stood in a posture of defence. Mr. Fillet armed himself with the poker,
which happened to be red hot; the ostler pulled down a rusty firelock,
that hung by the roof, over a flitch of bacon. Tom Clarke perceiving the
landlady and her children distracted with terror, conducted them, out of
mere compassion, below stairs into the cellar; and as for Mr. Ferret, he
prudently withdrew into an adjoining pantry.

But as a personage of great importance in this entertaining history was
forced to remain some time at the door before he could gain admittance,
so must the reader wait with patience for the next chapter, in which he
will see the cause of this disturbance explained much to his comfort and
edification.




CHAPTER TWO

IN WHICH THE HERO OF THESE ADVENTURES MAKES HIS FIRST APPEARANCE ON THE
STAGE OF ACTION.


The outward door of the Black Lion had already sustained two dreadful
shocks, but at the third it flew open, and in stalked an apparition that
smote the hearts of our travellers with fear and trepidation. It was the
figure of a man armed cap-a-pee, bearing on his shoulders a bundle
dropping with water, which afterwards appeared to be the body of a man
that seemed to have been drowned, and fished up from the bottom of the
neighbouring river.