Page:Barnaby Rudge.djvu/18

 10 BARNABY RUDGE. before the door, with one foot in the stir- rup, the virgin monarch had then and there boxed and cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty. The matter-of-fact and doubtful folks, of whom there were a few among the Maypole customers, as unlucki- ly there always are in every little com- munity, were inclined to look upon this tradition as rather apocryphal; but when ever the landlord of that ancient hostelry appealed to the mounting block itself, as evidence, and triumphantly pointed out that there it stood in the same place to that very day, the doubters never failed to be put down by a large majority, and all true believers exulted as in a victory. Whether these, and many other stories of the like nature, were true or untrue, the Maypole was really an old house, a very old house, perhaps as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which will some- times happen with houses of an uncertain, as with ladies of a certain age. Its win- dows were old diamond pane lattices, its floors were sunken and uneven, its ceilings blackened by the hand of time, and heavy with massive beams. Over the doorway was an ancient porch, quaintly and gro- tesquely carved; and here on summer even- ings the more favoured customers smoked and drank-ay, and sang inany a good song too, sometimes-reposing on two grim-looking high backed settles, which, like the twin dragons of some fairy tale, guarded the entrance to the mansion. In the chimneys of the disused rooms, swallows had built their nests for many a long year, and from earliest spring to latest autumn, whole colonies of sparrows chirp- ed and twittered in the eaves. There were more pigeons about the dreary stable-yard and outbuildings, than anybody but the landlord could reckon up. The wheeling and circling flights of runts, fantails, tum- blers, and pouters, were perhaps not quite consistent with the grave and sober cha- racter of the building; but the monotonous cooing, which never ceased to be raised by some among them, all day long, suited it exactly, and seemed to lull it to rest. With its overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were nodding in its sleep. Indeed it needed no very great stretch of fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. The bricks of which it was built, had originally been a deep dark red, but had grown yellow and discoloured like an old man's skin; the sturdy timbers had decayed like teeth; and here and there the Ivy. like a warm garinent to comfort it in its age, wrapt its green leaves closely Jound the time-worn walls. It was a hale and hearty age, though. still: and in the suminer or autumn even- ings, when the glow of the setting sun fell upon the oak and chestnut trees of the adjacent forest, the old house, partaking of its lustre, seemned thei: fit companion, and to have many good years of life in him yet. The evening with which we have to do, was neither a summer nor an autuin one, but the twilight of a day in March, when the wind howled dismally among the bare branches of the trees, and rumbling in the wide chimneys and driving the rain against the windows of the Maypole Inn, gave such of its frequenters as chanced to be there at the moment, an undeniable reason for pro- longing their stay, and cansed the landlord to prophesy that the night would certainly clear at eleven o'clock precisely, which by a remarkable coincidence was the hour at which he always closed his house. The name of him upon whom the spirit of prophecy thus descended was John Wil- let, a burly, large-headed man with a fat face, which betokened profound obstinacy and slowness of apprehension, combined with a very strong reliance upon his own me- rits. It was John Willet's ordinary boast in his more placid moods that if he was slow he was sure; which assertion could in one sense at least be by no means gainsaid, seeing that he was in everything unquestionably the reverse of fast, and withal one of the most dogged and positive fellows in exist- ence-always sure that what he thought or said or did was right, and holding it as a thing quite settled and ordained by the laws of nature and Providence, that any- body who said or did or thought otherwise must be inevitably and of necessity wrong. Mr. Willet walked slowly up to the window, flattened his fat nose against the cold glass, and shading his eyes that his sight might not be affected by the ruddy glow of the fire, looked abroad. Then he walked slowly back to his old seat in the chimney-corner, and composing himself in it with a slight shiver, such as a man might give way to and so acquire an addi- tional relish for the warm blaze, said, look- ing round upon his guests: "It'll clear at eleven o'clock. No scon- er and no later. Not before and not after- wards." "How do you make out that?" said a little man in the opposite corner. "The moon is past the full, and she rises at nine." John looked sedately and solemnly at his questioner until he had brought his mind to bear upon the whole of his observation, and then made answer, in a tone which seemed to imply that the moon was pecu liarly his business and nobody else's: