When Mr. Hayes and his lady had gone through the marriage ceremony
at Worcester, the former, concluding that at such a place lodging
and food might be procured at a cheaper rate, looked about carefully
for the meanest public-house in the town, where he might deposit his
bride.

In the kitchen of this inn, a party of men were drinking; and, as
Mrs. Hayes declined, with a proper sense of her superiority, to eat
in company with such low fellows, the landlady showed her and her
husband to an inner apartment, where they might be served in
private.

The kitchen party seemed, indeed, not such as a lady would choose to
join. There was one huge lanky fellow, that looked like a soldier,
and had a halberd; another was habited in a sailor's costume, with a
fascinating patch over one eye; and a third, who seemed the leader
of the gang, was a stout man in a sailor's frock and a horseman's
jack-boots, whom one might fancy, if he were anything, to be a
horse-marine.

Of one of these worthies, Mrs. Hayes thought she knew the figure and
voice; and she found her conjectures were true, when, all of sudden,
three people, without "With your leave," or "By your leave," burst
into the room, into which she and her spouse had retired. At their
head was no other than her old friend, Mr. Peter Brock; he had his
sword drawn, and his finger to his lips, enjoining silence, as it
were, to Mrs. Catherine. He with the patch on his eye seized
incontinently on Mr. Hayes; the tall man with the halberd kept the
door; two or three heroes supported the one-eyed man; who, with a