nt of junction a
centre for the town. Here stood the Red Lion; had it been called the
brown lion, the nomenclature would have been more strictly correct;
and here, in the old days of coaching, some life had been wont to
stir itself at those hours in the day and night when the Freetraders,
Tallyhoes, and Royal Mails changed their horses. But now there was a
railway station a mile and a half distant, and the moving life of the
town of Courcy was confined to the Red Lion omnibus, which seemed to
pass its entire time in going up and down between the town and the
station, quite unembarrassed by any great weight of passengers.

There were, so said the Courcyites when away from Courcy, excellent
shops in the place; but they were not the less accustomed, when
at home among themselves, to complain to each other of the vile
extortion with which they were treated by their neighbours. The
ironmonger, therefore, though he loudly asserted that he could beat
Bristol in the quality of his wares in one direction, and undersell
Gloucester in another, bought his tea and sugar on the sly in one
of those larger towns; and the grocer, on the other hand, equally
distrusted the pots and pans of home production. Trade, therefore, at
Courcy, had not thriven since the railway had opened: and, indeed,
had any patient inquirer stood at the cross through one entire day,
counting customers who entered the neighbouring shops, he might well
have wondered that any shops in Courcy could be kept open.

And how changed has been the bustle of that once noisy inn to the
present death-like silence of its green courtyard! There, a lame
ostler crawls about with his hands thrust into the capacious pockets
of his jacket, feeding on memory. That weary pair of omnibus jades,
and three sorry posters, are all that now grace those stables where
horses used to be stalled in close contiguity by the dozen; where
twenty grains apiece, abstracted from every feed of oats consumed
during the day, would have afforded a daily quart to the lucky
pilferer.

Come, my friend, and discourse with me. Let us know what are thy
ideas of the inestimable benefits which science has conferred on us
in these, our latter days. How dost thou, among others, appreciate
railways and the power of steam, telegraphs, telegrams, and our new
expresses? But indifferently, you say. "Time was I've zeed vifteen
pair o' 'osses go out of this 'ere yard in vour-and-twenty hour;
and now there be'ant vift