Squaring his shoulders and throwing back his head, a gesture of his earlier days that clung to him still, Sargent threw off the melancholy of the past day, and became once more the man who charmed people by the thousands. Colonel Pickram noticed the quick change and pondered over it. "Big men were curious creatures," he reflected. "They could jump from one mood into another just as easily as a travelling magician he saw last week, could change a rabbit into a pocket handkerchief."
As they passed across the meadow, towards the village, the signal of their approach was given. The multitude left their lunches, and hurried towards the platform from which the speech was to be made.
Every one's neck was craned to catch the first glimpse of the two men as they approached. One they knew well, though in his linen waistcoat and Sunday stock—which had already wellnigh brought on an attack of apoplexy—Colonel Pickram did not look familiar. They noticed the slow and pompous dignity with which he moved beside the stranger, and felt instinctively that he considered this the proudest day of his life. The man beside him walked with the aid of a cane and dragged one foot slightly after him. The crowd stared. Was it possible that this unobtrusive young man, in a black coat and chimney-pot hat, could be the one they had heard so much about? They looked at him curiously, drawn unconsciously by his kindly dark eyes, and the winning smile upon his handsome face. But he did not represent to them a political champion. Some mistake had been made. They were evidently the dupes of some jest that had been played upon them.
While they speculated over the matter, Colonel Pickram led the young man to a place before the platform where the crowd pressed closest. Here a few introductions were made, after which the word went over the gathering, that the small, limping man was really Sargent Everett.
As they waited, he climbed the steps of the platform and looked down into the crowd of faces. With the removal of his hat, his aspect changed suddenly. He looked taller, the high polished forehead lent a dignity and breadth to his whole physique. The enthusiasm and intellect that always glowed in his eyes when he faced an audience gave out sparks of magnetism that quieted the waiting throng into an inspiring audience.
During the ensuing moments of waiting it seemed to them that the warmth and friendliness of his glance was shed upon each one of them individually. When his lips parted and his opening words came forth—
"FELLOW CITIZENS! By the Father of Waters I have used this greeting; on the banks of the great Ohio I have spoken it; here I say it again, and many hundreds of miles east of us, west of us, north of us, I can still employ these words and thrill with the knowledge that before me are—'My fellow citizens.'"
—the crowd fell under the spell of the man's electrifying talent and listened with bated breath.
Seeing him then one would have said that he was the same as when he had made that wonderful speech that convicted the highwayman; the one who had led so forcibly in the Legislature when the State's new Constitution was formulated; who had thrilled many audiences in New Orleans; who had made his name sound far into the North when he had conducted a famous trial in Kentucky. And he had been the same, years making no change except to deepen and intensify his genius, until a few months before, when, almost indescribably, yet vividly discernible to his intimates, a difference had come. The world did not know; he was still lighthearted and buoyant to it; but to those who loved him best when alone with him, there was a strange loss of youth in his countenance, an abstraction, almost a lessening of that spontaneous sympathy which was such a potent ingredient of his charm. But in his public life there was no difference. Standing before a crowd, and meeting its warm, inspiring glances, any thought of personal effort was lost. He became a wonderful machine which throbbed and pulsated with the dynamic force of a great mind.
So it was that day before the gathering in the little village. Though before his speech he had sunk deep into a valley of shadows and knew well it would be the same again when the excitement had died out, now that he was facing them, he was only aware of the powerful influence that always made him charm his audience.