"Never!" came a shout from the back. It was Ernie's voice. The Colonel recognised it and thrilled.
"We all know," continued the speaker, "that the gentry have put their coontry after their party. It's for the People to show them the true road, and put Democracy before even their coontry."
"Hear! hear!" from Philip Blackburn.
The speaker was growing to his task, growing as it grew.
"This is a great spiritual issue. Are we to save our lives to lose them? or lose them to save them? The People are in the Valley of Decision. God and the Devil are standing on a mountain-top on either side the way crying—Who is on my side?" His great voice went billowing through the hall, borne, it seemed, on some huge wind of the spirit. He was holding the audience, carrying them. The Colonel felt it: the man with the closed eyelids in the chair on the platform felt it too.
"Jaures, the beloved leader of our cause in France, has already made his choice—the first man to fall for Democracy. Shall he lie alone?"
It was a dramatic touch, and told.
"A have chosen ma part," the speaker went on more quietly. "A loov ma coontry; but there's something greater even than the fate of the coontry hanging in the balance now. Democracy's at stake!"
A roar of applause greeted the remark.
"It's the Emperors agin the People!"