SHE is right in theory—she is perfectly right. She holds the stronger position. But yet I cannot give it up. One cannot live in the world, and breathe an atmosphere so far above it as she does. The thing is not possible. What!—go back to London—go back to my friends there, and say that I cannot accept my kinsman’s seat, because in right and justice he should not have it to give! What a howl of derision I should provoke! And to have to confess that my adviser in this was a girl years younger than myself, who had hardly left her sea-girt home all her life—who knows no more of the world than the babe in the nursery! Why, I should become a laughing-stock to the whole of the town! I should never be able to face the world again. No, no, no—such scruples are untenable. A great work has to be done, and men are wanted of birth, energy, determination, and probity; I think I may, without undue self-appreciation, assert that I possess all these needful qualifications. Better men than myself have told me so. First let us get the upper hand, and then we will see what may be done for purifying the country and raising a higher and a better standard. If the world would listen to such teachings as Bride’s, I will not say the world might not be a better place; but if it will not—why, we must needs employ tools more fitted for the work. To be deterred by such a scruple!—no—it would be unworthy of the Cause!”
Eustace was alone in his room, dressing for dinner. His welcome from his kinsman had been kind and cordial, and he was now bracing himself for the discussion which must follow upon the request he had to make. The subject had not yet been broached between them, though he fancied that the Duke half suspected his errand, or rather the motive which had prompted it; but hitherto the talk had been all on public matters, and he had been relieved to find the old man by no means so hostile in mind towards the bill as he had feared to find him. Bride’s estimate of her father’s attitude of mind was pretty correct. He knew that some sort of change was needed, and that improved legislation was required for the peace and prosperity of the country; but he felt that the proposed measure would but be the beginning of an upheaval from which he shrank with natural distaste, and he feared that evils would follow of magnitude greater than those to be done away. Therefore he watched the advance of the wave with no little dread, feeling almost sad that he should have lived to see so many old landmarks washed away or submerged.
So much Eustace had gathered, but he was not daunted. Things might have been much worse. He had been received more cordially at the castle than he expected, and there was exhilaration in the thought of his close proximity to Bride, even though he resolved not to make any attempt this visit to approach her as a lover.
But he was still quite resolved to win her for his wife if possible. The few hours spent in her company had riveted his chains afresh. He had never met a woman who exercised one-tenth part of the charm upon him that Bride did. Her very unapproachableness made her dearer and more fascinating. The bright sunshine of the March afternoon beguiled him from his room some while before the dinner-hour. He strolled out into the gardens, and began wandering there, thinking of his love. Turning a corner, he came suddenly upon Abner, and was grieved to see such a change in the old man. His hair had grown many degrees more white, and there was a bowed look about the shoulders which had not been noticeable before. His fine old face was seamed with lines that told of pain, either mental or physical, whilst the eyes, though retaining their old steadfastness and brightness, had taken something of wistfulness withal, as though some haunting regret or unanswered longing were always present in his mind.
“Why, Tresithny, I fear you have been ill,” said Eustace, with his kindly smile, as he greeted the old man, and expressed his pleasure at seeing him again. “You have not worn as well as my uncle. Has the winter been too much for you?”
“Nay, it’s not the weather, sir—I’m too well seasoned to mind that. I hadn’t heard as we were tu see yu down to the castle again, sir. I wish you well, and hope I see yu in good health.”
“The best, thank you, Tresithny, and this beautiful air of yours is like the elixir of life, if you’ve ever heard of that. But I want to know what ails you; you are not looking the same man as when I left. Have you had some illness?”
“No, sir, thank yu,” answered Abner quietly, with a quick glance into Eustace’s face that seemed to tell him all he wished to know. “Belike yu haven’t heard of the trouble. Such things don’t get into the newspapers yu’ll be likely to see, I take it.”
“Trouble!—what trouble?” asked Eustace kindly, his quick sympathies stirred at once by the thought of any sort of suffering. “I have not heard much news from Penarvon and St. Bride since I left. My uncle has written occasionally, but he does not give me much local news.”
“No, sir, there’s other things more important to be spoke of; but his Grace was the best friend we had in the trouble, and there’s no manner of doubt that he saved his life—poor misguided lad. ’Twould have abin a hanging matter with him, as ’twas with t’other, but for his Grace coming himself to speak up for him. I’ll never forget that. He’s been our best friend throughout, him and our own Lady Bride—bless her!”
“Ay, you may well say that,” answered Eustace fervently; “a sweeter creature never drew breath on this earth. But I want to know more of this, Tresithny. What in the world has been going on? I did not know you could have such serious troubles in this little paradise of a place. It seems as though it should be exempt from the strife and crime of the great world.”
