He paused amid such a roar of applause as shook the room.
“For think not”—the Sergeant resumed when it died down—“think not, gentlemen, whatever the easily led vulgar may think, that sacrilegious hands can be laid on the Ark of the Constitution without injury to many other interests; without the shock being felt through all the various members of the State down to the lowest: without endangering all those multiform rights and privileges for which the Constitution is our guarantee! Let the advocates of this pernicious, this revolutionary Bill say what they will, they cannot deny that its effect will be to deprive you in Chippinge who, for nearly five centuries, have enjoyed the privilege of returning members to Parliament—of that privilege, with all”—here he glanced at the rich array of bottles that covered the board—“the amenities which it brings with it! And for whose benefit? For that of men no better qualified—nay, by practice and heredity less qualified—than yourselves. But, gentlemen, mark me, that is not all! That is but the beginning, and it may be the least part. That loss they cannot hide from you. That loss they do not attempt to hide from you. But they do hide from you,” he continued in his deepest and most tragic tone, “a fact to which the whole course of history is witness—that a policy of robbery once begun is rarely stayed, if it be stayed, until the victim is bare! Bare, gentlemen! Gentlemen, the freemen of this borough have of ancient right, conferred by an ancient sovereign——”
“God bless him!” from Annibal, now somewhat drunk. “God bless him! Here’s his health!”
The Sergeant paused an instant and looked round the table. Then more slowly, “Ay, God bless him!” he said. “God bless King Canute! But what—what if those grants of land—-I care not whether you call them chartered rights or vested interests—which you freemen enjoy of him—what if they do not enure? You have them,” with a penetrating glance from face to face, “but for how long, gentlemen, if this Bill pass? You are too clear-sighted to be blind to the peril! Too shrewd to think that you can part with one right, as old, as well vested, as perfectly secured—and keep the others undiminished? Gentlemen, if you are so blind, take warning! For wherever this anarchical, this dangerous, this revolutionary Bill——”
“Hear! Hear! Hear!” from Vaughan’s neighbour, the Squire.
“Wherever, I say, this Bill finds supporters—and I can well believe that in Birmingham and Sheffield, where they have all to gain and nothing to lose, it will find supporters, it should find none in Chippinge! Where we have all to lose and nothing to gain, and where no man but a fool or a rogue can in reason support it! Gentlemen, you are neither fools nor rogues——”
“No! No! No! No!”
“No, gentlemen, and therefore, though a few silly fellows may shout for the Bill in the streets, I am sure that I shall have the whole of this influential company with me when I give you the toast of ‘Our Ancient Constitution, Our Chartered Rights, Our Vested Interests!’ May the Bill that assails them be defeated by the good sense of a sober and united people! May those who urge it and those who support it—rogues where they are not fools, and fools where they are not rogues—meet with the fate they deserve! And may we be there to see! Gentlemen,” he continued, raising his hand for silence, “in the absence upon pressing business of our beloved High Steward, the model of an English gentleman and the pattern of an English landlord, I beg to couple this toast”—here the Sergeant’s sharp black eyes fixed themselves suddenly on his opposite neighbour—“with the name of his kinsman, Mr. Arthur Vaughan!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” The room shook with the volume of applause, the tables trembled. And through it all Arthur Vaughan’s heart beat hard, and he swallowed nervously. He was caught. Whether the Sergeant knew it or not, he was trapped. From the beginning of the speech he had had his misgivings. He had listened anxiously; and though he had lost nothing, though one half of his mind had followed the speaker’s thread, the other half had scanned the prospect feverishly, weighed the chances of escape, and grown chill with the fear of what was coming. If he had only withdrawn in time! If he had only——
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” They were pounding the table with fist and glass, and looking towards him—two long rows of flushed, excited, tipsy faces. Some were drinking to him. Others were scanning him curiously. All were waiting.