Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 e^ 
 
 7 
 
 «\
 
 THE RISE AND PROGRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE, 
 
 Kt. and M.P.
 
 THE RISE AND PROGRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE, 
 
 Kt. and M.P. 
 
 AN EXTRA-MORAL BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 KY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 " THOMAS WANLESS, Peasant." 
 
 MANCHESTER: 
 
 John Dale, Stretford Road ; and Abel IIeywood and Son, 
 
 56 and 58, Oldham Street. 
 
 LONDON : 
 Simpkin, Marshall and Co., Stationers' Hall Court. 
 
 1886. 
 [all rights reserved.]
 
 1% 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 CRITICS of my story, " The Life of Thomas Wanless, 
 Peasant," demanded my name in varying tones of 
 menace, remonstrance, or entreaty. "Here is a fellow 
 daring to say, anonymously, what is in him," some said. 
 Others cried, " shocking," " monstrous," " cowardly," and 
 what not. 
 
 I take the present opportunity to thank these kind, 
 earnest, virtuous, or angry persons for their most flatter- 
 ing curiosity, and to assure them that it is hard to deny 
 a request so widely made. One consideration alone 
 prevents me from yielding to the promptings of a — let 
 us hope — pardonable vanity. These critics have not 
 told me their names. I am, therefore, as much in the 
 dark as they are ; but, I hereby give them the assurance 
 that when they reveal their great secret, I will not 
 withhold my little one. 
 
 That, surely, is a fair compact, and after volunteering 
 to make it, I hope to hear no more complaints on this 
 head. In the book I now commit to their wisdom 
 my faithful friends will, I trust, find many better 
 inducements to indignation — virtuous or other. 
 
 H. A. 
 
 Weisstiic/itwo, 
 1st April, /8S6, 
 
 1 09<7< r i 
 
 -
 
 INDEX 
 
 CHAP. PAGE. 
 
 O. PEDIGREES OR PARENTS? i 
 
 I. PIES AND TOTATIONS 7 
 
 II. PIETISM AND PROGRESS 15 
 
 III. MARRIAGE AND MISCALCULATION 23 
 
 IV. A FOUNDERED SHIP, AND JONAH IN THE 
 
 WHALE'S BELLY 37 
 
 V. A WELL LAID SCHEME OF A DEACON 
 
 AND A JEW 48 
 
 VI. FLY, OR FIGHT, OR FAIL? 60 
 
 VII. TWIXT CUP AND LIP A FROW MAY SLIP .. 72 
 
 VIII. A DEACON'S DILEMMA 7S 
 
 IX. A DEACON'S DEVICE 82 
 
 X. A DEACON'S DELUSION SS 
 
 XI. A DEACON'S DELIGHT 93 
 
 XII. A DEACON'S DESPAIR 96 
 
 XIII. A DISAPPEARANCE AND A DEATH 109 
 
 XIV. AN INTERVAL 115 
 
 XV. A "MERCURY." 120 
 
 XVI. CUPID'S STORM 125 
 
 XVII. NEMESIS IN A NEWSPAPER 131 
 
 XVIII. CREEDS AND AN AMBITION 140 
 
 XIX. WANTED A "COACH." 148 
 
 XX. A COACH THAT WENT TOO FAST 154 
 
 XXI. AN UNSTEADY COACH 160 
 
 XXII. RED NOSE AND RIGHT HONOURABLE 166 
 
 XXIII. A COMEDY AND A COMPACT 171 
 
 XXIV. A COMPETITION IN PLEDGE TAKING 17S 
 
 XXV. MIXED PICKLES 184 
 
 XXVI. ANEW HERESY 191
 
 IV. 
 
 XXVII. GOD WITH A SMALL "G." 199 
 
 XXVIII. A MOST INCORRUPTIBLE MEMBER 209 
 
 XXIX. A RAID : BOOTY AND BREAKERS AHEAD... 216 
 
 XXX. A MODERN INVENTION GOOD FOR LEAN 
 
 PURSES 223 
 
 XXXI. THE SPIDER AND HIS WEB 228 
 
 XXXII. THE NET FILLED 239 
 
 XXXIII. THE BRAIN MARKET 243 
 
 XXXIV. A BEAR THAT WOULDN'T DANCE 250 
 
 XXXV. TO BE OR NOT TO BE 261 
 
 XXXVI. A WOMAN GREATLY DARING 271 
 
 XXXVII. ROYALTY WITH A COLD IN ITS HEAD 275 
 
 XXXVIII. A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN 281 
 
 XXXIX. THE SWEET SADNESS OF A SUMMER SEA 285 
 
 XL. WOMAN'S WIT WINS 291 
 
 XLI. DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE 299 
 
 XLII. AVOW UPON PASTEBOARD 307 
 
 XLIII. A NEW "COMMISSION" BUSINESS 312 
 
 XLIV. A MARKETABLE COMMODITY 318 
 
 XLV. RED OR BLUE? 325 
 
 XLVI. THE FIFTH HEAVEN AND A GOLDEN 
 
 HOLINESS 331
 
 THE RISE AND PROGRESS 
 
 OF 
 
 Sir Timothy Buncombe, 
 
 Kt. and M.P. 
 
 CHAPTER O. 
 
 PEDIGREES OR PARENTS? 
 
 As a rule biographies of great men begin with an account 
 of their ancestors. It is a fashion to which there can be 
 no objection, yet I have an impression that I must beg to 
 be excused in this particular instance from following it. 
 That the notable hero of this remarkable history had a 
 father I do not deny, but, this granted, it would, never- 
 theless, I feel sure, be a gross disregard of Sir Timothy's 
 wishes on that head were I to occupy much space in 
 dealing with the uninteresting fact. A man's father, in 
 short, need not necessarily have aught to do with a man's 
 ancestors. If, therefore, I am to pay strict attention to 
 chronology in this history, the important facts of Sir 
 Timothy's descent ought to be recounted, if recounted at 
 all, much later on. As for his mere parentage, long ere
 
 2 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 the hero himself came forward to the footlights of the 
 stage of life, and shone glorious before the eyes of men, it 
 had faded into shadowy obscurity. On the other hand, 
 in proportion as Sir Timothy developes into a great 
 public man of potent purse, an ancestry may be said 
 to emerge for him, and take shape, so that when, at 
 length, those mysterious personages of the College of 
 Heralds come to trace out his pedigree, they will find the 
 materials ready. It is not their imagination but their 
 •constructive skill which they would have to exercise. 
 
 But we are a long way from that happy time, and I 
 merely allude to it in order to show how serious a 
 blunder would be committed were I to follow the beaten 
 track. It would be impossible thus to attain a just 
 appreciation of Sir Timothy's character, or to measure the 
 depth and energy of his talent and persevering quest of 
 •wealth and honours. Indeed it is, I feel assured, con- 
 trary to nature, and possibly to truth, in so many 
 instances, that it surprises me revolt has not gathered 
 head against 'the parentage. Loyal allegiance to chrono- 
 logical sequence compels us to recognise it as a remark- 
 able fact that men who emerge from the darkness of 
 poverty into the day glory of wealth do not at the outset 
 bethink themselves of claiming kindred with some 
 mighty slayer of the middle ages, or liege of that mag- 
 nificent appropriator of other men's goods — Norman 
 William. They wait until they themselves have man- 
 fully by modern recognised methods attained fame as 
 consumers of the fruits of other men's husbandry. In 
 their youth I have known several pushing " money
 
 PEDIGREES OR PARENTS? 3 
 
 making " men, as they are designated, resign themselves 
 with a certain degree of patience to the inconvenience 
 of possessing a humble father, or mother, or both. But 
 when success is assured, when the sacks are full of gold, 
 and the man feels himself rich, the necessity for some- 
 thing better in the way of origin becomes imperative. 
 Out of the thaumaturgic past of heraldry there emerges 
 " an ancestry " before whose imposing array of names 
 mere birth and parentage are, and deserve to be, held of 
 no account. Is there a Bruce in the world, be he grocer, 
 jerry builder, or cheap drapery retailer, who, when wealth 
 crowns his long success in dealing with mankind, does 
 not feel called upon to claim descent from the Scoto- 
 Norman King Robert, and adopt for his own use the 
 boastful motto Fuimus ? Rare indeed is the moneyed 
 man to be found who, though robber true, contents 
 himself, like General Juno, with the glory of producing 
 descendants. No, ancestors are what all men desire 
 whose hands have prospered in the getting of gold. 
 Give me " ancestors," each one says, for without ancestors, 
 be they never so worm-eaten and musty, there is no 
 respectability here below. 
 
 Need 1 say more to justify my desire to observe a due 
 order of procedure regarding Sir Timothy Buncombe's 
 parentage ? Consider the matter well. Behold him as 
 he is to-day, a prosperous man, fortune's ball at his foot, 
 the possessor of a knighthood, hopeful of yet higher 
 honours to come. Already this man is in the great 
 transition state which would make it most difficult for 
 me to give a, to him, satisfactory account of his origin
 
 4 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 and ancestry. His ancestry, in short, is in process of 
 evolution. He himself never by any chance speaks of 
 his youthful days or of his actual origin. The friends of 
 his boyhood, if he ever had any, have all disappeared. 
 Amongst those taking that name who surround him 
 to-day, tales float vaguely about conveying hints of great 
 descent obscured by misfortune. The astonishing Sir 
 Timothy himself encourages that kind of thing, but so 
 far from definite and consistent is his information that 
 legends the most contradictory are now current about 
 his immediate origin. According to one account, his 
 father was a poor half-pay captain who, when past middle 
 age, married rather beneath him and died in poverty. 
 Others will gravely tell you that their friend Sir Timothy 
 had the misfortune to be fathered by a clergyman — a 
 poor curate of excellent family somewhere in Wessex — 
 who married early and died young, leaving a wife and 
 half-a-dozen infants to the tender mercies of the hard 
 world, and harder mother Church. No doubt these and 
 similar legends arise from the indeterminate character 
 of Sir Timothy's own ideas upon the great ancestry 
 question. From the most recent indications, however, 
 I am inclined to believe that he has at last made up his 
 mind to accept a military origin, and to cover up any 
 apparent hesitation or discrepancy in the legends by 
 assigning holy orders either to the half-pay captain's 
 father or to that of his wife, Sir Timothy's mother. Still 
 of this I am by no means sure. 
 
 And at this point I am met straight in the face by 
 another important consideration. " This is all very fine,"
 
 PEDIGREES OR PARENTS? 5 
 
 a voice I hear exclaims. " No doubt you are quite right 
 to postpone details of Sir Timothy's officially certified 
 ancestry, till the necessary authenticated documents are 
 before you. You can suppress them altogether for all 
 most people will care ; but if you know the real genuine 
 truth about Sir Timothy's birth and parentage, it is 
 your duty to tell what you know. It will be dishonest if 
 you don't." There, I confess, is a difficulty which had not 
 struck me. Of course I know quite well where Sir Timothy 
 was born, and all about him. I should be unfit for my 
 task as his biographer did I not ; but then it occurred to 
 me that, as Sir Timothy would not like the story told, I 
 had better hold my tongue. The question now is whom 
 shall I obey ? I do not want to wound Sir Timothy's feel- 
 ings too much, and at the same time, quite naturally, rest 
 assured, it goes against the grain a little to seem to be a 
 party to anything which smacks of prevarication. " Tell 
 the truth," the same voice dins in my ear. But shall I? 
 What becomes of all my excellent precepts just this 
 moment carefully transcribed for the printer in an 
 "execrable small hand " as my envious detractors aver ? 
 I cannot find it in my heart to put my pen through these, 
 and yet — yet it would be such a delicious bit of innocent 
 scandal to lift the curtain which Sir Timothy has so 
 carefully drawn over his early life. And why did I go so 
 many times to Berborough, if not to gather material 
 from which to compile what that poor old schoolmaster 
 of mine used to call "the true facts?" Ah! the 
 remembrance of those journeys, and the delightful little 
 incidents and circumstances t fell upon at Berborough
 
 6 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 decide me. I will take the plunge. To the winds with 
 your pedigrees and your parsons and captains. Sir 
 Timothy, I defy you ! I fear you not. You shall stand 
 before the world, not what you desire to be considered, 
 but what you have been, what you are. 
 
 There! am I not heroic as that perfect gentleman, new 
 style, my Lord Capanbells, when he tweaked his political 
 leader's nose for the first time ? Happy as he too am I, 
 for I hate conventionalities. Of what use are the stilted 
 formal records of a great man's life ? He accomplished 
 this, he attained to that, was honoured in something 
 else, his humble duty he conceived to be to amass so 
 much wealth withal, and when the day's work was done 
 no man loved better a good dinner and a glass of old 
 port. Faugh ! away with these dullards. Never mind 
 
 the scoundrels of old, let us speak of the . Hum ! I 
 
 have lost myself again. Really this is too much in the 
 manner of the just mentioned distinguished descendant 
 of a last century man-eater of talent, now so deftly 
 gaminising our political manners. Sobriety becomes me 
 better. I will leave preliminaries, and to my task. This 
 most veracious history shall begin at the beginning. 
 
 And, accordingly, as this chapter counts for nothing, 
 nothing shall it be. That will be considered an innova- 
 tion, and, in a biography, perhaps it is ; but our weather 
 prophets have given the example, and I do not see why 
 they should claim exclusive property in their invention. 
 Nought is a very good figure wherewith to number a 
 chapter of a book that may possibly be no more to the 
 purpose than a prediction in a weather chart.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PIES AND POTATIONS. 
 
 Of the facts set forth in the following pages there can 
 be no reasonable doubt. I have verified them. There 
 is not a special correspondent or press interview con- 
 cocter in existence at this present moment who has 
 taken more pains to crystalise and adorn vague hear- 
 say or gossip than I have. Sir Timothy Buncombe may 
 not like it, but I know the truth ; and knowing now 
 likewise my duty, the truth shall be told in the way that 
 best pleases myself. Facts are facts, come by them how 
 a man may. And amongst the most important of the 
 facts with which I shall have to deal, it seems to me we 
 must rank the birth of the great Sir Timothy himself. 
 This event occurred in the important east coast seaport 
 of Berbqrough. At the time of its occurrence, which 
 was a few years before the first Reform Bill let loose 
 democracy upon our most noble oligarchy to demand 
 from it, much to its disgust, sundry forms of outward 
 respect for certain precepts of the moral law of Moses, 
 the honoured mother of this wonderful boy was in 
 possession of a small baker's shop, in a back street of the 
 town. Either at that time, or soon after, this little shop 
 became noted in the locality for the excellence of its
 
 8 SIB TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 mutton pies. This shop, I have ascertained, exists still, 
 although, such is life's uncertainty, " Buncombe pies " are 
 no longer sold thereat. Sir Timothy himself put an end 
 to that trade by purchasing, with some of his earliest 
 acquired surplus wealth, the right of the then occupant to 
 use the name. Rumour says that he gave about five times 
 as much for it as his mother had obtained when she sold 
 out and retired from business; but that may be slander. 
 
 Regarding Sir Timothy's true father, I must confess, 
 little was to be learned when I undertook this severe 
 labour. Happily, however, we are not much concerned 
 with him, or for that matter, with any Buncombe of the 
 family except Sir Timothy himself. The old man, I take 
 it, had little or nothing to do with the baking business, 
 which was conducted by his wife. I am able, however, to 
 assert without fear of contradiction, that he had been a 
 soldier, had risen from full private to the rank of 
 sergeant in a foot regiment, and escaping death in the 
 field, had retired at last into civil life, blessed with an 
 excellent thirst and a pension of one shilling and six- 
 pence per diem. Furthermore, it appears to be true that 
 this battered defender of his country, in the quarrels 
 got up by its supreme land-grabbers, was not a native of 
 Berborough, and had no relations there. 
 
 It is doubtful, indeed, whether he ever had had any 
 relations beyond the inevitable father and mother — 
 shadowy individuals, possessed, it may be, with a spirit 
 of gloomy pietism, for they had named their child 
 Jeremiah. Jeremiah Buncombe — there stands the man. 
 Not a man who wept and wailed much himself, but the
 
 PIES AND POTATIONS. ,9 
 
 cause, alas ! of many Jeremiads uttered by his wife. For 
 " Old Sergeant Bunny," as he was called, made up for 
 lack of relations by the abundance of his pot-house com- 
 panions. How he behaved with them I gathered from 
 the lips of an ancient beer-shop keeper, who declared to 
 me on his " most solemn ' Davy ' " that he had known the 
 old sergeant " more'n forty year agone." Amongst 
 other statements made to me by this man was the 
 following : " I recollect," said he, " as little Tim " ; — that's 
 our hero—" came reglar to fetch his owd feyther hum at 
 ten o'cluk o' nect for the first fortnight o' every month. 
 T1V owd chap drank steady, day in and out all that time, 
 'ee did. Then his pension money giv out and 'ee wor kind 
 o' sober like, let alone drinks from chums, till next pay 
 day. His owd 'oman never giv' him a brass farthin'." 
 
 Should this garrulous old tapster have told the truth, 
 must we not forgive his son, Sir Timothy, for endeavouring 
 to get himself another father ? Yes, let us be merciful, for 
 how many of us are there who would like to swop 
 fathers with some other fellow we know, if we only could. 
 Better no father at all than this old sot. But do I 
 believe the bar-keeper's tale ? Dare I throw over on 
 such testimony all the gentle legend of the retired, 
 poverty-struck half-pay officer ? Indeed, I fear I must. 
 A strong suspicion, amounting almost to certainty, 
 possesses me, that the tale of Sir Timothy is a mere 
 poetical version of the bar-keeper's prose. And how about 
 the clerical ancestor? Ah! there conjecture alone 
 avails me, and I can only hazard the guess that some 
 venerable progenitor of Serjeant Jeremiah, the " poor
 
 io SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 half-pay officer," may have been a methodist hedge 
 preacher. Be that as you like — I have no prejudices in 
 the matter — there is little room to question my tapster's 
 tale. The " public " he kept had been his father's, and 
 he himself had bibulously lived in it all his life. 
 Beer had soddened him, no doubt ; but his memory of 
 this long-dead past was clear enough, and he was able to 
 describe the serjeant in a way that left no mistake 
 possible. 
 
 " Rayther a tallish man 'ee wor," my friend continued, 
 growing loquacious over the second quart of " old and 
 bitter," " 'ee went limp, limp, becase 'ee wor left fut lame. 
 A bullet 'it un in t' eel at th' battle of — of — blow me if I 
 can tell ye the battle it wor. My mem'ry's a gettin not 
 worth a pint o' fourpenny ! Well, anyways, 'ee be a 
 cripple, an' I mind 'ee had bleery eyes an' wor a'most 
 blind, an' th' nose on 'is face wor sort o' dirty brick red 
 like, all along o' snuff and liquor. An' 'ee told rum 
 yarns of th' fights i' furrin parts — werry rum. Let me 
 see, I recollect one in pertikler," — 
 
 " Ah, do you ?" I struck in. " Well, never mind it now, 
 I'm very much obliged to you for what you have told me. 
 I had heard of the old serjeant, you see, and was given 
 to understand you had known him. So I just took the 
 liberty of calling upon you to make sure, as it were, that 
 there ever was such a man." 
 
 " Ever wos such a man ! Lord bless ye, yes ; acoors 
 there was. Ay, an' didn't 'ee swear at 'is boy Tim in 
 style — him as be a big wig now — wen t' kid coomed to 
 fetch un o' nights. His cusses was summat hawful, sir.
 
 PIES AND POTATIONS. n 
 
 Never heerd th' like, 'cep once wen a dectective cove 
 nabbed a confidence trick 'federate in this 'ere bar ; 'ee 
 wos sittin' a'most wer ye be, sir. Gad, 'ee did let his 
 tongue go that un. Well, owd Serjeant Bunny did th' 
 same, but th' baarn never let on as 'ee heerd un, and ony 
 wen blows seemed a comin' did Tim wake up. He 
 dodged th' owd un's stick as nimble as a street hackrey- 
 bait. It alius ended in Tim's shoutin' round th' door 
 jamb, ' An' ye doant coom hoam wi' me sure's death 
 I'll fotch t' mother.' Heh ! heh ! Th' serjeant nivver 
 went agin that threat for all th' game his set made at un. 
 Ah, dear!" added the ancient, with a wistful glance at his 
 nearly empty pewter, " them wos rum times, sir — werry 
 rum. Eh ! wen dee'd 'ee, sir, did ye say ? Let me see. 
 Why, it must be nigh five and thritty year agone, sir. 
 Folks did say as his owd 'oman — she was a hard un and 
 no misteak — a'most starved un. She ketched un a 
 priggin brass for drink ; but it was a stroke as knocked 
 him over at th' finish." 
 
 Such are the main features of this ancient man's 
 recollections — faithfully reported, I flatter myself, in a 
 style that might do credit to the most expert manufac- 
 turer of newspaper flapdoodle now bestriding this moral 
 world. More I need not add. The tapster, hoary 
 bivalve of the beer shop, has sufficiently introduced the 
 retired "half-pay officer," and it is our duty to turn to 
 the mother. A Frenchman would have put the latter 
 first, but we know better how to treat women in this 
 country. ¥ or place aux Dames our manly tongue has no 
 equivalent. Nevertheless, Mrs. Buncombe must be
 
 12 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 noticed. She was a woman of importance, and, as has 
 been related, made famous mutton pies. 
 
 But with the utmost possible desire to present her 
 to the myriads of readers destined to consume this 
 book, I am unable to do so. A graphic mother-gossip 
 to play fellow to the interesting beerseller, did not, I will 
 swear it, exist in all Berborough when I was there, and 
 Mrs. Buncombe died before the days of cheap photo- 
 graphy. If any travelling scissors artist ever took her 
 silhouette, that memento of his skill and of an excellent 
 woman, has been lost. My tapster had seen her, of 
 course, and bought pies from her honoured hand ; but, 
 boy as he was, the image of the woman never appears to 
 have imprinted itself on the sodden tissues of his mind. 
 He thought she was of small stature, and was certain she 
 was stout and dark-haired, and that her voice was sharp 
 and shrill, as was to be expected from its constant 
 exercise. A husband such as she possessed would 
 naturally develop the vocal capacity, and try the temper 
 of the best of women. I have not the least doubt myself 
 that her display of virtue was overpowering. By the 
 mere force of contrast between her own sober industrious 
 habits, and the wasteful, idle drunkenness of her husband, 
 Mrs. Buncombe must have been driven to look upDn 
 herself as a woman with few equals. The more her 
 husband wasted, the more she would pinch and work and 
 save, and the more likewise would she dwell on the 
 superlative excellence of her character. The habitual 
 want of any recognition of these far shining good 
 qualities on the part of her husband, would, it may be
 
 . PIES AND POTATIONS. 13 
 
 hazarded, produce no sweetening results on her temper, 
 and the self-assertion necessary to cause the least glimmer 
 of the truth to enter his muddled head, would naturally 
 develop with use, until it affected her intercourse with 
 the entire household. Perhaps, therefore, it is just as 
 well that I am not in a position to bestow much informa- 
 tion upon the reader concerning this remarkable woman. 
 Her virtues have died with her, hidden in the unmarked 
 grave, where Sir Timothy — mere Mister then, and com- 
 paratively poor — laid husband and wife together, thank- 
 ful, shall we say, to have wound up the low affair of his 
 parentage. 
 
 There were more children than Timothy — several 
 more of both sexes I was told. Some of these are said 
 to be still above ground, but where and how employed, 
 it does not concern my purpose to say, even if I knew, 
 which I will not assert too confidently that I do. This 
 much, however, may be admitted. Not a single man or 
 woman of the family ever raised head above the level of 
 the common herd, save Timothy alone. Before the 
 mother died they had all left Berborough, except himself, 
 and he alone remains our triumphant hero — the man who 
 has succeeded. It would be beneath the dignity of this 
 narrative to concern ourselves with failures. Timothy 
 was, as he deserved to be, his mother's favourite from the 
 first. She may have had a dream about him, or he may 
 have early learned to flatter her, or it may have been a 
 chance humour. It is useless to fathom the cause now, 
 but the effect lives and is visible still in the person of her 
 noble son. Because his mother loved him above her
 
 14 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 other sons and daughters, she gave him a better educa- 
 tion than they. When the others went to work, 
 departed young to go their several ways, among the ever 
 surging press of fools who fail, Timothy continued at 
 school. Berborough Grammar School was the place that 
 possessed the honour of superintending his education. 
 There he picked up sundry shreds of classical lore, and a 
 knowledge of arithmetic, which stood him in good stead 
 in after days. 
 
 As a schoolboy Timothy gave little indication of his 
 future capacity for great estate, but, if the legends still 
 current be true his boyhood did not belie the talents of 
 his after years. He never got into scrapes, although 
 often the cause of affliction to others. Studious after a 
 fashion, young Tim was likewise in some ways an idler, 
 though never caught idling. His most noticeable 
 characteristic, perhaps, was a power he had of picking the 
 brains of his schoolfellows, and of appropriating to his 
 own use the fruits of their laborious studies. Games of 
 strength and skill he cared not for, but at games of 
 chance his smartness cost his mates no small share of 
 their slender allowance of pocket money.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PIETISM AND PROGRESS. 
 
 Somewhere about the age of fifteen this education was 
 brought to a close by a very natural event. Timothy's 
 thrifty mother had heard that a shipbroker in the town 
 wanted a smart lad as messenger and general office 
 drudge. Timothy, it occurred to her, was a smart lad, 
 and as he would one day have to earn his living, he 
 might just as well begin at once. Prompt action fol- 
 lowed this thought. The boy was inspected by the 
 broker and accepted on the spot. A joyful boy was he. 
 The shipowner was an expanding man in a large way of 
 business, and had once and again made clerks in his 
 office partners in the firm, as preliminary to a mortal 
 and everlasting rupture with them. Timothy then, was 
 delighted, for he had already begun to dream of a greater 
 future than was embraced within the range of the 
 mutton pie fame. It was, therefore, with high hopes 
 that he entered on his duties, throwing his primers 
 behind him. 
 
 But his mind soon underwent disillusionment. To be 
 office messenger for Mr. Brown, Mr. Silas Brown, 
 Deacon Silas Brown, to arrive at the full glory, was all 
 very well, but to be office fag to all the clerks was not
 
 1 6 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 so well. Timothy resented the way these clerks treated 
 him with all the force of his nature, but he was much too 
 prudent a lad to disclose his feelings. No : he bent before 
 the blows and kicks distributed freely for his benefit ; 
 answered meekly, when sworn at, and strove his best to 
 please everybody. He was a supple lad in short, but 
 holding hard to a fixed idea, even when most doubled 
 up. Come what might, kick and curse who might, 
 Timothy had entered that office resolved to get on, and 
 he did get on. The very hatred which his meek syco- 
 phancy inspired amongst the clerks in a sense assisted 
 him in getting on, endowed him with a determination to 
 show them one day what he could do. 
 
 Amongst the maternal duties which Mrs. Buncombe 
 of the pies had in great measure neglected was the 
 inculcation of religious dogma. The good lady, not 
 discerning perhaps, what she could get by it, never went 
 to church herself, and put no constraint upon any 
 member of her family to go, so that it would have been 
 hard to say whether she leaned most towards the 
 establishment or towards dissent. And her son was 
 naturally in this indeterminate condition of mind when 
 he became an inmate of Deacon Silas Brown's office. 
 Not long did he remain in that unregenerate state. 
 Deacon Brown was a " leading pillar," a " shining light," 
 or something of that sort, in the most fashionable 
 Independent Chapel of Berborough, With that intuitive 
 genius which afterwards so distinctly marked off Timothy 
 Buncombe from his fellow men, the lad no sooner 
 ascertained the truth about his master in this respect,
 
 PIETISM AND PROGRESS. \j 
 
 than he decided to go to that chapel likewise. Without 
 in any way seeming to thrust himself forward, he dutifully 
 attended divine service twice every Sunday, and filled up 
 the afternoon by going to the Sunday School, which he 
 found to be an institution specially under the patronage 
 of his employer. 
 
 As Master Timothy had perhaps calculated, " exemp- 
 lary " behaviour of this kind on the part of a youth 
 whose "spiritual education " had been notoriously over- 
 looked, soon began to attract the attention of Mr. Brown. 
 The deacon took a fancy for the quiet well-behaved lad, 
 and, when opportunity arose promoted him, because, 
 being young, he was obtainable cheap. 
 
 Thus it came about that before he had attained the 
 age of twenty-one, Timothy Buncombe had risen to be 
 chief of the outward freight department of the office, a 
 post which brought him into daily contact with all the 
 Berborough merchants who had goods to send abroad. 
 The duties of this post Timothy fulfilled with so much 
 cleverness that his employer began to be quite proud of 
 him. The pious deacon considered the lad as in some 
 sort of his own rearing, and grew to repose a trust in 
 him which his past experience of clerks and of clerk 
 partners, had made him vow — Mr. Brown always vowed, 
 never swore — he would never place in any human being 
 again. 
 
 Nor was it at the office alone that Timothy throve 
 and advanced. From being a sweet-tempered Sunday 
 school scholar who might perhaps shed a tear, but who 
 never hit the boy who stuck pins in him, or peached in 
 
 i;
 
 1 8 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 public on the sneak who dropped cayenne pepper down 
 his back, Timothy had developed into the position of a 
 teacher, equally sweet tempered and " exemplary." He 
 attended week-day prayer meetings too, and led the 
 tenor voices in the choir on Sunday, with an unction of 
 look and manner that proved most edifying to more than 
 one old woman of the flock. " He was such a nice good 
 young man," they said ; '' and to think what a poor 'ome 
 he had." 
 
 Ay, there was the rub. This matter of " 'ome " was 
 
 the one supreme trouble of Timothy's life at that time. 
 
 His father was indeed gone for good ere this, but the 
 
 mother remained, still in her pie shop. The fame of 
 
 those mutton pies Timothy began to look at in the light 
 
 of a direct personal insult to himself. It lowered his 
 
 social " status " in the eyes of the well-to-do Christians 
 
 of the fashionable dissenting flock, among whom " his 
 
 lot had been cast," to be known as the son of a pie wife 
 
 in a back street in the poor quarters of the town. In 
 
 the eyes of the best scented and most expensively 
 
 dressed godliness which shone in dazzling humility, an 
 
 example to the congregation, this was a damaging 
 
 circumstance there was no getting over. Had Mrs. 
 
 Buncombe been poor, and come begging and whining 
 
 round the flock in her poverty, something of this 
 
 vulgarity might have been forgiven. Timothy could in 
 
 that case have figured before men as a living example 
 
 of the democratic charity and brotherly love of the 
 
 independent order of Christians. Mrs. Buncombe, 
 
 however, had enough for her wants, and scorned church
 
 PIETISM AND PROGRESS. 19 
 
 and chapel alike, and her son was therefore a brand 
 saved from the burning indeed, but one all too hot and 
 smoky to be familiarly handled. 
 
 As Mrs. Peregrine Wipple, the wife of the senior 
 deacon of the chapel put it to her friends, " How can I 
 invite this young man to my monthly tea parties when 
 I have four daughters all unmarried, each of whom, by the 
 blessing of the Lord, will take a portion of three thousand 
 pounds to the man as has her." 
 
 How indeed ! Until he got his mother out of her shop, 
 and out of the way, Timothy's matrimonial chances were 
 as good as nothing at all among the daughters of the 
 sanctified well-to-do. Oft and again was this truth 
 "borne in upon his spirit" as he saw himself left out in 
 the cold, and had it not been for the success which his 
 piety brought him on the office side of his career, it is 
 doubtful whether Timothy w*~>uld have possessed the 
 strength to persevere. To be meek in the office in the 
 cuffing and kicking days was easy compared with the 
 task now set him at the chapel. Happily his blood was 
 not of the boiling sort, and in submitting to be con- 
 descended upon by the big people of the congregation, 
 Timothy was at least acquiring the first principles of the 
 art of condescending to others for his own future use. 
 
 I lis office successes consoled him, did I say? Well, 
 they did ; yet, strange as it will seem to intelligent 
 students of this model biography, Timothy had still an 
 uneasy time of it with his brother clerks. They no 
 longer, of course, struck him with fist or foot, but their 
 tongues often smote full as sore. Reprobates that they
 
 20 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 were, these clerks called his meek piety " humbug," and 
 they lost no opportunity that rudeness could give, or 
 malice create, of indicating their perverted view of what 
 they vulgarly described as " Young Bunny's lickspittle 
 toadying to old ' Skin-'em-alive.' " Much of this low- 
 class ill-will may be ascribed to jealousy. By the time 
 he was twenty-three, Timothy had become the confidant 
 and right hand man of Deacon Brown, his employer, 
 leaping into that position clear over the heads of men 
 old enough to be his father. What more natural, then, 
 than that these men, being unregenerate, should hate 
 him, speak evil of him behind his back, and throw open 
 or covert sneers at him before his face. 
 
 The very " exemplariness " of the young man was a 
 standing reproach to some of the supplanted. They 
 persisted in getting drunk now and then on festive 
 occasions ; Timothy drank water. They were not always 
 scrupulously clean in morals; Timothy avoided "strange 
 women " as the Levite avoided the man fallen among 
 thieves. Most of the younger clerks — half-a-dozen, I 
 believe — laid bets on horses, boat races, or regattas. 
 The words " bet," " wager," " sweep," &c, were never 
 heard to pass the lips of the holy young man, who was 
 his master's delight. Timothy, in short, was a perfect 
 being, whereas his fellows were quite ordinary creatures. 
 So they misunderstood him, and made things rough for 
 him when they could. One day, when an irate old 
 skipper called him a " snivelling young hypocrite " in 
 the office, these reprobates broke into sounds very like a 
 muffled cheer.
 
 PIETISM AND PROGRESS. 21 
 
 But drags of this sort did the young man good after all. 
 The more the demi-gods and goddesses of the chapel 
 condescended, the more the clerks of Deacon Brown's 
 office jibed and sneered, the more determined did 
 Timothy become to be even with them — in his own way 
 and time. To, as it were, throw down the gauntlet to the 
 gilded saints at the chapel he zealously organised a 
 "young men's society for Bible study," which assembled 
 on Sunday mornings at ten. Of this class he took the 
 lead, and in " expounding the Scriptures " to it he 
 acquired additional glibness of tongue. 
 
 At the office no counter demonstration of this kind 
 was facile, but as a means to an end, Timothy took 
 increased pains to possess himself of his master's business 
 secrets. This he succeeded in doing to an extent which 
 Mr. Brown never suspected. No letter escaped him, a 
 glance at the page of his masters private ledger, the 
 tone of voice with which a remark would be dropped 
 in the ear of a caller, any and every clue Timothy laid 
 hold of for increasing his web of knowledge. And he 
 was so meek and soft looking amid all this prying that 
 his master trusted him more and more, which was a 
 strange thing enough in so great a player on the gulli- 
 bility of his fellow men. 
 
 Deacon Brown was one of the most militantly religious 
 men in Berborough, and a professed teetotaler. Never- 
 theless, he kept a bottle of brandy in a cupboard in his 
 room, and he had by no means a high reputation for 
 uprightness among his trading neighbours. He ought, 
 therefore, to have been suspicious of Timothy Buncombe,
 
 22 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 and the more that young man struck the zealot's attitude, 
 the more should he have been on his guard. This, at 
 any rate, is what you and I think we should have been. 
 But we pronounce in haste. The deacon confided in 
 Timothy, not because he believed in his expressions of 
 piety, but because he considered the young man simple 
 enough to think that they were genuine and that they 
 would wear. To his mind Timothy's pietism was an 
 unsophisticated thing, the product of a raw, enthusiastic, 
 innocent mind. Hence his confidence ; but had he been 
 aware that Timothy knew all about his brandy bottle, 
 and his little tricks of trade in the shipping line, his views 
 might, no doubt, have been what yours and mine 
 would be.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MARRIAGE AND MISCALCULATION. 
 
 FROM the course of this narrative it will be clear to the 
 reader that Timothy Buncombe was at this period of his 
 life both sharp and sly. I do not wish to combat 
 that view of his character for one moment, and yet it 
 must be admitted, however reluctantly, that the young" 
 man was not sharp all round. He had his weak side,, 
 and it was to be found, I think, in the determination he 
 had so early arrived at to get on in the world, somehow. 
 His eagerness, in this respect, caused him to be rash at 
 times, and, as this history will shew, led him into more 
 than one unfortunate mistake during the course of his 
 active life. 
 
 The first of these mistakes consisted in taking to 
 himself a wife. The Sir Timothy of to-day hints in his 
 open moments, I believe, that this has been the only 
 mistake he ever committed. Be that as it may, Timothy 
 did unquestionably perpetrate the blunder of marriage. 
 I do not excuse him for so doing. It may have been 
 chapel morality, with its desperate severity on strange 
 women and lean purses ; it may have been sudden pas- 
 sion, I cannot quite say. Nor indeed are we concerned 
 with aught save the great fact, and how it occurred.
 
 24 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 The motives of the smart, pushing young man, were 
 without doubt, mixed ; but then an eminent dissenting 
 divine has taught us that all men's motives are so. 
 Timothy therefore cannot be censured on that ground 
 alone ; nor would it be wise, perhaps, to censure him on 
 any ground hastily, as you must see, when all the 
 history of this blunder is known to you, 
 
 First of all, the isolated position of the young man has 
 to be duly weighed. Since first the silk clad matrons of the 
 flock overlooked him, he had to some degree risen in the 
 social scale. At the age of twenty-three he was earning 
 one hundred pounds a year, exclusive of perquisites from 
 shippers, insurance agents, and such like. His mother 
 too had sold her pie shop, invested the proceeds and 
 other savings in an annuity, and retired along with her 
 youngest daughter to a snug cottage about twenty 
 miles from Berborough, so that though the Buncombe 
 pies still commanded fame, Buncombe's self was in no 
 wise connected with them. Nevertheless, the stale 
 odours of his low origin hung about him and kept the 
 " 'omes" of Deacon Wipple and other rich holy persons of 
 Goliath chapel closed to him for all practical purposes. 
 Timothy, through no fault of his own, let us admit, had 
 consequently to seek his society in lower social grades, 
 where wealth might be, but where refinement certainly 
 was not. Need I say more to justify him in falling in 
 love with the buxom round cheeked, giggling, ignorant, 
 vain little maiden, Miss Penelope Drabble? Did I say 
 fall in love ? Forgive me ; the language is conventional, 
 but in this instance, perhaps, inapposite. Timothy
 
 MARRIAGE AND MISCALCULATION. 25 
 
 liked the lass, but loved her guineas — in prospect — 
 more. 
 
 Of actual wealth Miss Penelope had none. She was 
 an orphan, and resided with an uncle and aunt, who 
 had no child. This uncle, Mr. Bob Cutler by name, 
 kept a dingy, not over clean, chandler's shop on the quay 
 of the outer harbour. It had not a high reputation this 
 shop, but that was entirely because of its owner. Mr. 
 Cutler traded much with sailors, with the skippers of 
 small coasting vessels, and the like. In the course of 
 business he had acquired a reputation for exacting high 
 interest, and for smuggling propensities second to none 
 in Berborough. But Mr. Bob Cutler had never been 
 caught by the authorities, so that the only definite 
 product of this reputation was an increase of respect on 
 the part of his immediate neighbours, by whom he was 
 reputed to be wealthy. It was an obvious inference 
 deduced from his long success as a trafficker in question- 
 able goods with questionable men. Outwardly, however, 
 the old ship's chandler was just the same ill clad, rough, 
 swearing, untidy fellow he had been thirty years before. 
 
 Had the matter depended upon him, Mr. Timothy 
 Buncombe, the primly proper young man, would never 
 have committed the mistake of marrying Miss Penelope 
 Drabble. The orbits of the two men could never have 
 crossed. All the blame of this mishap must rest with 
 Mrs. Cutler and the girl herself. Both of them attended 
 chapel regularly every Sunday, and Miss Penelope — her 
 aunt called her Penny, " for short" — effected the conquest 
 of Mr. Timothy Buncombe in her capacity as a member
 
 26 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 of the chapel choir. Her noisy habit of continuous loud 
 giggling first attracted his attention, and then he heard 
 of her money. After that he paid more attention to her 
 until the giggle was for him subdued into a purr. By 
 and by the habit grew up of seeing the young lady home 
 from the choir practisings, and that in its turn paved the 
 way for invitations on the part of Mrs. Cutler, to stay and 
 have a bit of supper. Insensibly a friendly intimacy was 
 established with the entire household, even Mr. Bob 
 Cutler himself condescending occasionally to abuse 
 radicals and parsons for Timothy's benefit. 
 
 Were the " inward truth " of the matter known it is 
 probable that Mrs. Cutler would be found to have done 
 her best to entangle this modest, innocent young man 
 with her niece. Gossips did allege this to her credit or 
 debit, but without other proof than that supplied by the 
 old woman's extreme graciousness of bearing to the 
 " dear young man who alleys looked so pale and 
 interestin' like," and by the unquestioned fact that she, 
 good woman, had poor relations of her own — Penny 
 was her husband's niece — to whom she not unnaturally 
 wished some of the usurious smuggler's hoard to pass. 
 Penny once out of sight, it was possible that she might 
 be out of mind when Mr. Cutler's last will and testament 
 came to be made. 
 
 I am not sure, though, that the gossips of that day did 
 know of this motive, for Mrs. Cutler never vaunted her 
 blood relations, but Timothy Buncombe had plenty of 
 scope for suspicion of her motives in after years. At the 
 time he engaged himself to wed Miss Penelope he knew
 
 MA R RIA GE A ND MIS CA L CUL A TION. 2 7 
 
 nothing at all. On the contrary, his mind was more and 
 more fixed upon the lift in life the marriage would give 
 him, for he had heard the old uncle swear at tenants 
 behind with their rents, or demanding repairs and so on, 
 expressions which increased the ardour of his affection 
 more and more for the lady of his choice. Visions of a 
 partnership with Mr. Silas Brown would rise before him 
 and set his bosom aglow with such a fierce heat that he 
 deceived himself, and felt convinced of an overpowering 
 affection for his betrothed. In the pale auroral light of 
 his day dreams she sometimes appeared to him almost 
 beautiful, whereas he knew in his duller hours that she 
 was in a manner commonplace, her private adventure 
 ladies' seminary varnish notwithstanding. 
 
 A more surprising contrast, indeed, than these two 
 people presented then and ever afterwards could scarcely 
 be imagined. Mr. Timothy was tall, rather dark, and 
 thin. He had a sharp, prominent nose ; a high, lumpy, 
 but rather retreating forehead ; small, glittering, gery 
 eyes ; a large, but firmly lined, mouth, with small regular 
 teeth, and a square, massive, though remarkably short, 
 chin. His arms were long in proportion to his height, 
 five feet eleven inches, and his hands were thin, with 
 tapering bony fingers. 
 
 Miss Penelope, on the other hand, was, as I have 
 already remarked, short and stout. The most imagi- 
 native of male bipeds could not have held her to be a 
 beauty. At her then age of nineteen she had a fresh 
 clear complexion, no doubt ; but her enemies, and rivals 
 perhaps, in the choir were not unjust in declaring that
 
 28 SIR 77 M O THY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 she had not a good feature in her face. Not even her 
 eyes were good. They were largish, but without glow, 
 and of a pale kind of brown that promised early fading. 
 As for her other features, to take them in order, her 
 forehead was low and round, not square ; a heavy thatch 
 of frizzy, brown hair hung over it, hiding the parting 
 often, and bestowing on her a slightly unkempt look. 
 Flattish bright red cheeks but ill supported this pent 
 house-like upper storey. They were in keeping, how- 
 ever, with the nose, which was not fiat exactly, nor yet 
 true pug, but stunted and knobby. Fleshy lips, that 
 were always wide open to display large, strong, and ill- 
 arranged teeth, and a round fat chin, with a dimple in it, 
 completed an inane sort of countenance, prepossessing 
 merely in its freshness. 
 
 Her habit of giggling always when young men were 
 near, earned her the reputation of merry-hearted ness — 
 a reputation her wooer accepted without demur or 
 question. I dare not truthfully avow that he troubled 
 himself much with any of the qualities of his bride, 
 mental or physical, so far away was he in the land of his 
 dreams, during his courting days. Only when the die was 
 cast did Mr. Timothy ruefully open his eyes to the fact 
 that his wife was, in spite of the seminary varnish, 
 ignorant and underbred ; ignorant, not merely of polite 
 learning, but of the commonest attributes of housewifery; 
 so indescribably ignorant, that when they returned from 
 their honeymoon he had to instruct her how to make a 
 cup of coffee. Her plan, and she asserted it was her 
 immaculate aunt's, was to put ground coffee in the cup
 
 MARRIAGE AND MISCALCULATION. 29 
 
 and pour boiling water over it. When the mixture 
 settled, if it did settle, the beverage was ready. 
 
 Attempts at instruction on small matters of this kind 
 soon disclosed to Mr. Timothy Buncombe that he had 
 been rash in setting his bride down as a good humoured 
 woman. To his amazement he found that she was 
 petulent, wilful, impatient of the least contradiction, full 
 of the spirit of grumbling, and above all, jealous of her 
 skill and knowledge just where she possessed least of 
 either. In short, Miss Penelope Drabble, when meta- 
 morphosed into Mrs.Timothy Buncombe,approved herself 
 the spoilt child of her vulgar old uncle. Like him she 
 was whimsically obstinate, uncouth in manners and 
 speech, and credulous of absurdities as any witch 
 worshipper of the middle ages. If now and then a faint 
 suspicion of all this did cross Mr. Timothy Buncombe's 
 mind before marriage it was instantly swept away 
 by the remembrance of the good stroke of fortune 
 he was playing. His wife would have money. Ah, 
 how sweet that phrase sounds in the mammon believer's 
 ear ! Fairness compels me, however, to call the reader's 
 attention to the young man's complete ignorance of the 
 society of cultivated, well bred women. Far down in the 
 scale as his bride was, she was higher by several degrees 
 than his mother had been. That hard working woman 
 used the language of a trooper when her temper was 
 active, which was generally, if we can believe tradition, 
 all day long. 
 
 When all is said I still feel that this marriage of a 
 great man is a thing not to be lightly got over. He
 
 30 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 must have been infatuated after all with the girl, else, 
 how on earth did he come to neglect the money question 
 when the wedding was decided upon and the " 'appy day'' 
 fixed ? Perhaps Mr. Bob Cutler's large way of talking 
 lulled his acquisitive instinct to sleep. 
 
 But it is no use : I really cannot account for this 
 weakness on the part of so great a man. All I can plead 
 in his behalf is that he never did the like again. "Love " 
 may have been in the case — love of a sort — and over 
 sanguineness ; ignorance, too, of Mrs. Cutler's designs on 
 behalf of her own relations. It is a painful subject 
 altogether, which I would fain avoid. But alas ; there 
 stands the hard fact — Timothy Buncombe got married— 
 not secretly in a hole and corner way, but openly in the 
 full blaze of congregational publicity and newspaper 
 advertisement. There, in Goliath Chapel, on a bleak 
 December morning, the youthful couple stood and vowed 
 eternal love. It was a Saturday morning. Timothy had 
 obtained a few days' holiday for the puraose of getting 
 the matrimonial knot tied. 
 
 But bleak as the day was it did not prevent the chapel 
 from being attended by a tolerably large crowd of 
 witnesses. Old maids were there, and young, sighing 
 over the lost past, dreaming of like scenes in the near 
 future. Some, perhaps, stood there to gaze upon the 
 burial of a hope, for Timothy Buncombe was as 
 popular as all pious young men are in chapel flocks, and 
 may have been loved in secret by more than one sweet 
 maid. These bade him farewell in their hearts, and sent 
 him parting gifts.
 
 MARRIAGE AND MISCALCULATION. 31 
 
 Indeed, for a poor man, the number of the marriage 
 presents showered upon Timothy was quite surprising, 
 especially when it is considered that the ceremony took 
 place before the days when such presents are levied 
 upon the friends and foes of brides and bridegrooms 
 with all the unpitying ruthlessness of parish taxes. 
 Shall we see in this phenomenon also " mixed motives ? " 
 
 You can if you like. I say nothing, but in my own 
 mind have nc doubt that both Mrs. Deacon Wipple and 
 Mrs. Deacon Brown, with other pious matrons who had 
 daughters to marry well, felt deep gratitude to their 
 Providence and to Mr. Timothy Buncombe, that for them 
 all danger was over. That they should express this 
 gratitude in little gifts to the happy pair, was, you will 
 allow, only natural. 
 
 From one cause or another the presents were numer- 
 ous. Timothy's employer presented him with a hand- 
 some chapel hymn-book with tunes, bound in French 
 morocco. It had a long pious inscription on the fly-leaf. 
 His Sunday morning Bible class subscribed together, and 
 gave him a huge inkstand, in imitation cut glass, with 
 plenty of brass ornaments about it, and a penholder 
 warranted unusable. A suitable inscription adorned this 
 present likewise. One old lady admirer presented the 
 bridegroom with a Bible of the S. P. C. K., bound in roan. 
 Even the minister of the flock himself felt moved to 
 " bestow his mite," as he put it, which mite consisted in 
 a copy, price two shillings, of the " Evidences of Christi- 
 anity," by some unknown American Divine. As for the 
 bride, gloves and pocket-handkerchiefs were showered
 
 32 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 upon her by the dozen pairs, and pin-cushions and anti- 
 macassars ; and from the uncle and aunt a pair of fifteen- 
 carat gold earrings and a silver-gilt brooch set with 
 pebbles. When the newly-wedded pair came to add up 
 these possessions, products of the " love " of their friends, 
 they found that, besides the articles I have enumerated, 
 they possessed two bibles — one a cheap family bible — 
 five pencil-cases, say silver, four hymn-books, two "Sturm's 
 Reflections," and three " Bogatzky's Golden Treasury ; * 
 a thimble, also silver, and nearly a dozen " ladies' com- 
 panions," or other similar pocket books for the new year. 
 
 Altogether the wedding was a triumphant success from 
 every point of view, except one. The most pious and' 
 truth-speaking devotee, male or female, in the whole flock 
 could scarcely lift up voice and assert that the pair were 
 well matched. As the two stood by the pulpit, listening 
 to the ceremony which was to make them one, they 
 presented a great contrast indeed, but not a match. The 
 tall, dark, sallow-faced, clean shaven young man bent 
 over the stout little ruddy woman in front of him as a 
 gaunt fir-tree might be imagined to overshadow a gaudy 
 poppy. 
 
 " But, bless your heart, looks aint nothing at all to do 
 with 'appiness." as Mrs. Cutler dogmatically asserted 
 twenty times a day to her neighbour gossips when dis- 
 cussing the chances and prospects of her " darling 
 Penny " as the wife of this tall, ascetic-looking young 
 Christian professor. And she may have been right. 
 Had other things been equal, it is possible that Timothy 
 Buncombe and his wife might have jogged along in the
 
 MARRIAGE AND MISCALCULATION. 33 
 
 quietude of provincial obscurity till their journey's end. 
 But then there would have been no occasion to write this 
 history ; there would have been no Sir Timothy, perhaps ; 
 nothing great and resplendent to record. A good wife, 
 even a well-to-do wife, might have lulled ambition to 
 sleep. 
 
 As matters turned out, the blasting of Mr. Timothy 
 Buncombe's expectations — not in the woman, she was at 
 best quite secondary in his imagination — but in regard to 
 the cash proved just the spur required to impel him on 
 his high career. The foolish young man — I write it in 
 sadness — had indulged his fond imagination with the 
 pleasant hope that the warm-hearted uncle would present 
 him with a thousand pounds at least to start the world 
 with. It was a .hope destined to suffer cruel wreck. 
 When the newly yoked pair entered the cab which was to 
 convey them to the station after the wedding breakfast 
 had been duly consumed, Mr. Cutler followed them, and 
 thrust a five-pound note into the bridegroom's hand with 
 a wink, and a " Here you are, my boy, go and enjoy 
 yourselves, and this'll 'elp pay the reck'ning. By-by : 
 'eaven bless ye both." 
 
 They were going to Harrogate to stay from Saturday 
 night till the following Wednesday morning, so that Mr. 
 Cutler had evidently decided not to allow them too much 
 latitude of purse. But he slapped his nephew-in-law on 
 the back so cheerily as he pushed him into the cab after 
 his bride, and waved his hand so demonstratively as they 
 rolled away, that when Timothy examined the note he 
 felt little surprised. This is an earnest of what is to
 
 34 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 come, he thought. Still, five pounds was rather little, 
 unaccompanied as it was by any promise of more. 
 
 More ! There seemed to be no thought of more even 
 when the pair came back and commenced housekeeping. 
 A week passed, a fortnight, and no money came, nor hint 
 of money. Timothy grew sulky, then cross with his wife, 
 then in a rage with himself, and finally took a resolution. 
 He would procure by softness and guile, as it were, what 
 had been denied him by right. Raging at his wife he 
 found led to no good result whatever. It only served 
 to reveal to him the fact that she likewise had a tongue, 
 and a sharp one, too. Therefore he took the soft way, 
 and smiled and spoke gently as of yore. 
 
 By this method he soon resumed such an ascendancy 
 over Mrs. Timothy that she was ready to play the beggar 
 for him with her uncle. This also turned out a poor 
 speculation. Mrs. Timothy wept, Mrs. Timothy raged, 
 Mrs. Timothy objurgated and made herself a torment to 
 the old man, and all she got by her labour was a miserable 
 fifty pounds, doled out reluctantly, note by note, over a 
 period of nearly six months, by the hard-fisted wretch. 
 At the end of that time the aunt intervened, and plainly 
 told Mrs. Timothy that " if this 'ere yapping after her 
 'usband's 'ard won savin's wasn't dropped," she, Mrs. 
 Cutler, would forbid her the house. Oh, the chagrin of 
 it ! Gloom, despair, disgust ; what passion save love 
 and pity exists in human hearts that Timothy Buncombe 
 did not feel when this threat reached his ears. For this 
 had he married a dowdy, as, in his rage, he called his 
 ivife — for this, oh, horror, wrecked his prospects in life.
 
 MARRIAGE AND MISCALCULATION. 35 
 
 Let us leave him to his meditations and curses. The 
 pen I possess is not strong enough to depict the conflict 
 which raged in that great man's soul at this time. Here 
 was he, barely twenty-four years of age, a married man, 
 with the prospects of having a family, settled down in a 
 miserable little cottage with a stupid wife and a salary of 
 one hundred pounds per annum, with small prospect of its 
 ever reaching two hundred pounds. Contrast the actual 
 fact with the day dream, and imagine the mind of 
 Timothy Buncombe if you are able. If not, do as I do, 
 leave him alone. 
 
 He had only one hope left ; Robert Cutler, Esquire, 
 landlord of working-class tenements in bad repair and 
 overcrowded, ship chandler, money lender, and dealer in 
 smuggled goods, must die some day, and then the money 
 he hoarded might come to Mrs. Timothy. Alas ! so 
 relentless is fate, even this hope did not last out the first 
 year of wedded life. In one of their now frequent tiffs 
 his wife, his " Dear Penny," let out some of her aunt's 
 family secrets. " She had two nieces, three nephews, and 
 ever so many cousins among the miners of Forgeshire," 
 said Mrs. Penelope, " and she declares as how she'll make 
 my uncle leave all's money to them if we don't mind 
 what we're about." 
 
 This was the last straw. Speechless over it before 
 men, Mr. Timothy, pious still and " exemplary," could 
 only pray out his grief. At the next weekly prayer 
 meeting he is reported to have held forth in this strain : 
 
 " Oh, Lord God, this is a wicked, wicked world. It is 
 full of the habitations of horrid cruelty, which man would
 
 36 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 hide even from Thine eyes, oh, Lord God. Men are 
 possessed with greed, and hoard up gold instead of 
 looking to the welfare of their souls. The poor are 
 oppressed that some may walk in the vain show of 
 ill-gotten wealth. But Thou knowest all things, oh ! 
 Lord, and in Thy sight the darkest secrets of man's 
 iniquity stand revealed clear as the sun at noon. When 
 Thou dost choose to exert Thy might all wrongs shall 
 be righted and all the oppressed set free." 
 
 " A beautiful prayer," the devotees said, and so it was, 
 no doubt, because the heart of the speaker was charged 
 with his own wrongs. The Cutlers, husband and wife, 
 were his oppressors, and in his devotions he cursed them. 
 To the old women of the prayer meeting, this was a 
 beautiful, because a sincere prayer, one that quite justified 
 the observation several of them made that the dear 
 young man's marriage seemed to have developed a deeper 
 vein of piety in him than he had ever shown before. 
 The Dissenting divine was right. Men's motives are 
 mixed. 
 
 Timothy had married for money, heeding not the 
 woman much, and lo ! the woman was now everything. 
 It might have been so had the cash come with her, for 
 these gilded marriages mostly bring the despised woman 
 to the first place, whether she be hid in sacks of gold or 
 not. It is with the woman, not with the fortune, the 
 husband finds he has to do.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A FOUNDERED SHIP, AND JONAH IN THE WHALE'S 
 
 BELLY. 
 
 PROFOUNDLY interesting as the study of the earlier 
 development of Mr. Timothy Buncombe's character is, 
 I must, nevertheless, leave him for a time, to expand as it 
 were in darkness and silence, enjoying what domestic 
 bliss was open to him. This I feel to be necessary, both 
 for the reader's sake and my own. A too painfully 
 minute portraiture might be disagreeable. Besides, at this 
 point it becomes necessary to the proper understanding 
 of the great man's future career, that a closer acquain- 
 tance should be made with Timothy's employer — Mr., or 
 Deacon, Silas Brown. 
 
 Considering indeed the deacon's own peculiar great- 
 ness, it is to no small extent a slight upon him that he 
 has been so long neglected, left unintroduced, as it were. 
 In his own esteem, at all events, Mr. Brown was one of 
 the greatest men in Berborough, and decidedly the most 
 important member of Goliath chapel. If not exactly 
 wealthy, he was reputed to be so, and he laid much 
 stress upon the claims to consideration which this repute 
 gave him, not merely amongst his brother merchants, 
 but, above all, at the chapel. There his standing grievance
 
 38 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 consisted in not being senior deacon. "Old Wipple " 
 held that position in virtue of his years, and of the 
 unquestioned length of his purse. In Deacon Brown's 
 eyes, therefore, his senior was little better than an inter- 
 loper, but mercifully the long-pursed provision dealer 
 lacked one great gift which Mr. Brown considered that 
 he himself possessed in a degree excelling most preachers 
 of the Word. Deacon Wipple could deliver extempore 
 prayers in a style that afforded much edification to the 
 faithful, but he could not make a speech, whereas 
 Deacon Brown was able to harangue by the hour. This 
 was an immense advantage to the younger man. By his 
 tongue power he was able to thrust himself forward on 
 all public occasions when speeches were in demand. On 
 emergencies he had been known even to occupy the 
 pulpit, and to deliver a discourse there, which, if it did 
 not exactly edify the flock, at least gave the envious 
 much to sneer at. Their malevolent comments gratified 
 Deacon Brown perhaps as much as praise would have done. 
 A man must be something to be worth back-biting. 
 
