‘Jenny!’ said the landlord, with the same gravity as before, ’go with the young gentleman to the pump in the back kitchen, and take a clean towel along with you.’

Thereupon the rosy-faced clean-looking damsel went to a drawer, and producing a large, thick, but snowy-white towel, she nodded to me to follow her; whereupon I followed Jenny through a long passage into the back kitchen.

And at the end of the back kitchen there stood a pump; and going to it I placed my hands beneath the spout, and said, ‘Pump, Jenny,’ and Jenny incontinently, without laying down the towel, pumped with one hand, and I washed and cooled my heated hands.

And, when my hands were washed and cooled, I took off my neckcloth, and unbuttoning my shirt collar, I placed my head beneath the spout of the pump, and I said unto Jenny:  ’Now, Jenny, lay down the towel, and pump for your life.’

Thereupon Jenny, placing the towel on a linen horse, took the handle of the pump with both hands and pumped over my head as handmaid had never pumped before; so that the water poured in torrents from my head, my face, and my hair down upon the brick floor.

And after the lapse of somewhat more than a minute, I called out with a half-strangled voice, ‘Hold, Jenny!’ and Jenny desisted.  I stood for a few moments to recover my breath, then, taking the towel which Jenny proffered, I dried composedly my hands and head, my face and hair; then, returning the towel to Jenny, I gave a deep sigh and said:  ’Surely this is one of the pleasant moments of life.’

* * * * * *

Becoming soon tired of walking about, without any particular aim, in so great a heat, I determined to return to the inn, call for ale, and deliberate on what I had best next do.  So I returned and called for ale.  The ale which was brought was not ale which I am particularly fond of.  The ale which I am fond of is ale about nine or ten months old, somewhat hard, tasting well of malt and little of the hop—­ale such as farmers, and noblemen too, of the good old time, when farmers’ daughters did not play on pianos and noblemen did not sell their game, were in the habit of offering to both high and low, and drinking themselves.  The ale which was brought to me was thin washy stuff, which though it did not taste much of hop, tasted still less of malt, made and sold by one Allsopp, who I am told calls himself a squire and a gentleman—­as he certainly may with quite as much right as many a lord calls himself a nobleman and a gentleman; for surely it is not a fraction more trumpery to make and sell ale than to fatten and sell game.  The ale of the Saxon squire, for Allsopp is decidedly an old Saxon name, however unakin to the practice of old Saxon squires the selling of ale may be, was drinkable, for it was fresh, and the day, as I have said before, exceedingly hot; so I took frequent draughts out of the shining metal tankard in which it was brought, deliberating both whilst drinking, and in the intervals of drinking, on what I had next best do.