_EUSTACE’S DILEMMA_
“She is right in theory--she is perfectly right. She holds the stronger
position. But yet I cannot give it up. One cannot live in the world,
and breathe an atmosphere so far above it as she does. The thing is
not possible. What!--go back to London--go back to my friends there,
and say that I cannot accept my kinsman’s seat, because in right and
justice he should not have it to give! What a howl of derision I
should provoke! And to have to confess that my adviser in this was a
girl years younger than myself, who had hardly left her sea-girt home
all her life--who knows no more of the world than the babe in the
nursery! Why, I should become a laughing-stock to the whole of the
town! I should never be able to face the world again. No, no, no--such
scruples are untenable. A great work has to be done, and men are wanted
of birth, energy, determination, and probity; I think I may, without
undue self-appreciation, assert that I possess all these needful
qualifications. Better men than myself have told me so. First let us
get the upper hand, and then we will see what may be done for purifying
the country and raising a higher and a better standard. If the world
_would_ listen to such teachings as Bride’s, I will not say the world
might not be a better place; but if it will not--why, we must needs
employ tools more fitted for the work. To be deterred by such a
scruple!--no--it would be unworthy of the Cause!”
Eustace was alone in his room, dressing for dinner. His welcome from
his kinsman had been kind and cordial, and he was now bracing himself
for the discussion which must follow upon the request he had to make.
The subject had not yet been broached between them, though he fancied
that the Duke half suspected his errand, or rather the motive which had
prompted it; but hitherto the talk had been all on public matters, and
he had been relieved to find the old man by no means so hostile in mind
towards the bill as he had feared to find him. Bride’s estimate of her
father’s attitude of mind was pretty correct. He knew that some sort
of change was needed, and that improved legislation was required for
the peace and prosperity of the country; but he felt that the proposed
measure would but be the beginning of an upheaval from which he shrank
with natural distaste, and he feared that evils would follow of
magnitude greater than those to be done away. Therefore he watched the
advance of the wave with no little dread, feeling almost sad that he
should have lived to see so many old landmarks washed away or submerged.
So much Eustace had gathered, but he was not daunted. Things might have
been much worse. He had been received more cordially at the castle than
he expected, and there was exhilaration in the thought of his close
proximity to Bride, even though he resolved not to make any attempt
this visit to approach her as a lover.
But he was still quite resolved to win her for his wife if possible.
The few hours spent in her company had riveted his chains afresh. He
had never met a woman who exercised one-tenth part of the charm upon
him that Bride did. Her very unapproachableness made her dearer and
more fascinating. The bright sunshine of the March afternoon beguiled
him from his room some while before the dinner-hour. He strolled out
into the gardens, and began wandering there, thinking of his love.
Turning a corner, he came suddenly upon Abner, and was grieved to
see such a change in the old man. His hair had grown many degrees
more white, and there was a bowed look about the shoulders which had
not been noticeable before. His fine old face was seamed with lines
that told of pain, either mental or physical, whilst the eyes, though
retaining their old steadfastness and brightness, had taken something
of wistfulness withal, as though some haunting regret or unanswered
longing were always present in his mind.
“Why, Tresithny, I fear you have been ill,” said Eustace, with his
kindly smile, as he greeted the old man, and expressed his pleasure
at seeing him again. “You have not worn as well as my uncle. Has the
winter been too much for you?”
“Nay, it’s not the weather, sir--I’m too well seasoned to mind that. I
hadn’t heard as we were tu see yu down to the castle again, sir. I wish
you well, and hope I see yu in good health.”
“The best, thank you, Tresithny, and this beautiful air of yours is
like the elixir of life, if you’ve ever heard of that. But I want to
know what ails you; you are not looking the same man as when I left.
Have you had some illness?”
“No, sir, thank yu,” answered Abner quietly, with a quick glance into
Eustace’s face that seemed to tell him all he wished to know. “Belike
yu haven’t heard of the trouble. Such things don’t get into the
newspapers yu’ll be likely to see, I take it.”
