Major Topham praises the regularity and propriety observed at the assemblies, though gently insinuating their heaviness. He says: ‘I was never at an assembly where the authority of the manager was so observed or respected. With the utmost politeness, affability, and good-humour, Miss Murray attends to every one. All petitions are heard, and demands granted, which appear reasonable. The company is so much the more obliged to Miss Murray, as the task is by no means to be envied. The crowd which immediately surrounds her on entering the room, the impetuous applications of chaperons, maiden-aunts, and the earnest entreaties of lovers to obtain a ticket in one of the first sets for the dear object, render the fatigue of the office of lady-directress almost intolerable.’[222]
Early hours were kept in those days, and the stinted time was never exceeded. When the proper hour arrived for dissolving the party, and the young people would crowd round the throne to petition for one other set, up rose Miss Nicky in unrelenting rigidity of figure, and with one wave of her hand silenced the musicians:
‘Quick from the summit of the grove they fell,
And left it inharmonious.’
[THE BISHOP’S LAND.]
On the north side of the High Street, a hundred yards or so below the North Bridge, there existed previous to 1813 an unusually large and handsome old land or building named the Bishop’s Land. It rested upon an arcade or piazza, as it is called, and the entry in the first floor bore the ordinary legend:
BLISSIT BE ZE LORD FOR ALL HIS GIFTIS,