THE RIDDSLEY ELECTION
The riot at Riddsley found its way into the London Press, and gained
for the contest a certain amount of notoriety. The _Morning Chronicle_
pointed out that the election had been provoked by the Protectionists
in a constituency in Sir Robert’s own country; and the writer inferred
that, foreseeing defeat, the party of the land were now resorting to
violence. The _Morning Herald_ rejoiced that there were still places
which would not put up with the incursions of the Manchester League,
“the most knavish, pestilent body of men that ever plagued this or any
country!” In the House, where the tempest of the Repeal debate already
raged, and the air was charged with the stern invective of Disraeli, or
pulsed to the cheering of Peel’s supporters—even here men discussed the
election at Riddsley, considered it a clue to the feeling in the
country, and on the one side hardly dared to hope, on the other refused
to fear. What? cried the Land Party. Be defeated in an agricultural
borough? Never!
For a brief time, then, the contest filled the public eye and presented
itself as a thing of more than common interest. Those who knew little
weighed the names and the past of the candidates; those behind the
scenes whispered of Lord Audley. Whips gave thought to him, and that
one to whom his lordship was pledged, wrote graciously, hinting at the
pleasant things that might happen if all went well, and the present
winter turned to a summer of fruition.
Alas, Audley felt that the Whip’s summer, and
The friendly beckon towards Downing Street,
Which a Premier gives to one who wishes
To taste of the Treasury loaves and fishes,
were very remote, whereas, if the other Whip, he who had the honors
under his hand and the places in his power, had written so! But that
cursed Stubbs had blocked his play in that direction by asserting that
it was hopeless, though Audley himself began at this late hour to
suspect that it had not been hopeless! That it had been far from
hopeless!
In his chagrin my lord tore the Whip’s letter across and across, and
then prudently gummed it together again and locked it away. Certainly
the odds were long that it would never be honored; on the one side
stood Peel with four-fifths of his Cabinet and half his party, with all
the Whigs, all the Radicals, all the League, and the Big Loaf: on the
other stood the landed interest! Just the landed interest led by Lord
George Bentinck, handsome and debonair, the darling of the Turf, the
owner of Crucifix; but hitherto a silent member, and one at whom, as a
leader, the world gaped. Only, behind this Joseph there lurked a
Benjamin, one whose barbed shafts were many a time to clear the field.
The lists were open, the lances were levelled, the slogan of Free Trade
was met by the cry of “The Land and the Constitution!” and while old
friendships were torn asunder and old allies cut adrift, town and
country, forge and field, met in a furious grapple that promised to be
final.
If, amid the dust of such a conflict, the riot at Riddsley obtained a
passing notice in London, intense it may be believed was the excitement
which it caused in the borough. Hatton and Banfield and their men went
about, vowing to take vengeance at the hustings. The mayor went about,
swearing in constables. The farmers and their allies went about
grinning. Fights took place nightly behind the Packhorse and the
Portcullis, while very old ladies, peering over their blinds, talked of
the French Revolution, and very young ones thought that the Militia,
adequately officered, should be brought into the town.
The spirit of which Basset had given proof was blazoned about; and he
gained in another way. He was one of those to whom a spice of danger is
a fillip, whom a little peril shakes out of themselves. On the day
after the riot he came upon a score of people collected round a Cheap
Jack in the market. The man presently closed his patter and his stall,
and, on the impulse of the moment, Basset took his place and made the
crowd a speech as short as it was simple. He told them that in his
opinion it was impossible to keep food out of the country by a tax
while Ireland was threatened by famine. Secondly, that the sacrifice
which Peel was making of his party, his reputation, and his consistency
was warrant that in his view the change was urgently needed. Thirdly,
he asked them whether the farmers were so prosperous and the laborers
so comfortable that change must be for the worse. But here he came on
delicate ground; murmurs arose and some hisses, and he broke off
good-humoredly, thanked the crowd, which had grown to a good size, and,
stepping down from his barrow, he walked away amid plaudits. The thing
was reported, and though the Tories sneered at it as a hole-and-corner
meeting, Farthingale held another view. He told Mr. Stubbs that it was
a neat thing—very well done.
Stubbs grunted. “Will it change a vote?” he growled.
“Change a——”
“Will it change a vote, man? You heard what I said.”
“Lord, no!” the clerk answered. “I never said it would!”
“Then why trouble about it?” Stubbs retorted fretfully. “Get on with
those poll-cards! I don’t pay you a guinea a day at election time to
praise monkey-tricks.”
For Stubbs was not happy. He knew, indeed, that the breaking-up of the
open-air meeting had been fairly successful. It had brought back two
votes to the fold; and he calculated that the seat would be held. But
by a majority how narrow, how fallen, how discreditable! He blushed to
think of it.
