The sudden appearance of a dashing dragoon was an event in an old inn, frequented only by the peaceful sons of traffic.  A rich burgher of Antwerp, a stately ample man, in a broad Flemish hat, and who was the great man and great patron of the establishment, sat smoking a clean long pipe on one side of the door; a fat little distiller of Geneva from Schiedam, sat smoking on the other, and the bottle-nosed host stood in the door, and the comely hostess, in crimped cap, beside him; and the hostess’ daughter, a plump Flanders lass, with long gold pendants in her ears, was at a side window.

“Humph!” said the rich burgher of Antwerp, with a sulky glance at the stranger.

“Der duyvel!” said the fat little distiller of Schiedam.

The landlord saw with the quick glance of a publican that the new guest was not at all, at all, to the taste of the old ones; and to tell the truth, he did not himself like my grandfather’s saucy eye.

He shook his head—­“Not a garret in the house but was full.”

“Not a garret!” echoed the landlady.

“Not a garret!” echoed the daughter.

The burgher of Antwerp and the little distiller of Schiedam continued to smoke their pipes sullenly, eyed the enemy askance from under their broad hats, but said nothing.

My grandfather was not a man to be browbeaten.  He threw the reins on his horse’s neck, cocked his hat on one side, stuck one arm akimbo, slapped his broad thigh with the other hand—­

“Faith and troth!” said he, “but I’ll sleep in this house this very night!”

My grandfather had on a tight pair of buckskins—­the slap went to the landlady’s heart.

He followed up the vow by jumping off his horse, and making his way past the staring Mynheers into the public room.  May be you’ve been in the barroom of an old Flemish inn—­faith, but a handsome chamber it was as you’d wish to see; with a brick floor, a great fire-place, with the whole Bible history in glazed tiles; and then the mantel-piece, pitching itself head foremost out of the wall, with a whole regiment of cracked tea-pots and earthen jugs paraded on it; not to mention half a dozen great Delft platters hung about the room by way of pictures; and the little bar in one corner, and the bouncing bar-maid inside of it with a red calico cap and yellow ear-drops.

My grandfather snapped his fingers over his head, as he cast an eye round the room:  “Faith, this is the very house I’ve been looking after,” said he.

There was some farther show of resistance on the part of the garrison, but my grandfather was an old soldier, and an Irishman to boot, and not easily repulsed, especially after he had got into the fortress.  So he blarney’d the landlord, kissed the landlord’s wife, tickled the landlord’s daughter, chucked the bar-maid under the chin; and it was agreed on all hands that it would be a thousand pities, and a burning shame into the bargain, to turn such a bold dragoon into the streets.  So they laid their heads together, that is to say, my grandfather and the landlady, and it was at length agreed to accommodate him with an old chamber that had for some time been shut up.