Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall,
so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time
being, the very monarch of all he surveys.... 'Shall I not take mine
ease in mine inn?' thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back
in my elbow chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlour
of the Red Horse at Stratford-on-Avon."
[Illustration: Entrance to the Reindeer Inn, Banbury]
And again, on Christmas Eve Irving tells of his joyous long day's ride
in a coach, and how he at length arrived at a village where he had
determined to stay the night. As he drove into the great gateway of
the inn (some of them were mighty narrow and required much skill on
the part of the Jehu) he saw on one side the light of a rousing
kitchen fire beaming through a window. He "entered and admired, for
the hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and broad
honest enjoyment--the kitchen of an English inn." It was of spacious
dimensions, hung round with copper and tin vessels highly polished,
and decorated here and there with Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and
flitches of bacon were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made
its ceaseless clanking beside the fire-place, and a clock ticked in
one corner. A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of the
kitchen, with a cold round of beef and other hearty viands upon it,
over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard.
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