——"A grudge, time out of mind begun,
And mutually bequeathed from sire to son."
—Tatian.
"Lanyan forever! Lanyan forever!"
"Trembath forever! Trembath forever!"
The old town of Helston was a roaring, gesticulating mass, and the shouting of bellowing partisans reverberated up and down Coinage Hall Street. Crowd met crowd, waving their respective banners, opprobious names were shouted, fists flung in the air, and a special force of officers were busy from early morn quieting unruly fellows, some of them more stirred by the spirits of the Angel Inn than the spirits of politics. It was the period of the election for the Reform Parliament. Sir James Lanyan had come forth on the old party platform, and, most unexpectedly, in opposition to him, came Andrew Trembath. The latter had made himself eligible by the purchase of the Primrose Cottage, thus making himself a landholder of forty shillings annual value.
Towards noon the crowds converged upon the Bowling Green, where upon a raised platform sat the Mayor, the town functionaries, the candidates, and their proposers and seconds.
The figure of Sir James was just as tall as of old; the same eagle nose and piercing eyes; the same easy, urbane manner and distinguished appearance. The Conservatives admired him. His wealth, astuteness, experience, all urged the necessity of his return to the forum of government. There was an easiness of manner in the very position Sir James occupied that augured well his own hopes of the coming election. Why should he not have hopes? The interests of the landed party were all back of him. The Godolphins and all their followers were in his train. Reform measures were dangerous in their eyes to the staid health, political, of the country.
On the left, Andrew Trembath was not so easy in his mind. Sir James was an old general, and he knew it; but within Ande's breast was the buoyant hopes of youth. Here was the first stroke of revenge against an ancient foe. Could Sir James be beaten in his cherished hopes, and that by an upstart of a hated family, the more triumph.
The preliminary proceedings were gone through rapidly. Sir James, with a good bit of wisdom, had selected as his proposer a retired country gentleman and as his second a tradesman of Helston, thus drawing from the sympathy of both classes. The proposer, however, weakened his cause by his interlarding his speech with many classic quotations, learned no doubt when he was a lad at Eton, and also by a most unfortunate mentioning of the stain of treason on the name of the opposing candidate. Sir James, himself, though he sympathised with his proposer, felt irritated that he should make such a blunder, and a slight frown passed over his placid features.