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 CornOld-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, and talked French with a cockney accent; the French sounding all the better, as no accent is so melodious as the cockney. Jacks creaked in the kitchens turning round spits, on which large joints of meat piped and smoked before great big fires. There was running up and down stairs, and along galleries, slamming of doors, cries of "Coming, sir," and "Please to step this way, ma'am," during eighteen hours of the four-and-twenty. Truly a very great place for life and bustle was this inn. And often in after life, when lonely and melancholy, I have called up the time I spent there, and never failed to become cheerful from the recollection.

I found the master of the house a very kind and civil person. Before being an inn-keeper he had been in some other line of business; but on the death of the former proprietor of the inn had married his widow, who was still alive, but, being somewhat infirm, lived in a retired part of the house. I have said that he was kind and civil; he was, however, not one of those people who suffer themselves to be made fools of by anybody; he knew his customers, and had a calm, clear eye, which would look through a man without seeming to do so. The accommodation of his house was of the very best description; his wines were good, his viands equally so, and his charges not immoderate; though he very properly took care of himself. He was no vulgar inn-keper, had a host of friends, and deserved them all. During the time I lived with him, he was presented by a large assemblage of his friends and customers with a dinner at his own house, which was very costly, and at which the best of wines were sported, and after the dinner with a piece of plate estimated at fifty guineas. He received the plate, made a neat speech of thanks, and when the bill was called for, made another neat speech, in which he refused to receive one farthing for the entertainment, ordering in at the same time two dozen more of the best champagne, and sitting down amidst uproarious applause, and cries of "You shall be no loser by it!" Nothing very wonderful in such conduct, some people will say; I don't say there is, nor have I any intention to endeavour to persuade the reader that the landlord was a Carlo Boromeo; he merely gave a quid pro quo; but it is not every person who will give you a quid pro quo. Had he been a vulgar publican, he would

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have sent in a swinging bill after receiving the plate; "but then no vulgar publican would have been presented with plate;" perhaps not, but many a vulgar public character has been presented with plate, whose admirers never received a quid pro quo, except in the shape of a swinging bill.

found my duties of distributing hay and corn, and keeping an account thereof, anything but disagreeable, particularly after I had acquired the good-will of the old ostler, who at first looked upon me with rather an evil eye, considering me somewhat in the light of one who had usurped an office which belonged to himself by the right of succession; but there was little gall in the old fellow, and, by speaking kindly to him, never giving myself any airs of assumption; but, above all, by frequently reading the newspapers to him-for though passionately fond of news and politics, he was unable to read-I soon succeeded in placing myself on excellent terms with him. A regular character was that old ostler; he was a Yorkshireman by birth, but had seen a great deal of life in the vicinity of London, to which, on the death of his parents, who were very poor people, he went at a very early age. Amongst other places where he had served as ostler was a small inn at Hounslow, much frequented by highwaymen, whose exploits he was fond of narrating, especially those of Jerry Abershaw, who, he said, was a capital rider; and on hearing his accounts of that worthy, I half regretted that the old fellow had not been in London, and I had not formed his acquaintance about the time I was thinking of writing the life of the said Abershaw, not doubting that with his assistance, I could have produced a book at least as remarkable as the life and adventures of that entirely imaginary personage Joseph Sell; perhaps, however, I was mistaken; and whenever Abershaw's life shall appear before the public and my publisher credibly informs me that it has not yet appearedI beg and entreat the public to state which it likes best, the life of Abershaw, or that of Sell, for which latter work I am informed that during the last few months there has been a prodigious demand. My old friend, however, after talking of Abershaw, would frequently add, that, good rider as Abershaw certainly was, he was decidedly inferior to Richard Ferguson, generally called Galloping Dick, who was a pal of Abershaw's, and had enjoyed a career as long, and nearly as remarkable as his own. I learned from him

that both were capital customers at the Hounslow inn, and that he had frequently drank with them in the corn-room. He said that no man could desire more jolly or entertaining companions over a glass of “ summut;" but that upon the road it was anything but desirable to meet them; there they were terrible, cursing and swearing, and thrusting the muzzles of their pistols into people's mouths; and at this part of his locution the old man winked, and said, in a somewhat lower voice, that upon the whole they were right in doing so, and that when a person had once made up his mind to become a highwayman, his best policy was to go the whole hog, fearing nothing, but making everybody afraid of him; that people never thought of resisting a savagefaced, foul-mouthed highwayman, and if he were taken, were afraid to bear witness against him, lest he should get off and cut their throats some time or other upon the roads; whereas people would resist being robbed by a sneaking, pale-visaged rascal, and would swear bodily against him on the first opportunity,-adding, that Abershaw and Ferguson, two most awful fellows, had enjoyed a long career, whereas two disbanded officers of the army, who wished to rob a coach like gentlemen, had begged the passengers' pardon, and talked of hard necessity, had been set upon by the passengers themselves, amongst whom were three women, pulled from their horses, conducted to Maidstone, and hanged with as little pity as such contemptible fellows deserved. "There is nothing like going the whole hog,' he repeated," and if ever I had been a highwayman, I would have done so; I should have thought myself all the more safe; and, moreover, shouldn't have despised myself. To curry favour with those you are robbing, sometimes at the expense of your own comrades, as I have known fellows do, why, it is the greatest

"So it is," interposed my friend the postillion, who chanced to be present at a considerable part of the old ostler's discourse; it is, as you say, the greatest of humbug, and merely, after all, gets a fellow into trouble; but no regular bred highwayman would do it. I say, George, catch the Pope of Rome trying to curry favour with anybody he robs; catch old Mumbo Jumbo currying favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean and Chapter, should he meet them in a stage-coach; it would be with him, Bricconi Abbasso, as he knocked their teeth

out with the butt of his trombone; and the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer for it, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, after such a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against him, and to hang him, even if he were in their power, though that would be the proper way; for, if it is the greatest of all humbug for a highwayman to curry favour with those he robs, the next greatest is to try to curry favour with a highwayman when you have got him, by letting him off."

Finding the old man so well acquainted with the history of highwaymen, and taking considerable interest in the subject, having myself edited a book containing the lives of many remarkable people who had figured on the highway, I forthwith asked him how it was that the trade of highwaymen had become extinct in England, as at present we never heard of any one following it. Whereupon he told me that many causes had contributed to bring about that result; the principal of which were the following:-the refusal to license houses which were known to afford shelter to highwaymen, which, amongst many others, had caused the inn at Hounslow to be closed; the inclosure of many a wild heath in the country, on which they were in the habit of lurking, and particularly the establishing in the neighbourhood of London of a well-armed mounted patrol, who rode the highwaymen down, and delivered them up to justice, which hanged them without ceremony.

"And that would be the way to deal with Mumbo Jumbo and his gang," said the postillion, "should they show their visages in these realms; and I hear by the newspapers that they are becoming every day more desperate. Take away the license from their public-houses, cut down the rookeries and shadowy old avenues in which they are fond of lying in wait, in order to sally out upon people as they pass in the roads; but, above all, establish a good mounted police to ride after the ruffians and drag them by the scruff of the neck to the next clink, where they might lie till they could be properly dealt with by law; instead of which, the Government are repealing the wise old laws enacted against such characters, giving fresh licenses every day to their public-houses, and saying that it would be a pity to cut down their rookeries and thickets because they look so very picturesque; and, in fact, giving them all kind of encouragement; why, if such behaviour is not enough to drive an