"It beats all and everything," said the Squire. "I wouldn't like my wife to put me back of hundreds and thousands. Have you been up all night--you and Piers?"

"All night," answered Edgar. "We were among the three hundred members from the Commons who filled the s.p.a.ce around the throne, and stood in a row three deep below the bar. I was in the second row; but I heard all that pa.s.sed very well. Earl Grey did not begin to speak until five o'clock this morning, and he spoke for an hour and a half. It was an astonishing argument."

"It was a most interesting scene, altogether," said Piers. "I shall never forget it. The crowded house, its still and solemn demeanour, and the broad daylight coming in at the high windows while Grey was speaking.

Its blue beams mixed with the red of the flaring candles, and the two lights made strange and startling effects on the crimson draperies and the dusky tapestries on the walls. I felt as if I was in a vision. I kept thinking of Cromwell and old forgotten things; and it was like waking out of a dream when the House began to dissolve. I was not quite myself until I had drunk a cup of coffee."

"It was very exciting," said the more practical Edgar; "and the small majority is only to keep the people quiet. At the next reading the Bill will be so mutilated as to be practically rejected, unless we are ready to meet such an emergency."

Piers rose at these words. He foresaw a discussion he had no mind for; and he said, with a touching pathos in his voice, as he laid his hand on the Squire's shoulder, "Give my remembrance to the ladies at Atheling,--my heart's love, if you will take it."

"I will take all I may, Piers. Good-bye! You have been a great comfort to me. I am sure I don't know what I should have done without you; for Edgar, you see, is too busy for anything."

"Never too busy to be with you, if you need me, Father. But you are such a host in yourself, and I never imagined you required help of any kind."

"Only a bit of company now and then. You were about graver business.

It suited Piers and me to sit idle and say a word or two about Atheling.

Come down to Exham, Piers, _do_; it will be good for you."

"No, I should be heart-sick for Atheling. I am better away."

The Squire nodded gravely, and was silent; and Piers pa.s.sed quietly out of the room. His listless serenity, and rather drawling speech, always irritated the alert Edgar; and he sighed with relief when he was rid of the restraining influence of a nature so opposite to his own.

"So you are going to Atheling, Father?" he said. "How?"

"As quick and quiet as I can. I shall take the mail-coach to York, or further; and then trot home on as good a nag as I can hire."

In this way he reached Atheling the third day afterwards, but without any of the usual _eclat_ and bustle of his arrival. Kate had gone to bed; Mrs. Atheling was about to lock the big front door, when he opened it.

She let the candlestick in her hand fall when she saw him enter, crying,--

"John! Dear John! How you did frighten me! I _am_ glad to see you."

"I'll believe it, Maude, without burning the house for an illumination.

My word! I am tired. I have trotted a hack horse near forty miles to-day."

Then she forgot everything but the Squire's refreshment and comfort; and the house was roused, and Kitty came downstairs again, and for an hour there was at least the semblance of rejoicing. But Mrs. Atheling was not deceived. She saw her lord was depressed and anxious; and she was sure the Reform Bill had finally pa.s.sed; and after a little while she ventured to say so.

"No, it has not pa.s.sed," answered the Squire; "it has got to its worst bit, that's all. After Easter the Lords will muster in all their power, and either throw it out, or change and cripple it so much that it will be harmless."

"Now, then, John, what do you think, _really_?"

"I think, really, that we land-owners are all of us between the devil and the deep sea. If the Bill pa.s.ses, away go the Corn Laws; and then how are we to make our money out of the land? If it does not pa.s.s, we are in for a civil war and a Commonwealth, and no Cromwell to lead and guide it. It is a bad look-out."

"But it might be worse. We haven't had any cholera here. We must trust in G.o.d, John."

"It is easy to trust in G.o.d when you don't see the doings of the devil.

You wouldn't be so cheerful, Maude, if you had lived in the sight of his handiwork, as I have for months. I think surely G.o.d has given England into his power, as he did the good man of Uz."

"Well, then, it was only for a season, and a seven-fold blessing after it. It is wonderful how well your men have behaved; they haven't taken a bit of advantage of your absence. That is another good thing."

"I am glad to hear that. I will see them, man by man, before I go back to London."

The villagers, however, sent a deputation as soon as they heard of the Squire's arrival, asking him to come down to Atheling Green, and tell them something about Reform. And he was pleased at the request, and went down, and found they had made a temporary platform out of two horse-blocks for him; and there he stood, his fine, imposing, st.u.r.dy figure thrown clearly into relief by the sunny spring atmosphere. And it was good to listen to his strong, sympathetic voice, for it had the ring of truth in all its inflections, as he said,--

"Men! Englishmen! Citizens of no mean country! you have asked me to explain to you what this Reform business means. You know well I will tell you no lies. It will give lots of working-men votes that never hoped for a vote; and so it is like enough working-men will be able to send to Parliament members who will fight for their interests. Maybe that is in your favour. It will open all our ports to foreign wheat and corn.

