ONE OF THE NEW VOTERS. 95 



as much as to say to his mate, " My love, it is only 

 a reaper, we need not be afraid," and all was silence 

 and darkness. Eoger did not so much as take off his 

 boots, but flung himself on the boards crash, curled 

 himself up hedgehog fashion with some old sacks, 

 and immediately began to breathe heavily. He had 

 no difficulty in sleeping, first because his muscles 

 had been tried to the utmost, and next because his 

 skin was full to the brim, not of jolly "good ale 

 and old," but of the very smallest and poorest of 

 wish-washy beer. In his own words, it " blowed 

 him up till he very nigh bust." Now the great 

 authorities on dyspepsia, so eagerly studied by the 

 wealthy folk whose stomachs are deranged, tell us 

 that a very little flatulence will make the heart beat 

 irregularly and cause the most distressing symptoms. 

 Koger had swallowed at least a gallon of a liquid 

 chemically designed, one might say, on purpose to 

 utterly upset the internal economy. Harvest beer 

 is probably the vilest drink in the world. The men 

 say it is made by pouring muddy water into empty 

 casks returned sour from use, and then brushing 

 them round and round inside with a besom. This 

 liquid leaves a stickiness on the tongue and a harsh 

 feeling at the back of the mouth which soon turns 

 to thirst, so that having once drunk a pint the 

 drinker must go on drinking. The peculiar dryness 

 caused by this beer is not like any other throat 

 drought worse than dust, or heat, or thirst from 

 work; there is no satisfying it. With it there go 

 down the germs of fermentation, a sour, yeasty, and, 

 as it were, secondary fermentation ; not that kind 



