Mr. Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps was the hero of the day. If any thing checked the outpouring of his eloquent tongue, it was the rapid appreciation of his audience, which overtook the completion of his sentences. They cheered, and shouted, and hurrahed, and made every conceivable, and, to the reader, many unconceivable demonstrations of affection for his person, and of admiration for his principles. But for these exuberant manifestations of attachment and devotion, I certainly might give the reader a splendid specimen of what a speech on the hustings may be. The hurrahs and the huzzas broke up Mr. Fipps’s arguments, and the coruscations of his eloquence into fragments. Let it suffice to say, it was a brilliant and a grand speech.
On the show of hands being called for, a few were held up for Mr. Twitch, a few more for Mr. Jollefat, and a whole forest of uplifted palms testified their desire to have Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps as the member for N——. The returning officer, of course, declared the choice of the electors, by an open vote, to have fallen upon that honourable gentleman, and a poll was demanded by each of his antagonists.
The most important thing to be now effected was an escape from the town. This was not in reality a very easy thing, although to the reader nothing may perhaps appear more easy of accomplishment. By this time every body in the place knew the three conspirators, and neither the “candidate,” nor his two immediate associates, were often left alone during five consecutive minutes. To quit the place by either of the ordinary roads, in the ordinary way, would have been likely to excite suspicion. To have moved off singly, but simultaneously, by three different roads, would have excited less suspicion perhaps, but would have been more damnatory if discovered. To move off other than simultaneously would have been to peril, perhaps, the lives, and certainly to have perilled the chastisement, of one or two who might remain after the flight of one had been ascertained.
Detection was, moreover, a thing likely, under any circumstances, to follow rapidly on the retreat. My man had noticed the presence of at least half a dozen strangers in the camp of the enemy. These strangers had a knowing look, and wore a metropolitan aspect. He suspected them of being spies upon us. Mr. Fipps’s antecedents might, for any thing we positively knew to the contrary, have been ascertained, and become known to the Liberal candidate, whose game he was trying to spoil, although that gentleman and his friend might not deem it expedient (if they could not exactly prove the connexion between the party of Fipps and that of Mr. Jollefat) to explode the fiction of the former’s candidature. However, get away they must, and that before the polling of to-morrow, or they would not get away until too late.
It was part of my design that the scheme should explode, and that the match should be applied at this exact point of the scheme.
We had arranged to keep the poll open for Fipps, notwithstanding his flight. No official notice of the abandonment of his candidature was therefore served upon the returning officer.
In fact, although Fipps ran away, Fipps must still be a candidate. Our head lawyer thought that necessary, and also thought it wise to poll one man at least for the runaway.
After deliberation, it was arranged between the intended fugitives that morning should be chosen for their flight, and that they should fly in company. After the nomination, high revelry had been kept at the Green Swan with Two Tails. Every section of the community of N—— had its representation there: the lower orders being provided for in rooms, and with refreshments suited to their tastes, while the topsawyers and municipal notabilities who had attached themselves to the popular and winning cause of Fipps, were being entertained in a better room of the house. Fipps himself, and my man and the attorney, being in the company of the latter, carefully guarded against any thing like excess. They were the only prudent people in the lot. This revelry lasted through the night, and until morning. Mine host himself, knocked up by fatigue and potations, retired to an uneasy couch. The hostess had snatched a little rest, and resumed charge of the house while her lord slumbered. As for Mr. Fipps, my man, and the attorney, they contrived to disentangle themselves from their supporters about three in the morning, under strong protestations of anxiety for the welfare of those gentlemen, who were urged, for appearance’ sake and their own health’s sake, to retire home and get a few winks of sleep, and come refreshed in the morning to the poll. By this means the multitude surrounding the candidate, except his two confidants, were got rid of. So far good.
About six in the morning, Fipps,—oppressed with an imaginary headache and sense of fatigue; my man, in like condition; and the attorney, in a similar state,—called for soda-water with a dash of brandy, and began, in the presence of the hostess, to bewail their unfitness to go through the labours of the approaching struggle. My man suggested that it might be as well to take a stroll, if they could get out quietly and not have a rabble at their heels. They asked if that were possible. The landlady consented to let them out by a back-door across a meadow which formed part of her lord’s tenancy, where they could strike off into some by-lanes, and get what they so urgently needed—“a breath of fresh air.” This suited admirably. My man had already taken soundings of the roads, and knew that by this means the party could walk or run off a distance of only five miles, and meet an up-train to London at the —— Station at eight o’clock a.m.
Not a soul was astir on the outskirts of the town, save here and there a rustic labourer walking to his toil or engaged thereon—rude, unlettered men, without political thought or character, who took no interest in the great struggle at the borough of N——, and who cared to do no more than return the salutation of “Good morning” to the gentlemen wayfarers.