“The very action Richard described!  The action he was always using at East Lynne!  I believe from my heart that the man is Thorn; that Richard was laboring under some mistake when he said he knew Sir Francis Levison.”

She let her hands fall upon her knee as she spoke, heedless of the candidate, heedless of the crowd, heedless of all save her own troubled thoughts.  A hundred respected salutations were offered her; she answered them mechanically; a shout was raised, “Long live Carlyle!  Carlyle forever!” Barbara bowed her pretty head on either side, and the carriage at length got on.

The parting of the crowd brought Mr. Dill, who had come to listen for once to the speech of the second man, and Mr. Ebenezer James close to each other.  Mr. Ebenezer James was one who, for the last twelve or fifteen years, had been trying his hand at many trades.  And had not come out particularly well at any.  A rolling stone gathers no moss.  First, he had been clerk to Mr. Carlyle; next, he had been seduced into joining the corps of the Theatre Royal at Lynneborough; then he turned auctioneer; then travelling in the oil and color line; then a parson, the urgent pastor of some new sect; then omnibus driver; then collector of the water rate; and now he was clerk again, not in Mr. Carlyle’s office, but in that of Ball & Treadman, other solicitors of West Lynne.  A good-humored, good-natured, free-of-mannered, idle chap was Mr. Ebenezer James, and that was the worst that could be urged against him, save that he was sometimes out at pocket and out at elbows.  His father was a respectable man, and had made money in trade, but he had married a second wife, had a second family, and his eldest son did not come in for much of the paternal money, though he did for a large share of the paternal anger.

“Well, Ebenezer, and how goes the world with you?” cried Mr. Dill by way of salutation.

“Jogging on.  It never gets to a trot.”

“Didn’t I see you turning into your father’s house yesterday?”

“I pretty soon turned out of it again.  I’m like the monkey when I venture there—­get more kicks than halfpence.  Hush, old gentleman!  We interrupt the eloquence.”

Of course “the eloquence” applied to Sir Francis Levison, and they set themselves to listen—­Mr. Dill with a serious face, Mr. Ebenezer with a grinning one.  But soon a jostle and movement carried them to the outside of the crowd, out of sight of the speaker, though not entirely out of hearing.  By these means they had a view of the street, and discerned something advancing to them, which they took for a Russian bear on its hind legs.

“I’ll—­be—­blest,” uttered Mr. Ebenezer James, after a prolonged pause of staring consternation, “if I don’t believe its Bethel!”

“Bethel!” repeated Mr. Dill, gazing at the approaching figure.  “What has he been doing to himself?”

Mr. Otway Bethel it was, just arrived from foreign parts in his travelling costume—­something shaggy, terminating all over with tails.  A wild object he looked; and Mr. Dill rather backed as he drew near, as if fearing he was a real animal which might bite him.