by having to answer
questions, to submit to familiarities, to shake hands which to say truth he did
not care for grasping at all. His habits were aristocratic; his education had
been military; the kindest and simplest soul alive, he yet disliked all
familiarity, and expected from common people the sort of deference which he had
received from his men in the regiment. The contest saddened and mortified him:
he felt that he was using wrong means to obtain an end that perhaps was not
right (for so his secret conscience must have told him); he was derogating from
his own honour in tampering with political opinions, submitting to
familiarities, condescending to stand by whilst his agents solicited vulgar
suffrages or uttered clap-traps about retrenchment and reform. »I felt I was
wrong,« he said to me in after days, »though I was too proud to own my error in
those times, and you and your good wife and my boy were right in protesting
against that mad election.« Indeed, though we little knew what events were
speedily to happen, Laura and I felt very little satisfaction when the result of
the Newcome election was made known to us, and we found Sir Barnes Newcome third
and Col. Thomas Newcome second upon the poll.
    Ethel was absent with her children at Brighton. She was glad, she wrote, not
to have been at home during the election. Mr. and Mrs. C. were at Brighton too.
Ethel had seen Mrs. C. and her child once or twice. It was a very fine child.
»My brother came down to us,« she wrote, »after all was over. He is furious
against M. de Montcontour, who, he says, persuaded the Whigs to vote against
him, and turned the election.«
 

                                  Chapter LXX

                               Chiltern Hundreds.

We shall say no more regarding Thomas Newcome's political doings, his speeches
against Barnes, and the Baronet's replies. The nephew was beaten by his stout
old uncle.
    In due time the Gazette announced that Thomas Newcome, Esq., was returned as
one of the Members of Parliament for the borough of Newcome; and, after
triumphant dinners, speeches, and rejoicings, the member came back to his family
in London, and to his affairs in that city.
    The good Colonel appeared to be by no means elated by his victory. He would
not allow that he was wrong in engaging in that family war, of which we have
just seen the issue; though it may be that his secret remorse on this account in
part occasioned his disquiet.