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“There’s nothing for it but pluck,” said Mr. Newte. “We must make a new Poor Rate. They’ve been asking a new one for years; and, bejimbers! I hope they’ll like the one they get.”

The old Squire stroked his chin. “That’s a bit too dangerous, Newte.”

“Where’s the danger? Churchwardens and Overseers, we can count on every man.”

“The parish will appeal, as sure as a gun. King’s Bench will send down a mandamus, and the game’s up. I don’t want to go to prison at my time of life.”

“I know something of the law,” said Mr. Newte–and indeed he’d studied it at Lincoln’s Inn, and kept more knowledge under his wig than any man in the borough. “I know something of law, and there’s no question of going to prison. The Tories will appeal to the next Quarter Sessions, and Quarter Sessions will maybe quash the Rate; and that’ll take time. Then the Overseers will sit still for a week or two, or a month or two, until the Tories lose patience and apply to London for a writ. Down comes the writ, we’ll say. Whereupon the Overseers will sit down and make out a new Rate just a shade different from the last, and the Tories will have to begin again–Quarter Sessions, Court o’ King’s Bench, mandamus–“

“King’s Bench will send down, more like, and attach the Overseers for contempt of Court,” suggested young Bob Martin, who was one of them.

“Not a bit of it; but I’ll allow you may find it hard to keep their pluck to the sticking-point. Very well, then here’s another plan: When it comes to the writ, the Overseers can make out a new Rate ‘agreeable to the form and tenor of the same,’ as the words go. But a new Rate’s worthless until you, Squire, and you, Parson, have signed the allowance for it as magistrates: and now comes your turn to give trouble.”

“And how’m I to do that?” asked the old Squire.

“Why, by keeping out of the way, to be sure. Take a holiday: find out some little spa that suits your complaint, and go and drink the waters.”

“Ay, do, Parson,” chimed in John a Hall. “Take Grandison, here, along with you, and we’ll all have a holiday together.”

“At the worst,” chipped in Newte, “they’ll fine you fifty pounds for misbehaviour.”

“Fifty pounds! Fine me fifty pounds?” the Parson quavered, his pipe-stem waggling.

“Bless your heart, sir, we can work it in somehow with the Election expenses. But it may not come to that. Parliament’s more than five years old already, and I’ll warrant the King dissolves it by next spring at latest: which reminds me that keeping an eye on the Voters’ List is all very well, but unless we can find a hot pair of candidates, this Macann may unsaddle us after all.”

II.

Well, this or something like it was the plan agreed on; and for candidates they managed to get the Duke’s own son, Lord William, and a Major Dyngwall, a friend of his, very handsome to look at, but shy in the mouth-speech. With Dr. Macann the Tories put up a Mr. Saule, from Bristol, who took a terrible deal of snuff and looked wise, but had some maggot in his head that strong drink isn’t good for a man. Why or how this should be he might have known but couldn’t tell, being a desperate poor speaker, and, if possible, a worse hand at it than Major Dyngwall.

I won’t take you through all the battle over the Poor Rate. You understand that the right of voting for Parliament belonged to all the inhabitants of the borough paying Scot and Lot; and who these were the Rate-sheet determined. So you may fancy the pillaloo that went up when the Overseers posted their new assessment on the church door and ’twas found they’d ruled out no less than sixty voters known, or suspected to be, in Dr. Macann’s interest. The Tories appealed to Quarter Sessions, of course, and the Rate was quashed. On their side, Roger Newte and Bob Martin kept the Overseers up to the proper mark of stubbornness: so to London the matter went, and from London down came the order for a new assessment. But by this time Parliament’s days were numbered; and, speculating on this, Mr. Newte (who was now Mayor of the Borough) played a stroke in a thousand. He persuaded the Overseers to make a return to the writ certifying they had obeyed it to the best of their skill and conscience, and drawn up a new list: which list they posted a fortnight later, and only seven days–as it turned out–before Parliament dissolved: and will you believe it, but the only difference between it and the old one was that they’d added the name of Christiana Lebow, widow–who, being a woman, hadn’t a vote at all!