Part 1 (2/2)

Little Eloquent could never remember when he first began to hear the names that were afterwards to be the most familiar household words to him. Two names, two personalities ever stood out in memory as an integral part of his child-life--those of William Ewart Gladstone and John Bright.

These were his father's idols.

They glowed, fixed planets in the political firmament, stable, unquenchable, a lamp to the feet of the faithful. Each s.h.i.+ning with a steady radiance that the divergence in their views on many points could neither confuse nor obscure.

The square, dogged, fighting face of the man of peace; the serene, scholarly, aquiline features of the great Liberal leader were familiar to the little boy as the face of his own father.

That John Bright died when Eloquent was about six made no difference in his influence. There were two likenesses of him in the sitting-room, and under one of these the words were inscribed: ”Be just and fear not”; and Eloquent, who was brought up to look upon justice as the first of political virtues, used to wonder wistfully whether such fearlessness could be achieved by one whose face at present showed none of those characteristics of force, strength, and pugnacity manifested in the portraits of the great commoner. But he found comfort in the reflection that ”Dada,” mirror of all the virtues, was yet quite mild and almost insignificant in appearance; a small, stout, dapper, very clean-looking little tradesman, with trim white whiskers, a bald head, and a round, rosy face, wherein shrewd, blue eyes twinkled cheerfully.

No, dada bore not the slightest resemblance either to Mr Gladstone or Mr Bright, and yet, Eloquent reflected, ”what a man he was!” Dada was the chief factor in Eloquent's little world--law-giver, lover, and friend.

It is probable that his childhood would have been more normal and less politically precocious had his mother lived. But she died when he was four years old, a fortnight after the birth of a little sister who lived but a few hours.

Abel Gallup's sister came to keep house for them, and luckily, she, like his wife, was sensible and kindly, but she stood in great awe of her brother and never dreamt of criticising his conduct. Now his wife had never spared him her caustic, common-sense comments. Politics, especially where they might have affected the well-being of the child, were strictly kept in their proper place, And naturally she considered that, in the upbringing of a very small boy, that place should be remote almost to invisibility.

With her death all this was altered. Abel Gallup was very lonely, and turned to his little son for comfort. The child was biddable, loving, and gentle, and ”to please his dada” had ever been held before him as his highest honour and duty.

Before he could read he could repeat long portions from the various speeches his father particularly admired; he learned by heart easily and had a retentive memory, and his father had only to say over a sentence two or three times when the child was word perfect. It gave Abel Gallup the most exquisite delight to stand his little son between his knees and hear the stirring, sonorous sentences rolled out in the high, child voice; and even in those early days he used to impress upon Eloquent that when he was grown-up he ”would have to speak different to dada.”

And little Eloquent, not realising that his father referred merely to accent and general grammar, would puzzle for hours wondering how such men as Mr Gladstone or John Bright would express their common wants.

In what lofty terms, for instance, would Mr Gladstone inform his aunt, if he had an aunt, that his collar was frayed at the back and was scratching his neck. This, Eloquent felt, was quite a likely contingency, ”seeing as he wore 'em so high.” And how, he wondered, would Mr John Bright intimate delicately to the authorities who ruled his home that he hoped there would be pork for dinner on Sunday and plenty of crackling. He felt certain that Mr Bright would be sympathetic in the matter of crackling; he didn't know why, but he was sure of it. Equally convinced was he that the great statesman would express his desire in impressive and rhetorical language. He repeated ”bits” from the speeches that he knew, to see if he could fasten on a chance phrase here and there that could be introduced into the common conversations of life; but they never did fit, and he was fain to express his small wants in the plain language of the folk about him.

