John Markenfield. A novel

Chapter I

" One would think the Gascon had done well ; is he satisfy'd? No, he will now throw the house out of the windows. The principal stones being already taken from the foundation, he has a bag of certain winds wherewithal to reverse the superstructures. — James Harrington. — The Prerogative of Popular Government, I. vii. E are not about to describe a modern contested election. In the first place, it has already been done by several persons much better able to perform such feats than we pretend to be ; and secondly, and this is, we confess, with us the main reason, since the passing of the Reform Bill — we mean the Whig leap in the dark, not the Conservative one — almost all those VOL. II. I things which in times gone by rendered an election amusing, have been abolished. Now a borough contest has lost all its picturesque ness, while the sins it calls forth are about the same.

What little colour and life there still remains in the thing is to be found, at present, not in the election itself, but in the preparatory canvass ; but law and public opinion, which, like the old royal prerogative, is above law, are fast reducing this also to Chinese uni formity. Mr. Farnaby was by far the better can vasser of the two : there could not be the least doubt of it. Even John Markenfield, who would not willingly have exaggerated the young man's merits, fully admitted this. The reason was, he had no principles, and a con siderable flow' of conversational eloquence. He could naturally, therefore, talk in a more attractive manner to voters who did not know him than Adrian could, who held many opinions — as thinking men are in the habit of doing— that were not popular. But then, on the other hand, while hardly anybody in Big ford had known Farnaby before the last few weeks, Adrian had a wide personal acquaintance with the electors, and so their chances were about equal.

Several men who had votes in right of freehold property within the limits of the borough lived miles away down by the river side. Farnaby did not know one of them, but his agent had furnished him with their addresses, and he paid a visit to each. Among these happy freeholders was Aaron Clixby, who possessed jure ttxoris three wretched cottages in Bigford, where a colony of Irish dwelt. On the morning of the day when Jonathan and Helen strolled into Lord Luddington's wooded moorland, Richard Brumby visited his relative. It was what the preacher called a " loose day," that is, one on which he was not about to work on the farm, as he had to go to Bigford market to receive money for corn sold that day fortnight. He did not waste the early part of the day, however, but went over to his uncle's to get some tools sharpened.

The politician was in a high state of excitement. " I shall vote for Farnaby, and no mistake — he's the real reight sort !" he exclaimed as i — soon as Richard was within the shop. The preacher did not answer him, for he disliked aimless argument " I shall vote for Farnaby, Dick, I tell thee ! Hest tho a wod to say agean it ? May be tho thinks I owt to go in for Markenfield, because I've th' Ebelworth blacksmithin' ?" " I think nothing of the sort, uncle. I think you should not vote for Farnaby be cause he's a bad man and a liar." " Strange big wods them is for a preacher," said Aaron, sticking his hands in his apron thong, and looking with good-humoured con tempt on his companion. — " Strange big wods, sartanly ; we shall be hevin' thee swearin' next. Why what's amiss wi' the young feller ?"

" Amiss ! You know what I told you about Mary Smith, the girl me and Blobbin' Billy saved on the night of the big frost ?" " Oh heigh, heigh, I remember noo — an' a bonny tale it is— a pack o' lies the hussy's in vented — a pack o' lies, man ! Do you think I'd believe a thing o' that sort of a gentleman like Mr. Farnaby ? Why he's a real working man's friend — none of your half-an'-half chaps, just like farm-house drink, that you never can tell whether it's small-beer or ale you're swallerin'. He can talk straight for'ads, like Cicero himself — an' it's my opinion it's him an' nobody else that writes them Cicero letters i' th' paper." " You didn't think it was lies when I first told you of it. I'm sure every word of it is true." Richard was angry, but he knew that ve hement contradiction would do no good to his uncle in his present mood, so he spoke in a tone that he tried his best to make seem in different.

" A likely tale— a likely tale," the smith replied ; and to give the most supreme con tempt to his words, he followed them with a prolonged sound between a whistle and a hiss, such as he was accustomed to use when he drove dogs and children out of the smithy. " Do you think," he continued, " I'm going to be led blind about by a silly lass's clatter ? I tell thee, man, he's real down straight for'ad. I've heard him speak in Bigford market-place for an hour and a half reight John Markerifield. 6 ahead ; and, what's more, I've hed him talkin' to me ever so long in this very shop. John Bright's nowhere to him for eloquence." When Aaron had thrown scorn on Mary, Richard had been content with a feeble pro test. He could not trust himself to say what he thought there, but here he was free. " It's not fitting you should say that, uncle.

