“Why, then, Lord John Russell and Lord Althorp carried the Bill to the House of Lords. It was a great scene. The Duke told me about it. He said nearly every peer was in his seat; and a large number of peeresses had been admitted at the bar, and every inch of space in the House was crowded. The Lord Chancellor took his seat at the Woolsack; and the Deputy Usher of the Black Rod threw open the doors, crying, ‘A Message from the Commons.’ Then Lord John Russell and Lord Althorp, at the head of one hundred Members of the House of Commons, entered, and delivered the Bill to the Lord Chancellor.”
“Oh, how I should have liked to have been present!” said Kate.
“Well, some day thou–” and then the Squire suddenly stopped; but the unfinished thought was flashed to every one present,–“some day thou mayst be Duchess of Richmoor, and have the right to be present;” and Kate was pleased, and felt her heart warm to conscious hope. She caught her mother watching her, and smiled; and Mrs. Atheling, instantly sensitive to the unspoken feeling, avoided comment by her eager inquiry,–
“Whatever did they say, John?”
“They said the usual words; but the Duke told me there was a breathless silence, and that Lord John Russell said them with the most unusual and impressive emphasis: ‘My Lords, the House of Commons have passed an Act to Amend the Representation of England and Wales, to which they desire your Lordships’ Concurrence.’ Lord Grey opened the debate. I dare say Edgar knows all about it. I believe Grey is his leader.”
“Yes,” answered Edgar, “and very proud I am of my leader. He is in his sixty-eighth year, and he stood there that night to advocate the measure he proposed forty years before, in the House of Commons. Althorp told me he spoke with a strange calmness and solemnity, ‘for the just claims of the people;’ but as soon as he sat down Lord Wharncliffe moved that the Bill be rejected altogether.”
“That was like Wharncliffe,” said the Squire. “No half measures for him.”
“Wellington followed, and wanted to know, ‘How the King’s government was to be carried on by the will of a turbulent democracy?’”
“Wellington would govern with a sword instead of a sceptre. He would try every cause round a drum-head. I am not with Wellington.”
“Lord Dudley followed in an elegant, classical speech, also against the Bill.”