 Deacon Brown's gifts, however, shone most conspicu- 
 ously in the Sunday school. There he reigned in unob- 
 scured splendour, with no deacon of the batch to meddle 
 with him, surrounded by a troop of obsequious " teachers " 
 and overawed scholars. So great was his power that he 
 never scrupled to interrupt the routine of lessons in order 
 to bestow upon the assembled youths of both sexes an 
 address from himself. He called himself visiting super- 
 intendent, and came to the school when the spirit 
 moved him to make a speech.
 
 A FOUNDERED SHIP. 39 
 
 " It struck me this morning, dear brothers and sisters 
 in the Lord," he would remark, " that I should like to 
 say a few words to the young of the flock to-day, and, if 
 you are agreeable, I am ready." 
 
 Of course they were agreeable. Had they spoken the 
 truth they might not perhaps have admitted that they 
 loved much to hear Mr. Brown, but they would assuredly 
 have owned to loving what they were pleased to call 
 teaching less. Truth, however, was not in question, so the 
 teachers pressed around their dear visiting superintendent, 
 and abetted him in his whims. Acquiescence is always 
 easiest to the mass of mankind, especially acquiescence 
 which earns a fee. A ready obedience to the desires of 
 Deacon Brown meant frequent invitations to patronising 
 family teas, and "social gatherings" at his house — "my 
 unpretending 'ome," he called it. 
 
 Tradition in Goliath chapel still retains some memories 
 of these Sunday afternoon exhibitions of oratory, and if 
 that fibbing old jade lies not, they were wonderful in their 
 way. Usually the deacon discoursed upon a parable, or 
 an event in Old Testament history ; but no matter what 
 the ostensible theme might be he always worked in the 
 same peroration, delivered in a wheezy voice, as if the 
 speaker's soul were stirred within him by emotions too 
 deep for tears. " Repent, my deeyar children, repent, 
 and fear the Lord, and you will be kept as the apple of 
 His eye. Ah ! my deeyar young friends, repentance is 
 the most blessed thing on earth, for without repentance 
 wc cannot get to heaven to sing among the angels of 
 God." Such was the burden of his homily always.
 
 40 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 In personal appearance Silas Brown was not for- 
 bidding. He was a stout-built man of middle height, fat 
 about the stomach, but by no means repulsively so. 
 The most characteristic feature about him was his hair, 
 which was thick and grey, and cut so short that it stood 
 straight up all over his head like hog's bristles. This 
 gave the man a bull-dog look, and the effect was not 
 lessened by the rest of his face. He had rather a flabby 
 countenance, and it was endowed with large prominent 
 eyes, furzy eyebrows, and a wide, irregular mouth, whose 
 fangy yellow teeth looked least pleasant when seen in 
 their owner's times of holy mirth. Mr. Brown's forehead 
 was an ill-shaped dome, and he was very proud of it, 
 because a phrenologist had told him that a high forehead 
 meant benevolence. Possibly it was in order to confirm 
 the effect of this benevolent feature that Mr. Brown cut 
 his hair so short. The hard, bristly, grey stubble that 
 stood thick and defiant all round the dome, gleamed at a 
 distance like a halo round the ruddy brow, increasing at 
 once the apparent stature and the awesomeness of the 
 great deacon. Minus very thick-soled boots and erect 
 hair he might have been considered dumpy. 
 
 One great addition to Mr. Brown's gifts and graces 
 which never failed to strike terror into the hearts of 
 young offenders was the habit he had carefully cul- 
 tivated of rolling his large prominent eyes hither and 
 thither and all around when speaking in public. They 
 rested nowhere, those eyes of his, and while they 
 rolled the heavy eyebrows worked convulsively up 
 and down.
 
 A FOUNDERED SHIP. 41 
 
 But why elaborate this description, when, thanks to the 
 events impending, we can look at him in the life as 
 he habitually stood, moved, and spoke when the spirit of 
 homilising was upon him in the Sunday school. The 
 memory of his last harangue survives still in musty 
 corners of Berborough memories because of what 
 followed it, and strange to say it formed a link in the 
 chain of Timothy Buncombe's life. But for that speech 
 Timothy might have been still an obscure father, not of a 
 "family," but of mere "straddling bipeds " like himself. 
 This is how it all happened. 
 
 Late one Saturday night Mr. Silas Brown had received 
 intimation of the loss of a ship of his in the Baltic. For 
 reasons to be disclosed, he had been anxious about 
 this ship, and it may be inferred that any news, even 
 the most sorrowful, was a relief to him. That 
 his emotions were profoundly stirred by what he did 
 hear, I do not deny, but neither dare I assert that they 
 were emotions of profound sorrow. Ships had been lost 
 by him before, without his having been known to weep. 
 On all such occasions, however, he had taken the earliest 
 opportunity to "say a word to the dear children " of the 
 Sunday school, and late as the hour was when the sad 
 news reached him this time, he felt that so excellent a 
 habit must be adhered to. 
 
 Next day, accordingly, he appeared in the school-room 
 soon after classes had commenced, and intimated to Mr. 
 Timothy Buncombe — still a diligent teacher — and to the 
 other assiduous young Christians, that a grievous 
 catastrophe had befallen him, whereby he was " moved
 
 42 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 in spirit to pour forth his soul in a short address to the 
 dear little ones." Of course the teachers were agreeable, 
 and it is to be inferred that the scholars felt no reluctance, 
 for when the word passed round to suspend lessons and 
 arrange classes, the room was filled with a cheerful bustle, 
 in the midst of which Mr. Silas Brown ascended the 
 superintendent's desk. 
 
 Once in the desk the great deacon felt himself above 
 the human ruck. For a moment he sat down, and drew 
 off his black kid gloves. Then he stood up with a jerk, 
 stretched his arms, unbuttoned his ample frock coat, 
 pulled down his shirt cuffs, puffed his cheeks out once or 
 twice, like a man just emerging from the water after a 
 dive, and rolled his eyes around, and worked his beetling 
 eyebrows in the usual Jovian manner. 
 
 These preliminaries over, he extended his right hand 
 above the assembly, and in a voice of thunder cried, 
 " Silence and attention, all of you, I am going to 
 begin." 
 
 Silence immediately ensued, and for full half a minute 
 the deacon enjoyed it, working his countenance all the 
 time. Then the right arm went forth again, and in a 
 voice which was apparently husky with emotion the 
 orator began : 
 
 " My deeyar children, the subject on which I propose 
 to address you this afternoon is Jonah — Jonah in the 
 whale's belly, my deeyar children." Then in sharper 
 tones : " You all know who Jonah was, don't you ?" 
 
 " Yes, yes," came from various parts of the room. 
 
 ' Who was he, then ?"
 
 A FOUNDERED SHIP. 43 
 
 " A prophet, sir," cried several voices. 
 
 " That's right, my clears. Jonah was a prophet, a man 
 
 of God. Ah ! shall we, my dear children Hey, Harry 
 
 Weardale, you attend there, sir. Put down that book 
 and listen to me." This in stentorian tones which con- 
 trasted grotesquely with the wheezy unction of voice 
 that preceded and followed, but these effects were a 
 peculiarity of Mr. Brown's oratory, 
 
 Without the least gradation, with scarcely a pause, the 
 address was at once resumed. " Jonah, my deeyar chil- 
 dren, was a man of God, and God sent him with a 
 message to the wicked city of Nineveh. And what was 
 that message ; can you tell me ?" 
 
 " He'd destroy it, sir, if they didn't repent," said a boy 
 near him. 
 
 " Who would destroy it ?" 
 " The Lord, sir." 
 
 "Ah! that's right — quite right. Ah! my deeyar 
 children, Nineveh was to be destroyed. What a sad 
 
 thought. But . Eh, Miss Maggs, I am sorry to have 
 
 to mention it, but really unless you can manage to keep 
 your class quieter, I feel that I cannot go on. Look at 
 that little rascal in the corner ; he is wriggling about 
 like — like ; — sit still, sir, will you ?" 
 
 " Please, sir, it wasn't me, sir. Ben Snell's sticking 
 pins in my leg, sir. Boo ! hoo ! " howled the boy 
 alluded to. 
 
 " Ben Snell, you rascal, stand forth here. Turn him 
 out in the middle of the room, Miss Maggs." A pause 
 while this order was executed.
 
 44 S/R TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " And now," the honey tongue resumed, " attend, all of 
 you, to the word of God, my deeyar young children." 
 
 But I must not repeat the whole speech ; it would be 
 fatiguing to both reporter and reader, and after all the 
 interest of it lies in the climax. 
 
 The sample given, too, is good for the whole. It was, 
 throughout, a mixture of mock pathos, low buffoonery, 
 violent transitions from onslaughts upon particular 
 urchins to whining appeals to " my deeyar children " and 
 " young friends." The heavier matter of adjurations, 
 objurgations and pious ejaculations was interspersed with 
 clumsy jokes, with crocodile lamentations over the lost 
 Molly Baivu, and asservations to the effect that these 
 young Berborians before him might be as wicked as the 
 men of Nineveh. Strenuous condemnations of Jonah's 
 cowardice were added as dressings to this salad. 
 
 A vivid and forcible description was given of the fate 
 that overtook this backslider, and, after many excursions, 
 the orator proceeded to sum up in this style : — 
 
 "Yes, my children, God can hear us anywhere, on the 
 mountain top and down in the bottom of the sea. Jonah 
 prayed, and Jonah was saved. He took the only way 
 that was left for him to make his escape. What a fool 
 he would have been had he tried to get out of the whale's 
 belly all by himself. Perhaps he had no knife with him, 
 but suppose he had, it would have been no good for him 
 to try to cut his way out of the whale's belly. (" No, 
 no," shouted sundry lads, noisily.) That would have 
 been scuttling the ship, with a vengeance, eh ! (A ripple 
 of mirth.) Don't laugh, deeyar children. I forbid you to
 
 A FOUNDERED SHIP. 45 
 
 laugh. Be sad rather, and think of Jonah's helpless 
 state. If he had hacked a hole in the whale's belly, and 
 come forth, he would have been drowned as sure as the 
 men in my ship, alas ! And he couldn't address a remon- 
 strance to the whale ; never a bit of him. The Scriptures 
 do not inform us that the whale, although it was the 
 Lord's whale, could speak like Balaam's ass. No, depend 
 on it, he did the right thing, and the only thing he could 
 do. The whale could not have heard the voice of Jonah 
 in its belly, even had it understood. Jonah could 
 only cry to God, and God heard him. Oh, if he had 
 only saved the men in my Molly Bawn as he saved 
 Jonah." 
 
 " Hey, there ! Really I can't stand this any longer. 
 I'm insulted, teachers, insulted before my face, by that 
 good for nothing young scamp, Harry Weardale, in Mr. 
 Buncombe's class. I saw him — I most distinctly and 
 clearly saw him — put his tongue in his cheek and wink — 
 yes, wink, a big, long, vulgar wink — at that gawky girl — 
 what's her name ? — in Miss Belinda Cook's class. Come 
 forth, Harry Weardale. Stand out, sir. You deserve a 
 whipping, sir. Come up to my desk, beside this other 
 vagabond, sir." 
 
 Harry Weardale looked foolish, but budged not. This 
 enraged the deacon beyond bounds, and he yelled " Do — 
 you — heeyar — me — -sir ? Have — I — got — to— tell — you 
 — twice ? Come here, this instant, and stand by my right 
 hand, or else leave the school." 
 
 The boy still sat irresolute, with a frown of wrath 
 gathering on his face, but when his teacher approached,
 
 46 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 in order to collar him and drag him out, he jumped up, 
 pushed his way past the two or three boys between him 
 and the end of the seat, and made his way to the door, 
 with a sort of insolent slowness. Opening it, still moving 
 slowly, he stole outside amid dead silence. Rebellion 
 like that was new in Goliath Sunday School. Once sure 
 of a free course, Weardale, a stout, rosy-cheeked, curly- 
 haired boy of about twelve or thirteen, made no haste to 
 disappear. Turning round in the half-open doorway, 
 with his body well outside, and his hand on the latch, he 
 suddenly thrust his tongue out, first at the school gene- 
 rally, and then at Deacon Brown in particular. The 
 deacon made a step down from his desk, and Buncombe 
 turned to dart at the door, but before either got near it, 
 Harry managed to shout, with his head just visible from 
 behind it, " Ah-yah ! owd sneaks, who drownded my 
 feyther?" Then he banged the door, and was off like 
 an arrow. 
 
 Consternation overtook all and sundry at the spectacle 
 of this dreadful open rebellion, and a hum of excited 
 under-talk arose which the deacon for once found him- 
 self unable to quell. In vain did he shout " Silence 
 there!" "For shame!" "Listen to me!" "God will 
 punish you for this behaviour to those above you," and 
 other phrases which he kept handy, as a stone-throwing 
 boy does pebbles, to fling about him on emergencies. 
 Nothing quieted the children. Many of them had seen 
 the painful flush that gleamed over Mr. Brown's face 
 when he heard Harry Weardale's accusing question. 
 They had seen a black scowl of hate follow the flush as
 
 A FOUNDER ED SHIP. 47 
 
 he clenched his hands nervously and shook them at the 
 door. 
 
 A full minute elapsed before he regained command of 
 himself, and though he shouted on mechanically, every- 
 one could see that his mind was elsewhere. And when 
 he had succeeded in mastering his emotions all control 
 over the audience was gone. Perforce he had to bring 
 his address to an abrupt conclusion without the usual 
 peroration on repentance and the fear of the Lord. The 
 school might have dispersed like a swarm of bees with- 
 out a queen but for Mr. Buncombe. He, with ready 
 resource, created a diversion in favour of order by giving 
 out a hymn, which he proceeded to sing. When that 
 exercise was ended the ordinary superintendent mumbled 
 a few words of prayer, Mr. Brown, in a tremulous voice, 
 pronounced the blessing, and, for that Sunday, school 
 was over. 
 
 After the scholars had dispersed, Mr. Brown threatened 
 all sorts of things against " that scoundrel young Wear- 
 dale," and forbade Mr. Buncombe to let him come back to 
 his class. This prohibition was unnecessary ; Harry 
 never tried to return.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A WELL LAID SCHEME OF A DEACON AND A JEW. 
 
 So dramatic an interruption of an edifying discourse 
 could not be without results of some sort in a com- 
 munity like that of Goliath Chapel. It is not, how- 
 ever, with these that we arc specially concerned in this 
 history. We deal with greater events than chapel tattle 
 and chapel spites. And great events did undoubtedly 
 flow from this startling episode. Behold, once more, 
 "how great a matter a little fire kindleth." 
 
 Amongst the people with whom Deacon Brown did 
 business, accusations like that launched by the boy were 
 not altogether unknown. But they were generally con- 
 sidered little more than malice-seasoned, passing gossip. 
 It was a different matter, however, among the sailors who 
 had for some years past displayed increased reluctance to 
 go to sea in the deacon's vessels. The average loss of 
 Brown's ships was becoming higher and higher every 
 year, they said ; and so great had the dread of " Brown's 
 coffins " become in the harbour, that his skippers had 
 latterly been forced to make up their equipment of men 
 by stealth and duplicity. Scarcely a month antecedent 
 to this Sunday school thunder clap, a crew thus secured 
 had deserted, when they discovered that they were
 
 A WELL LALD SCHEME. 49 
 
 aboard one of Brown's hulks. The vessel was bound 
 for the coast of Africa, and the men declared her to be 
 both rotten and over-laden. So they fled, and the 
 Christian deacon had been forced to invoke the arm of 
 the law. With the aid of the magistrates all the truants 
 except two were re-captured and put on board to risk 
 their lives in their employer's service, whether they liked 
 to or not. That was their equity in the matter. 
 
 You may, however, feel quite sure in your own mind 
 that the deacon's tender heart was wrung with sorrow at 
 having to coerce these men. Had the law been different he 
 would no doubt have obeyed it, just as he might have 
 been convinced that it was wrong to over-insure if that 
 custom had been a legal crime. 
 
 A man's morals, you know, cannot reasonably be 
 expected to transcend the height attained by the statutes 
 of the Realm. Being what they were, those laws 
 regulating the relations between employer and employed 
 in seafaring life, Deacon Brown could do no other than 
 accept them. Such a good man, however, a man so full 
 of the sounds of human loving kindness could not 
 possibly relish the measures the law allowed him to take, 
 were it for no other reason than that the law's action 
 insured publicity. All the world knew through the 
 proceedings in court, that Deacon Silas Brown had to 
 threaten a crew with jail before he could get his ship to 
 sea, and knowledge of this kind was, to wagging tongues, 
 like sheaves to the threshing machine. Merchants who 
 had already acquired a bad habit of shrugging their 
 shoulders mechanically when Brown's " enterprise and 
 
 D
 
 50 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 success " came under their observation had, in episodes 
 of this sort, the means of putting two and two together. 
 Thus the deacon stood in danger of losing the support of 
 some narrow viewed men whose ruling desire was to 
 barter goods with other countries, not to sink them in 
 the sea for the sake of plundering the poor underwriters. 
 His general trade might not thereby suffer, but his 
 reputation for holiness must do so, and did. 
 
 Hitherto, I must admit, Deacon Brown had carried 
 himself tolerably well. No man in Berborough was 
 more determinedly respectable, with a fine broad-cloth 
 sanctification, than he. The most recent crew episode 
 would blow over, as many a one of a similar kind had 
 done before. Skippers and underwriters might doubt 
 him, but he lost his vessels on the whole so cleverly, and 
 with such a neat apportionment of untoward circum- 
 stances, that they could not bring their minds fully to be- 
 lieve that beneath the saint's cloak hid the rascal. A man 
 who rarely lost vessels in calm weather, and who had even 
 been known to reward officers and men for bringing 
 overladen and leaky vessels safe through storms that 
 should have sunk them, could not be a rogue much 
 beyond the conventional limits sanctioned by the 
 customs of his trade. 
 
 Still there were uncomfortable rumours attached to his 
 name, and here and there an unbeliever lurked. Thus, at 
 the very moment when that rude, ill-bred urchin, Harry 
 Weardale, thrust forth his tongue and asked a question, 
 the deacon was anxiously desirous of seeming tobe,beyond 
 ordinary, pure. The Molly Bazvn, in which Harry's father
 
 A WELL LALD SCHEME. 51 
 
 was presumably drowned, was the third ship in Mr. Silas 
 Brown's fleet of about fifteen, which had been lost within 
 twelve months. For a place like Berborough that was a 
 high percentage. A year of immunity from untoward 
 accidents might be required to reassure the underwriters, 
 and meanwhile much semblance of grief. 
 
 But could the deacon hope to play his part efficaciously 
 now that the scandal-mongers of the chapel had become 
 possessed of so sweet a morsel as the Weardale query ? 
 The deacon doubted and feared and hoped by turns, and 
 wished more and more fervently that the " brethren and 
 sisters " who came to sympathise with him in his latest 
 sorrow and disaster, and to sting him now and then, 
 if possible, could be put for a little under the sea. 
 From past experience he knew only too well that, as 
 oil alone makes the salad insipid, so life would be 
 intolerable to these effusive people had they no op- 
 portunity to distil the vinegar of their malice behind 
 a man's back. 
 
 Yes, he could imagine how the story went the round of 
 the chapel, swelling in the startling character of its inci- 
 dents as beautiful human ingenuity gave impulse, for he 
 was a shrewd man, Silas Brown. Nevertheless, he hoped 
 to escape by keeping still. In a month's time, at most, 
 some new love affair, or a slander about the minister, 
 any waft of new excitement from no matter what direc- 
 tion, might be trusted to set the chapel commercs off to a 
 new enjoyment. 
 
 And a most just appreciation of probabilities, too, this 
 would have been if Mr. Silas Brown had not possessed
 
 52 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 an enemy — a real downright enemy — within the sacred 
 walls of Goliath Chapel itself. Ordinarily the back- 
 biters and slanderers who say all the ill they can imagine 
 of each other do not act from motives of hate. They 
 dissect and scarify for love or for a " mixed motive." 
 Not so the true foe. He is silent often, biding his time, 
 caring not to show his purpose to those who might repeat 
 the words uttered on the first opportunity, for the foe's 
 warning and guidance. 
 
 So it was in this instance. The deacon had a 
 sworn enemy, and knew it not, for not so long ago 
 this secret hater had been his friend. A deep faith in 
 the noble qualities of Mr. Brown's head and heart had 
 once filled the soul of Mr. David Hogg with admiration, 
 and now all this was turned to gall and bitterness. 
 Why ? for what ? Because Mr. Hogg had lost money. 
 Money — cursed lucre — had come between the two men ; 
 base and despicable cause of heart burnings. 
 
 David Hogg was Silas's dear friend and brother, a 
 pious chapel Christian of the solidest type. Five or six 
 years before he had come to Berborough with his inherit- 
 ance and had started business as an underwriter, under 
 the guidance and patronage of Mr. Brown. At the end 
 of this period he, though a shrewd man, had lost half his 
 capital, and he blamed his first patron for the loss. As 
 claim after claim wrung his cash from him, his mistrust 
 and hatred of the deacon deepened, until at last he 
 listened to that much tried man's expressions of sym- 
 pathy and pain with feelings of an almost homicidal 
 description. He had ceased to believe a word he heard
 
 A WELL LALD SCHEME. 53 
 
 the shipbroker utter, or to take a line on any of his ships, 
 and he hoped for a day of vengeance. 
 
 Had that boy Weardale put the scorpion's whip in his 
 hands ? He meant to see. As a member of the Goliath 
 flock he heard the whole story on the evening of that 
 fatal Sunday when Harry's rebellion burst forth. A 
 man stone deaf and blind was alone incapable that night 
 of learning the facts. A teacher bestowed on Hogg a 
 full account of them. Hogg laughed low, all to himself, 
 but said little. Next morning, however, he found his 
 way very early to the house of the widow Weardale, 
 with whom he held a conference that lasted an hour or 
 more. And on the Tuesday young Harry was taken 
 into his employment as office menial, a post expressly 
 created for his benefit. 
 
 This last piece of news also reached the chapel folks 
 and added to the excitement of the gossips to whom the 
 growing dislike of Hogg for Brown was better known 
 than to the self-confident shipbroker himself. The 
 deacon did not hear of it till the following Sunday, 
 when one of his chosen acolytes of the Sunday school 
 told it to him in due commiseratory language. " In- 
 famous malice and spite," &c, &c, were the motives 
 this teacher laid to Hogg's charge with the view of 
 gratifying his leader. 
 
 But to his astonishment Deacon Brown entered not 
 with spirit into this condemnation. Instead of the 
 customary voluble effusiveness of chastened imprecation 
 there came a start, a sudden pallor, a muttered " Good 
 God," and gloomy silence. For once the cue taken by
 
 54 SIX TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 the follower had proved the wrong one, and he retired 
 discomfited. That evening the deacon was not in his 
 pew. It had perhaps dawned on his spirit that David 
 Hogg had cause to hate him. 
 
 Surely no sensible man ever took a step of greater 
 imprudence than did Brown by this absenteeism. It was a 
 challenge to the scandalous chroniclers of the chapel to 
 attack him, and, excited as they were by rumours, they 
 were not slow to take it up. Why was Deacon Brown 
 away ? What was he doing that Sunday night ? Where 
 had he been ? These and such like questions were 
 started as the chosen people grouped round the doors 
 after service, and gave rise to many surmises, whetting 
 curiosity to a high pitch. 
 
 Soon it was discovered that instead of praying at 
 chapel the deacon was visiting widow Weardale in his 
 turn. This thickened the mystery. It became abso- 
 lutely necessary to the peace of mind of several people, 
 all holy folks, to interview the widow themselves. 
 Nothing loth, she told her tale volubly to all and sundry, 
 but it did not amount to a great deal beyond the fact 
 that there was a mysterious letter of her husband's 
 which she had given to Mr. Hogg, to the great wrath and 
 discomfiture of Mr. Brown. That was all the inquisitive 
 people could gather from the mourning widow at first, 
 because Hogg had, for reasons of his own, desired her to 
 hold her tongue off particulars. Threats were probably 
 likewise uttered by Mr. Brown when he found that the 
 letter in question was beyond his reach, and between them 
 the woman imbibed enough fear to be a restraining force.
 
 A WELL LALD SCHEME. 55 
 
 By and by, however, the fact was ascertained that a 
 letter had come from the lost husband, Tom Weardale, 
 which hinted at a design on the part of the broker and 
 freighters to wreck the ship. Mr. Timothy Buncombe, 
 among others, devoted much attention to the mystery, and 
 unravelled it to his own satisfaction and ultimate profit. 
 
 The great investigator, however, was David Hogg, and 
 to his memoranda I owe it that the reader of this history 
 can enjoy a full, true, and particular account of the 
 whole episode. It is the narrative of an enemy, doubtless, 
 and therefore I do not ask any man to believe more of 
 it than he pleases. Mr. Brown himself denied it, of 
 course, but did not prosecute his moral assassin for 
 slander. Still it would be wrong to treat the deacon's 
 name and memory with too much harshness. He was a 
 God-fearing man in his own way, and it is quite possible 
 that he felt his God had nothing to complain of in the 
 business. A man's chosen deity, I find, is seldom or 
 never tyrannical. What the worshipper desires, that he 
 obtains as a rule. He gets it how he can and when he 
 can, and the more he succeeds the more sure is he that 
 his Deity blesses him — until the day when the per contra 
 account is handed in. 
 
 Brown came to grief in this instance, and therefore it is 
 to be inferred that his God was angry or tired out, or had 
 presented his account. It may be so. I do not care to 
 argue the point, for it is one that does not directly affect 
 the life of Timothy Buncombe. 
 
 The wrath or approval of Mr. Brown's Deity does not 
 concern us, that is to say, but his lamentable misfortunes
 
 56 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 do, and this is how they were all accounted for according 
 to the best obtainable evidence : 
 
 Among Mr. Brown's ships was one called the Molly 
 Baivn, as already mentioned. She was rather old and 
 leaky, but still classed at Lloyd's, as in some measure 
 seaworthy. For years past Brown had employed her in 
 trading along the coasts of northern Europe, now to one 
 port, now to another, and as she had done so it might be 
 presumed would she continue to do. 
 
 The Deacon had bought her from a bankrupt in Belfast, 
 in one of the oft recurring crises to which the shipping 
 trade is as subject as children are to measles. 
 
 She had come to him cheap enough, and after " titi- 
 vating her up a bit," as he expressed it, Brown had 
 insured her for about three times the price at which she 
 stood in his books. That was all right and proper. The 
 law allowed it ; the custom of the trade permitted it ; 
 therefore it was morally right — as moral as the Song of 
 Solomon. Mr. Brown had merely made prudent pro- 
 vision against untoward events, so that even they should 
 not happen without redounding to his gain. Why 
 should he not ? 
 
 Years elapsed, and the Molly Bawn attained the posi- 
 tion of one of the least admired vessels in all the rising 
 broker's fleet. It had become a question with him 
 whether he should not part with her in her entirety to 
 the small capitalist, for the underwriters had made him 
 lower the sum for which she was insured once already, 
 and might soon do so again. If she became a ship that 
 did not pay him to lose, it was more profitable to him
 
 A WELL LALD SCHEME. 57 
 
 that she should wholly belong to other people before 
 foundering. When the insurance was high he kept the 
 bulk of her shares himself, and he held them still, but 
 with doubt. 
 
 This was the deaconly man's state of mind when one 
 day a member of the Riga firm of Blumenkohle, Zurhelle 
 and Co. waited upon him at his office. It was a firm of 
 German Jews, and Herr Zurhelle, the Israelitish gentle- 
 man who waited on Mr. Brown, was its representative in 
 England. They had often done business together be- 
 fore — questionable business and other — and, like Mr. 
 Brown himself, Herren Blumenkohle, Zurhelle & Co. 
 were desirous of making money " mighty kvick," as Herr 
 Zurhelle often remarked. 
 
 It was not by any means an unusual thing to find 
 Herr Zurhelle in Mr. Brown's office, and Timothy Bun- 
 combe, did he choose to speak, could perhaps tell some 
 remarkable stories about what they did and said during 
 the years they had assisted each other to make money. 
 We only know the Molly Bazvn incident, and that 
 through, possibly, the distorted medium of Mr. Hogg's 
 mind. On this occasion, then, the German Jew briefly 
 unfolded a bold plan whereby both parties might net a 
 fortune almost at a stroke. It was not a new scheme. 
 Money had often been made by it before and will be so 
 again, but hitherto Mr. Brown had never gone quite 
 so far. 
 
 He, therefore, recoiled when he was boldly invited to 
 arrange for the loss of a ship freighted with a cargo of 
 rubbish, which was to be fraudulently described as
 
 58 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 valuable merchandise, in order to cheat the underwriters 
 out of fifteen thousand pounds or more, besides the 
 over-value of the ship. The deacon's respectability 
 was shocked beyond measure at such a proposition, and 
 he held out against it for a day or two until his mind 
 became familiar with the conception, and satisfied that it 
 could be done in secret and safety. Then he consented 
 with sighs and groans as to a sad necessity. Ships he 
 could lose, but fraudulent cargoes, oh, it was sad ! 
 
 " Noting in dis vorlt can be easier," Herr Zurhelle 
 assured him, " ve can do it in several ways. Ve can 
 overload de ship and arrange a loose plank or two in her 
 bottom, or if you can find a skipper to trust, ve can 
 run her ashore somevere in de Baltic and save de crew. 
 Dis plan has its dangers, but ve have lost a goot many 
 hands lately, and it might be better to change de 
 accident." 
 
 Brown agreed. We may assert, indeed, that this 
 thought of saving the crew had great weight in bringing 
 the shipbroker's mind to a state of acquiescence in Herr 
 Zurhelle's plans. It had all along been one of the most 
 disagreeable features connected with his business, that in 
 order to make money " mighty kvick " he had to drown 
 so many men every year. Nothing, therefore, could be 
 more consoling to his tender heart than the thought 
 that he might sweep a small fortune out of the pockets of 
 the underwriters into his own without the loss of a man. 
 
 This point cleared up, everything else was easily 
 adjusted. It was arranged that the Molly Bazvn should 
 go to Cronstadt with coals, and call on her return at
 
 A WELL LAID SCHEME. 59 
 
 Riga for a cargo, really of chaff, chopped straw, and 
 rotten rubbish of any kind, procurable for the clearing 
 away, but ostensibly of linseed, isinglas, hair, and tallow. 
 This Molly Bawn was of nine hundred tons burthen, and 
 they reckoned that at least one thousand two hundred 
 tons might be piled upon her, and that this cargo costing, 
 perhaps, one thousand five hundred pounds all told, 
 could be so represented as to be insurable for nearly 
 twenty thousand pounds. Brown stipulated for two-fifths 
 of the profit, whatever it might be, and he expected to 
 net in addition about four thousand pounds on the 
 insurance of the vessel. Both parties to the enterprise 
 were to go equal shares in paying the bribe of three 
 hundred pounds, which it was settled after some 
 negotiation was to be given to the skipper whom Brown 
 was to find.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FLY, OR FIGHT, OR FAIL? 
 
 As it was arranged, so the plan was put in execution, 
 and but for a mistake on the part of the selected skipper, 
 through which all hands were lost, and for Tom Wear- 
 dale's letter to his wife, the arrangement might have 
 succeeded a merveille. The idea had been to lose the 
 ship in a part of the Baltic sea from which the crew 
 might reach land either in boats or by waiting till the ice 
 enabled them to walk ashore. But it so happened that 
 the captain, whether from incapacity or carelessness, 
 blundered, and ran the vessel, already leaky and much 
 overladen, upon a sunken rock, in deep water near the 
 Swedish coast, and she foundered with all hands. 
 
 Mr. Brown might have shed tears, and did publicly 
 bemoan himself on this calamity ; but due attention 
 having been paid to propriety, he would have pocketed 
 his money and gone on his way to triumphs new save for 
 the man Weardale's letter. It was not a long letter, but 
 it sufficed, once in the enemy's grasp, to change the 
 entire aspect of affairs, and snatch a fortune from the 
 deacon's extended hand. 
 
 Thomas Weardale was a steady, intelligent sort of 
 fellow, who had been out of work owing to bad times.
 
 FLY, OR FIGHT, OR FAIL? 61 
 
 He was by trade a ship carpenter, and as he had a wife 
 and family to provide for, he soon became not over 
 particular as to what kind of employment he accepted. 
 When, therefore, the post of ship's carpenter on board 
 the Molly Bazun came in his way, he took it thank- 
 fully enough. His wife, however, was but too well 
 aware of the reputation enjoyed by Mr. Silas Brown, and 
 when she failed to persuade her husband to break his 
 contract, she made him promise to write to her from 
 every port touched at, to help to keep her mind easy. 
 
 Weardale, like a true-hearted man, kept his promise, 
 much though he hated the trouble and expense of letter 
 writing. His wife heard from him when the ship reached 
 Cronstadt, and she received two letters from Riga. It 
 was the second of these that did all the mischief, and 
 here it is, barring the spelling : 
 
 " On Board the Molly Bazun, 
 
 "Riga, 15th Oct., 185—. 
 " Dear Nan, 
 
 " I did not think to write more, but I fear all's up with 
 us, so I write this on my knee, and will give it to the 
 pilot to post, if I can. I would have bolted yesterday 
 whatever come had I known what I knows now. Not 
 but what I suspected something wrong, for the captain 
 was so mad to have the cargo aboard, and looked after 
 the loading himself all day long, which I thought queer. 
 Perhaps we'll get thro', but if the ship aint wrecked with 
 all this muck aboard it will be because the devil's against 
 us. I went into the aft hold last night a lookin' for a 
 tool I wanted, with a candle, and saw rotten straw
 
 62 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 sticking out of a bag loaded as hair. That made me rip 
 open some more, and they was all alike — a tuft or two of 
 hair, and the rest muck. If all the cargo is of that sort 
 there's a game on as may send us all to the bottom. 
 The captain, I suppose, means to wreck the ship so as he 
 can get away, any-how, but how it will be with the rest 
 of us, I can't tell. So good-bye, and God bless you and 
 the kids, Nancy, lass, for this may be the last you hears 
 of your affectionate, — T. Weardale." 
 
 This was the epistle which the weeping widow, Mrs. 
 Weardale, had handed to Mr. David Hogg, and though 
 he, of course, lost nothing by the wreck of the Molly 
 Bazvn, he found it profoundly interesting. A boat of the 
 missing ship had been picked up bottom uppermost by 
 one of the last steamers that came down the Baltic that 
 season, and she had been posted as " missing " at Lloyd's 
 the day before little Harry demanded " who drownded 
 his feyther." The news had its customary effect on the 
 tempers of the underwriters, who, however, began to 
 arrange for a settlement of claims with Mr. Brown and 
 Messrs. Blumenkohle, Zurhelle & Co. Before they could 
 pay up, Mr. David Hogg intervened, armed with the 
 letter. After reading it, the underwriters interested 
 unanimously resolved to wait explanations. This de- 
 cision was intimated to the Jew merchants and to the 
 shipbroker when they called for their cheques. 
 
 Mr. Brown's anxiety to possess himself of the incrimi- 
 nating letter will now be understood. So far as he 
 personally was concerned, that was the only evidence of 
 foul play the underwriters had. His correspondence and
 
 FLY, OR FIGHT, OR FAIL? 63 
 
 books would betray nothing — all that was not destroyed 
 being perfectly regular. Zurhelle had probably been 
 equally careful, and as all the documents relating to the 
 cargo were in order, Brown felt that his position would 
 have been unassailable but for that confounded letter. 
 He could not think how the pilot came to be such a fool 
 as to post it, and pilot and writer and widow came in for 
 a share in his wrath. It was a bad blow indeed, and 
 neither he nor Zurhelle could see their way to parry it. 
 They held several consultations together about it, and it 
 must be admitted that the German Jew took the matter 
 much more philosophically than the pious dissenter. 
 
 " It is damn'd awkvard, I vill say," Zurhelle summed 
 up on the occasion of the last of these meetings; "damn'd 
 awkvard ; and vat makes it vorse, to my mind, is dat 
 in spite of your letter-writing carpenter, ve should have 
 been all right if your blooming fool of a skipper hadn't 
 lost all de crew mit de vessel." 
 
 " Nay, I'm none so sure of that,'' was Brown's answer. 
 " No, hang it, it's the other way about. Weardale, you 
 may he sure, would have told the rest of the men what he 
 had discovered, and we should have had the whole lot 
 peaching on us had they not gone to the bottom. Devil 
 take it, it's just this letter, and nothing else, that has 
 played old Harry with us." 
 
 " Veil, veil, it may be so. I don't care ein damn. Vat 
 I see is, dat de money is not forthcoming, and I should 
 like to know vat ve must do ?" 
 
 " Do ! Brazen it out, of course. Those underwriter 
 idiots have no other evidence. They can't try us on that
 
 64 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 blasted letter. Let us turn the tables on them and 
 demand payment, and threaten proceedings to recover, if 
 they don't stump up. Hang me if I'm to be done in this 
 style," shouted Brown in a passion. 
 
 " Goot, very goot, my friendt. Nodings vood pleass me 
 better, but I don't feel sure on me groundt — not sure at 
 all. It's all very veil to say 'fight 'em,' but de unter- 
 vvriters are a powerful lot, and dey might get more 
 evidence in Riga. De firm's books perhaps are not so 
 goot kept dere as mit me. Peoplsh might be got at, as de 
 saying is, de peoplsh as made up de cargo, for instance. 
 In fact, if ve fight, as you calls it, dere's no end to de mess 
 ve might be in ; and if ve fight and looss, who vill pay 
 de bill, eh, my goot friendt ?" 
 
 " Oh, the bill be damned ! We must fight, man. 
 We can't sit down with this thing hanging over us. It 
 would ruin me, I tell you — utterly ruin me in pocket and 
 reputation if I submitted to this blow. They have 
 nothing but this beastly carpenter's letter, and before I 
 submit to be bowled over by that, I'll swear the whole 
 affair is a cursed plot and forgery of Hogg's. Anyway, 
 fight I must and shall, and, as we are both in the same 
 boat, you had better join, and go halves." As he said this, 
 the Deacon rubbed his face fiercely with his handker- 
 chief to hide his emotion, which was so great that the 
 proprieties of chapel holiness were forgotten. 
 
 " Hee ! Hee !" laughed the Jew in his dry way, " not if 
 I know it, my tear boy, not if I know it. I have not vat 
 you calls reputations to lose — nodings at all — and I don't 
 mean to go to jail just to please you, my goot friendt.
 
 FL Y, OR FIGHT, OR FAIL ? 65 
 
 Dat's vat fighting means in my thinks. ' Penal servitude ' 
 you calls it. Oh no, tanks, not if I know it," and he 
 rubbed his hands deprecatingly, the fat little man. 
 
 " Rubbish " ejaculated Brown, but his face grew deadly 
 pale. 
 
 " Oh, but it is not rubbish dough, not at all rubbish, I 
 tells you. You look at it in de calms, mein goot friendt. 
 Veerdail's letter is vat you calls a clue. If you ask for 
 de insurance money, de unterwriters follow up dis clue 
 and get plenty evidence — loads of it. Den dey turns on 
 us and say " conspiracy of frauds " or sometings like, and 
 ve find ourselfs in jail. Oh, no, dat don't suit me, not 
 at all." 
 
 "Ha-ah!" said Brown, and shivered. "What would 
 you do then ? " 
 
 "Nodings, my dear boy, nodings. You see if ve sits- 
 kviet and ask for no money dem fellows vill be easy, and 
 vill not care to vaste moneys for prosecutions. Den 
 by and by it vill all, vat you calls, blow ofer. Nobody 
 vill know vat ve did, and ve can have anoder try. Vy T 
 suppose ve licked de unterwriters in de law ve vould let 
 all de vorlt know ve had been accused. Oh, no; not me; 
 I knows better ; I lets it alone. It is for me a coup 
 manque, and I satisfies myself to lose de money dis 
 chance. As for de, vat you calls it, reputations — I 
 have none, hee ! hee! I don't care ein damn copper 
 groschen for reputations. Venn de fools dey vill not 
 trade mit me in dis town, I goes to anoder. I is free, 
 and I goes vere I likes. But, begin dis fight, and ve arc 
 ruined." 
 
 E
 
 66 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " But, my dear sir,'' said Brown in a half wounded, 
 half pleading voice, " it's all very well for you to say 
 that ; but, I tell you, for my own part, I'm ruined if those 
 fellows don't pay up." 
 
 " Sorry to hear it, me dear friendt, sorry indeedt ; but 
 den, vy don't you do as me — go avay. You should be 
 able to take vat you calls a ' tidy pile ' in your pockets, 
 and dem fellows den might hvistle for it, you know." 
 
 Brown sat with his head down for a short space, as if 
 tempted to take this advice ; then he looked up, and 
 heaving a great sigh, said : 
 
 " Nonsense, nonsense. Whatever you do, I can't go 
 away ; I must stick where I am, and make the best or 
 the worst of it. Perhaps I may have a chance here. 
 I'm a deacon of a chapel, and an old citizen. Out of this 
 I could have no chance at all. Go away, bolt, never ! 
 It would root my whole connection up, man." 
 
 " But look you here," exclaimed Zurhelle. 
 
 " No, I shan't, 1 can't, I won't," interrupted Brown 
 feverishly. " If you won't help me to fight, let me alone 
 to do it myself, and I wish to God I had never seen the 
 face of you." 
 
 " Oh ! all right, all right !" cried the Jew, rising in real 
 or pretended dudgeon. " As you pleass, my friendt. I 
 give you good advice, and you not take it. Veil, veil, 
 you is insolent, I tink, so I shall say ta, ta ! Ven you 
 have orders, you know vere to find me in Riga." With 
 that he pushed back his chair, and made for the door, 
 muttering "I tink he is a fool, ein verdamt fool." "Ta, 
 ta!" he repeated, as he opened the door. " I may be off
 
 FL Y, OR FIGHT, OR FAIL ? 67 
 
 to-night — a coup manque, you know. No good to vait, no 
 good at all." Bowing, with a sneer on his face, as he 
 said this, he closed the door behind him, and Brown was 
 left alone with his reflections. 
 
 These were not of a sweet kind. The panoply of 
 respectable well-clad chapel holiness beneath which the 
 man had hidden his true self began to show terrible rents. 
 His very conversation, as you will perceive, had de- 
 generated, and his tender feelings of sympathy for poor 
 sailors all evaporated before the fire of this great calamity. 
 Should these " damned underwriter scamps " stick to it 
 and keep his money, he kept saying to himself, his loss 
 would be a matter of ten thousand pounds ; that is 
 to say, he would not gain that sum, and no man could be 
 expected to see so much money slip away from him 
 without losing his equanimity. 
 
 What made the matter the more serious for Brown 
 was that he had counted on this money coming to him, 
 and had spent it in anticipation. Only a fortnight before 
 the catastrophe he had bought a couple of steamers from 
 a Tyneside firm, by whom they had been built on "spec;" 
 and he could scarcely hope now to get the small investor 
 to take their shares freely off his hands. With these boats 
 he had intended to take a new departure in shipowning, 
 having till then never traded in any but sailing vessels. 
 Could his hopes of becoming a great steamship owner 
 now be fulfilled? There was room to doubt it. For 
 the two steamers he had agreed to pay fifty-five thousand 
 pounds, and he considered them cheap at the money. 
 As he could not pay this price out of his own pocket, it
 
 6S SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 had been agreed that the builders should hold a mortgage 
 on them for thirty-five thousand pounds until Brown had 
 succeeded in placing the shares ; and now all chance of 
 doing this, to the extent necessary in the time allotted, 
 was probably gone. If the haul expected from the 
 wreck of the Molly Bawn had been landed, Brown could 
 have scraped twenty or five and twenty thousand pounds 
 together, and might have devoted that in part to meet 
 these obligations. 
 
 That hope was gone, or as good as gone ; and, to make 
 matters worse, Brown could not now repudiate his bar- 
 gain. Not only had it been concluded, but bills had 
 been drawn for the whole of the purchase money. Part 
 of these bills, of long date, and renewable, the builders 
 held as collateral security for their mortgage, as blinds to 
 hide its existence, in fact. The rest Brown had insisted 
 on having drawn at four and six months' date, because he 
 had felt so sure of his future. Perhaps by an effort the 
 shortest set of these bills might be met when due, but he 
 could not possibly meet them all. The question, there- 
 fore, which presented itself to the deacon's mind now 
 was — Is it worth while going on ? Would it not be 
 better, in other words, to make a smash of it right off, 
 and so save the money he had, rather than attempt the 
 impossible ? Times were not propitious for a struggle 
 against adverse fortune, and, when hostile underwriters 
 were added to lagging trade, the causes for discourage- 
 ment were ample. 
 
 " I shall only be throwing good money after bad," the 
 deacon said to himself; and that was never a game he
 
 FLY, OR FIGHT, OR FAIL? 69 
 
 liked to play. But then, if times were adverse to a man 
 fighting, could they be looked upon as favourable to a 
 man going to make a smash ? Not in one sense. Ship- 
 ping was a drug in the market, as the slang phrase runs. 
 Owners on every side, Brown himself, had vessels laid 
 up. A good sale, whether of his steamers or his sailers, 
 was, therefore, not to be looked for. The best that 
 Brown could expect would be that his creditors might 
 permit him to buy back the ships at his own valuation; 
 and, had his name been unsmudged, that would have 
 been an excellent speculation. Bad times would then 
 have been a great blessing for him. His bankers might 
 have advanced the money necessary to pay a composi- 
 tion of six or eight shillings in the pound, and all would 
 have gone swimmingly, Brown's creditors and the share- 
 holders in his vessels alone suffering. But a happy 
 deliverance of this sort was more than he could now 
 expect ; so, if a failure had to be accomplished success- 
 fully, some other way must be discovered of making 
 money by it. 
 
 Ruminating deeply on these knotty questions, the 
 deacon's mind was for a week or two on the rack. 
 All thoughts of fighting the underwriters left him. His 
 attitude was that of a much maligned man ; and to those 
 he called his friends he spoke bitterly of conspiracies and 
 what not, but his threats proved to be breath, poisoned 
 breath if you like, nothing more. In the chapel, which 
 he attended as closely as ever, his aspect was meek, as of 
 one full of the spirit of holy resignation ; but his thoughts 
 were so far away that more than once he forgot to rise
 
 70 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 when it was necessary to do so ; and once, on one of the 
 last Sundays of his regular and orthodox appearance 
 qua deacon in the familiar pew, he stood motionless and 
 self-absorbed for a considerable time after all the rest of 
 the flock had sat down to hear the minister pray. 
 
 The only place he forsook completely was the Sunday 
 School. There the children never looked upon his Jovian 
 countenance again. Nor did he wait willingly for the 
 loving handshakes that used to greet him as the flock 
 gathered round the doors after service. Moody and 
 silent, he strode away. 
 
 Altered manners of this kind produced a strong impres- 
 sion upon the minds of the observant worshippers of 
 Goliath Chapel. Those whose hands he saw not when 
 they were thrust towards him, backed by saintly hypo- 
 critical smiles, helped each other to tear the remaining 
 shreds of his character to bits when his ears were out of 
 hearing. Ere three Sundays were over the general 
 consensus of opinion was that the deacon had been 
 hard hit, and was meditating bankruptcy. Some went 
 further, and declared that they fully believed Brown 
 would soon be arrested on a criminal charge ; but that view 
 did not meet with general acceptance. The knowing 
 ones cried, " No, no ; old Brown is far too fly for that. 
 He may have done queer tricks in his time, but he ain't 
 fool enough to let the law get a grip of him." 
 
 To what lengths these disputes might have gone, I will 
 not take it upon me to say. All I feel certain of is, that, 
 to the deacon's face, none of these assertions were 
 made. If anything, perhaps, the cringing attitude of the
 
 FLY, OR FIGHT, OR FAIL? yi 
 
 crowd towards their beloved "pillar" in his afflictions 
 was more pronounced now than before. The words that 
 unheeded reached his ear as he passed in and out were 
 all soft and honeyed. To hear them one would have 
 supposed Mr. Brown to be the best-loved man in all the 
 congregation, It was all, " How are you, dear Mr. 
 Brown;" and, "I'm so delighted to see you, Mr. Brown ;" 
 " From what I had heard, I was afraid you were ill, Mr. 
 Brown." " Glad to see you looking so strong, Mr. 
 Brown ;" and, " was not that a dear comforting sermon 
 we had to day, Mr. Brown ; I feel sure you enjoyed it ;" 
 11 nd so zveite. 
 
 This lasted for several Sundays. One evening, 
 however, the deacon intimated to his wife that he was 
 not going out to chapel. 
 
 "Are you ill, my dear? Shall I stay at home with 
 you ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " No ; I'm all right ; you just be off to chapel, I want 
 to think a bit, that's all ;" and the deacon kept in doors. 
 From what occurred in the course of succeeding weeks, 
 it is probable that, on that Sunday night, Mr. Brown 
 arranged in a general way his plans for a bankruptcy.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 'twixt cup and lip a frow may slip. 
 
 While these events were passing, Mr. Timothy- 
 Buncombe had continued to plod along in his ac- 
 customed groove. Full five years had come and gone 
 since the eventful day when he took Penelope Drabble 
 home as his wedded wife, and he was a man now close 
 upon thirty, endowed with two children, and an income of 
 one hundred and twenty pounds per annum. That was 
 the utmost he could screw out of his pious employer, 
 whose freight clerk he still was. When he pressed for 
 more pay, Mr. Brown always declared that his services 
 were most highly appreciated, and that it was his wish 
 that Mr. Buncombe should be better paid. 
 
 " I would gladly give you three hundred pounds a 
 year, my dear sir," Mr. Brown had said quite recently, 
 "but times are bad, as you know, and I cannot 
 afford it. We shall see, though, what the steamers can 
 do for us." 
 
 It was always thus. Can you wonder then, that Mr. 
 Timothy Buncombe hated his master? His domestic 
 name for the great deacon was " the old scuttler," and 
 he harboured thoughts of a reputedly unchristian kind 
 in his heart. " I'll be even with the fellow one of
 
 'TWIXT CUP AND LIP. 73 
 
 these days," he ventured to say to his wife now and 
 then, and if she demanded " when," 
 
 " When my ship comes home, Old Truepenny," he 
 would reply, and pass it off with a laugh. 
 
 Naturally Timothy's household arrangements were of 
 the humblest. The little cottage on the outskirts of the 
 town which he took on his marriage had been his home 
 ever since, and its furniture had grown shabby with wear. 
 About a year before this his wife and he had once more 
 revelled in the prospect of fingering Mr. Bob Cutler's 
 cash, but the cup of bliss they dreamed of had not been 
 tasted ; perhaps never would be now. The ship-chandler 
 then lost his wife, and with her death Mrs. Buncombe, 
 reasonably enough, had hoped that the one obstacle 
 between her uncle and his money had been removed. 
 The old rascal, as the loving pair called him, had but to 
 die himself now,, and all would go merry as lambkins in 
 June. Meantime, perhaps, the untramelled hand of the 
 widower might be opener. 
 
 It was not to be so ; and really I do not find it in 
 my heart to blame Mr. Timothy for swearing round 
 oaths over this new disappointment. No saint, ancient 
 or modern, could have stood by meekness under the 
 circumstances. Instead of greater generosity, the 
 wretched old chandler displayed more stinginess. Any 
 hint from his niece that a little money would be 
 welcome put him in a passion. She tried twice, 
 thinking that perhaps on the first occasion the moment 
 had been inopportunely chosen, but the second attempt 
 fared the worst of the two. Mr. Cutler not only
 
 74 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 swore huge mouth-filling, car-rending oaths, he threatened 
 as well. 
 
 "If you ever dare come here with any more of your 
 damned beggin' again," he yelled, " devil take me if I 
 don't kick you out, and cut you off with a shilling." 
 
 As has been already hinted, when Mr. Timothy Bun- 
 combe heard of this threat, he forgot himself, and swore 
 in turn, mingling strong invective against his wife and all 
 her kindred with his oaths. 
 
 Mrs. Penelope first opened her wide mouth in dumb 
 astonishment at this terrible language, and then wept. 
 After the tears came speech, and when her tongue got 
 loose it clanged and clattered about a man's ears, stinging 
 sharper than a lash of whip-cord. The irate husband 
 was soon reduced to fuming silence, and then Mrs. Bun- 
 combe renewed the fountain of her tears. 
 
 So well did she replenish it that it kept her cheeks 
 moist, her eyes red, and her solid lips swollen for the space 
 of two days. That might have been endured, had it 
 been all. But Mr. Timothy's food and clothes suffered 
 the while. They then kept no servant ; all power was 
 therefore in Mrs. Buncombe's hands to make or mar her 
 husband's comfort, and she had long ere then discovered 
 that raw or cold food, administered with persistence and 
 judgment, soon reduced her husband to abject submission. 
 It was so on this occasion. The sulky attitude of the 
 pair had to be abandoned first by the head of the house. 
 He became calm, submissive, kind ; and, once more, there 
 was peace. Within three days from the date of the 
 outbreak they were so well in accord once more, that
 
 'TWIXT CUP AND LIP. 75 
 
 they decided to lay the blame of Mr. Cutler's misconduct, 
 not upon his own head, but upon that of his new 
 housekeeper. 
 
 When Mrs. Cutler forsook this lower world, Mrs. 
 Penelope Buncombe had generously offered to go back 
 to the ship chandler's dwelling, taking her husband and 
 children with her ; or if he preferred it, Mr. Cutler, her 
 dear uncle, might sell his business, give up his house and 
 come and live with them. The hard hearted old man 
 spurned both proposals ; at first with sulky grunts and 
 furious puffing at his long clay pipe, and then, when his 
 niece persevered, with violent language. 
 
 " I'll see you blowed first," he shouted. " I aint a- 
 goin' to have that smooth faced sneak of yours and his 
 dirty brats eatin' me out o' 'ouse and 'ome ; so you be 
 off and leave me alone, will yer ! " 
 
 " Oh, uncle, how can you be so cruel. I'm sure I was 
 thinkin' of your comfort more than of ours," sobbed 
 Mrs. Penelope. 
 
 " Was you, tho ? I'm blest if I can see it. You wants 
 to nobble me so as to make sure of my cash, that's wot 
 you does. But I ain't a fool, though I'm an owd un, an' 
 yer ain't a comin over me, I say. Clear out,d'ye hear?" and 
 a grin spread over the wicked old man's face, making his 
 red blotchy cheeks pucker up till his small ferret eyes 
 almost disappeared. Mrs. Buncombe looked as if she 
 would dearly have loved to give play to her tongue, but 
 money-loving prudence kept the mastery, and she merely 
 cried " Oh ! uncle," and proceeded with her weeping. 
 The hard hearted uncle looked at her for some time with
 
 76 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 evident satisfaction, and then said in a mock sympathetic 
 tone, 
 
 " Well, then, Penny, my gell, I ain't hard hearted, you 
 know, so you can come back an it suits yer. Bless my 
 heart alive, if I thowt you had so much affection for 
 your owd uncle. Come back yourself, by all means. I 
 can put up wi' yer." And the old rogue leered as if a 
 good joke lay in his words. 
 
 "Oh, do you really mean that, uncle," exclaimed Mrs. 
 Penelope, brightening up at once. 
 
 " In course, I does. On'y — on'y ye must leave 
 sanctified Tim and his warmint where they be, ye know. 
 It would be a good riddance, I should think ; " and the 
 old sinner laughed loud and long. His joke was out. 
 
 It was too much for his niece. Rage took the place 
 of every other feeling as she rose to depart. 
 
 " You are a nasty, wicked, old wretch," she bawled, 
 I wonder I evei came near you, drunken sot that ye be. 
 You'll come to a bad end, I do believe. Some trollope 
 of a woman will get hold of you and starve you to 
 death; see if she don't ; and serve you right, too ; and 
 when you send for me on your dying bed to help you, I 
 shan't come : there ! " 
 
 "Go it, go it, an, w'en ye're blown, be off! I shan't 
 be sorry to see the last of you ; never was ; and be 
 hanged to you," roared the uncle in return. Before the 
 words were well out of his mouth, Mrs. Buncombe had 
 departed, carrying her fury with her. 
 
 She had spoken the truth at random. Old Cutler had 
 already consoled himself for the loss of his wife by
 
 TlV/Xr CUP AND LIP. 77 
 
 promoting the charwoman who cleaned for him, to the 
 post of housekeeper. She was a buxom, coarse featured, 
 big-boned, middle-aged female, who had already, as she 
 was wont to boast, buried two husbands ; and who loved 
 beer. The pair were well matched, and got on all the 
 better together perhaps, that they were not tied to each 
 other in " holy matrimony." They could drink together, 
 quarrel with each other, fight at times, and make it up 
 again, all in a style calculated to relieve life of much of its 
 monotony. 
 
 To the Buncombes the advent of this powerful female 
 was destruction. Forgetful of his threats, Mrs. Bun- 
 combe returned more than once to her uncle's house, but 
 soon had to give up the contest. The charwoman 
 might have " marked her for life," as she threatened, had 
 she not done so.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A deacon's dilemma. 
 
 ENCOMPASSED thus by sordid cares, crushed under the 
 ashes of dead hopes, small wonder would it have been 
 had Timothy Buncombe now lost heart and forsaken 
 the faith that was in him. No doubt he was tempted to 
 do so at times ; but he never actually fell. The chapel 
 still had his assiduous attentions, and his power at the 
 office, as well as his knowledge of his master's affairs, 
 grew and increased. Not even did he get drunk to 
 drown his sorrows. He did not become careless in his 
 dress, loose in his language, nor, by any outward sign, 
 betray a doubt of his destiny. Bob Cutler's rascality was 
 a severe trial to him ; but he bore it as he bore others, if 
 not without domestic brawls, at least without public 
 complaint. 
 
 And surely his steadfastness was justified. Sore tried 
 had he been. All these years heart sickness was his 
 constant experience, but patience had its reward at last. 
 At the very time when the world looked blackest, when, 
 in addition to the brutal cruelty of the ship chandler and 
 his brawny paramour, the troubles of Mr. Silas Brown 
 threatened him with complete loss of work, the day of 
 Timothy Buncombe's brighter future was at the dawning.
 
 A BEACON'S DILEMMA. 79 
 
 Of course he knew all about the Molly Bawn affair. 
 Not only did he know, but he had possessed himself of 
 evidence that would have been most useful to the under- 
 writers had they chosen to prosecute. That, as Zurhelle 
 had astutely guessed, they did not. They merely stood 
 on the defensive, waiting for Brown to begin. If he 
 made no push to get his money, they were, apparently, 
 content to let the matter drop, and to treat the facts 
 revealed to them as a warning to avoid Brown's ships in 
 future. 
 
 In all probability this supineness added to Mr. 
 Timothy Buncombe's disappointment. While on the 
 one hand he feared that the deacon could no longer hold 
 up his head in Berborough, on the other he saw a chance 
 of notoriety, and, perhaps, advancement, slip past him. 
 The telling evidence of an honest clerk, whose soul 
 revolted at the deeds of his employer, was not to be given 
 in court. His great virtue would, consequently, be hid 
 in darkness, and work would have to be sought by him 
 just as if he had been an ordinary clerk in want of a job, 
 work all the more hard to get because of Mr. Brown's 
 reputation. 
 
