In three minutes more Dick had resumed his place in the booth in his quality of candidate. A rush of Yellow electors poured in, hot and fast. Up came Emanuel Trout, and, in a firm voice, recorded his vote, "Avenel and Egerton." Every man of the Hundred and Fifty so polled. To each question, "Whom do you vote for?" "Avenel and Egerton" knelled on the ears of Randal Leslie with "damnable iteration." The young man folded his arms across his breast in dogged despair. Levy had to shake hands for Mr. Egerton with a rapidity that took away his breath. He longed to slink away,—longed to get at L'Estrange, whom he supposed would be as wroth at this turn in the wheel of fortune as himself. But how, as Egerton's representative, escape from the continuous gripes of those horny hands? Besides, there stood the parish pump, right in face of the booth, and some huge truculent-looking Yellows loitered round it, as if ready to pounce on him the instant he quitted his present sanctuary. Suddenly the crowd round the booth receded; Lord L'Estrange's carriage drove up to the spot, and Harley, stepping from it, assisted out of the vehicle an old, gray-haired, paralytic man. The old man stared round him, and nodded smilingly to the mob. "I'm here,-I'm come; I'm but a poor creature, but I'm a good Blue to the last!"
"Old John Avenel,—fine old John!" cried many a voice.
And John Avenel, still leaning on Harley's arm, tottered into the booth, and plumped for "Egerton."
"Shake hands, Father," said Dick, bending forward, "though you'll not vote for me."
"I was a Blue before you were born," answered the old man, tremulously; "but I wish you success all the same, and God bless you, my boy!"
Even the poll-clerks were touched; and when Dick, leaving his place, was seen by the crowd assisting Lord L'Estrange to place poor John again in the carriage, that picture of family love in the midst of political difference—of the prosperous, wealthy, energetic son, who, as a boy, had played at marbles in the very kennel, and who had risen in life by his own exertions, and was now virtually M. P. for his native town, tending on the broken-down, aged father, whom even the interests of a son he was so proud of could not win from the colours which he associated with truth and rectitude—had such an effect upon the rudest of the mob there present, that you might have heard a pin fall,—till the carriage drove away back to John's humble home; and then there rose such a tempest of huzzas! John Avenel's vote for Egerton gave another turn to the vicissitudes of that memorable election. As yet Avenel had been ahead of Audley; but a plumper in favour of Egerton, from Avenel's own father, set an example and gave an excuse to many a Blue who had not yet voted, and could not prevail on himself to split his vote between Dick and Audley; and, therefore, several leading tradesmen, who, seeing that Egerton was safe, had previously resolved not to vote at all, came up in the last hour, plumped for Egerton, and carried him to the head of the poll; so that poor John, whose vote, involving that of Mark Fairfield, had secured the first opening in public life to the young ambition of the unknown son-in-law, still contributed to connect with success and triumph, but also with sorrow, and, it may be, with death, the names of the high-born Egerton and the humble Avenel.
The great town-clock strikes the hour of four; the returning officer declares the poll closed; the formal announcement of the result will be made later. But all the town knows that Audley Egerton and Richard Avenel are the members for Lausmere. And flags stream, and drums beat, and men shake each other by the hand heartily; and there is talk of the chairing to-morrow; and the public-houses are crowded; and there is an indistinct hubbub in street and alley, with sudden bursts of uproarious shouting; and the clouds to the west look red and lurid round the sun, which has gone down behind the church tower,—behind the yew-trees that overshadow the quiet grave of Nora Avenel.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Amidst the darkening shadows of twilight, Randal Leslie walked through Lansmere Park towards the house. He had slunk away before the poll was closed,—crept through bylanes, and plunged into the leafless copses of the earl's stately pasture-grounds. Amidst the bewilderment of his thoughts—at a loss to conjecture how this strange mischance had befallen him, inclined to ascribe it to Leonard's influence over Avenel, but suspecting Harley, and half doubtful of Baron Levy—he sought to ascertain what fault of judgment he himself had committed, what wile he had forgotten, what thread in his web he had left ragged and incomplete. He could discover none. His ability seemed to him unimpeachable,— /totus, teres, atque rotundas/. And then there came across his breast a sharp pang,—sharper than that of baffled ambition,—the feeling that he had been deceived and bubbled and betrayed. For so vital a necessity to all living men is TRUTH, that the vilest traitor feels amazed and wronged, feels the pillars of the world shaken, when treason recoils on himself. "That Richard Avenel, whom I trusted, could so deceive me!" murmured Randal, and his lip quivered.
He was still in the midst of the Park, when a man with a yellow cockade in his hat, and running fast from the direction of the town, overtook him with a letter, on delivering which the messenger, waiting for no answer, hastened back the way he had come. Randal recognized Avenel's hand on the address, broke the seal, and read as follows: