Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/109

 was Mr. William Keogh. Before the Conference had digested this amazing proposition the learned Doctor proceeded to charge Mr. Lucas with deliberate treachery to the Tenants' Cause. At the Conference Mr. Sharman Crawford said not a word pro or con of this amazing charge, while men around him exploded with indignation, but a week later he published a letter completely adopting it. There were few things which the Northern delegates might not have done with impunity, so strong was the desire to retain them in the League, but to whitewash sordid traitors and disparage a man who was devoting his life to the Cause was past human endurance. A vote of confidence in the Independent Party and of censure on the deserters was adopted. The Northern deputies did not attend the subsequent meeting, and when Dr. M'Knight returned home he wrote of the Conference with fierce hostility. All these men are now dead, as I too shall soon be, but I have no doubt, and before their death some of the Northerns had no longer any doubt, that Lucas was undeviatingly faithful to the Tenants' Cause. A strong man rarely escapes the aberrations to which strength has a tendency; and though he was a calm and philosophical thinker, he easily became a passionate and fanatical controversialist, not consciously unjust to his adversaries, but harsh and unmeasured: and after this incredible imputation much may be forgiven him. I may repeat that the Northerns from the beginning feared him as a bigot, mistaking for bigotry the devotion of a profoundly religious man to the faith which he had embraced at so many sacrifices; and Dr. M'Knight, from the foundation of the League, took as much pains to warn me against Lucas as Dr. Cullen took to warn Lucas against me. But a crisis had now come when the League had to choose—and I especially, who was most closely allied with the Northerns, had to choose—between parties who no longer trusted each other, and we chose unhesitatingly the man of highest integrity and plainest disinterestedness. My judgment on the controversy is that Crawford was misled by shameless falsehood on the part of the new officials, and was grossly unjust to Lucas; and that Lucas, too indignant to rest on the solid ground of his character and services, which furnished ample protection, became an aggressor in turn, and