Now they pull up at a lodge, and take on board a well-muffled-up sportsman, with his gun-case and carpet-bag, An early up-coach meets them, and the coachmen gather up their horses, and pass one another with the accustomed lift of the elbow, each team doing eleven miles an hour, with a mile to spare behind if necessary.

And here comes breakfast.
"Twenty minutes here, gentlemen," says the coachman, as they pull up at half-past seven at the inn-door.
Have we not endured nobly this morning?
and is not this a worthy reward for much endurance?
There is the low, dark wainscoted room hung with sporting prints; the hat-stand (with a whip or two standing up in it belonging to bagmen who are still snug in bed) by the door; the blazing fire, with the quaint old glass over the mantelpiece, in which is stuck a large card with the list of the meets for the week of the county hounds; the table covered with the whitest of cloths and of china, and bearing a pigeon-pie, ham, round of cold boiled beef cut from a mammoth ox, and the great loaf of household bread on a wooden trencher.

And here comes in the stout head waiter, puffing under a tray of hot viands--kidneys and a steak, transparent rashers and poached eggs, buttered toast and muffins, coffee and tea, all smoking hot.

The table can never hold it all.

The cold meats are removed to the sideboard--they were only put on for show and to give us an appetite.