There were nine days of this work, during which Lord Silverbridge became very popular and made many speeches. Tregear did not win half so many hearts, or recommend himself so thoroughly to the political predilections of the borough;--but nevertheless he was returned. It would probably be unjust to attribute his success chiefly to the young Lord's eloquence. It certainly was not due to the strong religious feelings of the rector. It is to be feared that even the thoughtful political convictions of the candidate did not altogether produce the result. It was that chief man among the candidates, guides, and friends, that leading philosopher who would not allow anybody to go home from the rain, and who kept his eyes so sharply open to the pecuniary doings of the Carbottleites, that Mr Carbotttle's guides and friends had hardly dared to spend a shilling;--it was he who had in truth been efficacious. In every attempt they had made to spend their money they had been looked into and circumvented. As Mr Carbottle had been brought down to Polpenno on purpose that he might spend money,--as he had nothing but his money to recommend him, and as he had not spent it,--the free and independent electors of the borough had not seen their way to vote for him. Therefore the Conservatives were very elate with their triumph. There was a great conservative reaction. But the electioneering guide, philosopher, and friend, in the humble retirement of his own home,--he was a tailor in the town, whose assistance at such periods had long been in requisition,--he knew very well how the seat had been secured. Ten shillings a head would have sent three hundred Liberals to the ballot-boxes! The mode of distributing the money had been arranged; but the conservative tailor had been to acute, and not a half-sovereign could be passed. The tailor got twenty-five pounds for his work, and that was smuggled in among the bills for printing.
Mr Williams, however, was sure that he had so opened out the iniquities of the dissenters as to have convinced the borough.
Yes, every Salem and Zion and Ebenezer in his large parish would be closed. 'It is a great thing for the country,' said Mr Williams.
'He'll make a capital member,' said Silverbridge, clapping his friend on the back.
'I hope he'll never forget,' said Mr Williams, 'that he owes his seat to the protestant and Church-of-England principles which have sunk so deeply into the minds of the thoughtful portion of the inhabitants of this borough.'
'Whom should they elect but Tregear?' said the mother, feeling that her rector took too much of the praise himself.
'I think you have done more for us than anyone else,' whispered Miss Tregear to the young Lord. 'What you said was so reassuring!'
The father before he went to bed expressed to his son, with some trepidation, a hope that all this would lead to no great permanent increase of expenditure.
That evening before he went to bed Lord Silverbridge wrote to his father an account of what had taken place at Polpenno.
'Polwenning, 15 December 'MY DEAR FATHER, 'Among us all we have managed to return Tregear. I am afraid you will not be quite pleased because it will be a vote lost to your party. But I really think that he is just the fellow to be in Parliament. If he were on your side I'm sure he's just the kind of man you'd like to bring into office. He is always thinking about those sort of things. He says that, if there were no Conservatives, such Liberals as you and Mr Monk would be destroyed by the Jacobins. There is something in that. Whether a man is Conservative or not himself, I suppose there ought to be Conservatives.'
The Duke as he read this made a memorandum in his own mind that he would explain to his son that every carriage should have a drag to its wheels, but that an ambitious soul would choose to be the coachman rather than the drag.
'It was beastly work!' The Duke made another memorandum to instruct his son that no gentleman above the age of schoolboy should allow himself to use such a word in such a sense. 'We had to go about in the rain up to our knees in mud for eight or nine days, always saying the same thing. And of course all that we said was bosh.' Another memorandum--or rather two, one as to the slang, and another as to the expediency of teaching something to the poor voters on such occasions. 'Our only comfort was that the Carbottle people were as quite badly off as us.' Another memorandum as to the grammar. The absence of Christian charity did not at the moment affect the Duke. 'I made ever so many speeches, till at last it seemed quite easy.' Here there was a very grave memorandum. Speeches easy to young speakers are generally very difficult to old listeners. 'But of course it was all bosh.' This required no separate memorandum.