There was a lull in the storm as soon as the two Whig candidates were elected to represent the city of Bristol, and Mr. Hart-Davis withdrew quietly from the contest. The undercurrent, it is true, was still muttering and murmuring of evil times to come, and all thinking men who looked below the surface knew that it would but need a spark to kindle a great fire in Bristol, and that much wisdom, firmness, and decision, would be needed amongst the rulers.
Joyce Arundel, in her happy home life, soon lost the sense of insecurity, which after that memorable drive from Fair Acres, had at first haunted her.
Falcon's lessons, and the interest she felt in his rapid advancement, engrossed her every morning when her household duties were over; and then she would pace up and down the garden overlooking the city, with her baby in her arms, while Lota and Lettice played on the wide expanse of even, if rather smoke-dried, turf, which sloped down from the terrace walk at theback of the house, and tell herself a hundred times that no wife or mother in England was happier than she was.
The early married life of a mother whose chief interests centre in her own home, and who knows no craving for anything that lies beyond, is happy indeed. As years pass and her children vanish, and the sweetness of entire dependence on her ceases of necessity with infancy and childhood, the mother, weary with the battle of life, encompassed with difficulties, and overburdened with requirements which the failing strength of advancing years makes it hard to fulfil, can turn back to that fair oasis in her pilgrimage, when the children were with her day and night, when her hand had power to soothe a childish trouble, and her voice charm away a little pain or disappointment, or add, by her sympathy in joys as well as in sorrows, zest to all those simple pleasures in which children delight.
Sometimes, even to the best mothers, I know, there comes a sudden, sharp awakening. The son of much love and many prayers goes far astray; the daughter, her pride and joy in her early childhood, is apparently cold and heartless. But as a rule, I think, in the retrospect the cry is forced from many a mother's sad heart: "If only I had been more tohim in early boyhood; cared for his games, and interested myself in all his play as well as work, itmighthave been different"; or, "If I had dealt more tenderly and patiently with her when she was standing on the threshold of womanhood, it might have been different!"
Vain regrets, vain laments for some of us; but the young mother, like Joyce Falconer, has the children and the father of the children still with her, and may, as Joyce did, sing to herself a sweet, low song of thanksgiving, which made Lettice stop in her play, and, running up to her side, say:
"What a pretty song mother is singing to baby!"
And now another voice was heard, rather a sad, querulous voice, which did not chime in well with the mother's song, or the baby's gentle coo of gladness, or the laughter of the two little sisters, as Falcon dashed out upon them from the open door of the hall with a big ball in his hand, which he threw down the grass with a merry "Halloo!"
Falcon's lessons, which his mother had left him to learn, were over, and he was free to run and jump to his heart's content.
"Joyce, are you not coming to get ready? Aunt Falconer never likes to be kept waiting."
"Oh! I beg your pardon, Charlotte; I had forgottenyou and I were to spend the day with mother; I will be ready in a few minutes. I must just wait till Susan can take baby." Susan appeared at this moment, and Joyce went quickly into the hall.
Poor Charlotte's visions and dreams had never come to be anything but dreams. She was older than Joyce, and still had never found the language of the eyes come to a good honest declaration of love, still less to an offer of marriage. She was just now on a visit to her cousin, Miss Falconer being very ready to spare her, hoping that in Clifton or Bristol she might find a cure for her low spirits, and generally dejected air, which her aunt did not like to have remarked upon by the gossips of Wells, and which had certainly very much increased of late.
Joyce ran upstairs to prepare for her visit, and on the first floor found Mrs. Arundel.
"Mr. Bengough has been here, Joyce, with great news; the Bill was carried with a large majority in the Commons, and now there is only the Lords, and surely they will not turn it out."
Falcon, who had rushed up to the nursery to find his reins and whip, that he might make a pair of ponies of his little sisters, stopped as he heard his grandmother say:
"It is great news, and a great victory."
"What battle is it? Tell me, mother, who has been fighting?"
"It was not a battle with swords or guns, Falcon; but when you are a man you may remember that you heard, when you were a little boy, that on the nineteenth of September, eighteen hundred and thirty-one, the great Reform Bill was carried by a number of votes."
"Then will all those angry people we saw when we came home from Fair Acres be happy and good now. Susan says they shouted 'Reform, Reform,' because they wanted bread; but I don't know what it means," said Falcon, thoughtfully. "If it's a good thing, it ought to make people better, oughn't it, Grannie?"
It was profound philosophy for six years old! The necessary consequence of good must be somethingbetter.
Joyce, thinking of those angry faces crowding round her and her babies, and of the one terrible face which conjured up such a host of dreadful memories, sighed.
"Ah! Falcon," she said, "good things cannot come all at once—good results, I mean; but give me a kiss and run away, and mind you give Grannie no trouble while I am gone." Then Joyce turned for a moment into the pretty sitting room which Mrs. Arundel occupied. Since Gratian's marriage she had lived with her son and his wife. She had separate rooms on the upper floor of the large house, and her own maid. The arrangement was perfectly harmonious, and the little household was very happy.
