XXXV
THE MORNING OF MONDAY
It has been said that midnight of that Sunday saw the alarm speedingalong every road by which the forces of order could hope to berecruited; nevertheless in Bristol itself nothing was done to stay thework of havoc. A change had indeed come over the feeling in the city;for to acquiescence had succeeded the most lively alarm, and toapproval, rage and boundless indignation. But the handful of officialswho all day long had striven, honestly if not very capably, to restoreorder, were exhausted; and the public without cohesion or leaders werein no state to make head against the rioters. So great, indeed, wasthe confusion that a troop of Gloucestershire Yeomanry which rode insoon after dark received neither orders nor billets; and being poorlyled, withdrew within the hour. This, with the tumult at Bath, wherethe quarters of the Yeomanry were beset by a mob of Reformers, whowould not let them go to the rescue, completed the isolation of thecity.
One man only, indeed, in the midst of that welter, had it in his powerto intervene with effect. And he could not be found. From Queen'sSquare to Leigh's Bazaar, where the Third Dragoons stood inactive bytheir horses; from Leigh's to the Recruiting Office on College Green,where a couple of non-commissioned officers stood inactive; from theRecruiting Office to his lodgings in Unity Street, men, panting andprotesting, in terror for their property, hurried in vain nightmarepursuit of that man. For to such men it seemed impossible that in faceof the damage already done, of thirty houses in flames, of a mob whichhad broken all bounds, of a city disturbed to its entrails, he couldstill refuse to act.
But to go to Unity Street was one thing, and to gain speech withBrereton was another. He had gone to bed. He was asleep. He was notwell. He was worn out and was resting. The seekers, with the roar ofthe fire in their ears and ruin staring them in the face, heard theseincredible things, and went away, swearing profanely. Nor did anyone,it would seem, gain speech with him, until the small hours were welladvanced. Then Arthur Vaughan, unable to abide by the vow he had takennot to importune him, arrived, he, too, furious, at the door, andfound a knot of gentlemen clamouring for admission.
Vaughan had parted from Sir Robert Vermuyden some hours earlier,believing that, bad as things were, he might make head against therioters, if he could rally his constables. But he had found no onewilling to act without the soldiery; and he was here in the lastresort, determined to compel Colonel Brereton to move, if it were bymain force. For Vaughan had the law-keeping instincts of an Englishmanand his blood boiled at the sights he had seen in the streets, at thewanton destruction of property, at the jeopardy of life, at the womenmade homeless, at the men made paupers. Nor was it quite out of histhoughts that if anything could harm the cause of Reform it was thesedeeds done in its name, these outrages fulfilling to the letter theworst which its enemies had predicted of it!
He spoke a few words to the persons who, angry and nonplussed, werewrangling at the door, then he pushed his way in, deaf to theremonstrances of the woman of the house. He did not believe, he couldnot believe the excuse given--that Brereton was in bed. Nero, fiddlingwhile Rome burned, seemed nought beside that! And his surprise wasgreat when, opening the sitting-room door, he saw before him only theHonourable Bob; who, standing on the hearth-rug, met his indignantlook with one of forced and sickly amusement.
"Good Heavens!" Vaughan cried, staring at him. "What are you doinghere? Where's the Chief?"
Flixton shrugged his shoulders. "There," he said irritably, "it's nouse blaming me! Man alive, if he won't, he won't! And it's hisbusiness, not mine!"
"Then I'd make it mine!" Vaughan retorted. "Where is he?"
Flixton flicked his thumb in the direction of an inner door. "He'sthere," he said. "He's there safe enough! For the rest, it is easy tofind fault! Very easy for you, my lad! You're no longer in theservice."
"There are a good many will leave the service for this!" Vaughanreplied; and he saw on the instant that the shot told. Flixton's facefell, he opened his mouth to reply. But disdaining to listen toexcuses, of which the speaker's manner betrayed the shallowness,Vaughan opened the bedroom door and passed in.
