Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/266



ASTON found the Preacher quietly smoking, seated on the rustic under a giant oak that stood in the corner of the square.

Under this tree the speakers' stand had always been built for joint debates in political campaigns.

Here, when a boy he had heard the great debate between Zebulon B. Vance and Judge Thomas Settle in the fierce campaign which followed the overthrow of Legree when the Republican party, under the leadership of Judge Settle made its desperate effort for life. Settle, who was a man of masterful personality, eloquent, and in dead earnest in his appeal for a new South, had made a speech of great power to a crowd that were hostile to every idea for which he stood; and yet he dazzled or stunned them into sullen silence.

And then he recalled with flashes of memory vivid as lightning, the miracle that had followed. He could see Vance now as he slowly lifted his big lion-like head, and calmly looked over the sea of faces with eagle eyes that could flash with resistless humour or blaze with the fury of elemental passion. He reviewed the terrible past in which he had played the tragic role of their war Governor, and tore into tatters with the facts of history the logic of his opponent. And then he opened his batteries of wit and ridicule,—wit that cut to the heart's red blood, and yet convulsed the hearer with its unexpected turn. Ridicule that withered and scorched