“No, sir,” answered Abner gravely, “there’s no place where human life abides that is free from the curse of sin. We live in no paradise here. One place is very much like another, as far as that goes, all the world over, I take it. But I won’t weary yu with my talk. There’s not much to tell, and it’s soon told. My grandson, Saul, got into bad company and bad hands last year. They deceived and misled the poor lad, and he, being hot and fiery by nature, was all the more ready to their hand. He took to preaching rebellion, and I don’t know what, to the folks who would listen, and so lost his place on the farm.”
“He was always too good for a mere labourer,” spoke Eustace, in a quick low tone. “He was just eating his heart out in the solitude and the lack of human interest and sympathy.”
“Well, sir, I don’t know that he mended matters much by leaving. He went to Pentreath and got some sort of work there—I’m not very clear what—and got more and more with bad companions. Then came those riots you’ve heard tell of all over the country—sometimes against the new machines, sometimes against the masters, or any rich men whom the people think worth robbing when they get the chance. Saul was mixed up in these riots. I shan’t never know, I s’pose, exactly how much he was to blame; but he’d got a bad name, and folks were after him; and at last he and the cobbler, whose house he lived at, were took up and brought before the magistrates. Saul got off with six months’ imprisonment; but the cobbler went before the judges at assizes and was hanged. They all say Saul would have been served the same if his Grace hadn’t gone down on purpose to speak up for him to their reverences: it was that that did it. But six months of prison has been enough for the boy. I doubt me he’ll ever be the same again.”
Eustace was not a little shocked by this story. He remembered Saul as he had last seen him—a fine, manly, fearless fellow, strong as a giant, and with mental and intellectual possibilities that raised him far above his fellows. He knew something of the state of country prisons; that was one of the abuses he and his friends meant to inquire into when the time came. Something had been done towards amending their condition, even in the previous century; but very much yet remained that needed to be done. How had Saul borne that life for six long weary months? It was bad enough for a town-bred man, used to confinement and foul air, but what must it have been for this son of the sea and the downs?
“Tresithny, I am grieved—I am deeply grieved,” he said. “Tell me more of the poor fellow. I always thought highly of Saul. Tell me how he has borne it. He is out again now, I trust?”
“Yes, shattered in body and soul and spirit,” answered the old man very sadly, though without bitterness. “The iron has entered into his soul, and for him there is yet no healing touch that can salve the soreness of that wound.”
“He has been ill?”
“Ay, of the jail-fever. It’s rarer now than ’twas years ago; but it got fast hold of Saul. May be the fresh winds will make a strong man of him again before long; but I’m feared he’s gotten a hurt that is worse than weakness of body.”
“Poor fellow!” said Eustace with sincere concern. “I must go and see him as soon as I can.”
There was a momentary silence, and then Abner said quietly—
“Yu must do as yu will about that, sir.”
There was something in these words so foreign to the old gardener’s customary respectful cordiality that Eustace, who in his own fashion was sensitive enough, gave a keen quick look at his interlocutor, and spoke with subdued vehemence.
“Tresithny, I trust you do not believe that it has been my doing that poor Saul has fallen into this trouble.”
Abner finished tying up the young shoot of the tree he was training before making answer, and then he spoke very slowly and with an air of sorrowful resignation, which seemed sadder to the young man than open expressions of anger or grief.
“Sir,” he said, “I am not one lightly to lay any man’s sin at another man’s door. Only the Lord in heaven can know what blame may attach to each—the one for his act, the other for words which it were better he should not have spoken. No, sir; Saul has sinned, and he has suffered for his sin. I have tried to think no bitter thoughts of any of those who helped to lead him astray. Some of them are poor, ignorant, miserable creatures, who doubtless knew no better. Some, I doubt not, have many and just causes of complaint, and have been goaded to violence and lawlessness by the fear of starvation, which works like poison in the blood. It is hard to think hard thoughts of such, especially when they are left in their ignorance and misery, and those who should be their pastors and shepherds seek not after the scattered flock to gather and feed them. My boy had doubtless seen and heard enough to fire his blood, and God Almighty alone may judge of the measure of his guilt. But for my part, I would that he had been saved from that teaching, and those thoughts which have worked like madness in his brain; and you know better than I can do, sir, how much of the wild words he uses have been learned from you.”
“Not much wildness, I think,” answered Eustace gravely. “He has certainly learned a good many facts from me, but I have said very much to him to try and curb the wild spirit of hatred and lawless revolt which I saw in him. He would tell you that himself if you asked him.”