 That may have been Mr. Timothy's view. It would 
 naturally be so, although other people might, perhaps, 
 have thought that a clerk who kept copies of his em- 
 ployer's letters, or the letters themselves, and who made 
 notes of conversations overheard in his master's sanctum, 
 was not a desirable being to have at hand. That is also as 
 it may be. The cardinal fact is that the question was 
 never put to the test. Mr. Brown did not " fight," as he
 
 8o SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 had threatened, and he was let alone. Instead of 
 fighting, he decided to make a good failure, and by a 
 wonderful freak of mind, settled upon his freight clerk, 
 Mr. Timothy Buncombe, as the one man of all his staff, 
 to aid him in that arduous undertaking. Why he should 
 have clone this, I cannot imagine ; but, probably, 
 Timothy's remarkable quiescence under his many disap- 
 pointments had made the deacon misjudge his character. 
 Meek men, sleek, menial sort of men, are often excellent 
 tools in the hands of clever people ; and as this was the 
 general superficial aspect Mr. Timothy Buncombe bore, 
 Brown was to be pardoned for selecting him as the most 
 convenient and likely agent he could get for the work 
 in hand. 
 
 The deacon's one difficulty in becoming a bankrupt 
 was how to make the operation profitable. A ruinous 
 bankruptcy was not to be thought of for one moment 
 On looking into his affairs he found that, ravelled as they 
 were, it might be in his power to pay a composition of 
 ten shillings in the pound, and to continue business. 
 Had the times been good for selling ships, he would 
 have been worth more than twenty shillings in the pound. 
 To get whitewashed for ten shillings, and obtain the 
 chance of future trade improvements, might, therefore, 
 have seemed not so bad a job. That, however, did not 
 satisfy the deacon. " Scoundrels," as he put it, had 
 "forced him into a corner," and he meant "to make them 
 pay for their fun." 
 
 So after weighing the question in all its bearings, 
 he concluded that, if he could only make himself look
 
 A DEACON'S DILEMMA. 81 
 
 poor enough, two shillings-and-sixpence in the pound 
 would be a liberal composition to offer to the creditors. 
 He had known men, and well-to-do men, too, let off 
 before now for one shilling in the pound, and even less, 
 but of course the stupid creditors had not known that 
 any wealth was concealed. 
 
 In his own case, notwithstanding his deep conviction 
 that half-a-crown was a most handsome payment, Mr. 
 Brown did not feel at all sure of his ground. The 
 general impression, an impression he had done much to 
 encourage, was that he had saved a great deal of money, 
 and, if he must plead poverty now, his creditors would 
 naturally ask where this money lay hid. And unless it 
 was effectually hidden, the profitable bankruptcy would 
 end as disastrously as the Molly Baiun speculation. 
 
 Mr. Brown was thus in an emergency which kept him 
 worried for some weeks. At the end of that time, on the 
 Sunday evening already mentioned, he made up his 
 mind. It must have been then, for on the following 
 Monday morning, the moment he reached the office, 
 he summoned Mr. Buncombe.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A DEACONS DEVICE 
 
 When, in answer to the call, the freight clerk entered 
 the room, a look of mild curiosity on his face, Mr. 
 Brown was seated at his desk in all his ancient dignity 
 of deportment. 
 
 " Take a seat, Mr. Buncombe," said he, with a gracious 
 wave of the hand towards the nearest chair ; " I have 
 somewhat of importance to say to you." 
 
 Mr. Buncombe's face fell. He thought this greeting a 
 preliminary to an intimation of dismissal, but he merely 
 bowed as he sat down, and did not speak. There was a 
 moment of painful silence, and then Mr. Brown resumed. 
 
 " My dear young friend — young, though old in the 
 service of this firm — I have wished for some days to 
 have a little conversation with you." Here he paused, 
 and went through part of the facial pantomine so 
 familiar to Sunday school and chapel. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Buncombe, and waited. 
 
 " My friend," resumed the deacon, " I have, as you well 
 know, long watched your career with satisfaction, and, I 
 may add, with admiration. You have been a faithful 
 servant to me, Mr. Buncombe, all these years, and it has, 
 as you are aware, been a source of regret to me that
 
 A BEACON'S DEVICE. 83 
 
 I have not been able to more fully reward you ; but," 
 and as he laid stress on the " but," Mr. Brown placed 
 the tips of his fingers together in front of his ample 
 stomach gently, thereby bringing into prominence a large 
 diamond ring of great lustre, " but who knows, the time 
 will come ; and though I may not be able so to do, for 
 misfortunes have overtaken me, the Lord will yet reward 
 you, Mr. Buncombe. ' Faithful over a few things,' you 
 know ; that promise never fails." 
 
 Timothy mumbled some indistinct phrase or other, he 
 did not know what, for his mind was too much bent on 
 trying to guess what the "old sniveller" was driving at. 
 But the deacon took the sound for sympathy, and went 
 on. 
 
 " Yes, I know, my deeyar young friend ; I have never 
 doubted it ; you have a feeling heart ; and it is because 
 I know this — feel it here, sir," laying a large paw 
 impressively on his bosom, " that I have resolved to 
 confide some of my cares to you. What do you say, my 
 friend ? May I trust in you ? Are you willing to aid 
 me?" With that he leant forward and fixed his large 
 protruding eyes for a moment on the face of his clerk. 
 
 " I'm very sorry to hear that you need help, sir," 
 answered Buncombe, rousing himself; "and if I can be 
 of any use to you, I shall be only too delighted to 
 give you all the aid I can." 
 
 "Just so ; I thought so. I felt sure I could count upon 
 you. I flatter myself I am a good judge of men, Mr. 
 Buncombe ; and I have watched your career too long not 
 to know you by heart, as it were ; and when affliction
 
 84 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 and loss overwhelmed me, the Lord himself seemed to 
 direct my mind towards you, Mr. Buncombe. 'There, he 
 seemed to say, you will find a true friend ;' " and the 
 deacon rolled his great eyes and solemnly wagged his 
 head. 
 
 Timothy again bowed in silence, more puzzled than 
 ever. 
 
 Dropping all at once the canting whine in which he 
 had hitherto spoken, the deacon resumed in his curtest 
 business style. 
 
 " This is settled then ; and now to business. The fact 
 is, Mr. Buncombe, I find myself in difficulties- 
 temporary, but still serious difficulties — all through 
 having enemies. There are men, Mr. Buncombe, 
 pursuing me with relentless hatred. They are trying to 
 crush me, but they can't succeed ; they can't succeed if 
 you will only stand by me, and do as I direct. If you 
 do this, you shall not go unrewarded. Let the storm 
 only blow over, and I shall make you a partner in my 
 business. I give you my word of honour, as a gentle- 
 man, and (here came the whine again) 'as a Christian.'" 
 
 Once more a pause. The deacon heaved a gentle sigh, 
 and seemed to hesitate about coming to the point ; 
 Mr. Buncombe, therefore, judged it prudent to assist 
 him ; so he said, 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you, I am sure, Mr. 
 Brown. What you promise I have sometimes hoped for ; 
 but what is it that you want me to do ? " 
 
 The deacon's first answer was another brief, keen 
 scrutiny of his clerk's face. The inspection appeared
 
 A DEACON* S DEVICE. 85 
 
 to satisfy him. It was an impassive face, and revealed 
 no more than a mild look of satisfaction. Mr. Brown, 
 therefore, drew a long breath, and resuming partially 
 his unctuous whine, proceeded : 
 
 " You know that I am being hunted down, Mr. Bun- 
 combe? Alas! for the malice of the human heart. A 
 ring of foes encompass me. I know not where to turn. 
 They will take my little all from me, if I let them, just 
 because of a forged letter, which that unchristian man 
 Hogg has circulated about the Molly Bawn. No one, I 
 declare before God, could regret the lamentable loss of 
 that ship more than me, Mr. Buncombe ; but my 
 enemies will not hear a word in my defence. Every 
 penny I have in this world will they take from me if they 
 can, and cast me into the street to beg my bread. Oh, 
 the wickedness of the human heart, Mr. Buncombe ; 
 little do you know of it yet, thank God ! — thank God !" 
 
 The deacon stopped to blow his nose, overcome by his 
 emotions. 
 
 " Really, Mr. Brown, I am awfully vexed to hear this," 
 began Mr. Buncombe ; but his master waved his handker- 
 chief like a flag, and interposed with an eager haste, — 
 
 " I knew you would be — I knew you would be ; I felt 
 convinced of it ; and that is why I have turned to you. 
 You can help me to baffle my foes ; and you will ?" 
 
 " To the best of my power, I am ready, if you will 
 only tell me how," repeated the mystified clerk ; who, 
 however, began to have a suspicion that he was to be 
 asked to assist in some kind of fraud ; his employer 
 appeared so piously reluctant to come to the point.
 
 S6 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " It's the simplest thing in the world, my dear sir," re- 
 sumed the deacon, once more in his most matter-of-fact 
 style. " The fact is I have been looking out for these 
 attacks for some time, and have taken steps to defeat the 
 designs of my enemies. Part of my hard won savings 
 have therefore been put in what I may call a portable 
 shape, and what I want you to do is to become the 
 depository of these until this storm blows by. You 
 understand ?" 
 
 " Become the depository ? No, I confess I do not quite 
 follow you, Mr. Brown." 
 
 " Eh ! don't you ? But, my friend, nothing can be 
 simpler," said the deacon, leaning forward and speaking 
 fast in a confidential half whisper, " All you have to do 
 is to take my place as owner — temporary owner — of a 
 few securities and valuables I possess, so that these 
 scoundrels who are hunting me cannot lay hands on 
 them. They are bloodhounds, and will suck me dry if 
 they can, don't you see ? So if you'll be my deputy for 
 a time, their game will be up. Don't you understand? 
 It's a mere check-mate, you know. When you deal with 
 ruffians, you must have the wisdom of the serpent. Eh, 
 Mr. Buncombe?" concluded the deacon, with a nervous 
 laugh. He was not sure how his clerk would take the 
 proposal ; wrapped up though it was in guarded language, 
 its villainy might shock an unsophisticated mind. 
 
 It did nothing of the kind, and the fears of the deacon 
 on this score showed his ignorance of Mr. Buncombe's 
 character. That gentleman now understood perfectly 
 what was expected of him, and, like the man of genius he
 
 A DEACON'S DEVICE. 87 
 
 was, he saw in the task his long-waited for opportunity. 
 A gleam of joy flitted across his sallow face, but it was 
 with well-feigned reluctance that he gradually brought 
 himself to agree to the proposal. The difficulties he 
 raised did not concern the morality of the transaction. 
 That he adroitly left on one side, and contented himself 
 with making objections to the modes suggested for 
 effecting the transfer of the property. Only when these 
 were one by one triumphantly overcome by the deacon 
 did he finally urge legal doubts. 
 
 " Might there not be some risk in what you propose, 
 sir ?" he suggested, with a timid air. " Couldn't the law 
 lay hold of us if they found us out ? " 
 
 " But they won't find us out, my dear friend," the 
 deacon answered, now quite elated at the prospect of 
 cheating his creditors. They can't, you know, if you 
 keep quiet, and I keep quiet ; besides, I am not going to 
 become bankrupt this week or next. We shall have 
 plenty of time to destroy all traces of everything. I 
 shall, meantime, turn most of my securities into bonds 
 and debentures to bearer, and then I'll defy the scoundrels 
 to trace where the money has gone. Its disappearance 
 can all be explained by my losses, you know." 
 
 Buncombe still affected to hesitate, although agreeing 
 that this would be a splendid retaliation for the hatred 
 of wicked creditors, and his final scruples were van- 
 quished when Brown offered him a hundred and fifty 
 pounds down for the trouble and slight risk he undertook. 
 This was altogether irrespective of the promised partner- 
 ship, and clinched the bargain so far.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A deacon's delusion. 
 
 But when the confederates, as we may now call them, 
 came to discuss details, Mr. Timothy Buncombe's cautious 
 mind again took fright. Should the plot be found out 
 his situation would be dangerous, and were he to remain 
 in Mr. Brown's service while the "whitewashing" was in 
 progress, it was at least possible that the creditors might 
 subject him to awkward cross-examinations. A mind 
 that harbours thoughts of self-aggrandisement at other 
 people's expense is usually fearful. 
 
 Then, further, there was the question of Brown's 
 resumption of business after the failure. " Do you think 
 you can do that at once, my dear sir ? " Mr. Timothy 
 had ventured to ask. 
 
 " Why not ?" said Brown, in surprise, 
 
 " Well, you see, it is not merely the fact of your having 
 failed that will stand in your way, but those unfortunate 
 slanders about the Molly Bawn. A man down, you 
 know, is usually a man trodden on, and your enemies 
 will not spare you when you give them so good a 
 chance." 
 
 "Mm! there's something in that," remarked the 
 deacon ; " but what would you suggest ? I can't go out
 
 A DEACON'S DELUSION. 89 
 
 of business altogether, you know. I can't afford that ; 
 not yet." 
 
 "There's not the least necessity, if you will accept a 
 suggestion I venture to offer you," answered Buncombe 
 in his softest tones. 
 
 " And what may that be, pray ?" asked the deacon, 
 with just a shade of suspicion in his tone. 
 
 " Oh, the simplest thing in the world ; it is agreed, 
 you know, that afterwards I am to enter into partnership 
 with you." 
 
 " Yes, of course," ejaculated Brown. 
 
 Without heeding the interruption, Buncombe pro- 
 ceeded. " Now, what I have been thinking is this : would 
 it not be better that I should leave you before the smash 
 came, and start business for myself. We might appear 
 to have quarrelled, you know ; and when the whole affair 
 was well over, we could make it up again, and you could 
 then join me." 
 
 " Mm ! ah !" exclaimed Brown, doubtfully ; " I don't 
 quite see, my friend, how that plan would serve us." 
 
 " Don't you, though ; just ponder over it for a little, 
 and don't say ' no ' in too great a hurry. You see, I have 
 looked at the thing on all sides, and it struck me that, if 
 we parted now, to all appearance as enemies, your 
 creditors would never dream that you had made me the 
 depository of part of your savings. Nothing in the world 
 would look less probable." 
 
 " Ah, so, yes, good ! I never thought of that. That's 
 not a bad idea. I see !" and, as he jerked out these phrases, 
 the deacon rubbed his hands, his face beaming with
 
 go SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 pleasure. " You are a clever fellow, Buncombe," he con- 
 tinued. " Hang me, if I thought there was so much in 
 you. Let's see, tho', when shall we quarrel ? Ha, ha !" 
 
 " The sooner the better. I have my eye on a little office, 
 a few doors up the street, and could go in there at once." 
 
 " Good : but I say, though, how will you do for money ? 
 You can't begin business on nothing, you know." 
 
 " I have thought of that too, and I think I can manage. 
 You see I shall have the hundred and fifty you give me, 
 and I dare say I can scrape up a few pounds of my own. 
 My idea, in fact, is to give out that my uncle-in-law has 
 helped me with the needful, and then " 
 
 " Capital ! First rate ! Gad, you're a perfect trump !" 
 shouted the deacon in his eagerness. " But I interrupted 
 you — you said, ' and then ' " 
 
 " Yes, I was going to say that, of course, as your enemy 
 I'll cut about trying to pick up the business that is falling 
 away from you. By this means what is best of it will, 
 perhaps, be kept together against the day when you can 
 join me." 
 
 The delight of the pious shipbroker over this scheme 
 was unbounded. It seemed to smooth away his last 
 difficulties. In his joy he never gave a thought to the 
 possibilities of failure ; never dreamt that his frugal clerk 
 might play him false if he liked. 
 
 That same afternoon the confederates contrived to get 
 up a scene before the other clerks, which ended in 
 Buncombe leaving the office, vowing never to return. 
 Before another Sunday came round, all Berborough 
 knew that Brown and Buncombe had quarreled and
 
 A BEACON'S DELUSION. 91 
 
 separated, and that the latter had commenced business 
 on his own account. 
 
 What Berborough did not know was that Mr. Bun- 
 combe carried with him, or received within a few days 
 of the separation, securities to the value of something 
 like twelve thousand pounds, which Mr. Brown handed 
 to him for safe custody. Amongst these securities were a 
 number of shares in Brown's best ships, and the title deeds 
 of a strip of land on the bank of Berborough's estuary, 
 nearer the sea than the town. Mr. Brown had just bought, 
 through a lawyer, this land as a speculation, in the belief 
 that one of these days it would be wanted for docks, and 
 having faith in the future, he naturally did not want to 
 part with it. So Timothy "stood in" as the ostensible 
 owner. Most of the property, however, that Mr. Bun- 
 combe received from his late employer was in the shape 
 of securities to bearer, the ownership of which can so 
 easily be made untraceable. It was by a juggle indeed 
 that some of the shipping shares were transferred. They 
 were not originally in Brown's own name, but were held 
 for him by dummies. He, in his view, merely changed 
 the dummy. 
 
 " It's rather a risky business, you know ; but I think 
 we shall be too many for them," Mr. Buncombe remarked 
 to the deacon more than once at the secret interviews 
 the pair held while this transfer was in progress. 
 
 Brown had no doubt at all on that score. His 
 sanguine spirits had re-asserted themselves with all their 
 native exuberance. He felt that he was in trim to make 
 a first-class smash up.
 
 92 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 In the chapel the separation of master and clerk made 
 quite a sensation, and their behaviour to each other 
 convinced everybody that they lived in a state of deadly 
 hatred one with another. The general impression 
 was that Buncombe had got money at last from his 
 ungracious uncle-in-law, and had taken the opportunity 
 afforded by Brown's misfortunes to break with him. 
 
 Anyhow, the hatred now existing between the two 
 was obvious to everybody. They went out of their way 
 to exhibit it. Brown ostentatiously scowled every time 
 his eye lighted on his late freight clerk, and Buncombe 
 treated him to a stare as cool as if he had never seen the 
 deacon before in his life. It was excellent comedy, 
 excellently played.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A deacon's delight. 
 
 Less than three months after their little arrangement had 
 been completed, Mr. Silas Brown duly stopped payments, 
 just as everybody had expected. At the preliminary 
 meeting of his creditors he laid so doleful a story of his 
 losses and misfortunes before them, that in spite of a few 
 bitter complaints, they ultimately agreed to accept a 
 composition of half-a-crown in the pound, rather than 
 throw the estate into the hands of those sharks of 
 bankruptcy officials. So meekly, on the whole, was the 
 blow received that Mr. Brown felt disposed to regret his 
 generosity. 
 
 "I do believe they would have accepted eighteen- 
 pence," said he, the day after everything was settled. 
 It did not occur to the good man that his non-payment 
 of his debts might ruin or cripple dozens of families ; 
 that by hiding his property he was a thief. Nothing of the 
 sort. Mr. Brown had done an excellent stroke of business. 
 It was much more satisfactory for him to "pay out' 
 his creditors in this way, as he often said to himself, 
 than to " pay up." What did it matter to him if numbers 
 of little tradespeople who had invested their savings in 
 his ships lost nearly their all, and had cither to fail
 
 94 SIR TJJIIO THY B UN COM BE. 
 
 themselves or to battle with hunger in order to pay 
 their own debts. All Mr. Brown's creditors were to 
 him " enemies." He was at war with them, and in war 
 all crimes arc lawful. 
 
 So far from being ashamed of his deeds, Mr. Brown 
 could exult over them, and thank his God for the victory. 
 His proud humility in chapel, the Sunday after his 
 " afflictions " were at an end, was beautiful to look upon. 
 The gusts of his song — all out of time and tune — swept 
 athwart the rythm of the choir with a force that nearly 
 led the singers among the flock astray. He was 
 bellowing forth his hymn of victory, and the light of 
 triumph shone in his eye, even while his head was bent. 
 
 David Hogg sat there to the left of him, and a seat or 
 two forward. He had the impudence to turn round 
 and frown at Brown's song more than once ; but what 
 did the ex-deacon — Brown had resigned on the smash, 
 expecting to be at once reinstated in his honours — 
 what did the ex-deacon care for Hogg or any other 
 underwriter? On them as on all his other foes he had 
 had his revenge, and when he caught the underwriter's 
 frown he returned it with interest, singing louder, more 
 out of tune than ever. 
 
 During the sermon his head wagged solemnly at the 
 minister's periods, and when that excellent man, bent on 
 improving the occasion, dwelt upon the afflictions which 
 follow men's footsteps in this sin-laden world, afflictions 
 which even penetrated within their sacred fold, Brown 
 leant his head on his hand and looked upward with a 
 gaze so intent, that one might have imagined his goggle
 
 A DEACON'S DELIGHT. 95 
 
 eyes saw visions through the roof. But there was no 
 sadness in that look. Why should there be ? Was there 
 not a snug little pile of securities and accrued interest 
 lying up there in Mr. Timothy Buncombe's little safe, 
 which he could now handle when he pleased ? Doubtless 
 his mind dwelt much on this sweet thought as he stood 
 up to sing, his left hand playing absently with the seals 
 of his massive watch-chain, still there, notwithstanding 
 ruin, and half-a-crown in the pound.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A deacon's despair. 
 
 Short-sighted mortals that we are. The wisest and 
 most pious among us see no further into the future than 
 a bat at noonday. While Mr. Silas Brown was enter- 
 taining his long harassed soul with visions of peace and 
 abundance, an old age made respectable by wealth well 
 hoarded, had not Mr. Timothy Buncombe equally good 
 grounds, nay better grounds, for permitting himself the 
 same indulgence ? Might he not at that very time be 
 solacing his weary spirit with these same thoughts ? 
 
 In the interval between his departure from Mr. Brown's 
 office and the failure, he had not been idle. All that was 
 good in his late employer's business he had striven to 
 draw into his hands, and already his intimacy with ex- 
 porters had enabled him to load several ships in a 
 satisfactory way. The smudge that attached to Brown's 
 name did not touch his, and he meant to make his con- 
 duct worthy of confidence. The future, therefore, had . 
 hope for Timothy Buncombe. A better day had dawned. 
 Fortune lay within his grasp, perhaps, if he but played 
 his cards well. 
 
 As he thought of these things his mind gradually 
 familiarised itself with the idea that it might be an excel-
 
 A DEACON'S DESPAIR. 97 
 
 lent thing to keep the ex-deacon's money and securities. 
 When he took charge of them the notion of doing so 
 was vague. Money would be useful to him, he felt ; but 
 not all at once could his soul rise to the height of this 
 great conception. 
 
 That Brown should never be his partner, he, from the 
 outset, decided ; for he saw that any association with a 
 ship-sinking rascal would destroy his chance of success. 
 But he had not been clear as to the money. Some of it he 
 felt he must keep, he could not get along without it. It 
 was not, however, till his business began to grow, and his 
 conceptions with it, that he felt the impossibility in his 
 heart of parting with any of this capital. To hand it 
 over to a scoundrel like Brown would be suicidal. And 
 did not Brown really owe him as much, or nearly as 
 much, for unrequited past services ? 
 
 These were the thoughts that filled the restless brain of 
 Mr. Timothy Buncombe Sunday and Saturday ; but he 
 kept them to himself. The complacent Christian pro- 
 fessor who had trusted him never suspected their 
 existence, and went, when the " whitewashing " had been 
 completed, to take back his hoard without the shadow 
 of a doubt. 
 
 It was in March, a bleak, bitter night in March, that 
 Mr. Silas Brown ventured to steal along on his errand of 
 reclamation to Mr. Buncombe's little cottage. There 
 was no moon, and the feebly-lighted streets were dark 
 enough to hide burglars, let alone pious citizens seeking 
 their own. Nevertheless, Mr. Brown had disguised him- 
 self to the best of his ability, in a broad brimmed wide-
 
 98 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 awake, and a muffler of sober-hued tartan. His step 
 was methodical, and almost slow, for he feared to walk 
 fast lest he should betray himself. When, therefore, he 
 reached Mr. Buncombe's door, he felt cold, and it seemed 
 to him like a long ten minutes before the door was 
 opened in answer to his gentle ring. Once inside he felt 
 little better than before. The room into which the 
 maid-of-all-work ushered him, no doubt Mr. Buncombe's 
 best parlour, was cold and damp as the outside air — 
 fireless and lightless. 
 
 When the girl went to tell her master, she closed the 
 door behind her, and left Brown to stand and shiver in 
 utter darkness. Mr. Buncombe also seemed to him a 
 long time in coming. Brown felt for a seat, and stumbled 
 and nearly fell over a footstool. This put him out of 
 temper, and could he have seen the door he would have 
 •opened it and shouted ; but it was too dark, so he 
 shivered and stood still. 
 
 At length the door opened, and Mr. Timothy Bun- 
 combe entered, carrying a lighted candle. Closing it 
 carefully behind him, he advanced and put the candle 
 on the table in the middle of the room, at the end 
 nearest the exit. 
 
 "You've been a devilish long time, Buncombe," 
 cried Mr. Brown, his teeth almost chattering in his 
 head. " I thought you were going to leave me here 
 all night." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, I'm sure," was the reply ; "I'm 
 very sorry ; but the fact is, Mrs. B. was putting the 
 children to bed, and, as usual, I had to help her, and to
 
 A DEACON'S DESPAIR. 99 
 
 hear them say their prayers. Family duties, you know, 
 Mr. Brown." 
 
 "Well, well, but it's deuced cold here ; you might have 
 had a fire, man. I'm chill to the marrow of my bones." 
 
 " Really, I'm so sorry, but you did not tell me you 
 were coming to-night, you know. Had I known you 
 were to honour my humble home with a call, I should 
 have had a roaring fire for you. But we have to be 
 economical in these times, especially when you can't tell 
 how things will go." 
 
 "Ah, just so. Don't apologise. I must make my 
 visit the shorter. You've got, eh, those papers in the 
 house, I dessay, and if you'll just hand 'em over I'll be off 
 faster than I came, I can tell you." 
 
 " Papers ! what papers ? " answered Mr. Buncombe, in 
 a tone that was meant to affect great surprise, but which 
 did not quite fulfil intentions. 
 
 " Eh, what ! Why, of course, those bonds and things, 
 you know, that I entrusted to you last November. You 
 haven't lost 'em, I suppose," exclaimed the ex-deacon, 
 with a gaspy attempt at a laugh. 
 
 Buncombe looked at him with a cold stare, and replied, 
 in his most measured tone, " I have nothing at all in 
 this house belonging to you, Mr. Brown." 
 
 "The devil you haven't. Then where are my bonds 
 and other things ? Tell me how and when I can get 
 'em." Brown began to feel warmer. 
 
 " I have no knowledge of the documents to which you 
 allude," replied Mr. Buncombe in the same slow, cold 
 accents.
 
 i oo SIR TIMO TH Y B UN COMBE. 
 
 " What ! " almost yelled the ex-deacon. " Do you 
 mean to tell me, Buncombe, that you've not got the 
 property I left with you three months ago ?" 
 
 " I did not say that. I know nothing about it." 
 
 " What the deuce do you mean, then ? Do you think I 
 came here to be played with ? Hand those securities over 
 at once, or it will be the worse for you. This is a pretty go, 
 and no mistake." The last sentence Brown spoke as if 
 to himself. Then, as Mr. Buncombe stood silent and 
 motionless, he hissed out " Did you hear me ? Confound 
 you, you sweep, you don't mean to say that you intend 
 to stick to my property ?" 
 
 " I do not understand what you are talking about," 
 said Buncombe, slowly ; but at the same time he edged a 
 little nearer the door. 
 
 " Oh ! come now, I like that. You don't know that 
 you have twelve or fourteen thousand pounds of mine in 
 your hands, don't you, you innocent. That's a good 'un ; 
 but I don't quite see your game, my man. You can't 
 hope to keep that money, surely. Good God ! whatever 
 shall I do ? This is horrible. Come, I say, Buncombe, 
 you're joking, ain't you ? Drop it, man, drop it, for 
 God's sake, and let us to business. It's too cold here 
 for larks." 
 
 The poor ex-deacon was beside himself with rage, fear, 
 disappointment, and the last lingerings of hope, and 
 looked now anything but cold. Heavy balls of sweat were 
 gathering on his forehead, and began to trickle unheeded 
 down his flushed face. He gasped, he puffed his cheeks, 
 and blew his breath out like a man in desperate need of
 
 A DEACON'S DESPAIR. 101 
 
 more air, and Mr. Timothy Buncombe stood and looked 
 at him impassive as a figure in stone. 
 
 Receiving no answer to his threats and cries, the ex- 
 deacon, after a short pause, burst forth on a new tack. 
 
 " Oh ! I see what it is ; you ain't pleased with what I 
 gave you for the job, eh ? Well, my dear boy," — here 
 the poor wretch tried to grin, and held out his hand, 
 " What was it, one hundred and fifty pounds, two hundred 
 pounds ? Well, make it five hundred pounds, and say it's 
 a baniain. You know I'm not mean with a friend. Take 
 
 o 
 
 five hundred pounds and give me my papers, I want to 
 get home soon. I've an appointment at nine." 
 
 Buncombe did not speak, but shook his head. 
 
 " Eh, what — damnation ! You want more, do you. 
 Well, speak up, can't you ! Tell us what you do want, 
 and be done with it. I can't stand here playing the fool 
 all night." 
 
 " I have told you," said Mr. Buncombe, "that I know 
 nothing at all of what you are talking about." 
 
 " Oh, damn it, no, you can't mean that, Buncombe. 
 Heavens, no ! Say you are joking, and give me my 
 papers, and let me go. Buncombe, Buncombe, my boy, 
 don't be hard on me. Take a thousand pounds and let 
 us be done with it. Say it's a bargain and I'll give you 
 half the business. Oh ! Buncombe, you wouldn't 
 swindle a poor devil, would you, now ? I have been your 
 master, you know, for more than twelve years. Buncombe, 
 I say, speak up, man. Don't look so black as that. Say 
 it's a joke ; pay up, even if you take two thousand 
 pounds, and the interest you have in hand. Give me the
 
 102 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 rest and let mc go home in peace." And Brown fairly 
 broke down. Tumbling back on the ricketty couch near 
 him, he covered his face with his hands and sobbed like a 
 child. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe stood without moving a muscle of his 
 face, and did not attempt to speak until the paroxysm 
 of angry sobbing had partially subsided. Then in the 
 cold indifferent tone he had thus far maintained, he said : 
 
 " It's not the least use, Brown. What I have, I keep, 
 so the sooner you give up your attempts to extort money 
 from me the better." 
 
 " Extort money from you, you thief, you scoundrel, 
 you miserable sneak, you hang-dog looking blackguard!" 
 yelled Brown, starting to his feet and clenching his hands 
 as if to dash upon his enemy : " Never, never while 
 breath is in my body ! you black-hearted villain ! Give 
 up, must I? It's attempts to extort money, is it? 
 Urrrh! By God, I'll kill you first." Ashe uttered this 
 threat he stepped convulsively forward and shook his 
 fist in Mr. Timothy Buncombe's face. For the first time 
 that gentleman quailed. The coward rose in him, and 
 with blanched lips and trembling limbs he involuntarily 
 sought the door. But the ex-deacon anticipated him. 
 With a dash he swept past, and planting his back 
 against the door, yelled : 
 
 " Now, you fiend incarnate, out of this you don't budge 
 till I have my money. I swear I'll choke the life out of 
 you, if need be ; but I'll have it." 
 
 Buncombe's answer was to spring to the window, open 
 it, and call "police ! police ! " not very loudly though.
 
 A DEACON'S DESPAIR. 105. 
 
 In an instant all fighting humour left Brown. His 
 hands fell by his side, he trembled from head to foot,, 
 and crept to the nearest chair. 
 
 " Don't, for God's sake, don't, Buncombe," he pleaded. 
 " Surely we can settle our little business without the 
 police. Close the window, man, and come and sit down 
 and talk it over quietly. You put me in a passion just 
 now by your little jokes, and I didn't know what I said. 
 But I wouldn't hurt you, Buncombe, really I wouldn't. 
 Don't call the police, there's a good soul." As he spoke 
 he rose again, crept up to the window, and laid his hand 
 pleadingly on Buncombe's arm. The latter, who had 
 drawn in his head, answered — 
 
 " I must call the police if you refuse to leave my house 
 quietly." 
 
 "Don't, Buncombe, my boy. Don't be hard on a. 
 poor old fellow," whined the ex-deacon. 
 
 " I tell you, once for all," said Mr. Buncombe,, 
 speaking low and slowly, but with some show of heat, 
 " I tell you, once for all, that I know nothing about 
 money of yours. I have not got any, and though you 
 plead here till doomsday, never a penny shall you have 
 from me." 
 
 " Don't, Buncombe, my boy ; shut the window, do, and 
 be reasonable. You're having a little game with me, 
 ain't you ? You wouldn't see a poor old fellow like me 
 ruined now, would you ? Why should you keep all my 
 money ? I've never done you no harm. I've been your 
 friend all these years. Don't take all my money, Bun- 
 combe ; give me half of it, and I'll be satisfied."
 
 104 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 "Haven't you done me harm, just," was Buncombe's 
 reply, catching on purpose at one phrase in his late 
 employer's incoherent pleading ; " who but you has kept 
 me a slave and a drudge from my earliest boyhood ? 
 I've worked for you year in and out, early and late, 
 coining money for you, and seldom got even thanks for 
 my pains. You just gave me enough money to exist 
 upon, and, for bonus, snivelling cant and bushels of good 
 wishes for the next world. I might have died in a ditch 
 for all you cared. No, no. Brown, you'll get nothing out 
 of me. It's my turn now. All I have got will no more 
 than make up for your past robberies. I consider it due 
 to me, and I mean to pay myself now I have the chance. 
 If you don't like it, then — then, by Jove, you can go for 
 the police ; but it's not the least good your stopping 
 here." 
 
 Gradually, as Brown listened to this bitter speech, all 
 force seemed to leave his body. His limbs grew limp, 
 his jaw fell, his head dropped on his breast, and his dull 
 eye became fixed. Even by the light of one candle it 
 could be seen that his face was ashy white. As one 
 stunned by a mortal blow, he stood there rooted to the 
 spot, gazing vacantly towards his late clerk. 
 
 " Yes, yes !" he gasped out at last. " I'm done, then ; 
 fool that I was, I might have known. But I'll go for 
 the police, yes I will," he added, in a more determined 
 tone. " I'll go rather than you should keep my money, 
 Buncombe : curse you, yes, curse you for a hell-hound. 
 My curse will go with that money ; the curse of a ruined 
 man. It will blast you yet ; see if it doesn't. Eh ! penal
 
 A DEACON'S DESPAIR. 105 
 
 servitude, say you ? Who'll get penal servitude, I'd like 
 to know, if not the thief that steals my money ? " This 
 query was in answer to a hint quietly dropped by 
 Buncombe. 
 
 " There is such a thing as cheating one's creditors, 
 you know, Mr. Brown," was the cold rejoinder. 
 
 Brown's jaw fell again, and he turned and made for 
 the door. With his hand on its knob, he stopped, and 
 once more tried to strike a bargain with Timothy. 
 
 " Look here, Buncombe," he cried, in his old wheedling 
 tone, " let's divide the money ; give me five thousand 
 pounds of it. Hang me, that's more than fair. Don't 
 be hard, now ; say you'll do it." 
 
 " You have got all the answer you'll get from me, I 
 tell you. You may plead till doomsday, if you like, but 
 it won't procure you a penny." 
 
 " Then, by God, I shall lodge a criminal information 
 against you," cried Brown, once more flushing up 
 feverishly. 
 
 "As you please, sir ; only if you do I'll take precious 
 good care that the money goes to your creditors." 
 
 " You can't do that." 
 
 " Can't I, though ! Before you can let the law loose 
 on me I shall be in communication with your creditors. 
 They shall know all, and you'll be the sufferer, I guess, 
 not I." 
 
 " Buncombe, you are a devil incarnate," exclaimed the 
 poor beset ex-deacon, and he pulled out his handkerchief 
 and wiped his flushed face, like a man at his wit's 
 end.
 
 106 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 Buncombe took no notice whatever of this observation, 
 except to fold his hands across his breast, and gaze 
 fixedly at his dupe. 
 
 " Mark my words," Brown resumed, " you may 
 triumph now, I'm beaten ; yes, and I'm a fool, but 
 I'll have my revenge on you yet, you fiend, or my name 
 isn't Silas Brown. As sure as God made me, I'll pull 
 you down. I'll dog your steps, I'll expose your black- 
 hearted villainy. The town shall know it. I'll proclaim 
 it to the Church ; you shall not get off. Urrrh ! you 
 scoundrel, I could slay you where you stand." 
 
 As the ex-deacon said this he caught up a chair and 
 rushed at his enemy. But Mr. Buncombe knew his man 
 now, and instead of recoiling, merely caught the chair by 
 the legs and wrenched it out of Brown's hands. It fell on 
 the floor between them, and they stood and glared at 
 each other in the dim candle light. 
 
 How the scene would have ended had the pair been 
 longer left to themselves, I cannot say. In a fight, not 
 improbably, a fight wherein I am not sure that the 
 younger man would have had the best of it. At this 
 juncture, however, Mrs. Buncombe created a diversion 
 by opening the door and looking in. The noise the two 
 men made had excited her curiosity to a point that 
 rendered it impossible for her to refrain longer from 
 trying to discover what was going on. 
 
 " My goodness, gracious me," she cried, before she was 
 half inside the room, " whatever are you two a-doing in 
 here, argufying in the cold ? If you hadn't made such a 
 row, I'd a thought you were gone out."
 
 A DEACON'S DESPAIR. 107 
 
 Mr. Buncombe first scowled at this interruption, and 
 then smiled, as if congratulating himself at the chance of 
 deliverance his wife's inquisitiveness afforded. Mr. 
 Brown shivered involuntarily, drew a long breath, and 
 thrust his hand through his grizzly stubble as if to collect 
 his thoughts. Neither, however, spoke, but that in no 
 wise abashed Mrs. Buncombe. 
 
 " My goodness me," she resumed, " you look like a 
 couple of hicicles. Won't you come into the back parlour, 
 Mr. Brown, and finish your talk there ? There's a fire in 
 it, and the children are all abed. You'll get your death 
 of cold if you stay here, I'm sure. What were you 
 thinking on, Tim, to keep Mr. Brown in this damp 
 room. There ain't been no fire in it since last Sunday 
 week, for you was up at Grimsby last Sunday, and I 
 kept the children in the back parlour. Won't you come 
 in, Mr. Brown, and get yourself warmed up a bit ? Sorry 
 we havn't a grander place to invite you to, but, you see, 
 we're poor yet, though, if all Tim hints is true, we ain't 
 a-going to be for long. Do come along, Mr. Brown." 
 
 "Ah, n — no, no thank you, my good w — Mrs. Bun- 
 combe ; no, thanks, not to-night. I must be going, I 
 think ; yes, I must be going. I shall see you again, Mr. 
 Buncombe. We have not finished with each other yet," 
 he added significantly, and without lifting his eyes, or 
 offering to shake hands, Mr. Brown pushed past Mrs. 
 Buncombe in rude haste, out into the passage, caught up 
 his hat and stick, fumbled at the door latch for a 
 moment, and then opened it and disappeared into the 
 night.
 
 108 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 "What a funny man," cried Mrs. Buncombe, ere the 
 door had banged behind him ; "whatever have you two 
 been up to? You looked like fightin' when I popped 
 my head in. Is the old skinflint cut up because we've 
 begun business for ourselves ? " 
 
 "Just that, my dear," answered her husband, "and I'm 
 very glad you came in when you did ; though," he 
 quickly added, " I trust you will not make a practice of 
 it, my dear. It mightn't be always so convenient." 
 
 " Oh, of course, you think women in the way, I know. 
 Just like you men ; nobody is any good but yourselves," 
 sniffed Mrs. Buncombe. 
 
 " All right, my dear ; be satisfied that you did me a 
 good turn this time, and you shall have a new gown to 
 show you that I'm not ungrateful." 
 
 " Oh ! laws ! will it be silk, pappy ? Do make it silk, 
 a nice black silk, with lots of flounces." 
 
 " All right, my dear. Have your own way this time ; 
 I think I can afford a little extravagance," agreed her 
 husband, as the ghost of a smile flitted across his pale 
 face. The struggle he had gone through had put a 
 strain on his nervous system.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A DISAPPEARANCE AND A DEATH. 
 
 In this way Mrs. Buncombe's thoughts were diverted 
 from Mr. Silas Brown and his affairs. She asked no 
 more questions, possibly thought no more about it. As 
 for Mr. Buncombe, he doubtless considered his boast 
 a pretty safe one. He had placed Brown on the 
 horns of a dilemma, and felt sure that there the man 
 would stick. The least movement he made to denounce 
 his spoiler could only procure his own destruction. 
 
 Silas Brown knew this as well as Mr. Timothy Bun- 
 combe, but he did not therefore desist in his attempt to 
 get back part, at least, of his money. To get hold of 
 that money, in fact, became his fixed idea. Early and 
 late, at all times and seasons, when it was possible to 
 catch Mr. Buncombe alone, Brown begged for that 
 money, threatened and wept by turns, and all in 
 vain. His persistent hunt after the lost treasure, 
 was, indeed, the means of completing his ruin. To 
 follow that quest he neglected what little was left 
 of his business, and allowed his rivals, including Mr. 
 Buncombe, to take it out of his hands. Most of it, 
 in fact, went to that fortunate and rising young 
 man.
 
 no SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 Poor Brown had raved of vengeance, but surely the 
 vengeance was falling on himself. A few weeks of this 
 agony sufficed to make him look years older; a few 
 months of neglect of business reduced him to penury. 
 And as he sank in purse the once resplendent Christian 
 professor became looser in morals. There was no object 
 now in being respectable, the wretched fellow seemed to 
 think. He had never been reinstated in his forfeited 
 deaconship, and by degrees he ceased to attend public 
 worship. The sanctified world-subduing air with which 
 he formerly walked the streets gave place to a hurried 
 slouch, ending all too often in a dive into a drinking bar. 
 
 With the loss of the garment of pietism, all was lost. 
 From being a back-slider in the eyes of the holy, he 
 became a reprobate — an outcast from the sanctuary. All 
 too clearly did the world now see the true character of 
 Silas Brown. Pietism had been with him what it is with 
 most talkers about religion — a trick. By means of it he 
 had hoped to conceal his true character, so that he might 
 cheat his fellow men with the greater impunity. His 
 money lost without hope of recovery, the motive for sus- 
 taining this mockery disappeared, and before many months 
 were over Silas Brown became a loafer, a man who 
 drank hard and swore hard, more ready to weep over 
 his wrongs among loose companions in drinking dens 
 than he had ever been to shed tears for his sins in the 
 meeting place of the godly. 
 
 Revenge ! Were not the men and women whom 
 Brown's misdoings had made hungry, the children whom 
 his rotten overladen ships had rendered fatherless, now
 
 A DISAPPEARANCE AND A DEATH, in 
 
 being revenged upon the human mawworm who had 
 done them evil ? Yes, if retribution be revenge ; if not, 
 no. 
 
 Unknown to himself there was one man, however, 
 upon whom he was perhaps more effectually reaping a 
 harvest of gratified vengeance by his sottishness than he 
 could have done by any other known means. That man 
 was Mr. Timothy Buncombe. Cool, scornful, collected, 
 defiant he had been towards his former employer as long 
 as that unhappy being kept his wits ; when he got drunk it 
 was quite another affair. In his cups he might tell 
 secrets to Mr. Buncombe's hurt. A man with nothing to 
 lose, in whom hope is as good as dead, often becomes 
 reckless. No fate, no human punishment can add to his 
 degradation and misery. He may therefore take ven- 
 geance upon an enemy merely to force that enemy to 
 share his own degradation. 
 
 Astute Mr. Timothy Buncombe saw this contingency, 
 and became afraid to an extent that caused him to begin 
 to hand to Silas small sums of money when that fallen star 
 came in his way. There was in sober truth little ground 
 for the fear which prompted this " generosity." If Brown 
 dreaded one thing more than death itself it was the jail. 
 The last rag of respectability to which he clung, was, 
 not to be a jail bird. That had restrained him from 
 openly attacking Mr. Timothy Buncombe when first he 
 found himself overreached, and it held him in its grasp 
 in the worst hours of his degradation. When drunk he 
 talked loudly and oft about his misfortunes, and about 
 certain mysterious wrongs from which he had suffered,
 
 ii2 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 but never did he condescend to particulars ; a dread of 
 consequences always held him back. The terror of the 
 law was upon him when his eye was bleared, his voice 
 thick, and his legs erratic, more perhaps than when he 
 was possessed of his usual faculties. 
 
 I was about to say, happily for him, Mr. Buncombe 
 was unaware of this, but I am not sure that it was 
 happily. The money which the rising ship broker doled 
 out in his conscience-troubled way to his old master did 
 no good. It was given from no good motive, and 
 degraded both giver and receiver. It helped to augment 
 the speed with which Silas Brown made for the gutter 
 and the pauper's grave. A year, or little more, saw the 
 last chance of making a living at his old occupation in 
 Berborough gone from him for ever. Before two years 
 had expired his house was broken up. His wife had 
 died of a broken heart within eighteen months of her 
 husband's bankruptcy. Shame and grief killed her. Two 
 unmarried daughters, the last of the ex-deacon's family, 
 had departed to try to make their living as governesses, 
 or something of that sort, for their father could no longer 
 keep a home for them. Alone in the world, forsaken, 
 despised, a besodden wreck of his former purse-holy 
 self, it had been better had Silas died then, too. But he 
 lived on, and periodically debauched himself with Mr. 
 Buncombe's hush money. Several people gave him odd 
 clerking jobs to do, but he stuck to nothing, drifting ever 
 downwards. 
 
 At last, in the winter of 186 — Brown disappeared 
 from Berborough altogether ; where he went, or what
 
 A DISAPPEARANCE AND A DEATH. 113 
 
 became of him, none knew for long after, and few cared. 
 Mr. Timothy Buncombe thought it was the best thing he 
 could have done to take himself off. To him, at least, 
 the disappearance was a relief, and had that been pos- 
 sible, he would, doubtless, have gone about his daily 
 business with a straighter back in consequence. A lighter 
 heart he assuredly had, delivered as he was from his 
 fear of the drunken tattlings of a ruined man. The star 
 of Buncombe was in the ascendant. 
 
 About this time, too, the rising shipowner was blessed 
 by what he would still have deigned to describe as 
 another God's mercy. Mr. Bob Cutler died. Hale he 
 was, and strong looking ; but, nevertheless, he too disap- 
 peared, and, unlike Brown, without danger of returning. 
 A "stroke" carried him off somewhere about the age of 
 seventy. " It was 'baccy as did it," his paramour de- 
 clared. " I allays said as 'baccy would be the death on 
 'im." Perhaps so ; anyhow, dead he was, and, what was 
 better still, from the point of view of the Buncombe 
 family, he died intestate, baulking thus the hopes of the 
 charwoman, who, after a few brief years of ease, had to 
 take to her drudgery again. He left much less money 
 than had been expected, a matter of four thousand 
 pounds only, and Mrs. Penelope Buncombe was unable 
 to secure the whole of that modest sum. Other relatives 
 started up as claimants, of whom she had never heard, 
 and, rather than throw the estate into Chancery, a com- 
 promise was agreed upon. The estate, when sub- 
 divided, yielded Mrs. Buncombe about eight hundred 
 pounds. Small as this sum was, her husband accepted 
 
 11
 
 ii4 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 it as a kind of solatium. His marriage had, after all, not 
 been absolutely barren of good. " Providence," he con- 
 fessed to his " dear Penny," was declaring itself on their 
 side, and the " wicked " were obtaining their deserts.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN INTERVAL. 
 
 Were I a German annalist, the dozen years of Mr. 
 Timothy Buncombe's life which followed the epoch 
 brought to a satisfactory conclusion in the last chapter 
 would be detailed with proper minuteness. I might tell 
 when the great man bought his gold watch, when he 
 made his first move upwards in the matter of dwelling- 
 place, when he became a chapel deacon and assumed a 
 modest lordship over that part of God's heritage repre- 
 sented by Goliath chapel, when Mrs. Buncombe first 
 tried to mend her grammar and took to wearing silk 
 dresses at breakfast, how her husband made money and 
 lost it, all his ambitious hopes, disappointments, chagrins, 
 what was the progress of his business, and the degrees of 
 his ascent in popular favour. It might be possible to 
 make this chronicle interesting to one person in a million 
 or two, for there are still people living who find delight 
 in the speeches of peers, temporal and spiritual ; and I 
 met a man not long ago who had read "Blair's sermons ;" 
 so, at least, he said. But I cannot bring my hand to 
 the execution of so arduous a labour ; no, not even to 
 gratify one man in half a million. I should prefer, only 
 that it suits not a maker of books, the scriptural style —
 
 1 1 6 SIR TIMO TH Y B UN COM BE. 
 
 "After that he lived so many years, and begat sons and 
 daughters." 
 
 That is all the record most men's lives require ; but 
 excellent though this summary is in a general way, it 
 does not quite apply to Mr. Buncombe. His success in 
 the multiplication of his species was small. At the end 
 of twenty years of married life he had only five children ; 
 one son and four daughters. 
 
 The formula, therefore, of the old Jewish chroniclers 
 would probably have to be modified, in any case, before 
 it could be applied to the successful individual whose 
 deeds, and thoughts, and words it is my pleasant task to 
 chronicle. 
 
 He made money, for example, in these years ; and, as 
 I have hinted, lost it, too. A ship or two did sink in 
 spite of his utmost care, and in one case where this 
 untoward accident happened, he might have suffered in 
 the estimation of his enemies but that he nobly took the 
 bulk of the loss on himself. 
 
 Not only did Mr. Buncombe make money, on the 
 whole, but he spent money. There was nothing of the 
 niggard about him, nor yet did he sink quite to the level 
 of the purse-swollen brewer, or parvenu stock gambler, 
 or corn dealer, and become a slave to gold chains, 
 diamond studs, and champagne cup. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe cultivated, to better purpose, the art of 
 gentility, and deserves the more praise that he did so 
 under difficulties. His wife wished to second him, with- 
 out doubt, but unfortunately only brought her vulgarity 
 into the greater prominence by her attempts. Worse
 
 AN INTERVAL. 117 
 
 still, the children took after their mother, until Mr. 
 Buncombe packed them off to expensive boarding 
 schools, there to acquire the arts and graces esteemed 
 proper to " good society." 
 
 This was an excellent arrangement in more ways than 
 one, and, not least so, because it permitted both Mr. 
 and Mrs. Buncombe to enjoy life without the cares of 
 rearing a family. If I must be particular, and go so far 
 as to tell a little about these years, I may, indeed, 
 admit that Mr. Buncombe was not at all a family man, 
 and did not effusively love children. To him it was no 
 overpowering joy to be a father. 
 
 In this respect he bore great resemblance to a wizened, 
 carroty-headed little creature I once knew, who laboured 
 under the delusion that he was born to be a statesman, 
 and to "rule the Senate." This droll fragment of a man 
 issued an ukase forbidding his children to appear in his 
 presence until they had reached their teens, lest their 
 senseless chatter and infantine absurdities should distract 
 his mighty mind from the contemplation of his own 
 advancing greatness. 
 
 Mr. Timothy Buncombe was not on quite so lofty 
 a pinnacle of parental indifference as that, but he 
 came near it, and was glad when his offspring were 
 out of the house. While holidays lasted he was 
 more or less miserable. There was no sympathy 
 between him and his children. They chafed at the 
 discipline he tried to maintain in lieu of sympathy, 
 and he in return drew the reins the tighter the more 
 they rebelled.
 
 1 1 8 SIR TIMO TH Y B UN COM BE. 
 
 Twice every Sunday, when at home, these youngsters 
 had to appear in the family pew at Goliath chapel, and 
 every evening of the week they were obliged to attend 
 family prayers. Frivolous amusements were frowned 
 down. Mr. Buncombe was a pharisee of the strictest 
 sect in those days, and the more gloomy he made life to 
 his children the more satisfied was he that he excellently 
 fulfilled the duties incident to fatherhood. 
 
 What more could he do, indeed ? Money they had, 
 good clothes, abundant food, excellent tuition, advan- 
 tages all of which he had never known, as he constantly 
 told his boy. 
 
 All this they had, and still the household was not a 
 harmonious one. Disobedience was common, truth not 
 always present, ingratitude obvious. Preach as the 
 father might, he could not bring these brats, as he called 
 them at times, to see that they ought to be always 
 melting in gratitude for what they enjoyed beyond their 
 father's youthful portion. 
 
 At times possibly Mr. Timothy Buncombe may have 
 thought that this ingratitude and these indications of 
 rebellion were his punishment. He may have so thought ; 
 I cannot say that he did. Evidence of his feeling on 
 this subject does not exist, and if I were to evolve a con- 
 jecture from my inward experience, I should say that he 
 was much more likely to think himself a man wronged 
 and misjudged. 
 
 But what does all this lead to ? Where is the 
 laudable resolution with which this chapter opened ? 
 Ask not the question. I never made any resolution, or,
 
 AN INTERVAL. 119 
 
 if I did, I abandoned it as soon as made, which is the 
 fate of all resolutions. They are the most cruelly treated 
 products of the human mind, and I do not boast of 
 better behaviour towards them than my neighbours — far 
 from it.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A "MERCURY." 
 
 The fact of the matter is that I knew all the while of 
 one event which happened within the period, I, in a sort 
 of way, resolved to slur over, which could not possibly be 
 left unnoticed. It has nearly — not quite — as much to do 
 with the riper career of Mr. Buncombe as the fall and 
 exit of Mr. Silas Brown had to do with the rawer. 
 This event was nothing less than the untoward and 
 disobedient marriage of his eldest daughter with that 
 good-for-nothing fellow Henry Weardale. 
 
 " How on earth could that happen ? " you exclaim ; 
 " Meetings and mixings of that kind never occur except 
 in sensational novels." 
 
 Well, of course, it was odd ; I do not deny that for a 
 moment. Not odd that the girl should have married 
 without leave, but odd that she should have selected 
 Harry Weardale. It looks so, at least ; but just as my 
 carefully-executed disquisition on the moral economy of 
 the Buncombe family must have prepared you for any 
 ridiculous proceeding on the part of the younger 
 branches thereof, so will the narrative I am now about to 
 unfold convince every sensible mind that the marriage 
 of these two persons was not merely the most natural
 
 A * MERCURY r 121 
 
 event in the world, but the only event that could have 
 happened in the circumstances. 
 
 When last we saw Harry Weardale he had just per- 
 formed the vulgar, low bred feat of thrusting out his 
 tongue at a great pillar of the Church worshipping in 
 Goliath chapel. That was quite a dozen years before 
 his introduction to the Buncombe family, and he had 
 grown since then. The raw, common-place boy has 
 become a man, not unpleasant to look upon, and the 
 office messenger of Mr. David Hogg has developed into 
 the sub-editor of the Berborough Mercury, and the writer 
 of much doggerel verse, mercifully long since forgotten. 
 
 If you ask me how this happened, I can only reply — 
 in the way such things always do happen. The boy 
 Weardale was thrown early on his own resources, and 
 necessity sharpened his naturally strong wits. A literary 
 faculty, of a kind, dawned in him, and he "drifted into 
 journalism." From being a volunteer contributor of 
 doggerel and essays to the Mercury, he rose to be its 
 sub-editor, and so on. 
 
 The Mercury was a paper of Liberal politics, on 
 strictly orthodox party lines, and leaned towards Dissent 
 in matters religious. It affected, also, to be the leading 
 commercial organ of the town, and as such brought its 
 staff into contact with most of the merchants and ship- 
 owners. 
 
 Henry Weardale therefore knew Mr. Timothy Bun- 
 combe on his mercantile side as a mere matter of 
 ordinary business, but he likewise knew him as a man 
 taking a prominent part in the politics of the borough.
 
 1 2 2 SIR TIMO TH Y B UN COM BE. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe might be mayor some day, and would 
 certainly be one of the aldermen whenever he chose to 
 put himself forward. He was a man who often spoke on 
 public occasions, and more than once had noticed with 
 pleasure how well reported he had been by the Mercury. 
 
 This led to enquiries, and he found that Henry Wear- 
 dale was the reporter who had taken the " note " of 
 these speeches. " A man like this may be useful to me," 
 Mr. Buncombe concluded, and forthwith told his wife to 
 invite " the young scribbler " now and then to her 
 omnium gatherum sort of parties. 
 
 All that followed upon this imprudent laxity on Mr. 
 Buncombe's part was just as natural as the fusion of two 
 drops of water in juxtaposition. First of all the sub- 
 editor, with true masculine cunning, secured himself in 
 the good graces of Mrs. Buncombe, who, worthy woman, 
 with all her desire to come up to her husband's standard, 
 never could recognise with promptitude the grading it 
 was necessary to give her associates. All who came to 
 her house were put on the same level of familiarity by 
 her. She never could understand the distinction between 
 friendliness and social policy. To deck herself out in re- 
 splendent garments, with as many rings on her fingers, 
 and brooches and bracelets and chains of gold about her 
 person as she could come by, and then to blaze forth in 
 smirks and handshakes on all and sundry with an even 
 measure of underbred effusiveness, was Mrs. Buncombe's 
 summum bonum of human happiness in giving parties. And 
 when she returned from other people's houses all glittering 
 in silk and gold, her cook was generally the confidant
 
 A "MERCURY." 123 
 
 to whom she recounted all she had seen and felt and 
 heard, whether at a mayor's reception or a " Dorcas 
 meeting." 
 
 To a lady of this character there was nothing out of the 
 way in an intimate association with a newspaper reporter. 
 Henry was good looking, a tall, bright-faced, brown 
 eyed, curly headed young man of three-and-twenty, with 
 a lively rattling tongue and the capacity to sing a good 
 song. Mrs. Buncombe could not possibly resist such a 
 fellow as that. In a sense, she fell in love with him her- 
 self ; opened her house and heart to him as if he had 
 been of her own flesh and blood. That shows you what 
 I mean ; nothing scandalous, in the least. The rising 
 shipowner's wife was too homely, too commonplace and 
 unintelligent ever to be capable of making scandals. 
 She left that for the great. 
 
 No ; Henry Weardale simply brought a glimpse of 
 sunshine with him into that sombre dwelling. When he 
 was there mirth was there, the girls played the piano, or, 
 at any rate, Beatrice, the eldest, did, for her education 
 was " finished ;" Harry sang, cracked jokes, flattered the 
 mother, and left a blank when he departed. 
 
 This intimate intercourse went on for many months 
 unnoticed by the head of the house ; a proof that family 
 affairs had little interest for Mr. Buncombe. That 
 gentleman may, indeed, have felt so fully convinced of 
 his own excellence as a father as to be justified in 
 taking liberties with his family. At all events he spent 
 most of his evenings abroad, either in the Union Club, 
 where traders congregated, or in the houses of his friends.
 
 124 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 And it cannot be denied that this conduct gave, on the 
 whole, much more pleasure to his household than his 
 supervising presence would have done. There was 
 laughter in his absence, which his approaching step on 
 the gravel walk sufficed to hush. Unless a " party " was 
 on foot, Weardale never stayed when the " master " hap- 
 pened to be at home ; never a sound of his voice was 
 heard. 
 
