tle community, were inclined to look upon this tradition as
rather apocryphal; but, whenever the landlord of that ancient hostelry
appealed to the mounting block itself as evidence, and triumphantly
pointed out that there it stood in the same place to that very day, the
doubters never failed to be put down by a large majority, and all true
believers exulted as in a victory.

Whether these, and many other stories of the like nature, were true or
untrue, the Maypole was really an old house, a very old house, perhaps
as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which will sometimes
happen with houses of an uncertain, as with ladies of a certain, age.
Its windows were old diamond-pane lattices, its floors were sunken
and uneven, its ceilings blackened by the hand of time, and heavy with
massive beams. Over the doorway was an ancient porch, quaintly and
grotesquely carved; and here on summer evenings the more favoured
customers smoked and drank--ay, and sang many a good song too,
sometimes--reposing on two grim-looking high-backed settles, which,
like the twin dragons of some fairy tale, guarded the entrance to the
mansion.

In the chimneys of the disused rooms, swallows had built their nests
for many a long year, and from earliest spring to latest autumn whole
colonies of sparrows chirped and twittered in the eaves. There were more
pigeons about the dreary stable-yard and out-buildings than anybody
but the landlord could reckon up. The wheeling and circling flights
of runts, fantails, tumblers, and pouters, were perhaps not quite
consistent with the grave and sober character of the building, but the
monotonous cooing, which never ceased to be raised by some among them
all day long, suited it exactly, and seemed to lull it to rest. With its
overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging
out and projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were
nodding in its sleep. Indeed, it needed no very great stretch of fancy
to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. The bricks of which it
was built had originally been a deep dark red, but had grown yellow and
discoloured like an old man's skin; the sturdy timbers had decayed like
teeth; and here and there the ivy, like a warm garment to comfort it in
its age, wrapt its green leaves closely round the time-worn walls.

It was a hale and hearty age though, still: and in the summer or
autumn evenings, when the glow of the setting sun fell upon t