Another name floated vague and nebulous among the impressions of very early childhood: that of one Herbert Spencer; and this was curious, for Abel Gallup was what he would himself have described as ”a sincere Believer.” Nevertheless, he was immensely attracted by the philosopher's _Study of Sociology_, and little Eloquent was made to learn and repeat many long bits from that dispa.s.sionate work. There was no portrait of Mr Herbert Spencer hanging upon the walls; he was not a living force, a real presence, like Mr Gladstone or Mr Bright; he spake not with the words of ”a great soul greatly stirred”; yet there was something in his polished and logical sentences that gave Eloquent a doubtless quite erroneous sense of his personality, and of a certain aloofness in his att.i.tude. He never called into council the ”bits”

from Mr Herbert Spencer in order to find majestic language in which to express the ordinary wants of life.

Eloquent was taken to his first political meeting when he was six years old, and he fell asleep before he had been there half an hour. His father put his arm round the child, rested the heavy little head against his shoulder and let him sleep in peace. Not even the cheering woke him, and his father carried him home, still sleeping. Perhaps Abel believed that in some mysterious manner the child absorbed the opinions of the speakers through the pores. He was not in the least annoyed with the little boy for falling asleep, nor did his tender years prevent a repet.i.tion of the experiment a few months later. This time Eloquent kept awake for nearly an hour. He was dreadfully bored, but at the same time felt very elated and important. He was the only little boy in the hall.

Abel Gallup was never tired of impressing upon Eloquent that ”the people had the power, and the people had the votes to send you to parlyment or keep you out. Don't you be misled, my boy, by them as would wish you to try to please the gentry by and bye. The gentry's few and the people's many. I don't say a word against the gentry, mind, they're all right in their proper place, and very pleasant they be, some of them, but when the time comes for you to stand, just you remember that even hereabout there's hundreds of little houses for one manshun, and in every one of those little houses there's a vote, and you can have it if you go the right way about. When you're _in_, Eloquent, then you can hob-a-n.o.b with the gentry if it so pleases you; but _till_ you're in, remember it's the working man as can make or mar you.”

Eloquent's aunt, Miss Gallup, had for many years ”kept” the post-office and general shop in the village of Redmarley; but when her brother asked her to come and look after his home and his motherless child, she did not hesitate. She resigned her position of post-mistress, sold the good-will of her shop, and went to live in Marlehouse at ”The Sign of the Golden Anchor.”

She did not lose her interest in Redmarley, however; she had many friends there, and it was one of the treats of little Eloquent's childhood to drive there with his aunt ”in a shay,” to spend the afternoon in the woods, and have tea afterwards either with the housekeeper at the ”Manshun” or in one of the cottages in the village.

In those days, only one old gentleman lived at the ”Manshun.” He ”kept himself very much to himself,” so aunt said, and Eloquent never saw him except from an upper window in the Golden Anchor, when he happened to drive through Marlehouse.

Neither did the little boy ever see much of the interior of the ”Manshun” itself, except the housekeeper's room, which was down a pa.s.sage just inside the back entrance.

It was during these visits to the housekeeper at Redmarley that it first dawned upon Eloquent that there could be two opinions as to the absolute righteousness of the Liberal Cause. Moreover, he found out that his aunt's political views were not on all fours with those of his father. This last discovery was quite a shock to him, and there was worse in store. For while he sat in solemn silence devouring bread and jam at the housekeeper's well-spread table, with his own ears he heard her dare to speak of the Grand Old Man as ”that there Gladstone,” and the butler, an imposing gentleman in black, actually described him as ”a snake in the gra.s.s.”

”It's curious, Miss Gallup,” the butler said, thoughtfully, ”that your brother should be that side in politics, and him so well-to-do and all.

If he'd been in the boot trade now, I could have understood it--there's something in the smell of leather that breeds Radicals like a bad drain breeds fever; but clothes now, and lining and neck-ties and hosiery, you'd think they'd have a softening effect on a man. Dissenter, too, he is, isn't he?”

”My brother's altogether out of the common run,” Miss Gallup remarked, rather huffily. She might deplore his politics herself--when she was some distance away from him--but no one else should presume to find fault. ”He may be mistaken in his views--I think he is mistaken--but that don't alter the fact that he's a very successful man: a solid man, well thought of in Marlehouse, I can tell you.”

”Dada says,” Eloquent broke in, ”that he's successful _because_ of his views.”

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