ke, according to their
known opinions. As he made his way among the throng, he heard once or
twice the No-Popery cry, which was then becoming pretty familiar to the
ears of most men; but holding it in very slight regard, and observing
that the idlers were of the lowest grade, he neither thought nor cared
about it, but made his way along, with perfect indifference.

There were many little knots and groups of persons in Westminster Hall:
some few looking upward at its noble ceiling, and at the rays of evening
light, tinted by the setting sun, which streamed in aslant through
its small windows, and growing dimmer by degrees, were quenched in the
gathering gloom below; some, noisy passengers, mechanics going home from
work, and otherwise, who hurried quickly through, waking the echoes with
their voices, and soon darkening the small door in the distance, as
they passed into the street beyond; some, in busy conference together on
political or private matters, pacing slowly up and down with eyes that
sought the ground, and seeming, by their attitudes, to listen earnestly
from head to foot. Here, a dozen squabbling urchins made a very Babel in
the air; there, a solitary man, half clerk, half mendicant, paced up and
down with hungry dejection in his look and gait; at his elbow passed
an errand-lad, swinging his basket round and round, and with his shrill
whistle riving the very timbers of the roof; while a more observant
schoolboy, half-way through, pocketed his ball, and eyed the distant
beadle as he came looming on. It was that time of evening when, if you
shut your eyes and open them again, the darkness of an hour appears
to have gathered in a second. The smooth-worn pavement, dusty with
footsteps, still called upon the lofty walls to reiterate the shuffle
and the tread of feet unceasingly, save when the closing of some heavy
door resounded through the building like a clap of thunder, and drowned
all other noises in its rolling sound.

Mr Haredale, glancing only at such of these groups as he passed nearest
to, and then in a manner betokening that his thoughts were elsewhere,
had nearly traversed the Hall, when two persons before him caught his
attention. One of these, a gentleman in elegant attire, carried in his
hand a cane, which he twirled in a jaunty manner as he loitered on; the
other, an obsequious, crouching, fawning figure, listened to what
he said--at times throwing in a humble word himself--and, with his
shoulders