From the Mitre at ——­.

Past twelve at night!—­An hour I used to think the most silent of any:—­but here so much the reverse, one reasonably may suppose the inhabitants, or guests, have mistaken midnight for mid-day.

I will ring and enquire, why all this noise?

A strange bustle!—­Something like fighting!—­Very near, I protest.—­Hark! bless me, I shall be frightened to death!—­The chambermaid not come!  Would I could find my way to Mr. Jenkings’s room!—­Womens voices, as I live!—­Begging!—­praying!—­Ah! ah! now they cry, Take the swords away!—­Take the swords away!—­Heaven defend us! to be sure we shall be all killed.

One o’clock.

Not kill’d, but terrified out of my senses.—­Well, if ever I stop at this inn again—­

You remember, Madam, I was thrown into a sad fright by the hurry and confusion without.—­I dropped my pen, and pulled the bell with greater violence.—­No one came;—­the noise increas’d.—­Several people ran up and down by the door of my apartment.—­I flew and double lock’d it.—­But, good God! what were my terrors, when a voice cried out, She cannot be brought to life!—­Is there no assistance at hand?—­no surgeon near?—­I rushed from my chamber, in the first emotions of surprize and compassion, to mix in a confused croud, unknowing and unknown.—­I ventur’d no further than the passage.  Judge my astonishment, to perceive there, and in a large room which open’d into it, fifty or sixty well dressed people of both sexes:—­Women, some crying, some laughing:—­Men swearing, stamping, and calling upon others to come down and end the dispute below.—­I thought of nothing now, but how to retreat unobserv’d:—­when a gentleman, in regimentals, ran so furiously up the stairs full against me, that I should have been instantly at the bottom, had not his extended arm prevented my flight.

I did not stay to receive his apologies, but hastened to my chamber, and have not yet recovered my trembling.—­Why did I leave it?—­Why was I so inconsiderate?

Another alarm!—­Some one knocks at the door!—­Will there be no end to my frights?

If one’s spirits are on the flutter, how every little circumstance increases our consternation!—­When I heard the tapping at my door, instead of enquiring who was there, I got up and stood against it.

Don’t be afraid, Mame, said a voice without; it is only the chambermaid come with some drops and water.—­With drops and water! replied I, letting her in—­who sent you hither?

Captain Risby, Mame, one of the officers:—­he told me you was frighten’d.

I am oblig’d to the gentleman;—­but set down the drops, I do not want any.—­Pray tell me what has occasioned this uproar in your house?

To be sure, Mame, here has been a terrifying noise this night.—­It don’t use to be so;—­but our Town’s Gentlemen have such a dislike to Officers, I suppose there will be no peace while they are in town.—­I never saw the Ladies dress’d so fine in my life; and had the Colonel happen’d to ask one of the Alderman’s daughters to dance, all would have gone on well.