20 Hell-fire Dick, [Jan 
ceremony seemed to be needed, he entered the public-room, and planting 
himself before the fire without noticing any one, began to call lustily 
about him for the landlord. 
«« « What may be your pleasure ?’ asked a man, who sate smoking and 
drinking at the head of one of the small tables, surrounded by, half a 
score of topers—and right jolly topers, too, if any faith might be 
placed in the evidence of their huge, tunlike forms and rubicund noses 
— ‘I am the landlord, Master Nicholas Barnaby by name, at your 
service.’ 
««« Well, then, Master Nicholas Barnaby by name,’ replied Frank, 
not over and above pleased at the innkeeper’s tone, and still less at the 
cool assurance with which he kept his seat, smoking on, as if the new 
guest were nobody, ‘ I want three things—meat—drink—bed.’ 
“It seemed that Mr. Nicholas read in Frank’s face the low state of 
his pocket ; for your landlord is as cunning in these matters as an old 
horse at the sight of a halter; you need not think to catch either of 
them by shaking an empty sieve. Instead of getting up from his chair 
to welcome his guest, he coolly said—‘ For your drink, there is plenty of 
water in the pond hard by ; for your bed, you may have the whole com- 
mon to yourself, and none to interrupt you ; and for meat, you may even 
make a shift for one night, or, if that likes you not, you have only to 
go on some twelve miles or so, and it’s a guinea to a shilling—aunless you 
lose your way in the forest, or get swamped in the fens—but you light 
on the Cat and Fiddle, where, Pll be bound for it, you may have as 
much, or more, meat than you can pay for.’ 
« Frank had a marvellous inclination to repay this advice by stretch- 
ing the giver of it at his full length on the floor ; but then Frank was a 
man of judgment as well as valour, and on eyeing mine host accurately, 
to know where to plant his blow with the most effect, he saw that it was 
better left alone. Mr. Barnaby was a tall, raw-boned fellow, with the 
arms of a blacksmith, the neck of a bull, and a huge round head that, 
from its evident thickness, must have been impenetrable to every thing 
short of a musket-bullet. He, therefore, thought it his wisest plan to 
treat the whole as a joke, seeing that, if he did otherwise, there was 
every chance of his getting a broken coxcomb for his pains. 
«<< Good, mine host,’ he said ; ‘ I like no part of your counsel so well 
that I should follow it at the risk of the fen on the one hand, and the 
forest on the other, though I will not deny that the water may be plenty ~ 
enough, and the heath wide enough. If I must fast—for which, by-the- 
by, I see no occasion when your tables are so well covered—but, if I 
must, it will be pleasanter abiding my penance before a warm fire than 
ona cold common. So, here I set up my staff for the night at least.’ 
« To shew that he meant to be as good as his word, he drew an arm= 
chair to the fire, ensconced himself snugly in it, and, taking his night-cap 
out of his pocket, popped it on his head with as little ceremony as if he 
had been in his own bed-room. There was something so irresistibly 
ludicrous in all this, that the company shouted again, while even Mr. 
Nicholas was pleased to relax a little from his austerity. A grim smile 
mantled over his hard features, and. he looked, or rather he meant to 
look, somewhat more graciously on the intruder; but, owing to the 
obliquity of his vision, his right eye, missing Frank, shot a desperate 
glance at a big-bellied green bottle in the window ; while his left expanded 
all its force on a tea-kettle that was singing away over the fire with 
uncommon gaiety. 
