There were riots--fierce conflicts extending over days--then dreary
sentences of lengthy imprisonments, with gaol tragedies; but still this
strange, dry, inarticulate, obstinate figure remained immutable, always
invisible, unapproachable, obdurate, spectral. Even the Tory leaders
were disgusted and wearied, and Mr. Balfour was careful, in the very
crisis and agony of his fight with the National League, to disavow all
sympathy with the strange being that was bringing to his assistance all
the mighty resources of an Empire's army, an Empire's exchequer, and an
Empire's overwhelming power to crush in blood, in the silence of the
cell and the deeper silence of the tomb, all resistance to his imperious
will.
[Sidenote: Entry of a ghost.]
It must have been with something of a shock that the House of Lords,
with all its well-trained and high-bred self-control, found that this
curious and fateful figure was within its gates. Probably, to scarcely
half-a-dozen of his colleagues and fellow-peers, was this figure
anything but a strange and unexpected incursion from the dim ghost-land,
in which, hermit-like, he seems to dwell. Indeed, the Marquis of
Londonderry was careful to explain that he had no personal acquaintance
with the man whose case he was defending against the action of the
Commission presided over by Mr.
Pages:
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247