THE YORK ROAD 



285 



could hit a horse." And we feel, almost as poignantly 

 as the near side leader has done, that he, Tom Hennesy, 

 is not to be included in the category. 



And now the Peacock at Islington (where in old days 

 "The Queen's Head," pulled down in 1829, was the 

 stopping tavern, with its wood and piaster walls, its three 

 stories projecting over each other in front, its porch 









The Queen's Head, Islington. 



propped by Caryatides) — and now the Peacock at 

 Islington begins to loom through the fog. Or rather 

 the horn lantern of the old ostler, whose province it is 

 to stand outside the inn and announce the names of the 

 coaches as they drive up to the door, with the voice of 

 an asthmatic trumpet. All the northern coaches made 

 a point of stopping at the Peacock, on their way north ; 

 though why they did so I have never been able to 



