ht have been expected to suit the taste of a gentleman of his years,
with a short, black velvet cape, and laced pocket-holes and cuffs, all
of a jaunty fashion; his linen, too, was of the finest kind, worked in a
rich pattern at the wrists and throat, and scrupulously white. Although
he seemed, judging from the mud he had picked up on the way, to have
come from London, his horse was as smooth and cool as his own iron-grey
periwig and pigtail. Neither man nor beast had turned a single hair; and
saving for his soiled skirts and spatter-dashes, this gentleman, with
his blooming face, white teeth, exactly-ordered dress, and perfect
calmness, might have come from making an elaborate and leisurely toilet,
to sit for an equestrian portrait at old John Willet's gate.

It must not be supposed that John observed these several characteristics
by other than very slow degrees, or that he took in more than half a one
at a time, or that he even made up his mind upon that, without a great
deal of very serious consideration. Indeed, if he had been distracted in
the first instance by questionings and orders, it would have taken him
at the least a fortnight to have noted what is here set down; but it
happened that the gentleman, being struck with the old house, or with
the plump pigeons which were skimming and curtseying about it, or with
the tall maypole, on the top of which a weathercock, which had been out
of order for fifteen years, performed a perpetual walk to the music of
its own creaking, sat for some little time looking round in silence.
Hence John, standing with his hand upon the horse's bridle, and
his great eyes on the rider, and with nothing passing to divert his
thoughts, had really got some of these little circumstances into his
brain by the time he was called upon to speak.

'A quaint place this,' said the gentleman--and his voice was as rich as
his dress. 'Are you the landlord?'

'At your service, sir,' replied John Willet.

'You can give my horse good stabling, can you, and me an early dinner (I
am not particular what, so that it be cleanly served), and a decent
room of which there seems to be no lack in this great mansion,' said the
stranger, again running his eyes over the exterior.

'You can have, sir,' returned John with a readiness quite surprising,
'anything you please.'

'It's well I am easily satisfied,' returned the other with a smile,
'or that might prove a hardy pledge, my friend.' And saying so, he
dism