Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  “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 withdraw the 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 he will. The life from which he has cut himself off in disgust has none the less cast the tendrils of custom about his heart, which shoot and bud when he least expects it. Vaughan stood in the doorway of the stable while the men bridled. He viewed the long line of tossing heads, and the smoky lanthorns fixed to the stall-posts; he sniffed the old familiar smell of “Stables.” And he felt his heart leap to the past. Ay, even as it leapt a few minutes later, when he rode down College Green, now in darkness, now in glare, and heard beside him the familiar 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 descended the slope at a walk, the tall houses stood up in bright light; below them on the right the Float gleamed darkly; above them, the mist glowed 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 two whole sides — with the exception of a pair of houses — were burnt or burning. In addition a monster warehouse was on fire in the rear, a menace to every building to windward of it.

  The Colonel, with Flixton attending him, fell in on the flank, as the troop entered the Square. But apparently — since he gave no orders — he did not share the tingling indignation which Vaughan experienced as he viewed the scene. A few persons were still engaged in removing their goods from houses on the south side; but save for these, the decent and respectable had long since fled the place, and left it a prey to all that was most vile and dangerous in the population of a rough seaport. The rabble, left to themselves, and constantly recruited as the news flew abroad, had cast off the fear of reprisals, and believed that at last the city was their own. Vaughan saw that if the dragoons were to act with effect they must act at once. Nor was he alone in this opinion. The troop had not ridden far into the open before he was shocked, as well as astonished, by the appearance of Sir Robert Vermuyden, who stumbled across the Square towards them. He was bareheaded — for in an encounter with a prowler who had approached too near he had lost his hat; he was without his cloak, though the morning was cold. His face, too, unshorn and haggard, added to the tragedy of his appearance; yet in a sense he was himself, and he tried to steady his voice, as, unaware of Vaughan’s presence, he accosted the nearest trooper.

  “Who is in command, my man?” he said.

  Flixton, who had also recognised him, thrust his horse forward. “Good Heavens, Sir Robert!” he cried. “What are you doing here? And in this state?”

  “Never mind me,” the Baronet replied. “Are you in command?”

  Colonel Brereton had halted his men. He came forward. “No, Sir Robert,” he said. “I am. And very sorry to see you in this plight.”

  “Take no heed of me, sir,” Sir Robert replied sternly. Through how many hours, hours long as days, had he not watched for the soldiers’ coming! “Take no heed of me, sir,” he repeated. “Unless you have orders 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 fire the south side on which the shipping abuts. Let that take fire and you cannot 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 think of many things; of more than the immediate moment. We are the only force in Bristol, and — —”

  “Apparently Bristol is no better for you!” Sir Robert replied with tremulous passion.

  So far Vaughan, a horse’s length behind Brereton and his aide, heard what passed; but with half his mind. For his eyes, roving in the direction whence Sir Robert had come, had discerned, amid a medley of goods and persons huddled about the statue, in the middle of the Square, a single figure, slender, erect, in black and white, which appeared to be gazing towards him. At first he resisted as incredible the notion which besieged him — at sight of that figure. But the longer he looked the more sure he became that it was, it was Mary! Mary, gazing towards him out of that welter of miserable and shivering figures, as if she looked to him for help!

  Perhaps he should have asked Sir Robert’s leave, to go to her. Perhaps Colonel Brereton’s to quit the troop, which he had volunteered to accompany. But he gave no thought to either. He slipped from his saddle, flung the reins to the nearest man, and, crossing the roadway in three strides, he made towards her through the skulking groups who warily watched the dragoons, or hailed them tipsily, and in the name of Reform invited them to drink.

  And Mary, who had risen in alarm to her feet, and was gazing after her father, her only hope, her one protection through the night, saw Vaughan coming, tall and stern, through the prowling night-birds about her, as if she had seen an angel! She said not a word, when he came near and she was sure. Nor did he say more than “Mary!” But he threw into that word so much of love, of joy, of relief, of forgiveness — and of the appeal for forgiveness — that it brought her to his arms, it left her clinging to his breast. All his coldness in Parliament Street, his cruelty on the coach, her father’s opposition, all were forgotten by her, as if they had not been!

  And for him, she might have been the weakest of the weak, and fickle and changeable as the weather, she might have been all that she was not — though he had yet to learn that and how she had carried herself that night — but he knew that in spite of all he loved her. She had the old 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 he might have held her. That thought, however, presently overcame all others, 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,” she said. “We had to bring her here. It was all we could do.”

