There never was a contested election in the borough of Great Tattleton
that I remember but one, and it took place on what was termed the last
appeal to the country in the matter of the Reform Bill. Staid and
substantial fathers of families doubtless recollect the strife of
parties and opinions which filled those times, and in which themselves
took part, with all the bootless haste and fervour of twenty; feeling
especially indignant that they were not yet householders, as their
incorruptible votes might save the nation. England has floated safely
through many a conflict of the old and new since then, and more of the
kind are coming; but no event in our national history ever appeared to
the denizens of Tattleton of half such magnitude as that contested
election. Tattleton was an ancient and respectable borough. It has a
railway station now, but looks much as it did at the time of my
story--a small, old-fashioned country town, situated among corn and
orchard lands in one of the cider-making counties, with a newspaper, a
sheriff's court, and sundry quiet shops and alehouses. There is an old
church there, with high Gothic windows full of painted glass, quaint
carving, strange tombs, and a suit of knightly armour hanging between
two tattered banners, which the sexton says were carried some time in
the wars. Tradition says also, that there is a fine old painting in
fresco, whitewashed over from the Reformation, but of that I know
nothing. The town had other antiquities. Its stocks were a marvel of
age and efficiency. A ducking-stool for scolds yet remained in the
courthouse, beside the beam with which they weighed witches against
the Bible; but the oldest thing in Great Tattleton was its charter: a
native antiquary demonstrated, that it had been signed by King John
the day after Runnymede; and among other superannuated privileges, it
conferred on the free burghers the right of trade and toll, ward and
gibbet, besides that of electing their own mayor and one loyal
commoner, to serve in the king's parliament.
We all believed that Palladium of Tattleton to be kept somewhere in
the church, and generations had returned their representatives
according to its provisions. But the bounds of the borough were so
devious, and the free burghers so thinly scattered among us, that all
elections within the memory of man had been quietly managed by the
mayor, the town-clerk, and the sheriff. Moreover, an old gateway and
two crazy posts had something to do in the business by right of
ancient custom. In short, Tattleton was what the advocates of the
whole Bill were apt to term a close and sometimes a rotten borough.
Its representation had become hereditary--some said, since the Long
Parliament--in the Stopford family, who owned at least half the soil,
and were supposed to be as old as its charter. One of their ancestors
had built the church, another wore the armour and captured the banners
that hung in it. The family pew and vault were there; and they had
been squires and justices of peace from father to son, dispensing
hospitality, work, and law, at their seat of Fern Hall--a great old
manor-house, standing deep in a thickly-wooded dell not half a mile
from Tattleton. So far as I could learn, the Stopfords had given no
ornaments to state or church, but theirs was pre-eminently a safe
house. Its martlets were generally fortunate in their connections; and
its chiefs had supported the character of moderate reformers, each in
his generation. At home, they were lenient magistrates and prudent
landlords, never overtaxing their tenantry, and rarely enforcing the
game-laws. None of them ever took a first step; but all improvements
in the neighbourhood, if once commenced, were certain of their
countenance; and in parliament they always voted for any measure of
reform which it was evident the people would want no longer.
It was, therefore, in accordance with family principles and practice,
that the then reigning squire and M. P., Levison Stopford, Esquire,
should take his seat on the ministerial benches, and vote in and out
of parliament for the Bill with which all England rang. Levison
Stopford did not make brilliant speeches, but he had a fair share of
prominence in county business, was a middling landlord, a respectable
head of a family, connected by marriage with a Whig peer, the father
of a promising son, and, as the newspapers said, four lovely
daughters. All these recommendations to public favour could not secure
him against division in his native borough. There were Conservatives
among us, who clung to the time-honoured institutions of Tattleton,
and could not consent to see their ancient privileges, charter, old
posts, and all, submerged in those of two adjoining boroughs--Little
Tattleton, whose constituency consisted of the beadle, and Lumberdale,
to which the earl always nominated his second son; for people already
understood, that on the passing of the Bill these three should become
one, at least in elections.
Sir Jonas Underwood, of Little Tattleton Park, did not like that
prospect--he had been regularly returned by the loyal and independent
beadle ever since his majority, a period of some forty years--neither
did the Earl of Lumberdale, as the present state of things made his
second son's canvass by no means difficult. Both the earl and the
baronet possessed some property, and more influence, in our borough,
by help of which they warned the loyal Conservatives that their
country was in danger, and exhorted Great Tattleton to rush to the
rescue. The mayor said, that though he respected birth and breeding,
yet, if a country gentleman like Mr Stopford would so far disgrace his
family as to vote for a measure which must break down the British
constitution, and utterly ruin England in less than twenty years, he,
for his own part, felt called upon to oppose him. The town-clerk
always said as the mayor did: all the Tories in Tattleton took them
for examples, by degrees a party was formed against Stopford on what
had hitherto been his own ground; and long before the dissolution, it
was known that they intended, as the phrase is, 'to start' Sommerset
Cloudesly, Esquire, as an opposing candidate in the Conservative
interest.