To his boundless astonishment Brereton was really in bed, with a lightbeside him. Asleep he probably was not, for he rose at once to asitting posture and, with wild and dishevelled hair, confronted theintruder with a mingling of wrath and discomfiture in his looks. Hissword and an undress cap, blue with a silver band, lay beside thecandle on the table, and Vaughan saw that though in his shirt-sleeveshe was not otherwise undressed.
"Mr. Vaughan!" he cried. "What, if you please, does this mean?"
"That is what I am here to ask you!" Vaughan answered, his faceflushed with indignation. He was too angry to pick his words. "Areyou, can you be aware, sir, what is done while you sleep?"
"Sleep?" Brereton rejoined, with a sombre gleam in his eyes. "Sleep,man? God knows it is the last thing I do!" He clapped his hand to hisbrow and for a moment remained silent, holding it there. Then, "Sleephas been a stranger to me these three nights!" he said.
"Then what do you do here?" Vaughan answered, in astonishment. Andlooked round the room as if he might find his answer there.
"Ah!" Brereton rejoined, with a look half suspicious, half cunning."That is another matter. But never mind! Never mind! I know what I amdoing."
"Know----"
"Yes, well!" the soldier replied, bringing his feet to the floor, butcontinuing to keep his seat on the bed. "Very well, sir, I assureyou."
Vaughan looked aghast at him. "But, Colonel Brereton," he rejoined,"do you consider that you are the only person in this city able toact? That without you nothing can be done and nothing can beventured?"
"That," Brereton returned, with the same shrewd look, "is just what Ido consider! Without me they cannot act! They cannot venture. AndI--go to bed!"
He chuckled at it, as at a jest; and Vaughan, checked by the oddity ofhis manner, and with a growing suspicion in his mind, knew not what tothink. For answer, at last, "I fear that you will not be able to go tobed, Colonel Brereton," he said gravely, "when the moment comes toface the consequences."
"The consequences?"
"You cannot think that a city such as this can be destroyed, and noone be called to account?"
"But the civil power----"
"Is impotent!" Vaughan answered, with returning indignation, "in theface of the disorder now prevailing! I warn you! A little more delay,a little more license, let the people's passions be fanned by fartherimpunity, and nothing, nothing, I warn you, Colonel Brereton," hecontinued with emphasis, "can save the major part of the city fromdestruction!"
Brereton rose to his feet, a certain wildness in his aspect. "GoodGod!" he exclaimed. "You don't mean it! Do you really mean it,Vaughan? But--but what can I do?" He sank down on the bed again, andstared at his companion. "Eh? What can I do? Nothing!"
"Everything!"
He sprang to his feet. "Everything! You say everything?" he cried, andhis tone rose shrill and excited. "But you don't know!" he continued,lowering his voice as quickly as he had raised it and laying his handon Vaughan's sleeve--"you don't know! You don't know! But I know! Man,I was set in command here on purpose. If I acted they counted onputting the blame on me. And if I didn't act--they would still put theblame on me."
His cunning look shocked Vaughan.
"But even so, sir," he answered, "you can do your duty."
"My duty?" Brereton repeated, raising his voice again. "And do youthink it is my duty to precipitate a useless struggle? To begin acivil war? To throw away the lives of my own men and cut down innocentfolk? To fill the streets with blood and slaughter? And the end thesame?"
"Ay, sir, I do," Vaughan answered sternly. "If by so doing a worsecalamity may be averted! And, for your men's lives, are they notsoldiers? For your own life, are you not a soldier? And will you shuna soldier's duty?"
Brereton clapped his hand to his brow, and, holding it there, pacedthe room in his shirt and breeches
.
"My God! My God!" he cried, as he went. "I do not know what to do! Butif--if it be as bad as you say----"
"It is as bad, and worse!"
"I might try once more," looking at Vaughan with a troubled, undecidedeye, "what showing my men might do? What do you think?"
Vaughan thought that if he were once on the spot, if he saw with hisown eyes the lawlessness of the mob, he might act. And he assented."Shall I pass on the order, sir," he added, "while you dress?"
"Yes, I think you may. Yes, certainly. Tell the officer commanding tomarch his men to the Square and I'll meet him there."
