Let Transome for ever!'-' hurray for Transome!' the working men-let colliers and navvies and stonecutters, who between you and me have a good deal too much the worst of it, as things are now-let them join together and give their hands and voices for the right man, and they'll make the great people shake in their shoes a little; and when you shout for Transome remember you shout for more wages, and more of your rights, and you shout to get rid of rats and sprats and such small animals, who are the tools the rich make use of to squeeze the blood out of the poor man.' "I wish there'd be a row-I'd pommel him," said Dredge, who was generally felt to be speaking to the question. "No, no, my friend-there you're a little wrong. No pommelling-no striking first. There you have the law and the constable against you. A little rolling in the dust and knocking hats off, a little pelting with soft things that'll stick and not bruise-all that doesn't spoil the fun. If a man is to speak when you don't like to hear him, it is but fair you should give him something he doesn't like in return. And the same if he's got a vote and doesn't use it for the good of the country; I see no harm in splitting his coat in a quiet way. A man must be taught what's right if he doesn't know it. But no kicks, no knocking down, no pommelling." "It 'ud be good fun, though, if so-be," said Old Sleck, allowing himself an imaginative pleasure. "Well, well, if a Spratt wants you to say Garstin, it's some pleasure to think you can say Transome. Now, my notion is this. You are men who can put two and two together-I don't know a more solid lot of fellows than you are; and what I say is, let the honest men in this country who've got no vote show themselves in a body when they have the chance. Why, sirs, for every Tory sneak that's got a vote, there's fifty-five fellows who must stand by and be expected to hold their tongues. But I say, let 'em hiss the sneaks, let 'em groan at the sneaks, and the sneaks will be ashamed of themselves. The men who've got votes don't know how to use them. There's many a fool with a vote, who is not sure in his mind whether he shall poll, say for Debarry, or Garstin, or Transome-whether he'll plump or whether he'll split; a straw will turn him. Let him know your mind if he doesn't know his own. What's the reason Debarry gets returned? Because people are frightened at the Debarrys. What's that to you? You don't care for the Debarrys. If people are frightened at the Tories, we'll turn round and frighten them. You know what a Tory is-one who wants to drive the working men as he'd drive cattle. That's what a Tory is; and a Whig is no better, if he's like Garstin. A Whig wants to knock the Tory down and get the whip, that's all. But Transome's neither Whig nor Tory; he's the working man's friend, the collier's friend, the friend of the honest navvy. And if he gets into Parliament, let me tell you, it will be the better for you. I don't say it will be the better for overlookers and screws, and rats and sprats; but it will be the better for every good fellow who takes his pot at the Sugar Loaf." Mr Johnson's exertions for the political education of the Sproxton men did not stop here, which was the more disinterested in him as he did not expect to see them again, and could only set on foot an organisation by which their instruction could be continued without him. In this he was quite successful. A man known among the "butties" as Pack, who had already been mentioned by Mr Chubb, presently joined the party, and had a private audience of Mr Johnson, that he might be instituted as the "shepherd" of this new flock. "That's a right down genelman," said Pack, as he took the seat vacated by the orator, who had ridden away. "What's his trade, think you?" said Gills, the wiry stone-cutter. "Trade?" said Mr Chubb. "He's one of the topsawyers of the country. He works with his head, you may see that." "Let's have our pipes, then," said Old Sleck; "I'm pretty well tired o' jaw." "So am I," said Dredge. "It's wriggling worklike follering a stoat. It makes a man dry. I'd as lief hear preaching, on'y there's nought to be got by't. I shouldn't know which end I stood on if it wasn't for the tickets and the treatin'." CHAPTER XII. "Oh, sir, 'twas that mixture of spite and over-fed merriment which passes for humour with the vulgar. In their fun they have much resemblance to a turkey-cock. It has a cruel beak, and a silly iteration of ugly sounds; it spreads its tail in self-glorification, but shows you the wrong side of that ornament-liking admiration, but knowing not what is admirable." THIS Sunday evening, which promised to be so memorable in the experience of the Sproxton miners, had its drama also for those unsatisfactory objects to Mr Johnson's moral sense, the Debarrys. Certain incidents occurring at Treby Manor caused an excitement there which spread from the dining-room to the stables; but no one underwent such agitating transitions of feeling as Mr Scales. At six o'clock that superior butler was chuckling in triumph at having played a fine and original practical joke on his rival Mr Christian. Some two hours after that time, he was frightened, sorry, and even meek; he was on the brink of a humiliating confession; his cheeks were almost livid; his hair was flattened for want of due attention from his fingers; and the fine roll of his whiskers, which was too firm to give way, seemed only a sad reminiscence of past splendour and felicity. His sorrow came about in this wise. After service on that Sunday morning, Mr Philip Debarry had left the rest of the family to go home in the carriage, and had remained at the Rectory to lunch with his uncle Augustus, that he might consult him touching some letters of importance. He had returned the letters to his pocket-book but had not returned the book to his pocket, and he finally walked away leaving the enclosure of private papers and bank-notes on his uncle's escritoire. After his arrival at home he was reminded of his omission, and immediately despatched Christian with a note begging his uncle to seal up the pocket-book and send it by the bearer. This commission, which was given between three and four o'clock, happened to be very unwelcome to the courier. The fact was that Mr Christian, who had been remarkable through life for that power of adapting himself to circumstances which enables a man to fall safely on allfours in the most hurried expulsions and escapes, was not exempt from bodily suffering-a circumstance to which there is no known way of adapting one's self so as to be perfectly comfortable under it, or to push it off on to other people's shoulders. He did what he could he took doses of opium when he had an access of nervous pains, and he consoled himself as to future possibilities by thinking that if the pains ever became intolerably frequent a considerable increase in the dose might put an end to them altogether. He was neither Cato nor Hamlet, and though he had learned their soliloquies at his first boarding-school, he would probably have increased his dose without reciting those masterpieces. Next to the pain itself he disliked that any one should know of it: defective health diminished a man's market value; he did not like to be the object of the sort of pity he himself gave to a poor devil who : |