Ralph the Heir

by Anthony Trollope

After dinner Sir Thomas sat longer over his wine than is at present usual, believing, perhaps, that the young ladies would not want to see much more of Ralph on the present occasion. The conversation was almost entirely devoted to the affairs of the late election, as to which Ralph was much interested and very indignant. "They cannot do you any harm, sir, by the investigation," he said.

"No; I don't think they can hurt me."

"And you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have been the means of exposing corruption, and of helping to turn such a man as Griffenbottom out of the House. Upon my word, I think it has been worth while."

"I am not sure that I would do it again at the same cost, and with the same object," said Sir Thomas.

Ralph did have a cup of tea given to him in the drawing-room, and then left the villa before Clarissa's fly had returned.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

MR. MOGGS WALKS TOWARDS EDGEWARE.

The judge's decision in Percycross as to the late election was no sooner known than fresh overtures were made to Ontario Moggs by the Young Men's Association. A letter of triumph was addressed to him at the Cheshire Cheese, in which he was informed that Intimidation and Corruption had been trodden under foot in the infamous person of Mr. Griffenbottom, and that Purity and the Rights of Labour were still the watchwords of that wholesome party in the borough which was determined to send Mr. Moggs to Parliament. Did not Mr. Moggs think it best that he should come down at once to the borough and look after his interests? Now Mr. Moggs junior, when he received this letter, had left the borough no more than three or four days since, having been summoned there as a witness during the trial of the petition;—and such continued attendance to the political interests of a small and otherwise uninteresting town, without the advantage of a seat in Parliament, was felt by Mr. Moggs senior to be a nuisance. The expense in all these matters fell of course upon the shoulders of the father. "I don't believe in them humbugs no longer," said Mr. Moggs senior. Moggs junior, who had felt the enthusiasm of the young men of Percycross, and who had more to get and less to lose than his father, did believe. Although he had been so lately at Percycross, he went down again, and again made speeches to the young men at the Mechanics' Institute. Nothing could be more triumphant than his speeches, nothing more pleasant than his popularity; but he could not fail to become aware, after a further sojourn of three days at Percycross, of two things. The first was this,—that if the borough were spared there would be a compromise between the leading men on the two sides, and Mr. Westmacott would be returned together with a young Griffenbottom. The second conviction forced upon him was that the borough would not be spared. There was no comfort for him at Percycross,—other than what arose from a pure political conscience. On the very morning on which he left, he besought his friends, the young men,—though they were about to be punished, degraded, and disfranchised for the sins of their elders, though it might never be allowed to them again to stir themselves for the political welfare of their own borough,—still to remember that Purity and the Rights of Labour were the two great wants of the world, and that no man could make an effort, however humble, in a good cause without doing something towards bringing nearer to him that millennium of political virtue which was so much wanted, and which would certainly come sooner or later. He was cheered to the echo, and almost carried down to the station on the shoulders of a chairman, or president, and a secretary; but he left Percycross with the conviction that that borough would never confer upon him the coveted honour of a seat in Parliament.

All this had happened early in March, previous to that Sunday on which Mr. Neefit behaved so rudely to him at the cottage. "I think as perhaps you'd better stick to business now a bit," said old Moggs. At that moment Ontario was sitting up at a high desk behind the ledger which he hated, and was sticking to business as well as he knew how to stick to it. "No more Cheshire Cheeses, if you please, young man," said the father. This was felt by the son to be unfair, cruel, and even corrupt. While the election was going on, as long as there was a hope of success at Percycross, Moggs senior had connived at the Cheshire Cheese, had said little or nothing about business, had even consented on one occasion to hear his son make a speech advocating the propriety of combination among workmen. "It ain't my way of thinking," Moggs senior had said; "but then, perhaps, I'm old." To have had a member of the firm in Parliament would have been glorious even to old Moggs, though he hardly knew in what the glory would have consisted. But as soon as he found that his hopes were vain, that the Cheshire Cheese had been no stepping-stone to such honour, and that his money had been spent for nothing, his mind reverted to its old form. Strikes became to him the work of the devil, and unions were once more the bane of trade.