The speech at last finished, the company began to settle down to what Cobbett calls the ‘real business of the evening, namely, drinking, smoking, and singing.’ It was a Saturday night, and as there was all the Sunday morning to sleep in, and as the wives of the company were at a convenient distance, the circumstances were favourable to an extensive consumption of ‘neat’ and ‘genuine’ liquors. At this juncture the landlord announced, through the waiter, that he declined to serve anything so long as Mr. Cobbett remained in the room! This uncorked all the vials of wrath of which Cobbett had so large and bitter a supply. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘born and bred, as you know I was, on the borders of this county, and fond as I am of bacon, Hampshire hogs have with me always been objects of admiration rather than of contempt; but that which has just happened here induces me to observe that this feeling of mine has been confined to hogs of four legs. For my part, I like your company too well to quit it. I have paid this fellow six shillings for the wing of a fowl, a bit of bread, and a pint of small beer. I have a right to sit here; I want no drink, and those who do, being refused it here, have a right to send to other houses for it, and to drink it here.’ Mine host, alarmed at this declaration of independence, withdrew the prohibition, and indeed brought up pipes, tobacco, and the desired drinks himself; and soon after this entered the room with two gentlemen who had inquired for Mr. Cobbett, and laying his hand on Cobbett’s knee, smiled and said the gentlemen wished to be introduced. ‘Take away your paw,’ thundered the agitator, shaking the strangers by the hand; ‘I am happy to see you, even though introduced by this fellow.’ After which they all indulged in the English equivalent of the Scotch ‘willie waucht’ until half-past two in the morning. ‘But,’ remarks Cobbett, as a parting shot, ‘the next time this old sharp-looking fellow gets _six shillings_ from me for a dinner, he shall, if he choose, _cook me_, in any manner that he likes, and season me with hand so unsparing as to produce in the feeders thirst unquenchable.’ XXI Weyhill Fair, which brought Cobbett and the people he harangued into Andover, is a thoroughly old English institution, and although the old custom of fairs is gradually dying out, and this, the Largest Fair in England, is not so important as it was a hundred years ago, it is still a place where much money changes hands once a year. Weyhill is supposed to be one of the places mentioned in _Piers Plowman’s Vision_, in the line:-- At Wy and at Wynchestre I went to ye fair, and it is the ‘Weydon Priors’ of the _Mayor of Casterbridge_, where Henchard sells his wife.