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diff --git a/43865-0.txt b/43865-0.txt index 4a36efd..3f52878 100644 --- a/43865-0.txt +++ b/43865-0.txt @@ -1,42 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I (of 2), by -Charles G. Harper - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I (of 2) - A Picturesque Account of the Ancient and Storied Hostelries - of Our Own Country - -Author: Charles G. Harper - -Illustrator: Charles G. Harper - -Release Date: October 2, 2013 [EBook #43865] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND, VOL I *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive.) - - - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43865 *** THE OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND @@ -7870,360 +7832,4 @@ Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I (of 2), by Charles G. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I (of 2) - A Picturesque Account of the Ancient and Storied Hostelries - of Our Own Country - -Author: Charles G. Harper - -Illustrator: Charles G. Harper - -Release Date: October 2, 2013 [EBook #43865] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND, VOL I *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive.) - - - - - - - - - -THE OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND - - - - -WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - -The Portsmouth Road, and its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of Old. - -The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike. - -The Bath Road: History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old Highway. - -The Exeter Road: The Story of the West of England Highway. - -The Great North Road: The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols. - -The Norwich Road: An East Anglian Highway. - -The Holyhead Road: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two Vols. - -The Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road: The Great Fenland Highway. - -The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford, and Cromer Road: Sport and History on an -East Anglian Turnpike. - -The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road: The Ready Way to South -Wales. Two Vols. - -The Brighton Road: Speed, Sport, and History on the Classic Highway. - -The Hastings Road and the "Happy Springs of Tunbridge." - -Cycle Rides Round London. - -A Practical Handbook of Drawing for Modern Methods of Reproduction. - -Stage-Coach and Mail in Days of Yore. Two Vols. The Ingoldsby Country: -Literary Landmarks of "The Ingoldsby Legends." - -The Hardy Country: Literary Landmarks of the Wessex Novels. - -The Dorset Coast. - -The South Devon Coast. [_In the Press._ - - - - -[Illustration: THE ROADSIDE INN.] - - - - - THE OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND - - _A PICTURESQUE ACCOUNT OF THE - ANCIENT AND STORIED HOSTELRIES - OF OUR OWN COUNTRY_ - - - VOL. I - - - BY CHARLES G. HARPER - - - [Illustration] - - _Illustrated chiefly by the Author, and from Prints - and Photographs_ - - - LONDON: - CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED - 1906 - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - PRINTED AND BOUND BY - HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., - LONDON AND AYLESBURY. - - - - -[Illustration: PREFACE] - - -_It is somewhat singular that no book has hitherto been published dealing -either largely or exclusively with Old Inns and their story. I suppose -that is because there are so many difficulties in the way of one who would -write an account of them. The chief of these is that of arrangement and -classification; the next is that of selection; the last that of coming to -a conclusion. I would ask those who read these pages, and have perhaps -some favourite inn they do not find mentioned or illustrated here, to -remember that the merely picturesque inns that have no story, or anything -beyond their own picturesqueness to render them remarkable, are--let us be -thankful for it!--still with us in great numbers, and that to have -illustrated or mentioned even a tithe of them would have been impossible. -I can think of no literary and artistic work more delightful than the -quest of queer old rustic inns, but two stout volumes will probably be -found to contain as much on the subject as most people wish to know--and -it is always open to anyone who does not find his own especial favourite -here to condemn the author for his ignorance, or, worse, for his perverted -taste._ - -_As for methods, those are of the simplest. You start by knowing, ten -years beforehand, what you intend to produce; and incidentally, in the -course of a busy literary life, collect, note, sketch, and make extracts -from Heaven only knows how many musty literary dustbins and sloughs of -despond. Then, having reached the psychological moment when you must come -to grips with the work, you sort that accumulation, and, mapping out -England into tours, with inns strung like beads upon your itinerary, bring -the book, after some five thousand miles of travel, at last into being._ - -_It should be added that very many inns are incidentally illustrated or -referred to in the series of books on great roads by the present writer; -but as those works dealing with Roads, another treating of the History of -Coaching, and the present volumes are all part of one comprehensive plan -dealing with the History of Travel in general, the allusions to inns in -the various road-books have but rarely been repeated; while it will be -found that if, in order to secure a representative number of inns, it has -been, in some cases, found unavoidable to retrace old footsteps, new -illustrations and new matter have, as a rule, been brought to bear._ - -_The Old Inns of London have not been touched upon very largely, for most -of them are, unhappily, gone. Only the few existing ones have been -treated, and then merely in association with others in the country. To -write an account of the Old Inns of London would now be to discourse, in -the manner of an antiquary, on things that have ceased to be._ - -CHARLES G. HARPER. - - PETERSHAM, SURREY. - _September, 1906._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. INTRODUCTORY 1 - - II. THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF INNS 13 - - III. GENERAL HISTORY OF INNS 28 - - IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 42 - - V. LATTER DAYS 57 - - VI. PILGRIMS' INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS 76 - - VII. PILGRIMS' INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS (_continued_) 117 - - VIII. HISTORIC INNS 144 - - IX. INNS OF OLD ROMANCE 188 - - X. PICKWICKIAN INNS 210 - - XI. DICKENSIAN INNS 265 - - XII. HIGHWAYMEN'S INNS 303 - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - [Illustration] - - - SEPARATE PLATES - - THE ROADSIDE INN _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - THE LAST OF THE OLD GALLERIED INNS OF LONDON: THE "GEORGE," - SOUTHWARK. (_Photo by T. W. Tyrrell_) 32 - - THE KITCHEN OF A COUNTRY INN, 1797: SHOWING THE TURNSPIT - DOG. (_From the engraving after Rowlandson_) 48 - - WESTGATE, CANTERBURY, AND THE "FALSTAFF" INN 86 - - CHARING CROSS, ABOUT 1829, SHOWING THE "GOLDEN CROSS" INN. - (_From the engraving after T. Hosmer Shepherd_) 218 - - THE "GOLDEN CROSS," SUCCESSOR OF THE PICKWICKIAN INN, AS - REBUILT 1828 220 - - ROCHESTER IN PICKWICKIAN DAYS, SHOWING THE OLD BRIDGE AND - "WRIGHT'S" 224 - - THE "BELLE SAUVAGE." (_From a drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd_) 228 - - THE DICKENS ROOM, "LEATHER BOTTLE," COBHAM 230 - - THE "BULL INN," WHITECHAPEL. (_From the water-colour drawing - by P. Palfrey_) 246 - - THE "WHITE HART," BATH 252 - - THE "BUSH," BRISTOL 256 - - THE "COACH AND HORSES," ISLEWORTH 276 - - THE "LION," SHREWSBURY, SHOWING THE ANNEXE ADJOINING, WHERE - DICKENS STAYED 298 - - THE "GREEN MAN," HATTON 318 - - THE HIGHWAYMAN'S HIDING-HOLE 318 - - -ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT - - Vignette, The Old-time Innkeeper _Title-page_ - - PAGE - - Preface v - - List of Illustrations xi - - The Old Inns of Old England, The "Black Bear," Sandbach 1 - - The Oldest Inhabited House in England: The "Fighting Cocks," - St. Albans 5 - - The "Dick Whittington," Cloth Fair 6 - - "Ye Olde Rover's Return," Manchester 7 - - The Oldest Licensed House in Great Britain: The "Seven Stars," - Manchester 11 - - An Ale-stake. (_From the Louterell Psalter_) 15 - - Elynor Rummyng 21 - - The "Running Horse," Leatherhead 25 - - Facsimile of an Account rendered to John Palmer in 1787 54 - - The Last Days of the "Swan with Two Necks" 55 - - Crypt at the "George," Rochester 83 - - Sign of the "Falstaff," Canterbury 88 - - House formerly a Pilgrims' Hostel, Compton 91 - - The "Star," Alfriston 93 - - Carving at the "Star," Alfriston 95 - - The "Green Dragon," Wymondham 96 - - The Pilgrims' Hostel, Battle 97 - - The "New Inn," Gloucester 99 - - Courtyard, "New Inn," Gloucester 103 - - The "George," Glastonbury 109 - - High Street, Glastonbury, in the Eighteenth Century (_From - the etching by Rowlandson_) 115 - - The "George," St. Albans 119 - - The "Angel," Grantham 121 - - The "George," Norton St. Philip 125 - - Yard of the "George," Norton St. Philip 131 - - Yard of the "George," Winchcombe 135 - - The "Lord Crewe Arms," Blanchland 139 - - The "Old King's Head," Aylesbury 141 - - The "Reindeer," Banbury 145 - - Yard of the "Reindeer," Banbury 149 - - The Globe Room, "Reindeer" Inn, Banbury 153 - - The "Music House," Norwich 157 - - The "Dolphin," Potter Heigham 159 - - The "Nag's Head," Thame 161 - - Yard of the "Greyhound," Thame 163 - - The "Crown and Treaty," Uxbridge 165 - - The "Treaty Room," "Crown and Treaty," Uxbridge 167 - - The "Three Crowns," Chagford 169 - - The "Red Lion," Hillingdon 170 - - Yard of the "Saracen's Head," Southwell 173 - - King Charles' Bedroom, "Saracen's Head," Southwell 177 - - The "Cock and Pymat" 181 - - Porch of the "Red Lion," High Wycombe 184 - - The "White Hart," Somerton 186 - - The "Ostrich," Colnbrook 191 - - Yard of the "Ostrich," Colnbrook 199 - - "Piff's Elm" 203 - - The "Golden Cross," in Pickwickian Days 215 - - The "Bull," Rochester 223 - - The "Swan," Town Malling: Identified with the "Blue Lion," - Muggleton 226 - - Sign of the "Bull and Mouth" 227 - - The "Leather Bottle," Cobham 229 - - The "Waggon and Horses," Beckhampton 233 - - "Shepherd's Shore" 235 - - "Beckhampton Inn" 239 - - The "Angel," Bury St. Edmunds 241 - - The "George the Fourth Tavern," Clare Market 243 - - Doorway of the "Great White Horse," Ipswich 247 - - The "Great White Horse," Ipswich 250 - - Sign of the "White Hart," Bath 255 - - "The Bell," Berkeley Heath 257 - - The "Hop-pole," Tewkesbury 259 - - The "Pomfret Arms," Towcester: formerly the "Saracen's Head" 260 - - The Yard of the "Pomfret Arms" 261 - - "Osborne's Hotel, Adelphi" 263 - - The "White Horse," Eaton Socon 267 - - The "George," Greta Bridge 269 - - The "Coach and Horses," near Petersfield 271 - - "Bottom" Inn 273 - - The "King's Head," Chigwell, the "Maypole" of _Barnaby Rudge_ 279 - - The "Green Dragon," Alderbury 283 - - The "George," Amesbury 285 - - Interior of the "Green Dragon," Alderbury 287 - - Sign of the "Black Bull," Holborn 289 - - The "Crispin and Crispianus," Strood 293 - - The "Ship and Lobster" 297 - - "Jack Straw's Castle" 301 - - The "Three Houses Inn," Sandal 308 - - The "Crown" Inn, Hempstead 309 - - "Turpin's Cave," near Chingford 311 - - The "Green Dragon," Welton 312 - - The "Three Magpies," Sipson Green 313 - - The "Old Magpies" 315 - - The "Green Man," Putney 321 - - The "Spaniards," Hampstead Heath 323 - - - - -[Illustration: The Old Inns of Old England] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -INTRODUCTORY - - -The Old Inns of Old England!--how alluring and how inexhaustible a theme! -When you set out to reckon up the number of those old inns that demand a -mention, how vast a subject it is! For although the Vandal--identified -here with the brewer and the ground-landlord--has been busy in London and -the great centres of population, destroying many of those famous old -hostelries our grandfathers knew and appreciated, and building in their -stead "hotels" of the most grandiose and palatial kind, there are happily -still remaining to us a large number of the genuine old cosy haunts where -the traveller, stained with the marks of travel, may enter and take his -ease without being ashamed of his travel-stains or put out of countenance -by the modish visitors of this complicated age, who dress usually as if -going to a ball, and whose patronage has rung the death-knell of many an -inn once quaint and curious, but now merely "replete with every modern -convenience." - -I thank Heaven--and it is no small matter, for surely one may be thankful -for a good inn--that there yet remain many old inns in this Old England of -ours, and that it is not yet quite (although nearly) a misdemeanour for -the wayfarer to drink a tankard of ale and eat a modest lunch of bread and -cheese in a stone-flagged, sanded rustic parlour; or even, having come at -the close of day to his halting-place, to indulge in the mild dissipation -and local gossip in the bar of an old-time hostelry. - -This is one of the last surviving joys of travel in these strange times -when you journey from great towns for sake of change and find at every -resort that the town has come down before you, in the shape of an hotel -more or less palatial, wherein you are expected to dine largely off -polished marble surroundings and Turkey carpets, and where every trace of -local colour is effaced. A barrier is raised there between yourself and -the place. You are in it, but not of it or among it; but something alien, -like the German or Swiss waiters themselves, the manager, and the very -directors and shareholders of the big concern. - -At the old-fashioned inn, on the other hand, the whole establishment is -eloquent of the place, and while you certainly get less show and glitter, -you do, at any rate, find real comfort, and early realise that you have -found that change for which you have come. - -But, as far as mere name goes, most inns are "hotels" nowadays. It is as -though innkeepers were labouring under the illusion that "inn" connotes -something inferior, and "hotel" a superior order of things. Even along the -roads, in rustic situations, the mere word "inn"--an ancient and entirely -honourable title--is become little used or understood, and, generally -speaking, if you ask a rustic for the next "inn" he stares vacantly before -his mind grasps the fact that you mean what he calls a "pub," or, in some -districts oftener still, a "house." Just a "house." Some employment for -the speculative mind is offered by the fact that in rural England an inn -is "a house" and the workhouse "_the_ House." Both bulk largely in the -bucolic scheme of existence, and, as a temperance lecturer might point -out, constant attendance at the one leads inevitably to the other. At all -events, both are great institutions, and prominent among the landmarks of -Old England. - -Which is the oldest, and which the most picturesque, inn this England of -ours can show? That is a double-barrelled question whose first part no man -can answer, and the reply to whose second half depends so entirely upon -individual likings and preferences that one naturally hesitates before -being drawn into the contention that would surely arise on any particular -one being singled out for that supreme honour. Equally with the morning -newspapers--and the evening--each claiming the "largest circulation," and, -like the several Banbury Cake shops, each the "original," there are -several "oldest licensed" inns, and very many arrogating the reputation of -the "most picturesque." - -The "Fighting Cocks" inn at St. Albans, down by the river Ver, below the -Abbey, claims to be--not the oldest inn--but the oldest inhabited house, -in the kingdom: a pretension that does not appear to be based on anything -more than sheer impudence; unless, indeed, we take the claim to be a joke, -to which an inscription, - - The Old Round House, - Rebuilt after the Flood, - -formerly gave the clue. But that has disappeared. The Flood, in this case, -seeing that the building lies low, by the river Ver, does not necessarily -mean the Deluge. - -This curious little octagonal building is, however, of a very great age, -for it was once, as "St. Germain's Gate," the water-gate of the monastery. -The more ancient embattled upper part disappeared six hundred years ago, -and the present brick-and-timber storey takes its place. - -[Illustration: THE OLDEST INHABITED HOUSE IN ENGLAND: THE "FIGHTING -COCKS," ST. ALBANS.] - -The City of London's oldest licensed inn is, by its own claiming, the -"Dick Whittington," in Cloth Fair, Smithfield, but it only claims to have -been licensed in the fifteenth century, when it might reasonably--without -much fear of contradiction--have made it a century earlier. This is an -unusual modesty, fully deserving mention. It is only an "inn" by courtesy, -for, however interesting and picturesque the grimy, tottering old -lath-and-plaster house may be to the stranger, imagination does not -picture any one staying either in the house or in Cloth Fair itself while -other houses and other neighbourhoods remain to choose from; and, indeed, -the "Dick Whittington" does not pretend to be anything else than a -public-house. The quaint little figure at the angle, in the gloom of the -overhanging upper storey, is one of the queer, unconventional imaginings -of our remote forefathers, and will repay examination. - -[Illustration: THE "DICK WHITTINGTON," CLOTH FAIR.] - -Our next claimant in the way of antiquity is the "Seven Stars" inn at -Manchester, a place little dreamt of, in such a connection, by most -people; for, although Manchester is an ancient city, it is so modernised -in general appearance that it is a place wherein the connoisseur of -old-world inns would scarce think of looking for examples. Yet it contains -three remarkably picturesque old taverns, and the neighbouring town of -Salford, nearly as much a part of Manchester as Southwark is of London, -possesses another. To take the merely picturesque, unstoried houses -first: these are the "Bull's Head," Greengate, Salford; the "Wellington" -inn, in the Market-place, Manchester; the tottering, crazy-looking tavern -called "Ye Olde Rover's Return," on Shude Hill, claiming to be the "oldest -beer-house in the city," and additionally said once to have been an old -farmhouse "where the Cow was kept that supplied Milk to The Men who built -the 'Seven Stars,'" and lastly--but most important--the famous "Seven -Stars" itself, in Withy Grove, proudly bearing on its front the statement -that it has been licensed over 560 years, and is the oldest licensed house -in Great Britain. - -[Illustration: "YE OLDE ROVER'S RETURN," MANCHESTER.] - -The "Seven Stars" is of the same peculiar old-world construction as the -other houses just enumerated, and is just a humble survival of the ancient -rural method of building in this district: with a stout framing of oaken -timbers and a filling of rag-stone, brick, and plaster. Doubtless all -Manchester, of the period to which these survivals belong, was of like -architecture. It was a method of construction in essence identical with -the building of modern steel-framed houses and offices in England and in -America: modern construction being only on a larger scale. In either -period, the framework of wood or of metal is set up first and then clothed -with its architectural features, whether of stone, brick, or plaster. - -The "Seven Stars," however, is no skyscraper. So far from soaring, it is -of only two floors, and, placed as it is--sandwiched as it is, one might -say--between grim, towering blocks of warehouses, looks peculiarly -insignificant. - -We may suppose the existing house to have been built somewhere about 1500, -although there is nothing in its rude walls and rough axe-hewn timbers to -fix the period to a century more or less. At any rate, it is not the -original "Seven Stars" on this spot, known to have been first licensed in -1356, three years after inns and alehouses were inquired into and -regulated, under Edward the Third; by virtue of which record, duly -attested by the archives of the County Palatine of Lancaster, the present -building claims to be the "oldest Licensed House in Great Britain." - -There is a great deal of very fine, unreliable "history" about the "Seven -Stars," and some others, but it is quite true that the inn is older than -Manchester Cathedral, for that--originally the Collegiate Church--was not -founded until 1422; and topers with consciences remaining to them may lay -the flattering unction to their souls that, if they pour libations here, -in the Temple of Bacchus, rather than praying in the Cathedral, they do, -at any rate (if there be any virtue in that), frequent a place of greater -antiquity. - -And antiquity is cultivated with care and considerable success at the -"Seven Stars," as a business asset. The house issues a set of seven -picture-postcards, showing its various "historic" nooks and corners, and -the leaded window-casements have even been artfully painted, in an effort -to make the small panes look smaller than they really are; while the -unwary visitor in the low-ceilinged rooms falls over and trips up against -all manner of unexpected steps up and steps down. - -It is, of course, not to be supposed that a house with so long a past -should be without its legends, and in the cellars the credulous and -uncritical stranger is shown an archway that, he is told, led to old -Ordsall Hall and the Collegiate Church! What thirsty and secret souls they -must have been in that old establishment! But the secret passage is -blocked up now. Here we may profitably meditate awhile on those "secret -passages" that have no secrets and afford no passage; and may at the same -time stop to admire the open conduct of that clergyman who, despising such -underhand and underground things, was accustomed in 1571, according to the -records of the Court Leet, to step publicly across the way in his -surplice, in sermon-time, for a refreshing drink. - -"What stories this old Inn could recount if it had the power of language!" -exclaims the leaflet sold at the "Seven Stars" itself. The reflection is -sufficiently trite and obvious. What stories could not any building tell, -if it were so gifted? But fortunately, although walls metaphorically have -ears, they have not--even in literary imagery--got tongues, and so cannot -blab. And well too, for if they could and did, what a cloud of witness -there would be, to be sure. Not an one of us would get a hearing, and not -a soul be safe. - -But what stories, in more than one sense, Harrison Ainsworth told! He told -a tale of Guy Fawkes, in which that hero of the mask, the dark-lantern and -the powder-barrel escaped, and made his way to the "Seven Stars," to be -concealed in a room now called "Ye Guy Fawkes Chamber." Ye gods! - -[Illustration: THE OLDEST LICENSED HOUSE IN GREAT BRITAIN: THE "SEVEN -STARS," MANCHESTER.] - -We know perfectly well that he did not escape, and so was not concealed in -a house to which he could not come, but--well, there! Such fantastic -tales, adopted by the house, naturally bring suspicion upon all else; and -the story of the horse-shoe upon one of its wooden posts is therefore, -rightly or wrongly, suspect. This is a legend that tells how, in 1805, -when we were at war with Napoleon, the Press Gang was billeted at the -"Seven Stars," and seized a farmer's servant who was leading a horse with -a cast shoe along Withy Grove. The Press Gang could not legally press a -farm-servant, but that probably mattered little, and he was led away; but, -before he went, he nailed the cast horse-shoe to a post, exclaiming, "Let -this stay till I come from the wars to claim it!" He never returned, and -the horse-shoe remains in its place to this day. - -The room adjoining the Bar parlour is called nowadays the "Vestry." It -was, according to legends, the meeting-place of the Watch, in the old days -before the era of police; and there they not only met, but stayed, the -captain ever and again rising, with the words, "Now we will have another -glass, and then go our rounds"; upon which, emptying their glasses, they -all would walk round the tables and then re-seat themselves. - -A great deal of old Jacobean and other furniture has been collected, to -fill the rooms of the "Seven Stars," and in the "Vestry" is the "cupboard -that has never been opened" within the memory of living man. It is -evidently not suspected of holding untold gold. Relics from the New Bailey -Prison, demolished in 1872, are housed here, including the doors of the -condemned cell, and sundry leg-irons; and genuine Carolean and Cromwellian -tables are shown. The poet who wrote of some marvellously omniscient -personage-- - - And still the wonder grew - That one small head could carry all he knew, - -would have rejoiced to know the "Seven Stars," and might have been moved -to write a similar couplet, on how much so small a house could be made to -hold. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF INNS - - -Inns, hotels, public-houses of all kinds, have a very ancient lineage, but -we need not in this place go very deeply into their family history, or -stodge ourselves with fossilised facts at the outset. So far as we are -concerned, inns begin with the Roman Conquest of Britain, for it is absurd -to suppose that the Britons, whom Julius Cæsar conquered, drank beer or -required hotel accommodation. - -The colonising Romans themselves, of course, were used to inns, and when -they covered Britain with a system of roads, hostelries and mere -drinking-places of every kind sprang up beside them, for the accommodation -and refreshment alike of soldiers and civilians. There is no reason to -suppose that the Roman legionary was a less thirsty soul than the modern -soldier, and therefore houses that resembled our beer-shops and rustic -inns must have been sheer necessaries. There was then the _bibulium_, -where the bibulous boozed to their hearts' content; and there were the -_diversoria_ and _caupones_, the inns or hotels, together with the -posting-houses along the roads, known as _mansiones_ or _stabulia_. - -The _bibulium_, that is to say, the ale-house or tavern, displayed its -sign for all men to see: the ivy-garland, or wreath of vine-leaves, in -honour of Bacchus, wreathed around a hoop at the end of a projecting pole. -This bold advertisment of good drink to be had within long outlasted Roman -times, and indeed still survives in differing forms, in the signs of -existing inns. It became the "ale-stake" of Anglo-Saxon and middle English -times. - -The traveller recognised the ale-stake at a great distance, by reason of -its long pole--the "stake" whence those old beer-houses derived their -name--projecting from the house-front, with its mass of furze, or garland -of flowers, or ivy-wreath, dangling at the end. But the ale-houses that -sold good drink little needed such signs, a circumstance that early led to -the old proverb, "Good wine needs no bush." - -On the other hand, we may well suppose the places that sold only inferior -swipes required poles very long and bushes very prominent, and in London, -where competition was great, all ale-stakes early began to vie with one -another which should in this manner first attract the attention of thirsty -folk. This at length grew to be such a nuisance, and even a danger, that -in 1375 a law was passed that all taverners in the City of London owning -ale-stakes projecting or extending over the king's highway "more than -seven feet in length at the utmost," should be fined forty pence and be -compelled to remove the offending sign. - -We find the "ale-stake" in Chaucer, whose "Pardoner" could not be induced -to commence his tale until he had quenched his thirst at one: - - But first quod he, her at this ale-stake - I will bothe drynke and byten on a cake. - -We have, fortunately, in the British Museum, an illustration of such a -house, done in the fourteenth century, and therefore contemporary with -Chaucer himself. It is rough but vivid, and if the pilgrim we see drinking -out of a saucer-like cup be gigantic, and the landlady, waiting with the -jug, a thought too big for her inn, we are at any rate clearly made to see -the life of that long ago. In this instance the actual stake is finished -off like a besom, rather than with a bush. - -[Illustration: AN ALE-STAKE. _From the Louterell Psalter._] - -The connection, however, between the Roman garland to Bacchus and the -mediæval "bush" is obvious. The pagan God of Wine was forgotten, but the -advertisment of ale "sold on the premises" was continued in much the same -form; for in many cases the "bush" was a wreath, renewed at intervals, and -twined around a permanent hoop. With the creation, in later centuries, of -distinctive signs, we find the hoop itself curiously surviving as a -framework for some device; and thus, even as early as the reign of Edward -the Third, mention is found of a "George-in-the-hoop," probably a picture -or carved representation of St. George, the cognisance of England, engaged -in slaying the dragon. There were inns in the time of Henry the Sixth by -the name of the "Cock-in-the-Hoop"; and doubtless the representation of -haughty cockerels in that situation led by degrees to persons of -self-sufficient manner being called "Cock-a-hoop," an old-fashioned phrase -that lingered on until some few years since. - -In some cases, when the garland was no longer renewed, and no distinctive -sign filled the hoop, the "Hoop" itself became the sign of the house: a -sign still frequently to be met with, notably at Cambridge, where a house -of that name, in coaching days a celebrated hostelry, still survives. - -The kind of company found in the ale-stakes--that is to say, the -beer-houses and taverns--of the fourteenth century is vividly portrayed by -Langland, in his _Vision of Piers Plowman_. In that long Middle English -poem, the work of a moralist and seer who was at the same time, beneath -his tonsure and in spite of his orders, something of a man of the world, -we find the virtuous ploughman reviewing the condition of society in that -era, and (when you have once become used to the ancient spelling) doing so -in a manner that is not only readable to moderns, but even entertaining; -while, of course, as evidence of social conditions close upon six hundred -years ago, the poem is invaluable. - -We learn how Beton the brewster met the glutton on his way to church, and -bidding him "good-morrow," asked him whither he went. - -"To holy church," quoth he, "for to hear mass. I will be shriven, and sin -no more." - -"I have good ale, gossip," says the ale-wife, "will you assay it?" And so -glutton, instead of going to church, takes himself to the ale-house, and -many after him. A miscellaneous company that was. There, with Cicely the -woman-shoemaker, were all manner of humble, and some disreputable, -persons, among whom we are surprised to find a hermit. What should a -hermit be doing in an ale-house? But, according to Langland's own showing -elsewhere, the country was infested with hermits who, refusing restriction -to their damp and lonely hermitages, frequented the alehouses, and only -went home, generally intoxicated, to their mouldy pallets after they had -drunk and eaten their fill and roasted themselves before the fire. - -Here, then: - - Cesse the souteresse[1] sat on the bench, - Watte the warner[2] and hys wyf bothe - Thomme the tynkere, and tweye of hus knaues, - Hicke the hakeneyman, and Houwe the neldere,[3] - Claryce of Cockeslane, the clerk of the churche, - An haywarde and an heremyte, the hangeman of Tyborne, - Dauwe the dykere,[4] with a dozen harlotes, - Of portours and of pyke-porses, and pylede[5] toth-drawers. - A ribibour,[6] a ratonere,[7] a rakyer of chepe, - A roper, a redynkyng,[8] and Rose the dissheres, - Godfrey of garlekehythe, and gryfin the walshe,[9] - An vpholderes an hepe. - -All day long they sat there, boozing, chaffering, and quarrelling: - - There was laughing and louring, and "let go the cuppe," - And seten so till euensonge and son gen vmwhile, - Tyl glotoun had y-globbed a galoun and a Iille. - -By that time he could neither walk nor stand. He took his staff and began -to go like a gleeman's bitch, sometimes sideways and sometimes backwards. -When he had come to the door, he stumbled and fell. Clement the cobbler -caught him by the middle and set him on his knees, and then, "with all the -woe of the world" his wife and his wench came to carry him home to bed. -There he slept all Saturday and Sunday, and when at last he woke, he woke -with a thirst--how modern _that_ is, at any rate! The first words he -uttered were, "Where is the bowl?" - -A hundred and fifty years later than _Piers Plowman_ we get another -picture of an English ale-house, by no less celebrated a poet. This famous -house, the "Running Horse," still stands at Leatherhead, in Surrey, beside -the long, many-arched bridge that there crosses the river Mole at one of -its most picturesque reaches. It was kept in the time of Henry the Seventh -by that very objectionable landlady, Elynor Rummyng, whose peculiarities -are the subject of a laureate's verse. Elynor Rummyng, and John Skelton, -the poet-laureate who hymned her person, her beer, and her customers, both -flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Skelton, whose -genius was wholly satiric, no doubt, in his _Tunning_ (that is to say, the -brewing) of _Elynor Rummyng_, emphasised all her bad points, for it is -hardly credible that even the rustics of the Middle Ages would have rushed -so enthusiastically for her ale if it had been brewed in the way he -describes. - -His long, rambling jingles, done in grievous spelling, picture her as a -very ugly and filthy old person, with a face sufficiently grotesque to -unnerve a strong man: - - For her viságe - It would aswage - A manne's couráge. - Her lothely lere - Is nothyng clere, - But vgly of chere, - Droupy and drowsy, - Scuruy and lowsy; - Her face all bowsy, - Comely crynkled, - Woundersly wrynkled, - Lyke a rost pygges eare - Brystled wyth here. - Her lewde lyppes twayne, - They slauer, men sayne, - Lyke a ropy rayne: - A glummy glayre: - She is vgly fayre: - Her nose somdele hoked, - And camously croked, - Neuer stoppynge, - But euer droppynge: - Her skin lose and slacke, - Grayned like a sacke; - Wyth a croked backe. - Her eyen jowndy - Are full vnsoundy, - For they are blered; - And she grey-hered: - Jawed like a jetty, - A man would haue pytty - To se how she is gumbed - Fyngered and thumbed - Gently joynted, - Gresed and annoynted - Vp to the knockels; - The bones of her huckels - Lyke as they were with buckles - Together made fast; - Her youth is farre past. - Foted lyke a plane, - Legged lyke a crane; - And yet she wyll iet - Lyke a silly fet. - - * * * * - - Her huke of Lincoln grene, - It had been hers I wene, - More than fourty yere; - And so it doth apere. - For the grene bare thredes - Loke lyke sere wedes, - Wyddered lyke hay, - The woll worne away: - And yet I dare saye - She thinketh herselfe gaye. - - * * * * - - She dryueth downe the dewe - With a payre of heles - As brode as two wheles; - She hobles as a gose - Wyth her blanket trose - Ouer the falowe: - Her shone smered wyth talowe, - Gresed vpon dyrt - That bandeth her skyrt. - -[Illustration: ELYNOR RUMMYNG.] - - And this comely dame - I vnderstande her name - Is Elynor Rummynge, - At home in her wonnynge: - And as men say, - She dwelt in Sothray, - In a certain stede - Bysyde Lederhede, - She is a tonnysh gyb, - The Deuyll and she be syb, - But to make vp my tale, - She breweth nappy ale, - And maketh port-sale - To travelers and tynkers, - To sweters and swynkers, - And all good ale-drynkers, - That wyll nothynge spare, - But drynke tyll they stare - And brynge themselves bare, - Wyth, now away the mare - And let vs sley care - As wyse as a hare. - Come who so wyll - To Elynor on the hyll - Wyth Fyll the cup, fyll - And syt there by styll. - Erly and late - Thyther cometh Kate - Cysly, and Sare - Wyth theyr legges bare - And also theyr fete. - - * * * * - - Some haue no mony - For theyr ale to pay, - That is a shrewd aray; - Elynor swered, Nay, - Ye shall not beare away - My ale for nought, - By hym that me bought! - Wyth, Hey, dogge, hey, - Haue these hogges away[10] - Wyth, Get me a staffe, - The swyne eate my draffe! - Stryke the hogges wyth a clubbe, - They haue dranke up my swyllyn tubbe. - -The unlovely Elynor scraped up all manner of filth into her mash-tub, -mixed it together with her "mangy fists," and sold the result as ale. It -is proverbial that "there is no accounting for tastes," and it would -appear as though the district had a peculiar liking for this kind of brew. -They would have it somehow, even if they had to bring their food and -furniture for it: - - Insteede of quoyne and mony, - Some bryng her a coney, - And some a pot wyth honey; - Some a salt, some a spoone, - Some theyr hose, some theyr shoone; - Some run a good trot - Wyth skyllet or pot: - Some fyll a bag-full - Of good Lemster wool; - An huswyfe of trust - When she is athyrst - Such a web can spyn - Her thryft is full thyn. - Some go strayght thyther - Be it slaty or slydder, - They hold the hyghway; - They care not what men say, - Be they as be may - Some loth to be espyd, - Start in at the backesyde, - Over hedge and pale, - And all for good ale. - Some brought walnuts, - Some apples, some pears, - And some theyr clyppying shears. - Some brought this and that, - Some brought I wot ne're what, - Some brought theyr husband's hat. - -and so forth, for hundreds of lines more. - -The old inn--still nothing more than an ale-house--is in part as old as -the poem, but has been so patched and repaired in all the intervening -centuries that nothing of any note is to be seen within. A very old -pictorial sign, framed and glazed, and fixed against the wall of the -gable, represents the ill-favoured landlady, and is inscribed: "Elynor -Rummyn dwelled here, 1520." - -Accounts we have of the fourteenth-century inns show that the exclusive, -solitary Englishman was not then allowed to exist. Guests slept in -dormitories, very much as the inmates of common lodging-houses generally -do now, and, according to the evidence of old prints, knew nothing of -nightshirts, and lay in bed naked. They purchased their food in something -the same way as a modern "dosser" in a Rowton House, but their manners and -customs were peculiarly offensive. The floors were strewed with rushes; -and as guests generally threw their leavings there, and the rushes -themselves were not frequently removed, those old interiors must have been -at times exceptionally noisome. - -Inn-keepers charged such high prices for this accommodation, and for the -provisions they sold, that the matter grew scandalous, and at last, in the -reign of Edward the Third, in 1349, and again in 1353, statutes were -passed ordering hostelries to be content with moderate gain. The "great -and outrageous dearth of victuals kept up in all the realm by innkeepers -and other retailers of victuals, to the great detriment of the people -travelling across the realm" was such that no less a penalty would