Vaughan waited for no more. He suspected that the burden ofresponsibility had proved too heavy for Brereton's mind. He suspectedthat the Colonel had brooded upon his position between a WhigGovernment and a Whig mob until the notion that he was sent there tobe a scapegoat had become a fixed idea; and with it the determinationthat he would not be forced into strong measures, had become also afixed idea.
Such a man, if he was to be blamed, was to be pitied also. AndVaughan, even in the heat of his indignation, did pity him. But heentertained no such feeling for the Honourable Bob, and in deliveringthe order to him he wasted no words. After Flixton had left the room,however, he remembered that he had noted a shade of indecision in theaide's manner. And warned by it, he followed him. "I will come withyou to Leigh's," he said.
"Better come all the way," Flixton replied, with covert insolence."We've half a dozen spare horses."
The next moment he was sorry he had spoken. For, "Done with you!"Vaughan cried. "There's nothing I'd like better!"
Flixton grunted. He had overreached himself, but he could not withdrawthe offer.
Vaughan was by his side, and plainly meant to accompany him.
Let no man think that the past is done with, though he sever it as hewill. The life from which he has cut himself off in disgust has nonethe less cast the tendrils of custom about his heart, which shoot andbud when he least expects it. Vaughan stood in the doorway of thestable while the men bridled. He viewed the long line of tossingheads, and the smoky lanthorns fixed to the stall-posts; he sniffedthe old familiar smell of "Stables." And he felt his heart leap to thepast. Ay, even as it leapt a few minutes later, when he rode downCollege Green, now in darkness, now in glare, and heard beside him thefamiliar clank of spur and scabbard, the rattle of the bridle-chains,and the tramp of the shod hoofs. On the men's left, as they descendedthe slope at a walk, the tall houses stood up in bright light; belowthem on the right the Float gleamed darkly; above them, the mistglowed red. Wild hurrahing and an indescribable babel of shouts,mingled with the rushing roar of the flames, rose from the Square.When the troop rode into it with the first dawn, they saw that twowhole sides--with the exception of a pair of houses--were burnt orburning. In addition a monster warehouse was on fire in the rear, amenace to every building to windward of it.
The Colonel, with Flixton attending him, fell in on the flank, as thetroop entered the Square. But apparently--since he gave no orders--hedid not share the tingling indignation which Vaughan experienced as heviewed the scene. A few persons were still engaged in removing theirgoods from houses on the south side; but save for these, the decentand respectable had long since fled the place, and left it a prey toall that was most vile and dangerous in the population of a roughseaport. The rabble, left to themselves, and constantly recruited asthe news flew abroad, had cast off the fear of reprisals, and believedthat at last the city was their own. Vaughan saw that if the dragoonswere to act with effect they must act at once. Nor was he alone inthis opinion. The troop had not ridden far into the open before he wasshocked, as well as astonished, by the appearance of Sir RobertVermuyden, who stumbled across the Square towards them. He wasbareheaded--for in an encounter with a prowler who had approached toonear he had lost his hat; he was without his cloak, though the morningwas cold. His face, too, unshorn and haggard, added to the tragedy ofhis appearance; yet in a sense he was himself, and he tried to steadyhis voice, as, unaware of Vaughan's presence, he accosted the nearesttrooper.
"Who is in command, my man?" he said.
Flixton, who had also recognised him, thrust his horse forward. "GoodHeavens, Sir Robert!" he cried. "What are you doing here? And in thisstate?"
"Never mind me," the Baronet replied. "Are you in command?"
Colonel Brereton had halted his men. He came forward. "No, SirRobert," he said. "I am. And very sorry to see you in this plight."
"Take no heed of me, sir," Sir Robert replied sternly. Through howmany hours, hours long as days, had he not watched for the soldiers'coming! "Take no heed of me, sir," he repeated. "Unless you haveorders to abandon the loyal people of Bristol to their fate--act! Act,sir! If you have eyes, you can see that the mob are beginning to firethe south side on which the shipping abuts. Let that take fire and youcannot save Bristol!"
