With all its charms, however, the traveller, as we have said, stayed
there but a night or so. Those in the house, therefore, would move on,
and so room could be made. And so room was made; and two days later, a
little after sunset, amid a spasm of final preparation, and with a great
parade of arrival, the earl's procession, curricle, chariot, coaches,
chaises, and footmen, rolled in from the west. In a trice lights flashed
everywhere, in the road, at the windows, on the mound, among the trees;
the 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.