The folly of this struck him dumb. And he hurried, at a white heat, across the Square to remonstrate. He was about to speak to the sergeant in charge, when Flixton, with a civilian cloak masking his uniform, rode up to the men at a foot-pace. Vaughan turned to him instead. “Good Heavens, man!” he cried, too hot to mince his words or remember at the moment what there was between him and Flixton, “What’s Brereton doing? What has happened! It is not true that he has sent the Fourteenth away?” Flixton looked down at him sulkily. “He’s sent ’em to Keynsham,” he said, shortly. “If he hadn’t, the crowd would have been out of hand!” “But what do you call them now?” Vaughan retorted, with angry sarcasm. “They are destroying a public building in broad daylight! Aren’t they sufficiently out of hand?” Flixton shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer. He was flushed and has manner was surly. “And your squad here, looking on and doing nothing? They’re worse than useless!” Vaughan continued. “They encourage the beggars! They’d be better in their quarters than here! Better at Keynsham,” he added bitterly. “So I’ve told him,” Flixton answered, taking the last words literally. “He sent me to see how things are looking. And a d——d pleasant way this is of spending a wet Sunday!” On which, without more, having seen, apparently, what he came to see, he turned his horse to go out of the Square by the Broad Quay. Vaughan walked a few paces beside the horse. “But, Flixton, press him,” he said urgently; “press him, man, to act! To do something!” “That’s all very fine,” the Honourable Bob answered churlishly, “but Brereton’s in command. And you don’t catch me interfering. I am not going to take the responsibility off his shoulders.” “But think what may happen to-night!” Vaughan urged. Already he saw that the throng was growing denser and its movements less random. Somewhere in the heart of it a man was speaking. “Think what may happen after dark, if they are as bad as this in daylight?” Flixton looked askance at him. “Ten to one, only what happened last night,” he answered. “You all croaked then; but Brereton was right.” Vaughan saw that he argued to no purpose. For Flixton, forward and positive in small things and on the surface, was discovered by the emergency; all that now remained of his usual self-assertion was a sense of injury. Vaughan inquired, instead, where he would find Brereton, and as by this time the crowd had clearly outgrown the control of a single man, he contented himself with walking round the Square, and learning, by mingling with the fringe, what manner of spirit moved it. That spirit, though he heard some ugly threats against Wetherell and the Bishops and the Lords, was rather a reckless and mischievous than a bloodthirsty one. To obtain drink, to destroy this or that gaol, and by and by to destroy all gaols seemed to the crowd the first principles of Reform.