Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Nor was this the worst. The cloth factory stood close to the bridge. The procession must pass it. And the hands employed in it, hostile to a man, were gathered before the doorway, in their aprons and paper caps, waiting to give the show a reception. They had much to say already, their jeers and taunts filling the air; but White had a shrewd suspicion that they had worse missiles in their pockets.

  Still, he had secured the attendance of a score of sturdy fellows, sons of Sir Robert’s farmers, and these, with a proportion of the tagrag and bobtail of the town, gave a fairly solid aspect to his party. Nor was the jeering all on one side, though that deep and unpleasant groaning which now and again rolled down the street was wholly Whiggish.

  Alas, it was when the agent came to analyse his men that he had most need of the smile that deceives. True, the rector was there and the curate of Eastport, and the clerk and the sexton — the two last-named were voters. And there were also four or five squires arrayed in support of the gentlemanly interest, and as many young bucks come to see the fun. Then there were three other voters: the Alderman, who was a small grocer, and Annibal the basketmaker — these two were stalwarts — and Dewell the barber, also staunch, but a timid man. There was no Dyas, however, Sir Robert’s burliest supporter in old days, and his absence was marked. Nor any Thrush the pig-killer — the jaws of a Radical gaol held him. Nor, last and heaviest blow of all — for it had fallen without warning — was there any Pillinger of the Blue Duck. Pillinger, his wife said, was ill. What was worse he was in the hands of a Radical doctor capable, the agent believed, of hocussing him until the polling was over. The truth about Pillinger — whether he lay ill or whether he lay shamming, whether he was at the mercy of the apothecary or under the thumb of his wife — White could not learn. He hoped to learn it before it was too late. But for the present Pillinger was not here.

  The Alderman, Annibal, Dewell, the clerk, the sexton, and Arthur Vaughan. White totted them up again and again and made them six. The Bowood voters he made five — four stalwarts and Dyas the butcher.

  Certainly he might still poll Pillinger. But, on the other hand, Mr. Vaughan might arrive too late. White had written to his address in town, and receiving no answer had sent an express to Bristol on the chance that the young gentleman was still there. Probably he would be in time. But when things are so very close — and when there were alarm and defeat in the air — men grow nervous. White smiled as he chatted with the pompous Rector and the country squires, but he was very anxious. He thought of old Sir Robert at Stapylton, and he sweated at the notion of defeat. Cobbett had reached his mind, but Sir Robert had his heart!

  “Boo!” moaned the crowd higher up the street. The sound sank and the harsh voice of a speaker came fitfully over the heads of the people.

  “Who’s that?” asked old Squire Rowley, one of the country gentlemen.

  “Some spouter from Bristol, sir, I fancy,” the agent replied contemptuously. And with his eye he whipped in a couple of hobbledehoys who seemed inclined to stray towards the enemy.

  “I suppose,” the Squire continued, lowering his voice, “you can depend on your men, White?”

  “Oh, Lord, yes, sir,” White answered; like a good election agent he took no one into his confidence. “We’ve enough here to do the trick. Besides, young Mr. Vaughan will be here to-morrow, and the landlord of the Blue Duck, who is not well enough to walk to-day, will poll. He’d break his heart, bless you,” White continued, with a brow of brass, “if he could not vote for Sir Robert!”

  “Seven to five.”

  “Seven to four, sir.”

  “But Dyas, I hear, the d —— d rogue, will vote against you?”

  White winked.

  “Bad,” he said cryptically, “but not as bad as that, sir.”

  “Oh! oh!” quoth the other, nodding, “I see.” And then, glancing at the gang before the cloth works, whose taunts of “Flunkies!” and “Sell your birthright, will you?” were constant and vicious, “You’ve no fear there’ll be violence, White?” he asked.

  “Lord, no, sir,” White answered; “you know what election rows are, all bark and no bite!”

  “Still I hear that at Bath, where I’m told Lord Brecknock stands a poor chance, they are afraid of a riot.”

