208 WINTER SUNSHINE 



that of Scott or the divine William himself; who 

 puts the " coals " on your grate with her own hands, 

 and, when you ask for a lunch, spreads the cloth on 

 one end of the table while you sit reading or writing 

 at the other, and places before you a whole haunch 

 of delicious cold mutton, with bread and home-brewed 

 ale, and requests you to help yourself; who, when 

 bedtime arrives, lights you up to a clean, sweet 

 chamber, with a high-canopied bed hung with snow- 

 white curtains; who calls you in the morning, and 

 makes ready your breakfast while you sit with your 

 feet on the fender before the blazing grate; and to 

 whom you pay your reckoning on leaving, having 

 escaped entirely all the barrenness and publicity of 

 hotel life, and had all the privacy and quiet of 

 home without any of its cares or interruptions. 

 And this, let me say here, is the great charm of the 

 characteristic English inn; it has a domestic, home- 

 like air. " Taking mine ease at mine inn " has a 

 real significance in England. You can take your 

 ease and more; you can take real solid comfort. In 

 the first place, there is no barroom, and conse- 

 quently no loafers or pimps, or fumes of tobacco or 

 whiskey; then there is no landlord or proprietor or 

 hotel clerk to lord it over you. The host, if there 

 is such a person, has a way of keeping himself in 

 the background, or absolutely out of sight, that is 

 entirely admirable. You are monarch of all you 

 survey. You are not made to feel that it is in 

 some one else's house you are stopping, and that you 

 must court the master for his favor. It is your 



