only laughed and told him to take it easy | ward and touched the new recruit on the they were all right. arm. "Mr. Cayton," he said gently, "will At last even the captain began to forget you please walk on the path?" But Mr. his eye-glass and to feel that he was not Cayton neither saw nor heard him; he saw getting quite so much credit from the dis-only something that had happened long play as he ought, and as the bare suspi- ago, and marched along with head erect cion of such a thing disturbed him, he in an ecstasy, while the young officer fell determined to turn up out of Main Street back abashed and discomfited. and into the country lanes at once. "Leftwheel," he shouted; but not they! They always had gone the length of Main Street, and were not going to be balked in that way. "Left-wheel!' reiterated the little lieutenant. "Oh, I say, there, do left-wheel; down Cowpasture Lane, you know!" They professed not to hear and went rollicking forward.

But the worst was to come! Suddenly amid all this tumult a well-known figure was seen hastening down the lane directly towards them, and in a moment Mr. Cayton had pushed his way through the throng, and ranged alongside the marching column, falling easily into step as he did so and bringing his cane to his shoul- | der as though it were a sabre.

So on they went, and gradually the laughter died away, and the band took up its strain again, and somehow the corps began to feel that after all the joke was going against them. They glanced uneasily at the bearing of their strange comrade, and were not satisfied with themselves. The man who stood next him grew bashful and self-conscious under the scrutiny his neighbor attracted, and doubted whether a comparison between them would be favorable to himself. So he straightened himself and held up his head in a desperate effort to look unconcerned. His example infected his righthand neighbor, who in turn had to abandon his slouching, and, through him, the whole rank. The next rank noticed this, and was forced in self-defence to mend its own attitude; and so with the next, and next. Thus not many minutes had passed before the aspect of the whole column was changed.

It emerged from the further end of the street so altered in every way that it might reasonably have had doubts as to its own identity.

IV.

His appearance in this fashion caused roars of laughter. The little boys jumped with delight: "Le-ak at Au'd Softie playing soulger! Hi, Softie, ready! Present! Fire!" But he was oblivious and looked straight ahead, his thin face glowing with awakened life. Of course he became the centre of attraction; every man in the company wanted to see him, and in their effort destroyed the last semblance of rank. The musicians wondered what was happening behind and must needs turn THOUGH the field on which the shamabout sharply to find out; and thus the fight was to be held was spacious, and had trombone clashed up suddenly against the much to recommend it, there were certain bassoon, and the bassoon-man's brass was drawbacks. The turf was short and thrown from his lips in the middle of a pleasant to tread, but the surface had note, while the trombone-player had three many inequalities, and on one side the or four inches of his mouth-piece jammed ground dipped away steeply towards a into his mouth to the imminent danger of little valley wherein ran a shallow stream. his teeth, a little incident which was fairly The steep slopes might indeed be avoided, too much for the rest of the players. but there were other things which it was Their effort to smother their laughter only far more difficult to avoid, and these were brought forth the drollest sounds from the cows. It was a famous place for their instruments, and increased the gen- cows, and these cows stuck to their acres eral hilarity. Their leader held out long-like Irishmen, and were just as difficult est, but had to give in after a most to eject. It was really remarkable how wonderful squeaky quaver from his cor- obdurate and unreasonable they became net, and then the whole burden of the day fell upon the drum. Happily the drummer was a tower of strength, and proud of his advantage thumped away steadily, all the time laughing louder than any of them.

The captain bit his lips and dropped his eye-glass, but dared do nothing for fear of making himself look ridiculous. The little lieutenant, however, ran for

when the red-coated detachment arrived to drive them out of the way. Had these men approached in their every-day clothes, there was not a cow in the herd but would have gone on calmly grazing, while they had stood round it, and punched its ribs and pulled its skin, and learnedly discussed its condition. But directly the same man appeared in uniform the peace of every

his passion, quite forgetting he was a churchwarden, that pained the good parson deeply when they were duly reported to him next day.

