And on their private Toll-gate doat,
While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat?
The Tories."
Reuben felt his heart sink, and his beer nearly choked him. Soon a vast struggle was raging round the hustings, as the voters fought their way through fists and sticks, often emerging—especially the Conservatives—with their clothes half torn off their backs and quite ruined by garbage. The special constables were useless, for their own feelings betrayed them, and unluckily even in their ranks the Radicals predominated. The state of the poll at ten-thirty was twenty-seven for Captain MacKinnon and only eleven for Colonel MacDonald.
Speeches were made from time to time, but were lost in the general hubbub. One of the local butchers had delivered over his entire stock of entrails, skin and hoof cuttings, and old blood-puddings to the Radical cause, and Conservative Speakers were soon a sight to behold. When Reuben stood up his voice was drowned in shouts of "Ben the Gorilla! Stop the dirty animal!" while a bleeding sheep's head caught him full on the chest. Too proud to take his dismissal from the mob, he spoke unheard for five minutes, at the end of which he was silenced by half a brick, which hit his temple and stunned him sufficiently for Ditch and MacDonald to pull him away.
At twelve the poll stood at a hundred and one for the Captain and sixty-five for the Colonel. The Tories were getting desperate—they threw into the crowd handbills wet from the printers, declaring that MacDonald's toll-gate should not stand an hour after he was elected. But the crowd only sang derisively:
"Who fill their pockets at Scott's Float,
And on their private Toll-gate doat,
While o'er our hard-earned pence they gloat?
The Tories."