"In the copia of the factious language the word Tory was
entertained, and being a vocal clever-sounding word, readily
pronounced, it kept its hold, and took possession of the foul
mouths of the faction.----The Loyalists began to cheer up and to
take heart of grace, and in the working of this crisis, according
to the common law of scolding, they considered which way to make
payment for so much of Tory as they had been treated with to clear
scores.----Immediately the train took, and ran like wildfire and
became general. And so the account of Tory was balanced, and soon
began to run up a sharp score on the other side."--NORTH'S
_Examen_, p. 321.
At last the great epoch of the election for North Loamshire had arrived.
The roads approaching Treby were early traversed by a larger number of
vehicles, horsemen, and also foot-passengers than were ever seen at the
annual fair. Treby was the polling-place for many voters whose faces
were quite strange in the town; and if there were some strangers who did
not come to poll, though they had business not unconnected with the
election, they were not liable to be regarded with suspicion or especial
curiosity. It was understood that no division of a county had ever been
more thoroughly canvassed, and that there would be a hard run between
Garstin and Transome. Mr. Johnson's headquarters were at Duffield; but
it was a maxim which he repeated after the great Putty, that a capable
agent makes himself omnipresent; and quite apart from the express
between him and Jermyn, Mr. John Johnson's presence in the universe had
potent effects on this December day at Treby Magna.
A slight drizzling rain which was observed by some Tories who looked out
of their bedroom windows before six o'clock, made them hope that, after
all, the day might pass off better than alarmists had expected. The rain
was felt to be somehow on the side of quiet and Conservatism; but soon
the breaking of the clouds and the mild gleams of a December sun brought
back previous apprehensions. As there were already precedents for riot
at a Reformed election, and as the Trebian district had had its
confidence in the natural course of things somewhat shaken by a landed
proprietor with an old name offering himself as a Radical candidate, the
election had been looked forward to by many with a vague sense that it
would be an occasion something like a fighting match, when bad
characters would probably assemble, and there might be struggles and
alarms for respectable men, which would make it expedient for them to
take a little neat brandy as a precaution beforehand and a restorative
afterward. The tenants on the Transome estate were comparatively
fearless: poor Mr. Goffe, of Rabbit's End, considered that "one thing
was as mauling as the other," and that an election was no worse than the
sheep-rot; while Mr. Dibbs, taking the more cheerful view of a
prosperous man, reflected that if the Radicals were dangerous, it was
safer to be on their side. It was the voters for Debarry and Garstin who
considered that they alone had the right to regard themselves as targets
for evil-minded men; and Mr. Crowder, if he could have got his ideas
countenanced, would have recommended a muster of farm-servants with
defensive pitchforks on the side of Church and king. But the bolder men
were rather gratified by the prospect of being groaned at, so that they
might face about and groan in return.
Mr. Crow, the high constable of Treby, inwardly rehearsed a brief
address to a riotous crowd in case it should be wanted, having been
warned by the rector that it was a primary duty on these occasions to
keep a watch against provocation as well as violence. The rector, with a
brother magistrate who was on the spot, had thought it desirable to
swear in some special constables, but the presence of loyal men not
absolutely required for the polling was not looked at in the light of a
provocation. The Benefit Clubs from various quarters made a show, some
with the orange-colored ribbons and streamers of the true Tory
candidate, some with the mazarine of the Whig. The orange-colored bands
played "Auld Lang Syne," and a louder mazarine band came across them
with "Oh, whistle and I will come to thee, my lad"--probably as the tune
the most symbolical of Liberalism which their repertory would furnish.
There was not a single club bearing the Radical blue: the Sproxton Club
members wore the mazarine, and Mr. Chubb wore so much of it that he
looked (at a sufficient distance) like a very large gentianella. It was
generally understood that "these brave fellows," representing the fine
institution of Benefit Clubs, holding aloft the motto, "Let brotherly
love continue," were a civil force calculated to encourage voters of
sound opinions and keep up their spirits. But a considerable number of
unadorned heavy navvies, colliers, and stone-pit men, who used their
freedom as British subjects to be present in Treby on this great
occasion, looked like a possible uncivil force whose politics were
dubious until it was clearly seen for whom they cheered and for whom
they groaned.
Thus the way up to the polling-booths was variously lined, and those who
walked it, to whatever side they belonged, had the advantage of hearing
from the opposite side what were the most marked defects or excesses in
their personal appearance; for the Trebians of that day held, without
being aware that they had Cicero's authority for it, that the bodily
blemishes of an opponent were a legitimate ground for ridicule; but if
the voter frustrated wit by being handsome, he was groaned at and
satirized according to a formula, in which the adjective was Tory, Whig,
or Radical, as the case might be, and the substantive a blank to be
filled up after the taste of the speaker.
