Chippinge Borough. Weyman Stanley John

He believed that he had ability, and though he came late to the strife, he brought his experience. If men living from hand to mouth and distracted by household cares could achieve so much, why should not he who had his independence and his place in the world? Had not Erskine been such another? He, too, had sickened of barrack life. And Brougham and the two Scotts, Eldon and Stowell. To say nothing of this young Macaulay, whose name was beginning to run through every mouth; and of a dozen others who had risen to fame from a lower and less advantageous station.

      The goal was distant, but it was glorious. Nor had the eighteen months which he had given to the study of the law, to attendance at the Academic and at a less ambitious debating society, and to the output of some scientific feelers, shaken his faith in himself. He had not yet thought of a seat at St. Stephen's; for no nomination had fallen to him, nor, save from one quarter, was likely to fall. And his income, some six hundred a year, though it was ample for a bachelor, would not stretch to the price of a seat at five thousand for the Parliament, or fifteen hundred for the Session-the quotations which had ruled of late. A seat some time, however, he must have; it was a necessary stepping-stone to the heights he would gain. And the subject in his mind as he paced Whitehall Place was the abolition of the close boroughs and the effect which the transfer of electoral power to the middle-class would have on his chances.

      A small thing-no more than a quantity of straw laid thickly before one of the houses-brought his thoughts down to the present. By a natural impulse he raised his eyes to the house; by a coincidence, less natural, a hand, even as he looked, showed itself behind one of the panes of a window on the first floor, and drew down the blind. Vaughan stood after that, fascinated, and watched the lowering of blind after blind. And the solemn contrast between his busy thoughts and that which had even then happened in the house-between that which lay behind the darkened windows and the bright April sunshine about him, the twittering of the sparrows in the green, and the tumult of distant cheering-went home to him.

      He thought of the lines, so old and so applicable:

      Omnes eodem cogimur, omnium

      Versatur urna, serius, ocius,

      Sors exitura, et nos in æternum

      Exilium impositura cymbæ.

      He was still rolling the words on his tongue with that love of the classical rhythm which was a mark of his day-and returns no more than the taste for the prize-ring which was coeval with it-when the door of the house opened and a man came clumsily and heavily out, closed the door behind him, and, with his head bent low and the ungainly movements of an automaton, made off down the street.

      The man was very stout as well as tall, his dress slovenly and disordered. His hat was pulled awry over his eyes, and his hands were plunged deep in his breeches pockets. Vaughan saw so much. Then the door opened again, and a face, unmistakably that of a butler, looked out.

      The servant's eyes met his, and though the man neither spoke nor beckoned, his eyes spoke for him. Vaughan crossed the way to him. "What is it?" he asked.

      The man was blubbering. "Oh, Lord; oh, Lord!" he said. "My lady's gone not five minutes, and he'll not be let nor hindered! He's to the House, and if the crowd set upon him he'll be murdered. For God's sake, follow him, sir! He's Sir Charles Wetherell, and a better master never walked, let them say what they like. If there's anybody with him, maybe they'll not touch him."

      "I will follow him," Vaughan answered. And he hastened after the stout man, who had by this time reached the corner of the street.

      Vaughan was surprised that he had not recognised Wetherell. For in every bookseller's window caricatures of the "Last of the Boroughbridges," as the wits called him, after the pocket borough for which he sat, were plentiful as blackberries. Not only was he the highest of Tories, but he was a martyr in their cause; for, Attorney-General in the last Government, he had been dismissed for resisting the Catholic Claims. Since then he had proved himself, of all the opponents of the Bill, the most violent, the most witty, and, with the exception of Croker perhaps, the most rancorous. At this date he passed for the best hated man in England; and representative to the public mind of all that was old-fashioned and illiberal and exclusive. Vaughan knew, therefore, that the servant's fears were not unfounded, and with a heart full of pity-for he remembered the darkened house-he made after him.

      By this time Sir Charles was some way ahead and already involved in the crowd. Fortunately the throng was densest opposite Old Palace Yard, whence the King was in the act of departing; and the space before the Hall and before St. Stephen's Court-the buildings about which abutted on the river-though occupied by a loosely moving multitude, and presenting a scene of the utmost animation, was not impassable. Sir Charles was in the heart of the crowd before he was recognised; and then his stolid unconsciousness and the general good-humour, born of victory, served him well. He was too familiar a figure to pass altogether unknown; and here and there a man hissed him. One group turned and hooted after him. But he was within a dozen yards of the entrance of St. Stephen's Court, with Vaughan on his heels, before any violence was offered. There a man whom he happened to jostle recognised him and, bawling abuse, pushed him rudely; and the act might well have been the beginning of worse things. But Vaughan touched the man on the shoulder and looked him in the face. "I shall know you," he said quietly. "Have a care!" And the fellow, intimidated by his words and his six feet of height, shrank into himself and stood back.

      Wetherell had barely noticed the rudeness. But he noted the intervention by a backward glance. "Much obliged," he grunted. "Know you, too, again, young gentleman." And he went heavily on and passed out of the crowd into the court, followed by a few scattered hisses.

      Behind the officers of the House who guarded the entrance a group of excited talkers were gathered. They were chiefly members who had just left the House and had been brought to a stand by the sight of the crowd. On seeing Wetherell, surprise altered their looks. "Good G-d!" cried one, stepping forward. "You've come down, Wetherell?"

      "Ay," the stricken man answered without lifting his eyes or giving the least sign of animation. "Is it too late?"

      "By an hour. There's nothing to be done. Grey and Bruffam have got the King body and soul. He was so determined to dissolve, he swore that he'd come down in a hackney-coach rather than not come. So they say!"

      "Ay!"

      "But I hope," a second struck in, in a tone of solicitude, "that as you are here, Lady Wetherell has rallied."

      "She died a quarter of an hour ago," he muttered. "I could do no more. I came here. But as I am too late, I'll go back."

      Yet he stood awhile, as if he had no longer anything to draw him one way more than another; with his double chin and pendulous cheeks resting on his breast and his leaden eyes sunk to the level of the pavement. And the others stood round him with shocked faces, from which his words and manner had driven the flush of the combat. Presently two members, arguing loudly, came up, and were silenced by a glance and a muttered word. The ungainly attitude, the ill-fitting clothes, did but accentuate the tragedy of the central figure. They knew-none better-how fiercely, how keenly, how doggedly he had struggled against death, against the Bill.

      And yet, had they thought of it, the vulgar caricatures that had hurt her, the abuse that had passed him by to lodge in her bosom, would hurt her no more!

      Meanwhile, Vaughan, as soon as he had seen Sir Charles within the entrance reserved for members, had betaken himself to the main door of the Hall, a few paces to the westward. He had no hope that he would now be able to perform the errand on which he had set forth; for the Chancellor, for certain, would have other fish to fry and other people to see. But he thought that he would leave a card with the usher, so that Lord Brougham might know that he had not failed to come, and might make a fresh appointment if he still wished to see him.

      Of the vast congeries of buildings which then encased St. Stephen's Chapel and its beautiful but degraded cloisters, little more than the Hall is left to us. The Hall we have, and in the main in the condition in which the men of that generation viewed it; as Canning viewed it, when with death in his face he paced its length on Peel's arm, and suspecting, perhaps, that they two would meet no more, proved to all men the good-will he bore his rival. Those among us whose memories go back a quarter of a century, and who can recall its aspect in term-time, with three