Ralph the Heir Part 32

"Ah;--then I can just write a few letters," said Sir Thomas.

"I wouldn't mind letters now if I was you. If you don't mind, we'll go and look up the parsons. There are four or five of 'em, and they like to be seen;--not in the way of canva.s.sing. They're all right, of course. And there's two of 'em won't leave a stone unturned in the outside hamlets. But they like to be seen, and their wives like it."

Whereupon Mr. Trigger ordered breakfast,--and eat it. Sir Thomas reminded himself that a fortnight was after all but a short duration of time. He might live through a fortnight,--probably,--and then when Mr. Griffenbottom came it would be shared between two.

At noon he returned to the Percy Standard, very tired, there to await the coming of Mr. Griffenbottom. Mr. Griffenbottom didn't come till three, and then bustled up into the sitting-room, which Sir Thomas had thought was his own, as though all Percycross belonged to him. During the last three hours supporters had been in and out continually, and Mr. Pabsby had made an ineffectual attempt or two to catch Sir Thomas alone. Trigger had been going up and down between the Standard and the station. Various men, friends and supporters of Griffenbottom and Underwood, had been brought to him. Who were paid agents, who were wealthy townsmen, who were canva.s.sers and messengers, he did not know. There were bottles on the sideboard the whole time. Sir Thomas, in a speculative manner, endeavouring to realise to himself the individuality of this and that stranger, could only conceive that they who helped themselves were wealthy townsmen, and that they who waited till they were asked by others were paid canva.s.sers and agents. But he knew nothing, and could only wish himself back in Southampton Buildings.

At last Mr. Griffenbottom, followed by a cloud of supporters, bustled into the room. Trigger at once introduced the two candidates. "Very glad to meet you," said Griffenbottom. "So we're going to fight this little battle together. I remember you in the House, you know, and I dare say you remember me. I'm used to this kind of thing. I suppose you ain't. Well, Trigger, how are things looking? I suppose we'd better begin down Pump Lane. I know my way about the place, Honeywood, as well as if it was my bed-room. And so I ought, Trigger."

"I suppose you've seen the inside of pretty nearly every house in Percycross," said Trigger.

"There's some I don't want to see the inside of any more. I can tell you that. How are these new householders going to vote?"

"Betwixt and between, Mr. Griffenbottom."

"I never thought we should find much difference. It don't matter what rent a man pays, but what he does. I could tell you how nineteen out of twenty men here would vote, if you'd tell me what they did, and who they were. What's to be done about talking to 'em?"

"To-morrow night we're to be in the Town Hall, Mr. Griffenbottom, and Thursday an open-air meeting, with a balcony in the market-place."

"All right. Come along. Are you good at spinning yarns to them, Honeywood?"

"I don't like it, if you mean that," said Sir Thomas.

"It's better than canva.s.sing. By George, anything is better than that. Come along. We may get Pump Lane, and Petticoat Yard, and those back alleys done before dinner. You've got cards, of course, Trigger." And the old, accustomed electioneerer led the way out to his work.

Mr. Griffenbottom was a heavy hale man, over sixty, somewhat inclined to be corpulent, with a red face, and a look of a.s.sured impudence about him which nothing could quell or diminish. The kind of life which he had led was one to which impudence was essentially necessary. He had done nothing for the world to justify him in a.s.suming the airs of a great man,--but still he could a.s.sume them, and many believed in him. He could boast neither birth, nor talent, nor wit,--nor, indeed, wealth in the ordinary sense of the word.

Though he had worked hard all his life at the business to which he belonged, he was a poorer man now than he had been thirty years ago.

It had all gone in procuring him a seat in Parliament. And he had so much sense that he never complained. He had known what it was that he wanted, and what it was that he must pay for it. He had paid for it, and had got it, and was, in his fas.h.i.+on, contented. If he could only have continued to have it without paying for it again, how great would have been the blessing! But he was a man who knew that such blessings were not to be expected. After the first feeling of disgust was over on the receipt of Trigger's letter, he put his collar to the work again, and was prepared to draw his purse,--intending, of course, that the new candidate should bear as much as possible of this drain. He knew well that there was a prospect before him of abject misery;--for life without Parliament would be such to him. There would be no salt left for him in the earth if he was ousted. And yet no man could say why he should have cared to sit in Parliament. He rarely spoke, and when he did no one listened to him.

