The Great House Part 26

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE RIDDSLEY ELECTION.

The riot at Riddsley found its way into the London Press, and gained for the contest a certain amount of notoriety. The Morning Chronicle pointed out that the election had been provoked by the Protectionists in a const.i.tuency in Sir Robert's own country; and the writer inferred that, foreseeing defeat, the party of the land were now resorting to violence. The Morning Herald rejoiced that there were still places which would not put up with the incursions of the Manchester League, "the most knavish, pestilent body of men that ever plagued this or any country!" In the House, where the tempest of the Repeal debate already raged, and the air was charged with the stern invective of Disraeli, or pulsed to the cheering of Peel's supporters--even here men discussed the election at Riddsley, considered it a clue to the feeling in the country, and on the one side hardly dared to hope, on the other refused to fear. What? cried the Land Party. Be defeated in an agricultural borough? Never!

For a brief time, then, the contest filled the public eye and presented itself as a thing of more than common interest. Those who knew little weighed the names and the past of the candidates; those behind the scenes whispered of Lord Audley. Whips gave thought to him, and that one to whom his lords.h.i.+p was pledged, wrote graciously, hinting at the pleasant things that might happen if all went well, and the present winter turned to a summer of fruition.

Alas, Audley felt that the Whip's summer, and The friendly beckon towards Downing Street, Which a Premier gives to one who wishes To taste of the Treasury loaves and fishes, were very remote, whereas, if the other Whip, he who had the honors under his hand and the places in his power, had written so! But that cursed Stubbs had blocked his play in that direction by a.s.serting that it was hopeless, though Audley himself began at this late hour to suspect that it had not been hopeless! That it had been far from hopeless!

In his chagrin my lord tore the Whip's letter across and across, and then prudently gummed it together again and locked it away. Certainly the odds were long that it would never be honored; on the one side stood Peel with four-fifths of his Cabinet and half his party, with all the Whigs, all the Radicals, all the League, and the Big Loaf: on the other stood the landed interest! Just the landed interest led by Lord George Bentinck, handsome and debonair, the darling of the Turf, the owner of Crucifix; but hitherto a silent member, and one at whom, as a leader, the world gaped. Only, behind this Joseph there lurked a Benjamin, one whose barbed shafts were many a time to clear the field. The lists were open, the lances were levelled, the slogan of Free Trade was met by the cry of "The Land and the Const.i.tution!" and while old friends.h.i.+ps were torn asunder and old allies cut adrift, town and country, forge and field, met in a furious grapple that promised to be final.

If, amid the dust of such a conflict, the riot at Riddsley obtained a pa.s.sing notice in London, intense it may be believed was the excitement which it caused in the borough. Hatton and Banfield and their men went about, vowing to take vengeance at the hustings. The mayor went about, swearing in constables. The farmers and their allies went about grinning. Fights took place nightly behind the Packhorse and the Portcullis, while very old ladies, peering over their blinds, talked of the French Revolution, and very young ones thought that the Militia, adequately officered, should be brought into the town.

The spirit of which Ba.s.set had given proof was blazoned about; and he gained in another way. He was one of those to whom a spice of danger is a fillip, whom a little peril shakes out of themselves. On the day after the riot he came upon a score of people collected round a Cheap Jack in the market. The man presently closed his patter and his stall, and, on the impulse of the moment, Ba.s.set took his place and made the crowd a speech as short as it was simple. He told them that in his opinion it was impossible to keep food out of the country by a tax while Ireland was threatened by famine. Secondly, that the sacrifice which Peel was making of his party, his reputation, and his consistency was warrant that in his view the change was urgently needed. Thirdly, he asked them whether the farmers were so prosperous and the laborers so comfortable that change must be for the worse. But here he came on delicate ground; murmurs arose and some hisses, and he broke off good-humoredly, thanked the crowd, which had grown to a good size, and, stepping down from his barrow, he walked away amid plaudits. The thing was reported, and though the Tories sneered at it as a hole-and-corner meeting, Farthingale held another view. He told Mr. Stubbs that it was a neat thing--very well done.

Stubbs grunted. "Will it change a vote?" he growled.

"Change a----"

"Will it change a vote, man? You heard what I said."

"Lord, no!" the clerk answered. "I never said it would!"

