“And I can give it you, sirs,” said Theophilus Mangot. “Come, I will show you what I have, and then we’ll settle upon the price to your satisfaction,” and he led the way inside.
CHAPTER IX
A STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS
Inside the tavern all was life and jollity. In the tap-room, located at the upper end of the hostelry but down two steps lower than the rest of the building, a crowd of burly traders, farmers and sailors were assembled, drinking, smoking and talking loudly. Occasionally a sailor would burst into a song of the sea, and his mates would join in the chorus, drowning out every other sound until the song came to an end with a heavy thumping of glasses and mugs.
Beyond the tap-room was the parlor, a tidy place, with quaint furniture brought from England sitting in rows along the walls. Here, in a book-case, were a number of leather-bound volumes, and also a file of the Spectator, a much-prized English periodical. There were also several copies of a Maryland newspaper which had but lately made its appearance and was languishing for want of support.
Next to the parlor came the dining hall, down one step, with a kitchen in the rear. The hall was long and narrow and had a floor which was well sanded and marked before meals into fancy shapes. The tables were low and solid, the chairs broad and high-backed, and at the front was a long settle, where one might rest and gaze out on the dusty highway. On a shelf in the dining hall rested the wooden model of a ship, the vessel in which Theophilus Mangot had come over from England. Beside the ship was a small brass clock and a frame containing a hand-made map of Annapolis and vicinity.
Dave saw but little of this until the next morning. For six shillings his uncle hired a small but comfortable bed-chamber in the rear of the inn, instairs, and to this they retired, after a bountiful supper which both enjoyed. No sooner had Dave’s head touched the pillow than he sank into slumber, and from this he did not awaken until the sun shone in at the window.
Joseph Morris had already gone below, and the youth hastened to follow him. But while he was dressing his attention was drawn to a fight in the stable yard, between two of the negro hostlers. This was a head-ramming contest, in which the slaves butted each other over and over again until at last one apparently had enough of it, when he ran away, leaving the victor to ha! ha! loudly.
“I would rather it were their heads than mine,” said Dave, after telling his uncle of the affair. “It’s a wonder one of them wasn’t killed.”
“They get used to it, by practice,” replied Joseph Morris. “I have seen them fight for hours in that fashion and then give it up little the worse for the sport.”
Dave’s uncle was to do his purchasing on King and Church streets, two of the busiest thoroughfares of the town, and hither they went immediately after breakfast. Several ships from England had come in only a few days before, so the shops were well filled, and trading was brisk on every hand. Ready money was often scarce, but the Assembly had some years before made both tobacco and Indian corn a legal tender for all debts, and these were readily accepted, at the rate of one penny a pound for tobacco and twenty pence per bushel for corn. But with it all the shop-keepers and others who had goods to sell preferred cash, and Mr. Morris got many a good bargain in consequence.