serve -than that any "hosteler or herberger" should pay "double of what he -received to the party damnified." Mayors and bailiffs, and justices -learned in the law, were to "enquire in all places, of all and singular, -of the deeds and outrages of hostelers and their kind," but it does not -appear that matters were greatly improved. - -[Illustration: THE "RUNNING HORSE," LEATHERHEAD.] - -It will be observed that two classes of innkeepers are specified in those -ordinances. The "hosteler" was the ordinary innkeeper; the "herberger" was -generally a more or less important and well-to-do merchant who added to -his income by "harbouring"--that is to say, by boarding and -lodging--strangers, the "paying guests" of that age. We may dimly perceive -something of the trials and hardships of old-time travel in that -expression "harbouring." The traveller then came to his rest as a ship -comes into harbour from stormy seas. The better-class travellers, coming -into a town, preferred the herberger's more select table to the common -publicity of the ordinary hostelry, and the herbergers themselves were -very keen to obtain such guests, some even going to the length of -maintaining touts to watch the arrival of strangers, and bid for custom. -This was done both openly and in an underhand fashion, the more rapacious -among the herbergers employing specious rogues who, entering into -conversation with likely travellers at the entrance of a town, would -pretend to be fellow-countrymen and so, on the understanding of a common -sympathy, recommending them to what they represented to be the best -lodgings. Travellers taking such recommendations generally found -themselves in exceptionally extortionate hands. These practices early led -to "herbergers" being regulated by law, on much the same basis as the -hostelers. - -Not many records of travelling across England in the fourteenth century -have survived. Indeed the only detailed one we have, and that is merely a -return of expenses, surviving in Latin manuscript at Merton College, -Oxford, concerns itself with nothing but the cost of food and lodging at -the inns and the disbursements on the road, made by the Warden and two -fellows who, with four servants--the whole party on horseback--in -September, 1331, travelled to Durham and back on business connected with -the college property. The outward journey took them twelve days. They -crossed the Humber at the cost of 8_d._, to the ferry: beds for the entire -party of seven generally came to 2_d._ a night, beer the same, wine -1-1/4_d._, meat 5-1/2_d._, candles 1/4_d._, fuel 2_d._, bread 4_d._, and -fodder for the horses 10_d._ - - - - -CHAPTER III - -GENERAL HISTORY OF INNS - - -The mediæval hostelries, generally planned in the manner of the old -galleried inns that finally went out of fashion with the end of the -coaching age, consisting of a building enclosing a courtyard, and entered -only by a low and narrow archway, which in its turn was closed at -nightfall by strong, bolt-studded doors, are often said to owe their form -to the oriental "caravanserai," a type of building familiar to Englishmen -taking part in the Crusades. - -But it is surely not necessary to go so far afield for an origin. The -"caravanserai" was originally a type of Persian inn where caravans put up -for the night: and as security against robbers was the first need of such -a country and such times, a courtyard capable of being closed when -necessary against unwelcome visitors was clearly indicated as essential. -Persia, however, and oriental lands in general, were not the only -countries where in those dark centuries robbers, numerous and bold, or -even such undesirables as rebels against the existing order of things, -were to be reckoned with, and England had no immunity from such dangers. -In such a state of affairs, and in times when private citizens were -careful always to bolt and bar themselves in; when great lords dwelt -behind moats, drawbridges, and battlemented walls; and when even -ecclesiastic and collegiate institutions were designed with the idea that -they might ultimately have to be defended, it is quite reasonable to -suppose that innkeepers were capable of evolving a plan for themselves by -which they and their guests, and the goods of their guests, might reckon -on a degree of security. - -This was the type of hostelry that, apart from the mere tavern, or -alehouse, remained for so many centuries typical of the English good-class -inns. It was at once, in a sense--to compare old times with new--the hotel -and railway-station of an age that knew neither railways nor the class of -house we style "hotel." It was the fine flower of the hostelling business, -and to it came and went the carriers' waggons, the early travellers riding -horseback, and, in the course of time, as the age of wonderful inventions -began to dawn, the stage and mail-coaches. Travellers of the most gentle -birth, equally with those rich merchants and clothiers who were the -greatest travellers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, inned at -such establishments. It was at one such that Archbishop Leighton ended. He -had said, years before, that "if he must choose a place to die in, it -should be an inn, it looking like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this -world was an inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion of it." He -died, that good and gentle man, at the "Bell" in Warwick Lane, in 1684. - -London, once rich in hostelries of this type, has now but one. In fine, it -is not in the metropolis that the amateur of old inns of any kind would -nowadays seek with great success; although, well within the memory of most -people, it was exceptionally well furnished with them. It was neither good -taste nor good business that, in 1897, demolished the "Old Bell," Holborn, -a pretty old-world galleried inn that maintained until the very last an -excellent trade in all branches of licensed-victualling; and would have -continued so to do had it not been that the greed for higher ground-rent -ordained the ending of it, in favour of the giant (and very vulgar) -building now occupying the spot where it stood. That may have been a -remunerative transaction for the ground-landlord; but, looking at these -commercial-minded clearances in a broader way, they are nothing less than -disastrous. If, to fill some private purses over-full, you thus callously -rebuild historic cities, their history becomes merely a matter for the -printed page, and themselves to the eye nothing but a congeries of crowded -streets where the motor-omnibuses scream and clash and stink, and citizens -hustle to get a living. History, without visible ancient buildings to -assure the sceptical modern traveller that it is not wholly lies, will -never by itself draw visitors. - -Holborn, where the "Old Bell" stood, was, until quite recent years, a -pleasant threshold to the City. There stood Furnival's Inn, that quiet -quadrangle of chambers, with the staid and respectable Wood's Hotel. Next -door was Ridler's Hotel, with pleasant bay-window looking upon the street, -and across the way, in Fetter Lane, remained the "White Horse" coaching -inn; very much down on its luck in its last years, but interesting to -prowling strangers enamoured of the antique and out-of-date. - -The vanished interest of other corners in London might be enlarged upon, -but it is too melancholy a picture. Let us to the Borough High Street, -and, resolutely refusing to think for the moment of the many queer old -galleried inns that not so long since remained there, come to that sole -survivor, the "George." - -You would never by mere chance find the "George," for it has no frontage -to the street, and lies along one side of a yard not at first sight very -prepossessing, and, in fact, used in these days for the unsentimental -purposes of a railway goods-receiving depot. This, however, is the old -yard once entirely in use for the business of the inn. - -The "George," as it now stands, is the successor of a pre-Reformation inn -that, formerly the "St. George," became secularised in the time of Henry -the Eighth, when saints, even patron saints, were under a cloud. It is an -exceedingly long range of buildings, dating from the seventeenth century, -and in two distinct and different styles: a timbered, wooden-balustraded -gallery in two storeys, and a white-washed brick continuation. The long -ground-floor range of windows to the kitchen, the bar, and the -coffee-room, is, as seen in the illustration, protected from any accidents -in the manoeuvring of the railway waggons by a continuous bulkhead of -sleepers driven into the ground. It is pleasing to be able to bear witness -to the thriving trade that continues to be done in this sole ancient -survivor of the old Southwark galleried inns, and to note that, however -harshly fate, as personified by rapacious landlords, has dealt with its -kind, the old-world savour of the inn is thoroughly appreciated by those -not generally thought sentimental persons, the commercial men who dine and -lunch, and the commercial travellers who sleep, here. - -But, however pleasing the old survivals in brick and stone, in timber and -plaster, may be to the present generation, we seem, by the evidence left -us in the literature and printed matter of an earlier age, to have -travelled far from gross to comparatively ideal manners. - -[Illustration: THE LAST OF THE OLD GALLERIED INNS OF LONDON: THE "GEORGE," -SOUTHWARK. _Photo by T. W. Tyrrell._] - -The manners common to all classes in old times would scarce commend -themselves to modern folk. We get a curious glimpse of them in one of a -number of Manuals of Foreign Conversation for the use of travellers, -published towards the close of the sixteenth century in Flanders, then a -country of great trading importance, sending forth commercial travellers -and others to many foreign lands. One of these handy books, styled, rather -formidably, _Colloquia et dictionariolum septem linguarum_, including, as -its title indicates, conversation in seven languages, was so highly -successful that seven editions of it, dating from 1589, are known. The -traveller in England, coming to his inn, is found talking on the subject -of trade and civil wars, and at length desires to retire to rest. The -conversation itself is sufficiently strange, and is made additionally -startling by the capital W's that appear in unconventional places. "Sir," -says the traveller, "by your leave, I am sum What euell at ease." To which -the innkeeper replies: "Sir, if you be ill at ease, go and take your rest, -your chambre is readie. Jone, make a good fier in his chambre, and let him -lacke nothing." - -Then we have a dialogue with "Jone," the chambermaid, in this wise: - -_Traveller_: My shee frinde, is my bed made? is it good? - -"Yea, Sir, it is a good feder bed, the scheetes be very cleane." - -_Traveller_: I shake as a leafe upon the tree. Warme my kerchif and bynde -my head well. Soft, you binde it to harde, bryng my pilloW and cover mee -Well: pull off my hosen and Warme my bed: draWe the curtines and pinthen -With a pin. - -Where is the camber pot? - -Where is the priuie? - -_Chambermaid_: FolloW mee, and I Will sheW you the Way: go up streight, -you shall finde them at the right hand. If you see them not you shall -smell them Well enough. Sir, doth it please you to haue no other thing? -are you Wel? - -_Traveller_: Yea, my shee frinde, put out the candell, and come nearer to -mee. - -_Chambermaid_: I Wil put it out When I am out of the chamber. What is your -pleasure, are you not Well enough yet? - -_Traveller_: My head lyeth to loWe, lift up a little the bolster, I can -not lie so loWe.--My shee friende, kisse me once, and I shall sleape the -better. - -_Chambermaid_: Sleape, sleape, you are not sicke, seeing that you speake -of kissyng. I had rather die then to kisse a man in his bed, or in any -other place. Take your rest in God's name, God geeue you good night and -goode rest. - -_Traveller_: I thank you, fayre mayden. - -In the morning we have "Communication at the oprysing," the traveller -calling to the boy to "Drie my shirt, that I may rise." Then, "Where is -the horse-keeper? go tell him that hee my horse leade to the river." - -Departing, our traveller does not forget the chambermaid, and asks, "Where -is ye maiden? hold my shee freend, ther is for your paines. Knave, bring -hither my horse, have you dressed him Well?" "Yea, sir," says the knave, -"he did Wante nothing." - -Anciently people of note and position, with large acquaintance among their -own class, expected, when they travelled, to be received at the country -houses along their route, if they should so desire, and still, at the -close of the seventeenth century, and at the beginning of the eighteenth, -the custom was not unknown. Even should the master be away from home, the -hospitality of his house was not usually withheld. From these old and -discontinued customs we may, perhaps, derive that one by no means -obsolete, but rather still on the increase, of guests "tipping" the -servants of country houses. - -This possibility of a traveller making use of another man's house as his -inn was fast dying out in England in the time of Charles the Second. -Probably it had never been so abused in this country as in Scotland, where -innkeepers petitioned Parliament, complaining, in the extraordinary -language at that time obtaining in Scotland, "that the liegis travelland -in the realme quhen they cum to burrowis and throuchfairís, herbreis thame -not in hostillaries, but with their acquaintance and friendis." - -An enactment was accordingly passed in 1425, forbidding, under a penalty -of forty shillings, all travellers resorting to burgh towns to lodge with -friends or acquaintances, or in any place but the "hostillaries," unless, -indeed, they were persons of consequence, with a great retinue, in which -case they personally might accept the hospitality of friends, provided -that their "horse and meinze" were sent to the inns. - -When the custom of seeking the shelter, as a matter of course, of the -country mansion fell into disuse, so, conversely, did that of naming inns -after the local Lord of the Manor come into fashion. Then, in a manner -emblematic of the traveller's change from the hospitality of the mansion -to that of the inn, mine host adopted the heraldic coat from the great -man's portal, and called his house the "---- Arms." It has been left to -modern times, times in which heraldry has long ceased to be an exact -science, to perpetrate such absurdities as the "Bricklayers' Arms," the -"Drovers' Arms," and the like, appropriated to a class of person unknown -officially to the College of Heralds. - -According to Fynes Morison, who wrote in 1617, we held then, in this -country, a pre-eminence in the trade and art of innkeeping: "The world," -he said, "affords not such inns as England hath, for as soon as a -passenger comes the servants run to him: one takes his horse, and walks -him till he be cold, then rubs him and gives him meat, but let the master -look to this point. Another gives the traveller his private chamber and -kindles his fire, the third pulls off his boots and makes them clean; then -the host or hostess visits him--if he will eat with the host--or at a -common table it will be 4_d._ and 6_d._ If a gentleman has his own -chamber, his ways are consulted, and he has music, too, if he likes." - -In short, Morison wrote of English inns just anterior to the time of -Samuel Pepys, who travelled much in his day, and tells us freely, in his -appreciative way, of the excellent appointments, the music, the good fare -and the comfortable beds he, in general, found. - -But this era in which Morison wrote was a trying time for all innkeepers -and taverners. The story of it is so remarkable that it repays a lengthy -treatment. - -In our own age it is customary to many otherwise just and fair-minded -people to look upon the innkeeper as a son of a Belial, a sinner who -should be kept in outer darkness and made to sit in sackcloth and ashes, -in penance for other people's excesses. On the one side he has the -cormorants of the Inland Revenue plucking out his vitals, and generally, -if it be a "tied" house, on the other a Brewery Company, selling him the -worst liquors at the best prices, and threatening to turn him out if he -does not maintain a trade of so many barrels a month. Always, from the -earliest times, he has been the mark for satire and invective, has been -licensed, sweated, regulated, and generally put on the chain; but he -probably had never so bad a time as that he experienced in the last years -of James the First. Already innkeepers were licensed at Quarter Sessions, -but in 1616 it occurred to one Giles Mompesson, the time-serving Member of -Parliament for the rotten borough of Great Bedwin, in Wiltshire, that much -plunder could be extracted from them and used to replenish the Royal -Exchequer, then at a low ebb, if he could obtain the grant of a monopoly -of licensing inns, over-riding the old-established functions in that -direction of the magistrates. - -Giles Mompesson was no altruist, or at the best a perverted one, who put -his own interpretation upon that good old maxim, "Who works for others -works for himself." He foresaw that while such a State monopoly, under -his own control, might bring a bountiful return to the State, it must -enrich himself and those associated with him. He imparted the brilliant -idea to that dissolute royal favourite, George Villiers, Duke of -Buckingham, who succeeded in obtaining him a patent for a special -commission to grant licenses to keepers of inns and ale-houses. The patent -was issued, not without great opposition, and the licensing fees were left -to the discretion of Mompesson and his two fellow-commissioners, with the -only proviso that four-fifths of the returns were to go to the Exchequer. -Shortly afterwards Mompesson himself was knighted by the King, in order, -as Bacon wrote, "that he may better fight with the Bulls and the Bears and -the Saracen's Heads, and such fearful creatures." Much virtue and power, -of the magisterial sort, in a knighthood; likely, we consider, King and -commissioners, and all concerned in the issuing of this patent, to impress -and overawe poor Bung, and therefore we, James the First, most sacred -Majesty by the grace of God, do, on Newmarket Heath, say, "Rise, Sir -Giles!" - -The three commissioners wielded full authority. There was no appeal from -that triumvirate, who at their will refused or granted licenses, and -charged for them what they pleased, hungering after that one-fifth. They -largely increased the number of inns, woefully oppressed honest men, wrung -heavy fines from all for merely technical and inadvertent infractions of -the licensing laws, and granted new licenses at exorbitant rates to -infamous houses that had but recently been deprived of them. During more -than four years these iniquities continued, side by side with the working -of other monopolies, granted from time to time, but at last the gathering -storm of indignation burst, in the House of Commons, in February, 1621. -That was a Parliament already working with the leaven of a Puritanism -which was presently to leaven the whole lump of English governance in a -drastic manner then little dreamt of; and it was keen to scent and to -abolish abuses. - -Thus we see the House, very stern and vindictive, inquiring into the -conduct and working of the by now notorious Commission. In the result -Mompesson and his associates were found to have prosecuted 3,320 -innkeepers for technical infractions of obsolete statutes, and to have -been guilty of many misdemeanours. Mompesson appealed to the mercy of the -House, but was placed under arrest by the Sergeant-at-Arms while that -assembly deliberated how it should act. Mompesson himself clearly expected -to be severely dealt with, for at the earliest moment evaded his arrest -and was off, across the Channel, where he learnt--no doubt with cynical -amusement--that he had been "banished." - -The judgment of the two Houses of Parliament was that he should be -expelled the House, and be degraded from his knighthood and conducted on -horseback along the Strand with his face to the horse's tail. Further, he -was to be fined £10,000, and for ever held an infamous person. - -Meanwhile, if Parliament failed to lay the chief offender by the heels, it -did at least succeed in putting hand upon, and detaining, one of his -equally infamous associates, himself a knight, and accordingly susceptible -of some dramatic degradation, beyond anything to be possibly wreaked upon -any common fellow. Sir Francis Mitchell, attorney-at-law, was consigned to -the Tower, and then brought forth from it to have his spurs hacked off and -thrown away, his sword broken over his head, and himself publicly called -no longer knight, but "knave." Then to the Fleet Prison, with certainty on -the morrow of a public procession to Westminster, himself the central -object, mounted, with face to tail, on the back of the sorriest horse to -be found, and the target for all the missiles of the crowd: a prospect and -programme duly realised and carried out. - -Mompesson we may easily conceive hearing of, and picturing, all these -things, in his retreat over sea, and congratulating himself on his prompt -flight. But he was, after all, treated with the most extraordinary -generosity. The same year, the fine of £10,000 was assigned by the House -to his father-in-law (which we suspect was an oblique way of remitting it) -and in 1623 he is found petitioning to be allowed to return to England. He -was allowed to return for a period of three months, on condition that it -was to be solely on his private affairs, but he was no sooner back than -he impudently began to put his old licensing patent in force again. On -August 10th he was granted an extension of three months, but overstayed -it, and was at last, February 8th, 1624, ordered to quit the country -within five days. It remains uncertain whether he complied with this, or -not, but he soon returned; not, however, to again trouble public affairs, -for he returned to Wiltshire and died there, obscurely, about 1651. He -lives in literature, in Massinger's play, _A New Way to pay Old Debts_, as -"Sir Giles Overreach." - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY - - -The inns of old time, serving as they did the varied functions of clubs -and assembly-rooms and places of general resort, in addition to that of -hotel, were often, at times when controversies ran high, very turbulent -places. - -The manners and customs prevailing in the beginning of the eighteenth -century may be imagined from an affray which befell at the "Raven," -Shrewsbury, in 1716, when two officers of the Dragoons insisted in the -public room of the inn, upon a Mr. Andrew Swift and a Mr. Robert Wood, -apothecary, drinking "King George, and Damnation to the Jacobites." The -civilians refused, whereupon those military men drew their swords, -but--swords notwithstanding--they were very handsomely thrashed, and one -was placed upon the fire, and not only had his breeches burnt through in a -conspicuous place, but had his person toasted. The officers then, we -learn, "went off, leaving their hatts, wigs and swords (which were broke) -behind them." - -One did not, it will be gathered from the above, easily in those times -lead the Quiet Life; but that was a heated occasion, and we were then -really upon the threshold of that fine era when inns, taverns, and -coffee-houses were the resort, not merely of travellers or of thirsty -souls, but of wits and the great figures of eighteenth-century literature, -who were convivial as well as literary. It was a great, and, as it seems -to the present century, a curious, time; when men of the calibre of -Addison, of Goldsmith and of Johnson, acknowledged masters in classic and -modern literature, smoked and drank to excess in the public parlours of -inns. But those were the clubs of that age, and that was an age in which, -although the producers of literature were miserably rewarded, their -company and conversation were sought and listened to with respect. - -When Dr. Johnson declared that a seat in a tavern chair was the height of -human felicity, his saying carried a special significance, lost upon the -present age. He was thinking, not only of a comfortable sanded parlour, a -roaring fire, and plenty of good cheer and good company, but also of the -circle of humbly appreciative auditors who gathered round an accepted wit, -hung upon his words, offered themselves as butts for his ironic or satiric -humour, and--stood treat. The great wits of the eighteenth century -expected subservience in their admirers, and only began to coruscate, to -utter words of wisdom or inspired nonsense, or to scatter sparkling quips -and jests, when well primed with liquor--at the expense of others. The -felicity of Johnson found in a tavern chair was derived, therefore, -chiefly from the homage of his attendant humble Boswells, and from the -fact that they paid the reckoning; and was, perhaps, to some modern ideas, -a rather shameful idea of happiness. - -Johnson, who did not love the country, and thought one green field very -like another green field, when he spoke of a tavern chair was of course -thinking of London taverns. He would have found no sufficient audience in -its wayside fellow, which indeed was apt, in his time and for long after, -to be somewhat rough and ready, and, when you had travelled a little far -afield, became a very primitive and indeed barbarous place. - -At Llannon, in 1797, those sketching and note-taking friends, Rowlandson -and Wigstead, touring North and South Wales in search of the picturesque, -found it, not unmixed with dirt and discomfort, at the inns. Indeed, it -was only at one town in Wales--the town of Neath--that Wigstead found -himself able to declare, "with strict propriety," that the house was -comfortable. Comfort and decency fled the inn at Llannon, abashed. This, -according to Wigstead, was the way of it: "The cook on our arrival was in -the suds, and, with unwiped hands, reached down a fragment of mutton for -our repast: a piece of ham was lost, but after long search was found -amongst the worsted stockings and sheets on the board." - -Then "a little child was sprawling in a dripping-pan which seemed recently -taken from the fire: the fat in this was destined to fry our eggs in. -Hunger itself even was blunted," and the travellers left those delicacies -almost untouched. Not even the bread was without its surprises. "I devoted -my attention to a brown loaf," says Wigstead, "but on cutting into it was -surprised to find a ball of carroty-coloured wool; and to what animal it -had belonged I was at a loss to determine. Our table-cloth had served the -family for at least a month, and our sitting-room was everywhere decorated -with the elegant relics of a last night's smoking society, as yet -unremoved." - -All this was pretty bad, but perhaps even the baby in the dripping-pan, -the month-old table-cloth, and the hank of wool in the loaf were to be -preferred to what they had experienced at Festiniog. They had not at first -purposed to make a halt at that place, having planned to stay the night at -Tan-y-Bwlch, where the inn commanded a view over a lovely wooded vale. The -perils and the inconveniences of the vile road by which they had come -faded into insignificance when they drew near, and they began to reckon -upon the comforts of a good supper and good beds at Tan-y-Bwlch. They even -disputed whether the supper should be chickens or chops, but all such vain -arguments and contentions faded away when they drew near and a stony-faced -landlord declared he had no room for them. - -We can easily sympathise here with those travellers in search of the -picturesque, for we have all met with the like strokes of Fate. No doubt -the beauties of the view suddenly obscured themselves, as will happen -when you can get nothing to eat or drink; and probably they thought of Dr. -Johnson, who a few years earlier had held the most beautiful landscape -capable of being improved by a good inn in the foreground. But a good inn -where they cannot or will not receive you, is, in such a situation, -sorrow's crown of sorrow, an aggravation and a mockery. - -It was a tragical position, and down the sounding alleys of time vibrates -strange chords of reminiscence in the breasts of even modern tourists of -any experience. We too, have suffered; and many an one may say, with much -tragical meaning, "_et ego in Arcadia vixit_." - -Alas! for the frustrated purpose of Messrs. Rowlandson and Wigstead, -Tan-y-Bwlch could not, or would not, receive them, and they had no choice -but to journey three more long Welsh miles to Festiniog in the rain. It -sometimes rains in Wales, and when it does, it rarely knows when to leave -off. - -Arrived there, they almost passed the inn, in the gathering darkness, -mistaking it for a barn or an outhouse; and when they made to enter, they -were confronted by an extraordinary landlady with the appearance of one of -the three witches in _Macbeth_. - -"Could they have beds?" - -Reluctantly she said they could, telling them (what we know to be true -enough) that she supposed they only came there because there was no -accommodation at Tan-y-Bwlch. - -The travellers made no reply to that damning accusation, and hid their -incriminating blushes in the congenial gloom of the fast-falling night. It -was a situation in which, if you come to consider it, no wise man would -give "back answers." You have a landlady who, for the proverbial two pins, -or even less, would cast you forth; and when so thrust into the -inhospitable night, you have seventeen mountainous miles to go, in a -drenching rain, before any other kind of asylum is reached. - -Wigstead remarks that they "were not a little satisfied at being under any -kind of roof," and the words seem woefully inadequate to the occasion. - -There were no chops that night for supper, nor chickens; and they fed, -with what grace they could summon up, on a "small leg of starved mutton -and a duck," which, by the scent of them, had been cooked a fortnight. For -sauce they had hunger only. - -"Our bedrooms," says Wigstead, "were most miserable indeed: the rain -poured in at every tile in the ceiling," and the sheets were literally -wringing wet; so that, in Wigstead's elegant phrasing, they "thought it -most prudent to sacrifice to _Somnus_ in our own garments, between -blankets": which may perhaps be translated, into everyday English, to mean -that they slept in their own clothes. - -They saw strange sights on that wild tour, and, in the course of their -hazardous travels through the then scarcely civilised interior of the -Principality, came to the "pleasant village" of Newcastle Emlyn, -Carmarthenshire, where they found a "decent inn" in whose kitchen they -remarked a dog acting as turnspit. That the dogs so employed did not -particularly relish the work is evident in Wigstead's remark: "Great care -must be taken that this animal does not observe the cook approach the -larder. If he does, he immediately hides himself for the remainder of the -day," acting, in fact, like a professional "unemployed" when offered a -job! - -A familiar sight in the kitchen of any considerable inn of the long ago -was the turnspit dog, who, like the caged mouse or squirrel with his -recreation-wheel, revolved a kind of treadwheel which, in this instance, -was connected with apparatus for turning the joints roasting at the fire, -and formed not so much recreation as extremely hard work. The dogs -commonly used for this purpose were of the long-bodied, short-legged, -Dachshund type. - -Machinery, in the form of bottle-jacks revolved by clockwork, came to the -relief of those hard-working dogs so long ago that all knowledge of -turnspits, except such as may be gleaned from books of reference, is now -lost, and illustrations of them performing their duties are exceedingly -rare. Rowlandson's spirited drawing is, on that account, doubly welcome. - -[Illustration: THE KITCHEN OF A COUNTRY INN, 1797: SHOWING THE TURNSPIT -DOG. _From the engraving after Rowlandson._] - -Turnspits were made the subject of a very illuminating notice, a -generation or so back, by a former writer on country life: "How well do I -recollect," he says, "in the days of my youth watching the operations of a -turnspit at the house of a worthy old Welsh clergyman in Worcestershire, -who taught me to read! He was a good man, wore a bushy wig, black worsted -stockings, and large plated buckles in his shoes. As he had several -boarders as well as day-scholars, his two turnspits had plenty to do. They -were long-bodied, crook-legged and ugly dogs, with a suspicious, unhappy -look about them, as if they were weary of the task they had to do, and -expected every moment to be seized upon, to perform it. Cooks in those -days, as they are said to be at present, were very cross; and if the poor -animal, wearied with having a larger joint than usual to turn, stopped for -a moment, the voice of the cook might be heard, rating him in no very -gentle terms. When we consider that a large, solid piece of beef would -take at least three hours before it was properly roasted, we may form some -idea of the task a dog had to perform in turning a wheel during that time. -A pointer has pleasure in finding game, the terrier worries rats with -eagerness and delight, and the bull-dog even attacks bulls with the -greatest energy, while the poor turnspit performs his task with -compulsion, like a culprit on a tread-wheel, subject to scolding or -beating if he stops a moment to rest his weary limbs, and is then kicked -about the kitchen when the task is over." - -The work being so hard, how ever did the dogs allow themselves to be put -to it? The training was, after all, extremely simple. You first, as Mrs. -Glasse might say, caught your dog. That, it will be agreed, was -indispensable. Then you put him, ignorant and uneducated, into the wheel, -and in company with him a live coal, which burnt his legs if he stood -still. He accordingly tried to race away from it, and the quicker he spun -the wheel round in his efforts the faster followed the coal: so that, by -dint of much painful experience, he eventually learned the (comparatively) -happy medium between standing still and going too fast. "These dogs," it -was somewhat unnecessarily added, "were by no means fond of their -profession." Of course they were not! Does the convict love his crank or -treadmill, or the galley-slave his oar and bench? - -The turnspit was once so well-known an institution that he found an -allusion in poetry, and an orator was likened, in uncomplimentary fashion, -to one: - - His arguments in silly circles run, - Still round and round, and end where they begun. - So the poor turnspit, as the wheel runs round, - The more he gains, the more he loses ground. - -These unfortunate dogs acquired a preternatural intelligence. A humorous, -but probably not true, story is told, illustrating this. It was at Bath, -and some of them had accompanied their mistresses to church, where the -lesson chanced to be the tenth chapter of Ezekiel, in which there is an -amazing deal about self-propelled chariots, and wheels. When the dogs -first heard the word "wheel" they started up in alarm; on its occurring a -second time they howled dolefully, and at the third instance they all -rushed from the church. - -Strangely modern appear the grievances raised against innkeepers in the -old times. The bills they presented were early pronounced exorbitant, and -so, in spite of measures intended for the relief of travellers, they -remained. Indeed, throughout the centuries, until the present day, the -curious in these matters will find, not unexpectedly, that innkeepers -charged according to what they considered their guests would grumble -at--and pay. - -The eighteenth-century _locus classicus_ in this sort is the account -rendered to the Duc de Nivernais, the French Ambassador to England, who in -1762, coming to negotiate a treaty of peace, halted the night, on his way -from Dover to London, at the "Red Lion," Canterbury. - -For the night's lodging for twelve persons, with a frugal supper in which -oysters, fowls, boiled mutton, poached eggs and fried whiting figure, the -landlord presented an account of over £44. Our soldiers fought the -Frenchman; mine host did his humble, non-combatant part, and fleeced him. - -This truly magnificent bill has been preserved, not, let us hope, for the -emulation of other hotel-keepers, but by way of a "terrible example." -Here it is: - - £ s. d. - Tea, coffee, and chocolate 1 4 0 - Supper for self and servants 15 10 0 - Bread and beer 3 0 0 - Fruit 2 15 0 - Wine and punch 10 8 8 - Wax candles and charcoal 3 0 0 - Broken glass and china 2 10 0 - Lodging 1 7 0 - Tea, coffee, and chocolate 2 0 0 - Chaise and horses for the next stage 2 16 0 - ------- - 44 10 8 - ======= - -The Duke paid the account without a murmur, only remarking that innkeepers -at this rate should soon grow rich; but news of this extraordinary charge -was soon spread all over England. It was printed in the newspapers, amid -other marvels, disasters and atrocities, and mine host of the "Red Lion," -like Byron in a later age, woke up one morning to find himself famous. - -The country gentlemen, scandalised at his rapacity, boycotted his inn, and -his brother innkeepers of Canterbury disowned him. The unfortunate man -wrote to the _St. James's Chronicle_, endeavouring to justify himself, and -complaining bitterly of the harm that had been wrought his business by the -continual billeting of soldiers upon him. But it was in vain he protested; -his trade fell off, and he was ruined in six months. - -Sometimes, too, there was a difference of opinion as to whether a bill had -or had not actually been paid, as we see by the following indignant -letter: - - Normanton near Stamford. - 2{d} Sept{r} 1755. - - Madam, - - My Lord Morton Received a Letter from you of the 5{th} Aug{t} - inclosing a Bill drawn by you on his Lp for £6 1 11, and to make up - this sum p{r} your Account annexed to the above-mentioned Letter, you - charge twelve shillings for his Servant's eating, for which he is - ready to Swear he paid you in full; then you charge for the Horses Hay - for 35 Nights notwithstanding you was ordered to send the horse out to - grass, and by the by when the horse came to London he was so poor as - if he had been quite neglected which seems probable as he mended soon - after he came here; at any rate you have used my Lord ill in the whole - affair, and if you or your Servants have committed any accidental - mistake either in the Lads Board or the horses hay pray see to rectify - it soon, because things of that sort not cleard up and satisfied are - very hurtfull to People in your publick way especially with those to - whom you have already been obliged, and who at any rate will not be - imposed upon. I am-- - - Madam-- - Your humble sert - JOHN MILNE. - - To - M{rs} Beaver - at the Black Bull - Newcastle - upon Tine, - free - Morton. - -Then there was Dover, notorious for high prices. "Thy cliffs, _dear_ -Dover! harbour and hotel," sang Byron, who bitterly remembered the "long, -long bills, whence nothing is deducted." The "Ship," the hotel probably -indicted by the poet, has long since disappeared, but that gigantic -caravanserai, the "Lord Warden Hotel," could at one time, in its -monumental charges, have afforded him material for another stanza. -Magnificent as were the charges made by overreaching hosts elsewhere, they -all paled their ineffectual sums-total before the sublime heights of the -account rendered to Louis Napoleon when Prince-President of France. He -merely remarked that it was truly princely, and paid. - -[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF AN ACCOUNT RENDERED TO JOHN PALMER IN 1787.] - -If, on the other hand, that famous coaching hostelry, the "Swan with Two -Necks," in Lad Lane, in the City of London, charged guests for their -accommodation as moderately as the accompanying bill for stabling a horse, -the establishment should have been popular. This bill, printed here in -_facsimile_ from the original, was presented, April 16th, 1787, to John -Palmer, the famous Post Office reformer, and shows that only one shilling -and ninepence a night was charged. Yet he was at that time a famous man. -Three years before he had established the first mail-coach, and was -everywhere well known, and doubtless, in general, fair prey to renderers -of bills. - -[Illustration: THE LAST DAYS OF THE "SWAN WITH TWO NECKS."] - -The "Swan with Two Necks," whence many coaches set out, until the end of -such things, was often known by waggish people as the "Wonderful Bird," -and obtained its name from a perversion of the "Swan with Two Nicks": -swans that swam the upper Thames and were the property of the Vintners' -Company being marked on their bills with two nicks, for identification. -Lad Lane is now "Gresham Street," but, apart from its mere name, is a lane -still; but the old buildings of the "Swan with Two Necks" were pulled down -in 1856. