THE VILLAGE ALE-HOUSE.


Railroads were unknown in the times in which our story occurred, and the
village ale-house was still the rendezvous of the villagers of an
evening; the parson still occasionally looked in and smoked his pipe
with the lawyer, the exciseman, the sexton, and the parish-clerk; while
the sturdy farmers, the smith, the butcher, and baker formed another
circle; while the laborers and ploughmen, the butcher-boy and the
tailor's apprentice lounged in to drink with greedy ears the news; to
listen to the wise saws of the village politicians, and become in due
time convinced that by some strange freak of fortune the only persons
incompetent to rule the country were those in power at the time. Mrs.
Alice Goodfellow, the landlady and proprietress of this village elysium,
fair, fat, and forty, was a buxom widow, shrewd, good-humored and fond
of pleasure, but careful withal and fond of admiration. She never,
however, allowed any one of her admirers, to suppose himself more
favored than the rest; neither did she suffer any of them to languish in
despair. If she allowed the smith to hand her to her pew in church on
Sunday, she, nevertheless, smiled sweetly on the baker; and if she took
a drive in Farmer Dobson's pony-chaise for her health, yet, Farmer
Thomas would sit for hours inside her bar; the truth was, the good widow
was perfectly well aware that her snug little free-hold and thriving
little trade were quite as great objects of attraction as her delectable
self, and acting on the same principle as that old humbug 'Elizabeth,'
insanely called 'the good Queen Bess,' viz: the balancing opposite
interests, she drew custom to her house and grist to her mill, without
troubling herself as to selection from her numerous admirers, which,
besides displeasing the others, would place another in authority over
that bar, which, for the last ten years, she had ruled monarch of all