"You will not mind letting the children dine with you, dear Grannie?" Joyce said.
"Mind! it will be a great treat; do not hasten back."
"I thought after dinner, if Piers liked, we would go and see Mrs. More; he does not get out enough."
"Take a carriage at my expense, dear, and drive to Windsor terrace, and then over the Downs. It will be a lovely afternoon, and your mother will enjoy it."
Joyce shook her head.
"I doubt if mother will come; but I will do my best, thank you. Gilbert will not come home till quite a late dinner—supper, as my mother calls all meals after six o'clock."
Joyce and Charlotte were soon walking quickly up Park Street, for their lungs were good and their limbs strong, and Charlotte forgot her complaints for the time, in the delight of looking in at several shop windows lately opened in Park Street.
There was no Triangle then. The Victoria Rooms were only a dream of some enterprising builder, and it was across a field that Joyce made her way, till shecame to the sombre houses with dark, sunless frontage called Rodney Place, and, passing them and the stately mansion, Manilla Hall, she turned towards some low grey-coloured houses, which rejoiced in the name of "Down Cottages."
It was impossible for Mrs. Falconer to live in any house without leaving her mark upon it, and the little dining and drawing rooms were as bright and fresh as she could make them, while Piers had the third sitting room for his "rubbish."
Piers had now a collection of birds and beasts which had grown into large proportions since the little sparrow-hawk had been "set up" by Mr. Plume.
He had studied natural history in all its branches, and since he had lived in Clifton he had begun to be an earnest student of the great subject of geology, and his light figure, leaning on his crutches, and his pale, earnest face, were familiar to those who took their daily airing on the Observatory Hill. Piers had made friends with the stone cutters who spread out their stalls on Sion Hill and at the foot of the Observatory, and there was a continual interest in getting specimens from them.
Piers was helped in his studies by a young physician, who was then putting his foot on the first rung of the ladder which he soon scaled to the very top, and stood in later years pre-eminently as thefirst consulting physician of the West of England. His patients at this time, above the level of Park Street were not very numerous, and he would laughingly assure Piers that he was very proud to attend any one in so aristocratic a locality as Down Cottage!
He lent Piers books and instruments, and gave him a microscope, of which, as a physician, he had several, and, indeed, was the bright element in the lame boy's life.
He was coming out of the house now as Joyce opened the little iron gate, his horse waiting for him at the corner.
The greeting between the doctor and Joyce was unusually warm; he admired her beautiful, beaming face, and always liked to exchange a word with her.
"It is great news," he said; "though the crucial test is yet to come."
"Yes," Joyce said; "but surely the dear old Lords will not obstruct the bill."
"The dear old Bishops will do so," the doctor said, "your friend at Wells amongst them."
"Well," Joyce said, "he is sure to do what he does because he thinks it is right, not because other people do it."
The doctor laughed again; evidently he was not so sure of the Bishop. Then, with a pleasant smile toCharlotte, the doctor went away, just turning back for a moment to say, "I saw your old friend, Mrs. Hannah More's doctor, in consultation this morning, and he incidentally mentioned that she was failing rather visibly. Have you seen her of late?"
"I am going there this afternoon," Joyce said. "I want so much to see her."
"I would not delay," the doctor said, significantly, and then he was gone.
After the first greeting. Piers dragged Joyce off to his den, to show her a beautiful specimen of quartz, of which he had possessed himself the day before for a mere trifle.
And then he had diagrams to show her, which he had drawn, of several crystals, as seen through the microscope; and then he divulged the doctor's plan, that he should prepare a good many of such diagrams for him to use at a lecture he was to give in the Bristol Museum, some evening in the course of the coming winter.
I do not think there is any quality more attractive than that, which Joyce possessed in a remarkable degree, of throwing herself—not superficially, as Gratian did, but really and heartily—into the interests of other people.
Clifton and the Avon.Clifton and the Avon.
Any one watching her face as she bent over Piers'treasures, and examined his drawings, would have scarcely believed that she was the mother of four children, to whom she was devoted.
Piers was seated at his table, and she was standing over him, with one hand upon his shoulder, while, with the other, she now and then stroked back his hair, as in old days.
It is strange to think how the quiet, happy life of home, and home interests may go on, while the storm of political strife, and religious controversy rages without. It was thus with Sir Thomas Browne, the philosopher and physician, of Norwich, who produced his great work, the "Religio Medici," when England stood on the eve of the greatest storm, which ever burst over her. It was thus with many less distinguished and simple souls, who went about their accustomed duties and pleasures, and took up their daily burden of cares and toil, and gave but little heed to the jarring elements without.
Presently Joyce said: "I must go to mother now and get ready for dinner. How has mother been lately?"