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -LATTER DAYS - - -A host of writers have written in praise--and rightly in praise--of that -fine flower of many centuries of innkeeping evolution, the Coaching Inn of -the early and mid-nineteenth century. Hazlitt, Washington Irving, De -Quincey, are all among the prophets; De Quincey, ceasing for the while his -mystical apocalyptic style, mournfully lamenting the beginnings of the end -that came even so long ago as his day, which, after all, ended not so very -long ago, for although he seems so ancient, he died only in 1859. He -writes, in early railway times, of "those days," the days in question -being that fine period in coaching and innkeeping, the '20's of the -nineteenth century. - -"What cosy old parlours in those days," he exclaims, "low-roofed, glowing -with ample fires and fenced from the blasts of the doors by screens whose -folding doors were, or seemed to be, infinite! What motherly landladies! -won, how readily, to kindness the most lavish by the mere attractions of -simplicity and youthful innocence, and finding so much interest in the -bare circumstance of being a traveller at a childish age! Then what -blooming young handmaidens; how different from the knowing and worldly -demireps of modern high roads! And sometimes grey-headed, faithful -waiters, how sincere and attentive by comparison with their flippant -successors, the eternal 'Coming, sir, coming,' of our improved -generation!" - -They all tell the same tale; those whose privilege it was to witness the -meeting of the old order and the new. - -"It was interesting," says Mr. Locker-Lampson, writing of old times, "as -the post-chaise drew up at the door of the roomy and comfortable hostel -where we were to dine or sleep, to see Boniface and his better half -smilingly awaiting us--Us in particular!--waiter and chamber-lasses -grouped behind them. The landlady advances to the carriage-window with a -cordial, self-respecting, 'Will you please to alight.' I remember that the -landlord, who announced dinner, sometimes entered with the first dish and -placed it on the table, bowing as he retired. Why, it all seems as if it -were but yesterday! Now it is gone for ever." - -Yes, irrevocably gone. Most of the old inns are gone too, and in their -place, only too frequently, the traveller finds the modern, company-owned -hotel, with a foreign manager who naturally takes no interest in the -guests he, as a matter of fact, rarely sees, and with whom no guest could -possibly foregather. In the modern barrack hotel the guest must -necessarily be impersonal--one of a number going to swell the returns. No -one quite willingly resigns himself to being a mere number; it is, -indeed, one of the greatest of the convict's trials that he has lost his -name and become identified only by a letter and a row of figures. Just in -the same way, when we stay at hotels our self-respect is revolted at being -received and dismissed with equal indifference, and there are many who -would gladly resign the innovations of electric light and hydraulic lifts -for that "welcome at an inn" of which Shenstone speaks. The philosophy of -these regrets must, in fact, be sought in that illuminating phrase, "_Us -in particular_." We travellers are unwilling to be thought of merely as -numbers identical with those of our bedrooms, and we like to believe, -against our own better judgment, that the old-fashioned hosts and -hostesses were pleased to see _us_; which of course, in that special -sense, was not the case. But a little make-believe sometimes goes a great -way, and we need never, unless we have a mind to distress ourselves, seek -the tongue of humbug in the cheek of courtesy. - -The landlord of a good coaching house was a very important person indeed. -Not seldom he was a large owner of horses and employer of labour; a man of -some culture and of considerable wealth. He was not only a good judge of -wine and horseflesh, but of men and matters, and not merely the servant, -but the self-respecting and respected friend, of the gentry in his -neighbourhood. He was generally in evidence at his house, and he or his -wife would have scorned the idea of appointing a manager to do their work. -In those days, and with such men along the road, it was an established -rule of etiquette for the coming guest to invite his host to take a glass -of wine with him and to exchange the news. But the type has become quite -extinct, and even their old houses have been either demolished or else -converted into private residences. Such hosts were Mr. and Mrs. Botham, of -the "Windmill" at Salt Hill; or the long succession of notable landlords -of the "Castle" at Marlborough, on the Bath Road; such were Clark, of the -"Bell," Barnby Moor, and Holt of the "Wheatsheaf," Rushyford Bridge, on -the Great North Road,--to name but those. - -They were men, too, of considerable influence, and, when equipped with -determination, wielded a certain amount of power, and brought great -changes to pass; as when Robert Lawrence, of the "Lion" at Shrewsbury, by -dint of great personal exertions, brought the line of travel between -London and Dublin through Shrewsbury and Holyhead, instead of, as -formerly, through Chester. He died in 1806, and the curious may yet read -on his mural monument in St. Julian's Church how he was "many years -proprietor of the 'Raven' and 'Lion' inns in this town," and that it was -to his "public spirit and unremitting exertions for upwards of thirty -years, in opening the great road through Wales between the United -kingdoms, as also for establishing the first mail-coach, that the public -in general have been greatly indebted." - -Almost equally forceful were some of the old-time proprietors of the -"George" at Walsall. In 1781 Mr. Thomas Fletcher, one of an old and -highly respected family in that town, gave up the "Dragon" in High Street -and built the great "George Hotel." He even procured an Act of Parliament -by which the present road from Walsall to Stafford was made, thereby -bringing Walsall out of a by-road into the direct line of traffic. He also -caused the Birmingham road to be straightened and widened, and gradually -brought coaching and posting through the town. His successors, Fletcher -and Sharratt, were equally energetic. In 1823 they remodelled the -"George," giving it the classic-columned front that confers a kind of -third-cousin relationship to the British Museum, with unappetising and -gruesome thoughts of dining on fried mummy and kippered parchments. The -columns, which are still very solemnly there--or were, a year ago--came -from the Marquis of Donegall's neighbouring seat of Fisherwick Hall, -demolished about that time, and the placing of them here was celebrated by -an inaugural feast, "the colonnade dinner," presided over by Lord -Hatherton, a great patron of the house. - -Those wonder-working innkeepers also, in 1831, promoted the Bill by which -the present Birmingham road through Perry Bar was made, superseding the -old route by Hamstead and Handsworth church. - -Unfortunately, those fine old innkeepers, whatever else they were, were -not usually cultivators of the art of literary expression, and did not -write their memoirs and reminiscences. Yet they could, had they chosen, -have told an interesting tale of men and matters. Consider! They were in -the whirl of life, and often knew personages and affairs, not merely by -report, but at first hand. What would not the historian of social England -give for such reminiscences? They would open the door to much that is now -sealed, and would clothe the dry bones of mere facts with romance. - -One such innkeeper, Mr. J. Kearsley Fowler, who kept the "White Hart," -Aylesbury, in the last few years of its existence, has, however, left us -something by which we may see, described at first-hand, the life and -surroundings of a first-class old coaching and posting inn between 1812 -and those middle years of the '60's, when a few branch-road coaches were -yet left, and the Squire and Agriculture were still prosperous. - -He tells us, of his own knowledge, that the innkeepers had by far the -largest amount of capital invested in the country towns, where, as men -generally of superior manners and education, from their constant -association with the leading nobility, clergy, and magistracy, they took a -prominent position, both socially and politically, the leading houses -being the head quarters, respectively, of Whigs and Tories. - -The "White Hart" at Aylesbury was generally believed to have dated back to -the time of Richard the Second, and in the time of the Wars of the Roses -to have been the rendezvous of the White Rose party, while the "Roebuck" -was affected to the Red Rose. - -Until 1812 the "White Hart" retained its fine mediæval, three-gabled -frontage, with first floor overhanging the ground-floor, and the second -overhanging the first. Elaborately carved barge-boards decorated the -gables. In the centre of the front was a great gateway with deeply reeded -oaken posts and heavy double doors, which could be closed on occasion; -but, in the growing security of the land, had scarce within the memory of -man been shut to. Within was a spacious courtyard, partly surrounded by a -gallery supported on stout oaken pillars and reached by a staircase. From -this gallery, as in most other mediæval hostelries, the bedrooms and -principal sitting-rooms opened. The "Coffee Room" and "Commercial Room" -were at either side of the entrance from the street: the "Commercial Room" -itself having, before the days of "commercials," once been called "the -Change," and used, as asserted by local tradition, as the place where the -principal business transactions of the town were conducted, over suitable -liquor. - -On the side opposite was the room called the "Crown," where the collectors -of customs and excise, and other officials periodically attended. In the -"Mitre," an adjoining room, the Chancellor of the Bishop of Lincoln, and -the "Apparitor" of the Archdeacon had of old collected, for three hundred -years, the dues or fees of the Church. Another room, the "Fountain," was -perhaps originally a select bar. Running under the entire frontage of the -house was the extensive cellarage, necessarily spacious in days when every -one drank wine, and many deeply. - -At the end of the yard was the great kitchen, and beyond it large gardens -and a beautiful, full-sized bowling-green. Gigantic elms, at least three -centuries old, bordered the gardens, which were further screened from -outside observation by dense shrubberies of flowering shrubs, laburnums, -lilacs, mountain-ash, acacias, and red chestnuts. Ancient walnut-trees and -shady arbours completed this lovely retreat. - -But this was not all. Beyond this very delightful, but merely ornamental, -portion was an orchard stocked with fine apple- and pear-trees: codlins, -golden and ribston pippins, Blenheim orange, russets and early -June-eatings, Gansell's bergamot pear, and others. Three very fine -mulberry-trees, at least three centuries old, and of course a varied and -extensive stock of bush-fruit, were included in this orchard, and in -addition there was the kitchen-garden. - -In the orchard were the cow-houses and piggeries, and the hospital for -lame or ailing horses. A mill-stream ran at the bottom, and in the midst -of it was a "stew," a shallow pond for freshwater fish, in which was kept -an "eel-trunk," a strong iron box about four feet long and two feet wide -and deep, perforated with holes. The lid of this contrivance was fastened -with lock and key, and was under the charge of the man-cook, who was head -of the servants. When eels were required for table, the trunk would be -hauled up to bank by a strong iron chain, and emptied. - -The stables had stalls for about fifty horses, and over them were lofts -for hay, straw, and corn. Harness-rooms, waiting-room for the postboys, -and an "ostry," _i.e._, office and store-room for the ostler, were -attached, together with chaise and coach-houses. The establishment of the -"White Hart"--and it was typical of many others in the old days--covered -from five to six acres. - -The staff of such a house was, of course, large. Besides the innkeeper and -his wife, both of them working hard in the conduct of the business, there -were housekeeper, barmaid, man-cook, waiter and under-waiter, kitchenmaid, -scullerymaid, chambermaid, laundress, housemaid, nurse, boots, ostler, -tap-boy, first-turn postboy, and generally an extra woman: sixteen -persons, whom the innkeeper had to lodge and feed daily, in addition to -his guests. - -The "White Hart" was re-fronted in a very plain, not to say ugly, manner -in 1813, and finally demolished in 1863. Not even that most lovely and -most famous feature of it, the celebrated "Rochester room," was spared. -This was a noble apartment, built as an addition to the back of the house -in 1663 by the Earl of Rochester, as a return for a signal service -rendered by the landlord in that time--perilous to such Cavaliers as -he--the Commonwealth. It seems, according to Clarendon, that the Earl and -Sir Nicholas Armour came riding horseback into the town one night and put -up at the "White Hart," then kept by a landlord named Gilvy, who was -affected strongly in favour of Cromwell and all his doings. The local -magistrate, hearing of the visit of the Earl, sent secretly to the -innkeeper requesting him to detain the travellers' horses the next -morning, so that neither of them should be able to leave, pending an -inquiry upon their business; but the thing was not done secretly enough. -Probably one of the servants of the inn told those two guests of something -ominous being afoot; at any rate, the Earl had Gilvy up and questioned -him, and, telling him how probably the lives of himself and friend were in -his hand, gave him forty Jacobuses and suggested that they should, without -a word, depart that night. Clarendon expresses himself as unable to decide -whether the gold or the landlord's conscience prompted his next action. At -any rate, Gilvy conducted the two fugitives from the inn at midnight "into -the London way." They reached London and then fled over sea, while the -landlord was left to invent some plausible story to satisfy the Justice of -the Peace, who in his turn was suspected by Cromwell of being a party to -the escape. - -At the Restoration, the landlord received a brimming measure of reward. He -was thanked by the King, and the Earl built for him that noble room, -forty-two feet long, by twenty-three wide, that was the pride and glory of -the "White Hart" for just two hundred years. It was panelled from floor -to ceiling in richly carved oak, set off with gilding, and embellished -with the figures of Peace and Concord and the initials C R, while the -ceiling was painted with nymphs and cherubim by Antonio Verrio. - -Nothing has more changed from its former condition than the old inn which -has become the modern hotel. The "George," the "Crown and Anchor," the -"Wellington," or the "King's Head," had an individuality which was never -lost. There was a personal kind of welcome from the landlord and the -landlady that simulated the hospitality of a friendly host and hostess, -mingled with the attention of a superior sort of body-servant. You were -not handed over to a number and a chambermaid, like a document in a -pigeon-hole tabulated by a clerk; but the hostess herself showed you your -rooms, and begged you to put a name to anything you might fancy. There was -no general coffee-room then, save for commercial travellers and such -social gentlemen as preferred even inferior company to solitude. There was -no table d'hôte dinner other than the ordinary, between twelve and two, -which was chiefly made for the convenience of travellers by the -stage-coach, who halted here for change and refreshment. Even the ladies -who might be on the road were served and kept apart from the, perhaps, -doubtful gents below; and mine host himself brought in the first dish and -set it on the table of the private room, which was as much _de rigueur_ -then for ladies as the copper warming-pan and the claret with the yellow -seal, or the thick, deep red luscious port of old, ordered by the knowing -for the good of the house. - -In the country the pretty little inn, with its honeysuckled porch and -scrambling profusion of climbing roses up to the bedroom windows, had an -even more home-like character in its methods of dealing with its guests. -Here the servants stayed on for years, till they grew to be as much part -of the establishment as the four-poster hung with red moreen and the -plated sconces for candles. And here everything was of perfect -cleanliness, and as fresh as fragrant. The eggs and milk and butter were -all sweet and new. Generous jugs of cream softened the tartness of the -black-currant pudding or the green-gooseberry tart. The spring chickens -and young ducklings had been well fed; the mutton was home-grown and not -under five years; the beef was home-grown too, and knew nothing of -antiseptic preparations or frozen chambers; and the vegetables came direct -from the garden, and had been neither tinned nor carted for miles in huge -waggon loads, well rammed down and tightly compressed. And all the meat -was roasted before an open fire, diligently basted in the process, till -the gravy lightly frothed on the browned skin, and the appetising scent it -gave out had no affinity with the smell of fat on heated iron, which for -the most part accompanies the modern roast in the modern oven. The linen -invariably smelt of lavender or dried rose-leaves, of which big bags were -kept among the sheets; but the washing apparatus was poor, and the -illumination was scanty. Wax candles in silver or plated branched -candlesticks, that vaguely suggested churches and sacraments, shed a -veritably "dim religious" glimmer in the sitting-room, and appeared -expensively under the form of "lights" in the bill--mistily suggestive of -food for hungry cats. - -Yet the old country inn had, and still has--for it is not wholly -extinct--its charms that weigh against any little defect. - -Of all this quasi-home life which belonged to the old inn of the past, the -hotel of the present has not a trace. For certain forms of luxury the -modern hotel is hard to beat. Thick carpets deaden the footsteps of -stragglers through the corridors, and your boots, invariably kicked into -infinities by midnight guests, do not--as they do in the older houses--fly -noisily along the bare boards. The rooms are lighted with electric light, -but usually set so high as to be useless for all purposes of reading or -working. In the drawing-room are luxurious chairs of all shapes and sizes; -in the reading-room papers of all colours, to suit here the red-hot -Radical and there the cooler Conservative. The billiard-room attracts the -men after dinner as--if in the country--the tennis-ground or the -golf-links had attracted them through the day. The telephone does -everything you want. Carriages, theatres, quotations, races, a doctor if -you are ill, a motor-car if you are well--nothing within the range of -human wants that can be ordered and not chosen comes amiss to the -telephone and its manipulators. All the rough edges of life are smoothed -down to satin softness. All the friction is taken away. A modern hotel is -as the isle of Calypso or the Garden of Armida, where all you have to do -is to make known your wants and pay the bill. - -But it has not one single strain of Home in it. Home is the place where -the out-of-date lingers, and where modern conveniences that add to the -complexity and the worry of life have no corner. At the modern hotel you -are a document in a pigeon-hole--a number, not a person--an accident, not -substantive. The chambermaid does not wait on you, but on the room. You -get up, breakfast, dine, according to the times fixed by the management. -You cannot have your bath before a certain hour, and the bacon is not -frizzled until nine o'clock. Luncheon is probably elastic because it is -cold, and potatoes can be kept hot without difficulty. Dinner is, of -course, fixed, and you take it in masses together: or so took it, for in -late years, especially in the first hotels of London, a revulsion of -feeling has led to the long tables being abolished, and small ones -installed, where, almost privately amid the throng, you and your little -party may dine. As a rule the waiters are Swiss and the meat is foreign, -the cook is a Frenchman and called a _chef_; and the materials are -inferior. The vegetables are tinned, and oysters, lobsters, salmon, and -hare in May follow suit. The sauces are all exactly the same in one hotel -as in another, and much margarine enters into their composition. Electric -bells emphasise the monotonous ordering of the whole concern, where as -little character is expressed in the ring as in the number it indicates; -and speaking-tubes sound in the corridors, like domestic fog-horns or -railway whistles, calling the chambermaids or waiters of such-and-such a -floor to listen to their orders from below. Wherever you go you find -exactly the same things--the same order, the same management, the same -appliances and methods. You arrive without a welcome, you leave without a -farewell. Your character is determined according to the tips you give on -parting, and an hour after you have gone your personality is forgotten. -But, above all things, Heaven save us from falling ill in the modern -hotel. No one cares for you, and no one even has the decency to make a -pretence of doing so. - -Sometimes, however, if you go somewhat out of the season, and before the -rush of visitors begins, you get to a certain degree behind the scenes, -and learn a little of the heart and humanity of the management. The -chambermaid has time to have a little chat with you in the morning, and -the head waiter gives you bits of local information both interesting and -new. The manageress is not too busy for a few minutes' gossip across the -counter which separates her from the hall, and screens her off in a -sanctuary of her own. And you may find her cheerful, chatty, kindly, and -willing to please for the mere pleasure of pleasing. - -In the monster hotels of London and the great cities, while there may yet -be a "season"--a period of extra pressure and overcrowding--there is no -such slack time as the giant caravanserais of holiday resorts experience. - -The pioneer of the many-storeyed, "palatial" hotels, gorgeous with marble -pavements, polished granite columns, lifts and gigantic saloons, was the -"Great Western Railway Hotel" at Paddington.[11] Since that huge pile set -the fashion, hundreds of others, huger and more magnificent, have been -built at Charing Cross, Euston, St. Pancras, Marylebone and other London -termini, with big brothers--in every way as big and well-appointed--in -provincial towns. They are the logical outcome of the times, the direct -successors of the coaching and posting inns that originally came into -existence to supply the wants, in food and lodging, of travellers set down -at the places where the coaches stopped. The final expression of the -coaching hostelry is still to be seen in London, in instructive company -with one of the largest of the railway hotels, in the Strand, where the -"Golden Cross," built in 1832, looks upon the "Charing Cross Hotel" of -the South-Eastern Railway. - -The management of a great modern hotel is no easy thing. It demands the -urbanity of an ambassador, the marketing instincts of a good housewife, -the soldier's instinct for command, the caution of a financier, and a gift -for judging character. All these things--natural endowments, or the result -of training--must go to the making of an hotel-manager who has, perhaps, a -couple of hundred people on his staff, and hundreds of guests, many of -them unreasonable, to keep satisfied. - -It has lately become a commonplace to say that cycling and the motor-car -have peopled the roads again. The old coaching inns have entered upon a -new era of prosperity by reason of the crowds of cyclists who fare forth -from London along the ancient highways, or explore, awheel, the -neighbourhoods of provincial towns. The "last" coach-driver, coach-guard, -and post-boy, killed off regularly by the newspapers, still survive to -witness this new cult of the wheel, and the ultimate ostlers of the -coaching era, a bit stiff in the joints, shaky at the knees, and generally -out of repair, have come forth blinking, from the dark and cavernous -recesses of their mouldering stables, all too large now for the horses -that find shelter there, to take charge of the machines of steel and iron -and rubber that will carry you infinite distances without fatigue. - -There are elements of both fun and pathos in the sight of an old ostler -cleaning a muddy bicycle in a coach-yard from which the last coach-horses -departed nearly two generations ago. As a boy, he started life in the -place as a stable-help, and had scarce finished his novitiate when the -railway was opened and the coaches dropped off one by one, after vainly -appealing to the old-fashioned prejudices of their patrons to shun the -trains and still travel by the highways. How he has managed to retain his -place all this time goodness only knows. Perhaps he has been useful in -looking after the horses that work the hotel 'bus to and from the station; -and then the weekly market-day, bringing in the farmers with their gigs -and traps from outlying villages, is still an institution. For such -customers old George had, no doubt, the liveliest contempt in the fine old -free-handed days of coaching; but this class of business, once turned over -cheerfully to second- or third-rate inns, has long been eagerly shared -here. - -To watch him with a bicycle you would think the machine a sensitive beast, -ready to kick unless humoured, for as he rubs it down with a cloth he -soothes it with the continuous "'ssh-ssh, 'ssh" which has become -involuntary with him, from long usage; while if indeed it can't kick, it -succeeds very fairly in barking his shins with those treacherous pedals. -All the persuasive hissing in the world won't soothe a pedal. - -As for the motor-cars which are now finding their way into the old -inn-yards, the old ostler stands fearfully aloof from them, and lets the -driver of the motor look after the machine himself. The New Ostler, who -will be produced by the logic of events in the course of a very few more -years, will be an expert mechanic, and able to tittivate a gear and grind -in a valve of a motor-car, or execute minor repairs to a bicycle, just as -readily as an ostler rubs down or clips a horse. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -PILGRIMS' INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS - - -Inns, or guest-houses for the proper lodging and entertainment of -travellers bent on pilgrimage, were among the earliest forms of -hostelries; and those great bournes of religious pilgrimage in mediæval -times--the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, the tomb of Edward -the Second in Gloucester Cathedral, the relics of St. Dunstan at -Glastonbury, and the more or less holy objects of superstitious reverence -at Walsingham, St. Albans, and indeed, in most of our great abbeys, -attracting thousands of sinners anxious to clear off old scores and begin -afresh--were full of inns for the entertainment of every class of -itinerating sinner; from the Abbot's guest-house, at the service of the -great, to the hostels for the middle classes, and the barns and outhouses -where the common folk appropriately herded. - -The Abbots and other dignified ecclesiastics were thus among the earliest -innkeepers, but they conducted their business on lines that would be -impossible to the modern hotel-keeper, for they commonly boarded and -lodged their guests free of charge, confident, in the religious spirit of -the time, that the offerings to be made at the shrines, which were the -objects of those old-time painful journeys, would amply repay the costs -and charges of their entertaining, and leave a very handsome surplus for -the good of the Abbey. - -Chaucer's description of pilgrimages made to Canterbury gives us a very -good idea of the varied character of the crowds setting forth upon their -journey to that most popular of shrines; and we learn from him and from -many other contemporary sources that the bearing of these crowds was -scarce what we should expect of miserable sinners, not only conscious of -their sins, but humbly seeking that spiritual spring-clean--absolution. -They were gay and light-hearted, reckless, and exceedingly improper, and -rarely failed to deeply scandalise the innkeepers along the roads. - -The "Tabard," whence Chaucer's pilgrims set out on that April morning in -1383, has long been a thing of the past. It was in 1307, one hundred and -thirty-seven years after Becket's martyrdom, that the Abbot of Hyde, at -Winchester, built the first house, which seems to have been in two -portions: one a guest-house for the brethren of Hyde and other clergy -coming to London to wait upon that mighty political and religious -personage, my Lord Bishop of Winchester, whose London palace stood close -by, on Bankside; the other a more or less commercially conducted inn. When -Chaucer conferred immortality upon the "Tabard," in 1383, the lessee of -that hostelry was the "Harry Bailly" of _The Canterbury Tales_, a real -person, and probably an intimate friend whom Chaucer thus delighted to -honour. - -This was no mere red-nosed and fat-paunched purveyor of sack and other -quaint liquors of that time, but one who had been Member of Parliament for -Southwark in 1376 and again in 1379,[12] and was a person not only of -considerable property, but a dignified and well-mannered -man--better-mannered and of cleaner speech, we may suspect, than Chaucer's -pilgrims themselves: - - A seemly man our hostè was withal - For to have been a marshal in a hall. - A largè man was he, with eyen steep, - A fairer burgess is there none in Chepe; - Bold of his speech, and wise, and well ytaught; - And of manhóod lackèd righte nought, - Eke thereto he was right a merry man. - -Such a host, and no less a person, could have sat at supper with his -guests, even with such gentles as the Knight and his son, the Squire, and -the Lady Abbess; and thus only is he able to take charge of, and to assume -leadership over, the party of twenty-nine on the long four days' -pilgrimage to Canterbury, and to reprove or praise each and all, according -to his mind. - -The "Tabard" derived its name from the sleeveless ceremonial heraldic -coat, tricked out with gold and colours, worn by heralds. At a -comparatively early date, however, the "science of fools," as heraldry has -severely been called, grew neglected, and "tabards" became little -understood by common people. The sign of the house was accordingly changed -to the "Talbot" about 1599; but even that has grown mysterious, and only -folk with very special knowledge now know what a "talbot" was. In those -days the meaning was well understood, and especially at inns, for it was -the name of a fierce breed of dog--the old English hound, something -between a mastiff and a bull-dog--kept chiefly by packmen to mount guard -over their pack-horses and goods. - -Both "Tabard" and "Talbot" are now nothing more substantial than memories. -Little could have been left of the historic house in 1676, when the great -fire of Southwark swept away many of the old inns. A newer "Talbot" then -arose on the site, and stood until 1870: itself of so venerable an -appearance that it was not difficult to persuade people of its being the -veritable house whence Chaucer's pilgrims set forth those many centuries -ago. - -The pilgrims only made Dartford the first night, a fifteen-miles' journey -that would by no means satisfy those inclined nowadays to follow their -trail. We are not, however, vouchsafed any definite information as to -Dartford, and the oldest portions of the existing "Bull" inn there are -not, by perhaps two hundred years, old enough to have housed that -miscellaneous party. But there was an inn, frequented by pilgrims, at that -time upon the same site, and the "Bull" claims to be one of the oldest -licensed houses in Kent--as well it may, for it is known to date back to -1450. In Chaucer's time the landlord was, we are told, one Urban Baldock, -himself a friend of the poet, and the source whence a great deal of -information respecting pilgrims and their ways was gathered by him for -_The Canterbury Tales_. - -The oldest part of the "Bull" is the courtyard, galleried after the -ancient style, but in these practical and in many ways unsentimental times -roofed in with glass and used as a corn-market. Behind the carved wooden -balusters of the gallery are the bedrooms, until late years largely given -up to dust and cobwebs, but now rebuilt and again in use. Those who care -for things that have had their day will think it fortunate that merely -alteration, and not destruction, has been suffered here. - -For the rest, the "Bull" at Dartford is Georgian, and its long brick -front, with nine windows in a row, bears a strong family likeness to that -of its namesake at Rochester. The bull himself, in great black effigy, -occupies a monumental position among the chimney-pots, whence he looks -down, like Nelson in Trafalgar Square, upon busy streets. - -There have been happenings at the "Bull" in times much later than those of -pilgrimage. On August 17th, 1775, a room off the gallery was the scene of -an affray that led to Joseph Stacpoole, William Gapper, and James Lagier -being indicted for shooting "John Parker, Esq.," described as an Irish -gentleman of fortune. - -It seems that Joseph Stacpoole had lent John Parker and his brother -Francis various sums of money, amounting in all to £3,000, and had very -seriously embarrassed himself in doing so. He could not succeed in getting -payment, and as he had good reason to suspect that the Parkers intended to -abscond over sea, he followed them to Dartford, with his attorney and a -bailiff. Hearing that they were staying with some friends at the "Bull," -Stacpoole sent Lagier, the bailiff, with a writ into the room they -occupied, himself and Gapper following. - -No sooner did the hot-headed Parker see the bailiff than he cried out, -"Zounds! where are my pistols?" and one of his friends dashed out a candle -with his hand and upset the only other. In this dim and dangerous -situation the bailiff, mortally afraid for himself, cried out for help, -and Stacpoole and Gapper came rushing in. Parker's friends then seized -Stacpoole by the collar, and seem to have shaken him so violently that -they shook off the contents of a carbine he was carrying, with the result -that Parker himself was shot through the body with three bullets. When -that happened Parker's brother fled to London, a Mr. Masterson ran -downstairs, and a Mr. Bull, who had taken a prominent part in the -collaring, was in so great a hurry that he jumped over the gallery into -the yard. - -The trial of Stacpoole and his two co-defendants did not take place until -March 20th, 1777, when all were acquitted. - -The last picturesque incident in the history of the "Bull" took place in -1822, when George the Fourth came posting along the road and the post-boy -stopped here to change horses. He had just asked Essenhigh, the landlord, -who that "damned pretty woman" was whom he saw at one of the windows, and -mine host had only just replied that it was his wife, when a hostile -crowd, in sympathy with "the persecuted" Queen Caroline, who had died the -year before, began to "boo" and howl at the King. "When gentlemen meet, -compliments pass," says the adage, and one Callaghan, a journeyman -currier, thrust forward and roared out, in the face of the "First -Gentleman in Europe," "You are a murderer!" a remark which possesses the -recommendation neither of truth nor politeness, and resulted, in this -instance, in the outrageous Callaghan being punched on the head and felled -to the ground by one of the King's faction. The King himself drove off in -such a hurry that the postboy fell off his horse on leaving the town. - -The pilgrims' hostels that once existed at Rochester are things of the -past, but it seems not unlikely that the "George," in the High Street, -almost opposite the Pickwickian "Bull," was once something in this nature, -for although the modern frontage is absolutely uninteresting, not to say -distressingly ugly, and although it is now nothing more than a -public-house, the very large and very fine Early English crypt, now used -as a beer-cellar, shows that a building of semi-ecclesiastical nature -once stood on the site. The "George" is an old sign, the present house -being built on the ruins of one destroyed by fire a hundred and twenty -years ago. - -The crypt, built of chalk, with ribs and bosses of Caen stone, is roofed -with four-part vaulting, and is in four bays, the whole 54 ft. in length, -by nearly 17 ft. wide, and 11 ft. high. - -[Illustration: CRYPT AT THE "GEORGE," ROCHESTER.] - -Beside the Dover Road, which is of course the pilgrims' road from London -to Canterbury, one mile short of Faversham town, stands the village of -Ospringe, identified by some antiquaries as the site of the Roman station -of _Durolevum_. Time was when those who made pilgrimage to Canterbury came -to Ospringe through a water-splash, a little stream that flowed across -the highway and no one thought worth while