eighteen hundred and eleven, the year
of the comet, the best vintage on record; the wine which we have been
drinking," he added, "is good, but not to be compared with this, which I
never sell, and which I am chary of. When you have drunk some of it, I
think you will own that I have conferred an obligation upon you;" he then
filled the glasses, the wine which he poured out diffusing an aroma
through the room; then motioning me to drink, he raised his own glass to
his lips, saying, "Come, friend, I drink to your success at Horncastle."

CHAPTER XXX

Triumphal Departure--No Season like Youth--Extreme Old Age--Beautiful
England--The Ratcatcher--A Misadventure.

I departed from the inn much in the same fashion as I had come to it,
mounted on a splendid horse indifferently well caparisoned, with the
small valise attached to my crupper, in which, besides the few things I
had brought with me, was a small book of roads with a map which had been
presented to me by the landlord. I must not forget to state that I did
not ride out of the yard, but that my horse was brought to me at the
front door by old Bill, who insisted upon doing so, and who refused a
five-shilling piece which I offered him; and it will be as well to let
the reader know that the landlord shook me by the hand as I mounted, and
that the people attached to the inn, male and female--my friend the
postillion at the head--assembled before the house to see me off, and
gave me three cheers as I rode away. Perhaps no person ever departed
from an inn with more eclat or better wishes; nobody looked at me
askance, except two stage-coachmen who were loitering about, one of whom
said to his companion, "I say, Jim! twig his portmanteau! a regular
Newmarket turn-out, by--!"

It was in the cool of the evening of a bright day--all the days of that
summer were bright--that I departed. I felt at first rather melancholy
at finding myself again launched into the wide world, and leaving the
friends whom I had lately made behind me; but by occasionally trotting
the horse, and occasionally singing a song of Romanvile, I had dispelled
the feeling of melancholy by the time I had proceeded three miles down
the main road. It was at the end of these three miles, just opposite a
milestone, that I struck into a cross road. After riding about seven
miles, threading what are called, in postillion parlance, cross-country
roads, I reached another high road, tending to the east, al