Chapter 15: Stirring Days

SIR ROLAND MENTEITH was slightly known to Eustace, who had spent much time in the lobbies of the House of Commons, and was personally known to the majority of its members, by sight if not by name. He was a fine-looking man of some five-and-thirty summers, and although a Tory by descent and tradition, was by no means an enemy of such moderate measures of parliamentary reform as were at present under discussion. He had voted for the reading of the recent bill, and was by no means prepared to pledge himself to his constituency as its enemy. There were many amongst his enemies who said he had no right, with the views he held, to call himself a Tory; but he would defend himself by the argument that Tories would soon cease to exist if they never moved one step forward with the times they lived in. A system originally sound and good could well become corrupt and bad under a changed condition of affairs, and if Tories were pledged to resist any sort of change, bad or good—well, they at once placed themselves in a false position, and made their own extinction only a matter of time. He maintained that the true Tory aimed always for the best and soundest policy, the policy that would make England respected abroad and prosperous at home. Tearing down and splitting up were actions bad and degrading to a government, but gradual change, especially of a constructive character, was essential to the development of the national life. So he argued, and Eustace cordially agreed, whilst the old Duke listened with his slight peculiar smile, and said little, but kept true to the point in the little he did say. Sir Roland had come over to the castle in great excitement only one day following the arrival of Eustace there, and he had easily been persuaded to remain on as a guest whilst these important and stirring themes were under discussion. He was very well pleased to find in young Marchmont so moderate and temperate a reformer. Eustace had certainly learnt more moderation of thought during the past year, and was more cautious both in what he advocated and what he approved. He had had several experiences of a kind likely to awaken in him some distrust of the methods which once had seemed entirely right and praiseworthy; and he began to have an inkling that there was something wanting in his system before it could be called in any way perfect. The passions of the people could easily be stirred; but there was no power he knew of as yet strong enough to hold them in a just and proper repression. It was a hateful thing to him to be accused (as he knew he was in many quarters) of being one of those demagogues bent on rousing all that was worst and most cruel and wild in the natures over which he acquired influence. Sir Roland, after one of his many morning rides into Pentreath, told him flatly that he had the credit of being at the bottom of those riots which had caused such loss and destruction of property there in the autumn, and it was soon ascertained that the feeling there was so strongly against him that it would be hopeless for him to stand as a candidate on either one side or the other.

This piece of intelligence came as rather a severe shock to him. After the interview with the Duke on the day of his arrival, he had thought more and more of the suggestion that he should contest the seat at Pentreath, sparing Sir Roland the cost and the worry. His own income was large, and could well stand the strain, and the Duke was a man of known wealth and liberality. Eustace, too, was indulging in halcyon dreams of contesting the seat with rigid purity of method, hoping even to shame his adversary into better ways by his own absolute probity. Sir Roland, although fond of his constituents, and rather fond of the excitement and bustle of an election and the sound of his own clever speeches on the hustings, was by no means averse to be spared the trouble and expense for once, stepping quietly into the Duke’s pocket borough, and throwing in his influence for young Marchmont, with whom upon the essential matter of the coming strife he agreed. Eustace was feeling something of the keen exhilaration of the coming strife, and was enjoying the release from the anomalous position he would have occupied (at least in the eyes of Bride) as his kinsman’s nominee, when this fresh blow was dealt to his pride and his hopes. Sir Roland had heard enough to be very certain that the very name of Eustace Marchmont would arouse an uproar of fury amongst the class who had the voting power; also, there could be no manner of doubt that his appearance as a candidate would provoke fresh riots of a very serious nature. Investigation of these rumours only confirmed them. Eustace Marchmont’s name had been on the lips of all the rioters who made havoc of the town during the recent outbreak. Their young leader, Saul Tresithny, had quoted him as his authority for almost every wild argument by which he had stirred the people to madness, and roused them to any act of violence, in order to overthrow, or at least be revenged upon, their tyrants and foes. If he were to appear on the hustings, he would be at once the idol of the lawless (and voteless) mob; but the object of reprobation, if not of execration, to all the sober-minded citizens, whatever might be their political views. Had Eustace come amongst them as a stranger with the Penarvon and Menteith interest at his back, he might have carried all before him, for there was no popular man in the place likely to oppose him under those conditions; but branded as he now was by the names of Radical and revolutionary, all men looked askance at him, and it was with a keen sense of disappointment, not to say humiliation, that he had to abandon the idea of contesting the seat, and revert to his original plan of accepting his kinsman’s nomination.

“I suppose you think that my sin has found me out,” he said rather bitterly to Bride, when this unpalatable news had become verified as actual fact. “I suppose you believe that I went about the country last year inciting men to arson and pillage and every sort of brutality. You know that is what is said of me by the respectable people of Pentreath, that I provoked and incited riot, and took very good care to be out of the way when it took place, that others might bear the punishment.”

“It is cruel to say such things of you,” answered Bride, with a quiet indignation which was very grateful to him. “I know they are not true, and I almost think the people who say them know that there is only a very small substratum of truth in them. But, Eustace,” and she looked up at him with one of her rare smiles, “do you not think you sometimes say things almost as untrue on the other side? Do you not sometimes make out men in high places to be little else than monsters, when all the time they are almost as helpless, and perhaps even less to blame for the effects of a system, than you for those riots at Pentreath, which above all things you disapprove and deprecate?”

“I know what you mean,” he said; “I think we all go too far in our attack and defence. But those men do uphold a system of tyranny and iniquity, even if they are not responsible for it, whilst I never uphold violence and lawlessness. I hate and abominate it with my whole heart.”

“I know you do; but you will not get ignorant men to believe it, when you teach them how bad the laws are. Their idea of mending the existing state of things is to rebel against it by force.”

“Yes; and great present mischief is the result; but, Bride, if all men held your doctrine of patience and submission, no reformation or reform, no redress of abuses, no respite from tyranny and oppression, would ever have been effected in the world’s history. When you have such imperfect material to deal with, imperfections are everywhere. Good is always mixed with evil, and will be to the end of the chapter.”