WATCH Hot Elisha Cuthbert Showing All  CLICK HERE for Instant Access Elisha Cuthbert Photos |
Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
Smart, would ever
have been fit for service again.
"Well, damn my straps and whiskers," says Tom Smart
(Tom sometimes had an unpleasant knack of swearing)--
"damn my straps and whiskers," says Tom, "if this aint
pleasant, blow me!"
Youll very likely ask me why, as Tom Smart had been pretty
well blown already, he expressed this wish to be submitted to the
same process again. I cant say--all I know is, that Tom Smart
said so--or at least he always told my uncle he said so, and its
just the same thing.
"Blow me," says Tom Smart; and the mare neighed as if she
were precisely of the same opinion.
"Cheer up, old girl," said Tom, patting the bay mare on the
neck with the end of his whip. "It wont do pushing on, such a
night as this; the first house we come to well put up at, so the
faster you go the sooner its over. Soho, old girl--gently--gently."
Whether the vixenish mare was sufficiently well acquainted
with the tones of Toms voice to comprehend his meaning, or
whether she found it colder standing still than moving on, of
course I cant say. But I can say that Tom had no sooner finished
speaking, than she pricked up her ears, and started forward at a
speed which made the clay-coloured gig rattle until you would
have supposed every one of the red spokes were going to fly out
on the turf of Marlborough Downs; and even Tom, whip as he
was, couldnt stop or check her pace, until she drew up of her
own accord, before a roadside inn on the right-hand side of the
way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs.
Tom cast a hasty glance at the upper part of the house as he
threw the reins to the hostler, and stuck the whip in the box. It
was a strange old place, built of a kind of shingle, inlaid, as it
were, with cross-beams, with gabled-topped windows projecting
completely over the pathway, and a low door with a dark porch,
and a couple of steep steps leading down into the house, instead
of the modern fashion of half a dozen shallow ones leading up to
it. It was a comfortable-looking place though, for there was a
strong, cheerful light in the bar window, which shed a bright ray
across the road, and even lighted up the hedge on the other side;
and there was a red flickering light in the opposite window, one
moment but faintly discernible, and the next gleaming strongly
through the drawn curtains, which intimated that a rousing fire
was blazing within. Marking these little evidences with the eye of
an experienced traveller, Tom dismounted with as much agility
as his half-frozen limbs would permit, and entered the house.
In less than five minutes time, Tom was ensconced in the
room opposite the bar--the very room where he had imagined
the fire blazing--before a substantial, matter-of-fact, roaring
fire, composed of something short of a bushel of coals, and wood
enough to make half a dozen decent gooseberry bushes, piled
half-way up the chimney, and roaring and crackling with a
sound that of itself would have warmed the heart of any reasonable
man. This was comfortable, but this was not all; for a
smartly-dressed girl, with a bright eye and a neat ankle, was
laying a very clean white cloth on the table; and as Tom sat with
his slippered feet on the fender, and his back to the open door, he
saw a charming prospect of the bar reflected in the glass over the
chimney-piece, with delightful rows of green bottles and gold
labels, together with jars of pickles and preserves, and cheeses
and boiled hams, and rounds of beef, arranged on shelves in the
most tempting and delicious array. Well, this was comfortable
too; but even this was not all--for in the bar, seated at tea at the
nicest possible little table, drawn close up before the brightest
possible little fire, was a buxom widow of somewhere about
eight-and-forty or thereabouts, with a face as comfortable as the
bar, who was evidently the landlady of the house, and the
supreme ruler over all these agreeable possessions. There was
only one drawback to the beauty of the whole picture, and that
was a tall man--a very tall man--in a brown coat and bright
basket buttons, and black whiskers and wavy black hair, who
was seated at tea with the widow, and who it The Pickwick Papers page 87 The Pickwick Papers page 89 |