crowd thickened—­every place seemed peopled with the Pitt liveries.  Women, vowing that they were cramped to death, called languidly for chaise-doors to be opened; and men who had already descended, and were stretching their limbs in the road, ran to open them.  This was in the rear of the procession; in front, where the throng of townsfolk closed most thickly round the earl’s travelling chariot, was a sudden baring of heads, as the door of the coach was opened.  The landlord, bowing lower than he had ever bowed to the proud Duke of Somerset, offered his shoulder.  And then men waited and bent nearer; and nothing happening, looked at one another in surprise.  Still no one issued; instead, something which the nearest could not catch was said, and a tall lady, closely hooded, stepped stiffly out and pointed to the house.  On which the landlord and two or three servants hurried in; and all was expectation.

The men were out again in a moment, bearing a great chair, which they set with nicety at the door of the carriage.  This done, the gapers saw what they had come to see.  For an instant, the face that all England knew and all Europe feared—­but blanched, strained, and drawn with pain—­showed in the opening.  For a second the crowd was gratified with a glimpse of a gaunt form, a star and ribbon; then, with a groan heard far through the awestruck silence, the invalid sank heavily into the chair, and was borne swiftly and silently into the house.

Men looked at one another; but the fact was better than their fears.  My lord, after leaving Bath, had had a fresh attack of the gout; and when he would be able to proceed on his journey only Dr. Addington, his physician, whose gold-headed cane, great wig, and starched aspect did not foster curiosity, could pretend to say.  Perhaps Mr. Smith, the landlord, was as much concerned as any; when he learned the state of the case, he fell to mental arithmetic with the assistance of his fingers, and at times looked blank.  Counting up the earl and his gentleman, and his gentleman’s gentleman, and his secretary, and his private secretary, and his physician, and his three friends and their gentlemen, and my lady and her woman, and the children and nurses, and a crowd of others, he could not see where to-morrow’s travellers were to lie, supposing the minister remained.  However, in the end, he set that aside as a question for to-morrow; and having seen Mr. Rigby’s favourite bin opened (for Dr. Addington was a connoisseur), and reviewed the cooks dishing up the belated dinner—­which an endless chain of servants carried to the different apartments—­he followed to the principal dining-room, where the minister’s company were assembled; and between the intervals of carving and seeing that his guests ate to their liking, enjoyed the conversation, and, when invited, joined in it with tact and self-respect.  As became a host of the old school.