“You came with Flixton?” Vaughan said, speaking, on his side also, rather dully.
“Yes, and meant to go on with him. But there’s no counting on men in love,” Brereton continued with more irritation than the occasion seemed to warrant. “He saw his charmer on the coach, and a vacant seat—and I may find my way to Bath as I can.”
“They are to be married, I hear?” Vaughan said in the same dull tone and with his face averted.
“I don’t know,” Brereton answered sourly. “What I do know is that I’m not best pleased that he has left me. I heard Sir Charles Wetherell was sleeping at your cousin’s last evening, and I posted there to see him about the arrangements for his entry. But I missed him. He’s gone to Bath for this evening. Well, I took Flixton with me because I didn’t know Sir Robert and he did, and he’s supposed to be playing aide-de-camp to me. But a fine aide-de-camp he’s like to prove, if this is the way he treats me. You know Wetherell opens the Assizes at Bristol tomorrow?”
“Yes, I saw his clerk on my way here.”
“There’ll be trouble, Vaughan!”
“Really?”
“Ay, really! And bad trouble! I wish it was over.” He passed his hand across his brow.
“I heard something of it in London,” Vaughan answered.
“Not much, I’ll wager,” Brereton rejoined, with a brusqueness which betrayed his irritation. “They don’t know much, or they wouldn’t be sending me eighty sabres to keep order in a city of a hundred thousand people! Enough, you see, to anger, and not enough to intimidate! It’s just plain madness. It’s madness. But I’ve made up my mind! I’ve made up my mind!” he repeated, speaking in a tone which betrayed the tenseness of his nerves. “Not a man will I show if I can help it! Not a man! And not a shot will I fire, whatever comes of it! I’ll be no butcherer of innocent folk.”