CHAPTER LXXI.
PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED.
The manner in which Phineas Finn was returned a second time for theborough of Tankerville was memorable among the annals of Englishelections. When the news reached the town that their member was to betried for murder no doubt every elector believed that he was guilty.It is the natural assumption when the police and magistrates andlawyers, who have been at work upon the matter carefully, have cometo that conclusion, and nothing but private knowledge or personalaffection will stand against such evidence. At Tankerville there wasnothing of either, and our hero's guilt was taken as a certainty.There was an interest felt in the whole matter which was full ofexcitement, and not altogether without delight to the Tankervillians.Of course the borough, as a borough, would never again hold up itshead. There had never been known such an occurrence in the wholehistory of this country as the hanging of a member of the House ofCommons. And this Member of Parliament was to be hung for murderinganother member, which, no doubt, added much to the importance ofthe transaction. A large party in the borough declared that itwas a judgment. Tankerville had degraded itself among boroughs bysending a Roman Catholic to Parliament, and had done so at the verymoment in which the Church of England was being brought into danger.This was what had come upon the borough by not sticking to honestMr. Browborough! There was a moment,--just before the trial wasbegun,--in which a large proportion of the electors was desirousof proceeding to work at once, and of sending Mr. Browborough backto his own place. It was thought that Phineas Finn should be madeto resign. And very wise men in Tankerville were much surprisedwhen they were told that a member of Parliament cannot resign hisseat,--that when once returned he is supposed to be, as long as thatParliament shall endure, the absolute slave of his constituencyand his country, and that he can escape from his servitude onlyby accepting some office under the Crown. Now it was held to beimpossible that a man charged with murder should be appointed even tothe stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds. The House, no doubt, couldexpel a member, and would, as a matter of course, expel the memberfor Tankerville,--but the House could hardly proceed to expulsionbefore the member's guilt could have been absolutely established. Soit came to pass that there was no escape for the borough from anypart of the disgrace to which it had subjected itself by its unworthychoice, and some Tankervillians of sensitive minds were of opinionthat no Tankervillian ever again ought to take part in politics.
Then, quite suddenly, there came into the borough the tidings thatPhineas Finn was an innocent man. This happened on the morning onwhich the three telegrams from Prague reached London. The newsconveyed by the telegrams was at Tankerville almost as soon as inthe Court at the Old Bailey, and was believed as readily. The nameof the lady who had travelled all the way to Bohemia on behalf oftheir handsome young member was on the tongue of every woman inTankerville, and a most delightful romance was composed. Some fewProtestant spirits regretted the now assured escape of their RomanCatholic enemy, and would not even yet allow themselves to doubt thatthe whole murder had been arranged by Divine Providence to bring downthe scarlet woman. It seemed to them to be so fitting a thing thatProvidence should interfere directly to punish a town in which thesins of the scarlet woman were not held to be abominable! But themultitude were soon convinced that their member was innocent; andas it was certain that he had been in great peril,--as it was knownthat he was still in durance, and as it was necessary that the trialshould proceed, and that he should still stand at least for anotherday in the dock,--he became more than ever a hero. Then came thefurther delay, and at last the triumphant conclusion of the trial.When acquitted, Phineas Finn was still member for Tankerville andmight have walked into the House on that very night. Instead of doingso he had at once asked for the accustomed means of escape from hisservitude, and the seat for Tankerville was vacant. The most lovingfriends of Mr. Browborough perceived at once that there was nota chance for him. The borough was all but unanimous in resolvingthat it would return no one as its member but the man who had beenunjustly accused of murder.
Mr. Ruddles was at once despatched to London with two other politicalspirits,--so that there might be a real deputation,--and waited uponPhineas two days after his release from prison. Ruddles was veryanxious to carry his member back with him, assuring Phineas of anentry into the borough so triumphant that nothing like to it had everbeen known at Tankerville. But to all this Phineas was quite deaf.At first he declined even to be put in nomination. "You can't escapefrom it, Mr. Finn, you can't indeed," said Ruddles. "You don't at allunderstand the enthusiasm of the borough; does he, Mr. Gadmire?"
"I never knew anything like it in my life before," said Gadmire.
"I believe Mr. Finn would poll two-thirds of the Church partyto-morrow," said Mr. Troddles, a leading dissenter in Tankerville,who on this occasion was the third member of the deputation.
"I needn't sit for the borough unless I please, I suppose," pleadedPhineas.
"Well, no;--at least I don't know," said Ruddles. "It would bethrowing us over a good deal, and I'm sure you are not the gentlemanto do that. And then, Mr. Finn, don't you see that though you havebeen knocked about a little lately--"
"By George, he has,--most cruel," said Troddles.
"You'll miss the House if you give it up; you will, after a bit, Mr.Finn. You've got to come round again, Mr. Finn,--if I may be so boldas to say so, and you shouldn't put yourself out of the way of cominground comfortably."
Phineas knew that there was wisdom in the words of Mr. Ruddles, andconsented. Though at this moment he was low in heart, disgusted withthe world, and sick of humanity,--though every joint in his body wasstill sore from the rack on which he had been stretched, yet he knewthat it would not be so with him always. As others recovered so wouldhe, and it might be that he would live to "miss the House," should henow refuse the offer made to him. He accepted the offer, but he didso with a positive assurance that no consideration should at presenttake him to Tankerville.
"We ain't going to charge you, not one penny," said Mr. Gadmire, withenthusiasm.
"I feel all that I owe to the borough," said Phineas, "and to thewarm friends there who have espoused my cause; but I am not in acondition at present, either of mind or body, to put myself forwardanywhere in public. I have suffered a great deal."