bridging. And so it remained, -through the coaching age, until modern times. Now it is covered over, and -Ospringe is at this day a quite remarkably dusty place. - -There remain, built into the "Red Lion" inn beside the way, fragments of a -"maison Dieu," or God's House, that stood here so early as the time of -Henry the Second: a hostel established for the reception of travellers, -and maintained for many years by the Knights Templars and Brethren of the -Holy Ghost. Here travellers of all classes found a lavish hospitality -awaiting them, and, so sparsely settled was the country in those -centuries, that even kings were glad of this rest-house--and of others -like it elsewhere. King John, who was for ever spoiling the Church, and -bringing upon himself, and the country with him, Papal excommunications -major and minor, and yet was always sponging upon abbots and their kind -for board and lodging, had what is described as a _camera regis_ here, -which seems to modern ears to indicate that he practised photography, -centuries before the invention of it. The _camera_ in this case is, -however, only the mediæval chronicler's Latin way of saying that a room -was kept for the King's use. - -A landed gentleman of the neighbouring Preston-by-Faversham, one Macknade -by name, who died in 1407, left, among many other bequests, £1 to the -"Domus Dei" of Ospringe, together with £10 for the repair of the highway -between that point and Boughton-under-Blean. In this manner he hoped to be -remembered in the prayers of travellers; and to the same end of bidding -for Aves and paternosters for the repose of his soul, he bequeathed 20 -pence to all prisoners in Kentish gaols, 12 pence to all debtors similarly -situated, £23 to the minor religious houses of the county, and a larger -sum to the principal abbeys. In addition to these items we find one of 10 -cows, left to Preston church, for the purpose of maintaining a lighted -taper at the Easter Sepulchre there. Let us hope his solicitude for his -soul has not been without its due results. - -The "maison Dieu" of Ospringe was disestablished long before the general -ruin of such institutions was ordained, in the time of Henry the Eighth. -In 1479 we find the place inhabited by two brethren, survivors of the -eight who once welcomed and made good cheer for pilgrims; but they forsook -it the next year, and in 1480-81 it was, as a derelict religious house, -escheated to the Crown. - -Canterbury itself was, of course, once full of such travellers' rests. -Chief among these was the inn called "The Chequers of the Hope," at the -corner of Mercery Lane, leading to the Cathedral; but, although the lower -part of the walls and the mediæval crypt remain, the present aspect of the -building is modern and commonplace. It is, in point of fact, a "Ladies' -Outfitting" shop. - -Travellers in those centuries seem to have been in many ways well cared -for. The hospitality of the "houses of God" and pilgrims' halts, however, -does but show the bright side of the medal, and implies a very dark -reverse. - -Good, charitable folks, as we have seen, were rightly sorry for wayfarers, -and gave or bequeathed money for lightening the trials and tribulations of -their lot. The Church itself regarded the succouring of all such as one of -its first duties, and so granted all manner of ghostly privileges to such -persons as would build causeways, improve roads, or establish hostels. The -bargain seemed in those times a fair one, and induced many to give who -would not otherwise have given. To buy absolution for gold, or a few days -less purgatory by charitable bequest was good business; but we may wonder -if those who thus purchased remission of sins or an "early door" into -Paradise sometimes spared a pitying thought for those poor devils who had -not the needful for such indulgences. - -[Illustration: WESTGATE, CANTERBURY, AND THE "FALSTAFF" INN.] - -Day after day travellers--whose very name comes from "travail" = toil or -trouble--journeyed amid dangers, and, when by mischance they were -benighted, suffered agonies of apprehension. They intended only to -"journey"--to travel by day, as the original sense of that word -indicated--and were afflicted with the liveliest apprehensions when night -came and found them still on the road. Toiling in the hollow roads, deep -in ruts and mud, with terror they saw the sun go down while yet the -friendly town was far away, and came at last, in fear and darkness, to the -walled city, only to find its gates closed for the night. Every -fortified town closed its gates at sunset; else, in those dangerous times, -what use your gates and walls? As reasonably might the modern citizen -leave his street door wide open all night, as the mediæval town not close -its gates when the hours of darkness were come; and so those travellers -and pilgrims who, from much story-telling, praying, or feasting along the -road, arrived late at Canterbury, found the portals of Westgate sternly -closed against them. Originally they were obliged to lie outside, under -the walls or in the fields, instead of being made welcome at the -comfortable hostels within, where a man might find jolly company in the -rush-strewn hall, and for food and drink be free of the best; but, for the -accommodation of such laggards, the suburb of St. Dunstan, without the -walls of Canterbury, sprang up at a very early date, and to the custom -they thus brought we owe the existence of the "Falstaff" inn, itself -containing some fine "linen-pattern" panelling of the time of Henry the -Seventh; but not, of course, the original house that, under some other -name than the "Falstaff," was early established for the entertainment of -late-comers. - -The "Falstaff" is a prominent feature of the entrance to Canterbury, and -forms, with the stern drum towers of Westgate, built about 1380, as fine -an entrance to a city as anything to be found in England. The present sign -of the house derives from the instant and extraordinary popularity that -Shakespeare's Fat Knight obtained, from his first appearance upon the -Elizabethan stage. The present "Falstaff" is a very spirited rendering, -showing the Fat Knight with sword and buckler and an air of determination, -apparently "just about to begin" on those numerous "men in buckram" -conjured up by his ready imagination on Gad's Hill. There is an air about -this representation of him irresistibly reminiscent of that song which -gave British patriots in 1878 the name of "Jingoes." There are no patriots -now: only partisans and placemen--but that is another tale. This Falstaff -evidently "don't want to fight; but by Jingo"--well, you know the rest of -it. - -[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "FALSTAFF," CANTERBURY.] - -Not only pilgrims and travellers from London to Canterbury were thus -looked after, but those also coming the other way, and thus we find a -Maison Dieu established at Dover in the reign of King John by that great -man, Hubert de Burgh, Chief Justiciary of England. A master and a staff of -brethren and sisters were placed there to attend upon the poor priests -and the pilgrims and strangers of both sexes, who applied for food and -lodging. Kings cannot be classed in any of these categories; but they also -are found not infrequently making use of the institution, on their way to -or from France--and departing without a "thank ye." The only one who seems -to have benefited the Maison Dieu very much was Henry the Third, who -endowed it with the tithe of the passage fare and £10 a year from the port -dues. - -It is scarce necessary to say who it was that disestablished the Maison -Dieu. The heavy hand of Henry the Eighth squelched it, in common with -hundreds of other religious and semi-religious institutions. At the time -of its suppression the annual income was £231 16_s._ 7_d._, representing -some £2,500 in our day. The master, John Thompson, who had only been -appointed the year before, was an exceptionally fortunate man, being -granted a pension of £53 6_s._ 8_d._ a year. The buildings were then -converted into a victualling office for the Navy. - -At last, in 1831, the Corporation of Dover purchased them, and the ancient -refectory then became the Town Hall and the sacristy the Sessions House, -and so remained until 1883, when a new Town Hall was built. - -Similar institutions existed at others of the chief ports. At Portsmouth -was the Hospital of St. Nicholas, or "God's House," founded in the reign -of Henry the Third by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester. It is now -the Garrison Church. At Southampton the "Domus Dei" was dedicated to St. -Julian, patron of travellers, and now, as St. Julian's Hospital and -Church, is in part an almshouse, sheltering eight poor persons, and partly -a French Huguenot place of worship. - -The Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury from Southampton and Winchester was never -a road for wheeled traffic, and remained in all those centuries when -pilgrimage was popular, as a track for pedestrians, along the hillsides. -It avoided all towns, and thus precisely what those pilgrims who -wearifully hoofed it all the way did for shelter remains a little obscure: -although it seems probable that wayside shelters, with or without -oratories attached to them, were established at intervals. Such, -traditionally, was the origin of the picturesque timbered house at -Compton, now locally known as "Noah's Ark." - -Colchester was a place of import to pilgrims in old wayfaring times, for -it lay along the line of the pilgrims' trail to Walsingham. Among the inns -of this town, and older than any of its fellows, but coyly hiding its -antiquarian virtues of chamfered oaken beams and quaint galleries from -sight, behind modern alterations, is the "Angel" in West Stockwell Street, -whose origin as a pilgrims' inn is vouched for. Weary suppliants, on the -way to, or returning from, the road of Our Lady of Walsingham, far away on -the road through and past Norwich, housed here, and misbehaved themselves -in their mediæval way. It would, as already hinted, be the gravest -mistake to assume pilgrims to have been, _quâ_ pilgrims, necessarily -decorous; and, indeed, modern Bank Holiday folks, compared with them, -would shine as true examples of monkish austerity. - -[Illustration: HOUSE FORMERLY A PILGRIMS' HOSTEL, COMPTON.] - -The shrine at Walsingham, very highly esteemed in East Anglia, drew crowds -from every class, from king to beggar. The great Benedictine Abbey of St. -John of Colchester sheltered some of the greatest of them, while others -inned at such hostelries as the "Angel," and the vulgar, or the merely -impecunious, if the weather were propitious, lay in the woods. - -Pilgrims would boggle at nothing, as was well known at the time. That they -could not be trusted is evident enough in the custom of horse-masters, who -let out horses on hire to such travellers, at the rate of twelvepence from -Southwark to Rochester, and a further twelvepence from Rochester to -Canterbury. They knew, those early keepers of livery-stables, that little -chance existed of ever seeing their horses again unless they took -sufficient precautions. They therefore branded their animals in a -prominent and unmistakeable way, so that all should know such, found in -strange parts of the country, to be stolen. - -Ill fared the unsuspecting burgess who met any of these sinners on the way -to plenary indulgence, for they would, not unlikely, murder him for the -sake of anything valuable he carried; or, out of high spirits and the -sheer fun of the thing, cudgel him into a jelly; arguing, doubtless, that -as they were presently to turn over a new leaf, it mattered little how -soiled was the old one. Drunkenness and crime, immorality, obscenity, and -licence of the grossest kind were, in fact, the inevitable accompaniments -of pilgrimage. - -[Illustration: THE "STAR," ALFRISTON.] - -Although East Anglia was in the old days more plentifully supplied with -great monastic houses than any other district in England, the destruction -wrought in later centuries has left all that part singularly poor in the -architectural remains of them: and even the once-necessary guest-houses -and hostels have shared the common fate. That charming miniature little -house, the "Green Dragon" at Wymondham, in Norfolk, may, however, as -tradition asserts, have once been a pilgrims' inn dependent upon the great -Benedictine Abbey, whose gaunt towers, now a portion of the parish church, -rise behind its peaked roofs. - -[Illustration: CARVING AT THE "STAR," ALFRISTON.] - -The beautiful little Sussex village of Alfriston--whose name, by the way, -in the local shibboleth, is "Arlston"--a rustic gem not so well known as -it deserves, possesses a very fine pilgrims' inn, the "Star," a relic of -old days when the bones of St. Richard of Chichester led many a foot-sore -penitent across the downs to Chichester, in quest of a clean spiritual -bill of health. Finely carved woodwork is a distinguishing feature of this -inn, whose roof, too, has character of its own, in the heavy slabs of -stone that do duty for slates, and bear witness to the exceptional -strength of the roof-tree that has sustained them all these centuries. The -demoniac-looking figure seen on the left-hand of the illustration is not, -as might perhaps at first sight be supposed, a mediæval effigy of Old -Nick, or an imported South Sea Islander's god, but the figure-head of some -forgotten ship of the seventeenth century, wrecked on the neighbouring -coast, off Cuckmere Haven. Ancient carvings still ornament the wood-work -of the three upper projecting windows, the one particularly noticeable -specimen being a variant of the George and Dragon legend, where the saint, -with a mouth like a potato, no nose to speak of, and a chignon, is seen -unexpectedly on foot, thrusting his lance into the mouth of the dragon, -who appears to be receiving it with every mark of enjoyment, which the -additional face he is furnished with, in his tail, does not seem to share. -The left foot of the saint has been chipped off. All the exterior woodwork -has been very highly varnished and painted in glaring colours, from the -groups under the windows to the green monkey and green bear contending on -the angle-post for the possession of a green trident. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN DRAGON," WYMONDHAM.] - -[Illustration: THE PILGRIMS' HOSTEL, BATTLE.] - -The old pilgrims' hospice of Battle Abbey still remains outside the great -gateway, and now offers refreshments to those modern pilgrims who flock in -thousands, by chars-à-banc, on cycles, or afoot, to Battle in search of -the picturesque; or merely, in many cases, to complete the conventional -round of sight-seeing prescribed for visitors to Hastings. It is a -typically Sussexian building of domestic appearance, framed in stout oak -timbering, and filled with plaster and rubble, and was probably built -early in the fifteenth century. - -The so-called "New" Inn, at Gloucester, when actually new, the matter of -four hundred and fifty years ago, was erected especially for the -accommodation of pilgrims flocking to the tomb of the murdered King Edward -the Second, who, by no means a saintly character in life, was in death -raised by popular sentiment to the status of something very like a holy -martyr. He had been weak and vicious, but those who on September 21st, -1327, put him to a dreadful death in the dungeons of Berkeley Castle acted -on behalf of others worse than he, and the horror and the injustice of it -had the not unnatural effect of almost canonising the slain monarch. - -The Abbot of St. Peter's at Gloucester, John Thokey, when all others, -fearing the vengeance of the murderers, dared not give the King's body -burial, begged it and buried it, with much reverence, within the Abbey -walls. His Abbey, now the Cathedral of Gloucester, reaped unexpected -benefits from the humane instincts of that good and pitiful man, for -"miracles" were wrought at the "martyr's" tomb, and abundant -thank-offerings continued to flow in, and at last enabled the great Abbey -to be rebuilt. - -[Illustration: THE "NEW INN," GLOUCESTER.] - -It became eventually a pressing need to provide housing outside the -Abbot's lodgings for the stream of pilgrims, and accordingly the New -Inn was built in the middle of the fifteenth century (1450-1457) by -John Twynning, a monk of that establishment, of whom we know little or -nothing else than that he was, according to the records of his time, a -"laudable man." It remained until quite recent years the property of the -Dean and Chapter of Gloucester. - -The inn is reached through an archway in Northgate Street, and is -arranged, as usual in mediæval inns, around a courtyard. Still the old -gables look down upon the yard and, as of yore, the ancient galleries, -rescued from the decay and neglect of some seventy years ago, run partly -around first and second floors. Existing side by side with those antique -features, the quaint windowed bar of the coaching era is now itself a -curiosity. In short, mediæval picturesqueness, Jacobean carved oak, -commercial and coffee-rooms of the coaching age, and modern comforts -conjoin at the New Inn, so that neither a wayworn pilgrim, were such an -one likely to appear, nor a seventeenth century horseman, nor even a -Georgian coachman, redolent of the rum-punch that was the favourite drink -in coaching days, would seem out of place. - -Summer and autumn transfigure the courtyard into the likeness of a rustic -bower, for it is plentifully hung with virginia-creepers, from amidst -whose leaves the plaster lion who mounts guard on the roof of the bar -looks as though he were gazing forth from his native jungle. - -I do not know in what way John Twynning--or Twining, as we should no -doubt in modern times call him--was to be reckoned laudable, but if he -were thought praiseworthy for anything outside his religious duties it was -probably by reason of the skill with which he built this pilgrims' hostel. -You perceive little of his work from the street, for at that extraordinary -period when stucco was fashionable and plaster all the rage, the timbered -front of the building was covered up in that manner, and so remains. But -the great building is still constructionally the house that -fifteenth-century monk left, and how well and truly he built it, let its -sound and stable condition, after four centuries and a half of constant -use, tell. - -Such modern touches as there are about this quaintly named "New" inn are -the merest light clothing upon its ancient body, and the sitting-rooms and -forty or so bedrooms, cosy and comfortable to us moderns, are but modern -in their carpets and fittings, and in the paper that decorates their -walls, in between the stout dark timber framing. - -The house is built chiefly of chestnut, traditionally obtained from -Highnam, some three miles from the city; and everywhere the enormous -beams, in some places polished, in others rough, are to be seen. In their -roughest, most timeworn condition, they overhang the narrow passage now -called New Inn (formerly Pilgrims') Lane, where, at the angle, a most -ornately carved corner-post, very much injured, exhibits a mutilated angel -holding a scroll, in the midst of fifteenth-century tabernacle-work. - -[Illustration: COURTYARD, "NEW INN," GLOUCESTER.] - -As usual in these ancient inns with courtyards and galleries, plays and -interludes were formerly acted here, and it is said that the accession of -Queen Elizabeth was proclaimed on these flagstones. - -That galleries open to the air, with the bedrooms and others giving upon -them, were not so inconvenient as generally nowadays supposed is evident -enough here, where they are still in use, as they were centuries ago. The -only difference is that they are carpeted nowadays, instead of being bare -floors. - -A staircase from the courtyard leads up to the first-floor gallery, still -screened off by the old open-lattice gates reaching from floor to ceiling, -originally intended to prevent stray dogs entering. - -Portions of the "New Inn" let off in the days of its declining prosperity -have in modern times been taken back again: among them the large -dining-hall overlooking the lane, for many years used as a Sunday school -for the children of St. Nicholas parish, and other rooms looking upon -Northgate Street. - -In short, the old "New" inn impresses the beholder with a very insistent -sense of being a live institution, a "going concern." Most ancient inns of -this character are merely poor survivals; archæologically interesting, but -wan veterans tottering to decay and long deserted by custom. Here, -however, there is heavy traffic down in the yard: the ostler is busy in -his "Ostry" (the name is painted over the door), bells are ringing, people -and luggage coming and going; the big railway parcel-office is as full of -parcels as it could have been when it was a coach-office; appetising -scents come from glowing kitchens, and to and from private rooms are -carried trays of as good things as ever pilgrims feasted upon, at the end -of their pilgrimage. - -There existed, until about 1859, another very notable "New" inn, probably -the work of the Abbots of Sherborne, and intended for the reception of -visitors to that beautiful Dorsetshire abbey. That splendid old hostelry, -with a noble front of yellow sandstone, built in the Perpendicular style -of architecture, probably about 1420, was the finest example of an inn of -its period in England, but it was ruthlessly, and with incredible -stupidity, demolished, and the only pictorial record of it appears to be -an entirely inadequate, severe, and unsympathetic little wood-cut in -Parker's _Domestic Architecture_.[13] It figures in Mr. Thomas Hardy's -story of _The Woodlanders_ as the "Earl of Wessex" inn at "Sherton Abbas." - -It was in those "good old days" that are so interesting to read about, and -were so ill to live in, that the ancient hospice flourished most bravely. -When ways were not merely rough and lonely, but were also infested by -"sturdye beggaris," "maysterless men," and others who would not hesitate -to do the solitary traveller a hurt, the good abbots or monks who -established wayside houses of entertainment where no secular innkeeper -dared were truly benefactors to their species. The relic of just such a -place, on a road once extremely lonely and dangerous, is to be found along -the present highway between Brecon and Llandovery, in South Wales, some -two miles westward of the town of Brecon. The road runs terraced above the -southern bank of the river Usk, through a rugged country where, in ancient -times, Welsh chieftains and outlaws, alike lawless and beggarly, knocked -the solitary traveller on the head and went over his pockets amid the -appropriately dramatic scenery of beetling crag and splashing waterfall. -At the gate of this lurk of bandits the holy monks of Malvern Priory -founded an hospitium, on the spot where stand to-day the ancient and -picturesque church and the few houses of the village of Llanspyddid: whose -Welsh name, indeed, means the Hospice Church. - -Nothing, unfortunately, is left of that "spythy," or hospice, they so -piously built and maintained, for, its usefulness long overpast, it was -left to decay: but the church they built, in which travellers returned -thanks for the succour vouchsafed them, remains by the roadside. It is a -romantic-looking church, placed in an appropriate setting of extremely -ancient and funereal-looking yews that lead up darkly to the heavy north -porch, beautifully decorated with carved woodwork. - -The "George" at Glastonbury presents the finest exterior of all these -pilgrims' inns, for it stands to-day very much as it did in the time of -Edward the Sixth, when it was built (1475) by Abbot John Selwood for the -accommodation of such pilgrims as were not personages. There has ever been -a subtle distinction between a personage and a mere person. The great -ones, the high and mighty of the land, on pilgrimage were made much of, -and entertained by my lord Abbot in appropriately princely fashion, in the -Abbot's lodgings: the middle-class pilgrims were lodged at the Abbot's -inn, and the residue lay where best they might: perhaps in some -guesten-hall, or possibly in the open air. - -Pilgrimages to Glastonbury were less numerous and popular than those to -the pre-eminent Shrine of the Blessed St. Thomas at Canterbury, but they -were not few, for the story of this great mitred Somersetshire Abbey is -one of the marvels and legendary wonders that, however greatly they may -stagger the twentieth-century capacity for belief, were of old implicitly -relied upon. Few were those who in mediæval times questioned their -genuineness, and those who did so kept their doubts prudently to -themselves. - -This marvellous lore narrates how it was to St. Joseph of Arimathea that -the Abbey owed its origin. In A.D. 63 he came, with eleven companions, -wandering among the bogs and morasses of this western land, and discovered -this elevated ground rising above the marshes, further topped by the -commanding peak of Glastonbury Tor. "Weary all!" they exclaimed, as they -sank down, exhausted, on the spot called Weary All Hill to this day, -although its name is properly "Wirrall." Here St. Joseph thrust his staff -into the ground, and, taking root and blossoming every Christmas Day for -over fourteen hundred years, it was known in all Christendom as the Holy -Thorn. - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," GLASTONBURY.] - -The Holy Thorn itself was a sight to see, for, whatever its origin, it did -actually blossom on or about Christmas, as descendants from the parent -stock do to this day. The original hawthorn--or what was looked upon in -the time of Queen Elizabeth as the original--was fanatically attacked by -an early Puritan who succeeded in felling one of its two trunks, and was -proceeding to destroy the other, when he struck his leg instead, and had -an eye gouged out by a flying chip: an incident that would have pleased -the old monks, had they not been dead and gone a generation earlier. This -capacity in the Holy Thorn for taking its own part did not avail when a -Cromwellian soldier-saint, a half-century or so later, cut it down. -Nothing in the tragical way appears to have happened to him. - -An object of even greater veneration than the Holy Thorn was the body of -St. Dunstan, stolen by the monks of Glastonbury from Canterbury, and for -long centuries a source of great revenue, in the shape of offerings from -the faithful, eager for his spiritual good offices or for the healing -touch of his relics. - -That which was too staggering for the belief of old-time pilgrims was -never discovered. At Glastonbury they were shown a part of Moses' rod, -some milk and some hair of the Virgin, part of the hem of the Saviour's -garment, a nail from the Cross, and a thorn from the Crown of Thorns. No -one ever questioned those blasphemous mediæval Barnums, who showed a -sample of the manna that fed the children of Israel, and the incredible -item of "the dust of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three children -sacrificed in the burning fiery furnace, with the bone of one of them"; -and so they humbugged the devout for centuries. - -Pilgrims of all kinds, bringing offerings, each one according to his -means, were clearly to be encouraged, and there was from a very early -period an "Abbot's Inn" at Glastonbury. This stood on the site of the -present "White Hart" until about 1755, when, to prevent it falling, it was -pulled down. It had, however, ceased to be the Abbot's Inn about 1489, the -newly built "George" then taking its place. How dilapidated was the more -ancient building may be understood from the story which tells of an -auction being held on an upper floor, just before its demolition. "Going, -going!" exclaimed the auctioneer, and then, as he accepted a bid, "Gone!": -whereupon the entire flooring of the room gave way, and every one and -everything were, with a tremendous crash, precipitated down to the ground -floor. - -Abbot Selwood, who ruled from 1456 to 1493, built the "George" for -middle-class pilgrims, and gave them board and lodging free for two days. -He did so from a strictly business point of view; and we may even suspect -that, if his guests made a longer stay, he recompensed himself by -overcharging. - -Although a room is shown in which King Henry the Eighth is said to have -slept--heavens! did they treat _him_ as a middle-class pilgrim?--and a -room with oaken beams is termed the "Abbot's Room," there is little to be -seen within, save the original stone newel staircase leading upstairs and -a stone bench in the cellar now christened the Penitents' Seat, on which, -if you please, sinners under conviction sat, with water up to their knees. -For my part, although the perennial spring is there, I remain sceptical of -aught but beer-barrels and hogsheads of wine ever having occupied that -Penitents' Form. Penitents frequenting the cellars where the booze is kept -are suspect. - -The exterior, however, is a very fine example of the late Perpendicular -phase of Gothic architecture, as applied to domestic or semi-domestic -uses. The battlements formerly had stone figures peering from each -embrasure, figures traditionally said to have represented the Twelve -Cæsars, or the Twelve Apostles. Exactly _how_ this was managed can hardly -be seen, for there are but seven openings. Only one figure now remains, -and he looks little like a Cæsar, and very much less like an Apostle. - -At the present time the "George" is a "family and commercial" hotel. Its -notepaper would seem to indicate that it is not the house for Dissenters, -for it displays, beneath a mitre and crossed croziers, an aspiration in -Latin to the effect that "May the Anglican Church Flourish." Our withers -are wrung: we are galled, and wince. - -The "Red Lion," opposite the "George," with fine stone-embayed window and -frontage dated 1659, was formerly the Porter's Lodge and gateway of the -Abbey. - -A very spirited view of Glastonbury, including the "George," in the -eighteenth century was executed, as an etching, by Rowlandson, and shows -us, in his inimitable manner, the life and bustle of an old English -country town on market-day. There you see a post-chaise and four being -driven at top speed through the town, bringing disaster to a woman dealer -in crockery, whose donkey, lashing out with his hind-legs, is upsetting -the contents of his panniers; and there at the town-pump, in those days -before house-to-house water-supply, are the gossipping servants, very -beefy about the ankles, filling their pitchers and pipkins. - -[Illustration: HIGH STREET, GLASTONBURY, IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. _From -the etching by Rowlandson._] - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -PILGRIMS' INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS (_continued_) - - -At St. Albans we have still something in the way of a pilgrim's inn. St. -Albans was, of course, the home of the wonder-working shrine of St. Alban, -the proto-martyr of Britain, and by direct consequence a place of great -pilgrimage and a town of many inns. Here is the "George," one of the -pleasantest of the old inns remaining in the place, with an old, but -scarce picturesque frontage, relieved from lack of interest by a quaint -sundial, inscribed _Horas non numero nisi serenas_, and a more than -usually picturesque courtyard. - -The house is mentioned so early as 1448 as the "George upon the Hupe." In -those times it possessed an oratory of its own, referred to in an ancient -licence, by which the Abbot authorised the innkeeper to have Low Mass -celebrated on the premises, for the benefit of "such great men and nobles, -and others, as shall be lodged here." - -Let us try to imagine that inn, licensed for the sale of wine and -spirituous liquors and for religious services! It seems odd, but after all -not so odd as these mad times of our own, when public-houses are converted -into missions, and ordained clergymen of the Church of England become -publicans and serve drinks across the counter in the interest of -temperance and good behaviour.[14] - -No traces of that oratory now remain in the "George." It is one of the -most comfortable of old houses, and full of old panelling and old prints -and furniture, but the "great men and nobles" have long ceased to lodge -here, and it is now only frequented by "others." The chapel was desecrated -at the time of the Reformation, and was afterwards in use as part of the -stables. - -The carving seen in the illustration over the archway is no integral part -of the inn, but was brought from old Holywell House in 1837, on the -destruction of that mansion, of which it formed the decorative pediment. - -The Church, as already shown, was the earliest innkeeper in those days -when travellers travailed in difficulties and dangers; and semi-religious -bodies often acted the same hospitable part. The Knights Templars and the -Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem kept hostelries at various -places, prominent among them the old house which is now the "Angel" at -Grantham. - -The "Angel," in common with other inns of the same name, derived its sign -in the far-off thirteenth century from a religious picture-sign of the -Annunciation, and we may readily see how, in the fading of the picture, -the rest of the group gradually sank out of sight, leaving only that -bright announcing messenger visible to passers-by. Undoubtedly the "Angel" -at Islington obtained its name in this way: staggering though the thought -may be to those who know that merely secular public-house, in that roaring -vortex of London traffic. - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," ST. ALBANS.] - -The attitude of greeting in the pose of the angelic figure led in course -of time to such a sign being often called the "Salutation": hence the -various old inns of that name in different parts of the country were -originally "Angels." - -The "Angel" at Grantham is a quaint admixture of ancient and modern. It -was a hostel, and bore this name even so early as the reign of King John, -for beneath its roof that monarch held his Court in the February of 1213. -We do not, however, find anything nowadays so ancient in the "Angel," for -every vestige of the building in which that shifty and evasive monarch -lodged has disappeared. This is by no means to say that the "Angel" is of -recent date. It belongs in part to the mid-fourteenth and fifteenth -centuries--a more than respectable age. From the midst of the town of -Grantham it looks out upon the Great North Road, and in truth, facing a -highway of so great and varied historic doings, no building can have -witnessed more in the way of varied processions. History, made visible, -has passed by, in front of these windows, for at least five hundred years, -beginning with the gorgeous cavalcades of kings and courts and armies -going or coming on missions of peace or war to and from Scotland, and at -last--what a contrast!