"Then why trouble about it?" Stubbs retorted fretfully. "Get on with those poll-cards! I don't pay you a guinea a day at election time to praise monkey-tricks."

For Stubbs was not happy. He knew, indeed, that the breaking-up of the open-air meeting had been fairly successful. It had brought back two votes to the fold; and he calculated that the seat would be held. But by a majority how narrow, how fallen, how discreditable! He blushed to think of it.

And other things made him unhappy. Those who are politicians by trade are like cardplayers, who play for the game's sake; one game lost, they cut and deal as keenly as before. Behind the politicians, however, are a few to whom the stake is something; and of these was Stubbs. To him, as we know, the Corn-Tax was no mere toll, but the protection of agriculture, the well-head that guarded the pure waters, the fence that saved from smoke and steam, from slag-heap and brickfield, the smiling face of England. For him, the home of his fathers, the land of field and stubble, of plough and pinfold, was at stake; nay, was pa.s.sing, wasted by men who thought in percentages and saw no farther than the columns of their ledgers. To that England of his memory--whether it had ever existed in fact or no--a hundred a.s.sociations bound the lawyer; things tender and things true; quaint memories of his first turkey's nest, of the last load of the harvest, of the loosened plough horses straying to the water at the close of day, of the flat paintings of the Durham Ox and the c.o.ke Ram that adorned the farm parlor.

To the men who bade him look up and see that in his Elysium the farmer struggled and the laborer starved, his answer was short. "Better ten s.h.i.+llings and fresh air, than shoddy dust and a pound a week!"

In the country as a whole--and as time went on--he despaired of success. But he found Lord George a leader after his own heart, and many an evening he pored over the long paragraphs of his long-winded speeches. When he heard that the owner of Crucifix had dismissed his trainers, released his jockeys, sold his stud, and turned his back on the turf, he could have wept. Lord George and Stubbs, indeed, were the true country party. For Lord George's sake Stubbs was prepared to taken even the "Jew boy" to his heart.

As to the potato famine, he did not believe a word of it. He called the Premier, "Potato Peel!"

The rains of February are apt to damp enthusiasm, but before eleven o'clock on the nomination day Riddsley was like a hive of bees about to swarm. The throng in the streets was such that Mottisfont could hardly pa.s.s through it. He made his entry into the borough on horseback at the head of a hundred mounted farmers wearing blue sashes and favors. Before him reeled a huge banner upheld by eight men and bearing on one side the legend, "The Land and the Const.i.tution," on the other, "Mottisfont the Farmers' Friend!" Behind the hors.e.m.e.n, and surrounded by a guard of laborers in smocked frocks, moved a plough mounted on a wain and drawn by eight farm horses. Flags with "Speed the Plough," "England's Share is England's Fare," and "Peace and Plenty," streamed from it. Three bands of varying degrees of badness found their places where they could, and thumped and blared against one another until the panes rattled in the deafened streets. The butchers, with marrow-bones and cleavers, brought up the rear, and in comparison were tuneful.

Had Ba.s.set got his way, he would have dispensed with pomp and walked the hundred yards which separated his quarters at the Swan from the hustings. But he was told that this would never do. What would the landlord of the Swan say, who kept postchaises? And the postboys who looked for a golden tip? And the men who would hand him in and hand him out, and the men who would open the door and shut the door, and the men who would raise the steps and lower the steps, who would all look for the same tip? So, perforce, he drove in state to the Town Hall--before which the hustings stood--in a barouche and four accompanied by Banfield and Hatton and his agent. The rest of his Committee followed in postchaises. A bodyguard of "hands" escorted them, and they, too, had their bands--of equal badness--and their yellow banners with "Down with the Corn Laws," "Vote for Ba.s.set the Poor Man's Friend," and "No Bread Taxes." The great and little loaf pranced in front of him on spears, and if his procession was not quite so fine or so large as his opponent's, it must be admitted that the blackguards of the town showed no preference and that he could boast about an equal number of the tagrag and bobtail.