You will get American wheat, and Russian wheat, and French wheat--"

"We won't eat French wheat," said Adam Sedbergh.

"And then, wheat will be so cheap that it will not pay English land-owners to sow it. Will that help you any?"

"We would rather grow our own wheat."

"To be sure. Reform will, happen, give you shorter hours of work."

"That would be good, Master," said the blacksmith.

"It will depend on what you do with the extra hours of leisure."

"We can play skittles, and cricket, and have a bit of wrestling."

"Or sit in the public house, and drink more beer. I don't think your wives will like that. Besides, if you work less time won't you get less wage? Do you think I am going to pay for twelve hours' work and get ten? Would you? Will the mill-owners run factories for the fun of running them? Would you? And they say they hardly pay with twelve hours' work. Men, I tell you truly, I know no more than the babe unborn what Reform will bring us. It may be better times; it may be ruin. But I can say one thing, sure and certain, you will get more trouble than you bargain for if you take to rioting about it. Your grandfathers and your fathers fought this question; and they left it to you to quarrel over. Very well, as long as you keep your quarrel in the Parliament Houses, I want you to have fair play. But if ever you should forget that there is the great Common Law behind all of us, rich and poor, and think to right yourselves with fire and blood, then I--your true friend--would be the first to answer you with cannon, and turn my scythes and shares into swords against you. Wait patiently a bit longer. In a few more weeks I do verily believe you will have Reform, and then I hope, in my soul, you will be pleased with your bargain. I don't think, as far as I am concerned, Reform will change me or my ways one particle."

"We don't want you changed, Squire; you are good enough as you are."

"I'm glad you think so, very glad. Now here is Atheling and Belward meadows and corn-fields. We can raise our wheat and cattle and wool, and carry on our farms--you and I together, for I could not do without you; and if I do right by you is there any reason to want better than right?

And if I do not do right, then shout 'Reform,' and come and tell me what you want, and we will pa.s.s our own Reform Bill. Will that suit you?"

And they answered him with cheers, and he sent them into the Atheling Arms for a good dinner, and then rode slowly home. But a great sadness came over him, and he said to himself:

"It is not capital; it is not labour; it is not land: it is a bit of human kindness and human relations that lie at the root of all Reform.

Maude says true enough, that we don't know the people, and don't feel for them, and don't care for them. A word of reason, a word of truth and trust and of mutual good-will, and how pleased them poor fellows were! Reform has nothing on earth to do with Toryism or Whigism. G.o.d bless my soul! what kind of a head must the man have that could think so? _I begin to see_--_I begin to see!_"

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH

LADY OF EXHAM HALL AT LAST

The three weeks' recess was full of grave anxiety; and the Squire had many fears they were to be the last weeks of peace and home before civil war called him to fulfil the promise he had made to his working-men. The Birmingham Political Union declared that if there was any further delay after Easter, two hundred thousand men would go forth from their shops and forges, and encamp in the London squares, till they knew the reason why the Reform Bill was not pa.s.sed. The Scots Greys, who were quartered at Birmingham, had been employed the previous Sabbath in grinding their swords; and it was a.s.serted that the Duke of Wellington stood pledged to the Government to quiet the country in ten days. These facts sufficiently indicated to the Squire the temper of the people; and he set himself, as far as he could, to take all the sweetness out of his home life possible. The memory of it might have to comfort him for many days.

With his daughter always by his side, he rode up and down the lands he loved; unconsciously giving directions that might be serviceable if he had to go to a stormier field than the House of Commons. To Mrs. Atheling he hardly suggested the possibility; for if he did, she always answered cheerfully, "Nonsense, John! The Bill _will_ pa.s.s; and if it does not pa.s.s, Englishmen have more sense than they had in the days of Cromwell. They aren't going to kill one another for an Act of Parliament."

But to Kate, as they rode and walked, he could worry and grumble comfortably. She was always ready to sympathise with his fears, and to encourage and suggest any possible hope of peace and better days. To see her bright face answering his every thought filled the father's heart with a joy that was complete.

"Bless thy dear soul!" he would frequently say to her. "G.o.d's best gift to a man is a daughter like thee. Sons are well enough to carry on the name and the land, and bring honour to the family; but the man G.o.d loves isn't left without a daughter to sweeten his days and keep his heart fresh and tender. Kitty! Kitty, how I do love thee!" And Kitty knew how to answer such true and n.o.ble affection; for,--

"Down the gulf of his condoled necessities, She cast her best: she flung herself."