Sommerset Cloudesly occupied a large but neat brick house on the verge
of our town's liberties, with a meadow-like lawn in front, and acres
of orchard in the rear. His father had been a small farmer, who
bettered his fortune by all manner of money-making speculations--the
last of which, a cider-manufactory, and a mill, together with a house
he had built, the orchard he had planted, and a handsome strip of
landed property, descending to his only son, made him the second man
in Tattleton. Sommerset had been what is called carefully educated:
ten years of his life had been spent in the house of a clergyman, who
received select boarders as part of his own family; five more at a
college in Oxford under the direction of a staid tutor; and the
residue in a series of fidgets through the house and land left him by
his father; for at the time of our story, the worthy cider-maker had
long gone to his account.
Sommerset was a tall, thin, genteel-looking man, in his thirtieth
year. Motherless, sisterless, and wifeless--strange to say, under such
circumstances, he was restless too. It was not a weight of crime that
pressed upon his conscience. Cloudesly's life had been as harmless as
those of his own apple-trees. It was not inordinate ambition that
disturbed his days, for though, like most of us, Sommerset would have
rather preferred being a great man, could greatness be easily come at,
he lost no labour in its pursuit. Neither was it love that besieged
his peace; for, except Miss Lily Prior, old Tom the brewer's daughter,
who sat in the same pew at church, Sommerset had never been known to
look on one of womankind with attention. Perhaps the carefulness of
his education might have done it. Life could not be entirely folded up
like a napkin, and put into its proper drawer; and everything annoyed
Sommerset Cloudesly. The coming off of his waistcoat button was the
destruction of Messina. The world was going to ruin if his horse lost
a shoe. Like the idle family in the Eastern tale, he could draw a
disturbance from the future also, and many a heart-quake had he
regarding what might happen. His Oxford tutor had made him a strong
Tory; old Cloudesly had averred, that was the only politics for a
gentleman; and though Sommerset believed in all the alarms of his
time, his faith being particularly strong for terrors, he had always
supposed himself to be somebody. Sir Jonas and the Earl of Lumberdale
assured him he was the hope of Tattleton; and, in an evil hour, he
consented, in electioneering phrase, to contest the borough.
With his relations, who regarded Sommerset as their top branch, the
step was in high favour; and all his friends came out strong in
approbation, excepting old Tom Prior. He had been the consulting
friend and boon-companion of old Cloudesly forty years before, when
the one began to brew beer and the other to make cider. Tom's brewery
had not paid him so well as old Cloudesly's apples. He had been the
first to establish a business of the kind in Tattleton. There were
three there at the time of the election; but the townspeople still
knew him familiarly as _the_ brewer, though he had long become a
sleeping partner, having saved enough for himself and his old wife to
live on in a cottage covered with grape vines, at the end of a long
green lane in which the main street of Tattleton dwindled away. There
was, besides, a thousand pounds for Lily, the heiress-apparent,
moreover, of his interest in the brewery. Tom said 'he had no notion
of politics, being entirely given to beer; and who was right about
that there Bill he couldn't say, but he never knowed an honest man as
made money by a contested election.' Old Mrs Prior always echoed what
her husband said, besides knitting a perpetual stocking that was her
only occupation; but Tom and his wife were old people now, and in
small intimacy with the college-bred young Cloudesly, though they sat
in the same church-pew, and some thought their daughter Lily was also
a friend to our proposed member. Lily was as pretty a girl as could be
found in all Tattleton, which, together with her prospects, rather
insured admirers; but Lily took no trouble with any of them, and it
was believed that the old folks rather wished she should not be in a
hurry.
That was no wonder; for, in this fidgety world, Lily Prior was a
treasure. Nothing ever disturbed her. Her hair might go out of curl,
or her friends out of humour; her bonnet might take unbecoming fits,
as I am told bonnets sometimes do, but her equanimity remained
unruffled, and her days were spent in knitting beside her mother in
the little oak parlour, taking quiet walks, and hoeing peacefully in
her own flower-garden. Spiteful people said, that Lily was beginning
to look old-maidish, but I never saw it in her calm face. It was also
said--what didn't they say in Great Tattleton?--that her muslin dress
and crimped collar were more carefully arranged when Sommerset
Cloudesly might be expected to walk that way; but Lily's strongest
demonstration was 'Dear me!' and that she said on hearing of his
intended contest. A perilous contest it seemed for Sommerset
Cloudesly. Stopford was by far the richer and more influential man;
the interest of his party, his aristocratic connections, and his
individual pride, all determined him to keep his ground; and the
generally prudent man had been heard to declare, that he would spend
to the last sixpence of his property, rather than see himself unseated
by an upstart simpleton.
