Coningsby | Page 4

were in the hall; the gentlemen
who brought the news looked somewhat depressed, but Mr. Rigby gay,
even amid the prostration of his party, from the consciousness that he
had most critically demolished a piece of political gossip and conveyed
a certain degree of mortification to a couple of his companions; when a
travelling carriage and four with a ducal coronet drove up to the house.
The door was thrown open, the steps dashed down, and a youthful
noble sprang from his chariot into the hall.
'Good morning, Rigby,' said the Duke.
'I see your Grace well, I am sure,' said Mr. Rigby, with a softened
manner.
'You have heard the news, gentlemen?' the Duke continued.
'What news? Yes; no; that is to say, Mr. Rigby thinks--'

'You know, of course, that Lord Lyndhurst is with the King?'
'It is impossible,' said Mr. Rigby.
'I don't think I can be mistaken,' said the Duke, smiling.
'I will show your Grace that it is impossible,' said Mr. Rigby, 'Lord
Lyndhurst slept at Wimbledon. Lord Grey could not have seen the King
until twelve o'clock; it is now five minutes to one. It is impossible,
therefore, that any message from the King could have reached Lord
Lyndhurst in time for his Lordship to be at the palace at this moment.'
'But my authority is a high one,' said the Duke.
'Authority is a phrase,' said Mr. Rigby; 'we must look to time and place,
dates and localities, to discover the truth.'
'Your Grace was saying that your authority--' ventured to observe Mr.
Tadpole, emboldened by the presence of a duke, his patron, to struggle
against the despotism of a Rigby, his tyrant.
'Was the highest,' rejoined the Duke, smiling, 'for it was Lord
Lyndhurst himself. I came up from Nuneham this morning, passed his
Lordship's house in Hyde Park Place as he was getting into his carriage
in full dress, stopped my own, and learned in a breath that the Whigs
were out, and that the King had sent for the Chief Baron. So I came on
here at once.'
'I always thought the country was sound at bottom,' exclaimed Mr.
Taper, who, under the old system, had sneaked into the Treasury Board.
Tadpole and Taper were great friends. Neither of them ever despaired
of the Commonwealth. Even if the Reform Bill were passed, Taper was
convinced that the Whigs would never prove men of business; and
when his friends confessed among themselves that a Tory Government
was for the future impossible, Taper would remark, in a confidential
whisper, that for his part he believed before the year was over the
Whigs would be turned out by the clerks.

'There is no doubt that there is considerable reaction,' said Mr. Tadpole.
The infamous conduct of the Whigs in the Amersham case has opened
the public mind more than anything.'
'Aldborough was worse,' said Mr. Taper.
'Terrible,' said Tadpole. 'They said there was no use discussing the
Reform Bill in our House. I believe Rigby's great speech on
Aldborough has done more towards the reaction than all the violence of
the Political Unions put together.'
'Let us hope for the best,' said the Duke, mildly. ''Tis a bold step on the
part of the Sovereign, and I am free to say I could have wished it
postponed; but we must support the King like men. What say you,
Rigby? You are silent.'
'I am thinking how very unfortunate it was that I did not breakfast with
Lyndhurst this morning, as I was nearly doing, instead of going down
to Eton.'
'To Eton! and why to Eton?'
'For the sake of my young friend here, Lord Monmouth's grandson. By
the bye, you are kinsmen. Let me present to your Grace, MR.
CONINGSBY.'


CHAPTER II.
The political agitation which for a year and a half had shaken England
to its centre, received, if possible, an increase to its intensity and
virulence, when it was known, in the early part of the month of May,
1832, that the Prime Minister had tendered his resignation to the King,
which resignation had been graciously accepted.
The amendment carried by the Opposition in the House of Lords on the

evening of the 7th of May, that the enfranchising clauses of the Reform
Bill should be considered before entering into the question of
disfranchisement, was the immediate cause of this startling event. The
Lords had previously consented to the second reading of the Bill with
the view of preventing that large increase of their numbers with which
they had been long menaced; rather, indeed, by mysterious rumours
than by any official declaration; but, nevertheless, in a manner which
had carried conviction to no inconsiderable portion of the Opposition
that the threat was not without foundation.
During the progress of the Bill