But not all viewed it in this light. There were eyes into which it brought a sparkle of gratification; some even the glow of anticipated vengeance. During Fiennes's iron rule, the "malignants" had been much humiliated, and the prospect of a change, themselves to have the upper hand, made them jubilant. And there were the relatives and friends of the so-called "State Martyrs," with the fate of these fresh in their mind, burning for revenge. Citizens affected to the King's cause, Cavaliers, whether prisoners on parole or otherwise, the tapsters, gamesters, and tricksters of every speciality; in a word, all the reprobacy and blackguardism of Bristol, high and low, male and female, were gleeful at a sight giving them forecast of that for which they had long been yearning--an opportunity of pillage and plunder. It was just with them, as it would be with their modern representatives the Jingoes, at any mischance to Liberalism, likely to give the Jew of Hughenden another spell at despoiling and dishonouring England. For they, too, were doughty champions of beer and Bible, with whom national honour was but a name, the nation's glory an empty boast. They, as Tories now, cared not for the wrongs and sufferings of an over-taxed people, any more than recks Arab slave-trader the tears and lamentations of the poor human beings with black skins he drives, brute-like, across the burning sands of Africa. For is not the whole history of Toryism, from its commencement up to the latest chapter and verse, a record of sympathy with the wronger and unpitying regardlessness for the wronged--an exhibition of all the ferocity known to the human heart, with all its falsehood and meanness? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By a coincidence in no way singular, but simply from two events chancing to occur at the same time, they were dancing at Montserrat House, while Waller was riding in retreat from Roundway Down. Madame Lalande's ball was on the night after the battle, July 13th. It was about to break up, for day was dawning, and cheeks growing pale. Less than a month after mid-summer, the hour was not so much into morning, and there were some tireless votaries of Terpsichore inclined for still another _contredanse_, by way of wind up. This came, however, in a manner more sudden and unexpected. First, the call notes of a distant bugle, taken up and responded to by others, till a very chorus of them sounded all over the city. Then a _tantara_ of drums, and the jangling of church bells, with the boom of a great gun from the Castle!