Sommerset and his friends had, of course, the accredited weapons of
their party wherewith to attack the adversary, and Stopford was called
everything, from Radical up to Atheist. Thus the battle began, and
fiercely was it fought; but suffice it to say, that all the usual
means for obtaining the independent suffrage of freeborn Englishmen
were put in requisition. Voters suddenly emerged from corners wherein
no freeholds had been previously dreamed of; others were unaccountably
absent on the polling-days; the alehouses abounded in trade, and the
town in all disorderliness. There was everlasting controversy over
claims of residence and ownership, with numerous appeals to our famous
charter; and prosecutions for assault and battery occupied our town
lawyers the whole succeeding year.
What spites and quarrels are still flourishing among my old neighbours
which owe their origin to that election! How many long friendships it
split up, and how much family peace it disturbed, I cannot precisely
state; but the like did happen. Neither is it within my memory's scope
to enlarge on the Countess Dowager of Lumberdale and her seven
charming daughters, in elegant morning-dresses, appearing at the poll,
where they shook hands with everybody, and shewed a singular
acquaintance with family history; nor to relate how Lord Littlemore,
Stopford's brother-in-law, and the proudest peer in England, made
calls on small shopkeepers and farmers, perhaps to shew what rank
could do on important occasions. No manoeuvre was left untried by the
rival factions, nor any cause of dispute omitted, and the strife
increased in bitterness every day. Readers, can any of you explain why
people so generally run into the way of whatever they most fear? I
never could; but the case is common, and Sommerset Cloudesly was a
striking instance. What waves of worry passed over him! and what heaps
of annoyance were piled on his spirit during that county election!--a
rather tedious business in those unreformed days. His peace was killed
with cabbage-stocks on the hustings; his days were devastated by
groans; and his soul harrowed by hisses. Nevertheless, both his
friends and enemies were amazed to see how well Cloudesly acquitted
himself; his speeches, when they could be heard, were models of neat
eloquence; and his colours--pea-green and white--were sported with
genteel triumph. By and by, however, it became evident to his most
sanguine supporter that Sommerset had no chance; Sir Jonas and Lord
Lumberdale themselves advised him to give up the contest; but the man
had been persuaded that the safety of Great Tattleton, if not that of
the British nation, depended on him, and a persuasion once in
Sommerset's head was not easily got out. He believed on, in spite of
them and fortune. I never found out precisely what the business cost
him; nobody dared inquire, and he burned all the accounts; but at
length the last day's poll was taken, and amid cheers, yells, and a
newly-begun row, Levison Stopford, Esq., was declared duly elected.
Men cannot have Waterloos of their own every day. No wonder, then,
that the honourable member's glory was too great for his prudence:
scarcely had the poll closed, when it became generally known in front
of the Stopford Arms, that there were two barrels of strong beer,
which his liberality had devoted to the populace. On the publication
of this intelligence, the ancient ceremony of chairing went on with
more than usual vigour. It was a quiet autumn evening, but there was
no peace for Tattleton. The shops and houses of Stopford's friends
were lighting up in every quarter for a grand illumination, while the
opposition and the stingy were closing as quickly as possible. Half
the rabble of the county were gathered in the streets; all our own
respectability occupied doors and windows; and forth from the
town-hall, in a substantial armchair, decorated with bunches of
ribbons, blue and red--the Stopford colours--borne in high triumph by
his most zealous and noisy adherents, came the newly-chosen senator (a
rather stout gentleman, and father of a hopeful family), scattering
coppers and silver with no sparing hand, from a large canvas bag,
among the crowd, who roared and scrambled in all the might of beer.
Old politicians said it was a great victory for Whig principles, and
many a joke was cracked at the unsuccessful candidate's expense. Some
believed he had retired behind bolt and bar; others that he was
defying fortune at a late dinner. If the latter statement were true,
Sommerset's company must have been small. The Earl and Sir Jonas had
long since washed their hands of him, as incorrigibly obstinate. The
more influential of his supporters kept out of sight, being rather
ashamed of the losing side; and, I grieve to say, the barrels had
utterly shaken the faith of many a voteless adherent, the freeholders
of our streets and lanes, who now shouted Stopford instead of
Cloudesly for ever. Some there were, nevertheless, with souls above
barrels--men who had votes, and men who had none--and they collected
their forces at the foot of the main street, as vantage-ground from
which to groan at the above-mentioned procession, and inform Mr
Stopford of their intentions to unseat him for bribery and corruption.
Great Tattleton was not a fighting place--a serious riot had never
occurred within the memory of its 'oldest inhabitant;' yet on that
evening quiet people began to feel uneasy; and my particular friend,
Miss Croply, had selected it as a fitting occasion for her tea-party.
