It was not, however, till Gordon had concluded that the cheers of his audience—impulsive and hearty as are the cheers of that assembly when the evidence of intellect is unmistakable—made manifest to the gallery and the reporters the full effect of the speech he had delivered. The chief of the Opposition whispered to his next neighbour, “I wish we could get that man.” The Cabinet minister whom Gordon had answered—more pleased with a personal compliment to himself than displeased with an attack on the measure his office compelled him to advocate—whispered to his chief, “That is a man we must not lose.”
Two gentlemen in the Speaker’s gallery, who had sat there from the opening of the debate, now quitted their places. Coming into the lobby, they found themselves commingled with a crowd of members who had also quitted their seats, after Gordon’s speech, in order to discuss its merits, as they gathered round the refreshment table for oranges or soda-water. Among them was George Belvoir, who, on sight of the younger of the two gentlemen issuing from the Speaker’s gallery, accosted him with friendly greeting,—
“Ha! Chillingly, how are you? Did not know you were in town. Been here all the evening? Yes; very good debate. How did you like Gordon’s speech?”
“I liked yours much better.”
“Mine!” cried George, very much flattered and very much surprised. “Oh, mine was a mere humdrum affair, a plain statement of the reasons for the vote I should give. And Gordon’s was anything but that. You did not like his opinions?”
“I don’t know what his opinions are. But I did not like his ideas.”
“I don’t quite understand you. What ideas?”
“The new ones; by which it is shown how rapidly a great state can be made small.”
Here Mr. Belvoir was taken aside by a brother member, on an important matter to be brought before the committee on salmon fisheries, on which they both served; and Kenelm, with his companion, Sir Peter, threaded his way through the crowded lobby and disappeared. Emerging into the broad space, with its lofty clock-tower, Sir Peter halted, and pointing towards the old Abbey, half in shadow, half in light, under the tranquil moonbeams, said,—
“It tells much for the duration of a people when it accords with the instinct of immortality in a man; when an honoured tomb is deemed recompense for the toils and dangers of a noble life. How much of the history of England Nelson summed up in the simple words,—‘Victory or Westminster Abbey.’”