"The 'Wild Goose Tavern' is ours," he said—"good cheer and company to match it."
I walked out into the paved street, leading Warlock. Mount swaggered along beside me, squaring his broad shoulders whenever we passed a soldier, and whistling lustily "Tryon County Men," till the stony streets rang with the melody.
We now crossed into Treamount Street, passed Valley Acre on our right into Sudbury Street, then northwest through Hilliers Lane, crossing Cambridge Street to Green Lane, and west again along Green Lane to the corner of Chambers Street, where it becomes Wiltshire Street and runs due north.
There was enough of daylight left for me to see that we were not in an aristocratic neighbourhood. Warehouses, ship-chandlers, rope-walks, and scrap-iron shops lined the streets, interspersed with vacant, barren plots of ground, rarely surrounded by wooden fences.
The warehouses and shops were closed and all the shutters and doors fast bolted. There was not a soul abroad in the streets, not a light to be seen save from one long, low building standing midway between Chambers and Wiltshire Streets—an ancient, discoloured, rambling structure, with a weather-vane atop, and a long, pillared porch in front, from which hung a bush of sea-weed, and a red sign-board depicting a creature which doubtless was intended for a wild goose.
"Lord, Jack!" I said, "Shemuel's 'Bear and Cubs' appeared preferable to your 'Wild Goose' yonder. I'm minded to seek other quarters."
"Never trust to the looks o' things," he laughed. "God made woodchucks to live on the ground, but they climb trees, too, sometimes. Do I think on the hog-pen when I eat a crisped rasher? Nenny, lad. Come on to the cleanest tap-room in Boston town and forget that the shutters yonder need new hinges!"
I led Warlock into the mews to a clean, well-aired stable, where an ostler bedded and groomed him, and shook out as pretty a handful of grain as I had seen since I left Johnson Hall.
Then Mount and I went into the tavern, where half a dozen sober citizens in string-wigs sat, silently smoking clay pipes with stems full three feet long.
"Good-evening, the company!" said Mount, pleasantly.