  “Ay, ay, sir,” White answered indifferently, “this isn’t Bath.”

  “Precisely,” the Rector struck in, in pompous tones. “I should like to see anything of that kind here! They would soon,” he continued with an air, “find that I am not on the commission of the peace for nothing! I shall make, and I am sure you will make,” he went on, turning to his brother justice, “very short work of them! I should like to see anything of that kind tried here!”

  White nodded, but in his heart he thought that his reverence was likely to have his wish gratified. However, no more was said, for the approach of the Stapylton carriages, with their postillions, outriders and favours, was signalled by persons who had been placed to watch for them, and the party on the bridge, falling into violent commotion, raised their flags and banners and hastened to form an escort on either side of the roadway. As the gaily-decked carriages halted on the crest of the bridge, loud greetings were exchanged. The five voters took up a position of honour, seats in the carriages were found for three or four of the more important gentry, and seven or eight others got to horse. Meanwhile those of the smaller folk, who thought that they had a claim to the recognition of the candidates, were gratified, and stood back blushing, or being disappointed stood back glowering; all this amid confusion and cheering on the bridge and shrill jeers on the part of the cloth hands. Then the flags were waved aloft, the band of five, of which the drummer could truly say “Pars magna fui,” struck up “See, the Conquering Hero Comes!” and White stood back for a last look.

  Then, “Shout, lads, shout!” he cried, waving his hat. “Don’t let ‘em have it all their own way!” And with a roar of defiance, not quite so loud or full as the gentlemanly interest had raised of old, the procession got under way, and, led by a banner bearing “Our Ancient Constitution!” in blue letters on a red ground, swayed spasmodically up the street. The candidates for the suffrages of the electors of Chippinge had passed the threshold of the borough. “Hurrah! Yah! Hurrah! Yah! Yah! Yah! Down with the Borough-mongers. Our Ancient Constitution! Hurrah! Boo! Boo!”

  White had his eye on the clothmen, and under its spell they did not go beyond hooting and an egg or two, spared from the polling day, and flung at long range when the Tories had passed. No one was struck, and the carriages moved onward, more or less triumphantly. Sergeant Wathen, who was in the first, and whose sharp black eyes moved hither and thither in search of friends, rose repeatedly to bow. But Mr. Cooke, who did not forget that he was paying two thousand five hundred pounds for his seat, and thought that it should be a soft one, scarcely deigned to move. For as the procession advanced into the town the clamour of the crowd which lined the narrow High Street and continually shouted “The Bill! The Bill!” drowned the utmost efforts of Sir Robert’s friends, and left no doubt of the popular feeling.

  There was some good-humoured pushing and thrusting, the drum beating and the church bells jangling bravely above the hubbub. And once or twice the rabble came near to cutting the procession in two. But there was no real attempt at mischief, and all went well until the foremost carriage was abreast of the Cross, which stands at the head of the High Street, where the latter debouches into the space before the Abbey.

  Then some foolish person gave the word to halt before Dyas the butcher’s. And a voice — it was not White’s — cried, “Three groans for the Radical Rat! Rat! Rat!”

  The groans were given before the crowd fully understood their meaning or the motive for the stoppage. The drummer beat out something which he meant for the Rogues’ March, and an unseen hand raising a large dead rat, tied to a stick, waved it before the butcher’s first-floor windows.

  The effect was surprising — to old-fashioned folk. In a twinkling, with a shout of “D
own with the Borough-mongers!” a gang of white-aproned clothmen rushed the rear of the procession, drove it in upon the main body, and amid screams and uproar forced the whole line out of the narrow street into the space before the Abbey. Fortunately the White Lion, which faced the Abbey, stood only a score of paces to the left of the Cross, and the carriages were able to reach it; but in disorder, pressed on by such a fighting, swaying, shouting crowd as Chippinge had not seen for many a year.

