‘Say, as to three beds,’ interposed the gentleman who had spoken before; ‘for we shall want three if we stay, though my friend only speaks of one.’

‘No, no, my lord; you are too good, you are too kind; but your life is of far too much importance to the nation in these portentous times, to be placed upon a level with one so useless and so poor as mine. A great cause, my lord, a mighty cause, depends on you. You are its leader and its champion, its advanced guard and its van. It is the cause of our altars and our homes, our country and our faith. Let me sleep on a chair—the carpet—anywhere. No one will repine if I take cold or fever. Let John Grueby pass the night beneath the open sky—no one will repine for him. But forty thousand men of this our island in the wave (exclusive of women and children) rivet their eyes and thoughts on Lord George Gordon; and every day, from the rising up of the sun to the going down of the same, pray for his health and vigour. My lord,’ said the speaker, rising in his stirrups, ‘it is a glorious cause, and must not be forgotten. My lord, it is a mighty cause, and must not be endangered. My lord, it is a holy cause, and must not be deserted.’

‘It is a holy cause,’ exclaimed his lordship, lifting up his hat with great solemnity. ‘Amen.’

‘John Grueby,’ said the long-winded gentleman, in a tone of mild reproof, ‘his lordship said Amen.’

‘I heard my lord, sir,’ said the man, sitting like a statue on his horse.

‘And do not you say Amen, likewise?’

To which John Grueby made no reply at all, but sat looking straight before him.

‘You surprise me, Grueby,’ said the gentleman. ‘At a crisis like the present, when Queen Elizabeth, that maiden monarch, weeps within her tomb, and Bloody Mary, with a brow of gloom and shadow, stalks triumphant—’

‘Oh, sir,’ cried the man, gruffly, ‘where’s the use of talking of Bloody Mary, under such circumstances as the present, when my lord’s wet through, and tired with hard riding? Let’s either go on to London, sir, or put up at once; or that unfort’nate Bloody Mary will have more to answer for—and she’s done a deal more harm in her grave than she ever did in her lifetime, I believe.’

By this time Mr Willet, who had never beard so many words spoken together at one time, or delivered with such volubility and emphasis as by the long-winded gentleman; and whose brain, being wholly unable to sustain or compass them, had quite given itself up for lost; recovered so far as to observe that there was ample accommodation at the Maypole for all the party: good beds; neat wines; excellent entertainment for man and beast; private rooms for large and small parties; dinners dressed upon the shortest notice; choice stabling, and a lock-up coach-house; and, in short, to run over such recommendatory scraps of language as were painted up on various portions of the building, and which in the course of some forty years he had learnt to repeat with tolerable correctness. He was considering whether it was at all possible to insert any novel sentences to the same purpose, when the gentleman who had spoken first, turning to him of the long wind, exclaimed, ‘What say you, Gashford? Shall we tarry at this house he speaks of, or press forward? You shall decide.’

‘I would submit, my lord, then,’ returned the person he appealed to, in a silky tone, ‘that your health and spirits—so important, under Providence, to our great cause, our pure and truthful cause’— here his lordship pulled off his hat again, though it was raining hard—’require refreshment and repose.’

‘Go on before, landlord, and show the way,’ said Lord George Gordon; ‘we will follow at a footpace.’

‘If you’ll give me leave, my lord,’ said John Grueby, in a low voice, ‘I’ll change my proper place, and ride before you. The looks of the landlord’s friend are not over honest, and it may be as well to be cautious with him.’