Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

The lady did not reply directly to his words, but she said, "I hope if you remain in this part of the country, Sir, you will give me an opportunity of thanking you, either here, or at my own house, for the great service you have rendered me. The people of the inn will direct you, for it is only ten miles on the other side of Tarningham."

"I shall certainly have the honour of waiting on you to inquire how you do," replied the horseman, and then adding, "these people do not seem inclined to come," he returned to the bell, and rang it vigorously.

The next moment the door was opened, and a capacious butler appeared, and the stranger, without more ado, assisted the ladies to alight, remarking as he did so, that the younger of the two was a very pretty girl, some nineteen or twenty years of age.

"How is my brother now?" demanded the elder lady, who wore a widow's dress.

"Quite well, Ma'am, thank you," answered the butler, in the most commonplace tone possible, and before she had time to make any more inquiries, the stranger who had come to her rescue, wished her and her daughter good night, and mounting his horse, rode down the avenue again.

CHAPTER II.

The Supper at the White Hart.

The White Hart of Tarningham was a neat little country inn, such as was commonly found in most of the small towns of England at the period of my tale. They are rapidly being brushed off the face of the earth by the great broom of the steam-engine, and very soon the "pleasures of an inn" will be no longer known but by the records of history, while men run through the world at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, finding nothing on their way but stations and "hotels." I hate the very name hotel. It is unEnglish, uncomfortable, unsatisfactory, a combination, I suppose, of host and hell, the one the recipient of perturbed spirits, and the other their tormentor. But the word inn, how comfortable it is in all its significations. We have only retained the double n in it that we may "wear our rue with a difference," and whether we think of being in place, or in power, or in the hearts of those we love, or in the house during a storm, how pleasant is the feeling it produces. It has a home-like and British sound, and I do with all my heart wish that my fellow-countrymen would neither change their words nor their manners for worse things of foreign parentage. An inn, in the days I speak of, was a place famous for white linen, broiled ham, and fresh eggs. I cannot say that the beefsteaks were always tender, or the veal cutlets always done to a turn, or the beds always the softest in the world, but then think of the white dimity curtains, and the casements that rattled just enough to let you know that it was blowing hard without, and the rosy apple-faced chambermaid, and the host himself, round as his own butts, ay, and as full of beer. An innkeeper of those days would have been ashamed to show himself under nineteen stone. He was a part of his own sign, the recommendation of his own ale. His very paunch seemed to say "Look what it has done for me." It entered into his fat, it flowed through his veins, it puffed out his cheeks, it ran out at his eyes, and malt and hops was heard in every accent of his tongue. You had no lean, wizen-faced, black-silk-stockinged innkeepers in those days, and the very aspiring waiters imitated their landlords, and hourly grew fat under the eye, that they might be in a fit condition to marry the widow and take the business when the poor dear gentleman was swallowed up in beer.

Such an inn was the White Hart at Tarningham, and such a host was the landlord, but he was a wise man, and loved not to look upon his successors, for which cause, as well as on account of the trade not being very brisk in that quarter, he maintained no regular waiter; he had a tapster it is true, but the cloth in the neat little parlour on the left hand was laid by a white-capped, black-eyed, blooming maid-servant, and the landlord himself prepared to carry in the first dish, and then leave his expected guest to the tendance of the same fair damsel.

The room was already occupied by one gentleman, the same who in taking his evening walk had joined with our friend the horseman in the rescue of the two ladies, and to say truth, it was owing to his courtesy that the cloth was laid there at all, for he had prior possession, and on communicating to the landlord the fact that a guest would soon arrive who proposed to sup upon roast chicken, the worthy host had exclaimed in a voice of consternation, "Good gracious me, what shall I do? I must turn those fellows out of the tap-room and serve it there, for there is old Mrs. Grover, the lawyer's widow, in the other parlour, and ne'er a sitting-room else in the house!"