“Well,” continued North, “he was standing on a platform of rough boards that had been hastily put together, and I remembered instantly his tall, strong, graceful figure, and his bright, purposeful face. He was tanned to the temples, his cheeks were flushed, the wind was in his hair, the sunlight in his eyes; and, with fiery precipitance of assailing words, he was explaining to men mad with hunger and injustice the source of all their woes and the remedy to be applied. I became a man as I listened to him. That hour I put self behind me and vowed my life, and all I have, to the cause of Reform; because he showed me plainly that Parliamentary Reform included the righting of every social wrong and cruelty.”

“Do you really think so?” asked Kate.

“Indeed, I am sure of it. A Parliament that represented the great middle and working classes of England would quickly do away with both 35 black and white slavery,–would repeal those infamous Corn Laws which have starved the working-man to make rich the farmer; would open our ports freely to the trade of all the world; would educate the poor; give much shorter hours of labour, and wages that a man could live on. Can I ever forget that hour? Never! I was born again in it!”

35

“That was the kind of talk that he angered his father with,” said Mrs. Atheling, between tears and smiles. “You see it was all against the land and the land-owners; and Edgar would not be quiet, no matter what I said to him.”

“He could not be quiet. He had no right to be quiet. Why! he sent every man and woman home that night with hope in their hearts and a purpose in their wretched lives. Oh, if you could have seen those sad, cold faces light and brighten as they listened to him.”

“Was there no one there that didn’t think as he did?”

“I heard only one dissenting voice. It came from a Minister. He called out, ‘Lads and lasses, take no heed of what this fellow says to you. He is nothing but a Dreamer.’ Instantly Edgar took up the word. ‘A Dreamer!’ he cried joyfully. ‘So be it! What says the old Hebrew prophet? Look to your Bible, sir. Let him that hath a dream tell it. Dreamers have been the creators, the leaders, the saviours of the world. And we will go on dreaming until our dream comes true!’ 36 The crowd answered him with a sob and a shout–and, oh, I wish you had been there!”

36

Kate uttered involuntarily a low, sympathetic cry that she 

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