THE HOLLY SPRIG INN
In the middle of the day I stopped at Vernon, and the afternoon was
well advanced when I came in sight of a little way-side house with a
broad unfenced green in front of it, and a swinging sign which told
the traveller that this was the "Holly Sprig Inn."
I dismounted on the opposite side of the road and gazed upon the
smoothly shaven greensward in front of the little inn; upon the pretty
upper windows peeping out from their frames of leaves; upon the
queerly-shaped projections of the building; upon the low portico which
shaded the doorway; and upon the gentle stream of blue smoke which
rose from the great gray chimney.
Then I turned and looked over the surrounding country. There were
broad meadows slightly descending to a long line of trees, between
which I could see the glimmering of water. On the other side of the
road, and extending back of the inn, there were low, forest-crowned
hills. Then my eyes, returning to nearer objects, fell upon an
old-fashioned garden, with bright flowers and rows of box, which lay
beyond the house.
"Why on earth," I thought, "should I pass such a place as this and go
on to the Cheltenham, with its waiters in coat tails, its nurse-maids,
and its rows of people on piazzas? She could not know my tastes, and
perhaps she had thought but little on the subject, and had taken her
ideas from her father. He is just the man to be contented with nothing
else than a vast sprawling hotel, with disdainful menials expecting
tips."
I rolled my bicycle along the little path which ran around the green,
and knocked upon the open door of Holly Sprig Inn.
In a few moments a boy came into the hall. He was not dressed like an
ordinary hotel attendant, but his appearance was decent, and he might
have been a sub-clerk or a head hall-boy.
"Can I obtain lodging here for the night?" I asked.
The boy looked at me from head to foot, and an expression such as
might be produced by too much lemon juice came upon his face.
"No," said he; "we don't take cyclers."
This reception was something novel to me, who had cycled over
thousands of miles, and I was not at all inclined to accept it at the
hands of the boy. I stepped into the hall. "Can I see the master of
this house?" said I.
"There ain't none," he answered, gruffly.
"Well, then, I want to see whoever is in charge."
He looked as if he were about to say that he was in charge, but he had
no opportunity for such impertinence. A female figure came into the
hall and advanced towards me. She stopped in an attitude of
interrogation.
"I was just inquiring," I said, with a bow--for I saw that the
new-comer was not a servant--"if I could be accommodated here for the
night, but the boy informed me that cyclers are not received here."
"What!" she exclaimed, and turned as if she would speak to the boy,
but he had vanished. "That is a mistake, sir," she said to me. "Very
few wheelmen do stop here, as they prefer a hotel farther on, but we
are glad to entertain them when they come."
It was not very light in the hall in which we stood, but I could see
that this lady was young, that she was of medium size, and
good-looking.
"Will you walk in, sir, and register?" she said. "I will have your
wheel taken around to the back."
I followed her into a large apartment to the right of the
hall--evidently a room of general assembly. Near the window was a desk
with a great book on it. As I stood before this desk and she handed me
a pen, her face was in the full light of the window, and glancing at
it, the thought struck me that I now knew why Miss Putney did not wish
me to stop at the Holly Sprig Inn. I almost laughed as I turned away
my head to write my name. I was amused, and at the same time I could
not help feeling highly complimented. It cannot but be grateful to the
feelings of a young man to find that a very handsome woman objects to
his making the acquaintance of an extremely pretty one.
When I laid down the pen she stepped up and looked at my name and
address.
"Oh," said she, "you are the schoolmaster at Walford?" She seemed to
be pleased by this discovery, and smiled in a very engaging way as she
said, "I am much interested in that school, for I received a great
part of my education there." "Indeed!" said I, very much surprised.
"But I do not exactly understand. It is a boys' school."
"I know that," she answered, "but both boys and girls used to go
there. Now the girls have a school of their own."
As she spoke I could not help contrasting in my mind what the school
must have been with what it was now.
She stepped to the door and told a woman who was just entering the
room to show me No. 2. The woman said something which I did not hear,
although her tones indicated surprise, and then conducted me to my
room.
This was an exceedingly pleasant chamber on the first floor at the
back of the house. It was furnished far better than the quarters
generally allotted to me in country inns, or, in fact, in hostelries
of any kind. There was great comfort and even simple elegance in its
appointments.
I would have liked to ask the maid some questions, but she was an
elderly woman, who looked as if she might be the mother of the
lemon-juice boy, and as she said not a word to me while she made a few
arrangements in the room, I did not feel emboldened to say anything to
her.
When I left my room and went out on the little porch, I soon came to
the conclusion that this was not a house of great resort. I saw
nobody in front and I heard nobody within. There seemed to be an air
of quiet greenness about the surroundings, and the little porch was a
charming place in which to sit and look upon the evening landscape.
After a time the boy came to tell me that supper was ready. He did so
as if he were informing me that it was time to take medicine and he
had just taken his.
