THE "LAMB" 127 



poles interlaced between the bars, that defied all attempts 

 at removal. While one of the horsemen, having dis- 

 mounted, was vainly trying to knock the lock off with his 

 hammer-handled whip, a gentleman walked up to us, 

 foaming at the mouth with rage, and desired us, in no 

 measured language, immediately to desist. U]3on one of 

 the company asking him the way out, he told us to go 

 out the wav we came in. This I, for one, knew to be 

 impossible, except at the risk of the necks of both horse 

 and rider. Just at the moment the cry of the hounds, 

 coming down the wind, broke on our ears, and I pricked 

 my horse in to a gallop. 



" Follow me, gentlemen,'' cried I ; '"'I can find a way 

 out." I led them down the field, and, easily topping two 

 quickset fences in and out Mr. Cobbett's garden, we soon 

 rejoined our companions, leaving the young gentleman, 

 who was one of the family, railing at the top of his voice 

 — boiling over with disappointed rage. 



I was standing one afternoon, in the early part of my 

 stoppage at Ely, in the bar of the " Lamb " (if a small 

 slip taken from the passage — with an uneven brick floor 

 — a few shelves upon which stood some dusty bottles — 

 and from which dangled, by way of ornament, some 

 cabbage-nets holding pieces of half-squeezed musty 

 lemon — deserve that appellation), and looking through 

 the latticed window, I saw a gentleman with a most 

 remarkable visage, shorn as it was of its most prominent 

 feature, advancing up the yard. He inquired of the 

 landlady, who Avas sitting quietly in the corner, when he 

 entered, in a brusque familiar manner, what he could 

 have for dinner. 



