Tilly began to read in a faltering voice: "If you'd know what the Colonel is, pray travel over The Sluice at Scott's Float--and then drive on to Dover-- You'll find yourself quickly brought up by a Gate...." Reuben struck his fist on the table, and she dropped the paper with a little cry. "It's true, then! Oh Lard! it's true!" "Wot, fäather?" "Them's Albert's verses right enough?" "Yes, fäather, but----" "Fetch him here." Tilly was more frightened than ever. She had never heard anything about the great Gate controversy, and could not understand why Reuben was so angry with Albert. The verses seemed to her quite harmless, they were not even about love. However, she could not disobey her father, so she ran and fetched Albert out of the corn-chamber, begging him to be careful what he said, "fur fäather's unaccountable vrothered to-night about something." "How did the Election go?" "I never asked." "Oh, you gals! Well, I expect that's wot's the matter. The Liberal's got in." "But why should that mäake fäather angry wud you?" Albert stuck out his chest and looked important, as he invariably did before an encounter with Reuben, in spite of the fact that these always ended most ingloriously as far as he was concerned. "He's bin reading some poetry of yours, Bertie," continued his sister, "and he's justabout dreadful, all his clöathes tore about, and a nasty mess of blood and yaller stuff on his face." Albert suddenly began to look uneasy. "Oh Lard! perhaps I'd better bolt fur it.--No, I'll square him out. You'll stand by me, Tilly?" "Yes, but döan't mäake him angry--he might beat you." Bertie's pride was wounded by this suggestion, which was, however, soundly based on precedent, and he entered the kitchen with something very like a swagger. Reuben was standing by the table, erect, and somehow dignified in spite of the mess he was in. "Well," he said slowly, "well--MacKinnon's hound!" Albert saw the heap of scribbled paper on the table, and blenched. Reuben walked up to him, took him by the shoulders, and shook him as a dog might shake a rabbit. "You hemmed, scummy, lousy Radical!" Albert could not speak, for he felt as if his brains and teeth were rattling about inside his head. The rest of the family hunched together by the door, the boys gaping idiotically, the girls in tears. "Well, wot've you got to say fur yourself before I kick you round the table?" "I'll write wot I please, surelye," growled Albert, trying rather unsuccessfully to resume his swagger. "Oh, will you! Well, there'll be naun to prevent you when you're out of this house--and out you go to-night; I'll have no Radical hogs on my farm. I'm shut of you!" "Fäather!" cried Tilly.