Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 4).djvu/49

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OLD MORTALITY.
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sible, to remove the cause of this so untimely disorder. While he is thus engaged, we shall make the reader acquainted with that which he was some time in discovering.

The insurgents had proceeded to hold their day of humiliation, which; agreeably to the practice of the puritans during the earlier civil war, they considered as the most effectual mode of solving all difficulties and waiving all discussions. A temporary pulpit, or tent, was erected in the middle of the encampment; which, according to the fixed arrangement, was first to be occupied by the Reverend Peter Poundtext, to whom the post of honour was assigned, as the oldest clergyman present. But as the worthy divine, with slow and stately steps, was advancing towards the rostrum which had been prepared for him, he was prevented by the unexpected apparition of Habbakuk Mucklewrath, the insane preacher, whose appearance had so