Duke chosen to continue to send them Liberals, one after another, when he went into the House of Lords, there would have been no question as to the fitness of the man, or men so sent.  Silverbridge had been supposed to be a Liberal as a matter of course;—­because the Pallisers were Liberals.  But when the matter was remitted to themselves;—­when the Duke declared that he would not interfere any more, for it was thus that the borough had obtained its freedom;—­then the borough began to feel conservative predilections.  ’If his Grace really does mean us to do just what we please ourselves which is a thing we never thought of asking from his Grace, then we find, having turned the matter over among ourselves, that we are upon the whole Conservative.’  In this spirit the borough had elected a certain Mr Fletcher; but in doing so the borough had still a shade of fear that it would offend the Duke.  The House of Palliser, Gatherum Castle, the Duke of Omnium, and this special Duke himself, were all so great in the eyes of the borough, that the first and only strong feeling in the borough was the one of duty.  The borough did not altogether enjoy being enfranchised.  But when the Duke had spoken once, twice, and thrice, then with a hesitating heart the borough returned Mr Fletcher.  Now Mr Fletcher was wanted elsewhere, having been persuaded to stand for the county, and it was a comfort to the borough that it could resettle itself beneath the warmth of the wings of the Pallisers.

So the matter stood when Lord Silverbridge was told that his presence in the borough for a few hours would be taken as a compliment.  Hitherto no one knew him at Silverbridge.  During his boyhood he had not been much at Gatherum Castle, and had done his best to eschew the place since he had ceased to be a boy.  All the Pallisers took a pride in Gatherum Castle, but they all disliked it.  ‘Oh yes, I’ll go down,’ he said to Mr Morton, who was up in town.  ‘I needn’t go to the great barrack I suppose.’  The great barrack was the Castle.  ‘I’ll put up at the Inn.’  Mr Morton begged the heir to come to his own house; but Silverbridge declared that he would prefer the Inn, and so the matter was settled.  He was to meet sundry politicians,—­Mr Spurgeon and Mr Sprout and Mr Du Boung,—­who would like to be thanked for what they had been done.  But who was to go with him?  He would naturally have asked Tregear, but from Tregear he had for the last week or two been, not perhaps estranged, but separated.  He had been much taken up with racing.  He had gone down to Chester with Major Tifto, and under the Major’s auspicious influences had won a little money;—­and now he was very anxiously preparing himself for the Newmarket Second Spring Meeting.  He had therefore passed much of his time with Major Tifto.  And when this visit to Silverbridge was pressed on him he thoughtlessly asked Tifto to go with him.  Tifto was delighted.  Lord Silverbridge was to be met at Silverbridge by various well-known politicians from the neighbourhood, and Major Tifto was greatly elated by the prospect of such an introduction into the political world.