"I do not think you can tell me any news about Edgar, John."

"Go on, Father, mother is only talking. She is so anxious she cannot pour the coffee straight. What about Edgar?"

"I must tell you that I made a speech two days before the House closed; and the papers said it was a very great speech, and I think it _was_ a tone or two above the average. Did you read it?"

"You never sent us a paper, Father."

"You wouldn't have read it if I had sent it. I knew Philip Brotherton would read every word, so it went to him. I was a little astonished at myself, for I did not know that I could bring out the very truth the way I did; but I saw Edgar watching me, and I saw no one else; and I just talked to him, as I used to do,--good, plain, household words, with a bit of Yorkshire now and then to give them pith and power. I was cheered to the echo, and if Edgar, when I used to talk to him for his good, had only cheered me on my hearthstone as he cheered me in the Commons, there wouldn't have been any ill blood between us. Afterwards, in the crush of the lobby, I saw Edgar a little before me; and Mr.

O'Connell walked up to him, and said, 'Atheling, you ought to take lessons from your father, he strikes every nail on the head. In your case, the old c.o.c.k crows, but the young one has not learnt his lesson.'

I was just behind, and I heard every word, and I was ready to answer; but Edgar did my work finely.'

'He should not have noticed him,' said Mrs. Atheling.

'Ah, but he did! He said, "Mr. O'Connell, I will trouble you to speak of Squire Atheling respectfully. He is not old; he is in the prime of life; and, in all that makes youth desirable, he is twenty-five years younger than you are. I think you have felt his spurs once, and I would advise you to beware of them." And what O'Connell answered I cannot tell, but it would be up to mark, I can warrant that! I slipped away before I was noticed, and I am not ashamed to say I was pleased with what I had heard. "Not as old as O'Connell by twenty-five years!" I laughed to myself all the way home; and, in the dark of the night, I could not help thinking of Edgar's angry face, and the way he stood up for me. I do think, Maude, that somehow it must have been thy fault we had that quarrel--I mean to say, that if thou hadst stood firm by me,--that is, if thou hadst--'

'John, go on and do not bother thyself to make excuses. Was that the end of it?'

'In a way. The next afternoon I was sitting by the fireside having a quiet smoke, and thinking of the fine speech I had made, and if it would be safe to try again, when Dobson came in and said, "Squire, Mr.

Edgar wishes to see you," and I said, "Very well, bring Mr. Edgar upstairs." I had thrown off my coat; but I had on one of my fine ruffled shirts and my best blue waistcoat, and so I didn't feel so very out of the way when Edgar came in with the loveliest young woman on his arm--except Kitty--that I ever set eyes on; and I was dumfounded when he brought her to me and said, "My dear Father, Annie Curzon, who has promised to be my wife, wants to know you and to love you." And the little thing--for she is but a sprite of a woman--laid her hand on my arm and looked at me; and what in heaven's name was I to do?'

'What did you do?'

'I just lifted her up and kissed her bonny face, and said I had room enough in my heart and home for her; and that she was gladly welcome, and would be much made of, and I don't know what else--plenty of things of the same sort. My word! Edgar was set up.'

'He may well be set up,' answered Mrs. Atheling; 'she is the richest and sweetest girl in England; and she thinks the sun rises and sets in Edgar Atheling. He ought to be set up with a wife like that.'

'He was, with her and me together. I don't know which of us seemed to please him most. Maude, they are coming down to Lord Ashley's on a visit, and I asked them _here_. I could not do any different, could I?'

'If you had you would have been a poor kind of a father. What did you say?'

'I said, when you are at Ashley Place come over to Atheling, and I gave Edgar my hand and looked at him; and he looked at me and clasped it tight, and said, "We will come.'"

"That was right."

"I am glad I have done right for once, Maude. Do you know that Ashley is one of the worst Radicals in the lot of them?"

"Never mind, John. I have noticed that, as a general thing, the worse Radical, the better man; but a Tory cannot be trusted to give a Radical a character. The Tories are very like the poor cat who said, 'If she only had wings, she would gladly extirpate the whole race of those troublesome sparrows.'"

"There are to be no more Tories now, we have got a new name. Lord John Russell called us 'Conservatives,' and we took to the word, and it is as like as not to stick to us. It will be Conservatives and Reformers in the future."

"But you said the Reform Bill was lost."

"I said it had not pa.s.sed. What of that? The rascals have only been downed for this round; they will be up to time, when time is called June the twenty-first; and they will fight harder than ever."

"How was the Bill lost? By obstructions?"

"Yes; when it was ready to go into Committee, General Gascoigne moved that, 'The number of members returned to Parliament ought not to be diminished;' and when the House divided on this motion, Gascoigne's resolution had a majority of eight."

"Then Grey's Ministry have retired?" said Mrs. Atheling, in alarm.

