"Well, Edwin, what does your father say about Bradlaugh?"
"He doesn't say much," Edwin replied.
"Let me see, does he call himself a Liberal?"
"He calls himself a Liberal," said Edwin, shifting on his chair. "Yes,
he calls himself a Liberal. But I'm afraid he's a regular old Tory."
Edwin blushed, laughing, as half the family gave way to more or less
violent mirth.
"Father's a regular old Tory too," Charlie grinned.
"Oh! I'm sorry," said Edwin.
"Yes, father's a regular old Tory," agreed Mr Orgreave. "Don't
apologise! Don't apologise! I'm used to these attacks. I've been
nearly kicked out of my own house once. But some one has to keep the
flag flying."
It was plain that Mr Orgreave enjoyed the unloosing of the hurricane
which he had brought about. Mrs Orgreave used to say that he employed
that particular tone from a naughty love of mischief. In a moment all
the boys were upon him, except Jimmie, who, out of sheer intellectual
snobbery, as the rest averred, supported his father. Atheistical
Bradlaugh had been exciting the British public to disputation for a long
time, and the Bradlaugh question happened then to be acute. In that
very week the Northampton member had been committed to custody for
outraging Parliament, and released. And it was known that Gladstone
meant immediately to bring in a resolution for permitting members to
affirm, instead of taking oath by appealing to a God. Than this
complication of theology and politics nothing could have been better
devised to impassion an electorate which had but two genuine interests--
theology and politics. The rumour of the feverish affair had spread to
the most isolated communities. People talked theology, and people
talked politics, who had till then only felt silently on these subjects.
In loquacious families Bradlaugh caused dissension and division, more
real perhaps than apparent, for not all Bradlaugh's supporters had the
courage to avow themselves such. It was not easy, at any rate it was
not easy in the Five Towns, for a timid man in reply to the question,
"Are you in favour of a professed Freethinker sitting in the House of
Commons?" to reply, "Yes, I am." There was something shameless in that
word `professed.' If the Freethinker had been ashamed of his
freethinking, if he had sought to conceal it in phrases,--the
implication was that the case might not have been so bad. This was what
astonished Edwin: the candour with which Bradlaugh's position was upheld
in the dining-room of the Orgreaves. It was as if he were witnessing
deeds of wilful perilous daring.
But the conversation was not confined to Bradlaugh, for Bradlaugh was
not a perfect test for separating Liberals and Tories. Nobody in the
room, for example, was quite convinced that Mr Orgreave was
anti-Bradlaugh. To satisfy their instincts for father-baiting, the boys
had to include other topics, such as Ireland and the proposal for Home
Rule. As for Mr Orgreave, he could and did always infuriate them by
refusing to answer seriously. The fact was that this was his device for
maintaining his prestige among the turbulent mob. Dignified and
brilliantly clever as Osmond Orgreave had the reputation of being in the
town, he was somehow outshone in cleverness at home, and he never put
the bar of his dignity between himself and his children. Thus he could
only keep the upper hand by allowing hints to escape from him of the
secret amusement roused in him by the comicality of the spectacle of his
filial enemies. He had one great phrase, which he would drawl out at
them with the accents of a man who is trying politely to hide his
contempt: "You'll learn better as you get older."
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