 Happiness of this furtive kind could not last for ever. 
 Better grounded happiness often does not. Mr. Buncombe 
 stumbled at length upon the horrifying fact that " the 
 young scribbler" had dared to fall in love with his eldest 
 daughter. His wife let the secret out in the innocence 
 or stupidity of her heart. A scene followed, black clouds 
 lowered over the path of the lovers, clouds to which the 
 mother's secret sympathy formed but a thin, uncertain 
 silver lining. In language of contempt and scorn, Henry 
 Weardale was forbidden to set foot again in Pimpernel 
 Villa, Mr. Timothy Buncombe's abode, and the luckless 
 girl was commanded to abandon, on the instant, all inter- 
 course with her presumptuous swain.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CUPIDS STORM. 
 
 THIS was all, you will perceive, quite in the orthodox 
 style of father and children. The incensed parent lost 
 his reason in wrath, and played tyrant so effectually that 
 he produced rebellion. Henry Weardale rebelled, 
 Beatrice rebelled, and finally Mrs. Buncombe, overcome 
 by her daughter's sobs and by the lover's importunities, 
 connived at rebellion. So it is always. A passion that, 
 left alone, might soon have cooled down is fanned into 
 unextinguishable flame. Lovers who, neglected, might 
 have tired of each other in six months, rise to a height of 
 longing which makes them deem life worthless apart. 
 An affection, a penchant which trembled and hid itself 
 from all eyes in its modest infancy, blazes up before the 
 world, and so heats its victims that they defy authority, 
 cast prudence and propriety to the winds, and dash 
 headlong into matrimony. 
 
 For two months did the torture of Henry Weardale 
 and his sweetheart endure. Sobs, vows, sulks, tear- 
 bedewed cheeks had no more influence upon the obdurate 
 father than summer rain on a brick wall. Tempests 
 burst often in that household in the course of these 
 eight or nine weeks, and when they were over the stern
 
 126 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 parent stood erect, harder of heart than ever. This could 
 not go on. The courage of Beatrice rose to the sticking 
 place, and, with the secret furtherance of her mother, 
 she ran away with her sweetheart, whose heroic soul had 
 long ago prompted that course. A magical priest or 
 parson tied an unloosable knot in consideration of 
 handsome payment, and the pair were made one. 
 
 Great was the rage of Mr. Timothy Buncombe when 
 this disobedience of a girl of eighteen came to his 
 knowledge. Never in her life had dumpy Penelope 
 Drabble, the wife of his bosom, seen her lord in so wild a 
 rage. A scum gathered at the edges of his mouth as he 
 stormed and swore over it. Threats and curses tumbled 
 out of his overcharged heart in a half articulate medley. 
 When the fury was at its height, he swore that he would 
 separate himself from the whole lot from that day forth. 
 
 " You're a drag and a disgrace to me," he shouted. 
 " Get out of my sight. Take your brats, and begone. 
 Marry them to thieves and tinkers, if you like ; I don't 
 care. They are none of mine ; I hate 'em all. You're 
 my bane. After all the money I've spent on their 
 education, that one of them should marry a vagrant, 
 loafing, lick-spittle penny-a-liner. It's abominable! 
 But what could I expect with such a mother to guide 
 them. Out of my sight, I say. Go to the devil, and 
 take your brood with you." 
 
 Unhappy Penelope wept, grovelled, bent low before 
 this storm of wrath, and when it had well-nigh spent 
 itself, took up her defence. She, you may remember, 
 possessed a sharp tongue of her own, and on this occa-
 
 CUP ID'S STORM. 127 
 
 -sion did not spare her lord. In fact, and his outburst 
 notwithstanding, it must be admitted that in the end the 
 victory lay with her. The burden of her discourse was 
 the low origin of no less a person than " T. B." himself, 
 as she contemptuously styled her husband. 
 
 " You set yourself up for this and that, do you ! You 
 would look down on me, would you ! I like your cheek. 
 A pie-wife's son as nobody owned. You were no better 
 nor a tinker yourself when I took pity on you. Lord, 
 but our memories are short ! We are a great man, now, 
 •we are, and we can look down on the wife as we once 
 thought too good for us. She can go away, she can, and 
 take her brats with her. Very well, ' T. B.,' I'll go ; I 
 •don't want to stay where I'm not welcome. A nice 
 Christian you'll look when I'm gone, won't you ; but if 
 you don't care for the exposure, I'm sure I don't. Why 
 should I ? I haven't done nothing. Break up your 'ome, 
 do, by all means, and welcome ; I'm sure it has .never 
 been much of a 'ome to me. You're too cold for my taste, 
 ' T. B.,' snivelling owd humbug that you be ; and you've 
 something on your mind, I know. I don't lie awake 
 a-hearin' you talk in your sleep for nothing." 
 
 "Eh! what the devil!" exclaimed her husband, 
 •startled out of himself at these words. 
 
 " Oh ! you're touched, are you ; I knew that 'ud make 
 you squirm. But you don't do it now — oh dear, no ! we 
 have forgotten the past, we have, and Silas Brown's 
 money, and all that. We are a great man, we are ; but I 
 know you, ' T. B.,' and if I go I ain't a-goin' empty- 
 handed, you may depend."
 
 128 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 "Woman, what do you mean?" cried Mr. Timothy 
 Buncombe, starting forward, and catching hold of his 
 wife's arm. This "row" took place in the dining room 
 after the servants had gone to bed, 
 
 "What's that to you ?" she returned, jerking her arm 
 sharply out of his grasp. " I'm to go, you know ; you've 
 got no more use for a wife, you haven't. She's a drag 
 on our greatness, she is. All right, 'T. B.,' I knows my 
 thoughts, but I ain't got to tell 'em to you." 
 
 " Look here, my dear, let us drop this nonsense," said 
 Mr. Buncombe, in a softened voice. " I have been very 
 angry, I will admit, and not without cause, surely, but you 
 know as well as I do that I did not mean half what I 
 said ; so don't let us rave at each other longer. What's 
 done cannot be undone. Beatrice has disgraced herself, 
 but we need not quarrel over her now ; she has left her 
 home, and found another ; let her stay there, and drop 
 her out of our thoughts. Come, now, make friends," and 
 he bent to kiss her, but Mrs. Penelope was not so swiftly 
 mollified. 
 
 " Oh no, you don't," she exclaimed, jumping up and 
 facing him. " You'd soft sawder me now, would you ; 
 you think I knows a little too much, but I ain't to be 
 gammoned like that. Hard words ain't nothing to you ; 
 you've no heart to wound, but I have, ' T. B. ;' and I'm 
 not a-goin' to have mine broke by your cruel tongue any 
 more. You said go, and I'm a-goin', so you leave me 
 alone, will you." With that Mrs. Buncombe threw 
 herself down on the rug, and broke into hysterical 
 weeping.
 
 CUP IUS STORM. 129 
 
 But a woman who weeps is a woman melted, and Mr. 
 Buncombe had experience enough to see that a little 
 perseverance in what his wife called " soft sawder " would 
 restore harmony. Much coaxing, and a considerable 
 space of time was required to bring her round, but she 
 did yield, at last, so far as to dry her eyes and sit up. 
 But the battle was not quite won yet, and when, by 
 about midnight, she at last consented to be friends, it 
 was only on condition that her intercourse with Beatrice 
 should be at least connived at. 
 
 " Please yourself, my dear," Mr. Buncombe had at 
 length said ; " I'll have nothing more to do with her or 
 with that scoundrel she has married, and they are not to 
 come here ; but you can do as you like about going to 
 see them." 
 
 That being all he could be brought to concede, Mrs. 
 Buncombe, in her turn, was slow to explain what she 
 meant by her hints about Silas Brown's money. At last, 
 however, her husband wormed all she knew from her, 
 and found that his alarm had been, in large measure, 
 groundless. All that his wife had heard had been 
 broken sentences, uttered by her husband in his sleep. 
 " You shan't have the money, I tell you, Brown ; I have 
 nothing of yours; nothing — nothing; the money's mine," 
 and grunts and exclamations less articulate. These had 
 ceased altogether after Brown's disappearance from Ber- 
 borough, and had long been forgotten by Mrs. Buncombe, 
 upon whom they made no very deep impression, until, 
 in the extremity of her rage, the memory of the incident 
 flashed across her when she flung the hints at her
 
 130 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 husband, without knowing whether they would produce 
 any effect on him or not. 
 
 His sudden calming down was, therefore, like the 
 revealing of a secret to her, and when Mr. Buncombe dis- 
 covered this to be the case he cursed himself for a fool. 
 Thanks to his precipitancy, his wife now suspected a 
 great deal more than she had ever done before, and to 
 the height of her suspicion had him in her power. Such 
 a weapon in her hands forced him to be circumspect. 
 
 Unable to put out upon the wife of his bosom the 
 chagrin which this discovery produced, Mr. Buncombe 
 became increasingly bitter in his attitude towards his 
 daughter Beatrice and her husband, and swore he would 
 make the town too hot for the pair of them.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NEMESIS IN A NEWSPAPER. 
 
 He was in a fair way to make that intention good when 
 Weardale, in turn, gave him a terrible fright. It was 
 done partly out of pure mischievousness, partly to show 
 I\Ir. Buncombe that he, Henry Weardale, had the power 
 to be troublesome if he liked. 
 
 Weardale and his wife, with that strange " luck " of 
 which the world is full, stumbled across a daughter of 
 Silas Brown's when honeymooning. She was an invalid, 
 a poor schoolmistress, over-working herself into her grave, 
 and had come, for a week's rest she could ill afford, to 
 the inland watering place where the runaways took 
 shelter. Hearing that the young couple came from 
 Berborough, Miss Brown talked to them of the old place, 
 and soon the whole story of her father's failure and 
 flight came back to Weardale's recollection. 
 
 The remarks and hints which had floated about in 
 Berborough regarding Mr. Buncombe's connexion with 
 Brown rose in his memory as these conversations went 
 on, and made him put questions that led to half revela- 
 tions of what looked like a crime, but not until after- 
 wards did it occur to him to utilise this half knowledge, 
 for it was no more, against his father-in-law ; only when
 
 1 3 2 SIR T/Jl/O THY B UNCO MB E. 
 
 that great man proved not merely obdurate but contu- 
 melious did Weardale resolve within himself to play the 
 fellow a trick. 
 
 From Miss Brown he learnt that her father had died 
 only a few months previously as an inmate of a London 
 workhouse. Poor woman ! She had heard that before he 
 was taken into the workhouse infirmary to die, he had 
 picked up a precarious living by attending to horses at a 
 public-house door. Thus far had drink and the loss of 
 hope in life dragged him down. 
 
 Absorbed though he was in his happy love, these con- 
 fidences sank into Henry Weardale's mind, and mingled 
 with the revived recollections of old tales of fraud which 
 had floated about Berborough after the deacon's fall. 
 Miss Brown had moreover asserted that her belief was 
 some one had robbed her father, for it was not till a little 
 while after the failure that he broke down and went to 
 the bad with drink, or blasphemed against some un- 
 known individual whom he called a " black-hearted 
 villain." 
 
 A kind of suspicion arose unbidden in the young man's 
 mind that his father-in-law must be this villain. There 
 was no direct evidence that it was so, but the rise of 
 Timothy Buncombe had, he well remembered, for it 
 was the talk of Hogg's office, and of all the town, coin- 
 cided with Brown's collapse, and that coincidence alone 
 awoke suspicions. 
 
 Not, however, until he became exasperated by Bun- 
 combe's scornful treatment of his wife and himself, did 
 these uneasy presentiments crystalise, as it were, into
 
 NEMESIS IN A NEWSPAPER. 133 
 
 a sort of half conviction. Buncombe's brutality 
 forced him to assume a retaliatory attitude, and one 
 day it struck him that it might be a good thing to 
 try whether some allusion to Silas Brown would not 
 make the tyrant change his attitude. 
 
 The irate father-in-law had gone so far as to try to get 
 Weardale discharged from the Mercury office, and when 
 that wickedness, as he naturally considered it, came to 
 Harry's knowledge, he was angry enough to believe Bun- 
 combe capable of any iniquity. It was faith, therefore, 
 rather than knowledge, which decided Weardale to try 
 an experiment — a random shot like that fired, unknown 
 to him, by his mother-in-law. 
 
 Without a hint, then, to Beatrice, such are husbands, 
 or to anybody, the young scribbler, in mood to make 
 mischief, penned the following paragraph, which duly 
 appeared in the " notes and news " column of the Ber- 
 boroiigJi Mercury, from which Buncombe had not yet 
 succeeded in removing him : 
 
 " Strange, indeed, are the ups and downs of fortune. 
 Fifteen years ago who was there in this town more 
 respected, more prosperous, more looked up to than Mr. 
 Silas Brown, the well-known ship broker ? Everybody 
 thought of him as one of our merchant princes, and 
 looked to see him grow from greatness to greatness. 
 But life is a lottery, A series of misfortunes came upon 
 the great shipowner, not the least of which, it was vaguely 
 reported at the time, was the faithlessness of one of his 
 employes, by whom he was defrauded in some way never 
 yet cleared up. From being fortunate and prosperous,
 
 134 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 he became a man familiar with adversity. The blow 
 proved too much for him ; he sank down, down until 
 drink obtained the mastery of him. Then, when his 
 business had disappeared, when even the charitable 
 feelings of such a generous man as his old freight clerk, 
 Mr. Timothy Buncombe, now so prosperous and an orna- 
 ment to the town, were pumped dry by importunity, 
 Brown disappeared, invoking the vengeance of God on 
 some man who, he declared, had robbed him. Nothing 
 more was heard of him in Berborough. Whether he 
 was dead or alive none knew or cared. Yet some there 
 are, perhaps, who still remember his portly form, and to 
 whom the news, learned by us in a manner, accidentally, 
 that he died about six months ago in Camberwell work- 
 house infirmary, London, will come with a certain 
 shock. Poor Brown, mayhap he was more sinned 
 against than sinning." 
 
 For brilliancy of style this paragraph would not be 
 hard to excel, but for effectiveness in the quarter its 
 writer intended, it was unsurpassable. Mr. Timothy 
 Buncombe, like his neighbours, read it on the Saturday 
 morning, and was momentarily "boned" by it, as the 
 fishwives would say. His first impulse, on becoming 
 conscious that his bones were still there, was to rush off 
 in quest of Weardale, and demand explanations. 
 
 "Find out how much the fellow knows," a voice 
 whispered within him, but a moment's reflection satisfied 
 him this would not do. Yet, what was he to do ? All 
 that day and all Sunday he brooded over the question. 
 The guilty conscience of the man woke up and spoke
 
 NEMESIS IN A NE J VSPA PER. 1 3 5 
 
 out, giving him no rest. Now, when too late, he remem- 
 bered that YVeardale, whose history he knew well enough, 
 might be aware of a great deal more than most men 
 through his connexion with David Hogg. And this 
 was the man he had suffered to enter his house and 
 carry away his daughter, the man he had been doing his 
 best to convert into an open foe. Uneasy were his 
 slumbers between Saturday and Monday, nor were the 
 fears about his own danger the only ones that haunted 
 him. He could not help shivering before the thought 
 that, on his head lay the guilt of Silas Brown's ruin. 
 " Through me that old man died a miserable drink- 
 besotted pauper," he felt, and the thought made him 
 writhe again. 
 
 Mr. Timothy Buncombe, however, was not the man to 
 rest long under terrors of this kind. He was too strong 
 willed for that, and by Monday morning his mind was 
 made up. Whether Weardale knew much or little was 
 a point he could not stoop to clear up, but it was neces- 
 sary, it would be prudent, to alter, in some degree, his 
 attitude towards that fellow. Instead of hounding him 
 from Berborough, it would be better to help him to move 
 away. 
 
 Acting on this view of the case, Mr. Buncombe not 
 only ceased hostilities against his son-in-law, but actually 
 intimated to his wife that he had had enough of revenge. 
 " You can invite Beatty and her husband to come and 
 see you, my dear," he told Mrs. Buncombe on the Mon- 
 day morning, and Mrs. Buncombe's eyes opened wide at 
 the intimation.
 
 136 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " My goodness, gracious," she exclaimed, " What's up 
 now. Has young Weardale come into a fortune ?" 
 
 " No, my dear, not that I know of, but I can't always 
 go against my own flesh and blood, you see. I'm not 
 equal to the strain." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it, I'm sure," struck in Mrs. Bun- 
 combe ; " but I wish you had thought of that a bit sooner; 
 it 'ud ha' saved me and my daughter, too, many bitter 
 hours. I've allays said, what's the good of crying over 
 spilt milk. What's done can't be undone, noways, and 
 I've never seed where the benefit was a-makin' my child 
 a beggar." 
 
 " Excuse me, Mrs, Buncombe, but you go too far in 
 saying that." 
 
 " Do I, though ? not a bit of it, Mr. B." Penelope always 
 said " Mr." when not in a passion. " I know you, I'd be 
 a pretty fool an' I didn't by this time, I reckon. You've 
 been a-tryin' all you know to turn Weardale out of his 
 place, and if he hadn't had a good master the lad 'ud ha' 
 been without the means to get his livin' by now. I 
 can't see no sense in that sort of behaviour — never could. 
 It 'ud better become you to give him a lift." 
 
 " Well, well, don't run on so fast ; what a tongue you 
 have, woman." 
 
 " Woman, indeed !" sniffed Mrs. Buncombe, " of course 
 I'm a woman, and I must be put upon ; but I know 
 what's what, for all that ; never you fear, ' T. B.' ' 
 Penelope was waxing hot. 
 
 " Listen to me," cried her husband, impatiently, " you 
 might save yourself much waste of breath, if you would
 
 NEMESIS IN A NEWSPAPER. 137 
 
 but control yourself, and hold your tongue at times. Let 
 me explain, can't you." 
 
 "Ay, ay, soft sawder's cheap," and Mrs. B. pouted and 
 tried to look a poor, ill-used creature without much 
 success. She was too stout and comfortable-like for 
 the part, for all her nagging temper. 
 
 " What I was about to say," Mr. Buncombe went on, in 
 a sharp tone, "was just this, that I think we have had 
 enough of wrath, and, inasmuch as I find Weardale to be 
 a steady, well-behaved young man, I have made up my 
 mind to give him a lift, if I can. I think he should go 
 to London ; he might get along there ; there are more 
 chances for a clever fellow there than here." 
 
 " Oh, that's it, is it," exclaimed the suspicious wife of his 
 bosom; "you can't manage to drive Weardale out of 
 the town, so you mean to coax him to go, do you, and 
 you want me to help you, of course. I know ; I can see 
 through you ; but I ain't a fool, Mr. B.; let me tell you 
 that." 
 
 "Nonsense! Bosh!" ejaculated her husband hotly; 
 " you ask the couple here, and don't be so cantankerous. 
 I tell you I mean to do something to help the young 
 man ; is not that enough. I'm not likely to chuck him 
 on the parish, am I ? Recollect that I am a father, and 
 have a father's feelings towards my child, at any 
 rate." 
 
 " Oh, have you," answered his wife, with a subdued yet 
 spiteful air; "you ain't been guilty of givin' way to 'em 
 much lately, I'm thinking. But I know how it is ; it's 
 all along of what I read in the Mercury yesterday ; I
 
 1 3 8 SIR TIMO TH Y B UN COMBE. 
 
 know. You think Harry knows of Brown's money, and 
 might blab. Oh, I know you, T. B., I ain't a fool." 
 
 "Hush, woman, for God's sake, don't babble in this 
 way of things you know nothing about. Brown's money, 
 as you call it, has nothing to do with it, nothing in the 
 world." 
 
 Mr. Buncombe said this nervously, and with an anxious 
 look towards the breakfast-room door, which was half 
 open. His face became a shade paler than usual in spite 
 of his great self control. 
 
 "Oh no, of course not; there ain't nothing on your 
 mind about Brown, never was. But I know " 
 
 " You know nothing at all, I tell you ; so hold your 
 peace this instant. I will not tolerate anyone speaking 
 to me in this way ; least of all you." 
 
 " Ay, ay, get in a passion, do, Mr. B. But I ain't " 
 
 " I'm not in a passion," again interrupted her husband, 
 rising from the table as he spoke, and going up to his 
 wife ; " I'm not in a passion, Mrs. Buncombe, but," 
 bending over her, and speaking almost in a hiss, " mark 
 my words ; if you do not desist from language of this 
 kind, I will not tolerate you here. I would rather leave 
 the place and the country for good than submit to it ; 
 so take care." 
 
 Mrs. Buncombe quailed before the gaze of her enraged 
 lord, and hung her head, unable to find a ready retort. 
 
 " Now mind," added her husband, as he straightened 
 himself, and turned to leave the room, "If you disobey 
 me in this, or anything else I choose to order you to do, 
 it will be the worse for you."
 
 NEMESIS IN A NEWSPAPER. 139 
 
 Mrs. Buncombe cast a look of impotent fury at him, 
 and cried, " you're a wretch." Then, flinging her arms 
 on the table, and her head upon them, she commenced a 
 good noisy fit of crying, which her husband did not wait 
 to witness. 
 
 None of the children were present at this scene, for the 
 very good reason that none were at home. Mr. Bun- 
 combe believed most thoroughly in the system which 
 delegates the anxieties and duties of rearing the young 
 mind to the masters and mistresses of public boarding 
 schools, and packed his off as soon as it was possible to 
 get them admitted. Perhaps both parents might have 
 restrained their tongues oftener than they did had their 
 offspring been around them, so that the system of 
 ostrich nurture prevalent in England, under which the 
 members of a family grow up strangers to each other, 
 has its disadvantages. But an occasional brush with his 
 wife was a small affair in the eyes of Timothy Bun- 
 combe compared with the nuisance of having a lot of 
 noisy, squalling " brats " always about the house.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CREEDS AND AN AMBITION. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe's tactics succeeded to admiration. At 
 first the much suffering son-in-law held aloof from the 
 blandishment of his mysteriously softened relative, 
 vaguely suspecting the cause of the change, but his wife 
 soon brought him round. Beatrice was a good girl at 
 heart, a better girl than might have been expected under 
 the circumstances. Her husband, too, received her before 
 she had had time to be ruined by her home surroundings. 
 The pride of wealth and high status as the daughter of a 
 man of plutocratic renown had not come upon her, and 
 her contact with Weardale's strong, sunny nature 
 brought her best qualities of head and heart to the 
 surface, and made them expand in time. 
 
 It was, therefore, with a brave loyal heart that this 
 young wife seconded her father's interested anxiety for 
 her husband's advancement. Bravely too did she stand 
 by her husband's side when, yielding to Mr. Buncombe's 
 representations, they settled in London there to begin 
 the world anew. Her father soon talked Weardale 
 over, to see as he wished him to see, for Weardale was 
 ambitious. A prolonged residence in a quiet place like 
 Berborough had no attractions for him. Newspaper
 
 CREEDS AND AN AMBITION 141 
 
 editing and reporting there were not a pursuit ofliterature, 
 he was fond of saying, while in London, that great 
 maelstrom of humanity, where the strong swimmer rose 
 to the surface and found sure foothold on the rock of 
 fame and fortune, all things were possible. To the man 
 so thinking the prospect of settling in London was not 
 long to be resisted. 
 
 It was little though that Mr. Buncombe could do to 
 help him there, beyond presenting the pair with a couple 
 of hundred pounds, and a few letters of introduction 
 when they went away. 
 
 Nor was it altogether Buncombe's fault that he could 
 not do more. The world of journalism in London, as in 
 all great centres of newspaper enterprises, is a thing by 
 itself. It has its privileged classes, its hall-marked 
 university men, who stand by each other, praise each 
 other's work, form coteries apart, and, aided either by 
 fellowships, or by the powerful interest of their 
 strictly limited university trades unions, contrive to 
 obtain a majority of the great prizes of the profession. 
 
 But outside this privileged caste with its snobbery, its 
 shibboleths, and its intimate relationship with the 
 bureaucracy, — which also, orders to the contrary notwith- 
 standing, poaches in the field of newspaper literature, — 
 there lies a great journalistic democracy. In that intro- 
 ductions avail little, interest has practically no power. 
 The career is open to the talents, and if after due trial a 
 man approves himself capable, he may go far. The 
 jealousy and hatred of the high castes may help to carry 
 him far. It is a rough world, though, this world of
 
 142 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 democratic journalism, and the proofs a man has to 
 undergo are hard and bitter. 
 
 Kindly withal, open hearted and open handed, ready- 
 always to help a fellow craftsman in distress, as these slaves 
 of the printer's devil are, there is yet a stern uncom- 
 promisingncss among them, which takes nothing for 
 granted. Testimonials will not lift a man into an easy 
 way of living ; favour will rarely retain the fool where a 
 wise man ought to be, and no new comer can count upon 
 earning his bread until he has been tested again and 
 again. The question asked of such is not " Who are 
 you ? " but " What can you do ? " and woe betide the 
 man who can do little, who is careless, whose hand is 
 uncertain, whose talents are not, on one side at least, of 
 the hodman order. Either he is driven out of the ranks 
 altogether, or he becomes a waif and a menial therein, be 
 he the best born, most influentially backed son of Adam 
 alive. 
 
 Needless to say it was in the ranks of the democracy 
 of journalists that Weardale had to enroll himself. His 
 apprenticeship was rough, his struggle prolonged, but the 
 battle did him good, and it did his wife good. When the 
 worst was over, and they could pause to look back thank- 
 fully, to look forward in hope, they felt that they were 
 the better for the years of anxiety and privation. Their 
 love for each other was deeper, truer, at the end than at 
 the beginning, and their moral tone was higher. Once on 
 a time they had been disposed to repine and to think ill 
 of the man who had condemned them to fifjht for their 
 lives instead of making them sharers of his wealth ; but
 
 CREEDS AND AN AMBITION. 143 
 
 that clay was long gone by, and both Henry Weardale 
 and his wife were glad ere many years were over that 
 they had never made but one appeal to Mr. Buncombe 
 for help after coming to London, and that he had left his 
 daughter's letter containing it unanswered. 
 
 Nearly ten years passed away before Mr. Buncombe 
 and his son-in-law came in contact with each other again, 
 and when they did it was Mr. Buncombe who made the 
 advance. In those years the shipowner had continued 
 to prosper, and as his business grew so did his ambition. 
 His only son had finished his education at Cambridge, 
 where he perfected himself in the art of smoking a short 
 briar pipe, and acquired indifferent skill as an oarsman. 
 In other respects his education had been neglected. He 
 was ignorant of business and of letters ; but he made a 
 most excellent wealth waster. No aristocrat of long 
 descent could have spent money more handsomely, or 
 sot into debt with an easier conscience. 
 
 t> 
 
 Mr. Buncombe's eldest remaining daughter had made 
 what he and all the world considered at the time a 
 brilliant marriage with the son of a reputedly wealthy 
 corn merchant and seed crusher in Lincolnshire, named 
 Foster ; and the third girl, Penelope, had been carried 
 off by a high church parson, who intoned prayers and 
 otherwise buffooned before the Deity in gorgeously 
 embroidered vestments. This holy man had a private 
 income of one thousand five hundred pounds a year in 
 ground rents, and a living worth two hundred and fifty 
 pounds, or about as many pounds as there were souls 
 in the parish. The youngest daughter, Evangeline, aged
 
 144 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 about seventeen was still unwed, and reserved for high 
 destinies. 
 
 These facts will lead the student to infer that as his 
 wealth grew and his refinement of feeling, Mr. Bun- 
 combe's chapel zeal grew cold. It was so. His deacon- 
 ship had been laid aside long ago, and was only a memory 
 that made him blush. No more devout, or rather no 
 " higher " churchman was now to be found in all 
 Berborough than Mr. Buncombe. 
 
 A ritualistic parson had captured the whole family 
 with his religious travesties and his sensuous music. This 
 parson belonged to that party in the church which 
 believes the hope of the future to lie in an escape from 
 the trammels of State control — but an escape with all the 
 plunder. Ritualism was in this shape so far consonant 
 with Mr. Buncombe's prejudices against a State Church, 
 as to make it easy for him to become reconciled to the 
 change of religion. " I am all for disestablishment," the 
 parson said, " and therefore on that point at one with the 
 dissenters." 
 
 Disendowment, though, was wholly another affair. 
 " The property of the church belongs to God, and no 
 man has the right to take it away," was the axiom upon 
 this question. Liberationists were thus at the opposite 
 pole in reality from this school, but Mr. Buncombe did 
 not enquire deeply. It was a step upward in " society" 
 he desired far more than theological consistency. What 
 after all could it matter to him whether the sect he decided 
 to join contemplated a robbery of the nation or not. His. 
 end was gained.
 
 CREEDS AND AN AMBITION. 145 
 
 But for another ambition which dawned in his mind 
 soon after his secession from chapel, Mr. Buncombe would 
 probably never have given a thought to the question of 
 how far the ritualist's ideas and his old prejudices coin- 
 cided on the question of Church and State. He had, 
 however, for some time nourished a desire to enter 
 Parliament. It did not seem to him that his prosperous 
 career could be crowned and rounded off without this 
 warranty of success. And, being a shrewd man always, 
 Mr. Buncombe had early in the days of this desire recog- 
 nised that it would be easier and less expensive for him 
 to enter Parliament as a Liberal than as a Tory, what- 
 ever he might afterwards become. 
 
 That this is not the case to-day may be true, but the 
 reader will please bear in mind that I am writing of 
 yesterday, or, rather, of the day before yesterday, when 
 Tories still claimed to be gentlemen. At present this 
 venerable party — but never mind it ; we have nothing to 
 do with it. Mr. Buncombe did not profess Toryism, and 
 that is enough. Selecting Liberalism, as he had done, it 
 was necessary for him to maintain the semblance of con- 
 sistency in religion, at all events until he found a 
 constituency. After that — well, all would depend upon 
 the constituency. 
 
 Another consideration had weight with him, and that 
 was his complete ignorance, or, at least, his complete 
 unfamiliarity with the "true inwardness" of Toryism. 
 He did not even know whether it had any inwardness, 
 but his mind had been familiar from his youth with the 
 catchwords, as well as with the professed aims of the
 
 146 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 •"party of progress," as the Liberals described themselves. 
 For these and other reasons Mr. Buncombe deemed it a 
 sensible course to pose as a " Liberal " in politics. That 
 •offered, he thought, the best chance of getting M.P. stuck 
 to his name. 
 
 Even as a Liberal Mr. Buncombe found himself in 
 perplexity when the time came for him to woo a con- 
 stituency. Local politics he knew, but the catch words 
 of Imperial politics were less ready at his tongue end. A 
 man whose life has been taken up by freights, charter 
 parties, and the general arduousness of money getting, 
 cannot be expected to keep abreast of political creeds, 
 ever changing as they are. He may assent to the 
 doctrines formulated for him by his party, but be quite 
 unable to give a reason for that assent when called upon 
 by the electors to expound the faith that is in him. 
 
 This was just what Mr. Buncombe felt, and in his trouble 
 his mind reverted to his journalist son-in-law. " There's 
 a fellow, now, who might be useful to me as a coach," he 
 said, and almost immediately he decided to enlist Wear- 
 dale, if possible, in that capacity. Was he not ashamed 
 to think of such a step ? Not a bit of it ; why should he 
 be? It was a condescension on his part to notice the 
 fellow at all. Mr. Buncombe had too profound a belief 
 in his own excellencies to doubt for one moment that 
 Weardale would be delighted to assist him when called 
 upon as far as lay in his power. 
 
 So when a general election seemed to be looming in 
 the near future, the great Berborough shipbroker took a 
 run up to town and called on his son-in-law. That
 
 CREEDS AND AN AMBITION. 147 
 
 gentleman was now the editor of an influential weekly- 
 paper, and had made himself known by writings outside 
 the immediate circle of journalism, so that he was com- 
 fortably off, and in " a good position," as the world 
 measures such. " Society " knew little of him. He 
 refused to be trotted around like a pet St. Bernard or a 
 performing ape by the professed savage tamers of the 
 West End, but his life was all the more comfortable for 
 that.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 WANT E I) A "COACH ." 
 
 In a meagre fashion Mr. Buncombe knew that his son- 
 in-law had prospered beyond the average of " newspaper 
 fellows," but he was not prepared for the degree of com- 
 fort, not to say wealth, which was disclosed to his eyes 
 when he reached Weardale's house at Highgate on the 
 afternoon of the Monday he arrived in town. Not 
 finding Weardale at his office, he had obtained his 
 address, and, without the least hesitation, went to his 
 house in quest of him. 
 
 I cannot say that Weardale's reception of his father- 
 in-law was cordial, but neither was it awkward or 
 embarrassed. Mrs. Weardale was much more put out 
 at the unexpected sight of her father. Old memories 
 rose in her mind, bringing tears with them, and awkward- 
 ness and coldness of speech and looks. But Mr. 
 Buncombe was an effusive talker, and laughed and made 
 a fuss with the children on their return from school, and 
 strove, with a fine effrontery, to make himself and every 
 one else feel at home. 
 
 As for Weardale, he kept wondering what in the 
 name of fortune had brought this relation of his there, 
 and the inward discussion of this problem made him
 
 WANTED A "COACH." 149 
 
 absent-minded. He talked vaguely, answered the sallies 
 of Mr. Buncombe in monosyllables, and otherwise con- 
 ducted himself in a stupid manner all the time the family 
 party took tea. Only when it was over, and the children 
 had gone away to lesson-learning or to play, did the ship- 
 owner descend to his own affairs. 
 
 " Can I have a talk with you on business, my dear boy," 
 he said in his most cordial tone. 
 
 "Certainly, by all means," replied Weardale, with a 
 slow, half-bewildered air. " Will you be good enough to 
 follow me to my den. We shall be quieter there." And 
 as he rose to lead the way he wondered if Buncombe had 
 come to tell him he was going to fail. Nothing but a 
 smash up seemed to him to furnish a strong enough 
 motive to bring his father-in-law to his house. 
 
 " All right, my boy, I shan't keep you long, you know," 
 was Mr. Buncombe's answer, as the two men entered a 
 little room at the back of the house, the walls of which 
 were lined, and much of the floor littered with books and 
 papers. 
 
 Weardale mechanically took his accustomed seat, and 
 motioned his visitor to a chair near him. A strange 
 contrast they presented, these two men, as they sat 
 together, the glow of an autumn evening on their faces. 
 Weardale was stout and comfortable looking : Buncombe 
 thin as he had ever been. Weardale's hair, though 
 streaked with grey, still curled thickly round his broad 
 square forehead. Buncombe had only a thin line of 
 lanky hair round the back and sides of his head. 
 The journalist had a bushy beard ; the shipbroker had not
 
 150 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 a hair on his face. That face, instead of being full and 
 healthy, like his son-in-law's, was pale and in some degree 
 shrivelled ; a grey face with deep lines of crow's feet 
 gathered round the small, keen, greyish blue, ferret-like 
 eyes, that never rested on any one's face for more than a 
 moment. But for the hardness displayed by the thin- 
 lipped, sharp cut mouth, this mobility of the eyes might 
 have been set down to nervousness, but the whole aspect 
 of the face made that supposition untenable. It was a 
 hard face without human sympathy in it, selfish, calcu- 
 lating and cold ; a face to which the restless eyes gave the 
 stamp of cunning and insincerity. 
 
 Great indeed was the contrast between this man and 
 Weardale, whose broad well-filled figure and quiet good 
 humoured look bespoke a man at peace with his kind, 
 devoid of malevolence, open hearted and generous. 
 Little more than thirty-six, he yet looked in spite of his 
 grey hairs, young for his years, whereas Buncombe's 
 wizened face and bald pate made him look aged. He was 
 in fact barely fifteen years older than his son-in-law. 
 
 The two men sat in embarrassed silence for a few 
 seconds, and then the restless shipowner jumped to his 
 feet, as his manner was, and strode to the fire-place. He 
 never could sit still. When the room was not large 
 enough to be paced with irregular jerky strides, Mr. 
 Buncombe was wont to relieve the monotony of con- 
 versation by frequent alternations of sitting and 
 standing. 
 
 " Can you guess what I came here for," he suddenly 
 exclaimed.
 
 WANTED A "COACH." 151 
 
 " No, that I cannot," answered Weardale ; "I was never 
 more surprised in my life than at the sight of you 
 here." 
 
 " Ah ! just so, but wonders will never cease, you know. 
 You'll soon get over your surprise. The fact is I want 
 to get into Parliament, Weardale, my boy, and it occurred 
 
 to me to " 
 
 " Oh, you do, do you," exclaimed Weardale in a tone 
 of mingled relief and astonishment. 
 
 "Yes, of course, what on earth did you think had 
 brought me here — a visit of ceremony, eh ? Let by-gones 
 be by-gones, forgive and forget, and all that sort of thing 
 eh ? No, no, my dear boy ; I came on business." 
 
 " Indeed ! but I don't quite follow you, though," 
 struck in the journalist, in a cold tone which Buncombe 
 caught the ring of. 
 
 " Of course, you know," he resumed in a wheedling tone, 
 and jumping back to his seat. " Of course, you know, 
 I'm deuced glad to see you again, and so forth. No 
 doubt about that at all. It was a mistake on my part to 
 chuck you over. I admit it. I apologise for it, and we 
 need say no more about it. We all make mistakes, you 
 know, and how could I tell then that you were going to 
 turn out such a devilish clever fellow, eh ? Besides, I did 
 give you a leg up at the start, you remember, " and he 
 sprang to his feet again, gathering up the tails of his 
 coat mechanically as he turned his back to the fireplace 
 where no fire was. 
 
 Weardale smiled a quaint amused smile as he answered 
 " All right, all right ; I am sure we have no desire in the
 
 1 5 2 SIR TIMO Til Y B UN COMBE. 
 
 least to rake up the past, or to reproach you ; nothing 
 could be further from Beatrice's thoughts or mine." 
 
 " Good ! " said Buncombe, and he thrust his hands 
 down to the bottom of his trousers pockets and kicked out 
 with his feet jerkily. "Good! Then, these preliminaries 
 over, let us to business. As I was saying, I want to get 
 into parliament, you know, and I want your help." 
 
 " My help ; how do you mean ? " 
 
 " Well, the fact is, you see, I'm not very well up in 
 politics. They're not quite in my line, you know ; and 
 I'm a bit at sea when I get talking to the people ; so I 
 want you to tell me what's the game now. Give me the 
 points, you know ; I can easily lick 'em into shape, once 
 I have the cue, eh ? You understand, don't you ? It's all 
 as plain as A. B. C. to you, ain't it?" and Mr. Buncombe 
 again flopped down on his chair, casting a sharp rapid 
 glance at his son-in-law's face. 
 
 " Yes ; I understand," answered Weardale slowly, 
 " but, ah, — have you decided which party you will join ? " 
 
 " Eh, what ! well, that is a good 'un. Do you mean to 
 say I can pick and choose my party as I could a coat ; 
 as if, with my antecedents, I could be anything but a 
 Liberal ? " Mr. Buncombe rose to his feet once more as 
 he said this, drawing himself up with dignity as if to repel 
 a vile insinuation. 
 
 "All right ; there is no necessity to get excited about 
 it. I did not know your politics, of course, and I only 
 wanted to ascertain before giving you an answer. After all, 
 so far as the country is concerned, it does not much 
 matter, I guess ; but you personally are wise, no doubt.
 
 WANTED A u COACH." 153 
 
 It will be on the whole easier to get in as a Liberal than 
 as a Tory, especially just now when the whim of the 
 electing classes runs that way." 
 
 " Eh, what do you mean ? Isn't the country always 
 Liberal ? " 
 
 " Bits of it, no doubt, but not London and the southern 
 counties. They come and go with one side or the other, 
 leaning on the whole to the party which spends most 
 money. We like wars here, because they conduce to 
 good living for our official classes, our usurers, and our 
 flunkeys. Provided we are gratified in this respect, 
 principles may go to Jericho."
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A COACH THAT WENT TOO FAST. 
 
 " Oh, I see, you are a Radical, I suppose," exclaimed Mr. 
 Buncombe, with something of a sneer, taking a good 
 stare at his son-in-law's waistcoat. " You don't think any- 
 body can be sincere in politics except yourselves, eh ? 
 Much obliged to you, I'm sure." 
 
 " Pardon me, it's not a question of sincerity at all. 
 You may be a fanatic in sincerity if you like. That 
 matters little so far as the actual ruling of the nation goes." 
 
 "Oh, doesn't it, though?" 
 
 " No, certainly not. Politicians of all shades are in the 
 same box. Once let them into office and they have to 
 obey a power, superior, nineteen times out of twenty, to 
 anything the tongue alone can call into existence." 
 
 " Oh, I see. The press, of course ; I might have 
 guessed that. Nothing like leather, eh? You chaps 
 govern the country." 
 
 " No, not the press, either. It is not in the running ; 
 on the contrary, its influence seems to me on the decline. 
 I meant the bureaucracy, the Horse Guards, the fetish of 
 German royalties with all their corrupt surroundings and 
 tax-consuming swarms of toadeaters. These are the 
 powers that rule England."
 
 A COACH THAT WENT TOO FAST. 155 
 
 "Bosh," exclaimed Mr. Buncombe, in an excited 
 tone, and dancing round the room as fast as the 
 small space and the encumbered floor would let him. 
 " Do you mean to tell me that the great Liberal party- 
 have done nothing in the past to extend the liberties 
 of the people, eh? answer me that!" and the speaker 
 paused dramatically in front of Weardale's desk for a 
 reply. 
 
 " My dear sir, I beg you not to get excited ; all this is 
 beside the question. The 'measures of reform' that 
 politicians chatter so much about are mostly humbug 
 and delusion. They mean not more freedom as a rule, 
 but more chains ; a bigger load on the backs of the 
 people ; greater power to the bureaucrats. You are, if 
 you will allow me to say so, too unsophisticated ; and, if 
 you mean to enter Parliament, must knock lots of these 
 wild ideas out of your head." 
 
 "But" — interjected Buncombe — 
 
 " Nay, let me finish ; I shan't detain you long. You 
 are going into Parliament, you say. Well and good. 
 Then the first thing you have to learn is that it does not 
 matter two straws what reforms you promise the con- 
 stituency you make love to. Delude the people to the 
 uttermost ; you are perfectly safe, because none of your 
 promises have the least chance of being fulfilled. Pro- 
 mise economy; promise a policy of peace ; promise local 
 government ; promise church disestablishment, if that will 
 catch more votes than it will take away ; promise greater 
 freedom everywhere ; do and say anything you please to 
 win votes, and never fear the result. Nobody expects
 
 156 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 you seriously to keep your promises, because you could 
 not if you tried." 
 
 " God bless my soul," cried the shipowner, fairly taken 
 aback. " That is the funniest thing ever I heard in all 
 my born days. And you, a Radical, and a Free Trader, 
 and God knows what ; you tell me this ! I never — God 
 bless my soul and body ! " 
 
 For once in his life the shipbroker was non-plussed. 
 
 " We were not discussing honesty, or anything of that 
 sort, you know," Weardale proceeded, hardly noticing the 
 exclamations and looks of his father-in-law — " nothing 
 except facts. I say it does not matter what you profess 
 or promise before the electorate, because you can do 
 nothing, and the proof of this is that the party in office 
 habitually disregards the essence of its pledges. It can- 
 not do otherwise. This country, I must repeat, is not 
 governed by the men whom the deluded voter supports 
 at the polls. The poor fool of a voter is as helpless to- 
 day as he was in the days of Sir Horace Walpole or of 
 Pitt, as helpless, but far more puffed up. The English 
 electoral system is, under what we are pleased to call our 
 Constitution, neither more nor less than a device to 
 hide the bureaucracy, by whom we are really ruled. Do 
 our soldiers want a little war or two ? They have it, no 
 matter what the chosen of the people say, and the people 
 are only good to pay the bill. Is there a departmental 
 job to be perpetrated, involving perhaps the waste of 
 millions of money? It is done without hesitation by the 
 bureaucrats and their allies, courtly and neza-court\y. 
 Money by millions upon millions is flung away like chaff
 
 A COACH THAT WENT TOO FAST. 157 
 
 every year, and your great party leaders stand by as 
 helpless as oxen in a slaughter-house. One vox populi 
 Premier goes and another comes, and still the nation 
 jogs along with its soft head in the air towards universal 
 bankruptcy and the devil." 
 
 " God bless my soul and body," ejaculated Mr. Bun- 
 combe once more. " You are mad, surely ; clean mad. 
 I've come to the wrong shop, I see." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " laughed Weardale, in high good humour 
 at the effect he had produced. " Not a bit of it. I shall 
 be delighted to help you if I can. It's always such good 
 fun to see your voters marching to the polling booths 
 penetrated by the conviction that this time at all events 
 they are going to make an end of bad government. 
 Their faith is touching, as well as droll. Nothing teaches 
 these ' dim, common populations.' After each batch of 
 talking puppets has ignominiously failed to lessen their 
 woes, they solemnly, and with imperturbable conviction, 
 pin their faith to a fresh supply, rush to record their 
 votes, and go home, saying to themselves, ' now we have 
 settled it ; now the world will go as we wish.' It is 
 sublime, Mr. Buncombe, touchingly sublime, and would 
 be the greatest fun under heaven, were it not so sad 
 withal. Nothing teaches them, these yokel millions. 
 They sec, as the result of their stout-hearted voting, 
 mobs of gilded and jewelled aristocrats change places 
 before the throne. Lord Longodds succeeds Baron 
 Grouscmoor as Governor of the Queen's dogs; Her Grace 
 of Barsinister displaces the Duchess of Rackrcnt as chief 
 dresser ; Earl Fitzdottcrel condescends to replace the
 
 1 5 8 SIR TIMO TBI Y B UN COM BE. 
 
 Marquis of Spawnroyal as head flunkey, and His Grace 
 the Duke of Groundgame ousts some other peer as upper 
 stable boy. It is the old, old story ; the people play the 
 game, and high croupiers divide the stakes." 
 
 "Bosh," interjected the ship broker. "What has all 
 that court flummery got to do with politics and reforms? 
 What the nation looks to is the Ministry. It doesn't 
 care a hang who gets the court places." 
 
 " Just so ; nevertheless the court mob decides the fate 
 of ministries often. There is no political intriguer in the 
 world equal to your courtly woman and your lick-spittle 
 peer. And after all, how much better is the ministerial 
 reshuffle? The scramble after place is just the same, 
 the results of the stakes' division just as negative. One 
 wonder-working silver tongue, on whose lips a nation 
 has hung rapturously, displaces another, bringing his 
 train of placemen — all of more or less skill in tongue 
 fence — along with him, and the people shout for joy. 
 But they are puppets all, and after a year or two the silly 
 voter awakes to the fact that he is not one whit the 
 better for the change. Taxes increase just as before, be- 
 cause bureaucrats breed and require more and evermore 
 to live upon. Wars are waged by the party of ' peace, 
 retrenchment and reform,' just as recklessly as by the 
 truculent Jew-controlled Tory gangs who rave of 
 England's mission to rule the world; and your silver- 
 tongued orator, divine vox populi premier, exhausts his 
 ingenuity in finding excuses for crimes, lapses and exac- 
 tions, so as to avert the gathering storm. By and by the 
 popular fury breaks upon his head ; he flies ignomini-
 
 A COACH THAT I VENT TOO FAST. 159 
 
 ously from 'office ;' the polling booths are thronged again ; 
 a new squad of puppets come to the fore, and the 
 game is begun anew with a triumphant self-satisfied 
 electorate doing its duty. It is sublime.'' 
 
 " I — I — really, Weardale, my boy, I don't understand 
 you. You seem to me raving mad. Do you imagine 
 that I can go before a constituency and utter rank non- 
 sense like that. I'd rather not, if it's all the same to 
 you." 
 
 " How you do fly off at a tangent, Mr. Buncombe," 
 laughed the journalist. " Don't you see that I have 
 merely been putting you through a preliminary elucida- 
 tion?" 
 
 "Oh, just so, of course; I understand, quite well," 
 answered the ship-owner, in an offended tone. " You 
 won't do for me, I can see that, anyway. I had hopes 
 you might have helped me with your advice when I 
 entered on my electioneering campaign, but I now find I 
 was mistaken." 
 
 " Nay, nay, not so fast. Tell me the views you desire 
 to put before the electors, and I'll lick them into shape 
 for you, with pleasure, if that is what you want. It's all 
 the same to me, you know," and again Weardale laughed 
 softly.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 AN UNSTEADY COACH. 
 
 "That's not what I want at all, man," Buncombe asserted 
 afresh. " God bless my soul, if I had only wanted ideas 
 shaped I could have done that myself, surely. I'm 
 not such a green-horn at public speaking as all that. 
 What I wanted was the correct tips, you know, and after 
 what I have heard you must excuse me for saying that 1 
 should be afraid to trust you for anything of the sort. 
 Why, you laugh at the Reform Bill, the ballot, and every- 
 thing. It's dreadful ; positively dreadful." 
 
 " Ha, ha, all right, Mr. Buncombe. I'm sure it makes 
 no difference to me ; but I really did not think the views 
 I have just expressed were so horrifying. Most journalists 
 of experience hold them, you know. They see too much 
 of the way the miracle is performed to have deep faith in 
 its efficacy." 
 
 " Do they, by Jove ! Then all I can say is they must be a 
 bad lot." 
 
 " Not so very bad either. They speak merely of what 
 they see and know. To them at any rate it is patent 
 enough that parliamentary government is more of a 
 delusion than an efficient factor in making men com- 
 fortable and happy. They see your great ministers led
 
 AN UNSTEADY COACH. 161 
 
 by the nose one after the other by a corrupt bureaucracy. 
 What can they do, therefore, but laugh your platform 
 heroes, your demi-gods of the tongue, to scorn with a 
 certain bitterness. Why — " 
 
 How far the journalist might have ridden his hobby 
 it would be hard to guess, and Mr. Buncombe had 
 evidently no mind to let the experiment be tried. 
 Nervously kicking his legs about and looking at his 
 watch he interrupted Weardale at this point with 
 
 "Well, well, my friend, I'll hear you another time. I 
 must be off now, I promised to meet Holmes, of Grimsby, 
 at eight, and it's past seven now." 
 
 " Nonsense ; won't you wait and have supper with us. 
 We dine in the middle of the day and sup about nine : 
 you will be most welcome to a share of what's going. 
 Beatrice, I am sure, counts upon you." 
 
 " No, thank you, I can't really. You must excuse me 
 now," cried Mr. Buncombe, getting up to go. " Sorry 
 we could not hit it off, you know," he added. 
 
 " Well, but stop a moment," exclaimed Weardale, 
 " you need not lose all your trouble in coming out here, 
 because I am not to your taste. Though you can't trust 
 me to coach you, you may accept my advice as to who 
 can. I know lots of fellows who would be only too 
 delighted — for a consideration." 
 
 "Eh, well, well, that's not a bad idea ;" and Mr. Bun- 
 combe immediately plumped into a scat again, totally 
 oblivious of his haste to keep an engagement. 
 
 " In fact," continued Weardale, " I think I know the 
 very man for you. The only drawback is that he takes
 
 1 62 S/R TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 spells of drinking. But if you can compel him to be 
 sober — and he keeps the pledge on occasion for months 
 at a time — he is the best electioneering wire puller alive." 
 
 " Hum ! Rather awkward though if the fellow got tight 
 at a critical moment." 
 
 " Oh, but you must not depend on him to hunt up 
 your voters on the polling day ! He's a chap to send 
 spouting around among them as a sort of free lance ; a 
 man also to whom you yourself can apply for information 
 as to the attitude, wants, and wishes of the electors. 
 His hints would help you immensely to a knowledge of 
 what to say, and when to say it. His being drunk now 
 and then docs not in the least weaken his value for 
 such objects. It lowers his market price merely. In fact, 
 I would be of no use to you at all in a thousand ways 
 where he would be invaluable." 
 
 " Hum ! You seem to have a great admiration for 
 this drunkard," remarked Mr. Buncombe, with a 
 suspicious glance from his ferret-like eyes. " Is he a 
 particular friend of yours ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, he hates me like the devil, I believe, 
 and even were it otherwise I fail to see what interest of 
 mine would be served by misleading you," answered 
 Weardale drily. 
 
 "No, no, of course not," the shipowner effusively cried, 
 desirous of effacing a bad impression. " I believe you 
 are quite right ; but, if this fellow hates you, how am I to 
 get to know him ? " 
 
 " I will introduce you." 
 
 " God bless my soul ! how's that ? "
 
 AN UNSTEADY COACH. 163 
 
 " Because he hates me it does not follow that we are 
 not superficially the best friends in the world ; nor yet 
 does it follow that my introduction will not carry some 
 weight with him — especially if you are prepared to 
 stump up. He is a politic fellow, Edward Lister." 
 
 " Hum ! God bless my soul and body," was all that 
 Mr. Buncombe felt equal to ejaculating as he sprang to 
 his feet and backed to the fireplace. 
 
 Weardale laughed. " Let me see," he resumed, " you 
 will probably find him in the lobby of the House of 
 Commons somewhere. I rather fancy in the centre lobby, 
 for I have been told he gets drunk too often, and kicks 
 up too many rows to be trusted inside. But everyone 
 knows him there. Suppose I give you a note, and you 
 hunt him up." 
 
 " All right, I can but try, you know. Shall I find 
 him to-night?" Mr. Buncombe had apparently for- 
 gotten all about his engagement with Mr. Holmes, of 
 Grimsby. 
 
 " Sure to, I should think. He writes descriptions of 
 scenes in the House for a syndicate of country news- 
 papers, and is always hanging about the lobby, drunk or 
 sober. But what's your hurry ; can't you stay to 
 supper? My wife will be disappointed if you bolt in 
 this fashion." 
 
 " No, thank you. Very sorry, you know ; should have 
 liked very much to stay, but I can't. I must be back at 
 Berborough by to-morrow night. But tell Bcatty never 
 to mind ; she will sec enough of me if I get into 
 Parliament."
 
 1 64 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " Ah ! that reminds me," said Weardale, accepting 
 the reiterated refusal of the invitation to supper with 
 much equanimity. "Have you found a constituency 
 yet ? " 
 
 "Yes; at least, I'm not sure. I've had my eye on 
 Oldhills for some time ; but the fact is I'm not sure it 
 isn't too radical." 
 
 " Oh, don't let that stand in your way whatever you 
 do. It's a capital place, I should say — quite beyond the 
 range of the London ooze of tax consumers, courtiers, 
 money-lenders, stock-jobbers, and toadies. Just the very 
 thing. It will have a modicum of honest men, and a 
 ruck easy to buy. You have spent money on the place, 
 I suppose ? " 
 
 " Y — yes ; I've nursed it a bit." 
 
 " Then stick to it, and swallow all formulas ; never fear. 
 I shouldn't lose my invested capital, if I were you." 
 
 " There you are again ; I never saw such a fellow. 
 Ton my soul and body ; I believe you are a — an — an 
 anarchy man," cried Mr. Buncombe, jerking out the last 
 phrase as if he had made a discovery, but did not know 
 quite how to define it. 
 
 "Perhaps," was the quiet rejoinder, "but, here's 
 your note." Weardale had been writing between his 
 sentences. " You go and find Ted Lister. He will talk 
 as wildly as any man ; but you are quite safe with him. 
 He knows the party ropes, and, by the way, he knows 
 most of the party leaders too. If I were you I'd get 
 him to introduce me a bit, just for a start. A new man 
 must not be too particular how he makes his way."
 
 AN UNSTEADY COACH. 165 
 
 Mr. Buncombe took the note from his son-in-law's hand 
 promptly, and as promptly said good bye. He was 
 almost too impatient to wait until Mrs. Weardale 
 came to say good bye also, in answer to her husband's 
 call. Effusively, with regrets, excuses, promises to come 
 again soon, all as it were jumbled together, Mr. Bun- 
 combe made his farewell and posted off to the House of 
 Commons. 
 
 " Have you offended him, my dear?" said Beatrice to 
 her husband, when the door closed behind her father. 
 
 Weardale smiled, " No, not exactly," he said. " He 
 wanted me to coach him for Parliament, but my ideas 
 did not please him ; so I have given him a note to Ted 
 Lister." 
 
 " What, that disagreeable, drinking fellow, who came 
 here once and stayed till four o'clock in the morning, 
 and told us the State ought to bring up his family." 
 
 " The same ; but he is a first rate canvasser, you know. 
 That's in his line, not mine, eh, wife?" 
 
 " I should think so," said Mrs. Weardale proudly. 
 " All the same, I believe my father will be dreadfully 
 shocked when he discovers the kind of man you have 
 sent him to. But what in the world does he want to go 
 into Parliament for ?" 
 
 " My dear, he has made money, it seems," replied 
 Henry Weardale, and to his shrewd wife that appeared 
 to be reason sufficient.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 RED NOSE AND RIGHT HONOURABLE. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe went straight to the House of Commons 
 from his son-in-law's house in Highgate. A certain 
 amount of impatience possessed that soul of his he so 
 often asked God to bless. So far as his son-in-law was 
 concerned, he felt that the journey he had made to town 
 was wasted, and he was not without nervousness regarding 
 the fruits of that letter of introduction he carried in his 
 pocket. To make a man given to drink his guide, 
 philosopher, and dmc damnce in the forthcoming election- 
 eering campaign seemed much like providing for failure 
 beforehand. 
 
 It was therefore with no very confident feeling that the 
 shipowner made his way to the outer lobby of the two 
 Houses of Parliament, and asked a policeman to direct 
 him where to find Mr. Lister. 
 
 The policeman took him familiarly by the arm and led 
 him a step or two into the House of Commons corridor. 
 "There he be," said he, pointing to a stoutish little creature 
 with a red nose and an excited air, who was seated on a 
 bench, talking with great volubility and insistence to a 
 tall, dark, cock-sure looking man who held a bundle of 
 papers in his hand.
 
 RED NOSE AND RIGHT HONOURABLE. 167 
 
 " He's a-talkin' to a hex-cabinet minister," whispered 
 the policeman, " p'raps you'd better wait," and he pointed 
 to a vacant bench on the opposite side of the passage. 
 
 '•Ho, ho!" thought Mr. Buncombe to himself, as he sat 
 down. " Weardale was not so far out after all then. This 
 fellow, Lister, is somebody ;" and he gazed with interest at 
 the couple opposite. 
 
 A greater contrast could hardly have been imagined 
 than these two men presented. The tall man, " hex- 
 cabinet minister," as the policeman explained, and the 
 Right Honourable Launcelot Orchidion, M.P., for Smutty- 
 ton, and formerVice-President of the Aristocrat's Out-door 
 Relief Office, as we may explain, was elegantly dressed — 
 neat and dapperly dressed as a tailor's perambulating 
 advertisement. His linen was faultless, his wristbands 
 resplendent, and on his fingers flashed jewels. His 
 interlocutor had been a handsome man too, was in a 
 sense handsome still ; but was shorter of stature, with a 
 well knit frame and a powerful looking head. Years of 
 hard living and drink, however, had left their mark 
 on him, and now he seemed more or less a wreck. His 
 linen was dirty ; so were his hands, to which frowsy 
 edged wristbands of three or four days' wear formed fit 
 offset. A towsy shirt front equally well became the 
 rough, soiled, ill-made clothes which covered his back. 
 " That man surely is a waif," the casual observer would 
 have said. 
 
 lie was no waif though, judging by the suave, almost 
 humble attention which the beautifully tailored politician 
 paid to what the little fellow said. Lister appeared to be
 
 1 6S SIR TIMO TH Y B UN COM BE. 
 
 half seas over. His eye rolled wildly, and his face was 
 flushed. He spoke with an excited feverish sort of voice, 
 doggedly too, and fiercely at times, as if determined to 
 force Mr. Orchidion to take his view of the point in dispute, 
 whether he would or not. And always the sweetly per- 
 fumed political demi-god smiled, and looked delighted 
 and cordial, and wagged his head and seemed to weigh 
 with deep earnestness every word the journalist 
 spoke. 
 
