I began, too, to feel the discomfort of my position, and became sensible of a sneaking wish to be before a comfortable fire. I crossed two or three fields, and eventually coming to a road I followed it, and, after paddling through the mud half a mile further, I struck a village, and in the village an inn.
When I opened the door and walked into the cheerful lamplight of the bar-parlour, the half-dozen occupants of the cosy little room stared at me with astonishment. Well they might. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the glass behind the bottles—if you have ever seen a corpse fished up by the drags from a river bed, you will be able to form some idea of the appearance I presented—so that I did not resent their stare. In fact, I was not in a condition to be able to pay much attention to the curious glances of the villagers. The warmth of the room together with the sudden cessation of exertion were for the moment too much for me, and it was as much as I could do to stagger to the nearest chair.
Fortunately the landlord was a man with some modicum of common sense. I am quite sure that I should have been unceremoniously ejected from nine public houses out of ten. But mine host of the White Horse—I learned afterwards that he had been whip to a well-known hunt in the West country—was able to distinguish between fatigue and drunkenness, and he came at once to my assistance. I heard him speak to me, but I was totally unable to respond. For a while indeed I must have verged upon unconsciousness, for the next thing of which I became aware was of a glass at my lips containing something sweet and strong.
I sipped. Then I drank. My consciousness returned. In a couple of minutes I could sit upright. The landlord was beaming at me with benevolent interest.
"Take another sup, sir," he said. "There's nothing like maraschino and gin when one is a bit overwrought. I've known many a gentleman in my part of the country who would take nothing else, after a hard day to hounds, to brace him up for those long ten miles home."
I took another sup, and a good one. Then my powers of speech returning, I asked where I was. I found I had not wandered nearly so far as I expected. I was barely six miles from my home—at King's Langley; but this fact was no criterion of the distance I must have traversed in my mad frenzy, for I saw by the clock that the hour was ten. It was about five when I left Colonel Maitland's house, so that I had been pressing onward for five hours in as wild a night as any on which I have ever been abroad.
I leaned back in my chair with the object of resting a few minutes before starting homewards. But, whether owing to the spirit I had swallowed, or to the heavy exertion I had undergone, or merely because of my intense mental fatigue, I felt drowsiness overcoming me so rapidly that I perceived it would never do for me to give way to it. Pulling myself together I rose to my feet, at the same time thrusting my hand into my pocket for the money to pay for my drink. The mere act of rising, however, was almost too much for me. My body felt as stiff as if I had been beaten all over. Only to move was absolute physical pain. I looked at the landlord.
"I'm afraid I am more knocked up than I thought. Can you manage a hot bath and a bed for me to-night?" I asked.
He glanced at me curiously, and, after a moment's consideration, he replied—
"I'll see what the missus'll say."