Scarcely was this edifying dissertation finished, when the hall resounded with a blast, loud enough, it should seem, to shake its aged banners into tatters: Wilson hastened to the scene of action, and found his friend John under the tuition not of any of the great masters above-mentioned, but of a puppet-show man, who travelled the country, and recommended himself by the strength, rather than by the sweetness, of his tones. This gentleman, who had just recruited his lungs with an emollient dose of sweet Welch ale, blew with might and main in return for the hospitality he had received, and doubtless for the honour of the corps he belonged to. The Goddess Fame never gave a louder crack for the best favourite she had, though he were standing at her back, and, like the bellows-blower of an organ, had pumped breath into her lungs to let the people hear his own good deeds. The performer, who was an adept in more arts than one, had just then played a somerset, to the great delight of his pupil John, and was standing on his hands with his heels erect in the air, when Mrs. Elizabeth Wood entering the hall, and seeing a pair of human legs in an attitude so totally irreconcileable to her idea of the proper place, which human legs ought to hold in society, uttered, as in duty bound, a most violent scream, and in the same breath announced an order for silencing that horrid trumpet; it had nearly thrown her lady into fits. That ancient and venerable instrument, (so called by Mr. De Lancaster) was accordingly for ever laid aside, and Scaramouch was fain to make his retreat without sound of trumpet; but as he could tumble, conjure and shew tricks, that would give no offence to the nervous system of the lady above stairs, it is probable that both the ladies and gentlemen below stairs suffered him to entertain them before he left the castle; and as he very politely invited them to be present at the opening of his theatre in the village, when Punch and his company would present them with the entertaining interlude of the Rape of the Sabines, with appropriate screamings by the ladies concerned in the representation, it is presumed, that not a few of them were prevailed upon to be present at that interesting exhibition. The shock, that Mrs. De Lancaster had received, was by no means feigned. She had now become a confirmed hypochondriac, and great alarm was sounded forth by Mr. Llewellyn of an approaching decay, that he endeavoured to stem by an unceasing course of medicines, which if they had suited her case, were certainly not sparingly administered; but, as she regularly grew worse and worse, it occasioned some to doubt whether they had even the merit of being innocently neutral.