"Oh! very well," Piers said. "She does notcarevery much for anything, that is the worst of it. She always talks of her day being over, and that she has nothing now to live for; but she has, all the same,"Piers continued, laughing. "She bustles about every morning, rubbing and dusting, and then she is knitting socks enough to last Falcon till he is twenty, and all kinds of things for your baby."
"Does she get on with the servants now?"
"Oh! pretty well. Of course, there is a good scold every day of one or the other of them, but both the maids know by this time, as we all do, that mother's bark may be sharp, but her bite is nothing."
"I hope you are not very dull, darling Piers?" Joyce asked.
"Dull! No, thank goodness! I don't know what dullness means. I see you have brought Charlotte with you; she is as languishing as ever."
"Poor Charlotte!" Joyce said; "she, at any rate, knows very well what dullness means. But I must not stay; remember you and mother are to spend Christmas with us in Great George Street."
The Clifton of fifty-five year's ago might not present such an appearance of gaiety on a fine afternoon as it does now; but, nevertheless, the Downs and Observatory were sprinkled with people, well dressed, in carriages, or Bath chairs, or on foot.
It was decided that the carriage should be ordered by Joyce from the stables at the back of Sion Hill, as she went to Windsor Terrace; that Mrs.Falconer, Piers, and Charlotte should drive to the turnpike on the Down, and then come to the top of Granby Hill, and wait there for Joyce. Charlotte was quite content with this arrangement, and watched Joyce's departure after dinner with some satisfaction. She rather liked to be alone with Mrs. Falconer, who, as she knitted, listened to her little complaints with patience, if not with expressed sympathy. Mrs. Arundel, on the contrary, thought Charlotte needed rousing, and was intolerant of perpetual headaches and low spirits.
There were many unoccupied young women like Charlotte, fifty years ago, without any particular aim in life, except a vague idea that they ought to be married. The years as they passed, often went by on leaden wings. Charlotte was amiable and gentle; and Miss Falconer, disappointed with the result of her training, would say: "Poor dear Charlotte has not strong health; so different from Joyce, who was a perfect rustic in that, as in other things." But Joyce was married, and Charlotte remained single, and had not even the satisfaction of recounting her many conquests, as her aunt so frequently did.
There is no more honourable and noble life than that of the single woman who bravely takes up her lot, and works her way to independence, by industry andthe cultivation of the gifts God has given her, for which the opportunities in these days are so many. But there is—I had almost saidwas—no life more pitiable, than that of the woman whose youth is passing, and who, having to accept her position as unmarried, does so with a bad grace, and pines for what, by her very melancholy views of life, she puts more and more beyond her reach, and who is perpetually thinking of her own little pains and troubles, and forgets to be at leisure from herself, to sympathise with those of others.
"Joyce did not askmeto go and see Mrs. More; though we stayed at Barley Wood together," Charlotte was saying. "However, I dare say Mrs. More would not remember me."
"Her memory is getting short now," said Mrs. Falconer; "she reaped a pretty harvest for her over-indulgence of her servants; teaching them things that were above their station in life was the beginning of it. They cheated her through thick and thin, and some gentlemen had to interfere, and break up the household for her, poor old lady!"
"It must be a change for her to live in Windsor Terrace, after that lovely place," Charlotte said.
"Not greater than for me to change Fair Acres for Down Cottage; but my day is over, and it suits mevery well, and Piers is happy, while Harry and Ralph like to come here sometimes, and I like to be near Joyce and the dear children."
"I think Falcon is rather tiresome and noisy," Charlotte said. "Joyce does not reprove him as she ought."
Mrs. Falconer was touchy about her grand-children; in her eyes Falcon was perfect, and the love that had been so unsparingly poured forth on Melville, was now given to Falcon.
"He's a noble boy," she said, in a tone that implied it was certainly not Charlotte's business to suggest that he had any imperfections. And now the knitting-needles were laid aside, for the carriage stopped at the little iron gate, and Mrs. Falconer went to call Piers, and to prepare for her drive.
Meantime Joyce had gone down the steep hill to Windsor Terrace, and, after some hesitation on the part of Miss Frowde, she was allowed to see Mrs. More.
She was seated in an easy chair, propped up with cushions, enjoying the view which lay before her.
For a moment she sought Joyce's face with an inquiring glance, as if not quite sure of her identity; but almost immediately the recognition came, and she greeted her, with one of her brightest smiles.
"Why, my dear Mrs. Arundel, you are quite a stranger. How are the dear babies, and poor Susan?"
"They are all well, dear madam, and Susan is an increasingly valuable servant."
"I am glad to hear it. I love to know that the seed sown is springing up. We are sadly impatient, my dear; we are like children pulling up the plant to see if the roots are grown. How are things going on at Fair Acres?"
"Very much as usual. My brother Ralph manages the estate."
"And the others look on! Well, well, patience is the great lesson for us all to learn, the patience that God has with us. Prayer and patient waiting will move mountains at last."
Then, after a few more inquiries, Mrs. More came to public matters.