  He lowered his eyes and saw what she was guarding; and he understood something of the tragedy of that night. From the couch came a low continuous moaning which made the hair rise on his head. He looked at Mary.

  “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 the rioters wrought still at their fiendish work. And she shuddered. “Where can we take her?” she answered. “They are beginning to burn that side also.”

  “Then we must remove them!” he answered sternly.

  “That’s sense!” a hearty voice cried at his elbow. “And the first I’ve heard this night!” On which he became aware of Miss Sibson, or rather of a stout body swathed in queer wrappings, who spoke in the schoolmistress’s tones, and though pale with fatigue continued to show a brave face to the mischief about her. “That’s talking!” she continued. “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 brief sentences — 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 the troops charged too near them, and how, by lying down, to avoid danger if the crowd resorted to firearms, since untrained men fired high. Then he touched Miss Sibson on the arm. “You’ll not leave her?” he said.

  “God bless the man, no!” the schoolmistress replied. “Though, for the matter of that, she’s as well able to take care of me as I of her!”

&
nbsp; Which was not quite true. Or why in after-days did Miss Sibson, at many a cosy whist-party and over many a glass of hot negus, tell of a particular box on the ear with which she routed a young rascal, more forward than civil? Ay, and dilate with boasting on the way his teeth had rattled, and the gibes with which his fellows had seen him driven from the field?

  But, if not quite true, it satisfied Vaughan. He went from them in a cold heat, and finding Sir Robert, still at words and almost at blows with the officers, was going to strike in, when another did so. Daylight was slowly overcoming the glare of the fire and dispelling the shadows which had lain the deeper and more confusing for that glare. It laid the grey of reality upon the scene, showing all things in their true colours, the ruins more ghastly, the pale licking flames more devilish. The fire, which had swept two sides of the Square, leaving only charred skeletons of houses, with vacant sockets gaping to the sky, was now attacking the third side, of which the two most westerly houses were in flames. It was this, and the knowledge of its meaning, that, before Vaughan could interpose, flung at Colonel Brereton a man white with passion, and stuttering under the pressure of feelings too violent for utterance.

  “Do you see? Do you see?” he cried brandishing his fist in Brereton’s face — it was Cooke. “You traitor! If the fire catches the fourth house on that side, it’ll get the shipping! The shipping, d’you hear, you Radical? Then the Lord knows what’ll escape? But, thank God, you’ll hang! You’ll — if it gets to the fourth house, I tell you, it’ll catch the rigging by the Great Crane! Are you going to move?”

  Vaughan did not wait for Brereton’s answer. “We must charge, Colonel Brereton!” 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 must charge 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!” he cried, raising his voice to its utmost. “Trot! Charge, men, and charge home!”

  He spurred his horse to the front, and the whole troop, some thirty strong, set in motion by the magic of his voice, followed him. Even Brereton, after a moment’s hesitation, fell in a length behind him. The horses broke into a trot, then into a canter. As they bore down along the south side upon the southwest corner, a roar of rage and alarm rose from the rioters collected there; and scores and hundreds fled, 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 troopers were upon the fleeing, dodging, ducking crowd; were upon them and among them. Half a dozen swords gleamed high and fell, the horses did the rest. The rabble, taken by surprise, made no resistance. In a trice the dragoons were through the mob, and the roadway showed clear behind them. Save where here and there a man rose slowly and limped away, 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 had dared to return, or to gather upon the skirts of the troop. Then he led his men along the east side, clearing that also and driving the rioters in a panic into the side streets. Resistance worthy of the name there was none, until, having led the troop back across the open Square and cleared that of the skulkers, he came back again to the southwest corner. There the rabble, rallying from their surprise, had taken up a position in the forecourts of the houses, where they were protected by the railings. They met the soldiers with a volley of stones, and half a dozen pistol-shots. A horse fell, two or three of the men were hit; for an instant there was confusion. Then Vaughan spurred his horse into one of the forecourts, and, followed by half a dozen 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, and extinguished the flames. Still the more determined of the rascals, seeing the small number against them, clung to the place and the forecourts; and, driven from one court, retreated to another, and still protected by the railings, kept the troopers at bay with missiles.

  Vaughan, panting with his exertions, took in the position, and looked round for Brereton.

  “We must send for the Fourteenth, sir!” he said. “We are not enough to do more than hold them in check.”

