He fell back with a curse, and Calypso moved on. But turning back, I saw him staring with a sulky sneer upon his face, and I could perceive from his attitude that he took my words for an empty piece of boasting. Then there was that term "braggart" stuck in my gullet; and in a second, and upon the impulse, I pulled the mare's nose against the doorway and bawled for the ostler. Tony was still visible, standing agape in the centre of the road; but I paid him no heed, merely handing the bridle to the ostler, and then leaping from the saddle, I walked through the doorway as bold as you please. Now within the doorway there was a space of hall, very bare and plain, and upon two sides there opened doors into the further parts of the house; but the third was filled with a screen of windows, separating a little privy corner, in which sat the innkeeper, very greasy and affable of look. I threw down a guinea and he fetched out a pint of wine; the which drunken, I turned on my heel and clattered up to a great door set with brass knobs. But the little fat landlord was on my heels in a moment.
"You cannot enter there," says he, in a great taking. "'Tis a private room, and not for strangers."
But with the wine newly bubbling in my head, I made little of him. "The devil!" said I. "I will have what I pay for, and I will enter where I list."
"But, indeed," he gasped, "'tis a place privily set apart, and for an occasion."
"'Tis good news," I answered, with a cackle, "for that is what my heart is set upon."
He clasped my arm. "Sir! sir!" he cried, "indeed this will be most vexatious to his lordship, and will lose me his custom."
I started round on him sharply. "If I want a door with brass knobs," says I, angrily, "I will have you know that I will have a door with brass knobs, ye little louse, ye!" And throwing off his hand, I opened the door.
Now 'tis certain enough that had I conserved my wits more properly, and that dismal juice was not so fluent in my blood, I would never have risked this piece of devilry. Not but what Dick Ryder wears a better face on him in the nick of peril than most, but this, as you will see, was scarce the occasion for a wanton adventure, and I will confess that Tony's counsels were wiser than my own. But I was heated with the drink and the long ride, and I would bear no gainsaying. And so back I flung the door. The same instant a cackle of laughter saluted my ears and a stream of light flashed in my eyes. What I made out was a long table, very elegantly prepared, and a dozen or more of gentle-folk seated at the board, and plying their knives like good trenchermen. There was a fire roaring on the hearth, and altogether the scene was very merry and presented a comfortable face. And what with that appearance of warmth and the smell of the viands tickling my nostrils, I hesitated no longer upon the threshold where I stood, but pulling to the door, I strode across the room and shot my eyes about the table. Just then there came another flood of laughter, and in the noise of it I stood surveying the company, by this time in something of a confusion, and wondering in my fuddled wits what the devil I was at; when suddenly there gets up a gentleman from his seat near by, and very civilly offers me a chair. "Oh, well," thinks I, "as I am gone so far, I may as well flesh my nose in the victuals;" and with a word of grace in answer to his courtesy, down I propped upon my prats, and fell upon the viands with a will.
The room was buzzing with sound, and the warmth and the fare pleased me very well. But where the devil I was gotten, and who the devil these cullies might be, and why in God's name I was thus politely admitted to the board—these were the enigmas that floated about in my head. Not that I was in any embarrassment; for it was enough for me if I was to be entertained thus royally, waited upon with the best, and conjoined with a high company, such as was scattered about me—and all without so much as a single trespass upon the pocket. But by-and-by my civil neighbour turns to me.