"I thought," she said, "I was too old to take such a deep interest in the affairs of this kingdom and this city; but, my dear, we stand on the edge of a volcano, and, from all I hear, Bristol is ill-prepared. There is a growing feeling of hatred against the magistrates, and the zeal of Sir Charles Wetherall has carried him beyond the bounds of discretion. Would you like to borrow any books? They are at your service. In that book-case there are many volumes written by me. I often sit here, and think over the writing of those books, and how little I ever expected that theywould have a large sale, and bring me in, as they did, thirty thousand pounds. It often fills me with self-abasement, not self-glorification."
"I will not take a book to-day, dear madam; and here is Miss Frowde come to warn me that I have stayed long enough."
"See!" Mrs. More said, "there is the little steam-packet puffing busily up the river. I am blessed in my old age, to see before my windows the two great discoveries of the age, steam-power made useful for locomotion, and coal-gas for light. I am very happy here, my dear, but remember an old woman's advice, and do not spoil Susan Priday, or any servant, by over indulgence. Very often, as in my own case, carelessness, and dislike of trouble is the real root of the evil. God bless you and keep you, my dear," she said, as Joyce bent to kiss her. "Is there much excitement abroad about the passing of the Reform Bill?"
"Not that I have seen," Joyce answered; "but I daresay there may be in the city."
"Well, the result is in God's hands; we must pray and labour for peace, that blessed gift of God's love—peace."
It was a sweet parting word, and one to which Joyce often recurred in later years, almost as Hannah More's legacy to her—Peace.
It was the evening of the eighteenth of October when Joyce was seated in her nursery, awaiting her husband's return. The Bristol clocks had struck eleven; and from time to time the noise of the voices of many people reached her, borne upon the still night air. She had sent the servants to bed; and Mrs. Arundel and Charlotte were also gone to their rooms; but Joyce sat up watching for Gilbert's return.
The baby Joy, was sleeping in her cradle, and Lettice and Lota in their cribs, while Falcon lay in profound repose, a fife, upon which he had been playing hard all day, as he marched round and round the garden, was clasped in his strong, round little fingers.
Joyce bent over the children, shading the candle with her hand, to assure herself they slept, and then, leaving the nursery door open, that she might hear if they stirred or cried, she went gently down the wide staircase to the hall. The fire in the dining-room was burning low, and she put on some more coal,and saw that the kettle just simmered on the hob, ready to be put on to the fire when Gilbert came.
She moved with that quiet, almost stealthy tread, which is common with those who feel themselves the only persons awake in a house.
The stillness was broken by the ticking of the clock in the hall, and how loud that tick sounded!
Joyce went to the window, and, unfastening the shutter, looked out into the night, a dark, murky night; and from below came the low murmur of the crowds, which had not yet dispersed.
Public feeling throughout the country had reached almost to fever heat, but in Bristol the animosity against Bishops and Lords, for the rejection of the Reform Bill which the Commons had passed, was quickened by the personal hatred, which the recorder, Sir Charles Wetherall had excited amongst the people.
Bristol reformers were enraged that he should have made a bitter attack upon Lord John Russell in the House of Commons, charging him most unfairly with encouraging illegal means for carrying the Reform Bill. Though the whole country was in a ferment, and riots had broken out in Derby, Nottingham, and other towns, in no place was there such a personal feeling excited as against the Recorder of Bristol.
The assizes would soon open, and vengeance was vowed against him, if he attempted to enter the city to perform his duties as a judge.
Both parties vied with each other in exciting bitterness and ill feeling; and all good, moderate men felt, in their own minds, that a crisis was at hand, and that, unless some wise and able pilot could be found to guide the helm, a most disastrous shipwreck must follow.
Gilbert Arundel had, with some other gentlemen, done what they could to cast oil on the troubled waters. Gilbert had spoken several times at some of the smaller meetings, and had advised temperance and patience.
He was one of the very few, in those days, who appealed to the working men to help to maintain order among themselves; who showed the ruin and distress the rioters had brought upon their families in other places, and who spoke to them as having common cause with himself to do all they could to protect their wives and children. Gilbert was, in his heart, what was called a whig, but he was far, indeed, from being a hot-headed radical.
That he was known to be the grandson of a peer, and that his mother had a title, did not win him favour with the extreme section of his own party,while the others, perhaps, were a little triumphant that the son of a noble house might yet question the wisdom of the Lords in rejecting a Bill which was so dear to the heart of the people.
Joyce gently closed the shutters and returned to her place by the fire. Then she went out into the hall, where an oil lamp was dimly burning, and looked out from a small window by the side of the door.
A sense of fear began to creep over her, not for herself, but for Gilbert. She listened for his step with that nervous tension which is so painful, and of which we all know something.
Presently the door of the cellar, which opened into the hall, creaked; Joyce watched it breathlessly; it opened wider and wider, and a man's head appeared. In the dim light she could scarcely discern the features, but something in that face was surely familiar.
