landing behind the drawing-room, the stairs

ascending to which were guarded by a reserve of constables. Vaughan saw

that the Mayor and his satellites were beginning to look at one

another, and leaning, quietly observant, against the wall, he noticed

that more than one was shaken. Still the little Mayor retained his

good-humour. “Oh, dear, dear!” he said indulgently. “This is too bad!

Really too bad!”

“We’d better go upstairs,” Sergeant Ludlow, the Town-clerk, suggested.

“We can see what passes as well from that floor as from this, and with

less risk!”

“No, but really this is growing serious,” a third said timidly. “It’s

too bad, this.”

He had scarcely spoken, and the Mayor was still standing undecided, as

if he did not quite like the idea of retreat, when two persons, one

with his head bandaged, came quickly up the stairs. “Where’s the

Mayor?” cried the first. And then, “Mr. Mayor, they are pushing us too

hard,” said the second, an officer of special constables. “We must have

help, or they will pull the house about our ears.”

“Oh, nonsense!”

“But it’s not nonsense, sir,” the man answered angrily.

“But——”

“You must read the Riot Act, sir,” the other, who was the

Under-Sheriff, chimed in. “And the sooner the better, Mr. Mayor,” he

added with decision. “We’ve half a dozen men badly hurt. In my opinion

you should send for the military.”

The group on the landing looked aghast at one another. What, danger?

Really—danger? Half a dozen men badly hurt? Then one made an effort to

carry it off. “Send for the military?” he gasped. “Oh, but that is

absurd! That would only make matters worse!”

The others did not speak, and the Mayor in particular looked upset.

Perhaps for the first time he appreciated the responsibility which lay

on his shoulders. Meanwhile Vaughan saw all; and Cooke also, and the

latter laughed maliciously. “Perhaps you will listen now,” he said with

an ill-natured chuckle. “You would not listen to me!”

“Dear, dear,” the Mayor quavered. “Is it really as serious as that, Mr.

Hare?” He turned to the Town-clerk. “What do you advise?” he asked.

“I think with Mr. Hare that you had better read the Riot Act, sir.”

“Very well, I’ll come down! I’ll come down at once,” the Mayor assented

with spirit. “Only,” he continued, looking round him, “I beg that some

gentleman known to be on the side of Reform, will come with me. Who has

the Riot Act?”

“Mr. Burges. Where is he?”

“I am here, sir,” replied the gentleman named. “I am quite ready, Mr.

Mayor. If you will say a few words to the crowd; I am sure they will

listen. Let us go down!”

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later the same group, but with disordered clothes and

sickly faces—and as to Mr. Burges, with a broken head—were gathered

again on the landing. In those twenty minutes, despite the magic of the

Riot Act, the violence of the mob had grown rather than diminished.

They were beginning to talk of burning the Mansion House, they were

calling for straw, they were demanding lights. Darkness had fallen,

too, and there could be no question now that the position was serious.

The Mayor, who, below stairs, had shown no lack of courage, turned to

the Town-clerk. “Ought I to call out the military?” he asked.

“I think that we should take Sir Charles Wetherell’s opinion,” the

tall, thin man answered, deftly shifting the burden from his own

shoulders.

“The sooner Sir Charles is gone the better, I should say!” Cooke said

bluntly. “If we don’t want to have his blood on our heads.”

“I am with Mr. Cooke there,” the Under-Sheriff struck in. He was

responsible for the Judge’s safety, and he spoke strongly. “Sir Charles

should be got away,” he continued. “That’s the first thing to be done.

He cannot hold the Assizes, and I say frankly that I will not be

responsible if he stays.”

“Jonah!” someone muttered with a sneering laugh.

The Mayor turned about. “That’s very improper!” he said.

“It’s very improper to send a Judge who is a politician!” the voice

answered.

“And against the Bill!” a second jeered.

“For shame! For shame!” the Mayor cried.

“And I fancy, sir,” the Under-Sheriff struck in with heat, “that the

gentlemen who have just spoken—I think I can guess their names—will be

sorry before morning! They will find that it is easier to kindle a fire

than to put it out! But—silence, gentlemen! Silence! Here is Sir

Charles!”

Wetherell had that moment opened the door of his private room, of which

the window looked to the back. His face betrayed his surprise on

finding twenty or thirty persons huddled in disorder at the head of the

stairs. The two lights which had survived the flight from the

drawing-room flared in the draught of the shattered windows, and the

wavering illumination gave a sinister cast to the scene. The dull

rattle of stones on the floor of the rooms exposed to the Square—varied

at times by a roar of voices or a rush of feet in the hall

below—suggested that the danger was near at hand, and that the

assailants might at any moment break into the building.

Nevertheless Sir Charles showed no signs of fear. After letting his

eyes travel over the group, “How long is this going on, Mr.

Under-Sheriff?” he asked, plunging his hands deep in his breeches

pockets.

“Well, Sir Charles——”

“They seem,” with a touch of sternness, “to be carrying the jest rather

too far.”

“Mr. Cooke,” the Mayor said, “wishes me to call out the military.”

Wetherell shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “The occasion is not so

serious as to justify that. You cannot say that life is in danger?”

The Under-Sheriff put himself forward. “I can say, sir,” he answered

firmly, “that yours is in danger. And in serious danger!”

Wetherell planted his feet further apart, and thrust his hands lower

into his pockets. “Oh, no, no,” he said.

“It is yes, yes, sir,” the Under-Sheriff replied bluntly. “Unless you

leave the house I cannot be responsible! I cannot, indeed, Sir

Charles.”

“But——”

“Listen, sir! If you don’t wish a very terrible catastrophe to happen,

you must go! By G—d you must!” the Under-Sheriff repeated, forgetting

his manners.

The noise below had swollen suddenly. Cries, blows, and shrieks rose up

the staircase, and announced that at any moment the party above might

have to defend their lives. At the prospect suddenly presented, respect

for dignities took flight; panic seized the majority. Constables,

thrusting aldermen and magistrates aside, raced up the stairs, and

bundled down again laden with beds with which to block the windows:

while the picked men who had hitherto guarded the foot of the staircase

left their posts in charge of two or three of the wounded, who groaned

dismally. Apparently the mob had broken into part of the ground floor,

and were with difficulty held at bay.

