“I do not in the least doubt,” said the Colonel, “the efficacy of your qualifications to lay the devil; but still I think some odd mistake has occasioned this confusion amongst them, if there has any such in reality existed. Desborough is a blockhead, to be sure; and Harrison is fanatic enough to believe anything. But there is Bletson, on the other hand, who believes nothing.—What do you know of this matter, good Master Mayor?” “In sooth, and it was Master Bletson who gave the first alarm,” replied the magistrate; “or, at least, the first distinct one. You see, sir, I was in bed with my wife, and no one else; and I was as fast asleep as a man can desire to be at two hours after midnight, when, behold you, they came knocking at my bedroom door, to tell me there was an alarm in Woodstock, and that the bell of the Lodge was ringing at that dead hour of the night as hard as ever it rung when it called the court to dinner.” “Well, but the cause of this alarm?” said the Colonel. “You shall hear, worthy Colonel, you shall hear,” answered the Mayor, waving his hand with dignity; for he was one of those persons who will not be hurried out of their own pace. “So Mrs. Mayor would have persuaded me, in her love and affection, poor wretch, that to rise at such an hour out of my own warm bed, was like to bring on my old complaint the lumbago, and that I should send the people to Alderman Dutton.—Alderman Devil, Mrs. Mayor, said I;—I beg your reverence’s pardon for using such a phrase—Do you think I am going to lie a-bed when the town is on fire, and the cavaliers up, and the devil to pay;—I beg pardon again, parson.—But here we are before the gate of the Palace; will it not please you to enter?” “I would first hear the end of your story,” said the Colonel; “that is, Master Mayor, if it happens to have an end.” “Every thing hath an end,” said the Mayor, “and that which we call a pudding hath two.—Your worship will forgive me for being facetious. Where was I?—Oh, I jumped out of bed, and put on my red plush breeches, with the blue nether stocks, for I always make a point of being dressed suitably to my dignity, night and day, summer or winter, Colonel Everard; and I took the Constable along with me, in case the alarm should be raised by night-walkers or thieves, and called up worthy Master Holdenough out of his bed, in case it should turn out to be the devil. And so I thought I was provided for the worst, and so away we came; and, by and by, the soldiers who came to the town with Master Tomkins, who had been called to arms, came marching down to Woodstock as fast as their feet would carry them; so I gave our people the sign to let them pass us, and out-march us, as it were, and this for a twofold reason.” “I will be satisfied,” interrupted the Colonel, “with one good reason. You desired the red-coats should have the _first_ of the fray?”