I've read John Bright's speeches — every one of 'em I could any ways get at — and he's a great politician and a real good man, who says just what he thinks, and always has a reason on the back-side of his tongue when he does speak. You should no more com pare Farnaby to him than you should a monkey to a man." " And why for no ? I tell you Farnaby can speak every bit as well as Bright. John's a Conservative at bottom — no true friend of the people, as Farnaby is. Why, he said, in this very shop — standin' just where you do now, wi' one hand on the chimler breast, an' t'other in his breeches' pocket — that it was all owing to half-an'-half Liberals, like Bright and Cobden, that all the cursed abuses that suck our blood, pauperize our children, and waste our sinews in useless toil, were per mitted to exist."

"He lied then," said Brumby, emphatically. " When Bright sees a bad thing, he pitches into it straight ; but he is mindful of what Scripture says of wheat and tares ; he's read a deal about the French Revolution." " He's no better than a red-hot Tory, I tell ye. If the country is to be saved, it must be by real true friends of the working men. Farnaby showed me how the aristocracy — the land-locusts, he call'd 'em — might be made to pay off the national debt in five years, and free the people from all taxation for ever." " I'm not much of a scholar, but I should like to take his plan to pieces a bit, and see how it's fitted together like," said the preacher. " Why, a slate and a bit of pencil would show any man that could figure that it is impos sible. He wouldn't be very hard neither on the land-locusts, I'm thinking, when it came to be tried.

He's a pretty big one himself ; has got some ten thousand acres of farmin' land, besides park and woods." The gossip might have been indefinitely prolonged, but other people entered the shop, and Richard, who did not like to talk in pub lic on matters he only half understood, took his departure. . When he arrived at Bigford, he had to wait some time ere he received his money, and then was detained by sundry of his friends, who wished for his opinion on the all-engrossing subject of the contest. Though we might have had small trust in the judgment of such a person, there were several of his own denomination in the place who had begun to look up to him. These gathered round, and he could not get away before they had heard him say his say on the merits of the candidates. The conclusion he had come to was that, although Adrian was by no means so far advanced on the incline of democracy as a member of Parliament ought to be, yet still, as he was honest and did not talk of things that were beyond reach, and, above all, did not insult the workmen by striving to flatter their passions and prejudices, that he was the proper man to be returned.

We believe Richard got several votes for the Markenfield interest by his exertions. We are sure he did his best, and, what is more, he did it solely because he thought Adrian the fitter man of the two. It never entered into his head to canvass for him on account of John's former kindness ; nay, the preacher would somehow have felt that he was insulting the Markenfields had he supposed that they, should they, hear of it, could so interpret his actions. Had not John lent him books and given him rational conversa tion, instead of that loathsome patronage with which some persons think it decent to favour the "lower classes," it is not improbable that Richard's uninformed mind would have been captivated, as his uncle's had been, by mere noisy bluster. As it was, he had really much more mature views on ordinary politi cal subjects than the democratic candidate whose interest he was opposing.

It was towards evening ere he left the town. His way lay for some distance on a turnpike, afterwards through Lord Ludding ton's domains. His lordship, with a liberality that was much more common before game became a marketable commodity, permitted the public to stray through his woods and over the moorland ground, much as if it had been a public park. The place was inter sected in all directions by horse-tracks and foot-paths. Not more than one or two of these were really public, but on all the people might wander at will, if they restrained them selves from carving inscriptions on the trees or disturbing the game. Richard walked rapidly on the road, but when the soft mossy turf was beneath his feet, he proceeded more leisurely. He had, as we have said, at one time been a workman in a nursery garden.

Flowers, even wild ones, were pleasing objects to him. He con nected them some way — how he could not have told you — with his religion, and with something else that had now become as a part of his religion — his love for Mary. He had seen her twice since the interview we have mentioned, and each time he left her it was with a deeper sorrow that he was not in a position to offer to make her his wife. He could not marry as he then was, and he knew not what might happen when " Martin mas was turned " and he had to seek other employment. Martinmas once here, he had determined to ask her to become his wife ; but though it was but a short time by the almanack, it appeared a very long period for a lover to wait. So many unforeseen acci dents might happen before then ; so many men better off than he might make her an offer in the interval ; and yet, until he " was fixed," it did not seem right for him to do so.