--ending with the hotel omnibus to or from the -railway-station, with the luggage of "commercials." - -[Illustration: THE "ANGEL," GRANTHAM.] - -A very tragical incident in history was enacted in the great room, now -divided into three, that once extended the whole length of the frontage on -the first floor. Perhaps it was in the bay of the beautiful Gothic oriel -window lighting this room that Richard the Third signed the death-warrant -of the Duke of Buckingham, October 19th, 1483. That it was signed in this -room we know. What was his manner when he put his hand to that deed? Did -he declaim anything in the "off with his head; so much for Buckingham," -dramatic way, as we are led by Colley Cibber's stage-version of -Shakespeare's _Richard the Third_ to suppose he did? Or did he silently -treat it as a matter of stern, imperious necessity of statecraft? Had he -possessed the dramatic sense, he certainly would have mouthed some such -bloodthirsty phrase, and, turning on his heel in the self-satisfied -attitude of triumphant villainy we know so well, would have made a -striking exit, as per stage directions, curling a villainous and -contemptuous lip, in the manner that never yet failed to bring down the -heartfelt hatred, and the hisses, of the gallery. - -It is, however, to be sadly supposed that the King did nothing of that -sort. He could not play to the gallery--for it was not there; he probably -did not turn upon his heel, nor curl his lip, for the Stage, whence you -learn the trick of these things, had not yet come into existence. And if -you do but consider it, most of the great doings of the world, bloody or -legislative, or what not, have been done--not, if it please you, -"enacted"--without a due sense of their dramatic and spectacular -possibilities. They all came in the day's work, and the issues were too -tremendous, the risks too great and impending, for the personages involved -in them to enjoy the leisure for posing. - -The old embayed stone frontage of the "Angel" has survived many a shock -and buffet of Time, and, although the mullions of most of its windows have -long since been removed, in the not unnatural demand for more light, the -antiquity of the house is manifest to the most commercial, and least -antiquarian, traveller. On either side of the Gothic archway by which you -enter, the carved heads of Edward the Third and his heroic Queen Philippa -still appear, and at the crown of the arch, serving the purpose of a -supporting corbel to the beautiful oriel window above, is a sculptured -angel supporting a shield of arms. - -The historic "Angel," scene of so many centuries of conviviality, has long -been made to foster the cause of temperance. Indeed, for two hundred years -past, ages before Temperance became a Cause with capital letters and -capital endowments, the rent of the house went towards this object, under -the will of one Michael Solomon, who, dying in 1706, directed that a -sermon should be annually preached in Grantham church, "strongly -denouncing drunkenness," the cost to be met out of the rental of the -"Angel." But the most cynical stroke of chance befell in November, 1905, -when the preacher of this counterblast against drink, paid for out of the -profits of a licensed house, was the Reverend Gerald Goodwin, son of the -chief proprietor of a prominent Newark brewery. - -The "George," at Norton St. Philip, claiming to have been licensed in -1397, has stirring history, as well as antiquity and beauty, to recommend -it. You who are curious as to where the village of Norton stands may take -the map of Somerset and presently, scanning the county to the south of -Bath, discover it set down about seven miles to the south of that ancient -city, in a somewhat sequestered district. The reason of so large and so -grand a hostelry being in existence since the Middle Ages in so small a -village is not, at the first blush, evident, and it is only when the -ancient history of Norton itself is explored that the wherefore of it is -found. - -It seems, then, that the land hereabout was in those far-off times the -property of the old Priory of Hinton Charterhouse--that old Carthusian -house whose brethren were the best farmers, wool-growers, and -stock-raisers of their time in the West Country. As early as the reign of -Henry the Third the monastery was licensed to hold a fair here in May, on -the vigil, the feast, and the morrow of the festival of SS. Philip and -James; and again, in 1284, secured a charter conferring the right of -holding a market at "Norton Charterhouse" every Friday, instead of, as -formerly, at the bleak and much-exposed Hinton. In 1345 the Priory was -further empowered to annually hold a fair on the feast of the Decollation -of St. John at Norton: an institution that, although the Priory went the -way of all its kind over five hundred and fifty years ago, remained a -yearly fixture on August 28th and 29th until quite recent times. It was -known locally, for some reason now undiscoverable, as "Norton Dog Fair." - -The fair in its last years degenerated into the usual thing we understand -nowadays as a fair: a squalid exhibition of Fat Women and Two-headed -Calves; a gaudy and strepitous saturnalia of roundabouts and mountebanks; -but it was--or they were, for, as we have already seen, there were at one -time two--originally highly important business conventions. The principal -business then transacted was the selling of wool and cloth, and it was for -the purpose of helping their trade as wool-growers, and for the benefit -generally of their very lucrative fairs, that the monks of Hinton -Charterhouse in the fourteenth century built as a hostel that which is -to-day the "George" inn. - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," NORTON ST. PHILIP.] - -For generations the merchants and wool-staplers exposed their wares and -did their business in the street, or in a large upper room of the house, -and long continued to do so when in course of time the whole thing had -been altogether secularised. - -The cyclist who comes to Norton St. Philip from Bath has a weary time of -it, among the hills, by Odd Down, Midford, and Freshford; and only when he -has come uphill to windy Hinton Charterhouse are his toils over, and the -rest of the way easy. It is a broad, modern road, but the observant may -yet see the disused Abbot's Way going, narrow, and even more steep, over -the fields, to the left hand; and we may well imagine the joy of the old -travellers along it when they saw the grey church tower in the village, -nestling in a fold of the hills, and heard those sweet-toned bells of -Norton that still sound so mellow on the ear, and are the identical "very -fine ring of six bells" that Pepys heard on June 12th, 1668, and -pronounced "mighty tuneable." - -The "George" keeps unmistakable evidences of its semi-ecclesiastical -origin, and the Gothic character of the solid stonework in the lower -storey points to the latter half of the fourteenth century. The curious -and exceedingly picturesque contrast between the massive masonry below and -the overhanging timbered upper part has led, without any other evidence, -to the conjecture that the house must at some time have suffered from -fire, or otherwise been injured and partly rebuilt; but such instances of -mixed methods in ancient building are numerous. - -History of a romantic kind has been enacted here, for it was in the street -of Norton St. Philip, that a furious skirmish was fought, June 26th, 1685, -between the untrained and badly armed rustics of the rebel Duke of -Monmouth, and the soldiers of King James, under command of the weak and -vacillating Lord Feversham. The rebel peasantry, armed only with pikes, -scythes, and billhooks, that day withstood and routed their enemies, and -they held the village that night, Monmouth himself sleeping in one of the -front bedrooms of the "George." It was while dressing at this window the -following morning that he was fired at by some unknown person desirous of -earning the reward offered by James for the taking of his nephew's life. -The bullet, however, sped harmlessly by that preserver and champion of the -Protestant liberties of the country: hence the invincible anonymity of the -firer of that shot. Had Monmouth died thus, it is conceivable he would -have come down to us a more manly historic figure. - -The interior of the "George" is woefully disappointing, after the -expectations raised by the noble exterior. It was obviously never ornately -fitted, and long generations of neglect and misuse have resulted in the -house being, internally, little better than a mere wreck, with the -installation of a vulgar bar to insult the Gothic feeling of the place. -The property now belongs to the Bath Brewery Company, and is not merely -that abomination, a "tied house," but is maintained in a barely habitable -condition, the Company being reported of opinion that the Somersetshire -Archæological Society--interested, as all archæologists must be, in a -house so architecturally and historically interesting--should restore the -building. If that report be true, it is a striking example of colossal -impudence. - -On the ground-floor, the present Tap-room keeps a large fire-place with -old-fashioned grate. Above, mounting by a stone spiral staircase to the -first floor, is the room used by Monmouth (the one to the right hand in -the view), and known as the "King's Room." Its door, floor, and walls are -of the roughest, as also are those of the adjoining room. On the floor -above, running the whole length of the building, under the roof, is the -long room used by the old wool-merchants as their market: and a darksome -and makeshift place, under the roof-timbers, it is, and must have been at -the best of times. To-day the floor is rotten, and you must go delicately, -lest you fall through to the next floor, and then through that to the -ground, where only the explorer can feel secure. - -It is the same tale of far-gone decay in the yard, to which you enter, as -also to the house itself, by the great archway in the village street. It -was always a small yard, but was partly galleried. The tottering remains -of the gallery, with brewhouse below, are left, still filled with the -enormous casks built in the brewhouse itself, and only to be removed by -demolishing them. The rooms are mere ruins. If ever the interior and the -yard of the "George" are restored it will be a great and an expensive -work; but it is to be feared that, Norton St. Philip being an unlikely -place for lengthened resort--visitors coming from curiosity from Bath for -merely an hour or so--such a work will never be undertaken. - -In even worse case, from an archæologist's point of view, is the "George" -at Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire; for it stands in the High Street of a -busy little town, and has been disastrously altered in recent years by the -brewers who own it. Brewers have no undue leanings toward historic or -architectural sentiment, and in this instance their object was to fit -their house for use as a commercial hotel. Accordingly, they caused the -ancient stone face to be pulled down and have replaced it by an imitation -timbered gabled front. Something of what the old front was like may be -discovered at the back, where the date, 1583, may be seen on the -stonework, together with an inscription to the effect that it was restored -in 1706. - -The "George" was originally built as a pilgrims' inn by the Abbots of -Winchcombe and Hayles, whose noted West Country shrines attracted many -thousands of the pious and the sinful in days gone by. At Winchcombe they -had the body of St. Kenelm, the Saxon boy-king who succeeded to the -throne of Mercia in A.D. 822, and, according to legendary lore, was -murdered at the instigation of his sister Cwoenthryth, who desired his -place. Kenelm was but seven years of age, but already so pious, if we are -to believe the story, that the poisons at first administered to him -refused their customary effects, and there was nothing for it but to -strike his head off. Piety, therefore, was not proof against cold steel. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "GEORGE," NORTON ST. PHILIP.] - -His tutor, the treacherous Askobert, was induced to perform this act, in -the lonely forest of Clent. To the astonishment of Askobert, a white dove -flew from the severed neck and soared away into the sky. Naturally -surprised by such a marvel, he nevertheless was not unnerved, and buried -the body under a thorn-bush and went his way. Cwoenthryth in due course -succeeded, and reigned for some two years, when the inevitable vengeance -fell. It came about in a curious way--as do all these retributions in -monastic legends. The Pope was celebrating Mass in his Cathedral of St. -Peter when a dove that had been observed there poised itself over the high -altar and dropped from its beak a piece of parchment inscribed, "In Clent -in Cowbach Kenelm Kynge's child lieth under a thorn, his head taken from -him." - -This strange message was conveyed to England, and an expedition, formed of -the monks of Winchcombe and Worcester, set off to the forest of Clent. -Arrived there, the expeditionary force was guided to the thorn-tree by a -white cow, and duly found the body. After disputing whose property it was -to become, they decided that, as they were all wearied with the journey -and their exertions, they should, every one, lie down and rest, the body -to become the possession of those who should first arise. The Winchcombe -men were first awake, and were well away over the hills with their prize -before the monks of Worcester ceased from their snoring, yawned, opened -their eyes, and found the treasure gone. - -The miraculous power of St. Kenelm manifested itself on the way, for the -men of Winchcombe, fainting on their journey for lack of water, prayed, -for the love of him, to be guided to some spring; when immediately a gush -of water burst forth from the hillside. Thus refreshed, they came into -Winchcombe, where the wicked Cwoenthryth, whom later generations have -agreed to name, in more simple fashion, Quenride, was reading that very -comminatory Psalm, the 109th, wherein all manner of disasters are invoked -upon the Psalmist's enemies. There has ever been considered some especial -virtue in reciting prayers and invocations backwards, and Quenride, having -gone through the Psalm in the ordinary way, was proceeding to take it in -reverse when the procession came winding along the street. At that moment -her eyes fell out; and, to bear witness to the truth of the story, the -Abbey of Winchcombe long exhibited, among the greatest of its treasures, -the blood-stained psalter on whose pages they fell--which, of course, was -convincing. - -Can we wonder that, in those credulous ages, pilgrimage to Winchcombe -should have been a popular West Country practice? And if not to St. -Kenelm's shrine, there was the peculiarly holy relic of the neighbouring -Abbey of Hayles, where the monks treasured nothing less tremendous than a -bottle of Christ's blood. This in after years--as was to be supposed--was -discovered to be a blasphemous imposture, the precious phial being -declared by the examining Commissioners in the time of Henry the Eighth to -contain merely "an unctuous gum, coloured." - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "GEORGE," WINCHCOMBE.] - -A pilgrims' inn at Winchcombe was, in view of the crowds naturally -resorting to either or both of these Abbeys, a very necessary -institution, and for long the "George" so remained. - -The ways of the brewers with the old house have been already in part -recorded and the destruction of much of interest deplored, but there still -remains a little of its former state. There is, for instance, the great -archway at the side, with the oaken spandrels carved with foliage and the -initials R. K.; standing for Richard Kyderminster, Abbot of Winchcombe at -some period in the fifteenth century. Through this archway runs the yard, -down to the back of the town, and there is what is still called the -"Pilgrims' Gallery," on one side. One scarcely knows which of the two -courses adopted by the brewers with this old inn was the most disastrous: -the actual demolition of the old frontage, or the "restoration" of the -Pilgrims' Gallery in so thorough a manner that it is, in almost every -respect, a new structure. Nor does it, as of old, conduct to bedrooms, for -that part of the house giving upon it has been reconstructed as a large -room, available for entertainments or public dinners. - -There is something peculiarly appropriate in the refectory of a monastic -house becoming an inn. Such is the history of the "Lord Crewe Arms," at -Blanchland. - -It is a far cry to that picturesque and quiet village, in stern and rugged -Northumberland; but you may be sure that, however wild and forbidding the -surrounding country, the site and the immediate neighbourhood of an -ancient abbey will prove to be fertile, sheltered, and beautiful; and -Blanchland, the old home of an Abbey of Præmonstratensian canons, is no -exception to this rule. - -Whichever way the traveller comes into Blanchland, he comes by hills more -or less precipitous, and by moors chiefly remarkable for their savage and -worthless nature, and it is a welcome change when, from the summit of a -steep hill, he at last looks down upon the quiet place, nestling in a -hollow on the Northumbrian side of the little river Derwent, that here -separates the counties of Northumberland and Durham. - -Down there, still remote from the busy world, the village is slowly but -surely fading out of existence, as we learn from the cold, dispassionate -figures of the Census returns, which record the fact that in 1811 the -inhabitants numbered 518, while in 1901 they were but 232. - -It is a compact little place. There is the ancient bridge, built by the -monks, across the Derwent, still, in the words of Froissart, "strong and -rapid and full of large stones and rocks"; and there are the church-tower, -the old Abbey gatehouse, the "Lord Crewe Arms," and some few houses, -forming four sides of a square. "The place," as Walter Besant truly says -in his novel, _Dorothy Forster_, "has the aspect of an ancient and decayed -college." - -Blanchland owes everything to its old abbey, conducted under the rules of -the original brethren of Prémonté, and even derived its name of Blanche -Lande from the white habits of the monks; just as Whitland in -Carmarthenshire, took its name from a similar history. - -The Abbey of Blanchland was founded here, at "Wulwardshope," as the place -was originally named, in 1163, and, rebuilt and added to from time to -time, flourished until the heavy hand of Henry the Eighth and his -commissioners ended it, in 1536. In all those long centuries it had -remained obscure, both in its situation and its history; and was indeed so -difficult to come to that tradition tells a picturesque story of mediæval -Scottish raiders failing to find the place and so returning home, when its -situation was revealed to them by the bells the monks were ringing, to -express joy at their deliverance. Alas! it was their own funeral knell the -brethren rang; for, guided by the sound, those Border ruffians entered -Blanchland, burnt its Abbey and slew the monks. - -Shortly after the suppression of the Abbey under Henry the Eighth, the -monastic lands became the property, and the domestic buildings of the -Abbey the home, of the Radcliffe family, and afterwards of the Forsters, -who, according to the wholly irreverent, and half-boastful, half-satirical -local saying, were older than the oldest of county families, for "the -Almighty first created the world and Adam and Eve, and then He made the -Forsters." - -Blanchland was at last lost to that long-descended race by the treason of -General Forster, who was concerned in the rising of 1715, and so -forfeited his estates; and in 1721 the property was purchased by Nathaniel -Crewe, Bishop of Durham, who at the age of sixty-seven had married Dorothy -Forster, at that time twenty-four years of age. - -[Illustration: THE "LORD CREWE ARMS," BLANCHLAND.] - -The present inn, the "Lord Crewe Arms," is a portion of the old refectory -buildings on the west side of the cloister garth, but many alterations and -additions have been made since those times, and the actual oldest part is -the ancient monastic fireplace, very much disguised by later generations, -and in the fact that it is now in use as the fireplace of the modern -kitchen. - -In the fine drawing-room of the inn, formerly the ball-room of the Forster -mansion, hangs a portrait of Lord Crewe, that time-serving reactionary -sycophant under James the Second and would-be toady to William the Third. -His public life was a version, on a higher plane, of that of the -celebrated Vicar of Bray, and he succeeded admirably in his determination -to stick to his principles--to live and die Bishop-Palatine of Durham; for -as Lord Bishop he remained until his death, aged eighty-nine, in 1722, in -the reign of George the Second. - -But he well deserves the honour of the inn being named after him, for he -left his wealth in various charities, the rent of the inn itself forming a -portion of the income of the Crewe trustees. - -Our ultimate example of a monastic hostel is found at Aylesbury, a town -whose name would, to imaginative persons, appear at the first blush to -indicate a happy hunting-ground for old inns; but although--Shakespeare to -the contrary--there is usually very much in a name, the meaning is not -always--and in place-names not often--what it would seem to be. Thus, -Aylesbury is not the town of ale, but (a very different thing), -Aeglesberge, _i.e._ "the Church Town," a name it obtained in Saxon times, -when the surrounding country was godless, and this place exceptionally -provided. - -At the same time, Aylesbury--the place also of ducks and of dairies--_was_ -once notable for an exceedingly fine inn: none other than the great -galleried "White Hart," first modernised in 1814, when its gabled, -picturesque front was pulled down and replaced by a commonplace red-brick -front, in the style, or lack of style, then prevalent; and finally cleared -away in 1863, to make room for the existing Corn Exchange and Market -House. - -[Illustration: THE "OLD KING'S HEAD," AYLESBURY.] - -Coming into Aylesbury, in quest of inns, one looks at that building with -dismay. Was it really to build such a horrific thing they demolished the -"White Hart"? How deplorable! - -Aylesbury is a town where, late at night, the police foregather in the -reverberative Market Square, instead of going their individual beats; and -there, through the small hours, they talk and laugh, hawk and spit, and -make offensive noises, until the sleepless stranger longs to open his -window and throw things at them. Happy he whose bedroom does not look upon -their rendezvous! But this is merely incidental. More germane to the -matter under consideration is the fact that, although the "White Hart" be -gone, Aylesbury still keeps a remarkably fine inn, of the smaller sort, in -the "Old King's Head," which, if not indeed a pilgrims' inn, seems to have -been originally built by some religious fraternity as a hospice or -guest-house for travellers. Of its history and of the original building -nothing is known, the present house dating from 1444-50. You discover the -"Old King's Head" in a narrow street off the market-place, and at the -first glimpse of it perceive that here is something quite exceptionally -fine. A sketch is, if it be any good at all, always worth a page of -description, and so we will let the accompanying illustration take the -place of mere verbiage. Only let it be observed that the larger gable and -the window in it are new, having been rebuilt in 1880. - -The great window, entirely constructed of oak, is the chief feature of the -exterior, just as the noble room it lights is the principal object of -interest in the house itself. The point most worthy of consideration here -is that in this remarkably fine window, and in the room itself, you have -an unaltered and unrestored work of the fifteenth century. In early ages -the house was an inn with some ecclesiastical tie, and when it passed from -the hands of the brotherhood (whoever they may have been) that once owned -it, and became a secularised hostelry, it seems to have continued its -career with very little alteration beyond that of adopting as a sign the -"King's Head": that king doubtless originally Henry the Eighth himself. -The house was, in the seventeenth century, one of the Aylesbury inns that -issued tokens, for in museums and private collections are still to be -found copper pieces inscribed "At ye King's Head In Aillsburey, W.E.D. -1657." There still existed, until comparatively recent times, traces of -old galleries in the extensive yard, but modern changes have at last -completely abolished them. - -The fine room of which the great window forms one complete side was no -doubt originally the common-room of the hostel. It is now the tap-room. A -fine lofty hall it makes: oaken pillars, black with age, springing from -each corner, based upon stone plinths and supporting finely moulded beams -that, crossing in the ceiling, divide it into nine square compartments. -The great window, divided by mullions and a transom into twenty lights, is -of course seen to best advantage from within, and still keeps much of the -original armorial stained glass. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -HISTORIC INNS - - -It can be no matter for surprise that many inns have historic -associations. Indeed, when we consider that in olden times the hostelries -of town and country touched life at every point, and were once the centre -of local life, it becomes rather surprising that not more tragic events, -more treaties and conferences, and more plots and conspiracies are -associated with such places of public resort. - -Strange, mysterious plotters, highwaymen, and great nobles resorted to -them, and, coming to things more domestic, there, under the inn's -hospitable roof, town councils not infrequently met in those times before -ever "municipal buildings" were dreamed of, and conducted their business -over a cheering, and inebriating, cup. Your inn was, in short, then at -once your railway-station, club, hotel, reading-room and mart. There were -distinct advantages, in the social sense, in all this. It meant -good-fellowship when respectable townsfolk were not ashamed to spend a -winter evening in the parlour of a representative inn, or play a game of -bowls in summer on the bowling-green with which most such houses were once -furnished, and the man who now glowers in unneighbourly and solitary way -over his hearthstone, would expand, with such opportunities, into as -good-natured a fellow as any of the olden time. - -[Illustration: THE "REINDEER," BANBURY.] - -The inns of Banbury make some historic figure. It was in one of them--the -chronicler says not which--that the dispute took place between the two -Yorkist commanders, which led to the battle of Danesmoor being lost by -their side, in July, 1469. - -The occasion was the revolt of the great Earl of Warwick against Edward -the Fourth. To intercept Warwick at Northampton the Earl of Pembroke was -marching with a force from Gloucestershire, and was joined on the -Cotswolds by Lord Stafford of Southwick, newly raised a step in the -peerage by being created Earl of Devon. Lord Stafford's troops numbered -six thousand good archers: a very welcome reinforcement; but, even so, the -combined forces dared not at once risk an engagement with the rebels at -Daventry, and fell back upon Banbury. There a quarrel took place between -Lord Stafford and the Earl of Pembroke, all on account of a pretty girl. -Says Hall: "The earle of Pembroke putt the Lorde Stafforde out of an Inne, -wherein he delighted muche to be, for the loue of a damosell that dwelled -in the house: contrary to their mutuall agrement by them taken, which was, -that whosoeaver abteined first a lodgyng should not be deceaved nor -remoued. After a greate many woordes and crakes, had betwene these twoo -capitaines, the lord Stafford of Southwyke, in greate dispite departed -with his whole compaignie and band of Archers, leauynge the erle of -Pembroke almost desolate in the toune." - -Accordingly, so weakened, the next day the Earl of Pembroke was defeated. -He took refuge in Banbury church, but, according to Hall, was dragged -forth by the fierce John Clapham, who beheaded him in the porch with his -own hands. - -Possibly it was at the "Red Lion," in the High Street, that the damosell -lived who caused all the strife between those great lords. If so, it -renders that fine old house the more interesting. Modern needs, and a not -unreasonable desire to keep incoming guests and their belongings dry, have -caused the picturesque courtyard to be roofed in with glass, thus hiding -many of its pictorial qualities; but you still enter from the street by a -fifteenth-century oaken portal, much blunted by wear and tear and many -successive coats of paint and varnish in all those succeeding centuries; -yet indubitably still fifteenth-century work. - -But the most picturesque inn at Banbury is the "Reindeer." History is -silent as to the why or the how of its acquiring that name, and is indeed -dumb in almost every other respect concerning the old house. The -"Reindeer," both in itself and in its situation, is scarcely like the "Red -Lion," an hotel. You look in at the "Reindeer" for a drink and for -curiosity only; for the house does not precisely invite guests, and -probably does most business on market days, when country folk from -neighbouring villages throng the strait and crooked streets of Banbury and -put up their traps in its yard and insist on liberally drinking the health -of one another. Parson's Street, indeed, the situation of the "Reindeer," -is a market-street and crowded shopping centre, where brazen-tongued -salesmen exhort housewives to "buy, buy, buy"; or indulge in rhapsodical, -exclamatory passages in praise of their goods. You are gazing, let us say, -outside the "original" Banbury-cake shop, opposite, upon the magpie black -and white of the "Reindeer" frontage, when a parrot-like voice is heard -exclaiming, in ecstatic rapture, "O what loverly heggs!" and, turning, you -perceive, not a grey parrot in a gilded cage, but a white-aproned -provision-dealer's assistant, unfortunately at large. Fleeing into the -courtyard of the inn, you still hear faint cries of "_There's_ 'am!" "O -mother! what butter!" - -The neighbourhood, it will be perceived, does not in these days lend -itself to quiet residence, and although, by the evidence of its -architecture, the "Reindeer" was doubtless at one time one of the chief -hotels of the town, it has long ceased to hold anything like that -position. - -The old oaken gates and the black-and-white timbering above appear to be -the oldest portions of the house: the gates themselves inscribed with the -date "1570" on one side, and on the other - - "IHON · KNIGHT [Diamond] IHONE · KNIGHT [Diamond] DAVID HORN." - -The great feature of the inn is, however, the noble oak-panelled chamber -known, for whatever inscrutable reason, as the "Globe Room." Exterior and -interior views of it are the merest commonplaces in Banbury. There are, in -fact, three things absolutely necessary, nay, almost sacramental, for the -stranger to do in Banbury, without having performed the which he is a -scorn and a derision. The first of these indispensable performances is the -eating, or, at any rate, the buying of Banbury cakes. And here let me add -that the Banbury cakes of Banbury have a lightness and a toothsomeness -entirely lacking in the specious impostors made elsewhere. Just as -there are no other such pork-pies as those of Melton Mowbray, and as -Shrewsbury cakes can apparently only be made at Shrewsbury, so the -"Banburys" made in other towns are apt to lie as heavy on your chest as a -peccadillo upon a tender conscience. But in their native town they -disappear, to the accompaniment of cups of tea, with a rapidity alarming -to the pocket, if not to the stomach; for they cost "tuppence" apiece, and -a hungry pedestrian or cyclist finds no difficulty in demolishing half a -dozen of them. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "REINDEER," BANBURY.] - -The second of these necessary observances is the viewing of Banbury Cross: -not the old original famous Banbury Cross of the nursery rhyme, to which -many generations of children have been invited to "ride a cock-horse" to -see the tintinnabulatory lady with bells on her fingers and bells on her -toes; _that_ cross was destroyed by the Puritans, and the modern one is -not even a copy of it, for no man knoweth what the original was like. - -The third of these necessary rites is the viewing of the "Globe Room" at -the "Reindeer." What the exterior of that room is like, let the -illustration of the courtyard show. The date of its building is still -faintly traceable in the figures "1637" on the masonry of the gable. They -charge you threepence to view the interior, and if so be you cannot frame -to admire the richly decorated plaster ceiling for yourself, the printed -notice that a cast has been taken from it, and is to be seen in South -Kensington Museum, is calculated to impress the intellectually snobbish. -For our own part, seeing things with our own eyes and judging of them -comparatively, there seems no very adequate reason for South Kensington -acquiring such a cast, unless, indeed, (which is unthinkable) the -Department of Science and Art is bent upon copies of all the old ceilings -in the country. This is, in short, to say that although the plaster -decoration of the "Globe Room" is fine, it is neither so intrinsically -fine, nor so original above all others, that it deserves so great an -honour. The really supremely fine feature of the room is the beautiful -Jacobean panelling in oak, now almost coal-black with age, covering the -walls from floor to ceiling, and designed and wrought in unusually -thorough and bold style. There is not a finer room of its period in the -country, and it may even be questioned (leaving the mere matter of size -alone) if there is even another quite so fine or in every detail so -perfect. - -The reason of this magnificently panelled apartment being added to the -older and very much less ornate portion of the inn is obscure; and it will -be noted, as a matter of curiosity, that, entered as it is only by a -doorway from the open courtyard, the room is not, structurally a part of -the house. The name of the "Globe Room" given to it is not explained in -any way by the decorations or by its history, which is as obscure as its -origin. Tradition says Cromwell "held a council" here, and accordingly, -although history does not tell us anything specifically about it, a -picture, reproduced in a variety of ways, showing a number of stern and -malignant Roundheads interrogating an elegant and angelic-looking Royalist -clad in white, and bearing a very strong likeness to Charles the First -himself, is one of the commonplaces of the town. - -[Illustration: THE GLOBE ROOM, "REINDEER" INN, BANBURY.] - -For one of the most entertaining examples of history enacted at an inn, we -must shift the scene to Chester. - -Among the ancient inns of that city, long since retired from the -innkeeping business is the "Blue Posts," a house in its day historic by -reason of one dramatic incident: an incident so dramatic that it would -almost seem to have been borrowed from the stage. It was the year 1558, -the last of the reign of Queen Mary, of bloody memory, and Dr. Henry Cole, -Dean of St. Paul's, was come to Chester on his way to Ireland, where he -had work to do, in the persecution of the Irish Protestants. He lodged for -the night at the "Blue Posts," in Bridge Street, and in the evening the -Mayor of Chester called upon him there. - -The Dean made no secret of his mission. To him it was a labour of love to -bring imprisonment and torture, fire and stake, to correct the religious -errors of those Protestants over sea. Had he not already distinguished -himself by a revolting and bloodthirsty sermon, on the occasion of -Cranmer's sentence of martyrdom? - -In conversation with the Mayor, he drew from his travelling valise the -Royal commission for his errand. "Here," he exclaimed, with exultation, -"here is that will lash the heretics of Ireland!" - -Now, whether the landlady was in the room at the time, or listening at the -keyhole--in a manner traditional among landladies--does not appear; but -she overheard the conversation, and, having a brother, a Protestant, in -Dublin, was alarmed for his safety in particular, and, let us hope, for -that of Protestants in general. So, that night, when the Dean was -doubtless dreaming of the shackles and gyves, the faggots and the rackings -he was bringing to the heretics of Ireland, Mrs. Mottershead, the landlady -with the sharp ears, abstracted the fateful commission, and in its stead -placed a pack of cards, with the knave of clubs showing satirically at the -top. O! daring and witty Mrs. Mottershead! - -We may, if gifted with anything like a due sense of humour, well chuckle -at the outraged feelings of the Lord President of the Council of Ireland -when the Dean, all unconscious, presented him with this unconventional -authority. My Lord, however, summoned some humour of his own, wherewith to -meet the situation. "Let us," said he, "have another commission, and we -will meanwhile shuffle the cards." - -Crestfallen, the emissary returned, and did actually obtain a new -commission, but when again arrived at Chester, and awaiting a fair wind -for Ireland, he heard of the Catholic Queen's death and the accession of -her Protestant sister; and so found his way back to London once more. - -[Illustration: THE "MUSIC HOUSE," NORWICH.] - -The episode would fitly end in the Dean being flung, loaded with chains, -into some loathsome dungeon; but although he was, in fact, committed to -the Tower in 1560, after having been deprived of all his preferments, such -dramatic completeness was lacking. But, at any rate, he was transferred to -the Fleet Prison, and, after a long captivity, seems to have died there in -1580. - -Meanwhile, virtue was rewarded, in the person of Mrs. Mottershead, who was -granted a pension of £40 a year, representing perhaps £500 a year in our -own day. - -The former "Blue Posts," where this historic interlude was played, was -long since refronted in respectable, but dull, red brick, and is now, or -was recently, a boot-shop. But although no hint of its former self is -given to the passer-by, those who venture to make a request, are shown a -fine upstairs room, with elaborately pargeted ceiling, still known as the -"Card Room." - -The "Music House" inn, King Street, Norwich, situated in what is now a -poor and densely populated part of that city, has a vaulted cellar of -Norman masonry, a vestige of the time when the Norwich Jews were very rich -and numerous. The house of which it formed part was then the residence of -one Moyses, and afterwards of Isaac, his nephew, who in the reign of King -John seems to have come, like many of his race, to some mysterious and -uncomfortable end, probably in the dungeons of Norwich Castle. In the -course of time the famous Paston family came into possession of the house, -and in 1633 the great lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, resided here. Shortly -afterwards it became the meeting-place of the "city music," ancestors of -modern town bands, who seem to have practised the waits and other -performances within, until they had their parts sufficiently perfect to -dare inflict them on the city. Hence the sign of the "Music House." - -In the same neighbourhood we have the "Dolphin" inn at Potter Heigham, a -place sadly changed in modern times. - -Potter Heigham is no longer rural, and the long, long and narrow street -leading to it, out of Norwich, is crowded with the waggons and -railway-lorries of the old city's expanding commerce. In midst of all this -rumbling of wheels over uneven pavements stands the "Dolphin" inn, the -home in his declining days of Bishop Hall, who rented it for some ten -years, until his death there, in 1656, in his eighty-second year. - -[Illustration: THE "DOLPHIN," POTTER HEIGHAM.] - -It was a comparatively new house then, for while you see the date, 1587, -over the entrance door and a merchant's mark and the initials R B on -either side, a prominent gable shows the date 1629 done, very large, in -vitrified brick. - -Still you come grandly into the house, though it be a humble tavern now, -between an old pillared entrance, and across a courtyard, and in the house -are Jacobean fireplaces, with a fine newel staircase carved in the manner -of an old church bench-end, with an heraldic lion and the Gothic foliage -known as a "poppy head." The "Dolphin" would be capable, if it were -differently situated, of being converted into a handsome old-world hotel, -but the poor and crowded neighbourhood of Potter Heigham forbids anything -of that kind, and so it remains humble and unassuming. - -A tragical little story belongs to the humble old "Nag's Head" inn at -Thame, formerly the "King's Head." The old sign of it was used as a -gallows for a Parliamentary rebel who had deserted his side and joined the -King, and was so unlucky as to be captured. Those Puritans had a grim -humour. One of the condemned man's executioners, before turning him off, -turned his face, bound with a handkerchief, to the sign, with the words: -"Nay, sir, you must speak one word with the King before you go. You are -blindfold, and he cannot see, and by and by you shall both come down -together." And then he was hoisted up. - -There is another historic house at Thame, for it was into the yard of the -"Greyhound" in that town that John Hampden came, lying mortally wounded -upon the neck of his horse, from the skirmish of Chalgrove Field, on June -18th, 1643. He had unwillingly taken arms against oppression and -iniquitous taxation, and was thus at the outset killed. No enemy's bullet -laid him low: it was his own pistol, overloaded by a careless servant, -that, exploding, shattered his hand. He died, on the 24th, of lockjaw. - -The front of the house has been rebuilt, and the yard somewhat altered, -since the patriot rode in at that tragical time; but the house is in -essentials the inn of his day. Long since ceased to be an inn, it is now -occupied as a furnishing ironmonger's shop and warehouse. - -[Illustration: THE "NAG'S HEAD," THAME.] - -The "Crown and Treaty House" inn at Uxbridge, long known to would-be beery -rustics by the affectionately wistful name of the "Crown and Treat Ye," is -a genuinely historic house. It stands away beyond the tramway terminus, -facing the road at the very extremity of Uxbridge town, as you cross -canal and river and so leave Middlesex for Buckinghamshire; and although -very much of its real antiquity is disguised by modern paint and plaster, -it is in fact the surviving portion of the great mansion built in 1575 by -one of the Bennet family, and, at the opening of the war between King and -Parliament, in the occupation of one "Mr. Carr." - -The meeting here of leading spirits on either side of the contending -forces was well meant. It began January 20th, 1645, and was convened for -the purpose of "taking into consideration the grievances of which each -party complained, and to propose those remedies which might be mutually -agreeable." Unfortunately, little sincerity attended the actual meeting. -The King's party were unyielding, and the military successes of the -Parliament rendered the leaders of that side ill-disposed to give away in -talk that which they had won in the field. Moreover, like most conferences -in which religious as well as political questions were the subjects of -discussion, those debates only further inflamed mutual hatreds and further -sundered the already wide points of disagreement. