Pallid, heavy-eyed, in a far-off dream—­with all the world gazing upon him with painful concentration of attention and fixed stare—­the Great Old Man sate, keeper still of the greatest and most momentous secret of his time, and about to make an appearance more historic, far-reaching, immortal, than any yet in his career.  So, doubtless, he would have liked to remain for a long time still; but, with a start, he woke up, put his hands to his ear, as is his wont in these latter days when his hearing is not what it used to be, looked to the Speaker, and then to Mr. John Morley, and found that, all at once, without one moment’s preparation, he had been called upon by the Speaker to enter on his great and perilous task.  What had happened was this:  The Irish members had put a number of questions on the notice-paper, but, anxious in every way to spare the Old Man, they quietly left the questions unasked; and so, when, as he thought, there was still a whole lot of preliminary business to go through, all was over, and the way was quite clear for his start.  “The First Lord of the Treasury;” so spoke the Speaker—­almost softly—­and, in a moment, when he had realized what had taken place, the Old Man was upright, and the Liberal and Irish members were on their feet, waving their hats, cheering themselves hoarse.  And yet an undercurrent and audible note of anxiety ran through all the enthusiasm.  The honeymoon of Home Rule is over, and, curiously enough, the very sense of a great victory after a long struggle has always about it a solemnity too sad for tears, too deep for joy.  The Liberals and the Irishry stood up; but, even at that hour, there were evidences of the fissures and chasms which the two great political disruptions-the disruption in the English Liberal and in the Irish party—­have produced.  On the third bench below the Gangway sate the Liberal Unionists, Mr. Gladstone’s deadliest foes, with pallid-faced, perky-nosed, malignant Chamberlain at their head, the face distorted by the baffled hate, the accumulated venom of all these years of failure, apostasy, and outlawry.  Not one of the renegade Liberals stood up, and there they sate, a solid mass of hatred and rancour.  On the Irish side, Mr. Redmond and the few Parnellites kept up the tradition of their dead leader in his last years of distrust and dislike of Mr. Gladstone by also remaining seated.

[Sidenote:  The speech.]

The first notes of the Old Man suggested he was in excellent form.  It is always easy for those who are well acquainted with him to know when the Old Man is going to make a great, and when he will deliver only a moderately good speech.  If he is going to do splendidly the tone at the start is very calm, the delivery is measured, the sentences are long, and break on the ear with something of the long-drawn-out slowness of the Alexandrine.  So it was on this occasion.  Sentence followed sentence in measured and perfect cadence; with absolute self-possession;