no longer any but hostile
relations with him.«
    The sense that he had shown a slight heat would have vexed Harold more if he
had not got some satisfaction out of the thought that Jermyn heard those words.
He recovered his good temper quickly, and when, subsequently, the question came
-
    »You acquiesced in the treating of the Sproxton men, as necessary to the
efficient working of the reformed constituency?« Harold replied, with quiet
fluency -
    »Yes; on my return to England, before I put up for North Loamshire, I got
the best advice from practised agents, both Whig and Tory. They all agreed as to
electioneering measures.«
    The next witness was Michael Brincey, otherwise Mike Brindle, who gave
evidence of the sayings and doings of the prisoner amongst the Sproxton men.
Mike declared that Felix went »uncommon again' drink, and pitch-and-toss, and
quarrelling, and sich,« and was »all for schooling and bringing up the little
chaps;« but on being cross-examined, he admitted that he »couldn't give much
account«; that Felix did talk again' idle folks, whether poor or rich, and that
most like he meant the rich, who had »a rights to be idle«, which was what he,
Mike, liked himself sometimes, though for the most part he was »a hard-working
butty.« On being checked for this superfluous allegation of his own theory and
practice, Mike became timidly conscious that answering was a great mystery
beyond the reaches of a butty's soul, and began to err from defect instead of
excess. However, he reasserted that what Felix most wanted was, »to get 'em to
set up a school for the little chaps.«
    With the two succeeding witnesses, who swore to the fact that Felix had
tried to lead the mob along Hobb's Lane instead of towards the Manor, and to the
violently threatening character of Tucker's attack on him, the case for the
defence was understood to close.
    Meanwhile Esther had been looking on and listening with growing misery, in
the sense that all had not been said which might have been said on behalf of
Felix. If it was the jury who were to be acted on, she argued to herself, there
might have been an impression made on their feeling which would determine their
verdict. Was it not constantly said and seen that juries pronounced Guilty or
Not Guilty from sympathy for or against the accused? She was too inexperienced
to check her own argument by thoroughly representing to herself the course of