  “There is nothing else for it now,” Brereton replied, with a gloomy face 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 successful in that which it had been his duty to attempt.

  And what were Vaughan’s feelings? He dared not allow himself the luxury of a glance towards the middle of the Square. Much less — but for a different reason — had he the heart to meet Brereton’s eyes. “I’m not in uniform, sir,” he said. “I can pass through the crowd. If you think fit, and will give me the order, I’ll fetch them, sir?”

  Brereton nodded without a word, and Vaughan wheeled his horse to start. As he pushed it clear of the troop he passed Flixton.

  “That was capital!” the Honourable Bob cried heartily. “Capital! We’ll handle ‘em easily now, till you come back!”

  Vaughan did not answer, nor did he look at Flixton; his look would have conveyed too much. Instead, he put his horse into a trot along the east side of the Square, and, regardless of a dropping fire of stones, made for the opening beside the ruins of the Mansion House. At the last moment, he looked back, to see Mary if it were possible. But he had waited too long, he could distinguish only confused forms about the base of the statue; and he must look to himself. His road to Keynsham 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 suspiciously as he rode by them, none made any attempt to stop him. And when he had crossed Bristol Bridge and had gained the more open outskirts towards Totterdown, where he could urge his horse to a gallop, the pale faces of men and women at door and window announced that it was not only the upper or the middle class which had taken fright, and longed for help and order. Through Brislington and up Durley Hill he pounded; and it must be confessed that his heart was light. Whatever came of it, though they court-martialled him, were that possible, though they tried him, he had done something, he had done right, and he had succeeded. Whatever the consequences, whatever the results to himself, he had dared; and his daring, it might be, had saved a city! Of the charge, indeed, he thought nothing, though she had seen it. It was nothing, for the danger had been of the slightest, the defence contemptible. But in setting discipline at defiance, in superseding the officer commanding the troops, in taking the whole responsibility on his own shoulders — a responsibility which few would have dreamed of taking — there he had dared, there he had played the man, there he had risen to the occasion! If he had been a failure in the House, here, by good 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 and smoke and fog at his back, and the sunshine on his face!

  For the sun was above the horizon as, with full heart, he rode down the hill into Keynsham, and heard the bugle sound “Boots and saddles!” and poured into sympathetic ears — and to an accompaniment of strong words — the tale of the night’s doings.

  * * * * *

  An hour later he rode in with the Fourteenth and heard the Blues welcomed with thanksgiving, in the very streets which had stoned them from the city twenty-four hours before. By that time the officer in command of the main body of the Fourteenth at Gloucester had posted over, followed by another troop, and, seeing the state of things, had taken his own line and assu
med, though junior to Colonel Brereton, the command of the forces.

  After that the thing became a military evolution. One hour, two hours at most, and twenty charges along the quays and through the streets sufficed — at the cost of a dozen lives — to convince the most obstinate of the rabble of several things. Imprimis, that the reign of terror was not come. On the contrary, that law and order, and also Red Judges, survived. That Reform did not spell fire and pillage, and that at 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 the ruins had ceased to smoke, the bubble which might have been easily burst before was pricked. Order reigned in Bristol, patrols were everywhere, two thousand zealous constables guarded the streets. And though troops still continued to hasten by every road to the scene, though all England trembled with alarm, and distant Woolwich sent its guns, and Greenwich horsed them, and the Yeomanry of six counties mustered on Clifton Down, or were quartered on the public buildings, the thing was nought by that time. Arthur Vaughan had pricked it in the early morning light when he cried “Charge!” in Queen’s Square.

  XXXVI

  FORGIVENESS

  The first wave of thankfulness for crowning blessings or vital escapes has a softening quality against which the hearts of few are wholly proof. Old things, old hopes, old ties, old memories return on that gentle flood tide to eyes and mind. The barriers raised by time, the furrows of ancient wrong are levelled with the plain, and the generous breast cries “Non nobis! Not to us only be the benefit!”

  Lady Lansdowne, with something of this kind in her thoughts and pity in her heart, sat eying Miss Sibson in a silence which disclosed nothing, and which the schoolmistress found irksome. Miss Sibson could beard Sir Robert at need; but of the great of her own sex — and she knew Lady Lansdowne for a very great lady, indeed — her sturdy nature went a little in awe. Had her ladyship encroached indeed, Miss Sibson would have known how to put her in her place. But a Lady Lansdowne perfectly polite and wholly silent imposed on her. She rubbed her nose and was glad when the visitor spoke.