At the supper-table where I was, were seven or eight men. The one just opposite me was a strong-built, middle-aged man, in a pepper-and-salt riding-coat and waistcoat, with an open, weather-beaten face, and keen, deep-set, gray eyes, who seemed bent on making a good supper. Next above him were the two Oxford scholars, but they didn’t take the least notice of me, which I thought they might have done, after our morning’s ride together. They had finished supper, and were smoking cigars, and chatting with one another, and with the pepper-and-salt man, whom they called Doctor. But my observations were soon cut short by Peter, who came back with my plate and knife and fork, and a foaming pewter of ale, and I set to work as heartily as the Doctor himself.
“You’ll find some of this lettuce and watercress eat well with your beef, Sir,” said he, pushing across a dish.
“Thank you, Sir,” said I; “I find that watching the games makes one very hungry.”
“The air, Sir, all the downs air,” said the Doctor; “I call them Doctor Downs. Do more for the appetite in six hours than I can in a week. Here, Peter, get this gentleman some of your mistress’s walnut pickles.”
And then the good-natured Doctor fell to upon his beef again, and chatted away with the scholars and me, and soon made me feel myself quite at home. I own that I had done my neighbours a little injustice; for they were pleasant enough when the ice was once broken, and I daresay didn’t mean to be rude after all.
As soon as I had finished my supper, the shorter of the scholars handed me a large cigar, the first whiff of which gave me a high idea of the taste of my contemporaries of the upper classes in the matter of tobacco.
Just then the verse of a song, in which two or three men were joining, rose from the other end of the tent, from amidst the hum of voices.
“I wish those fellows would sing out,” said the short scholar; “I can’t make out more than a word or two.”
“You wouldn’t be any the wiser if you could,” said the other; “we have ceased to be a singing nation. The people have lost the good old ballads, and have got nothing in their place.”
“How do you know?” said the short scholar; “I should like to hear for myself, at any rate.”