"Have a room, sir?" said this individual, in a voice which seemed to proceed from his boots. "Ay, that you can, sir, and all else that you require. Here, Mary girl, show the gentleman to Number Ten! Have the bags carried up, and serve their dinner in the private room."
"Number Ten!" said the guest, as he heard the number given. "Come on, Ralph, I know the way!" And he led his son upstairs with the air of one who did indeed know, much to the worthy landlord's astonishment, who murmured to himself as he waddled off to attend to some waggoners—
"He must ha' been here before; but I don't remember his face in the least."
"He does not recognize me," mused his guest, in his turn. "How should he, after all those years? Poor old Simon, he has not changed much! A little stouter, a little huskier, and more shaky; that is all. Time has dealt gently with him!"
The meal, which was ordered and duly served, proved that the Horse and Wheel, whatever it might do for beasts, claimed no more than its due when it came to accommodating the beast's master, man; and the appetites of the travellers enabled them to do ample justice to the food, served in a room rendered all the more cheerful by the roaring fire—a good, old-fashioned English fire—which blazed away in the capacious fireplace.
But the meal over, the gentleman rose and donned hat and coat, turning to his son when he had done so.
"Ralph," he said, "I am going out by myself. I have not brought you across the ocean and to this place for nothing. I have business to do here which may affect all your future life. What that business is, lad, I cannot tell you just now; but you shall know of it presently. I shall not be away long—not more than an hour or two—and you can spend the time as you like. I do not suppose that you will find much in the shape of literature here, beyond a copy or two of some local paper or an agricultural magazine. They won't interest you much, so you must occupy the time as best you can. Prospect around a bit, but don't miss your way, or you will find it harder to pick up trails again here than you would out yonder where we have come from."
"I shall be all right, father," the boy answered, rather pleased than otherwise to be left alone for a little. Every lad of fourteen with any spirit in him rather likes that kind of thing.
"Of course you will be. You cannot very well get into harm, and you are not the boy to get into mischief. Well, good-bye, my lad, and to-morrow if all is well, I will show you what English rural scenery is like, and you will find it is more beautiful than it has seemed to you yet." And with that the gentleman went out, leaving the boy alone.
At first Ralph wandered round the rooms and examined all the funny, old-fashioned pictures, and frowned at some old-time Dresden ornaments of shepherds and shepherdesses in Court attire, as though he was not quite sure whether they were intended for pagan idols or not; and then, getting tired of this, he put on his hat and strolled down into the inn yard, where he found more to interest him in an ostler who was busily grooming a couple of powerful waggon horses. Ralph had never seen a real cart-horse before, for the horses he had been accustomed to were little, thin, wiry creatures, all sinew and bone, and spirit—horses that could go, and would go, until they dropped, but pigmies compared to these mighty creatures—the largest of all the species.