THE CHRONICLES OF A RURAL PARISH.
IX.—Of Coal.
The County Council has solved the great Mudford mystery by deciding in favour of Mrs. Arble March, who is in the seventh heaven at being the Seventh Councillor. A wise Legislature had it in contemplation that possibly when the great measure came to be worked, it might not be found to act, however much you pulled the string, and it was accordingly left to the County Council to set on its legs any poor little Parish Council which might have been brought into the world without its full number of members. Thus it came about that Mrs. March got elected. The actual circumstances of her election gave rise to some comment. She was proposed by the Primrose League Ruling Councillor of one adjoining parish, and seconded by the Knight Harbinger of another. Our County Council is a strongly Tory body, and she was easily elected. There was a great outcry against this, as an act of political partisanship. It was. But when it became known that Mrs. Letham Havitt's friends and supporters were all avowed Radicals, popular indignation seemed suddenly to flicker out.
It may be, however, that the indignation only transferred itself to me, for I myself have got, in a most extraordinary and unexpected fashion, into a great hobble. It arose in this way. Having been elected on to the Parish Council at the top of the poll, and having, moreover, been subsequently the recipient of innumerable congratulations from my fellow-parishioners, I not unnaturally—so I still venture to think—desired in some way to show my appreciation of the kind treatment I had received. I accordingly determined to make to every elector a present of coals, and to carry out that intention issued the following circular:—
To the Electors of Mudford.
Ladies and Gentlemen,—For your kindness in electing me at the top of the poll, I can find no terms sufficiently warm to express myself. In commemoration of the great occasion, and as a small thankoffering for my return, I beg your acceptance of the enclosed Coal Ticket, which will entitle you to 2 cwt. of coal from any of the village coal dealers.
Your obliged and obedient servant,
Timothy Winkins.
I sent this to every elector, high or low, rich or poor. I hardly imagined that the Squire would want coal, but he was a constituent of mine, and he had his ticket. What has been the result of my generosity? This. Whilst almost every coal-ticket has been used, I am denounced right and left in unmeasured terms as an unscrupulous briber. Miss Phill Burtt (who, as might be expected, has been most kind and sympathetic about the whole thing), tells me that even the Squire said it was a very ingenious way of wishing myself Many Happy Returns to the Parish Council. A poor joke, I think, but an undeniably excellent sneer. Black Bob is, as might be expected, much more plain and direct in his denunciation. He says, that if I stand for re-election—in April, 1896!—this ought to be enough to unseat me. A pleasant prospect. I can do nothing. My boats, like my coal, are burnt.