The left hand of the hustings was allotted to him, the right hand to Mottisfont, and by a little after eleven both parties had crammed and crushed, With bl.u.s.tering, bullying, and brow-beating, A little pummelling and maltreating, And elbowing, jostling and cajoling, into their places in front of the platform, the bullies and truncheon-men being posted well to the fore, or craftily ranged where the frontiers met. The bands boomed and blared, the men huzzaed, the air shook, the banners waved, every window that looked out upon the seething mob was white with faces, every 'vantage-point was occupied. It was such a day and such a contest as Riddsley had never seen. The eyes of the country, it was felt, were upon it! Fights took place every five minutes, oaths and bets flew like hail over the heads of the crowd, coa.r.s.e wit met coa.r.s.er nicknames, and now and again shrieks varied the hubbub as the huge press of people, gathered from miles round, swayed under the impact of some vicious rush.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Mottisfont for ever! Ba.s.set! Ba.s.set and the Big Loaf! Ba.s.set! Ba.s.set! Hurrah! Mottisfont! Hurrah!"

Then, in a short-lived silence, "Ten to one on Mottisfont! Three cheers for the Duke!" and a roar of laughter.

Or a hundred voices would raise John Barley-corn, my Joe, John! When we were first acquaint!

but never got beyond the first two lines, either because they were howled down or they knew no more of the words. The Peelites answered with their mournful, Child, is thy father dead? Father is gone! Why did they tax his bread? G.o.d's will be done!

or with the quicker, Oh, landlords' devil take Thy own elect I pray! Who taxed our cake, and took our cake, And threw our cake away!

On this would ensue a volley of personalities. "What would you be without your starch, Hayward?" "How's your dad, Farthingale?" "Who whopped his wife last Sat.u.r.day?" "Hurrah! Hurrah! Who said Potatoes?"

For nearly an hour this went on, the blare of the bands, the uproar, the cheering, the abuse never ceasing. Then the town-crier appeared upon the vacant hustings. He rang his bell for silence and for a moment obtained it. On his heels entered, first the mayor and his a.s.sistants, then the candidates, the proposers, the seconders. Each, as he made his appearance, was greeted with a storm of groans, cheers, and cat-calls. Each put on to meet it such a show of ease as he could, some smiling, some affecting ignorance. The candidates and their supporters filed to either side, while the fl.u.s.tered mayor took his stand in the middle with the town clerk at his elbow.

Ba.s.set, nearly at the end of his troubles, sought comfort in looking beyond the present moment. He feared that he was not likely to win, but he had done his duty, he had made his effort, and soon he would be free to repeat that effort on a smaller stage. Soon, these days, that in horror rivalled the middle pa.s.sage of the slave trade, would be over, and if he were not elected he would be free to retire to Blore, and to spend days, lonely and sad indeed, but clean, in the improvement of his acres and his people. His eyes dwelt upon the sea of faces, and from time to time he smiled; but his mind was far away. He thought with horror of elections, and with loathing of the sordid round of flattery and handshaking, of bribery and intimidation from which he emerged. Thank G.o.d, the morrow would see the end! He would have done his best, and played his part. And it would be over.

What the mayor said and what the town clerk said is of no importance, for no one heard them. The proposers, the seconders, the candidates, all spoke in dumb show. Ba.s.set dwelt briefly on the crisis in Ireland, the integrity of Peel, and the doubtful wisdom of taxing that which, to the poorest, was a necessity of life. If bread were cheaper all would have more to spend on other things and the farmer would have a wider market for his meat, his wool, and his cheese. It read well in the local paper.

But one man was heard. This was a man who was not expected to speak, whose creed it had ever been that speeches were useless, and whom tradition almost forbade to speak, for he was an agent. At the last moment, when a seconder for a formal motion was needed, he thrust himself forward to the astonishment of all. The same astonishment stilled the mob as they gazed on the well-known figure. For a minute or two, curiosity and the purpose in the man's face, held even his opponents silent.

The man was Stubbs; and from the moment he showed himself it was plain that he was acting under the stress of great emotion. The very fuglemen forgot to interrupt him. They scented something out of the common.

