"Twenty minutes here, gentlemen," says the coachman, as they pull up at half-past seven at the inn-door.
BREAKFAST.
Have we not endured nobly this morning, and is not this a worthy reward for much endurance? There is the low dark wainscoted[31] room hung with sporting prints; the hat-stand (with a whip or two standing up in it belonging to bagmen,[32] who are still snug in bed) by the door; the blazing fire, with the quaint old glass over the mantel-piece, in which is stuck a large card with the lists of the meets for the week of the county hounds. The table covered with the whitest of cloths and of china, and bearing a pigeon pie, ham, round of cold boiled beef cut from a mammoth ox, and the great loaf of household bread on a wooden trencher.[33] And here comes in the stout head waiter, puffing under a tray of hot viands; kidneys and a steak, transparent rashers[34] and poached eggs, buttered toast and muffins, coffee and tea all smoking hot. The table can never hold it all; the cold meats are removed to the sideboard; they were only put on for show and to give us an appetite. And now fall on, gentlemen all. It is a well-known sporting house, and the breakfasts are famous. Two or three men in pink, on their way to the meet, drop in, and are very jovial and sharp-set, as indeed we all are.
"Tea or coffee, sir?" says head waiter, coming round to Tom.
"Coffee, please," says Tom with his mouth full of muffin and kidneys; coffee is a treat to him, tea is not.
Our coachman, I perceive, who breakfasts with us, is a cold-beef man. He also eschews hot potations, and addicts himself to a tankard of ale, which is brought him by the barmaid. Sportsman looks on approvingly, and orders a ditto for himself.
Tom has eaten kidney and pigeon pie, and imbibed coffee, till his little skin is as tight as a drum; and then has the further pleasure of paying head waiter out of his own purse, in a dignified manner, and walks out before the inn-door to see the horses put to. This is done leisurely and in a highly finished manner by the ostlers, as if they enjoyed the not being hurried. Coachman comes out with his way-bill,[35] and puffing a fat cigar which the sportsman has given him. Guard emerges from the tap,[36] where he prefers breakfasting, licking round a tough-looking doubtful cheroot, which you might tie round your finger, and three whiffs of which would knock any one else out of time.
The pinks[37] stand about the inn-door lighting cigars and waiting to see us start, while their hacks are led up and down the market-place on which the inn looks. They all know our sportsman, and we feel a reflected credit when we see him chatting and laughing with them.
"Now, sir, please," says the coachman; all the rest of the passengers are up; the guard is locking up the hind-boot.
"A good run to you," says the sportsman to the pinks, and is by the coachman's side in no time.