ectors of South Fox, was packed from floor to ceiling, and a large
and patient overflow made the best of the hearing accommodation of the
corridors and the foyer. A Minister was to speak, Sir Matthew Tellier,
who held the portfolio of Public Works; and for drawing a crowd in Elgin
there was nothing to compare with a member of the Government. He was
the sum of all ambition and the centre of all importance; he was held
to have achieved in the loftiest sense, and probably because he deserved
to; a kind of afflatus sat upon him. They paid him real deference and
they flocked to hear him. Cruickshank was a second attraction; and
Lorne himself, even at this stage of the proceedings, "drew" without
abatement. They knew young Murchison well enough; he had gone in and out
among them all his life; yet since he had come before them in this new
capacity a curious interest had gathered about him. People looked at him
as if he had developed something they did not understand, and perhaps
he had; he was in touch with the Idea. They listened with an intense
personal interest in him which, no doubt, went to obscure what he
said: perhaps a less absorbing personality would have carried the Idea
further. However, they did look and listen--that was the main point, and
on their last opportunity they were in the opera house in great numbers.

Lorne faced them with an enviable security; the friendliness of the
meeting was in the air. The gathering was almost entirely of one
political complexion: the Conservatives of the town would have been glad
enough to turn out to hear Minister Tellier; but the Liberals were of no
mind to gratify them at the cost of having to stand themselves, and were
on hand early to assert a prior moral claim to chairs. In the seated
throng Lorne could pick out the fine head of his father, and his
mother's face, bright with anticipation, beside. Advena was there,
too, and Stella; and the boys would have a perch, not too conspicuous,
somewhere in the gallery. Dr Drummond was in the second row, and a
couple of strange ladies with him: he was chuckling with uncommon
humour at some remark of the younger one when Lorne noted him. Old Sandy
MacQuhot was in a good place; had been since six o'clock, and Peter
Macfarlane, too, for that matter, though Peter sat away back as beseemed
a modest functionary whose business was with the book and the bell.
Altogether, as Horace Williams leaned over to tell him, it was like a
Knox Church soc