Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

Some Portraits by Raeburn 2 1 5
lordship, " but now I hate them." And yet
a little further on : "A government in any-
country should be like a corporation ; and
in this country it is made up of the landed
interest, which alone has a right to be repre-
sented. As for the rabble who have nothing
but personal property, what hold has the
nation of them ? They may pack up their
property on their backs, and leave the country
in the twinkling of an eye." After having
made profession of sentiments so cynically
anti-popular as these, when the trials were at
an end, which was generally about midnight,
Braxfield would walk home to his house in
George Square with no better escort than an
easy conscience. I think I see him getting
his cloak about his shoulders, and, with per-
haps a lantern in one hand, steering his way
along the streets in the mirk January night.
It might have been that very day that Skirv-
ing had defied him in these words : " It is
altogether unavailing for your lordship to
menace me ; for I have long learned to fear
not the face of man ;" and I can fancy, as