Supper awaited me in a very pleasant room, through the open windows of
which there came a gentle breeze which made me know that there was a
flower-garden not far away. The table was a small one, round, and on
it there was supper for one person. I seated myself, and the elderly
woman waited on me. I was so grateful that the boy was not my
attendant that my heart warmed towards her, and I thought she might
not consider it much out of the way if I said something.
"Did I arrive after the regular supper-time?" I asked. "I am sorry if
I put the establishment to any inconvenience."
"What's inconvenience in your own house isn't anything of the kind in
a tavern," she said. "We're used to that. But it doesn't matter
to-day. You're the only transient; that is, that eats here," she
added.
I wanted very much to ask something about the lady who had gone to
school in Walford, but I thought it would be well to approach that
subject by degrees.
"Apparently," said I, "your house is not full."
"No," said she, "not at this precise moment of time. Do you want some
more tea?"
The tone in which she said this made me feel sure she was the mother
of the boy, and when she had given me the tea, and looked around in a
general way to see that I was provided with what else I needed, she
left the room.
After supper I looked into the large room where I had registered; it
was lighted, and was very comfortably furnished with easy-chairs and a
lounge, but it was an extremely lonely place, and, lighting a cigar, I
went out for a walk. It was truly a beautiful country, and, illumined
by the sunset sky, with all its forms and colors softened by the
growing dusk, it was more charming to me than it had been by daylight.
As I returned to the inn I noticed a man standing at the entrance of a
driveway which appeared to lead back to the stable-yards. "Here is
some one who may talk," I thought, and I stopped.
[Illustration: "WENT OUT FOR A WALK"]
"This ought to be a good country for sport," I said--"fishing, and
that sort of thing."
"You're stoppin' here for the night?" he asked. I presumed from his
voice and appearance that he was a stable-man, and from his tone that
he was disappointed that I had not brought a horse with me.
I assented to his question, and he said:
"I never heard of no fishin'. When people want to fish, they go to a
lake about ten miles furder on."
"Oh, I do not care particularly about fishing," I said, "but there
must be a good many pleasant roads about here."
"There's this one," said he. "The people on wheels keep to it." With
this he turned and walked slowly towards the back of the house.
"A lemon-loving lot!" thought I, and as I approached the porch I saw
that the lady who had gone to school at Walford was standing there. I
did not believe she had been eating lemons, and I stepped forward
quickly for fear that she should depart before I reached her.
"Been taking a walk?" she said, pleasantly. There was something in the
general air of this young woman which indicated that she should have
worn a little apron with pockets, and that her hands should have been
jauntily thrust into those pockets; but her dress included nothing of
the sort.
The hall lamp was now lighted, and I could see that her attire was
extremely neat and becoming. Her face was in shadow, but she had
beautiful hair of a ruddy brown. I asked myself if she were the "lady
clerk" of the establishment, or the daughter of the keeper of the inn.
She was evidently a person in some authority, and one with whom it
would be proper for me to converse, and as she had given me a very
good opportunity to open conversation, I lost no time in doing so.
"And so you used to live in Walford?" I said.
"Oh yes," she replied, and then she began to speak of the pleasant
days she had spent in that village. As she talked I endeavored to
discover from her words who she was and what was her position. I did
not care to discuss Walford. I wanted to talk about the Holly Sprig
Inn, but I could not devise a courteous question which would serve my
purpose.
Presently our attention was attracted by the sound of singing at the
corner of the little lawn most distant from the house. It was growing
dark, and the form of the singer could barely be discerned upon a
bench under a great oak. The voice was that of a man, and his song
was an Italian air from one of Verdi's operas. He sang in a low tone,
as if he were simply amusing himself and did not wish to disturb the
rest of the world.
[Illustration: MRS. CHESTER]
"That must be the Italian who is stopping here for the night," she
said. "We do not generally take such people; but he spoke so civilly,
and said it was so hard to get lodging for his bear--"
"His bear!" I exclaimed.
"Oh yes," she answered, with a little laugh, "he has a bear with him.
I suppose it dances, and so makes a living for its master. Anyway, I
said he might stay and lodge with our stable-man. He would sing very
well if he had a better voice--don't you think so?"
"We do not generally accommodate," "I said he might stay"--these were
phrases which I turned over in my mind. If she were the lady clerk she
might say "we"--even the boy said "we"--but "I said he might stay" was
different. A daughter of a landlord or a landlady might say that.
I made a remark about the difficulty of finding lodging for man and
beast, if the beast happened to be a bear, and I had scarcely finished
it when from the house there came a shrill voice, flavored with lemon
without any sugar, and it said, "Mrs. Chester!"
"Excuse me," said the young lady, and immediately she went in-doors.
Here was a revelation! Mrs. Chester! Strange to say, I had not thought
of her as a married woman; and yet, now that I recalled her manner of
perfect self-possession, she did suggest the idea of a satisfied young
wife. And Mr. Chester--what of him? Could it be possible? Hardly.
There was nothing about her to suggest a widow.