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The fourth regiment struggled up into that wreath of death, and with the like result. Then Skobeleff called on his sharpshooters to drive home the onset. Riding on horseback before the invigorating lines, he swept on the stragglers and waverers until all of them came under the full blast of the Turkish flames vomited from the redoubt.
It was F. B.'s opinion that his private eloquence brought over many waverers to the Colonel's side, and converted numbers of the benighted followers of Sir Barnes Newcome. Bayham's voice was indeed magnificent, and could be heard from the King's Arm's balcony above the shout and roar of the multitude, the gongs and bugles of the opposition bands.
There is an unutterable discomfort in the recollections of the invariable course of procedure on these occasions first, the dozens of beseeching letters to be written to our friends, imploring their attendance at meetings at which, if Mr Healy found us in full strength, all was uneventful and they had an expensive journey for their pains; next, the consultations far into the night preceding every trial of strength; the painful ticking off, man by man, of the friends, foes, and doubtfuls on the Party list, the careful collection of information as to the latest frame of mind of this or that man of the four or five waverers who might turn the scale; the resolution, after endless debates, to take strong action to force the Party to a manful choice at long last between Mr Dillon and his tormentors, and to give somebody or anybody authority enough to effect something; and then almost invariably the next day the discovery that all the labour had been wasted and the strong action resolved upon had been dropped in deference to some drivelling hesitation of some of the four or five doubtfuls who had become de facto the real leaders of the Party."
He very quickly learned to classify all kinds of men, and he suited his procedure to the character of the man he was dealing with; one could threaten the waverers, while others had to be enticed or got into a good humor by chatting over the latest theories with them. This was good practice, and he accustomed himself to think rapidly, and to have his subject at his fingers' ends.
"No," replied Pandulfo, who, by nature timid, was yet well acquainted with the disposition of the people, and therefore a sagacious counsellor. "Let us hold back; let us wait till the rebels commit themselves by some odious outrage, and then hatred will unite the waverers, and resentment lead them." This counsel prevailed; the event proved its wisdom.
Some waverers were purchased by the government; nor was the purchase expensive, for a sum which would hardly be missed in the English Treasury was immense in the estimation of the needy barons of the North, Thus the scale was turned; and, in the Scottish Parliaments of that age, the turn of the scale was every thing; the tendency of majorities was always to increase, the tendency of minorities to diminish.
The King was to promise a very wide pardon for past offences, full liberty of conscience, the payment of arrears of pay to the army, and the confirmation of all sales of forfeited lands. Without such stipulations, the waverers, it was thought, would be driven by despair to resist any scheme of restoration.
They almost tumbled over one another now in their haste to reach where their tongues could play freely. Kilshaw and Perry, the Treasurer and the waverers, all slipped out, and Norburn, knowing nothing but simply wearied of Puttock, followed them. Scarce twenty were left in the House, and the galleries had poured half their contents into the great room which served for a lobby outside.
He was confident that the cause which he in all sincerity believed to be the cause of the Church of Christ would prevail in the end, and justifiably encouraged by successes in the field against superior numbers he exhorted the commandos to endure without flinching the purification by fire. Kruger's passionate appeal availed, and the waverers returned to their posts.
It was probably this reminder that turned the scale among the waverers, for at the mention of the word "water" they again seized their oars, and with a yell gave way for the ship.
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