never believed him so foolish!'
'It is perfectly true, but I must beg you not to mention it; I ought not to have been betrayed into mentioning it.'
'You need not caution me. It is not news I should be forward to spread. What does your father say to it?'
'The engagement took place since he left England.'
'I should think so!' Then pausing, he added, with condescending good-nature, 'Well, Fitzjocelyn, I seem to you a terrible old flint- stone, but I can't help that. There are considerations besides true love, you know; and for these young people, they can't have pined out their hearts yet, as, by your own showing, they have not been engaged three months. If it were Sydney himself, I should tell him that love is all the better for keeping-if it is good for anything; and where there is such a disparity, it ought, above all, to be tested by waiting. So tell Master Jem, with my best wishes, to take care of his grandmother. I shall think myself doing him a kindness in keeping him out of the school, if it is to hinder him from marrying at four-and-twenty, and a girl brought up as she has been!'
'And, Mr. Calcott,' said Louis, rising, 'you will excuse my viewing my cousin's engagement as an additional motive for doing my utmost to promote his success in obtaining a situation, for which I consider him as eminently fitted. Good morning, sir.'
'Good morning, my Lord.'
Lord Fitzjocelyn departed so grave, so courteous, so dignified, so resolute, so comically like his father, that the old Squire threw himself back in his chair and laughed heartily. The magnificent challenge of war to the knife, was no more to him than the adjuration he had heard last year in the justice-room; and he no more expected these two lads to make any effectual opposition than he did to see them repeal the game-laws.
The Viscount meanwhile rode off thoroughly roused to indignation. The good sense of sixty naturally fell hard and cold on the ears of twenty-two, and it was one of the moments when counsel inflamed instead of checking him. Never angry on his own account, he could be exceedingly wrathful for others; and the unlucky word, disparity, drove him especially wild. In mere charity, he thought it right to withhold this insult to the Pendragons from his cousin's ears; but this very reserve seemed to bind him to resent it in James's stead; and he was far more blindly impetuous than if, as usual, he had seen James so vehement that he was obliged to try to curb and restrain him.
He would not hear of giving in! When the Ramsbotham candidate appeared, and James scrupled to divide the contrary interest, Louis laid the whole blame of the split upon Mr. Calcott; while, as to poor Mr. Powell, no words were compassionate enough for his dull, slouching, ungentlemanly air; and he was pronounced to be an old writing-master, fit for nothing but to mend pens.
But Mr. Walby's was still their sole promise. The grocer followed the Squire; the bookseller was liberal, and had invited the Ramsbotham candidate to dinner. On this alarming symptom, Fitzjocelyn fell upon Richardson, and talked, and talked, and talked, till the solicitor could either bear it no longer, or feared for the Ormersfield agency, and his vote was carried off as a captive.
This triumph alarmed Mrs. Frost and James, who knew how scrupulously the Earl abstained from seeking anything like a favour at Northwold; and they tried to impress this on Louis, but he was exalted far above even understanding the remonstrance. It was all their disinterestedness; he had no notion of that guarded pride which would incur no obligation. No, no; if Jem would be beholden to no one, he would accept all as personal kindness to himself. Expect a return! he returned good-will-of course he would do any one a kindness. Claims, involving himself! he would take care of that; and off he went laughing.
He came in the next day, announcing a still grander and more formidable encounter. He had met Mr. Ramsbotham himself, and secured his promise that, in case he failed in carrying his own man, he and the butcher would support Mr. Frost.
The fact was, that Lord Fitzjocelyn's advocacy of the poacher, his free address, his sympathy for 'the masses,' and his careless words, had inspired expectations of his liberal views; Mr. Ramsbotham was not sorry to establish a claim, and was likewise gratified by the frank engaging manners, which increased the pleasure of being solicited by a nobleman-a distinction of which he thought more than did all the opposite party.
To put James beyond the perils of the casting vote was next the point. Without divulging his tactics, Louis flew off one morning by the train, made a sudden descent on the recluse banker at Ambleside, barbarously used his gift of the ceaseless tongue, till the poor old man was nearly distracted, touched his wife's tender heart with good old Mrs. Frost and the two lovers, and made her promise to bring him comfortably and quietly down to stay at Ormersfield and give his vote.
And so, when the election finally came on, Mr. Calcott found himself left with only his faithful grocer to support his protege. Three votes were given at once for the Reverend James Roland Frost Dynevor; the bookseller followed as soon as he saw how the land lay; and Ramsbotham and Co. swelled the majority as soon as they saw that their friend had no chance.
Poor Mr. Powell went home to his drudgery with his wrinkles deeper than ever; and his wife sighed as she resigned her last hope of sending her son to the University.
Mr. Calcott had, for the first time in his life, been over-ridden by an unscrupulous use of his neighbour's rank; and of the youthfulness that inspired hopes of fixing a claim on an untried, inexperienced man.
The old Squire was severely hurt and mortified; but he was very magnanimous-generously wished James joy, and congratulated Mrs. Frost with all his heart. He was less cordial with Louis; but the worst he said of him was, that he was but a lad, his father was out of the way, and he wished he might not find that he had got himself into a scrape. He could not think why a man of old Ormersfield's age should go figuring round Cape Horn, instead of staying to keep his own son in order.
Sydney was absent; but the rest of the family and their friends were less forbearing than the person chiefly concerned. They talked furiously, and made a strong exertion of forgiveness in order not to cut Fitzjocelyn. Sir Gilbert Brewster vowed that it would serve him right to be turned out of the troop, and that he must keep a sharp look out lest he should sow disaffection among the Yeomanry. Making friends with Ramsbotham! never taking out a gun! The country was gone to the dogs when such as he was to be a peer!
END OF VOL. I.
