“Madam,” cried one of the gallants, “’twould please me better could I smell some savoury stew. Ghostly, did you say? I vow the whole place looks ghostly. Not a light in all those ancient windows.”
“Pray, you there, you, fellow; leave the gate and try and find thy tongue. Does anybody live here, and is it possible to obtain refreshment and a night’s lodging?”
“I live here,” said John, somewhat ruffled by the tone. “As to your second question, before answering it I will first ask one or two of my own. What may this company be, and why do they seek admittance into my house at such an hour?”
“Why, what a churl is this!”
“By gad, ’tis his house, Harry. We’ve been discussing the place in the presence of its owner; but we must needs be civil, it seems, if we would dine and sleep under cover. Sir, you behold a noble company of travellers, or, if you prefer it, a travelling company of noblemen and ladies, journeying from Bristol Hotwells, where they have been sojourning for the good of their health. Their coach, having taken a wrong turn, has inconveniently broken down on that abominable mixture of marsh and stones which you are pleased in these parts to term a road. As it is late and the ladies are hungry and tired, the gentlemen athirst, the best horse lame, the front wheel damaged, and the postboy drunk, we deem it better to push no further to-night. Therefore, finding no inn within a radius of ten miles, and descrying your house—which seemed to us a building of some importance—we have come to throw ourselves upon your hospitality for the night.”
“Sir,” returned John simply, “I am sorry for your misfortune, and will do my best to entertain you, though, being a plain man and a bachelor, I fear the accommodation I can offer you is not such as these ladies are accustomed to.”
“Well said, man! you can but do your best,” cried the gentleman called Harry, clapping John on his brawny shoulder. “Come, lead the way, and we’ll all promise not to be over fastidious. Something to drink.”
John led the way into the house, baring his head as he passed the ladies, and the party trooped after him into a panelled parlour, where the dim outlines of cumbrous articles of furniture might be discerned in the dusk. Drawing a tinder-box from his pocket, he struck a light, and having ignited the candles on the mantelshelf, turned to face his visitors.
The flickering light revealed to them the sunburnt face and well-knit figure of a man of about five-and-twenty, with brown hair and brown eyes, and an expression of shy kindliness.
As he looked in bewilderment from one to the other of his guests, dazzled by the medley of fine clothes and trinkets, here marking the gleam of white teeth, there a pair of dancing eyes, yonder the flutter of powdered locks, out of the confusion there seemed to detach itself—one face. A small face, round which the hair fell in natural curls untouched by powder; laughing eyes, a mouth at once sweet and roguish; a bloom that even John’s unsophisticated eyes instantly recognised as being wholly natural, yet such as he had never beheld on the solid cheeks of the rustic damsels of the neighbourhood.