Val’s, however, was the speech of the day. He rushed into it like a young knight-errant, defying and conciliating the crowd in the same breath, with his handsome head thrown back and his young face bright and smiling. “He has no end of way on him,” Lord Hightowers said, who stood by, an interested spectator--or rather, metaphorically, ran along the bank, as he had done many a day while Val rowed triumphant races, shouting and encouraging. Val undertook everything, promised everything, with the confidence of his age. He gave a superb assurance to the Radicals in the crowd that it should be the aim of his life to see that the intelligence of the working classes, which had done so much for Great Britain, should have full justice done to it; and to the tenant-farmer on the other side, that the claims of the land, and those who produced the bread of the country, should rank highly in his mind as they ought always to do. The young man believed that everything could be done that everybody wanted; that all classes and all the world could be made happy;--what so easy? And he said so with the sublime confidence of his age, promising all that was asked of him. When Mr Seisin’s supporters and himself came after this youthful hero, it is inconceivable what a downfall everybody felt. I am bound to add that Mr Seisin’s speech read better than Val’s in the paper, and so did that of his own proposer. But that mattered very little at the moment. Val carried the crowd with him, even those of them who were a little unwilling, and tried to resist the tide. The show of hands was triumphantly in his favour. He was infinitely more Liberal than Mr Seisin, and far more Tory than Sir John. He thought every wrong could be redressed, and that every right must conquer: there was no compromise, no moderation, in his triumphant address.
Lady Eskside and Mary made a progress down the High Street when the gentlemen went to the committee rooms, and saw the Duchess and the Dowager-Duchess, who were both most complimentary. These great ladies had heard Val’s speech, or rather had seen it, being too far off to hear very much, from their carriage, where they sat on the outskirts of the crowd. “What fire, what vigour he has!” said the Dowager. “I congratulate you, dear Lady Eskside; though how you could ever think that boy like his father----”