"What are you waiting for?" asked
one of the men at the table impatiently.

"I am waiting for the Norwich delegate:
he is to bring us word of the exact time of
the other risings," replied the Captain.

"Here he is!" said a voice at the door;
and Nobble came forward. The Captain
started up. "Well," he said, abruptly, "what's
the hour to be?"

"Ten o'clock," said Nobble.

"Everywhere?"

"Everywhere. Are you ready?"

"To a man," replied the Captain. "It's
nigh nine, now." Rolling up the map and
grasping it like a truncheon, he went to the
door. A minute or two was spent in earnest
conversation with Mr. Nobble; whose
travelling-companion overheard a portion
of his statements, and knew them to be
either exaggerations or untruths. The
Nottingham Captain, fired and excited by
them, tightened his apron—already twisted
up at the waist over his grey
kerseys and brown great coat (the Captain,
when at home, was a frame-work knitter)—
waved his paper truncheon, and proceeded to
address the scarcely distinguishable groups
that buzzed and chattered their pikes before
the ale-house, in the thickening twilight,
made darker by close, ceaseles rain. Silence
having been called, he told them that, at then
o'clock that night, the whole country—
England, Ireland, Scotland, "and France"—
was to rise;—that their job was merely to
besiege Nottingham, and to take it; that the
soldiers in Nottingham barracks were all on
their side, that the great Nottingham meeting,
the night before, was crowded with red-coats,
who sided with the people: that the people
had turned out armed to the teeth, awaiting
their own arrival in Nottingham forest; that
the northern clouds were drifting down
to sweep all before them in other places;
and that, each man would have a
hundred guineas and plenty of rum as soon
as the town was taken. That seventy-
five thousand men were at the moment
marching into London from the west; and
seventy-five thousand more from the east;
that the keys of the Tower of London were
already in the hands of the Hampden Club;
that the Mint, the Mansion House, Carlton
Palace, the Bank of England, and the City
of Westminster, would be in possession of
their friends and allies by the morning.
He ended with some doggrel verses;
which he repeated with the fervour of
an inspired poet invoking the sublimest
images. The auditory greeted him with cries
of—Down with the borough-mongers! Down
with the tax-eaters! Liberty and Parliamentary
Reform! The men cheering and
shouting while the boys danced about and
fired pistols in the air: all entreating to be
led to Victory or Death.

The Young Squire, hitherto an unnoticed
spectator, now stepped forward; and, in that
strong and musical voice which had
influenced many a larger and rougher auditory,
besought a hearing. "Who was he?" some
asked. "The gentleman they call t' Young
Squire," others answered. "O, t' Young
Squire, was he? Well, we've heered nout but
what's good o' t' Young Squire, and we'll
heer him now." The young Squire then
boldly declared that the information brought
to them was false. The northern clouds
(meaning the Yorkshire delegates and their
followers) had dispersed, and the Nottingham
men had passed resolutions at the
meeting on Saturday night, in favour of peaceful
measures; not a soldier appeared among them.

An exasperated voice near the horse-trough,
"That's a lie!"

And they might look for a tent or a
dozen armed reformers in Nottingham forest
in vain. (General cries of "You know
nout about it!") As to a general rising,
he could state from his own knowledge
that such measure had never been so
much as proposed either in London or
elsewhere. He implored them vehemently, even
passionately, to refrain from playing into the
hands of the government, by giving it excuses
for inflicting tyrannical measures on the
country, under pretence of putting down
rebellion. He assured them that every step
which they ventured to take from that spot
with the objects tehy had in view, would be a
step towards their own destruction.

There was a murmur amongst the crowd—
a low deliberate hum—as if, discussing what
had been heard, it wavered. This was
quickly noticed by the leaders, and a short,
deep conference took place between Nobble
and the Captain. The weaver stepped
forward before the Squire could utter another
word; and, speaking loudly and significantly said:

"Let me ask this wonderful Young Squire
one question: Are you," he continued,
turning to that gentleman, "or are you not,
putting up for Shutbury, Lord Wordley's
rotten-borough?"

The Young Squire promptly answered that
he was the unopposed candidate for that
borough; and, was proceeding to state that he
should go into parliament for the single
purpose of advocating the rights of the people,
when a storm of groans and hisses stopped
him. He was denounced by turns as one of
the borough-mongering crew; as a traitor;
and as having sold himself to the aristocracy.
There was a pressure against the door-way of
the inn where he stood; and he would have
been roughly handled if, in the thick twilight,
he could have been distinguished from those
who surrounded him. But Mr. Nobble
stepped forward; and, under pretence of fair
play, proposed that, as the Young Squire had
cast a doubt upon the staunchness of the
Nottingham men, somebody should go
forward to the forest and brinst back word