"I have never spoken on the hustings in my life," he said. "I speak now to warn you. I believe that you, the electors of Riddsley, are going to sell the birthright of health which you have received; and the heritage of freedom which this land has enjoyed for generations and on which the power of Bonaparte broke as on a rock. You think you are going to have cheap bread, and, maybe, you are! But at what a cost! Cheap bread is foreign bread. To you, the laborers, I say that foreign bread means that the fields you till will be laid to gra.s.s and you will go to work in Dudley and Walsall and Bury and Bolton, in mills and pits and smoke and dust! And your children will be dwarfed and wizened and puny! Foreign bread means that. And it means that the day will come when war will cut off your bread and you will starve; or the will of the foreigner who feeds you will cut it off--for he will be your master. I say, grow your own bread and eat your own bread, and you will be free men. Eat foreign bread and in time you will be slaves! No land that is fed by another land----"

His last words were lost. Signals from furious princ.i.p.als roused the fuglemen, and he was howled down, and stood back ashamed of the impulse which had moved him and little less astonished than those about him. Young Mottisfont clapped him on the back and affected to make much of him. But even he hardly knew how to take it. Some said that Stubbs had had tears in his eyes, while the opposing agent whispered to his neighbor that the lawyer was breaking and would never handle another contest. Sober men shook their heads; agents should hardly be seen, much less heard!

But Stubbs's words were marked, and when the bad times came thirty years later, aged farmers recalled them and thought over them. Nor were they without fruit at the time. For next morning when the poll opened, Ba.s.set's people suffered a shock. Two men on whom he had counted appeared and voted short and sharp for Mottisfont. Ba.s.set's agent asked them pleasantly if they were not making a mistake; and then less pleasantly had the Bribery Oath administered to them. But they stuck to their guns, the votes were recorded, and Mottisfont shook hands with them. Later in the day when the two were fuddled they denied that they had voted for Mottisfont. They had voted for old Stubbs--and they would do it again and fight any man who said to the contrary. Their desire in this direction was quickly met, and both, to the indignation of the Tories, were fined five s.h.i.+llings at the next petty sessions.

Whether this start gave the Protectionists a fillip or no, they were in great spirits, and Mottisfont was up and down shaking hands all the morning. At noon the figures as exhibited outside the Mottisfont Committee-room--amid tremendous cheering--were: Mottisfont ... 41 Ba.s.set ..... 30 though Ba.s.set outside his Committee-room claimed one more. Soon after twelve Hatton brought up the two Boshams in his carriage, and Ben, recovered from his fright, flung his hat before him into the booth, danced a war-dance on the steps, and gave three cheers for Ba.s.set as he came down. Banfield brought up three more voters in his carriage and thence onward until one o'clock the polling was rapid. The one o'clock board showed: Mottisfont ... 60 Ba.s.set ..... 57 with seventy votes to poll. The Mottisfont party began to look almost as blue as their favors, but Stubbs, returned to his senses, continued to read his newspaper in a closet behind the Committee-room, as if there were no contest within a hundred miles of Riddsley.

During the next three hours little was done. The poll-clerks sent out for pots of beer, the watchers drowsed, the candidates were invisible--some said that they had gone to dine with the mayor. The bludgeon-men and blackguards went home to sleep off their morning's drink, and to recruit themselves for the orgy of the Chairing. The crowd before the polling booth shrank to a knot of loafing lads and a stray dog. At four Mottisfont still held the lead with 64 to 61.

But as the clock struck four the town awoke. Word went round that a message from Sir Robert Peel would be read outside Ba.s.set's Committee-room. Hearers were whipped up, and the message, having been read with much parade, was posted up through the town and as promptly pulled down. Animated by the message, and making as much of it as if it had not been held back for the purpose, the Peelites polled five-and-twenty votes in rapid succession, and at half-past four issued a huge placard with: Ba.s.set ..... 87 Mottisfont ... 83 Vote for Ba.s.set and the Big Loaf! Ba.s.set wins!

Great was the enthusiasm, loud the cheering, vast the stir outside their Committee-room. The Big and the Little Loaf waltzed out on their poles. The placard, mounted as a banner, was entrusted to the two Boshams. The band was ready, a dozen flares were ready, the Committee were ready, all was ready for a last rally which might decide the one or two doubtful voters. All was ready, but where was Mr. Ba.s.set? Where was the candidate?

He could not be found, and great was the hubbub, vast the running to and fro. "The Candidate? Where's the Candidate?" One ran to the Swan, another to the polling-booth, a third to his agent's office. He could not be found. All that was known of him or could be learned was that a tall man, who looked like an undertaker, had stopped him near the polling-booth and had kept him in talk for some minutes. From that time he had been seen by no one.

