As he progressed in fluency of utterance he grew in popularity. The householders of the middle class certainly showed no sympathy for his claims, and almost closed their doors in his face. They were Gladstonian to a man. But, notwithstanding this, the Colonel gradually acquired a hold upon the industrial and agricultural workmen. He had, as they said, 'a way with him.' He talked to them in every village about politics and about their own lives. He never indulged in personal abuse of Mr. Gladstone—on the contrary, when he did refer to him it was always with the utmost respect, as one or two of his speeches before us testify. As a rule, the working classes are not slow to recognise a gentleman, and they soon found the Colonel was one to the back-bone; one who had a human heart and could do a kind deed. At a meeting in the early part of the campaign, a mining village had crowded its men into a hall to hear the man who dared to oppose Mr. Gladstone. The meeting was very noisy, and ill-disposed to listen—so much so that a speech was impossible. When things were becoming serious, a smart-looking working man, apparently in the thirties, stepped on to the platform amidst the hubbub, much to the Colonel's surprise. Nobody knew what was coming, and the singularity of the proceeding secured silence, in which the unexpected orator spoke to the following effect:—'I dinna ken very much about politics, but I was wounded at Tel-el-Kebir, and a man came up to me as I lay on the ground, and after giving me a drink from his water-bottle carried me back to a place of safety. That man is on the platform to-night, and that's the man I'm gaen to vote for.' The effect was electrical; the Colonel was not only listened to, he was cheered to the echo, and the incident made a deep impression on many present.
Frequently, of course, he had to stand a good deal of interruption and good-natured chaff, but he was generally ready with a happy retort. 'Does your mother know you're out?' was shouted to him from the back part of a hall one night in the middle of his speech by a roisterous opponent. 'Oh yes,' quietly replied the Colonel parenthetically, 'but she will very soon know that I am in!'
Tramping the constituencies
Another questioner, evidently thinking he had a poser, put it to the candidate: 'If war breaks out, will you be able to represent the county?' to which he returned the laconic and crushing reply: 'My man, if war breaks out, I'll be there'—an answer which at once evoked a ringing cheer and turned the meeting largely in his favour. Of course he did not convert all the miners to his way of thinking, but he managed to retain their esteem all the same. 'I like ye, Colonel, but I canna vote for ye,' said a conscientious miner to him one day, and doubtless the Colonel appreciated his humble political opponent all the more for his genuine frankness. Few who were present at his first political meeting in New Craighall schoolroom will readily forget the difficulty he had in getting through with the subject of land values. After wandering over half the Continent for practical illustrations, he at length lost the thread of his discourse, and got into a hopeless maze. For a minute or two he stood speechless, while his face became quite florid, as he fiercely pounded his left hand with his fist in his own characteristic fashion. A happy inspiration came at last. Turning his back upon the audience, he suddenly seized one of the newspaper reporters sitting near, and commanded him to stand up. 'What have you got down there? Read it!' With some difficulty the reporter obeyed. 'That's not what I want to say at all. Put it out. We can't have that go into the papers; put it down this way,' and then he proceeded to tell him what he meant to say.
'I was miserably beaten,' he remarked next day to a friend; 'but I've determined to master politics, and I'll do it.' How he did it every one knows. With a volume of Gladstone's speeches in his pocket, he tramped the constituencies, and on the eve of the election, at a meeting of seventeen hundred persons in the Corn Exchange of Dalkeith, which was even honoured by the presence of cabinet ministers, the speech of the evening was admitted to be that made by Colonel Wauchope.
All this involved, of course, active exertion, as well as concentration of thought and study, and the very servants in the house could see he was absorbed in thought as he never had been before. Even his walks about the grounds were less frequent than before, for the things that used formerly to interest him were passed unheeded by, as with face to the ground he appeared to be thinking out some problem or composing a speech. In his room piles of papers littered the floor, and the preparations for speeches must have been enormous for one not accustomed to this kind of work. One night he had sat up late preparing a speech, making cuttings and pasting them together to be ready for reference. In order that they might be properly dried, he left them on the fender overnight, and when the girl came in in the morning to put on the fire, thinking it was a lot of wastepaper she used it for that purpose. Of course the Colonel made inquiries about his papers, and for some time there was great consternation among the servants when it was known what had happened, and the admission had to be made that they had been destroyed. It was very different with him, however. He laughed the matter over, and told the poor girl never to mind, as it was more than likely it would end in smoke at any rate!
By the end of March 1891 Colonel Wauchope had a second time visited the whole of the constituency, or, as a Radical paper put it, 'had been overhauling the preserves of the Grand Old Man,' but admitting frankly, at the same time, that 'he seemed everywhere to be received with marked attention and respect.'
An eventful night