Mr. Broad had decided not to vote. He did not deny that his sympathies were not with the Tories, but as a minister of religion it would be better for him to remain neutral. This annoyed the Allens and damaged their cause. At a meeting held by the Tories one of the speakers called upon the audience to observe that all the respectable people, with very few exceptions, were on their side. “Why,” cried he, “I’ll bet you, my friends, all Lombard Street to a china orange that they don’t get even the Dissenting parson to vote for the Radicals. Of course he won’t, and why? Just because he’s a cut above his congregation, and knows a little more than they do, and belongs to the intelligent classes.”
George bethought himself that perhaps he might do something through Priscilla to influence her mother, and he determined to speak to her about it. He came home one evening after attending a committee, and found supper ready. Priscilla was downstairs, sitting with the door open.
“Hadn’t we better shut the door?” said George; “it is rather cold.”
“No, no, George; I shouldn’t hear the baby.”
“But Ellen is upstairs.”
“Yes; but then she might go to sleep.”
“My dear,” began George, “I wish your father could be got to vote straight. You see that by not doing so he goes against all the principles of the Independents. Ever since they have been in existence they have always stood up for freedom, and we are having the large yellow flag worked with the words, Civil and Religious Liberty. It will be a bad thing for us if he holds aloof. I cannot understand,” he continued, getting eloquent, “how a Dissenting minister can make up his mind not to vote against a party which has been answerable for all the oppression and all the wrongs in English history, and for all our useless wars, and actually persecuted his predecessors in this very meetinghouse in which he now preaches. Besides, to say nothing about the past, just look at what we have before us now. The Tories are the most bitter opponents of Free Trade. I can’t tell you how I feel about it, and I do think that if you were to speak to your mother she would perhaps induce him to change his mind.”
It was a long time since he had said so much all at once to his wife.
“George, George, I am sure he’s awake!” and she was off out of the room in an instant. Presently she returned.
“Mamma came here this afternoon and brought his hood—a new one—such a lovely hood!—and she says he looks more than ever like a Flavel in it.”
“I don’t believe you listened to a word of what I was saying.”
“Oh yes, I did; you always think I don’t listen; but I can listen to you and watch for him too.”
“What did I say?”
“Never mind, I know.”
“I cannot understand,” he said sullenly, and diverted for a moment from his subject, “why mamma should be always telling you he is a Flavel.”
“Well, really, George, why shouldn’t she? Tryphosa said the other day that if you were to take away grandpapa Flavel’s wig and bands from the picture in the Evangelical Magazine he would be just like him.”
“It seems to me,” replied George, “that if there’s any nonsense going about the town, it always comes to you. People don’t talk such rubbish to me.”
What the effect of this speech might have been cannot be told, for at this moment the baby did really cry, and Priscilla departed hastily for the night. She never spoke to her mother about the election, for, as George suspected, she had not paid the slightest attention to him; and as to exchanging with her mother a single word upon such a subject as politics, or upon any other subject which was in any way impersonal—she never did such a thing in her life.
It was the uniform practice of the Reverend John Broad to walk down the main Street of Cowfold on Monday morning, and to interchange a few words with any of his congregation whom he might happen to meet. This pastoral perambulation not only added importance to him, and made him a figure in Cowfold, but, coming always on Monday, served to give people some notion of a preoccupation during the other days of the week which was forbidden, for mental reasons, on the day after Sunday. On this particular Monday Mr. Broad was passing Mr. Allen’s shop, and seeing father and son there, went in. Mr. Allen himself was at a desk which stood near the window, and George was at the counter, in a black apron, weighing nails.
After an unimportant remark or two about the weather, Mr. Allen began in a cheery tone, so as to prevent offence:
“Mr. Broad, we are sorry we cannot persuade you to vote for the good cause.”
Mr. Broad’s large mouth lengthened itself, and his little eyes had an unpleasant light in them.
“Brother Allen, I have made this matter the subject of much meditation, and I may even say of prayer, and I have come to the conclusion it will be better for me to occupy a neutral position.”
“Why, Mr. Broad? You cannot doubt on which side the right lies.”
“No; but then there are so many things to be considered, so many responsibilities, and my first care, you see, must be the ministerial office and the church which Providence has placed in my charge.”
“But, Mr. Broad, there are only two or three of them who are Tory.”
“Only old Bushel and another farmer or two,” interrupted George.
Mr. Broad looked severely at George, but did not condescend to answer him.
“Those two or three, Brother Allen,
