"Brougham's words had come rattling off in full gallop. Piers, after looking at him a minute, began in that contemptuous drawl of his,--you've heard it I've no doubt,--'Mr. Brougham affords an example of radical opinions degrading a statesman into a politician. He cannot but know that it is the positive, visible duty of every landowner to influence and prejudice votes. It is the business and the function of education and responsibility to enlighten ignorance, and to influence the misguided and the misled. If it is the business and the function of the clergy to influence and prejudice people in favour of a good life; if it is the business and function of a teacher to influence and prejudice scholars in favour of knowledge,--it is just as certainly the business and function of the landowner to influence his tenants in favour of law and order, and to prejudice them against men who would shatter to pieces the noblest political Constitution in the world.'" The Squire read this period aloud with great emphasis, and added, "Well, Maude, you never heard such a tumult as followed. Cries of '_Here! Here!_' and '_Order! Order!_' filled the House; and the Speaker had work enough to make silence. Piers stood quite still, watching Brougham, and as soon as all was quiet, he went on,-- "'If you take the peers, the gentry, the scholars, the men of enterprise and wealth, from our population, what kind of a government should we get from the remainder? Would they be fit to select and elect?' Then there was another uproar, and Piers sat down, and O'Connell jumped up. He put his witty tongue in his laughing cheek, and, buttoning his coat round him, held up his right hand. And the Reform members cheered, and the Tory members shrugged their shoulders, and waited for what he would say." "I don't want to hear a word from _him_," answered Mrs. Atheling. "Come and get your coffee, John. A cup of good coffee costs a deal now, and it's a shame to let it get cold and sloppy over Dan O'Connell's blackguarding." "Tell us what he said, Father," urged Kate, who really desired to know more about Piers's efforts. "You can drink your coffee to his words. I don't suppose they will poison it." "I wouldn't be sure of that," said Mrs. Atheling, with a dubious shake of her head; while the Squire lifted his cup, and emptied it at a draught. "What did he say, Father? Did he attack Piers?"