They had started soon after sunrise, and twelve o’clock found them more than twenty-five miles from Fredericksburg. They stopped at a road-side tavern for dinner and some hours’ rest. The tavern was large and comfortable, and boasted the luxury of a private room, where dinner was served to the earl and his young guest. The tavern-keeper himself carved for them, and although he treated the earl with great respect, saying “My lord” at every other word, according to the custom of the day, there was no servility in his manner. Like everybody else, he was struck with George’s manner and appearance on first seeing him, and, finding out that he was the son of the late Colonel Augustine Washington, made the boy’s face glow with praise of his father. When the time came to start George made his request that he be allowed to ride a horse, and he was immediately given his choice of the four bays. He examined them all quickly, but with the eye of a natural judge of a horse, and unerringly picked out the best of the lot. “Do not feel obliged to regulate your pace by ours,” said the earl. “We are to sleep to-night at Farley’s tavern, only twenty miles from here, and so you present yourself by sundown it is enough.”