Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people

by Evelyn Everett-Green

“Yes; perhaps I was foolish to suppose that one man, and that myself, could do any good at such a moment; but I think one has a natural desire to be in the thick of everything, and I knew that I should not come to harm, if Saul Tresithny could help it. I went down and out into the street. The noise told me that the carriage could not be far away, and very soon I had forced myself into the thick of the fight, hoping, when I got between the combatants, to induce Saul on the one side to draw off his men, whilst I urged those of our own supporters who had joined in the scrimmage to retire from the unseemly disturbance. But things had gone much too far for any pacific endeavours on my part. I do not know exactly in whose possession the carriage was at the moment when I reached it; and the press round it and the fighting was so fierce and indiscriminate that I could hardly move or breathe, let alone trying to make my voice heard. And soon I was recognised by one great fellow as an enemy, and a new element of fury was added to the struggle; but what really made the danger, and caused the damage at last, was a sudden shout raised at the back of the crowd that the soldiers were coming.”

“Ah!” breathed Bride softly.

“I suppose the man on the box of the carriage saw over our heads that it was true, for he suddenly deserted his post, and flung himself down to the ground; whilst the horses, feeling the sudden jerk of the reins, and then the slackness which followed, set to plunging and kicking wildly, scattering the mob right and left, and knocking down at least half-a-dozen of the crowd, as they swerved and tried to turn, before bolting off in their terror. Saul saw the peril to every one, rushed forward and made a gallant spring at their heads; but he was knocked down and trampled upon in a fearful way, before I and a few others could come to his assistance and get to the heads of the horses. When we brought them to a standstill at last, I had got my arm crushed, I shall never know exactly how; and the other fellows had all got bruises or cuts of one sort or another. As for poor Tresithny, he lay on the ground like one dead, his head bleeding, one foot so crushed that I fear he will never walk again, and with other injuries of quite as grave a character. But the mob had scattered helter-skelter by that time, and the soldiers, with their bayonets fixed, were quietly bearing down through the street, clearing a path before them, as a gale of wind clears away the fog wreaths through a valley.”

“They did not hurt the people—they did not fire?”

“Oh, no; they behaved very well and good-temperedly, for they were a good bit pelted and hooting at starting. I heard. They just fixed their bayonets, and marched quietly on in rank, and the mob dispersed more quickly than one would suppose possible. I think the fall of poor Tresithny, and the rumour that he was dead, frightened and discouraged the crowd, and perhaps they had had enough of it by that time. At any rate, by the time the soldiers reached us the street was almost clear; and after we had soothed and quieted the poor horses, who were in a lather from head to foot and quaking in every limb, they had picked up Tresithny tenderly enough, and laid him in the carriage, making a sort of bed for him there with all the cushions. It did not matter then that the poor fellow was bleeding, and that his clothes were covered with dust and mud: the carriage was in such a state inside and out that nothing could harm it more. When we had placed him there, we led the horses to the hotel yard, and your father was told everything, and came down to look for himself at the state of the equipage, and at the prostrate leader of the mob.”

“And he sent him home to Abner?” said Bride, with a soft light in her eyes.

“Yes. We got a surgeon to look at him without moving him, and he bound up the wound on his head, and cut away the boot from the crushed foot. He would not have him taken out of the carriage or moved in any way till he could be put straight to bed; and after the horses had been groomed and fed, the coachman was called for, and directed to drive young Tresithny to his grandfather’s cottage, the surgeon going in the carriage with him.”

“Poor Abner!” said Bride once more; “but it will be the happiest thing for him to have Saul under his own roof.”

“That is what your father said. So two soldiers were told off to see the carriage safe out of the town, and there is a sharp patrol of the streets being kept up to prevent any more organised rioting. I think the disturbers of the peace have had enough of it by this time. There is the ordinary scrimmaging and hustling about the poll, but that is quite a different thing from the desperate fighting and blackguardism that was going on round the Duke’s carriage. And now I have come to tell you that you will soon be called for and taken home. The hotel has furnished us with a coach to drive back in, and Captain O’Shaughnessy himself will accompany us out of the town to make sure there is no more rioting about us.”

“And how is the poll going?”