They had started soon after sunrise, and twelve o’clock found them more than twenty-five miles from Fredericksburg. They stopped at a road-side tavern for dinner and some hours’ rest. The tavern was large and comfortable, and boasted the luxury of a private room, where dinner was served to the earl and his young guest. The tavern-keeper himself carved for them, and although he treated the earl with great respect, saying “My lord” at every other word, according to the custom of the day, there was no servility in his manner. Like everybody else, he was struck with George’s manner and appearance on first seeing him, and, finding out that he was the son of the late Colonel Augustine Washington, made the boy’s face glow with praise of his father. When the time came to start George made his request that he be allowed to ride a horse, and he was immediately given his choice of the four bays. He examined them all quickly, but with the eye of a natural judge of a horse, and unerringly picked out the best of the lot. “Do not feel obliged to regulate your pace by ours,” said the earl. “We are to sleep to-night at Farley’s tavern, only twenty miles from here, and so you present yourself by sundown it is enough.” George mounted and rode off. He found the bay well rested by his two hours’ halt and ready for his work. He felt so much freer and happier on horseback than in the chariot that he could not help wishing he could make the rest of the journey in that way. But he thought it would scarcely be polite to abandon the earl altogether, and determined to make the first stage in the coach every day. He rode on all the afternoon, keeping the high-road with ease, although towards the end it began to grow wilder and rougher. He reached Farley’s tavern some time before sundown, and his arrival giving advance notice of the earl, everything was ready for him, even to a fine wild turkey roasting on the kitchen spit for supper. Like most of the road-houses of the day, Farley’s was spacious and comfortable, though not luxurious. There was a private room there, too, with a roaring fire of hickory logs on the hearth, for the night had grown colder. At supper, when there was time to spare, old Lance produced a box, out of which he took some handsome table furniture and a pair of tall silver candlesticks. The supper was brought in smoking hot, Lance bearing aloft the wild turkey on a vast platter. He also brought forth a bottle of wine of superior vintage to anything that the tavern cellar could produce.