Splendid! Victory and exercise glow in every cheek and brighten every eye, and close behind them, cheering them on, is the soldier with his cane. Higher up the field they dash across the fence again, and all at once see exultantly what is expected of them. Though still hidden, they are close to the enemy now, and are preparing a surprise. At the word they close ranks, as they run with the steadiness of veterans, and their tingling_ears are filled with a voice which says, "Boys, your work is in front of you and mind you do it! Charge!" The magic of those tones is not lost then; the men's faces grow fierce and terrible as they listen, just as they always did in old times. They shout wildly back to him - verily there is not a sane man among them!

Come out here, you blind old critic who sits drinking wine at the George, and say what you think of these men now.

As for the fighting men of Ruddiford, their leader gone they looked foolishly at each other for a minute or two and then dispersing slunk away separately, trusting to reach home unobserved under cover of the dusk. There was something strange about that night which they could never understand. GEORGE FLAMBRO.

From All The Year Round.

can

"The

CONCERNING INNS AND TAVERNS. THE English inn has ceased to be a social institution. It has been supplanted by the monster hotel, the gin-palace, the restaurant, the "stores," so that its place knoweth it no more. It seems doubtful whether the cycling mania, which has made our young men and a good many who are not young "take to the road ― much to their physical advantage effect even a partial resuscitation. old order changeth, giving place to new; and the rapid locomotion which is a neThe Ditchfallow corps got a fright that cessity of the present day has deprived the evening it never recovered from; its inn- the old, comfortable, homely, Enmembers resigned by wholesale after-glish inn — of its raison-d'être. The travwards. They had been mystified from eller no longer needs a resting-place; the first, but stuck faithfully to their part "refreshment for man and beast" is selof the programme. They had just blazed dom wanted. So the wayside inn, with away their last cartridge at the place its gabled roof, its rose-trellised porch, where their opponents ought to have and diamond-paned casements, is been, when all at once a great shout arose close behind them, and they turned to see those madmen scampering over the bank, making straight for them. For an instant they huddled together with some vague idea of defence. But when they saw in the twilight the set teeth and gleaming eyes behind the oncoming bayonets, and heard an awful voice call out, "Steady now! Each of you pick your man and aim for the throat or lower part of the chest," is it to be wondered that a terrible panic seized them and that they turned and fled in all directions? Some of them shouted for help and some for the police at least, so the Ruddiford men afterwards declared.

And just then, in the moment of his triumph, a hard hand gripped the soldier's arm, and a coarse voice said, "Come, sir, you've had enough of this fooling for one day! Just you come home with me, will you ! and cruel eyes looked savagely into his, and of a sudden the glow and life went out of his face as when a flame is quenched, and Mr. Cayton sighed a weary, heart-broken sigh and suffered himself to be led away like a little child.

as

on

much a thing of the past as the amber ale with which its rubicund Boniface rejoiced the souls of his patrons, or the mellow, double Glo'ster which enhanced the flavor of the ale. In like manner, the respectable urban hostelries, the quiet taverns, where the principal townsmen the lawyer, the doctor, the churchwarden, the half-pay officer were accustomed to meet stated evenings, and, with a moderate glass, wash down the immemorial game of whist, or cribbage, or shovel-board; where the Odd Buttons, the Corncrakes, the Owls, or the Easy Slippers, held their symposia - these, or most of them, have departed, along with the social conditions under which they flourished. From a picturesque point of view it is impossible not to regret their disappearance, and I doubt very much whether it is a moral gain. I do not think they encouraged intemperance, while I am sure they promoted a good feeling between classes, and a generous, neighborly spirit. And no one can deny their superiority in all true, comfortable qualities to the smirk railway hotels and the huge, fashionable caravan. serais which have taken their place.

The social importance of the inn in | popular conception of a rotund, rubicund days of old is proved by the conspicuous landlord- a Boniface, as small wits still position it holds in our fiction and poetry. call the tavern-keeper. In his lively comThe "Canterbury Tales "of Chaucer start edy of "The Beaux's Stratagem," Bonifrom an inn, along with the motley com- face is landlord of the inn at Lichfield, pany of pilgrims bound for Saint Thomas's where much of the action of the piece Shrine, to whom the genius of the poet takes place. His dialogue with Aimwell has given an immortal life. Its site and is brisk and lively. name, the Talbot, or Tabard, still preserve the memory of the famous inn thus associated with our first great English poem. It was not, however, until the reign of Elizabeth, that the tavern attained to a permanent place in our literature, reflecting the important place it held in the daily life of the people.

