ROAD HORSES. 129 
proach your destination, looking forward to supper 
and a bed, and leaving behind a day long to be remem- 
bered. Even the mishaps that befall the adventurous 
traveller, such as losing the road on a dark night 
when a thunder-storm is raging, and finding himself 
on a disused path through the woods instead of the 
highway, — even experiences of this kind are delight- 
ful in the retrospect. 
The evening may be less enjoyable. New England 
taverns have a bad name, and they deserve it. Still, 
there is occasionally a good one, and there are others 
that possess some collateral attraction. The best, 
perhaps, are usually found in county towns where tra- 
dition lingers. I remember one such, well situated 
on a New Hampshire hill. The village was very 
small, containing three or four shops, a court-house, a 
miniature jail, and the tavern, a rambling structure 
with low ceilings. The rooms were but tolerable, the 
cooking was scarcely that, and yet the place had an 
air, a flavor, an attraction, which at first I was unable 
to resolve. At last I discovered that it consisted 
chiefly in this: the proprietor, a full-bearded, high- 
colored man of the old school, invariably and con- 
stantly wore a tall silk hat; the only one, in all proba- 
bility, for ten miles around. Unthinking persons may 
perceive no significance in this; but, rightly consid- 
ered, the high hat indicated a certain sense of self- 
respect, as well as a certain feeling for form and 
ceremony. If the hat had been assumed only when 
the wearer went outside, then it would have been 
simply a protection from the elements, or at best a 
matter of display for the villagers; but being worn 
constantly indoors, without regard to times or sea- 
9 
