The landlady entered with snowy apron, broad, clean cap, and of a figure suggestive of the nutritious quality of English ale or good living, and, like the Mrs. Fezziwig of Dickens,—
"One vast, substantial smile."
"What will you please to horder, sir?"
"Can we have some ale and crackers?"
"Hale, sir? Yes, sir. Bread and cheese, sir?" (interrogatively).
"Yes; bread and cheese."
"Two mugs and bread and cheese, Mary," said the landlady, as she bustled out through the passage to a little wicket enclosure, behind which we caught through the opening door the flash of tankards in gleaming rows, and in a moment more "Mary" tripped in with two beer mugs, shining like silver, and the snowy foam rising high and bubbling in creamy luxuriance over their brims upon the little tray that bore them.
Good English home-brewed is said to be better than that served in America; perhaps it may be that we "'aven't got the 'ops" to make as good as they brew in England, or it may be that tasting it while the spring breeze is blowing the perfume from the hedgerows and meadows in at the windows of little road-side inns, which command a pretty rustic view of gentle slope, green valley, and cool shade trees, has something to do with one's judgment of it. The attack upon the ale of old England and the loaf of sweet, close-grained bread and cheese, involved the enormous outlay of ten pence, to which we added two more for Mary, an even shilling, for which she dropped a grateful courtesy, and we strolled on through the antiquated little town of Penrith, visiting the churchyard and seeing the giant's grave, a space of eight feet between a gigantic head and foot stone, each covered with nearly obliterated Runic inscriptions.