"Good-bye, Mr. Prong," said she.
Then he altered the form of his hands, and taking them from the table he dashed them together before his face. "God bless you, Dorothea!" said he. "God bless you! God bless you!" And he put out his hands as though blessing her in his darkness. She, perceiving the inutility of endeavouring to shake hands with a man who wouldn't open his eyes, moved away from her chair towards the door, purposely raising a sound of motion with her dress, so that he might know that she was going. In that I think she took an unnecessary precaution, for the cranny at the corner of his eye was still at his disposal.
"Good-bye, Mr. Prong," she said again, as she opened the door for herself.
"God bless you, Dorothea!" said he. "May God bless you!"
Then, without assistance at the front door she made her way out into the street, and as she stepped along the pavement, she formed a resolve,—which no eloquence from Mr. Prong could ever overcome,—that she would remain a widow for the rest of her days.
At twelve o'clock on the morning of the election Mr. Hart was declared by his own committee to be nine ahead, and was admitted to be six ahead by Mr. Cornbury's committee. But the Cornbury folk asserted confidently that in this they saw certain signs of success. Their supporters were not men who could be whipped up to the poll early in the day, whereas Hart's voters were all, more or less, under control, and had been driven up hurriedly to the hustings so as to make this early show of numbers. Mr. Hart was about everywhere speaking, and so was Butler Cornbury; but in the matter of oratory I am bound to acknowledge that the Jew had by much the mastery over the Christian. There are a class of men,—or rather more than a class, a section of mankind,—to whom a power of easy expression by means of spoken words comes naturally. English country gentlemen, highly educated as they are, undaunted as they usually are, self-confident as they in truth are at the bottom, are clearly not in this section. Perhaps they are further removed from it, considering the advantages they have for such speaking, than any other class of men in England,—or I might almost say elsewhere. The fact, for it is a fact, that some of the greatest orators whom the world has known have been found in this class, does not in any degree affect the truth of my proposition. The best grapes in the world are perhaps grown in England, though England is not a land of grapes. And for the same reason. The value of the thing depends upon its rarity, and its value instigates the efforts for excellence. The power of vocal expression which seems naturally to belong to an American is to an ordinary Englishman very marvellous; but in America the talking man is but little esteemed. "Very wonderful power of delivery,—that of Mr. So-and-So," says the Englishman, speaking of an American.
"Guess we don't think much of that kind of thing here," says the Yankee. "There's a deal too much of that coin in circulation."
English country gentlemen are not to be classed among that section of mankind which speaks easily in public, but Jews, I think, may be so classed. The men who speak thus easily and with natural fluency, are also they who learn languages easily. They are men who observe rather than think, who remember rather than create, who may not have great mental powers, but are ever ready with what they have, whose best word is at their command at a moment, and is then serviceable though perhaps incapable of more enduring service.
At any rate, as regarded oratory in Baslehurst the dark little man with the bright new hat from London was very much stronger than his opponent,—so much stronger that poor Butler Cornbury began to sicken of elections and to wish himself comfortably at home at Cornbury Grange. He knew that he was talking himself down while the Israelitish clothier was talking himself up. "It don't matter," Honyman said to him comfortably. "It's only done for the show of the thing and to fill up the day. If Gladstone were here he wouldn't talk a vote out of them one way or the other;—nor yet the devil himself." This consoled Butler Cornbury, but nevertheless he longed that the day might be over.
And Tappitt spoke too more than once,—as did also Luke Rowan, in spite of various noisy interruptions in which he was told that he was not an elector, and in spite also of an early greeting with a dead cat. Tappitt, in advocating the claims of Mr. Hart to be returned to Parliament as member for Baslehurst, was clever enough to introduce the subject of his own wrongs. And so important had this brewery question become that he was listened to with every sign of interest when he told the people for how many years Bungall and Tappitt had brewed beer for them, there in Baslehurst. Doubtless he was met by sundry interruptions from the Rowanites.