Trying to settle down, therefore, in my
solitude, I first of all asked what books there
were in the house? The waiter brought me a
Book of Roads, two or three old Newspapers,
a little Song-book terminating in a collection
of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-book,
an odd volume of Peregrine Pickle, and the
Sentimental Journey. I knew every word of
the two last already, but I read them through
again; then tried to hum all the songs (Auld
Lang Syne was among them); went entirely
through the jokes—in which I found a fund
of melancholy adapted to my state of mind;
proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the
sentiments, and mastered the papers. The
latter had nothing in them but Stock advertisements,
a meeting about a county rate, and a
highway robbery. As I am a greedy reader,
I could not make this supply hold out until
night; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being
then entirely cast upon my own resources, I
got through an hour in considering what to
do next. Ultimately, it came into my head
(from which I was anxious by any means to
exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would
endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and
would try how long it lasted me. I stirred
the fire, moved my chair a little to one side
of the screen—not daring to go far, for I
knew the wind was waiting to make a rush
at me—I could hear it growling—and began.

My first impressions of an Inn, dated from
the Nursery; consequently, I went back to the
Nursery for a starting-point, and found
myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a
fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green
gown, whose speciality was a dismal narrative
of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors
unaccountably disappeared for many years,
until it was discovered that the pursuit of
his life had been to convert them into pies.
For the better devotion of himself to this
branch of industry, he had constructed a secret
door behind the head of the bed; and when
the visitor (oppressed with pie), had fallen
asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly
in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the
other, would cut his throat, and would make
him into pies; for which purpose he had
coppers underneath a trap-door, always
boiling; and rolled out his pastry in the dead
of the night. Yet even he was not insensible
to the stings of conscience, for he never went
to sleep without being heard to mutter, "Too
much pepper!"—which was eventually the
cause of his being brought to justice. I had
no sooner disposed of this criminal than there
started up another, of the same period, whose
profession was, originally, housebreaking; in
the pursuit of which art he had had his right
ear chopped off one night as he was burglariously
getting in at a window, by a brave and
lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed
woman, though not at all answering the
description, always mysteriously implied to be
herself). After several years, this brave and
lovely servant-maid was married to the land-
lord of a country Inn: which landlord had this
remarkable characteristic, that he always
wore a silk nightcap, and never would, on
any consideration, take it off. At last, one
night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and
lovely woman lifted up his silk nightcap on
the right side, and found that he had no ear
there; upon which, she sagaciously perceived
that he was the clipped housebreaker, who
had married her with the intention of putting
her to death. She immediately heated the
poker and terminated his career, for which
she was taken to King George upon his
throne, and received the compliments of royalty
on her great discretion and valour. This
same narrator, who had a Ghoulish pleasure,
I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to
the utmost confines of my reason, had another
authentic anecdote within her own experience,
founded, I now believe, upon Raymond and
Agnes or the Bleeding Nun. She said it
happened to her brother-in-law, who was
immensely rich—which my father was not; and
immensely tall—which my father was not.
It was always a point with this Ghoule to
present my dearest relations and friends to
my youthful mind, under circumstances of
disparaging contrast. The brother-in-law
was riding once, through a forest, on a
magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at
our house), attended by a favourite and
valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog),
when he found himself benighted, and came to
an Inn. A dark woman opened the door, and
he asked her if he could have a bed there?
She answered yes, and put his horse in the
stable, and took him into a room where there
were two dark men. While he was at supper,
a parrot in the room began to talk, saying,
"Blood, blood! Wipe up the blood!" Upon
which, one of the dark men wrung the parrot's
neck, and said he was fond of roasted parrots,
and he meant to have this one for breakfast in
the morning. After eating and drinking
heartily, the immensely rich tall brother-in-
law went up to bed; but, he was rather
vexed, because they had shut his dog in
the stable, saying that they never allowed
dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for
more than an hour, thinking and thinking,
when, just as his candle was burning out, he
heard a scratch at the door. He opened the
door, and there was the Newfoundland dog!
The dog came softly in, smelt about him,
went straight to some straw in a corner
which the dark men had said covered apples,
tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets
steeped in blood. Just at that moment the
candle went out, and the brother-in-law,
looking through a chink in the door, saw the
two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed
with a dagger, that long (about five feet);
the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a
spade. Having no remembrance of the close
of this adventure, I suppose my faculties to
have been always so frozen with terror at
this stage of it, that the power of listening