"There you are, Ralph! That is our destination for to-night; it may be our haven for many days." "Funny looking place," laughed the boy. "But all these English towns are funny, after the plains and the mountains. And it is funny," he added, "that I am an English boy, and yet am talking like that." "Not funny, lad, seeing that you have never set foot in your native land before. Ah me, it is not funny to me! It comes back like the faces of old familiar friends. The scenes of childhood's happiness, and youth's hopes and follies. All changed, and yet nothing changed; and I myself unchanged, and yet most changed of all! Come," he went on, "you are tired, for we have walked a long way, and have had a long railway journey into the bargain. Unless things are altered down there, we shall find a comfortable old inn where we can put up, Ralph--a real old English inn. Quite different from the hotels where we have stopped. Come on, lad!" Changing his handbag from one cramped hand to the other, the lad obeyed the call, and trudged forward briskly with the strong, elastic step of buoyant youth. At first he poured out a string of questions relative to life in English towns; but one or two being unanswered, he glanced towards his father, and perceiving him buried in thought again, he walked on in silence, yet keen-eyed, noting everything around. A few scattered cottages and outlying buildings passed, the pair were in the precincts of the town itself; and almost one of the first houses they came to was the one the father sought--a quaint, thatched, many-gabled old place, with commodious stabling and a great creaking sign-post near the horse trough, giving the information to all who cared to possess it that this was the _Horse and Wheel Inn_, wherein might be found accommodation for both man and beast. "Just the same! Nothing changed!" murmured the man as the two arrived at the spot. "Twenty years have brought no revolution here. Come, lad!" And he entered the old hostelry. A bonnie waiting-maid met them; and in response to the man's query if they could have a room she called the landlord, a portly old fellow, with bald head fringed with grey hair, a pair of twinkling merry eyes beneath overhanging brows, and a face wherein all the principal features seemed to be entered into a competition as to which could look the ruddiest. "Have a room, sir?" said this individual, in a voice which seemed to proceed from his boots. "Ay, that you can, sir, and all else that you require. Here, Mary girl, show the gentleman to Number Ten! Have the bags carried up, and serve their dinner in the private room." "Number Ten!" said the guest, as he heard the number given. "Come on, Ralph, I know the way!" And he led his son upstairs with the air of one who did indeed know, much to the worthy landlord's astonishment, who murmured to himself as he waddled off to attend to some waggoners-- "He must ha' been here before; but I don't remember his face in the least."