itive deprivation to him. Almost every
native of Stoneborough felt strongly the encroachment of the brewer, and
the boys, of course, carried the sentiment to exaggeration.

The propensity to public speaking perhaps added to the excitement, for
Norman May and Harvey Anderson, for once in unison, each made a vehement
harangue in the school-court--Anderson's a fine specimen of the village
Hampden style, about Britons never suffering indignities, and free-born
Englishmen swelling at injuries.

"That they do, my hearty," interjected Larkins, pointing to an inflamed
eye that had not returned to its right dimensions. However, Anderson
went on unmoved by the under titter, and demonstrated, to the full
satisfaction of all the audience, that nothing could be more illegal and
unfounded than the brewer's claims.

Then came a great outburst from Norman, with all his father's headlong
vehemence; the way was the right of the town, the walk had been trodden
by their forefathers for generations past--it had been made by the good
old generous-hearted man who loved his town and townspeople, and would
have heard with shame and anger of a stranger, a new inhabitant, a
grasping radical, caring, as radicals always did, for no rights, but
for their own chance of unjust gains, coming here to Stoneborough to cut
them off from their own path. He talk of liberalism and the rights of
the poor! He who cut off Randall's poor old creatures in the almshouses
from their short way! and then came some stories of his oppression as a
poor-law guardian, which greatly aggravated the wrath of the speaker and
audience, though otherwise they did not exactly bear on the subject.

"What would old Nicholas Randall say to these nineteenth-century
doings?" finished Norman.

"Down, with them!" cried a voice from the throng, probably Larkins's;
but there was no desire to investigate, it was the universal sentiment.
"Down with it! Hurrah, we'll have our footpath open again! Down with the
fences! Britons never shall be slaves!" as Larkins finally ejaculated.

"That's the way to bring it to bear!" said Harvey Anderson, "See if he
dares to bring an action against us. Hurrah!"

"Yes, that's the way to settle it," said Norman. "Let's have it down. It
is an oppressive, arbitrary, shameful proceeding, and we'll show him we
won't submit to it!"

Carried along by the general feeling, the whole troop of boys dashed
shouting up to the barricade at the entrance of the field