Shakespeare puts before us the Elizabethan London tavern in his "Henry the Fourth," the Boar's Head, at Eastcheap, with its accommodating hostess, its "leash of drawers," and its various classes of guests Prince Hal, Fat Sir John, Ned Poins, Bardolph, and Pistol. He shows us also the small inn at Rochester, where the carriers put up their horses and themselves, and the highwaymen called to gain tidings of any rich booty which might be travelling that way, such as a "franklin from the wild o' Kent," with three hundred pounds in gold. At the Garter, at Windsor, the fat knight had "his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing bed, and truckle bed," and his chamber was "painted about with the story of the Prodigal, fresh and new." To the alehouse on a heath, in the induction to "The Taming of the Shrew," come a lord from hunting, his huntsmen, and attendants, and a company of players. In Beaumont's and Fletcher's comedy of "The Knight of the Burning Pestle," we are introduced to the Bell Inn, at "Walthamtown's-end," belonging to "the old Knight of the most holy order of the Bell." The story of Massinger's drama of "A New Way to Pay Old Debts" opens at the alehouse kept by Tapwell and his wife, Froth-by no means favorable specimens of their order. And Ben Jonson devotes a whole comedy to the humors of a day at the New Inn, in Barnet, kept by a merry host, called Goodstock, whither the Lady Franquel invited some lords and gentlemen to wait on her, "as well to see the fashions of the place as to make them selves merry, with the accidents on the by." And in " Every Man out of his Humor," Carlo partakes of "a good fat loin of pork," and "the biggest shaft out of the oldest butt at the Mitre, in Fleet Street.

To the dramatist Farquhar, we owe the

"I have heard," says Aimwell, "your town of Lichfield much famed for ale; I think I'll taste that."

"Sir," says Boniface, "I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; 'tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy, and will be just fourteen years old the fifth day of next March, old style."

"You're very exact," rejoins Aimwell, "in the age of your ales."

66

As punctual, sir, as I am in the age of my children. I'll show you such ale. Here, tapster, broach No. 1706, as the saying is. Sir, you shall taste my anno domini. I have lived in Lichfield, man and boy, above eight-and-fifty years, and, I believe, have not consumed eight-andfifty ounces of meat."

"At a meal, you mean, if one may guess your sum by your bulk."

"Not in my life, sir; I have fed freely upon ale," retorts the jolly host. I have ate my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale."

we

Both Fielding and Smollett, in their novels in "Tom Jones " and " Amelia," in "Roderick Random" and "Humphrey Clinker " - have sketched in vivid colors the tavern life of their time, in all its various aspects the posting inn, the commercial inn, the fashionable inn; the inn as an asylum for persecuted lovers, and the inn as the rendezvous of the footpad and the highwayman. Goldsmith, in his delightful comedy, "She Stoops to Conquer," admits us to the interior of the Three Jolly Pigeons, a typical village alehouse. In Cowper's "John Gilpin are carried, with his wife and children to the Bell, at Edmonton. Sir Walter Scott takes us to many a hostelry-to none more picturesque, I think, than the lone house by the waters of Solway Firth, in " Redgauntlet." In "Saint Ronan's Well" he introduces us to a Scotch inn and a Scotch hostess, the ever-famous Meg Dods; nor must we forget the Black Bear in his romance of "Kenilworth." many youthful eyes have moistened over Southey's "Maid of the Inn!" many peals of laughter have been elicited by the scene at the Blue Posts, where the midshipmen took their "breakfastesses,"

