“I declare there is Duke!” cried Mrs. Dugdale suddenly. “Just look at him, meandering up and down the town.” (Agatha laughed at the word; “meandering” seemed so perfectly expressive of Duke Dugdale.) “But my husband always turns up everywhere, except where he's wanted. Does yours? I beg your pardon—since you are watching him as if you thought he were running away. Nonsense, Agatha—(I always call everybody by their Christian names)—Nonsense! He's only shaking hands with his brother-in-law, both looking as pleased as ever they can look.”
The next moment Harrie and Agatha came up with the two gentlemen at the door of Mr. Dugdale's house. They were talking politically and earnestly, as men will do—Nathanael having apparently forgotten the bitter cloud of a few minutes since, which yet lay heavy on his wife's heart. At least it seemed so, and his indifference made her angry.
Neither spoke to their wives—being busy laying their heads together over a newspaper—until Harrie very unceremoniously began to pull at her husband's coat, which he bore for a time in perfect obliviousness. At last he turned and patted her with his great hand, just as some sage, mild Newfoundland dog would coax into peace the attacks of a wild young kitten.
“Nay, now, Missus—don't'ee, love; I'm busy.—And you see, Nathanael, as your brother is sure not to canvass or try for the town, and as Mr. Trenchard is such a fine fellow, your father's friend too, don't you think we could coax him round? By conviction, of course: Trenchard wouldn't take any man's votes except upon conviction.”
“Wouldn't he?” said Nathanael, smiling at the simple-minded politician, who believed that everybody's politics were as honest as his own. At which unpropitious moment a number of half-drunken men, with “Vote for Trenchard!” stuck round their broken hats, came round the corner shouting:
“Hurrah for Free-trade! Duke Dugdale for ever! Bravo!—and give us a shilling! Amen!”
“You see now what comes of your politics,” cried his wife, trying to pull him into the hall. But the good man still stood, bareheaded, a perplexed expression troubling his face.
“It's very odd, now: I made Trenchard promise not to give them a penny for drink. Poor fellows! if they only knew better! But I'll tell'ee what it is, Nathanael,” and he used the slight Dorset accent, which always broadened when he was very earnest, “those lads drink because they are starving—drink drowns care. If they had Free-trade they wouldn't be starving: if they were not starving they wouldn't drink. Therefore, hurrah for Free-trade, and, my poor fellows, here's your shilling! Only don't'ee let it go for more drink'; and, hark'ee, remember it's no bribery money o' Mr. Trenchard's, its mine.
“Thank'ee, zir, thank'ee; hurrah for Duke Dugdale and Free-trade!” shouted the men as they staggered off.
Mr. Dugdale stood looking after them with that mild benevolent smile which made his ugly face quite beautiful—at least Agatha thought so;—which was very generous in her, seeing he had not taken the least notice of her all this while; when he did, it was in the most passing way.