All he could at present think lawful was to let her see by his manner how much he ad mired her. The well-known recklessness of the poor in contracting marriage is a frequent text among the followers of one powerful school of economists. Our own experience has been that they are at least as prudent in that particular as richer people. Brumby's mind was full of pleasant fancies ; but the irritating thoughts that accompanied them, made him feel in that nervously self conscious frame of mind, when the senses are unnaturally quick, as is sometimes the case when we dread impending danger. Long before any one else would have heard it, he was aware of the approach of horses. It was just at that part of the Luddington domain nearest to Ebelworth — perhaps a mile and a half from that village — when Christopher Farnaby, accompanied by a groom, rode up.

The preacher had never spoken to the can didate, although he knew him by sight ; he was surprised, therefore, when he accosted him by his name. He need not have been, for he was well known to the groom, who communicated the fact to his master. " Ah ! Brumby, I am so glad to have met you ; I have been to your father's house in quiring for you this very day," the young man exclaimed, jumping from his horse and throwing the rein to his groom, with direc tions to ride on and wait for him at the lodge. " I really want to talk to you very much. You know I am a candidate for Bigford." " Yes, sir," was Brumby's laconic reply. "Well, now, it will be a very near run thing, and we all know you have great in fluence over the more religious voters — the Primitive Methodists I mean. Such a man as you are must have.

I hear your sermons most highly spoken of, and the lecture you de livered at Bigford some time since was really a splendid piece of reasoning — worthy of Cobbett. My agents tell me — everybody, indeed, tells me — you have great influence. Will you help me ?" " I have no vote, sir, and very little in fluence. Men don't vote to please preach ers." " You are too modest. I know the weight of your opinion there better than you do. You are looked up to by numbers — great numbers. I assure you, I have myself gained very much instruction from your lecture, and hope to gain a great deal more now I know you. It is a frightful thing that we people who are called gentlemen know so little of the opinions of the other classes." Brumby was silent. The position was a new one to him, and he did not know what to say.

" What I want you to do, is to go to Big ford and see every one you know there, whether of your own connection or not, and represent to them that I am the people's can didate, and that Markenfield, though a good man as country squires go, is really a Tory — a mere old Tory in disguise, puffed up with pride of family, and all the other foolish notions which rich people have invented to make themselves seem better than poor ones. " I don't think he is a Tory, sir," replied Richard. "He doesn't go far enough for me ; but he is a Liberal man, who likes to see justice done to all classes." " You are mistaken. He has got the law yer's art of deceiving people. He's a cousin of mine — I'm sorry for it — and I know him well. Whatever he or his uncle may say, they both of them think they are made of a different sort of clay to the common people.

He would never legislate for them as a brother, only as a master. Now I am a real democrat in feeling and in blood. My grandmother was a game-keeper's daughter, and I am prouder of her than all the other women of my family put together. You shall see a picture of her when you come to Greenhoe, with a pheasant beside her." The picture and the pheasant therein were realities ; but the statement was otherwise a lie, coined on the spur of the moment. The lady in question was the daughter of a marquis. The strangeness of the situation was wear ing off. Brumby was not shy ; he was one of that small class who know not what it is to fear their fellow-men ; but the most cour ageous of us, when in an unaccustomed situation, are wont for the moment to feel baffled. He had not spoken half-a-dozen times in his life to any "real gentleman," except the Mar kenfields.

Now, however, he saw his course clearly, and prepared to follow it. " You tell me your grandmother was a game-keeper's daughter, do you ?" he said, gazing with his great calm features full in Farnaby's face, with an expression that the latter thought so remarkably stolid as to give great additional confirmation to his esoteric theories as to the capacity of people who do not live in drawing-rooms. " Yes, and a delightful old woman she was. I have learnt more from her than from all my teachers put together." " Did your grandfather seduce her before he married her, as you tried to do Mary Smith ?" Brumby replied, letting the words come out quietly, one by one, so as to have their full effect, looking him through all the while with the same oxlike gravity. " Damn you, what do you mean, fellow ?" exclaimed Farnaby, as much thrown off his guard as if the voice he heard had spoken from the firmament.

" To let you know, sir, that I understand your character, and won't help you." "You're a liar about Mary — Mary, I've forgotten the woman's other name." " It is you, Mr. Farnaby, who lie," replied Brumby. " And I suppose, you blackguard, you are going about spreading this foul slander that you and that woman have invented, for the sake of helping Markenfield." " No, sir, I'm not. I wish Mr. Markenfield success, because he doesn't lie, and will do right as far as he sees it, and I've got him what votes I could, but I could have got him heaps more if I'd told what I knew about you, but I'm not a-going to put Mary Smith's name in every fool's mouth to serve any body's turn at an election." Farnaby was eloquent after a sort, and John Marketifield. 17 imaginative to a great degree, in a sensuous manner, but had little more control over his passions than a half-tamed animal.

" She's a liar, man, and if you won't take the word of a gentleman against that of a housemaid, I'll thrash you till you will !" exclaimed the young fellow in fury. " I'm a man of peace — a minister of God's word — but if you strike me, I shall strike again ; and whether you strike or not, I'll prove who is the liar afore I've done with you." Christopher Farnaby was now beside him self. He carried a heavy riding-whip in his hand, and with this he dealt a blow with all his force at the preacher, who parried it with his walking-stick, not so successfully, how ever, as to prevent receiving a sharp stroke on the shoulder. The pain aroused his peasant blood ; religious and political theories were alike forgotten. He threw his stick on the ground, and grasping Farnaby's arm, struggled with him for a moment for the pos session of the weapon.

Helen and Jonathan had been startled by their voices, and a turn in the path brought them almost upon the field of combat. vol. 11. " Stay there, girl, these fools must not kill one another," said Jonathan, leaving the side of Helen, and thrusting himself between the combatants. Richard had already wrenched the whip from his antagonist's hand, but Farnaby, though the weaker man, was a trained boxer, which Brumby was not. " Stand back, young men," said Elliot, going between them, " I will belabour the first of you that strikes a blow," and he looked exceedingly like a person who would put his threat in practice, for he was tall and muscular, and carried a serviceable walking stick. Neither of the combatants spoke at once. As was to be anticipated, Farnaby was the first to comprehend his position.

" I don't know who he has to thank for it, but you have saved that fellow from a well merited beating." " I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Farnaby — I know you, for I heard you speak at Bigford ; you're the man they're running for representa tive against Mr. Markenfield. The English House of Commons will be like the American Congress, if they send hot-bloods like you there. Go home, sir, and let me talk to the young man." Farnaby had no idea who it was that addressed him, but he felt that he was in a foolish position, especially as he recognized Helen in the distance, so gaily taking off his hat to the lady, he walked away, leaving face to face with Brumby. " Is this the way," he said, " ministers of the gospel behave in this country ? Mr. Mar kenfield told me you were a good preacher and a God-fearing man, and I walked over last Sabbath to Harulby to hear you.

Your actions belie your words, young man." " No they don't," replied Brumby, doggedly. " That man struck me with his whip, and I took it from him." " You shouldn't have provoked him. Don't you see, man, he's an ignorant ass ?" " Yes I do, but^— " He was about to say something further, but restrained himself, either because he thought Helen might overhear him, or be cause it was something consideration told him that it was better not to speak of. 2 — " I was going to say, sir," he added, " that there were things between us man's law would not settle, as it is at present, and that I was not altogether a believer in peace principles ; but I give you thanks for inter fering." As he finished the sentence he walked away moodily in the direction of his home.

Chapter II

" I am not inclined to attribute so much original power to the churches as some men do. I look on them as indications of public opinion, and not sources thereof — not the wind, but only the vane which shows which way it blows." — Theodore Parker. EOPLE who write books on morals tell us, with one consent, that it is better for us to have much work on our hands than little. We fancy, however, that there are many good men who never spent a week in sloth in their lives, who would main tain the contrary. Both Markenfield and his nephew, and more particularly the latter, felt, we are sure, that a small cessation in the irritating labour of electioneering would be a great relief, especially now that Helen was their guest. Her character seemed to have changed, or perhaps it would be truer to say developed, by change of scene.

The society at Toftland was pleasant to her, for it was refined and pure, but it was a refinement of a narrow sort, where little was spoken of that touched the greater interests of life. Sir John him self never talked of any political or literary matter which occupied his mind, without finding it needful first to say something by way of apology. Alice was very good and very kind, but beyond a great love for flowers, there were few ideas that they shared in common. Mrs. De Montfort, on whom had fallen the greater share of the labour of training Lady Uppland, had succeeded ad mirably in producing a refined lady and a good Christian woman, but she had not made her what she was not herself — a person rich in thought or imagination. At the Grange it was otherwise. John and Adrian were both thinkers, and had none of that polite hesitation in expressing their thoughts which was so marked a characteristic of the cautious baronet.