She was not left long in doubt; once more Bob Friday stood before her.
At first Joyce was literally paralysed with terror, and she could neither speak, nor call for help.
She made a movement towards the door, but the man raised a hand to prevent her.
"Don't you scream or move. I want to speak to you."
"How can you—how dare you, come here?"
"I came to tell ye that I'll see your young gent comes to no harm."
"I don't know what you mean," said Joyce, burying her face for a moment in her hands. "I know—I know what terrible grief you once brought on me and all I loved."
The accents of her voice, with the sorrowful ring in them, the quiet self-possession, for which, with a sinking heart she struggled, touched that rough, bad man, as no protestations or entreaties could have done.
"I cannot believe," she went on, "you are come to do me more harm. My four little children are asleep upstairs. There is no one in the house but women, helpless women, one of whom is your own daughter—yourown daughter."
"I wouldn't hurt a hair of her head, nor yours, nor your childer's. I came to warn you—the folks down below will stop at nothing once they are let loose; they'd as soon tear your young gent to pieces as look at 'im. They'd fire this 'ouse for a trifle. I belong to a party of 'em, and if I know it,heshan't come to no harm. Look ye, missus, I wanted to see you, to tell you the squire was riding peaceable enough——"
"Oh! don't! don't! I cannot bear it," Joyce said.
"He was riding peaceable enough, and I laid in wait for 'im. I got hold of the bridle, and the horse, she backed and reared, and the squire he fell on a sharp stone, which cut his forehead—a three corner cut—I see it now. He lay like a dog, dead, and the horse galloped off, and I—well, I made off too, and got aboard a ship in Bristol Docks, and only came back last Christmas. I meant to threaten the squire; but I didn't kill 'im; I didn'twantto kill 'im."
"Your act killed him as much as if you had thrown the stone, as we all believed you did. Oh! I pray God may forgive you."
"Say you forgive me," the man muttered; "I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head."
"I pray God to forgive you, and I try to do as the Lord Jesus would have me, and forgive you. But, oh! leave your evil ways, and turn to Him."
"It's too late," he said.
"Oh! no! no!—never! never too late!"
The man was silent for a few minutes; then he spoke in a low harsh voice:
"Give my love to poor Sue. I broke her mother's heart, and I nearly broke her's. I saw her riding in the carriage with you, like a lady, in the spring. Her mother used to pray God to take care of her,and sure enough, He has. It must be pretty nigh like heaven to live along with you. I'm a-going out by the way I came. Now you just see that the cellar winder bars is mended; that's how I got in, and others may get in too. I suppose you couldn't say, God bless you?"
The restraint Joyce had put upon herself was very great, and now that the danger seemed passing, she began to give way.
"Yes," she said faintly; "I think you are sorry, and I say, may God pardon you and bless you."
"Thank'ee," was the rejoinder; but still, though he moved back towards the cellar door, he lingered.
"Suppose you wouldn't touch the likes of me with your little white hand? I'd like to feel it once, just once."
With a great effort she held out her hand, cold and trembling with fear. The man took it up, as he would some curious and precious thing, and then, bowing over it, he waited no longer, and the cellar-door closed behind him.
Joyce sank upon one of the straight-backed chairs, and was just becoming unconscious of all outward things, when the latch-key was fitted into the lock, and Gilbert came in.
With a cry of dismay, he closed the door, and hastened to take her in his arms.
"My darling, what is it? What can have happened?"
He carried her, half fainting, into the dining room, and chafed her cold hands, and held some water to her lips.
A great flood of tears relieved her at last, and then clinging to her husband's neck, and still shuddering in every limb, she managed to tell him the story of Bob Priday's visit.
"It is a very grave matter," Gilbert said; "if the man who is guilty of your father's death is in Bristol, he ought to be apprehended and put on his trial."
"He seems to bear us no ill-will now, Gilbert. He is penitent, I think; and he said dear father fell from the horse, and that he did not actually throw the stone at him. Oh! Gilbert, it seems to bring it all back again."
"Dismiss it from your thoughts to-night, my darling, we shall need all our strength and courage. I am sworn in as a special constable. The people show increasingly signs of ill-will against those in authority. If Wetherall persists in making a public entry into Bristol next week, God only knows what will be the consequences. No one seems to be able to take active measures. The mayor is kindly and well-intentioned, but he has no strength of purpose,and if once the mob gets the upper hand, and those in authority are frightened, there will be a riot such as Bristol has never known. I think, if things do not look more promising, I must send you to Abbot's Leigh with my mother and the babies, and Charlotte Benson had better go home. There is a house at Abbots Leigh, Benson, my partner, will let me have, and you would be out of harm's way there."
"Oh! Gilbert, surely you do not mean that I am to leave you? I could not—I will not leave you!"
