Chippinge Borough. Weyman Stanley John

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СКАЧАТЬ all, whole classes of the well-to-do would no longer be deprived of a voice in the State. No longer would the rights of one small class override the rights of all other classes.

      He was at an age, in a word, when hope invites to change; and he was for the Bill. "Ay, by Jove, I am!" he muttered, casting the die in fancy, "and I'll not be set down! It will be awkward! It will be odious! But I must go through with it!"

      Still, he was sorry. He sprang from the class which had profited by the old system-that system under which some eight-score men returned a majority of the House of Commons. He had himself the prospect of returning two members. He could, therefore enter, to a degree-at times to a greater degree than he liked, – into the feelings with which the old-fashioned and the interested, the prudent and the timid, viewed a change so great and so radical. But his main objection was personal. He hated the necessity which forced him to cross the wishes and to trample on the prejudices of an old man whom he regarded with respect, and even with reverence: a solitary old man, the head of his family, to whom he owed the very vote he must withhold; and who would hardly, even by the logic of facts, be brought to believe that one of his race and breeding could turn against him.

      Still it must be done; the die was cast. The sooner, therefore, it was done, the better. He would go down to Stapylton at once, while his courage was high; and he would tell Sir Robert. Then, whatever came of it, he would have nothing with which to reproach himself. In the heat of resolve he felt very brave and very virtuous; and the moment he rose from breakfast he went to the coach office, and finding that the York House, the fashionable Bath, coach was full for the following day, he booked an outside seat on the Bristol White Lion Coach, which also passed through Chippenham. From Chippenham, Chippinge is distant a short nine miles.

      That evening proved to be memorable; for the greater part of London was illuminated by the Reformers in honour of the Dissolution; not without rioting and drunkenness, violence on the part of the mob, and rage on the side of the minority. When Vaughan passed through the streets before six next morning, on his way to the White Horse Cellars, traces of the night's work still remained; and where the early sun fell on them showed ugly and grisly and menacing enough. A moderate reformer might well have blenched at the sight, and questioned-as many did question-whither this was tending. But Vaughan was late; the coach, one out of three which were waiting to start, was horsed. He had only eyes, as he came hurriedly up, for the seat he had reserved behind the coachman.

      It was empty, and so far his fears were vain. But it annoyed him to find that his next-door neighbour was a young lady travelling alone. She had the seat on the near side.

      He climbed up quickly, and to reach his place had to pass before her. The space between the seat and the coachman's box was narrow, and as she rose to allow him to pass she glanced up. Their eyes met; Vaughan raised his hat in mute apology, and took his seat. He said no word. But a miracle had happened, as miracles do happen, when the world is young. In his mind, as he sat down, he was not repeating, "What a nuisance!" but was saying, "What eyes! What a face! And, oh, heaven, what beauty! What blush-rose cheeks! What a lovely mouth!"

      For 'twas from eyes of liquid blue

      A host of quivered Cupids flew,

      And now his heart all bleeding lies

      Beneath the army of the eyes.

      He gazed gravely at the group of watermen and night-birds who stood in the roadway below waiting to see the coach start. And apparently he was unmoved. Apparently he was the same Arthur Vermuyden Vaughan who had passed round the boot of the coach to reach the ladder and his place. But he was not the same. His thoughts were no longer querulous, full of the haste he had made, and the breakfast he had to make; but of a pair of gentle eyes which had looked for one instant into his, of a modest face, sweet and shy, of a Quaker-like bonnet that ravished as no other bonnet had ever ravished the most susceptible!

      He was still gazing at the group of loiterers, without seeing them, when he became aware that an elderly woman plainly but respectably dressed, who was standing by the forewheel of the coach, was looking up at him, and trying to attract his attention. Seeing that she had caught his eye she spoke:

      "Gentleman! Gentleman!" she said-but in a restrained voice, as if she did not wish to be generally heard. "The young lady's address! Please say that she's not left it! For the laundress!"

      He turned and made sure that there was only one of the sex on the coach. Then-to be honest, not without a tiny flutter at his heart-he addressed his neighbour. "Pardon me," he said "but there is someone below who wants your address."

      She turned her eyes on him and his heart gave a perceptible jump. "My address?" she echoed in a voice as sweet as her face. "I think that there must be some mistake." And then for a moment she looked at him as if she doubted his intentions.

      The doubt was intolerable. "It's for the laundress," he said. "See, there she is!"

      The girl rose to look over the side of the coach and perforce leant across him. He saw that she had the slenderest waist and the prettiest figure-he had every opportunity of seeing. Then the coach started with a jerk, and if she had not steadied herself by laying her hand on his shoulder, she must have relapsed on his knees. As it was she fell back safely into her seat. She blushed.

      "I beg your pardon," she said.

      But he was looking back. He had his eye on the woman, who remained in the roadway, pointing after the coach and apparently asking a bystander some question respecting it-perhaps where it stopped. "There she is!" he exclaimed. "The woman with the umbrella! She is pointing after us."

      His neighbour looked back but made nothing of it. "I know no one in London," she said a little primly-but with sweet primness-"except the lady at whose house I stayed last night. And she is not able to leave the house. It must be a mistake." And with a gentle reserve which had in it nothing of coquetry, she turned her face from him.

      Tantivy! Tantivy! Tantivy! They were away, bowling down the slope of broad empty Piccadilly with the four nags trotting merrily, and the April sun gilding the roofs of the houses, and falling aslant on the verdure of the Green Park. Then merrily up the rise to Hyde Park Corner, where the new Grecian Gates looked across at the equally new arch on Constitution Hill; and where Apsley House, the residence of "the Duke," hiding with its new coat of Bath stone the old brick walls, peeped through the trees at the statue of Achilles, erected ten years back in the Duke's honour.

      But, alas! what was this? Wherefore the crowd that even at this early hour was large enough to fill the roadway and engage the attention of the New Police? Vaughan looked and saw that every blind in Apsley House was lowered, and that more than half of the windows were shattered. And the little French gentleman who, to the coachman's disgust, had taken the box-seat, saw it too; nay, had seen it before, for he had come that way to the coach office. He pointed to the silent, frowning mansion, and snapped his fingers.

      "That is your reward for your Vellington!" he cried, turning in his excitement to the two behind him. "And his lady, I am told, she lie dead behind the broken vindows! They did that last night, your canaille! But he vill not forget! And when the refolution come-bah-he vill have the iron hand! He vill be the Emperor and he vill repay!"

      No one answered; they treated him with silent British scorn. But they one and all stared back at the scene, at the grim blind house in the early sunshine, and the gaping crowd-as long as it remained in sight. And some, no doubt, pondered the sight. But who, with a pretty face beside him and a long day's drive before him, a drive by mead and shining river, over hill and down, under the walls of grey churches and by many a marketplace and cheery inn-yard-who would long dwell on changes past or to come? Or fret because in the womb of time might lie that "refolution" of which the little Frenchman spoke?

      IV

      TANTIVY! СКАЧАТЬ