"Most cruel!" said Troddles.
"And am quite willing to confess that I am therefore unfit in mypresent position to serve the borough."
"We can't admit that," said Gadmire, raising his left hand.
"We mean to have you," said Troddles.
"There isn't a doubt about your re-election, Mr. Finn," said Ruddles.
"I am very grateful, but I cannot be there. I must trust to one ofyou gentlemen to explain to the electors that in my present conditionI am unable to visit the borough."
Messrs. Ruddles, Gadmire, and Troddles returned toTankerville,--disappointed no doubt at not bringing with them himwhose company would have made their feet glorious on the pavement oftheir native town,--but still with a comparative sense of their ownimportance in having seen the great sufferer whose woes forbade thathe should be beheld by common eyes. They never even expressed an ideathat he ought to have come, alluding even to their past convictionsas to the futility of hoping for such a blessing; but spoke of him asa personage made almost sacred by the sufferings which he had beenmade to endure. As to the election, that would be a matter of course.He was proposed by Mr. Ruddles himself, and was absolutely secondedby the rector of Tankerville,--the staunchest Tory in the place,who on this occasion made a speech in which he declared that as anEnglishman, loving justice, he could not allow any political or evenany religious consideration to bias his conduct on this occasion. Mr.Finn had thrown up his seat under the pressure of a false accusation,and it was, the rector thought, for the honour of the borough thatthe seat should be restored to him. So Phineas Finn was re-electedfor Tankerville without opposition and without expense; and forsix weeks after the ceremony parcels were showered upon him by
the ladies of the borough who sent him worked slippers, scarlethunting waistcoats, pocket handkerchiefs, with "P.F." beautifullyembroidered, and chains made of their own hair.
In this conjunction of affairs the editor of The People's Bannerfound it somewhat difficult to trim his sails. It was a rule of lifewith Mr. Quintus Slide to persecute an enemy. An enemy might at anytime become a friend, but while an enemy was an enemy he should betrodden on and persecuted. Mr. Slide had striven more than once tomake a friend of Phineas Finn; but Phineas Finn had been conceitedand stiff-necked. Phineas had been to Mr. Slide an enemy of enemies,and by all his ideas of manliness, by all the rules of his life, byevery principle which guided him, he was bound to persecute Phineasto the last. During the trial and the few weeks before the trial hehad written various short articles with the view of declaring howimproper it would be should a newspaper express any opinion of theguilt or innocence of a suspected person while under trial; and hegave two or three severe blows to contemporaries for having sinned inthe matter; but in all these articles he had contrived to insinuatethat the member for Tankerville would, as a matter of course, bedealt with by the hands of justice. He had been very careful torecapitulate all circumstances which had induced Finn to hate themurdered man, and had more than once related the story of thefiring of the pistol at Macpherson's Hotel. Then came the telegramfrom Prague, and for a day or two Mr. Slide was stricken dumb. Theacquittal followed, and Quintus Slide had found himself compelled tojoin in the general satisfaction evinced at the escape of an innocentman. Then came the re-election for Tankerville, and Mr. Slide feltthat there was opportunity for another reaction. More than enoughhad been done for Phineas Finn in allowing him to elude the gallows.There could certainly be no need for crowning him with a politicalchaplet because he had not murdered Mr. Bonteen. Among a few otherremarks which Mr. Slide threw together, the following appeared in thecolumns of The People's Banner:--
We must confess that we hardly understand the principle on which Mr. Finn has been re-elected for Tankerville with so much enthusiasm,--free of expense,--and without that usual compliment to the constituency which is implied by the personal appearance of the candidate. We have more than once expressed our belief that he was wrongly accused in the matter of Mr. Bonteen's murder. Indeed our readers will do us the justice to remember that, during the trial and before the trial, we were always anxious to allay the very strong feeling against Mr. Finn with which the public mind was then imbued, not only by the facts of the murder, but also by the previous conduct of that gentleman. But we cannot understand why the late member should be thought by the electors of Tankerville to be especially worthy of their confidence because he did not murder Mr. Bonteen. He himself, instigated, we hope, by a proper feeling, retired from Parliament as soon as he was acquitted. His career during the last twelve months has not enhanced his credit, and cannot, we should think, have increased his comfort. We ventured to suggest after that affair in Judd Street, as to which the police were so benignly inefficient, that it would not be for the welfare of the nation that a gentleman should be employed in the public service whose public life had been marked by the misfortune which had attended Mr. Finn. Great efforts were made by various ladies of the old Whig party to obtain official employment for him, but they were made in vain. Mr. Gresham was too wise, and our advice,--we will not say was followed,--but was found to agree with the decision of the Prime Minister. Mr. Finn was left out in the cold in spite of his great friends,--and then came the murder of Mr. Bonteen.
Can it be that Mr. Finn's fitness for Parliamentary duties has been increased by Mr. Bonteen's unfortunate death, or by the fact that Mr. Bonteen was murdered by other hands than his own? We think not. The wretched husband, who, in the madness of jealousy, fired a pistol at this young man's head, has since died in his madness. Does that incident in the drama give Mr. Finn any special claim to consideration? We think not;--and we think also that the electors of Tankerville would have done better had they allowed Mr. Finn to return to that obscurity which he seems to have desired. The electors of Tankerville, however, are responsible only to their borough, and may do as they please with the seat in Parliament which is at their disposal. We may, however, protest against the employment of an unfit person in the service of his country,--simply because he has not committed a murder. We say so much now because rumours of an arrangement have reached our ears, which, should it come to pass,--would force upon us the extremely disagreeable duty of referring very forcibly to past circumstances, which may otherwise, perhaps, be allowed to be forgotten.