Mr. Turnbull’s Carriage Stops the Way
When Phineas got back to London, a day after his time, he found that
there was already a great political commotion in the metropolis.
He had known that on Easter Monday and Tuesday there was to be
a gathering of the people in favour of the ballot, and that on
Wednesday there was to be a procession with a petition which Mr.
Turnbull was to receive from the hands of the people on Primrose
Hill. It had been at first intended that Mr. Turnbull should receive
the petition at the door of Westminster Hall on the Thursday; but he
had been requested by the Home Secretary to put aside this intention,
and he had complied with the request made to him. Mr. Mildmay was
to move the second reading of his Reform Bill on that day, the
preliminary steps having been taken without any special notice; but
the bill of course included no clause in favour of the ballot; and
this petition was the consequence of that omission. Mr. Turnbull had
predicted evil consequences, both in the House and out of it, and
was now doing the best in his power to bring about the verification
of his own prophecies. Phineas, who reached his lodgings late on the
Thursday, found that the town had been in a state of ferment for
three days, that on the Wednesday forty or fifty thousand persons had
been collected at Primrose Hill, and that the police had been forced
to interfere,--and that worse was expected on the Friday. Though Mr.
Turnbull had yielded to the Government as to receiving the petition,
the crowd was resolved that they would see the petition carried into
the House. It was argued that the Government would have done better
to have refrained from interfering as to the previously intended
arrangement. It would have been easier to deal with a procession than
with a mob of men gathered together without any semblance of form.
Mr. Mildmay had been asked to postpone the second reading of his
bill; but the request had come from his opponents, and he would
not yield to it. He said that it would be a bad expedient to close
Parliament from fear of the people. Phineas found at the Reform Club
on the Thursday evening that members of the House of Commons were
requested to enter on the Friday by the door usually used by the
peers, and to make their way thence to their own House. He found that
his landlord, Mr. Bunce, had been out with the people during the
entire three days;--and Mrs. Bunce, with a flood of tears, begged
Phineas to interfere as to the Friday. “He’s that headstrong that
he’ll be took if anybody’s took; and they say that all Westminster is
to be lined with soldiers.” Phineas on the Friday morning did have
some conversation with his landlord; but his first work on reaching
London was to see Lord Chiltern’s friends, and tell them of the
accident.
The potted peas Committee sat on the Thursday, and he ought to have
been there. His absence, however, was unavoidable, as he could not
have left his friend’s bed-side so soon after the accident. On the
Wednesday he had written to Lady Laura, and on the Thursday evening
he went first to Portman Square and then to Grosvenor Place.
“Of course he will kill himself some day,” said the Earl,--with a
tear, however, in each eye.
“I hope not, my lord. He is a magnificent horseman; but accidents of
course will happen.”
“How many of his bones are there not broken, I wonder?” said the
father. “It is useless to talk, of course. You think he is not in
danger?”
“Certainly not.”
“I should fear that he would be so liable to inflammation.”
“The doctor says that there is none. He has been taking an enormous
deal of exercise,” said Phineas, “and drinking no wine. All that is
in his favour.”
“What does he drink, then?” asked the Earl.
“Nothing. I rather think, my lord, you are mistaken a little about
his habits. I don’t fancy he ever drinks unless he is provoked to do
it.”
“Provoked! Could anything provoke you to make a brute of yourself?
But I am glad that he is in no danger. If you hear of him, let me
know how he goes on.”
Lady Laura was of course full of concern. “I wanted to go down to
him,” she said, “but Mr. Kennedy thought that there was no occasion.”
“Nor is there any;--I mean in regard to danger. He is very solitary
there.”
“You must go to him again. Mr. Kennedy will not let me go unless I
can say that there is danger. He seems to think that because Oswald
has had accidents before, it is nothing. Of course I cannot leave
London without his leave.”
“Your brother makes very little of it, you know.”
“Ah;--he would make little of anything. But if I were ill he would be
in London by the first train.”
“Kennedy would let you go if you asked him.”
“But he advises me not to go. He says my duty does not require it,
unless Oswald be in danger. Don’t you know, Mr. Finn, how hard it is
for a wife not to take advice when it is so given?” This she said,
within six months of her marriage, to the man who had been her
husband’s rival!
Phineas asked her whether Violet had heard the news, and learned that
she was still ignorant of it. “I got your letter only this morning,
and I have not seen her,” said Lady Laura. “Indeed, I am so angry
with her that I hardly wish to see her.” Thursday was Lady Baldock’s
night, and Phineas went from Grosvenor Place to Berkeley Square.
