The Dean bowed rather stiffly. He would have thought better both of the young lady and her companion, if they had come to the service and joined in the thanksgiving for the happy deliverance of King James I. and the three estates of England from the most traitorous and bloody-intended massacre by gunpowder; and--looking on some years--as the inscription at the head of the Form of Prayer also went on to say--
"For the happy arrival of His Majesty King William on this day, for the deliverance of our church and nation."
"By all means, Mr. Dacres. I think in future I shall prohibit the procession passing this way. It is scarcely seemly while service is going on within the cathedral walls."
With this the Dean passed on, and Gratian, laughing, said:
"The Dean is hardly as gracious as the Bishop. Let us stand here, because we shall get away sooner to the market-place after the bull has passed."
Mr. Dacres was rather glad to retrieve his character with the Dean, by hastening to the cathedral, after having placed Lord Maythorne and Gratian, in a good place by the wall; and then, after some trial of patience, the sound of shouts and a brass band heralded the approach of the bull.
Decked with ribbons, and with his head well set forward, led by his keepers by a ring passed through the nose, the bull stepped proudly on, followed by the dogs, all in charge of their respective owners.
There was always something pathetic in the sight of a huge animal brought out, not to fight in a fair field, but to be worried almost to death by the onslaught of persistent dogs, all goaded on to make their attack, all backed by betting men, who had an interest in their success or failure.
In Pepys' celebrated 'Diary' there is a description of a bull-baiting to which he seems to have gone to divert his mind from the furious letter which a friend told him was on his way to him from Lord Peterborough, which letter seems to have preyed upon him more than the news recorded on a previous page of three people in one house "dead of the plague."
The bull-baiting, however, was pronounced, even by the sight-loving Samuel Pepys, as a "very rude and very nasty pleasure."
Yet, more than a century and a half later, we find the usually quiet and peaceful city of Wells all agog to witness the bull-baiting in the market square.