Sir W. That’s right, do. Pray, have they tolerable accommodations at the inn in this village?
Gilb. (smiling) I can’t say much for that, sir.
Sir W. (aside) Now I shall set him going. (Aloud) What, the inn here is not like one of our English inns on the Bath road?
Gilb. (suppressing a laugh) Bath road! Bless you, sir, it’s no more like an inn on the Bath road, nor on any road, cross or by-road whatsomdever, as ever I seed in England. No more like—no more like than nothing at all, sir!
Sir W. What sort of a place is it, then?
Gilb. Why, sir, I’d be ashamed almost to tell you. Why, sir, I never seed such a place to call an inn, in all my born days afore. First and foremost, sir, there’s the pig is in and out of the kitchen all day long, and next the calf has what they call the run of the kitchen; so what with them brute beasts, and the poultry that has no coop, and is always under one’s feet, or over one’s head, the kitchen is no place for a Christian, even to eat his bread and cheese in.
Sir W. Well, so much for the kitchen. But the parlour—they have a parlour, I suppose?
Gilb. Yes, sir, they have a parlour as they may call it, if they think proper, sir. But then again, an honest English farmer would be afeard on his life to stay in it, on account of the ceiling just a coming down a’ top of his head. And if he should go up stairs, sir, why that’s as bad again, and worse; for the half of them there stairs is rotten, and ever so many pulled down and burnt.
Sir W. Burnt!—the stairs?
Gilb. Burnt, sir, as sure as I’m standing here!—burnt, sir, for fuel one scarce year, as they says, sir. Moreover, when a man does get up the stairs, sir, why he is as bad off again, and worse; for the floor of the place they calls the bedchamber, shakes at every step, as if it was a coming down with one; and the walls has all cracks, from top to toe—and there’s rat-holes, or holes o’ some sort or t’other, all in the floor: so that if a man don’t pick his steps curiously, his leg must go down through the ceiling below. And moreover, there’s holes over head through the roof, sir; so that if it rains, it can’t but pour on the bed. They tell me, they used for to shift the bed from one place to another, to find, as they say, the dry corner; but now the floor is grown so crazy, they dare not stir the bed for their lives.