Chippinge Borough

"Yes, I have."

The Chancellor chuckled. "And found nothing of the kind in it?" he said.

Vaughan coloured still more deeply. He felt that the position was unpleasant. "Frankly, my lord, if you ask me, no."

"And you think yourself," with a grin, "the first discoverer?"

"I did."

Brougham sprang like a boy to his feet, and whisked his long, lank body to a distant bookshelf. Thence he took down a much-rubbed manuscript book. As he returned he opened this at a place already marked, and, laying it on the table, beckoned to the young man to approach. "Read that," he said waggishly, "and confess, young sir, that there were chiefs before Agamemnon."

Vaughan stooped over the book, and having read looked up in perplexity. "But this passage," he said, "was not in the paper read before the Royal Society in '96?"

"In the paper read? No. Nor yet in the paper printed? There, too, you are right. And why? Because a sapient dunder-head who was in authority requested me to omit this passage. He did not believe that light passing through a small hole in the window-shutter of a darkened room impresses a view of external objects on white paper; nor that, as I suggested, the view might be made permanent if cast instead on ivory rubbed with nitrate of silver!"

Vaughan was dumbfounded, and perhaps a little chagrined. "It is most singular!" he said.

"Do you wonder now that I could not refrain from sending for you?"

"I do not, indeed."

The Chancellor patted him kindly on the shoulder, and by a gesture made him résumé his seat. "No, I could not refrain," he continued; "the coincidence was too remarkable. If you come to sit where I sit, the chance will be still more singular."

Vaughan coloured with pleasure. "Alas!" he said, smiling, "one swallow, my lord, does not made a summer."

"Ah, my friend," with a benevolent look. "But I know more of you than you think. You were in the service, I hear, and left it. Cedant arma togæ, eh?"

"Yes."

"Well, I, too, after a fashion. Thirty years ago I served a gun with Professor Playfair in the Volunteer Artillery of Edinburgh. God knows," he continued complacently, "if I had gone on with it, where I should have landed! Where the Duke is, perhaps! More surprising things have happened."

Vaughan did not know whether to take this, which was gravely and even sentimentally spoken, for jest or earnest. He did not speak. And Brougham, seated in his favourite posture, with a hand on either knee, his lean body upright, and the skirts of his black coat falling to the floor on either side of him, resumed. "I hear, too, that you have done well at the Academic," he said, "and on the right side, Mr. Vaughan. Light? Ay, always light, my friend, always light! Let that be our motto. For myself," he continued earnestly, "I have taken it in hand that this poor country shall never lack light again; and by God's help and Johnny Russell's Bill I'll bring it about! And not the phosphorescent light of rotten boroughs and corrupt corporations, Mr. Vaughan. No, nor the blaze of burning stacks, kindled by wretched, starving, ignorant-ay, above all, Mr. Vaughan, ignorant men! But the light of education, the light of a free Press, the light of good government and honest representation; so that, whatever they lack, henceforth they shall have voices and means and ways to make their wants known. You agree with me? But I know you do, for I hear how well you have spoken on that side. Mr. Cornelius," turning and addressing the gentleman who still continued to write at his table, "who was it told us of Mr. Vaughan's speech at the Academic?"

"I don't know," Mr. Cornelius answered gruffly.

"No?" the Chancellor said, not a whit put out. "He never knows anything!" And then, throwing one knee over the other, he regarded Vaughan with closer attention. "Mr. Vaughan," he said, "have you ever thought of entering Parliament?"

Vaughan's heart bounded, and his face betrayed his emotions. Good heavens, was the Chancellor about to offer him a Government seat? He scarcely knew what to expect or what to say. The prospect, suddenly opened, blinded him. He muttered that he had not as yet thought of it.

"You have no connection," Brougham continued, "who could help you to a seat? For if so, now is the time. Presently there will be a Reformed Parliament and a crowd of new men, and the road will be blocked by the throng of aspirants. You are not too young. Palmerston was not so old when Perceval offered him a seat in the Cabinet."

