Chippinge Borough

"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!"