Lady Lucy's subscriptions, too, were an element in the matter
not to be despised.
A rally began in the Liberal host, which had felt itself already beaten.
Marsham's meetings improved, the _Herald_ article was apparently
forgotten.
The anxiety now lay chiefly in the mining villages, where nothing seemed
to affect the hostile attitude of the inhabitants. A long series of
causes had led up to it, to be summed up perhaps in one--the harsh and
domineering temper of the man who had for years managed the three Tallyn
collieries, and who held Lady Lucy and her co-shareholders in the hollow
of his hand. Lady Lucy, whose curious obstinacy had been roused, would
not dismiss him, and nothing less than his summary dismissal would have
appeased the dull hatred of six hundred miners.
Marsham had indeed attempted to put through a number of minor reforms,
but the effect on the temper of the district had been, in the end,
little or nothing. The colliers, who had once fervently supported him,
thought of him now, either as a fine gentleman profiting pecuniarily by
the ill deeds of a tyrant, or as sheltering behind his mother's skirts;
the Socialist Vicar of Beechcote thundered against him; and for some
time every meeting of his in the colliery villages was broken up.
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