Part 23 (1/2)

”It won't do, my dear sir,” said Mr. Nolan--”It won't do. When Peel and the Duke turned round about the Catholics in '29, I saw it was all over with us. We could never trust ministers any more. It was to keep off a rebellion, they said; but I say it was to keep their places. They're monstrously fond of place, both of them--that I know.” Here Mr. Nolan changed the crossing of his legs, and gave a deep cough, conscious of having made a point. Then he went on--”What we want is a king with a good will of his own. If we'd had that, we shouldn't have heard what we've heard to-day; Reform would never have come to this pa.s.s. When our good old King George III. heard his ministers talking about Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, he boxed their ears all round. Ah, poor soul! he did indeed, gentlemen,” ended Mr. Nolan, shaken by a deep laugh of admiration.

”Well, now, that's something like a king,” said Mr. Crowder, who was an eager listener.

”It was uncivil, though. How did they take it?” said Mr. Timothy Rose, a ”gentleman farmer” from Leek Malton, against whose independent position nature had provided the safeguard of a spontaneous servility. His large porcine cheeks, round twinkling eyes, and thumbs habitually twirling, expressed a concentrated effort not to get into trouble, and to speak everybody fair except when they were safely out of hearing.

”Take it! they'd be obliged to take it,” said the impetuous young Joyce, a farmer of superior information. ”Have you ever heard of the king's prerogative?”

”I don't say but what I have,” said Rose, retreating. ”I've nothing against it--nothing at all.”

”No, but the Radicals have,” said young Joyce, winking. ”The prerogative is what they want to clip close. They want us to be governed by delegates from the trades-unions, who are to dictate to everybody, and make everything square to their mastery.”

”They're a pretty set, now, these delegates,” said Mr. Wace, with disgust. ”I once heard two of 'em spouting away. They're a sort of fellow I'd never employ in my brewery, or anywhere else. I've seen it again and again. If a man takes to tongue-work it's all over with him.

'Everything's wrong,' says he. That's a big text. But does he want to make everything right? Not he. He'd lose his text. 'We want every man's good,' say they. Why, they never knew yet what a man's good is. How should they? It's working for his victual--not getting a slice of other people's.”

”Ay, ay,” said young Joyce, cordially. ”I should just have liked all the delegates in the country mustered for our yeomanry to go into--that's all. They'd see where the strength of Old England lay then. You may tell what it is for a country to trust to trade when it breeds such spindling fellows as those.”

”That isn't the fault of trade, my good sir,” said Mr. Nolan, who was often a little pained by the defects of provincial culture. ”Trade, properly conducted, is good for a man's const.i.tution. I could have shown you, in my time, weavers past seventy, with all their faculties as sharp as a pen-knife, doing without spectacles. It's the new system of trade that's to blame: a country can't have too much trade if it's properly managed. Plenty of sound Tories have made their fortune by trade. You've heard of Calibut & Co.--everybody has heard of Calibut. Well, sir, I knew old Mr. Calibut as well as I know you. He was once a crony of mine in a city warehouse; and now, I'll answer for it, he has a larger rent roll than Lord Wyvern. Bless your soul! his subscriptions to charities would make a fine income for a n.o.bleman. And he's as good a Tory as I am. And as for his town establishment--why, how much b.u.t.ter do you think is consumed there annually?”

Mr. Nolan paused, and then his face glowed with triumph as he answered his own question. ”Why, gentlemen, not less than two thousand pounds of b.u.t.ter during the few months the family is in town! Trade makes property, my good sir, and property is conservative, as they say now.

Calibut's son-in-law is Lord Fortinbras. He paid me a large debt on his marriage. It's all one web, sir. The prosperity of the country is one web.”

”To be sure,” said Christian, who, smoking his cigar with his chair turned away from the table, was willing to make himself agreeable in the conversation. ”We can't do without n.o.bility. Look at France. When they got rid of the old n.o.bles they were obliged to make new.”

”True, very true,” said Mr. Nolan, who thought Christian a little too wise for his position, but could not resist the rare gift of an instance in point. ”It's the French Revolution that has done us harm here. It was the same at the end of the last century, but the war kept it off--Mr.

Pitt saved us. I knew Mr. Pitt. I had a particular interview with him once. He joked me about getting the length of his foot. 'Mr. Nolan,'

said he, 'there are those on the other side of the water whose name begins with N. who would be glad to know what you know.' I was recommended to send an account of that to the newspapers after his death, poor man! but I'm not fond of that kind of show myself.” Mr.

Nolan swung his upper leg a little, and pinched his lip between his thumb and finger, naturally pleased with his own moderation.

”No, no--very right,” said Mr. Wace, cordially. ”But you never said a truer word than that about property. If a man's got a bit of property, a stake in the country, he'll want to keep things square. Where Jack isn't safe, Tom's in danger. But that's what makes it such an uncommonly nasty thing that a man like Transome should take up with these Radicals. It's my belief he does it only to get into Parliament; he'll turn round when he gets there. Come, Dibbs, there's something to put you in spirits,”

added Mr. Wace, raising his voice a little and looking at a guest lower down. ”You've got to vote for a Radical with one side of your mouth, and make a wry face with the other; but he'll turn round by-and-by. As Parson Jack says, he's got the right sort of blood in him.”

”I don't care two straws who I vote for,” said Dibbs, st.u.r.dily. ”I'm not going to make a wry face. It stands to reason a man should vote for his landlord. My farm's in good condition, and I've got the best pasture on the estate. The rot's never come nigh me. Let them grumble as are on the wrong side of the hedge.”

”I wonder if Jermyn'll bring him in, though,” said Mr. Sircome, the great miller. ”He's an uncommon fellow for carrying things through. I know he brought me through that suit about my weir; it cost a pretty penny, but he brought me through.”

”It's a bit of a pill for him, too, having to turn Radical,” said Mr.

Wace. ”They say he counted on making friends with Sir Maximus, by this young one coming home and joining with Mr. Philip.”

”But I'll bet a penny he brings Transome in,” said Mr. Sircome. ”Folks say he hasn't got many votes hereabout; but toward Duffield, and all there, where the Radicals are, everybody's for him. Eh, Mr. Christian?

Come--you're at the fountain-head--what do they say about it now at the Manor?”

When general attention was called to Christian young Joyce looked down at his own legs and touched the curves of his own hair, as if measuring his own approximation to that correct copy of a gentleman. Mr. Wace turned his head to listen for Christian's answer with that tolerance of inferiority which becomes men in places of public resort.

”They think it will be a hard run between Transome and Garstin,” said Christian. ”It depends on Transome's getting plumpers.”

”Well, I know I shall not split for Garstin,” said Mr. Wace. ”It's nonsense for Debarry's voters to split for a Whig. A man's either a Tory or not a Tory.”