Some of the more timid had chosen to go through this ordeal as early as
possible in the morning. One of the earliest was Mr. Timothy Rose, the
gentleman-farmer from Leek Malton. He had left home with some
foreboding, having swathed his more vital parts in layers of flannel,
and put on two greatcoats as a soft kind of armor. But reflecting with
some trepidation that there were no resources for protecting his head,
he once more wavered in his intention to vote; he once more observed to
Mrs. Rose that these were hard times when a man of independent property
was expected to vote "willy-nilly;" but finally coerced by the sense
that he should be looked ill on "in these times" if he did not stand by
the gentlemen round about, he set out in his gig, taking with him a
powerful wagoner, whom he ordered to keep him in sight as he went to
the polling-booth. It was hardly more than nine o'clock when Mr. Rose,
having thus come up to the level of his times, cheered himself with a
little cherry-brandy at the Marquis, drove away in a much more
courageous spirit, and got down at Mr. Nolan's, just outside the town.
The retired Londoner, he considered, was a man of experience, who would
estimate properly the judicious course he had taken, and could make it
known to others. Mr. Nolan was superintending the removal of some shrubs
in his garden.
"Well, Mr. Nolan," said Rose, twinkling a self-complacent look over the
red prominence of his cheeks, "have you been to give your vote yet?"
"No; all in good time. I shall go presently."
"Well, I wouldn't lose an hour, I wouldn't. I said to myself, if I've
got to do gentlemen a favor, I'll do it at once. You see, I've got no
landlord, Nolan--I'm in that position o' life that I can be
independent."
"Just so, my dear sir," said the wiry-faced Nolan, pinching his
under-lip between his thumb and finger, and giving one of those
wonderful universal shrugs, by which he seemed to be recalling all his
garments from a tendency to disperse themselves. "Come in and see Mrs.
Nolan?"
"No, no, thankye. Mrs. Rose expects me back. But, as I was saying, I'm a
independent man, and I consider it's not my part to show favor to one
more than another, but to make things as even as I can. If I'd been a
tenant to anybody, well, in course I must have voted for my
landlord--that stands to sense. But I wish everybody well; and if one's
returned to Parliament more than another, nobody can say it's my doing;
for when you can vote for two, you can make things even. So I gave one
to Debarry and one to Transome; and I wish Garstin no ill, but I can't
help the odd number, and he hangs on to Debarry, they say."
"God bless me, sir," said Mr. Nolan, coughing down a laugh, "don't you
perceive that you might as well have stayed at home and not voted at
all, unless you would rather send a Radical to Parliament than a sober
Whig?"
"Well, I'm sorry you should have anything to say against what I've done,
Nolan," said Mr. Rose, rather crestfallen, though sustained by inward
warmth. "I thought you'd agree with me, as you're a sensible man. But
the most a independent man can do is to try and please all; and if he
hasn't the luck--here's wishing I may do it another time," added Mr.
Rose, apparently confounding a toast with a salutation, for he put out
his hand for a passing shake, and then stepped into his gig again.
At the time that Mr. Timothy Rose left the town, the crowd in King
Street and in the market-place, where the polling-booths stood, was
fluctuating. Voters as yet were scanty, and brave fellows who had come
from any distance this morning, or who had sat up late drinking the
night before, required some reinforcement of their strength and spirits.
Every public house in Treby, not excepting the venerable and sombre
Cross-Keys, was lively with changing and numerous company. Not, of
course, that there was any treating: treating necessarily had stopped,
from moral scruples, when once "the writs were out;" but there was
drinking, which did equally well under any name.
Poor Tommy Trounsem, breakfasting here on Falstaff's proportion of
bread, and something which, for gentility's sake, I will call sack, was
more than usually victorious over the ills of life, and felt himself one
of the heroes of the day. He had an immense light-blue cockade in his
hat, and an amount of silver in a dirty little canvas bag which
astonished himself. For some reason, at first inscrutable to him, he had
been paid for his bill-sticking with great liberality at Mr. Jermyn's
office, in spite of his having been the victim of a trick by which he
had once lost his own bills and pasted up Debarry's; but he soon saw
that this was simply a recognition of his merit as "an old family kept
out of its rights," and also of his peculiar share in an occasion when
the family was to get into Parliament. Under these circumstances, it was
due from him that he should show himself prominently where business was
going forward, and give additional value by his presence to every vote
for Transome. With this view he got a half-pint bottle filled with his
peculiar kind of "sack," and hastened back to the market-place, feeling
good-natured and patronizing toward all political parties, and only so
far partial as his family bound him to be.
