Polwenning, the seat of Mr Tregear, Frank's father, was close to the borough of Polpenno,--so close that the gates of the grounds opened into the town. As Silverbridge had told his father, may of the Tregear family had sat for the borough. Then there had come changes, and strangers had made themselves welcome by their money.
When the vacancy had occurred a deputation waited upon Squire Tregear and asked him to stand. The deputation would guarantee that the expense should not exceed--a certain limited sum. Mr Tregear for himself had no such ambition. His eldest son was abroad and was not at all such a man as one would choose to make into a Member of Parliament. After much consideration in the family, Frank was invited to present himself to the constituency.
Frank's aspirations in regard to Lady Mary Palliser were known at Polwenning, and it was thought that they would have a better chance of success if he could write the letters M.P. after his name. Frank acceded, and as he was starting wrote to ask the assistance of his friend Lord Silverbridge. At that time there were only nine days more before the election, and Mr Carbottle, the Liberal candidate, was already living in great style at the Camborne Arms.
Mr and Mrs Tregear and an elder sister of Frank's, who quite acknowledged herself to be an old maid, were very glad to welcome Frank's friend. On the first morning of course they discussed the candidate's prospects. 'My best chance of success,' said Frank, 'arises from that fact that Mr Carbottle is fatter than the people here seem to approve.'
'If his purse be fat,' said old Mr Tregear, 'that will carry off any personal defect.' Lord Silverbridge asked whether the candidate was not too fat to make speeches. Miss Tregear declared that he had made three speeches daily last week, and that Mr Williams the rector who had heard him, declared him to be a godless dissident. Mrs Tregear thought that it would be much better that the place should be disfranchised altogether than that such a horrid man should be brought into the neighbourhood. A godless dissenter!' she said, holding up her hands in dismay.
Frank thought that they had better abstain from allusion to their opponent's religion. Then Mr Tregear made a little speech. 'We used,' he said, 'to endeavour to get someone to represent us in Parliament, who would agree with us on vital subjects, such as the Church of England and the necessity of religion. Now it seems to be considered ill-mannered to make any allusion to such subjects!'
From which it may be seen that this old Tregear was very conservative indeed.
When the old people were gone to bed the two young men discussed the matter. 'I hope you'll get in,' said Silverbridge. 'And if I can do anything for you of course I will.'
'It is always good to have a real member along with one,' said Tregear.
'But I begin to think I am a very shaky Conservative myself.'
'I am sorry for that.'
'Sir Timothy is such a beast,' said Silverbridge.
'Is that your notion of a political opinion? Are you to be this or that in accordance with your own liking or disliking for some particular man? One is supposed to have opinions of one's own.'
'Your father would be down on a man because he is a dissenter.'
'Of course my father is old-fashioned.'
'It does seem so hard to me,' said Silverbridge, 'to find any difference between the two sets. You who are a true Conservative are much more like to my father who is a Liberal than to your own who is on the same side as yourself.'
'It may be so, and still I may be a good Conservative.'
'It seems to me in the house to mean nothing more than choosing one set of companions or choosing another. There are some awful cads who sit along with Mr Monk;--fellows that make you sick to hear them, and whom I couldn't be civil to. But I don't think there is anybody I hate so much as old Beeswax. He has a contemptuous way with his nose which makes me long to pull it.'
'And you mean to go over in order that you may be justified in doing so. I think I soar a little higher,' said Tregear.
'Oh, of course. You're a clever fellow,' said Silverbridge, not without a touch of sarcasm.
'A man may soar higher than that without being very clever. If the party that calls itself liberal were to have all its own way who is there that doesn't believe that the church would go at once, then all distinction between boroughs, the House of Lords immediately afterwards, and after that the Crown.'
'Those are not my governor's ideas.'
'You governor couldn't help himself. A liberal party, with plenipotentiary power, must go on right away to the logical conclusion of its arguments. It is only the conservative feeling of the country which saves such men as your father from being carried headlong to ruin by their own machinery. You have read Carlyle's French Revolution?'
'Yes, I have read that.'
'Wasn't it so there? There were a lot of honest men who thought they could do a deal of good by making everybody equal. A good many were made equal be having their heads cut off. That's why I mean to be member of Polpenno and to send Mr Carbottle back to London. Carbottle probably doesn't want to cut anybody's head off.'
'I daresay he's as conservative as anybody.'
'But he wants to be a member for Parliament; and, as he hasn't thought much about anything he is quite willing to lend a hand to communism, radicalism, socialism, chopping people's heads off, or anything else.'
'That's all very well,' said Silverbridge, 'but where should we have been if there had been no Liberals? Robespierre and his pals cut off a lot of heads, but Louis XIV and Louis XV locked up more in prison. And so he had the last word in the argument.
