476 The Tailor of Brummelton. 



and still more flinging of hard words from mouth to mouth ; anct, 

 after this, without further ceremony, two personages put themselves 

 on shore. 



The people of Brummelton were not in the habit of seeing pas- 

 sengers from beyond seas. So rare, indeed, was the occurrence, that 

 many inhabitants, and those the eldest, and consequently the wiser, 

 considered that the permission of the mayor should first have been 

 obtained. But while this matter was debated, the said passengers, 

 under the guidance of one of the crew, walked composedly across the 

 broad quay, and, delving into some one of the narrow streets emerg- 

 ing therefrom, gradually disappeared. 



While the safety of the commonweal had been the object of the 

 anxious speculations of the older spectators, there were others, and 

 not a few, whose imaginations were equally struck by the mere per- 

 sonal appearance of the visitors. Brummelton, like many other towns, 

 piqued itself on the correctness of its costume ; that is to say, its mem- 

 bers took an honest pride in the conformity between their habili- 

 ments and those most in vogue at the head-quarters of taste and fa- 

 shion. Now, as the master of the La Belle Gabrielle came, or said 

 that he came, from France, and moreover declared that his passen- 

 gers were persons of distinction from the French capital, the Brum- 

 meltonian beaux were somewhat dismayed to find that their own 

 " cut" was in a totally different style from that of these foreigners, 

 who necessarily were in the right, being Frenchmen; for Paris was 

 even then rising, be it known, to her present pre-eminence in those 

 small arts, of which she does well to make the most, and of which dress 

 is one of the most eminent. 



Andrew Holecote, who was but just out of his noviciate, was on the 

 strand during this remarkable debarkation, and was one of the first to 

 feel interest on the subject we mean so far as his own profession was 

 concerned. He remarked the impression that had been created, fol- 

 lowed up a happy idea that arose in his mind, and pushed the matter 

 so successfully, that before the next morning he became the happy 

 possessor of the very garments which had attracted attention. These 

 may appear trifling details, but they were not so to the men of Brum- 

 melton ; and this Holecote proved to his profit for making the most 

 of his acquisitions, and giving himself out as the only fashionable tailor 

 in the town, he was already a flourishing man at the period, when, as 

 we have seen, his old master, Jenkin Slops, returned home. 



But there was this curious attendant circumstance, of which Hole- 

 cote was by no means aware. The lugger, though of French^build, 

 and mostly manned from France, was in the Danish service, and the 

 two persons who had landed were private envoys from their own to 

 the court of St. James's; though, for political reasons, they did not 

 wish the truth to transpire. They accordingly announced themselves 

 as Frenchmen, and left immediately for London : the skipper stood 

 to their story, of which few suspected the truth, and the members of 

 the fashionable world of Brummelton casting away the graceful cos- 

 tume of the period (who cannot but admire the garb of the time of 

 the second Charles?) hastened to equip their forms in the style of the 

 Danish envoys. Unhappy hour! Misguided dandies! Fashions 