He was anxious for no political measures. He was a favourite with no section of a party. He spent all his evenings at the House, but it can hardly be imagined that those evenings were pleasantly spent.

But he rubbed his shoulders against the shoulders of great men, and occasionally stood upon their staircases. At any rate, such as was the life, it was his life; and he had no time left to choose another.

He considered himself on this occasion pretty nearly sure to be elected. He knew the borough and was sure. But then there was that accursed system of pet.i.tioning, which according to his idea was un-English, ungentlemanlike, and unpatriotic--"A stand-up fight, and if you're licked--take it." That was his idea of what an election should be.

Sir Thomas, who only just remembered the appearance of the man in the House, at once took an extravagant dislike to him. It was abominable to him to be called Underwood by a man who did not know him. It was nauseous to him to be forced into close relations with a man who seemed to him to be rough and ill-mannered. And, judging from what he saw, he gave his colleague credit for no good qualities. Now Mr.

Griffenbottom had good qualities. He was possessed of pluck. He was in the main good-natured. And though he could resent an offence with ferocity, he could forgive an offence with ease. "Hit him hard, and then have an end of it!" That was Mr. Griffenbottom's mode of dealing with the offenders and the offences with which he came in contact.

In every house they entered Griffenbottom was at home, and Sir Thomas was a stranger of whom the inmates had barely heard the name.

Griffenbottom was very good at canva.s.sing the poorer cla.s.ses. He said not a word to them about politics, but asked them all whether they didn't dislike that fellow Gladstone, who was one thing one day and another thing another day. "By G----, n.o.body knows what he is,"

swore Mr. Griffenbottom over and over again. The women mostly said that they didn't know, but they liked the blue. "Blues allays was gallanter nor the yellow," said one of 'em. They who expressed an opinion at all hoped that their husbands would vote for him, "as 'd do most for 'em." "The big loaf;--that's what we want," said one mother of many children, taking Sir Thomas by the hand. There were some who took advantage of the occasion to pour out their tales of daily griefs into the ears of their visitors. To these Griffenbottom was rather short and hard. "What we want, my dear, is your husband's vote and interest. We'll hear all the rest another time." Sir Thomas would have lingered and listened; but Griffenbottom knew that 1,400 voters had to be visited in ten days, and work as they would they could not see 140 a day. Trigger explained it all to Sir Thomas. "You can't work above seven hours, and you can't do twenty an hour. And much of the ground you must do twice over. If you stay to talk to them you might as well be in London. Mr. Griffenbottom understands it so well, you'd better keep your eye on him." There could be no object in the world on which Sir Thomas was less desirous of keeping his eye.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The big loaf;--that's what we want," said one mother of many children, taking Sir Thomas by the hand.]

The men, who were much more difficult to find than the women, had generally less to say for themselves. Most of them understood at once what was wanted, and promised. For it must be understood that on this their first day the conservative brigade was moving among its firm friends. In Petticoat Yard lived paper-makers in the employment of Mr. Spiveycomb, and in Pump Lane the majority of the inhabitants were employed by Mr. Spicer, of the mustard works. The manufactories of both these men were visited, and there the voters were booked much quicker than at the rate of twenty an hour. Here and there a man would hold some peculiar opinion of his own. The Permissive Bill was asked for by an energetic teetotaller; and others, even in these Tory quarters, suggested the ballot. But they all,--or nearly all of them,--promised their votes. Now and again some st.u.r.dy fellow, seeming to be half ashamed of himself in opposing all those around him, would say shortly that he meant to vote for Moggs, and pa.s.s on.

"You do,--do you?" Sir Thomas heard Mr. Spicer say to one such man.

"Yes, I does," said the man. Sir Thomas heard no more, but he felt how perilous was the position on which a candidate stood under the present law.

As regarded Sir Thomas himself, he felt, as the evening was coming on, that he had hardly done his share of the work. Mr. Griffenbottom had canva.s.sed, and he had walked behind. Every now and then he had attempted a little conversation, but in that he had been immediately pulled up by the conscientious and energetic Mr. Trigger. As for asking for votes, he hardly knew, when he had been carried back into the main street through a labyrinth of alleys at the back of Petticoat Yard, whether he had asked any man for his vote or not.

