Chapter 56
John’s overwhelming impression of the Travelers Rest pub was immense age. Vast, long history. Even with dim lighting from two broad firepits and muted overhead fixtures, grooved depressions in the stone floor revealed a long-established traffic flow. Bright, rougher spots in a few places clearly showed where furniture—and in one long strip, probably a wall—had been removed. Wooden beams easily two feet wide on each side and darkened nearly to black dotted the low space.
Brass fixtures and high-sided booths, along with a long, gleaming bar, reminded him a little of the pub in Glasgow he and his family frequented, one of the oldest in the city. But the couple of hundred years of that establishment paled with what had to be more than twice that duration here.
The vast selection
