Ann Johnson watched her as she hastened to her own room, and she thought she heard a sob as the door closed. She wondered what it meant. She liked the young Squire of Darentdale, and thought him almost good enough for Margaret; but there was no knowing, and she resolved to fortify her against him in case he was not all he seemed; she therefore took an opportunity to relate one of her stories.
“I shouldn’t like to travel. I should be afraid it would hurt my morals. I knowed a man who lived abroad, and a nicer man before he went there couldn’t be, nor a kinder. I seen him the day afore he went, and I seen him the day after he come back. He were altered then, for he had a scar on his face. I says to him, ‘How come them beauty spots on you?’ and he says, ‘Oh, it were a bird that scratted me with her sharp tallions’; but whether it were the truth I don’t know. He didn’t always tell the truth; for he pretended to fall in love with a lady as I knows, and he proposed to her, and then he set to work to steal her heart away. And he stole it, too; and they was going to be married—it was almost as close as Miss Wythburn’s wedding—and then a woman come as proved as she were his lawful wedded wife. And all the while he had been that proper—not a bit trivial, nor nothing of that, but pious enough to deceive a saint. My opinion is as few men can stand them foreign parts; so you be careful, dearie.”
Ann Johnson’s stories always made Margaret laugh, and they did now, though she was sadly wondering where John was, and what he was thinking of her.
CHAPTER XIV.
DEFEAT OR VICTORY?
On the morning of the day of the election Scourby was fairly quiet, although many of the people had taken a holiday, and were spending it in the public-houses and the streets. The noise would come later, when the votes had been counted and the result was known. The greatest enthusiasm was evinced whenever Mr. Lavender appeared on the scene. If only the enthusiasm had been for a better man, how good this feeling of exultation and loyalty would have proved! Alas, for the nation that is not enthusiastic! Few sights in England have been more pleasant than the rapture with which the men have welcomed their Parliamentary representative, when the man has been worthy. Such elections, even when they have been stormy, have been among the glories of our land. It was new for such men as Lavender to be “the chosen of the people,” and because it was new the steady, stable middle classes could not believe in it. But much had been going on of which they had little idea. Unfortunately, it had long been the case that many of the best men of the Churches had altogether held aloof from politics, when they ought to have been in the very forefront of the battle. The reason they gave was that Christianity and politics seemed to have little in common. Many a party had had its birth in some public-house, and many a seat had been won by exaggerations and lies told of the opposite side, and by broadcast promises that had never been kept, nor were ever intended to be. To buy the more ignorant part of the working men by flattering their vanity, by setting class against class, by misrepresentations, and the stirring up of their worst passions of hate and selfishness—these had been the policy of more than a few who had by these means won the highest honours in the land; but men with consciences educated at the Cross could not stoop to these things; if they tried, they generally failed; and, in the end, far too many withdrew from politics altogether, thereby exhibiting a pusillanimity which was little creditable to themselves or their Church, since, together, they were well able to insist that political contests should be fought on quite other lines, and with different weapons.
In the meantime strong efforts were made by the opponents of the Churches. The bar-room in many instances was the canvassing ground, and one notable feature in the case was that hundreds of young men were Lavender’s adherents. When they grew older they might become wiser; but at present a very large proportion of young householders voted for him. The fact was that he and his party had helped them to their votes, for certain men who had cheap house-property had been careful to encourage young men to become occupiers that they might exercise the franchise; and these men had been well looked after, not only on the eve of the contest, but for more than a year, and had by this means been secured by these far-seeing men of the world.
It was these facts which gave to the new party its hopes; and the party, not only in Scourby, but throughout the country, was dangerous because of its numbers. It sought to pose as “the Labour Party,” and whichever side can persuade the multitude to believe it to be that is pretty certain of success. But there were hundreds of honourable, high-souled working men in Scourby who were as much humiliated as the wealthiest, when the state of the poll was declared at night.
For the figures proved the stubborn fact that, though by only a small majority, Richard Lavender was duly elected.
From the yells of delight, and the groans of disgust that followed, two astute working men turned away with hot anger and indignation in their hearts. “There will be a reckoning for somebody or other over this,” said one. “What have all the parsons been doing that they could not save the town from such disgrace?”
“Smoking their pipes in their studies, I suppose. We have been perfectly sold! Isn’t it a pity that none but fools can be found to manage affairs? We ought to have had a local man. Both the Tory and the Radical are complete strangers to us. How is it that a man seldom represents his own town, but nearly always comes seeking the suffrages of some place that knows nothing about him, except what he and the newspapers say?”