One of the party struck his hand on the balusters—it was Mr. Cooke. “By

Heavens!” he said, “this is what comes of your d——d Reform! Your d——d

Reform! We shall all be murdered, every man of us! Murdered!”

“For God’s sake, Mr. Mayor,” cried a quavering voice, “send for the

military.”

“Ay, ay! the soldiers. Send for the soldiers, sir!” echoed two or

three.

“Certainly I will,” said the Mayor, who was cooler than most. “Who will

go?”

A man volunteered. On which Vaughan, who had so far remained silent,

stepped forward. “Sir Charles,” he said, “you must retire. Your duties

are at an end, and your presence hampers the defence. Permit me to

escort you. I am unknown here, and can pass through the streets.”

Wetherell, as brave, stout and as solid a man as any in England,

hesitated. But he saw that it would soon be everyone for himself; and

in that event he was doomed. The din was waxing louder and more

menacing; the group on the stairs was melting away. In terror on their

own account, the officials were beginning to forget his presence.

Several had already disappeared, seeking to save themselves, this way

and that. Others were going. Every moment the confusion increased, and

the panic. He gave way. “You think I ought to go, Vaughan?” he asked in

a low voice.

“I do, sir,” Vaughan answered. And, entering the Recorder’s room, he

brought out Sir Charles’s hat and cloak and hastily thrust them on him,

scarcely anyone else attending to them. As he did this his eye alighted

on a constable’s staff which lay on the floor where its owner had

dropped it. Thinking that, as he was without arms, he might as well

possess himself of it, Vaughan left Wetherell’s side and went to pick

it up. At that moment a roar of sound, as sudden as the explosion of a

gun, burst up the staircase. Two or three cried in a frenzied way that

the mob were coming; some fled this way, some that, a few to windows at

the back, more to the upper story, while a handful obeyed Vaughan’s

call to stand and hold the head of the stairs. For a brief space all

was disorder and—save in his neighbourhood—panic. Then a voice below

shouted that the soldiers were come, and a general “Thank God! Not a

moment too soon!” was heard on all sides. Vaughan made sure that it was

true, and then he turned to rejoin Sir Charles.

But Wetherell had vanished, and no one could say in which direction.

Vaughan hurried upstairs and along the passages in anxious search; but

in vain. One told him that Sir Charles had left by a window at the

back; another, that he had been seen going upstairs with the

Under-Sheriff. He could learn nothing certain; and he was asking

himself what he should do next, when the sound of cheering reached his

ear.

“What is that?” he asked a man who met him as he descended the stairs

from the second floor.

“They are cheering the soldiers,” the man replied.

“I am glad to hear it!” Vaughan exclaimed.

“I’d say so too,” the other rejoined glumly, “if I was certain on which

side the soldiers were! But you’re wanted, sir, in the drawing-room.

The Mayor asked me to find you.”

“Very good,” Vaughan said, and without delay he followed the messenger

to the room he had named. Here, with the relics of the fray about them,

he found the Mayor and four or five officials who looked woefully

shaken and flustered. With them were Brereton and the Honourable Bob,

both in uniform. The stone-throwing had ceased, for the front of the

house was now guarded by a double line of troopers in red cloaks.

Lights, too, had been brought, and in the main the danger seemed to be

over. But about this council there was none of that lightheartedness,

none of that easy contempt which had characterised the one held in the

same room an hour or two before. The lesson had been learnt in a

measure.

The Mayor looked at Vaughan as he entered. “Is this the gentleman?” he

asked.

“Yes, that is the gentleman who got us together at the head of the

stairs,” a person, a stranger to Vaughan, answered. “If he,” the man

continued, “were put in charge of the constables, who are at present at

sixes and sevens, we might manage something.”

A voice in the background mentioned that it was Mr. Vaughan, the Member

for Chippinge. “I shall be glad to do anything I can,” Vaughan said.

“In support of the military,” the tall, thin Town-clerk interposed, in

a decided tone. “That must be understood. Eh, Mr. Burges?”

“Certainly,” the City Solicitor answered. And they both looked at

Colonel Brereton, who, somewhat to Vaughan’s surprise, had not

acknowledged his presence.

“Of course, of course,” said the Mayor pacifically. “That is

understood. I am quite sure that Colonel Brereton will use his utmost

force to clear the streets and quiet the city.”

“I shall do what I think right,” Brereton replied, standing up

straight, with his hand on his sword-hilt, and looking, among the

disordered citizens, like a Spanish hidalgo among a troop of peasants.

“I shall do what is right,” he repeated stubbornly; and Vaughan,

knowing the man well, perceived that, quiet as he seemed, he was

labouring under strong excitement. “I shall walk my horses about. The

crowd are perfectly good-humoured, and only need to be kept moving.”

The Town-clerk exchanged a glance with a neighbour. “But do you think,

sir,” he said, “that that will be sufficient? You are aware, I suppose,

that great damage has been done already, and that had your troop not

arrived when it did many lives might have been sacrificed?”

“That is all I shall do,” Brereton answered. “Unless,” with a faint

ring of contempt in his tone, “the Mayor gives me an express and

written order to attack the people.”

The Mayor’s face was a picture. “I?” he gasped.

“Yes, sir.”

“But I—I could not take that responsibility on myself,” the Mayor

cried. “I couldn’t, I really couldn’t!” he repeated, taken aback by the

burden it was proposed to put on him. “I can’t judge, Colonel

Brereton—I am not a military man—whether it is necessary or not.”

“I should consider it unwise,” Brereton replied formally.

“Very good! Then—then you must use your discretion.”

“Just so. That’s what I supposed,” Brereton replied, not masking his

contempt for the vacillation of those about him. “In that case I shall

pursue the line of action I have indicated. I shall walk my horses up

and down. The crowd are perfectly good-humoured. What is it, pray?”

