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 enough to 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, I was so 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 the two 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.