to what he smokes, and he hasn't travelled all
over the world for nothing:

'Qu'en dictes-vous? Faut-il a ce musier,
_Il n'est tresor que de vivre a son aise_!'"

Helmsley listened in wonderment. Here was a vagrant of the highroads and
woods, quoting the refrain of Villon's _Contreditz de Franc-Gontier_,
and pronouncing the French language with as soft and pure an accent as
ever came out of Provence. 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. The best way to make the temp'rance cause
pop'lar is to stop big brewin'. Let every ale'ouse 'ave its own
pertikler brew, an' m'appen we'll git some o' the old-fashioned malt
an' 'ops agin. That'll be good for the small trader, an' the big brewin'
companies can take to somethin' 'onester than the pizonin' bizness."

"You are a would-be wise man, and you talk too much, Matthew Peke!"
observed the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, smiling darkly, and still glancing
askew at his watch. "I know you of old!"

"Ye knows me an' I knows you," responded Peke placidly. "Yer can't
interfere wi' me nohow, an' I dessay it riles ye a bit, for ye loves
interferin' with ivery sort o' folk, as all the parsons do. I b'longs to