Miss Croply was a maiden lady of some fifty years, and great note
among us. She drew dividends at the bank; kept her own establishment,
consisting of a maid and a boy; and gave select parties. Moreover,
Miss Croply was a Tory after her own fashion. She said there was
nothing she hated but Radicals and reformers, for all they wanted was
to bring down the respectable people, and maybe break the banks. On
these principles, she had been in great fervour for Sommerset
Cloudesly; and by way of testifying that his defeat had not broken her
spirit, Miss Croply assembled the Priors, myself, and two or three
other favoured friends, to tea and crumpets prepared by her own fair
hands. These requisites were on the table, and the party assembled in
the little drawing-room, all but Lily, whom her mother had left to
manage some domestic matter (the old lady was particular at times);
but at its conclusion, Lily was to come through the lane, over the
fields, and up Miss Croply's garden, to avoid the crowd, and shew the
beautiful new bonnet she had received that morning as a present from
her aunt. We all knew Lily to be exact; but the hour had come, and not
the woman.
'Don't draw that curtain, if you please, Mr Prior; I would not gratify
the low creatures by looking out!' said Miss Croply, as shouts louder
than ordinary rose from the street, and old Tom stepped to the window.
The noise came nearer. It sounded like, 'Miss Prior for ever!' We
rushed in a body to the windows. Miss Croply herself drew the curtain.
There was a woman borne in a garden-chair, dangerously high, by the
most zealous of the Cloudeslyites, while the rest followed in
applauding procession, augmented every moment, and Tom's hands went
together like the 'crack of doom' as he exclaimed: 'By jingo, it's my
own daughter!'
Lily it was, in her pretty green gown, white shawl, and gay new
bonnet--it was trimmed with pale-green and white: as for her face, it
expressed nothing but 'Dear me!' I never saw such philosophy. Out
rushed Tom, so did all the men of us, and followed the crowd up the
street, and down the lane to the front of Cloudesly's house, where we
arrived just in time to see the gallant Sommerset hand Lily from her
chair with the air of a man about to kneel. Poor Cloudesly! he was
both weak and strong, but a good fellow at heart.
'She wore my colours, and suffered for my sake,' was all he said, as
with Lily on his arm he marched back with us to Miss Croply's
drawing-room, followed by the crowd, shouting: 'Prior and Cloudesly
for ever!'
'Lily, dear, what's the meaning of this?' said old Mrs Prior.
'I thought I would take a look,' said Lily calmly; 'and they all got
about me, saying I had on Mr Cloudesly's colours, and'----
'So you did wear his colours,' cried Miss Croply; 'and I'm proud of
you for keeping up your principles! Mrs Prior, I always knew there was
something great in that girl!'
'It's just the bonnet my aunt sent me,' said Lily; 'and I didn't
mean'----
'Never mind what you meant,' cried Miss Croply, in whose mind policy
as well as romance might have been at work at that moment: 'we don't
want no excuses.'
In short, Lily was made a heroine that evening. Her father and mother
thought themselves called upon to rebuke, but it was done rather in
the encouraging style, especially when Mr Cloudesly gave the company
to understand that henceforth he was to be considered Lily's humble
servant. Isn't that the proper phrase, readers? And Miss Prior, who
had not her composure to regain, coloured slightly, and finished the
matter by saying: 'Dear me!'
I have heard from herself, that she had put on her aunt's bonnet, and
come quietly through the lane, when it struck her that she would like
to see what was going on, as Miss Croply would allow no looking out at
the low creatures; so nearer and nearer to the street did Lily wend,
till a boy--are not boys at the bottom of all mischief?--raised the
shout that she was wearing Mr Cloudesly's colours; the phalanx then
surrounded her, and improvised the triumph which we witnessed. The
_Tattleton Chronicle_ was remarkably full upon it. I think, till this
day, Lily is regarded as a devoted heroine by all the Tories of
Tattleton, for there are Tories there still. But we had a splendid
wedding at our church, under Mr Stopford's very nose, before he went
to parliament. I can vouch for old Tom and Miss Croply leading off a
country-dance the same evening in Prior Cottage; but it is
two-and-twenty years ago. There is a tombstone over the old man and
his wife. Miss Croply has left her bank deposit to three nieces.
Sommerset Cloudesly grew less fidgety long ago, and some people say
less genteel, but he brews the best beer, and makes the best cider now
in the county. There are ten children in the brick-house, but Mrs
Cloudesly looks as composed as ever; and when her husband reads to her
at work on the winter nights, as he dutifully does, in the newspapers,
she sometimes remarks, at the close of long parliamentary debates, to
which Sommerset was always partial: 'What trouble those people have in
that House of Commons, my love! Wasn't it really good for you that you
lost the Tattleton election?'