“Who are you?” he replied, confronting our friend with a sneer. “I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir!”
Vaughan was about to answer him in kind, when he espied in the middle of the group the pale, keen face and greyish whiskers of Sergeant Wathen. And, “Perhaps you have not,” he retorted, “but that gentleman has.” He pointed to Wathen. “And, if what was said a moment ago,” he continued, “was meant for me, I have the honour to ask for an explanation.”
“Explanation?” a Member in the background cried, in a jeering tone. “Is there need of one?”
Vaughan was no longer red, he was white with anger. “Who spoke?” he asked, his voice ringing.
The Irishman looked over his shoulder and laughed. “Right you are, Jerry!” he said: “I’ll not give you up!” And then to Vaughan, “I did not,” he said rudely. “For the rest, sir, the Hall is large enough. And we have no need of your heroics here!”
“Your pleasure, however,” Vaughan replied, haughtily, “is not my law. Some one of you used words a moment ago which seemed to imply——”
“That I obtained my seat by unfair means! And the truth being perfectly well known to that gentleman”—again he pointed to the Sergeant in a way which left Wathen anything but comfortable. “I am sure that he will tell you that the statement——”
“Statement or imputation, or whatever you please to call it,” Vaughan answered, sticking to his point in spite of interruptions, “is absolutely unfounded—and false. And false! And, therefore, must be retracted.”
“Yes, must!” Vaughan replied—he was no coward. “Must, if you call yourselves gentlemen. But first, Mr. Sergeant,” he continued, fixing Wathen with his eye, “I will ask you to tell these friends of yours that I did not turn my coat at Chippinge. And that there was nothing in my election which in any degree touched my honour.”
The Sergeant looked flurried. He was of those who love to wound, but do not love to fight. And at this moment he wished from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, that he had held his tongue. But unluckily, whether the cloud upon Vaughan’s reputation had been his work or not, he had certainly said more than he liked to remember; and, worse still, had said some part of it within the last five minutes, in the hearing of those about him. To retract, therefore, was to dub himself a liar; and he sought refuge, the perspiration standing on his brow, in that half-truth which is at once worse than a lie—and safer.