“And what should I do with my horse?” said I.

“The horse need give you no uneasiness,” said the postillion; “I know he will be welcome here both for bed and manger, and, perhaps, in a little time you may find a purchaser, as a vast number of sporting people frequent this house.”  I offered two or three more objections, which the postillion overcame with great force of argument, and the pot being nearly empty, he drained it to the bottom drop, and then starting up, left me alone.

In about twenty minutes he returned, accompanied by a highly intelligent-looking individual, dressed in blue and black, with a particularly white cravat, and without a hat on his head:  this individual, whom I should have mistaken for a gentleman but for the intelligence depicted in his face, he introduced to me as the master of the inn.  The master of the inn shook me warmly by the hand, told me that he was happy to see me in his house, and thanked me in the handsomest terms for the kindness I had shown to his servant in the affair of the thunderstorm.  Then saying that he was informed I was out of employ, he assured me that he should be most happy to engage me to keep his hay and corn account, and as general superintendent of the yard, and that with respect to the horse, which he was told I had, he begged to inform me that I was perfectly at liberty to keep it at the inn upon the very best, until I could find a purchaser,—­that with regard to wages—­but he had no sooner mentioned wages than I cut him short, saying, that provided I stayed I should be most happy to serve him for bed and board, and requested that he would allow me until the next morning to consider of his offer; he willingly consented to my request, and, begging that I would call for anything I pleased, left me alone with the postillion.

I passed that night until about ten o’clock with the postillion, when he left me, having to drive a family about ten miles across the country; before his departure, however, I told him that I had determined to accept the offer of his governor, as he called him.  At the bottom of my heart I was most happy that an offer had been made, which secured to myself and the animal a comfortable retreat at a moment when I knew not whither in the world to take myself and him.

CHAPTER XXIV

An Inn of Times gone by—­A First-rate Publican—­Hay and Corn—­Old-fashioned Ostler—­Highwaymen—­Mounted Police—­Grooming.

The inn, of which I had become an inhabitant, was a place of infinite life and bustle.  Travellers of all descriptions, from all the cardinal points, were continually stopping at it; and to attend to their wants, and minister to their convenience, an army of servants, of one description or other, was kept; waiters, chambermaids, grooms, postillions, shoe-blacks, cooks, scullions, and what not, for there was a barber and hair-dresser, who had been at Paris,