With the booking of the votes he had, of course, nothing to do. There were three men with books;--and three other men to open the doors, show the way, and make suggestions on the expediency of going hither or thither. Sir Thomas would always have been last in the procession, had there not been one silent, civil person, whose duty it seemed to be to bring up the rear. If ever Sir Thomas lingered behind to speak to a poor woman, there was this silent, civil person lingering too.

The influence of the silent, civil person was so strong that Sir Thomas could not linger much.

As they came into the main street they encountered the opposition party, Mr. Westmacott, Ontario Moggs, and their supporters. "I'll introduce you," said Mr. Griffenbottom to his colleague. "Come along.

It's the thing to do." Then they met in the middle of the way. Poor Ontario was hanging behind, but holding up his head gallantly, and endeavouring to look as though he were equal to the occasion.

Griffenbottom and Westmacott shook hands cordially, and complained with mutual sighs that household suffrage had made the work a deal harder than ever. "And I'm only a week up from the gout," said Griffenbottom. Then Sir Thomas and Westmacott were introduced, and at last Ontario was brought forward. He bowed and attempted to make a little speech; but n.o.body in one army or in the other seemed to care much for poor Ontario. He knew that it was so, but that mattered little to him. If he were destined to represent Percycross in Parliament, it must be by the free votes and unbia.s.sed political aspirations of the honest working men of the borough. So remembering he stood aloof, stuck his hand into his breast, and held up his head something higher than before. Though the candidates had thus greeted each other at this chance meeting, the other parties in the contending armies had exhibited no courtesies.

The weariness of Sir Thomas when this first day's canva.s.s was over was so great that he was tempted to go to bed and ask for a bowl of gruel. Nothing kept him from doing so but amazement at the courage and endurance of Mr. Griffenbottom. "We could get at a few of those chaps who were at the works, if we went out at eight," said Griffenbottom. Trigger suggested that Mr. Griffenbottom would be very tired. Trigger himself was perhaps tired. "Oh, tired," said Griffenbottom; "a man has to be tired at this work." Sir Thomas perceived that Griffenbottom was at least ten years his senior, and that he was still almost lame from the gout. "You'll be ready, Underwood?" said Griffenbottom. Sir Thomas felt himself bound to undertake whatever might be thought necessary. "If we were at it day and night, it wouldn't be too much," said Griffenbottom, as he prepared to amuse himself with one of the poll-books till dinner should be on the table. "Didn't we see Jacob Pucky?" asked the energetic candidate, observing that the man's name wasn't marked. "To be sure we did. I was speaking to him myself. He was one of those who didn't know till the day came. We know what that means; eh, Honeywood?" Sir Thomas wasn't quite sure that he did know; but he presumed that it meant something dishonest. Again Mr. Trigger dined with them, and as soon as ever their dinner was swallowed they were out again at their work, Sir Thomas being dragged from door to door, while Griffenbottom asked for the votes.

And this was to last yet for ten days more!

CHAPTER XXVI.

MOGGS, PURITY, AND THE RIGHTS OF LABOUR.

Mr. Trigger had hinted that Ontario Moggs would be a thorn in the flesh of Mr. Westmacott's supporters at Percycross, and he had been right. Ontario was timid, hesitating, and not unfrequently brow-beaten in the social part of his work at the election. Though he made great struggles he could neither talk, nor walk, nor eat, nor sit, as though he were the equal of his colleague. But when they came to politics and political management, there was no holding him. He would make speeches when speeches were not held to be desirable by his committee, and he was loud upon topics as to which it was thought that no allusion whatever should have been made. To talk about the ballot had from the first been conceded to Moggs. Mr. Westmacott was, indeed, opposed to the ballot; but it had been a matter of course that the candidate of the people should support that measure. The ballot would have been a safety-valve. But Moggs was so cross-grained, ill-conditioned, and uncontrollable that he would not let the ballot suffice him. The ballot was almost nothing to him.