Brereton looked in the direction indicated, but he did not answer.Flixton did. "We understand all that," he said, somewhat cavalierly."We see all that, Sir Robert, believe me. But the Colonel has to thinkof many things; of more than the immediate moment. We are the onlyforce in Bristol, and----"
"Apparently Bristol is no better for you!" Sir Robert replied withtremulous passion.
So far Vaughan, a horse's length behind Brereton and his aide, heardwhat passed; but with half his mind. For his eyes, roving in thedirection whence Sir Robert had come, had discerned, amid a medley ofgoods and persons huddled about the statue, in the middle of theSquare, a single figure, slender, erect, in black and white, whichappeared to be gazing towards him. At first he resisted as incrediblethe notion which besieged him--at sight of that figure. But the longerhe looked the more sure he became that it was, it was Mary! Mary,gazing towards him out of that welter of miserable and shiveringfigures, as if she looked to him for help!
Perhaps he should have asked Sir Robert's leave, to go to her. PerhapsColonel Brereton's to quit the troop, which he had volunteered toaccompany. But he gave no thought to either. He slipped from hissaddle, flung the reins to the nearest man, and, crossing the roadwayin three strides, he made towards her through the skulking groups whowarily watched the dragoons, or hailed them tipsily, and in the nameof Reform invited them to drink.
And Mary, who had risen in alarm to her feet, and was gazing after herfather, her only hope, her one protection through the night, sawVaughan coming, tall and stern, through the prowling night-birds abouther, as if she had seen an angel! She said not a word, when he camenear and she was sure. Nor did he say more than "Mary!" But he threwinto that word so much of love, of joy, of relief, of forgiveness--andof the appeal for forgiveness--that it brought her to his arms, itleft her clinging to his breast. All his coldness in ParliamentStreet, his cruelty on the coach, her father's opposition, all wereforgotten by her, as if they had not been!
And for him, she might have been the weakest of the weak, and fickleand changeable as the weather, she might have been all that she wasnot--though he had yet to learn that and how she had carried herselfthat night--but he knew that in spite of all he loved her. She had theold charm for him! She was still the one woman in the world for him!And she was in peril. But for that there is no knowing how long hemight have held her. That thought, however, presently overcame allothers, made him insensible even to the sweetness of that embrace, ay,even put words in his mouth.
"How come you here?" he cried. "How come you here, Mary?"
She freed herself and pointed to her mother. "I am with her," shesaid. "We had to bring her here. It was all we could do."
He lowered his eyes and saw what she was guarding; and he understoodsomething of the tragedy of that night. From the couch came a lowcontinuous moaning which made the hair rise on his head. He looked atMary.
"She is insensible," she said quietly. "She does not know anything."
"We must remove her!" he said.
She looked at him, and from him to that part of the Square where therioters wrought still at their fiendish work. And she shuddered."W
here can we take her?" she answered. "They are beginning to burnthat side also."
"Then we must remove them!" he answered sternly.
"That's sense!" a hearty voice cried at his elbow. "And the first I'veheard this night!" On which he became aware of Miss Sibson, or ratherof a stout body swathed in queer wrappings, who spoke in theschoolmistress's tones, and though pale with fatigue continued to showa brave face to the mischief about her. "That's talking!" shecontinued. "Do that, and you'll do a man's work!"
"Will you have courage if I leave you?" he asked. And when Mary,bravely but with inward terror, answered "Yes," he told her in briefsentences--with his eyes on the movements in the Square--what to do,if the rabble made a rush in that direction, and what to do, if thetroops charged too near them, and how, by lying down, to avoid dangerif the crowd resorted to firearms, since untrained men fired high.Then he touched Miss Sibson on the arm. "You'll not leave her?" hesaid.
"God bless the man, no!" the schoolmistress replied. "Though, for thematter of that, she's as well able to take care of me as I of her!"
Which was not quite true. Or why in after-days did Miss Sibson, atmany a cosy whist-party and over many a glass of hot negus, tell of aparticular box on the ear with which she routed a young rascal, moreforward than civil? Ay, and dilate with boasting on the way his teethhad rattled, and the gibes with which his fellows had seen him drivenfrom the field?
