Anthony Trollope: The Belton Estate

20. CHAPTER XX: WILLIAM BELTON DOES NOT GO OUT HUNTING (continued)

He reached Taunton in the middle of the night during the small hours of the morning in a winter night; but yet he could not bring himself to go to bed. So he knocked up an ostler at the nearest inn, and ordered out a gig. He would go down to the village of Redicote, on the Minehead road, and put up at the public-house there. He could not now have himself driven at once to Belton Castle, as he would have done had the old squire been alive. He fancied that his presence would be a nuisance if he did so. So he went to the little inn at Redicote, reaching that place between four and five o'clock in the morning; and very uncomfortable he was when he got there. But in his present frame of mind he preferred discomfort. He liked being tired and cold, and felt, when he was put into a chill room, without fire, and with a sanded floor, that things with him were as they ought to be.

Yes he could have a fly over to Belton Castle after breakfast. Having learned so much, and ordered a dish of eggs and bacon for his morning's breakfast, be went upstairs to a miserable little bedroom, to dress himself after his night's journey.