“Seeing therefore that this same inn had four windows, and no more, I thought to myself how snug it was, and how beautiful I could sleep there.  And so I made the old horse draw hand, which he was only too glad to do, and we clomb above the spring-tide mark, and over a little piece of turf, and struck the door of the hostelry.  Some one came and peeped at me through the lattice overhead, which was full of bulls’ eyes; and then the bolt was drawn back, and a woman met me very courteously.  A dark and foreign-looking woman, very hot of blood, I doubt, but not altogether a bad one.  And she waited for me to speak first, which an Englishwoman would not have done.

“‘Can I rest here for the night?’ I asked, with a lift of my hat to her; for she was no provincial dame, who would stare at me for the courtesy; ’my horse is weary from the sloughs, and myself but little better:  beside that, we both are famished.’

“’Yes, sir, you can rest and welcome.  But of food, I fear, there is but little, unless of the common order.  Our fishers would have drawn the nets, but the waves were violent.  However, we have—­what you call it?  I never can remember, it is so hard to say—­the flesh of the hog salted.’

“‘Bacon!’ said I; ’what can be better?  And half dozen of eggs with it, and a quart of fresh-drawn ale.  You make me rage with hunger, madam.  Is it cruelty, or hospitality?’

“‘Ah, good!’ she replied, with a merry smile, full of southern sunshine:  ‘you are not of the men round here; you can think, and you can laugh!’

“’And most of all, I can eat, good madam.  In that way I shall astonish you; even more than by my intellect.’

“She laughed aloud, and swung her shoulders, as your natives cannot do; and then she called a little maid to lead my horse to stable.  However, I preferred to see that matter done myself, and told her to send the little maid for the frying-pan and the egg-box.

“Whether it were my natural wit and elegance of manner; or whether it were my London freedom and knowledge of the world; or (which is perhaps the most probable, because the least pleasing supposition) my ready and permanent appetite, and appreciation of garlic—­I leave you to decide, John:  but perhaps all three combined to recommend me to the graces of my charming hostess.  When I say ‘charming,’ I mean of course by manners and by intelligence, and most of all by cooking; for as regards external charms (most fleeting and fallacious) hers had ceased to cause distress, for I cannot say how many years.  She said that it was the climate—­for even upon that subject she requested my opinion—­and I answered, ’if there be a change, let madam blame the seasons.’

“However, not to dwell too much upon our little pleasantries (for I always get on with these foreign women better than with your Molls and Pegs), I became, not inquisitive, but reasonably desirous to know, by what strange hap or hazard, a clever and a handsome woman, as she must have been some day, a woman moreover with great contempt for the rustic minds around her, could have settled here in this lonely inn, with only the waves for company, and a boorish husband who slaved all day in turning a potter’s wheel at Watchett.  And what was the meaning of the emblem set above her doorway, a very unattractive cat sitting in a ruined tree?