Yes and no, Volume 1 (of 2)

There shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

Shakspeare.

The day of election at length arrived, and all the parties attended at the appointed place, each confidently anticipating a successful result. Of Oakley and Germain the reader already knows rather more than most electors do of their candidates; but Mr. Stedman requires some further notice, and as he was not a man ever to say much for himself, something must be said for him.

He was, perhaps, the most inveterately silent man that ever was sent to assist in a deliberative assembly; true, as the county member, he was called upon between four and five o’clock to take a great deal of walking exercise, in conveying petitions and bills from one part of the House to another, but the moment public business commenced, he became as stationary as the pillars against which he leaned, and thus he sat in sleepy silence, scorning to speak, equally disdaining to listen. So determined an enemy was he to the principles of free trade, that having brought a certain stock of homemade ideas with him into the House, he bonded them up, equally prohibiting his tongue to circulate those, or his ears to import others. Every progressive improvement he viewed separately, as if arising abruptly out of a state of things that existed forty years ago, and therefore, no doubt, considering it as an uncalled for innovation, met it with a decided, though not expressive negative. He had a sovereign contempt for his late colleague, Mr. Medium, who, without attending much more acutely to the march of events, wished to be thought to have his own ideas about it, and therefore was constantly and unaccountably trimming backwards and forwards.

Mr. Stedman was of course supported by all that numerous class, who, content with the security of their own selfish comforts, avoid even thinking of the grievances of others, lest an attempt to relieve them (for any thing they know to the contrary) might diminish the value of the peculiar advantages they now enjoy. Oakley, on the other hand, was supported by all those with whom innovation and improvement are synonymous. Germain was upheld by many mixed motives, though none perhaps actuating such large bodies as the other two.

And now from every side were crowding into the county town immense bodies of those to whom was committed the exercise of an Englishman’s proudest boast—the elective franchise. Most of them had, according to immemorial custom, been clearing their intellects for a free choice by unlimited potations at the cost of one or other of the candidates.

Here on one side, as far as the eye could reach, stretched a long line of the “true blues,” bearing brilliant banners, on which were inscribed, “Stedman and the Constitution!” “Protestant Cause!” “No Popery!” “Church and State!” and many other such “wise saws,” which, with other equally valuable appropriations, the high Tories have for some time arrogated to themselves as their property.

On another side were seen equally dense masses, decorated with green ribbons, bearing on their ensigns, “Oakley and Liberty!” “Oakley and Reform!” and sundry other more enigmatical watch-words, such as “Magna Charta!” “Bill of Rights!” which, as they are brought out well-dusted, and displayed in times either of stagnation or scarcity, are supposed by many who bear them, to mean either “high wages,” or “cheap bread.”

Germain’s partizans shone in the brilliancy of their symbolical colouring, but they were terribly in want of an appropriate watch-word, the politics of the party not possessing sufficient force to distil themselves into ardent axioms; “Germain and Independence!” was therefore singularly enough chosen as the most apposite motto.

There was an interval of a few minutes after the parties had met, before they appeared upon the hustings. Germain took advantage of this opportunity, to advance towards Oakley. “Though I never received any answer, Oakley,” said he, “to those few lines which I wrote to you, explanatory of my intention of appearing here to-day, yet I can easily attribute any such omission to the sufficiently-engrossing occupation in which we have both since been engaged; and therefore hope that our competition is entirely political, not personal.”

“How far it may be at all political, I am at a loss to tell,” answered Oakley; “since I can hardly ever remember to have heard you express any political opinions. What personal inducements you may have had I as little know as care.”

It was actually very true, as Oakley said, that Germain had never appeared to take any deep interest in politics; nor is this strange, in a young man just of age, to whom no career in that line was yet open, and to whom every other enjoyment of society was still fresh.

“Perhaps you wish,” said Germain, good-humouredly, “that I had taken some other opportunity to make up lost time as a politician; but at any rate, when you talk of personal inducement, I hope you acquit me of having wantonly interposed to thwart you?”

“In a case entirely between ourselves, if I do not choose to accuse, I can hardly be required to acquit. But see, the sheriff expects us.”

“Well, you shall not quarrel with me, Oakley, if I can help it, however much you seem to wish it.”

“I have not the slightest wish on the subject,” replied Oakley coldly; and here the conversation ended.

The business of the day was regularly opened. Mr. Stedman was proposed and seconded in a few words by two gentlemen who seemed, like their principal, to apply their horror of any thing new even to their speeches, and therefore only repeated the same sentences, which at the last dissolution had been found to produce the desired effect.

