Part 32 (1/2)
”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.