They can't be married at our church you know, and--" "Well," said the Doctor, "if they are married elsewhere, I can't help it, and know nothing about it, look you." And upon this hint the elopement took place: which, indeed, was peaceably performed early one Sunday morning about a month after; Mrs.Hall getting behind Mr.Hayes on a pillion, and all the children of the parsonage giggling behind the window-blinds to see the pair go off.
During this month Mr.Hayes had caused the banns to be published at the town of Worcester; judging rightly that in a great town they would cause no such remark as in a solitary village, and thither he conducted his lady.

O ill-starred John Hayes! whither do the dark Fates lead you?
O foolish Doctor Dobbs, to forget that young people ought to honour their parents, and to yield to silly Mrs.Dobbs's ardent propensity for making matches! ***** The London Gazette of the 1st April, 1706, contains a proclamation by the Queen for putting into execution an Act of Parliament for the encouragement and increase of seamen, and for the better and speedier manning of Her Majesty's fleet, which authorises all justices to issue warrants to constables, petty constables, headboroughs, and tything-men, to enter and, if need be, to break open the doors of any houses where they shall believe deserting seamen to be; and for the further increase and encouragement of the navy, to take able-bodied landsmen when seamen fail.

This Act, which occupies four columns of the Gazette, and another of similar length and meaning for pressing men into the army, need not be quoted at length here; but caused a mighty stir throughout the kingdom at the time when it was in force.
As one has seen or heard, after the march of a great army, a number of rogues and loose characters bring up the rear; in like manner, at the tail of a great measure of State, follow many roguish personal interests, which are protected by the main body.

The great measure of Reform, for instance, carried along with it much private jobbing and swindling--as could be shown were we not inclined to deal mildly with the Whigs; and this Enlistment Act, which, in order to maintain the British glories in Flanders, dealt most cruelly with the British people in England (it is not the first time that a man has been pinched at home to make a fine appearance abroad), created a great company of rascals and informers throughout the land, who lived upon it; or upon extortion from those who were subject to it, or not being subject to it were frightened into the belief that they were.
When Mr.Hayes and his lady had gone through the marriage ceremony at Worcester, the former, concluding that at such a place lodging and food might be procured at a cheaper rate, looked about carefully for the meanest public-house in the town, where he might deposit his bride.
In the kitchen of this inn, a party of men were drinking; and, as Mrs.Hayes declined, with a proper sense of her superiority, to eat in company with such low fellows, the landlady showed her and her husband to an inner apartment, where they might be served in private.
The kitchen party seemed, indeed, not such as a lady would choose to join.

There was one huge lanky fellow, that looked like a soldier, and had a halberd; another was habited in a sailor's costume, with a fascinating patch over one eye; and a third, who seemed the leader of the gang, was a stout man in a sailor's frock and a horseman's jack-boots, whom one might fancy, if he were anything, to be a horse-marine.
Of one of these worthies, Mrs.Hayes thought she knew the figure and voice; and she found her conjectures were true, when, all of sudden, three people, without "With your leave," or "By your leave," burst into the room, into which she and her spouse had retired.