Then, amidst much uproar, Squire Stedman presented himself. He had not, as may be imagined, much to say, and therefore it was perhaps an exercise of political candour on the part of his opponents, to take good care so to interrupt him as to keep him standing, hat in hand, the usual length of a speech. For no one could deny that he looked “the Agricultural Interest” to perfection. As a representative of the soil, he carried an acre or two of it upon his boots and leather breeches; a flock of sheep would hardly have sufficed for the ample folds of his cumbrous coat, and the few straggling hairs which the wind shook out of the mass of powder and pomatum with which his head was amply manured, showed the care and cost at which poor soils should be cultivated.

During the period he thought it necessary to remain standing, whenever a comparative calm occurred, he had recourse to one of the watch-words from his own banners, to appear as if he had been speaking all the while—“Support our invaluable constitution”—loud applause—louder yells—“As in duty bound the Protestant Church”—increased tumult. “Wisdom of our ancestors.”—“Go to them and be d——d,” cried one voice.—“Ax them about spinning-jennies,” cried another.—“They’ve less land on their hands than you have on yours, Squire,” said a third; and amidst enthusiastic applause from his own party, Mr. Stedman retired.

Germain, as the one who had first offered himself upon the present vacancy, was next proposed and seconded by two gentlemen-like young men who possessed good property in the county, appeared in new French gloves, with which they stroked down their well-brushed hats whilst they made two very neat speeches, of which not one syllable could be heard, but which were, strange to say, very accurately reported in the next county paper.

Germain spoke sensibly, and was heard favourably, but not received enthusiastically; for moderation in language, though very distinct in character from mediocrity in intellect, is not unlike it in its deadening effects upon the spirits of a crowd; and he who has one man’s head in his face, and two men’s elbows in his sides, had rather have his prejudices flattered, and his passions excited, than his reason convinced.

Sir John Boreton had at last, after much doubt and deliberation, been entrusted with the task of proposing Oakley. Lady Boreton had carefully written out for him on the back of a card the heads of what he was to say, and he had rehearsed it to her surprisingly well, considering all things; but upon the hustings an unexpected dilemma occurred. Sir John could not read without spectacles, and in the confusion and anxiety of the moment, after fumbling unsuccessfully in every pocket, (no very oratorical action,) he could not find them; he muttered a few words, ending in “Ernest Oakley, esquire,” and cast an imploring look at Lady Boreton, who was posted at a window on the opposite side of the court.

Her ladyship came to his relief, by waving a small green silk flag, a signal which was answered by the cheers of the populace, and the seconder luckily took the opportunity of stepping in before Sir John and taking his place. He was much habituated to this sort of thing, being a master-manufacturer, who dealt in pins and politics, and talking was part of his trade. He dwelt much upon the merits of his “honourable friend, Mr. Oakley.”

Now, though Oakley was prepared politically to stretch a fraternal hand of fellowship cordially to all his constituents, enough has been seen of him for it to be supposed that there was something grating to his not over-easy nature in the idea of the individual familiarity of Mr. Sims, and though, as the occasion required, he smothered this feeling as far as he could, yet it rather interfered with the freedom with which he commenced his address.

But Oakley was gifted with great natural eloquence: that vehemence of manner, too, which in private often hazarded offence, in public carried conviction of his earnest sincerity, and the modulated intonations of his fine voice alone, seemed to challenge concurrence in his opinions. A fine burst of natural eloquence, from its mere sound, ensures spontaneous admiration, like the rush of a mountain-torrent, independent either of the course it takes, or of the depth it covers. Many parts of his speech were certainly peculiarly indiscreet in the situation in which he at present stood, as tending personally to exasperate against him, the supporters of each of the other candidates, and therefore being likely to lead to a union which would be very injurious to his interests.

He was particularly severe upon the vehement conduct of some of the clerical partizans of one of the rival candidates, who, he said, “with Christian charity as their motto, and political power as their pursuit, came there to persecute him for refusing to persecute those whose mere doctrinal differences of religion they made the ground of perpetual exclusion here, which he dared them in the boldest flight of arrogated infallibility to assume, would be the ground of any eternal distinction hereafter.”

But as this work is not meant either as a copy or continuation of harangues at public meetings, and as the speeches of the other candidates have not been detailed, neither shall this part of Oakley’s, nor the concluding portion, in which he expressed unmingled contempt for the sort of middle line adopted by one of his competitors, who, with neither the curse of ignorance or intemperance, and with sense enough to perceive the right line, had not virtue enough to follow it.

This was certainly not conciliatory. But at the time its effect was rather imposing; it looked like strength, and a superior disregard of adventitious assistance. Upon the show of hands, the decided majorities were for Oakley and Stedman. A poll was demanded for Germain, and at its close on the first day, the numbers were declared as follow:—