The Ffolliots of Redmarley — Text and Context

She did all this; but she did infinitely more. She gave him a son, and in that son all his hopes and dreams, his secret humilities and unconscious vanities, his political devotions and antipathies were all brought together and focussed in one great determination that this son of his should have all that he had been denied; that in this son every one of his own inarticulate aspirations should find a voice.

He was a Congregationalist and a prominent member of this sect, the chief dissenting body in Marlehouse. He read little poetry and no fiction, but he was widely read in and thoroughly conversant with all the political events and controversies of both his own generation and of the one before it. A political meeting was to him what a public-house is to the habitual drunkard; he could not pass it. He never spoke in public himself, but he longed to do so with a longing that was intense as it was hopeless. He knew his limitations, and was quite conscious that his English was not that of the platform.

Little Eloquent could never remember when he first began to hear the names that were afterwards to be the most familiar household words to him. Two names, two personalities ever stood out in memory as an integral part of his child-life--those of William Ewart Gladstone and John Bright.

These were his father's idols.

They glowed, fixed planets in the political firmament, stable, unquenchable, a lamp to the feet of the faithful. Each shining with a steady radiance that the divergence in their views on many points could neither confuse nor obscure.

The square, dogged, fighting face of the man of peace; the serene, scholarly, aquiline features of the great Liberal leader were familiar to the little boy as the face of his own father.

That John Bright died when Eloquent was about six made no difference in his influence. There were two likenesses of him in the sitting-room, and under one of these the words were inscribed: "Be just and fear not"; and Eloquent, who was brought up to look upon justice as the first of political virtues, used to wonder wistfully whether such fearlessness could be achieved by one whose face at present showed none of those characteristics of force, strength, and pugnacity manifested in the portraits of the great commoner. But he found comfort in the reflection that "Dada," mirror of all the virtues, was yet quite mild and almost insignificant in appearance; a small, stout, dapper, very clean-looking little tradesman, with trim white whiskers, a bald head, and a round, rosy face, wherein shrewd, blue eyes twinkled cheerfully.

No, dada bore not the slightest resemblance either to Mr Gladstone or Mr Bright, and yet, Eloquent reflected, "what a man he was!" Dada was the chief factor in Eloquent's little world--law-giver, lover, and friend.

It is probable that his childhood would have been more normal and less politically precocious had his mother lived. But she died when he was four years old, a fortnight after the birth of a little sister who lived but a few hours.

Abel Gallup's sister came to keep house for them, and luckily, she, like his wife, was sensible and kindly, but she stood in great awe of her brother and never dreamt of criticising his conduct. Now his wife had never spared him her caustic, common-sense comments. Politics, especially where they might have affected the well-being of the child, were strictly kept in their proper place, And naturally she considered that, in the upbringing of a very small boy, that place should be remote almost to invisibility.

With her death all this was altered. Abel Gallup was very lonely, and turned to his little son for comfort. The child was biddable, loving, and gentle, and "to please his dada" had ever been held before him as his highest honour and duty.

Before he could read he could repeat long portions from the various speeches his father particularly admired; he learned by heart easily and had a retentive memory, and his father had only to say over a sentence two or three times when the child was word perfect. It gave Abel Gallup the most exquisite delight to stand his little son between his knees and hear the stirring, sonorous sentences rolled out in the high, child voice; and even in those early days he used to impress upon Eloquent that when he was grown-up he "would have to speak different to dada."