“Yes, sir; I don’t doubt it; but when you bring gunpowder close to the fire to dry it, as you may think, and take every care that it doesn’t explode, you run a great risk, even with the most cautious intentions. A puff of wind down the chimney will send a spark into it, and then comes an explosion. It’s something like that when you educated and clever gentlemen begin to bring your fire near the hot inflammable minds of our ignorant lads. You don’t mean there to be any spark; you mean to get your material well dried and in good working order, so that it can be used for right and legitimate ends; but though you’re clever enough to make it dry and hot and fit for service, you can’t stop the fall of the spark that brings about the explosion, and then you call it a sad accident and deplore it as much as any but you don’t always consider the fearful risks you run of bringing about this very accident, which may perhaps recoil one day on your own head, and which has injured for life many and many a brave lad who might have lived out his days in innocence and a fair amount of happiness but for that.”
Eustace stood looking down at the path with a thoughtful face. He could have brought many arguments to bear upon the old man, explaining how every good cause as yet undertaken against every existing form of evil had been marred and hindered at the outset, and indeed all through its career, by the rashness, the impetuosity, the ill-advised action of individuals; but he held his peace, and said nothing that might sound like an excuse for his own conduct. He did take blame to himself in the case of Saul. He had felt again and again, whilst talking with that fiery youth, with his strong character and individuality, and his burning hatred against the ruling classes, that he was playing with edged tools. The pleasure of finding so much intelligence and sympathy in a man of the people had led him on often to speak out things which on calmer consideration he would hardly have put into words so freely. From time to time his own conscience had warned him that Saul might one day turn out an unmanageable disciple; but he had hoped his own strong influence upon him would suffice to hold in check his fiery partisan zeal, and had forgotten how quickly that influence would be removed, whilst the memory of his words, and the feelings they excited, would live on and ferment and eat into his very soul.
“I am sorry,” he said at last, looking up at Abner with frank, open regret in his eyes; “I think I was wrong. I think I had better have let Saul alone. He has too much gunpowder, as you rightly call it, in his composition. I should have been warned by that and have let him alone.”
This frank apology evoked a smile from Abner.
“Sir,” he said, “don’t think I don’t appreciate your care for the people, or that I don’t know you wish to do good. I’m very sure of that; and Saul had heard a good deal more than was good for him before he ever met you. But knowing that a gentleman such as you felt with him went a long way with him—seemed to turn the scale altogether, if you know what I mean. But I’m not saying he might not have gone as far without, if he’d taken up with the lads of Pentreath as he’s lately done. However, he seems to have took altogether against Pentreath now, and spends his time down on the shore with the fisher-folk. He’ll be glad enough to see you, sir, I doubt not. It isn’t many as he’s got a welcome for, but I think he’ll have it for you.”
“And I’ll try and see that he is none the worse for my visit,” said Eustace, with a grave smile; and then he walked back to the castle, for the dinner-hour had all but arrived.
His face was grave and absorbed as he took his seat. The conversation with Abner had left a painful impression on his mind. He felt like a man on the horns of a dilemma. His whole heart was in the cause of reform. He felt that he was pledged to it, and that he must give his whole life and energies to it, come what might; and yet at every turn he was confronted by problems past his power to solve. He had worked amongst the people—and behold, his most promising pupil had been spending the winter in jail, and had but just come forth shattered in body and mind. He might do more good by sitting in Parliament and fighting the battle there—that indeed was his great desire; but to do so he must take a step which seemed in a sense to be a sacrifice of principle and self-respect. He seemed hedged in by difficulties all ways; but his resolution did not waver.
“Once let me get this seat, and the knot will be cut,” he kept saying to himself, as the meal proceeded in its quiet stately course; and feeling that the sooner the plunge was taken the better it would he, he only waited until the servants had withdrawn at the conclusion of the meal before he spoke out freely and frankly.
“Uncle,” he said, with an abruptness that was the result of repressed excitement, “last year, before you knew much of my views on politics, you offered to give me a seat in Parliament upon the first opportunity. That opportunity has now come, and I have come to remind you of your offer, and to ask you whether—knowing my views—you still feel disposed to give it me. Your old friend has retired, as you told me he would. He will not sit again. I want, above all things, to be a member of that House which will—if I mistake not greatly—have the honour of passing that measure which will be the keystone to the prosperity of England. I believe that there is no doubt as to the composition of the next House of Commons. The voice of the nation cannot longer be misunderstood or ignored. It will be a great and a glorious time for England, and I want to have the great honour and privilege of serving her at this crisis. Will you give me that seat of which you spoke, that I may realise this ambition and happiness?”