But a disposition to concentrate at that extremity of King Street which
issued in the market-place, was not universal among the increasing
crowd. Some of them seemed attracted toward another nucleus at the other
extremity of King Street, near the Seven Stars. This was Garstin's chief
house, where his committee sat, and it was also a point which must
necessarily be passed by many voters entering the town on the eastern
side. It seemed natural that the mazarine colors should be visible
here, and that Pack, the tall "shepherd" of the Sproxton men, should be
seen moving to and fro where there would be a frequent opportunity of
cheering the voters for a gentleman who had the chief share in the
Sproxton mines. But the side lanes and entries out of King Street were
numerous enough to relieve any pressure if there was need to make way.
The lanes had a distinguished reputation. Two of them had odors of
brewing; one had a side entrance to Mr. Tiliot's wine and spirit vaults;
up another Mr. Muscat's cheeses were frequently being unloaded; and even
some of the entries had those cheerful suggestions of plentiful
provision which were among the characteristics of Treby.
Between ten and eleven the voters came in more rapid succession, and the
whole scene became spirited. Cheers, sarcasms, and oaths, which seemed
to have a flavor of wit for many hearers, were beginning to be
reinforced by more practical demonstrations, dubiously jocose. There was
a disposition in the crowd to close and hem in the way for voters,
either going or coming, until they had paid some kind of toll. It was
difficult to see who set the example in the transition from words to
deeds. Some thought it was due to Jacob Cuff, a Tory charity-man, who
was a well-known ornament of the pothouse, and gave his mind much
leisure for amusing devices; but questions of origination in stirring
periods are notoriously hard to settle. It is by no means necessary in
human things that there should be only one beginner. This, however, is
certain--that Mr. Chubb, who wished it to be noticed that he voted for
Garstin solely, was one of the first to get rather more notice than he
wished, and that he had his hat knocked off and crushed in the interest
of Debarry by Tories opposed to coalition. On the other hand, some said
it was at the same time that Mr. Pink, the saddler, being stopped on his
way and made to declare that he was going to vote for Debarry, got
himself well chalked as to his coat, and pushed up an entry, where he
remained the prisoner of terror combined with the want of any back
outlet, and never gave his vote that day.
The second Tory joke was performed with much gusto. The majority of the
Transome tenants came in a body from the Ram Inn, with Mr. Banks, the
bailiff, leading them. Poor Goffe was the last of them, and his worn
melancholy look and forward-leaning gait gave the jocose Cuff the notion
that the farmer was not what he called "compus." Mr. Goffe was cut off
from his companions and hemmed in: asked, by voices with hot breath
close to his ear, how many horses he had, how many cows, how many fat
pigs; then jostled from one to another, who made trumpets with their
hands, and deafened him by telling him to vote for Debarry. In this way
the melancholy Goffe was hustled on till he was at the polling-booth,
filled with confused alarms, the immediate alarm being that of having to
go back in still worse fashion than he had come. Arriving in this way
after the other tenants had left, he astonished all hearers who knew him
for a tenant of the Transomes by saying "Debarry," and was jostled back
trembling amid shouts of laughter.
By stages of this kind the fun grew faster, and was in danger of getting
rather serious. The Tories began to feel that their jokes were returned
by others of a heavier sort, and that the main strength of the crowd was
not on the side of sound opinion, but might come to be on the side of
sound cudgelling and kicking. The navvies and pitmen in dishabille
seemed to be multiplying, and to be clearly not belonging to the party
of Order. The shops were freely resorted to for various forms of playful
missiles and weapons; and news came to the magistrates, watching from
the large window of the Marquis, that a gentleman coming in on horseback
at the other end of the street to vote for Garstin had had his horse
turned round and frightened into a headlong gallop out of it again.
Mr. Crow and his subordinates, and all the special constables, felt that
it was necessary to make some energetic effort, or else every voter
would be intimidated and the poll must be adjourned. The rector
determined to get on horseback and go amidst the crowd with the
constables; and he sent a message to Mr. Lingon, who was at the Ram,
calling on him to do the same. "Sporting Jack" was sure the good fellows
meant no harm, but he was courageous enough to face any bodily dangers,
and rode out in his brown leggings and colored bandana, speaking
persuasively.
It was nearly twelve o'clock when this sally was made: the constables
and magistrates tried the most pacific measures, and they seemed to
succeed. There was a rapid thinning of the crowd: the most boisterous
disappeared, or seemed to do so by becoming quiet; missiles ceased to
fly, and a sufficient way was cleared for voters along King Street. The
magistrates returned to their quarters, and the constables took
convenient posts of observation. Mr. Wace, who was one of Debarry's
committee, had suggested to the rector that it might be wise to send
for the military from Duffield, with orders that they should station
themselves at Hathercote, three miles off: there was so much property in
the town that it would be better to make it secure against risks. But
the rector felt that this was not the part of a moderate and wise
magistrate, unless the signs of riot recurred. He was a brave man, and
fond of thinking that his own authority sufficed for the maintenance of
the general good in Treby.