Strikes and bribery were his great subjects; the beauty of the one and the ugliness of the other. The right of the labourer to combine with his brother labourers to make his own terms for his labour, was the great lesson he taught. The suicidal iniquity of the labourer in selling that political power which he should use to protect his labour was the source of his burning indignation. That labour was the salt of the earth he told the men of Percycross very often;--and he told them as often that manliness and courage were necessary to make that salt productive. Gradually the men of Percycross,--some said that they were only the boys of Percycross,--cl.u.s.tered round him, and learned to like to listen to him. They came to understand something of the character of the man who was almost too shame-faced to speak to them while he was being dragged round to their homes on his canvas, but whom nothing could repress when he was on his legs with a crowd before him. It was in vain that the managing agent told him that he would not get a vote by his spouting and shouting. On such occasions he hardly answered a word to the managing agent. But the spouting and shouting went on just the same, and was certainly popular among the bootmakers and tanners. Mr. Westmacott was asked to interfere, and did do so once in some mild fas.h.i.+on; but Ontario replied that having been called to this sphere of action he could only do his duty according to his own lights. The young men's presidents, and secretaries, and chairmen were for awhile somewhat frightened, having been a.s.sured by the managing men of the liberal committee that the election would be lost by the furious insanity of their candidate. But they decided upon supporting Moggs, having found that they would be deposed from their seats if they discarded him. At last, when the futile efforts to control Moggs had been maintained with patience for something over a week, when it still wanted four or five days to the election, an actual split was made in the liberal camp. Moggs was turned adrift by the Westmacottian faction. Bills were placarded about the town explaining the cruel necessity for such action, and describing Moggs as a revolutionary firebrand. And now there were three parties in the town. Mr. Trigger rejoiced over this greatly with Mr. Griffenbottom. "If they haven't been and cut their throats now it is a wonder," he said over and over again. Even Sir Thomas caught something of the feeling of triumph, and began almost to hope that he might be successful. Nevertheless the number of men who could not quite make up their minds as to what duty required of them till the day of the election was considerable, and Mr. Pile triumphantly whispered into Mr. Trigger's ear his conviction that "after all, things weren't going to be changed at Percycross quite so easily as some people supposed."

When Moggs was utterly discarded by the respectable leaders of the liberal party in the borough,--turned out of the liberal inn at which were the head-quarters of the party, and refused the right of partic.i.p.ating in the liberal breakfasts and dinners which were there provided, Moggs felt himself to be a triumphant martyr. His portmanteau and hat-box were carried by an admiring throng down to the Cordwainers' Arms,--a house not, indeed, of the highest repute in the town,--and here a separate committee was formed. Mr. Westmacott did his best to avert the secession; but his supporters were inexorable. The liberal tradesmen of Percycross would have nothing to do with a candidate who declared that inasmuch as a man's mind was more worthy than a man's money, labour was more worthy than capital, and that therefore the men should dominate and rule their masters.

That was a doctrine necessarily abominable to every master tradesman.

The men were to decide how many hours they would work, what recreation they would have, in what fas.h.i.+on and at what rate they would be paid, and what proportion of profit should be allowed to the members, and masters, and creators of the firm! That was the doctrine that Moggs was preaching. The tradesmen of Percycross, whether liberal or conservative, did not understand much in the world of politics, but they did understand that such a doctrine as that, if carried out, would take them to a very Gehenna of revolutionary desolation. And so Moggs was banished from the Northern Star, the inn at which Mr. Westmacott was living, and was forced to set up his radical staff at the Cordwainers' Arms.

In one respect he certainly gained much by this persecution. The record of his election doings would have been confined to the columns of the "Percycross Herald" had he carried on his candidature after the usual fas.h.i.+on; but, as it was now, his doings were blazoned in the London newspapers. The "Daily News" reported him, and gave him an article all to himself; and even the "Times" condescended to make an example of him, and to bring him up as evidence that revolutionary doctrines were distasteful to the electors of the country generally.

The fame of Ontario Moggs certainly became more familiar to the ears of the world at large than it would have done had he continued to run in a pair with Mr. Westmacott. And that was everything to him. Polly Neefit must hear of him now that his name had become a household word in the London newspapers.

