in the letter given above.  After this disastrous event the day became overcast, and as we neared Manchester the sky grew cloudy and dark, and it began to rain.  The vast concourse of people who had assembled to witness the triumphant arrival of the successful travelers was of the lowest order of mechanics and artisans, among whom great distress and a dangerous spirit of discontent with the Government at that time prevailed.  Groans and hisses greeted the carriage, full of influential personages, in which the Duke of Wellington sat.  High above the grim and grimy crowd of scowling faces a loom had been erected, at which sat a tattered, starved-looking weaver, evidently set there as a representative man, to protest against this triumph of machinery, and the gain and glory which the wealthy Liverpool and Manchester men were likely to derive from it.  The contrast between our departure from Liverpool and our arrival at Manchester was one of the most striking things I ever witnessed.  The news of Mr. Huskisson’s fatal accident spread immediately, and his death, which did not occur till the evening, was anticipated by rumor.  A terrible cloud covered this great national achievement, and its success, which in every respect was complete, was atoned for to the Nemesis of good fortune by the sacrifice of the first financial statesman of the country.

CHAPTER XVII.

                        GREAT RUSSELL STREET, Friday, October 1, 1830. 
     DEAREST H——­,

I have risen very early, for what with excitement, and the wakefulness always attendant with me upon a new bed, I have slept but little, and I snatch this first hour of the day, the only one I may be able to command, to tell you that I have heard from my brother, and that he is safe and well, for which, thank God!  Further I know nothing.  He talks vaguely of being with us toward the end of the winter, but in the meantime, unless he finds some means of conveying some tidings of his welfare to me, I must remain in utter ignorance of his circumstances and situation.  Your letter, which was to welcome me to my new home, arrived there two days before I did, and was forwarded to me into Buckinghamshire.  A few days there—­taking what interest I could in the sporting and fishing, the country quiet of the place, and above all the privilege of taking the sacrament, which, had I remained at Heaton, I should have had no opportunity of doing—­gave me a breathing-time and a sense of mental repose before entering again upon that busy life whose demands are already besieging me in the inexorable form of half a dozen new stage dresses to be devised, ordered, and executed in the shortest imaginable time.

October 3d.