Kitabı oku: «Chippinge Borough», sayfa 29
XXXVIII
THREADS AND PATCHES
Though England had not known for fifty years an outbreak so formidable or so destructive as that of which the news was laid on men's breakfast-tables on the Tuesday morning, it had less effect on the political situation than might have been expected. It sent, indeed, a thrill of horror through the nation. And had it occurred at an earlier stage of the Reform struggle, before the middle class had fully committed itself to a trial of strength with the aristocracy, it must have detached many more of the timid and conservative of the Reformers. But it came too late. The die was cast; men's minds were made up on the one side and the other. Each saw events coloured to his wish. And though Wetherell and Croker, and the devoted band who still fought manfully round those chieftains, called heaven and earth to witness the first-fruits of the tree of Reform, the majority of the nation preferred to see in these troubles the alternative to the Bill-the abyss into which the whole country would be hurled if that heaven-sent measure were not passed.
On one thing, however, all were agreed. The outrage was too great to be overlooked. The law must be vindicated, the lawbreakers must be punished. To this end the Government, anxious to clear themselves of the suspicion of collusion, appointed a special Commission, and sent it to Bristol to try the rioters; and four poor wretches were hanged, a dozen were transported, and many received minor sentences. Having thus, a little late in the day, taught the ignorant that Reform did not spell Revolution after the French pattern, the Cabinet turned their minds to the measure again. And in December they brought in the Third Reform Bill, with the fortunes and passage of which this story is not at pains to deal.
But of necessity the misguided creatures who kindled the fires in Queen's Square on that fatal Sunday, and swore that they would not leave a gaol standing in England, were not the only men who suffered. Sad as their plight was, there was one whose plight-if pain be measured by the capacity to feel-was sadder. While they were being tried in one part of Bristol, there was proceeding in another part an inquiry charged with deeper tragedy. Not those only who had done the deed, but those who had suffered them to do it, must answer for it. And the fingers of all pointed to one man. The magistrates might escape-the Mayor indeed had done his duty creditably, if to little purpose; for war was not their trade, and the thing at its crisis had become an affair of war. But Colonel Brereton could not shield himself behind that plea: so many had behaved poorly that the need to bring one to book was the greater.
He was tried by court-martial, and among the witnesses was Arthur Vaughan. By reason of his position, as well as of the creditable part he had played, the Member for Chippinge was heard by the Court with more than common attention; and he moved all who listened to him by his painful anxiety to set the accused's conduct in the best light; to show that what was possible by daylight on the Monday morning might not have been possible on the Sunday night, and that the choice from first to last was between two risks. No question of Colonel Brereton's courage-for he had served abroad with credit, nay, with honour-entered into the inquiry; and it was proved that a soldier's duty in such a case was not well defined. But afterwards Vaughan much regretted that he had not laid before the Court the opinion he had formed at the time-that during the crisis of the riots Brereton, obsessed by one idea, was not responsible for his actions. For, sad to say, on the fifth day of the inquiry, sinking under a weight of mental agony which a man of his reserved and melancholy temper was unable to support, the unfortunate officer put an end to his life. Few have paid so dearly for an error of judgment and the lack of that coarser fibre which has enabled many an inferior man to do his duty. The page darkens with his fate, too tragical for such a theme as this. And if by chance these words reach the eye of any of his descendants, theirs be the homage due to the memory of a signal misfortune and an honourable but hapless man.
