I had determined to go to Ormskirk, but
soon got out of the way, and came to a little hamlet that looked antique
and picturesque, with its small houses of stone and brick, built, with
the one material and repaired with the other perhaps ages afterward.
Here I inquired my way of a woman, who told me, in broad Lancashire
dialect, "that I main go back, and turn to my left, till I came to a
finger-post"; and so I did, and found another little hamlet, the
principal object in which was a public-house, with a large sign,
representing a dance round a Maypole. It was now about one o'clock; so I
entered, and, being ushered into what, I suppose, they called the
coffee-room, I asked for some cold neat and ale. There was a jolly,
round, rather comely woman for a hostess, with a free, hospitable, yet
rather careless manner.
The coffee-room smelt rather disagreeably of bad tobacco-smoke, and was
shabbily furnished with an old sofa and flag-bottomed chairs, and adorned
with a print of "Old Billy," a horse famous for a longevity of about
sixty years; and also with colored engravings of old-fashioned
hunting-scenes, conspicuous with scarlet coats. There was a very small
bust of Milton on the mantel-piece. By and by the remains of an immense
round of beef, three quarters cut away, were put on the table; then some
smoking-hot potatoes; and finally the hostess told me that their own
dinner was just ready, and so she had brought me in some hot chops,
thinking I might prefer them to the cold meat.
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