 Sitting opposite them, Mr. Buncombe necessarily 
 caught a good many of the phrases ; fag ends of 
 sentences reached him through the gaps left by the 
 stream of men passing to and fro. For the life of him 
 though he could not find Lister's language so fraught 
 with wisdom as to make it worth absorption thus earnestly 
 by one of the nation's leading lights. 
 
 "Oh! but you must, b'God!" was a phrase which 
 more than once caught his ear. " You must, or else the 
 country will cast you out, root and branch." * * * 
 " The times are ripe for revolution, I tell you, and b'God 
 no man knows that better than I do." * * * " I tell 
 you it's no good shilly-shallying ; there's no help in the 
 Lord for you if you do that. You'll have to apply to the 
 other party, and, damn it, he won't." * * * " I'm 
 in relation, in intimate relation I may say, with every 
 Radical association in the three kingdoms, and as sure 
 as the Lord's salvation, I tell you that if you are not 
 prepared to pretty well hang every damned landlord you 
 can lay hands on, you may as well throw up the 
 sponge."
 
 RED NOSE AND RIGHT HONOURABLE. 169 
 
 " But, my friend, " the ex-cabinet minister ventured 
 
 to say, in a bland tone. 
 
 "'But,' there's no but about it, b'God ; " interrupted 
 Lister in tones loud enough to smother every other 
 sound. " But me no buts in the matter. Here's the 
 road, and you have got to follow it or land in the ditch. 
 Heh, heh ! The way of salvation was always hard, 
 you know, and, like it or not, b'God, you must abolish 
 the landlords, strip the parsons of their stolen property, 
 and give the poor a chance all round. Heh, heh, 
 heh!" 
 
 "Well, Mr. Lister, I'm sure I'm delighted to know 
 your views, and I assure you they lose nothing from the 
 forcible way you put them. They require much thought. 
 * * * Interests are against " 
 
 " Interests be damned ! " yelled Lister, growing more 
 and more excited ; but the Party leader probably 
 thought he had now done enough for propitiation's sake. 
 So he rose abruptly and held out his hand, with an "Excuse 
 me, Mr. Lister, I must go now, for I have to speak 
 presently ; but depend upon it I'll not forget what you 
 have said," and without waiting for an answer he hurried 
 away. 
 
 Lister looked after him, as Mr. Buncombe rose to 
 introduce himself, and said loud enough for those around 
 to hear — an indescribable look of drunken hate and scorn 
 spreading over his face 
 
 " Yes ; you'll think of it, no doubt, and be damned to 
 you. No good will ever be done till you, and the 
 like of you, arc hung. Blasted fawning hypocrite."
 
 i;o SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 As he hissed these words out, he glanced furtively in 
 the direction of the policeman at the Commons' end of 
 the corridor, and finding the man's back turned, darted 
 with stealthly swiftness into the member's lobby. Mr. 
 Buncombe was about to follow, but the policeman 
 caught sight of him, and turned him back as a stranger.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A COMEDY AND A COMPACT. 
 
 As the shipowner emerged upon the outer lobby the police- 
 man stationed there observed that he was alone, and at 
 once looked round for Lister. Seeing nothing of him, he 
 approached Mr. Buncombe, and asked whether he (Bun- 
 combe) had seen him go inside. 
 
 " Yes, I did," said Mr. Buncombe. " He was off before 
 I could speak to him, confound it." 
 
 "Do you know him, sir?" said the officer anxiously, 
 " because if you do you might 'elp to get me out of a 
 mess. I shall get into trouble if that fellow is caught in 
 there by my chiefs. We 'ave strict horders to keep 'im 
 out of the lobby," he went on to explain. 
 
 " No, my man, I do not know him. I have simply a 
 letter to him," Mr. Buncombe replied, beginning to feel a 
 little ashamed of his position. 
 
 " That would do, p'raps. Or, I say, mister, do you 
 'appen to know a member." 
 
 " Of course I do, several. I come from Berborough. 
 Mr. Elicott, the member for that town, is an intimate 
 friend of mine." As he said this, which was not exactly 
 true, Mr. Buncombe felt his sense of dignity returning. 
 
 "Then gi' me your card, sir if you please. I know 'e's
 
 i j 2 SIR T1M0 THY B UNCO MB E. 
 
 in the 'Ousc, I seed him go by not 'alf an hour ago. I'll 
 'avc 'im called, and 'c can take you in to Lister. 
 P'raps your business will 'elp us to get 'im out." 
 
 Mr. Buncombe complied with this request, and presently 
 Mr. Klicott appeared, and, without ceremony, led him 
 into the inner lobby. 
 
 " Do you want to get into the House, Mr. Buncombe?" 
 he asked. " It's a dull night to-night. Navy estimates. 
 No fun. No one knows anything about them, you know. 
 " Ha, ha ! and the First Lord is a poor speaker." 
 
 " No, I don't. The fact is I came on rather a wild 
 goose chase. My son — eh — a relation of mine, gave me 
 a note of introduction to a fellow named Lister, and I 
 came down in quest of him." 
 
 " And there he is, by the Lord Harry," exclaimed 
 Elicott, in a tone of amazement. " How the deuce has he 
 got here, I wonder," and as he spoke he looked round for 
 the door keeper. 
 
 Two policemen were there, hovering near the dangerous 
 intruder, but afraid to speak to him, lest doing so should 
 produce a scene. One of them accosted several passers by, 
 pointing to Lister, and evidently begging them to interfere. 
 The man was met by refusals in every case, until at last 
 an elderly gentleman, obviously from the provinces, went 
 up and began to talk to the inebriate, who all the while 
 stood leaning against the wall, with a defiant scowl on 
 his face. The result of the liberty thus taken was a 
 torrent of strong language, uttered in tones loud enough 
 to attract the notice of everybody near. The benevolent 
 provincial retired discomfited, and, as he did so, the
 
 A COMEDY AND A COMPACT. 173 
 
 Right Hon. Launcelot Orchidion slipped softly in, passed 
 round the opposite side of the lobby without turning his 
 eyes in the direction of the man with whom he had so 
 lately held sweet converse, and gained the House. 
 
 Fear and perplexity were depicted on the faces of the 
 attendants and the policeman, whose lack of eyes in the 
 back of his head had permitted Lister to dodge past him, 
 redoubled his efforts to find somebody able to get the 
 journalist quietly out again. 
 
 Presently a tall burly looking man who had been 
 watching the comedy with an amused look, while he 
 conversed with his friends, stepped forward, and without 
 ceremony caught Lister by the back of the neck. 
 
 " Now then, Ted," he exclaimed " you clear out of 
 this, we don't want any of your nonsense here, my boy," 
 and suiting the action to the word he wheeled the tipsy 
 man round and pushed him unresistingly along the 
 corridor forth into the outer lobby. 
 
 " There," he added, releasing his prisoner " Don't you 
 try any of these tricks again, Ted, or it'll be the worse 
 for you." 
 
 While this scene was passing, Mr. Buncombe told the 
 member for Berborough why he wanted to see the 
 redoubtable journalist — hesitatingly and with a kind of 
 blush on his cheeks. 
 
 To his astonishment Elicott cordially endorsed the 
 recommendation of Weardale. 
 
 " The very man for you," he cried. 
 
 " But he seems an ill-tempered, sour-hearted vagabond," 
 objected Mr. Buncombe.
 
 1 74 SIR TIMO TH Y B UN COMBE. 
 
 "Ah, that's only when he is drunk. When Lister is 
 sober he is the jolliest chap imaginable. Egotistical and 
 all that, but full of humour and device. Secure him by 
 all means. He'll run you in if any man can." 
 
 Mr. Buncombe seemed still to doubt, and the member 
 for Berborough went on : " Besides, it is worth a good 
 deal to have that fellow on one's side as a member. I 
 would buy him up were it for no reason but that. The 
 scamp wields a deuced sharp pen, and he prods and 
 scarifies those he hates in a style that makes them writhe 
 again at times, I can tell you. They read those corrosive 
 articles of his down in the country, and don't know 
 Lister from a great man. The devil has such cheek and 
 assurance. You have him on your side ; pay him a good 
 fee, and it will be worth years of plodding work in the 
 House to you. When Lister talks of the admirable good 
 sense and patriotism of his friend, Mr. Buncombe, your 
 voters will think themselves wise men." 
 
 " Ah ! then that accounts for it !" exclaimed the ship- 
 broker. 
 
 " Accounts for what ?" 
 
 " Why, for seeing such a swell as Mr. Orchidion chum- 
 ming with the fellow a few minutes ago." 
 
 " Oh, damn it, no, you don't mean that ! Was that so ? 
 Gad, that's a good joke ; " and Mr. Elicott laughed 
 heartily. 
 
 " But, Orchidion was quite right, though," he added, 
 " perfectly right. It would never do for him to have that 
 serpent's fangs in him when a big election fight is coming 
 on. Oh, he's a downy chap, our knight errant, and knows
 
 A COMEDY AND A COMPACT. 17$ 
 
 his little game as well as any man. I shouldn't wonder if 
 he meditates engaging Ted Lister for the campaign him- 
 self, just to keep the rascal quiet. So you had better look 
 sharp, Mr. Buncombe, if you mean to be first in the field." 
 
 " All right," said Mr. Buncombe, " I'll take your 
 advice, but I must say the present moment does not 
 seem propitious to begin negotiations. The fellow looks 
 fit to stick a knife in you." 
 
 " Well, perhaps, but, ha, ha ! the difficulty is to know 
 what time would be propitious, when the man is on the 
 booze. I have seen Lister dead drunk at ten o'clock in 
 the day. After all, too, if you are in a hurry, I'm not 
 sure that the present moment is not as good as any. 
 Lister has most likely been more fully, drunk early in the 
 day than he is now. He must now be sobering down to 
 be fit to write his spiteful trash by and bye, and has quite 
 sense enough, you'll find, to know how to strike a 
 bargain." 
 
 Stimulated thus, Mr. Buncombe bade the M.P.'good-bye, 
 and went outside to seek his man. With some difficulty 
 he found him, sobering himself at a side bar with 
 another drink, and presented his letter, which Lister tore 
 open roughly and glanced at. . 
 
 "Ah, Mister Wcardale," he muttered, laying a sarcastic 
 stress on the mister. " He's a great gun now, Mister 
 Wcardale — damned snob. What has he got to do with 
 fine stamped note-paper, and a monogram, too. All 
 your blasted, time-serving newspaper drivellers ape the 
 aristocrat the moment they get enough to buy a second 
 shirt to let the first go to the wash."
 
 176 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " So you want to put M.P. to your name, do you," he 
 added, after glancing through the note, and looking up 
 at Mr. Buncombe with his heavy blood-shot eyes. "Much 
 good that will do you or the country either, for that 
 matter. A plutocrat, no doubt ; pockets full of money. 
 Are ye prepared to scuttle the ship, b'God?" 
 
 " Pardon me, sir, I do not follow you," said the ship- 
 owner, in his dryest, high dignified tone, thinking pro- 
 bably that the question reflected somehow on his 
 occupation. 
 
 " Oh, no, none of you swell plutocrats ever do. But 
 we mean to make you see daylight through a brick wall 
 one of these fine days. You call yourself a Liberal, I 
 see — and think yourself a Radical, perhaps. I know the 
 cut of your coat. Because of you and the like of you the 
 country is going straight to hell, sir. But wc true 
 Radicals mean to scuttle the ship and drown the lot of 
 you first, and then when we have got a good riddance 
 we'll raise the old vessel and dry dock her, and scrape the 
 barnacles off her. Don't you know, sir, that it is two> 
 hundred years at least since the ship of the state has 
 been docked and cleaned ? " 
 
 " Eh, do you mean a revolution, Mr. Lister, may I 
 ask ? " ventured Mr. Buncombe. 
 
 " What else should I mean ? B'God, Mr. Buncombe, I 
 tell you, we'll show you money-bags what's what before 
 we've done with you. I'm the leader of a great army, 
 s i r — one of the leaders, at least. Tens of thousands are 
 prepared to rise at my nod and make a clean sweep 
 of corruption. M.P.'s, indeed ! What are M.P.'s but
 
 A COMEDY AND A COMPACT. 177 
 
 blasted self-seekers who sell the country every day in the 
 week for pelf. I might have been an M.P. myself 
 dozens of times. Constituencies have gone on their 
 knees to me, sir, offering to run me in at the top of the 
 poll, and pay me like a lord for my services. But no, I 
 would have nothing to do with the crew of perdition. 
 The mark of the beast is upon them, and, b'God, I shall 
 stand aloof and see them perish. An M.P., good lord, 
 any flunkey can be that," and so forth. The process of 
 becoming sober was evidently not a sweet one for Mr. 
 Lister and those near him while it was in operation. 
 
 However, the mere act of blowing off vicious self- 
 conceit in this fashion seemed to cool the fellow down, 
 and after about half-an-hour's disjointed raving he con- 
 descended on business, and before eleven o'clock that 
 night had graciously agreed to become Mr. Buncombe's 
 spouting double at the coming general election in con- 
 sideration of the sum of twenty pounds down and eighty 
 more when the election was over. That compact made, 
 Mr. Buncombe returned to his hotel. 
 
 Next day he went back to Berborough but half satisfied 
 with the result of his journey, Soon after he announced 
 to the Liberals of the borough of Oldhills that he was 
 ready to be their chosen candidate if it so pleased them, 
 and his previous nursing, together with a speech from 
 himself, and two or three harangues from his " sworn- 
 sobriety : ' political devil Lister procured him the all 
 but unanimous vote of the knot of local wire-pullers 
 called the " Liberal committee." 
 
 M
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 A COMPETITION IN PLEDGE TAKING. 
 
 DURING the three months that elapsed between Mr. Bun- 
 combe's formal acceptance as the chosen of the Liberals, 
 and the election, that great man lived at fever 
 heat. He had commenced canvassing early because he 
 was a new man, and as he proceeded his mental jumble- 
 ment grew ever more alarming. 
 
 At the start the shipowner was a prim Liberal of the 
 least aggressive order, anxious to win, of course, but by- 
 no means kindly disposed to the process of " swallowing 
 formulas." But the moment he had fairly launched on 
 the sea of politics, he became like a rudderless, sailless 
 boat. Hither and thither the factions of the town 
 tossed him until he knew not whether he was a Liberal 
 or a Radical, or a red-hot Tory, or a Socialist, or a 
 Churchman, or a Dissenter. 
 
 Talk of boggling at pledges, Mr. Buncombe found 
 himself bolting them wholesale. He took so many, 
 publicly and privately, that the overgorging brought on a 
 violent fit of moral indigestion. That disease is curable, 
 and it is possible that Mr. Buncombe's strong stomach 
 might have worked its way through all the phases of the 
 complaint without much loss of sleep, had his promiscuous
 
 A COMPETITION IN PLEDGE TAKING. 179 
 
 absorption not at last put his chance of election in 
 danger. 
 
 Pledges ! Mr. Buncombe, in his new-born zeal for 
 parliamentary honours, pledged himself to find employ- 
 ment for the three stalwart sons of the local Liberal editor; 
 to procure places for dozens of girls in Her Majesty's post 
 office ; to get an organist's post for the rector's lame 
 boy — " so fond of music you know " — with heaps of the 
 same kind. In his anxiety to please everybody, he held 
 out a hand to the publicans, and coquetted at the same 
 time with fanatical, local option teetotalers, whose paid 
 secretary, he confessed with sadness of heart, it was 
 impossible to convince of the folly of his ways. 
 
 Anti-vaccinationists approached him and received 
 words of encouragement ; church people who desired to 
 increase the power of the clergy over education, found 
 his ear open to their pleadings ; and Dissenters who 
 talked of disestablishment and disendowment, were not 
 sent empty away, if words meant more than a conjuror's 
 miracle. 
 
 In vain did Lister curse and swear, and, when sober, 
 discourse shrewd electioneering axioms. Mr. Buncombe 
 had become mad to win, and in his greenness thought 
 the surest way of doing so was to copy exactly what he 
 conceived to be the model set up by St. Paul. 
 
 And soon he found his mistake. Alas ! the electorate 
 of Oldhills was not gullible to the extent that the ship- 
 owner had supposed. Taunts began to be flung at him. 
 The disappointed editor, who looked for instant ful- 
 filment of pledges given, took to sneering ; and churchites,
 
 180 S/R TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 full of pride, and chapclites smitten with envy, became 
 equally doubtful about the true faith of the chosen 
 Liberal candidate. The wrangle grew loud and more 
 furious, until, about three weeks before the date of the 
 election, sundry wire pullers began to hint to Mr. 
 Buncombe that, after all, perhaps he had better retire in 
 time. 
 
 To add to his troubles, most of which might have 
 disappeared before gold, and the excitement of a fight, 
 who should appear in the town at this juncture, but a 
 wandering baronet, blessed with many rents, and a zeal 
 for water drinking. This noble philanthropist, who 
 eagerly desired to cut off from the Exchequer its income 
 from drink, but whose zeal did not lead him to set 
 an example in making compensation by surrendering 
 half his rent roll for the relief of taxation, made a great 
 stir in the town. His limping wit stimulated the 
 teetotalers to a tremendous pitch of enthusiasm, so 
 wonderful was it for a man with a handle to his name to 
 be able to crack a joke and tell a story just like Joe, of 
 the "Wild Boar," or thirsty Parson White, of Nettlefield — 
 jolly chaps they knew — and to make these jokes on 
 nothing but water too — wonderful ! most wonderful ! 
 
 Stimulated by this great man's eloquence and 
 enthusiastic desire to bless all beggars with half-crowns 
 from his neighbour's pockets, the anti-liquorites grew 
 pestiferous in their demand. " Either vote for our views," 
 they yelled, " or lose the election." And their threats did 
 not seem so empty, for the presence of a baronet who 
 condescended to "take the teetotal pledge," had put
 
 A COMPETITION IN PLEDGE TAKING. 181 
 
 water in fashion. The trick of pledge-signing was not 
 merely respectable, it had become aristocratic, and as the 
 muster roll of the temporary water lovers swelled, the 
 hopes of the pledge-bound, gagged, self-immolated 
 Liberal candidate sank within him. It was worse than 
 heresy on the tithe question. 
 
 In vain did he appeal in his emergency to the wisdom 
 of Lister. Lister only swore, and when driven into a 
 corner rushed off to the drinking bars, there to strengthen 
 the invective of the water-intoxicated crowd, by fur- 
 nishing them with a striking example. 
 
 " I have made a mistake after all in taking that sot,' Mr. 
 Buncombe frequently said, and the more he leant to this 
 view the more his mind reverted to Weardale in anger. 
 
 "That blockhead of a son-in-law of yours has got me 
 into this mess," he told Mrs. Buncombe as they sat at 
 breakfast in the hotel, one morning. " Had it not been 
 for him I would not have been in this trouble with the 
 teetotalers. Confound that fellow Lister, he was brought 
 back to the hotel last night by a watchman, too drunk to 
 stand." 
 
 " Well, my dear, if Harry has got you into a mess why 
 don't you go and tell him, and ask him to get you out 
 again. He's bound to see you through an' it be his fault 
 I reckon, and it's no good sitting damning away here, and 
 making me and everybody miserable. I'm sure after 
 you've spent so much money and all, I'd not give in, not 
 if all the town busted itself with water." 
 
 Mr. Buncombe did not at first incline to this advice. 
 Soon, however, he was driven to catch at any straw, for
 
 1 82 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 the Tories, keen to sec the weakness of their enemy, 
 cunningly started, in addition to their own aristocrat, a 
 red hot revolutionary and teetotal candidate, as a means 
 of dividing the Liberal vote. Their own man was a 
 youth named Viscount Callow, son and heir of the Earl of 
 Powdcrhorn. He was but twenty-three years of age, and 
 knew as much of politics as of Hebrew. Some skill at 
 cricket, acquired at Oxford or Rugby, he had, and his 
 appearance was attractive. Of jovial manners and ready 
 courtesy, Viscount Callow was just the sort of stripling to 
 turn the heads of the women folk, and Buncombe had 
 found him a formidable canvasser. He went about 
 among the people chatting of things in general, promising 
 all he was asked, kissing the babies, and chucking 
 comely wenches under the chin ; altogether a great con- 
 trast to the prim, eager, restless shipowner. 
 
 For all his personal popularity, the aristocratic 
 fledgling had little or no chance of triumphing unless 
 Mr. Buncombe made a complete mess of it, or unless the 
 Liberal vote could be split. Individually, Viscount 
 Callow had no interest in the town, and his family had 
 but little. His father, the Earl of Powderhorn, a man 
 nominally the owner of large estates in the neighbour- 
 hood, was as poor as a rat, scrambling along he best 
 knew how, under settlement and mortgages, and his only 
 claim upon Oldhills consisted in his holding the influen- 
 tial office of chairman of a large railway locomotive 
 building company, whose works were just outside the 
 town. Through this position it was calculated that a 
 goodly number of working men voters could be constrained
 
 A COMPETITION IN PLEDGE TAKING. 183, 
 
 to support the Viscount, whose entry into Parliament was 
 considered to be necessary to "family interests." Jobbery, 
 personal and collective, would be furthered thereby. 
 
 A candidature of this description is always formidable 
 to a plebeian opponent. Mr. Buncombe felt it to be so 
 before John Stringer, Radical working man and teetotal 
 candidate, came upon the scene. After that the excellent 
 Berborough patriot began to consider his chances as good 
 as gone. Gloom settled on his spirits, and appeared in 
 his looks, a gloom that neither Lister's cocksure assertions 
 nor the flatteries of the busybodies who fingered his 
 money, could dispel. 
 
 But the man was dogged too, and before finally making 
 up his mind whether he would withdraw or go to the poll, 
 he ultimately decided to take his wife's advice and con- 
 sult Weardale. To save time he ran up to town on a 
 Sunday morning for that purpose.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 MIXED PICKLES. 
 
 The Weardale family welcomed their relation in their 
 accustomed quiet, unpretending fashion, and it was just 
 as well they did so, for the mind of the Parliamentary 
 candidate was too much on the rack to leave him energy 
 for the display of family affection. Before he had been 
 five minutes in the house he did as he had done on his 
 previous visit, demanded a few minutes' conversation 
 with his son-in-law, and the pair forthwith adjourned to 
 " the den." There Mr. Buncombe at once opened his 
 heart and told his story. 
 
 " And now tell me," he wound up, " what's your 
 opinion. Shall I go on and waste my money, or chuck 
 the game up at once ?" 
 
 "How much have you spent already?" asked Wear- 
 dale. 
 
 " Well, that's rather a delicate question, you know," re- 
 plied the candidate, with an awkward grin ; "but I daresay 
 you won't peach on me. The fact is I've had to bribe a 
 little — in a quiet way, you know — hiring lots of wretches 
 I didn't want, for one thing ; and what with donations 
 and subscriptions and subsidies here and there for the last 
 two years, I can't have spent much under four thousand."
 
 MIXED PICKLES, 1S5 
 
 " And how much more will it cost you to go on to the 
 end ? " 
 
 " Perhaps another thousand, perhaps not so much. I 
 must pay my agent, I suppose, whether I go to the poll 
 or not." 
 
 " Of course. It seems to me, therefore, that it is use- 
 less for you to hesitate. You must fight it out. You 
 may establish almost as good a claim on the party for a 
 share in the cake by getting beaten as by winning, you 
 know." 
 
 " But I don't want to be beaten ; I hate the idea of 
 being beaten," cried Mr. Buncombe, jumping up in his 
 usual excited, restless fashion. 
 
 " Well, then, win. I cannot for the life of me see what 
 is to hinder you." 
 
 " Eh, God bless my soul and body, haven't I told you 
 that the teetotalers and the beer interests are nearly 
 equally against me, and that the third man, confound 
 him, is just as likely as not to carry off enough votes to 
 throw me in a minority at the poll, and that I have 
 offended some of the Church people as well as the 
 Baptists. Good Lord, man, how am I to get over all 
 that?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, I have heard the whole story, and think you 
 frightened at straws. What's Lister about, that he 
 cannot choke this Stringer scamp off?" 
 
 " Lister ! humph ! confound the fellow, he's mostly 
 drunk now, and I believe in spite of all his bluster that he 
 thinks the game up more than I do. Lister's a nuisance, 
 in fact."
 
 1 86 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " But that won't do at all, my dear sir. When you 
 return you must tell him that either he pulls himself 
 together and sticks to his work, or you dismiss 
 him on the instant without a penny. Getting drunk was 
 not in the bargain, and you must stand no nonsense with 
 a fellow like him. He is a cowardly devil at bottom, and, 
 if you take him by the throat and threaten to shake the 
 life out of him, he'll work like a nigger." 
 
 " Well, and suppose he does, what good will I get ot 
 that at this time of day." 
 
 "Just this: Lister is the man to run Stringer down 
 Ten to one but he knows all about that Tory red herring, 
 or if he docs not now he can soon learn, for he is pro- 
 found in his knowledge of the seamy side of politics. 
 Tell him to expose Stringer ; to turn him inside out, so 
 that the people of Oldhills may see him as he is, and 
 when that is done buy him off." 
 
 " Buy him off, eh ! That's all very good, but as 
 I've just told you my expenses have been heavy 
 already — deuced heavy, and I don't quite relish new 
 claims." 
 
 " Better spend an extra hundred or even a hundred 
 and fifty than lose the election." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me that Stringer will disappear 
 for a sum like that. The Tories must have given him 
 more to come there." 
 
 " I doubt that. Tories have grown economical. But at 
 any rate, if Lister does his work well the fellow will soon 
 be glad to leave the place. I have heard of the scamp — • 
 a mere sot and low hireling. I should certainly offer him
 
 MIXED PICKLES. 187 
 
 no more than a hundred at first. You can spring a little, 
 you know, if the blackguard proves obstinate." 
 
 " Hum ! Ha ! That's not such a bad idea, now," said 
 Mr. Buncombe, lighting up. " Yes, that's worth trying, 
 anyhow. Good, good. But, eh ! I say, Stringer is only 
 half the battle. What am I to do with the teetotalers 
 and the low church party, and the deceased wife's sister 
 party, and the anti-vaccinationists, and the outcry against 
 big royal dowries and against pensions, and what about 
 disestablishment ? I'm in a regular pickle all round, in 
 fact. What pleases one turns another against me." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! The lot of all candidates, Mr. Buncombe, 
 under our glorious democracy. Yet fellows get elected, 
 somehow, and I don't see why you should not. Why not 
 go in for some big ' cry ' of your own ? Can't you hit the 
 whim of the hour somewhere ?" 
 
 " I wish to God you'd tell me how." 
 
 " That's not so easy, perhaps. I fancy, though, that the 
 more you can generalise on small questions the better.. 
 Play upon ' principles ' and ' expediency ;' dodge behind 
 your party leaders — plead that this and the other fad or 
 crying injustice are not yet within the range of practical 
 politics — that's the correct phrase. Take the teetotalers 
 for example. You can quite well tell them that you have 
 the deepest sympathy with their aims, and that nothing 
 would delight you more than to see a whole nation sober. 
 But, you can add — and lay stress on the buts always — 
 the question of local option is mixed up with two other 
 questions of the highest importance. One is local 
 government, and the other the reform of the imperial
 
 1 88 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 revenue. Before the temperance programme can be 
 carried out we must have local representative bodies 
 capable of administering the law, and before such bodies 
 could be allowed to lay their hands at option on one of 
 the most prolific sources of national income, the nation 
 must have made up its mind about the source from which 
 it may fill the gap. Ask your water-daft baronet friend 
 what amount of land tax he is ready to stand." 
 
 " Good, good. Ton my soul, Weardale, you are a 
 clever fellow, and I wish you had been down there with 
 me instead of that sodden brute, Lister. He has said 
 things to the same effect more than once, now I recollect, 
 but he mixed 'em up so much with abuse of the land- 
 lords, whose property he always proposed to take away 
 without compensation, or raved so on ' payment of 
 members,' ' direct taxation,' and the abolition of the 
 hereditary principle, that I couldn't possibly trust him. 
 There's the church question, now," Buncombe proceeded, 
 " Why, God bless my soul and body, if that fellow didn't 
 want me to run full tilt against all the interests of the 
 clergy, and promise to vote for ' complete stripping,' as 
 he called it." 
 
 "Did he though ! That would have been a great 
 tactical blunder, Mr. Buncombe. I suppose you didn't 
 yield ?" 
 
 " Well, no, not altogether ; but I rather went against 
 church corruption, you know — fat livings, lazy chapters, 
 and rich bishops and all that sort of thing, and promised 
 reform, consequently the clergy and their followers look 
 askance at me."
 
 MIXED PICKLES. 189 
 
 " That's not surprising at all. The church sect leaves 
 out the ' not ' in its reading of that passage where Christ 
 sets forth the nature of his kingdom. You may do any- 
 thing, say anything, almost, but church property is 
 sacred — came straight down from heaven into the hands 
 of each particular parson, for whose benefits it has 
 become a vested interest. But that line must have 
 helped you with the Dissenters." 
 
 " It did, only I didn't go far enough for lots of them. 
 They are luke-warm all round, in fact." 
 
 " That's a pity, but I don't think it matters much, so 
 long as you have not definitely pronounced for or against 
 disendowment. It is a difficulty which may be got 
 over." 
 
 " Eh, no, you don't say so ! God bless my soul, how ?" 
 
 " By putting on a little more outward show of piety. 
 That would please the simple hearted of all sects to 
 whom righteousness is still more than creed, and a pure 
 heart a sweet possession. Humour these people, and if 
 need be promise a few more subscriptions to good causes, 
 without partiality of sect." 
 
 " Hum ! more and more money. Well, I suppose it 
 can't be helped ; in for a penny in for a pound. But I 
 say, Weardale, I do wish you'd come down and steer 
 for me. Do come down for a week, there's a good 
 fellow." 
 
 " I cannot possibly do that, Mr. Buncombe," answered 
 his son-in-law. " My work does not admit of being left 
 in other hands at present ; but you arc always welcome 
 to the best advice I can give you, you know."
 
 1 9 o SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " Thank you, I wish you could have come down, 
 though. I can't trust Lister." 
 
 " Oh, you do as I tell you, and Lister will be all right. 
 He needs a firm hand and strong will. You've been, if 
 I may say so, far too timid with the poor devil, and have 
 suffered him to think he was the master. Change your 
 attitude, bluster a bit, and you will see his gas will soon 
 evaporate." 
 
 " Well, I trust it will be so, and I'll take your advice. 
 By the bye, what was that you were saying about going 
 in for a line of my own. I wish you could put me up to 
 a wrinkle of that sort, as a means of drowning the din of 
 these faddists, as you call 'em." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! That remark of mine was by the way, and 
 I'm afraid you would not thank me for the advice I might 
 give you on that head. I'm called a political faddist 
 myself, you know." 
 
 " No, eh ! Is that possible ? God bless my soul, and 
 what might your fad be? I thought you despised all 
 politics." 
 
 " Oh no, I don't. My fad is civil service corruption."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 A NEW HERESY. 
 
 "Whew!" whistled Mr. Buncombe, jerking himself 
 round " the den," in his spasmodic fashion. " I forgot 
 you said something to me about that before, 'didn't you?" 
 
 " I may have done so ; I probably did so, in fact, for 
 my friends declare I can talk of nothing else. It would 
 be a capital tack to go on, though, with a lot of unruly 
 electors, and couldn't do any harm. That's the beauty 
 of it." 
 
 " Excuse me, I don't follow you there," struck in the 
 candidate. 
 
 " What I meant was that a few good tirades against 
 the corruption, impotence and waste of millions of money 
 wrung from the hands of the poor, by the so-called Public 
 Services would be something new to the electors, and 
 would therefore stamp a candidate as a man not in the 
 common ruck. The man who took that line would 
 rather gain than lose by it, I feel sure." 
 
 " How's that ? It seems to me just as with the Church, 
 he'd make no end of enemies, if what you say be true." 
 
 " Enemies, no doubt, but enemies in and around London, 
 not in Oldhills, and enemies who are cowards because 
 criminals, consciously or unconsciously, and who would
 
 192 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 therefore much prefer buying a man's silence to an open 
 fight. They can't summon the Ueity to their help, you 
 see, so the attack is safe, and might be profitable." 
 
 " What, eh ? You don't mean to insinuate, do you, 
 that I'm a man to be bought ; 'pon my soul that's an 
 insult, sir. I — really, Mr. Weardale ; I — you must 
 excuse me, sir, but you have gone a little too far. Do 
 you take me for another Stringer ? " 
 
 Weardale smiled a dry, quaint smile as he watched his 
 father-in-law jump about, and fume and flourish his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " Nothing so vulgar," he answered, as Mr. Buncombe, 
 overcome by the shock his feelings had received, dropped 
 heavily into a chair, and began to blow his nose with 
 demonstrative loudness. " Nothing so vulgar. At the 
 same time you cannot reasonably expect me, Mr. Bun- 
 combe, to believe that you have no personal motive 
 whatever in trying to enter Parliament. That is the talk 
 indulged in before the simple, stupid democracy, but you 
 and I both know better." 
 
 " God bless my soul," ejaculated the shipowner again ;, 
 " I may have some ambition to shine before my fellow 
 men, of course. Who hasn't ; but I don't see what that 
 has got to do with taking bribes to hold one's tongue,, 
 eh?" 
 
 " Nay, you run too fast there ; it was never a question 
 in my mind of vulgar bribes at all. What crossed my 
 mind, more as an after thought than anything else, was. 
 that there are honours in the path of M.P.'s — titles and 
 what not, and these I think are fully as likely to fall to
 
 A NEW HERESY. 193 
 
 the lot of a man who makes himself disagreeable to the 
 ever swelling multitude of ' tax eaters,' as old Cobbett 
 called them, as to that of their smirking, truckling, turn- 
 coat tools." 
 
 " Humph ! " grunted the shipowner, not yet mollified, 
 but beginning to see business. 
 
 " Not only so," Weardale proceeded, with a look of 
 what might be called serene impudence on his face, 
 "Not only so, but I have no doubt at all in my own 
 mind, that if a man like you were to take up, say the 
 jobbery and waste of the leading spending departments, 
 and make a hit with it, it might both pay for the pains 
 and effect a public reform at the same time. Take the 
 navy, for instance. I believe that the nation does not 
 get value for what it spends to the extent of seven 
 shillings and sixpence in the pound. The rest of the 
 money is stolen, or flung away by sheer roguery, or what 
 is practically as bad, by blockheadism, and the sacred 
 stupidity of routine. That is a subject you could handle 
 with much effect, I should think. You know the value of 
 a ship, and by making some of your clerks go through 
 the navy estimates for a few years, comparing the cost of 
 all the vessels the nation builds and mends, or buys, 
 with what you pay for similar articles yourself, you 
 might make a most telling story that would lift you 
 clean out of the crowd, and induce the electors of 
 Oldhills to think they had tumbled on a man of mark. 
 For the rest, I'd lay ten to one any day that next 
 time the fighting departments get up a little war for 
 the sake of peerages and pensions, and want to 
 
 X
 
 194 S/R TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 charter ships, Mr. Buncombe's claims will not be over- 
 looked." 
 
 As he said this, Wcardale chuckled quietly, and looked 
 straight at the shipowner, who tried in vain to assume 
 an aspect that might be taken to represent shocked virtue. 
 Failing" in that, Mr. Buncombe considered it best to laugh 
 too, but he was not quite happy at the turn the conversa- 
 tion had taken. 
 
 " I think we had better drop that side of the subject," 
 he said in his nervous way. " The immediate question 
 is, how to win Oldhills, and I'm not sure that your last 
 idea would help me much to that " 
 
 " Oh ! but I'm sure it would," said Weardale, more 
 eagerly than usual for him. " Don't you see, it's a new 
 tack which is always much in a competition of this kind. 
 Candidates who have been officials, may know the detail 
 of official corruption better than you, but they dare not 
 dwell on it, or hint at it even, because they know the 
 departments would make life unbearable to them, when 
 the luck of the ballot box chucked them back into what 
 they are pleased to call office. As a rule the rank and 
 file sing chorus to their leaders, and the public is left in 
 its fool's paradise. That gives the new man his chances." 
 
 " Yes, I see ; but do you really think now, Weardale, 
 that the permanent departments are corrupt in this 
 country. I have always thought and heard the contrary. 
 Our services are held up to admiration as the purest in 
 the world." 
 
 " That is part of the trick," laughed Weardale, " just 
 as with holy mother Church. They are all of a piece."
 
 A NEW HERESY. 195 
 
 " But surely if corruption prevails it can be discovered 
 and stopped without public agitation, by the ministers 
 themselves." 
 
 " No ; that is just the beauty of the thing, and why I 
 tell you to go ahead. The corruption of the public ser- 
 vices of England is bound up with her institutions, is as 
 old as the parliamentary monarchy at least, and many 
 men of personal character and honesty uphold it. They 
 have been brought up in it, and live in it all their days as 
 unsuspicious that it is corruption as a horse born and 
 reared in a mine suspects that the darkness he sees is 
 not the best light in the world." 
 
 " God bless my soul, I can't understand that at all." 
 
 " It would take long to explain, but it is true, and 
 these very men, like the honest, upright Church parson 
 in his line, often help to screen the grossest, most 
 criminal robberies ever perpetrated upon any nation. But, 
 apart from that, there is no cure for this state of things, 
 or none short of the loss of empire. The all-swallowing 
 maw of the services has grown with the ill-gotten wealth 
 of that empire, and finds its most striking illustration in 
 the India office, than which nothing in Russia, nothing 
 in old Byzantium, or older Rome exceeds or exceeded 
 the turpitude and rottenness, and with the death of 
 empire alone will it die. Voters may rave and dash to 
 the ballot boxes, orators may storm and curse, statesmen, 
 or bipeds labelled as such, may scheme, and pose, and 
 asseverate and invent, but serene above them all the per- 
 manent services stand and grow, deep rooted in the past, 
 nourished by every selfish passion, every warrior's ambi-
 
 196 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 tion, every thief's greed, every reformer's craze. Only 
 when this weary heart-wasted old empire topples in the 
 dust will these corruptions shrivel and disappear." 
 
 " God bless my soul and body ! You take my 
 breath away," exclaimed Mr. Buncombe. " I wish I 
 could talk like that though, by gad, I would have all 
 Oldhills at my heels, and that chit Callow might go and 
 hang himself." 
 
 "Well, sir, there is, believe me,, nothing to hinder you 
 talking like that ; all you have to do is to get up a few 
 figures and facts as illustrations, and fire away. Tell 
 them of fellows who take the salary of government 
 officials as a means of support while they study for, and 
 push their way on at, the bar, or who use their posts to 
 make a large income on the press. I remember one 
 barrister chap who justified his conduct by saying that he 
 could not find it in his heart to do any office work, 
 because his industry would take away the means of sub- 
 sistence from some poor devil of a writer at tenpence an 
 hour." 
 
 " He, He! You don't mean that — is that true, though?" 
 
 " True as gospel, I assure you, and what is more, a 
 capital illustration of the way all government office work 
 is done. Not one man in a score among the upper 
 branches of the service does two good days' work in a 
 week, and that is not by any means the worst form of 
 official corruption either. You have to go to the great 
 spending departments for that." 
 
 " But it's most extraordinary. Why can't Parliament 
 stop these misdeeds, if they are so notorious ? "
 
 A NEW HERESY. 197 
 
 " Pardon me ; there you show your ignorance of the 
 uses of Parliament. It is the great screen, the never- 
 failing scapegoat. When our fighting services take a 
 header into infamy by making war on helpless savages 
 somewhere, in order to grab millions and titles and 
 honours, God save them ! it is Parliament that bears 
 the blame. We rave at ministers, poor wretches, and 
 kick out one lot of palaverers to make room for another. 
 True guilt is never punished under our sublime system. 
 
 Why but here comes my wife to stop my prosing, 
 
 and invite us to tea." 
 
 " Yes ; " said that lady, who had opened the door and 
 looked in as her husband was about to start on some 
 new disquisition. "Yes, we have waited half-an-hour 
 for you already. Don't you know it is nearly six 
 o'clock;" and turning to her father, she added — "You 
 are not going to run away this time without breaking 
 bread with us, T hope." 
 
 " Eh, no, no, my dear ; delighted to stay, I'm sure," 
 answered that gentleman, with a slightly embarrassed air. 
 
 " Come along then, for the children are hungry," and 
 with that she led the way into the dining room, her 
 father and husband following at her heels. 
 
 Had Mr. Buncombe been an impressionable man, his 
 heart would have warmed at the sight of that happy 
 family. Beatrice had developed a true motherhood. 
 She was loving and true to her children, and was repaid 
 by their love. Tn appearance she, to some extent, 
 resembled her father, and yet the expression of her face 
 was altogether different. Large hcartedncss shone in
 
 198 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 every line of it, and the tones of her voice were full and 
 sweet. A gracious woman in the best sense of the 
 word was Mrs. Weardale, — such a woman as helps 
 to keep alive a man's faith in the high destinies of 
 humanity more than all the creeds ; but it is doubtful 
 whether her father saw aught of her sweetness. His 
 mind was too wrapped up in his own affairs, and he 
 talked electioneering twaddle at the tea table, as in the 
 study, scarcely noticing the children. 
 
 When the meal was over, Weardale and he retired 
 once more to " the den," and stayed there so long that 
 perforce Mr. Buncombe had to accept the offer of supper 
 and a bed. For the first time in his life, and thus far at 
 any rate, for the last, he slept under the same roof with 
 his despised son-in-law and his discarded daughter. 
 After breakfast on the Monday morning he hurried off to 
 return to Oldhills and renew the campaign.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 GOD WITH A SMALL " G." 
 
 ALL the programme which Henry Weardale laid down 
 for his guidance, Mr. Buncombe did not carry out 
 Beyond a few vague sentences, he let the corruption of 
 the services alone. It was not a congenial subject. 
 Lister, however, he attacked and brought to reason. The 
 fellow stormed and scowled at first, but when he found 
 that his employer was determined to turn him adrift if 
 he did not cease drinking and exert himself, he became 
 as sober as a judge, and from the day of his drubbing till 
 the polling day, kept at his work with wonderful assiduity. 
 A strong will always above him might even yet have 
 made him a man. 
 
 Thanks to his help, John Stringer, revolutionist and 
 labour candidate, was exposed in his true colours, and 
 duly bought off — not directly by Mr. Buncombe, of 
 course, nor with immediate cash, but after a manner that 
 satisfied him. Then, the field being clear, Mr. Buncombe 
 and his henchman speechified and canvassed early and 
 late. On burning questions that tended to divide the 
 party, Mr. Buncombe was vague, and oraculor, but upon 
 local fads, on such mites of questions as the perpetual 
 pension list, on all that he could be definite upon, without
 
 200 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 danger to his election or to his future freedom, Mr. 
 Buncombe pledged himself heroically. His motto was 
 not exactly new — " peace, retrenchment, and reform," but 
 he shouted it so often and so vigorously, that the people 
 once more took it to mean something, and wagged their 
 wooden heads after the manner of men wise in state- 
 craft, saying, " This is the man for our money." " Bun- 
 combe for ever," in short, grew more and more the cry, 
 as the strife neared its end, and increased in heat, and creed 
 and other differences subsided for the time beneath the 
 passions of a good stand-up party fight. 
 
 One mistake only did Lister make, and as it occurred 
 the very day before the nomination it gave rise to some 
 manifestation of feeling that frightened the now sanguine 
 Liberal candidate into a mood for the most reckless 
 " swallowing of formulas " ever witnessed in all that 
 period of strained moral gastronomy. 
 
 He himself was in a sense the cause of the blunder. 
 Since Lister had seriously tackled his work, Mr. Bun- 
 combe had repeatedly desired him to use his boasted 
 influence with one or other of the leading word-jugglers 
 of the party to come to his assistance. It was always 
 " Couldn't you manage to bring Lord Windmill here, 
 Lister," or "What's to hinder us from laying hold of the 
 Right Honourable Edward Trimmer for a speech," and 
 above all he demanded daily and oft times a day why 
 Lister could not " draw " his friend the Right Honourable 
 Launcelot Orchidion, the most popular prophet of 
 officialdom in the three kingdoms, and a dashing reformer 
 to boot.
 
 GOD WITH A SMALL " G." 201 
 
 In obedience to these demands Lister did apply to the 
 great democratic orators, one after another, and from one 
 and all received a polite refusal. " They were very sorry," 
 " cordially wished the candidate every success," " other 
 pressing engagements," &c, &c. Had they told the 
 truth they would have said — "We know nothing of your 
 Buncombe, and can't waste our wind in helping to waft 
 a new man into the serene heaven of Parliamentary glory," 
 but it was entirely unnecessary to be frank. Mr. Bun- 
 combe understood what the refusal meant quite well, and 
 inveighed against the heartless selfishness of the favourites 
 of fortune. Ted Lister also understood, and almost 
 used up his stock of bad language. He did something 
 else, he fastened upon Mr. Orchidion, and did not leave that 
 sweet-speaking political chapman alone till he extracted 
 a promise that if he, Orchidion, himself, could not run 
 down for "'an hour to Oldhills, he would send his dear 
 friend and, at that time, other self, the cultured and 
 enlightened James Conduit, litterateur and eclectic 
 sentimentalist, with whose assistance Mr. Orchidion 
 dragged the country into a ruinous war some years 
 before. 
 
 Mr. Conduit came and made a great speech, for he was a 
 great man, and had behind him a large literary claque, 
 which went into apoplectic bursts of enthusiasm when he 
 opened his mouth. Mighty, indeed, was the flow of his 
 oratory. No Cheap Jack of a country fair could have 
 praised his wares more strenuously than Mr. Conduit glori- 
 fied that peculiar put-me-to-bed-and-tuck-me-in-mother 
 form of state socialism which was the true and only
 
 202 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 gospel of the mend-all school of politicians. " Great is the 
 State, my friends, all powerful, all grasping, ubiquitous. 
 Therefore, fall down with me and worship the glorious, 
 dry-hearted, wooden-headed, many-handed, deep-pocketed 
 bureaucracy, for in it only lies salvation from every 
 human sorrow. Behold thy God, oh ! toil-smitten, jolter- 
 headed, blind, common herd, and admire me, the humble 
 prophet thereof." That, freely rendered, was the burden 
 of Mr. Conduit's harangue, and it carried the audience 
 away, thoughtless, guileless, bovine-souled audience that 
 it was. And the claque echoed its cheers throughout the 
 land next morning, fit-shaken claque that it was. 
 
 Ted Lister was not in that claque. On the contrary he 
 hated Conduit with the same impartial hate which he 
 bestowed upon all successful men. To him, therefore, 
 Mr. Conduit's great speech was as gall, and he prophesied 
 evil from it. " The damned cad has no heart," he kept 
 on repeating, "and no religion, b'God. His heart was 
 forgotten when the Lord made him, and he gets up his 
 gushing sentiments like a proposition in Euclid. All his 
 ideas are stolen. He is the best brain sucker out of 
 Hades," and so on. 
 
 Against all these assertions Mr. Buncombe protested 
 in his strongest manner. He had seen no lack of feeling 
 in Mr. Conduit. The hard-grating tones of the orator's 
 voice never smote his ear uncongenially, and he was 
 angry with Lister, so angry that he threatened him again 
 with dismissal if he did not immediately drop his 
 hostility. Lister once more obeyed, fuming, but he was 
 right in a sense, and the mischief was nevertheless
 
 GOD WITH A SMALL " G." 203 
 
 done. Whether from Ted's hints, or as the mere result 
 of that prying effort to find a last chance somewhere, 
 begotten of a failing hope, the Tories occupied them- 
 selves with Mr. Conduit's history, and on the morning 
 succeeding the speech, the very day of the nomination, 
 the hoardings and Tory windows of Oldhills were 
 placarded with bills declaring that Mr. Buncombe had 
 allied himself with infidels. In proof of this assertion 
 a passage was quoted from one of Mr. Conduit's many 
 books wherein he spoke in very disrespectful terms of 
 the Deity, and showed his contempt by spelling God 
 with a small " g." 
 
 The storm thus raised was terrific. Party spirit 
 quailed before it. All sections of religionists rose in 
 wrath, and pronounced solemn anathema on Mr. Bun- 
 combe's brilliant ally, and they were within two days of 
 the poll. Hootings greeted the favourite at the hustings. 
 
 " I told you how it would be," sneered Ted Lister. 
 
 " Confound you," shrieked Mr. Buncombe, " I really 
 believe your malicious tongue is at the bottom of this 
 dirty trick." 
 
 " Of course, of course ; go it, go it ; abuse the helpless, 
 gratify your spite on the innocent. That'll win you the 
 election, won't it?" was the rejoinder. 
 
 " Win the election ! Gcd bless my soul, do you think 
 there's any doubt on that score," said the candidate, his 
 rage at once making way for fear. 
 
 " None at all, b'God. If you play the madman as you 
 are doing now, you'll not get within sight of winning 
 it."
 
 204 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " Eh, no, confound it. What's to be done, then ? Don't 
 stand there, man, cursing and jeering at me. Exert 
 yourself. Put this cursed blunder right. God bless my 
 soul and body ! Lose the election at this time of day. 
 It would be infamous."' And Air. Buncombe, in his ex- 
 citement, spun round the private room adjoining the 
 committee room for all the world like a clown in a 
 circus. 
 
 "All very well to say, 'put it right,' but I can't do that 
 alone, can I ? You must do your part, I take it," said 
 Lister, sulkily. 
 
 " Yes, yes ; of course, of course ; but, my friend, what ? 
 Eh ! tell me, man, what I'm to do !" 
 
 "Sit down, then, and don't squirm around like a hungry 
 rat in a trap. Damn it, the nation won't founder if you 
 do lose the election, nor the monarchy either, I guess." 
 
 Mr. Buncombe flopped down on the nearest chair, and 
 grasped his head in his hands convulsively, Lister eyeing 
 him the while with a look of cold contempt. 
 
 " I say, Lister," he exclaimed, after a brief silence, " for 
 God's sake, man, tell me what we must do. Confound it 
 all. I would not have offended the pious electors for 
 five thousand pounds, and to think that fellow Conduit 
 should have let us into such a hole. Why the devil did 
 Orchidion send him here ? What are we to do ? " 
 
 " I don't see anything for it, Mr. Buncombe, but that 
 you should, to begin with, attend a prayer meeting, two 
 if possible. It goes against the grain, I know, but you 
 had better do it. Go as ostentatiously as you can, and 
 to the biggest you can find. This is Wednesday, there's
 
 GOD WITH A SMALL " G." 205 
 
 sure to be lots about, and if you can snivel aloud for ten 
 minutes or so we may be saved yet." 
 
 " Is that all. I'll do that gladly, Lister. Find out 
 where I'm to go, there's a good fellow, and drop a hint of 
 what I'm to be up to. Have we many meetings to- 
 night?" 
 
 " Three ; but I can spare you for half-an-hour, and 
 improve the occasion by denouncing the calumniators 
 in your absence. Heh ! heh ! heh!" laughed Lister, 
 with a hot glare of gratified malice in his eye. 
 
 " And is that all we have to do, think you," repeated 
 Mr. Buncombe, but half assured. 
 
 " Well, no ; I think we had better bill the town at once 
 with a strong denial. We can repudiate all knowledge 
 of Conduit's heresies, and lay the blame on Orchidion, if 
 you like." 
 
 "All right, all right ; I'm quite agreeable. You draw 
 up the posters, my boy, and be quick about it ; get the 
 bills out before three o'clock, if possible — paper the town 
 with them. Good heavens ! lose the election after all 
 I've spent and done ! not for all the Conduits in the 
 kingdom, and all the Orchidions too, for that matter." As 
 he said this Mr. Buncombe rushed away to the 
 committee-room to talk and explain and deny and 
 apologise there, with his usual random feverishness. 
 
 The programme thus arranged between the would-be 
 knight of the tongue and his squire, was carried out with 
 promptitude and success. All babble of angry sects was 
 hushed, if not all doubts removed, and the Party ranks 
 closed up for the struggle.
 
 206 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 Indeed, this atheistical squabble was but an episode in 
 the heat of the strife at the most. As the polling day 
 drew near, high politics fell more and more into the 
 background, and in their place came party spirit — the 
 same thing in essence as the spirit of horseracing. 
 Opposing crowds backed their man as they would have 
 backed a horse. The fight degenerated into a welter of 
 personalities, tricks, lies, bribery, and chicane. Every- 
 thing was forgotten in the eagerness to win. Women 
 unsexed themselves — on the Tory side especially, for 
 Mrs. Buncombe was of little use in electioneering — and 
 vindicated their claims to the franchise by bullying and 
 cajoling reluctant voters, by prying into the affairs of the 
 poor, and by emitting slanders, at the foulness of which, 
 let us hope they, in their calmer moments, would blush 
 for shame. Parsons raved, and thundered, and bargained; 
 artizans fought, sometimes with a manly independence, 
 hopeful for the English race, sometimes with a baseness 
 and corruption which filled the minds of calm onlookers 
 with despair. With traders it was matter of self- 
 interest, class interest, and above all, purse. The 
 publicans backed the side that swilled most beer. 
 Throughout the town passions raged and collided till 
 the place was like a little hell. A leaven of better 
 things was doubtless there. Good men and true fought 
 for principle and right to the last ; but they were 
 overwhelmed by the Caliban of democracy on the day 
 of the poll. 
 
 That was a day of raging tempest, a triumph of the 
 baser human passions, and it ended in riots, and broken
 
 GOD WITH A SMALL " G." 207 
 
 heads and windows. Thus did the mad multitude 
 
 vindicate its rights. For the ever-ascending shipbroker, 
 
 however, it was a day of never-to-be-forgotten glory. 
 
 Victorious over all his foes, male and female, high 
 
 and low, Mr. Buncombe came in at the head of the 
 
 poll by a majority of more than five hundred over 
 
 his opponent, Viscount Callow. The defeated Tories 
 
 raged and threatened a petition, so that even the hour 
 
 of the shipowner's triumph was dashed with anxious 
 
 thoughts ; but the threats died away in less than a week. 
 
 Lord Callow gave them no encouragement, knowing, 
 
 perhaps, that his own candidature could not bear 
 
 scrutiny, and certain at any rate that a petition w r ould 
 
 cost money, which his father could not find. 
 
 It is impossible, therefore, for me to say whether the 
 charges of bribery and corruption, levelled against Mr. 
 Buncombe, were true or not. He " nursed " the borough, 
 we know on his own authority ; but more we do not 
 know, except that his electioneering expenses were 
 returned under one thousand two hundred pounds. If 
 that was all he spent, Timothy Buncombe, Esquire, was 
 M.P. for Oldhills at a very low price. From what he 
 said, however, to his son-in-law, it may be thought that 
 in making this return, the new guardian of a nation's 
 liberties displayed too much modesty, if not a disposition 
 to play with truth. 
 
 But the whole question of what is bribery is now 
 involved in a labyrinth of legal checks and counter 
 checks, which makes any discussion of Mr. Buncombe's 
 guilt or innocence superfluous. Thanks to successive Acts
 
 2o8 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 of Parliament, bribery at elections has been raised to the 
 dignity of a fine art. 
 
 Be his morals what they might, Mr. Buncombe was 
 now an M.P., at any rate. Thus far had he travelled on 
 the road to distinction ; a prosperous citizen, favoured 
 of fortune, and penetrated by an ever deepening - con- 
 viction that the " career is open to the talents." A proud 
 man was he that night the poll was declared ; strongly 
 did the glow of patriotic love for his country swell in his 
 narrow bosom ; effusive were the words he used in 
 returning thanks to his supporters, " for the great honour 
 they had done him." All the way home to Berborough 
 the next day he was like a man in a trance. The pie 
 wife's son, indeed ! Mr. Buncombe felt now, with a 
 strength which amounted to a resolution, that he ought 
 to claim a grander origin. It was time to think about a 
 crest and armorial bearings. The day-dream of an 
 ancient lineage flitted across his spirit.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 A MOST INCORRUPTIBLE MEMBER. 
 
 For a time Mr. Buncombe attended to his parliamentary 
 duties with praiseworthy assiduity, voting with his party 
 leaders like a machine. These leaders had won at the 
 ballot boxes, and enjoyed the spoils of victory. 
 
 To a man like Mr. Buncombe that fact was less- 
 exhilarating perhaps than the frosty air of opposition 
 would have been. It gave him less to hope for. None 
 of the rewards of victory could be bestowed upon a new, 
 and, as yet, obscure person like himself, and the per- 
 petual duty of saying ditto to his commanders for nothing 
 made life humdrum. Had he been in opposition he 
 might have attacked something, but to do so in the then 
 position of his party would have been to play marplot, 
 and Mr. Buncombe, you may be quite sure, was incapable 
 of that at the start. 
 
 So, gradually, the provincial shipowner's interest in 
 public affairs slackened, and he began to cast about for 
 ways and means whereby to turn the advantages of his- 
 position to personal and private account. For the first 
 session he refrained from taking a house in town, and 
 was rather glad that he did so. A feeling more than 
 ever possessed his mind that Mrs. Penelope Buncombe, 
 
 o
 
 2 1 o SIR TIMO THY B UN COM BE. 
 
 his beloved wife, was not exactly calculated to shine in 
 London drawing rooms. It was sweeter, therefore, to 
 live en garcon, varying the monotony of life in a 
 Jermyn Street lodging by frequent visits to Berborough 
 on the Sundays to keep his family in countenance, and his 
 working junior partners, of whom he now had two, up to 
 the mark. 
 
