Night-fall

It was a comfortable thing for a social pair of fellow-travellers to get out of their chaise at night-fall, and to find at the inn (it was then kept by a cousin of mine, a Mrs. Cotter), a roaring fire, in a clean, well-furnished parlour, the whitest table-linen, the best beef, the sweetest and tenderest mutton, the fattest fowl, the most excellent wines (claret and Madeira were the high wines then—they knew nothing about Champagne), and the most comfortable beds.

Full many a score that lone maid counted o’er Of day-dawns and night-falls—a year to the day—

Then he set meat and drink before me; and I ate and drank and he with me; and we conversed freely till night-fall, when he cleared me a place in a corner of his shop and brought me a carpet and a coverlet.