“Trouble!--what trouble?” asked Eustace kindly, his quick sympathies
stirred at once by the thought of any sort of suffering. “I have not
heard much news from Penarvon and St. Bride since I left. My uncle has
written occasionally, but he does not give me much local news.”
“No, sir, there’s other things more important to be spoke of; but his
Grace was the best friend we had in the trouble, and there’s no manner
of doubt that he saved his life--poor misguided lad. ’Twould have abin
a hanging matter with him, as ’twas with t’other, but for his Grace
coming himself to speak up for him. I’ll never forget that. He’s been
our best friend throughout, him and our own Lady Bride--bless her!”
“Ay, you may well say that,” answered Eustace fervently; “a sweeter
creature never drew breath on this earth. But I want to know more of
this, Tresithny. What in the world has been going on? I did not know
you could have such serious troubles in this little paradise of a
place. It seems as though it should be exempt from the strife and crime
of the great world.”
“No, sir,” answered Abner gravely, “there’s no place where human life
abides that is free from the curse of sin. We live in no paradise here.
One place is very much like another, as far as that goes, all the world
over, I take it. But I won’t weary yu with my talk. There’s not much
to tell, and it’s soon told. My grandson, Saul, got into bad company
and bad hands last year. They deceived and misled the poor lad, and he,
being hot and fiery by nature, was all the more ready to their hand. He
took to preaching rebellion, and I don’t know what, to the folks who
would listen, and so lost his place on the farm.”
“He was always too good for a mere labourer,” spoke Eustace, in a quick
low tone. “He was just eating his heart out in the solitude and the
lack of human interest and sympathy.”
“Well, sir, I don’t know that he mended matters much by leaving. He
went to Pentreath and got some sort of work there--I’m not very clear
what--and got more and more with bad companions. Then came those riots
you’ve heard tell of all over the country--sometimes against the new
machines, sometimes against the masters, or any rich men whom the
people think worth robbing when they get the chance. Saul was mixed
up in these riots. I shan’t never know, I s’pose, exactly how much
he was to blame; but he’d got a bad name, and folks were after him;
and at last he and the cobbler, whose house he lived at, were took
up and brought before the magistrates. Saul got off with six months’
imprisonment; but the cobbler went before the judges at assizes and was
hanged. They all say Saul would have been served the same if his Grace
hadn’t gone down on purpose to speak up for him to their reverences: it
was that that did it. But six months of prison has been enough for the
boy. I doubt me he’ll ever be the same again.”
Eustace was not a little shocked by this story. He remembered Saul
as he had last seen him--a fine, manly, fearless fellow, strong as
a giant, and with mental and intellectual possibilities that raised
him far above his fellows. He knew something of the state of country
prisons; that was one of the abuses he and his friends meant to inquire
into when the time came. Something had been done towards amending their
condition, even in the previous century; but very much yet remained
that needed to be done. How had Saul borne that life for six long weary
months? It was bad enough for a town-bred man, used to confinement and
foul air, but what must it have been for this son of the sea and the
downs?
“Tresithny, I am grieved--I am deeply grieved,” he said. “Tell me more
of the poor fellow. I always thought highly of Saul. Tell me how he has
borne it. He is out again now, I trust?”
“Yes, shattered in body and soul and spirit,” answered the old man very
sadly, though without bitterness. “The iron has entered into his soul,
and for him there is yet no healing touch that can salve the soreness
of that wound.”
“He has been ill?”
“Ay, of the jail-fever. It’s rarer now than ’twas years ago; but it got
fast hold of Saul. May be the fresh winds will make a strong man of him
again before long; but I’m feared he’s gotten a hurt that is worse than
weakness of body.”
“Poor fellow!” said Eustace with sincere concern. “I must go and see
him as soon as I can.”
There was a momentary silence, and then Abner said quietly--
“Yu must do as yu will about that, sir.”
