"What sort of tipple has it been, T.?" was demanded by one voice.
"Do you call that beer?" said a second.
"Where do you buy your hops?" asked a third.
But he went on manfully, and was buoyed up by a strong belief that he was fighting his own battle with success.
Nor was Rowan slow to answer him. He was proud to say that he was Bungall's heir, and as such he intended to continue Bungall's business. Whether he could improve the quality of the old tap he didn't know, but he would try. People had said a few weeks ago that he had been hounded out of Baslehurst, and did not mean to come back again. Here he was. He had bought property in Baslehurst. He meant to live in Baslehurst. He pledged himself to brew beer in Baslehurst. He already regarded himself as belonging to Baslehurst. And, being a bachelor, he hoped that he might live to marry a wife out of Baslehurst. This last assurance was received with unqualified applause from both factions, and went far in obtaining for Rowan that local popularity which was needful to him. Certainly the Rowan contest added much to the popular interest of that election.
At the close of the poll on that evening it was declared by the mayor that Mr. Butler Cornbury had been elected to serve the borough in Parliament by a majority of one vote.
CHAPTER X.
THE BASLEHURST GAZETTE.
By one vote! Old Mr. Cornbury when he heard of it gasped with dismay, and in secret regretted that his son had not been beaten. What seat could be gained by one vote and not be contested, especially when the beaten candidate was a Jew clothier rolling in money? And what sums would not a petition and scrutiny cost? Butler Cornbury himself was dismayed, and could hardly participate in the exultation of his more enthusiastic wife. Mr. Hart of course declared that he would petition, and that he was as sure of the seat as though he already occupied it. But as it was known that every possible electioneering device had been put in practice on his behalf during the last two hours of the poll, the world at large in Baslehurst believed that young Cornbury's position was secure. Tappitt and some few others were of a different opinion. At the present moment Tappitt could not endure to acknowledge to himself that he had been beaten. Nothing but the prestige and inward support of immediate success could support him in that contest, so much more important to himself, in which he was now about to be engaged. That matter of the petition, however, can hardly be brought into the present story. The political world will understand that it would be carried on with great vigour.