He turned, frowning. A man had entered the room and was whispering in

the Town-clerk’s ear. The latter straightened himself with a heated

face. “You call them good-humoured, sir?” he said. “I hear that two of

your men, Colonel Brereton, have just been brought in severely wounded.

I do not know whether you call that good-humour?”

Brereton looked a little discomposed. “They must have brought it on

themselves,” he said, “by some rashness. Your constables have no

discretion.”

“I think you should at least clear the Square and the neighbouring

streets,” the Town-clerk persisted.

“I have indicated what I shall do,” Brereton replied, with a gloomy

look. “And I am prepared to be responsible for the safety of the city.

If you wish me to act beyond my judgment, the civil power must give me

an express and written order.”

Still the Mayor and those about him looked uneasy, though they did not

dare to do what Brereton suggested. The howls of the rabble still rang

in their ears, and before their eyes they had the black, gaping

casements, through which an ominous murmur entered. They had waited

long before calling in the Military, they had hesitated long; for

Peterloo had erased Waterloo from the memory of an ungrateful

generation, and men, secure abroad and straining after Reform at home,

held a red-coat in small favour, if not in suspicion. But having called

the red-coats in, they looked for something more than this, for some

vindication of the law and the civil power, some stroke which would

cast terror into the hearts of misdoers. The Town-clerk, in particular,

had his doubts, and when no one else spoke he put them into words.

“May I ask,” he said formally, “if you have any orders, Colonel

Brereton, from the Secretary of State or the Horse Guards, which

prevent you from obeying the directions of the magistrates?”

Brereton looked at him sternly.

“No,” he said, “I am prepared to obey your orders, stated in the manner

I have laid down. Then the responsibility will not lie with me.”

But the Mayor stepped back. “I couldn’t take it on myself, sir. I—God

knows what the consequences might be!” He looked round piteously. “We

don’t want another Manchester massacre.”

“I fancy,” Brereton answered grimly, “that if we have another

Manchester business, it will go ill with those who sign the order!

Times are changed since ’19, gentlemen—and governments! And I think we

understand that. You leave it to me, then, gentlemen?”

No one spoke.

“Very good,” he continued. “If your constables will do their duty with

discretion—and you could not have a better man to command them than Mr.

Vaughan, but he ought to be going about it now—I will answer for the

peace of the city.”

“But—but we shall see you again, Colonel Brereton,” the Mayor cried in

some agitation.

“See me, sir?” Brereton answered contemptuously.

“Oh, yes, you can see me, if you wish to! But——” He shrugged his

shoulders, and turned away without finishing the sentence.

Vaughan, when he heard that, knew that, cool as Brereton seemed, he was

not himself. A moody stubbornness had taken the place of last night’s

excitement; but that was all. And as the party trooped downstairs—he

had requested the Mayor to say a few words, placing the constables

under his control—he swallowed his private feelings and approached

Flixton.

“Flixton,” he whispered, throwing what friendliness he could into his

voice. “Do you think Brereton’s right?”

Flixton turned an ill-humoured face towards him, and dragged at his

sword-belt. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said irritably. “It’s his business,

and I suppose he can judge. There’s a deuce of a crowd, I know, and if

we go charging into it we shall be swallowed up in a twinkling!”

“But it has been whispered to me,” Vaughan replied, “that he told the

people on his way here that he’s for Reform. Isn’t it unwise to let

them think that the soldiers may side with them?”

“Fine talking,” Flixton answered with a sneer. “And God knows if we had

five hundred men, or three hundred, I’d agree. But what can sixty or

eighty men do galloping over slippery pavements in the dark? And if we

fire and kill a dozen, the Government will hang us to clear themselves!

And these d——d nigger-drivers and sugar-boilers behind us would be the

first to swear against us!”

Vaughan had his own opinion. But they had to part then. Flixton, in his

blue uniform—there were two troops present, one of the 3rd Dragoon

Guards in red, and one of the 14th Dragoons in blue—went out by

Brereton’s side with his spurs ringing on the stone pavement and his

sword clanking. He was not acting with his troop, but as the Colonel’s

aide-de-camp. Meanwhile Vaughan, who could not see the old blue uniform

without a pang, went with the Mayor to marshal the constables.

Of these no more than eighty remained, and with little stomach for the

task before them. This task, indeed, notwithstanding the check which

the arrival of the troopers had given the mob, was far from easy. The

ground-floor of the Mansion House looked like a place taken by storm

and sacked. The railings which guarded the forecourt were gone, and

even the wall on which they stood had been demolished to furnish

missiles. The doorways and windows, where they were not clumsily

barricaded, were apertures inviting entrance. In one room lay a pile of

straw ready for lighting. In another lay half a dozen wounded men.

Everywhere the cold wind, blowing off the water of the Welsh Back,

entered a dozen openings and extinguished the flares as quickly as they

could be lighted, casting now one room and now another into black

shadow.

But if the men had little heart for further exertions, Vaughan’s

manhood rose the higher to meet the call. Bringing his soldier’s

training into play, in a few minutes he had his force divided into four

companies, each under a leader. Two he held in reserve, bidding them

get what rest they could; with the other two he manned the forecourt,

and guarded the flank which lay open to the Welsh Back. And as long as

the troopers rode up and down within a stone’s-throw all was well. But

when the soldiers passed to the other side of the Square a rush was

made on the house—mainly by a gang of the low Irish of the

neighbourhood—and many a stout blow was struck before the rabble, who

thirsted for the strong ale and wine in the cellars, could be dislodged

from the forecourt and driven to a distance. The danger to life was not

great, though the tale of wounded grew steadily; nor could the post of

Chief Constable be held to confer much honour on one who so short a

time before had dreamt of Cabinets and portfolios, and of a Senate

hanging on his words. But the joy of conflict was something to a stout

heart, and the sense of success. Something, too, it was to feel that

where he stood his men stood also; and that where he was not, the

Irish, with their brickbats and iron bars, made a way. There was a big

lout, believed by some to be a Brummagem man and a tool of the

Political Union, who more than once led on the assailants; and when

Vaughan found that this man shunned him and chose the side where he was

not, that too was a joy.

