So the way did not seem so long that brought us through the straggling,
dim-lighted streets of Grantsville, up to the porch of its single
hostelry, where, after some parley, I found a fair chance of supper and
bed, and a heavy-handed Orson to help me in racking up Falcon.
It would be very unfair to draw a comparison between an ordinary
roadside inn in England and its synonym up in the country of America; a
better parallel is a speculative railway tavern verging always on
bankruptcy. There is an utter absence of the old-fashioned coziness
which enables you easily to dispense with luxuries. You enter at once
into a stifling, stove heated bar-room, defiled with all nicotine
abominations, where, for the first few minutes, you draw your breath
hard, and then settle down into a dull, uneasy stupor, conscious of
nothing except a weight tightening around your temples like a band of
molten iron. That is the only guest-chamber, save a parlor in the rear,
the ordinary withdrawing-room and nursery of the family, where you take
your meals in an atmosphere impregnated with babies and their
concomitants. The fare is not so bad, after all, and monotony does not
prevent chicken and ham fixings from being very acceptable after a long,
fasting ride. It blew a gale that night from the northwest, and the
savage wind--laden with sheets of snow--hurled itself against eaves and
gable till the crazy tenement quivered from roof-tree to foundation
beams.
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