"No, they have not; they should have done so by all decent precedents; but, instead of behaving like gentlemen, they resolved to appeal to the country. We sat all night quarrelling on this subject; but at five in the morning I was worn out with the stifling, roaring House, and sick with the smell of dying candles, and the reek and steam of quarrelling human beings, so I stepped out and took a few turns on Westminster Bridge. It was a dead-calm, lovely morning, and the sun was just rising over the trees of the Abbey and the Speaker's house, and I had a bit of heart-longing for Atheling."

"Why did you not run away to Atheling, Father?"

"I could not have done a thing like that, Kitty, not for the life of me.

I went back to the House; and for three days we fought like dogs, tooth and nail, over the dissolution. Then Lord Grey and Lord Brougham did such a thing as never was: they went to the King and told him, plump and plain, he must dissolve Parliament or they would resign, and he must be answerable for consequences; and the King did not want to dissolve Parliament; he knew a new House would be still fuller of Reform members; and he made all kinds of excuses. He said, 'The Crown and Robes were not ready, and the Guards and troops had not been notified;' and then, to his amazement and anger, Lord Brougham told him that the officers of State had been summoned, that the Crown and Robes were ready, and the Guards and troops waiting."

"My word, John! That was a daring thing to do."

"If William the Fourth had been Henry the Eighth, Lord Brougham's head wouldn't have been worth a shilling; as it was, William flew into a great pa.s.sion, and cried out, 'You! You, my Lord Chancellor! You ought to know that such an act is treason, is high treason, my lord!' And Brougham said, humbly, that he did know it was high treason, and that nothing but his solemn belief that the safety of the State depended on the act would have made him bold enough to venture on so improper a proceeding. Then the King cooled down; and Brougham took from his pocket the speech which the King was to read; and the King took it with words; that were partly menace, and partly joke at his Minister's audacity, and so dismissed them."

"I never heard of such carryings on. Why didn't Brougham put the Crown on his own head, and be done with it?"

"I do not like Brougham; but in this matter, he acted very wisely. If the King had refused to dissolve a Parliament that had proved itself unable to carry Reform, I do think, Maude, London would have been in flames, and the whole country in rebellion, before another day broke."

"Were you present at the dissolution, John?"

"I was sitting beside Piers, when the Usher of the Black Rod knocked at the door of the Commons. It had to be a very loud knock, for the House was in a state of turbulence and confusion far beyond the Speaker's control; while Sir Robert Peel was denouncing the Ministry in the hardest words he could pick out, and being interrupted in much the same manner. I can tell you that a good many of us were glad enough to hear the guns announcing the King's approach. The Duke told me afterwards that the Lords were in still greater commotion. Brougham was speaking, when there were cries of 'The King! The King!' And Lord Londonderry rose in a fury and said, 'He would not submit to--'

n.o.body heard what he would not submit to; for Brougham s.n.a.t.c.hed up the Seals and rushed out of the House. Then there was terrible confusion, and Lord Mansfield rose and was making a pa.s.sionate oration against the Reform Bill, when the King entered and cut it short. Well, London went mad for a few hours. Nearly every house was illuminated; and the Duke of Wellington, and the Duke of Richmoor, and other great Tories had their windows broken, as a warning not to obstruct the next Parliament.

I really don't know what to make of it all, Maude!"

"Well, John, I think statesmen ought to know what to make of it."

"I rode down from London on my own nag; and in many a town and village I saw things that made my heart ache. Why, my dears, there has been sixty thousand pounds put into--not bread and meat--but peas and meal to feed the starving women and children; the Government has given away forty thousand garments to clothe the naked; and the Bank of England--a very close concern--is lending money, yes, as much as ten thousand pounds, to some private individuals, in order to keep their factories going. Something is far wrong, when good English workmen are paupers.

But I don't see how Parliamentary Reform is going to help them to bread and meat and decent work."

"John, these hungry, naked men know what they want. Edgar says a Reform Parliament will open all the ports to free trade, and tear to pieces the infamous Corn Laws, and make hours of work shorter, and wages higher and--"

"Give the whole country to the working men. I see! I see! Now, Maude, men are not going to run factories for fun, nor yet for charity; and farmers are not going to till their fields just to see how little they can get for their wheat."

"Father, what part did Piers take in all this trouble?"

"He voted with his party. He was very regular in his place."

"I will go now and put on my habit. Piers sent me word that he would be here soon after eleven o'clock;" and Kate, with a smile, went quickly out of the room. The Squire was nonplussed by the suddenness of her movement, and did not know whether to detain her or not. Mrs. Atheling saw his irresolution, and said,--

"Let her go this time, John. Let her have one last happy memory to keep through the time of trouble you seem bound to give her."

"Can I help it?"

"I don't know."

"You speak as if it was a pleasure to me."

"What for are you so set on interfering just at this time?"

"Because it is the right time."