Sir Robert stared. “Not my Reform, Mr. Cooke,” he said in a tone of displeasure.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Robert,” Cooke rejoined, speaking more coolly. “I beg your pardon. But what I have suffered to-day is beyond telling. By G—d, it’s my opinion that there’s only one man worthy of the name in Bristol! And that’s your cousin, Vaughan!”
Sir Robert struck his stick on the pavement. “Mr. Vaughan?” he exclaimed. “He is here, then? I feared so!”
“Here? You feared? I tell you he’s the only man to be called a man, who is here! If it had not been for him and the way he handled the constables last night we should have been burnt out then instead of to-night! I don’t know that the gain’s much, but for what it’s worth we have him to thank!”
Sir Robert frowned. “I am surprised. He behaved well? Indeed!” he said.
“D——d well! D——d well! If there had been half a dozen like him, we’d be out of the wood!”
“Where is he staying?” Sir Robert asked after a moment’s hesitation. “I’ve lost my daughter in the confusion, and I think it possible that he may know where she is.”
“He is staying here at the Lion,” Cooke answered. “But he’s been up and down all day trying to put heart into poltroons.” And he ran over the chief events of the last few hours.
He punctuated the story with oaths and bitter complaints, and perhaps it was for this reason that Sir Robert, after he had heard the main facts, broke away. He went through the hall to the bar where the landlord, who knew him well, came forward and greeted him respectfully. But to Sir Robert’s inquiry as to Mr. Vaughan’s whereabouts he shook his head.
“I wish he was in the house, Sir Robert,” he said in a low voice. “For he’s a marked man in Bristol since last night. I was in the Square myself, and it was wonderful what spirit he put into his men. But the scum and the riffraff who are uppermost to-day say he handled them cruelly, and my daughter tried to persuade him from going out to-day. But he would go, sir.”