There was a very stout man with a very stout wife in shiny black; there was a little old man like an aged hostler.

We got to the center of the town, leaving the venerable nag behind to be baited at a big gray barn by a big, shapeless, kindly woman hostler whose wooden shoes clattered on the round cobbles of her stable yard like drum taps.

"I had rather elope with a one-legged hostler than always live in these woods.

Barnaby was acclaimed by a man in the ranks, Hugh, the rough hostler of the Maypole, whom Barnaby in his frequent wanderings had long known.

The inn yard gradually became quiet; and the dead sexton lay alone, in the dark, on his back, locked up in the old coach-house, the key of which was safe in the pocket of Tom Scales, the trusty old hostler of the George.