To the men who bade him look up and see that in his Elysium the farmer struggled and the laborer starved, his answer was short. “Better ten shillings and fresh air, than shoddy dust and a pound a week!”
In the country as a whole—and as time went on—he despaired of success. But he found Lord George a leader after his own heart, and many an evening he pored over the long paragraphs of his long-winded speeches. When he heard that the owner of Crucifix had dismissed his trainers, released his jockeys, sold his stud, and turned his back on the turf, he could have wept. Lord George and Stubbs, indeed, were the true country party. For Lord George’s sake Stubbs was prepared to taken even the “Jew boy” to his heart.
As to the potato famine, he did not believe a word of it. He called the Premier, “Potato Peel!”
The rains of February are apt to damp enthusiasm, but before eleven o’clock on the nomination day Riddsley was like a hive of bees about to swarm. The throng in the streets was such that Mottisfont could hardly pass through it. He made his entry into the borough on horseback at the head of a hundred mounted farmers wearing blue sashes and favors. Before him reeled a huge banner upheld by eight men and bearing on one side the legend, “The Land and the Constitution,” on the other, “Mottisfont the Farmers’ Friend!” Behind the horsemen, and surrounded by a guard of laborers in smocked frocks, moved a plough mounted on a wain and drawn by eight farm horses. Flags with “Speed the Plough,” “England’s Share is England’s Fare,” and “Peace and Plenty,” streamed from it. Three bands of varying degrees of badness found their places where they could, and thumped and blared against one another until the panes rattled in the deafened streets. The butchers, with marrow-bones and cleavers, brought up the rear, and in comparison were tuneful.
Had Basset got his way, he would have dispensed with pomp and walked the hundred yards which separated his quarters at the Swan from the hustings. But he was told that this would never do. What would the landlord of the Swan say, who kept postchaises? And the postboys who looked for a golden tip? And the men who would hand him in and hand him out, and the men who would open the door and shut the door, and the men who would raise the steps and lower the steps, who would all look for the same tip? So, perforce, he drove in state to the Town Hall—before which the hustings stood—in a barouche and four accompanied by Banfield and Hatton and his agent. The rest of his Committee followed in postchaises. A bodyguard of “hands” escorted them, and they, too, had their bands—of equal badness—and their yellow banners with “Down with the Corn Laws,” “Vote for Basset the Poor Man’s Friend,” and “No Bread Taxes.” The great and little loaf pranced in front of him on spears, and if his procession was not quite so fine or so large as his opponent’s, it must be admitted that the blackguards of the town showed no preference and that he could boast about an equal number of the tagrag and bobtail.
The left hand of the hustings was allotted to him, the right hand to Mottisfont, and by a little after eleven both parties had crammed and crushed,
With blustering, bullying, and brow-beating,
A little pummelling and maltreating,
And elbowing, jostling and cajoling,
into their places in front of the platform, the bullies and truncheon-men being posted well to the fore, or craftily ranged where the frontiers met. The bands boomed and blared, the men huzzaed, the air shook, the banners waved, every window that looked out upon the seething mob was white with faces, every ’vantage-point was occupied. It was such a day and such a contest as Riddsley had never seen. The eyes of the country, it was felt, were upon it! Fights took place every five minutes, oaths and bets flew like hail over the heads of the crowd, coarse wit met coarser nicknames, and now and again shrieks varied the hubbub as the huge press of people, gathered from miles round, swayed under the impact of some vicious rush.
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Mottisfont for ever! Basset! Basset and the Big Loaf! Basset! Basset! Hurrah! Mottisfont! Hurrah!”
Then, in a short-lived silence, “Ten to one on Mottisfont! Three cheers for the Duke!” and a roar of laughter.