"You will do what I think is best and right, like a brave, good wife. You would not add to my anxiety, I am sure. I have seen enough in Bristol to-day to feel certain there will be a desperate struggle before the city quiets down. Only imagine that man, Captain Claxton, being so mad as to call a meeting of sailors on board the two ships now in the harbour, the 'Charles' and the 'Earl of Liverpool,' under pretence of voting a loyal address to the king, but really to get the sailors to form a guard to protect Wetherall when he enters Bristol. Could anything be more likely to enrage the other party? The meeting was broken up and adjourned to the quay, where the anti-reformers passed the resolution in a great uproar, protesting loyalty to the king, butdeclaring they will not be made a cat's paw of by the corporation and paid agents. The notion of protesting this publicly in the face of all the orders of the mayor! They are going to send a deputation to Wetherall to beg him not to persist in coming in next Saturday; but I am afraid it will be useless. If anything could have added to my own share in the troubles of the city, it is that Maythorne has chosen this time to come to the hotel in Clifton. He is a mere wreck, and so broken down that he looks like an old man instead of in his prime, but he is as bumptious as ever."
Joyce had roused herself now. The idea of Gilbert's danger was enough to drive away every other anxiety.
She made him take the refreshment which he so greatly needed, and, though pale and exhausted, she felt it almost a relief to busy herself in any way which diverted her mind from the terrible half-hour she had gone through in the hall face to face with Bob Priday.
"Why is Maythorne's coming so vexatious to you?" she asked; "I mean, more vexatious than usual."
"My dear child," Gilbert said, "the very fact of his title, and my connection with it, would be enoughto ensure brickbats and stones to be hurled at my head if he is seen with me. Let us hope he will keep to the more aristocratic quarters of Clifton, and not come near us."
"I think," Joyce said, when at last they prepared to go upstairs to bed; "I think I should like to hear you give God thanks for my safety, and that strength was given me not to cry out or scream; but oh! Gilbert, Gilbert, Iwasso frightened!"
Again he soothed her and comforted her, and then he raised his voice, the manly tones touched with pathos, and thanked God for His mercy, committing his wife and her little children to His care.
All that week passed in dread and apprehension. The popular feeling grew stronger and stronger against the Recorder, as the head and chief, as far as Bristol was concerned, of the anti-reformers.
Efforts were made to postpone the assizes, or, in the phrase of the day, "Deliver the gaol"; but all their efforts were vain, and the authorities actually despatched a deputation to Lord Melbourne at the Home Office, to beg he would send down a body of soldiers to keep the peace during the Recorder's visit. Lord Melbourne, doubting the expediency of such a movement, tried to get at the opinions of thetwo members for Bristol. Mr. Baillie was from home, but Mr. Protheroe said he would be answerable for order, and himself accompany Sir Charles Wetherall, if the military were dispensed with.
The idea of an armed force to protect a judge he considered preposterous, and more likely to inflame the people than anything else.
It was a memorable week to all those who lived in Bristol. And when the morning of Saturday, October the twenty-ninth dawned, and the tramp of the civic force was heard on their way to Totterdown to meet the Recorder, many hearts sank within them.
Lord Maythorne had found his way to Great George Street much oftener than his sister, Mrs. Arundel, wished, or Gilbert expected. He took a very lofty standpoint, and vowed that the Recorder was a fine fellow and did what was right, and that he should like to see sacks full of the malcontents thrown into the Float as an easy way of getting rid of them.
Gilbert found silence his safest course with his uncle, and tried to put a restraint on himself when in his presence. He came up from Bristol about four o'clock in the afternoon of this memorable Saturday, weary and dispirited, and found, to his dismay, that his uncle was in the drawing-room.
He was lounging on a sofa, holding a skein of silk for Charlotte Benson's embroidery, affecting, at forty, the airs and manners of a young beau, and talking an immense deal of nonsense to poor Charlotte, which she was only too ready to drink in.
Charlotte had begged to remain in Bristol at the early part of the week; and, as the days passed on, it became more and more difficult to think of leaving it. The mail coaches and passenger vans, as well as private carriages, were continually stopped, and the travellers were roughly asked whether they were for Reform, or against it; for the Lords, or ready to cry "Down with the Lords!"
In many instances quiet people, who cared very little about politics, and understood less, were seriously frightened, and even injured by the swift hurling of a stone or a brickbat.
As soon as Joyce heard her husband's step, she ran out to the hall.
Susan Priday was also on the look-out, with Joy in her arms.
Gilbert looked worn out, and threw himself into a chair, saying:
"I believe it is all but impossible to avoid a riot now. I wish you and the children and my mother were safe at Abbot's Leigh. Indeed, it isnot too late now to get you up to Down Cottage, and——"
High Street, Bristol.High Street, Bristol.
"I cannot leave you, Gilbert; do not ask me," Joyce said.
"Tell us what has happened in Bristol. We hear the uproar from these windows," his mother said.
"Oh! let them fight it out," said Lord Maythorne, "let them fight it out. They won't touch us."