“After all, this is what I am good for,” he told himself as he stood to

take breath after a _mêlée_ which was at once the most serious and the

last. “I was a fool to leave the regiment,” he continued, staunching a

trickle of blood which ran from a cut on his cheek bone. “For, after

all, better a good blow than a bad speech! Better, perhaps, a good blow

than all the speeches, good and bad!” And in the heat of the moment he

swung his staff. Then—then he thought of Mary and of Flixton, and his

heart sank, and his joy was at an end.

“Don’t think they’ll try us again, sir,” said an old pensioner, who had

constituted himself his orderly, and who had known the neigh of the

war-horse in the Peninsula. “If we had had you at the beginning we’d

have had no need of the old Blues, nor the Third either!”

“Oh, that’s rubbish!” Vaughan replied. But he owned the flattery, and

his heart warmed to the pensioner, whose prediction proved to be

correct. The crowd melted slowly but certainly after that. By eleven

o’clock there were but a couple of hundred in the Square. By twelve,

even these were gone. A half-dozen troopers, and as many

tatterdemalions, slinking about the dark corners, were all that

remained of the combatants; and the Mayor, with many words, presented

Vaughan with the thanks of the city for his services.

“It is gratifying, Mr. Vaughan,” he added, “to find that Colonel

Brereton was right.”

“Yes,” Vaughan agreed. And he took his leave, carrying off his staff

for a memento.

He was very weary, and it was not the shortest way to the White Lion,

yet his feet carried him across the dark Square and past the Immortal

Memory to the front of Miss Sibson’s house. It showed no lights to the

Square, but in a first-floor window of the next house he marked a faint

radiance as of a shaded taper, and the outline of a head—doubtless the

head of someone looking out to make sure that the disorder was at an

end. He saw, but love was at fault. No inner voice told him that the

head was Mary’s! No thrill revealed to him that at that very moment,

with her brow pressed to the cold pane, she was thinking of him! None!

With a sigh, and a farther fall from the lightheartedness of an hour

before, he went his way.

Broad Street was quiet, but half a dozen persons were gathered outside

the White Lion. They were listening: and one of them told him, as he

passed in, that the Blues, in beating back a party from the Council

House, a short time before, had shot one of the rioters. In the hall he

found several groups debating some point with heat, but they fell

silent when they saw him, one nudging another; and he fancied that they

paid especial attention to him. As he moved towards the office, a man

detached himself from them and approached him with a formal air.

“Mr. Vaughan, I think?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Arthur Vaughan?” the man, who was a complete stranger to Vaughan,

repeated. “Member of Parliament for Chippinge, I believe?”

“Yes.”

“Reform Member?”

Vaughan eyed him narrowly. “If you are one of my constituents,” he said

drily, “I will answer that question.”

“I am not one,” the man rejoined, with a little less confidence. “But

it’s my business, nevertheless, to warn you, Mr. Vaughan, in your own

interests, that the part you have been taking here will not commend you

to them! You have been handling the people very roughly, I am told.

Very roughly! Now, I am Mr. Here——”

“You may be Mr. Here or Mr. There,” Vaughan said, cutting him short—but

very quietly. “But if you say another word to me, I will throw you

through that door for your impudence! That is all. Now—have you any

more to say?”

The man tried to carry it off. For there was sniggering behind him. But

Vaughan’s blood was up, the agitator read it in the young man’s eye,

and being a man of words, not deeds, he fell back. Vaughan went up to

bed.

XXXI

SUNDAY IN BRISTOL

It was far from Vaughan’s humour to play the bully, and before he had

even reached his bedroom, which looked to the back, he repented of his

vehemence. Between that and the natural turmoil of his feelings he lay

long waking; and twice, in a stillness which proclaimed that all was

well, he heard the Bristol clocks tell the hour. After all, then,

Brereton had been right! For himself, had the command been his, he

would have adopted more strenuous measures. He would have tried to put

fear into the mob before the riot reached its height. And had he done

so, how dire might have been the consequences! How many homes might at

this moment be mourning his action, how many innocent persons be

suffering pain and misery!

Whereas Brereton, the strong, quiet man, resisting importunity,

shunning haste, keeping his head where others wavered, had carried the

city through its trouble, with scarce the loss of a single life. Truly

he was one whom

_Non civium ardor prava jubentium_,

_Non vultus instantis tyranni_

_Mente quatit solida!_

Vaughan thought of him with a new respect, and of himself with a new

humility. He was forced to acknowledge that even in that field of

action which he had quitted, and to which he was now inclined to

return, he was not likely to pick up a marshal’s bâton.

He slept at length, and long and heavily, awaking towards ten o’clock

with aching limbs and a cheek so sore that it brought all that had

passed to instant recollection. He found his hot water at his door, and

he dressed slowly and despondently, feeling the reaction and thinking

of Mary, and of that sunny morning, six months back, when he had looked

into Broad Street from a window of this very house, and dreamed of a

modest bonnet and a sweet blushing face. An hour after that, he

remembered, he had happened on the Honourable—oh, d—— Flixton! All his

troubles had started from that unlucky meeting with him.

He found his breakfast laid in the next room, the coffee and bacon in a

Japan cat by the fire. He ate and drank in an atmosphere of gloomy

retrospect. If he had never met Flixton! If he had not gone to that

unlucky dinner at Chippinge! If he had spoken to her in Parliament

Street! If—if—if! The bells of half a dozen churches were ringing,

drumming his regrets into him; and he stood awhile irresolute, looking

through the window. The inn-yard, which was all the prospect the window

commanded, was empty; an old liver-and-white pointer, scratching itself

in a corner, was the only living thing in it. But while he looked,

wondering if the dog had been a good dog in its time, two men came

running into the yard with every sign of haste and pressure. One, in a

yellow jacket, flung himself against a stable door and vanished within,

leaving the door open. The other pounced on a chaise, one of half a

dozen ranged under a shed, and by main force dragged it into the open.

The men’s actions impressed Vaughan with a vague uneasiness. He

listened. Was it fancy, or did he catch the sound of a distant shot?