 Sweeter also was it to give little dinners at his club, 
 and to wander about alone among the crowds which 
 thronged the " receptions " by which the sublime upper 
 crust, political or plutocratic, stoops to enter into 
 morganatic union with upstarts from the nether multi- 
 tude, tickling their vanity with the illusion that they also 
 have become members of the glittering mob of land 
 devourers, titled or other ; archpriests of the poor's tithe- 
 eating sect, glorifying their God in liveried uniform, 
 guaranteed holy by the tailor ; millionaire city sheep- 
 shearers, marvellously clean looking ; foreign adventurers, 
 many hued ; blacklegs of refined manners ; fat company 
 leeches ; swindling contractors ; retired pirates ; honour- 
 able and right honourable black mailers ; ex-brigands of 
 a subdued fierceness ; world enslaving Jews, intent upon 
 title buying, and padded with mortgages on human labour; 
 •ex-camp sutlers of well greased manners and gridiron 
 fame ; sublimated pawnbrokers, over jewelled ; profes- 
 sional directors, high fed and fee'd ; literary quidnuncs, 
 touts, exquisites, triflers, and slaverers ; sham heroes, 
 much-medalled and ordered, glorious in their victories 
 over silly women ; boudoir guardsmen of many liaisons ; 
 bureaucrats full of the wisdom and munificence of the
 
 A MOST INCORRUPTIBLE MEMBER. 21 r 
 
 Jew who not merely lends but gives ; together with a court- 
 classified fringe of nondescript publicans and sinners, 
 which, with its due complement of females, proper and 
 improper, fat and lean, handsome and hideous, scheming 
 and simple, vain and vacuous, political and play-acting, 
 "blue" and bovine, mild and malicious, greedy and 
 generous, sly and sarcastic, pious and prurient, " fast " 
 and fatuous, inane and insolent, calls itself " Society," 
 lives apart, and, except when elections draw near, scorns 
 to look upon the honest, weary shouldered, toil haggard 
 millions whom it treads beneath its feet. 
 
 Yet though he made his way into the throng of these 
 clean and unclean parasites of a decaying civilization, on 
 sufferance, and by a diligent cultivation of club hospi- 
 tality, Mr. Buncombe did not much enjoy his new life. 
 Nothing substantial appeared to be behind this lavish 
 expenditure of money and time. It was an investment 
 of capital which brought no return. Grandees, fashion- 
 able gobe-mouches, often out at elbows, overgrown 
 plutocrats, circumcised and uncircumcised pagans, pro- 
 miscuously accepted his invitations to dinner, and 
 dawdled through many evenings in his company. In 
 return he dined with such, or formed one in the crush at 
 their " receptions," but in the end this assiduous eating 
 and drinking, gossiping and swarming, biting and being 
 bitten, was as nothing to the ship broker. He was 
 nobody still. 
 
 Another portion of Mr. Buncombe's labours was for a 
 time almost equally unprofitable in his eyes. Like all new 
 men he was at first zealously anxious to do his duty
 
 2i2 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 on committees, and permitted himself to be nominated 
 upon them right and left. But it was slavish work, and 
 for nearly the whole of his first .•iession he did slave, in the 
 dark, totally unable to discover how the labour could be 
 made to pay. 
 
 Of what possible interest was it to him that Muddle- 
 bury complained of its drains, and wanted powers to 
 borrow large sums of money in order to get rid of bad 
 smells, and enrich the members of its corporation ? How 
 could he feel interest in the dispute which arose over 
 Tippleholme's Police Act, or Cinderham's water works? 
 Still less could he find either profit or amusement in the 
 endless wrangles and check mates, plots, overreaching 
 contractors' jobs, and money wasting devices of rival 
 railway directors. None of the gains they and their 
 lawyers and contractors appeared to receive by the fighting 
 and spending came into his pocket. Before he had been 
 a twelvemonth member of Parliament his soul became 
 weary within him, and he felt inclined to accord an angry 
 assent to the common faith in the wisdom of Solomon. 
 
 But by the middle of his second year this mood also 
 changed, and for two very good reasons. One was the 
 discovery he made that committee work did after all pay. 
 Not by bribery, of course. No member of the English 
 House of Commons is ever so vulgar, so forgetful of 
 proprieties as stupidly to pocket bank notes or promoters' 
 cheques. Such a low American-backwoods sort of 
 proceeding is never so much as hinted at. Parliamentary 
 Committees pay in England because they are conducted 
 on the reciprocity principle.
 
 A MOST INCORRUPTIBLE MEMBER. 213 
 
 Should any powerful interest be attacked, and the 
 attack get referred to a private committee, such interest 
 is careful to have that committee packed with its friends, 
 and the attack is decently smothered and put out of 
 sight. If certain borough members in their desire to 
 keep their seats sure " back a bill " whose unacknowledged 
 but genuine purpose is to open the way for free-handed 
 pocket filling by the wire pullers and officials situated in 
 that borough, they get other members to aid them in 
 passing that " measure," and expect a quid pro quo. This 
 expectation is seldom disappointed, and by these 
 happy-family arrangements members often do excellent 
 strokes of local bribery without paying a penny out of 
 their own pockets. Money saved is thus money gained. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe's cogitations had for sometime led him 
 towards this view of the committee traffic, but being a 
 new man and unknown, it was at first only by drawing 
 uncertain inferences that he could come to any conclusion. 
 His second session brought him actual experience, and 
 that through a private bill promoted by the company 
 of which his hustings' opponent's father, Lord Powderhorn, 
 was chairman. 
 
 The bill sprang out of a railway squabble, and 
 incidentally became a burning question in the borough 
 of Oldhills. Up to that time this flourishing place had 
 been served by one railway only, and the managers 
 thereof made it pay for this exclusive privilege. But 
 another railway ran past the town, about ten miles to the 
 west, and after years of rebellious submission, Lord 
 Powderhorn's company set to work to promote a branch
 
 214 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 line to join their works, and, of course, the town also, 
 with this rival trunk road. 
 
 The scheme was taken up with enthusiasm. All the 
 Oldhills industries joined Lord Powderhorn's company 
 in backing it. It received the cordial support of the 
 corporation, and thanks to his lordship's skilful guidance, 
 it safely passed the Lords. But the monopolist railway 
 which held Oldhills in its grasp, fought hard, and so 
 powerful was it that the promoters feared the result in 
 the Commons, especially as they were mostly pronounced 
 Tories, and who had looked on the borough member as 
 an impudent upstart interloper. What they most 
 dreaded was, that three directors of the company in 
 possession, who were members of Parliament, should be 
 put on the committee. This danger, however, they 
 succeeded in averting, so far, at any rate, that but one of 
 the objectionable men was nominated, and he was 
 effectually neutralised by a deadly enemy in the traffic 
 stealing sense. There remained the political danger which 
 prompt action and brilliant strategy might at least 
 mitigate, if not destroy, and when these were in question, 
 the Earl of Powderhorn was not the man to let grass 
 grow under his feet. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe was, as a matter of course, nominated 
 upon the committee appointed to decide this important 
 dispute, and Mr. Buncombe and Lord Powderhorn soon 
 came to an understanding. From being sworn foes they, 
 in a day, became equally sworn friends, and the basis of 
 their friendship consisted in a pledge, on his lordship's 
 part, that there should be no Tory opposition to the ship-
 
 A MOST INCORRUPTIBLE MEMBER. 215 
 
 owner's return at the next election, if Buncombe secured 
 the passing of this little bill. It was a compact eminently 
 satisfactory to Mr. Buncombe in every way, and he 
 fulfilled his part of it with energy and success. Lord 
 Powderhorn and his friends got their Act, and Mr. Bun- 
 combe saved at least a couple of thousand pounds. 
 Henceforth he understood the uses of committees. 
 Taken discreetly and in moderate doses, they were good 
 for a member's banking account.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 A RAID : BOOTY AND BREAKERS AHEAD. 
 
 The second reason for Mr. Buncombe's altered attitude 
 towards parliamentary life was equally potent and 
 ■equally personal. When a man's mind is soured by 
 disappointment it often happens that there is bred in 
 him a desire to attack something. He will assert him- 
 self, were it for nothing else than to show that after all 
 he is a man and not a marionette, jerked hither and 
 thither by the controlling threads of fate. This was Mr. 
 Buncombe's humour in the early part of the second year 
 of his parliamentary life, and when it was strong upon 
 his mind he remembered his son-in-law's discourses 
 regarding official corruption. 
 
 " Ah ! there's my chance," thought he, and off he 
 posted to Weardale once more. Since his election they 
 had seldom met. At first he had asked the journalist 
 occasionally to his little club dinners, but the spirits of 
 the two men were not congenial, and, as Mr. Buncombe 
 soon ceased to visit Weardale's house in Highgate, 
 the dinner invitations were soon evaded, intercourse 
 dwindled to casual " how d'y' dos " in the street, or a few 
 minutes' chat pro forma in the club smoking room, where 
 Weardale sometimes appeared on Saturday evenings.
 
 A RAID. 217 
 
 But when the shipowner's aspiring soul felt that it 
 must burst forth somewhere, or, psalmistly speaking, 
 perish within him, he experienced not the least scruple in 
 applying to the neglected son-in-law for assistance. As 
 good him as another — better him than Lister, the ever 
 drunk and disorderly, for instance — but to whom, even 
 drunk, Mr. Buncombe had to don his suavest manners 
 under penalty of relentless scarification. 
 
 To Weardale, then, he went, and more perhaps to be 
 rid of a bore than from any higher feeling, that shrewd 
 man " coached " him for an attack on the expenditure of 
 the Navy. Thanks to this coaching, and to his own 
 knowledge of the management and cost of ships, it 
 proved to be a damaging attack. The leaders of his 
 party did not like it, because the duty was laid upon 
 them of defending the wholesale traditional stealing of 
 the Admiralty permanent officials, and that led to more 
 lying than some of them relished ; but the sacred bats 
 and owls of the Admiralty liked it still less. They were 
 alarmed by it, in fact, and said to each other " this fellow 
 knows something. Hang it, he may find out something. 
 We must shut his mouth." 
 
 And they did. That one speech of Mr. Buncombe's in 
 Parliament paid him better than any single piece of work 
 he ever did, save and except his performance during his 
 brief career as a receiver of stolen goods, when just 
 starting in life — an episode no friend would dwell upon. 
 No sooner had the permanent officials arrived at the 
 conclusion that Air. Buncombe was a man to be attended 
 to, then his ships began to be in demand for Government
 
 218 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 freights. Hints were given to him in a quiet way, that 
 if he tendered for the conveyance of troops or stores, for 
 one of the petty wars this glorious, most Christian, and 
 bishop-blessed empire is always engaged in, his chances 
 of success were great. Accepting these hints in the 
 friendly spirit which prompted them, Mr. Buncombe did 
 tender, and at prices which left him most agreeable 
 profits, after all commissions and backsheesh allowances 
 were deducted. Money came to him fast and easy, and 
 the whole attitude of his mind towards Parliamentary life 
 was henceforth completely changed. It had become a 
 life that paid. 
 
 With larger, surer revenues, came fresh hopes, more 
 vaulting ambitions, a wider view of life. Some of these 
 ambitions had to be postponed to a more convenient 
 season ; but one dream Mr. Buncombe could at once 
 gratify. Already he was the third largest shipowner in 
 Berborough, and he determined to be forthwith the 
 greatest, not in that town only, but in all north- 
 eastern England. With money, as he always had 
 thoroughly believed, a man could move not merely 
 mountains, but mankind ; and now money flowed in 
 upon him easily, swiftly, like a full running tide. With 
 this money he bought new steamers, fitted like floating 
 palaces, and organised a great passenger and trading line 
 to the East. His name and fame were in all men's 
 mouths ; and envy and malice snarled feebly behind him, 
 like yapping curs well in a bloodhound's rear. 
 
 But — woe's me that there should be any "buts " in this 
 most clean-handed shipbroker's biography; and if one
 
 A RAID. 
 
 219 
 
 could only romance well, and deal with the forms of life, 
 not its substances, there need be none. Truth, fell tyrant 
 that she is, drives me to admit that a shadow came o'er 
 this scene, all splendid in gold and polished brass. In 
 sober prose Mr. Buncombe o'erreached himself. Fast 
 as his wealth grew, it could not keep pace with his 
 ambition. Was it Nemesis, or did his history merely 
 run in the grooves laid down for all human flesh? It is 
 not for me to decide ; but at this point in his career it 
 must be admitted that he successfully repeated the 
 blunder of his former master, Mr. Silas Brown, of 
 mottled memory. The only difference between them 
 was, that whereas Mr. Brown had spent money on the 
 bare prospect of receiving it at a future day, Mr. 
 Buncombe was stimulated by the money in hand to 
 anticipate the revenues of the future. 
 
 And was there no other differences between the situa- 
 tion of the two men ? None that I can see. " What ? " 
 cries the angry casuist, " do you mean to insinuate that 
 Mr. Buncombe came by his wealth in the same way that 
 Brown had hoped to come by his ? " I insinuate nothing. 
 Moralists and casuists are at perfect liberty to see all the 
 difference that comforts them, between the man who 
 drowned and robbed in order to be rich, and the man 
 who sold his knowledge, and his soul, and his borough, for 
 handfuls of gold wrenched by the tax collectors, out of 
 the thin, horny hands of the poor. Both men were 
 equally grand if you like, or both equally short-sighted. 
 
 Stay, though, I am going too fast. It will probably be 
 denied by few that Silas Brown might have been wiser
 
 220 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 had he not drowned a ship's company in order to make 
 money out of the thick-woolled underwriters, but no one 
 can for a moment say that Mr. Timothy Buncombe made 
 a mistake in pocketing what share of the taxes his 
 abilities could secure. Quite the contrary, that prudent 
 and therefore laudable proceeding had a sensible and 
 lasting effect in strengthening his claims to be considered 
 great. Judged by results the two men stand at opposite 
 poles. The younger was a wise man ; the older was a 
 fool. 
 
 For Mr. Buncombe did not give way and tumble to 
 pieces when he found he owed a matter of two hundred 
 thousand pounds more than he could pay. Nay, his far- 
 seeing eye beheld the storm approaching, and he got ready 
 to weather it like the smart broker he was. Through 
 two petty wars did gold flow into his treasury, and, by 
 virtue of the fears his speech on the navy produced, he 
 had been granted a fat little Colonial mail contract. 
 But times changed, and men ; and one day, to Mr. 
 Buncombe's surprise and disgust, what should happen 
 but the defeat of his party, the resignation of its chief, 
 and the rush of a hungry opposition upon the abandoned 
 spoils. This was indeed an unexpected blow to the 
 great shipowner of Berborough, comparable only to the 
 foundering of the " Molly Bawn ;" but comparable as 
 great things may be to small. Just when Mr. Buncombe 
 wanted money most he saw large sources of supply 
 cither dried up or threatened with extinction. Other 
 men would be more favoured in the next division of the 
 plunders incident to church-blessed murder and rapine ;
 
 A RAW. 
 
 !2I 
 
 and his mail contract would close within a twelvemonth, 
 without hopes of renewal, if the new horde held office so 
 long. He had had his " thirty pieces " in short, and was 
 no longer dangerous to permanent officialdom, so it could 
 afford to make new men happy. It must be confessed 
 that when Mr. Timothy Buncombe cast his eye over this 
 prospect the heart within him became less adamantine, 
 and no doubt his cheek would have blanched as cheeks 
 are popularly supposed to do, but that they were white 
 enough already. His heart quailed just the least bit, 
 truth forces me to admit, but his brain never softened, 
 nor did his nerves unbrace. No one seeing him in the 
 lobby of the House, in his office at Berborough, at 
 society's masques and moralities, and now and then 
 " only for a little relief, you know," behind the scenes at 
 the Comic Opera, would have for one moment supposed 
 that Mr. Buncombe had anything on his mind except a 
 dozen chances of converting two pounds into five for eight 
 hours a day, six days a week; with the prospect, agreeable 
 to all pious bankers and money-lenders, of good interest 
 on his surplus during the seventh. Mr. Buncombe 
 succumb to adversity ! Perish the thought ! 
 
 So far from displaying the least indication of affliction 
 or apprehension, this wise and sensible gilt hero took im- 
 mediate steps to prove to the world that his prosperity 
 was destined to increase. Hardly had the political 
 tongue fencers whose lead he accepted cooled down after 
 their scamper from office, when Mr. Buncombe deter- 
 mined for the first time to take a house in town. For 
 the three odd years of his career as a public servant and
 
 222 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 benefactor which had already passed away, he had con- 
 tented himself cither with a modest lodging or with a 
 small furnished house in the outskirts of the fashionable 
 world, taken for three months in the height of the season, 
 to pacify his wife's tongue and allow his son and 
 unmarried daughter to see something of the habits of 
 the high. This modesty he now felt to be entirely out of 
 place, so he determined to take all risks incident to the 
 possession of a common-place wife without further parley. 
 Finding the lease of a house in Prince of Wales' Terrace, 
 Kensington, for sale, he instantly bought it, gave a 
 wholesale order for furnishing it, and removed to it, with 
 his family, in time for the forthcoming season. In all 
 my wide experience of human affairs and the men who 
 ravel them, I never knew a course of action more worthy 
 of respectful admiration.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 A MODERN INVENTION GOOD FOR LEAN PURSES. 
 
 Not only did Mr. Buncombe take a house in town, he 
 set up a carriage and pair. Daily this brand new 
 equipage drove in the park either with Mr. Buncombe 
 himself seated in the place of honour beside his wife, or 
 with the wife and daughter by themselves. Another 
 prosperous man of the people, in short, had bought or 
 sold his way to the glories of Rotten Row, and might 
 rub wheels with princes of the blood, peers, cabinet 
 ministers, court soldiers, turfites, game preservers, Jews, 
 Greeks, Parsees, and bishops. It was glorious. How 
 could a man able to hold his own amid such a far shining 
 crowd be in difficulties ? 
 
 You may well ask the question. Mr. Buncombe, how- 
 ever, was, if not in difficulties, at least approaching that 
 interesting condition of life, and all the time his energies 
 seemed engrossed by the labours incident to the assump- 
 tion of a " footing " in " Society," his mind was brooding 
 over the future. To him the great question was not at all 
 the same as had once so futilely occupied the mind of Mr. 
 Silas Brown. The world had moved since those days. 
 "Limited liability " had come into fashion, and constituted 
 itself the great medium for converting the debts of the few
 
 224 SfK TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 into the losses of the many. Thanks to this great inven- 
 tion, a man who had outrun the constable in a splendid 
 or artistic manner, was no longer forced to bow his head 
 as a pauper, and compound with his creditors. Fools and 
 groundlings alone did that no\v-a-days. The wise man 
 increased his expenditure the nearer he came to im- 
 pecuniosity, and so contrived to magnify his reputation 
 for wealth as to be able to sell his decaying or insolvent 
 business, with all its load of debts, to a limited liability 
 company at a handsome profit. 
 
 The great shipowner of Berborough was fully alive to 
 the advantages of this modern system of permitting others 
 to bear your burden. It had been in his mind when he took 
 his town house and allowed his abounding wealth to come 
 into flower, as it were, before the eyes of a world given to 
 gossip. "Prosperous man," "devilish clever fellow, I hear;" 
 " made pots of money out of Government contracts ; " 
 " some of the finest steamers afloat in that fellow's fleet." 
 Thus did idle tongues cackle forth his fame as one result 
 of his shrewd exhibition of the gifts of good fortune, and 
 prove how wise he had been. 
 
 That his business should forthwith become the pro- 
 perty of a limited company Mr. Buncombe had fully 
 determined. Nevertheless his mind was perplexed. It 
 was all very well, he felt, to sell his business, but what 
 was he to do afterwards ? An active man like him 
 could not be idle. And even if it had been possible 
 for him to settle down peacefully into a pensionary 
 of Dame Fortune, he did not see how he could afford 
 it.
 
 A MODERN INVENTION. 225 
 
 Turn the matter how he would he failed to discover a 
 way to make a sum of money adequate to maintain in 
 retirement the dignified full-pursed style of living adapted 
 to his tastes. The question accordingly ultimately 
 resolved itself into this. " Can I sell my business to a 
 company in such a manner as to retain the surest part of 
 the profits thereof for my own use — the company taking 
 all risks ? " 
 
 Here was indeed a knotty matter, and until he saw his 
 way through it, the spirit of Mr. Buncombe was clouded. 
 But Mr. Buncombe was a man of genius, and the more 
 the difficulties seemed to multiply, the more did his 
 courage rise to face them. 
 
 After all, too, it was not a plan he required so much as 
 the assurance that his plan would succeed. The business 
 of ship owning yields itself with extreme facility to an 
 arrangement whereby one set of people shall bear the 
 losses, and another much smaller set pocket the gains. All 
 that is necessary is that the ownership of the ships shall 
 be separated from the duty of finding profitable or un- 
 profitable cargoes for them. Ownership in other words 
 must be vested in one class, and the business of broker 
 in another, and the thing is done. This very arrangement, 
 in fact, exists in all great shipping businesses. Thanks 
 to the liberty afforded by law, and by the customs of the 
 trade, shipbrokers seldom entirely own their own ships. 
 Should trade be good and profitable they may be large 
 shareholders in their best vessels ; but at other times, or 
 when the vessels are old and unseaworthy, so as to be 
 uninsurable to a profitable extent, the brokers who
 
 226 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 "' run " them, rarely or ever stand to lose as proprietors. 
 Their concern then is to make their brokerages sure, 
 ■come of the mere shareholders what may. Shareholders 
 are merely creatures of the nature of milch kine. 
 
 The means, therefore, of carrying out his purpose, Mr. 
 Buncombe had under his hand. He had but to sell his 
 vessels, out-and-out, to a joint stock company, with 
 limited liability, retaining the managership of them — 
 the brokerage business — in his own hands, and at once 
 the losses would fall on other shoulders, while his income 
 ■would be wondrous sure. Why then did he hesitate? 
 Principally because he was ignorant. Never having 
 formed a company before, Mr. Buncombe was in the 
 •dark upon the great question : How much falsehood 
 will the public swallow ? This distressing position left 
 him long in doubt whether it would be possible to 
 attract the greedy goslings in sufficient numbers to make 
 the transmogrification of his business a profitable affair. 
 
 And his doubts were augmented upon this point by 
 the diminishing success which had of late attended his 
 efforts to place the sixty-fourths of his new ships among 
 his private clientelle. Had you been in the secret of Mr. 
 Buncombe's banking account at this time you would 
 have found that, as a consequence of his inability to sell 
 shares privately, large amounts of long dated ship- 
 builders' bills were lying in pledge for advances. Had 
 you pried further still, and seen the private ledgers of the 
 mighty builders of the Tyne and Clyde, you would have 
 discovered that they held secret mortgages upon some of 
 the most gorgeous ships in Mr. Buncombe's great
 
 A .MODERN INVENTION. 227 
 
 " Excelsior " fleet of " mail " steamers, so that they 
 were in reality pawned twice over. Could he hope to 
 sell in such circumstances to a confiding public of 
 widows, half-pay officers, sharp tradesmen, tithed parsons, 
 greedy of twenty per cent, interest, and fortune hunters 
 of the share market in general, at such a figure as would 
 pay all these creditors, and leave him some hundreds of 
 thousands to the good ? Mr. Buncombe doubted.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE SPIDER AND HIS WEB. 
 
 Unable to resolve his doubts himself, Mr. Buncombe 
 obtained, through one of his brother members of Parlia- 
 ment, who filled the proud position of chairman in seven 
 companies, and submitted to be a common-place director 
 of as many more, an introduction to a firm of smart 
 lawyers in the city. 
 
 " They are the very people for you," this gentleman 
 declared,. " especially a fellow called Gettem, the junior 
 partner. You enlist Gettem and the thing is done. And 
 if I can be of any use to you in forming a board you 
 know I'm at your service." 
 
 " Thanks, very much," answered Mr. Buncombe, 
 mentally resolving that this distinguished "guinea pig " 
 should not " assist him in forming a board." But he took 
 the introduction and forthwith spread his case before the 
 mind of Mr. Golightly Gettem, junior partner in the 
 important firm of Spratt, Gudgeon, Hook and Gettem, 
 Old Jewry Chambers. 
 
 Mr. Gettem was a stout little gentleman, a puffed out 
 individual in fact. The very legs of him had a windbaggy 
 look, round, shapeless and much of a thickness from hip 
 to heel. Whether viewed behind or before, his aspect
 
 THE SPIDER AND HIS WEB. 229 
 
 was that of a person who might visibly collapse with a 
 hissing sound, were a pin run into his outer casing. In 
 countenance, Mr. Gettem was as heavy and shapeless as 
 in figure. The complexion was swarthy, the face clean 
 shaven, the eyes small and peering, the mouth heavy. 
 Owing to the extent and protuberant form of the 
 cheeks, there seemed no nose worth mentioning ; but this 
 defect in his anatomical construction did not prevent Mr. 
 Gettem from using a pair of pince-nez spectacles, which 
 stuck on the tip of his little snout not a second longer 
 than the head was held back. 
 
 While Mr. Buncombe laid his story before this barrel 
 of legal acumen, the said barrel sat back in its chair, 
 alternately raising and lowering its round fat head, and 
 dropping and picking up these pince-nez spectacles. 
 When Mr. Buncombe had ended, Mr. Gettem said " I 
 see," snatched up a pen, and began to draw a bird, or 
 what looked like the outlines of a bird, on the blotting 
 paper before him. 
 
 " I see," he repeated presently. "Then am I to under- 
 stand, Mr. Buncombe, that yours is a good going concern?" 
 
 "To be sure; I should just think so. Why, Mr. 
 Gettem, I have made as much as five-and-thirty per 
 cent, profit lately." 
 
 "Then why the devil do you want to sell?" was the 
 query, and up went the pince-nez, through which the 
 keen little eyes peered straight into those of the ship- 
 owner. They peered and saw nothing, for Mr. Bun- 
 combe turned his gaze upon the yellow patch in an 
 estate plan which hung on the wall opposite.
 
 230 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " Why do I want to sell, ch !" he repeated. 
 
 "Yes. Why do you want to sell ? It doesn't concern 
 me to know, of course, not in the least. Only lawyers 
 are like doctors, don't you see. If they are to do any 
 good there must be full confidence between them and 
 their clients. Now, 1 take it, you wouldn't part with 
 these ships if they paid you five-and-thirty per cent, to- 
 day, or were at all likely to do so next year." Mr. 
 Gettem was not collapsible after all, then. 
 
 Driven into a corner after this style, Mr. Buncombe 
 had to confess that there was a turn — a little turn in the 
 tide of fortune. " Profits are still good, Mr. Gettem," he 
 protested, "and I see no reason why they shouldn't con- 
 tinue so, but the fact is the great profits of the last five or 
 six years carried me away. I have overbuilt myself, and 
 it would require extra good profits to keep the thing going." 
 
 " I see," said the lawyer once more. " You want to 
 cut and run before the bad times come. Quite right. I 
 believe you can do it, too ; but you'll have to look sharp 
 about it, for there are three or four more companies in 
 preparation on the same lines. In fact, I'm busy settling 
 the prospectus of one now, and it's such a race to be first 
 in the field that the public will soon have too much of a 
 good thing." 
 
 " Indeed," cried Buncombe ; "then there's not a moment 
 to lose." 
 
 "Oh ! I don't say that. In this sort of thing it is often 
 better to be second or third than first, don't you see. 
 The public appetite grows with the supply up to a 
 certain point."
 
 THE SPIDER AND HIS WEB. 231 
 
 " Hum !" said the shipowner, doubtfully. 
 
 " Oh, but it does, though. For instance, if this company I 
 speak of comes out and proves a success, and it will do so, 
 I have no doubt ; I wouldn't touch it if I thought other- 
 wise, — if it succeeds, I say, the people who miss it's 
 shares will rush after the next lot of the same kind, and 
 so on. Things always go in waves, don't you see!" 
 
 " Well, of course, you know best. I have had no 
 experience of this sort of thing, and am naturally rather 
 nervous about it." 
 
 " Quite so ; that's quite right. But you would not be 
 so if you knew me, sir. I never fail ; never ;" and the 
 circular little person sat bolt upright, adjusted his 
 spectacles, and took another stare at Mr. Buncombe, 
 which seemed to refresh him like a pinch of snuff. 
 
 " Eh ! well, I'm delighted to hear that," said Mr. Bun- 
 combe, jumping to his feet, " and, since time presses, 
 hadn't we better discuss details a bit now." 
 
 " No, no, no, not to-day, if you please ; I can't, don't 
 you see ; too busy. Send me an outline of your plan 
 to-night or to-morrow morning, and come again, eh — say 
 on Thursday, at three. That will save time for both of us." 
 
 Mr. Buncombe, in his impatience, demurred at this, but 
 had to consent and obey. His scheme was drawn up 
 that night — it was Tuesday — and on the following 
 Thursday he again saw Mr. Gettem. 
 
 " I don't quite like your plan," said Mr. Gettem, in his 
 sudden way, as Mr. Buncombe seated himself in the 
 lawyer's room, to hear the verdict on the appointed 
 Thursday.
 
 232 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " Eh, no, don't you, though ?" the shipbroker answered 
 with a start, and rather taken aback. " But it will do for 
 discussion, won't it ?" he added. 
 
 " Of course, certainly, of course, of course ; only I like 
 
 to start fair, don't you see, and if this proposal — " 
 
 drawing forth Mr. Buncombe's carefully written sheet of 
 foolscap as he spoke, "won't do at all, there's no good in 
 saying it will, is there ?" 
 
 " N-no, I should think not," gasped the discomfited 
 shipbroker. 
 
 " To begin with," Gettem proceeded, " your capital is 
 too small by a lot. You ought to make it a million and a 
 half, at least." 
 
 " But God bless my soul and body," cried Buncombe, 
 starting to his feet, "I don't want a million and a half. 
 The public, I feel quite sure, wouldn't pay nearly so much 
 for my fleet, good as it is." 
 
 " I didn't say they would. Perhaps they won't give 
 half a million in hard cash. Nobody can tell, don't you 
 see. But for that very reason, you must run into big 
 figures. It looks well, and if your paid up capital is only 
 half the nominal amount, all the better. Only let us have 
 a good margin to come and go on, and plenty of shares 
 for the vendor. They should always count for nothing 
 to him in fixing the price." 
 
 As this appeared a reasonable proposition, Buncombe 
 gave way, and it was arranged that the " authorised " 
 capital should amount to a million and a half in ten 
 pound shares. Only one million of this was to be issued 
 to the public, and upon this five pounds per share, or half
 
 THE SPIDER AND HIS WEB. 233 
 
 a million would be " called up." The vendor was to 
 secure the other half million in shares, credited with 
 " five pounds paid " as part payment for his interest in 
 the fleet, so that the capital would figure as seven 
 hundred and fifty thousand paid up. In order to give 
 the people who found the money a sense of having to do 
 with a genuine affair, it was decided that Mr. Buncombe 
 should voluntarily agree not to put any of his shares 
 upon the market for twelve months. 
 
 But then came the difficulty of the secret mortgages. 
 " Those builders won't take my shares for what I owe 
 them," Mr. Buncombe asserted, "at any rate not for the 
 whole, and if the public don't subscribe I'll be rather in a 
 fix, you know." 
 
 " Are you sure of that ? " said Gettem. 
 
 " Yes, sure enough ; I have sounded 'em, and they all 
 say ' no,' — money down or fresh mortgages. Now what 
 I have been thinking is this," Mr. Buncombe proceeded, 
 " could we not issue some terminable debentures, say a 
 couple of hundred thousand or so of' five per cent, 
 debentures, redeemable in five or six years. Those 
 builder fellows would take them, and as I know I can 
 place privately a good many shares, it struck me that we 
 could make a very fair show in the prospectus. 'All 
 the debentures, and so much of the capital already 
 subscribed, and only so much left for the public,' that 
 sort of thing, you know." 
 
 " Good, excellent, first-rate, if you can carry it out ; 
 but don't you think we might trust the public to find the 
 money to pay for the ships with shares alone ? "
 
 234 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " Perhaps, but in that case we should want six hundred 
 thousand pounds at least paid up. Now the real question 
 to my mind is, could we sell that amount of shares at a 
 good premium ? " 
 
 "At a premium! what do you mean? You surely 
 don't suppose you can issue shipping shares at a 
 premium ? " 
 
 " Why not ? Our books you know can be made to 
 show a twenty per cent, profit, easily enough, for a given 
 period ; and from what you tell me I think that we 
 might sell our shares at one hundred per cent, premium 
 easily, if we don't offer too many, especially as I agree 
 to hold mine back." 
 
 "No you couldn't; I'll lay five to one you couldn't. 
 Besides, twenty per cent, is too much to promise. The 
 bait is too big. You must not go beyond fifteen, else 
 the kind of shareholders you want to catch won't bite. 
 Your widows and parsons, and "poor gardeners," have 
 come to think themselves too sharp to be caught with 
 chaff, and twenty per cent, looks like chaff, don't you see. 
 And you'll excuse me, Mr. Buncombe, I know, but for 
 the life of me I can't see what you are aiming at. What 
 the devil do you want with a premium?" As Mr. 
 Gettcm said this he raised his glasses to have another 
 stare. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe did not like either the action or the 
 query, but in the end he had to come out with his whole 
 mind, and when he did, Gettem could not resist the 
 temptation to jump up and shake the shipowner's hand 
 with the energy of a dissenting deacon.
 
 THE SPIDER AND HIS WEB. 235 
 
 " By gad, you are a clever fellow, and no mistake," he 
 cried. "I would never have thought of that now, 'pon 
 my life I wouldn't. It's first rate, if we can only carry it 
 out." 
 
 "We can only try," said the shipowner complacently, 
 "and from what you tell me of the temper of the public, 
 I think we shall succeed." 
 
 Briefly, the plan which so excited the admiration of the 
 lawyer was none other than this : — In discussing the 
 articles of association Mr. Buncombe had found that it 
 would be rather a barefaced thing to constitute his firm 
 perpetual and irremovable managers of the new com- 
 pany. It was, therefore, decided to constitute it the 
 managers for five years only as an absolute thing. 
 Thereafter dismissal could only take place on a three- 
 fourths vote of the total body of shareholders. That 
 was so impossible a vote to obtain as to make Messrs. 
 Buncombe and Co.'s position almost absolutely safe. In 
 order, however, to make assurance doubly sure, Mr. 
 Buncombe hit on the idea of an issue of debentures 
 ostensibly to pay off the shipbuilder's mortgages, actually 
 to enable him to keep a good hold over the fleet. For 
 should a good subscription list be made up for the shares 
 at a premium, he proposed to utilize a portion of the 
 money which would then come to him in taking up 
 these debentures, paying off at the same time the mort- 
 gages held by the shipbuilders out of premiums or 
 superabundant share capital. The debentures would, by 
 that plan, fall into his own hands, and he could foreclose 
 if the shareholders pushed him into a corner. By the
 
 236 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 large premium on the shares issued Mr. Buncombe hoped 
 to have abundance of funds in hand for this and every 
 other purpose, as it was easy for him to devote his spare 
 money to any object he pleased. He, in fact, stipulated 
 that three hundred thousand pounds in cash should be 
 paid to him over and above the fifty thousand shares. 
 
 No wonder that the lawyer was delighted with this 
 clever plan. When, however, his transports had subsided 
 a little, his inquisitiveness returned, and he wanted to 
 know what Mr. Buncombe proposed to do with the share 
 premiums " furnished by outsiders," as he phrased it. 
 
 " Suppose we offer the shares at two pounds ten shillings 
 premium, he said, on the promise of a 12 to 15 per cent, 
 dividend, you will net two hundred and fifty thousand 
 pounds. What will you do with it ? " 
 
 " It won't be quite that, I think," said Mr. Buncombe. 
 " We may have allowances to make, and some fellows 
 will want time." 
 
 " I understand that. But supposing, what will you do 
 with it when it does come to hand ? A quarter of a 
 million is a good round sum, you see, and it's the surest 
 money you'll have, for I take it you expect lots of 
 subscriptions for the regular capital in ship shares." 
 
 " Yes, of course, and so I had intended to put this 
 premium money to an insurance and renewal fund, or 
 something of that kind. It would look well, you know — 
 give an appearance of strength." 
 
 "Ah, so, so, that might do, sir. Gad, it might do ; but 
 then the question will arise, how about the premium on 
 the fifty thousand shares allotted to the firm. People
 
 THE SPIDER AND HIS WEB. 237 
 
 will ask if you mean to pocket that hundred and fifty 
 thou' ? " 
 
 Mr. Buncombe smiled a serene, superior smile at this 
 question, and, rising from his chair, took a brisk twirl 
 round the room before he replied. Pausing in front 
 of Gettem after this exercise, he remarked, in a quiet, 
 casual sort of way, " The firm, of course, will pay up its 
 premiums like the rest." 
 
 " Eh, the devil, no," exclaimed Gettem, fairly taken 
 aback. " But I thought, my dear sir, you wanted to 
 make money, not to give it away." 
 
 " I sha'n't give any money away," was the dry 
 rejoinder. 
 
 " Eh, what ; and how the deuce are you going to pay 
 your premium then ?" demanded Gettem, once more 
 staring with all his weasel eyes. 
 
 " Nothing easier. I'm surprised at your astonishment. 
 But I suppose it arises from your small acquaintance 
 with shipping affairs. Don't you see, Mr. Gettem, that 
 we are in this position : our shares come to us five 
 pounds paid. As you yourself have remarked, they 
 count for nothing to us in the price of the fleet. It follows, 
 therefore, that we can pay our premium with ship shares. 
 By handing over so many of these to the company at a 
 given value, we liquidate our debt to it, and swell the 
 reserve to four hundred thousand pounds. It is a mere 
 book entry, you know." 
 
 " So, so, I see," said Gettem ; "first rate, splendid in fact. 
 Only your directors, if they understood the thing, might 
 object to that plan."
 
 238 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " But I don't mean to let the directors understand 
 anything about our affairs. They will be mere figure 
 heads. Recollect, my firm are the managers of the fleet, 
 and we do not mean to render fuller accounts to the 
 company than we usually give to private owners. Why 
 should we ?" 
 
 " Oh, no reason at all why you should, if you can get a 
 board to submit to that." 
 
 " It must, my dear Mr. Gettem. It can't help itself. 
 It will know no more about ships than I do about 
 astronomy, never fear. Why, we may have to pay a 
 dividend or two out of the reserve, to tide over a bad 
 time, you know." 
 
 " And to let Buncombe and Co. dispose of their shares, 
 premium paid, eh. Gad, you are a smart fellow, Bun- 
 combe, excuse me for saying so ; a deuced smart fellow. 
 You provincial chaps lick us all to fits when you lay on 
 for a good try. I'm blest if you don't." Completely 
 conquered, and abandoning altogether his superior airs, 
 Mr. Gettem rose to his feet and reverently shook the 
 great broker by the hand. 
 
 Thus masterfully was a great project brought into fit 
 shape for presentation to the world.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE NET FILLED. 
 
 Ox these lines the prospectus was ultimately settled, 
 only that Mr. Buncombe's courage rose to a height which 
 made him demand three pounds premium on the hundred 
 thousand shares offered to the confiding public. And the 
 public paid. 
 
 But one difficulty had remained after the capital had 
 been adjusted, and over it Gettem and the shipowner had 
 several interviews. That was, how to form a board, and 
 upon this momentous question Mr. Buncombe's genius 
 again asserted its ascendency. The guiding principles 
 laid down by him were — (i). That there should be at 
 least one peer on it. (2). That all the directors should be 
 ignorant of shipping affairs, and if possible stupid upon 
 any business matters, and (3). That they should not be 
 " guinea pigs " — mere hacks who lived by selling their 
 names to all and sundry, but " men of standing and 
 respectability." 
 
 " It would never do to have a Falstaff's regiment sort of 
 board," he asserted over and over again, with emphasis, 
 using a phrase he had picked up in a newspaper leader, 
 and his obstinacy on this point rather disconcerted 
 Gettem, who like all good company promoters, kept a
 
 240 SIB TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 private list of eligible candidates for guineas, whose 
 appointment served mutual interests. His objections to 
 the " peer " selected by Mr. Buncombe, represent his 
 attitude towards the whole of the shipowner's nominations. 
 
 " Lord Povvderhorn," he asserted " will never do ; 
 " poor as a rat, sir. His name stinks in the city ; always 
 hard up. You make a great mistake, sir." 
 
 " No I don't," retorted Mr. Buncombe. " Powder- 
 horn's a selfish ass, and poor, and all that, but you can't 
 say that he is merely a guinea pig. He is not on the 
 board of more than three companies altogether, and one 
 of them is a railway which doesn't count, as it is entirely 
 an honorary affair. So his name can't stink much in the 
 city." 
 
 " But I tell you it does," Gettem jerked out, " he has 
 no credit with anybody. I have his ' kites ' in my own 
 possession sometimes, and might have them oftener, but 
 that I have such a devil of a job to get 'em paid, for all 
 the hold he has over a certain banker in Lombard 
 Street." 
 
 " Pooh ! I don't care a farthing for that. In fact, that 
 is all the better for me. I shall get the man the more 
 easily under my thumb. You don't tell the public that 
 Powderhorn lives by accommodation paper and black- 
 mail, do you ?" 
 
 " No, of course I don't. Why should I ? the public 
 wouldn't pay me for the information ?" 
 
 "Just so. Therefore, to all, except a few who don't 
 count, Powderhorn is a most respectable peer, and that's 
 why he's just the man for me. An earl for chairman
 
 THE NET FILLED. 241 
 
 will look well, and will help to draw the parsons and 
 widows ; such a respectable earl, too. Its the very 
 thing." 
 
 As usual, when he had made up his mind, Mr. Bun- 
 combe overcame all opposition, and formed his board on 
 his own plan. The event justified his confidence. It 
 was a small board of six, but eminently respectable, con- 
 taining, as it did, an earl as chairman, an ex-under 
 secretary of state as deputy chairman, a great soda water 
 manufacturer, of philanthropic tendencies, and a director 
 of the bank to which Mr. Buncombe condescended to 
 entrust his account. An "honourable" captain and a 
 retired Indian civil servant, with "Sir" at his name, com- 
 pleted the cast. Not a man among them was a director 
 of more than three other companies, and three out of the 
 six were upon no other board. Gettem had suggested 
 that either Buncombe himself or one of his partners 
 should join the board, but the shipowner disapproved of 
 that plan altogether. His firm were the "chosen brokers," 
 pure and simple, of the great Excelsior Line, and there 
 might possibly arise an awkwardness about their commis- 
 sions if they, as interested parties, put a representative on 
 the directorate. 
 
 " We keep outside," Mr. Buncombe emphatically re- 
 marked, "and let the board 'manage' us if it can. 
 He! he!" 
 
 Mr. Buncombe's foresight was justified by events, as I 
 have said. No sooner did the prospectus appear than 
 the public rushed to subscribe. " Twelve to fifteen per 
 cent." was a temptation no greedy mind could resist.
 
 242 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 Helped by excellent market tactics, so great became the 
 pressure that Mr. Buncombe assured his friends he was 
 reluctantly compelled to pledge himself to part, a year 
 hence, with most of his own shares, which he did 
 graciously at from three to four pounds premium. When 
 all was over, and the Excelsior Steam Shipping Company, 
 Limited, properly started, the proud Bcrborough ship- 
 owner, once a poor pie wife's son, found himself possessed 
 of a good paying brokerage business, as before, plus 
 three to four hundred thousand pounds in hard cash, and 
 two hundred thousand pounds in debentures upon the 
 company's fleet. Well might his soul expand in joy 
 within his bosom. Come weal or woe, henceforward his 
 buttered bread was safe and his earthly glory sure. Half 
 a million of realised and realisable capital, and all debts 
 paid, plus a good commission business. Genius alone 
 could have accomplished so grand a result in so short a 
 time. Let us worship.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE BRAIN MARKET. 
 
 A commonplace person would have been disposed to 
 rest and be thankful after so magnificent a success as 
 that attained by Mr. Buncombe in the sale of his steam 
 fleet. He, I need scarcely mention, had no such idea. 
 On the contrary, as his wealth grew great, so did his 
 ambitious mind expand. Like the mountain climber, no 
 sooner had he surmounted one height than his imagina- 
 tion's eye saw others yet to climb. The exchange of 
 half a million of debt he could not pay, except in 
 depreciated ships, for as much in cash and 
 debentures, was something no doubt, but to Mr. 
 Buncombe it was but the means to an end. What, he 
 began to say to himself, is wealth without " honours." 
 For " honours," therefore, he henceforward strove, with 
 all the energy of his active, powerful mind. 
 
 The first form this new passion took, was revived zeal 
 in attendance on parliamentary duties. Mr. Buncombe's 
 party was in opposition, and the aim of all pushing 
 members of it was therefore to make themselves so 
 conspicuous in debate, in obstruction, in the art of 
 putting disagreeable questions that it would be impossible 
 for the chiefs to leave them without office, when next the
 
 244 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 whirligig of time, and the fickle gusts of popular favour 
 brought them to a division of the loaves and fishes. 
 Upon this arduous task Mr. Buncombe entered with a 
 fine phrensy admirable to look upon. 
 
 Some of my readers have possibly enjoyed the 
 delectable pleasure of hob-nobbing with great or growing 
 politicians in opposition, and will have remarked how 
 gracious your tongue leaders then are to all and sundry. 
 
 Men they would pass with a curt nod, or with no recogni- 
 tion at all, when clothed in the glory and endowed with the 
 salary of a Minister of State, they will stop to shake hands 
 with. They smile and talk affably to the meanest wire- 
 pullers and hangers-on, when in the nakedness and 
 poverty of opposition. We have seen the great Launcelot 
 Orchidion, that resplendent Autolycus, with his " come 
 buy, come buy," whose sole mistress is democracy, 
 whose only Lord God is the " State," in close intercourse 
 with the bibulous Ted Lister, sweetly extracting from 
 him what hints he could give towards guiding a 
 " Statesman " in his next bid for favour. And as 
 Orchidion did then, so do they all. In short, no sooner 
 are the far-shining word-jugglers of politics detached 
 by an adverse vote from the support of their official 
 primers of the permanent bureaucracy, than they fall 
 back upon the miscellaneous crowd of reputable and 
 unreputable needy men with brains, who crowd the 
 ranks of the literary profession. Unable to command the 
 manufacture of speeches at the hands of official under- 
 lings, they draw upon the assistance of whomsoever 
 fortune throws in their way.
 
 THE BRAIN MARKET. 245 
 
 Were you behind the scenes you might know, for 
 instance, that the most telling " points " in Mr. Orchidion's 
 more recent harangues were concocted by Ted Lister, 
 between drinks, and that the resplendent Mr. Conduit 
 fused them and gave them " literary form." It might 
 come to your ears that a wild Irishman, full of Celtic 
 patriotism and blood-drinking disloyalty elaborated the 
 most cutting retorts upon the inviolability of church 
 property, with which my Lord the Marquis of Trueblue 
 delighted the bishops and clergy. The very ex-under 
 Secretaries of State themselves frequently lean upon the 
 mental resources of patriotic or benevolent society 
 secretaries, reporters, leader writers, and garret residents 
 in Grub Street. And how affable and polite they are to 
 the men who have brains, be their coats never so ragged, 
 their linen, if they happen to possess any, never so dirty. 
 A Party in opposition affords a glorious spectacle of 
 democratic equality. 
 
 Purse-swollen politicians now and then even pay men 
 handsomely to write magazine articles for them on 
 public questions, in order to establish that sort of re- 
 putation which may, they hope, lead them first to a 
 seat in the House, and then to one on the Treasury 
 Bench. Verily the world is wonderful, especially the 
 English political world, where all great and good men 
 serve the state for love, out of a spirit of pure patriotism. 
 One's commonplace mind is lost in admiration as one 
 gazes upon its convolutions. 
 
 But what has all this to do with Mr. Timothy Bun- 
 combe ? Much. That exalted son of Mammon now
 
 246 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 felt himself in a position to command all the brains in the 
 United Kingdom, and for a few months after the success 
 of his metamorphosis from a bankrupt to a plutocrat, he 
 spent money freely upon the production of speeches, 
 articles, questions, motions for papers, returns, &c, &c. 
 No ex-cabinet minister could have exceeded him in 
 profusion, and very few in affability. 
 
 It must not be thought, however, that he enjoyed this 
 profusion. Mr. Buncombe preferred to be great thriftily* 
 and if he could get one man to do work for twenty 
 shillings, that another required five pounds for, he at once 
 gave the preference to cheap labour. For a time, indeed, 
 he entertained hopes of securing all the assistance he 
 wanted practically for nothing, and to this end picked up 
 once more his son-in-law Weardale, a gentleman he had 
 found it of no advantage to hold much intercourse with 
 while consolidating his fortune. A certain connexion 
 had always been maintained between the two families, by 
 the medium of mother and daughter, but Mr. Buncombe 
 himself took no active part therein. 
 
 When, however, a distended purse and political ambition, 
 as we may call it for want of a handier name, once more 
 fired the heart of the shipbroker, he remembered that 
 Weardale was a very clever fellow, and invited him to 
 dinner once and again, with quite a gush of condescend- 
 ing affection. 
 
 Weardale wanted to refuse these invitations, but his 
 wife overruled him. " Let us go for the sake of peace, 
 and to please my mother," she said. He obeyed and 
 went, he and his wife, and felt humiliated in going. But
 
 THE BRAIN MARKET. 247 
 
 half aware though he was of the clever management by 
 which Mr. Buncombe had suddenly become so rich, he 
 nevertheless smelt dishonesty somewhere. It shocked 
 him to hear sentiments of brotherly love for all mankind, 
 and maudlin " equal rights for all " doctrines drop 
 from the lips of a man who kept two magnificently 
 liveried flunkies and a grand butler to wait upon his 
 guests, and who ate off silver plate. Moreover, with all 
 his suavity and gush, Mr. Buncombe's attitude towards 
 him was essentially patronising — the patronage of 
 wealth — and it was with a half hesitancy,a half deprecating 
 air, that he introduced his "son-in-law" toother guests 
 when there were any. Oftenest it was "just a family 
 dinner, you know." 
 
 Contempt, dislike, scorn, repulsion of the fiercest 
 description, arose accordingly in the mind of the 
 journalist towards this purse-proud relative, and ill fitted 
 him for the labours which he soon discovered he was 
 expected to bestow in return for his dinner. Mr. 
 Buncombe, nevertheless, did his best to utilize Wear- 
 dale's brains, because to buy them for a dinner was a 
 cheap exchange, but the more he tried the more he was 
 disappointed. Weardale did not refuse point blank to 
 lend his father-in-law a helping hand; but he talked such 
 pronounced Radicalism, and was altogether so imprac- 
 ticable that the politician could get no good out of him. 
 He was far worse than Lister, in fact, for Lister could be 
 made to do what he was told when sober, or partially so. 
 
 Weardale, however, turned everything upside down, so 
 to say. When asked if he thought the present ministry
 
 248 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 would hold office long, his usual reply was, " It mostly 
 depends on their mahouts." 
 
 " What do you mean by that expression, may I ask," 
 Mr. Buncombe enquired, with his most dignified air, as 
 the pair sat smoking alone together in the library one 
 evening. " I have heard you use it several times, and I 
 confess it did not strike me as being appropriate." 
 
 " I daresay not," was the dry response, " but the fact is, 
 Mr. Buncombe, that to my mind your parliamentary 
 leaders always look like a herd of tame elephants. Their 
 private secretaries are their mahouts or drivers, and 
 according as these are adroit or otherwise in conducting 
 the beasts they bestride in the way the irremovable 
 official hierarchy wish them to go, is the duration of a 
 ministry — more or less, of course." 
 
 " Bosh," cried the shipbroker testily. " Ministries come 
 and go at the bidding of Parliament, sir, and at nobody 
 else's." 
 
 "All right. I do not care to argue the point ; you are 
 welcome to that view, if it pleases you." 
 
 Whether it was the burning question of the consump- 
 tion of one's own smoke, or that more terrible one, 
 official liberty to drown sailors, or the unlimited power to 
 restrict my neighbours' drinking, or the art of making 
 bankruptcy a breach of the eleventh Commandment, or 
 the necessity of tithes as a means to true godliness, or 
 the advantage of prayers in the House of Commons, or 
 " How to make all Irishmen happy," or the provision of 
 larger scope for officialism, or the necessity that every 
 infant born within the kingdom should be provided with
 
 THE BRAIN MARKET. 249 
 
 three yards of flannel, or joyful " Autolycus " Orchidion's 
 plan for bestowing on all men a share in their neighbour's 
 eoods, or henchman Conduit's motion that the claims of 
 all foreign bondholders ought to be backed by a British 
 force, as in the case of his pet example, the Nile valley, 
 it was always the same. Weardale sneered and mocked 
 and talked sedition until Mr. Buncombe felt sick.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A BEAR THAT WOULDN'T DANCE. 
 
 ALWAYS the burden of Weardale's tale was: "We are 
 overgoverned, sir. What in the devil's name do we 
 want more officials for ? The ideal of a free people is a 
 people that requires no government at all ; but if things 
 go on as they are doing, no man in old England will be 
 able to lift his hand to his mouth without the formal 
 sanction of some damned Jack in office or other. It's 
 nearly as bad as that already." 
 
 Not much that was good for practical politics could 
 an ambitious M.P. extract from language of this 
 sort. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe's particular hobby, at that time, was 
 finance. It had been "borne in upon him," as the 
 Methodist would say, ever since his success in the matter 
 of the Excelsior Company, that he would make an 
 admirable Chancellor of the Exchequer. Hazy ideas 
 about taxation; the true way to obtain revenue without 
 the nation knowing it ; protective tariffs for native 
 industry, warranted to fill the capitalist's pocket ; and 
 such like, began to be cultivated by him in consequence 
 of this view of his gifts, and made him anxious before 
 shaking Weardale off, if it must be so, to obtain that
 
 A BEAR THAT WOULDN'T DANCE. 251 
 
 cantankerous fellow's help in the fabrication of a fiscal 
 creed. 
 
 " Do you really want to play reformer now," Weardale 
 demanded when this purpose was made known to him. 
 
 " Certainly ; why, of course. This is an age of 
 progress, you know. We can't sit still. The people 
 demand something fresh, and must be gratified. It's 
 mighty little I can see, though, and I would like to have 
 your views." 
 
 " Mighty little you can see," shouted Weardale. 
 "Why, good heavens, can't you see that the whole 
 finances of the nation are going clean to the devil, sir?" 
 
 "God bless my soul and body," exclaimed Buncombe, 
 " I can't see anything of the sort. Of course the Tories 
 are running us into debt, but the nation is wealthy 
 enough, and we can soon put things straight when we 
 get back to office." 
 
 " Tories be anointed," was the answer, " and 
 
 Liberals too, for that matter. I tell you if you go on 
 muddling as you are doing, many more years, we shall 
 have a revolution. Mark my words ! " 
 
 " Bosh ! I don't believe anything of the sort." 
 
 " Well, well, you'll see. Do you imagine that the 
 millions of poor, now that they can vote, are going to 
 pay all the taxes, and let you swells pocket all the spoil ? 
 You are mightily mistaken if you do." 
 
 "Oh! I know, I know; you are all for denouncing 
 the rich, because you haven't got much money yourself. 
 The boot would be on the other leg if you had as much 
 money as I have, for instance."
 
 252 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" ejaculated the journalist fervently, 
 and Mr. Buncombe blushed all over his face and bald 
 pate. There was a moment's awkward pause, and then 
 the shipbroker, more than half millionaire, renewed his 
 demand for Weardale's plan of reform. 
 
 " It's all very well for you to denounce the rich, and cry 
 out about unjust taxation, but let us hear what you 
 would do suppose you were in office to-morrow ? " 
 
 " I know I could do nothing in office." 
 
 " Oh, bosh, that's not what I mean, you know ,well 
 enough. Tell me what you think would satisfy the 
 nation — that democracy you are always cracking 
 up." 
 
 " I don't crack the democracy up — never did. The 
 democracy is a stupid, confiding brute, except when it is 
 hungry. Therefore I fear it, and therefore I keep telling 
 all who will listen to me that we must open the door 
 for a greater distribution of wealth, else a hungry 
 democracy will one day rise and eat us all up," 
 
 " Never. Englishmen are too quiet and orderly. We 
 never had anything here equal to the French Revolution." 
 
 " Thanks to our poor law, which, in its way, though, 
 pretty nearly did eat the whole people up. But for it 
 we should have had revolutions in plenty. It has proved 
 a most excellent device, in virtue of which the lower 
 middle classes pay insurance premiums against revolu- 
 tion for the benefit of the landlords and the plutocracy. 
 It has saved us, individually, from the trouble of enacting 
 Christian charity, too. A most excellent law." 
 
 " There you are again," cried Mr. Buncombe, angrily.
 
 A BEAR THAT WOULDN'T DANCE. 253 
 
 " Nothing but denounce, denounce. I don't see the good 
 of it. Where's your remedy for all these wrongs ?" 
 
 " There is no thorough remedy except in revolution — 
 perhaps none in that." 
 
 " Well, but God bless my soul, man, you must have a 
 theory, you know — something to measure the extent of 
 what you call ' wrongs ' by " 
 
 "Yes, I have a theory, but it is so likely to remain a 
 theory that it is scarcely worth stating," said Weardale, 
 in a sad tone. 
 
 " Never mind, let's hear it. I'm anxious to look at 
 these questions from all points, you know, and who 
 knows but there might be something practicable in 
 some of your ideas." Mr. Buncombe's desire to pick his 
 son-in-law's brains seemed only to be whetted by all this 
 fencing. Possibly he thought he would catch something 
 with which to tickle up his constituents. 
 
 " I'm afraid I should only shock you more than ever 
 if " 
 
 "Never mind, never mind, go ahead. I can stand 
 anything, you know, — from you, at any rate," he added. 
 
 " The fact is," said Weardale, slowly, " I hardly know 
 where to begin, for no reform can take place without a 
 complete decentralisation of the Government, such as is 
 foreshadowed in Irish Home Rule, and the destruction 
 of an insane spirit of imperialism. So long as English- 
 men scamper round the world on land-stealing expedi- 
 tions there will be no good government at home." 
 
 " Well, it's no good preaching that doctrine, anyway," 
 interrupted Mr. Buncombe. " If we give up our empire,
 
 254 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 we may as well sell all our ships right off. No party in 
 the country dare go to the constituencies with such a cry 
 as that." 
 
 "Just so, and therefore, nonsense though that fable be, 
 what is the use of talking about good government. With 
 empire, with the tribute of empire pouring wealth into 
 the country at every port, corruptions, social, political, 
 and administrative will grow and grow until some fine 
 day the whole rotten fabric goes to pieces with a crash. 
 It would not surprise me in the least to see your vaunted 
 democracy end in military despotism and the wreck of 
 English liberties, before all is over." 
 
 " Never, never in this world," cried Mr. Buncombe, 
 excitedly. " The Empire of England is built on a better 
 foundation than any the world ever saw before." 
 
 " It is built on some of the blackest crimes of treachery, 
 cruelty, fraud, and rapacity the world has ever seen, if 
 that is what you mean." 
 
 "Bosh! You forget, sir, that England is a Christian 
 State." 
 
 "Oh, there's where you are, is it," exclaimed Wear- 
 dale dryly. " All right ; hug your Christianity, and go 
 to the devil with it, if you like. I don't care." 
 
 " No, of course not, you are a pagan, I know. I 
 always suspected you to be an unbeliever, Weardale, 
 but hang me if I thought you would avow it so unblush- 
 ingly." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me then that there is any 
 relationship between your smug, well-paid clerical trades 
 unionists in national pay, or your sleek pew-rented
 
 A BE A R THA T 1 VO ULDW T DA NCE. 2 5 5 
 
 dissenting broadcloth mummers of holiness, and the 
 religion of Christ. I never saw any." 
 