The words, the tone, the assumption that such things were for him-that he had but to hold out his hand and they would fall into it-dropped like balm into the young man's soul. Yet he was not sure that the other was serious, and he made a tremendous effort to hide the emotion he felt. "I am afraid," he said, with a forced smile, "that I, my lord, am not Lord Palmerston."

"No?" Brougham answered with a faint sneer. "But not much the worse for that, perhaps. So that if you have any connection who commands a seat, now is the time."

Vaughan shook his head. "I have none," he said, "except my cousin, Sir Robert Vermuyden."

"Vermuyden of Chippinge?" the Chancellor exclaimed, in a voice of surprise.

"The same, my lord."

"Good G-d!" Brougham cried. It was not a mealy-mouthed age. And he leant back and stared at the young man. "You don't mean to say that he is your cousin?"

"Yes."

The Chancellor laughed grimly. "Oh, dear, dear!" he said. "I am afraid that he won't help us much. I remember him in the House-an old high and dry Tory. I am afraid that, with your opinions, you've not much to expect of him. Still-Mr. Cornelius," to the gentleman at the table, "oblige me with Oldfield's 'House of Commons,' the Wiltshire volume, and the private Borough List. Thank you. Let me see-ah, here it is!"

He proceeded to read in a low tone, skipping from heading to heading: "Chippinge, in the county of Wilts, has returned two members since the twenty-third of Edward III. Right of election in the Alderman and the twelve capital burgesses, who hold their places for life. Number of voters, thirteen. Patron, Sir Robert Vermuyden, Bart., of Stapylton House.

"Umph, as I thought," he continued, laying down the book. "Now what does the list say?" And, taking it in turn from his knee, he read:

"In Schedule A for total disfranchisement, the population under 2000. Present members, Sergeant Wathen and Mr. Cooke, on nomination of Sir Robert Vermuyden; the former to oblige Lord Eldon, the latter by purchase. Both opponents of Bill; nothing to be hoped from them. The Bowood interest divides the corporation in the proportion of four to nine, but has not succeeded in returning a member since the election of 1741-on petition. The heir to the Vermuyden interest is-" He broke off sharply, but continued to study the page. Presently he looked over it.

"Are you the Mr. Vaughan who inherits?" he asked gravely.

"The greater part of the estates-yes."

Brougham laid down the book and rubbed his chin. "Under those circumstances," he said, after musing a while, "don't you think that your cousin could be persuaded to return you as an independent member?"

Vaughan shook his head with decision.

"The matter is important," the Chancellor continued slowly, and as if he weighed his words. "I cannot precisely make a promise, Mr. Vaughan; but if your cousin could see the question of the Bill in another light, I have little doubt that any object in reason could be secured for him. If, for instance, it should be necessary in passing the Bill through the Upper House to create new-eh?"

He paused, looking at Vaughan, who laughed outright. "Sir Robert would not cross the park to save my life, my lord," he said. "And I am sure he would rather hang outside the White Lion in Chippinge marketplace than resign his opinions or his borough!"

"He'll lose the latter, whether or no," Brougham answered, with a touch of irritation. "Was there not some trouble about his wife? I think I remember something."

"They were separated many years ago."

"She is alive, is she not?"

"Yes."

Brougham saw, perhaps, that the subject was not palatable, and he abandoned it. With an abrupt change of manner he flung the books from him with the recklessness of a boy, and raised his sombre figure to its height. "Well, well," he said, "I hoped for better things; but I fear, as Tommy Moore sings-

"He's pledged himself, though sore bereft
Of ways and means of ruling ill,
To make the most of what are left
And stick to all that's rotten still!

And by the Lord, I don't say that I don't respect him. I respect every man who votes honestly as he thinks." And grandly, with appropriate gestures, he spouted:

"Who spurns the expedient for the right
Scorns money's all-attractive charms,
And through mean crowds that clogged his flight
Has nobly cleared his conquering arms.

That's the Attorney-General's. He turns old Horace well, doesn't he?"