y, though the scud flew swift, and the beeches raved, and the oaks
roared and snarled, and pine-trees fell their lengths. Fine tomorrow, to
a certainty! he had been heard to say. The doubt weighed for something;
the balance inclined with the gentleman who had become so popular: for
he had done the trick so suddenly, like a stroke of the wizard; and was
a real man, not one of your spangled zodiacs selling for sixpence and
hopping to a lucky hit, laughed at nine times out of ten. The reasoning
went--and it somewhat affected the mansion as well as the cottage,--that
if he had become popular in this astonishing fashion, after making one
of the biggest fortunes of modern times, he might, he must, have secret
gifts. 'You can't foretell weather!' cried a pothouse sceptic. But the
workmen at Lakelands declared that he had foretold it. Sceptics among
the common folk were quaintly silenced by other tales of him, being a
whiff from the delirium attending any mention of his name.

How had he become suddenly so popular as to rouse in the mind of Mr.
Caddis, the sitting Member for the division of the county (said to
have the seat in his pocket), a particular inquisitiveness to know the
bearing of his politics? Mr. Radnor was rich, true: but these are days
when wealthy men, ambitious of notoriety, do not always prove faithful
to their class; some of them are cunning to bid for the suffrages of the
irresponsible, recklessly enfranchised, corruptible masses. Mr. Caddis,
if he had the seat in his pocket, had it from the support of a class
trusting him to support its interests: he could count on the landowners,
on the clergy, on the retired or retiring or comfortably cushioned
merchants resident about Wrensham, on the many obsequious among
electoral shopmen; annually he threw open his grounds, and he
subscribed, patronized, did what was expected; and he was not popular;
he was unpopular. Why? But why was the sun of this 23rd August, shining
from its rise royally upon pacified, enrolled and liveried armies of
cloud, more agreeable to earth's populations than his pinched appearance
of the poor mopped red nose and melancholic rheumy eyelets on a January
day! Undoubtedly Victor Radnor risked his repute of prophet. Yet his
popularity would have survived the continuance of the storm and deluge.
He did this:--and the mystery puzzling the suspicious was nothing
wonderful: in addition to a transparent benevolence, he spread a sort of
assurance abou