sir!" replied Mudflint, in a bitter, insulting tone.
"I regret to inform you, sir, that I am required to administer the bribery oath to you," said the returning officer to Dr. Tatham, bowing very low.
"What? What? The bribery oath? To me?" inquired Dr. Tatham, giving a sudden start, and flushing violently: at which stringent evidence of his guilt—
"Aha!" cried those of the crowd nearest to him—"Come, old gentleman! Thou mun bolt it now!"
"Is it pretended to be believed," faltered Dr. Tatham, with visible emotion—"that I am bribed?" But at that moment his eye happened to light upon the exulting countenance of "the Reverend" Mr. Mudflint. It calmed him. Removing his hat, he took the Testament into his hand, while the crowd ceased hooting for a moment, in order to hear the oath read; and with dignity he endured the indignity. He then recorded his vote for Mr. Delamere; and after fixing a sorrowful and surprised eye on Mr. Gammon, who stood with his hat slouched a good deal over his face, and looking in another direction, withdrew; and as he turned his mild and venerable face towards the crowd, the hissing subsided. Shortly afterwards made their appearance amid great uproar, several of the tenantry of Mr. Titmouse—all of them looking as if they had come up, poor souls! rather to receive punishment for a crime, than to exercise their elective franchise in a free country!—Gammon colored a little; took out his pocket-book and pencil; and fixing on the first of the tenantry, Mark Hackett, the eye, as it were, of a suddenly revived serpent, wrote down his name in silence—but what an expression was on his face! Thus he acted towards every one of those unhappy and doomed persons; replacing his pocket-book whence he had taken it, as soon as the last of the little body had polled. It was now a quarter to three o'clock, (the poll closing finally at four,) and thus stood the numbers:—
On these figures being exhibited by an eager member of Mr. Delamere's committee, there arose a tremendous uproar among the crowd, and cries of "Tear it down! Tear it down! Ah! Bribery and corruption! Three groans for Delamere! O—h! o–h! o–h!" Matters seemed, indeed, getting desperate with the crowd; yet they seemed to feel a sort of comfort in gazing at the stern, determined, but chagrined countenance of the ruling spirit of the day, Mr. Gammon. He was a "deep hand,"—thought they—he knew his game; and, depend upon it, he was only waiting till the enemy was clean done, and then he would pour in the Quaint Club and crush them forever. Thus thought hundreds before the hustings. Not a vote was offered for a quarter of an hour; and the poll-clerks, with their pens behind their ears, employed the interval in munching sandwiches, and drinking sherry out of a black bottle—the onlookers cutting many jokes upon them while thus pleasantly engaged. Symptoms were soon visible, in the increasing proportion of blue rosettes becoming visible in and about the crowd, that this promising state of things was reviving the hopes of Mr. Delamere's party, while it as plainly depressed those in the yellow interest. Not for one moment, during the whole of that close and exciting contest, had Mr. Crafty quitted his little inner apartment, where he had planned the battle, and conducted it to its present point of success. Nor had his phlegmatic temperament suffered the least excitement or disturbance: cold as ice though his heart might be, his head was ever clear as crystal. Certainly his strategy had been admirable. Vigilant, circumspect, equal to every emergency, he had brought up his forces in perfect order throughout the day; the enemy had not caught the least inkling of his real game. By his incessant, ingenious, and safe manœuvring, he had kept that dreaded body, the Quaint Club, in play up to this advanced period of the day—in a state of exquisite embarrassment and irresolution, balancing between hopes and fears; and he had, moreover, rendered a temporary reverse on the field upon which he then fought, of little real importance, by reason of the measures he had taken to cut off the enemy entirely in their very next move. He was now left entirely alone in his little room, standing quietly before the fire with his hands behind him, with real composure, feeling that he had done his duty, and awaiting the issue patiently. The hustings, all this while, exhibited an exciting spectacle. Nearly another quarter of an hour had elapsed, without a single vote being added to the poll. The crowd was very great, and evidently sharing no little of the agitation and suspense experienced by those within the booth—(except Mr. Titmouse, whose frequent potations of brandy and water during the day had composed him at length to sleep; and he leaned—absolutely snoring!—against the corner of the booth, out of sight of the crowd). The poll-clerks were laughing and talking unconcernedly together. The leading Blues mustered strongly on their part of the booth; elated undoubtedly, but with the feelings of men who have desperately fought their way, inch by inch, sword to sword, bayonet to bayonet, up to a point where they expect, nevertheless, momentarily to be blown into the air. What could have become of the Quaint Club? thought they also, with inward astonishment and apprehension. Gammon continued standing, motionless and silent, with folded arms—his dark surtout buttoned carelessly at the top, and his hat slouched over his eyes, as if he sought to conceal their restlessness and agitation. Excitement, intense anxiety, and physical exhaustion, were visible in his countenance. He seemed indisposed to speak, even in answer to any one who addressed him.