And other things made him unhappy. Those who are politicians by trade
are like cardplayers, who play for the game’s sake; one game lost, they
cut and deal as keenly as before. Behind the politicians, however, are
a few to whom the stake is something; and of these was Stubbs. To him,
as we know, the Corn-Tax was no mere toll, but the protection of
agriculture, the well-head that guarded the pure waters, the fence that
saved from smoke and steam, from slag-heap and brickfield, the smiling
face of England. For him, the home of his fathers, the land of field
and stubble, of plough and pinfold, was at stake; nay, was passing,
wasted by men who thought in percentages and saw no farther than the
columns of their ledgers. To that England of his memory—whether it had
ever existed in fact or no—a hundred associations bound the lawyer;
things tender and things true; quaint memories of his first turkey’s
nest, of the last load of the harvest, of the loosened plough horses
straying to the water at the close of day, of the flat paintings of the
Durham Ox and the Coke Ram that adorned the farm parlor.
To the men who bade him look up and see that in his Elysium the farmer
struggled and the laborer starved, his answer was short. “Better ten
shillings and fresh air, than shoddy dust and a pound a week!”
In the country as a whole—and as time went on—he despaired of success.
But he found Lord George a leader after his own heart, and many an
evening he pored over the long paragraphs of his long-winded speeches.
When he heard that the owner of Crucifix had dismissed his trainers,
released his jockeys, sold his stud, and turned his back on the turf,
he could have wept. Lord George and Stubbs, indeed, were the true
country party. For Lord George’s sake Stubbs was prepared to taken even
the “Jew boy” to his heart.
As to the potato famine, he did not believe a word of it. He called the
Premier, “Potato Peel!”
The rains of February are apt to damp enthusiasm, but before eleven
o’clock on the nomination day Riddsley was like a hive of bees about to
swarm. The throng in the streets was such that Mottisfont could hardly
pass through it. He made his entry into the borough on horseback at the
head of a hundred mounted farmers wearing blue sashes and favors.
Before him reeled a huge banner upheld by eight men and bearing on one
side the legend, “The Land and the Constitution,” on the other,
“Mottisfont the Farmers’ Friend!” Behind the horsemen, and surrounded
by a guard of laborers in smocked frocks, moved a plough mounted on a
wain and drawn by eight farm horses. Flags with “Speed the Plough,”
“England’s Share is England’s Fare,” and “Peace and Plenty,” streamed
from it. Three bands of varying degrees of badness found their places
where they could, and thumped and blared against one another until the
panes rattled in the deafened streets. The butchers, with marrow-bones
and cleavers, brought up the rear, and in comparison were tuneful.
Had Basset got his way, he would have dispensed with pomp and walked
the hundred yards which separated his quarters at the Swan from the
hustings. But he was told that this would never do. What would the
landlord of the Swan say, who kept postchaises? And the postboys who
looked for a golden tip? And the men who would hand him in and hand him
out, and the men who would open the door and shut the door, and the men
who would raise the steps and lower the steps, who would all look for
the same tip? So, perforce, he drove in state to the Town Hall—before
which the hustings stood—in a barouche and four accompanied by Banfield
and Hatton and his agent. The rest of his Committee followed in
postchaises. A bodyguard of “hands” escorted them, and they, too, had
their bands—of equal badness—and their yellow banners with “Down with
the Corn Laws,” “Vote for Basset the Poor Man’s Friend,” and “No Bread
Taxes.” The great and little loaf pranced in front of him on spears,
and if his procession was not quite so fine or so large as his
opponent’s, it must be admitted that the blackguards of the town showed
no preference and that he could boast about an equal number of the
tagrag and bobtail.
The left hand of the hustings was allotted to him, the right hand to
Mottisfont, and by a little after eleven both parties had crammed and
crushed,
With blustering, bullying, and brow-beating,
A little pummelling and maltreating,
And elbowing, jostling and cajoling,
into their places in front of the platform, the bullies and
truncheon-men being posted well to the fore, or craftily ranged where
the frontiers met. The bands boomed and blared, the men huzzaed, the
air shook, the banners waved, every window that looked out upon the
seething mob was white with faces, every ’vantage-point was occupied.
It was such a day and such a contest as Riddsley had never seen. The
eyes of the country, it was felt, were upon it! Fights took place every
five minutes, oaths and bets flew like hail over the heads of the
crowd, coarse wit met coarser nicknames, and now and again shrieks
varied the hubbub as the huge press of people, gathered from miles
round, swayed under the impact of some vicious rush.
