The Pennyles Pilgrimage/First prose section
In this town of Newcastle, I overtook an hostler, and I asked him what the next town was called, that was in my way toward Lancaster, he holding the end of a riding rod in his mouth, as if it had been a flute, piped me this answer, and said, Talk-on-the-Hill; I asked him again what he said Talk-on-the-Hill: I demanded the third time, and the third time he answered me as he did before, Talk-on-the-Hill. I began to grow choleric, and asked him why he could not talk, or tell me my way as well there as on the hill; at last I was resolved, that the next town was four miles off me, and that the name of it was, Talk-on-the-Hill: I had not travelled above two miles farther: but my last night's supper (which was as much as nothing) my mind being informed of it by my stomach. I made a virtue of necessity, and went to breakfast in the Sun: I have fared better at three Suns many times before now, in Aldersgate Street, Cripplegate, and new Fish Street; but here is the odds, at those Suns they will come upon a man with a tavern bill as sharp cutting as a tailor's bill of items: a watchman's-bill, or a welsh-hook falls not half so heavy upon a man; besides, most of the vintners have the law in their own hands, and have all their actions, cases, bills of debt, and such reckonings tried at their own bars; from whence there is no appeal. But leaving these impertinences, in the material Sunshine, we eat a substantial dinner, and like miserable guests we did budget up the reversions.