"I am not so sure of that," said Gilbert, sharply. "I have a suspicion that you, for one, would get rough handling if some of the malcontents caught you."
Lord Maythorne laughed. "I should like to see them try. But tell us the news, pray."
"The news is," said Gilbert, "that the plan of bringing in the Recorder early in the day failed. We marched out about ten o'clock to Totterdown, in the hope of cheating the mob, who did not expect the procession till four o'clock. The yells and hisses of two thousand people were a sufficient proof of this. The sheriff's carriage could scarcely make its way through the masses of people, and several stones were hurled at it. Sir Charles Wetherall reached the Guildhall about twelve o'clock, and the commission was read. It might have passed off fairly, had not thatstupid though well meaning fellow, Ludlow, began to allude to Reform. It was like a spark to tinder, and there was an instant uproar; amidst it the court adjourned to eight o'clock on Monday morning. Every one means well; but there is no leader for our body of special constables, and some of the paid fellows are worse than useless. The Recorder is now at the Mansion House in Queen's Square, and we were ordered to rest, but not before several of our number were a good deal hurt, and in every encounter the mob had the best of it. They have armed themselves with sticks, and one poor fellow was chased into the Float, and many more must have been hurt."
"Are you hurt, Gilbert?"
"A few bruises, nothing worse; but it is imperative that the children and Susan should go up to Clifton Down. We are too near the city; if the Mansion House is fired, as we hear is likely, the uproar and confusion will reach this house. Charlotte and you, mother, the children and Joyce, must prepare to start at once. Make haste and pack up a few things, and I will see you to a place of safety."
And now swift steps were heard on the stairs, and Falcon came in.
"Father," he said, "I've been watching from the windows, and I can see the crowd, and the shouts get louder."
"You are to go with Susan, Grannie, and cousin Charlotte, at once, to Down Cottage. You will take care of mother, won't you, Falcon?"
"Of course I will," the boy said, "and of the baby, and Susan. Susan does nothing but cry. I wish she would not."
"It is not the time to cry, Falcon. We must all be as brave as we can. Now, Joyce," he said, "and Charlotte, make haste."
"You are in a desperate hurry," Lord Maythorne exclaimed. "I will look after the ladies with pleasure, and I confess I see no great cause of alarm. You forget, Gilbert, that people have nerves."
For Charlotte began to sob hysterically, and ask 'if they would all be burned up, and if the dreadful people would rush up the hill.'
Lord Maythorne soothed her with honeyed words, and declared he would not leave her till she was in a place of safety.
"Gilbert," Joyce said, beseechingly, as she followed him to the dining room, where he partook hastily of refreshment, "do not force me to go away from you; let me and Falcon stay here. We have the gardener toprotect us, and the cook is a sensible woman. Pray please, let your mother take her maid and Susan, and,doleave me here. Think how dreadful it would be to me to be beyond reach if—if anything happened to you, if you were hurt. Nay, Gilbert, do not refuse me."
"Well, I will yield for this one night, and to-morrow, being Sunday, there may be peace; but I doubt it. Get the others under marching orders; and, Joyce;" as she was leaving the room, "I am not very well pleased to see my uncle hanging about here, and filling that poor girl's head with nonsense. She is just as likely to fancy he is making love to her as not. Warn her, can't you?"
Joyce shook her head. "It is not easy to persuade Charlotte that everyone is not ready to fall at her feet, and I am afraid she will resent any interference; but, oh!" she continued gaily, "I will do anything now I am not to be sent away fromyou."
Then she hastened upstairs and found Susan and Mary bustling about for departure.
Joyce told Falcon he was to stay to take care of her, and he shouted for joy. He had again taken up his post at the open nursery windows, leaning over the bars, and listening to the ever increasing tumult which reigned in the city below.
"Oh! dear madam," Susan said; "I don't like to leave you."
"You like to please me, Susan, and there is no danger for me."
"The cellar window is made fast, I know," Susan said, "and he—he can never come near you again; but suppose the mob should come up here, and master not be able to reach you."
"That is not likely; by to-morrow all may be quiet, and I shall come to Down Cottage to see how you have got on. You must give mother my love, and tell her I know she will like to have Baby Joy to-night, and that you can sleep with Lettice and Lota."
"Don't be afraid, my darlings," she said, as two little serious faces were turned up to her, and two little plaintive voices said:
"We want to stay with mother. Falcon is going to stay."
"Falcon is a boy, and he likes to watch the crowds, and does not mind the noise, and he is going to take care of me. Now then, darlings, run down and tell father you are ready, while I go and see if grandmother and Mary, and cousin Charlotte are ready also."
But Mrs. Arundel had determined to remain with Joyce, and said nothing should tempt her to leaveher; her maid Mary should go, and she would stay behind.
Joyce thought of the rather small accommodation at Down Cottage, and did not raise any further objection. There was only Charlotte now to hasten. Joyce found her tying her bonnet and arranging her curls under it, and turning her head first to one side, then to the other, to catch a glimpse of her profile in the glass.