There he saw Violet, and found that she had heard of the accident.
“I am so glad to see you, Mr. Finn,” she said. “Do tell me;--is it
much?”
“Much in inconvenience, certainly; but not much in danger.”
“I think Laura was so unkind not to send me word! I only heard it
just now. Did you see it?”
“I was close to him, and helped him up. The horse jumped into a river
with him, and crushed him up against the bank.”
“How lucky that you should be there! Had you jumped the river?”
“Yes;--almost unintentionally, for my horse was rushing so that I
could not hold him. Chiltern was riding a brute that no one should
have ridden. No one will again.”
“Did he destroy himself?”
“He had to be killed afterwards. He broke his shoulder.”
“How very lucky that you should have been near him,--and, again, how
lucky that you should not have been hurt yourself!”
“It was not likely that we should both come to grief at the same
fence.”
“But it might have been you. And you think there is no danger?”
“None whatever,--if I may believe the doctor. His hunting is done for
this year, and he will be very desolate. I shall go down again to him
in a few days, and try to bring him up to town.”
“Do;--do. If he is laid up in his father’s house, his father must
see him.” Phineas had not looked at the matter in that light; but he
thought that Miss Effingham might probably be right.
Early on the next morning he saw Mr. Bunce, and used all his
eloquence to keep that respectable member of society at home;--but
in vain. “What good do you expect to do, Mr. Bunce?” he said, with
perhaps some little tone of authority in his voice.
“To carry my point,” said Bunce.
“And what is your point?”
“My present point is the ballot, as a part of the Government
measure.”
“And you expect to carry that by going out into the streets with all
the roughs of London, and putting yourself in direct opposition to
the authority of the magistrates? Do you really believe that the
ballot will become the law of the land any sooner because you incur
this danger and inconvenience?”
“Look here, Mr. Finn; I don’t believe the sea will become any fuller
because the Piddle runs into it out of the Dorsetshire fields; but I
do believe that the waters from all the countries is what makes the
ocean. I shall help; and it’s my duty to help.”
“It’s your duty as a respectable citizen, with a wife and family, to
stay at home.”
“If everybody with a wife and family was to say so, there’d be
none there but roughs, and then where should we be? What would the
Government people say to us then? If every man with a wife and family
was to show hisself in the streets to-night, we should have the
ballot before Parliament breaks up, and if none of ’em don’t do it,
we shall never have the ballot. Ain’t that so?” Phineas, who intended
to be honest, was not prepared to dispute the assertion on the spur
of the moment. “If that’s so,” said Bunce, triumphantly, “a man’s
duty’s clear enough. He ought to go, though he’d two wives and
families.” And he went.
The petition was to be presented at six o’clock, but the crowd, who
collected to see it carried into Westminster Hall, began to form
itself by noon. It was said afterwards that many of the houses in
the neighbourhood of Palace Yard and the Bridge were filled with
soldiers; but if so, the men did not show themselves. In the course
of the evening three or four companies of the Guards in St. James’s
Park did show themselves, and had some rough work to do, for many of
the people took themselves away from Westminster by that route. The
police, who were very numerous in Palace Yard, had a hard time of it
all the afternoon, and it was said afterwards that it would have been
much better to have allowed the petition to have been brought up by
the procession on Wednesday. A procession, let it be who it will that
proceeds, has in it, of its own nature something of order. But now
there was no order. The petition, which was said to fill fifteen
cabs,--though the absolute sheets of signatures were carried into
the House by four men,--was being dragged about half the day and it
certainly would have been impossible for a member to have made his
way into the House through Westminster Hall between the hours of four
and six. To effect an entrance at all they were obliged to go round
at the back of the Abbey, as all the spaces round St. Margaret’s
Church and Canning’s monument were filled with the crowd. Parliament
Street was quite impassable at five o’clock, and there was no traffic
across the bridge from that hour till after eight. As the evening
went on, the mob extended itself to Downing Street and the front
of the Treasury Chambers, and before the night was over all the
hoardings round the new Government offices had been pulled down. The
windows also of certain obnoxious members of Parliament were broken,
when those obnoxious members lived within reach. One gentleman who
unfortunately held a house in Richmond Terrace, and who was said
to have said that the ballot was the resort of cowards, fared very
badly;--for his windows were not only broken, but his furniture and
mirrors were destroyed by the stones that were thrown. Mr. Mildmay,
I say, was much blamed. But after all, it may be a doubt whether the
procession on Wednesday might not have ended worse. Mr. Turnbull was
heard to say afterwards that the number of people collected would
have been much greater.