Foul play was talked of, and the search went on, but meantime the procession--the poll closed at half-past six--must start if it was to do any good. It did so, and with its flares, its swaying placard, its running riff-raff, now luridly thrown up by the lights, now lost in shadow, formed the most picturesque scene that the election had witnessed. The absence of the candidate was a drawback, and some shook their heads over it. But the more knowing put their tongues in their cheeks, aware that whether he were there or not, and whether they marched or stayed at home, neither side would be a vote the better!

At half--past five the figures were, Ba.s.set ..... 87 Mottisfont ... 86 There were still fourteen votes to poll, and on the face of things victory hung in the balance.

But at that hour Stubbs moved. He laid down his newspaper, gave Farthingale an order, took up a slip of paper and his hat, and went by way of the darkest street to The b.u.t.terflies. He walked thoughtfully, with his chin on his breast, as if he had no great appet.i.te for the interview before him. By the time he reached the house the poll stood at Mottisfont ... 96 Ba.s.set ..... 87 And long and loud was the cheering, wild the triumph of the landed interest. The town was fuller than ever, for during the last hour the farmers and their men had trooped in, Brown Heath had sent its colliers, and a crowd filling every yard of s.p.a.ce within eye-shot of the polling-booth greeted the news. To h.e.l.l with Peel! Down with Cobden! Away with the League! Hurrah! Hurrah! Stubbs, had he been there, would have been carried shoulder-high. Old Hayward was lifted and carried, old Musters of the Audley Arms, one or two of the Committee. It was known that four votes only remained unpolled, so that Mottisfont's victory was secure.

At The b.u.t.terflies, whither the cheering of the crowd came in gusts that rose and fell by turns, Stubbs nodded to the maid and went up the stairs unannounced. Audley was writing at a side-table facing the room. He looked up eagerly. "Well?" he said, putting down his quill. "Is it over?"

Stubbs laid the slip of paper before him. "It's not over, my lord," he answered soberly. "But that is the result. I am sorry that it is no better."

Audley looked at the paper. "Nine!" he exclaimed. He looked at Stubbs, he looked again at the paper. "Nine? Good G--d, man, you don't mean it? You can't mean it! You don't mean that that is the best we could do?"

"We hold the seat, my lord," Stubbs said.

"Hold the seat!" Audley replied, staring at him with furious eyes. "Hold the seat? But I thought that it was a safe seat? I thought that it was a seat that couldn't be lost! When five, only five, votes would have cast it the other way! Why, man, you cannot have known anything about it! No more about it than the first man in the street!"

"My lord----"

"Not a jot more!" Audley repeated. He had been prepared for something like this, but the certainty that if he had cast his weight on the other side, the side that had sinecures and places and pensions, he would have turned the scale--this was too much for his temper. "Nine!" he rapped out with another oath. "I can only think that the Election has been mismanaged! Grievously, grievously mismanaged, Mr. Stubbs!"

"If your lords.h.i.+p thinks so----"

"I do!" Audley retorted, his certainty that the man before him had thwarted his plans, carrying him farther than he intended. "I do! Nine! Good G--d, man! When you a.s.sured me----"

"Whatever I a.s.sured your lords.h.i.+p," Stubbs said firmly, "I believed. And--no, my lord, you must allow me to speak now--what I promised would have been borne out--fully borne out by the result in normal times. But I did not allow enough for the split in the party, nor for the wave of madness----"

"As you think it!"

"And surely as your lords.h.i.+p also thinks it!" Stubbs rejoined smartly, "that has swept over the country! In these circ.u.mstances it is something to hold the seat, which a return to sanity will certainly a.s.sure to us at the next election."

"The next election!" Audley muttered scornfully. For the moment he was too angry to play a part or to drape his feelings.

"But if your lords.h.i.+p is dissatisfied----"

"Dissatisfied? I am d--nably dissatisfied."

"Then your lords.h.i.+p has the power," Stubbs said slowly, "to dispense with my services."

"I know that, sir."

"And if you do not think fit to take that step, my lord----"

"I shall consider it!"

Another word or two and the deed had been done, for both men were too angry to fence. But before that last word was spoken Audley's man entered. He handed a card to his master and waited.