"Come, Charlotte, make haste," Joyce said; "they are all ready."
"Is Lord Maythorne coming with us?"
"Yes, as far as the Hotel. If I were you I should not desire his company."
"Oh! Joyce, he is very nice, quite delightful, and he is—"
"He is given to flatter everybody," Joyce said, "as years ago poor Melville found to his cost. So take care, Charlotte."
"Take care, indeed! I don't know what you mean," said Charlotte, pouting. "You always think no one can possibly admireme."
"My dear Charlotte, this is not a time for such nonsense, it is time to commend ourselves and all we love to God's care, and not to be filled with thoughts of who admires us and who does not. Lord Maythorneis Gilbert's uncle; but he has caused a great deal of sorrow in the family, and we were all very sorry when he came to live in England again. Mrs. Arundel cannot be uncivil to him, but she has not the slightest respect for him; neither have I."
"Well, dear," said Charlotte, "now you have finished your lecture, I will go downstairs. I suppose you think, as you are—are married, you may——"
Charlotte's ready tears began to flow, and Joyce, losing her patience, passed by her quickly, and ran down into the hall.
It was hard to bid them all "good-bye," her baby smiling at her from under her warm hood, Lettice and Lota clinging to her, and Susan looking back to the last moment, as she led the way down Great George Street with Joy in her arms.
"You must give Uncle Piers my love, you know," Joyce said, "and say I am coming to-morrow. Good-bye; good-bye."
She stood at the door watching her husband and children down the street, which opens into Park Street, kissing her hand to them as the little girls' figures disappeared round the corner.
Lord Maythorne and Charlotte were rather longer in setting out, and a great deal of hesitation on Charlotte's part, and coaxing on Lord Maythorne's, wasnecessary, before they too at last departed. Charlotte leaning on Lord Maythorne's arm, and walking as if at every step she expected to meet a rioter, or have a stone thrown at her!
But Great George Street was as quiet as any deserted city, and the large, respectable houses looked as if they, at least, and their inhabitants, stood aloof from all questions of dispute, and all stormy expressions of opinion.
Joyce was an object of some interest to an old lady who lived opposite, and she craned her neck over the blind in the dining-room to see if it were actually true that only Joyce and Falcon were left in the house with Mrs. Arundel.
Joyce, always sensible, and with "her wits about her," as her mother often said, now closed and bolted the front door, and closed the shutters in the hall and the dining-room.
Then she went to the door leading to the garden, called the gardener, who, in spite of the tumult below, went on sweeping the fallen leaves together in a heap, as if it were the one great business of life.
"Henry," Joyce called; and, shouldering his broom, the man came with slow but sure steps up to the level gravel path under the windows. "Will you come round with me and see that all the doorsand windows on the ground-floor are safely closed and barred, and the gate locked at the bottom of the garden?"
She turned back a moment, and taking a shawl from the hall, threw it over her head.
"Bars and doors won't keep 'em out if they've a mind to get in," said Henry; "the din is getting louder and louder. When will the master be back, ma'am?"
"I don't know quite. Yes," she said, "this door is safe; and I wonder how anyone could have climbed that wall?"
Henry looked curiously at her.
"Somebodydidclimb it," he said, "for I found great footmarks here a week ago, and showed 'em to the master."
Joyce knew well enough whose footprints they were, but she said nothing.
"I should like you to come into the cellar with me, Henry," she said, turning to retrace her steps; and Falcon shouted from his watch-tower:
"They are making a greater noise than ever, mother, and I see such lots and lots of people on the quay. Come up, mother."
"I am coming very soon, dear," she said.
Then Joyce finished her inspection of the cellar,not without a thrill of remembered fear as she heard the creaking of the door, as it closed behind her.
"You had better stay in the kitchen with cook, Henry, and be on the watch till your master's return. He may not be home till very late, for the special constables are on duty; but what an increasing noise! What can be going on now?"
"They'll tear the Recorder limb from limb if they catch him; they are just like wild beasts in their rage against him. Lor! what a pity it is to meddle; let 'em have reform if they like, or leave it alone, it's no odds to me, nor thousands of other folk. It is a great ado about nothing; what will be, will be, and there's an end of it."
These opinions of Gilbert Arundel's gardener were decidedly safe, and had they been held by the mass of the Bristol people, the ensuing scenes of strife, fire, and bloodshed, would have been spared. But all men are not of the same easy, philosophical temperament!
And, doubtless, the stirring of the waters has a salutary effect, though the storm that smote them may be fearful. We who have lived to see a second Reform Bill carried, and religious tolerance everywhere a recognised principle, are perhaps scarcely as thankful as we ought to be for all thestruggles, which have, by God's help and guidance, ended well for this people and nation.
He maketh the storm to cease; "He sitteth above the water-floods; yea, the Lord remaineth a King for ever."