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "GREYHOUND," THAME.] - -There were sixteen commissioners on either side, and for three weeks they -argued without coming to any settlement. Neither side would give way, for -either was convinced of its ability to finally crush the other by force of -arms. Much blood had already been shed, indecisively, and passions ran -high. Uxbridge was selected as a kind of half-way house between London, -held strongly by the Parliament, and Oxford, as strongly held for the -King; and when the empty verbiage was done, the propositions put forth -scouted, and the pretensions disallowed, the parties separated, falling -back respectively to London and to Oxford, to recommence those hostilities -for which they were spoiling. Treaty, therefore, there was not: only an -ominous truce between Right Divine and People's Will. - -The Earl of Clarendon, in his _History of the Rebellion_, gives an -interesting account of these fruitless meetings: - -"There was," he says, "a good house at the end of the town which was -provided for the Treaty. Above was a fair room in the middle of the house, -handsomely dressed up for the Commissioners to sit in; a large square -table being placed in the middle with seats for the Commissioners; one -side being sufficient for those of either party: and a rail for those who -should be thought necessary to be present, which went round. There were -many other rooms on either side of this great room for the Commissioners -to retire to, when they thought fit to consult by themselves, and there -being good stairs at either end of the house they never went through each -other's quarters, nor met, but in the great room." - -Neither side used the house, except for these meetings, the Royalists -being appropriately accommodated at the "Crown," which then stood in the -middle of the High Street, in the centre of the town, opposite the -still-existing "White Horse," and the Parliament people at the "George." - -[Illustration: THE "CROWN AND TREATY," UXBRIDGE.] - -In those times the highway out of Uxbridge, ceasing to be broad and -straight, left the High Street of Uxbridge by a sharp turning to the right -and went in a narrow way called Johnson's Row to the crossing of the -Colne, which was effected to the north of the present bridge and was made -in two stages by wooden bridges, using the still-surviving island in the -middle of the river as a kind of natural pier or abutment. The road -therefore crossed, in a more or less direct fashion, from immediately in -front of the "Swan and Bottle" inn to where the present flour-mill stands, -cautiously using that very considerable island on the way. The modern -road, with its bridge of seven arches, on the other hand, boldly spans the -river at its widest part, and seeks no help midway. It is all very clear -and palpable to you who stand on the bridge and see how the road across it -swoops round, at a very noticeable angle, to join the older road at the -flour-mill; but Johnson's Row was demolished 1905-6, to make an approach -to the new railway-station, and the old landmarks are growing obscured. It -was the making of this road in 1785 that changed the fortunes of the -Treaty House. The new highway was cut through its gardens, and the house -itself brought from private life and a dignified seclusion to face the -wayfaring world. What else, then, could it do but become an inn? - -[Illustration: THE "TREATY ROOM," "CROWN AND TREATY," UXBRIDGE.] - -The house, although even now not small, was once much larger. Its least -imposing front is turned to the street and is not improved by the modern -appointments of a public-house. The great feature of the building is the -room on the first floor, called, with what appears to be insufficient -warranty, the "Treaty Room," the real place of meeting having been, -apparently, the front room, now divided by a partition into two. It was -doubtless its being immeasurably the finest room in the house that led to -the so-called "Treaty Room" being selected for that honour. It is, in -fact, a noble apartment, greatly neglected for these many years past, but -grand in spite of indifference and decay. There are smeary -picture-postcards of it to be purchased in Uxbridge, and it has been -photographed by enthusiastic visitors times without number, generally -without success; for it is a dark interior, and the wood-carving is -shallow and does not yield sufficient pictorial light and shade for the -cameras to do it justice. It should be added, by way of comparative -criticism, that, although this panelling is itself so fine, it does not -for a moment compare with the bold and effective work of the "Globe Room" -at the "Reindeer," Banbury. There you have a massiveness of construction -and a breadth of design almost architectural: here there are no bold -projections, and the recurrent flat pilasters are covered with an -intricate Renaissance scroll and strap-work, which, although in itself -good, is too small in scale to be highly effective. - -[Illustration: THE "RED LION," HILLINGDON.] - -The "Red Lion" at Hillingdon, near Uxbridge, has its small share in the -troubled story of the Stuarts, although, to be sure, its plastered front -is a thought too modern-looking. Here Charles the First, escaping from -the besieged city of Oxford, lay the first night of his distracted -wanderings through England that led him eventually to the end of his armed -resistance, at Southwell. - -[Illustration: THE "THREE CROWNS," CHAGFORD.] - -The "Three Crowns" at Chagford, South Devon, now a favourite old-world -haunt of tourists visiting Dartmoor, illustrates still another incident in -that internecine warfare. It was originally a manor-house built in the -time of Henry the Eighth by Sir John Whyddon, a native of Chagford, who -went to London to seek his fortune, and, as a lawyer, found it. He became -a Judge of the King's Bench, was knighted, and we are gravely told that he -was the first judge to ride to Westminster on a horse: his predecessors, -and his learned contemporary brethren, had gone on mules. - -In the troubled times of the Civil War, when Royalist and Roundhead -disturbed even these remote nooks of the country, Chagford was attacked by -the Royalists under Sir John Berkeley. In the street-fighting, according -to Clarendon, "they lost Sidney Godolphin, a young gentleman of -incomparable parts. He received a mortal shot by a musket, a little above -the knee, of which he died on the instant, leaving the misfortune of his -death upon a place which could never otherwise have had a mention in the -world." Ay! but that was written in days long before the appreciation of -picturesque scenery had brought troops of visitors to Chagford. - -Young Godolphin bled to death on a stone seat of what is now, as Charles -Kingsley wrote, "a beautiful old mullioned and gabled Perpendicular inn." - -What was once the "great hall" of the old mansion is now a schoolroom. -Both face the church, on the other side of the narrow street, as an old -manor-house should do, and in summer time the gossipers lounge and talk, -and interpolate their gossiping with loud horse-laughs, far into the -night, greatly to the annoyance of visitors. Have I not heard, with these -ears, the raising of a sash at some incredible hour, and the voice of some -native of Bawston or N'York, exclaiming indignantly, "See yur, you darned -skunks, clear out of it!" whereupon, with cat-calls and insults in the -_patois_ of Devonshire, fortunately not with ease to be understood by -strangers from the U.S., that village convention has dispersed. - -Many historic memories linger around that ancient and beautiful house, the -"Saracen's Head" at Southwell, in the Sherwood Forest district of -Nottinghamshire. Southwell, whose hoary Minster has in modern times become -a cathedral, has fallen into a dreamless slumber since the last of the -coaches left the road, and as the traveller comes into its quiet streets, -in whose midst the great Norman church stands solemnly, like some grey -architectural ghost, he feels that he has come into a place whose last -days of activity ended considerably over half a century ago. - -The "Saracen's Head" was built in that interesting, but vague, period of -"ever so long ago"; the nearest attempt at determining its age to which -most chroniclers dare commit themselves. Whether the existing house is the -same building as that of this name conveyed by the Archbishop of York in -1396 to John Fysher and his wife Margaret, does not appear, but there -seems very little reason to doubt that, although greatly altered and added -to from time to time, the present "Saracen's Head" is, essentially, in its -ancient timbering, the identical structure. - -The frontage of the inn, now as ever the chief inn of Southwell, little -indicates its great age, for it is covered with a coat of grey plaster, -and, were it not for the enormously substantial oaken doors of the -coach-entrance, and the peep through the archway of the old courtyard, -the casual wayfarer might pass the historic house by. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "SARACEN'S HEAD," SOUTHWELL.] - -For it is historic, in an intimate and a melancholy way. Dismissing in a -word the remote visits paid by Edward the First and Edward the Third to -Southwell, when they are stated to have lodged at the "Saracen's Head," we -come to the harassed wanderings of Charles the First over the distracted -England of his time. That unhappy King well knew Southwell and the -"Saracen's Head." They were associated with the opening and the closing -scenes of his fight with Parliament and people, for he rested at the inn -on August 17th, 1642, on the way to raise the Royal Standard at Nottingham -on the 22nd; and at last, on May 5th, 1646, he abandoned the nearly four -years' struggle against fate, surrendering himself here to the Scottish -Commissioners. Between those two fateful days he was certainly once at -Southwell, and possibly more often. - -The story of his last visit has a pathos of its own that we need not be -Royalist to perceive. In March, 1646, the King at length saw his hopes to -be desperately failing everywhere, even in the loyal West; garrisons of -towns, castles, and fortified houses had been compelled to yield, and -himself reduced to fleeting, the embarrassed head of an impossible cause, -from place to place; bringing upon places and persons devoted to him a -common ruin. Friends began to despair of his shifty and untrustworthy -policy towards themselves and in negotiations with the enemy, and although -their loyalty was hardly ever in doubt, for they were fighting, after all, -not merely for the King personally, but for an order of things in which -their interests were involved, they had by this time exhausted energies -and wealth in a vain effort, and perhaps thought peace at almost any price -to be by this time preferable to the uncertainties of civil war, in which -the only certainty seemed to be that, whoever eventually won, they must -needs in the meanwhile be continually making further sacrifices. - -The King was at Oxford when he at length came to a decision by some means -to end the struggle; by flight over sea, or by surrendering himself to the -enemy: in the hope, in that alternative, that the sanctity of Kingship -would enable him by some means to snatch an advantage out of the very jaws -of defeat and ruin. The first thought was to take flight from the country, -by the port of King's Lynn, but that was at length abandoned for the -idea--a fatal _tertium quid_, as it proved--of surrendering, not to the -English army and the Parliament, but to the Scots, who, he thought, were -likely to make better terms for him. The Scottish army was at that time -engaged upon the siege of the Royalist castle of Newark, near Southwell; -and to Southwell the King, therefore, went from Oxford, in disguise. He -left Oxford on April 26th, and, to the last incapable of being -straightforward, even toward his own, gave out to his council that he was -going to London, to treat with Parliament. On May 3rd he was at Stamford, -and came to the "Saracen's Head" at Southwell at seven o'clock in the -morning of May 5th, accompanied by Ashburnham and his chaplain, Dr. -Hudson, but travelling with them as Ashburnham's servant. At the inn he -was received by Montreuil, the French Ambassador to Scotland, who had been -advised of his coming. The King, believing himself in every sense free, -invited the Scottish Commissioners over to dinner at the inn, from the -Bishop's Palace, where they had their quarters; and in what is now the -Coffee Room, the negotiations took place that ended in the King's yielding -to the Scots. It would, in any case, have so ended, for the Commissioners -came by invitation, as guests to dinner, but were so astonished at -finding the King so tamely coming within their grasp that they had not the -remotest idea of letting him go again, and would, if needs were, have -forcibly detained him. He was removed the same day to the neighbouring -Kelham Hall, where he formed the richest prize and the bitterest source of -contention between the English and the Scots, and all but caused a further -warfare. Eventually, the Scottish Commissioners, true to the national love -of money, sold their principles and their prisoner for £400,000 and -withdrew themselves and their forces across the border. The story ends -tragically, in Westminster, with the execution of the King on January -30th, 1649. - -The Coffee Room of the "Saracen's Head" is a beautiful apartment, formed -out of two rooms, and rich in panelling and deeply recessed windows. The -bedroom upstairs, where the King is said to have slept, is, in the same -manner, formed by abolishing the partition that once made two rooms of it; -and there they still show the pilgrims after things of sentimental and -historic interest the ancient four-poster bed on which the King slept. - -This history seems to have greatly upset Dr. Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand -and afterwards of Lichfield, who stayed at the "Saracen's Head" in 1858, -and slept--or rather, failed to sleep--in this historic bed. For my part, -although a pilgrim--and a sentimental one at that--I found the -four-poster, despite its associations, as inviting to slumber as any -other; but then, I had cycled eighty-one miles that day, and--not being a -bishop--had nothing on my conscience. - -[Illustration: KING CHARLES' BEDROOM, "SARACEN'S HEAD," SOUTHWELL.] - -Dr. Selwyn was so obsessed with the memories of that room and the house -that he arose in the middle of the night, and lighted his bedroom candle -and wrote a long set of couplets, sentimental, pietistic, and very jingly -and inferior. I have a mental picture of him sitting up in bed, or perhaps -at the dressing-table in his night-shirt, gruesomely cold on that March -night, running his fingers through his hair and gazing at the ceiling for -the inspiration which does not seem to have come; for a more uninspired -set of verses it would be difficult to find. But you shall judge: - - I cannot rest--for on the spot where I have made my bed, - O'erwearied with the strife of State, a King hath laid his head. - - Thy sacred head, ill-fated Charles, hath lain where now I lie; - And thou hast passed, in Southwell Inn, as sleepless night as I. - - I cannot rest--for o'er my mind come thronging full and fast, - The stories of the olden time, the visions of the past. - - 'Twas here he rested ere he raised his standard for the fight; - Here called on Heaven to help his cause, My God, defend the right! - - Here gather'd round him all the flow'r of England's chivalry; - And here the vanquished Monarch closed his days of liberty. - - I cannot rest--for Cromwell's horse are neighing in mine ear; - E'en in the Holy House of God their ringing hoofs I hear. - - Lord! wilt Thou once again endure it stable vile to be? - The proud usurper's charger rein'd fast by Thy sanctuary. - - I cannot rest--for Wolsey's pride, and Wolsey's deep disgrace-- - The pomp, the littleness of man--speak from this ancient place. - - Here gloriously his summer days he spent in kingly state; - Here his last summer sadly pined, bow'd by the stroke of Fate. - - How mighty was he when he rul'd from Tweed to Humber's flood! - How lowly when he came to die, forsaken by his God! - - I cannot rest--for holier thoughts the lingering night beguile, - Of the glad days when gospel light went forth o'er Britain's Isle. - - 'Twas here the Bishop of the North, Paulinus, pitch'd his tent, - Here preached the living Word of God, baptizing in the Trent. - - Hence have the preachers' feet gone forth thro' all the country wide; - And daughter-churches have sprung up, nursed at their mother's side. - - Here have the clerks of Nottingham, and yeomen bold and true, - Held yearly feasts at Whitsuntide, and paid their homage due. - - Here many a mitred head of York, and priests and men of peace, - Have lived in penitence and prayer, and welcomed their release. - - And hence the daily choral song, the gospel's hopes and fears, - Have sounded forth to Christian hearts, beyond a thousand years. - - 'Tis thus, o'er England's hill and dale, have passed by Heaven's decree, - A changing light, a chequer'd shade, a mingled company. - - The good, the bad, have had their day, the Lord hath worked His will; - And England keeps her ancient faith, purer and brighter still. - - Where are they now, the famous men who lived in olden time? - They never see the noonday sun, nor hear the midnight chime. - - They sleep within their narrow cell, waiting the trumpet's voice; - Lord! grant that I may rest in peace, and when I wake--rejoice. - - _Saracen's Head, Southwell, 5th March, 1858._ - -Byron had stayed often at the inn, many years before, and in 1807 wrote an -impromptu on the death of a local carrier, John Adams, who travelled to -and from the house, and lived drunk and died drunk: - - John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell, - A _Carrier_ who _carried_ his can to his mouth well; - He _carried_ so much and he _carried_ so fast, - He could _carry_ no more--so was _carried_ at last: - For the liquor he drank, being too much for one, - He could not _carry_ off--so is now _carri_-on. - -It will already have been noticed that the Stuarts and their troubles -contributed most of the historic associations belonging to our old -hostelries; and we have not yet quite done with them. The incidents of -Charles the Second's flight in 1651, after the battle of Worcester, -include a halt of one night at the "Sun," Cirencester, the well-known -escape from the "Queen's Arms," an inn--that is an inn no longer--at -Charmouth, and visits to the "George" at Bridport, and a house of the same -name at Broadwindsor. The "King's Arms" at Salisbury is associated with -meetings and conferences of the King's supporters, who, while he lay in -hiding at Heale House, considered there the best way of conducting him to -the coast and safety. The route chosen lay through Mere, where, at the -"George" inn (rebuilt in the eighteenth century) Colonel Phelips and -Charles, travelling as his servant, Will Jackson, called. The Colonel, an -acquaintance of the landlord, descended into the cellar of the inn, to -sample the liquors of the house, while "Will Jackson" stood respectfully -aside. Mine host, however, was an hospitable man, and, turning to the -servant, with jug and glass, said, "Thou lookest an honest fellow--here's -a health to the King!" The "honest fellow," whether taken aback by the -suddenness of it, or acting an unwilling part, made some difficulty in -replying; whereupon the landlord mildly took the Colonel to task for the -kind of man he had brought. - -[Illustration: THE "COCK AND PYMAT."] - -From another "George"--the "George" at Brighthelmstone, in after years -styled the "King's Head"--the King escaped to France. - -Nor even yet have we quite done with the hapless Stuarts, of whom -undoubtedly Charles the Second was the most fortunate. - -One of the most historic of inns was the famous "Cock and Pymat" at -Whittington, near Chesterfield. It is now only to be spoken of in the past -tense because, although there is still an inn of that name at -Whittington, it is not the famous "Revolution House" itself, but only a -modern building to which the old sign of the "Cock and Magpie"--for that -is the plain English of "Pymat"--has been transferred. - -Whittington in these times is a very grim and unlovely village, in the -dismal colliery district of Chesterfield, whose wicked-looking crooked -spire gives an air of _diablerie_ to its immediate surroundings; but two -centuries and a quarter ago, when James the Second was on the throne, and -busily engaged in undermining the religious and Parliamentary liberties of -the realm, it was a tiny collection of houses on a lonely moor, and an -ideal place for meetings of conspirators. There and then those very mild -and constitutional plotters who, despite their mildness, did actually -succeed in overturning that already insecure monarch, met and formulated -their demands. - -The house in which they gathered was then an inn so noted for its fine -home-brewed ale that packmen and others made it a regular place of call, -and often, we are told, went considerable distances out of their way, -rather than miss a draught of the genuine Whittington nut-brown. - -The bold men who met in the room still known as the "Plotting Parlour" had -nothing in common with such plotters as Guy Fawkes. Their methods were -rather those of debating societies than of misguided persons with dark -lanthorns and slow matches; but those were times when even the mildest -debater who ever rose to a point of order would have been in danger of -his life; and so undoubtedly the little gathering that met here in -1688--William, fourth Earl of Devonshire, Sir Thomas Osborne, Earl of -Danby, afterwards Duke of Leeds, and John D'Arcy--were bold men and brave. - -They drew up a complaint, moderately worded, and appended to it a sturdy -resolution. They declared that "invasions had been made of late Years on -our Religion and Laws, without the consent of Parliament, freely and duly -chosen," and begged King James to grant again the constitutional right, -hardly won by our forefathers, of a free Parliament. "But," they added, -"if, to the great Misfortune and Ruin of these Kingdoms it prove -otherwise, we further declare that we will to our utmost defend the -Protestant religion, the Laws of the Kingdom, and the Rights and Liberties -of the People." - -The Stuarts, although a romantic, were a wrong-headed and a stiff-necked -race. They must needs for ever be trying conclusions with their stubborn -heads against every brick wall within reach, and would never bow before -the storms of their own raising. James, true to his blood, would no more -yield than would any other of his house; and in that same year came the -Prince of Orange and brushed him lightly aside. - -The chair in which the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Devonshire presided at -the "Cock and Pymat" was long since transferred to Hardwick Hall, and in -the course of years the greater part of the old inn was demolished, the -remaining portion being now a private house. - -[Illustration: PORCH OF THE "RED LION," HIGH WYCOMBE.] - -The porch of that chief hotel of High Wycombe, the "Red Lion," has become -in these last generations historic; but while we may find, throughout the -country, inns associated with the entirely fictitious incidents of novels -displaying notices of their fame, there is not yet even the most modest of -tablets affixed to the front of the "Red Lion," to inform the present -generation that from the roof of the projecting portico Benjamin Disraeli, -afterwards Prime Minister of England, made his first political speech. -Thrice, and every time unsuccessfully--twice in 1832, and in 1834--he -sought to enter Parliament as Member for this town. He made a public entry -on June 3rd, 1832, and spoke from beside the lion that, still very red and -fierce, stands to this day on the roof of the portico. He appeared there -in the dandified costume of his youth--tightly strapped trousers, -frock-coat very tight in the waist and very full and spreading in the -skirts--and made a picturesque figure as, in the excitement of his -harangue to the free and independent electors, he from time to time flung -back the long black curls of his luxuriant hair. Mr. D'Israeli--as he then -spelled his name--appeared as an independent candidate, and was proposed -by a Tory and seconded by a Radical. He polled little more than half the -number of votes cast for his opponent, and how small was the electorate in -those days of a restricted franchise we may see from this election return: - - Grey 23 - D'Israeli 12 - -- - Majority 11 - -Among inns of highly dubious historic associations may be mentioned the -"White Hart" at Somerton, Somerset: that gaunt and cold-looking town built -of the local grey-blue limestone that so utterly destroys the summery -implication of the place-name. - -[Illustration: THE "WHITE HART," SOMERTON.] - -The inn claims to have been partly built of the stones of Somerton Castle, -and a tiny opening, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, in the gable -of the small and not otherwise particularly interesting house, is pointed -out as the window of "King John's Prison." The "King John" in question was -not our own shabby and lying Lackland, but an infinitely finer fellow--if -one may so greatly dare as to name a king a "fellow"--King John of France, -taken prisoner at the battle of Poictiers and held to ransom in England. -But there appears to be a considerable deal of confusion in the statement -that the French King was ever in custody in Somersetshire, for it was from -the Castle of Hertford to Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire that he was -removed, for greater security, in 1359. But those grave authorities, the -county histories of Somerset and Lincolnshire, alike claim to have had the -custody of that illustrious prisoner, in the 33rd year of Edward the -Third, at their respective Somertons, and the antiquaries of either -narrate how one Sir Saier de Rochford was granted two shillings a day for -the keeping of him. - -Apart from this unfounded claim, the "White Hart" is pictorially -remarkable for its White Hart effigy, of an enormous size in proportion to -that of the house. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -INNS OF OLD ROMANCE - - -Romance, as we have already seen, was enacted in many ways in the inns of -long ago. Love and hatred, comedy and tragedy, and all the varied moods by -which human beings are swayed, have had their part beneath the roofs of -the older hostelries; as how could they fail to do in those times when the -inn was so essential and intimate a part of the national life? The -romantic incidents in which old inns have their part are in two great -divisions: that of old folklore, and the other of real life. To the realm -of folk-tales belongs the story told of an ancient hostelry that stood on -the site of the "Ostrich," Colnbrook. - -The decayed coaching town of Colnbrook, in Middlesex, seventeen miles from -Hyde Park Corner, on the great road to Bath, is little changed from the -time when the coaches ceased running through it, seventy years ago. Still -do the old red-brick houses on either side of the narrow, causeway-like -street wear their seventeenth, their eighteenth, or their early -nineteenth-century look unchanged, and the solid, stolid red-faced -"George" inn yet seems to be awaiting the arrival of the mail, or of some -smart post-chaise nearing London or setting out on the second stage of -the 105-3/4 miles to Bath. - -Colnbrook is perhaps the best illustration of a coaching town ruined by -railways that it is possible to discover, and certainly the nearest to -London. How great its fall since those prosperous days of 1549, when it -was incorporated as a market-town! Its charter was renewed in 1632, and, -judging from the many houses in its narrow street built about 1700-1750, -the prosperity of the place survived unimpaired for certainly considerably -over another century. It is now merely a village, but, as a result of its -former highway importance, still a place of inns. There are at least ten -even now surviving; and it is quite safe to assume that any -important-looking old house, now in private occupation, facing the long -thoroughfare, was once a hostelry. - -The "George," already mentioned, although re-fronted at some period of the -eighteenth century, is older within, and an old gable overlooking the -stable yard even has a sixteenth-century barge-board surviving. Of rather -more human interest is the decorative and spiky iron-work fixed on the -ground-floor window-sills of the frontage, which clearly shows that the -architect of the building, when he drew out his design, had forgotten the -loungers of Colnbrook, and, in placing his sills at the height above the -ground of the average chair, had unwittingly provided the lazy with seats -in the most advantageous position. Hence the afterthought of the -decorative but penetrative ironwork. - -But the oldest and most interesting building in Colnbrook is the "Ostrich" -inn, whose long, gabled timber-and-plaster front, now partly divided up -into shops and tenements, is clearly of Elizabethan date. It is -picturesque, rambling, shabby outside, and shabby and darkling within, and -the most satisfactory part of it is without doubt the little courtyard -through the archway, where, turning round on the cobble-stones, you get a -picturesque and a sunny view of steep roofs, dormer windows, dove-cot, and -white-washed walls covered with grape-vines. - -The present "Ostrich" is the successor of a much more ancient inn. There -have been, in fact, several inns on this site. The first appears to have -been a guest-house, or hospice--"_quoddam hospitium in viâ Londoniæ apud -Colebroc_"--founded by one Milo Crispin, and given, in 1106, in trust to -the Abbey of Abingdon, for the good of travellers in this world and the -salvation of his soul in the next. - -It would seem to be from this circumstance that the inn obtained its name, -for it was early known as the "Ospridge," a kind of orthographic half-way -house between the former "hospice" and the present "Ostrich." - -If we may believe the old chroniclers' statements--and there is no reason -why we should not--the house became in after years a place of resort for -guests going to and from Windsor Castle; and here the ambassadors robed -themselves before being conducted the last few miles, and so into the -Royal presence. Froissart chronicles four ambassadors to Edward the Third -dining with the King: "So they dyned in the Kynge's chamber, and after -they departed, lay the same night at Colbrook." - -[Illustration: THE "OSTRICH," COLNBROOK.] - -How it happened that the inn kept its customers after the dreadful murders -traditionally said to have been committed here by wholesale in the reign -of Henry the First, certainly not fifty years after the hospice was given -to Abingdon Abbey, there is no explaining. The ancient pamphlets that -narrate the Sweeny Todd-like particulars do not enlighten us on that head. - -The undiluted horror of the whole thing is exceedingly revolting, and one -would rather not give a further lease of life to it, but that in an -account of Old Inns their unpleasing story must needs be set forth, in -company with their lighter legends. Moreover, the late sixteenth-century -romance of _Thomas of Reading_, in which the story occurs, is by way of -being a classic. It was written, probably in 1598, by one Thomas Delaney, -and is a lengthy narrative of a wealthy clothier of that name, otherwise -Thomas Cole. Characterised variously as "a fabulous and childish history," -and as "a mixture of historical fact and fictitious narrative," it was, at -any rate, a highly successful publication, for by 1632 it had reached its -sixth edition, and eventually was circulated, broadcast, as a penny -chap-book. - -According to this "pleasant and famous historie," there was once upon a -time, in the days of Henry the First, one Thomas Cole, a wealthy clothier -of Reading, who was used frequently to travel on his business between that -town and London. Commonly he journeyed in company with two intimate -clothier friends, Gray of Gloucester and William of Worcester. He himself -was a worshipful man, of honesty and great wealth, and was usually known -as Thomas of Reading. The three would usually dine at the "Ostrich" on the -way to London, and on the return sleep there. We are asked to believe that -this business man, Thomas Cole, on such occasions gave the money he -carried into the care of the landlady overnight, and that by this -misplaced confidence he was marked down for destruction. - -Jarman, the innkeeper, and his wife had long been engaged in what is -rather delicately styled the "systematic removal" of wealthy guests, and -had devised an ingenious murder-trap in the principal bedroom, by which -the bed, firmly secured to a trap-door, was in the dead of night, when the -house resounded to the intended victim's snoring, plunged suddenly into a -huge copper filled with boiling water, placed in the room below. He was -then "polished off," as Sweeny Todd himself would say, and should it -happen that other guests of the night before asked after the missing one, -they would be told that he had taken horse early and gone away. - -The victim's horse would be taken to a distance and disguised, his clothes -destroyed, his body thrown into the Colne, or into the Thames at -Wraysbury, and his money added to the fortune mine host and his wife were -thus rapidly acquiring. - -As Thomas Cole had business in London more frequently than his friends, it -naturally followed that he sometimes went alone. On the first such -occasion he was, according to the author of this "pleasant historie," -"appointed to be the fat pig that should be killed: For it is to be -understood that when they plotted the murder of any man, this was alwaies -their terme, the man to his wife, and the woman to her husband: 'Wife, -there is now a fat pig to be had if you want one.' Whereupon she would -answer thus: 'I pray you put him in the hogstie till to-morrow.'" - -He was accordingly given the room--the condemned cell, so to speak--above -the copper, and by next morning would doubtless have been floating -inanimate down the Thames, had not his friend Gray unexpectedly joined him -in the evening. On another occasion his hour was nearly come, when -Colnbrook was aroused at night by people riding post-haste from London -with news that all Chepe was ablaze; and he must needs be up and away -without sleeping, for he had interests there. - -The innkeeper was wrathy at these mischances; "but," said he, in a phrase -even yet heard, "the third time will pay for all." - -Yet again the threatened clothier came riding alone, but in the night he -was roused by the innkeeper himself to help quiet a riotous dispute that -had arisen in the house over dice. - -On another occasion he fell ill while staying at the "Ostrich," or the -"Crane," as some accounts name the house, and had to be nursed; but the -fifth time was fatal. Omens pursued him on that occasion, and many another -would have turned back. His horse stumbled and broke a leg, and he had to -find another, and when he had done so and had resumed his journey, he was -so sleepy he could scarce sit in the saddle. Then, as he drew near -Colnbrook, his nose began to bleed. - -The happenings of the day depressed him when at last he had come to the -inn. He could take nothing, and the innkeeper and his wife remarked upon -it. - -"Jesu, Master Cole," quoth they, "what ails ye to-night? Never before did -we see you thus sad. Will it please you to have a quart of burnt sack?" - -"Willingly," he rejoined; but presently lapsed into his former mood. - -"I have but one child in the world," said he, "and that is my daughter, -and half that I have is hers and the other half my wife's. But shall I be -good to nobody but them? In conscience, my wealth is too much for a couple -to possess, and what is our religion without charity? And to whom is -charity more to be shown than to decayed householders? Tom Dove, through -his love of jollity and good-fellowship, hath lost his all. Good my Oast, -lend me a pen and inke, for straightway I will write a letter vnto the -poore man, and something I will give him. God knows how long I shall -live." - -"Why, Master Cole," said the innkeeper, when shown what the clothier had -written, "'tis no letter, but a will you have written." - -"'Tis true," said Cole, "and I have but written that which God put into my -mind." Then, folding and sealing it, he desired his host to despatch it, -and was not satisfied until he himself had hired the carrier. Then he fell -a-weeping, and so went to bed, to the accompaniment of many other dolorous -signs and portents. "The scritch-owle cried piteously, and anon after the -night-rauen sate croaking hard by the window. 'Jesu have mercy vpon me,' -quoth hee, 'what an ill-favoured cry doe yonder carrion birds make;' and -thereupon he laid him down in his bed, from whence he neuer rose againe." - -The innkeeper also was shaken by these ominous things, and would have -spared his guest; but his wife was of other mettle. - -"What," said she, "faint you now?"--and showed him the gold that had been -given into her care. - -In the end they served the unfortunate Cole as they had many another, and -threw his body into the little river that runs near by: hence, according -to the old accounts, the name of the place, originally Cole-in-brook! - -This last ridiculous, infantile touch is sufficient to discredit the -whole story, and when we learn that, according to one account thirteen, -and by the testimony of another no fewer than sixty, travellers had been, -in like manner, "removed," we are inclined to believe the whole thing the -invention of some anonymous, bloody-minded pamphleteer, and care little -whether the innkeeper and his wife were hanged (as we are told) or retired -with a fortune and founded a family. - -At any rate, one cannot understand the persistent attempt to connect the -so-called "Blue Room" of the present house with the fatal bedroom. If -there is any truth at all in the story of Master Cole, his tragical ending -was accomplished in a house demolished eight hundred years ago; for we -have it, in the words of the writer of _Thomas of Reading_, that "the King -(Henry the First) commanded the house should be quite consumed with fire -and that no man should ever build vpon that cursed ground." - -In the same manner, the recent attempts to connect Turpin with the -"Ostrich" will not bear the least investigation. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "OSTRICH," COLNBROOK.] - -This ghastly story claimed, with such extraordinary zeal, by the "Ostrich" -is by no means the only one of its kind, for many an old tale of horror -has for its central feature the wicked innkeeper who robbed and murdered -his guests. The most famous, and most revolting, legend is that included -in the career of St. Nicholas of Myra, which serves to show that this -licensed-victualling depravity was international. The true story of St. -Nicholas is not miraculous, and is simply earnest of his good and pitiful -nature. He entreated, and secured from Eustathius, governor of Myra, the -pardon of three men imprisoned in a tower and condemned to die, and is -often represented with a tower at the side of him and three mannikins -rising out of it. In the course of time the tower became a tub, and the -little men were changed into children, and those changes in their turn -gave rise to a wholly fictitious story that fairly outranges all the other -incredible marvels of the dark ages. According to this tale, an innkeeper, -running short of bacon, seized three little boys, cut them up, and pickled -them in a salting-tub. St. Nicholas, hearing that they had gone to the inn -and had disappeared there, had his saintly suspicions aroused. He asked -for the pickle-tub, addressed it in some form of words that unfortunately -have not been preserved to us, and straightway the fragments sorted -themselves out, and pieced themselves together, and the children went off -to play. - -A curious feature of the old frontage of the "Ostrich" was the doorway -made in coaching times in the upper storey for the convenience of -passengers, who were in this manner enabled to step directly into the -house from the roofs of the coaches. There are those still living who -remember this contrivance; but the space has long been filled in, and the -sole vestige of it is an unobtrusive wooden sill resting on the timbering -beneath the swinging sign. - -Romance, very dark and gory, clothes the memory of the "Blue Boar" at -Leicester, a house unfortunately pulled down in the '30's of the -nineteenth century. According to tradition, Richard the Third, coming to -Leicester and finding the castle already dilapidated, stayed at the inn -before the battle of Bosworth, and slept in the huge oaken four-poster bed -which remained in the house until the date of its demolition. It was not -only a bed, but also a treasure-chest, for in the time of one Clark, who -kept the house in the later years of Queen Elizabeth and the earlier part -of the reign of James the First, a great store of gold coin was discovered -in the framework of it. Mrs. Clark, making up the bed hastily, shook it -with more than usual vigour, when, to her surprise, a gold coin dropped -out. Examination led to the discovery that the bedstead had a false bottom -and that the space between was one vast cash-box. Clark did not at the -time disclose the find, and so became "mysteriously" rich. In the course -of a few years he was gathered to his fathers, and his widow kept on the -house, but was murdered in 1613 for the sake of her gold by a maidservant, -who, together with no fewer than seven men accomplices, was duly hanged -for the crime. - -[Illustration: "PIFF'S ELM."] - -The difficulty of resolving tradition into fact, of putting a date to -legends and tracing them to their origin, is generally insurmountable. Let -us take, for example, the "Old White Swan," at "Piff's Elm." Casting a -roving eye upon the map of Gloucestershire, I see by chance, between -Tewkesbury and Gloucester, a place so named. It tells me vaguely of -romance, and I resolve, at all hazards, to go to that spot and sketch, if -sketchable, the inn I suspect to be there, and note the story that -belongs, or should belong, to it. In due course I come to that lonely -place, and there, to be sure, is an inn--once a considerable house on the -old coaching and posting route between Cheltenham and Tewkesbury--and not -only an inn, but a picturesque one, fronted with the giant stump of an -elm--whether Piff's or another's, who shall say? - -And Piff himself? Whether he was a highwayman or was murdered by a -highwayman; or if he were a suicide who hanged himself from the elm -associated with him, or a criminal gibbeted there, I cannot tell you, nor -can any one else. Some stories say one thing, some another, and others -still put quite different complexions upon it. In that choice of legends -lurks romance itself, perhaps reduced from the highest realms of tragedy -by the unfortunately farcical name of the mysterious Piff. - -Equally romantic, and irreducible to cold-drawn fact, is the legend of -King James and the Tinker, associated with the "King and Tinker" inn at -White Webbs Lane, in what was once Enfield Chase. According to the tale, -King James the First, hunting in the woodlands that surrounded his palace -of Theobalds, lost himself, and, drawing rein at the inn--whatever then -was the sign of it--encountered a tinker drinking a modest stoup of ale -in the porch. - -"What news, good fellow?" asked the horseman. - -"No news that I wot of," replied the tinker, "save that they say the -King's out a-hunting in the Chase to-day. I should like to see the King, -although I suppose he's very much like other folk." - -"So you'd like to see the King?" queried his Majesty. - -"Ay, just for the sake of saying so," replied the tinker. - -"Mount behind me, then," said the King, "and I will show you him." - -"But how shall I know him when I see him?" - -"Easily enough. You will know him by his remaining covered." - -Soon the King came upon his retinue, all of whom promptly bared their -heads. "Now, my friend, where is the King?" asked his Majesty, turning, -with a smile, in his saddle. - -"There's only we two covered, and since I know I'm no king, I--O! pardon, -your Majesty!" replied the now trembling tinker. - -The King laughed. "Now," said he, "since you have seen how a King looks, -you shall also see how he acts," and then, drawing his sword, he knighted -the tinker on the spot; or, in the words of the brave old ballad: - - "Come, tell me thy name." "I am John of the Dale, - A mender of kettles, and fond of good ale."-- - "Then rise up, Sir John, for I'll honour thee here,-- - I make thee a Knight of five hundred a year!" - -Well may the mark of exclamation stand there, not only at the general -improbability of such a thing, but at the preposterous idea of the niggard -James the First being guilty of an act of unreasonable generosity. But one -must not question the legend at the "King and Tinker," where it is -devoutly cherished. I have before me a four-page pamphlet, issued at the -inn, wherein the ancient ballad is printed at length and surmounted, not -very convincingly, by a woodblock in the Bewick manner, showing a number -of sportsmen in the costume of George the Third's time, about, in a most -unsportsmanlike way, to ride over the hounds. In the distance is Windsor -Castle. It will be conceded that, as an illustration of the King James and -the Tinker legend, this is lacking in some of those intimate touches that -would make the incident live again. - -But the legend and the ballad are much older than the days of James the -First. They are, in fact, to be found, on substantially the same lines, in -most centuries and many countries, Haroun-al-Raschid is found, in the -_Arabian Nights_, in circumstances not dissimilar: while the story of -Henry the Second--or, as some versions have it, Henry the Eighth--and the -Miller of Mansfield is another familiar parallel. There again we find the -King riding away in the forest from his courtiers, only in that instance -it is the Forest of Sherwood. He is given shelter by the miller, and -shares a bed with the miller's son, Dick. Next morning the agitated -courtiers discover the King, who knights his host, "Sir John Cockle," and -eventually names him ranger of Sherwood, with a salary of £300. - -From romance of this almost fairy-tale kind let us turn to the equally -astonishing, but better established, story associated with the once-famed -"Pelican" at Speenhamland, on the outskirts of Newbury. The Peerage, which -has long appeared to exist almost exclusively for the purpose of -scandalising staid folk by the amazing marriages of its members, included -in 1744 a Duke of Chandos; Henry Brydges, the second Duke, at that time a -widower. He and a friend, dining at the "Pelican" on their way from Bath -to London in that year, were interrupted by an unwonted excitement that -appeared to be agitating the establishment. Inquiring the cause, they were -told that a man was about to sell his wife in the inn yard. "Let us go and -see," quoth the Duke; and they accordingly went forth into the courtyard -and saw a handsome, modest-looking young woman enter, in the approved -manner, with a halter round her neck, and led by her husband, who is -described as a "brutal ostler." - -It was a remarkable instance of love at first sight. The name of this -fortunate young woman was Ann Wells. The Duke bought her (the price is not -stated) and married her on Christmas Day. She died in 1757, at Keynsham, -near Bristol, leaving an only daughter, Lady Augusta, who married a Mr. -Kearney. - -There remained until recent times a funeral hatchment in Keynsham Church -on which the arms of this greatly daring Duke were impaled with those -found by the Herald's College for his plebeian wife: "three fountains (for -'Wells') on a field azure." - - - - -CHAPTER X - -PICKWICKIAN INNS - - -What visions of Early Victorian good-fellowship and conviviality, of the -roast-beef and rum-punch kind, are called up by the title! The Pickwickian -Inn was, in the '30's of the nineteenth century, the last word in -hospitable comfort, and its kitchen achieved the topmost pinnacle of -culinary refinement demanded by an age that was robust rather than -refined, whose appetites were gross rather than discriminating, and whose -requirements seem to ourselves, of a more sybarite and exacting -generation, few and modest. The Pickwickian age was an age of prodigious -performances in eating and drinking, and our ancestors of that time, so -only they had great joints, heaped-up dishes, and many bottles and -decanters set before them, cared comparatively little about delicate -flavours. The chief aim was to get enough, and the "enough" of our -great-grandfathers would nowadays be a surfeit to ourselves. If it were -not then quite the essential mark of a jolly good fellow to be carried up -to bed at the end of an evening with the punch and the old port, a man who -shirked his drink was looked upon with astonishment, almost suspicion, and -the only use in those deep-drinking days and nights for table-waters was -to help a man along the road to recovery, after "a night of it." - -Then to be otherwise than of a Pickwickian rotundity was to be not merely -a poor creature, but generally connoted some mental crook or eccentricity; -while fatness and hearty good-nature were thought of almost as -interchangeable terms. - -'Twas ever thus. Even Shakespeare loved the well-larded, and makes Julius -Cæsar, who himself was sufficiently lean, say: - - Let me have men about me that are fat; - Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: - Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look: - He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. - -In the time of Dickens they were still suspect; and when at last Wilkie -Collins made his villainous Count Fosco a fat villain, the new departure -seemed to that generation a wanton, extravagant flying in the face of -nature. - -There are even yet to be found substantial old inns something after the -Pickwickian ideal, but they are few and far between, and they are none of -them Pickwickian to the core. Rarely do you see nowadays the monumental -sideboards, with the almost equally monumental sirloins of beef and the -like, and even the huge cheese, last of the old order of things to survive -upon these tables, is nowadays generally represented by a modest wedge. - -It is true that even the Pickwickians did not always happen upon -well-ordered inns, for the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich was severely -criticised by Dickens; but such exceptions do but serve to prove the -Dickensian rule, that there was no such place, and there never had been -any such place, as the hostelry of the coaching age for creature-comforts -and good service. Dickens had already, when he began writing _The Pickwick -Papers_ at the age of twenty-five, an almost encyclopædic knowledge of -inns, especially of country inns. It was, like his own Mr. Weller's -knowledge of London, "extensive and peculiar." His fount of information -about country inns, at any rate, was acquired at an early and receptive -age, in his many and hurried journeys as a reporter, when, on behalf of -_The Morning Chronicle_, he flew--flew, that is to say, as flying was then -metaphorically understood, at an average rate of something under ten miles -an hour--by coach, east, west, north, and south, in the capacity of -Parliamentary reporter, despatched to "take" the flow of eloquence from -Members, or would-be Members of Parliament, addressing the conventionally -"free and enlightened" voters of the provinces. - -No fewer than fifty-five inns, taverns, etc., London and provincial, are -named in _Pickwick_, many of them at considerable length; but, so great -and sweeping have been the changes of the last seventy years, only twelve -now remain. The London houses, with the exception of Osborne's Hotel, John -Street, Adelphi--now the "Adelphi" Hotel--and the "George and Vulture," -in George Yard, Lombard Street--in these days almost better known as -Thomas's Restaurant--have been either utterly disestablished or remodelled -beyond all knowledge. - -_Pickwick_ is the very Odyssey of inns and travel. You reach the second -chapter and are whirled away at once from London by the "Commodore" coach, -starting from the "Golden Cross," Charing Cross, for Rochester, and only -cease your travels and adventures at inns in Chapter LI., near the end of -the story. Meanwhile you have coasted over a very considerable portion of -England with the Pickwickians: from Rochester and Ipswich on the east, to -Bath and Bristol on the west, and as far as Birmingham and Coventry in the -Midlands. - -He who would write learnedly and responsibly on the subject of Pickwickian -Inns must bring to his task a certain amount of foreknowledge, and must -add to that equipment by industry and research--and even then he shall -find himself, after all, convicted of errors and inadequacies; for indeed, -although the Pickwickians began their travels no longer ago than 1827, the -changes in topography for one thing, and in manners and customs for -another, are so great that it needs a scientific historian to be -illuminating on the subject. - -To begin at the usual place, the beginning, the history of the "Golden -Cross," the famous inn whence the Pickwickians started, offers a fine -series of snares, pitfalls, traps, and rocks of offence to him who does -not walk warily, for the "Golden Cross" of to-day, although a coaching inn -remodelled, is by no means the original of that name, and indeed stands on -quite a different (although neighbouring) site. - -Changes in the geography of London have been so continuous, so intricate, -and so puzzling that few people at once realise how the inn can have stood -until 1830 at the rear of King Charles the First's statue, on the spot now -occupied by the south-eastern one of the four lions guarding the Nelson -Column. - -At that time Charing Cross was still the narrow junction of streets seen -in Shepherd's illustration, where the "Golden Cross" inn is prominent on -the left hand, and Northumberland House, the London palace of the Dukes of -Northumberland (pulled down in 1874), more prominent on the right. The -block of buildings, including the "Golden Cross," was removed, in 1830, to -form part of the open space of Trafalgar Square, and the site of the ducal -mansion is now Northumberland Avenue. - -There had long been a "Golden Cross" inn here: how long we do not know, -but a house of that name was in existence in 1643, for in that year we -find the Puritans demanding the removal of the, to them, offensive sign of -the cross. It was then a half-way house at the little village of Charing, -midway between the then entirely separate and distinct cities of London -and Westminster. In front of it, on the site of King Charles's statue, -stood the ancient cross of Charing, erected, long centuries before, to the -memory of Queen Eleanor. - -[Illustration: THE "GOLDEN CROSS," IN PICKWICKIAN DAYS.] - -The earliest picture we have of the "Golden Cross" inn is a view by -Canaletti, engraved in 1753, showing a sign projecting boldly over the -footpath. As the architectural style of the house shown in that view is -later than that prevailing in the reign of Charles the First, the inn must -obviously have been rebuilt at least once in the interval. This building -is again illustrated in a painting executed certainly later than 1770, -according to the evidence of the sign, which, instead of the old gallows -sign in Canaletti's picture, is replaced by a board fixed against the -front of the building, in obedience to the Acts of Parliament, 1762-70, -forbidding overhanging signs in London. That such measures were necessary -had been made abundantly evident so early as 1718, when a heavy sign had -fallen in Bride Lane, Fleet Street, tearing down the front of the house -and killing four persons. - -In this view, later than 1770, and probably executed about 1800, we have -the "Golden Cross" inn of _Pickwick_. Its successor, the Gothic-fronted -building generally associated by Dickens commentators with that story, was -built in 1828 and demolished two years later. Dickens wrote _Pickwick_ in -1836: when both the house he indicated and its successor were swept away, -and the very site cleared and made a part of the open road; but, as he -specifically states that the Pickwickians began their travels on May 13th, -1827, it must needs have been the predecessor of the Gothic building from -which they set forth on the "Commodore" coach for Rochester. - -The inn at that time had a hospitable-looking front and a really handsome -range of coffee-room windows looking out upon the street. Beside them you -see the celebrated archway of Jingle's excited and disjointed cautions: -"Terrible place--dangerous work--other day--five children--mother--tall -lady, eating sandwiches--forgot the arch--crash--knock--children look -round--mother's head off--sandwich in her hand--no mouth to put it -in--head of a family off--shocking, shocking!" - -The great stable-yard and the back premises probably remained untouched, -for when David Copperfield came up by coach from Canterbury, the "Golden -Cross" was, we learn, "a mouldy sort of establishment," and his bedroom -"smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family -vault"--characteristics not generally associated with new buildings. - -But, indeed, although references to the "Golden Cross" are plentiful in -literature, they are few of them flattering: "A nasty inn, remarkable for -filth and apparent misery," wrote Edward Shergold, early in the nineteenth -century, and he was but one of a cloud of witnesses to the same effect. It -is thus a little difficult to understand a writer in _The Epicure's -Almanack_ for 1815, who says, in the commendatory way, that the fame of -the "Golden Cross" had spread "from the Pillars of Hercules to the Ganges; -from Nova Scotia to California." - -[Illustration: CHARING CROSS, ABOUT 1829, SHOWING THE "GOLDEN CROSS" INN. -_From the engraving after T. Hosmer Shepherd._] - -At that period this was the chief booking-office for coaches in the West -End of London, and it was to that quarter what the "Bull and Mouth" was to -the City. To that commanding position it had been raised by William Horne, -who came here from the "White Horse" in Fetter Lane, in 1805. He died in -1828, and was succeeded by his son, the great coach-proprietor, Benjamin -Worthy Horne, who further improved the property, and was powerful enough -to command respect at the councils of the early railways. Under his rule, -beneath the very shadow of the Charing Cross Improvement Act, by whose -provisions Trafalgar Square was ordained and eventually created, the house -was rebuilt, with a frontage in the Gothic manner. Shepherd's view of -Charing Cross, published December 18th, 1830, shows this immediate -successor of the Pickwickian inn very clearly, with, next door, the -establishment of Bish, for whose lotteries Charles Lamb was employed to -write puffs. - -When the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who had the Charing Cross -improvement in charge, cleared the ground, the inn migrated to the new -building, some distance eastwards, the present "Golden Cross," 452, West -Strand, which, like the whole of the West Strand, in the Nash, -stucco-classic manner, was designed in 1832, by Mr. (afterwards Sir -William) Tite. - -Maginn lamented these changes, in the verses "An Excellent New Ballad; -being entitled a Lamentation on the Golden Cross, Charing Cross": - - No more the coaches shall I see - Come trundling from the yard, - Nor hear the horn blown cheerily - By brandy-bibbing guard. - King Charles, I think, must sorrow sore, - Even were he made of stone, - When left by all his friends of yore - (Like Tom Moore's rose) alone. - - * * * * * - - O! London won't be London long, - For 'twill be all pulled down; - And I shall sing a funeral song - O'er that time-honoured town. - -According to a return made to Parliament of the expenses in connection -with these street improvements, "10 Houses and the Golden Cross Inn, -Stable Yards, &c.," were purchased for £108,884 4_s._; the inn itself -apparently, if we are to believe a statement in _The Gentleman's -Magazine_, 1831, with three houses in St. Martin's Lane and two houses and -workshops in Frontier Court, costing £30,000 of that sum. - -The present building was planned with a courtyard, and had archways to the -Strand and to Duncannon Street. The last remains, and is in use as a -railway receiving-office, but the Strand archway, the principal entrance, -was built up and abolished in 1851. - -[Illustration: THE "GOLDEN CROSS," SUCCESSOR OF THE PICKWICKIAN INN, AS -REBUILT 1828.] - -The first house to which Mr. Pickwick and his followers--the amorous -Tupman, Winkle the sportsman, and the poetic Snodgrass--came at the -close of their first day's travel is still in being. I name the "Bull" at -Rochester, which long ago adopted Jingle's recommendation, and blazoned it -on the rather dingy forefront, of grey brick: "Good house--nice beds." It -is still very much as it was when Dickens conferred immortality upon it; -only there are now portraits of him and pictures of Pickwickian characters -on the walls of the staircase. Still you may find in the hall the -"illustrious larder," rather like a Chippendale book-case, behind whose -glass doors the "noble joints and tarts" are still placed--only I think -they have not now the nobility or the aldermanic proportions demanded by -an earlier generation--and the cold fowls are indubitably there. The "very -grove" of dangling uncooked joints is, if one's memory of such things -serves, not as described, in the hall, but depending, as they commonly are -made to do in old inns, from hooks in the ceiling of the archway entrance. -The custom excites the curiosity of many. To the majority of observers it -has seemed to be by way of advertisement of the good cheer within; but the -real reason is sufficiently simple: it is to keep the joints fresh and -sweet in the current of air generally to be reckoned upon in that -situation. - -The ball-room, with the "elevated den" for musicians at one end, is a real -room, and you wonder exceedingly at the smallness, not only of the den, -but of the room itself, where the fine flower of Dockyard society -gathered and fraternised with the even finer flower of that belonging to -the Garrison: the two, joining forces, condescending to, or sneering upon, -the vulgar herd of tradesmen and their wives. - -In this somewhat exiguous apartment Tupman and Jingle danced, and the -bellicose Dr. Slammer, of the 97th Regiment, glared; and the society of -Chatham and Rochester had, you cannot help thinking, a very close and -tightly packed evening. - -They take their Pickwickian associations very seriously at the "Bull," -which, by the way, is an "inn" no longer, but an "hotel." In 1836, the -Princess Victoria and her mother, travelling to London, were detained by -stress of weather that rendered it dangerous to cross the bridge, and they -reluctantly stayed at Rochester the night. Who were low-class -Pickwickians, that they should stand before such distinction? So the old -house for a while took on a new name, and became the "Victoria and Bull," -and then, Royal associations gradually waning and literary landmarks -growing more popular, the "Bull and Victoria," finally, in these last -years, revered again to its simple old name. - -That Royal visit is well-nigh forgotten now, and you are no longer invited -to look with awe upon the rooms occupied by those august, indubitably -flesh-and-blood travellers; but you _are_ shown the bedrooms of the -entirely fictitious Pickwickians. - -"So this is where Mr. Pickwick is supposed to have slept?" remarked a -visitor, when viewing bedroom No. 17 by favour of a former landlord. That -stranger meant no offence, but the landlord was greatly ruffled. -"_Supposed_ to have slept? He _did_ sleep here, sir!" - -"O ye verities!" as Carlyle might have exclaimed. - -[Illustration: THE "BULL," ROCHESTER.] - -Many Dickens commentators have long cherished what Horace Walpole might -have styled a "historic doubt" as to what house was that one in Rochester -referred to by Jingle as Wright's. "Wright's, next house, dear--very -dear--half a crown in the bill if you look at the waiter--charge you more -if you dine at a friend's than they would if you dined in the -coffee-room--rum fellows--very." But "Wright's" really was the next -"house"--house, that is to say, in the colloquial sense, by which -"public-house" is understood, and not by any means next door. - -There is every excuse for writers on Dickens-land going wrong here, for -the real name of the old house to which Wright came, somewhere about 1820, -and on which he imposed his own was the "Crown." - -The old "Crown" fronted on to the High Street, and was one of those old -galleried inns already mentioned so plentifully in these pages. It claimed -to have been built in 1390, and its yard was not only the spot where, -unknown to all save his intimates, Henry the Eighth had his first peep at -his intended consort Anne of Cleves, whom that disappointed connoisseur in -feminine beauty immediately styled a "Flanders mare"; but was in all -probability the original of the inn-yard in _Henry the Fourth_, whence -Shakespeare's flea-bitten carriers with their razes of ginger and other -goods for London, sleepless probably on account of those uncovenanted -co-partners of their beds, set forth, by starlight, yawning, with much -talk of highway dangers. At the "Crown" too, once stayed no less a -personage than Queen Elizabeth; while some two centuries later Hogarth and -his fellow-roysterers stayed a night in the house, on their "Frolic" down -Thames. - -[Illustration: ROCHESTER IN PICKWICKIAN DAYS, SHOWING THE OLD BRIDGE AND -"WRIGHT'S."] - -When Wright came to the "Crown," he, like any other monarch newly come to -his own, made sweeping alterations. Antiquity, gabled frontages, -elaborately carved barge-boards, and all such architectural vanities were -nothing to him, nor indeed were they much to any one else in that grossly -unappreciative era, and he left that portion of the house to carriers and -the like, used all their lives to be leeched by diminutive lepidoptera. -Wright did business with customers of more tender hide, who had -preferences for more civilised lodgment, and housed the great, the rich, -and the luxurious, travelling post to and fro along the Dover Road. For -their accommodation he built a remarkably substantial and amazingly ugly -structure--a something classical that might, by the look of it, be either -town hall, heathen temple, or early dissenting chapel--in the rear, and -facing the river. This was the building essentially "Wright's." It still -stands, and people with sharp eyes, who look very hard in the right place, -will yet discover a ghostly "Wright's" on what Mrs. Gamp would call the -"parapidge." - -Such a place would naturally impress a poor strolling actor like Jingle, -whose humorous sally, "charge you more if you dine at a friend's than they -would if you dined in the coffee-room," is a perversion of the well-known -charge for "corkage" made by hotel-keepers when a guest brings his own -wine. - -Wright himself has, of course, long since gone to that place where -innkeepers who make extravagant demands upon travellers are held to -account. - -The course of _Pickwick_ now takes us to "Muggleton," as to whose -identity much uncertainty has long been felt. It is a choice between -Maidstone and Town Malling, and as the distances given in the book between -Rochester and Dingley Dell and "Muggleton" cannot be made to agree with -either Town Malling or Maidstone, it is a poor choice at the best. At the -former the "Swan" is pointed to as the real "Blue Lion," and at Maidstone -the "White Lion." - -[Illustration: THE "SWAN," TOWN MALLING: IDENTIFIED WITH THE "BLUE LION," -MUGGLETON.] - -Chapter X. takes us back to London, and there brings on to the crowded -stage of _Pickwick_, for the first time, Sam Weller, engaged as "Boots" of -the "White Hart" in the Borough, in going over the foot-gear of the -guests. - -[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "BULL AND MOUTH."] - -This is how Dickens described the yard of the "White Hart." It is a -little clean-cut cameo of description, vividly portraying the features of -those old galleried inns that are now no more: "The yard presented none of -that bustle and activity which are the usual characteristics of a large -coach inn. Three or four lumbering waggons, each with a pile of goods -beneath its ample canopy about the height of the second-floor window of an -ordinary house, were stowed away beneath a lofty roof which extended over -one end of the yard; and another, which was probably to commence its -journey that morning, was drawn out into the open space. A double tier of -bedroom galleries with old clumsy balustrades ran round two sides of the -straggling area, and a double row of bells to correspond, sheltered from -the weather by a little sloping roof, hung over the door leading to the -bar and coffee-room. Two or three gigs or chaise-carts were wheeled up -under different little sheds and pent-houses, and the occasional heavy -tread of a cart-horse, or rattling of a chain at the further end of the -yard, announced to anyone who cared about the matter that the stable lay -in that direction. When we add that a few boys in smock-frocks were lying -asleep on heavy packages, woolpacks, and other articles that were -scattered about on heaps of straw, we have described as fully as need be -the general appearance of the 'White Hart' inn, High Street, Borough." - -This one of the many picturesque old galleried inns of that street was -demolished in 1865. - -Sam is busily engaged, at moment of his introduction, cleaning eleven -pairs of boots belonging to the sleepers in the galleried bedrooms above. - -"A loud ringing of one of the bells was followed by the appearance of a -smart chambermaid in the upper sleeping gallery, who, after tapping at one -of the doors and receiving a request from within, called over the -balustrades: - -"'Sam.' - -"'Hallo!' - -"'Number Twenty-two wants his boots.' - -"'Ask Number Twenty-two whether he'll have 'em now, or wait till he gets -'em,'" was the reply. - -Presently to this waggish person enter Mr. Pickwick, Old Wardle, and -Perker, the lawyer. "'Pretty busy, eh?'" asks the lawyer. - -"Oh, werry well, sir; we shan't be bankrupts, and we shan't make our -fort'ns. We eats our biled mutton without capers, and don't care about -horse-radish wen we can get beef;" which just about figures the middling -and declining fortunes of the old Borough inns at that period. - -[Illustration: THE "BELLE SAUVAGE." _From a drawing by T. Hosmer -Shepherd._] - -The "Bull and Mouth" inn, casually mentioned in Chapter X., was the great -coaching inn that stood in St. Martin's-le-Grand, on the site of the -Post Office building adjoining the church of St. Botolph. In 1830 it was -rebuilt and re-named the "Queen's Hotel," and so remained until 1887. The -enormous plaster sign of the "Bull and Mouth," that was placed over the -entrance to the stables in the by-street of that name, and kept its place -there when the stables became a railway goods yard, is now in the -Guildhall Museum. - -[Illustration: THE "LEATHER BOTTLE," COBHAM.] - -The "Belle Sauvage," on Ludgate Hill, another fine old galleried inn -whence the coaches for the eastern counties largely set forth, is the -subject of allusion in Chapters X. and XLIII. The house was pulled down -many years ago, but the yard, now very commonplace, remains. It was known -as "Savage's Inn" so long ago as the reign of Henry the Sixth, and -alternatively as the "Bell in the Hoop." So early as 1568, when the -property was bequeathed to the Cutler's Company "for ever," the "Belle -Sauvage" myth was current; and thus we see that when Addison, in _The -Spectator_, suggested the "beautiful savage" idea, he was but -unconsciously reviving an ancient legend or witticism. One other variant, -that ingeniously refers the sign of the inn to one Isabella Savage, a -former landlady, seems to have created her for the purpose. - -The "Marquis o' Granby" at Dorking, kept by the "widder" who became the -second Mrs. Weller, has been identified by some with the late "King's -Head" in that town; while the "Town Arms," the "Peacock," and the "White -Hart" at "Eatanswill" (_i.e._ Ipswich) have never been clearly traced. - -No difficulty of identification surrounds the "Old Leather Bottle" at -Cobham, to whose rustic roof the love-lorn Tupman fled to hide his -sorrows, in Chapter XI. It is to-day, however, a vastly altered place from -the merely "clean and commodious village ale-house" in which Mr. Pickwick -found his moping, but still hungry, friend, and its "Dickens Room" is a -veritable museum. Additions have been made to the house, and it is now -more or less of a rustic hotel, with the sign of the leather bottle -swinging in the breeze, and beneath it our Mr. Pickwick himself, in the -immortal attitude depicted in the frontispiece to _The Pickwick Papers_, -declaiming, with one arm outstretched, the other tucked away under his -coat-tails. - -[Illustration: THE DICKENS ROOM, "LEATHER BOTTLE," COBHAM.] - -The "inn on Marlborough Downs," referred to in the Bagman's Story in -Chapter XIV., is still the subject of much heated controversy among -Dickens commentators. Sandwiched as it is (in the story told by a stranger -to the Pickwickians at "Eatanswill") between Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds, -it appears to be a vague recollection dragged in, neck and crop, by -Dickens, of some inn he had casually noticed in 1835, when travelling -between London and Bristol. "But," it has been asked, "_what_ inn was he -thinking of, if indeed, of any specific inn at all?" - -The Bagman with the Lonely Eye, who told the story of Tom Smart and the -widow-landlady of this wayside hostelry, spoke of Tom Smart driving his -gig "in the direction of Bristol" across the bleak expanse, and of his -mare drawing up of her own accord "before a roadside inn on the right-hand -side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the -downs." - -We are met here, at the very outset, by some puzzling discrepancies and by -a wide choice, "Marlborough Downs" being a stretch of wild, inhospitable -chalk-down country extending the whole of the fourteen miles between -Marlborough and Devizes, and being still "Marlborough Downs" at the -threshold of Devizes itself. Moreover, the same characteristic features -are common to both the routes to Bath and Bristol that branch at -Beckhampton and go, left by way of Devizes, and right through Calne and -Chippenham. - -The "half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs" by the Devizes -route brings you, in the direction Tom Smart (of the firm of Bilson and -Slum) was going, to a point a half, or three quarters, of a mile from -Devizes town, where, neither on the right hand nor the left, was there -ever an inn. The same distance from the end of this weird district on the -Calne and Chippenham route conducts to the "Black Horse" inn at Cherhill, -full in view of the great white horse cut on the hillside in 1780, and -standing, correctly enough, on the right-hand side of the way. Could this -inn possibly have been the house referred to by Dickens? I have never seen -it suggested. - -[Illustration: THE "WAGGON AND HORSES," BECKHAMPTON.] - -Indeed, earnest people who would dearly, once for all, wish to settle this -knotty point, are like to be embarrassed by the numerous inns, not one of -them greatly resembling the house described by Dickens, that have claims -to be considered the original, and stand, _all_ of them, upon the proper -side of the road. Some commentators press the claim of the "Marquis of -Ailesbury's Arms" at Manton, or Clatford, a mile out of Marlborough, and -local opinion at the time of _The Pickwick Papers_ being written -identified the house with the lonely inn of Shepherd's Shore, midway -between Beckhampton and Devizes, in the very midst of the wild downs--the -downs of Marlborough--that are there at their wildest and loneliest. -Whatever the correctitude or otherwise of what should be an expert -view, certainly the inn of Shepherd's Shore is a thing of the past, as in -the story, where it is described as having been pulled down. There were, -indeed, at different periods two inns so called, and now both are gone. -"Old Shepherd's Shore" stood, as also did the new, beside the Wansdyke, -but at a considerable distance in a north-westerly direction, on the _old_ -road to Devizes, now a mere track. Of "New Shepherd's Shore" only a -fragment remains, and although that fragment is inhabited, it is not any -longer an inn. - -[Illustration: "SHEPHERD'S SHORE."] - -The scene is entirely in accord with the description of the Downs in the -Bagman's Story (only the spot is in the _midst_ of the wilderness, and not -near the end of it), and he who even nowadays travels the still lonesome -way will heartily echo the statement that there are many pleasanter -places. The old coachmen, who had exceptional opportunities of -observation, used to declare that the way between Beckhampton and -Shepherd's Shore was the coldest spot on all the road between London and -Bath. - -The eerie nature of the spot is emphasised by the circumstance of the -remaining portion of the house standing beside that mysterious -pre-historic earthwork, the great ditch and embankment of the Wansdyke, -that goes marching grimly across the stark hillsides. The Wansdyke has -always impressed the beholder, and accordingly we find it marked