RENT received Tansley's warning with a curious tightening of lips and setting of jaw which the solicitor, during their brief acquaintance, had come to know well enough. It meant that the young man's fighting spirit was roused.
Tansley laughed.
“You're the sort of fellow for a scrap, Brent,” he remarked. “I think you can move pretty fast, too; but you don't know this crew, or their resources. Whatever anybody may say, and whatever men like your late cousin, and Epplewhite, and any of the so-called progressives—I'm not one, myself, for it pays me to belong to neither party—whatever these folks may think or say, Simon Crood and his lot are top dogs in this little old town! Vested interests, my boy—an ancient tree, with roots firmly fixed in the piled-up soil, strata upon strata, of a thousand years! You're not going to pull up those roots, my lad!”
“How will Simon Crood smash me?” demanded Brent quietly.
“As to the exact how,” answered Tansley, “I can't say. Mole work—but he'll set the electors in the Castle Ward against you.”
“I have enough promises of support now to give me a majority,” retorted Brent.
“That for promises!” exclaimed Tansley, snapping his fingers. “You don't know Hathelsborough people. They'll promise you their support to your face, just to get rid of your presence on their doorstep—and vote against you when they reach the ballot box. I'll lay anything most of the people you've been to see have promised their support to both candidates.”
“Why should these people support such robbers as Crood and his gang?” demanded Brent.
“Because Crood and his crew represent the only God they worship,” said Tansley, with a cynical laugh. “Bran, as they call it! All that most Hathelsborough men think about is bran—money. Get money—where you can—never mind how, as long as you get it, and keep just within the law. Simon Crood represents the Hathelsborough principle of graft. Whatever you may think, he's the paramount influence in the town to-day.”
“He and his lot have only got the barest majority in the council,” remarked Brent.
“Maybe, but they've got all the really influential men behind 'em—the moneyed men,” said Tansley. “And they've distributed all the official posts—sinecures, most of 'em—among their friends. That town trustee business is the nut to crack here, Brent; and a nut that's been hardening for centuries isn't going to be cracked with an ordinary implement. Are you an extraordinary one?”
“I'll make a try at things, anyhow,” replied Brent. “I don't believe I shall lose that election, either.”
“You might have scraped in if you hadn't carried Simon Crood's niece away from under his very nose,” said Tansley; “but now that you've brought personal matters into the quarrel, the old chap will move every piece he has on the board to checkmate you. It wouldn't do to have you on the council, Brent! You're too much of an innovator. Now this town—the real town—doesn't want innovation. Innovation in an ancient borough like this is unsettling and uncomfortable—see?”
“This world doesn't stand still,” retorted Brent. “I'm going ahead!”
But he reflected, as he left the lawyer's office, that much of what Tansley had said was true. There was something baffling in the very atmosphere of Hathelsborough, and he felt like a man who fights the wind. Everything was elusive, ungraspable, evasive. He seemed to get no further forward.
If Tansley was right in affirming that Hathelsborough people made promises which they had no intention of redeeming, Brent's chances of getting a seat in the town council, and setting to work to rebuild his late cousin's schemes of reformation, were small indeed; but once more he set his jaw and nerved himself to endeavor. As the day of election was now close at hand, he plunged into the task of canvassing and persuading—wondering all the time, now that he had heard Tansley's cynical remarks, if the people to whom he talked, and most of whom were plausible and ingratiating in their reception of him, were in reality laughing at him for his pains.
He saw little of the efforts of the other side; but Peppermore agreed with Tansley that the opposition would leave no stone unturned in the task of beating him. The Monitor was all for Brent. Peppermore's proprietor was a Progressive—a tradesman who had bought up the Monitor for a mere song, and ran it as a business speculation which had so far turned out very satisfactorily. Consequently, at this period, Brent went much to the office of the local newspaper, and did things in concert with Peppermore, inspiring articles which, to say the least, were severely critical of the methods of the Crood régime.
