The next year came the great unionist collapse. The Government which had bumped perilously through the South African war, went on the rocks of an indignant peace—wrecked by Tariff Reform with the complication of Chinese Labour and the Education Bill. Once more Reuben took prominent part in a general election. The circumstances were altered—no one threw dead cats at him at meetings, though the common labouring men had a way of asking questions which they had not had in \'65.

Old Backfield spoke at five meetings, each time on Tariff Reform and the effect it would have on local agriculture. The candidate and the unionist Club were very proud of him, and spoke of him as "a grand old man." On Election Day, one of the candidates\' own cars was sent to fetch him to the Poll. It was the first time Reuben had ever been in a motor, but he did his best to dissemble his excitement.

"It\'s lik them trains," he said to the chauffeur, "unaccountable strange and furrin-looking at first, but[Pg 449] naun to spik of when you\'re used to \'em. Well I remember when the first railway train wur run from Rye to Hastings—and most people too frightened to go in it, though it never m?ade more\'n ten mile an hour."

Though the country in general chose to go to the dogs, Reuben had the consolation of seeing a Conservative returned for Rye. He put this down largely to his own exertions, and came home in high good humour from the declaration of the Poll. Mr. Courthope, the successful candidate, had shaken him by the hand, and so had his agent and one or two prominent members of the Club. They had congratulated him on his wonderful energy, and wished him many more years of usefulness to the Conservative cause. He might live to see a wheat-tax yet.

He compared his present feelings with the miserable humiliation he had endured in \'65. Queer!—that election seemed almost as real and vivid to him as this one, and—he did not know why—he found himself feeling as if it were more important. His mind recaptured the details with startling clearness—the crowd in the market-place, the fight with Coalbran, the sheep\'s entrails that were flung about ... and suddenl............