His lodger was of a less contented mood: the symptoms of effervescence had assumed a somewhat menacing aspect around his home. For some time much disquiet had prevailed among the miners of Somersetshire, and the same was now rapidly spreading among their Cornish brethren, from Redruth to St. Ives. Minor outrages were of no uncommon occurrence. The dread which Miss Peach seemed to entertain of seeing a modern Jack Straw encamped on Hampstead Heath, was felt on better grounds in the far-west, and caused trepidation among the tea-sipping gossips of Kerrier and Penwith. So the orphans learnt from the letters of Polydore Riches. And they were made rather anxious by perceiving, that the good chaplain seemed in writing, to disguise the real amount of his apprehensions. Often in reading his missives, did Randolph and Helen turn their thoughts fondly towards Trevethlan, and wish they had never left the towers by the sea. And in the brother such yearnings were quickened by an ever-increasing discontent with his position. This feeling had soon driven him from Winter's chambers, and he was now reading with Mr. Travers, an eminent special pleader. But dissatisfaction was again creeping over him. It was true he did not neglect his studies, and he had duly eaten his dinners to keep Michaelmas Term. Surely there is no fear that any of our old institutions to which a dinner is attached will wholly die. There is a strength in the British appetite, against which utilitarianism may struggle in vain, till hunger and thirst are no more. So at the Inns of Court. The exercises, and moots, and even the revels have vanished, but the dinners remain. Attendance on the former has been commuted into fines to maintain the latter. And long may they endure, those social meetings, where many a lasting friendship is formed, and the bonds of brotherhood cemented, which in England unite an order, declared by D'Aguesseau, _aussi ancien que la magistrature, aussi noble que la vertu, aussi nécessaire que la justice_. As a novice, Randolph was partly interested and partly disconcerted on his introduction to these assemblies. He felt a reverence for the old hall, standing on the site of that of the knights whose dust reposed in the neighbouring church. He looked with respect on the coats of arms of the successive treasurers, emblazoned on the oak panelling of the walls, and subscribed with many a name of high distinction. On the dais, beneath the portraits of Littleton and Coke, sat some of the leading advocates of the day, partaking a more luxurious repast than that allotted to the occupants of the floor below. And on the opposite side to the young student were the juniors of the bar, men who had risen, were rising, had not begun to rise, and never would rise.