"Mrs. Cannon, I regret it, but we must have a revolution in this here slavish, this here degraded country!"
"Lord-a-mercy! what has happened?" replied his affrighted lady.
"It is not what has happened, madam," replied the regenerated free-born Briton; "it is what shall happen. By gums!—(he was already beginning to be somewhat puritanical and sanctified; the day before, nay, a few moments previous to Carrydot's entrance, he would have sworn by G—, like any duke or marquis,)—by gums! this here proud big-wig aristocracy must be brought down; nothing can save poor England but the abolition of this insolent peerage, these hereditary law-makers from father to son. I say, no peers! no bishops! no lords! a yearly parliament! universal sufferance!—(it is presumed he meant suffrage,)—vote by ballot! Throw up your pew, Mrs. Cannon! kick the tax-gatherer down stairs! I'll kick the fat gold-laced beadle myself! and tell Parson Muzzle that he's a humbug and a leech!"
Mrs. Cannon, and all the Cannons, great-guns and small-arms, were terrified, and fancied the worthy man was out of his senses. She proposed to send for Mr. Hiccup.
"Hiccup be d—d! Do you think, woman, that Hiccup would condescend to come to you and me were we kicking in fits, dying with the pip, or had swallowed a mutton-chop the wrong way? Hiccup is with his lordship, with the Most noble, the Right honourable the Earl of Wittington, the Right honourable the Lady Tabby Catson! If their noble fingers ached, 'twould be in the Gazette, so it would. If they got a surfeit from cramming turtle down their noble throats, it would be in the papers! Hiccup! the rascal! the Tory pill-gilder! wouldn't give a commoner, an independent citizen, or an honest pauper, second-hand physic if a lord wanted him! No, not to save a fellow Christian's life!"
All this was inexplicable to the open-mouthed and alarmed family, when a sudden burst of tears followed this violent paroxysm; and the Cannon circle, drawing round their chief with becoming uneasiness, were soon made au fait to the full extent of the fresh indignities offered their name and fame.
What was to be done? To remain at Wick-Hall after such an insult would have been the height of degradation; to keep possession of it at the expense of conscience by voting for Mr. Eelback, an abnegation of a freeman's independence. All was doubt; and the thoughts of the Cannon family were, to use the words of Otway,
"Like birds, that, frighted from their rest,
Around the place where all was hush'd before,
Flutter, and hardly flutter, and hardly settle anywhere,"