twenty yards away from the scarred and rugged bole. "Two decks
and a passage"--two moderate-sized rooms with a wide open pass-way
between, and a low dark porch running along the front--constituted
all that was left of a once well-known place of public refreshment.
At each end a stone chimney, yellowish gray and of a massiveness
now wonderful to behold, rose above the gable like a shattered tower
above the salient of some old fortress. The windows still retained
the little square panes and curious glazing of a century ago. Below
it, fifty yards away to the eastward, a bold spring burst out of
the granite rock, spread deep and still and cool over its white
sandy bottom, in the stone-walled inclosure where it was confined
(over half of which stood the ample milk-house), and then gurgling
along the stony outlet ran away over the ripple-marked sands of
its worn channel, to join the waters of the creek a mile away.

It was said that in the olden time there had been sheds and out-buildings,
and perhaps some tributary houses for the use of lodgers, all of
which belonged to and constituted a part of the Ordinary. Two things
had deprived it of its former glory. The mart-way had changed even
before the iron horse charged across the old routes, scorning their
pretty curves and dashing in an almost direct line from mountain
to sea. Increasing population had opened new routes, which diverted
the traffic and were preferred to the old way by travelers. Besides
this, there had been a feud between the owner of the Ordinary and
the rich proprietor whose outspread acres encircled on every side
the few thin roods which were attached to the hostel, and when the
owner thereof died and the property, in the course of administration,
was put upon the market, the rich neighbor bought it, despoiled
it of all its accessories, and left only the one building of two
rooms below and two above, a kitchen and a log stable, with crib