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Updated: May 7, 2025
Just as Marsham was climbing into his seat he was struck. McEwart saw him waver, and heard a muttered exclamation. "You're hurt!" he said, supporting him. "Let the groom drive." Marsham pushed him away. "It's nothing."
A group of very rough fellows pursued him, shouting and yelling, as he left the school-room where the meeting was held. "Take care!" said McEwart, hurrying him along. "They are beginning with stones, and I see no police about." The little party of visitors made for the coach, protected by some of the villagers. But in the dusk the stones came flying fast and freely.
Marsham found himself on the Terrace, among a group of malcontents: Barton, grim and unkempt, prophet-eyes blazing, mouth contemptuous; the Scotchman McEwart, who had been one of the New Year's visitors to Tallyn, tall, wiry, red-haired, the embodiment of all things shrewd and efficient; and two or three more.
He gathered up the reins, the grooms who had been holding the horses' heads clambered into their places, a touch of the whip, and the coach was off, almost at a gallop, pursued by a shower of missiles. After a mile at full speed Marsham pulled in the horses, and handed the reins to the groom. As he did so a low groan escaped him. "You are hurt!" exclaimed McEwart. "Where did they hit you?"
McEwart, a Liberal M.P., who had just won a hotly contested bye-election. At the name of Edgar Frobisher, Miss Drake's countenance showed some animation. She inquired if he had been doing anything madder than usual. Mrs. Fotheringham replied, without enthusiasm, that she knew nothing about his recent doings nor about Mr. McEwart, who was said, however, to be of the right stuff. Mr.
"He can take Foreign Affairs, and go to the Lords in a blaze of glory," said McEwart. "But he's impossible! as leader in the Commons. The party wants grit not dialectic." Marsham still said nothing. The others fell to discussing the situation in much detail, gradually elaborating what were, in truth, the first outlines of a serious campaign against Ferrier's leadership.
Barton, McEwart, Lankester with their boundless faith in the power of a few sessions and measures to remake this old, old England with their impatiences, their readiness at any moment to fling some wild arrow from the string, amid the crowded long-descended growths of English life: he felt a strong intellectual contempt both for their optimisms and audacities mingled, perhaps; with a certain envy.
Marsham did not show much readiness to take up the reference to himself. As he walked beside the others, his slender elegance, his handsome head, and fashionable clothes marked him out from the rugged force of Barton, the middle-class alertness of McEwart, the rubbed apostolicity of Lankester. But the face was fretful and worried.
"I suspect a good deal's going on here behind the scenes," said Bobbie, dropping his voice. "That man Barton may be a fool to talk, but he's a great power in the House with the other Labor men. And McEwart has been hand and glove with Marsham all this Session. They're trying to force Ferrier's hand. Some Bill the Labor men want and Ferrier won't hear of.
"They do the thing here on an enormous scale," said Bobbie Forbes, lounging and smoking beside Diana; "it's almost the biggest shoot in the county. Amusing, isn't it? in this Radical house. Do you see that man McEwart?" Diana turned her attention upon the young member of Parliament who had arrived the night before plain, sandy-haired, with a long flat-backed head, and a gentlemanly manner.
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