"Damn the gauger," echoed old John Rewcastle; "I'll cleave him wi' my ain hand."
"And confound the country-keeper and the constable," re-echoed Westburnflat; "I'll weize a brace of balls through them before morning."
"We are agreed, then," said Ellieslaw, when the shouts had something subsided, "to bear this state of things no longer?"
"We are agreed to a man," answered his guests.
"Not literally so," said Mr Ratcliffe; "for though I cannot hope to assuage the violent symptoms which seem so suddenly to have seized upon the company, yet I beg to observe, that so far as the opinion of a single member goes, I do not entirely coincide in the list of grievances which has been announced, and that I do utterly protest against the frantic measures which you seem disposed to adopt for removing them. I can easily suppose much of