 " There you are again," was the impatient rejoinder. 
 '! I did not ask you to come here to discuss theology. 
 With a sceptic that is waste of wind. I wanted to hear 
 what you had to say on the immediate reform of the 
 future. But I might have known I was a fool for my 
 pains. You are too impracticable, Weardale, much too 
 impracticable. God bless my soul and body, man, don't 
 you see you stand in your own light. I might help you to 
 a good thing if you'd only give me a cue or two." 
 
 " Much obliged, I'm sure, but I'm a bit of a Bohemian, 
 you see, and prefer to wander as the spirit moves me. 
 4 Good things ' are rather a bore." 
 
 " Ay, that's just where it is. There's no doing anything 
 with you. Man alive, can't you see that it might be 
 worth my while to find you a seat in Parliament, and a 
 great thing for yourself too, for that matter. Gad, you 
 might be a cabinet minister, Weardale, with your 
 abilities." 
 
 " Heaven forbid," again ejaculated the journalist. 
 
 " Well, well, as you please — only I think you are 
 throwing your chances away, I'm blest if I don't, and I'm 
 sorry to see it both for your sake and for your family's." 
 
 " Thank you, my family will do very well, I hope. 
 I'll try at least to rear them honestly, and give them 
 honest employment." 
 
 " Oh, hang it all ; yes, of course. But that's not the 
 question. God bless me, won't you see that it would be 
 more in accordance with the fitness of things if your sons
 
 256 SLR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 and daughters took a position in the world suitable to 
 their relationship to me ? You don't mean them to be 
 grocers or butchers, do you ? Or, perhaps, you count on 
 getting a lump of my money for them. That's the way 
 of poor relations, I know," he went on brutally, Weardale 
 the while sitting stock still. " But you make a mistake, 
 sir, you make a mistake. I shan't waste my fortune on 
 people who don't know how to take advantage of their 
 privileges." Mr. Buncombe said this while jerking him- 
 self about the room, and his tone grew angrier as he 
 went on. It was his way of venting his disappointment. 
 But he had gone too far. Weardale sprung to his feet as 
 his father-in-law ended, and stood facing him with a 
 flushed face and flashing eye. 
 
 " I trust, sir, you did not invite me to your house to- 
 night with the deliberate intention of insulting me," he 
 asked, in a voice which, though calm, vibrated with 
 emotion. 
 
 " Eh ! what, what, no, no. God bless my soul and 
 body, you know. Hang it all, man, sit down, sit down. 
 I was only a bit riled, you know, you are so impractic- 
 able." 
 
 " Because," Weardale went on, without heeding, 
 " because I refuse to accept the insult. Neither myself 
 nor my wife have ever counted upon receiving a penny at 
 your hands, sir, nor have my children been taught to 
 look to you as in any sense their earthly providence. 
 We are not of those whom you can cast off and take up 
 again as caprice or self interest may dictate. Therefore 
 your taunts have no power to make me ashamed.
 
 A BEAR THAT WOULDN'T DANCE. 257 
 
 Anger and contempt they may produce, but not self 
 reproach." 
 
 " Well, well, my boy, drop it, drop it," said Buncombe,, 
 in a wheedling voice. " Hang me, you know I didn't 
 mean anything, only you riled me a bit. Sit down, man, 
 sit down, and tell me what you think of Orchidion's 
 latest motion. He has brought in a bill, you know, to 
 provide a knife and fork out of the consolidated fund for' 
 every child born in the United Kingdom. Is that worth 
 supporting, think you, eh ? " 
 
 " Bah ! " said Weardale, flinging himself back in his 
 seat with a look of disgust, as much as to say " What a 
 fool I was to get angry at a vulgar humbug like that."' 
 For that was the disrespectful fashion in which he occa- 
 sionally alluded to his father-in-law. 
 
 This little outburst, however, had had the effect of 
 rendering Mr. Buncombe more circumspect, and by dint 
 of a little manoeuvring, he at length drew forth a mono- 
 logue from Weardale, on what he was pleased to call his 
 ideal of government. 
 
 I shall not inflict this monologue on the patient 
 reader. To what good, indeed, for as Mr. Buncombe 
 kept protesting, it was not practical politics. The 
 journalist was an out and out Republican and 
 decentraliser ; a free-trader also, and of so thorough a 
 type, that he would, forthwith, have abolished all customs 
 duties, and all liquor excise, forcing the nation to go- 
 back to the rent of its land for revenue. No wonder 
 then, though Buncombe blessed himself, and cursed 
 himself, and squirmed, and "boshed!" and danced 
 
 R
 
 258 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 through the apartment. "All drink consumption should 
 be regulated by licenses alone, under the control of 
 provincial houses of Assembly, without whose authority 
 the supreme Parliament should have no power to raise 
 any taxes, except direct taxes on land and property. 
 "I would sweep away some of the permanent depart- 
 ments altogether/' said Weardale, "and cut the rest 
 down to a tenth of their present force. Those who 
 ■would not work then could starve." 
 
 As for what he called " that mockery of Christianity," 
 the Church of England, it was to be completely disen- 
 dowed, it and the universities, and great public schools, 
 and the whole of the money accruing to the people by 
 this act, together with the whole of the incomes of 
 guilds and ancient corporations of London, and through- 
 out the country, used to provide a free liberal education 
 for all ranks and classes of the community, according to 
 their wants and capacities. What was left ought to go 
 to sustain hospitals and feed the poor. Thus at one 
 stroke the criminal thefts of a trades union of selfish, 
 pagan, pelf-hoarding clergymen, and their hangers-on, 
 all the corruptions of universities, where jobbery and 
 imbecility mocked at wisdom and common sense, 
 together with the hideous deformities of the poor law, 
 would be swept clean away. Hoarding Lord Bishops 
 and mockers of all that is loftiest and best in human 
 nature, would then be relieved from the painful 
 necessity of having to accept livings, fat, if possible, 
 at the hands of some " beastly '' king or king's lick- 
 spittle toad-eater, or fawning king's mistress ; or of
 
 A BEAR THAT WOULDN'T DANCE. 259 
 
 buying and selling cures of souls on principles analogous 
 to the most infamous forms of " stock jobbery." 
 Deprived of its stolen property, the Anglican creed, 
 which masquerades as the one true Christian church, 
 would be free to vindicate its divine sanction by the 
 means appointed of the Master it now mocks with 
 its droning rituals and llama-like praying machinery. 
 And so on. 
 
 In his hatred of the lazy, " living"- trafficking, soul- 
 darkening arrogant, and self-seeking parsonhood of 
 England, Weardale was as fierce as in his contempt and 
 scorn for the swarming, life-stifling, eat-all bureaucracy. 
 Towards both, his attitude of hostility yielded in nothing 
 to that of the communards of France. " Neither truth 
 nor plain dealing will prevail in old England," he said, 
 " till these sources of falsehood, fraud, and corruption 
 are driven from the face of the land. Till that work is 
 accomplished, our vaunted freedom is a delusion, our 
 1 progress ' a progress towards the bottomless pit that 
 swallowed the mighty empire of Rome and all empires 
 before it." 
 
 Buncombe listened, disgusted. " There is nothing of 
 any good to me in all this," he cried, when Weardale had 
 finished, " nothing whatever." 
 
 " I told you so before I began," said Weardale with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " But I wanted hints, man, hints. I want to attack the 
 Tories on their finance, don't you know. Hang it all, 
 there must be some good way of making a telling attack 
 on their extravagance."
 
 260 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCO JIBE. 
 
 " Doubtless. You can make telling attacks on the 
 finance of all Governments. Poor devils, your so- 
 called Governments, with their First Lords, their 
 Chancellors of the Exchequer, their secretaries and other 
 talking machines, can do but as they are told. They 
 must find money, and perpetrate or connive at jobs, as. 
 their masters order, and take the curses accordingly." 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course, I know all that, but the question 
 now is an attack on Tory finance, don't you know." 
 
 " Ah, as to that, my dear sir, you must find some 
 fellow to help you whose brains are for hire," laughed 
 Weardale, and that was all the satisfaction his father-in- 
 law could get out of him. The poor man felt aggrieved, 
 almost duped. His dinners had for once brought him no 
 return, and he was reluctantly forced to the conclusion, 
 that if he wanted ' hints ' he must go, as Weardale had 
 said, where they were to be had in exchange for cheques 
 or current coin of the realm. That decision reached, it 
 naturally followed that Mr. Henry Weardale soon 
 ceased to be invited to family dinners, and the two men 
 from that time forward fell completely apart. 
 
 Even Beatrice Weardale learned to feel that it was 
 best so, for the atmosphere of the grand mansion in 
 Prince of Wales' Terrace was ill suited to her tastes and 
 habits, still less adapted to be a place of resort for her 
 children. Not that she came to this conclusion without 
 a painful wrench. A true heart clings to a father, and 
 still more to a mother, be they never so unworthy.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 TO BE OR NOT TO BE. 
 
 MUCH though he spent, and hard though he worked, Mr. 
 Buncombe's ambition was not gratified when next his 
 party came into "power." It was disgusting. The 
 chiefs entirely overlooked his great services. In vain did 
 he thrust himself under their noses in the lobby of the 
 House. They passed him by with a friendly greeting or 
 a nod, but with never a word about " office." " We 
 might have offered him something for form's sake," the 
 patronage secretary of the party was afterwards reported 
 to have said, " but to tell the truth we were afraid to do 
 so. He might have accepted." They did not so much 
 as ask him to second the address. That sublime function 
 was bestowed upon an ego-rapt Quaker, of an arrogant- 
 humility air, whom it so completely overwhelmed that 
 the poor fellow has ever since been half demented with 
 the belief that he is a heaven-born word-ruler destined yet 
 to shine above all men in playing upon the national 
 wind instrument. 
 
 If true, the remark of the patronage secretary was 
 none the less heartlessly cruel. But if the leaders of 
 the party did indeed abstain from this motive it showed 
 their wisdom to be considerable, for that Mr. Bun-
 
 262 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 combe would have accepted any office, however humble, 
 is beyond question. Gradually, then, this hard-working 
 man, whose voice had so oft and so long worried the 
 Tories during the session preceding dissolution, felt his 
 hopes die away within him. Others far less rich, and, in 
 his opinion, far less worthy, were preferred before him. 
 To his party he was a man of no account. Why was this? 
 Alas, it is a long story, too long to tell in all its sad details. 
 
 For one thing, however, it has to be admitted that the 
 great manager of the Excelsior Steam Shipping Company 
 was not popular in the House. Nobody liked him much. 
 His manners were a bizarre mixture of cringing and 
 insolence, and although he made tolerably passable 
 harangues he was never able to convince those who 
 stayed to listen to him that he believed one word of 
 what he said. That in itself was an immense drawback. 
 A similar failing had helped to wreck Lord Brougham, 
 and Mr. Buncombe was, on the whole, a less gifted man 
 than that grandiose lunatic. 
 
 Still rude, coarse-grained, thick-hided, brazen-tongued, 
 pushing, insolent, corrupt, vulgar men do, under our 
 admirable constitution, get office now and then, and 
 behave therein like tolerably well-trained elephants, as 
 Mr. Weardale would say, consuming their provender in a 
 more or less circumspect manner, with due interlude of 
 trumpetings, and Mr. Buncombe's exclusion did not 
 necessarily flow from his unpopularity and lack of 
 following alone. 
 
 There was another reason. His last election had 
 smudged him. The compact with the Powderhorn
 
 TO BE OR NOT TO BE. 263 
 
 interest held good in a way, but that interest proved 
 unable to control the Tory party in Oldhills. Conse- 
 quently Mr. Buncombe, to his horror and amazement, 
 found that he must contest his seat once more. He had 
 lulled himself to sleep in a false security, and, believing 
 himself free from all danger, had rather neglected the 
 Oldhills electorate. Perhaps he thought that they would 
 be so proud of his displays in Parliament that they 
 would keep his seat safe for him whether he " nursed '* 
 the borough or not. Whatever his motive, he ceased to 
 spend on local charities, local flower shows, local treats 
 and fads to the extent he had done when a newer 
 politician and a poorer man. So Oldhills betrayed him, 
 and decided to have a fight, in order that a little money 
 might circulate. 
 
 In the end Mr. Buncombe kept his seat, but at the cost 
 of a great deal of money. Not, of course, that he ostensibly 
 spent much. He was far too astute for that, but the 
 promises he had to make for the future, the sham volunteer 
 canvassers he had to come to understandings with, the 
 meaning winks he had to distribute to dissenters, 
 ambitious of possessing new school-rooms or Gothic 
 chapels ; and to high church parsons in want of altar 
 pieces, stained glass windows, &c, &c., meant in the end 
 quite as much money as it would have cost him to 
 have prevented a contest, while the acknowledged costs 
 came upon him as an additional fine. 
 
 This was cruel, and what was worse than all, the 
 Tories, who understood a thing or two, in the rage of 
 their defeat, set to work to get up a petition against Mr.
 
 264 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 Buncombe's return. They were in the full swing of this 
 new, money-spending manifestation of constitutional 
 privileges at the time the victorious party was showering 
 the gifts of office on its leaders and their henchmen. 
 Nothing in the end came of this cry of vengeance. It 
 was said by the evil tongued that Mr. Buncombe 
 purchased the enemy's leading witnesses. But clearly 
 it would have been altogether wrong for the pure-minded, 
 white-handed chiefs of the party ; men like Mr. 
 Orchidion, and Lord Steer, and Sir Algernon Drivel — 
 right honourables all — to commit a portion of their 
 honour to the keeping of a man likely to be unseated 
 for bribery. The mere hint of such a thing was sufficient 
 to make them turn their backs upon him. 
 
 This is why, ostensibly at least, Mr. Buncombe was 
 left out in the cold. It was a great hardship, I, as his 
 humble biographer, might even go so far as to say, a 
 great wrong, but there he was. The pathway of emolu- 
 ments, dignities, and honours was closed against him. 
 All the money he had spent, the breath he had used up, 
 the nights he had watched, the subjects he had "crammed," 
 •were as much wasted as if he had passed the time on the 
 treadmill, and flung his gold into the common shares of 
 the Excelsior Company. 
 
 Shall I try to paint Mr. Buncombe's rage, his despair 
 and sorrow ? Not a bit of it. Readers can imagine all 
 that, each in the degree of his capacity. There is not 
 the least danger of overdoing the thing. All I am 
 •concerned with is, not the passions which rent this 
 valiant bosom, but the energy with which, one road
 
 TO BE OR NOT TO BE. 265 
 
 to advancement barred, the strenuous shipbroker took 
 another. 
 
 Of course he sulked for a time, and for a time also 
 threatened to become disagreeable to those who had 
 overlooked his merits, but that did not last long. Mr. 
 Buncombe soon saw that he was making himself 
 ridiculous and, what was better to the purpose, that he 
 lost more by mulishness than he could possibly gain. 
 And inasmuch as he was not a man to be baulked in his 
 ends by spite of party, or any common feeling of that 
 kind, he soon desisted from all outward signs of chagrin , 
 in order to discover a way of repairing his defeat. He 
 even went so far as to apologise publicly to the Right 
 Hon. Launcelot Orchidion for having spoken slightingly 
 about that gentleman's famous knife and fork endowment 
 bill. It did not go nearly far enough, Mr. Buncombe 
 had declared, with a sneer. In his opinion, to be 
 complete, it ought to provide a flannel petticoat for every 
 girl of two years old within the kingdom, as well as a 
 goose and plum pudding to be furnished, post free, on 
 Christmas Eve, to all who applied in their own hand- 
 writing within the previous fortnight. 
 
 Taking a leaf from Weardale's book of sarcasm, he had 
 proceeded to point out that so complete a reform would 
 not only enable the bureaucracy to add fifty thousand 
 pounds a year for salaries to the civil service estimates, 
 as Mr. Orchidion calculated, but would afford scope for 
 a great many more backsheesh and secret discount 
 operations. And if press of work at the year's end 
 involved the employment of extra labour, it would be
 
 266 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 easy to draft men, at overtime pay, from the do-nothing 
 and muddle-all Board of Trade, or brain-destroying 
 education offices. In short, Mr. Buncombe had 
 urged, the " reform " would be much more thorough 
 and satisfactory if carried out as he ventured to 
 suggest. 
 
 This speech had been made in the first spasm of his 
 disappointment, when his heart was sore within him, and 
 Mr. Orchidion had resented it, not so much perhaps 
 because it savoured of mockery — his sensibilities were 
 not keen — as because it had the appearance of touching 
 upon his peculiar prerogative. He was the one man 
 living who knew how to make the backs of the dull- 
 witted multitude bend to the yoke. " Mine is the 
 only great soul," Mr. Orchidion in effect said, " that 
 knows the right carrot to dangle before the eyes of this 
 great long-eared beast Democracy;" and he forthwith 
 declared war against the shipbroker. 
 
 His emnitv might have mattered little to Mr. Bun- 
 combe had the " party of progress " been in 
 opposition, but it was altogether a different affair now 
 that the Right Honourable Launcelot Orchidion had 
 become a powerful minister of the Crown. Orchidion, 
 unappeased, meant no more fat freights for the Excelsior 
 Company, to mention but one result. This was an 
 imminent danger not to be trifled with. So the much- 
 enduring Timothy saw the error of his ways, and before 
 Parliament had been many more days in babbling order, 
 he publicly purged himself of his sin by making an 
 abject apology.
 
 TO BE OR NOT TO BE. 267 
 
 So far well, but where were the honours and social 
 advancement he courted ? No nearer, alas, than before. 
 This was melanchoty. Mr. Buncombe, however, did not 
 despair. There remained open to him the system of 
 feeding his way to a higher grade of society, and no 
 sooner had his mind recovered tone after his parlia- 
 mentary disappointments than he commenced a series of 
 entertainments unrivalled in splendour. 
 
 All sorts and conditions of men and women — within 
 the charmed circle of Society, of course — were invited to 
 his dinners, and a good many of them came. His recep- 
 tions were less successful, but still well attended, and he 
 would have felt himself making way towards a peerage, 
 or something of that sort, had it not been for Mrs. 
 Buncombe, poor woman. At least it was her he blamed. 
 
 Never in all his life before did Mr. Timothy Bun- 
 combe regret so keenly as in these months the unfortunate 
 marriage he had made. His wife, he felt, was vulgar. 
 She dressed badly, spoke badly, grimaced badly, and, 
 worst of all, she had never been presented at Court. A 
 more glaring defect than that it is impossible to imagine. 
 Lacking the Royal Hallmark, Mrs. Buncombe was no 
 better than a Zulu ; in fact, not nearly so good. Had she 
 been an unlettered savage from the wilds of Africa, a 
 tattooed Maori, or a scalp-wearing red Indian, Society 
 would have crowded round Mrs. Buncombe, pinched her, 
 thumbed her blanket or her skin, stared at her, laughed 
 at her, humoured her, and made itself charmingly 
 ridiculous for her. Being, however, a mere English- 
 woman without talents, less coarse than Lady Betty
 
 268 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 Tangle, and not "compromised" in any way so as to be 
 interesting ; unable to swear like the Duchess of Hay- 
 cock, or to don tights and dawdle through maudlin plays 
 like Mrs. Ethelberta Maypole, the wife of a pawnbroker 
 and usurer of aristocratic connexions, Mrs. Buncombe 
 was a female of no account. Her guests snubbed her, 
 her son and daughter laughed at her and ignored her, 
 her very husband blushed as he beheld her struggle to be 
 agreeable to the dawdling mob of both sexes which 
 gathered at her receptions. 
 
 Young Callow was often at Prince of Wales' Terrace. 
 It was rumoured that he was "sweet" upon Evangeline 
 Buncombe, and doubtless he or his parents coveted her 
 father's gold. Young Timothy Buncombe was a kind of 
 chum of his. "My Lord" and the shipbroker's son 
 played billiards together, lost money on horses and at 
 cards together, hunted down pretty ballet girls in com- 
 pany, and got drunk now and then to vary the monotony 
 of existence. Between whiles they amused themselves 
 by baiting Mrs. Buncombe at her own dinner table, and 
 in her drawing-room, amid an amused and applauding 
 crowd of male and female " bloods." It was so easy to 
 put the burly little woman in a temper, and make her 
 forget her manners and her always uncertain grammar. 
 
 Any outburst on her part sent her husband to the 
 rescue, and as often as not his attempts at pacification 
 only brought the lightning of his wife's wrath down on 
 his own head. On one such occasion the exasperated 
 woman declared before all the assembled spectators that 
 her husband wanted to be rid of her. Her reason for so
 
 TO BE OR NOT TO BE. 269 
 
 thinking was that he had never sought to present her to 
 the Queen. 
 
 " He has been and gone and kissed the Queen himself," 
 she remarked, " and I call it a downright shame as he's 
 never took me to see her." 
 
 This was true enough, all except the kissing. Mr. 
 Buncombe had been introduced to the sacred presence 
 of Majesty, early in his parliamentary career, in order, 
 as he said, to utilize the Windsor uniform he had been 
 obliged to buy, before he could accept the Speaker's 
 invitation to the regulation parliamentary dress dinners. 
 Since then, as a matter of course, he had been at levees, 
 and his superiority in this respect was a standing 
 grievance with his wife. 
 
 It was a grievance he would now gladly have removed, 
 but nobody of his acquaintance would willingly take the 
 responsibility of presenting her. Lady Powderhorn was 
 quite willing to perform the rite for Evangeline, but 
 would have nothing to say to Mrs. Buncombe, and none 
 of Mr. Buncombe's other friends were a bit more ready. 
 
 It was not exactly because Mrs. Buncombe was vulgar 
 that they displayed their reluctance. Indeed, mere 
 vulgarity has nothing to do with fitness for the charmed 
 circle which surrounds majesty. Had lofty manners and 
 high-toned conduct been essential, most of our sovereigns 
 would themselves have been disqualified from attendance 
 at their own shows. It was Mrs. Buncombe's general 
 appearance that stood in her way. She " looked so 
 dreadfully like a charwoman," Lady Powderhorn said, 
 and her view was the view of all, though what their
 
 2;o SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 precise idea of a charwoman's appearance was they 
 never condescended to say. But they dreaded her 
 capacity for making herself odd, and felt that if she 
 did aught ridiculous while in their charge, their nerves 
 would receive a shock too great to be endured.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 A WOMAN GREATLY DARING. 
 
 Matters were in this unsatisfactory position when Mr. 
 Buncombe began to systematically eat his way 
 upwards, or rather to make the eating of others, at his 
 expense, a means to his one end and aim in life. 
 He soon found it uphill work, uphill and "deuced 
 expensive," as he told his wife. 
 
 " Then why don't you get a title right off, Mr. B. ? " 
 she contracted a sort of habit of saying, and quite early 
 in their notoriety and title hunt they had a squabble over 
 it. " I'm sure I'd buy one, if I were you, and then I would 
 get to a levvy in spite of 'em." 
 
 "No you wouldn't," was the rough retort, "and don't 
 talk nonsense, my dear. It doesn't become you." 
 
 " I talking nonsense. That's like your impudence. 
 I ain't no more talkin' nonsense nor you are, and I'm 
 sure I don't see why I should worrit myself to death 
 seven days a week to please them snobs you bring 
 here. Buy a title, I say, and be upsides with 'em, right 
 off." 
 
 " But, my dear, you can't buy a title in England. 
 
 Titles are only given as a reward for public services, you 
 
 i '> 
 
 know.
 
 272 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 "Then how did Lord Whinstone get his, I'd like to 
 know ? And there's that baronet chap you had here last 
 Tuesday, what's his name — Winkles, Winnocks or 
 something, I'm sure ihey never served nobody but them- 
 selves, and not much of that. How did ninnies like 
 them get titles ?" 
 
 "Oh, Whinstone changed parties, you know, and 
 besides, he is a kind of jackal to a powerful railway 
 director, and he was thought to have some brains of his 
 own. That seems to be a mistake, but the mischiefs 
 done. Besides, he had a wife who was somebody, you 
 know, my dear. As for the baronet " 
 
 " Bother the baronet. I don't care for the baronet, or 
 for you neither. What I say is as you can get a title if 
 you like, only you like better to see me sat upon and 
 laughed at, because I ain't a wife as was ' somebody.'" 
 But I'll be upsides with you yet, just you wait a bit. I'll get 
 to a levvy whether you like it or not. I ain't a-going to 
 be made a fool of by you nor nobody else. 
 
 " He, he, he ! That you won't, my dear, that you won't, 
 he, he !" sneered Mr. Buncombe, with a deprecating 
 shrug of his lean shoulders. 
 
 " What are you laughing at, Mr. Buncombe, ain't I as 
 good as you, I'd like to know, for all I ain't 'somebody.' 
 W r ho are you, to laugh at me, the wife of your bosom. 
 You ought to be ashamed of yourself. No, no, in course 
 not. That would be too much to expect. You want to 
 be rid of me, I know, but I'll be even with you yet. I'm 
 not the one to put up with no more of your nonsense, not 
 me."
 
 A WOMAN GREATLY DARING. 273 
 
 " How you do go on, Mrs. Buncombe, making yourself 
 ridiculous. Don't you know that women never go to 
 levees, only men." 
 
 "Gammon. I know better. Don't the Queen go, 
 and ain't the Queen a woman ? Eh, Mr. Buncombe ?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, my dear, but, hang it all, you know, that's 
 different. Of course, the Queen is the head of society, 
 and the fountain of all honour, and can go where she 
 likes. But that does not alter the fact that gentlemen 
 are presented to Her Majesty at levees, and ladies at 
 drawing-rooms, don't you see ? " 
 
 "Ah ! that's it, is it. That's what you're a-laughing at. 
 I made a slip, did I ? I ain't used to high life, I ain't. 
 I'm not a lady, I'm not. But I don't care, Mr. B. 
 Drawing-room or levvy, I'm a-going to see the Queen, 
 and you are going to buy a title, — you can get it some- 
 how, I know quite well." 
 
 " Humph !" said her husband, " that's all very fine, but 
 if I had a title to-morrow you couldn't go to Court all by 
 yourself. Somebody must introduce you, you know." 
 
 " Well, do it yourself. You've been there, and the 
 Queen knows you, I suppose." 
 
 " Bosh, that's just what I can't do, my dear. No man 
 can present his own wife to Her Majesty. You must 
 find a lady who has been admitted to Court herself to do 
 it for you." 
 
 This statement struck Mrs. Buncombe " all of a heap," 
 as she afterwards told Eva, her daughter, and redoubled 
 her chagrin and impatience under the slights to which 
 she was subjected by the fashionable canaille who enjoyed
 
 274 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 themselves at her expense, by the kind permission of her 
 husband and children. In short, so hot did the worthy 
 little dumpling of a woman make life for the loungers 
 sometimes, that long before the season was over Mr. Bun- 
 combe felt that the sooner he again altered his course 
 the better. 
 
 Clearly this purchase-of-title-by-entertainments plan 
 was destined to no better success than the brilliant 
 parliamentary career business. And then his wife per- 
 sisted in laying all the blame on her non-presentation at 
 Court. It seemed to her that this ceremony would in 
 some fashion or other endow her with the power to sit 
 upon the snobs. Mr. Buncombe's despair, however, was 
 limited to an abandonment of the hope of obtaining a 
 title by private dinners and receptions. So long as Mrs. 
 Buncombe continued to be what she was, while the great 
 presentation at Court question remained unsettled at all 
 events, it was mere waste of money to persevere in this 
 course. Than that nothing could be more certain, for 
 Mrs. Buncombe grew daily more difficult to control, and 
 several times had bounced out of the room before all the 
 lounging assembly.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 ROYALTY WITH A COLD IN ITS HEAD. 
 
 But there still remained a good third of the fashionable 
 season, and it occurred to the great shipbroker that he 
 might be able to entertain lofty strangers in another 
 fashion, at a less cost to himself, and with even greater 
 chances of success. He decided to fall back upon the 
 resources of the Excelsior Steam Shipping Company. 
 
 A few pages back a remark very like libel has 
 been dropped about this splendid undertaking. Hasty 
 readers, and others, might go away with the idea that the 
 company had come to grief and disappeared. Nothing 
 of the kind. It had ceased to pay dividends to the 
 outside shareholders, and possibly enough might never 
 resume that useful practice ; but as a great trading 
 concern, and as the source of an income of between 
 twenty and thirty thousand pounds a year to Mr. 
 Buncombe and his partners, the company, whose head 
 quarters were in London, was as flourishing as ever, and 
 likely to live. Hope, too, kept its shares at a good 
 price, though divid endless. Shareholders were unable 
 to believe that a fleet of such splendid ships, bought 
 regardless of expense, all glittering in gilt and shining 
 colours, could fail to yield them any return; so they held
 
 276 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 on in hope. But Mr. Buncombe had not thought it wise 
 to retain many of his shares. They had been " sold 
 forward," and now, two years or so after its creation, the 
 company's finances were low. 
 
 For this very reason, as Mr. Buncombe remarked to 
 the chairman of the Board, Lord Powderhorn, who 
 always received his fees, it might be an excellent 
 advertisement to give a few entertainments on board the 
 company's newest vessels. Two were nearly ready, and 
 one had just been delivered by a Clyde firm to replace 
 an unfortunate wreck. 
 
 His lordship agreed, of course, with this view, in his cus- 
 tomary urbane manner. The manager's word was law to 
 him, it saved so much trouble. But he did not quite grasp 
 all that Mr. Buncombe meant by entertainments on 
 board ship, until that excellent man told him to try and 
 obtain the presence of a Royal personage to grace the 
 festive scene. Then he rather wished he had not so 
 readily consented. However, with the best grace he 
 could, he set to work to hunt up Royalty, in order — 
 though that of course was not stated — that by this 
 method, if by no other, as he now saw, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Buncombe might obtain a title. 
 
 All this is very commonplace, you may say. Perhaps 
 it is, but so is life in general. I merely contend for the 
 wonderful pluck and perseverance of the hero of this 
 history — qualities which title-hunting can display as well 
 as fly fishing. Nothing baulked him, or turned him aside 
 from his purpose ; and his wife, to her credit be it said, 
 was as eager as he could possibly be. A title would
 
 ROYALTY WITH A COLD IN ITS HEAD. 277 
 
 salve all her heartaches. By means of it she thought her 
 admission into the charmed, mystical circle, which 
 surrounds majesty, sure. And there was less annoyance 
 promised, both to husband and wife, by these ship-in-dock 
 demonstrations, than in private dinner giving. The 
 expense was nothing at all, because the company bore it. 
 Being viewed in the light of an advertisement of its 
 excellent ships, the board naturally saw no objection to 
 carrying the cost of the luncheons to the debit of the 
 working account. Mr. Buncombe would have felt 
 justified in doing so, whether the board had thought of 
 objecting or not. 
 
 It was, however, one thing to try and catch Royalty, 
 and quite another to succeed. Aided as he was by an 
 earl, Mr. Buncombe had felt no doubts upon the point, 
 and gave orders for a first entertainment of great magnifi- 
 cence. Paragraphs about the coming event appeared in 
 the newspapers, and the shipbroker's hopes ran high. So 
 did Mrs. Buncombe's, so did Evangeline's, and so, per- 
 haps, the junior Timothy's, as far as his dulled brain 
 admitted of any such emotion. 
 
 All were doomed once more to disappointment. 
 Whether Lord Powderhorn lacked zeal, held back as he 
 would be by his wife's dread of the ridiculous, or whether 
 Royalty, having at that time no new endowments to beg 
 from the public purse, felt permitted to rest from the toils 
 of universal obsequiousness and enjoy itself, I know not ; 
 but Royalty could not, would not, come. Neither in the 
 first, second, third, or fourth degrees would it consent to 
 put in an appearance on board the splendid new mail
 
 278 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 steamer lady Powderkorn, just delivered to the Excelsior 
 Company at fifteen per cent, profit to the " managers." 
 
 This was chagrin upon chagrin, and for the first time in 
 their lives, perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Buncombe realised that 
 Royalty really was after all human. From the excuses 
 made they discovered that not only could Royalty tire 
 itself out like common bipeds, but that it might be afflicted 
 with a running at the nose, or a colic, or sciatica, or a 
 sprained thumb, or a boil in the back of its neck — in 
 short, Royalty was after all astonishingly commonplace. 
 
 And, strange to say, its amusements or occupations 
 were fully as numerous and fully as Royal as its ail- 
 ments. " Princes of the blood," it may be understood, 
 pride themselves in maintaining the sport-loving tradi- 
 tions inherited from the forest prowler of Anjou, the 
 Rhine blackmailer, the Scotch or Welsh cut-throat and 
 cattle lifter, or whatever other ancestor they are pleased 
 to acknowledge. To shoot with guns was a Royal 
 prerogative. And though there was no legitimate shooting 
 in the month of April, though Royal personages could not 
 yacht then, though the hunting season was at an end, yet 
 Royalty might be as busy as it was sick. It had still, 
 while resting from its severer labours, occasional 
 speeches to make glorifying its revered father, a founda- 
 tion stone or two to lay, water works to open, museums 
 to consecrate, dinners to eat, state balls and concerts to 
 give, all in spite of the running at its nose and the 
 sciatica. Above and beyond this medley of occupations 
 or diseases, had it not always also the gentlemanly sport 
 of horse-racing to cultivate and squander its tax-provided
 
 ROYALTY WITH A COLD IX ITS HEAD. 279 
 
 salaries upon. The "Derby," and the "Oaks," and Ascot 
 loomed immediately ahead at the very moment when 
 Mr. Buncombe commenced his importunities. He was 
 mad to imagine that Royalty, well or ill, could desert its 
 proud position among the daemons of the ring in order 
 to drink his champagne and eat his ices. What was the 
 music of the finest string band procurable for money 
 compared with the pandemonium of book-makers, 
 welchers, thieves, blacklegs, touts, and gentlemen who 
 made horse-racing glorious? What indeed! Mr. Bun- 
 combe displayed none of his customary astuteness in 
 pitting his modest " spread " against attractions like 
 these, — plus mere common-clay diseases. 
 
 The first strategic entertainment at the expense of the 
 Excelsior Company was thus foredoomed to be a failure 
 from Mr. Buncombe's point of view, although attended by 
 a brilliant crowd of fashionable idlers and others. Lord 
 and Lady Powderhorn were there helping Mr. and Mrs. 
 Buncombe to do the honours, and his Lordship almost 
 outshone the shipbroker in the splendour of his nautical 
 get up, although I rather think Mr. Buncombe's white 
 ducks had the advantage. Among the guests were a 
 needy marquis, out at elbows, and eager for directorships, 
 but considered too light fingered even for that trade ; two 
 Tory peers, and a viscount, who had professed Radicalism 
 in his plebeian days, but whose politics were now piebald ; 
 sundry baronets, including a hide and tallow man, who 
 had been Lord Mayor of London, and who professed 
 Toryism, tempered by a gift for " preaching the Word." 
 These were Lord Powderhorn's guests. Mr. Buncombe
 
 28o SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 brought for his share a right honourable peddler, who 
 alternated the occupations of consuming the emoluments 
 of a cabinet minister with excursions in the domain of 
 what is called finance, — a gentleman that is to say who 
 deigned to take fees and luncheons, proper to the trade of 
 director when not a "pillar of the State," at five thousand 
 pounds a year. Besides this distinguished person, 
 Rooster, by name, there came three under-secretaries 
 of State, a few members of Parliament of circumspectly 
 Radical proclivities, and no less than ten great depart- 
 mental dignitaries, backed by a judge, wise in all laws 
 but the decalogue. All were accompanied by the due 
 proportion of females. The company was not motley in 
 one sense, for all were gentlemen and ladies in their own 
 esteem, but wondrous mixed withal, and eke most 
 gorgeous in the petticoated division thereof. 
 
 One guest was there whose presence served to keep 
 the hearts of the Buncombe family from melting within 
 them in sorrow. It was an " equerry " of Royalty, 
 captured by Lord Callow, a meek creature to look upon, 
 but one who rejoiced in a fighting title. This being was 
 placed at table by Mr. Buncombe's left hand, with a slight 
 disregard of social rank, and so graciously did the host 
 behave to his guest that, before the toasts, of which 
 there were three, had been all spoken and swallowed to, 
 he began again to hope the day had not been spent in vain, 
 nor yet the Company's money. Who knew but what 
 the servant might yet lure the master into the toils, and 
 then ! Ah, what visions may not crowd a fancy stimu- 
 lated by champagne cup.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN. 
 
 Buoyed up upon this, not perhaps unfounded, hope, Mr. 
 Buncombe decided to persevere, and arranged for three 
 more entertainments in the course of the summer. His 
 pluck was all the more laudable that Lord Powderhorn 
 deserted him, meanly and basely deserted him, and 
 fled to the country after the second demonstration, insti- 
 gated doubtless by his countess. Lord Callow, however, 
 remained dawdling round Evangeline, and by the help 
 mainly of Lord Callow, and of the Hon. Captain 
 Brabazon Lambkin, a director of the company, nobly 
 descended for a generation and a half, no falling off was 
 visible in the quality of the guests, but the contrary. At 
 the third entertainment success so far crowned efforts as 
 to produce what may be called a royalty of the fifth 
 degree — a doubtful highness and his wife — whose 
 presence made the Buncombe family feel that they were 
 getting warm. 
 
 At the fourth and last entertainment the success was 
 greater still. Royalty in the third degree appeared in 
 duplicate — a haughty lady with a fine insolence of 
 manner, and great staring powers, accompanied by a 
 husband whose acquaintance with the English language
 
 282 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 was too limited to permit free conversation. In the 
 presence of these sacred beings Mr. Buncombe seemed a 
 man who had that morning left his back bone at home. 
 He was all bows and scrapes, and the wreathing smiles of 
 his wife played second to his own fixed grin of joy, in a 
 manner rarely surpassed here below. It was all "your 
 Royal Highness, yes," and " your Royal Highness, no," 
 and "would your Royal Highness condescend," and 
 " might your Royal Highness permit me the pleasure," — 
 beautiful to see and hear. The words, of course, came 
 from Mr, Buncombe for the most part. Mrs. Buncombe 
 contented herself with purrs and nods and ever rippling 
 smiles, for the terror of death had been put upon her 
 that morning to beware of her grammar. 
 
 " To think, my dear, that we should be going to 
 entertain princes of the blood," her husband had 
 repeatedly observed. 
 
 " And now, my dear, you must be careful of your 
 tongue, you know, to-day. Who knows what depends 
 upon the success of our little entertainment. Don't say 
 ' them things,' or ' ain't,' or ' not have nothing more,' or 
 'as how.' Try for the love of me and speak what little 
 you do say grammatically, and always remember to say 
 'your Royal Highness.' Won't you now, there's a 
 dear?" 
 
 For once Mrs. Buncombe took advice, and so well did 
 she observe her orders, that strange guests might have 
 taken away the impression that she knew as little of her 
 native tongue as the male royalty, whose heart she strove 
 to reach with her dimpling smirk.
 
 A GLIMPSE OF HE A VEN. 283 
 
 Surely labours of this kind were destined to attain 
 success. More must be coming than the gracious " I tank 
 you, sare. E-eh — , it vas ein luncheon sehr gut gekocht," 
 with which the male highness took leave of his host? 
 The fame of the feed was in all the daily papers, and 
 even drew a paragraph from the Golden Calf, which hinted 
 that the presence of " royalty," in the third degree, on 
 board a ship of the Excelsior Line might have some 
 connexion with a new arrangement of the divinely 
 appointed English government of India. Glories of this 
 kind were never going to end by leaving Timothy 
 Buncombe, Esq., M.P., plain " mister." 
 
 They should not have done so. They had no business 
 in this w r orld to do so. It was against all sense and 
 reason that they could do so. Nevertheless they did. 
 The debris of the great feast disappeared, the good ship 
 Hesperides departed on her first voyage, the " season " of 
 Society's moths and butterflies came to an end, the 
 town emptied, life became dull, parliament a nightmare 
 of the dog days," supply " a galloping burlesque, and Mr. 
 Buncombe was plain Mr. Buncombe still. I think if he 
 had had any hair left he would have extracted it from his 
 pain-racked head in a violent manner, when the fulness 
 of the iniquity of this shameless neglect and ingratitude 
 on the part of royalties was borne in upon him. Having 
 none worth mentioning, he bore his sorrows in what 
 looked like manly silence. Mrs. Buncombe was tragic 
 enough for two. 
 
 " Take me out of this horrid place," she cried. "I can't 
 abide London any more, the nasty dirty hole. Let's get
 
 284 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 away to the country and forget our disgusts. I hate the 
 thought of it. And that impudent wretch, Lady Powder- 
 horn, to run off and desert me so. It's like her nasty, 
 stinking pride," and so on. Let us hasten to draw a veil 
 over the harrowing scene.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THE SWEET SADNESS OF A SUMMER SEA. 
 
 In the dawdling seclusion of Scarborough, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Buncombe recovered heart and tone. They were 
 alone together once more in their lives. Timothy, junior, 
 had gone to shoot in Scotland, with Callow and one or 
 two other gentlemen of no occupation, he finding the 
 shooting ; and Evangeline had turned aside on her way 
 north, to visit her sister, the seed crusher's wife, on 
 whom troubles were looming. 
 
 So the parents were alone, and as they loafed on the 
 sands, or lolled about the seats on the cliff, their hearts 
 opened to each other in sweet converse after a little 
 time. At first the talk was jagged and brief, for the 
 wounds of the spirit were raw. 
 
 "We must find some other way of getting on, Mr. B.," 
 the sturdy matron was given to observe. "Them lunches 
 evidently ain't the thing." 
 
 "Yes! indeed, we must," her husband would answer 
 in a melancholy voice, and there the matter lay. 
 
 The wealth-compelling shipbroker's spirit was uneasy. 
 Politics ! what were politics to him any more, or the 
 sound of debate ? In all the clang and roar of party he 
 had taken his share, and for all he had obtained thereby,
 
 286 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 he said to himself, he might just as well have striven with 
 the melancholy ocean. A curse on politics. He thought 
 they meant titles and honours, and behold they were 
 but as a shrivelling, skin-cracking, death-dealing east 
 wind. 
 
 This was the first hue of the mind. It was not a just 
 one. Politics had done more for Mr. Buncombe than he 
 could then bring himself to admit. But that he was 
 able to write M.P. to his name, it is probable that his 
 Excelsior Company would never have floated with the 
 success it did. An M.P. may not in popular esteem 
 count as much in the company-making business as a 
 lord or "right honourable;" but it ranks higher than a 
 common baronet, or still commoner knight, and it is 
 thousands a year more valuable than mere J. P. 
 
 By the thaumaturgical power of these two letters, 
 Mr. Buncombe had obtained ready access to the most 
 exclusive of the party clubs, and the entree into gilded 
 drawing-rooms, to beam amid the glancing human foam 
 that floated there ; not to speak of the supreme honour 
 of passing now and then before the eyes of Royalty in 
 old-world livery. It was unjust, therefore, to despise 
 the gifts of the democracy and free institutions, as he 
 was then disposed to do. He might never have become 
 a second Silas Brown even had he not written himself down 
 M.P. ; but assuredly his income might have been docked 
 by some twenty-five or thirty thousand pounds a year. 
 Putting it on a vulgar money basis, the lower of these 
 sums equalled three or four times over all he had ever 
 spent on Oldhills, so that the return was at least three
 
 THE SWEET SADNESS. 287 
 
 hundred per cent, on his investment. Thus advantage- 
 ously through his M.P.ship, had he been able to convert 
 his liabilities into a fruitful asset. 
 
 When of unclouded mind, Mr. Buncombe's natural 
 love of justice must have made him ready to acknowledge 
 the advantages of his position. Just then, however, 
 his mind was darkened by disappointment, and all the 
 past was distorted by its fuliginous vapours. His wife 
 was much more clastic in temperament, and while she 
 grumbled, did not cease to ruminate on some new plan. 
 Royalty she felt, they both felt, was still their only hope. 
 It, in one or other of its presentments and manifestations, 
 is indeed always the hope of the politician neglected or 
 cast aside by his party — always unless the slighted one is 
 prepared to spend freely on party objects, which men 
 who feel themselves wronged rarely are. Something 
 may be got by " ratting," too, but Mr. Buncombe as yet 
 prided himself on his consistency. 
 
 Ratting, moreover, to be effective, can only be resorted 
 to now and then. Two men of the party had gone over 
 to the enemy already, in the course of last session, and 
 that was as many as said enemy could hope to be able to 
 reward at their next scramble. One of the two, it may 
 further be explained, was a creature so exceedingly 
 unclean of soul and speech, that his volt-face had 
 temporarily thrown unusual discredit on the practice. 
 
 Had he been willing, then, Mr. Buncombe felt that 
 there was no opportunity, nothing to be gained by joining 
 the outs. They had a large and increasing hungry horde 
 of their own to provide for.
 
 238 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 All that was left for him to do was to play the part of 
 the soured political follower. Such an one, if possessed 
 of money, spends it not upon party objects. If he opens 
 his pockets at all, it is to build almshouses, or to found a 
 free library or a mechanics' institute, or to present a 
 town with a park, as a trap for royal favour. All this 
 and much more will the sulky man do rather than 
 subscribe to procure seats for his ungrateful colleagues 
 of the Palaver Hall, and Mr. Buncombe was in this 
 respect neither better nor worse than his neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 As his mind cleared it reverted to his wife's suggestion 
 to buy a title, repudiated with scorn at the time it was 
 first advanced. After all, he began to ask himself, must 
 not a title be bought ? And then the idea would force itself 
 upon his notice that he had all the time been trying to 
 effect this very " deal," as Americans would say, but that 
 he had been bent upon doing it " on the cheap." That 
 was quite Mrs. Buncombe's view — shrewd little dumpling 
 that she was. 
 
 " I've been thinking," she remarked one morning, as 
 she sat watching her husband drawing a rough outline of 
 a coronet in the dusty path with his stick. It was an 
 hour or so after breakfast. Sombre and abstracted the 
 shipbroker had started to lead his wife down the zigzag 
 of the spa gardens on the south cliff to the sea shore. 
 But they, as by mutual consent, paused at the nearest 
 seat, and sat down beneath the grateful shade of the 
 rustling leaves — grateful already, for the day was hot. 
 Through openings in the swaying branches in front of
 
 THE SWEET SADNESS. 289 
 
 them they caught glimpses of the sea, shimmering in the 
 sunlight of a cloudless August day. 
 
 Where they sat they felt sheltered, and to minds con- 
 tent with themselves, the sounds that reached their ears 
 in their shaded wayside seat would have been soothing 
 and sweet as a message from a fairy world. Mingled 
 with the sighs of the light land breeze among the leaves 
 came the measured breaking of the waves on the sandy 
 beach, dominating the leafy music, and giving it a 
 cadence soft, calming, regular, like the breathing of the 
 spirit of nature at rest, and dreaming passionless dreams 
 in its sleep. It was a day of healing to the heart-weary, 
 and, insensible as Mr. Buncombe was to " mere scenery," - 
 as he would have said, he could not help feeling a sense 
 of grateful ease of mind steal over him. There was less 
 irritability lodged in his mind, and he listened to his wife 
 without his usual half-deprecating, half-mocking smile 
 when she took up her parable. 
 
 " I've been thinking," said she, " and I don't see as we 
 have gone the right way to work. You should have 
 spent a lot more money, Mr. B." 
 
 " Perhaps I ought to, but I didn't feel that I could 
 afford it." 
 
 " Nonsense, Mr. B., what's ten or twenty thousand 
 pounds to a man like you. We'd never miss it, I'm sure, 
 and I would give that twice over to be 'my lady' any day." 
 
 " Well, well, my dear, that may be all very true, but I 
 don't see how I'm to lay the money out now. I'm not 
 going to give it to those blackguards of ministers. I'll see 
 them at Jericho first."
 
 290 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " But couldn't you get yourself made Lord Mayor of 
 London, now, Mr. B. I see as all Lord Mayors get 
 titles, and Lady Mayoresses go to see the Queen at 
 Court. That wouldn't cost you so much, would it now." 
 
 " Bosh, my dear," but he said " bosh " without im- 
 patience. " You don't understand. I couldn't be Lord 
 Mayor of London right away if I tried. You've got to 
 go through a regular course, and get elected an alderman, 
 and then wait your turn. I might be dead before my 
 ■chance came, even if I managed to get the city voters 
 to elect me. No, that won't do." 
 
 Little debates of this kind became more frequent as 
 the days slipped by, and they usually ended in the dis- 
 comfiture of Mrs. Buncombe. Defeat, however, only 
 quickened her ardour, and made her read and rack her 
 brains for ideas. Her zeal and perseverance bore fruit 
 at last.
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 W OMAN'S W IT WINS. 
 
 " I say, Pappy,'' she exclaimed at breakfast, about a 
 week after the Lord Mayorship proposition had been 
 ignominiously rejected. " I say, Pappy," and the Pappy 
 betokened a return to old plebeian familiarities ; " I've 
 got an idea at last. Why don't you present the people 
 of Berborough with a public park ? " 
 
 " Eh, what, my dear ? God bless my soul and body, 
 what next, I wonder ? You must be mad, surely. 
 Where have I the means of presenting Berborough 
 with a public park ? " and Mr. Buncombe laid down 
 his fork, oblivious of the bit of bacon on the point of it. 
 
 " There's that land you are always growling about, 
 you know," proceeded his wife, "the land by the river 
 as you bought ever so long ago, and as you thought the 
 docks people would have wanted, but didn't. Now, I 
 say, give 'em that for a park." 
 
 " What on earth put that notion into your head ? " 
 demanded Mr. Buncombe, turning half round on his 
 seat to stare at his wife in wide-eyed amazement. 
 
 "Well, you see, I keep a-thinking and a-thinking, and 
 reading the papers, and I've noticed as how the men as 
 give parks mostly get titles to themselves. Then it
 
 292 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 struck me as you might just as well give 'cm this bit of 
 land. You know you always say it'll never be no good 
 to you." 
 
 " But, God bless my soul, Penny, woman, it's a long 
 flat bit of ground, half marsh, half sand. The Berborians 
 wouldn't have it at a gift. It would cost more than it is 
 worth twice over to reclaim it." 
 
 "Oh, but I've thought of that too, Pappy, and I read 
 in the paper only this morning as how a man named 
 Hoggins, Alderman Hoggins it was, of-— of — I don't 
 remember the place — Slopperton, I fancy ; but it don't 
 matter. I know his name was Alderman Hoggins, and 
 he has been made a knight or a baronet, or something as 
 makes him Sir Alderman Hoggins, all because of a few 
 acres of land he gave his town for a park. The paper 
 was a-sneering at him, and said as how it was two for 
 himself and one for the town, and that was what put the 
 idea in my head that you might do as much by your 
 land, and kill two birds with one stone." 
 
 " I don't follow you, my dear. What was it this 
 alderman is said to have done?" 
 
 " He drained the land, they say, and made drives 
 through it, and laid out nice streets all round it, where 
 people can build villas with a nice view over the park. 
 But I'll fetch the paper and you can read it for yourself," 
 and away Mrs. Buncombe trotted up stairs to her 
 bedroom, whence she presently returned with the news- 
 paper in her hand. 
 
 Her husband took it with some eagerness, and read 
 slowly and meditatingly the paragraph his wife pointed
 
 WOMAN'S WIT WINS. 293 
 
 out to him. When he had finished he dropped the 
 paper on his knees and sat pondering, forgetful of his 
 coffee and toast. 
 
 " My dear," he said at length, " I believe you are right. 
 That's a good idea of yours, not half bad at all, worth 
 thinking about, in fact. Really now, Penny, my dear, 
 you are a cleverer woman than I took you for, and I 
 believe it can be done. In fact, it's first rate, and we 
 may kill three birds with it, eh, my dear?" and the cold 
 stiff man actually gave his wife's hand an affectionate 
 squeeze across the angle of the table. 
 
 The fat little woman was ready to dissolve with 
 pleasure and self-congratulation. 
 
 "Ah, I always thought you would come to appreciate 
 me some day, Pappy," she exclaimed, with a giggle 
 quite girlish, which puckered up her knobby red cheeks, 
 hid her eyes and made her little dot of a nose look 
 like the end of a miniature walnut. 
 
 But her husband's exhibition of incipient effusiveness 
 was already over, and he took no notice of this demon- 
 stration. His mind was following up his wife's suggestion, 
 and measuring its value. For the space of I will not 
 absolutely say how many minutes he sat silent, summing 
 the matter up. And as he thought, his features gradually 
 assumed a look of cheerfulness. 
 
 'Yes, it will do, my dear," he said at the close of his 
 mental review. " Capital, in fact. Upon my soul, 
 Penny, I can't think what possessed me, never to think 
 of that before. Eh, little woman ! and to think the idea 
 should have first occurred to you. Why, do you know, I
 
 294 SJR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 believe I might have saved all that money I spent at the 
 last election on my seat for Oldhills, if I had only done 
 as you now suggest. Gad, it's first rate, my dear, and 
 you're a regular little brick. By making part of that land 
 a park I believe I'll not only secure the title you are so 
 anxious for, but a safe seat for Berborough, as well as 
 perhaps a good return on what I have long considered 
 a very bad investment." 
 
 Mrs. Buncombe listened and smirked and purred her 
 satisfaction, till feeders at neighbouring tables, had they 
 cared to look, might have taken her for a very experienced 
 widow receiving propositions for yet another match. 
 Her husband's delight equalled her own, and when they 
 strolled into the town later in the day, he insisted on 
 marking his approval of her conduct by the present of a 
 massive gold bracelet. 
 
 His mind once made up, Mr. Buncombe proceeded to 
 business with his accustomed energy, and in the course 
 of the following winter his park was made. It formed a 
 long strip of ground on the north bank of the Berborough 
 estuary, about sixty acres in extent, bounded on the 
 landward side by a broad sweeping drive, behind which 
 lay a ribbon of ground, from thirty to ninety feet broad, 
 which, huge boards informed the public, was to be let in 
 plots on building lease. The park itself was drained and 
 artistically laid out with shrub-covered mounds, winding 
 pathways, a cricket ground and tennis lawns. 
 
 At first the Berborians wondered what this digging 
 and planting and sewer and street laying meant, and 
 could make nothing of it, for Mr. Buncombe kept his
 
 WOMAN'S WIT WINS. 295 
 
 own counsel, until the work was nearly completed. Most 
 of the citizens did not even know that this barren waste 
 was his, until the contractor to whom the work was let 
 made the fact public. Then, when the possible object 
 of this expenditure of capital began to be suspected, 
 there were not wanting cavillers and envious people who 
 gave it as their opinion that " Old Buncombe must be up 
 to some deep game." These, however, were creatures 
 who did not require pretexts for hating the successful 
 shipbroker and M.P. Rivals of his in business some of 
 them had been once on a time, but they had long ago 
 fallen behind him, and the higher he soared the more they 
 affected to be shocked at his character. 
 
 All the meanness of such folk counted as nothing with 
 the multitude. When in due time Mr. Buncombe sent a 
 letter to the mayor of the town, intimating that he had 
 prepared a little present for his beloved native city, 
 "where so many happy days had been spent, and where 
 the foundations of his fortune had been laid," the 
 enthusiasm of the common people overbalanced every 
 other feeling. The local press exhausted its vocabulary 
 in sounding the praises of the " generous, noble hearted 
 donor," and with one acclaim it was decided that he 
 should have a public reception of the grandest, at the 
 expense of the ratepayers, on the day of the opening and 
 dedicating ceremony. It was also decided that the 
 pleasure ground should be known for all future time as 
 " Buncombe Park." 
 
 One thing only was wanting. The people of Ber- 
 borough had overlooked it in their first hour of delight,
 
 296 SI A' TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 but Mr. Buncombe, nay, Mr. and Mrs. Buncombe had not. 
 At the earliest opportunity afforded him by the proposal 
 to hold high revel on the day when the park was to pass 
 into the custody of the corporation, Mr. Buncombe 
 had hinted softly, and by the way, as it were, to the 
 mayor, that it might be an excellent thing to get a 
 royalty of some sort to " open " it. 
 
 " Yes, certainly, just the very thing," the mayor had 
 written back, adding, however, the suggestion that Mr. 
 Buncombe himself should send the invitation. 
 
 Mr. Buncombe did not see this at all, and posted off to 
 Berborough to interview the mayor on the subject. It 
 was so much better to do that than to write letters. 
 The two great men soon came to an understanding. 
 Both coveted honours ; both deprecated any self-seeking, 
 and each saw through the other's game. But it was im- 
 possible for Mr. Mayor Pankhurst to deny the force of 
 the park donor's argument. Mr. Buncombe did not wish 
 to approach royalty directly again, because his recent 
 disappointments had left a soreness. That was his true 
 reason for hanging back, but the one he gave to the 
 mayor was that it would be much more appropriate 
 cither for that functionary to send the invitation to 
 royalty direct, or to get the senior member for the 
 borough to do it in the name of the town itself. 
 
 As finally arranged, the mayor sent the invitation 
 through the two borough members, and urged them 
 privately to do their best to procure a favourable reply. 
 
 I am not sure that this was good tactics, still less sure 
 that the members appealed to felt hotly zealous to
 
 WOMAN'S WIT WINS. 297 
 
 further the aims of Messrs. Buncombe and Pankhurst. 
 They did, however, make the wishes of these men, or, 
 rather, the wishes of the borough, as it was phrased, 
 known by devious channels to royal minds, and the 
 result was a qualified success. No male of the necessary 
 quality could come. One was in the wars, with the 
 baggage of a fighting force ; one was at sea, one on the 
 continent, visiting his Westphalian or other relations. 
 It was most unfortunate, and might have been disastrous 
 but that there were several females of unadulterated 
 royal blood available. After a little persuasion one of 
 these consented to grace the ceremony with her presence 
 for an hour on the auspicious day. This was not what 
 the mayor and Mr. Buncombe had hoped for, but it was 
 better than nothing. The golden key ordered for the 
 park gate, and as a perquisite to the functioning royalty, 
 would not be entirely money wasted. 
 
 In due performance of the pledge given, the female 
 royalty came, attended by a priest, a husband, and a 
 select squad of male and female toad-eaters, and great 
 was the joy of Berborough. Flags waved from every 
 window on that drizzly May morning, brass bands 
 cracked men's car drums with their lusty braying, 
 volunteers marched, and nobly courted their death of 
 cold in the cast wind ; civic dignitaries, in robes and 
 chains worthy of a cathedral service of the first order, 
 read addresses, bowed the knee, bared the head, and 
 grovelled like slaves before the presence of a stoutish, 
 heavy-featured female in fur and feathers, and proud Mrs. 
 Buncombe, all purple and jewels, handed over the golden
 
 298 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 key on an embroidered velvet cushion, while the crowds 
 shouted as if they were bidding welcome to a new 
 Messiah, riding, not on an ass, but resplendent in a 
 carriage and four. 
 
 In the evening the inhabitants of the workhouse had a 
 supper of beef and potatoes at Mr. Buncombe's expense. 
 This emphasised his love for the common folk, so much 
 exalted that day, and taught the world at large that the 
 fountain of all food-giving human bounty lies fast by the 
 British Throne ! 
 
 Royalty and its train gleamed an hour before men's 
 eyes, and then, it is to be presumed, went home happy. 
 The volume of huzzas was at any rate of gratifying 
 strength, and the throne, all know, will stand for ever, if 
 the breath of the people do but encompass it with the 
 due amount of hoarse roaring on all public occasions.
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE. 
 
