EVAN HARRINGTON; or, HE WOULD BE A GENTLEMAN.
BY GEORGE MEREDITH.
CHAPTER XI.DOINGS AT AN INN.
What every traveller sighs to find, was palateably furnished by the Green Dragon of Fallowfield,—a famous inn, and a constellation of 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 Dragon boasted, even then, not to share with many Red Lions, or Cocks of the Morning, or Kings’ Heads, or other fabulous monsters; and as if to show that when you are in the right track you are sure to be seconded, there was a friend of the Green Dragon, who, on a particular night of the year, caused its renown to enlarge to the dimensions of a miracle. But that, for the moment, is my secret.
Evan and Jack were met in the passage by a chambermaid. Before either of them could speak, she had turned and fled, with the words:
“More coming!” which, with the addition of “My goodness me!” were echoed by the hostess in her recess. Hurried directions seemed to be consequent, and then the hostess sallied out, and said, with a curtsey:
“Please to step in, gentlemen. This is the room, to-night.”
Evan lifted his hat; and bowing, requested to know whether they could have a supper and beds.
“Beds, sir!” cried the hostess. “What am I to do for beds! Yes, beds indeed you may have, but bed-rooms—if you ask for them, it really is more than I can supply you with. I have given up my own. I sleep with my maid Jane to-night.”
“Anything will do for us, madam,” replied Evan, renewing his foreign courtesy. “But there is a poor young woman outside.”
“Another!” the hostess instantly smiled down the inhospitable outcry.
“She,” said Evan, “must have a room to herself. She is ill.”
“Must is must, sir,” returned the gracious hostess. “But I really haven’t the means.”
“You have bed-rooms, madam?”
“Every one of them engaged, sir.”
“By ladies, madam?”
“Lord forbid, sir!” she exclaimed with the honest energy of a woman who knew her sex.
Evan bade Jack go and assist the waggoner to bring in the girl. Jack, who had been all the time pulling at his wristbands, and settling his coat-collar by the dim reflection of a window of the bar, departed, after, on his own authority, assuring the hostess that fever was not the young