Up with young Tommy, all curls and gold!"
—it was indeed a day to make one proud of the British Constitution.
"We'll do it again. We'll do it three times; if you are all good true-blue children;" Sir Roland said to the biggest-voiced ones, when the horses had made a good day of it; "blue jackets for the boys, and for the pretty girls blue bonnets, or hats, if they stand to their principles. But no yellow, mind you; touch no dirty yellow. Yellow fever, and jaundice for you, if you do. You shall all have the Gee-gees, to go and vote for Tommy."
"Vote for Tommy! All curls and gold!"
We heard the clear voices from the hill in chorus, for half a mile, or more, of our homeward road.
Elated as I was, by this triumph of pure principles, and display of unselfish innocence, all I kept asking myself was this—"Will a body, worth the Constituency piled on the top of the Constitution, and the Kingdom on the top of the Continent, ever be persuaded to 'vote for Tommy?' I must know my fate. I can't go on, like this. To-night I shall have to carry on again, as if all I cared about was piano and back-gammon; and tobacco and billiards, afterwards. Roly is full of resources; but I seem somehow to have lost the very simplest move of tactics! Where are all my wits gone? I am only fit to be in the Government."
But if my wits stood me in no stead, Luck (which is a very far higher power, coming immediate from Heaven), she—for beyond any doubt she is female, like the Angels—down she came, and stood at my right hand, and ordered me to listen, while she did my work for me.
"Roly," Lady Twentifold said, when I had sung my song about the flag, which was now become a plague; "he has done a very hard day's work to-day, and he is not made of iron as you are. To-morrow, he shall have a whole holiday, with me and Laura, at Crowton and Sunny Bay. You have got business at Ipswich, I know, and will not be back till dinner-time. But if Tommy will not find it dull to come with us, and the day is as fine as to-day has been, we will go and see Sunny Bay—such a pretty place!—and look for shells, and sharks' teeth, and carnelians. Unless you would rather go practising, Tommy, with the keeper, before they come shooting again? There are plenty of pheasants, in some places, still."
"No; he had better go with you;" Sir Roland answered for me, as he loved to do. "The fates have been against Tommy's shooting so far. He has only been out with me twice at the rabbits, back in the summer; but I find thee apt; and duller should'st thou be than the fat cigar, Tommy—none shall teach thy young idea how to shoot, but I. Go thou with the mother, and play at periwinkles, and sand-hoppers, and cowries; an thou wilt."