length here; but caused a mighty stir throughout the
kingdom at the time when it was in force.

As one has seen or heard, after the march of a great army, a number of
rogues and loose characters bring up the rear; in like manner, at
the tail of a great measure of State, follow many roguish personal
interests, which are protected by the main body. The great measure of
Reform, for instance, carried along with it much private jobbing and
swindling--as could be shown were we not inclined to deal mildly with
the Whigs; and this Enlistment Act, which, in order to maintain the
British glories in Flanders, dealt most cruelly with the British people
in England (it is not the first time that a man has been pinched at home
to make a fine appearance abroad), created a great company of rascals
and informers throughout the land, who lived upon it; or upon extortion
from those who were subject to it, or not being subject to it were
frightened into the belief that they were.

When Mr. Hayes and his lady had gone through the marriage ceremony at
Worcester, the former, concluding that at such a place lodging and food
might be procured at a cheaper rate, looked about carefully for the
meanest public-house in the town, where he might deposit his bride.

In the kitchen of this inn, a party of men were drinking; and, as
Mrs. Hayes declined, with a proper sense of her superiority, to eat in
company with such low fellows, the landlady showed her and her husband
to an inner apartment, where they might be served in private.

The kitchen party seemed, indeed, not such as a lady would choose to
join. There was one huge lanky fellow, that looked like a soldier,
and had a halberd; another was habited in a sailor's costume, with a
fascinating patch over one eye; and a third, who seemed the leader
of the gang, was a stout man in a sailor's frock and a horseman's
jack-boots, whom one might fancy, if he were anything, to be a
horse-marine.

Of one of these worthies, Mrs. Hayes thought she knew the figure and
voice; and she found her conjectures were true, when, all of sudden,
three people, without "With your leave," or "By your leave," burst into
the room, into which she and her spouse had retired. At their head was
no other than her old friend, Mr. Peter Brock; he had his sword drawn,
and his finger to his lips, enjoining silence, as it were, to Mrs.
Catherine. He with the patch on his eye seized incontinently on Mr.
Hayes; the tall man with the h