ld not rest, and on behalf of the villagers he appealed against the
decision to the Lord Chief Justice in London. The case was heard by
the Lord Chief and another judge, and they came to the conclusion that
the jury's decision was right, that the county-court judge was wrong,
and that Lloyd George was perfectly correct on the point of law in
connection with which he had been overruled.

Lloyd George was twenty-five when he secured this triumph. All the
public were interested in the case, and in the Welsh townships and
villages his name flamed out like a beacon.

III

FIGHTING THE LONE HAND

Lloyd George was twenty-five when his fight for the burial of the old
quarryman lifted him to the public notice of the country at large. The
year was a fateful one for him in other respects. For two or three
years before this he had been speaking at public meetings, securing
more and more confidence as he realized his powers. He became the
banner-bearer for the allied causes of democracy, a free Church, and
the rights of Wales as a nation. His compatriots rallied round him as
their forefathers had rallied round Owen Glendower centuries before.

Working early and late, Lloyd George united his professional
engagements with appearances on the public platform. He was already
rousing those eddies of hatred and that personal devotion on which he
has been borne to fame. Furiously he flung himself into attacks on the
classes from which his political opponents were drawn. He adopted new
methods, he heeded not convention, made always for the thickest of the
fray. All the time there was mixed with his fervor an element of
shrewdness. It was this shrewdness, for instance, which sent him to a
big gathering of his political opponents, where he sat quietly in a
back seat in order to learn what they had to say about him, and
listened to their abuse with keen satisfaction. Gleams of ambition
must have been shooting in upon him by this time. It was impossible
that he had not thoughts of a bigger future for himself, and yet it
came as a thunderclap to him when he heard that he, a youthful
free-lance, had been adopted by the Liberal associations of the
district to be their candidate for Parliament at the next election. It
may be imagined with what zest under this stimulation he carried on his
preparations for the contest whenever it should arise. The
constituency--Carnarvon Boroughs--comprised a group of towns and a
large numb