eager to hear what he had to say—­that sturdy band of Radicals, mostly from Scotland, who only wanted the word to desert their own leader and follow the guidance of the Irish members.  And behind Mr. Sexton was the grimmest enemy of all—­the men from his own country, who were resolved, on this occasion, to push the demand of Ireland to the extreme point, and who held that he would betray the Irish cause if he backed, not them, but Mr. Gladstone and the British Government.

[Sidenote:  And takes the lead.]

It required all the dexterity, all the coolness, all the splendid equanimity and courage of the man of genius at such a fateful hour to keep his head.  Mr. Sexton was equal to the occasion.  He spoke slowly, and there was a hush in the House to catch his every syllable, for his words were the harbingers of fate.  As he spoke so would be decided one of the most momentous and indeed tragical of human issues.  He spoke, I say, slowly—­but at the same time it was evident that he had his mind well fixed on the end which he wished to reach.  Nothing adds so much to the effectiveness of oratory as the sense that the man who is addressing you, is thinking at the very moment he is speaking.  You have the sense of watching the visible working of his inner mind; and you are far more deeply impressed than by the glib facility which does not pause, does not stumble, does not hesitate, because he does not stop to think.  Many people, reading so much about Mr. Sexton’s oratory, will be under the impression that he is a very rapid and fluent speaker.  He is nothing of the kind.  He speaks with a great slowness, grave deliberation, and there are often long and sometimes even trying pauses between his sentences.  He could not conceal on this great occasion the anxiety and the seriousness of the situation; but the mind was splendidly clear, the language as well chosen as though he were sitting in a room and holding discourse to a few admiring friends; and what Mr. Sexton had to say was, that he would not go into the same lobby with Chamberlain and Balfour in order to defeat the Government; in short, that he was going to vote with Mr. Gladstone.  A long-drawn sigh of relief.  The Government is saved.

[Sidenote:  The field unsteady.]

But hush—­not yet.  There are still some of the hard Radicals from Scotland who have never wavered in the idea that the Irish members ought to remain at their full total.  They have been partially relieved by what Mr. Sexton had said.  But then Scotchmen are proverbially tenacious of opinion; and not even his appeal—­joined to the appeal of their leader—­will altogether change the purpose of those rugged sons of bonnie Scotland.  And so, Mr. Shaw, the member for Galashiels, gets up to ask a question.  He plainly declares that according to the answer given to this question, his vote would be given for or against the Government.  So we are still in all the agonies of possible delay, for we know that seven Parnellites will go against the