ing into the thing, for I've never known anything about Middlemarch politics before—the county being my business. What Brooke trusts to, is that they are going to turn out Oliver because he is a Peelite. But Hawley tells me that if they send up a Whig at all it is sure to be Bagster, one of those candidates who come from heaven knows where, but dead against Ministers, and an experienced Parliamentary man. Hawley’s rather rough: he forgot that he was speaking to me. He said if Brooke wanted a pelting, he could get it cheaper than by going to the hustings.”
“I warned you all of it,” said Mrs Cadwallader, waving her hands outward. “I said to Humphrey long ago, Mr Brooke is going to make a splash in the mud. And now he has done it.”
“Well, he might have taken it into his head to marry,” said the Rector. “That would have been a graver mess than a little flirtation with politics.”
“He may do that afterwards,” said Mrs Cadwallader—“when he has come out on the other side of the mud with an ague.”
“What I care for most is his own dignity,” said Sir James. “Of course I care the more because of the family. But he’s getting on in life now, and I don’t like to think of his exposing himself. They will be raking up everything against him.”
“I suppose it's no use trying any persuasion,” said the Rector. “There’s such an odd mixture of obstinacy and changeableness in Brooke. Have you tried him on the subject?”
“Well, no,” said Sir James; “I feel a delicacy in appearing to dictate. But I have been talking to this young Ladislaw that Brooke is making a factotum of. Ladislaw seems clever enough for anything. I thought it as well to hear what he had to say; and he is against Brooke’s standing this time. I think he’ll turn him round: I think the nomination may be staved off.”
“I know,” said Mrs Cadwallader, nodding. “The independent member hasn’t got his speeches well enough by heart.”
“But this Ladislaw—there again is a vexatious business,” said Sir James. “We have had him two or three times to dine at the Hall (you have met him, by the by) as Brooke’s guest and a relation of Casaubon’s, thinking he was only on a flying visit. And now I find he’s in everybody’s mouth in Middlemarch as the editor of the ‘Pioneer’. There are stories going about him as a quill-driving alien, a foreign emissary, and what not.”
“Casaubon won’t like that,” said the Rector.
“There is some foreign blood in Ladislaw,” returned Sir James. “I hope he won’t go into extreme opinions and carry Brooke on.”
“Oh, he’s a dangerous young sprig, that Mr Ladislaw,” said Mrs Cadwallader, “with his opera songs and his ready tongue. A sort of Byronic hero—an amorous conspirator, it strikes me. And Thomas Aquinas is not fond of him. I could see that, the day the picture was brought.”
“I don’t like to begin on the subject with Casaubon,” said Sir