Mr. Mildmay moved the second reading of his bill, and made his
speech. He made his speech with the knowledge that the Houses of
Parliament were surrounded by a mob, and I think that the fact added
to its efficacy. It certainly gave him an appropriate opportunity
for a display which was not difficult. His voice faltered on two or
three occasions, and faltered through real feeling; but this sort of
feeling, though it be real, is at the command of orators on certain
occasions, and does them yeoman’s service. Mr. Mildmay was an
old man, nearly worn out in the service of his country, who was
known to have been true and honest, and to have loved his country
well,--though there were of course they who declared that his
hand had been too weak for power, and that his services had been
naught;--and on this evening his virtues were remembered. Once when
his voice failed him the whole House got up and cheered. The nature
of a Whig Prime Minister’s speech on such an occasion will be
understood by most of my readers without further indication. The bill
itself had been read before, and it was understood that no objection
would be made to the extent of the changes provided in it by the
liberal side of the House. The opposition coming from liberal members
was to be confined to the subject of the ballot. And even as yet
it was not known whether Mr. Turnbull and his followers would vote
against the second reading, or whether they would take what was
given, and declare their intention of obtaining the remainder on a
separate motion. The opposition of a large party of Conservatives was
a matter of certainty; but to this party Mr. Mildmay did not conceive
himself bound to offer so large an amount of argument as he would
have given had there been at the moment no crowd in Palace Yard. And
he probably felt that that crowd would assist him with his old Tory
enemies. When, in the last words of his speech, he declared that
under no circumstances would he disfigure the close of his political
career by voting for the ballot,--not though the people, on whose
behalf he had been fighting battles all his life, should be there in
any number to coerce him,--there came another round of applause from
the opposition benches, and Mr. Daubeny began to fear that some young
horses in his team might get loose from their traces. With great
dignity Mr. Daubeny had kept aloof from Mr. Turnbull and from Mr.
Turnbull’s tactics; but he was not the less alive to the fact
that Mr. Turnbull, with his mob and his big petition, might be of
considerable assistance to him in this present duel between himself
and Mr. Mildmay. I think Mr. Daubeny was in the habit of looking at
these contests as duels between himself and the leader on the other
side of the House,--in which assistance from any quarter might be
accepted if offered.
Mr. Mildmay’s speech did not occupy much over an hour, and at
half-past seven Mr. Turnbull got up to reply. It was presumed that he
would do so, and not a member left his place, though that time of the
day is an interesting time, and though Mr. Turnbull was accustomed to
be long. There soon came to be but little ground for doubting what
would be the nature of Mr. Turnbull’s vote on the second reading.
“How may I dare,” said he, “to accept so small a measure of reform as
this with such a message from the country as is now conveyed to me
through the presence of fifty thousand of my countrymen, who are at
this moment demanding their measure of reform just beyond the frail
walls of this chamber? The right honourable gentleman has told us
that he will never be intimidated by a concourse of people. I do not
know that there was any need that he should speak of intimidation.
No one has accused the right honourable gentleman of political
cowardice. But, as he has so said, I will follow in his footsteps.
Neither will I be intimidated by the large majority which this House
presented the other night against the wishes of the people. I will
support no great measure of reform which does not include the ballot
among its clauses.” And so Mr. Turnbull threw down the gauntlet.
Mr. Turnbull spoke for two hours, and then the debate was adjourned
till the Monday. The adjournment was moved by an independent member,
who, as was known, would support the Government, and at once received
Mr. Turnbull’s assent. There was no great hurry with the bill, and
it was felt that it would be well to let the ferment subside. Enough
had been done for glory when Mr. Mildmay moved the second reading,
and quite enough in the way of debate,--with such an audience almost
within hearing,--when Mr. Turnbull’s speech had been made. Then the
House emptied itself at once. The elderly, cautious members made
their exit through the peers’ door. The younger men got out into
the crowd through Westminster Hall, and were pushed about among the
roughs for an hour or so. Phineas, who made his way through the hall
with Laurence Fitzgibbon, found Mr. Turnbull’s carriage waiting at
the entrance with a dozen policemen round it.
“I hope he won’t get home to dinner before midnight,” said Phineas.
“He understands all about it,” said Laurence. “He had a good meal at
three, before he left home, and you’d find sandwiches and sherry in
plenty if you were to search his carriage. He knows how to remedy the
costs of mob popularity.”
