Vaughan did not know whether to take this, which was gravely and even sentimentally spoken, for jest or earnest. He did not speak. And Brougham, seated in his favourite posture, with a hand on either knee, his lean body upright, and the skirts of his black coat falling to the floor on either side of him, resumed. “I hear, too, that you have done well at the Academic,” he said, “and on the right side, Mr. Vaughan. Light? Ay, always light, my friend, always light! Let that be our motto. For myself,” he continued earnestly, “I have taken it in hand that this poor country shall never lack light again; and by God’s help and Johnny Russell’s Bill I’ll bring it about! And not the phosphorescent light of rotten boroughs and corrupt corporations, Mr. Vaughan. No, nor the blaze of burning stacks, kindled by wretched, starving, ignorant—ay, above all, Mr. Vaughan, ignorant men! But the light of education, the light of a free Press, the light of good government and honest representation; so that, whatever they lack, henceforth they shall have voices and means and ways to make their wants known. You agree with me? But I know you do, for I hear how well you have spoken on that side. Mr. Cornelius,” turning and addressing the gentleman who still continued to write at his table, “who was it told us of Mr. Vaughan’s speech at the Academic?”
“I don’t know,” Mr. Cornelius answered gruffly.
“No?” the Chancellor said, not a whit put out. “He never knows anything!” And then, throwing one knee over the other, he regarded Vaughan with closer attention. “Mr. Vaughan,” he said, “have you ever thought of entering Parliament?”
Vaughan’s heart bounded, and his face betrayed his emotions. Good heavens, was the Chancellor about to offer him a Government seat? He scarcely knew what to expect or what to say. The prospect, suddenly opened, blinded him. He muttered that he had not as yet thought of it.
“You have no connection,” Brougham continued, “who could help you to a seat? For if so, now is the time. Presently there will be a Reformed Parliament and a crowd of new men, and the road will be blocked by the throng of aspirants. You are not too young. Palmerston was not so old when Perceval offered him a seat in the Cabinet.”
The words, the tone, the assumption that such things were for him—that he had but to hold out his hand and they would fall into it—dropped like balm into the young man’s soul. Yet he was not sure that the other was serious, and he made a tremendous effort to hide the emotion he felt. “I am afraid,” he said, with a forced smile, “that I, my lord, am not Lord Palmerston.”
“No?” Brougham answered with a faint sneer. “But not much the worse for that, perhaps. So that if you have any connection who commands a seat, now is the time.”
Vaughan shook his head. “I have none,” he said, “except my cousin, Sir Robert Vermuyden.”
“Vermuyden of Chippinge?” the Chancellor exclaimed, in a voice of surprise.
“The same, my lord.”