ge of high treason.

Having no knowledge of these great men, nor of the matter how far it was
true, I had not very much to say about either of them or it; but this
silence was not shared (although the ignorance may have been) by the
hundreds of people around me. Such a commotion was astir, such universal
sense of wrong, and stern resolve to right it, that each man grasped his
fellow's hand, and led him into the vintner's. Even I, although at that
time given to excess in temperance, and afraid of the name of cordials,
was hard set (I do assure you) not to be drunk at intervals without
coarse discourtesy.

However, that (as Betty Muxworthy used to say, when argued down, and
ready to take the mop for it) is neither here nor there. I have naught
to do with great history and am sorry for those who have to write it;
because they are sure to have both friends and enemies in it, and cannot
act as they would towards them, without damage to their own consciences.

But as great events draw little ones, and the rattle of the churn
decides the uncertainty of the flies, so this movement of the town, and
eloquence, and passion had more than I guessed at the time, to do with
my own little fortunes. For in the first place it was fixed (perhaps
from down right contumely, because the citizens loved him so) that Lord
Russell should be tried neither at Westminster nor at Lincoln's Inn, but
at the Court of Old Bailey, within the precincts of the city. This kept
me hanging on much longer; because although the good nobleman was to be
tried by the Court of Common Pleas, yet the officers of King's Bench, to
whom I daily applied myself, were in counsel with their fellows, and put
me off from day to day.

Now I had heard of the law's delays, which the greatest of all great
poets (knowing much of the law himself, as indeed of everything) has
specially mentioned, when not expected, among the many ills of life. But
I never thought at my years to have such bitter experience of the evil;
and it seemed to me that if the lawyers failed to do their duty, they
ought to pay people for waiting upon them, instead of making them pay
for it. But here I was, now in the second month living at my own
charges in the house of a worthy fellmonger at the sign of the Seal and
Squirrel, abutting upon the Strand road which leads from Temple Bar
to Charing. Here I did very well indeed, having a mattress of good
skin-dressings, and plenty to eat every day of my life, bu