"Well, but what's Tories goin' to do this time?" asked Mr. Moule, a maltster in the town. "Our presen' member, Sir George Neal, won't stand again! Told me so his own self last time he was in town for quarter sessions--says he's too old. My 'pinion is his wife won't let un. He's a rum un, is Sir George, and when he gets up to London by himself, he goes it, they du say!"
"Nansense, Moule! I wunner at a man o' your sense talkin' such stuff," said Farmer Croke. "That's playin' the Lib'ral game, that is!--though I hey understood that Sir George won't come forrerd again."
"And the Lib'rals is going to mek a tre-menjous struggle this time, I've heerd," observed Moule.
"Who are they goin' to bring forrerd, hev you heerd?" asked Mr. Spalding with interest.
"Well, I did hear, but I've a'most forgot," said Mr. Moule, who was of a misty and a muddled nature. "No, now I reck'lect, it was young Bokenham!"
"What, son of old Tom Bokenham of Blott's Mills?" asked Mr. Spalding.
"That same! Old man's terrible rich, they du say; firm was Bokenham and Sculthorpe, but Sculthorpe broke his leg huntin' wi' Squire Peacock's harriers, and has been out of business for some time."
"He's just built two saw-mills in Galabin Street, hasn't he?" asked Mr. Croke.
"He has, and that plant in Harmer's Row is his too. Young Tom, he's lawyer up in London--lawyer they say, tho' I thowt he was a parson, as they told me he lives in a Temple, and he's wonderful clever in speakin' at club-meetin's and suchlike, and they du say that he's not only a Lib'ral, but"--and here Mr. Moule sank his voice to a whisper to give due horror to his revelation--"that he's an out-and-out Rad.!"
"You don't say that!" said Farmer Adams, pushing away his chair with a creak, and gazing with terror at the speaker.