But Mr. Calcott was not at home.  He had set off yesterday, with Miss Calcott and Miss Caroline, for a tour in Wales, and would not return for a week or ten days.

To the imaginations of Lord Fitzjocelyn and Mr. Frost, this was fatal delay.  Besides, he would be sure to linger!—­He would not come home for a month—­nay, six weeks at least!—­What candidates might not start—­what pledges might not be given in the meantime!

James, vehement and disappointed, went home to spend the evening on the concoction of what his grandmother approved as ’a very proper letter,’ to be despatched to meet the Squire at the post-office at Caernarvon, and resigned himself to grumble away the period of his absence, secretly relieved at the postponement of the evil day of the canvass, at which all the Pendragon blood was in a state of revolt,

But Louis, in his solitude at Ormersfield, had nothing to distract his thoughts, or prevent him from lapsing into one of his most single-eyed fits of impetuosity.  He had come to regard James as the sole hope for Northwold school, and Northwold school as the sole hope for James; and had created an indefinite host of dangerous applicants, only to be forestalled by the most vigorous measures.  Evening, night, and morning, did but increase the conviction, till he ordered his horse, and galloped to the Terrace as though the speed of his charger would decide the contest.

Eloquently and piteously did he protest against James’s promise to take no steps until the Squire’s opinion should be known.  He convinced his cousin, talked over his aunt, and prevailed to have the letter re-written, and sent off to the post with the applications for testimonials.

Then the rough draft of the circular was revised and corrected, till it appeared so admirable to Louis, that he snatched it up, and ran away with it to read it to old Mr. Walby, who was one of the trustees, and very fond of his last year’s patient.  His promise, good easy man, was pretty sure to be the prize of the first applicant; but this did not render it less valuable to his young lordship, who came back all glorious with an eighth part of the victory, and highly delighted with the excellent apothecary’s most judicious and gratifying sentiments,—­namely, all his own eager rhetoric, to which the good man had cordially given his meek puzzle-headed assent.  Thenceforth Mr. Walby was to ‘think’ all Fitzjocelyn’s strongest recommendations of his cousin.

There was no use in holding back now.  James was committed, and, besides, there was a vision looming in the distance of a scholar from a foreign University with less than half a creed.  Thenceforth prompt measures were a mere duty to the rising generation; and Louis dragged his Coriolanus into the town, to call upon certain substantial tradesmen, who had voices among the eight.

Civility was great; but the portly grocer and gentlemanly bookseller had both learned prudence in many an election; neither would make any immediate reply—­the one because he never did anything but what Mr. Calcott directed, and the other never pledged himself till all the candidates were in the field, and he had impartially printed all their addresses.