ll that over again."

The man's confidence had deserted him. He stammered something about
meaning no harm.

"You called my friend a drunken blackguard. I am going to hear the
accusation in detail." George stood up to his full height, a terrible
figure to the shrinking clerk, who repeated his former words with a
faltering tongue.

He heard him out quietly, and then stared coolly down on the people. He
felt himself master of the situation. The enemy had played into his
hands, and in the shape of a sweating clerk sat waiting on his action.

"You have heard what this man has to tell you. I ask you as men, as
folk of this countryside, if it is true?"

It was the real speech of the evening, which was all along waiting to be
delivered instead of the frigid pedantries on the paper. A man was
speaking simply, valiantly, on behalf of his friend. It was cunningly
done, with the natural tact which rarely deserts the truly honest man in
his hour of extremity. He spoke of Lewis as he had known him, at school
and college and in many wild sporting expeditions in desert places, and
slowly the people kindled and listened. Then, so to speak, he kicked
away the scaffolding of his erection. He ceased to be the apologist,
and became the frank eulogist. He stood squarely on the edge of the
platform, gathering the eyes of his hearers, smiling pleasantly, arms
akimbo, a man at his ease and possibly at his pleasure.

"Some of you are herds," he cried, "and some are fishers, and some are
farmers, and some are labourers. Also some of you call yourselves
Radicals or Tories or Socialists. But you are all of you far more than
these things. You are men--men of this great countryside, with blood in
your veins and vigour in that blood. If you were a set of pale-faced
mechanics, I should not be speaking to you, for I should not understand
you. But I know you all, and I like you, and I am going to prevent you
from making godless fools of yourselves. There are two men before you.
One is a very clever man, whom I don't know anything about, nor you
either. The other is my best friend, and known to all of you. Many of
you have shot or sailed with him, many of you were born on his and his
fathers' lands. I have told you of his abilities and quoted better
judges than myself. I don't need to tell you that he is the best of
men, a sportsman, a kind master, a very good fellow indeed. You can
make up your mind between the two. Opinions matter very little, but