And in another respect he gained much. All personal canva.s.sing was now at an end for him. There could be no use in his going about from house to house asking for votes. Indeed, he had discovered that to do so was a thing iniquitous in itself, a demoralising practice tending to falsehood, intimidation, and corruption,--a thing to be denounced.

And he denounced it. Let the men of Percycross hear him, question him in public, learn from his spoken words what were his political principles,--and then vote for him if they pleased. He would condescend to ask a vote as a favour from no man. It was for them rather to ask him to bestow upon them the gift of his time and such ability as he possessed. He took a very high tone indeed in his speeches, and was saved the labour of parading the streets. During these days he looked down from an immeasurable height on the truckling, mean, sordid doings of Griffenbottom, Underwood, and Westmacott. A huge board had been hoisted up over the somewhat low frontage of the Cordwainers' Arms, and on this was painted in letters two feet high a legend which it delighted him to read, MOGGS, PURITY, AND THE RIGHTS OF LABOUR. Ah, if that could only be understood, there was enough in it to bring back an age of gold to suffering humanity!

No other Reform would be needed. In that short legend everything necessary for man was contained.

Mr. Pile and Mr. Trigger stood together one evening looking at the legend from a distance. "Moggs and purity!" said Mr. Pile, in that tone of disgust, and with that peculiar action which had become common to him in speaking of this election.

"He hasn't a ghost of a chance," said Mr. Trigger, who was always looking straight at the main point;--"nor yet hasn't Westmacott."

"There's worse than Westmacott," said Mr. Pile.

"But what can we do?" said Trigger.

"Purity! Purity!" said the old man. "It makes me that sick that I wish there weren't such a thing as a member of Parliament. Purity and pickpockets is about the same. When I'm among 'em I b.u.t.tons up my breeches-pockets."

"But what can we do?" asked Mr. Trigger again, in a voice of woe. Mr.

Trigger quite sympathised with his elder friend; but, being a younger man, he knew that these innovations must be endured.

Then Mr. Pile made a speech, of such length that he had never been known to make the like before;--so that Mr. Trigger felt that things had become very serious, and that, not impossibly, Mr. Pile might be so affected by this election as never again to hold up his head in Percycross. "Purity! Purity!" he repeated. "They're a going on that way, Trigger, that the country soon won't be fit for a man to live in. And what's the meaning of it all? It's just this,--that folks wants what they wants without paying for it. I hate Purity, I do. I hate the very smell of it. It stinks. When I see the chaps as come here and talk of Purity, I know they mean that nothing ain't to be as it used to be. n.o.body is to trust no one. There ain't to be nothing warm, nor friendly, nor comfortable any more. This Sir Thomas you've brought down is just as bad as that shoemaking chap;--worse if anything. I know what's a going on inside him. I can see it. If a man takes a gla.s.s of wine out of his bottle, he's a asking hisself if that ain't bribery and corruption! He's got a handle to his name, and money, I suppose, and comes down here without knowing a chick or a child. Why isn't a poor man, as can't hardly live, to have his three half-crowns or fifteen s.h.i.+llings, as things may go, for voting for a stranger such as him? I'll tell you what it is, Trigger, I've done with it. Things have come to that in the borough, that I'll meddle and make no more." Mr. Trigger, as he listened to this eloquence, could only sigh and shake his head. "I did think it would last my time," added Mr. Pile, almost weeping.

Moggs would steal out of the house in the early morning, look up at the big bright red letters, and rejoice in his very heart of hearts.

He had not lived in vain, when his name had been joined, in the public view of men, with words so glorious. Purity and the Rights of Labour! "It contains just everything," said Moggs to himself as he sat down to his modest, lonely breakfast. After that, sitting with his hands clasped upon his brow, disdaining the use of pen and paper for such work, he composed his speech for the evening,--a speech framed with the purpose of proving to his hearers that Purity and the Rights of Labour combined would make them as angels upon the earth.

As for himself, Moggs, he explained in his speech,--a.n.a.lysing the big board which adorned the house,--it mattered little whether they did or did not return him. But let them be always persistent in returning on every possible occasion Purity and the Rights of Labour, and then all other good things would follow to them. He enjoyed at any rate that supreme delight which a man feels when he thoroughly believes his own doctrine.