Audley looked at the card longer than was necessary and under cover of the pause regained control of himself. "Who brought this?" he asked.

"A messenger from the Swan, my lord."

"Tell him----" He broke off. Holding out the card for Stubbs to take, "Do you know anything about this?" he asked.

Stubbs returned the card. "No, my lord," he said coldly. "I know nothing."

"Business of great importance to me? D--n his impudence, what business important to me can he have?" Audley muttered. Then, "My compliments to Mr. Ba.s.set and I am leaving in the morning, but I shall be at home this evening at nine."

The servant retired. Audley looked askance at his agent. "You'd better be here," he muttered ungraciously. "We can settle what we were talking about later."

"Very good, my lord," Stubbs answered. And nothing more being said, he took himself off.

He was not sorry that they had been interrupted. Much of his income and more of his importance sprang from the Audley agency, but rather than be treated as if he were a servant, he would surrender both--in his way he was a proud man. Still he did not want to give up either; and if time were given he thought that his lords.h.i.+p would think better of the matter.

As he returned to his office, choosing the quiet streets by which he had come, he had a glimpse, through an opening, of the distant Market-place. A sound of cheering, a glare of smoky light, a medley of leaping, running forms, a something uplifted above the crowd, moved across his line of vision. Almost as quickly it vanished, leaving only the reflection of retreating torches. "Hurrah! Hurrah for Mottisfont! Hurrah!" Still the cheering came faintly to his ears.

He sighed. Riddsley had remained faithful-by nine! But he did not deceive himself. It was the writing on the wall. The Corn Laws were doomed, and with them much that he had loved, much that he cherished, much in which he believed.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

A TURN OF THE WHEEL.

Audley was suspicious and ill at ease. Standing on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire, he fixed the visitor with his eyes, and with secret anxiety asked himself what he wanted. The possibility that Ba.s.set came to champion Mary had crossed his mind more than once; if that were so he would soon dispose of him! In the meantime he took civility for his cue, exchanged an easy word or two about the poll and the election, and between times nodded to Stubbs to be seated. Through all, his eyes were watchful and he missed nothing.

"I asked Mr. Stubbs to be here," he said when a minute or two had been spent in this by-play, "as you spoke of business. You don't object?"

"Not at all," Ba.s.set replied. His face was grave. "I should tell you at once, Audley," he added, "that my mission is not a pleasant one."

The other raised his eyebrows. "You are sure that it concerns me?"

"It certainly concerns you. Though, as things stand, not very materially. I knew nothing of the matter myself until three o'clock to-day, and at first I doubted if it was my duty to communicate it. But the facts are known to a third person, they may be used to annoy you in the future, and though the task is unpleasant, I decided that I had no option."

Audley set his broad shoulders against the mantel-shelf. "But if the facts don't affect me?" he said.

"In a way they do. Not as they might under other circ.u.mstances. That is all."

"And yet you are making our hair stand on end! I confess you puzzle me. Well, let us have it. What is it all about?"

"A little time ago you recovered, if you remember, your Family Bible." "Well? What of that?"

"I have just learned that the man did not hand over all that he had. He kept back--it now appears--certain papers."

"Ah!" Audley's voice was stern. "Well, he has had his chance. This time, I can promise him a warrant will follow."

"Perhaps you will hear me out first?"

"No," was the sharp reply. Audley's temper was getting the better of him. "Last time, my dear fellow, you compounded with him; your motive an excellent one I don't doubt. But if he now thinks to get more money from me--and for other papers--I can promise him that he will see the inside of Stafford gaol. Besides, my good friend, you gave us to understand that he had surrendered all he had."

"I am afraid I did, and I fear I was wrong. Why he deceived me, and has now turned about, I know no more than you do!"

"I think I can enlighten you," the other answered--his fears as well as his temper were aroused. "The rogue is shallow. He thinks to be paid twice. Once by you and once by me. But you can tell him that this time he will be paid in other coin."

"I'm afraid that there is more in it than that," Ba.s.set said. "The fact is the papers he now produces, Audley, are of another character."

"Oh! The wind blows in that quarter, does it?" my lord replied. "You don't mean that you've come here--why, d--n it, man," with sudden pa.s.sion, "either you are very simple, or you are art and part----"