She was speaking too long—a common fault of women.
He looked from her to the faces of the crowd, and saw that the spell, compounded partly of the speaker's good looks and partly of sheer gaping curiosity, was breaking. They were getting restless, beginning to heckle and laugh.
Then he heard her say.
"Of course we know—you think us fools—silly fools! You say it's a poor sort of fighting—and what do we hope to get by it? Pin-pricks you call it—all that women can do. Well, so it is—we admit it. It is a poor sort of fighting—we don't admire it any more than you. But it's all men have left to women. You have disarmed us—and fooled us—and made slaves of us. You won't allow us the constitutional weapon of the vote, so we strike as we can, and with what weapons we can—"
"Makin' bonfires of innercent people an' their property, ain't politics, Miss!" shouted a voice.
"Hear, Hear!" from the crowd.
"We haven't killed anybody—but ourselves!" The answer flashed.
"Pretty near it! Them folks at Wanchester only just got out—an' there were two children among 'em," cried a man near the waggon.
"An' they've just been up to something new at Brownmouth—"
All heads turned towards a young man who spoke from the back of the audience. "News just come to the post-office," he shouted—"as the new pier was burnt out early this morning. There's a bit o' wanton mischief for you!"