At that time poor Bunce was being hustled about in the crowd in the
vicinity of Mr. Turnbull’s carriage. Phineas and Fitzgibbon made
their way out, and by degrees worked a passage for themselves into
Parliament Street. Mr. Turnbull had been somewhat behind them in
coming down the hall, and had not been without a sense of enjoyment
in the ovation which was being given to him. There can be no doubt
that he was wrong in what he was doing. That affair of the carriage
was altogether wrong, and did Mr. Turnbull much harm for many a day
afterwards. When he got outside the door, where were the twelve
policemen guarding his carriage, a great number of his admirers
endeavoured to shake hands with him. Among them was the devoted
Bunce. But the policemen seemed to think that Mr. Turnbull was to be
guarded, even from the affection of his friends, and were as careful
that he should be ushered into his carriage untouched, as though he
had been the favourite object of political aversion for the moment.
Mr. Turnbull himself, when he began to perceive that men were
crowding close upon the gates, and to hear the noise, and to feel, as
it were, the breath of the mob, stepped on quickly into his carriage.
He said a word or two in a loud voice. “Thank you, my friends. I
trust you may obtain all your just demands.” But he did not pause
to speak. Indeed, he could hardly have done so, as the policemen
were manifestly in a hurry. The carriage was got away at a snail’s
pace;--but there remained in the spot where the carriage had stood
the makings of a very pretty street row.
Bunce had striven hard to shake hands with his hero,--Bunce and some
other reformers as ardent and as decent as himself. The police were
very determinate that there should be no such interruption to their
programme for getting Mr. Turnbull off the scene. Mr. Bunce, who had
his own ideas as to his right to shake hands with any gentleman at
Westminster Hall who might choose to shake hands with him, became
uneasy under the impediments that were placed in his way, and
expressed himself warmly as to his civil rights. Now a London
policeman in a political row is, I believe, the most forbearing
of men. So long as he meets with no special political opposition,
ordinary ill-usage does not even put him out of temper. He is paid
for rough work among roughs, and takes his rubs gallantly. But he
feels himself to be an instrument for the moment of despotic power
as opposed to civil rights, and he won’t stand what he calls “jaw.”
Trip up a policeman in such a scramble, and he will take it in good
spirit; but mention the words “Habeas Corpus,” and he’ll lock you up
if he can. As a rule, his instincts are right; for the man who talks
about “Habeas Corpus” in a political crowd will generally do more
harm than can be effected by the tripping up of any constable. But
these instincts may be the means of individual injustice. I think
they were so when Mr. Bunce was arrested and kept a fast prisoner.
His wife had shown her knowledge of his character when she declared
that he’d be “took” if any one was “took.”
Bunce was taken into custody with some three or four others like
himself,--decent men, who meant no harm, but who thought that as men
they were bound to show their political opinions, perhaps at the
expense of a little martyrdom,--and was carried into a temporary
stronghold, which had been provided for the necessities of the
police, under the clock-tower.
“Keep me, at your peril!” said Bunce, indignantly.
“We means it,” said the sergeant who had him in custody.
“I’ve done no ha’porth to break the law,” said Bunce.
“You was breaking the law when you was upsetting my men, as I saw
you,” said the sergeant.
“I’ve upset nobody,” said Bunce.
“Very well,” rejoined the sergeant; “you can say it all before the
magistrate, to-morrow.”
“And am I to be locked up all night?” said Bunce.
“I’m afraid you will,” replied the sergeant.
Bunce, who was not by nature a very talkative man, said no more; but
he swore in his heart that there should be vengeance. Between eleven
and twelve he was taken to the regular police-station, and from
thence he was enabled to send word to his wife.
“Bunce has been taken,” said she, with something of the tragic queen,
and something also of the injured wife in the tone of her voice, as
soon as Phineas let himself in with the latchkey between twelve and
one. And then, mingled with, and at last dominant over, those severer
tones, came the voice of the loving woman whose beloved one was in
trouble. “I knew how it’d be, Mr. Finn. Didn’t I? And what must we
do? I don’t suppose he’d had a bit to eat from the moment he went
out;--and as for a drop of beer, he never thinks of it, except what
I puts down for him at his meals. Them nasty police always take the
best. That’s why I was so afeard.”
Phineas said all that he could to comfort her, and promised to go
to the police-office early in the morning and look after Bunce. No
serious evil would, he thought, probably come of it; but still Bunce
had been wrong to go.
“But you might have been took yourself,” argued Mrs. Bunce, “just as
well as he.” Then Phineas explained that he had gone forth in the
execution of a public duty. “You might have been took, all the same,”
said Mrs. Bunce, “for I’m sure Bunce didn’t do nothing amiss.”