Stiff, lank, and solemn, dressed in an unusual manner,
and ostentatiously exhibiting--whether by design or accident--all his
peculiarities of carriage, gesture, and conduct, all the qualities,
natural and artificial, in which he differed from other men; he might
have moved the sternest looker-on to laughter, and fully provoked the
smiles and whispered jests which greeted his departure from the Maypole
inn.
Quite unconscious, however, of the effect he produced, he trotted on
beside his secretary, talking to himself nearly all the way, until they
came within a mile or two of London, when now and then some passenger
went by who knew him by sight, and pointed him out to some one else, and
perhaps stood looking after him, or cried in jest or earnest as it might
be, 'Hurrah Geordie! No Popery!' At which he would gravely pull off his
hat, and bow. When they reached the town and rode along the streets,
these notices became more frequent; some laughed, some hissed, some
turned their heads and smiled, some wondered who he was, some ran along
the pavement by his side and cheered. When this happened in a crush of
carts and chairs and coaches, he would make a dead stop, and pulling
off his hat, cry, 'Gentlemen, No Popery!' to which the gentlemen would
respond with lusty voices, and with three times three; and then, on he
would go again with a score or so of the raggedest, following at his
horse's heels, and shouting till their throats were parched.
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