“And pass a measure about which I feel the very gravest doubts, and which, I fear, may prove anything but the keystone to greatness and prosperity?” said the Duke.
“I know, sir, we do not think alike on this subject. It is scarcely likely we should. But you have had enough experience of the ways of the world to be aware that the advancing wave cannot be turned back. If these most crucial and important measures are to be passed, is it not better that they should be drawn up and passed by men of birth and station, men of education and sound principle? Without claiming for myself qualifications which I do not possess, or any very great amount of experience in legislating, I think I have the qualities I have named; and I am a Marchmont, and the Marchmonts have not shown themselves deficient either in ability or in governing power in days of yore. I cannot but feel that you would prefer your kinsman in the House to a mere stranger; and I would remember and respect your scruples and injunctions, and would place them before my colleagues, giving them all due weight and respect.”
The Duke smiled slightly.
“The boy talks as though he would be a cabinet minister at once!” he remarked to the room at large. “Do you suppose anybody will pay any attention to what a tyro like you will think or speak? and, for my own part, if I have anything to say to the bill which I hold to be worth saying, I can go to Westminster and say it for myself.”
“Yes, in the Upper House,” said Eustace; “but it is in the Commons that the battle will be fought.”
“And you think you can be my mouthpiece there?” asked the Duke, a little grimly. “Boy, do you not think I could find a better mouthpiece for my views than you will ever make?”
But the question was put with a smile which made Eustace believe that there would not be much of a battle to fight. His kinsman was not without the strong family feeling which was so strong a characteristic of his race; and the very fact that Eustace desired the seat was a strong reason why he should have it. With all his advanced views, he was a Marchmont, and a man of rectitude and high principle. That the Reform Bill would assuredly pass the next House of Commons the whole country fully believed, and the Duke also. There was a good deal in Eustace’s argument about getting it drawn up and debated by the best stamp of men possible.
“But you—what has so changed your view?” asked the old man, suddenly turning upon Eustace, and looking keenly at him. “When first I made my offer, it only evoked a tirade against the abuse of rotten or pocket boroughs, as I think you called them. I was led to imagine that you would recoil in horror from profiting by such an abuse; and behold, here are you in a year’s time craving to advance yourself by that very means! How comes that, my fine young redresser of evils? How can you reconcile it to your conscience to accept the seat which you dispute my right to hold?”
A flush mounted to Eustace’s face.
“I accept it, and even crave it, that I may be one of those to abolish it in the future. Till the laws are amended, the abuse must last, and to amend those laws is the aim and object of my life. I admit that my position is one which appears inconsistent. You can easily put me in a dilemma by well-planted questions; but my mind is clear and my conscience too. You have to find a candidate for this seat, and I, as your next of kin, desire it. I openly proclaim to you the fact that once I am seated in Parliament, I shall strain every nerve to accomplish the abolition of the abuse by which I have gained my seat so readily; but I am neither afraid nor ashamed to seek it now. I will profit by the iniquity to expunge that iniquity from our country for ever!”
“To do a great right, do a little wrong,” quoted the Duke thoughtfully. “Well, Eustace, you shall have the seat if you desire it, but I cannot help feeling that I wish you had not asked me for it, or been willing to take it.”
The flush deepened in Eustace’s face as the Duke spoke, and he caught the answering glance in Bride’s eyes. He had purposely made his request before her, although it cost him something to do it. He wished to prove to himself that he had the courage of his opinions, and was not ashamed of the trifling inconsistency, which he explained away again and again to what he called his own satisfaction. He was not prepared to make himself the laughing-stock of his friends in town for a scruple of this sort; but he wished he could have avoided the apparent inconsistency with these kinsfolk of his, who appeared to look on at the strife of parties and the battle of life from an altitude which was rather perplexing and discomfiting.
“I am greatly obliged, sir,” said Eustace, hardly believing the battle was already won. He had looked for much more argument and resistance. “I will try to be worthy of the trust reposed in me. I hope you do not distrust me for my willingness to take advantage for once of this custom so soon to be made obsolete?”
“I do not distrust your loyalty to your cause; I think you deserve to sit in the next House, and may in time make yourself of value to your party. At the same time, since you do hold so strongly your advanced views, I had rather you obtained your seat in another fashion, speaking simply from a moral and theoretic standpoint.”