How

How

The only letter addressed to Shakespeare which has survived the cruel ravages of time, was written from the Bell Inn, Castle Yard, by his friend, Richard Quiney. Ben Jonson drank "bad wine at the Devil, in Fleet Street, on the site of which now stands Child's bankinghouse. The great room was called the Apollo; and thither went all who wished to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben," and made merry with a cup of canary, or of "sherris sack."

in Marryat's "Peter Simple." Theodore | them to be full of interest. Mr. W. L. Hook, G. P. R. James, W. H. Ainsworth, Courtenay's recent dramatic sketch of Charles Lever the tavern takes a prom. "The Death of Marlowe " has reminded inent place in many of their fictions. those unacquainted with R. H. Horne's Lord Lytton, in "Eugene Aram," shows earlier treatment of the same subject that us the Spotted Dog and its landlord, the author of "Faustus " met his death in Peter Dealtry; but both are curiously a tavern brawl at Deptford. The names artificial. The country inn belonged to a of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson are indisworld of which Lord Lytton knew little, solubly associated with the Mermaid, except from books. in Cheapside, which was unfortunately How different are the inns which Dick-destroyed in the great fire of 1666. Here, ens painted with such a truth of coloring! if Fuller may be credited, took place the Who can forget the Holly Tree, and the famous "wit-combats" between the two exquisite romance of child-life associated immortals, in which Master Jonson, like a with it? Or that "little public-house close Spanish galleon, was "solid but slow in to the river," where young David Copper- his performances;" while Shakespeare, field astonished the landlord by asking for like an English man-of-war a compari"a glass of the genuine stunning, with a son evidently suggested by our victory good head to it?" Or that delightful over the Armada - could "turn with all Wiltshire village inn, the Blue Dragon, tides, tack about, and take advantage of where Mrs. Lupin was the pine-apple all winds, by the quickness of his wit and of "tight, plump, buxom, bright-eyed, invention." dimple-faced landladies," and Mark Tap. ley found it no credit to be “jolly?" No other of our writers has sketched the English inn under all its types with such picturesque force and sympathetic accuracy! Turn to Pickwick," "Nicholas Nickleby," ,""Our Mutual Friend," if you want to see the old English inn as it was in its palmy days. But best of all, perhaps, is Joe Willet's Maypole, "an old building with more gable-ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day the very type and pattern of the wayside lusthaus as the Dutch not unhappily call it. Then, in Washington Irving's once popular "Sketch-Book," you will find the inn emotionally treated. And there are Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn;" and Mortimer Collins's "Inn of Strange Meetings;" and Tennyson's "Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue" at the Cock. Thomas Hardy, I may add, is happy in his tavern pictures, as in that of the Buck's Head-in "Far from the Madding Crowd" which, "in the meridian times of stage-coach travelling, had been the place where many coaches changed and kept their relays of horses." But "all the old stabling was now pulled down, and little remained besides the habitable inn itself, which, standing a little way back from the road, signified its existence to people far up and down the highway by a sign hanging from the horizontal bough of an elm on the opposite side of the way."

So much for the inn in poetry and fiction a rapid and imperfect survey, but all that my limits will allow. Let us next take a look at some of its literary associations, and I think we shall discover

There Jonson reigned supreme; with an authority more undisputed even than that of Dryden, at a later date, at Will's coffee-house, or Addison at Button's. Jonson also patronized the Half-Moon, in Aldersgate Street afterwards a favorite "house of call" with Congreve Falcon, at Bankside, the Three Cranes, in the Vintry, and the Swan, at Charing Cross.

the

Sir Walter Raleigh, that most brilliant of adventurers, sometimes took a cup of wine, and smoked a pipe of the new-found tobacco, at the Queen's Head, among the orchards and green fields of Islington. Sir John Suckling played bowls at the Bear-at-the-Bridge-Foot, which stood at the Southwark end of old London Bridge, and was pulled down in 1761.

"Gossiping" Pepys frequented almost all the taverns in or near London. He dined at the Bell, in King Street, Westminster; played handicap at the Mitre, in Wood Street, Cheapside; had a good dinner on more than one occasion at Hercules' Pillars; on another at the Dolphin, with "Sir W. Batten, and his lady and daughter Matt, and Captain Cook and his