There was something in these words so foreign to the old gardener’s
customary respectful cordiality that Eustace, who in his own fashion
was sensitive enough, gave a keen quick look at his interlocutor, and
spoke with subdued vehemence.
“Tresithny, I trust you do not believe that it has been my doing that
poor Saul has fallen into this trouble.”
Abner finished tying up the young shoot of the tree he was training
before making answer, and then he spoke very slowly and with an air of
sorrowful resignation, which seemed sadder to the young man than open
expressions of anger or grief.
“Sir,” he said, “I am not one lightly to lay any man’s sin at another
man’s door. Only the Lord in heaven can know what blame may attach
to each--the one for his act, the other for words which it were
better he should not have spoken. No, sir; Saul has sinned, and he
has suffered for his sin. I have tried to think no bitter thoughts of
any of those who helped to lead him astray. Some of them are poor,
ignorant, miserable creatures, who doubtless knew no better. Some,
I doubt not, have many and just causes of complaint, and have been
goaded to violence and lawlessness by the fear of starvation, which
works like poison in the blood. It is hard to think hard thoughts of
such, especially when they are left in their ignorance and misery, and
those who should be their pastors and shepherds seek not after the
scattered flock to gather and feed them. My boy had doubtless seen and
heard enough to fire his blood, and God Almighty alone may judge of the
measure of his guilt. But for my part, I would that he had been saved
from that teaching, and those thoughts which have worked like madness
in his brain; and you know better than I can do, sir, how much of the
wild words he uses have been learned from you.”
“Not much wildness, I think,” answered Eustace gravely. “He has
certainly learned a good many facts from me, but I have said very much
to him to try and curb the wild spirit of hatred and lawless revolt
which I saw in him. He would tell you that himself if you asked him.”
“Yes, sir; I don’t doubt it; but when you bring gunpowder close to the
fire to dry it, as you may think, and take every care that it doesn’t
explode, you run a great risk, even with the most cautious intentions.
A puff of wind down the chimney will send a spark into it, and then
comes an explosion. It’s something like that when you educated and
clever gentlemen begin to bring your fire near the hot inflammable
minds of our ignorant lads. You don’t mean there to be any spark; you
mean to get your material well dried and in good working order, so
that it can be used for right and legitimate ends; but though you’re
clever enough to make it dry and hot and fit for service, you can’t
stop the fall of the spark that brings about the explosion, and then
you call it a sad accident and deplore it as much as any but you don’t
always consider the fearful risks you run of bringing about this very
accident, which may perhaps recoil one day on your own head, and which
has injured for life many and many a brave lad who might have lived out
his days in innocence and a fair amount of happiness but for that.”
Eustace stood looking down at the path with a thoughtful face. He could
have brought many arguments to bear upon the old man, explaining how
every good cause as yet undertaken against every existing form of evil
had been marred and hindered at the outset, and indeed all through its
career, by the rashness, the impetuosity, the ill-advised action of
individuals; but he held his peace, and said nothing that might sound
like an excuse for his own conduct. He _did_ take blame to himself in
the case of Saul. He had felt again and again, whilst talking with
that fiery youth, with his strong character and individuality, and his
burning hatred against the ruling classes, that he was playing with
edged tools. The pleasure of finding so much intelligence and sympathy
in a man of the people had led him on often to speak out things which
on calmer consideration he would hardly have put into words so freely.
From time to time his own conscience had warned him that Saul might one
day turn out an unmanageable disciple; but he had hoped his own strong
influence upon him would suffice to hold in check his fiery partisan
zeal, and had forgotten how quickly that influence would be removed,
whilst the memory of his words, and the feelings they excited, would
live on and ferment and eat into his very soul.
“I am sorry,” he said at last, looking up at Abner with frank, open
regret in his eyes; “I think I was wrong. I think I had better have let
Saul alone. He has too much gunpowder, as you rightly call it, in his
composition. I should have been warned by that and have let him alone.”
This frank apology evoked a smile from Abner.
