“Non sine pulvere!” Mr. Colet murmured.

“Dust enough there’ll be! I don’t doubt that. And dirt. But there’s another thing.” He paused, and turning, knocked the fire together. He was nearly a minute about it, while the other waited. “There’s another thing,” he repeated. “I am not going into this business to pay out a private grudge, and I want to be clear that I am not doing that. And I’m not going into this simply for what I can get out of it. Ambition is a poor stayer with me, a washy chestnut. It would not carry me through, Colet. If I go into this, it will be because I believe in it. It seems as if I were preaching,” he continued awkwardly. “But there’s nothing but belief will carry me through, and unless I am clear—I’ll not start. I’ll not start, although I want to make a fresh start badly! Devilish badly, if you’ll excuse me!”

“And how will you——”

“Make certain? I don’t know. I must fight it out by myself—go up on the hill and think it out. I must believe in the thing, or I must leave it alone!”

“Just so,” said Mr. Colet. And prudent for once he said no more.

CHAPTER XXIV
AN AGENT OF THE OLD SCHOOL

It is doubtful if even the great Reform Bill of ’32, which shifted the base of power from the upper to the middle class, awoke more bitter feelings that did the volte face of Peel in the winter of ’45. Since the days of Pitt no statesman had enjoyed the popularity or wielded the power which had been Sir Robert’s when he had taken office four years before. He had been more than the leader of the Tory party; he had been its re-creator. He had been more than the leader of the landed interest; he had been its pride. Men who believed that upon the welfare of that interest rested the stability of the constitution, men with historic names had walked on his right hand and on his left, had borne his train and carried his messages. All things, his origin, his formality, his pride, his quiet domestic life, even his moderation, had been forgiven in the man who had guided the Tories through the bad days, had led them at last to power, and still stood between them and the mutterings of this new industrial England, that hydra-like threatened and perplexed them.

And then—he had betrayed them. Suddenly, some held; in a panic, scared by God knows what bugbear! Coldly and deliberately, said others, spreading his treachery over years, laughing in his sleeve as he led them to the fatal edge. Those who took the former view made faint excuse for him, and perhaps still clung to him. Those who held the latter thought no price too high, no sacrifice too costly, no effort too great, if they could but punish the traitor! If they could but pillory him for all to see.

So, in a moment, in the autumn of ’45, as one drop of poison will cloud the fairest water, the face of public life was changed. Bitterness was infused into it, friend was parted from friend and son from father, the oldest alliances were dissolved. Men stood gaping, at a loss whither to turn and whom to trust. Many who had never in all their lives made up their own minds were forced to have an opinion and choose a side; and as that process is to some men as painful as a labor to a woman, the effect was to embitter things farther. How could one who for years past had cursed Cobden in all companies, and in moments of relaxation had drunk to a “Bloody War and a Wet Harvest,” turn round and join the Manchester School? It could be done, it was done, but with what a rending of bleeding sinews only the sufferers knew!

Strange to say, few gave weight to Sir Robert’s plea of famine in Ireland. Still more strange, when events bore out his alarm, when in the course of a year or two a quarter of a million in that unhappy country died of want, public feeling changed little. Those who had remained with him, stood with him still. Those who had banded themselves against him, held their ground. Only a handful allowed that he was honest, after all. Nor was it until he, who rode his horse like a sack, had died like a demi-god, with a city hanging on his breath, and weeping women filling all the streets about the house, that the traitor became the patriot.