I am going to hear the
accusation in detail." George stood up to his full height, a terrible
figure to the shrinking clerk, who repeated his former words with a
faltering tongue.
He heard him out quietly, and then stared coolly down on the people. He
felt himself master of the situation. The enemy had played into his
hands, and in the shape of a sweating clerk sat waiting on his action.
"You have heard what this man has to tell you. I ask you as men, as
folk of this countryside, if it is true?"
It was the real speech of the evening, which was all along waiting to be
delivered instead of the frigid pedantries on the paper. A man was
speaking simply, valiantly, on behalf of his friend. It was cunningly
done, with the natural tact which rarely deserts the truly honest man in
his hour of extremity. He spoke of Lewis as he had known him, at school
and college and in many wild sporting expeditions in desert places, and
slowly the people kindled and listened. Then, so to speak, he kicked
away the scaffolding of his erection. He ceased to be the apologist,
and became the frank eulogist. He stood squarely on the edge of the
platform, gathering the eyes of his hearers, smiling pleasantly, arms
akimbo, a man at his ease and possibly at his pleasure.
"Some of you are herds," he cried, "and some are fishers, and some are
farmers, and some are labourers.
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