"O cursed Quaint Club!"—said he to himself—"O cursed Crafty! I am beaten—beaten hollow—ridiculously! How the miscreants have bubbled me! Crafty can now do without them, and won't endanger the election by polling them! We are ruined! And what will be said at headquarters, after what I have led them to believe—bah!" He almost stamped with the vehemence of his emotions. "There's certainly yet a resource; nay, but that also is too late—a riot—a nod, a breath of mine—those fine fellows there—would down with hustings, and all the poll-books be destroyed!—No, no; it is not to be thought of—the time's gone by."
It was now nearly a quarter past three o'clock. "It's passing strange!" thought Gammon, as he looked at his watch; "what can be in the wind? Not a single man of them been up for either party! Perhaps, after all, Lord De la Zouch may not have come up to their mark, and may now be merely standing on the chance of our being unable to come to terms with them. But what can I do, without certain destruction, after what I have heard? It will be simply jumping down into the pit."—A thought suddenly struck him; and with forced calmness he slipped away from the polling-booth, and, with an affectation of indifference, made his way to a house where a trusty emissary awaited his orders. 'T was a Grilston man, a Yellow voter, as much at Gammon's beck and call as Ben Bran was represented to be at the command of Lord De la Zouch. Gammon despatched him on the following enterprise—viz. to rush alarmedly among the club, who knew him, but not his devotion to Gammon—to tell them that he had just discovered, by mere accident, the frightful danger in which they were placed, owing to Mr. Gammon's being enraged against them on account of their last proposal—that he had now made up his mind to the loss of the election, and also to commence prosecutions for bribery against every single mem ber of the club; for that, having early suspected foul play, he was in a position "to nail every man of them," without fixing himself on Mr. Titmouse. If he succeeded thus far—viz. in alarming them—then, after apparently dire perplexity, he was suddenly to suggest one mode of at once securing themselves, and foiling their bitter enemy, Mr. Gammon; viz. hastening up to the polling-booth, without a word to any one, and, by placing Titmouse at the top of the poll, destroy Gammon's motive for commencing his vindictive proceedings, and so take him in his own trap. Gammon then returned to the polling-booth, (having named the signal by which he was to be apprised of success,) and resumed his former position, without giving to any one near him the slightest intimation of what he had been doing. If he imagined, however, that any movement of his, at so critical a moment, had not been watched, he was grievously mistaken. There were three persons whose sole business it had been, during the whole of that day, to keep a lynx eye upon his every motion, especially as connected with the Quaint Club. But his cunning emissary was equal to the exigency; and having (unseen) reconnoitred the streets for a few moments, he imagined that he detected one, if not two spies, lurking about. He therefore slipped out of a low back window, got down four or five back yards, and so across a small hidden alley, which enabled him to enter, unperceivedly, into the back room of the house he wished.
"Ben! Ben!" he gasped with an air of consternation.
"Hallo, man! what is 't?" quoth Ben.
"Done! every man of you sold! Mr. Gammon turned tail on you!—Just