A while, and that he passed his time making
war on the neighbors.
Mr. Poplington took us to a tavern called the Ship Inn, and I simply
went wild over it. It is two hundred years old and two stories high,
and everything I ever read about the hostelries of the past I saw
there. The queer little door led into a queer little passage paved with
stone. A pair of little stairs led out of this into another little
room, higher up, and on the other side of the passage was a long,
mysterious hallway. We had our dinner in a tiny parlor, which reminded
me of a chapter in one of those old books where they use f instead of
s, and where the first word of the next page is at the bottom of the
one you are reading.
There was a fireplace in the room with a window one side of it, through
which you could look into the street. It was not cold, but it had begun
to rain hard, and so I made the dampness an excuse for a fire.
"This is antique, indeed," I said, when we were at the table.
"You are right there," said Mr. Poplington, who was doing his best to
carve a duck, and was a little cross about it.
When I sat before the fire that evening, and Jone was asleep on a
settee of the days of yore, and Mr. Poplington had gone to bed, being
tired, my soul went back to the olden time, and, looking out through
the little window in the fireplace, I fancied I could see William the
Conqueror and the King of the Danes sneaking along the little street
under the eaves of the thatched roofs, until I was so worked up that I
was on the point of shouting, "Fly! oh, Saxon!" when the door opened
and the maid who waited on us at the table put her head in. I took this
for a sign that the curfew bell was going to ring, and so I woke up
Jone and we went to bed.
But all night long the heroes of the past flocked about me. I had been
reading a lot of history, and I knew them all the minute my eyes fell
upon them. Charlemagne and Canute sat on the end of the bed, while
Alfred the Great climbed up one of the posts until he was stopped by
Hannibal's legs, who had them twisted about the post to keep himself
steady. When I got up in the morning I went down-stairs into the little
parlor, and there was the maid down on her knees cleaning the hearth.
"What is your name?" I said to her.
"Jane, please," said she.