And—there seemed to be an odd murmur in the air. He seized his hat, put

on his caped coat—for a cold drizzle was falling—and went downstairs.

The hall was empty, but through the open doorway he could see a knot of

people, standing outside, looking up the street. He made for the

threshold, and asked the rearmost of the starers what it was.

“Eh, what is it?” the man answered volubly. “Oh, they’re gone! It’s

true enough! And such a crowd as was never seen, I’m told—stoning them,

and shouting ‘Bloody Blues!’ after them. They’re gone right away to

Keynsham, and glad to be there with whole bones!”

“But what is it?” Vaughan asked impatiently. “What has happened, my

man? Who’re gone?”

The man turned for the first time, and saw who it was. “You have not

heard, sir?” he exclaimed.

“Not a word.”

“Not that the people have risen? And most part pulled down the Mansion

House? Ay, first thing this morning, sir! They say old Pinney, the

Mayor, got out at the back just in time or he’d have been murdered!

He’s had to send the military away—anyways, the Blues who killed the

lad last night on the Pithay.”

“Impossible!” Vaughan exclaimed, turning red with anger. “You cannot

have heard aright.”

“It’s as true as true!” the man replied, rubbing his hands in

excitement. “As for me,” he continued, “I was always for Reform! And

this will teach the Lords a lesson! They’ll know our mind now, and that

Wetherell’s a liar, begging your pardon, sir. And the old Corporation’s

not much better. A set of Tories mostly! If the Welsh Back drinks their

cellars dry it won’t hurt me, nor Bristol.”

Vaughan was too sharply surprised to rebuke the man. Could the story be

true! And if it were, what was Brereton doing? He could not have been

so foolish as to halve his force in obedience to the people he was sent

to check! But the murmur in the air was a fact, and past the end of the

street men were running in anything but a Sunday fashion.

He went back to his room and pocketed his staff. Then he descended

again and was on his way out, when a person belonging to the house

stopped him.

“Mr. Vaughan,” she said earnestly, “don’t go, sir. You are known after

last night and will come to harm. You will indeed, sir. And you can do

no good. My father says that nothing can be done until to-morrow.”

“I will take care of myself,” he replied, lightly. But his eyes thanked

her. He pushed his way through the gazers at the door, and set off

towards Queen’s Square.

At every door men and women were standing looking out. In the distance

he could hear cheering, which waxed louder and more insistent as,

prudently avoiding the narrower lanes, he passed down Clare Street to

Broad Quay, from which there was an entrance to the northwest corner of

the Square. Alongside the quay, which was fringed with warehouses and

sheds, and from which the huge city crane towered up, lay a line of

brigs and schooners; the masts of the more distant of these tapering to

vanishing points in the mist which lay upon the water. At the moment,

however, Vaughan had no eye for them. He saw them, but his thoughts

were with the rioters, and in a twinkling he was within the Square, and

seeing what was to be seen.

He judged that there were not more than fifteen hundred persons

present. Of the whole about one-half belonged to the lowest class.

These were gathered about the Mansion House, some drinking before it,

others bearing up liquor from the cellars, while others again were

tearing out the woodwork of the casements, or wantonly flinging the

last remnants of furniture from the windows. The second moiety of the

crowd, less reckless or of higher position, looked on as at a show; or

now and again, at the bidding of some active rioter, raised a cheer for

Reform, “The King and Reform! Reform!”

There was nothing dreadful, nothing awe-inspiring in the sight. Yet it

was such a sight, for an English city on a Sunday morning, that

Vaughan’s gorge rose at it. A hundred resolute men might have put the

mob to flight. And meantime, on every point of vantage, on Redcliffe

Parade, eastward of the Square, on College Green, and Brandon Hill, to

the westward of it, thousands stood looking in silence on the scene,

and by their supineness encouraging the work of destruction.

He thought for a moment of pushing to the front and trying what a few

reasonable words would effect. But as he advanced, his eye caught a

gleam of colour, and in the corner of the Square, most remote from the

disorder, he discovered a handful of dragoons, seated motionless in

their saddles, watching the proceedings.

The folly of this struck him dumb. And he hurried, at a white heat,

across the Square to remonstrate. He was about to speak to the sergeant

in charge, when Flixton, with a civilian cloak masking his uniform,

rode up to the men at a foot-pace. Vaughan turned to him instead.

“Good Heavens, man!” he cried, too hot to mince his words or remember

at the moment what there was between him and Flixton, “What’s Brereton

doing? What has happened! It is not true that he has sent the

Fourteenth away?”

Flixton looked down at him sulkily. “He’s sent ’em to Keynsham,” he

said, shortly. “If he hadn’t, the crowd would have been out of hand!”

“But what do you call them now?” Vaughan retorted, with angry sarcasm.

“They are destroying a public building in broad daylight! Aren’t they

sufficiently out of hand?”

Flixton shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer. He was flushed and

has manner was surly.

“And your squad here, looking on and doing nothing? They’re worse than

useless!” Vaughan continued. “They encourage the beggars! They’d be

better in their quarters than here! Better at Keynsham,” he added

bitterly.

“So I’ve told him,” Flixton answered, taking the last words literally.

“He sent me to see how things are looking. And a d——d pleasant way this

is of spending a wet Sunday!” On which, without more, having seen,

apparently, what he came to see, he turned his horse to go out of the

Square by the Broad Quay.

Vaughan walked a few paces beside the horse. “But, Flixton, press him,”

he said urgently; “press him, man, to act! To do something!”

“That’s all very fine,” the Honourable Bob answered churlishly, “but

Brereton’s in command. And you don’t catch me interfering. I am not

going to take the responsibility off his shoulders.”

“But think what may happen to-night!” Vaughan urged. Already he saw

that the throng was growing denser and its movements less random.

Somewhere in the heart of it a man was speaking. “Think what may happen

after dark, if they are as bad as this in daylight?”

Flixton looked askance at him. “Ten to one, only what happened last

night,” he answered. “You all croaked then; but Brereton was right.”

