Of these no more than eighty remained, and with little stomach for the task before them. This task, indeed, notwithstanding the check which the arrival of the troopers had given the mob, was far from easy. The ground-floor of the Mansion House looked like a place taken by storm and sacked. The railings which guarded the forecourt were gone, and even the wall on which they stood had been demolished to furnish missiles. The doorways and windows, where they were not clumsily barricaded, were apertures inviting entrance. In one room lay a pile of straw ready for lighting. In another lay half a dozen wounded men. Everywhere the cold wind, blowing off the water of the Welsh Back, entered a dozen openings and extinguished the flares as quickly as they could be lighted, casting now one room and now another into black shadow. But if the men had little heart for further exertions, Vaughan’s manhood rose the higher to meet the call. Bringing his soldier’s training into play, in a few minutes he had his force divided into four companies, each under a leader. Two he held in reserve, bidding them get what rest they could; with the other two he manned the forecourt, and guarded the flank which lay open to the Welsh Back. And as long as the troopers rode up and down within a stone’s-throw all was well. But when the soldiers passed to the other side of the Square a rush was made on the house—mainly by a gang of the low Irish of the neighbourhood—and many a stout blow was struck before the rabble, who thirsted for the strong ale and wine in the cellars, could be dislodged from the forecourt and driven to a distance. The danger to life was not great, though the tale of wounded grew steadily; nor could the post of Chief Constable be held to confer much honour on one who so short a time before had dreamt of Cabinets and portfolios, and of a Senate hanging on his words. But the joy of conflict was something to a stout heart, and the sense of success. Something, too, it was to feel that where he stood his men stood also; and that where he was not, the Irish, with their brickbats and iron bars, made a way. There was a big lout, believed by some to be a Brummagem man and a tool of the Political Union, who more than once led on the assailants; and when Vaughan found that this man shunned him and chose the side where he was not, that too was a joy. “After all, this is what I am good for,” he told himself as he stood to take breath after a _mêlée_ which was at once the most serious and the last. “I was a fool to leave the regiment,” he continued, staunching a trickle of blood which ran from a cut on his cheek bone. “For, after all, better a good blow than a bad speech! Better, perhaps, a good blow than all the speeches, good and bad!” And in the heat of the moment he swung his staff. Then—then he thought of Mary and of Flixton, and his heart sank, and his joy was at an end.