“Sir,” he said, “don’t think I don’t appreciate your care for the
people, or that I don’t know you wish to do good. I’m very sure of
that; and Saul had heard a good deal more than was good for him before
he ever met you. But knowing that a gentleman such as you felt with
him went a long way with him--seemed to turn the scale altogether, if
you know what I mean. But I’m not saying he might not have gone as far
without, if he’d taken up with the lads of Pentreath as he’s lately
done. However, he seems to have took altogether against Pentreath now,
and spends his time down on the shore with the fisher-folk. He’ll be
glad enough to see you, sir, I doubt not. It isn’t many as he’s got a
welcome for, but I think he’ll have it for you.”
“And I’ll try and see that he is none the worse for my visit,” said
Eustace, with a grave smile; and then he walked back to the castle, for
the dinner-hour had all but arrived.
His face was grave and absorbed as he took his seat. The conversation
with Abner had left a painful impression on his mind. He felt like a
man on the horns of a dilemma. His whole heart was in the cause of
reform. He felt that he was pledged to it, and that he must give his
whole life and energies to it, come what might; and yet at every turn
he was confronted by problems past his power to solve. He had worked
amongst the people--and behold, his most promising pupil had been
spending the winter in jail, and had but just come forth shattered
in body and mind. He might do more good by sitting in Parliament and
fighting the battle there--that indeed was his great desire; but to do
so he must take a step which seemed in a sense to be a sacrifice of
principle and self-respect. He seemed hedged in by difficulties all
ways; but his resolution did not waver.
“Once let me get this seat, and the knot will be cut,” he kept saying
to himself, as the meal proceeded in its quiet stately course; and
feeling that the sooner the plunge was taken the better it would he, he
only waited until the servants had withdrawn at the conclusion of the
meal before he spoke out freely and frankly.
“Uncle,” he said, with an abruptness that was the result of repressed
excitement, “last year, before you knew much of my views on politics,
you offered to give me a seat in Parliament upon the first opportunity.
That opportunity has now come, and I have come to remind you of your
offer, and to ask you whether--knowing my views--you still feel
disposed to give it me. Your old friend has retired, as you told me he
would. He will not sit again. I want, above all things, to be a member
of that House which will--if I mistake not greatly--have the honour
of passing that measure which will be the keystone to the prosperity
of England. I believe that there is no doubt as to the composition of
the next House of Commons. The voice of the nation cannot longer be
misunderstood or ignored. It will be a great and a glorious time for
England, and I want to have the great honour and privilege of serving
her at this crisis. Will you give me that seat of which you spoke, that
I may realise this ambition and happiness?”
“And pass a measure about which I feel the very gravest doubts, and
which, I fear, may prove anything but the keystone to greatness and
prosperity?” said the Duke.
“I know, sir, we do not think alike on this subject. It is scarcely
likely we should. But you have had enough experience of the ways of
the world to be aware that the advancing wave cannot be turned back.
If these most crucial and important measures are to be passed, is it
not better that they should be drawn up and passed by men of birth
and station, men of education and sound principle? Without claiming
for myself qualifications which I do not possess, or any very great
amount of experience in legislating, I think I have the qualities I
have named; and I am a Marchmont, and the Marchmonts have not shown
themselves deficient either in ability or in governing power in days of
yore. I cannot but feel that you would prefer your kinsman in the House
to a mere stranger; and I would remember and respect your scruples and
injunctions, and would place them before my colleagues, giving them all
due weight and respect.”
The Duke smiled slightly.
“The boy talks as though he would be a cabinet minister at once!” he
remarked to the room at large. “Do you suppose anybody will pay any
attention to what a tyro like you will think or speak? and, for my own
part, if I have anything to say to the bill which I hold to be worth
saying, I can go to Westminster and say it for myself.”
“Yes, in the Upper House,” said Eustace; “but it is in the Commons that
the battle will be fought.”
“And you think you can be my mouthpiece there?” asked the Duke, a
little grimly. “Boy, do you not think I could find a better mouthpiece
for my views than you will ever make?”
