The chamber we found ourselves in was in singular and delightful contrast to the conditions from which we had emerged. It was brightly lit, a rare wood fire crackled and sputtered on the hearth, and threw its shadows on the oaken panellings. An incomparable smell of cookery pervaded it, and a table was laid for supper. The whole apartment was spotlessly clean, replete with comfort, and altogether was a model of what such a room should be in an inn of the better sort.
The room had only one occupant; he, a gentleman who sat at his ease, waiting for his supper in a chair by the brisk fire. He was a wonderfully handsome man, young, bold-eyed, and with a look of gay impudence more winning than displeasing. He threw up his eyes as soon as we entered and frankly took our measure. He went over us from top to toe with the frank audacity of a pretty woman or a child. He was plainly a little puzzled by us. He could not reconcile our appearance with our address. We must indeed have looked to a stranger at that moment the most draggle-tailed couple that ever came out of Bridewell. But we had got all our best town airs about us too, and the contrast between our state and our address must have been ludicrous, truly.
We had hardly got in to the room ere the landlord came bustling forward. His mode of assessing the character of his guests was more peremptory. We were in a wretched plight, and had come afoot without baggage and unattended. He gave us one shrewd contemptuous glance and says:
"You are come to the wrong house, are you not, master? The Chequers, a bit further along the road to your left, is more in your style, I'm thinking. The quality comes to this house, dy'e see?"
"God bless my soul," I roared, "was there ever such effrontery! Why, you pot-bellied ruffian, I would knock you down as flat as your own ale were it not for fatigue and the presence of a lady. The wrong house, is it? Do you take us for a pair of pickers and stealers then, you beer-barrel! Call a chambermaid this minute and have her ladyship taken to the best bedroom you have got in the place, or I will rub my boots into the small of your fat back, upon mine honour so I will."
A less forcible method of address might have permitted of a controversy, in which we should have everything to lose and nothing whatever to gain. But this fine assault, this taking of the landlord by storm, completely disarmed him. In an instant his demeanour completely changed, as is usual with those of his kidney. From the contemptuous critic he was transformed into the grovelling lackey. On the instant he was ours to command. With many bows and congees he was soon inquiring what we would have for supper, and which wine we would prefer. He also presumed that our luggage and attendants would presently arrive.
"Devil a bit of it," says I. "Neither one nor the other will you see this night. Our wretched rogues have had such a fright that I will bet my leg they never draw rein until they make the blessed town o' London. A murrain upon them, and may they die of a vertigo!"
The landlord clasped his palms in a fine attitude of humility, curiosity and awe.
"Lord save us!" says he, "what can have happened to your lordship?"
"Why, something that is always happening to us, of course," says I, with a great air of a glib matter of fact. "One of these pestilential highwaymen stopped us and tried us on this very road, not five miles off. Cocked his ugly mug through the carriage-window as cool as a church, and had us step out of our cushions into the pouring rain. Took our money and jewels off us before you could say your prayers. And not content with all this, burn me for a heretick! if out of pure wantonness this villain did not discharge his barker across the nose of the leader, and away they flew downhill to the devil before we could jump in again. They are miles away ere this, and lord knows how we shall contrive to return to town."