The aspect of the landlord and landlady of the house at which they now paused was very different from that of their late host. The latter was a buxom dame of forty-five, with traces of beauty passed away, a coquettish air, a neat foot and instep, and a bodice laced with what the Puritans would have considered very indecent red ribbons. Her husband was a jovial man, some ten years older than herself, with a face as round and rosy as the setting sun, a paunch beginning to be somewhat unwieldy, but with a stout pair of legs underneath it, which bore it up manfully. He wore his hat on one side as he came out to greet his new guests, and a cock's feather therein, as if to mark peculiarly his abhorrence of puritanical simplicity. The first appearance of Lord Beverley and his party, the plainness of their dress, and the soberness of their air, did not seem much to conciliate his regard; but the nose of Captain Barecolt had something pleasant and propitious in his eyes, and the light ease with which the Earl of Beverley sprang to the ground and lifted Arrah Neil from the saddle also found favour in his sight; for the worthy landlord had a very low estimation of the qualities of all the parliamentary party, and could not make up his mind to believe that any one belonging to it could sit a horse, wield a sword, or fire a shot, with the same grace and dexterity as a Cavalier. Just as the earl was leading in Arrah Neil, however, and Barecolt was following, Diggory Falgate, to use a nautical term, hove in sight; and the landlord, who was giving orders to his ostler for the care of the horses, rubbed his eyes and gazed, and then rubbed his eyes again, exclaiming, "By all the holy martyrs! I do believe that it is that jovial blade Falgate, who painted my sign, and kept us in a roar all the time it was doing." "Ay, sir, that's just Diggory," answered the ostler, "though I wonder to see him a-horseback; for, if you remember, he once got upon our mare, and she shot him over her head in a minute." "Ah, jolly Falgate!" cried the landlord, advancing towards him; "how goes it with you?" "Hardly, hardly, good Master Stubbs," answered the painter. "This accursed beast has beaten me like a stockfish; and I am sure that my knees, with holding on, are at this moment all black and blue, and green and yellow, like an unscraped pullet." "Faith, I am sorry to hear it," replied the landlord; "but you will come to it--you will come to it, Master Falgate. All things are beaten into us by an application on the same part, from our first schooling to our last. But tell me, do you know who these people are who have just come?" "Tell you! To be sure," cried Diggory Falgate; "I am of their party. One is a great lord." "What! the long man with the nose?" cried the worthy host. "'Tis a lordly nose--that I'll vouch for."