“Hurrah!” echoed the guard, willing to echo anything. “The Bill for ever! But let us pass, lads! Let us pass! We’re for the Bear, and we’ve no votes.”
“Britons never will be slaves!” shrieked a drunken butcher as the marketplace opened before them. The space was alive with flags and gay with cockades, and thronged by a multitude, through which the candidate’s procession clove its way slowly. “We’ll have votes now! Three cheers for Lord John!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah!”
“And down with Orange Peel!” squeaked a small tailor in a high falsetto.
The roar of laughter which greeted the sally startled the horses afresh. But the guard had dropped down by this time and fought his way to the head of one of the leaders; and two or three good-humoured fellows seconded his efforts. Between them the coach was piloted slowly but safely through the press; which, to do it justice, meant only to exercise the privileges which the Election season brought with it.
V
ROSY-FINGERED DAWN
“Beaucoup de bruit, pas de mal!” Vaughan muttered in his neighbour’s ear; and saw with as much surprise as pleasure that she understood.
And all would have gone well but for the imprudence of the inside passenger who had distinguished himself by his protest against the placard. The coach was within a dozen paces of the Bear, the crowd was falling back from it, the peril, if it had been real, seemed past, the most timid was breathing again, when he thrust out his foolish head, and flung a taunt—which those on the roof could not hear—at the rabble.
Whatever the words, their effect was disastrous. A bystander caught them up and repeated them, and in a trice half-a-dozen louts flung themselves on the door and strove to drag it open, and get at the man; while others, leaning over their shoulders, aimed missiles at the inside passengers.
The guard saw that more than the glass of his windows was at stake; but he could do nothing. He was at the leaders’ heads. And the passengers on the roof, who had risen to their feet to see the fray, were as helpless. Luckily the coachman kept his head and his reins. “Turn ’em into the yard!” he yelled. “Turn ’em in!”