Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  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 h
alf 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.”