  It was no time to stand on dignity. The candidates tumbled out as best they could, their chief supporters followed them, and while half a dozen single combats proceeded at their elbows, they hastened across the pavement into the house. The Rector alone disdained to flee. Once on the threshold of the inn, he turned and raised his hat above his head:

  “Order!” he cried, “Order! Do you hear me!”

  But “Yah! Borough-monger!” the rabble answered, and before he could say more a young farmer was hurled against him, and a whip, of which a postillion had just been despoiled, whizzed past his head. He, too, turned tail at that, with his face a shade paler than usual; and with his retreat resistance ceased. The carriages were hustled somehow and anyhow into the yard, and there the greater part of the procession also took refuge. A few, sad to say, sneaked off and got rid of their badges, and a few more escaped through a neighbouring alley. No one was much hurt; a few black eyes were the worst of the mischief, nor could it be said that any vindictive feeling was shown. But the town was swept clear, and the victory of the Radicals was complete. Left in possession of the open space before the Abbey, they paraded for some time under the windows of the White Lion, waving a captured flag, and cheering and groaning by turns.

  Meantime in the hall of the inn the grandees were smoothing their ruffled plumes, in a state of mind in which it was hard to say whether indignation or astonishment had larger place. Oaths flew thick as hail, unrebuked by the Church, the most outspoken perhaps being by the landlord, who met them with a pale face.

  “Good Lord, good Lord, gentlemen!” he said, “what violence! What violence! What are we coming to next? What’s took the people, gentlemen? Isn’t Sir Robert here?”

  For to this simple person it seemed impossible that people should behave badly in that presence.

  “No, he’s not!” Mr. Cooke answered with choler. “I’d like to know why he’s not! I wish to Heaven” — only he did not say “Heaven”— “that he were here, and he’d see what sort of thing he has let us into!”

  “Ah, well, ah, well!” returned the more discreet and philosophic Sergeant, “shouting breaks no bones. We are all here, I hope? And after all, this shows up the Bill in a pretty strong light, eh, Rector? If it is to be carried by methods such as these — these—”

  “D —— d barefaced intimidation!” Squire Rowley growled.

  “Or if it is to give votes to such persons as these — —”

  “D —— d Jacobins! Republicans every one!” interposed the Squire.

  “It will soon be plain to all,” the Sergeant concluded, in his House of Commons manner, “that it is a most revolutionary, dangerous, and — and unconstitutional measure, gentlemen.”

  “By G — d!” Mr. Cooke cried — he was thinking that if this was the kind of thing he was to suffer he might as well have fought Taunton or Preston, or any other open borough, and kept his money in his pocket— “by G — d, I wish Lord John were stifled in the mud he’s stirred up, and Gaffer Grey with him!”

  “You can add Bruffam, if you like,” Wathen answered good-humouredly — he was not paying two thousand five hundred guineas for his seat. “And rid me of a rival and the country of a pest, Cooke! But come, gentlemen, now we’re here and no bones broken, shall we sit down? We are all safe, I trust, Mr. White? And especially — my future constituents?” with a glance of his shrewd Jewish-looking eyes.

  “Yes, sir, no harm done,” White replied as cheerfully as he could; which was not overcheerfully, for in all his experience of Chippinge he had known nothing like this; and he was a trifle scared. “Yes, sir,” he continued, looking round, “all here, I think! And — and by Jove,” in a tone of relief, “one more than I expected! Mr. Vaughan! I am glad, sir, very glad, sir,” he added heartily, “to see you. Very glad!”

  The young man who had alighted from his postchaise a few minutes before did not, in appearance at least, reciprocate the feeling. He looked sulky and bored. But he shook the outstretched hand; he could do no less. Then, saying scarcely a word, he stood back again. He had hastened to Chippinge on receiving White’s belated express, but rather because, irritated by the collision with Flixton, he welcomed any change, than because he was sure what he would do. In the chaise he had thought more of Mary than of politics, more of the Honourable Bob than of his cousin. And though, as far as Sir Robert was concerned, he was resolved to be frank and to play the man, his mind had travelled no farther.

