And now there were going to be wondrous doings in West Barsetshire, and men’s minds were much disturbed. The fiat had gone forth from the high places, and the Queen had dissolved her faithful Commons. The giants, finding that they could effect little or nothing with the old House, had resolved to try what a new venture would do for them, and the hubbub of a general election was to pervade the country. This produced no inconsiderable irritation and annoyance, for the House was not as yet quite three years old; and members of Parliament, though they naturally feel a constitutional pleasure in meeting their friends and in pressing the hands of their constituents, are, nevertheless, so far akin to the lower order of humanity that they appreciate the danger of losing their seats; and the certainty of a considerable outlay in their endeavours to retain them is not agreeable to the legislative mind. Never did the old family fury between the gods and giants rage higher than at the present moment. The giants declared that every turn which they attempted to take in their country’s service had been thwarted by faction, in spite of those benign promises of assistance made to them only a few weeks since by their opponents; and the gods answered by asserting that they were driven to this opposition by the Boeotian fatuity of the giants. They had no doubt promised their aid, and were ready to give it to measures that were decently prudent; but not to a bill enabling Government at its will to pension aged bishops! No; there must be some limit to their tolerance, and when such attempts as these were made that limit had been clearly passed. All this had taken place openly only a day or two after that casual whisper dropped by Tom Towers at Miss Dunstable’s party — by Tom Towers, that most pleasant of all pleasant fellows. And how should he have know it,— he who flutters from one sweetest flower of the garden to another,

‘Adding sugar to the pink, and honey to the rose,
So loved for what he gives, but taking nothing as he goes’?

But the whisper had grown into a rumour, and the rumour into a fact, and the political world was in a ferment. The giants, furious about their bishops’ pension bill, threatened the House — most injudiciously; and then it was beautiful to see how indignant members got up, glowing with honesty, and declared that it was base to conceive that any gentleman in that House could be actuated in his vote by any hopes or fears with reference to his seat. And so matters grew from bad to worse, and these contending parties never hit at each other with some venomed wrath as they did now;— having entered the ring together so lately with such manifold promises of good-will, respect, and forbearance!

But going from the general to the particular, we may say that nowhere was a deeper consternation spread than in the electoral division of West Barsetshire. No sooner had the tidings of the dissolution reached the county than it was known that the duke intended to change his nominee. Mr Sowerby had now sat for the division since the Reform Bill! He had become one of the county’s institutions, and by the dint of custom and long establishment had been borne with and even liked by the county gentlemen, in spite of his well-known pecuniary irregularities. Now all this was to be changed. No reason had as yet been publicly given, but it was understood that Lord Dumbello was to be returned, although he did not own an acre of land in the county. It is true that rumour went on to say that Lord Dumbello was about to form close connexions with Barsetshire. He was on the eve of marrying a young lady, from the other division indeed, and was now engaged, so it was said, in completing arrangements with the Government for the purchase of that noble Crown property usually known as the Chase of Chaldicotes. It was also stated — this statement, however, had hitherto been only announced in confidential whispers — that Chaldicotes House itself would soon become the residence of the marquis. The duke was claiming it as his own — would very shortly have completed his claims and taken possession:— and then, by some arrangement between them, it was to be made over to Lord Dumbello. But very contrary rumours to these got abroad also. Men said — such as dared to oppose the duke, and some few also, who did not dare to oppose him when the day of battle came — that it was beyond his grace’s power to turn Lord Dumbello into a Barsetshire magnate. The Crown property — such men said — was to fall into the hands of young Mr Gresham, of Boxall Hill, in the other division, and that the terms of purchase had been already settled. And as to Mr Sowerby’s property and the house of Chaldicotes — these opponents of the Omnium interest went on to explain — it was by no means as yet so certain that the duke would be able to enter it and to take possession. The place was not to be given up to him quietly. A great fight would be made, and it was beginning to be believed that the enormous mortgages would be paid off by a lady of immense wealth. And then a dash of romance was not wanting to make these stories palatable. This lady of immense wealth had been courted by Mr Sowerby, had acknowledged her love,— but had refused to marry him on account of his character. In testimony of her love, however, she was about to pay all his debts.