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Mottisfont for ever! Basset! Basset and the Big Loaf!
Basset! Basset! Hurrah! Mottisfont! Hurrah!”
Then, in a short-lived silence, “Ten to one on Mottisfont! Three cheers
for the Duke!” and a roar of laughter.
Or a hundred voices would raise
John Barley-corn, my Joe, John!
When we were first acquaint!
but never got beyond the first two lines, either because they were
howled down or they knew no more of the words. The Peelites answered
with their mournful,
Child, is thy father dead?
Father is gone!
Why did they tax his bread?
God’s will be done!
or with the quicker,
Oh, landlords’ devil take
Thy own elect I pray!
Who taxed our cake, and took our cake,
And threw our cake away!
On this would ensue a volley of personalities. “What would you be
without your starch, Hayward?” “How’s your dad, Farthingale?” “Who
whopped his wife last Saturday?” “Hurrah! Hurrah! Who said Potatoes?”
For nearly an hour this went on, the blare of the bands, the uproar,
the cheering, the abuse never ceasing. Then the town-crier appeared
upon the vacant hustings. He rang his bell for silence and for a moment
obtained it. On his heels entered, first the mayor and his assistants,
then the candidates, the proposers, the seconders. Each, as he made his
appearance, was greeted with a storm of groans, cheers, and cat-calls.
Each put on to meet it such a show of ease as he could, some smiling,
some affecting ignorance. The candidates and their supporters filed to
either side, while the flustered mayor took his stand in the middle
with the town clerk at his elbow.
Basset, nearly at the end of his troubles, sought comfort in looking
beyond the present moment. He feared that he was not likely to win, but
he had done his duty, he had made his effort, and soon he would be free
to repeat that effort on a smaller stage. Soon, these days, that in
horror rivalled the middle passage of the slave trade, would be over,
and if he were not elected he would be free to retire to Blore, and to
spend days, lonely and sad indeed, but clean, in the improvement of his
acres and his people. His eyes dwelt upon the sea of faces, and from
time to time he smiled; but his mind was far away. He thought with
horror of elections, and with loathing of the sordid round of flattery
and handshaking, of bribery and intimidation from which he emerged.
Thank God, the morrow would see the end! He would have done his best,
and played his part. And it would be over.
What the mayor said and what the town clerk said is of no importance,
for no one heard them. The proposers, the seconders, the candidates,
all spoke in dumb show. Basset dwelt briefly on the crisis in Ireland,
the integrity of Peel, and the doubtful wisdom of taxing that which, to
the poorest, was a necessity of life. If bread were cheaper all would
have more to spend on other things and the farmer would have a wider
market for his meat, his wool, and his cheese. It read well in the
local paper.
But one man was heard. This was a man who was not expected to speak,
whose creed it had ever been that speeches were useless, and whom
tradition almost forbade to speak, for he was an agent. At the last
moment, when a seconder for a formal motion was needed, he thrust
himself forward to the astonishment of all. The same astonishment
stilled the mob as they gazed on the well-known figure. For a minute or
two, curiosity and the purpose in the man’s face, held even his
opponents silent.
The man was Stubbs; and from the moment he showed himself it was plain
that he was acting under the stress of great emotion. The very fuglemen
forgot to interrupt him. They scented something out of the common.
“I have never spoken on the hustings in my life,” he said. “I speak now
to warn you. I believe that you, the electors of Riddsley, are going to
sell the birthright of health which you have received; and the heritage
of freedom which this land has enjoyed for generations and on which the
power of Bonaparte broke as on a rock. You think you are going to have
cheap bread, and, maybe, you are! But at what a cost! Cheap bread is
foreign bread. To you, the laborers, I say that foreign bread means
that the fields you till will be laid to grass and you will go to work
in Dudley and Walsall and Bury and Bolton, in mills and pits and smoke
and dust! And your children will be dwarfed and wizened and puny!
Foreign bread means that. And it means that the day will come when war
will cut off your bread and you will starve; or the will of the
foreigner who feeds you will cut it off—for he will be your master. I
say, grow your own bread and eat your own bread, and you will be free
men. Eat foreign bread and in time you will be slaves! No land that is
fed by another land——”
His last words were lost. Signals from furious principals roused the
fuglemen, and he was howled down, and stood back ashamed of the impulse
which had moved him and little less astonished than those about him.
Young Mottisfont clapped him on the back and affected to make much of
him. But even he hardly knew how to take it. Some said that Stubbs had
had tears in his eyes, while the opposing agent whispered to his
neighbor that the lawyer was breaking and would never handle another
contest. Sober men shook their heads; agents should hardly be seen,
much less heard!
