They had the uncomplaining bucolic look, but they wore it with a difference; the difference, by this time, was enough to mark them of another nation.

Most of them had driven to the meeting; it was not an adjournment from the public house.

Nor did the air hold any hint of beer.

Where it had an alcoholic drift the flavour was of whisky; but the stimulant of the occasion had been tea or cider, and the room was full of patient good will.
The preliminaries were gone through with promptness; the Chair had supped with the speakers, and Mr Crow had given him a friendly hint that the boys wouldn't be expecting much in the way of trimmings from HIM.
Stamping and clapping from the back benches greeted Mr Farquharson.
It diminished, grew more subdued, as it reached the front.

The young fellows were mostly at the back, and the power of demonstration had somehow ebbed in the old ones.