Vaughan saw that he argued to no purpose. For Flixton, forward and

positive in small things and on the surface, was discovered by the

emergency; all that now remained of his usual self-assertion was a

sense of injury. Vaughan inquired, instead, where he would find

Brereton, and as by this time the crowd had clearly outgrown the

control of a single man, he contented himself with walking round the

Square, and learning, by mingling with the fringe, what manner of

spirit moved it.

That spirit, though he heard some ugly threats against Wetherell and

the Bishops and the Lords, was rather a reckless and mischievous than a

bloodthirsty one. To obtain drink, to destroy this or that gaol, and by

and by to destroy all gaols seemed to the crowd the first principles of

Reform.

Presently a cry of “To the Bridewell! Come on! To the Bridewell!” was

raised, and led by a dozen hobbledehoys, armed with iron bars plucked

from the railings, a body of some hundreds trooped off, helter-skelter,

in the direction of the prison of that name.

Vaughan saw that someone must be induced to act; and to him the

following hours of that wet, dismal Sunday were a waking nightmare. He

hurried hither and thither, from Guildhall to Council House, from

Brereton’s lodgings to the dragoons’ quarters, striving to effect

something and always failing; seeking some cohesion, some decision,

some action, and finding none. Always there had just been a meeting, or

was going to be a meeting, or would be a meeting by and by. The civil

power would not act without the military; and the military did not

think itself strong enough to act, but would act if the civil power

would do something which the civil power had made up its mind not to

do. And meantime the supineness of the mass of the citizens was

marvellous. He seemed to be moving endlessly between lines of men who

lounged at their doors, and joked, or waited for the crowd to pass that

way. Nothing, it seemed to him, would rouse these men to a sense of the

position. It would be a lesson to Wetherell, they said. It would be a

lesson to the Peers. It would be a lesson to the Tories. The Bridewell

was sacked and fired, the great gaol across the New Cut was firing, the

Gloucester gaol in the north of the city was threatened. And still it

did not occur to these householders, as they looked down the wet, misty

streets, that presently it would be a lesson to them.

But at half-past three, with the dusk on that rainy day scarce an hour

off, there was a meeting at the Guildhall. Still no cohesion, no

action. On the other hand, much recrimination, many opinions. One was

for casting all firearms into the float. Another for arming all, fit or

unfit. One was for fetching the Fourteenth back, another for sending

the Third to join them at Keynsham. One was for appeasing the people by

parading a dummy figure of their own Recorder through the city and

burning it on College Green. Another for relying on the Political

Union. In vain Vaughan warned them that the mob would presently attack

private property; in vain he offered, in a few spirited words, to lead

the Special Constables to the rescue of the gaol. The meeting, small to

begin and always divided, dwindled fast. The handful who were ready to

follow him made the support of the military a condition. Everybody

said, “To-morrow!” To-morrow the _posse comitatus_ might be called out;

to-morrow the yeomanry, summoned by the man in the yellow jacket, would

be here! To-morrow the soldiers might act. And in fine—To-morrow!

There was over the door of the Council House of those days a statue of

Justice, lacking the sword and the bandage. Vaughan, passing out in

disgust from the meeting, pointed to it. “There is Bristol, gentlemen,”

he said bitterly. “Your authorities have dropped the sword, and until

they regain it we are helpless. I have done my best.” And, shrugging

his shoulders, he started for Brereton’s lodgings to try a last appeal.

He might well think it necessary. For a night which Bristol was long to

remember was closing down upon the city. Though it was Sunday, the

churches were empty; in few was a second service held. The streets, on

the contrary, were full, in spite of the cold; full of noise and

turmoil and disorder; of bands of men hastening up and down with

reckless cries and flaring lights, at the bidding of leaders as

unwitting. In Queen’s Square the rioters were drinking themselves drunk

as at a fair, while amid the falling rain, through which the last

stormy gleams of daylight strove to pass, amid the thickening dusk,

those who all day long had jested at their doors began to turn doubtful

looks on one another. From three points the smoke of fired prisons rose

to the clouds and floated in a dense pall over the city; and men

whispered that a hundred, two hundred, five hundred criminals had been

set free. On Clifton Downs, on Brandon Hill, on College Green, on

Redcliffe the thousand gazers of the morning were doubled and

redoubled. But they no longer wore the cynical faces of the morning. On

the contrary there were some who, following with their eyes the network

of waterways laden with inflammable shipping, which pierced the city in

every direction—who, tracing these and the cutthroat alleys and lanes

about them, predicted that the morning would find Bristol a heap of

ruins. And not a few, taking fright at the last moment, precipitately

removed their families to Clifton, and locked up their houses.

Vaughan, as he walked through the dusk, had those waterways, those

lanes, those alleys, the congested heart of the old city, in his mind.

He doubted, even he, if the hour for action was not past. Nor was he

surprised when Brereton met his appeal with a flat _non possumus_. He

was more struck with the change which twenty-four hours had wrought in

the man. He looked worn and haggard. The shadows under his eyes were

deeper, the eyes shone with a more feverish light. His dress, too, was

careless and disordered, and while he was not still for a moment, he

repeated what he said over and over again as if to persuade himself of

its truth.

Naturally Vaughan laid stress on the damage already done. “But, I tell

you,” Brereton replied angrily, “we are well clear for that! It’s not a

tithe of the harm which would have befallen if I had given way! I tell

you, we’re well clear for that. No, I’ve done, thank God, I’ve done the

only thing it was possible to do. A little too much, and if I’d

succeeded I’d have been hung—for they’re all against me, they’re all

against me, above and below! And if I’d failed, a thousand lives would

have paid the bill! And do you ever consider, man,” he continued,

striking the table, “what a massacre in this crowded place would be!

Think of the shipyards, the dockyards, the quays! The water pits and

the sunk alleys! How could I clear them with ninety swords? How could I

clear them? Eh, with ninety swords? I tell you they never meant me to

clear them.”

“But why not clear the wider streets, sir?” Vaughan persisted, “and

keep a grip on those?”

“No! I say, no!”

“Yet even now, if you were to move your full force to Queen’s Square,

sir, you might clear it. And driven from their headquarters, and taught

that they are not going to have it all their own way, the more prudent

would fall off and go home.”