  Now, thrown suddenly among these people, he was, in a churlish way, taken somewhat aback. But, in a thoroughly bad temper, he told himself it did not matter. If they did not like the line he was going to take, that was their business. He was not responsible to them. In fine, he was in a savage mood, with half his mind here and the other half dwelling on the events of the morning. For the moment politics seemed to him a poor game, and what he did or did not do of little consequence!

  White and the others were not blind to his manner, and might have resented it in another. But Sir Robert’s heir was a great man and had a right to moods if any man had; doubtless he was become a fine gentleman and thought it a nuisance to vote in his own borough. They were all politeness to him, therefore, and while his eyes passed haughtily beyond them, seeking Sir Robert, they presented to him those whom he did not know.

  “Very kind of you to come, Mr. Vaughan,” said the Sergeant, who, like many browbeaters, could be a sycophant at need. “Very kind indeed! I don’t know whether you know Mr. Cooke? He, equally with me, is obliged to you for your attendance.”

  “Greatly obliged, sir,” Mr. Cooke muttered. “Certainly, certainly.”

  Vaughan bowed coldly.

  “Is not Sir Robert here?” he asked.

  He was still looking beyond those to whom he spoke.

  “No, Mr. Vaughan.”

  And then, “This way to dinner,” White cried loudly. “Come, gentlemen! Dinner, gentlemen, dinner!”

  And Vaughan, heedless what he did or where he dined, but inclined in a sardonic way to amuse himself, went in with them. What did it matter? He was not going to vote for them. But that was his business, and Sir Robert’s. He was not responsible to them.

  Certainly he was in a very bad temper.

  XIII

  THE VERMUYDEN DINNER

  Vaughan began to think more soberly of his position when he found himself set down at the table. He had White, who took one end, on his right; and the Sergeant was opposite him. At the other end the Alderman presided, supported by Mr. Cooke and the Rector.

  The young man looked down the board, at the vast tureens that smoked on it, and at the faces, smug or jolly, hungry or expectant, that surrounded them; and amid the flood of talk which burst forth the moment his reverence had said a short grace, he began to feel the situation uncomfortable. True, he had a sort of right to be there, as the heir, and a Vermuyden. True, too, he owed nothing to anyone there; nothing to the Sergeant, whom he secretly disliked, nothing to Mr. Cooke, whom he despised — in his heart he was as exclusive as Sir Robert himself — nothing to White, who would one day be his paid dependant. He owed them no explanation. Why then should he expose himself to their anger and surprise? He would be silent and speak only when the time came, and he could state his views to Sir Robert with a fair chance of a fair hearing.

  Still he saw that the position in which he had placed himself was a false one: and might become ridiculous. And it crossed his mind to feign illness and to go out and incontinently walk over to Stapylton and see Sir Robert. Or he might tell White quietly that he did not find himself able
to support his cousin’s nominations: and before the news got abroad he might withdraw and let them think what they would. But he was too proud to do the one, and in too sulky a mood to do the other. And he sat still.

  “Where is Sir Robert?” he asked.

  “He left home on a sudden call, this morning, sir,” White explained; wondering what made the young squire — who was wont to be affable — so distant. “On unexpected business.”

  “It must have been important as well as unexpected,” Wathen said, with a smile, “to take Sir Robert away today, Mr. White.”

  “It was both, sir, as I understood,” White answered, “for Sir Robert did not make me acquainted with it. He seemed somewhat put out — more put out than I have often seen him. But he said that whatever happened he would be back before the nomination.” And then, turning to Vaughan, “You must have passed him, sir?” he added.

  “Well, now I think of it,” Vaughan answered, his spoon suspended, “I did. I met a travelling carriage and four with jackets like his. But, I thought it was empty.”

  “No, sir, that was Sir Robert. He will not be best pleased,” White continued, turning to the Sergeant, “when he hears what a reception we had!”

  “Ah, well, ah, well!” the Sergeant replied — pleasantness was his cue to-day. “Things are worse in Bath I’ll be sworn, Mr. White.”