Meanwhile the young man who has been described resumed his course; but slowly, and without betraying by any marked sign that he shared the general feeling. Still, he walked with his head a little higher than before; he seemed to sniff the battle; and there was a light in his eyes as if he saw a wider arena before him. “It is true, then,” he muttered. “And for to-day I shall have my errand for my pains. He will have other fish to fry, and will not see me. But what of that! Another day will do as well.”
At this moment a ragamuffin in an old jockey-cap attached himself to him, and, running beside him, urged him to hasten.
“Run, your honour,” he croaked in gin-laden accents, “and you’ll ’ave a good place! And I’ll drink your honour’s health, and Billy the King’s! Sure he’s the father of his country, and seven besides. Come on, your honour, or they’ll be jostling you!”
Vaughan glanced down and shook his head. He waved the man away.
But the lout looked only to his market, and was not easily repulsed. “He’s there, I tell you,” he persisted. “And for threepence I’ll get you to see him. Come on, your honour! It’s many a Westminster election I’ve seen, and beer running, from Mr. Fox, that was the gentleman had always a word for the poor man, till now, when maybe it’s your honour’s going to stand! Anyway, it’s, Down with the mongers!”
A man who was clinging to the wall at the corner of Downing Street waved his broken hat round his head. “Ay, down with the borough-mongers!” he cried. “Down with Peel! Down with the Dook! Down with ’em all! Down with everybody!”
“And long live the Bill!” cried a man of more respectable appearance as he hurried by. “And long live the King, God bless him!”
“They’ll know what it is to balk the people now,” chimed in a fourth. “Let ’em go back and get elected if they can. Ay, let ’em!”
“Ay, let ’em! Mr. Brougham’ll see to that!” shouted the other. “Hurrah for Mr. Brougham!”
The cry was taken up by the crowd, and three cheers were given for the Chancellor, who was so well known to the mob by the style under which he had been triumphantly elected for Yorkshire that his peerage was ignored.