Meanwhile, Mr.Arbroath, paying no attention whatever to Tom's outburst, looked at his watch.
"It is now a quarter-past ten," he announced dictatorially; "I should advise you all to be going." "By the law we needn't go till eleven, though Miss Tranter _does_ halve it," said Bill Bush sulkily--"and perhaps we won't!" Mr.Arbroath fixed him with a stern glance.
"Do you know that I am here in the cause of Temperance ?" he said.
"Oh, are ye?
Then why don't ye call on Squire Evans, as is the brewer wi' the big 'ouse yonder ?" queried Bill defiantly.

"'E's the man to go to! Arsk 'im to shut up 'is brewery an' sell no more ale wi' pizon in't to the poor! That'll do more for Temp'rance than the early closin' o' the 'Trusty Man.'" "Ye're right enough," said Matt Peke, who had refrained from taking any part in the conversation, save by now and then whispering a side comment to Helmsley.

"There's stuff put i' the beer what the brewers brew, as is enough to knock the strongest man silly.

I'm just fair tired o' hearin' o' Temp'rance this an' Temp'rance that, while 'arf the men as goes to Parl'ment takes their livin' out o' the brewin' o' beer an' spiritus liquors.

An' they bribes their poor silly voters wi' their drink till they'se like a flock o' sheep runnin' into wotever field o' politics their shepherds drives 'em.