 At last zeal and devotion met fitting reward. Common 
 mortals would have thought so, at least, but Mr. Bun- 
 combe being uncommon, was not satisfied. Royalty had 
 acknowledged his claims to honour at its hands, but a 
 malign ministry made the honour small. 
 
 " Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer 
 upon you the honour of — Knighthood," an under- 
 strapper of the Prime Minister's had written, and, for the 
 space of a week after the receipt of this communication, 
 Mr., or, as we must now call him, Sir Timothy Bun- 
 combe, was tempestuous. It was dangerous to approach 
 him, and, as for attempting to congratulate him upon the 
 glory which had fallen on his shoulders, it would have 
 pleased him better, I verily believe, if his friends had 
 offered to fight him. He swore, in private, at the 
 ministry, and appeared to think that a scurvy trick 
 had been played upon him. 
 
 " In fact, it's next thing to a disgrace," he told his 
 assembled family, when the letter had been read. 
 
 "But I'll be 'my lady,' won't I, Mr. B. ?" remarked his 
 tender better half. 
 
 "Don't say Mr. B. anymore ma," remarked the son
 
 J 
 
 oo SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE, 
 
 and heir. " You must call the Guv'nor ' Sir Timothy/ 
 now, you know." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, all of you," cried the new knight 
 with a scowl. " I say this letter is a disgrace after what 
 I have done for the party. But I know whom to thank 
 for it. That old black-my-boots, sneaking scoundrel, 
 Cravenmore, the patronage secretary, has been and 
 served me this dirty trick. He always was a mean 
 hound, and bore me no good will. But I'll unmask him 
 yet, the sweep that he is, see if I don't." 
 
 " But you don't mean to say ' no thank you,' do you, 
 now, Pappy?" exclaimed Mrs. — I beg pardon, Lady- 
 Buncombe in a wheedling voice. 
 
 " Ton my soul and body, I've a great mind to. It 
 would serve the devils right. Really, I've a great mind to." 
 
 " Oh, no, you won't, though," chimed wife, and 
 daughter, and son, in chorus. " You'll do nothing of the 
 sort, father," Timothy, junior, proceeded. " Why, damn 
 it, you know, that would be a beastly shame, by Jupiter 
 it would. Those fellows would only laugh at you for 
 being such a confounded ninny, don't you know. I 
 wouldn't give them the chance, if I were you ; a title's a 
 title, any way — always something gained, the first step, 
 you know. I know lots of fellows whose guv'nors were 
 only knights to begin with who are now baronets or 
 peers. I'd see those skunks in kingdom c<">me before I 
 let them know what I felt about their cussed spite, blest 
 if I wouldn't." 
 
 These were words of wisdom, the force of which it was 
 impossible that the new knight should not feel even in
 
 DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE. 301 
 
 the midst of his wrath, and as the young hopeful was 
 powerfully backed by his mother, the dispute ended in 
 the despatch of a gracious reply, full of " humble duty," 
 "sense of the great honour conferred," and so forth. 
 
 This occurred on a Tuesday, and for the rest of that 
 week Sir Timothy seemed to be more galled than 
 glorified by his new dignity. " Only a knight," his 
 whole attitude seemed continually to cry " only a knight," 
 and he displayed a sulky carelessness about the way 
 people addressed him, which hurt his wife's feelings above 
 everything. Servants were constantly lapsing in their 
 mode of addressing her, and saying " yes " and " no," or 
 " yes ma'am " and " no ma'am " instead of " my lady " 
 this and that. 
 
 She scolded these careless, unworthy creatures with all 
 the length of her tongue, and was most careful always to 
 address her husband as " Sir Timothy," in public ; but the 
 domestics were either too wilful or too stupid to take the 
 hint. So when the Sunday came round, the excellent 
 little woman decided to bring the subject forward in 
 family conclave after dinner, in order to induce her lord 
 and master to address an admonition to the servants that 
 night at family prayers. The Buncombe family always 
 had prayers on Sunday nights when the head of the 
 house was at home. Formerly prayers had been read 
 daily, night and morning, but as the earthly grandeur of 
 the now quasi-noble shipbroker increased, superstitious 
 practices of this sort were put in the background, and 
 might have been discontinued altogether but for the con- 
 sideration due to intimate matrimonial relations with the
 
 302 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 church. A man who had a daughter wedded to fifteen 
 hundred a year, plus tithes and burial fees and a 
 genuflecting biped in embroidered magician's togas, 
 could not be supposed guilty of outward contempt for all 
 forms of religion. 
 
 Prayers then were read before the assembled domestics 
 of the Buncombe household on Sundaynights,and mindful 
 of this orderly custom, Lady Buncombe urged her 
 husband to seize the opportunity this habit afforded to 
 address them on their behaviour. Sir Timothy was a 
 little reluctant at first to entertain the proposal. 
 
 " But you must, Pappy dear," his wife wheedled, " I'm 
 sure you don't want them vulgar wretches to be treating 
 me disrespectful as they have been doing. Only this 
 very morning I had words with my maid, because she 
 kept saying 'yes'm ' and 'very well'm' all the time she was 
 a-doing my back hair. I said to her, says I, ' Mary, my 
 dear, you mustn't go on so. I ain't a ma'am no more ! ' 
 ' Lawks,' says she, as pert as a parrot, ' what be you, 
 ma'am,' says she. ' I'm my lady, ' says I, as dignified 
 as I could, and what do you think ? the girl just sniggered 
 and said, ' Oh, lawks, I'm sure'm, I alius forgets.' That 
 put me in a rage, and I scolded her till I was all of a 
 tremble and not fit to go to church. I'm sure I never 
 heard a word of the sermon all the time for thinking 
 on it." Here the good lady proceeded to wipe tears from 
 the corners of her eyes, and her husband struck in with a — 
 
 " Humph ! But what the devil am I to say to them, 
 my dear." Sir Timothy took a good many more 
 liberties with the devil and other nondescript deities —
 
 DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE. 303 
 
 Jove, Jingo, Gad and the like — since his new honours had 
 fallen on his shoulders. Probably he considered this 
 free and easy mode of speech to be a mark of high 
 breeding. 
 
 " Say ! Why tell 'em as how they've got to call you ' Sir 
 Timothy,' and me ' my lady.' You can lead up to it, 
 you know, by reading a prayer about doing our duty in 
 our station, and paying respect to them as is above us in 
 authority. There's one in the book somewhere, I know." 
 
 " Humph ! " exclaimed Sir Timothy again, in a tone 
 which seemed to intimate that he supposed he must, but 
 didn't at all like the job. 
 
 To a husband, however, obedience is generally the 
 better part of discretion, and knowing this by long 
 experience, Sir Timothy judged it prudent that night to 
 carry out his wife's commands. When, therefore, the 
 servants rose to file out of the room at the sound of the 
 final "Amen," he cried in a tone altogether distinct 
 from that in which he had drawled the words of prayer : 
 " Wait a moment, my good people, I wish to say a 
 word to you ? " 
 
 The servants glanced at each other and at the speaker, 
 half uneasily, and silently seated themselves again. 
 
 " ^ly good friends," resumed Sir Timothy, when 
 stillness had again fallen on the domestics ; "for you are 
 all our good friends, I hope — faithful according to your 
 stations in life. You are aware, of course, of the eh — 
 high honour which our Gracious Sovereign has been 
 pleased to bestow upon my unworthy self. She has 
 lifted me by her favour out of the ranks of the common
 
 304 SIR TIMOTHY BUN COM BE. 
 
 people as it were, and placed me amongst the nobles of 
 the land. It's a great honour, for which I need hardly 
 say to you that I am profoundly grateful. But 
 it is like all honours, it brings its duties and responsi- 
 bilities. To me it conveys the order, as it were, to live 
 worthy of a loftier station ; and to you, my good friends, 
 it brings the duty of changing the mode in which you 
 address Lady Buncombe here and myself," and he waved 
 his hand gracefully towards his wife. " As you can 
 understand, I do not myself care by what name I am 
 called. Timothy Buncombe I am, and, please God, 
 plain Timothy Buncombe will do for me to the end. At 
 the same time, as you will no doubt quite understand, both 
 Lady Buncombe here and myself would feel that we 
 were not doing our duty towards our Gracious Sovereign, 
 whom God long preserve, were we to allow the titles of 
 honour she has bestowed on us to be in any way slighted. 
 Now my lady tells me that some among you do not 
 seem yet quite to recognise this important consideration. 
 You still address her as ma'am, and perhaps, for aught I 
 know — I can't say I have noticed it much — you address 
 me with a plain ' sir,' just as usual. It is quite natural 
 you should, my good friends, quite natural — I am not 
 blaming you at all. I have not the least wish to do so. 
 But — eh, at the same time, you know — eh, it is just as 
 well you should understand what form of address Her 
 Gracious Majesty has prescribed for people in our 
 station, and, I may say, expects in the circumstances. 
 Pray understand that I don't complain. Far from it ; 
 but — eh, it is just as well — eh — the fact is that you ought
 
 DIG NIT Y AND IMP UDENCE. 305 
 
 always now to address Lady Buncombe here, not with 
 'ma'am,' but with ' my lady." You must say ' Yes, my 
 lad}';' 'if you please, my lady;' 'shall I do so-and-so, 
 my lady ; ' always ' my lady,' recollect. It is an indica- 
 tion of lack of respect to do otherwise, which I'm afraid 
 it may be impossible for my lady and me to overlook, if 
 you persist after this in saying 'yes, ma'am,' and 'no, 
 ma'am.' As for myself, it follows, of course, that I 
 should always be addressed as ' Sir Timothy.' Not that 
 I care, you know, but you, eh — can see, of course, 
 that it would be impossible for me to retain about me 
 servants whose mode of address would betray to my 
 friends that my household was wanting in respect for 
 Her Majesty, through their way of speaking to me. 
 Therefore, remember it is 'my lady,' and 'Sir Timothy,' 
 henceforth, and see that none of you forget what is right 
 and proper. Now you may go. Good night ! " 
 
 Silently, and with faces as expressionless as masks, 
 the group of domestics rose and filed out of the room ; 
 twinkling eyes alone betraying emotions dangerously 
 akin to mirth in one or two cases. What they said 
 and did, and how Lady Buncombe's maid, Mary, 
 laughed till her nose bled, down in the housekeeper's 
 room, arc matters which do not concern this history. 
 
 Upstairs, when left to themselves, Lady Buncombe 
 congratulated her husband on his speech. " It was just 
 the very thing, my dear Pappy,'' she said ; "and so nice 
 and smooth like." 
 
 ''Ah, I thought it too smooth, by Jove," remarked 
 Timothy, junior. "I'd have given it 'em hot, had I had 
 
 U
 
 jo6 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 to do it, for their devilish impudence, and serve 'em right 
 too. I'll lay five to one the undcrfootman and three of 
 the maids were laughing at you all the time, dad." 
 
 "Do you say so," exclaimed the orator. "Damn it, 
 if I thought that I would bundle them out of the house, 
 neck and crop." 
 
 " Oh, no, they didn't ; and you won't, Pappy," observed 
 Lady Buncombe. " It will be all right, never fear. I 
 know the maids. They may snigger and laugh, because 
 they are giddy young monkeys ; but they won't go 
 agin your orders, never fear. And I don't want new 
 servants just now with the season a-coming on. They'd 
 worrit me to death, they would." And so the matter 
 rested.
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 A VOW UPON PASTEBOARD. 
 
 Were I morally inclined what a beautiful homily I 
 could now lay before the reader on the vanity of human 
 wishes. Xo glory without affliction, a title not enjoyable 
 without chagrin ; a Knight and his Dame put out of 
 sorts by their very domestics. There you have a theme 
 capable of filling many pages, and I shall be delighted 
 if somebody else fills them in somebody else's book. 
 
 I am merely a historian, and as a historian I am 
 compelled to disclose the melancholy fact that the 
 sorrows and troubles ot the great Buncombe family over 
 their title and its duties and privileges, did not end with 
 their domestics. These were effectually brought to a 
 state of superficial order and obedience by Sir Timothy's 
 admonition, as his wife said they would be; but the first 
 drawing room of majesty subsequent to the receipt of 
 the new dignity was no sooner announced than the 
 vexed question of presentation at Court came im- 
 mediately to the fore. 
 
 " I must be presented now I'm Lady Buncombe," Sir 
 Timothy's better half had declared, and there was no 
 denying the force of the argument. But to admit that 
 in no way conduced to bring my lady a step nearer the
 
 308 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 performance of this wonder-working ceremony. The 
 question, " Who will present Lady Buncombe to majesty 
 or majesty's deputy," was as difficult to settle as before, 
 for a wicked, fashionable world, crooked of heart, and 
 venomous of tongue, refused to consider Penelope 
 Drabble as Lady Buncombe, one whit more aristocratic 
 or refined than she had been as plain " Mrs." 
 
 The wicked human froth of Belgravia and Mayfair, on 
 the contrary, took increased pleasure in retailing stories 
 illustrative of the oddities of word and deed uttered and 
 performed by the new accession to the ranks of the 
 gentry. Lady Powdcrhorn herself, a woman whose 
 husband lay under many pecuniary obligations to Sir 
 Timothy, of which she reaped her share of the benefit, took 
 malign delight in showing her friends a certain visiting 
 card whereon the words " Lady Penelope Buncombe " 
 were beautifully engraved. This card she declared had 
 been left at her door by the new knightess, on her return 
 to town, and conveyed to her the first intimation she had 
 received that Sir Timothy Buncombe had married an 
 earl's daughter. 
 
 Unhappily, Lady Buncombe had unquestionably com- 
 mitted this mistake in her innocence of heart, but it had 
 been discovered by her husband or daughter, and the 
 cards destroyed before a dozen of them had passed into 
 circulation. Of that dozen, unfortunately, Lady Powder- 
 horn received one, and, with a malice most reprehensible, 
 the proud peeress made the most of it. For the best part 
 of a fortnight this card was the delight of her mornings 
 and her evenings' sweetest joy.
 
 A VOW UPON PASTEBOARD. 309 
 
 " She went too far with it though, at last ; when she 
 chaffed Timothy Buncombe, junior, at one of her 
 receptions, publicly chaffed him in the presence of a 
 crowd. The young man was too feeble, or too under- 
 bred shall we say ? to retort upon her ladyship as he 
 might have done, but he bottled up a good deal of wrath 
 in his bosom, and carried it home to his father. 
 
 " I say, Guv'ner," he remarked next morning at 
 breakfast, " Can't you stop that wretch Lady Powder- 
 horn's tongue ? D' you know she had the cheek to 
 laugh at the mumsy there in public, last night. I was 
 never so much fiummaxed in all my born days, by the 
 Lord Harry. You should have seen how her tribe 
 sniggered when she remarked to me, that she supposed 
 she ought to congratulate me on having discovered 
 high connexions. Callow himself grinned all over his 
 face, the dirty little weed that he is." 
 
 " Eh, what, God bless my soul and body, Tim, you 
 don't mean to say that Lady Powderhorn made game of 
 your mother, before your face." 
 
 " Of course I do, and mighty uncomfortable she made 
 me, I can tell you." 
 
 "And didn't you stick up for your family, sir? Gad, 
 Pd have given it her hot." 
 
 "You're welcome to do it, then. I'm blest if Pm going 
 to get up a wordy cock-shy with a woman, and a peeress, 
 too. She has got a devilish sight too sharp a tongue 
 for me, that shcmale." 
 
 " Oh, Tim," groaned his mother. "I may be a peeress, 
 too, some day, and I think you might have said a good
 
 3 1 o SIR TIMO TH Y B UN COM BE. 
 
 word for your mother, considering- all as I've done for 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, the deuce, mother, what could I say ? You 
 know you've been and gone and made an ass of yourself 
 with that blasted card. You couldn't expect me to deny 
 that, could you ? If you will play the fool, it seems to 
 me you must take the consequences," answered Timothy. 
 
 "Just so, just so," interrupted his father, "most duti- 
 fully spoken, my son. It's a pity the servants are not 
 here to see how respectful you are to your mother. It 
 isn't worth your while to stand up for her, of course not." 
 
 " Oh, hang it all, now, dad ; you know I didn't mean 
 that. What's the use of going on at a fellow like that?" 
 
 "No use at all, I admit. My son is a gilded youth; 
 born with a silver spoon in his mouth, don't you know ; 
 can't be expected to stick up for his mean progenitors," 
 Sir Timothy went on, venting his chagrin on his innocent 
 boy, because it was useless to do so on the mother. 
 
 The chided son and heir made no further answer 
 beyond thrusting his hands down to the bottom of his 
 trousers pockets, and looking sulky. His mother 
 blubbered and wiped eyes already inflamed with the 
 rubbing of her handkerchief. Evangeline, her breakfast 
 finished, sat with her head down, manufacturing bread 
 pellets out of the crumbs on the table. Silence, broken 
 by sniffs and muffled sobs, fell on the group. 
 
 Presently Sir Timothy roused himself, and getting to 
 his feet, exclaimed, "Devil take me if I'll stand this sort 
 of thing any longer. I'll speak to old Powderhorn about 
 it this very day, and if that malicious fool of a countess
 
 A VOW UPON PA S TEBOA RD. 311 
 
 of his won't consent to present you at Court, my dear, I'll 
 make it hot for 'em. Oh, yes, I'll let 'em know which 
 side their bread is buttered on, never fear. Impudent,, 
 gambling', penniless gipsy that she is ;" and with that the 
 knight hurried from the room on his way to the city. 
 
 Parliament was sitting at this time, but Sir Timothy 
 rarely put in an appearance there now. He had no' 
 longer an interest in politics. They were nothing to him 
 compared with the hunt and toil after social advancement,, 
 and unless he made up his mind to join that American land 
 jobbing syndicate which Powderhorn and a few needy- 
 kindred spirits were organising, in which case the lobby 
 of the House might be a convenient spot for catching 
 subscribers, it was not probable that he would be found 
 at a dozrn divisions in the course of the current session, 
 Oldhills he had made up his mind should see the colour 
 of no more of his money, so it was unnecessary for him to 
 be particular. Politics, in short, were, in his own 
 phraseology, " bosh," but he was determined that his 
 wife should now go to the Queen's drawing room come 
 what would. The dignity of knighthood made that 
 step perfectly indispensable.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 A NEW "COMMISSION" BUSINESS. 
 
 " Oil, by the by, Powdcrhorn, I want a word with you." 
 said Sir Timothy that same afternoon, as the directors of 
 the Excelsior Company were rising to go their several 
 ways, after consuming the sumptuous lunch provided for 
 them three times a week out of working expenses. 
 
 " All right," said my lord, turning back from the door 
 and sitting down again. Powderhorn was a tall, heavy 
 man, not ill favoured but for the hungry, hunted look of 
 the eyes, and the perfectly selfish expression of the mouth. 
 Meeting him in the street you might have mistaken him 
 according as his duns were at his heels or not, either for 
 a bankrupt fleeing from his creditors, or for an auctioneer 
 on the watch for bids. In dress he was careless after 
 an elaborate style which betrayed the old Dandy, and 
 amid all his sorrows and impecuniosities he had never 
 fallen so low as to be compelled to pawn the massive 
 watch chain at which he ostentatiously dangled the gold 
 passes of a railway director. That chain with its ap- 
 pendages, his crimson necktie, and his large fishy eyes, 
 were the most conspicuous points about him. Nay, I 
 forgot, he was also knock-kneed — a physical characteristic 
 which moralists say accounts for many things. Seating
 
 A NEW "COMMISSION" BUSINESS. 313 
 
 himself near the great manager, " What is it ?" he 
 demanded in an abrupt way, such as he might use to an 
 unfortunate creditor. " Any new game on ? You are not 
 going to ask me to pay my debts, are you, Buncombe, 
 because I can't, you know ; devilish sorry, but I can't." 
 This last remark was probably drawn out by the 
 preoccupied, not to say threatening look on the knight's 
 face. 
 
 " No, no, I was not thinking about your debts," Sir 
 Timothy answered. " It would do me no good if I did. 
 Besides, we have settled all that, you know, unless, of 
 course, Lady Powderhorn wants to break off the match." 
 
 " Whew ! " whistled his lordship, half to himself. 
 " Her ladyship has been at her tricks again, has she ; 
 then I'm in for it. What, in the name of Moses and 
 Aaron and the whole tribe of Jews, has Lady Powderhorn 
 been up to now," he demanded in a louder tone. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, nothing at all ; only amusing herself in 
 a mixed company, at the expense of my wife and son ; 
 that's nothing, of course," sneered the knight, the scowl 
 on his face deepening. 
 
 " Curse her, for a sharp tongued fool," ejaculated the 
 earl. " But I say, Buncombe, you are not going to mind 
 that, are you. Damn it, you know very well I never back 
 my wife up in these escapades, and you are not going to 
 visit her sins on my head, I trust." 
 
 " Not if you can make her obey you so far as to present 
 Lady Buncombe at court," answered Sir Timothy, coming 
 brusquely to the point. " If you can't do that the sooner 
 we square up and part company the better."
 
 3 1 4 SIR TIMO 777 Y B UN COM BE. 
 
 " Well, Buncombe, I have again and again tried to 
 get her ladyship to do that same, and you know how 
 I have succeeded. For the life of me I cannot see why 
 she shouldn't yield on this, to me, trifling affair, but 
 women are as obstinate as pigs when they take a notion 
 in their heads, and I really can't promise. I'll have 
 another try to please you, if you like, but it will only 
 produce a row, I know. My wife has some confounded 
 prejudice or other against yours, and that's the truth. 
 You needn't cut up rough over what I can't alter." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know. No one knows better than I do. 
 My wife is a good woman, a very good woman in her 
 way, Lord Powderhorn ; but there's no denying the fact 
 that I made rather a mistake in marrying her. I was 
 young and ignorant of the world then, and made a 
 mesalliance, having no parents to advise me. I am 
 perfectly willing to admit all that ; but though she is a 
 bit underbred and ignorant, she isn't a fool, Lady 
 Buncombe isn't, and with a little coaching can be trusted 
 to go through the ceremony as well as the greatest lady 
 of the land." 
 
 " I don't doubt it for one moment, my dear fellow. In 
 fact I have often said as much to my wife, but all to no 
 purpose ; and to tell you the truth, I'm sick of the job," 
 said the peer peevishly. 
 
 " Humph, a good deal hangs on it though, Lord 
 Powderhorn. Not to speak of the money transactions 
 between us already, there is that match between your 
 son Callow and my Eva. You can scarcely expect 
 that my family will let me send my youngest and
 
 A NEW "COMMISSION" BUSINESS. 315 
 
 best loved child into a family by whom she would be 
 despised." 
 
 " Oh, but, my dear Sir Timothy, that is to be quite a 
 love match, you know. Callow is clean floored by your 
 daughter, and whatever his mother might say or do, they 
 would be all right." 
 
 " I'm not so sure of that, by Gad. Besides, Eva is a 
 proud girl, not at all like her mother. She takes after 
 my family, and is high spirited and generous. It's just 
 as likely as not that she will refuse Callow altogether, 
 whether she loves him or not, if she finds her mother 
 made game of, as she was at Lady Powderhorn's reception 
 last night. She was in a rage over it this morning, I 
 know." 
 
 " Curse it, no. It shan't come to that, I give you my 
 word of honour, it shan't. I will overcome my wife's 
 scruples somehow. She must not be allowed to play 
 Hell and Tommy with our plans and family interests in 
 this fashion. And yet, for the life of me I cannot tell how 
 I'm to bring her round." 
 
 " Could we not bribe her somehow ? " asked Sir 
 Timothy, with a shrewd guess at the cause of the peer's 
 hesitation. 
 
 " Bribe her ? How do you mean ? Do you suppose 
 my wife would take a fee for doing the needful to yours? 
 Rather gross that, I fancy." 
 
 " Nonsense, Powderhorn, you needn't flare up over a 
 mere phrase. I didn't mean that I should strike a 
 bargain with Lady Powderhorn, so much cash for so 
 much work. Not at all. What I rather implied was
 
 3 1 6 SIR TIMO THY B UN COM BE. 
 
 whether I couldn't assist you to smooth over any small 
 financial difficulties she might have. If our families arc 
 to be united, you know, I may just as well do a little in 
 that way now as later. There's no social law against a 
 husband bribing his wife. Eh, Powderhorn ? That I 
 should bribe your wife ; God bless my soul, no." 
 
 " Ah, that's it, is it ? Demme, that's not a bad idea, 
 Buncombe/' answered the peer, all gloom vanishing from 
 his countenance. " I never thought of that " — he had 
 been thinking of nothing else. " It is not likely I should, 
 either, having no money to pay up with. As sure as 
 God made me I never was so hard up in my life, the 
 rents of my estates won't pay settlements and mortgages. 
 I've pawned most of my securities— those worth any- 
 thing, you know, and can't get along after all. So I'll be 
 bound my wife has debts, and I rather fancy she did a 
 little business with ' my uncle ' lately on her own account. 
 That necklace she wore last night, I am quite sure, was 
 paste. But how much would you be disposed to fork 
 out, Buncombe, supposing I did attempt to bring her 
 round with the chink of gold ? I'm some thousands 
 behindhand, and can do nothing." 
 
 "Ah, well, I'm game for a thousand or two, say not 
 more than four thousand at the outside. I'm not particu- 
 lar, you know, as long as the thing is done, and peace 
 restored to my family circle," said Buncombe, with an 
 affectation of cheerful alacrity easily seen through. 
 
 "Then, my dear fellow, I believe the thing is as good 
 as done. I know I can take her ladyship on a weak 
 point when I speak of money. It will make everything
 
 A NEW " COMMISSION " B USINESS. 3 1 7 
 
 smooth. And I say, Buncombe, I suppose if I do the 
 job for two thousand or three, you'll give me a commis- 
 sion, won't you ? Ha, Ha ! " 
 
 " Don't mind if I do," was the answer, after a moment's 
 hesitation. "In fact, you may as well say four thousand 
 right off, and if you can arrange for less with Lady 
 Powderhorn the balance will be yours." 
 
 " Hooray," exclaimed the noble huckster. " Hooray, 
 then I shan't lose an hour, Buncombe. I'm off to the 
 battle, good bye," and away he went, so greatly delighted 
 with the fee attached to his mission that, instead of going 
 west by the underground railway, as usual, he took a cab 
 home.
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 A MARKETABLE COMMODITY. 
 
 A certain amount of delicacy was requisite on the part 
 of Lord Powderhorn in broaching the subject of Lady- 
 Buncombe's presentation. To have mentioned it abruptly 
 would have driven his wife into a rage, and while her 
 mind was agitated by passion the promise of money 
 down might have been scouted. 
 
 Happily the noble pair were dining out that night, so 
 that his lordship had plenty of time to meditate his plan 
 of attack before the hour for a connubial tctc-a-tcte 
 arrived. When at last he and his wife were alone in her 
 ladyship's boudoir, where they often had a little dish of 
 scandal together before seeking their dressing-rooms, the 
 first observation he made had apparently no connexion 
 whatever with his " mission." 
 
 "Harry," said he. His wife's christian name was 
 Harriet, but he called her Harry when they were friends. 
 " Harry," said he, " do you know I'm devilish hard up. 
 Can you give me any money ? " 
 
 " Good God, Powderhorn, are you mad ! where should 
 I have any money to give you. I am at my wit's end for 
 a few hundreds myself," was the retort. 
 
 " But I thought you had raised some on the last of
 
 A MARKETABLE COMMODITY. 319 
 
 the family jewels. Wasn't that a paste necklace I saw 
 you wearing last night. It seemed to me rather 
 garish." 
 
 " Oh, you noticed that, did you ? I felt sure of it, 
 though the jeweller swore to me that at a little distance 
 no one could tell the necklace from diamonds. But what 
 could I do ? I lost nearly a hundred pounds at cards 
 last week at Lady Snaffle's, and my milliner has been 
 dunning me for money like a very Jew for months. After 
 all, the old miser wouldn't give me more than two 
 hundred and fifty pounds on the diamonds, and I'm just 
 as hard up as before." 
 
 " Devilish awkward that, Harry, devilish awkward. 
 Demme, if I don't think we shall end in the workhouse. 
 I can't raise another farthing, and you know my land 
 might as well be in the moon for all it yields me in these 
 times. It's just my cursed luck," and his lordship hung 
 down his head, like a man at his wit's end. His wife 
 shrugged her shoulders and gathered her dressing-gown 
 closer round her bosom, but made no reply. 
 
 " Look here, love," Lord Powderhorn resumed, " can't 
 we hurry up that marriage with old Buncombe's daughter? 
 It's devilish hard in a way, I know, but the brute has lots 
 of money, and will pay like a man for the privilege of 
 having a lord for a son-in-law, ha, ha ! " 
 
 " I hate the very name of Buncombe," cried Lady 
 Powderhorn, with energy. " And if I didn't, I believe the 
 girl hates Jack." Jack was known to the vulgar world 
 as Lord Callow. " He says she has another flame some- 
 where, and won't have him if she can help it, the stuck-
 
 320 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 up minx. Of course, her indifference has turned Jack's 
 head." 
 
 "Yes, I know all that ; but you are wrong about Eva. 
 She had a fancy when in her teens for some underling 
 in Buncombe's office, but the old rogue nipped the 
 thing in the bud and sent the ambitious youth abroad. 
 He would have no more 'mesalliances" in his family, he 
 said, the upstart purse-proud old fool, ha, ha!" Lord 
 Powdcrhorn's laughs were, so to say, barked out in a 
 manner resembling the speech of a French doll — dry, 
 and short, and heartless. 
 
 "Just like his insolence ; but that reminds me, Powder- 
 horn, there is a daughter of his married to some low 
 fellow or other, isn't there?" 
 
 " I believe there is. Some scribbling blackguard, I've 
 understood. Fancy I met him at Buncombe's once. 
 But after all, you know, Harry, my love, what the devil 
 does that matter? We shan't marry the whole family, 
 and Buncombe, I feel pretty sure, has cut that lot himself. 
 At least, I never see either the scribbler or his wife there 
 now, or hear their names mentioned. They are an 
 advantage to us in one way, in fact, because they won't 
 get much of the old man's brass. More to divide among 
 the others, in fact, for old Bunny's not the chap to 
 foster poor relations." 
 
 "There's something in that. Will his knightship 
 come down handsomely, do you think?" 
 
 " He won't give 2ts much, Harry ; you leave the tight- 
 fisted old skinflint alone for that. But he talks of 
 settling fifty thousand pounds at once on his daughter
 
 A MARKETABLE COMMODITY. 321 
 
 should she marry Jack, and I daresay I might get him 
 to lift a mortgage or two, he's so deuced keen on the- 
 connection." 
 
 " Well, but that won't do much to keep us out of the 
 bankruptcy court. Fifty thousand isn't much, is it ?' 
 What might it mean a year ? " 
 
 " Oh, perhaps two thousand, perhaps rather more. 
 It's all according to how it is invested." 
 
 " Then Jack and his girl will want all that for them- 
 selves, and we shall be as bad as ever, Powderhorn." 
 
 " No, no, not quite that, my love ; we shall at least be 
 delivered from Jack's extravagances. He has cost me no 
 end of money since he came of age, you know. Devil take- 
 him, what with betting and gadding about, I do believe 
 the fellow spends two thousand pounds a year as it is." 
 
 " Lord, so much as that. Then marry him, Powder- 
 horn, for God's sake, and leave him to his own devices,. 
 I thought he only cost you a few hundreds." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! That's all you know about the thing, Harry, 
 But I didn't say I had paid all his debts, did I ? He owes- 
 a few thousands, I fancy ; in fact, I know he does, and' 
 old Buncombe will have to pay these debts, so that the 
 couple may start fair. I have no doubt he can get Jack 
 a few directorships in the city too, in order to eke out his 
 living. All depends on how we treat the chap ; and 
 that reminds me, by the by, haven't you been rather 
 rough on that dumpling of a wife of his lately ? " 
 
 " What, the Lady Penelope Buncombe joke. Oh, 
 good gracious, Powderhorn, don't talk to me of that. I 
 thought I should have died with laughing when that
 
 322 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 •card of hers was handed to me. Don't talk to me of 
 that sausage roll of a creature. I loathe the very sight 
 of her." 
 
 " Tuts, Harry, my love ; that's not reasonable, you 
 know. If we are to take in the daughter we must 
 tolerate the mother." 
 
 " But you have just told me that we were not going to 
 marry the whole family." 
 
 " Neither we arc, but that does not alter the fact that 
 we must make the most and the best of the connexion, 
 and brave it out before Society if necessary. It's the only 
 way to keep Society from laughing at us. You only give 
 it the cue when you make game of the dumpling." 
 " Do you think so ?" 
 
 " I'm sure of it. You make a mistake altogether in 
 turning that little dot of a creature into ridicule. It 
 shows your friends that the connexion galls us. I 
 wouldn't do that for a fortune, were I you." 
 
 " Ah, I never thought of it in that light. Perhaps there's 
 something in that. But then, you know, I'm afraid of the 
 little wretch asking me again to present her at court ?" 
 " And why shouldn't you, pray ?" 
 
 " Why shouldn't I ? Good God, Powderhorn, you don't 
 mean to insinuate that I should drag that bolster of a 
 creature through the crowd at a drawing room." 
 
 " Yes, I do, though. Demme if I see any good reason 
 why you shouldn't." 
 " Oh, Powderhorn ! " 
 
 " I grant you the woman is vulgar, and all that, but 
 she can be made to behave. She isn't a fool, you know,
 
 A MARKETABLE COMMODITY. 323 
 
 and after all there are lots of women just as low bred and 
 vulgar as she is who yet go to court, — Mrs. Montague 
 Emanuel, for instance, the greasy little Jewess, presented 
 last year by the Marchioness of Rabbitv/arren." 
 
 " Oh, Powderhorn ! How can you think of such a 
 thing. I'm sure I shall die of shame." 
 
 "Devil a fear ol you, Harry, my love, you'll excuse 
 my saying so, for there is money in it." 
 
 " How, money in it ! Do you mean to say that old 
 Buncombe would pay me to take his wife to a drawing 
 room. The insolent wretch." 
 
 " X — n — n0j no t exactly that, but there is no denying, 
 love, that your obstinate refusal to have anything to do 
 with his wife has riled him, and made him anxious to 
 conquer us. And, of course, a vulgar, low-bred fellow 
 like that knows only one way of gaining his end — 
 money. It is always ' What's your price ? ' with damned 
 cads of that sort. So he hinted only this morning that 
 he didn't mind if he tided us over a bit till the iron trade 
 improved, or the luck somehow turned, if we could 
 manage this little piece of business for him. He could 
 get no peace at home for it, he said. It was all very 
 vulgar and low, I grant you, but then, Harry, we are so 
 hard up that I don't see why we shouldn't take the fool 
 in his humour. I really don't." 
 
 " I hate the idea of the thing. Why, the wretch is 
 sure to dress herself like a nigger at a camp meeting, 
 and I shall be laughed at till I am fit to die of shame," 
 retorted her ladyship, who now saw the meaning of this 
 conference.
 
 324 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " Oh ! no, you won't. You can stipulate about the 
 dress to be worn, you know, and then the girl, your 
 future daughter-in-law, will be with you, of course. She 
 is presentable enough, and the small, squat, dumpling 
 Buncombe will be hid behind her daughter's tall form. 
 Oh, it can be managed easily, if you'll try. The girl, you 
 know, must go to court, at any rate, and it will be best 
 that her mother should do the first presentation. And if 
 I tell you that Buncombe is squeezable to the tune of a 
 thousand or two, that's worth a little annoyance and 
 trouble in these times, isn't it, my dear?" 
 
 " But the parvenu won't hand over a thousand or two, 
 will he ? " exclaimed her ladyship, with a surprised look. 
 
 " I'll guarantee he will. Just you leave it to me, 
 Harry. I'll see that the money is forthcoming." 
 
 " It's worth thinking about, certainly. A couple of 
 thousand pounds or so would, in fact, carry us com- 
 fortably through the season, and keep off the Jews." 
 
 " Of course it would. Well, you shall have two 
 thousand, my love, if you can manage this little business. 
 I'll wring the money out of the brute, never fear. It's 
 vulgar in a way, you know, but I don't see why, if our 
 station and privileges in Society are marketable com- 
 modities, we shouldn't live a little by them when the luck 
 in other ways goes against us. That's my view of the 
 matter, and now you just go ahead, it will be all right." 
 
 With many wry faces, and sighs, and head shakes, 
 Lady Powderhorn at length agreed that this was perhaps 
 the best course in the circumstances, and so, the compact 
 sealed, they betook themselves to bed.
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 RED OR BLUE? 
 
 NEXT day his lordship communicated the decision of his 
 wife to Sir Timothy Buncombe. 
 
 " It's all right, Buncombe," he said, " her ladyship sees 
 the error of her ways, and will make amends. You can 
 tell your womenkind to get ready for the drawing 
 room." 
 
 Sir Timothy was so delighted with this news that he 
 insisted upon giving a dinner, "just a little family dinner, 
 you know," to the Powderhorns, in order to sanctify and 
 seal the bargain. 
 
 Lady Powderhorn would have avoided this feast, as 
 she instinctively avoided everything belonging to the 
 Buncombe tribe, as she named the great shipbroker's 
 family, but her husband's calculating shrewdness over- 
 ruled her. 
 
 " You can take the chance this offers to arrange about 
 the dresses, you know, Harry, and as there will be no 
 one there to see your tortures except Callow, who is 
 blind, and myself, who won't look, I think you can go 
 with an easy mind." 
 
 Poor Lady Powderhorn. Originally she had been by 
 no means a selfish or bitter minded woman. But her
 
 326 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 beauty and her parents' ambition had been her ruin. 
 Her father was a needy baronet, the descendant of a 
 be-baroncted physician, and when his only daughter, 
 Harriet Gertrude Mumbles, grew up, tall, graceful, finely 
 formed, Greek featured, and sweet as a moss-rose, his 
 wife and he put her in the market against a title. She 
 was knocked down to Lord Povvderhorn, then Lord 
 Callow, and thirty years of intimate association with this 
 selfish, mean-spirited, greedy and needy peer had made 
 her over again, had changed her into the narrow, bitter, 
 excitement-loving, sharp-tongucd, scornful woman we 
 have seen. Traces of her early beauty still lingered 
 around her and sustained her pride. No court hanger-on 
 and toad-eater of them all could carry a higher head, or 
 sustain more gracefully a splendid court garment 
 than she. It was, therefore, gall and wormwood for her 
 to be forced to take a being like Lady Buncombe under 
 her wing. But necessity is a cruel nigger driver, and the 
 murmur of many duns, empty pockets, and a black 
 future, forced her to submit. 
 
 It was with a smiling countenance then, and a gracious 
 air, that her ladyship accompanied her husband and son 
 to Buncombe's family feast of love, and her heart in 
 a sense grew light within her, when she found that, as 
 Powderhorn had said, no guest was there save those 
 Buncombes she already knew. None were, in fact, 
 available. The Weardale connection was now altogether 
 too low ; the clerical tie was better, but far away, and 
 therefore loose ; and as for the Fosters — corn dealers, 
 seed crushers, etc., — they were as bad as the Weardales,
 
 RED OR BLUE? 327 
 
 for Foster had lately failed, and was now living in 
 retirement on the jointure prudently settled by him on 
 his wife, — out of his creditors' means, as it turned out, — 
 when he married. 
 
 No, the Buncombes had now no family available, 
 except Timothy, junior, and Evangeline. The others 
 were as dead to the knight and his dame on an occasion 
 like this, as were Lady Powderhorn's two little ones r 
 whom a merciful heaven had called to their long sleep 
 in infancy. 
 
 So it was quite a successful family feast. Callow, 
 lisping, gawkish, brainless youth, was in his seventh 
 heaven of delight, knowing himself now the accepted of 
 Evangeline. Timothy, junior, chattered for two in order 
 to keep Lady Powderhorn from being shocked by his 
 mother, and the earl and the knight had abundance to 
 say about city affairs, the new land-grabbing American 
 syndicate, the sins of other magnates, or cat's-paws, of 
 finance, and the general dearth of good directorships, 
 where a well furnished table added sweetness to the 
 fees. 
 
 All went beautifully until the ladies retired to the 
 drawing room, and began to discuss the all-absorbing 
 question of the approaching presentation. Upon this 
 subject Lady Buncombe proved tractable at all points, 
 except that of dress. She was quite willing to undergo 
 daily drill in deportment, and frequent lessons in the 
 routine of court ceremonies ; but her obstinate little 
 mind stuck fast at the gown. She had seen a gorgeous 
 costume in some milliner's window, and set her affection
 
 328 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 on something similar. It was a robe composed of a 
 pink petticoat, and a crimson train. 
 
 In vain did Lady Powderhorn try to persuade the 
 dame that these colours would be unsuitable for her hrerfa 
 •complexion. The more the peeress tried persuasion, and 
 the more Evangeline echoed the peeress's sentiments, the 
 more convinced was Lady Buncombe that these colours 
 .and no other were just what she would have. 
 
 Lady Povvderhorn's temper was rising fast to boiling 
 point at this pigheadedness, and as her vivid imagination 
 pictured the guy her protegee would be in such a garb, 
 beads of sweat gathered on her brow. " Oh God," she 
 whispered to herself, "how can I ever go through with it." 
 
 In all probability an explosion would have occurred if 
 the gentlemen, prompted by Callow, whose taste for wine 
 was smaller than usual, had not appeared on the scene 
 with unwonted promptitude. 
 
 The moment he entered the room, Lord Powderhorn 
 saw that something was up. His wife's face was flushed, 
 and her lips compressed. Her little feet drummed 
 nervously on the carpet, and her hands clasped and 
 unclasped with spasmodic irregularity. 
 
 " Well, ladies," cried my lord, " have you fixed it all 
 up, as the Yankees say, garments and everything, eh, 
 Lady Buncombe ? " 
 
 " Lawks, no," that personage answered, " we can't hit 
 it off about my dress, your lordship. Her ladyship there 
 says as how the dress I want don't suit my complexion, 
 
 and she wants me, your lordship, to put on What is 
 
 it, your ladyship ?"
 
 RED OR BLUE ? 329 
 
 " Nay, I don't want to coerce you in the least," said 
 Lady Powderhorn, in a cold tone ; " I merely made a 
 suggestion to you, thinking that perhaps my experience 
 in these matters might give it some value. You like reds, 
 it seems, and they are beautiful, no doubt, with some 
 complexions ; but I feel sure that you would look much 
 better in a dress composed of a sapphire blue train over a 
 pale blue satin petticoat. But then that's only my 
 opinion, you know." 
 
 " Well, and I say blues don't suit me ; at least I don't 
 like 'em. They're too cold." 
 
 " As you please, Lady Buncombe. I have no wish to 
 dictate to you, none in the least." 
 
 " Tuts, Bosh, Eh ! Excuse me, your ladyship, but my 
 opinion is that Lady Buncombe here can't do better than 
 take your advice. What can you be thinking of, Penny," 
 Sir Timothy added, turning to his wife, " setting your 
 opinions up against a lady of taste and fashion like the 
 countess. Drop it, my dear, drop it, and be thankful 
 you've got so good a guide." 
 
 Lady Buncombe screwed her mouth and looked sulky, 
 but her husband went up to her, slapped her heartily on 
 the back, and whispered " Don't be a fool. Do you want 
 Lady Powderhorn to throw you up?" at which query a 
 look of alarm crossed Penelope's fiat features, and she at 
 once grasped the situation. 
 
 "Well, well, if Sir Timothy wishes it, I'm sure I've got 
 nothing to say. It was only my fancy, you know, and 
 your ladyship knows best, I'll allow," said she, as 
 graciously as a baulked woman could
 
 330 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 "That's right," cried the knight, in a loud, thickish 
 voice. " That's right ; I knew you'd be sensible, I did." 
 He had taken in a fair amount of champagne and sherry 
 downstairs, and spoke more vulgarly than usual. "And, 
 now I think of it, if you wouldn't mind the trouble, Lady 
 Powderhorn, why not order the dresses for all three 
 yourself, you know. You can then have them made to 
 suit your taste, and, since it's quite a family affair, just 
 send me the bill for the lot. Eh, will that do?" 
 
 Lady Powderhorn demurred a little to this for form's 
 sake, and hinted scruples, but ended by yielding to Sir 
 Timothy's well played importunity. 
 
 " Now that's settled," the knight ended the debate by 
 saying, "you go and give us a tune or two, Evey— just 
 loud enough to let us old folks talk comfortably, you 
 know. It will be a chance for you to turn over the leaves, 
 Callow ; eh, my boy. He, he!" Thus all danger of a 
 rupture of friendly relations was avoided, and an im- 
 portant series of negotiations brought to a satisfactory 
 conclusion.
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 THE FIFTH HEAVEN AND A GOLDEN HOLINESS. 
 
 After so many disappointments Lady Buncombe 
 reached the height of her ambition at last. And when 
 the great court ceremony was performed, she could not 
 help wondering what the fuss had been all about. Had 
 she been a woman of a reflective or philosophical turn of 
 mind, she might, indeed, have extracted a fund of 
 amusement from the scenes in which she had her share. 
 Strange scenes they were. A mob of half-naked women 
 crowded and pressed their way towards the presence 
 chamber, their bare bosoms rent and heaving with all the 
 angry passions which move humanity in its primeval 
 savage state, and likewise in its state civilised. Scorn, 
 hatred, malice, contempt, envy, back-biting, slander, dis- 
 gust, vulgar pride, rivalry, shamelessness — all were there. 
 Well might Lady Buncombe stare with all her eyes at 
 what she saw, and forget in the wonder and amazement 
 that overtook her narrow intellect, the drilling she had 
 received. Happily it mattered little. Few noticed her 
 in the crowd, and her stay in the presence of royalty 
 was too short to afford royalty's toad-eaters much 
 opportunity for their favourite pastime. The Countess of 
 Powderhorn did her best to hurry her protegees, and
 
 jj 2 
 
 5/7? TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 when she had presented the mother, and the mother the 
 daughter, and the flurried march past was ended, she felt 
 her soul relieved of a great burden. 
 
 On the whole, too, Lady Buncombe behaved very well. 
 She bobbed instead of curtseying, to the delight of those 
 who noticed her, but it was all done so quickly that she 
 had no time to commit any great absurdity. 
 
 Only when the trio were retiring did a stage whisper of 
 hers send a cold shiver down Lady Powderhorn's back. 
 
 " I say, your ladyship," cried the little woman, 
 waddling up, with her heavy train leaping along behind 
 her, " is that the Queen ? I thought she was a stout 
 little woman like me, only older." 
 
 " Hush, you hush ! hush ! " replied the countess in 
 
 an imperious tone. " Come away, I'll explain afterwards," 
 and they got safely off. 
 
 Unsophisticated Lady Buncombe did not understand 
 that majesty in person, when moved at all to attend these 
 acts of worship, rarely stayed more than half-an-hour. 
 Half-an-hour was quite enough acknowledgment for 
 majesty's salary and perquisites, and the Buncombe party 
 were much too late to be received by the apotheosis 
 of Society's excellencies in person. Majesty was quite 
 right. Any deputy of authentic royal blood was good 
 enough for the mob. 
 
 For a few minutes after this was explained to her, Lady 
 Buncombe's face wore a dissatisfied air. Possibly she felt 
 disappointed, not only at missing a chance of gazing on 
 the face of the being who exercised divine attributes 
 over the church and the plutocratic swarm in virtue of a
 
 THE FIFTH HE A VEN. 333 
 
 Parliamentary licence, but at having no means of com- 
 paring the person and deportment of majesty with her 
 own. 
 
 When, however, she read in the fashionable journals 
 the next day, that Lady Buncombe had been presented 
 by the Countess of Powderhorn, and Miss Evangeline 
 Buncombe by her mother, and saw a full description of 
 her own and her daughter's dresses inserted, for the 
 customary fee, in the court paper, joy welled up in her soul. 
 She had reached her fifth heaven at last — I think 
 heaven's stages go by odd numbers — and had nothing in 
 this world left to pray for except a peerage. This news- 
 paper paragraph was her mental food and drink — her 
 soul's sweet rest for days and weeks. In her happiness 
 she felt disposed to pinch herself to see whether she was 
 really awake, and an inhabitant of this lower world. 
 
 She bought two dozen copies of the blazon roll of her 
 fame, and gave one of them to Mary, her maid, to take 
 down to the kitchen, where it afforded delight and 
 instruction of a kind she, simple creature, thought not of. 
 Another she felt disposed to hand to the butler, but did 
 not know how Sir Timothy might relish that step ; so 
 she contented herself by laying a copy in the hall, 
 another in the library, and a third on the dining-room 
 sideboard, casually, as it were, so that all might have an 
 opportunity of reading the catalogue of her own and her 
 daughter's splendours. 
 
 She lived for many days like one in a dream, and 
 spoke softly to herself, communing with her own heart, 
 one of the elect of majesty.
 
 334 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 " Me, Penelope Drabble, Lady Buncombe, me at 
 court, among all them duchesses and countesses and 
 princes and big wigs. What would aunt Cutler have 
 thought of that ?" Thus was she always whispering to her 
 own heart, and the thought made her more amiable, 
 less querrelous in her manner and speech, than her 
 family ever saw her before in her life. 
 
 What a contrast her own and Eva's position was 
 to poor Beatrice's, she could not help thinking, now 
 and then, or to Penelope the younger's, the wife of a 
 fellow who had gone bankrupt. Ah, it was a good 
 world, a sweet world, a joyful world to live in, this 
 world that surrounded and propped a throne. 
 
 Who does not envy Lady Buncombe this sweet 
 pleasure? How different she is in her simplicity of heart 
 from that way-worn fashion's slave, Lady Powderhorn. 
 No delight arose in her soul that she had been 
 permitted to look on the face of royalty, even deputy 
 royalty, and live. That to her was nothing. The 
 privileges and corruptions of her class were held to be 
 identified with these court ceremonies, this worship of 
 idols, sometimes afflicted with a running at the nose, 
 and she submitted to her fate as in duty bound. 
 
 But her heart did not rise within her as the trio left 
 the presence and shoved their way to their carriage, 
 unless it was in thankfulness that all was over, without 
 a scene. When in the welling joy of her silly little 
 heart, Lady Buncombe proposed that they should all go 
 next day " to the photographer and get themselves took 
 in a group," Lady Powderhorn had so little sympathy
 
 THE FIFTH HE A VEN. 335 
 
 with her protegee as to reject the suggestion with un- 
 feeling coldness. She had no mind, proud pensionary, 
 hired bearess leader of Sir Timothy's though she was, 
 to perpetuate what she called her degradation in a 
 picture of that dangerous kind. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that the countess did 
 not allow Sir Timothy Buncombe to inflict these outrages 
 upon her for nothing. She received her two thousand 
 pounds ; but perhaps a suspicion, justifiable enough,crossed 
 her mind that her husband was not dealing honestly by 
 her, and that she might have had more if she had been 
 obdurate. Whether on that ground or another I do not 
 propose to decide, but certain it is that on some ground 
 deemed by her sufficient, Lady Powderhorn extracted a 
 bonus or additional solatium peculiarly agreeable to her 
 lacerated feelings. Sir Timothy had, when swayed by 
 the generous bonhomie induced by abundant libations 
 of stimulating wine, gallantly ordered her ladyship to 
 send the bill for all the dresses to him. Her ladyship 
 obeyed with admirable promptitude, and took occasion 
 to include in the account, by private arrangement with 
 her dressmaker, the bulk of an old debt of her own. 
 This explains why Sir Timothy Buncombe cursed a 
 little one morning at breakfast, and seemed for an hour 
 or two totally unappreciative of the glory attained by his 
 wife. The exact amount he was called on to pay for the 
 three dresses was five hundred and sixty nine pounds 
 three shillings and fourpence. 
 
 A large sum this undeniably, but then what could an 
 upstart shipbroker expect ? Did he think that he was
 
 336 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 going- to be admitted within the pale by the great and 
 noble adorers of majesty's attributes without paying his 
 footing? He was altogether mistaken if he did. " All 
 things arc possible to the man with his pockets full of 
 gold," is the principle upon which the bulk of the 
 nobility and gentry of England habitually act, but that 
 implies that the gold has to be spent. Of what use is it 
 to be noble, and great, and privileged if one cannot levy 
 blackmail ? That was the employment of those whom 
 nobility, falsely or otherwise, claims to be its ancestors, 
 and such excellent examples ought to be followed. 
 
 And after all did not these little tastes of sorrow serve 
 but to make the joys of a lofty station more sweet ? 
 When Sir Timothy's immediate goal was reached, and 
 his wife made blessed, the momentary pain at spending 
 money was soon lost in a sense of deep satisfaction. At 
 last Sir Timothy Buncombe was somebody, had made 
 his way in the world, and become a man of mark. The 
 M.Pship and many things else had paid. 
 
 Not that the great shipbroker's satisfaction was com- 
 plete. Far from it. In his heart the conviction rankled 
 that he had not yet been blessed according to his deserts. 
 But that did no more than stimulate him to still further 
 exertions. When next the topsy-turvydom of politics 
 should decide to enactthe tragedy of a dissolution, he meant 
 to contest Berborough on the strength of his " generous 
 gift " of a park, and whether the fight ended in triumph 
 or defeat it was his design to try for a peerage. Only 
 with a peerage did he feel that he could sit down and 
 rest and be thankful, and for some time past he had been
 
 THE FIFTH HEA VEN. 337 
 
 quietly getting the mortgages of a spendthrift, heirless 
 landowner into his hands, with a view to securing an 
 estate cheap from which to draw his title. 
 
 These are Sir Timothy's hopes for the future, hopes I 
 must leave him to realise, as I doubt not he will. He is 
 a man, as everybody now understands, who never lets 
 the grass grow under his feet, never forsakes an aim 
 once it has laid hold of him. So he will succeed. 
 
 At the very time when it is necessary for us all to part 
 company, he is fully engrossed in the labour of catching 
 a bishop — a real live lord bishop with five thousand to ten 
 thousand pounds a year, — all complete, in tight smalls, 
 a sanctified apron, and most mystical hat, garb without 
 which the " Church " must perish, and Christianity fade 
 before Nihilism, Atheism, Budhism, and all the demons 
 of old Chaos. This holy functionary is wanted by the 
 knight to perform the magical incantation over the 
 heads of John Gosling, called Lord Callow, and Evan- 
 geline Buncombe, in order that, as we are taught in the 
 mysteries of priest-craft, the Divine All-father may 
 be constituted a binding party to their marriage bargain. 
 
 That he will succeed in this pursuit also I have not the 
 least doubt, in spite of the anxiety of the bishops to be 
 up and doing, so that they may escape with their 
 plunder before democracy claims its own, for not only 
 has he abundance of money, and therefore of godliness 
 according to the clergy, but has himself a daughter rich 
 in the Church. And Lord Powdcrhorn is bound to 
 second him cordially in his labours, a circumstance 
 which should itself suffice to capture half a dozen bishops, 
 
 v
 
 338 SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 since his lordship — patron or huckster of five livings — 
 is well known as a great pillar of the Anglican communion. 
 Money he cannot give it when it sends round the hat, 
 dissenter fashion ; but his name is always at the service 
 of the bishops and clergy when they raise the cry, 
 " God's heritage is in danger." 
 
 Look out for him and you are sure to find this dis- 
 tinguished bankrupt, city leech, and society panderer, 
 well up in the list of names appended to protests against 
 " spoliation," etc. A gospel with money in it is within 
 the grasp of his lordship's comprehension, and he is 
 faithful according to his lights. 
 
 Sir Timothy Buncombe will, therefore, bag his bishop, 
 may even, spite of tithe-rescuing pre-occupations, find 
 the catch so easy as to abandon it, and try for an 
 archbishop with fifteen thousand a year, and lace ruffles 
 of extra holiness. His ambition is boundless. 
 
 " And are you going to leave the hero of this history 
 at this point," I hear the reader cry. 
 Yes, assuredly, why not ? 
 
 " Why not ? Why, because it isn't fair. In spite of 
 all your disgusting admiration for the fellow, he is an 
 undeniable rogue, a thief and a villain, and you are going 
 to leave him in the full enjoyment of the fruits of his 
 crimes. It isn't fair. Justice cries out against you." 
 
 Nonsense, worthy or other reader. Your mind has 
 been vitiated by a course of sentimental novel reading, 
 minded with still more sentimental sermon-swallowing. 
 You think there is justice done in this world upon the 
 wicked. Permit me to assure you that, than this, there
 
 THE FIFTH HE A VEN. 339 
 
 cannot be greater stupidity. The days of the wicked- 
 and-the-green-bay-tree poetical sentimentalists, have 
 passed away long, long ago, and Freebooter David, the 
 Jew, or whoever it was who imagined that taking 
 simile, was a being of most limited understanding and 
 experience. 
 
 Nowadays, let me assure you, this world is made 
 mostly for the people called " the wicked." So much is 
 this the case that I should have felt myself guilty of a 
 mean sacrifice of truth, had I allowed Sir Timothy 
 Buncombe to be overtaken by what old fashioned people 
 will call his *' sins." No, no, nothing of the sort. Sir 
 Timothy flourishes, Sir Timothy sees the widows and 
 the decrepit, the needy and the greedy, who bought his 
 company's shares for an income, weep, and it may be 
 starve, and cares not one brass farthing for the sight. They 
 cannot touch him ; his money is his own by the law of 
 the land. Why should he suffer for the sorrows he has 
 caused ? Do robbers and thieves of the loftier breed 
 ever suffer in this world ? Nay, verily. Nowadays at 
 least, the green bay tree withereth not. It is they that 
 seek its shade who die. 
 
 Grumble not then, O reader. Know thou that in this 
 modern era men steal under the blessed dispensation of 
 limited liability and a funded debt. The crimes of the 
 cunning man are laid upon the back of the simple. He 
 who is wise in his generation lays his debts at the doors 
 of the poor-spirited, the ignorant and the lowly, in 
 exchange for money down, and invests the proceeds in 
 real estate or the three per cents. Happy age.
 
 34Q SIR TIMOTHY BUNCOMBE. 
 
 But is there no retribution at all or anywhere ? Ah, 
 ask me not. I cannot read the future, and I dare not 
 speculate about the end towards which drifts this sublime 
 system, whereby the poor increase in poverty, paying the 
 debts of the rich, and posterity is endowed with the 
 obligations born of this generation's lavish selfish- 
 ness and of the plutocrat's crimes. It may wind 
 up in a great world-melting, civilization-destroying, 
 universal bankruptcy, wherein even holy, tithe-blessed 
 lord bishops will fail to find sure footing, and a safe 
 place for their ruffles, their aprons and hats. It may 
 and it may not. Again must I plead that I am not a 
 prophet. Enough is it for me that the M.P. and ship- 
 broker, whose fortunes I have followed till glory burst 
 upon his head and was reflected from the ruddy face of his 
 wife, is in no danger of collapse. His company may go 
 to the wall, but he stands secure. Unless I mistake 
 not, he — weathering all storms of fortune, defying all 
 hate and malice and envy — is destined to die in that 
 exquisite odour of sanctity, indicated by a will proved 
 " under a million," — in the glory of the peerage. Happy 
 man. 
 
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