At the moment when the two whom we have mentioned more particularly were added to the rest of the human beings there assembled, a sort of compulsory motion was given to the crowd, some being driven forward in the direction of the Haymarket, and others pushed back against the houses behind them, by the advance of an enormous mob up the centre or carriage-way of the street, in the midst of which might be seen, towering above the ocean of heads, a large, clumsy, but highly ornamented, carriage, drawn by four powerful horses. Hats were waving in the air, handkerchiefs fluttering from many a window; and several thousand voices were heard shouting all at once, and "making the welkin ring." Some cried one thing and some another; but the general meaning was alike.
One roared forth, "Oxford for ever!" another, "High Church, High Church and Sacheverel!" another, "Down with the Whigs!" and then again might be heard the shouts of "Ormond, the Duke of Ormond for ever, and away with the Hanover rats!"
Not contented with thus asserting their own temporary opinions, the sturdy ruffians of the mob insisted that all persons whom they passed should give some sign of consenting to the same; and any one who hesitated seemed likely to be roughly handled.
"Off with your hat, and cry 'Oxford for ever!'" roared one fellow in the garb of a sailor, approaching the spot where Van Noost and Smeaton stood.
The latter did not obey the injunction, but remained covered and silent. Van Noost, however, raised his hat and shouted readily; and the man passed on, swaggering and bawling with his companions, and following the carriage of the Earl of Oxford as it moved slowly forward.
The crowd of more respectable persons, collected at both sides of the street, began then to disperse, and Van Noost was turning round to walk away with Smeaton, when a sharp tap upon his shoulder made him suddenly pause and look behind him. At the same moment, a calm clear voice, with a somewhat sarcastic tone, addressed him by name, saying--
"Well, my good friend, Van Noost, you have shouted loudly for Harley to-day, which is generous, seeing that he has little chance of paying the obligation."
"Paid already, my good lord," replied Van Noost, turning round, not in, the least discomposed, and addressing a thin plainly-dressed man of the middle age. "He bought two nymphs and two dairy maids of toe, no longer ago than this time twelvemonth--size of life--dairymaids with pails upon their heads, nymphs with cornucopias in their hands, to say nothing of a little black boy with a dolphin to be put in the middle of a fountain. Surely I am bound to cry 'Long live the Earl of Oxford!' If your lordship will patronise me in the like manner, and should you chance to get into a scrape so as to win the applause of the mob, I will throw up my hat and roar, 'Long live the Earl of Stair!' with the best of them."
"Well, well," replied the Earl, with a smile, "only take care what you are doing, my good friend; for, though being whipped for a libel has often made a bookseller's fortune, yet the being sent to Newgate for sedition would not greatly benefit a leaden figure-maker, I imagine."
"I did it on compulsion, noble Lord," replied Van Noost, in an indifferent tone. "I make it a point never to quarrel with a mob; for I am a curious piece of statuary, not so easily mended as one of my own figures; and I don't believe any king on earth would help to mend me if I chanced to get head, or bone, broken by resisting the rabble. Would you not have done the same in my place?"