But Stubbs’s words were marked, and when the bad times came thirty
years later, aged farmers recalled them and thought over them. Nor were
they without fruit at the time. For next morning when the poll opened,
Basset’s people suffered a shock. Two men on whom he had counted
appeared and voted short and sharp for Mottisfont. Basset’s agent asked
them pleasantly if they were not making a mistake; and then less
pleasantly had the Bribery Oath administered to them. But they stuck to
their guns, the votes were recorded, and Mottisfont shook hands with
them. Later in the day when the two were fuddled they denied that they
had voted for Mottisfont. They had voted for old Stubbs—and they would
do it again and fight any man who said to the contrary. Their desire in
this direction was quickly met, and both, to the indignation of the
Tories, were fined five shillings at the next petty sessions.
Whether this start gave the Protectionists a fillip or no, they were in
great spirits, and Mottisfont was up and down shaking hands all the
morning. At noon the figures as exhibited outside the Mottisfont
Committee-room—amid tremendous cheering—were:
Mottisfont . . . 41
Basset . . . . 30
though Basset outside his Committee-room claimed one more. Soon after
twelve Hatton brought up the two Boshams in his carriage, and Ben,
recovered from his fright, flung his hat before him into the booth,
danced a war-dance on the steps, and gave three cheers for Basset as he
came down. Banfield brought up three more voters in his carriage and
thence onward until one o’clock the polling was rapid. The one o’clock
board showed:
Mottisfont . . . 60
Basset . . . . 57
with seventy votes to poll. The Mottisfont party began to look almost
as blue as their favors, but Stubbs, returned to his senses, continued
to read his newspaper in a closet behind the Committee-room, as if
there were no contest within a hundred miles of Riddsley.
During the next three hours little was done. The poll-clerks sent out
for pots of beer, the watchers drowsed, the candidates were
invisible—some said that they had gone to dine with the mayor. The
bludgeon-men and blackguards went home to sleep off their morning’s
drink, and to recruit themselves for the orgy of the Chairing. The
crowd before the polling booth shrank to a knot of loafing lads and a
stray dog. At four Mottisfont still held the lead with 64 to 61.
But as the clock struck four the town awoke. Word went round that a
message from Sir Robert Peel would be read outside Basset’s
Committee-room. Hearers were whipped up, and the message, having been
read with much parade, was posted up through the town and as promptly
pulled down. Animated by the message, and making as much of it as if it
had not been held back for the purpose, the Peelites polled
five-and-twenty votes in rapid succession, and at half-past four issued
a huge placard with:
Basset . . . . 87
Mottisfont . . . 83
Vote for Basset and the Big Loaf!
Basset wins!
Great was the enthusiasm, loud the cheering, vast the stir outside
their Committee-room. The Big and the Little Loaf waltzed out on their
poles. The placard, mounted as a banner, was entrusted to the two
Boshams. The band was ready, a dozen flares were ready, the Committee
were ready, all was ready for a last rally which might decide the one
or two doubtful voters. All was ready, but where was Mr. Basset? Where
was the candidate?
He could not be found, and great was the hubbub, vast the running to
and fro. “The Candidate? Where’s the Candidate?” One ran to the Swan,
another to the polling-booth, a third to his agent’s office. He could
not be found. All that was known of him or could be learned was that a
tall man, who looked like an undertaker, had stopped him near the
polling-booth and had kept him in talk for some minutes. From that time
he had been seen by no one.
Foul play was talked of, and the search went on, but meantime the
procession—the poll closed at half-past six—must start if it was to do
any good. It did so, and with its flares, its swaying placard, its
running riff-raff, now luridly thrown up by the lights, now lost in
shadow, formed the most picturesque scene that the election had
witnessed. The absence of the candidate was a drawback, and some shook
their heads over it. But the more knowing put their tongues in their
cheeks, aware that whether he were there or not, and whether they
marched or stayed at home, neither side would be a vote the better!
At half—past five the figures were,
Basset . . . . 87
Mottisfont . . . 86
There were still fourteen votes to poll, and on the face of things
victory hung in the balance.
But at that hour Stubbs moved. He laid down his newspaper, gave
Farthingale an order, took up a slip of paper and his hat, and went by
way of the darkest street to The Butterflies. He walked thoughtfully,
with his chin on his breast, as if he had no great appetite for the
interview before him. By the time he reached the house the poll stood
at
Mottisfont . . . 96
Basset . . . . 87
And long and loud was the cheering, wild the triumph of the landed
interest. The town was fuller than ever, for during the last hour the
farmers and their men had trooped in, Brown Heath had sent its
colliers, and a crowd filling every yard of space within eye-shot of
the polling-booth greeted the news. To hell with Peel! Down with
Cobden! Away with the League! Hurrah! Hurrah! Stubbs, had he been
there, would have been carried shoulder-high. Old Hayward was lifted
and carried, old Musters of the Audley Arms, one or two of the
Committee. It was known that four votes only remained unpolled, so that
Mottisfont’s victory was secure.
