Mr. Hayes, you're a hearty cock, I make no doubt, and all such are
welcome. Come along, my gentleman farmers, Mr. Brock shall have the
honour to pay for you all." And with this, Corporal Brock,
accompanied by Messrs. Hayes, Bullock, Blacksmith, Baker's-boy,
Butcher, and one or two others, adjourned to the inn; the horses
being, at the same time, conducted to the stable.

Although we have, in this quiet way, and without any flourishing of
trumpets, or beginning of chapters, introduced Mr. Hayes to the
public; and although, at first sight, a sneaking carpenter's boy may
seem hardly worthy of the notice of an intelligent reader, who looks
for a good cut-throat or highwayman for a hero, or a pickpocket at
the very least: this gentleman's words and actions should be
carefully studied by the public, as he is destined to appear before
them under very polite and curious circumstances during the course
of this history. The speech of the rustic Juvenal, Mr. Clodpole,
had seemed to infer that Hayes was at once careful of his money and
a warm admirer of Mrs. Catherine of the "Bugle:" and both the
charges were perfectly true. Hayes's father was reported to be a
man of some substance; and young John, who was performing his
apprenticeship in the village, did not fail to talk very big of his
pretensions to fortune--of his entering, at the close of his
indentures, into partnership with his father--and of the comfortable
farm and house over which Mrs. John Hayes, whoever she might be,
would one day preside. Thus, next to the barber and butcher, and
above even his own master, Mr. Hayes took rank in the village: and
it must not be concealed that his representation of wealth had made
some impression upon Mrs. Hall toward whom the young gentleman had
cast the eyes of affection. If he had been tolerably well-looking,
and not pale, rickety, and feeble as he was; if even he had been