But the question was put with a smile which made Eustace believe that
there would not be much of a battle to fight. His kinsman was not
without the strong family feeling which was so strong a characteristic
of his race; and the very fact that Eustace desired the seat was a
strong reason why he should have it. With all his advanced views, he
was a Marchmont, and a man of rectitude and high principle. That the
Reform Bill would assuredly pass the next House of Commons the whole
country fully believed, and the Duke also. There was a good deal in
Eustace’s argument about getting it drawn up and debated by the best
stamp of men possible.
“But you--what has so changed your view?” asked the old man, suddenly
turning upon Eustace, and looking keenly at him. “When first I made my
offer, it only evoked a tirade against the abuse of rotten or pocket
boroughs, as I think you called them. I was led to imagine that you
would recoil in horror from profiting by such an abuse; and behold,
here are you in a year’s time craving to advance yourself by that very
means! How comes that, my fine young redresser of evils? How can you
reconcile it to your conscience to accept the seat which you dispute my
right to hold?”
A flush mounted to Eustace’s face.
“I accept it, and even crave it, that I may be one of those to abolish
it in the future. Till the laws are amended, the abuse must last, and
to amend those laws is the aim and object of my life. I admit that
my position is one which appears inconsistent. You can easily put me
in a dilemma by well-planted questions; but my mind is clear and my
conscience too. You have to find a candidate for this seat, and I,
as your next of kin, desire it. I openly proclaim to you the fact
that once I am seated in Parliament, I shall strain every nerve to
accomplish the abolition of the abuse by which I have gained my seat
so readily; but I am neither afraid nor ashamed to seek it now. I will
profit by the iniquity to expunge that iniquity from our country for
ever!”
“To do a great right, do a little wrong,” quoted the Duke thoughtfully.
“Well, Eustace, you shall have the seat if you desire it, but I cannot
help feeling that I wish you had not asked me for it, or been willing
to take it.”
The flush deepened in Eustace’s face as the Duke spoke, and he caught
the answering glance in Bride’s eyes. He had purposely made his request
before her, although it cost him something to do it. He wished to
prove to himself that he had the courage of his opinions, and was not
ashamed of the trifling inconsistency, which he explained away again
and again to what he called his own satisfaction. He was not prepared
to make himself the laughing-stock of his friends in town for a
scruple of this sort; but he wished he could have avoided the apparent
inconsistency with these kinsfolk of his, who appeared to look on at
the strife of parties and the battle of life from an altitude which was
rather perplexing and discomfiting.
“I am greatly obliged, sir,” said Eustace, hardly believing the battle
was already won. He had looked for much more argument and resistance.
“I will try to be worthy of the trust reposed in me. I hope you do
not distrust me for my willingness to take advantage for once of this
custom so soon to be made obsolete?”
“I do not distrust your loyalty to your cause; I think you deserve to
sit in the next House, and may in time make yourself of value to your
party. At the same time, since you do hold so strongly your advanced
views, I had rather you obtained your seat in another fashion, speaking
simply from a moral and theoretic standpoint.”
“I agree with you there, in theory,” answered Eustace eagerly. “I wish
the world could be governed according to theory; but, alas! in practice
too many of our brightest and best theories break down. If I had any
chance of winning a seat by an ordinary contest, I would gladly do so;
but I know that I have not. I am an untried man, and unknown in any
constituency. I should not stand the ghost of a chance; and the bribery
and corruption of an election under such conditions is too revolting to
think of.”
A faint smile played round the lips of the old Duke.
“Yes, bribery and corruption are the lawful methods by which our House
of Commons is returned by the country, save where there are rotten
or pocket boroughs to be given by favour, or openly bought and sold;
and when these last are done away with, and more contests set on foot,
there will be more bribery and corruption, rioting and drunkenness,
than ever, and this will be the first step of the great reform.”
“Yes, but only the first step,” answered Eustace eagerly. “After that
step will follow others for the purifying of these contests, and the
rectifying of these flagrant abuses. Some great men say it can and will
be done by establishing a system of ballot-voting, by which no man may
know how his neighbour votes, so that a deathblow will be dealt to
bribery.”
