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A score of men were brought up, ignorant, half-dumb, heavy-browed men, all dressed in the amphibious garb of out-o'-door town labourers, of whom there exists a class of hybrids between the rural labourer and the artizan, each one of whom acknowledged that after noon on the election day he received ten shillings, with instructions to vote for Griffenbottom and Underwood.
He spoke for over half an hour, while poor Griffenbottom, seated in a chair that had been brought to him, was suffering almost the pains of hell. During this speech Sir Thomas, who had also suffered greatly, but had at first endeavoured to conceal that he was suffering, discovered the extent of his misfortune, and allowed himself to be taken out from the hustings to his inn.
Though the candidates had thus greeted each other at this chance meeting, the other parties in the contending armies had exhibited no courtesies. The weariness of Sir Thomas when this first day's canvass was over was so great that he was tempted to go to bed and ask for a bowl of gruel. Nothing kept him from doing so but amazement at the courage and endurance of Mr. Griffenbottom.
"They'll fight for him at the hustings," said Mr. Kirkham; "but they'll take their beer and their money, and they'll vote for us and Griffenbottom." This might be true enough as regarded the freemen, the men who had been, as it were, educated to political life; but there was much doubt as to the new voters.
It was a foul, rainy, muddy, sloppy morning, without a glimmer of sun, with that thick, pervading, melancholy atmosphere which forces for the time upon imaginative men a conviction that nothing is worth anything. Griffenbottom was in bed in one room at the Percy Standard, and Underwood in the next.
"I believe you could, Mr. Griffenbottom." "Of course I could. Look here, Underwood " "I beg your pardon for one moment, Mr. Griffenbottom," said Sir Thomas. "Will you tell me, Mr. Trigger, whether votes were bought on my behalf?" Mr. Trigger smiled, and put his head on one side, but made no answer. "I wish I might be allowed to hear the truth," continued Sir Thomas.
"And you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have been the means of exposing corruption, and of helping to turn such a man as Griffenbottom out of the House. Upon my word, I think it has been worth while." "I am not sure that I would do it again at the same cost, and with the same object," said Sir Thomas.
And there's two of 'em won't leave a stone unturned in the outside hamlets. But they like to be seen, and their wives like it." Whereupon Mr. Trigger ordered breakfast, and eat it. Sir Thomas reminded himself that a fortnight was after all but a short duration of time. He might live through a fortnight, probably, and then when Mr. Griffenbottom came it would be shared between two.
It was notorious to all the world that Griffenbottom had debased the borough; had so used its venal tendencies as to make that systematic which had before been too frequent indeed, but yet not systematized; that he had trained the rising generation of Percycross politicians to believe in political corruption; and yet he escaped that utter turning inside out of which men had spoken.
Griffenbottom had declared that he would not pay a shilling towards the expense of the petition, maintaining that his own seat was safe, and that any peril incurred had been so incurred simply on behalf of Sir Thomas. Nothing, according to Mr. Griffenbottom's views, could be more unjust than to expect that he should take any part in the matter.
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