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 CHAPTER XLVII

THE "HAMILTON ARMS"

Like many old country places of the time, Hamilton Hill had a village belonging to it, which seemed to have nestled itself into the valley under shelter of the great house, just near enough to reap the benefits of so august a neighbourhood, but at such a distance as not to infringe on the sacred precincts of the deer-park, or on the romantic privacy of the pleasure-grounds.

Where there is a village there will be thirst, and thirst seems to be an Englishman's peculiar care and privilege; therefore, instead of slaking and quenching it at once by the use of water, he cherishes and keeps it alive, so to speak, with the judicious application of beer. A public-house is, accordingly, as necessary an adjunct to an English hamlet as an oven to a cookshop, a copper to a laundry, or a powder-magazine to a privateer.

The village of Nether-Hamilton possessed, then, one of these indispensable appendages; but, fortunately for the landlady, its inhabitants were obliged to ascend a steep hill, for the best part of a mile, before they could fill their cans with beer;—I say fortunately for the landlady, because such an exertion entailed an additional draught of this invigorating beverage to be consumed and paid for on the spot. The "Hamilton Arms," for the convenience of posting, stood on the Great North Road, at least half a league, as the crow flies, from that abrupt termination of upland, the ridge of which was crowned by the towers and terraces of Hamilton Hill. Twice a week a heavy lumbering machine, drawn by six, and in winter, often by eight