In his determination to bring the whole matter thus before the public and challenge the Government policy, Fawcett stood quite alone. The best friends of the movement begged him to desist, believing he was inviting defeat, and would thus injure the cause, but he had a firmer belief in the strength of public opinion. It was another proof of that far-sighted independence of judgment which his fellow-workers learned so heartily to respect. His influence on his friends deepened year by year. His personality is perhaps most felt in the strong impression he made on them. Professor Stewart, also an M.P., tells of Fawcett: ‘He sat at times when we came to tell him things in his easy-chair with his hands holding the elbows of it, his face towards us, his lips a little parted, his whole physiognomy lit up with intelligence and interest, his mind evidently drawing before itself the picture of which we spoke, and the smile that was on his features playing even to his broad brow. Or again, when animated with his own clear mental vision, his whole frame eloquent, he spoke strong, incisive, direct words, looking through my very soul with his empty eyes.’ [Sidenote: A friendly Cabby.] He very rarely went about alone, but the late Sir Robert Hunter told of once journeying to London with him one evening. ‘When we arrived at Waterloo, Fawcett asked me to put him into a cab, and refused to let me go with him, shouting “Good-bye” merrily as he drove off into the night. Notwithstanding his fearlessness he seemed to me so helpless, this blind giant all alone in a cab in London, utterly at the mercy of the cabman.’ But he had friends among the cabmen too, for once when he turned to pay a cabby his fare, the man utterly refused it with ‘No, Mr. Fawcett, no, sir. You have done too much for the working man.’ When his motion came on in the House, he reviewed the whole question of Epping Forest and showed the value of the Crown rights as a protection of the people’s rights. He stated that the Crown had sold its rights on four thousand acres for £18,603, 16s. 2d., so small an amount as to be negligible to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and a healthful means of enjoyment for the people had been destroyed. Ten times the sum might have been saved by abolishing a sinecure office, such as the Lord Privy Seal. This last a truly Fawcettian fling. [Sidenote: Deer, yes. Picnickers, no!]