"Three acres and a cow," cried Harry, emitting what the
Parliamentary reports call an ironical cheer.
"Yes," replied his brother, stubbornly. "Don't you think agricultural
laborers would rather have three acres and a cow than three acres of printed
forms and a committee? Why doesn't somebody start a yeoman party in
politics, appealing to the old traditions of the small landowner? And why don't
they attack men like Verner for what they are, which is something about as old
and traditional as an American oil trust?"
"You'd better lead the yeoman party yourself," laughed Harry.
"Don't you think it would be a joke, Lord Saltoun, to see my brother
and his merry men, with their bows and bills, marching down to
Somerset all in Lincoln green instead of Lincoln and Bennet hats?"
"No," answered Old Saltoun, "I don't think it would be a joke. I think it
would be an exceedingly serious and sensible idea."
"Well, I'm jiggered!" cried Harry Fisher, staring at him. "I said just now it
was the first fact you didn't know, and I should say this is the first joke you
didn't see."
"I've seen a good many things in my time," said the old man, in his rather
sour fashion. "I've told a good many lies in my time, too, and perhaps I've got
rather sick of them. But there are lies and lies, for all that. Gentlemen used to
lie just as schoolboys lie, because they hung together and partly to help one
another out. But I'm damned if I can see why we should lie for these
cosmopolitan cads who only help themselves. They're not backing us up any
more; they're simply crowding us out. If a man like your brother likes to go
into Parliament as a yeoman or a gentleman or a Jacobite or an Ancient Briton,
I should say it would be a jolly good thing."
In the rather startled silence that followed Horne Fisher sprang to his feet
and all his dreary manner dropped off him.
"I'm ready to do it to-morrow," he cried. "I suppose none of you fellows
would back me up."
Then Harry Fisher showed the finer side of his impetuosity. He made a
sudden movement as if to shake hands.
"You're a sport," he said, "and I'll back you up, if nobody else will. But we
can all back you up, can't we? I see what Lord Saltoun means, and, of course,
he's right. He's always right."
"So I will go down to Somerset," said Horne Fisher.