em brave men, and good soldiers of the magistracy, they all plucked up
a proud spirit, and do or die, determined to march in a body up to the
gate, and forward to the table of his lordship.

My uncle, who had been one of the ringleaders of the chicken-hearted,
crap away up among the rest, with his new blue coat on, shining fresh
from the ironing of the goose, but keeping well among the thick, to be as
little kenspeckle as possible; for all the folk of the town were at their
doors and windows to witness the great occasion of the town-council going
away up like gentlemen of rank to take their dinner with his lordship.
That it was a terrible trial to all cannot be for a moment denied; yet
some of them behaved themselves decently; and, if we confess that others
trembled in the knees, as if they were marching to a field of battle, it
was all in the course of human nature.

Yet ye would wonder how they came on by degrees; and, to cut a long tale
short, at length found themselves in a great big room, like a palace in a
fairy tale, full of grand pictures with gold frames, and looking-glasses
like the side of a house, where they could see down to their very shoes.
For a while they were like men in a dream, perfectly dazzled and
dumfoundered; and it was five minutes before they could either see a
seat, or think of sitting down. With the reflection of the
looking-glasses, one of the bailies was so possessed within himself, that
he tried to chair himself where chair was none, and landed, not very
softly, on the carpet; while another of the deacons, a fat and dumpy man,
as he was trying to make a bow, and throw out his leg behind him,
stramped on a favourite Newfoundland dog's tail, that, wakening out of
its slumbers with a yell that made the roof ring, played drive against my
uncle, who was standing abaft, and wheeled him like a butterfly, side
foremost, against a table with a heap of flowers on it, where, in trying
to kep himself, he drove his head, like a battering-ram, through a
looking-glass, and bleached back on his hands and feet on the carpet.

Seeing what had happened, they were all frightened; but his lordship,
after laughing heartily, was politer, and knew better about manners than
all that; so, bidding the flunkies hurry away with the fragments of the
china jugs and jars, they found themselves, sweating with terror and
vexation, ranged along silk settees, cracking about the weather and other
wonderfuls.

Such a dinne