United States or Christmas Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Dominion had come up the day before with the announcement that Mr Robert Farquharson who, for an aggregate of eleven years, had represented the Liberals of South Fox in the Canadian House of Commons, had been compelled under medical advice to withdraw from public life.
His very confidence may have accounted for it; he was off guard against the enemy, and the more completely off guard against himself. The history of Liberalism in Fox County offered, no doubt, some inlet to the rush of the Idea; for suddenly, Mr Farquharson says, he was "off." Mr Farquharson was on the platform, and "I can tell you," said he, "I pricked up my ears."
"He hasn't got it yet," Farquharson admitted, "and he won't with my good will. So you're with us for preference trade, Ormiston?" "It's a thing I'd like to see. It's a thing I'm sorry we're not in a position to take up practically ourselves. But you won't get it, you know. You'll be defeated by the senior partner. It's too much of a doctrine for the people of England.
Williams, it should be added, was well ahead with the details, as considerate as was consistent with public enterprise, of the retiring member's malady, its duration, the date of the earliest symptoms, and the growth of anxiety in Mrs Farquharson, who had finally insisted and how right she was! on the visit to the specialist, upon which she had accompanied Mr Farquharson. He sent round Rawlins.
Farquharson glanced at once at his companion, but the old man's face was expressionless, and he persuaded himself, almost against his will, that McConnachie was too much taken up with the novelty of the situation to catch the words spoken.
So that Elgin was in possession of all the facts, and Walter Winter, who had every pretension to contest the seat again and every satisfaction that it wouldn't be against Farquharson, might naturally be expected to be taken up with them sufficiently to understand a man who slapped him on the shoulder in the post-office with the remark I have quoted.
Farquharson has an account of a singular case in midwifery in which abdomen ruptured from the pressure of the fetus; and quite recently Geoghegan illustrates the possibilities of uterine pressure in pregnancy by a postmortem examination after a fatal parturition, in which the stomach was found pushed through the diaphragm and lying under the left clavicle.
He had doubtless devoted the whole afternoon to it. Sitting under the cool green of the lemon-trees, beneath a sky powdered with stars, I reflected that I, at least, was done with Farquharson forever. But I was not, for just then Eleanor Stanleigh appeared before me. I was startled to hear her addressing me by name, and then calmly begging me to resume my seat on the bench under the arbor.
Farquharson, on account of his office, was the only person in the community who was on terms of cordiality with McConnachie; for the old man had a great idea of his position in Ardmuirland, and held himself somewhat above the common run of people.
Leavitt as a source of information regarding the missing Farquharson seemed preposterous when one reflected how out of touch with the world he had been, but, to my astonishment, Major Stanleigh's clue was right, for he had at last stumbled upon a man who had known Farquharson well and who was voluminous about him quite willingly so.
Word Of The Day