Of another and greater personage whose life touched Arthur Vaughan's once and twice, and of whom, with all his faults, it was never said by his worst enemy that he feared responsibility or shunned the post of danger, a brief word must suffice. If Lord Brougham did not live to see that complete downfall of the great Whig houses which he had predicted, he lived to see their power ruinously curtailed. He lived to see their influence totter under the blow which the Repeal of the Corn Laws dealt the landed interest, he lived to see the Reform Bill of 1867, he lived almost to see the coup de grâce given to their leadership by the Ballot Act. And in another point his prophecy came true. As it had been with Burke and Sheridan and Tierney, it was with him. His faults were great, as his merits were transcendent; and presently in the time of his need his highborn associates remembered only the former. They took advantage of them to push him from power; and he spent nearly forty years, the remnant of his long life, in the cold shade of Opposition. The most brilliant, the most versatile, and the most remarkable figure of the early days of the century, whose trumpet voice once roused England as it has never been roused from that day to this, and whose services to education and progress are acknowledged but slightly even now, paid for the phenomenal splendour of his youth by long years spent in a changed and changing world, jostled by a generation forgetful or heedless of his fame. To us he is but the name of a carriage; remembered otherwise, if at all, for his part in Queen Caroline's trial. While Wetherell, that stout fighter, Tory of the Tories, witty, slovenly, honest man, whose fame was once in all mouths, whose caricature was once in all portfolios, and whose breeches made the fortune of many a charade, is but the shadow of a name.
* * * * *
The year had waned and waxed, and it was June again. At Stapylton the oaks were coming to their full green; the bracken was lifting its million heads above the sod, and by the edge of the Garden Pool the water voles sat on the leaves of the lilies and clean their fur. Arthur Vaughan-strolling up and down with his father-in-law, not without an occasional glance at Mary, recumbent on a seat on the lawn-looked grave.
"I fancy," he said presently, "that we shall learn the fate of the Bill to-day."
"Very like, very like," Sir Robert answered, in an offhand fashion, as if the subject were not to his taste. And he turned about and by the aid of his stick expounded his plan for enlarging the flower garden.
But Vaughan returned to the subject. "If not to-day, to-morrow," he said. "And that being so, I've wanted for some time, sir, to ask you what you wish me to do."
"To do?"
"As to the seat at Chippinge."
Sir Robert's face expressed his annoyance. "I told you-I told you long ago," he replied, "that I should never interfere with your political movements."
"And you have kept your word, sir. But as Lord Lansdowne cedes the seat to you for this time, I assume-"
"I don't know why you assume anything!" Sir Robert retorted irritably.
"I assume only that you will wish me to seek another seat."
"I certainly don't wish you to lead an idle life," Sir Robert answered. "When the younger men of our class do that, when they cease to take an interest in political life, on the one side or the other, our power will, indeed, be ended. Nothing is more certain than that. But for Chippinge, I don't choose that a stranger should hold a seat close to my own door. You might have known that! For the party, I have taken steps to furnish Mr. Cooke, a man whose opinions I thoroughly approve, with a seat elsewhere; and I have therefore done my duty in that direction. For the rest, the mischief is done. I suppose," he continued in his driest tones, "you won't want to bring in another Reform Bill immediately?"
"No, sir," Vaughan answered gratefully. "Nor do I think that we are so far apart as you assume. The truth is, Sir Robert, that we all fear one of two things, and according as we fear the one or the other we are dubbed Whigs or Tories."
"What are your two things?"
"Despotism, or anarchy," Vaughan replied modestly.
Sir Robert sniffed. "You don't refine enough," he said, pleased with his triumph. "We all fear despotism; you, the despotism of the one: I, a worse, a more cruel, a more hopeless despotism, the despotism of the many! That's the real difference between us."
Vaughan looked thoughtful. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "But-what is that, sir?" He raised his hand. The deep note of a distant gun rolled up the valley from the town.
"The Lords have passed the Bill," Sir Robert replied. "They are celebrating the news in Chippinge. Well, I am not sorry that my day is done. I give you the command. See only, my boy," he continued, with a loving glance at Mary, who had risen, and, joined by Miss Sibson, was coming to the end of the bridge to meet them, "see only that you hand it on to others-I do not say as I give it to you, but as little impaired as may be."
And again, as Mary called to them to know what it was, the sound of the gun rolled up the valley-the knell of the system, good or bad, under which England had been ruled so long. The battle of which Brougham had fired the first shot in the Castle Yard at York was past and won.
Boom!