John's knowledge (knowledges, we ought to say, only the men who believe in dictionaries would rate us for it) was of a kind that had all the interest of freshness to his guest, and he was never tired of pouring it forth, nor had he the least hesitation in using the proper words to express his ideas. His sister had been so well trained, that she was never shocked, but always interpreted his most astounding remarks in an orthodox sense. Markenfield's strong point was history. He was seldom weary of talking about it, and he spoke in a calm, sedate manner, somewhat sad, perhaps, but without the slightest tinge of that bitter sarcasm with which he was accustomed to regale people like De Mont fort, when he would condescend to seem to speak to them seriously. He felt sure, as he went on, that his auditress was able to organize the details in her mind.

It is absolutely necessary for a civilized human being to have some philosophical theory to string facts upon, as it is for a savage to have a cord on which to thread the beads of which he forms his necklace. Even the poor positivist, who has got into his head the very shallowest " world scheme " known to us, is in that particular better off than the ladies and gentlemen one meets in society, who have no idea of any sequence of phenomena whatsoever. The host knew from Helen's manners, more than from her words, that she possessed a principle around which to group the facts of consciousness as they came in, and he was pretty sure it was the right one, or, in other words, was similar in most particulars to the one he himself rejoiced in. To him the great men of the seventeenth century were heroes worthy of being com pared with the noblest of Greece.

To her they had hitherto been abstractions, but the names and dates became clothed with life when she heard him speak as though he had fought on the battle-plain and reasoned in the council chamber. Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar — the siege of Colchester, and Drog heda storm — the majestic sacrifice before Whitehall, and the solemn death-bed at Hampton Court, were now real events, almost as real as if she had herself beheld them, when she hearkened to one who had spent half a life in recovering their memories. To live and move in the very rooms where some of the noblest actors in those tragedies had lived and moved, to sit of an evening and dream while their pictured semblances looked down on her, to handle the very armorial signet ring with which Adrian Scrope, the proud republican, had signed the death-warrant of his sovereign, was touching to one who lived for noble thoughts, and whose mind had not been corrupted by that foulest of all litera tures — the literature that instructs us so cleverly not to believe there is any cause worth suffering for.

And the history blended so with the lives of those around her. Colonel Markenfield had been a faithful friend of the great Protector, had served through the whole war, and only died a day or two before his master entered into rest. His picture hung opposite to where she sat, and beside it was that martyr whose last earthly thought, ere he encountered death by a doom from which the most hardened turn in sickened horror, was of the gentle line from which he sprung — of the azitrc a bend or, that had blazed on a hundred battle-fields, and shone in the windows of every northern minster.* * The last words of Adrian Scrope, the regicide, spoken It required but little exercise of the imagination for Helen, as she listened to details, told slowly and gravely, one by one, to feel for the moment that the dead soldiers whose eyes seemed to look down on her were narrating the sad experience of their lives.

Their per sonality would seem at times absolutely to mingle with that of their descendants. Adrian spoke little. When he did, it was often of contemporary topics. John had little interest in what was going on around him. He gave attention to the public business of his county, because he had a personal liking for the people among whom he dwelt, and because he fully comprehended it to be a duty that it was shameful for a county gentleman to omit ; but of the several eddies in the great whirl of politics he was content to be for the most part ignorant. on the scaffold, were, " It is not good for any man, especially at such a time as this, to boast of his lineage nor breeding ; but this I will say, I was born and bred a gentleman." — Nobles Regicides, ii. 200. When John Lilburn, a republican of the extremest type, was about to be tried for high treason, in 1642, he was indicted as "John Lil burn, yeoman."

At the risk of his life, he refused to plead, saying he was not a yeoman, but a gentleman. His nephew, while sympathizing with the abstract and imaginative sides of his nature, had keen interest in the life that was beino lived around him. Helen observed one noteworthy difference between them. The elder Markenfield never spoke ill of the dead. He told their actions, endeavoured to trace their motives, but shrank from putting any moral gloss upon them. With the living he was not equally forbearing. An unhappy youth, the sorrows of mature years — or something, it may be, in his nature not to be accounted for by these seeming causes — had made him bitter when he spoke of many of those not his personal friends, who had still the misfortune to be his contempo raries. Adrian had little of this, youth or a more full realization of the philosophy they held in common made him usually shrink from inflicting moral judgments on the living as well as on the dead.