fellows. At their heels tramped the rank and file of the great
movement. The assembly was a subtle foreshadowing of things to
come--of Newport and the march of twenty thousand men, of violence
and bloodshed, of strife between brethren, and of justice nonplussed
and hesitating.

The toil-worn miners were mostly silent, their dimly enlightened
intellects uneasily stirred by the words they had lately heard--
their stubborn hearts full of a great hope with a minute misgiving
at the back of it. With this dangerous material Geoffrey Horner
proposed to play his game.

Suddenly a voice was raised.

'Mates,' it cried, at the cross-roads, 'let's go and smash
Pleydell's windows!'

And a muttered acquiescence to the proposal swept through the moving
mass like a sullen breeze through reeds.

The desire for action rustled among these men of few words and
mighty arms.

Horner hurriedly consulted his colleagues. Was it wise to attempt
to exert an authority which was merely nominal? The principles of
Chartism were at this time to keep within the limits of the law, and
yet to hint, when such a course was safe, that stronger measures lay
behind mere words. Their fatal habit was to strike softly.

In peace and war, at home and abroad, there is but one humane and