I have mentioned our usual course, which was to eat in inconsiderable wayside hostelries, known to King.

It was a dangerous business; we went daily under fire to satisfy our appetite, and put our head in the loin's mouth for a piece of bread.

Sometimes, to minimise the risk, we would all dismount before we came in view of the house, straggle in severally, and give what orders we pleased, like disconnected strangers.

In like manner we departed, to find the cart at an appointed place, some half a mile beyond.

The Colonel and the Major had each a word or two of English--God help their pronunciation! But they did well enough to order a rasher and a pot or call a reckoning; and, to say truth, these country folks did not give themselves the pains, and had scarce the knowledge, to be critical.
About nine or ten at night the pains of hunger and cold drove us to an alehouse in the flats of Bedfordshire, not far from Bedford itself.