At The Butterflies, whither the cheering of the crowd came in gusts
that rose and fell by turns, Stubbs nodded to the maid and went up the
stairs unannounced. Audley was writing at a side-table facing the room.
He looked up eagerly. “Well?” he said, putting down his quill. “Is it
over?”
Stubbs laid the slip of paper before him. “It’s not over, my lord,” he
answered soberly. “But that is the result. I am sorry that it is no
better.”
Audley looked at the paper. “Nine!” he exclaimed. He looked at Stubbs,
he looked again at the paper. “Nine? Good G—d, man, you don’t mean it?
You can’t mean it! You don’t mean that that is the best we could do?”
“We hold the seat, my lord,” Stubbs said.
“Hold the seat!” Audley replied, staring at him with furious eyes.
“Hold the seat? But I thought that it was a safe seat? I thought that
it was a seat that couldn’t be lost! When five, only five, votes would
have cast it the other way! Why, man, you cannot have known anything
about it! No more about it than the first man in the street!”
“My lord——”
“Not a jot more!” Audley repeated. He had been prepared for something
like this, but the certainty that if he had cast his weight on the
other side, the side that had sinecures and places and pensions, he
would have turned the scale—this was too much for his temper. “Nine!”
he rapped out with another oath. “I can only think that the Election
has been mismanaged! Grievously, grievously mismanaged, Mr. Stubbs!”
“If your lordship thinks so——”
“I do!” Audley retorted, his certainty that the man before him had
thwarted his plans, carrying him farther than he intended. “I do! Nine!
Good G—d, man! When you assured me——”
“Whatever I assured your lordship,” Stubbs said firmly, “I believed.
And—no, my lord, you must allow me to speak now—what I promised would
have been borne out—fully borne out by the result in normal times. But
I did not allow enough for the split in the party, nor for the wave of
madness——”
“As you think it!”
“And surely as your lordship also thinks it!” Stubbs rejoined smartly,
“that has swept over the country! In these circumstances it is
something to hold the seat, which a return to sanity will certainly
assure to us at the next election.”
“The next election!” Audley muttered scornfully. For the moment he was
too angry to play a part or to drape his feelings.
“But if your lordship is dissatisfied——”
“Dissatisfied? I am d—nably dissatisfied.”
“Then your lordship has the power,” Stubbs said slowly, “to dispense
with my services.”
“I know that, sir.”
“And if you do not think fit to take that step, my lord——”
“I shall consider it!”
Another word or two and the deed had been done, for both men were too
angry to fence. But before that last word was spoken Audley’s man
entered. He handed a card to his master and waited.
Audley looked at the card longer than was necessary and under cover of
the pause regained control of himself. “Who brought this?” he asked.
“A messenger from the Swan, my lord.”
“Tell him——” He broke off. Holding out the card for Stubbs to take, “Do
you know anything about this?” he asked.
Stubbs returned the card. “No, my lord,” he said coldly. “I know
nothing.”
“Business of great importance to me? D—n his impudence, what business
important to me can he have?” Audley muttered. Then, “My compliments to
Mr. Basset and I am leaving in the morning, but I shall be at home this
evening at nine.”
The servant retired. Audley looked askance at his agent. “You’d better
be here,” he muttered ungraciously. “We can settle what we were talking
about later.”
“Very good, my lord,” Stubbs answered. And nothing more being said, he
took himself off.
He was not sorry that they had been interrupted. Much of his income and
more of his importance sprang from the Audley agency, but rather than
be treated as if he were a servant, he would surrender both—in his way
he was a proud man. Still he did not want to give up either; and if
time were given he thought that his lordship would think better of the
matter.
As he returned to his office, choosing the quiet streets by which he
had come, he had a glimpse, through an opening, of the distant
Market-place. A sound of cheering, a glare of smoky light, a medley of
leaping, running forms, a something uplifted above the crowd, moved
across his line of vision. Almost as quickly it vanished, leaving only
the reflection of retreating torches. “Hurrah! Hurrah for Mottisfont!
Hurrah!” Still the cheering came faintly to his ears.
He sighed. Riddsley had remained faithful-by nine! But he did not
deceive himself. It was the writing on the wall. The Corn Laws were
doomed, and with them much that he had loved, much that he cherished,
much in which he believed.