It was soon put beyond a rumour, and became manifest enough, that Mr Sowerby did not intend to retire from the county in obedience to the duke’s behest. A placard was posted through the whole division in which no allusion was made by name to the duke, but in which Mr Sowerby warned his friends not to be led away by any report that he intended to retire from the representation of West Barsetshire. ‘He had sat,’ the placard said, ‘for the same county during the full period of a quarter of a century, and he would not lightly give up an honour that had been extended to him so often and which he prized so dearly. There were but few men now in the House whose connexion with the same body of constituents had remained unbroken so long as had that which had bound him to West Barsetshire; and he confidently hoped that the connexion might be continued through another period of coming years, till he might find himself in the glorious position of being the father of the county members of the House of Commons.’ The placard said much more than this, and hinted at sundry and various questions, all of great interest to the county; but it did not say one word of the Duke of Omnium, though every one knew what the duke was supposed to be doing in the matter. He was, as it were, a great Llama, shut up in a holy of holies, inscrutable, invisible, inexorable,— not to be seen by men’s eyes or heard by their ears, hardly to be mentioned by ordinary men at such periods as these without an inward quaking. But, nevertheless, it was he who was supposed to rule them. Euphemism required that his name should be mentioned at no public meetings in connexion with the coming election; but, nevertheless, most men in the county believed that he could send his dog up to the House of Commons as member for West Barsetshire if it so pleased him.

It was supposed, therefore, that our friend Sowerby would have no chance; but he was lucky in finding assistance in a quarter from which he certainly had not deserved it. He had been a staunch friend of the gods during the whole of his political life,— as, indeed, was to be expected, seeing that he had been the duke’s nominee; but, nevertheless, on the present occasion, all the giants connected with the county came forward to his rescue. They did to do this with the acknowledged purpose of opposing the duke; they declared that they were actuated by a generous disinclination to see an old county member put from his seat; but the world knew that the battle was to be waged against the great Llama. It was to be a contest between the powers of aristocracy and the powers of oligarchy, as those powers existed in West Barsetshire,— and it may be added, that democracy would have very little to say to it, on one side or on the other. The lower order of voters, the small farmers and tradesmen, would no doubt range themselves on the side of the duke, and would endeavour to flatter themselves that they were thereby furthering the views of the Liberal side; but they would in fact be led to the poll by an old-fashioned, time-honoured adherence to the will of their great Llama; and by an apprehension of evil if that Llama should arise and shake himself in his wrath. What might not come to the county if the Llama were to walk himself off, he with his satellites and armies and courtiers? There he was, a great Llama; and though he came among them but seldom, and was scarcely seen when he did come, nevertheless — and not the less but rather the more — was obedience to him considered as salutary and opposition regarded as dangerous. A great rural Llama is still sufficiently mighty in rural England. But the priest of the temple, Mr Fothergill, was frequent enough in men’s eyes, and it was beautiful to hear with how varied a voice he alluded to the things around him and to the changes which were coming. To the small farmers, not only on the Gatherum property, but on others also, he spoke of the duke as a beneficent influence, shedding prosperity on all around him, keeping up prices by his presence, and in forbidding the poor rates to rise above one and fourpence in the pound by the general employment which he occasioned. Men must be mad, he thought, who would willingly fly in the duke’s face. To the squire from a distance he declared that no one had a right to charge the duke with any interference; as far, at least, as he knew the duke’s mind. People would talk of things of which they understood nothing. Could any one say that he had traced a single request for a vote home to the duke? All this did not alter the settled conviction on men’s minds; but it had the effect, and tended to increase the mystery in which the duke’s doings were enveloped. But to his own familiars, to the gentry immediately around him, Mr Fothergill merely winked his eye. They knew what was what, and so did he. The duke had never been bit yet in such matters, and Mr Fothergill did not think that he would now submit himself to any such operation.

I never heard in what manner and at what rate Mr Fothergill received remuneration for the various services performed by him with reference to the duke’s property in Barsetshire; but I am very sure that, whatever might be the amount, he earned it thoroughly. Never was there a more faithful partisan, or one who, in his partisanship, was more discreet. In this matter of the coming election he declared that he himself — personally, on his own hook — did intend to bestir himself actively on behalf of Lord Dumbello. Mr Sowerby was an ............