CHAPTER XXIV

An Inn of Times gone by--A First-rate Publican--Hay and

Corn--Old-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-keeper, 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 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.

I 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 appeared--I 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

savage-faced, 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