frontal attack
or by obstruction. But, in the opinion of the Left Wing of the party,
the chief weapon of its killing should be the promise of a much larger
and more revolutionary measure from the Liberal side. The powerful Right
Wing, however, largely represented on the front bench, held that you
could no more make farmers than saints by Act of Parliament, and that
only by slow and indirect methods could the people be drawn back to the
land. There was, in fact, little difference between them and the front
bench opposite, except a difference in method; only the Whig brains were
the keener; and in John Ferrier the Right Wing had a personality and an
oratorical gift which the whole Tory party admired and envied.

There had been a party meeting on the subject of the Bill, and Ferrier
and the front bench had, on the whole, carried the indorsement of their
policy. But there was an active and discontented minority, full of
rebellious projects for the general election.

On this particular afternoon Ferrier had been dealing with the
Government Bill on the lines laid down by the meeting at Grenville
House. His large pale face (the face of a student rather than a
politician), with its small eyes and overhanging brows; the straight
hair and massive head; the heavy figure closely buttoned in the familiar
frock-coat; the gesture easy, animated, still young--on these well-known
aspects a crowded House had bent its undivided attention. Then Ferrier
sat down; a bore rose; and out flowed the escaping tide to the lobbies
and the Terrace.

Marsham found himself on the Terrace, among a group of malcontents:
Barton, grim and unkempt, prophet-eyes blazing, mouth contemptuous; the
Scotchman McEwart, who had been one of the New Year's visitors to
Tallyn, tall, wiry, red-haired, the embodiment of all things shrewd and
efficient; and two or three more. A young London member was holding
forth, masking what was really a passion of disgust in a slangy
nonchalance.

"What's the good of turning these fellows out--will anybody tell me?--if
that's all Ferrier can do for us? Think I prefer 'em to that kind of
mush! As for Barton, I've had to hold him down by the coat-tails!"

Barton allowed the slightest glint of a smile to show itself for an
instant. The speaker--Roland Lankester--was one of his few weaknesses.
But the frown returned. He strolled along with his hands in his pockets
and his eyes on the ground; his silence was the silence of one in w