The Colonel's also,
for the sake of his parole. Requiescat.
CHAPTER XV--THE ADVENTURE OF THE ATTORNEY'S CLERK
I have mentioned our usual course, which was to eat in
inconsiderable wayside hostelries, known to King. It was a
dangerous business; we went daily under fire to satisfy our
appetite, and put our head in the loin's mouth for a piece of
bread. Sometimes, to minimise the risk, we would all dismount
before we came in view of the house, straggle in severally, and
give what orders we pleased, like disconnected strangers. In like
manner we departed, to find the cart at an appointed place, some
half a mile beyond. The Colonel and the Major had each a word or
two of English--God help their pronunciation! But they did well
enough to order a rasher and a pot or call a reckoning; and, to say
truth, these country folks did not give themselves the pains, and
had scarce the knowledge, to be critical.
About nine or ten at night the pains of hunger and cold drove us to
an alehouse in the flats of Bedfordshire, not far from Bedford
itself. In the inn kitchen was a long, lean, characteristic-
looking fellow of perhaps forty, dressed in black. He sat on a
settle by the fireside, smoking a long pipe, such as they call a
yard of clay. His hat and wig were hanged upon the knob behind
him, his head as bald as a bladder of lard, and his expression very
shrewd, cantankerous, and inquisitive.
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