Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/682

 674 With a six weeks’ holiday in view before returning to the drudgery of my father’s office, and with a purse not badly supplied, I set out on my tour, determined to enjoy myself after my own free and independent fashion; and to thoroughly explore the romantic country I had chosen as the scene of my wanderings, which was at that time little better than a terra incognita to the ordinary run of tourists, who firmly believed they had seen everything that was worth seeing after staying for a few hours in each of the principal towns, and viewing the intermediate country from the top of a coach, or the windows of a post-chaise. For my part, I disdained all guide-books and road maps; and never knew, when I set out in a morning, what spot would be my resting-place at night. I delighted in cross-roads, and country lanes, and sheep tracks among the hills; any footpath or bye-way that led from the dusty prosaic high-road had allurements for me that I could rarely resist. I had been leading this pleasant sort of life for about a fortnight, gradually working my way south-westward towards the sea, when late one afternoon—a gloomy overcast afternoon, as I well remember—I overtook a pedlar among the hills, a German-Jew fellow, with a box hanging from a strap over his shoulder; and as the road was very lonely, and we both happened to be going the same way, we naturally fell into conversation; for in those days I was always ready to make the acquaintance of anybody. The road we were travelling was little more than a bridle path among the hills which I had taken by chance, neither knowing nor caring whither it might lead me; and it was to such effect that I answered my companion, when he asked me for what place I was bound. He greeted my answer with a smile, and a little shrug of the shoulders, which might either be one of pity at the idea of any rational being finding pleasure or profit in such aimless wanderings, or one of disbelief at what he perhaps considered a too transparent attempt to impose upon his credulity. After trudging along in silence for a short time, he remarked that he was bound for a certain town which he named, some dozen miles away; that he had taken the road through the hills, hoping to find it a near cut; that he had never been that way before; and that he had heard there was a roadside inn some mile or two further on, where we could probably obtain accommodation for the night, as it would be dark in less than an hour, and to attempt to find one’s way across the moors after dark would be the height of folly. He concluded by asking me whether I did not want a splendid gold watch, or a chain, or a ring, or a breastpin, or a set of studs—any or all of which he would let me have at a ridiculously low figure. Finding all his attempts to trade of no avail, he shrugged his shoulders again, pulled up his box a little higher on his back, and, becoming bon camarade on the instant, offered me his box full of choice foreign tobacco, and suggested a friendly pipe as the best alleviation of the toils of the way; a proposition to which I readily agreed, for, young as I was, I had learnt the art of smoking. And so, walking, smoking, and chatting pleasantly together, an hour or more sped quickly away; and I hardly knew how nearly dark it was till my companion pointed to a faint light shining in the distance, and declared that it must proceed from the inn of which we were in quest. I have said nothing hitherto as to the personal appearance of my pedlar friend. In person he was thin and wiry, with keen mobile features, sharpened and intensified by the close bargaining of many years. In age he might be fifty, or rather more; and his hair and beard, both of them long and tangled, and once black, were now fast becoming grey. He wore small gold circlets through his ears. He spoke good English, but with a slight foreign accent; and, finally, I gathered from his brass-lettered box that his name was Max Jacoby.

Toiling slowly upward, we at length reached the summit of the hill, and found ourselves close to the inn of which we were in search. The light we had seen so far away proceeded from a lantern suspended from the roof of a rude shed close to the inn, where a tall brawny young savage, of most forbidding aspect, was effecting some rude repairs to a rickety tumble-down cart. There was a light, too, in at least one room of the inn, as we saw through a chink in the wooden shutter with which the window was jealously guarded: otherwise the place seemed dark, silent, and tenantless. On inquiring of the young savage whether we could be accommodated for the night, he replied that he did not know, but that we had better knock at the door and ask the master. Not being in the habit of knocking at the doors of country inns, I lifted the latch, intending to walk in without ceremony; but finding the door would not yield to my efforts, I was obliged, after all, to accept the suggestion offered me, and knock. A delay of half a minute or so, and then the door was opened as far as the chain within would allow, and the landlord stood before us and inquired what we wanted. Could he accommodate us for the night? we asked. He rubbed his hand slowly over his chin, mused a moment, and then replied that he thought he could perhaps do so, unfastening the chain at the same time to admit us.

We found ourselves in a room of considerable size, poorly furnished with a few chairs, and two tables of the commonest kind, but looking cheerful just then in the light of the large fire burning in a grate at one end of the room. Jacoby drew a chair up to the fire with an air of enjoyment, and relieved himself of his box, placing it close by his side where he could keep a half-eye constantly upon it, requesting me at the same time to order what I pleased for supper. The landlord had disappeared into an inner room or kitchen, from which there now issued, in answer to my summons, a tall big-boned mulatto woman, attired in a check cotton gown, and having a red ’kerchief bound round her head. This apparition was so unexpected, and seemed to me so ludicrous and out of place in a lonely Cornish inn, that I could not help bursting into an irrepressible fit of laughter as the woman stepped forward into the room; but the dark scowl that chased away the good-natured grin with which she had just greeted me, warned me not to carry my amusement too far. On strict inquiry, the capabilities of the house resolved themselves into an unlimited supply of eggs and bacon; so we were fain to give our