But, if not quite true, it satisfied Vaughan. He went from them in acold heat, and finding Sir Robert, still at words and almost at blowswith the officers, was going to strike in, when another did so.Daylight was slowly overcoming the glare of the fire and dispellingthe shadows which had lain the deeper and more confusing for thatglare. It laid the grey of reality upon the scene, showing all thingsin their true colours, the ruins more ghastly, the pale licking flamesmore devilish. The fire, which had swept two sides of the Square,leaving only charred skeletons of houses, with vacant sockets gapingto the sky, was now attacking the third side, of which the two mostwesterly houses were in flames. It was this, and the knowledge of itsmeaning, that, before Vaughan could interpose, flung at ColonelBrereton a man white with passion, and stuttering under the pressureof feelings too violent for utterance.
"Do you see? Do you see?" he cried brandishing his fist in Brereton'sface--it was Cooke. "You traitor! If the fire catches the fourth houseon that side, it'll get the shipping! The shipping, d'you hear, youRadical? Then the Lord knows what'll escape? But, thank God, you'llhang! You'll--if it gets to the fourth house, I tell you, it'll catchthe rigging by the Great Crane! Are you going to move?"
Vaughan did not wait for Brereton's answer. "We must charge, ColonelBrereton!" he cried, in a voice which burst the bonds of discipline,and showed that he was determined that others should burst them also."Colonel Brereton," he repeated, setting his horse in motion, "we mustcharge without a moment's delay!"
"Wait!" Brereton answered hoarsely. "Wait! Let me----"
"We must charge!" Vaughan replied, his face pale, his mind made up.And turning in his saddle he waved his hand to the men. "Forward!" hecried, raising his voice to its utmost. "Trot! Charge, men, and chargehome!"
He spurred his horse to the front, and the whole troop, some thirtystrong, set in motion by the magic of his voice, followed him. EvenBrereton, after a moment's hesitation, fell in a length behind him.The horses broke into a trot, then into a canter. As they bore downalong the south side upon the southwest corner, a roar of rage andalarm rose from the rioters collected there; and scores and hundredsfled, screaming, and sought safety to right and left.
Vaughan had time to turn to Brereton, and cry, "I beg your pardon,sir; I could not help it!" The next moment he and the leading trooperswere upon the fleeing, dodging, ducking crowd; were upon them andamong them. Half a dozen swords gleamed high and fell, the horses didthe rest. The rabble, taken by surprise, made no resistance. In atrice the dragoons were through the mob, and the roadway showed clearbehind them. Save where here and there a man rose slowly and limpedaway, leaving a track of blood at his heels.
"Steady! Steady!" Vaughan cried. "Halt! Halt! Right about!" and then,"Charge!"
He led the men back over the same ground, chasing from it such as haddared to return, or to gather upon the skirts of the troop. Then heled his men along the east side, clearing that also and driving therioters in a panic into the side streets. Resistance worthy of thename there was none, until, having led the troop back across the openSquare and cleared that of the skulkers, he came back again to thesouthwest corner. There the rabble, rallying from their surprise, hadtaken up a position in the forecourts of the houses, where they wereprotected by the railings. They met the soldiers with a volley ofstones, and half a dozen pistol-shots. A horse fell, two or three ofthe men were hit; for an instant there was confusion. Then Vaughanspurred his horse into one of the forecourts, and, followed by half adozen troopers, cleared it, and the next and the next; on which,volunteers who sprang up, as by magic, at the first act of authority,entered the houses, killed one rioter, flung out the rest, andextinguished the flames. Still the more determined of the rascals,seeing the small number against them, clung to the place and theforecourts; and, driven from one court, retreated to another, andstill protected by the railings, kept the troopers at bay withmissiles.
Vaughan, panting with his exertions, took in the position, and lookedround for Brereton.
"We must send for the Fourteenth, sir!" he said. "We are not enough todo more than hold them in check."
"There is nothing else for it now," Brereton replied, with a gloomyface and in such a tone that the very men shrank from looking at him;understanding, the very dullest of them, what his feelings must be,and how great his shame, who, thus superseded, saw another successfulin that which it had been his duty to attempt.
And what were Vaughan's feelings? He dared not allow himself theluxury of a glance towards the middle of the Square. Much less--butfor a different reason--had he the heart to meet Brereton's eyes. "I'mnot in uniform, sir," he said. "I can pass through the crowd. If youthink fit, and will give me the order, I'll fetch them, sir?"
Brereton nodded without a word, and Vaughan wheeled his horse tostart. As he pushed it clear of the troop he passed Flixton.
"That was capital!" the Honourable Bob cried heartily. "Capital! We'llhandle 'em easily now, till you come back!"
Vaughan did not answer, nor did he look at Flixton; his look wouldhave conveyed too much. Instead, he put his horse into a trot alongthe east side of the Square, and, regardless of a dropping fire ofstones, made for the opening beside the ruins of the Mansion House. Atthe last moment, he looked back, to see Mary if it were possible. Buthe had waited too long, he could distinguish only confused forms aboutthe base of the statue; and he must look to himself. His road toKeynsham lay through the lowest and most dangerous part of the city.
But though the streets were full of rough men, navigators and seamen,whose faces were set towards the Square, and who eyed him suspiciouslyas he rode by them, none made any attempt to stop him. And when he hadcrossed Bristol Bridge and had gained the more open outskirts towardsTotterdown, where he could urge his horse to a gallop, the pale facesof men and women at door and window announced that it was not only theupper or the middle class which had taken fright, and longed for helpand order. Through Brislington and up Durley Hill he pounded; and itmust be confessed that his heart was light. Whatever came of it,though they court-martialled him, were that possible, though theytried him, he had done something, he had done right, and he hadsucceeded. Whatever the consequences, whatever the results to himself,he had dared; and his daring, it might be, had saved a city! Of thecharge, indeed, he thought nothing, though she had seen it. It wasnothing, for the danger had been of the slightest, the defencecontemptible. But in setting discipline at defiance, in supersedingthe officer commanding the troops, in taking the whole responsibilityon his own shoulders--a responsibility which few would have dreamed oftaking--there he had dared, there he had played the man,
there he hadrisen to the occasion! If he had been a failure in the House, here, bygood fortune, he had not been a failure. And she would know it. Oh,happy thought! And happy man, riding out of Bristol with the murk andsmoke and fog at his back, and the sunshine on his face!
For the sun was above the horizon as, with full heart, he rode downthe hill into Keynsham, and heard the bugle sound "Boots and saddles!"and poured into sympathetic ears---and to an accompaniment of strongwords--the tale of the night's doings.
* * * * *
An hour later he rode in with the Fourteenth and heard the Blueswelcomed with thanksgiving, in the very streets which had stoned themfrom the city twenty-four hours before. By that time the officer incommand of the main body of the Fourteenth at Gloucester had postedover, followed by another troop, and, seeing the state of things, hadtaken his own line and assumed, though junior to Colonel Brereton, thecommand of the forces.
After that the thing became a military evolution. One hour, two hoursat most, and twenty charges along the quays and through the streetssufficed--at the cost of a dozen lives--to convince the most obstinateof the rabble of several things. _Imprimis_, that the reign of terrorwas not come. On the contrary, that law and order, and also RedJudges, survived. That Reform did not spell fire and pillage, and thatat these things even a Reforming Government could not wink. In a word,by noon of that day, Monday, and many and many an hour before theruins had ceased to smoke, the bubble which might have been easilyburst before was pricked. Order reigned in Bristol, patrols wereeverywhere, two thousand zealous constables guarded the streets. Andthough troops still continued to hasten by every road to the scene,though all England trembled with alarm, and distant Woolwich sent itsguns, and Greenwich horsed them, and the Yeomanry of six countiesmustered on Clifton Down, or were quartered on the public buildings,the thing was nought by that time. Arthur Vaughan had pricked it inthe early morning light when he cried "Charge!" in Queen's Square.
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