I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the face, looked awfully around for it.
1916, Daniel Homer Rich, “[Introduction] III.—The Elizabethan Playhouse”, in The Merchant of Venice: As Originally Performed by Shakespeare’s Company (The Globe Theater Shakespeare), New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers, pages xx–xxi:
The inn yards of the day afforded convenient enclosures for the performance; moreover, they were real centers of the social life of the village, attracting crowds of tradesmen, farmers, horse dealers, village hangers-on, travellers, gentlemen of quality, and, we can be sure, the inevitable small boy who always manages to attend such affairs without paying for the privilege.
His heart beat at the sight of her, as though he were a young man and this his first assignation outside a cinema, in a Lyons Corner House . . . or in an inn yard in a country town where dances were held.
