“With your help, anyway, Stubbs,” my lord said with a smile. The lawyer’s excitement amused him.
“No, my lord! Never with my help! I believe that on the landed interest rests the stability of the country! It was the landed interest that supported Pitt and beat Bony, and brought us through the long war. It was the landed interest that kept us from revolution in the dark days after the war. And now because the men that turn cotton and iron and clay into money by the help of the devil’s breath—because they want to pay lower wages——”
“The ark of the covenant is to be overthrown, eh?” the young man laughed. “Why, to listen to you, Stubbs, one would think that you were the largest landowner in the county!”
“No, my lord,” the lawyer answered. “But it’s the landowners have made me what I am. And it’s the landowners and the farmers that Riddsley lives by and is going to stand by! And the sooner Mr. Mottisfont knows that the better. He was elected as a Tory, and a Tory he must stop, whether Sir Robert turns his coat or not!”
“You want me to speak to Mottisfont?”
“We do, my lord. Just a word. I was at the Ordinary last fair day, and there was nothing else talked of. Free Canadian corn was too like free French corn and free Belgian corn for Stafford wits to see much difference. And Peel is too like repeal, my lord. We are beginning to see that.”
Audley shrugged his shoulders. “The party is satisfied,” he said. “And Mottisfont? I can’t drive the man.”
“No, but a word from you——”
“Well, I’ll think about it. But I fancy you’re overrunning the scent.”
“Then the line is not straight!” the lawyer retorted shrewdly. “However, if I have been too warm, I beg pardon, my lord.”