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Kitty’s eye began to twinkle. “Leave the crowd to me,” she was beginning, when her eye lit on John a Hall, that had entered and was making his way towards the pulpit, from which in the fury of his anger old Polsue was climbing down with a nimbleness you wouldn’t believe. And with that she almost laughed out, for a worse peacemaker the Whigs couldn’t have chosen. But Major Dyngwall had sent him, having none to advise, and being near to his wits’ end, poor young man.

“Beg your pardon, Parson,” began John a Hall, stepping up with that grin on his face which he couldn’t help and which the Parson abominated: “but I’m here to bring Lord William’s compliments and apologies, and assure you from him that your sermon had nothing to do with his stomach-ache. Nothing whatever!”

Parson Polsue opened his mouth to answer, but thought better of it. I reckon he remembered the sacred edifice. At any rate he went past John a Hall with a terrific turn of speed, and old Grandison after him: and the next news was the vestry-door slammed-to behind them both, as ’twere with the very wind of wrath.

“And my poor mother used to recommend it for the colic!” said Kitty; which puzzled the Doctor worse than ever.

V.

Before evening ’twas known through Ardevora that the Parson’s votes and interests had been booked by the Tories; which, of course, only made the Church rebels (as you might call them) the more set on standing by their conversion and voting for the Whigs. Nobody could tell their numbers for certain, but nobody put them down under twenty; and both the Doctor and Mr. Saule called on Kitty that evening with faces like fiddles. But Kitty wasn’t to be daunted. “My dears,” she said, “if the worst comes to the worst, and you can’t win these votes back by four o’clock to-morrow, I’ve a stocking full of guineas at your service; and I ha’n’t lived in Ardevora all this while without picking up the knowledge how to spend ’em; and that’s at your service too. But we’ll try a cheaper way first,” says she, smiling to herself very comfortably.

Up at Tregoose they’d put Lord William and the old Squire to bed: and a score of Whig supporters spent the best part of the evening downstairs in the dining-room, with Major Dyngwall in the chair, working out the Voters’ List and making fresh calculations. On the whole they felt cheerful enough, and showed it: but they had to own, first, that the Parson’s votes were almost as bad as lost, whereas the amount of gains couldn’t be reckoned with certainty: and second, that, resting as they did upon a confusion between religious feeling and the stomach-ache, ’twas important that Lord William should recover by next morning, show himself about the town and at the hustings, and clinch the mistake. John a Hall, who had a head on his shoulders when parsons weren’t concerned, shook it at this. He didn’t believe for a moment that Lord William could be brought up to the poll; and as it turned out, he was right. But towards the end of the discussion he put forward a very clever suggestion.

“I don’t know,” says he, “if the Major here’s an early riser?”

“Moderately,” says Major Dyngwall, looking for the moment as if the question took him fairly aback. They didn’t think much of this at the time, but it came back to their minds later on.

“Well, then,” says John a Hall, “you’re all terrible certain about the Parson’s votes being lost; but dang me if I’ve lost hope of ’em yet. Though I can’t do it myself, I believe the old fool could be handled. By five in the morning, say, we shall know about Lord William. If he can’t leave his bed–and I’ll bet he can’t–I suggest that the Major steps down, pays an early call, and tells Parson the simple truth from beginning to end.”