“I know,” Brereton answered. “I know the argument. I know it. But who’s

to thank for the whole trouble? Your Blues, who went beyond their

orders last night. The Fourteenth, sir! The Fourteenth! But I’ll have

no more of it. Flixton is of my opinion, too.”

“Flixton is an ass!” Vaughan cried incautiously.

“And you think me one too!” Brereton retorted, with so strange a look

that for the first time Vaughan was sure that his mind was tottering.

“Well, think what you like! Think what you like! But I’ll trouble you

not to take that tone here.”

XXXII

THE AFFRAY AT THE PALACE

A little before the hour at which Vaughan interviewed Brereton, Sir

Robert Vermuyden, the arrival of whose travelling carriage at the White

Lion about the middle of the afternoon had caused some excitement,

walked back to the inn. He was followed by Thomas, the servant who had

attended Mary to Bristol, and by another servant. As he passed through

the streets the signs of the times were not lost upon him; far from it.

But the pride of caste was strong upon him, and he hid his anxiety.

On the threshold of the inn he turned to the servants. “Are you sure,”

he asked for the fourth time, “that that was the house at which you

left her?”

“Certain sure, Sir Robert,” Thomas answered earnestly.

“And sure—but, ah!” the baronet broke off abruptly, his tone one of

relief. “Here’s Mr. Cooke! Go now, but be within call. Mr. Cooke,”—he

stepped, as he spoke, in front of that gentleman, who was about to

enter the house—“well met!”

Cooke was hot with haste and ire, but at the unexpected sight of Sir

Robert he stood still. “God bless my soul!” he cried. “You here, sir?”

“Yes. And you know Bristol well. You can help me.”

“I wish I could help myself!” Cooke cried, forgetting himself in his

excitement.

“My daughter is in Bristol.”

“Indeed?” the angry merchant replied. “Then she could not be in a worse

place. That is all I can say.”

“I am inclined to agree with you.”

“This is your Reform!”

Sir Robert stared. “Not my Reform, Mr. Cooke,” he said in a tone of

displeasure.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Robert,” Cooke rejoined, speaking more coolly.

“I beg your pardon. But what I have suffered to-day is beyond telling.

By G—d, it’s my opinion that there’s only one man worthy of the name in

Bristol! And that’s your cousin, Vaughan!”

Sir Robert struck his stick on the pavement. “Mr. Vaughan?” he

exclaimed. “He is here, then? I feared so!”

“Here? You feared? I tell you he’s the only man to be called a man, who

is here! If it had not been for him and the way he handled the

constables last night we should have been burnt out then instead of

to-night! I don’t know that the gain’s much, but for what it’s worth we

have him to thank!”

Sir Robert frowned. “I am surprised. He behaved well? Indeed!” he said.

“D——d well! D——d well! If there had been half a dozen like him, we’d be

out of the wood!”

“Where is he staying?” Sir Robert asked after a moment’s hesitation.

“I’ve lost my daughter in the confusion, and I think it possible that

he may know where she is.”

“He is staying here at the Lion,” Cooke answered. “But he’s been up and

down all day trying to put heart into poltroons.” And he ran over the

chief events of the last few hours.

He punctuated the story with oaths and bitter complaints, and perhaps

it was for this reason that Sir Robert, after he had heard the main

facts, broke away. He went through the hall to the bar where the

landlord, who knew him well, came forward and greeted him respectfully.

But to Sir Robert’s inquiry as to Mr. Vaughan’s whereabouts he shook

his head.

“I wish he was in the house, Sir Robert,” he said in a low voice. “For

he’s a marked man in Bristol since last night. I was in the Square

myself, and it was wonderful what spirit he put into his men. But the

scum and the riffraff who are uppermost to-day say he handled them

cruelly, and my daughter tried to persuade him from going out to-day.

But he would go, sir.”

Sir Robert reflected with a gloomy face. “Where are Mr. Flixton’s

quarters?” he asked at last. He might possibly learn something from

him.

The man told him, and Sir Robert summoned his servants and went out. It

was dark by this time, but a faint glare shone overhead and there was a

murmur in the air, as if, in the gloom beneath, the heart of the city

was palpitating, in dread of it knew not what. Sir Robert had not far

to go. He had barely passed into College Green when he met Flixton

under a lamp. And so it happened that two minutes later, Vaughan, on

his way from Brereton’s lodgings in Unity Street, came plump upon the

two. He might have gone by in ignorance, but as he passed the taller

man looked up, and Vaughan with a shock of surprise recognised Sir

Robert Vermuyden.

Flixton caught sight of Vaughan at the same moment, and “Here’s your

man, Sir Robert,” he cried with a little malice in his tone. “Here,

Vaughan,” he continued, “Here’s Sir Robert Vermuyden! He’s looking for

you. He wants to know——”

Sir Robert stopped him. “I will speak for myself, Mr. Flixton, if you

please,” he said with the dignity which seldom deserted him. “Mr.

Vaughan,” he continued, with a piercing glance, “where is my daughter?”

Vaughan returned his look, frowning. Since the parting in Miss Sibson’s

parlour, the remembrance of which still set his blood in a flame, Sir

Robert and he had not met. Now, in the wet gloom of College Green,

under a rare gaslamp, with turmoil about them, and the murmur of fresh

trouble drawing near through the streets, Sir Robert asked him for his

daughter! He could have laughed. As it was, “I know nothing, sir, of

your daughter,” he replied, in a tone between contempt and anger.

“But,” Sir Robert retorted, “you travelled with her, from London!”

“How do you know that I did?”

“The servants, sir, have told me that you did.”

“Then they must also have told you,” Vaughan rejoined keenly, “that I

did not take the liberty of speaking to Miss Vermuyden. And that I left

the coach at Chippenham. That being so, I can only refer you,” he

continued with a sneer, raising his hat and preparing to move on, “to

Mr. Flixton, who went with her the rest of the way to Bristol.”

