[Sidenote: A portrait of Michael Davitt.]
On an assembly which had been jaded and almost tortured by this
tremendous display, it was Mr. Davitt's fortune to come with his first
speech in Parliament. For hour after hour he had sate, very still, with
deeply-lined face, but with a restless and frequent twist of the heavy
dark moustache, that spoke of the intense nervous strain to which this
weary waiting was subjecting him. Davitt is a man whose face would stand
out in bold relief from any crowd of men, however numerous or
remarkable. He has a narrow face, with high cheek-bones, and the thick,
close black whiskers, beard and moustache, make him look almost as dark
as a Spaniard. The eyes are deep-set, brilliant, restless--with infinite
lessons of hours of agony, of loneliness, torture in all the million
hours which filled up his nine years of endless and unbroken gloom in
penal servitude. The frame is slight, well-knit--the frame of a sturdy
son of the people--kept taut and thin by the restless nervous soul
within. An empty sleeve hanging by his side tells the tale of work in
the factory in childhood's years, and of one of the accidents which too
often maim the children of the poor in the manufacturing districts of
England.
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