The justices still hesitated; but Barton and two or three of the farmers of the village represented to them that there always used to be a public house; that it was in many respects inconvenient to be without one; and that in this instance, it would give occupation and maintenance to a poor family. At length the magistrates said, that in general they were not disposed to increase the number of ale-houses, but that they would give way to the declared wish of almost all the leading men in the parish. In a case of doubt, they naturally leant to the side of _good-nature_. Accordingly the licence was granted. Fowler was overjoyed at his success, and after making his acknowledgments, set off, first to the carpenter, and then to the painter, to give directions for a sign and its appendages. After these matters of business, he could not think of returning without drinking the health of the magistrates at the Red Lion. Several friends dropped in to congratulate him; and when he thought about going home, he was not quite able to walk straight. The butcher's boy, who had made one of the party at the Red Lion, offered to give him a lift in his cart. They set off in high glee, and the exalted state of their spirits induced them to urge on the horse. Though the night was dark and the horse sometimes swerved to one side of the road and sometimes to the other, yet the light colour of the road served for a guide, and they felt that as long as they kept to that they were safe. They were mistaken, however. They were within a mile of Inglewood, and had got the horse almost into a gallop, when all at once the wheel came upon one of the heaps of stones, which had been shot down in the _quartering_, and the cart was overturned. Peter, the butcher's boy, called out that he was killed; but having got up and shaken himself, and found that he had received no sort of injury, he burst into a loud fit of laughter. Poor Fowler, however, lay groaning in the road, unable to stir. He was severely bruised, and both the bones of his right leg were broken. Peter scratched his head, and was quite at a loss what to do, when luckily Farmer Barton and one of his neighbours came to the spot, in their way back from market. They extricated the horse, which, having put his foot in the deep rut, had fallen with the cart, and then raised the cart without difficulty. It was not, however, so easy a matter to get Fowler into it. He cried out from pain every time that they took hold of him, and sometimes begged that they would leave him to die where he was. At last, however, they succeeded, and at a slow pace he was conveyed to his humble cottage, which was soon to assume the dignity and importance of a public house.