"Long!" groaningly echoed the younger gentleman. "'Tis all too short for us poor Cambridgeshire squires, let me tell you, Master Alworth. When the court's back again in London, we may as soon be the cabbages in our own kitchen-gardens, for any pleasure there is in life." [Sidenote: A moralist.] "Pleasure!" groaningly echoed Master Alworth, as he turned and faced slowly about towards the town. "Pleasure! Pleasure! 'Tis the watchword always, and a melancholy one it has grown to be in my ears, since it no longer pairs off with duty; as though one should surfeit always on honey, and eat no bread, and poor England is sickening sorely of it Pray heaven she be not finding any plague of quack doctors to try their remedies on her;" and with a sigh Mr. Alworth pursued his way. CHAPTER XX. "A FRIEND IN NEED." Lawrence Lee had meanwhile reached the town. Hardly, however, was he well into the High Street before he was forced to rein up, impeded at every step by the dense throng, crowding as far ahead as eye could reach. Epping Fair was a small thing by comparison with this motley medley of bawling wagoners, shrill-tongued farmers' wives haggling over their butter and eggs, screaming children, chattering apprentices banging about the shutters of their booths, barking sheep-dogs, chasing their terrified charges back into the ranks, braying donkies, clattering of pack-horses stumbling beneath their burdens over the cobble-stones, and all to the tune of the several church bells and clocks clanging out six. The unaccustomed senses of Lawrence Lee lost their balance for a moment, and he closed his eyes to assist their recovery, but opened them again in a twinkling at the sound of a voice demanding in not too honeyed accents where he was "shoving to?" "It's you that's shoving," retorted Lee, looking down wrathfully at the speaker, whose uplifted elbow was raised insultingly near Stars and Garters' nose; and lifting his whip, but letting it fall again as he perceived what for the first moment he imagined to be an old man. A second glance, however, showed him that the shambling gait, pasty-coloured cheeks, puckered features, and lacklustre eyes helped to the composition of an individual of somewhere about his own number of years. [Sidenote: Tit for tat.] "I'll teach you and your jade to trample down gentlemen in the street," growled on this young old personage. "Come, come!" laughed Lee good-humouredly, "I didn't mean to do anything of the sort. You're not hurt, are you?" "No thanks to you if I'm not," sourly returned the other. "Oh, come now. Did you get out of bed left leg foremost?" again laughed Lee. "Right or left," ingenuously yawned the other, whom a game of basset had detained from between the blankets far into the small hours; "if they've been in bed at all, it's as much as they have."