Volume Three—Chapter Nine.
It was approaching the hour of ten, and Uxbridge was in the full tide of active life. More than the usual number of people appeared to be parading its streets; though no one seemed to know exactly why. It was not market-day; and the extra passengers sauntering along the footways, and standing by the corners, were not farmers. They appeared to be mostly common people—of the class of labourers, and artisans. They were not in holiday dresses; but in their ordinary every-day garb: as if they had been at work, and had abruptly “knocked off” to be present at some improvised spectacle—of which they had just received notice. The shoemaker was in his leathern apron, his hands sticky with wax; the blacksmith begrimed and sweating, as if fresh from the furnace; the miller’s man under a thick coating of flour-dust; and the butcher with breeches still reeking, as if recently come out from the slaughter-house.
A crowd had collected in front of the Rose and Crown, with groups stretching across the adjacent causeway; and to this point all the odd stragglers from the upper part of the town appeared tending.
Those who had already arrived there were exhibiting themselves in a jolly humour. The tavern tap was flowing freely; and scores of people were drinking at somebody’s expense; though at whose, nobody seemed either to know or care.
A tall, dark-complexioned man, oddly attired—assisted by the potmen of the establishment—was helping the crowd to huge tankards of strong ale, though he seemed more especially attentive to a score of stout fellows of various crafts and callings—several of whom appeared to be acquainted with him; and were familiarly accosting him by his name of “Greg’ry.”
Another individual, still taller and more robust—as also older—was assisting “Greg’ry” in distributing the good cheer; while the host of the inn—equally interested in the quick circulation of the can—was bustling about with a smile of encouragement to all customers who came near him.
It might have been noticed that the eyes of the revellers were, from time to time, turned towards the bridge—by which the road leading westward was carried across the Colne. There was nothing particular about this structure—a great elevated arch, supporting a narrow causeway, flanked by stone walls, which extended from the water’s edge some twenty or thirty yards along both sides of the road. The walls were still farther continued towards the town by a wooden paling, which separated the road from the adjoining meadows.
These, bordering both sides of the river, extended away towards the south-west, as far as the eye could reach.
Between the houses, and the nearer end of the bridge, intervened about a hundred yards of the highway, which lay directly under the eyes of the roistering crowd; but on the other side of the river, the road was not visible from the inn—being screened by the mason-work of the parapet, and the arched elevation of the causeway.