“Yes. He gives pretty wide credit. The whole village is on his books, and half of them are under judgment summonses. He don’t put them in prison, of course, but they know he could do.”
I expressed my view about the iniquity of such proceedings, which I scarcely credited.
“I don’t see anything wrong in it,” continued my friend. “It’s checkmate to the parson. The parsons about here threaten a labourer with hell in the next world if he votes Liberal, and our friend threatens him with hell in this, if he votes Conservative, and then he votes as he likes. It seems to me reasonable enough.”
It is curious how far removed this neighbourhood was from London and the political world. The workers listened eagerly to speeches from wagons and in schoolrooms, but the questions discussed were
evidently new to most of the hearers. Many strange questions were asked you, and curious ideas of the position of affairs put forward. One of the strangest politicians I ever met was an old farm labourer tramping towards Hughenden. I jumped out of my pony cart and walked with him up the hill.
“Are you a voter in the Aylesbury Division?” I asked.
“Aye, that I be,” he replied with a grin, in a chanting voice.
“I hope you are going to vote for Mr. Hodgson.”
“Aye, I be going to vote for Mr. Hodgson right enough, fur he be Gladstone’s man.”
“Right you are,” I said, “he’s Gladstone’s man.”