
hasn't got a penny in his pocket, and is as hungry as five hundred hunters, to
drop on an old friend like this?«
    Evan answered with the question:
    »Where was it you said you met the young lady?«
    »In the first place, O Amadis! I never said she was young. You 're on the
scent, I see.«
    Nursing the fresh image of his darling in his heart's recesses, Evan, as
they entered Fallowfield, laid the state of his purse before Jack, and earned
anew the epithet of Amadis, when it came to be told that the occupant of the
waggon was likewise one of its pensioners.
    Sleep had long held its reign in Fallowfield. Nevertheless, Mr. Raikes,
though blind windows alone looked on him, and nought foreign was to be imputed
to him in the matter of pride, had become exceedingly solicitous concerning his
presentation to the inhabitants of that quiet little country town; and while
Evan and the waggoner consulted - the former with regard to the chances of
procuring beds and supper, the latter as to his prospect of beer and a
comfortable riddance of the feminine burden weighing on them all - Mr. Raikes
was engaged in persuading his hat to assume something of the gentlemanly polish
of its youth, and might have been observed now and then furtively catching up a
leg to be dusted. Ere the wheels of the waggon stopped he had gained that ease
of mind which the knowledge that you have done all a man may do and
circumstances warrant, establishes. Capacities conscious of their limits may
repose even proudly when they reach them; and, if Mr. Raikes had not quite the
air of one come out of a bandbox, he at least proved to the discerning
intelligence that he knew what sort of manner befitted that happy occasion, and
was enabled by the pains he had taken to glance with a challenge at the sign of
the hostelry, under which they were now ranked, and from which, though the hour
was late, and Fallowfield a singularly somnolent little town, there issued signs
of life approaching to festivity.
 

                                   Chapter XI

                                Doings at an Inn

What every traveller sighs to find, was palatably furnished by the Green Dragon
of Fallowfield - a famous inn, and a constellation for wandering coachmen. There
pleasant smiles seasoned plenty, and the bill was gilded in a manner unknown to
our days. Whoso drank of the ale of the Green Dragon kept in his memory a place
apart for it. The secret, that to give a warm welcome is the breath of life to
an inn, was one the Green
