The evening was sharp, and, as I had travelled outside, an introduction to a snug parlour and sparkling wood-fire was agreeable. I ordered supper and a bed; and, while the former was being prepared, considered in what manner, and by what means, I should endeavour to obtain an interview with Mr. Clifford. Mr. Hartley had recommended me to glean some intelligence from the landlord, should I find him inclined to be communicative; and, when the cloth had been removed and a correct assortment of fluids was placed upon the table, I desired “mine host” to be summoned to the presence. When he appeared, I had no difficulty to ascertain at a glance that he had pursued in earlier life the honourable trade of arms, and, like myself, had been intended to supply “food for powder.” He was a tall, hale, hearty-looking veteran, and stout for his years, albeit Father Time had silvered his head and stooped his shoulders. Still maintaining that feeling of deference when in the presence of a superior, which military usage renders habitual, he drew himself up at the foot of the table, and respectfully inquired “what my honour wanted?” “Nothing, my worthy host, but your company for half an hour. The evenings grow long, and I hate ‘to drink one hand against the other,’ as we say in Ireland. If I guess right, you have retired from a profession on which I have but entered recently.” “Yes, sir,” returned he of the Fox and Hounds;--“I wore the king’s livery for fifteen years; and, God bless him, now that I have done my work, he allows me two-and-eightpence a-day to enable me to drink his health in comfort.” “You seem, when you bade Brown-Bess good-bye, to have taken up comfortable quarters here, my friend.” “I am, thank God, not only comfortable, but in garrison I hope for life. When I returned home, I married the sergeant-major’s widow. Well, we each had laid by a bit of money--put it together--took this house--and after being five years keeping the business going on, things have gone straight enough with us, and we are better by the half than when we entered it. I wish every worn-out soldier had as snug cantonments for old age.” “Have you served abroad?” “I began in Holland with the Duke of York, and I finished in Spain with poor Sir John.” “What regiments did you serve in?” “Never but in one, the old steady fifty --th. Under its honoured colours I stood my last field, at Corunna, and fought my first one at Malines.” “You were in the grenadiers; do you remember who commanded?” “As stout a soldier as ever took a company into fire--Colonel O’Halloran.” “Then you fought under my father.” The retired soldier put down the glass he was lifting to his lips, and for a moment scanned my features eagerly.