He turned away. But he had not taken two paces before Sir Robert

touched his shoulder, and with that habit of command which few

questioned. “Wait, sir,” he said, “Wait, if you please. You do not

escape me so easily. You will attend to me one moment, if you please.

Mr. Flixton accompanied Miss Vermuyden, as did her man and maid, to

Miss Sibson’s house. She gave that address to Lady Worcester, in whose

care she was; and I sought her there this afternoon. But she is not

there.” Sir Robert continued, striving to read Vaughan’s face. “The

house is empty. So is the house on either side. I can make no one

hear.”

“And you come to me for news of her?” Vaughan asked in the tone he had

used throughout. He was very sore.

“I do.”

“You do not think that I am the last person of whom you should ask

tidings of your daughter?”

“She came here,” Sir Robert answered sternly, “to see Lady Sybil.”

Vaughan stared. The answer seemed to be irrelevant. Then he understood.

“Oh,” he said, “I see. You are still under the impression that your

wife and I are in a conspiracy to delude you? Your daughter also? You

think that she is in the plot? And that she gave the schoolmistress’s

address to deceive you?”

“No!” Sir Robert cried. But, after all, that was what he did think. Had

he not told himself, more than once, that she was her mother’s

daughter? Had he not told himself that it could not have been by chance

that Vaughan and she met a second time on the coach? He knew that she

had left London and gone to her mother in defiance of him. He knew

that. And though she had entwined herself about his heart, though she

had seemed to him all gentleness, goodness, truth—she was still her

mother’s daughter! Nevertheless, he said “No!”—and said it angrily.

“Then I do not know what you mean!” Vaughan retorted.

“I believe that you can tell me something, if you will.”

Vaughan looked at him. “I have nothing to tell you,” he said.

“You mean, sir, that you will tell me nothing!”

“That, if you like.”

For nearly half a century the old man had found few to oppose him; and

now by good luck he had not time to reply. A man running out of the

darkness in the direction of Unity Street—the open space was full of

moving groups, of alarms and confusion—caught sight of Vaughan’s face,

checked himself and addressed him.

“Mr. Vaughan!” he said. “They are coming! They are making for the

Palace! The Bishop must be got away, if he’s not gone! I am fetching

the Colonel! The Mayor is following with all he can get together. If

you will give warning at the Palace, there will be time for his

lordship to escape.”

“Right!” Vaughan cried, glad to leave his company. And he started

without the loss of a moment. Even so, he had not gone twenty paces

down the Green before the head of the mob entered it from St.

Augustine’s, and passed, with hoarse shouts, along the south side,

towards the ancient Archway which led to the Lower Green. It was a

question whether he or they reached the Archway first; but he won the

race by a score of yards.

The view from the Lower Green, which embraced the burning gaol, as well

as all Queen’s Square and the Floating Basin that islanded it, had

drawn together a number of gazers. These impeded Vaughan’s progress,

but he got through them at last, and as the mob burst into the Lower

Green he entered the paved passage leading to the Precincts, hurried

along it, turned the dark elbow near the inner end, and halted before

the high gates which shut off the Cloisters. The Palace door was in the

innermost or southeast corner of the Cloisters.

It was very dark at the end of the passage; and fortunately! For the

gates were fast closed, and before he could, groping, find the knocker,

the rabble had entered the passage behind him and cut off his retreat.

The high wall which rose on either side made escape impossible. Nor was

this all. As he awoke to the trap in which he had placed himself, a

voice at his elbow muttered, “My God, we shall be murdered!” And he

learned that Sir Robert had followed him.

He had no time to remonstrate, nor thought of remonstrance. “Stand flat

against the wall!” he muttered, his fingers closing upon the staff in

his pocket. “It is our only chance!”

He had basely spoken before the leaders of the mob swept round the

elbow. They had one light, a flare borne above them, which shone on

their tarpaulins and white smocks, and on the huge ship-hammers they

carried. There was a single moment of great peril, and instinctively

Vaughan stepped before the older man. He could not have made a happier

movement, for it seemed—to the crowd who caught a glimpse of the two

and took them for some of their own party—as if he advanced against the

gates along with their leaders.

The peril indeed, or the worst of it, was over the moment they fell

into the ranks. “Hammers to the front!” was the cry. And Sir Robert and

Vaughan were thrust back into the second line, that those who wielded

the hammers might have room. Vaughan tipped his hat over his face, and

the villains who pressed upon the two and jostled them, and whose cries

of “Burn him out! Burn the old devil out!” were dictated by greed

rather than by hate, were too full of the work in hand to regard their

neighbours closely. In three or four minutes—long minutes they seemed

to the two inclosed in that unsavoury company—the bars gave way, the

gates were thrown open, and Vaughan and Sir Robert, hardly keeping

their feet in the rush, were borne into the Cloisters.

The rabble, with cries of triumph, raced across the dark court to the

Palace door and began to use their hammers on that. Vaughan hoped that

the Bishop had had warning—as a fact he had escaped some hours earlier.

At any rate he and his companion could do no more, and under cover of

the darkness they retreated to the porch of a smaller house which

opened on the Cloisters. Here they were safe for the time; and, his

heart opened and his tongue loosed by the danger through which they had

passed, he turned to his companion and remonstrated with him.

“Sir Robert,” he said, “this is no place for a man of your years.”

“England will soon be no place for any man of my years,” the Baronet

answered bitterly. “I would your leaders, sir, were here to see their

work! I would Lord Grey were here to see how well his friends carry out

his hints!”

“I doubt if he would be more pleased than you or I!” Vaughan answered.

“In the meantime——”

“The soldiers! Have a care!” The alarm came from the gate by which they

had entered, and Vaughan broke off, with an exclamation of joy. “We

have them now!” he said. “And red-handed! Brereton has only to close

the passage, and he must take them all!”

But the rioters took that view also, and the alarm. And they streamed

out panic-stricken. When the soldiers rode in, Brereton at their head,

not more than twenty or thirty remained in the Precincts. And on that

followed the most remarkable of all the scenes that disgraced Bristol

that night; the scene which beyond others convinced many of the

complicity of the troops, if not of the Government, in the outrage.