God help the man whose heart ever changes with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn! No effort had been made to furnish this chilly waste, but before the broad chimney a colony of chairs and tables had been planted on a square of carpet, flanked by a ghostly screen, enriched with figures, grinning and grotesque.

After lighting with his own hands the faggots which were heaped upon the hearth, old John withdrew to hold grave council with his cook, touching the stranger's entertainment; while the guest himself, seeing small comfort in the yet unkindled wood, opened a lattice in the distant window, and basked in a sickly gleam of cold March sun.
Leaving the window now and then, to rake the crackling logs together, or pace the echoing room from end to end, he closed it when the fire was quite burnt up, and having wheeled the easiest chair into the warmest corner, summoned John Willet.
'Sir,' said John.
He wanted pen, ink, and paper.

There was an old standish on the mantelshelf containing a dusty apology for all three.

Having set this before him, the landlord was retiring, when he motioned him to stay.
'There's a house not far from here,' said the guest when he had written a few lines, 'which you call the Warren, I believe ?' As this was said in the tone of one who knew the fact, and asked the question as a thing of course, John contented himself with nodding his head in the affirmative; at the same time taking one hand out of his pockets to cough behind, and then putting it in again.
'I want this note'-- said the guest, glancing on what he had written, and folding it, 'conveyed there without loss of time, and an answer brought back here.

Have you a messenger at hand ?' John was thoughtful for a minute or thereabouts, and then said Yes.
'Let me see him,' said the guest.
This was disconcerting; for Joe being out, and Hugh engaged in rubbing down the chestnut cob, he designed sending on the errand, Barnaby, who had just then arrived in one of his rambles, and who, so that he thought himself employed on a grave and serious business, would go anywhere.
'Why the truth is,' said John after a long pause, 'that the person who'd go quickest, is a sort of natural, as one may say, sir; and though quick of foot, and as much to be trusted as the post itself, he's not good at talking, being touched and flighty, sir.' 'You don't,' said the guest, raising his eyes to John's fat face, 'you don't mean--what's the fellow's name--you don't mean Barnaby ?' 'Yes, I do,' returned the landlord, his features turning quite expressive with surprise.
'How comes he to be here ?' inquired the guest, leaning back in his chair; speaking in the bland, even tone, from which he never varied; and with the same soft, courteous, never-changing smile upon his face.