ast growing to be in the contemplation of the agencies leading to honour
in our land. Edbury whipped his four-in-hand to conduct our voters to the
poll. We had to pull hard against Tory interest. It was a sharp, dubious,
hot day--a day of outcries against undue influence and against bribery--a
day of beer and cheers and the insanest of tricks to cheat the
polling-booth. Old John Thresher of Dipwell, and Farmer Eckerthy drove
over to Chippenden to afford me aid and countenance, disconcerting me by
the sight of them, for I associated them with Janet rather than with
Ottilia, and it was to Ottilia that I should have felt myself rising when
the figures increased their pace in my favour, and the yeasty mob
surrounding my father's superb four-horsed chariot responded to his
orations by proclaiming me victor.

'I congratulate you, Mr. Richmond,' Dettermain said. 'Up to this day I
have had my fears that we should haul more moonshine than fish in our
net. Your father has accomplished prodigies.'

My father, with the bloom of success on his face, led me aside soon after
a safe majority of upwards of seventy had been officially announced.
'Now, Richie,' said he, 'you are a Member. Now to the squire away! Thank
the multitude and off, and as quick to Sarkeld as you well can, and tell
the squire from me that I pardon his suspicions. I have landed you a
Member--that will satisfy him. I am willing, tell him . . . you know me
competent to direct mines . . . bailiff of his estates--whatever he
pleases, to effect a reconciliation. I must be in London to-night--I am
in the thick of the fray there. No matter: go, my son.' He embraced me.
It was not a moment for me to catechize him, though I could see that he
was utterly deluded.

Between moonlight and morning, riding with Temple and Captain Bulsted on
either side of me, I drew rein under the red Grange windows, tired, and
in love with its air of sleepy grandeur. Janet's window was open. I
hailed her. 'Has he won?' she sang out in the dark of her room, as though
the cry of delight came upon the leap from bed. She was dressed. She had
commissioned Farmer Eckerthy to bring her the news at any hour of the
night. Seeing me, she clapped hands. 'Harry, I congratulate you a
thousand times.' She had wit to guess that I should never have thought of
coming had I not been the winner. I could just discern the curve and roll
of her famed thick brown hair in the happy shrug of her shoulder, and
imagined