“I agree with you there, in theory,” answered Eustace eagerly. “I wish the world could be governed according to theory; but, alas! in practice too many of our brightest and best theories break down. If I had any chance of winning a seat by an ordinary contest, I would gladly do so; but I know that I have not. I am an untried man, and unknown in any constituency. I should not stand the ghost of a chance; and the bribery and corruption of an election under such conditions is too revolting to think of.”
A faint smile played round the lips of the old Duke.
“Yes, bribery and corruption are the lawful methods by which our House of Commons is returned by the country, save where there are rotten or pocket boroughs to be given by favour, or openly bought and sold; and when these last are done away with, and more contests set on foot, there will be more bribery and corruption, rioting and drunkenness, than ever, and this will be the first step of the great reform.”
“Yes, but only the first step,” answered Eustace eagerly. “After that step will follow others for the purifying of these contests, and the rectifying of these flagrant abuses. Some great men say it can and will be done by establishing a system of ballot-voting, by which no man may know how his neighbour votes, so that a deathblow will be dealt to bribery.”
“Will it?” questioned the Duke significantly.
“Yes,” was the fearless answer, “because men will learn to see the worse than folly of bribing a man who can pocket the bribe, take one from his opponent, and then go perfectly free and unfettered to vote as he pleases! The thing will die a natural death as a matter of course. It may die hard, but die it must.”
“Yes, it will die in its open form. Votes will no longer be bought at so much a head; but mark my word, Eustace, a more corrupt and iniquitous form of bribery will creep slowly and surely upon the country. Governments will outbid each other with promises of measures which will appeal to the selfish and self-seeking passions of the people, just to get into power, quite apart from true statesmanship or the true good of the nation. There will be one long struggle after popularity with the unthinking masses—one long bribing of them by a wholesale system of promises, more or less faithfully carried out, which will corrupt the nation to the core as the old bribery has never corrupted it. Don’t tell me, boy! I have lived longer than you. I know human nature. An inducement—a bribe—men will have; and the bribe will now be of increased power, increased franchise, increased ability to levy taxes which those who levy them will not pay—a system of legalised robbery, which will sooner or later bring the country to ruin. Ah! yes, you smile. You think I am a croaker and a pessimist. Well, well, well—thank God, I shall not live to see the day; but that day will come for England before many generations have passed, when she will be groaning beneath the burden laid upon her by her reformers, but absolutely unable to break that increasing yoke from off her neck. Men may rise up in arms against their tyrants when their tyrant is a monarch; but when they are their own tyrants, their own legislators, their own oppressors, where are they to find redress?”
Eustace made no attempt to reply. The Duke was talking a language incomprehensible to him and absurd. Even argument seemed thrown away here; yet all the while he respected the sincerity and the character of the man before him, and he answered with a smile—
“Well, uncle, if we cannot agree as to the outcome of these measures, at least we can agree to differ, and we can each pocket our little bit of inconsistency with a quiet conscience. You will give me the seat, whilst holding that eventual ill will come from the cause I advocate; and I will profit by an abuse to do away with that abuse. I think it comes pretty much to this: we both know that this first step is inevitable, therefore you cease to fight against it, whilst I seek to help to forward it by every wise and right method. There are many men in the country more ‘advanced’ than I, and I have a dread of rash precipitation. I think I shall do good and not harm even to your cause by my voice. I shall certainly take warning by your words, and be always on the side of moderation.”
“You shall have the seat,” said the Duke, “because you are my next of kin, and because I respect you as a man, if I do not agree with you as a politician. In the course of nature you will not long be able to sit in the House of Commons; and since your heart is set upon it, I will give you the chance this time. You can choose which you will do—accept the seat I have at my disposal—getting in by an abuse; or I will give my seat to the Tory member for Pentreath, and put you up in his place and give you my influence there. Pentreath has hitherto always returned a Tory candidate, and Sir Roland Menteith is a very popular man locally—you would have no chance against him; but if I gave him my seat, and you stepped forward as the Reform candidate—a moderate reformer supported by the Penarvon interest, you might stand an excellent chance. There would certainly be another Tory adversary put up against you, but I know of no man likely to be popular. The people of the place have become strongly leavened by the spirit of the day, and my influence would go far to turn the scale with a great many. You can think it over and do as you will. Personally you have no influence, or little here; but as a Marchmont and the future Duke, you would have a good deal. There would be expenses of course—we could talk about that later. I do not seek to persuade you to anything; I only tell you what I will do for you if you prefer to contest a seat rather than get one by an abuse. You can think it quietly over, and decide at your leisure. Sir Roland is dining here in a week’s time. He always comes to see me after his return from Westminster to give me all the news. We can talk the matter over with him then.”