“_Will_ it?” questioned the Duke significantly.
“Yes,” was the fearless answer, “because men will learn to see the
worse than folly of bribing a man who can pocket the bribe, take one
from his opponent, and then go perfectly free and unfettered to vote as
he pleases! The thing will die a natural death as a matter of course.
It may die hard, but die it must.”
“Yes, it will die in its open form. Votes will no longer be bought
at so much a head; but mark my word, Eustace, a more corrupt and
iniquitous form of bribery will creep slowly and surely upon the
country. Governments will outbid each other with promises of measures
which will appeal to the selfish and self-seeking passions of the
people, just to get into power, quite apart from true statesmanship
or the true good of the nation. There will be one long struggle after
popularity with the unthinking masses--one long bribing of them by a
wholesale system of promises, more or less faithfully carried out,
which will corrupt the nation to the core as the old bribery has
never corrupted it. Don’t tell me, boy! I have lived longer than you.
I know human nature. An inducement--a bribe--men will have; and the
bribe will now be of increased power, increased franchise, increased
ability to levy taxes which those who levy them will not pay--a system
of legalised robbery, which will sooner or later bring the country to
ruin. Ah! yes, you smile. You think I am a croaker and a pessimist.
Well, well, well--thank God, I shall not live to see the day; but that
day will come for England before many generations have passed, when she
will be groaning beneath the burden laid upon her by her reformers,
but absolutely unable to break that increasing yoke from off her neck.
Men may rise up in arms against their tyrants when their tyrant is a
monarch; but when they are their own tyrants, their own legislators,
their own oppressors, where are they to find redress?”
Eustace made no attempt to reply. The Duke was talking a language
incomprehensible to him and absurd. Even argument seemed thrown away
here; yet all the while he respected the sincerity and the character of
the man before him, and he answered with a smile--
“Well, uncle, if we cannot agree as to the outcome of these measures,
at least we can agree to differ, and we can each pocket our little
bit of inconsistency with a quiet conscience. You will give me the
seat, whilst holding that eventual ill will come from the cause I
advocate; and I will profit by an abuse to do away with that abuse. I
think it comes pretty much to this: we both know that this first step
is inevitable, therefore you cease to fight against it, whilst I seek
to help to forward it by every wise and right method. There are many
men in the country more ‘advanced’ than I, and I have a dread of rash
precipitation. I think I shall do good and not harm even to your cause
by my voice. I shall certainly take warning by your words, and be
always on the side of moderation.”
“You shall have the seat,” said the Duke, “because you are my next of
kin, and because I respect you as a man, if I do not agree with you as
a politician. In the course of nature you will not long be able to sit
in the House of Commons; and since your heart is set upon it, I will
give you the chance this time. You can choose which you will do--accept
the seat I have at my disposal--getting in by an abuse; or I will
give my seat to the Tory member for Pentreath, and put you up in his
place and give you my influence there. Pentreath has hitherto always
returned a Tory candidate, and Sir Roland Menteith is a very popular
man locally--you would have no chance against him; but if I gave him
my seat, and you stepped forward as the Reform candidate--a moderate
reformer supported by the Penarvon interest, you might stand an
excellent chance. There would certainly be another Tory adversary put
up against you, but I know of no man likely to be popular. The people
of the place have become strongly leavened by the spirit of the day,
and my influence would go far to turn the scale with a great many. You
can think it over and do as you will. Personally you have no influence,
or little here; but as a Marchmont and the future Duke, you would have
a good deal. There would be expenses of course--we could talk about
that later. I do not seek to persuade you to anything; I only tell you
what I will do for you if you prefer to contest a seat rather than get
one by an abuse. You can think it quietly over, and decide at your
leisure. Sir Roland is dining here in a week’s time. He always comes to
see me after his return from Westminster to give me all the news. We
can talk the matter over with him then.”
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