So time passed till within a week of polling day. The feeling in the district grew more and more tense—no prominent member of either party could appear in Rye streets without being insulted by somebody on the opposite side. Meetings were orgies of abuse and violence, but whereas the Radical meetings were invariably broken up in disorder by their opponents, interruptions at Tory meetings resulted only in the interrupters themselves being kicked out. For the first time it looked as if a Conservative would be returned for Rye, and the Colonel knew he owed his success to Backfield\'s agricultural party.

Then suddenly the unexpected happened. At the end of one of Reuben\'s most successful meetings in Iden Schoolhouse, a mild sandy-haired person, whom nobody knew, rose up and asked meekly whether it was true that the Scott\'s Float toll-gate was on Colonel [Pg 179]MacDonald\'s estate, and if so, what use did he make of the tolls? He was answered by being flung into the street, but afterwards the Conservative tenant of Loose Farm on the Marsh remarked to Reuben that it was "a hemmed ark\'ard question."

Reuben, however, absorbed by his enthusiasm for Protection and a restricted franchise, scarcely thought twice about the toll-gate, till the next day a huge poster appeared all over the district:

"MACDONALD\'S GATE"
"Sing ye who will of Love, or War, or Wine,
Of mantling Cups, Bright Eyes, or deeds of Might—
A theme unsung by other harps is mine—
I sing a Gate—a novel subject quite.
O Tolls! ye do afflict us all—a bore!
E\'en when by Law imposed on evil slight!
Who has not loaded ye with curses sore
When in this Coat of Proof enveloped tight?
Therefore to what is Law I say \'content\'—
But for a Private Man to raise a toll,
To stop the public, tax them, circumvent,
Moves me to passion I can scarce control,
Makes boil the rushing blood and thrills my very soul."

Hitherto any verse that had been written in the controversy had been meant for street singing, and turned out in the less serious moments of politicians who certainly were not poets. But "MacDonald\'s Gate" impressed the multitude as something altogether different. The sounding periods and the number of capitals proclaimed it poetry of the very highest order, and its prominent position throughout the town soon resulted in the collection of excited groups all discussing the Scott\'s Float toll-gate, which nobody hitherto had thought much about.

The Tories were a little disconcerted—the toll-gate did not fit into their campaign. Tolls had always been unpopular in the neighbourhood, even though [Pg 180]Government-owned, and it was catastrophic that the enemy should suddenly have swooped down on the Colonel\'s private venture and rhymed it so effectively.

Of course a counter-attack was made, but it had the drawback of being made in prose, none of the Tory pamphleteers feeling equal to meeting the enemy on his own ground. Also there wa............