iously, there is danger in the very air I breathe! I
must away to that envious Jessopp instantly; but first let me finish the
bottle."

CHAPTER LXXIII.

A strange harmonious inclination
Of all degrees to reformation.--Hudibras.

About seven miles from W----, on the main road from ----, there was
in 17-- a solitary public-house, which by the by is now a magnificent
hotel. Like many of its brethren in the more courtly vicinity of the
metropolis, this amoenum hospitium peregrinae gentis then had its
peculiar renown for certain dainties of the palate; and various in
degree and character were the numerous parties from the neighbouring
towns and farms, which upon every legitimate holiday were wont to
assemble at the mansion of mine host of the Jolly Angler, in order to
feast upon eel-pie and grow merry over the true Herefordshire cider.

But upon that special day on which we are about to introduce our reader
into the narrow confines of its common parlour, the said hostelry was
crowded with persons of a very different description from the peaceable
idlers who were ordinarily wont to empty mine host's larder, and forget
the price of corn over the divine inspirations of pomarial nectar.
Instead of the indolent, satisfied air of the saturnalian merrymaker,
the vagrant angler, or the gentleman farmer, with his comely dame who
"walked in silk attire, and siller had to spare;" instead of the quiet
yet glad countenances of such hunters of pleasure and eaters of eel-pie,
or the more obstreperous joy of urchins let loose from school to taste
some brief and perennial recreation, and mine host's delicacies at the
same time; instead of these, the little parlour presented a various and
perturbed group, upon whose features neither eel-pie nor Herefordshire
cider had wrought the relaxation of a holiday or the serenity of a
momentary content.

The day to which we now refer was the one immediately preceding that
appointed for the far-famed meeting at W----; and many of the patriots,
false or real, who journeyed from a distance to attend that rendezvous,
had halted at our host's of the Jolly Angler, both as being within a
convenient space from the appointed spot, and as a tabernacle where
promiscuous intrusion and (haply) immoderate charges were less likely to
occur than at the bustling and somewhat extraordinary hotels and inns of
the town of W----.

The times in which this meeting was held were those of great popular
excitem