Emma--still seems to wait the coming of the appropriate legend. Within these

ivied walls, behind these old green shutters, some further business smoulders,

waiting for its hour. The old Hawes Inn at the Queen's ferry makes a similar

call upon my fancy. There it stands, apart from the town, beside the pier, in a

climate of its own, half inland, half marine--in front, the ferry bubbling with

the tide and the guard-ship swinging to her anchor; behind, the old garden with

the trees. Americans seek it already for the sake of Lovel and Oldbuck, who

dined there at the beginning of the _Antiquary_. But you need not tell me--that

is not all; there is some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which must

express the meaning of that inn more fully.... I have lived both at the Hawes

and Burford in a perpetual flutter, on the heel, as it seemed, of some adventure

that should justify the place; but though the feeling had me to bed at night and

called me again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and suspense,

nothing befell me in either worth remark. The man or the hour had not yet come;

but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the Queen's ferry, fraught with

a dear cargo, and some frosty night a horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with

his whip upon the green shutters at the inn at Burford.

 

--R.L. STEVENSON, _A Gossip on Romance_.

 

_FROM "MIDNIGHT IN LONDON"_

 

Clang! Clang! Clang! the fire-bells! Bing! Bing! Bing! the alarm! In an instant

quiet turns to uproar--an outburst of noise, excitement, clamor--bedlam broke

loose; Bing! Bing! Bing! Rattle, clash and clatter. Open fly the doors; brave