snowing.

We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns
and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of
birds. At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst
from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and
moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. I found that
we were going to change.

They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as
white as King Lear's in a single minute, "What Inn is this?"

"The Holly-Tree, sir," said he.

"Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically, to the guard and
coachman, "that I must stop here."

Now the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post-boy, and
all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-
eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on.
The coachman had already replied, "Yes, he'd take her through
it,"--meaning by Her the coach,--"if so be as George would stand by him."
George was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by
him. So the helpers were already getting the horses out.

My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement
without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announcement being
smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful
man, I should have had the confidence to make it. As it was, it received
the approval even of the guard and coachman. Therefore, with many
confirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to
another, that the gentleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow,
whereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a
gentleman being froze--ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause
was added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely
well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body;
did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good-night
and a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself, after all, for
leaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and
waiter of the Holly-Tree up-stairs.

I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they
showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have
absorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were
complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wa