Neither did the little boy ever see much of the interior of the "Manshun" itself, except the housekeeper's room, which was down a passage just inside the back entrance.
It was during these visits to the housekeeper at Redmarley that it first dawned upon Eloquent that there could be two opinions as to the absolute righteousness of the Liberal Cause. Moreover, he found out that his aunt's political views were not on all fours with those of his father. This last discovery was quite a shock to him, and there was worse in store. For while he sat in solemn silence devouring bread and jam at the housekeeper's well-spread table, with his own ears he heard her dare to speak of the Grand Old Man as "that there Gladstone," and the butler, an imposing gentleman in black, actually described him as "a snake in the grass."
"It's curious, Miss Gallup," the butler said, thoughtfully, "that your brother should be that side in politics, and him so well-to-do and all. If he'd been in the boot trade now, I could have understood it—there's something in the smell of leather that breeds Radicals like a bad drain breeds fever; but clothes now, and lining and neck-ties and hosiery, you'd think they'd have a softening effect on a man. Dissenter, too, he is, isn't he?"
"My brother's altogether out of the common run," Miss Gallup remarked, rather huffily. She might deplore his politics herself—when she was some distance away from him—but no one else should presume to find fault. "He may be mistaken in his views—I think he is mistaken—but that don't alter the fact that he's a very successful man: a solid man, well thought of in Marlehouse, I can tell you."
"Dada says," Eloquent broke in, "that he's successful because of his views."
"Well, to be sure," exclaimed the housekeeper in astonishment, "who'd have thought the child could understand."
"The child," groaned Miss Gallup, "hears nothing but politics all day long—it turns me cold sometimes, it does really."
CHAPTER II
ONE OF THEM
When Eloquent was six years old his visits to the "Manshun" at
Redmarley ceased.