on old -maps as "Deuill's Ditch." - -The name of "Shepherd's Shore" has been, and still is, a sore puzzle to -all who have cause to write of it. Often written "Shord," and pronounced -by the country folk "Shard," just as old seventeenth-century Aubrey prints -it, antiquaries believe the name to derive from "shard," a fragment: here -specifically a break in the Wansdyke, made in order to let the road (or -the sheep-track) through; "shard" itself being the Middle-English version -of the Anglo-Saxon "sceard," a division, a boundary, or a breach. - -The name may, however, as I conceive it, be equally well a corrupt version -of "Shepherd's Shaw." "Shaw" = the old Anglo-Saxon for a coppice, a clump -of trees, or a bush. We see, even to-day (as of course merely a -coincidence) a clump of trees on the mystic tumulus beside the remains of -the house: trees noticeable enough on these otherwise naked downs, now, as -from time immemorial, a grazing-ground for sheep. In this view Shepherd's -Shore would be equivalent to "Shepherd's Shaw," and that to "Shepherd's -Wood," or "Shepherd's Bush." A shepherd's bush was commonly a thorn-tree -on a sheep-down, used as a shelter, or as a post of observation, by -shepherds watching their flocks. Such bushes, by constant use, assumed -distinctive and unmistakable forms,[15] and in old times were familiarly -known by that name. - -But, to resume matters more purely Dickensian: it is the "Waggon and -Horses" inn at Beckhampton that most nearly realises the description of -the house in _The Pickwick Papers_, although even here you most -emphatically go up into the house (as the illustration shows) instead of -taking "a couple of steep steps leading down." It is "on the right-hand -side of the way," and being at a kind of little cultivated oasis at the -hamlet of Beckhampton, where the roads fork on the alternative routes to -Bath and Bristol, it may be considered as "about half a quarter of a mile" -from the recommencement (not the end) of the Downs. - -The "Waggon and Horses" is just the house a needy bagman such as Tom Smart -would have selected. It was in coaching days a homely yet comfortable -inn, that received those travellers who did not relish either the state or -the expense of the great "Beckhampton Inn" opposite, where post-horses -were kept, and where the very _élite_ of the roads resorted. - -"The humble shall be exalted and the proud shall be cast down," and it so -happened that when the Great Western Railway was opened to Bath and -Bristol on June 30th, 1841, the great inn fell upon ruination, while its -humbler neighbour has survived--and does very well, thank you. It should -be added that in the view presented here you are looking eastward, back in -the direction of Marlborough. The great dark hill beside the road in the -middle distance is the vast pre-historic tumulus, the largest known in -Europe, famous as Silbury Hill. - -The great house that was once "Beckhampton Inn" is now, and long has been, -Mr. Samuel Darling's training-stables for racehorses. There is probably no -better-kept lawn in England than that triangular plot of grass in front of -the house, where--as you see in the picture--the roads fork. - -[Illustration: "BECKHAMPTON INN."] - -The "Angel" at Bury St. Edmunds, the scene of many stirring incidents in -Chapters XV. and XVI., is an enormous house of very severe and -unornamental architecture, that looks as though it were an exercise in -rectangles and a Puritan protest in white Suffolk, dough-like brick, -against the mediæval pomps and vanities of the beautiful carved stone -Abbey Gatehouse, upon which it looks, gauntly, across the great open, -plain-like, empty thoroughfare of Angel Hill. This, the chief -coaching-and posting-house of Bury, was built in 1779 upon the site of a -fifteenth-century "Angel," and the present structure still stands upon -groined crypts and cellars. - -[Illustration: THE "ANGEL," BURY ST. EDMUNDS.] - -None may be so bold as to name for certain that tavern off Cheapside in -Chapter XX., to which the worried Mr. Pickwick "bent his steps" after the -interview with Dodson and Fogg, in Freeman's Court, Cornhill. We know it -was in some court on the right-hand, or north, side of Cheapside; but, on -the other hand, we do not know how far Mr. Pickwick had proceeded along -that thoroughfare when Sam recommended, as a suitable place for "a glass -of brandy and water warm," the "last house but vun on the same side the -vay--take the box as stands in the first fireplace, 'cos there an't no leg -in the middle o' the table, wich all the others has, and it's wery -inconwenient." Probably Grocers' Hall Court is meant. It has still its -coffee-and chop-houses. - -There it is that Tony Weller is introduced, and suggests that, as he is -"working down" the coach to Ipswich in a couple of days' time, from the -"Bull" inn Whitechapel, Mr. Pickwick had better go with him. An incidental -allusion is made in the same place to the "Black Boy" at Chelmsford, a -fine old coaching inn, destroyed in 1857. - -Mr. Pickwick was a good--nay, a phenomenal--pedestrian for so stout a man. -From Cheapside--fortified possibly by the brandy and water--he walked to -Gray's Inn, there ascending two pairs of steep (and dirty) stairs, and -thence to Clare Market, and the "Magpie and Stump," described as "situated -in a court, happy in the double advantage of being in the vicinity of -Clare Market and closely approximating to the back of 'New Inn.'" - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE THE FOURTH TAVERN," CLARE MARKET.] - -It was "what ordinary people would designate a public-house," and has been -identified by most with the "Old Black Jack" in Portsmouth Street, or its -next-door neighbour, the "George the Fourth Tavern," both demolished in -1896. The last-named house was remarkable for entirely overhanging the -pavement, the very tall building being supported on wooden posts springing -from the kerb. In the words of Dickens: "In the lower windows, which were -decorated with curtains of a saffron hue, dangled two or three printed -cards, bearing reference to Devonshire cyder and Dantzic spruce, while a -large black board, announcing in white letters to an enlightened public -that there were 500,000 barrels of double stout in the cellars of the -establishment, left the mind in a state of not unpleasing doubt and -uncertainty as to the precise direction in the bowels of the earth in -which this mighty cavern might be supposed to extend. When we add that the -weather-beaten sign-board bore the half-obliterated semblance of a magpie -intently eyeing a crooked streak of brown paint, which the neighbours had -been taught from infancy to consider as the 'stump,' we have said all that -need be said of the exterior of the edifice." - -The "Black Jack," next door, was in the eighteenth century the scene of -one of the famous Jack Sheppard's exploits. The Bow Street runners entered -the house after him, and, as they went in at the door, he jumped out of a -first-floor window. In thieving circles the house was afterwards known as -"The Jump." The "Black Jack," however, romantic though the title sounds, -did not owe its name to Sheppard, but to that old style of vessel, the -leathern jacks or jugs of the Middle Ages. For their better preservation, -the old leathern jacks were often treated with a coating of pitch: hence -the name of "pitcher," at a very early period enlarged to denote jugs in -general, whether of leather or of earthenware. - -The proverbial pitcher that goes often to the well and is broken at last -could not possibly be a leathern one, for the greatest virtue of the -leathern vessel was its indestructible nature, well set forth in the old -song of "The Leather Bottel": - - And when the bottle at last grows old, - And will good liquor no longer hold, - Out of its sides you may make a clout - To mend your shoes when they're worn out; - Or take and hang it upon a pin-- - 'Twill serve to put hinges and odd things in. - So I hope his soul in Heaven may dwell - Who first found out the Leather Bottel. - -Such leather bottles, some of them very ancient, are often to be found, -even at this day, in the barns and outhouses of remote hamlets, with a -side cut away to receive those "hinges and odd things" of the verse. They -are also often used to hold cart-grease. - -The "Bull," Whitechapel, whence Mr. Tony Weller "worked down" to Ipswich, -was numbered No. 25, Aldgate High Street. It stood in the rear of the -narrow entry shown in the accompanying illustration. Rightly, it will be -seen, did Mr. Tony Weller advise the "outsides" on his coach to "take care -o' the archvay, gen'lm'n." The "Bull" was long occupied by the widowed -Mrs. Ann Nelson--one of those stern, dignified, magisterial women of -business who were a quite remarkable feature of the coaching age, who saw -their husbands off to an early grave, and alone carried on the peculiarly -exacting double business of innkeeping and coach-proprietorship, and did -so with success. Mrs. Ann Nelson--no one ever dared so greatly as to spell -her name "Anne"--was the Napoleon and Cæsar combined of the coaching -business on the East Anglian roads, and accomplished the remarkable -feat--remarkable for an innkeeper in the East End of London--of also -owning that crack mail-coach of the West of England Road, the Devonport -"Quicksilver." As Mrs. Nelson would permit no "e" to her Christian name, -so also she would never hear of her house being called "hotel." It was, to -the last, the "Bull Inn"; as you see in the illustration, with Martin's -woollen-drapery shop, formerly that of James Johnson, whip-maker, on the -one side and that of Lee, the confectioner, on the other. Richard Lee -himself you perceive standing on the pavement, taking a very keen interest -in the coach emerging from the yard, as he had every reason to do; for he, -like William Lee, his father before him, was a partner, though not a -publicly acknowledged one, with Mrs. Nelson, and the money he made out of -his jam tarts he invested, with much profit to himself, in that autocratic -lady's coaching speculations. - -From the date of the opening of the Eastern Counties Railway, in 1839, the -business of the "Bull" began to decline, and the house was at length sold -and demolished in 1868.[16] - -[Illustration: THE "BULL INN," WHITECHAPEL. _From the water-colour drawing -by P. Palfrey._] - -The journey from the "Bull" ended at the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich, a -house that still survives and flourishes on the notice (including even the -abuse) that Dickens gave it. The "Great White Horse" is neither ancient -nor beautiful; but it _is_ great and it _is_ white, for it is built of a -pallid kind of brick strongly suggesting under-done pastry, and it is in -these days the object to which most visitors to Ipswich first turn -their attention, whether they are to stay in the house or not. - -[Illustration: DOORWAY OF THE "GREAT WHITE HORSE," IPSWICH.] - -In the merry days of the road, when this huge caravanserai was built, it -was justly thought enormous; but it has been left to the present age to -build many hotels in town and country capable of containing half-a-dozen -or more hostelries the size of the "Great White Horse," which by -comparison with them is as a Shetland pony is to the great hairy-legged -creatures that still, even in these "horseless" times, haul waggons and -brewers' drays. - -Especially did the bulk of this house strike the imagination of that young -reporter of the London _Morning Chronicle_ who in 1830 was despatched to -Ipswich for the purpose of reporting a Parliamentary election. That -reporter was, of course, Dickens. The inn made so great an impression upon -him that, when he wrote about it in the pages of _Pickwick_, a few years -later, his description was as exact as though it had been penned on the -spot. - -It was not a flattering description. Few more severe things have ever been -said of an inn than those Dickens said of the "Great White Horse." Yet, -such is the irony of time and circumstance, the house Dickens so roundly -attacked is now eager, in all its advertisements, to quote the Dickensian -association; and the adventures of Mr. Pickwick in the double-bedded room -(now identified with No. 36) of the elderly lady in yellow curl-papers -have attracted more visitors than the unfavourable notice has turned away. - -"The 'Great White Horse,'" said Dickens, "is famous in the neighbourhood -in the same degree as a prize ox, or county-paper-chronicled turnip, or -unwieldy pig--for its enormous size. Never were there such labyrinths of -uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge -numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as -are collected together between the four walls of the 'Great White Horse' -at Ipswich." - -The house was evidently then an exception to the rule of the "good old -days," of comfort and good cheer and plenty of it; for, passing the -corpulent and insolent waiter, "with a fortnight's napkin under his arm -and coeval stockings on his legs," Mr. Pickwick entered only to find the -dining-room "a large, badly furnished apartment, with a dirty grate, in -which a small fire was making a wretched attempt to be cheerful, but was -fast sinking beneath the dispiriting influence of the place. After the -lapse of an hour, a bit of fish and a steak were served up to the -travellers," who then, ordering "a bottle of the worst possible port wine, -at the highest possible price, for the good of the house, drank brandy and -water for their own." - -I may here mention the singular parallel in Besant and Rice's novel, _The -Seamy Side_, where, in Chapter XXVIII., you will find Gilbert Yorke going -to the hotel at Lulworth, in Dorset, and there ordering, like another Will -Waterproof, "for the good of the house," "a pint of port" after dinner. -He, we are told, could not drink "the ardent port of country inns," and -therefore "he poured the contents of the bottle into a pot of mignonette -in the window.... The flowers waggled their heads sadly and then drooped -and died," as of course, being notoriously total abstainers, they could -not choose but do. But it was unfair, alike to the port and the plants. - -[Illustration: THE "GREAT WHITE HORSE," IPSWICH.] - -How changed the times since those when Mr. Pickwick stayed at the "Great -White Horse!" We read how, after his unpleasant adventure with the lady in -the yellow curl-papers, he "stood alone, in an open passage, in the middle -of the night, half dressed," and in perfect darkness, with the -uncomfortable knowledge that, if he tried to find his own bedroom by -turning the handles of each one in succession "he stood every chance of -being shot at, and perhaps killed, by some wakeful traveller." No one in a -similar position would have that fear now: and even American guests, -commonly supposed to "go heeled," _i.e._ to carry an armoury of -six-shooters about them, do not invariably sleep with their -shooting-irons under their pillows. - -The exterior of the "Great White Horse" is much the same as when Dickens -saw it, "in the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way." -Still over the pillared portico trots the effigy of the Great White Horse -himself, "a stone statue of some rampacious animal, with flowing mane and -tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse"; but the old courtyard -has in modern times been roofed in with glass, and is now a something -partaking in equal parts of winter-garden, smoking-lounge, and bar. - -Returning again to London from Ipswich, Mr. Pickwick, giving up his -lodgings in Goswell Road with the treacherous Mrs. Bardell, took up his -abode in "very good old-fashioned and comfortable quarters, to wit, the -'George and Vulture' Tavern and Hotel, George Yard, Lombard Street." - -One may no longer stay at the "George and Vulture," and indeed, if one -might, I do not know that any one would choose, for after business hours, -and on Sundays and holidays, the modern George Yard, now entirely hemmed -in with the enormous buildings of banks and insurance-companies, is a -dismally deserted and forbidding place. The sunlight only by dint of great -endeavour comes at a particular hour slanting down to one side of the -stony courtyard, and the air is close and stale. But on days of business, -and in the hours of business, in the continual stream of passers-by, you -do not notice these things. Many of those whom you see in George Yard -disappear, a little mysteriously it seems, in an obscure doorway, tucked -away in an angle. It might, in most likelihood, be a bank to which they -enter; but, as a sheer matter of fact, it is the "George and Vulture": in -these days one of the most famous of City chop-houses. - -I have plumbed the depths of depravity in chops, and have found them often -naturally hard, tasteless, and greasily fat; or if not naturally depraved, -the wicked incapacity of those who cook them has in some magic way -exorcised their every virtue. It matters little to you whether your chop -be innately uneatable, or whether it has acquired that defect in the -cooking: the net result is that you go hungry. - -At the "George and Vulture," as before noted, you may not stay--or "hang -out," as it was suggested by Bob Sawyer that Mr. Pickwick did--but there -you do nowadays find chops of the best, cooked to perfection on the grill, -and may eat off old-world pewter plates and, to complete the ideality of -the performance, drink ale out of pewter tankards; all in the company of a -crowded roomful of hungry City men, and in a very Babel of talk. And, ah -me! where does the proprietor get that perfect port? - -Between Chapters XXVI. and XXXIV. we have a perfect constellation--or -rather, a species of cloudy Milky Way--of inns, nebulous, undefined; but -in Chapter XXXV. we find Mr. Pickwick, on his way to Bath, waiting for the -coach in the travellers'-room of the "White Horse Cellar," Piccadilly, -a very brilliant star of an inn, indeed, in its day; but rather a -migratory one, for in the coaching age it was removed from its original -site at the corner of Arlington Street, where the Ritz Hotel stands now, -to the opposite side of the road, at the corner of Albemarle Street. There -it remained until 1884, when the old house was pulled down and the present -"Albemarle" built in its stead. - -[Illustration: THE "WHITE HART," BATH.] - -Mr. Pickwick was "twenty minutes too early" for the half-past seven -o'clock in the morning coach, and so, leaving Sam Weller single-handedly -to contend with the seven or eight porters who had flung themselves upon -the luggage, he and his friends went for shelter to "the -travellers'-room--the last resource of human dejection"--railways in -general and the waiting-rooms of Clapham Junction in especial not having -at that time come into existence, to plunge mankind into deeper abysms of -melancholia. - -"The travellers'-room at the 'White Horse Cellar' is, of course, -uncomfortable; it would be no travellers'-room if it were not. It is the -right-hand parlour, into which an aspiring kitchen fireplace appears to -have walked, accompanied by a rebellious poker, tongs, and shovel. It is -divided into boxes, for the solitary confinement of travellers, and is -furnished with a clock, a looking-glass, and a live waiter: which latter -article is kept in a small kennel for washing glasses, in a corner of the -apartment." - -So now we know what the primeval ancestor of the Railway Waiting-room, -with its advertisements of cheap excursions to places to which you do not -want to go, and its battered Bible on the table was like, and it seems -pretty clear that, whatever the travellers'-room of a coaching inn might -have been, its present representative is a degenerate. - -Chapter XXXV. sees Mr. Pickwick and his friends arrived at Bath and duly -installed in "their private sitting-rooms at the 'White Hart' Hotel, -opposite the great Pump-room, where the waiters, from their costume, might -be mistaken for Westminster boys, only they destroy the illusion by -behaving themselves much better." - -Until its last day, which came in 1864, the great "White Hart," owned by -the Moses Pickwick from whose name Dickens probably derived that of the -immortal Samuel, maintained the ceremonial manners of an earlier age, and -habited its waiters in knee-breeches and silk stockings, while the -chambermaids wore muslin caps. The Grand Pump-room Hotel now stands on the -site of the "White Hart," and the well-modelled effigy of the White Hart -himself, seen in the illustration of the old coaching inn, has been -transferred to a mere public-house of the same name in the slummy suburb -of Widcombe. - -Round the corner from Queen Square, Bath, is the mean street where Dickens -pilgrims may gaze upon the "Beaufort Arms," the mean little public-house -identified, on a very slender thread, with the "greengrocer's shop" to -which Sam Weller was invited to the footmen's "swarry." The identification -hangs chiefly by the circumstance that it is known to have been the -particular meeting-place of the Bath footmen, just as the "Running -Footman" in Hay Hill, London, is even at this day the chosen house of call -for the men-servants around Berkeley Square. - -[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "WHITE HART," BATH.] - -The "Royal Hotel," whence Mr. Winkle fled by branch coach to Bristol, is -not to be found, and the "Bush" at Bristol itself is a thing of the past. -It stood in Corn Street, and was swept out of existence in 1864, the -Wiltshire Bank now standing on the site of it; but how busy a place it was -in Pickwickian days let the old picture of coaches arriving and departing -eloquently tell. - -The inns of the succeeding chapters--the tavern (unnamed) at Clifton, the -"Farringdon Hotel," the "Fox-under-the-Hill," overlooking the river from -Ivy Bridge Lane in the Strand, the "New Hotel," Serjeant's Inn Coffee -House, and Horn's Coffee House--are merely given passing mention, and it -is only in Chapter XLVI. that we come to closer touch with actualities, in -the arrest of Mrs. Bardell in the tea-gardens of the "Spaniards" inn, -Hampstead Heath. The earwiggy arbours of that Cockney resort are still -greatly frequented on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays. - -A very modest and comparatively little-known Pickwickian house is the -"Bell," Berkeley Heath, on the dull, flat high-road between Bristol and -Gloucester, unaltered since the day when Mr. Pickwick set forth by -post-chaise with Mr. Bob Sawyer and his fellow-roysterer, Ben Allen, from -the "Bush" at Bristol for Birmingham. Here they had lunch, as the present -sign-board of the inn, gravely and with a quaint inaccuracy, informs us: -insisting that it was "Charles Dickens and party" who so honoured the -"Bell." They had come only nineteen miles, and without any exertion on -their own part, yet when they changed horses here, at half-past eleven -a.m., Bob Sawyer found it necessary to dine, to enable them "to bear up -against the fatigue." - -"'Quite impossible!' said Mr. Pickwick, himself no mean trencherman. - -"'So it is,' rejoined Bob; 'lunch is the very thing. Hallo, you sir! Lunch -for three, directly, and keep the horses back for a quarter of an hour. -Tell them to put everything they have cold on the table, and some bottled -ale, and let us taste your very best Madeira.'" - -[Illustration: THE "BUSH," BRISTOL.] - -Those were truly marvellous times. All the way from Bristol those three -had been drinking milk-punch, and had emptied a case-bottle of it, and we -may be quite sure (although it is not stated) that they made havoc of a -prodigious breakfast before they started; Yet they did "very great -justice" to that lunch, and when they set off again the case-bottle was -filled with "the best substitute for milk-punch that could be procured on -so short a notice." - -[Illustration: "THE BELL," BERKELEY HEATH.] - -"At the 'Hop-Pole' at Tewkesbury they stopped to dine; upon which occasion -there was more bottled ale, with some more Madeira, and some port besides; -and here the case-bottle was replenished for the fourth time." Therefore, -it is evident that, twice on the twenty-four miles between Berkeley Heath -and Tewkesbury, they had a re-fill. - -We do not find Gloucester mentioned, although it must have been passed on -the way; but, under those circumstances, we are by no means surprised. - -The "Hop Pole" at Tewkesbury is still a "going concern," and, with the -adjoining gabled and timbered houses, is a notable landmark in the High -Street. Nowadays it proudly displays a tablet recording its Pickwickian -associations. - -A drunken sleep (for it could have been nothing else) composed those two -"insides," Mr. Pickwick and Ben Allen, on the way to Birmingham, while, -thanks in part to the fresh air, Sam Weller and Bob Sawyer "sang duets in -the dickey." By the time they were nearing Birmingham it was quite dark. -The postboy drove them to the "Old Royal Hotel," where an order for that -surely very necessary thing, soda-water, having been given, the waiter -"imperceptibly melted away": a proceeding that, paradoxically enough, -seems to have been initiated by the house itself, years before; for it was -about 1825, two years before the Pickwickians are represented as starting -on their travels, that the "Old Royal" was transferred from Temple Row to -New Street, and there became the "New Royal." - -The inn at Coventry, at which the post-horses were changed on the journey -from Birmingham, is unnamed, unhonoured, and unsung; but very famous, in -the Pickwickian way, is the "Saracen's Head" at Towcester, or "Toaster," -as the townsfolk call it, even though its identity is a little obscured by -the sign having been exchanged for that of the "Pomfret Arms." The change, -which was actually made in April, 1831, was a complimentary allusion to -the Earls of Pomfret, who before the title became extinct, in 1867, -resided at the neighbouring park of Easton Neston. - -[Illustration: THE "HOP-POLE," TEWKESBURY.] - -In all essentials the inn remains the same as the old coaching hostelry to -which Mr. Pickwick and his friends drove up in their post-chaise, after -the long wet journey from Coventry. As "at the end of each stage it rained -harder than it had done at the beginning," Mr. Pickwick wisely decided to -halt here. - -"There's beds here," reported Sam; "everything's clean and comfortable. -Wery good little dinner, sir, they can get ready in half an hour--pair of -fowls, sir, and a weal cutlet; French beans, 'taturs, tarts, and tidiness. -You'd better stop vere you are, sir, if I might recommend." - -[Illustration: THE "POMFRET ARMS," TOWCESTER: FORMERLY THE "SARACEN'S -HEAD."] - -At the moment of this earnest colloquy in the rain the landlord of the -"Saracen's Head" appeared, "to confirm Mr. Weller's statement relative to -the accommodations of the establishment, and to back his entreaties with a -variety of dismal conjectures regarding the state of the roads, the doubt -of fresh horses being to be had at the next stage, the dead certainty of -its raining all night, the equally mortal certainty of its clearing up in -the morning, and other topics of inducement familiar to innkeepers." - -[Illustration: THE YARD OF THE "POMFRET ARMS."] - -When Mr. Pickwick decided to stay, "the landlord smiled his delight" and -issued orders to the waiter. "Lights in the Sun, John; make up the fire; -the gentlemen are wet!" he cried anxiously, although, doubtless, if the -gentlemen had gone forward they might have been drowned, for all he cared. - -And so the scene changed from the rain-washed road to a cosy room, with a -waiter laying the cloth for dinner, a cheerful fire burning, and the -tables lit with wax candles. "Everything looked (as everything always does -in all decent English inns) as if the travellers had been expected, and -their comforts prepared for days beforehand." - -Upon this charming picture of ease at one's inn descended the atrabilious -rival editors of _The Eatanswill Gazette_ and _The Eatanswill -Independent_, the organs respectively of "blue" and "buff" shades of -political opinion. Pott of the _Gazette_, and Slurk of the _Independent_ -each found his rival sheet lying on the tables of the inn; but what either -of those editors or those newspapers were doing here in Northamptonshire -(Eatanswill being a far-distant East Anglian town, by general consensus of -opinion identified with Ipswich) is one of those occasional lapses from -consistency that in _Pickwick_ give the modern commentator and annotator -food for speculation. - -When the inn was closed for the night Slurk retired to the kitchen to -drink his rum and water by the fire, and to enjoy the bitter-sweet luxury -of sneering at the rival print; but, as it happened, Mr. Pickwick's party, -accompanied by Pott, also adjourned to the kitchen to smoke a cigar or so -before bed. How ancient, by the way, seems that custom! Does any guest, -anywhere, in these times of smoking-rooms, withdraw to the kitchen to -smoke his cigar, pipe, or cigarette? - -How the rival editors--the "unmitigated viper" and the "ungrammatical -twaddler"--met and presently came from oblique taunts to direct abuse of -one another, and thence to a fight, let the pages of _The Pickwick -Papers_ tell. For my part, I refuse to believe that there were ever such -journalists. - -[Illustration: "OSBORNE'S HOTEL, ADELPHI."] - -What was once the kitchen of the "Saracen's Head" is now the bar-parlour -of the "Pomfret Arms"; but otherwise the house is the same as when Dickens -knew it. The somewhat severe frontage loses in a black-and-white drawing -its principal charm, for it is built of the golden-brown local ferruginous -sandstone of the district. - -The journey to London is carried abruptly from Towcester to its ending at -the "George and Vulture"; and with "Osborne's Hotel in the Adelphi" the -last inn to be identified in the closing scenes of _Pickwick_ is reached. -That staid family hotel, still existing in John Street, and now known as -the "Adelphi," is associated with the flight of Emily Wardle and -Snodgrass. The sign of the last public-house in the story, "an excellent -house near Shooter's Hill," to which Mr. Tony Weller, no longer "of the -Bell Savage," retired, is not disclosed. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -DICKENSIAN INNS - - -The knowledge Dickens possessed of inns, old and new, was, as already -said, remarkable. His education in this sort began early. From his early -years in London, at the blacking factory, when he sampled the "genuine -stunning" at the "Red Lion," Parliament Street, through his experiences as -a reporter of election speeches in the provinces, when long coach journeys -presented a constant succession of inns and posting-houses, circumstances -made him familiar with every variety of house of public entertainment; and -afterwards, as novelist, he enlarged upon inns from choice, realising as -he did that in those days romance had its chief home at them. - -Dickensian inns, as treated of in this chapter, are those houses, other -than the inns of _Pickwick_, associated with Dickens personally, or -through his novels. It is hardly necessary to add at this day, that either -association is assiduously cultivated, and that we have almost come to -that dizzy edge of things where, in addition to the inns Dickens is -certainly known to have mentioned or visited, those he would have treated -of or stayed at, had he known better, will come under review, together -with a further paper on the inns he did not immortalise, and why not. - -When Dickens first visited Bath, in May, 1835, as a reporter, he stayed, -according to tradition, at the humble "Saracen's Head," in Broad Street, -and there also, according to tradition, he was assigned a humble room in -an outhouse down the yard. A dozen times, if we may believe a former -landlady's story, he went with lighted candle across the windy yard to his -bedroom; a dozen times, the wind puffed it out, and he never uttered a -mild d----! It is a remarkable instance of restraint, likely to remain in -the recollection of any landlady. - -The "Saracen's Head" cherishes these more or less authentic recollections, -and you are shown, not only the room, but the "very bedstead"--a hoary -four-poster--upon which Dickens slept; and if you are very good and -reverent, and sufficiently abase yourself before the spirit of the place, -you will be allowed to drink out of the very mug he is said to have drunk -from and sit in the identical chair he is supposed to have sat in; and -accordingly, when Dickensians visit Bath they sit in the chair and drink -from the mug to the immortal memory, and do not commonly stop to consider -this marvellous thing: that the humble, unknown reporter of 1835 should be -identified by the innkeeper of that era with the novelist who only became -famous two years later. - -Going by the Glasgow Mail to Yorkshire in January, 1838, in company with -"Phiz," Dickens acquired the local colour for _Nicholas Nickleby_. We -hear, in that story, how the coach carrying Nicholas, Squeers, and the -schoolboys down to Dotheboys Hall, dined at "Eaton Slocomb," by which -Eaton Socon, fifty-five miles from London, on the Great North Road, is -indicated. There, in that picturesque village among the flats of -Huntingdonshire, still stands the charming little "White Horse" inn, which -in those days, with the long-vanished "Cock," divided the coaching -business on that stage. - -[Illustration: THE "WHITE HORSE," EATON SOCON.] - -Grantham does not figure largely in the story, in whose pages the actual -coach journey is lightly dismissed. There we find merely a mention of the -"George" as "one of the best inns in England"; but in his private -correspondence he refers to that house, enthusiastically, as "the very -best inn I have ever put up at": and Dickens, as we well know, was a -finished connoisseur of inns. - -The "George" at Grantham is typically Georgian: four-square, red-bricked -and prim. It replaced a fine mediæval building, burnt down in 1780; but -what it lacks in beauty it does, according to the testimony of innumerable -travellers, make up for in comfort. At the sign of the "George," says one, -"you had a cleaner cloth, brighter plate, higher-polished glass, and a -brisker fire, with more prompt attention and civility, than at most other -places." - -From Grantham to Greta Bridge was, in coaching days, one day's journey. -There the traveller of to-day finds a quiet hamlet on the banks of the -romantic Greta, but in that era it was a busy spot on the main coaching -route, with two large and prosperous inns: the "George" and the "New Inn." -The "New Inn," where Dickens stayed, is now a farmhouse, "Thorpe Grange" -by name; while the "George," standing by the bold and picturesque bridge, -has itself retired from public life, and is now known as "the Square." -Under that name the great, unlovely building is divided up into tenements -for three or four different families. - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," GRETA BRIDGE.] - -From Greta Bridge Dickens proceeded to Barnard Castle, where he and Phiz -stayed, as a centre whence to explore Bowes, that bleak and stony-faced -little town where he found "Dotheboys Hall," and made it and Shaw, the -schoolmaster, the centre of his romance. The "Unicorn" inn at Bowes is -pointed out as the place where the novelist met Shaw, afterwards drawing -the character of "Squeers" from his peculiarities. The rights and the -wrongs of the Yorkshire schools, and the indictment of them that Dickens -drew, form still a vexed question. Local opinion is by no means altogether -amiably disposed towards the memory of Dickens in this matter; and -although those schools were gravely mismanaged, we must not lose sight of -the fact that this expedition undertaken by Dickens was largely a -pilgrimage of passion, in which he looked to find scandals, and did so -find them. To what extent, for the sake of his "novel with a purpose," he -dotted the i's and crossed the t's of the wrongs he found must ever be a -subject for controversy. - -The course of _Nicholas Nickleby_ brings us, in Chapter XXII., to the long -tramp undertaken by Nicholas and Smike from London to Portsmouth, on "a -cold, dry, foggy morning in early spring." They made Godalming the first -night, and "bargained for two humble beds." The next evening saw them well -beyond Petersfield, at a point fifty-eight miles from London, where the -humble "Coach and Horses" inn stands by the wayside, and is perhaps the -inn referred to by Dickens. The matter is doubtful, because, although the -story was written in 1838, when the existing road along the shoulder of -the downs at this point had been constructed, with the present "Coach and -Horses" beside it, replacing the older inn and the original track that -still goes winding obscurely along in the bottom, it is extremely likely -that Dickens described the spot from his childish memories of years -before, when, as a little boy, he had been brought up the road with the -Dickens family, on their removal from Landport. At that time the way was -along the hollow, where the "Bottom" inn, or "Gravel Hill" inn, then -stood, in receipt of custom. The house stands yet, and is now a -gamekeeper's cottage. - -[Illustration: THE "COACH AND HORSES," NEAR PETERSFIELD.] - -Whichever of the two houses we choose, the identity of the spot is -unassailable, because, although in the story it is described as twelve -miles from Portsmouth, and is really thirteen, no other inn exists or -existed for miles on either side. The bleak and barren scene is -admirably drawn: "Onward they kept with steady purpose, and entered at -length upon a wide and spacious tract of downs, with every variety of -little hill and plain to change their verdant surface. Here, there shot up -almost perpendicularly into the sky a height so steep, as to be hardly -accessible to any but the sheep and goats that fed upon its sides, and -there stood a huge mound of green, sloping and tapering off so delicately, -and merging so gently into the level ground, that you could scarce define -its limits. Hills swelling above each other, and undulations shapely and -uncouth, smooth and rugged, graceful and grotesque, thrown negligently -side by side, bounded the view in each direction; while frequently, with -unexpected noise, there uprose from the ground a flight of crows, who, -cawing and wheeling round the nearest hills, as if uncertain of their -course, suddenly poised themselves upon the wing and skimmed down the long -vista of some opening valley with the speed of very light itself. - -[Illustration: "BOTTOM" INN.] - -"By degrees the prospect receded more and more on either hand, and as they -had been shut out from rich and extensive scenery, so they emerged once -again upon the open country. The knowledge that they were drawing near -their place of destination gave them fresh courage to proceed; but the way -had been difficult and they had loitered on the road, and Smike was tired! -Thus twilight had already closed in, when they turned off the path to the -door of a road-side inn, yet twelve miles short of Portsmouth. - -"'Twelve miles,' said Nicholas, leaning with both hands on his stick, and -looking doubtfully at Smike. - -"'Twelve long miles,' repeated the landlord. - -"'Is it a good road?' inquired Nicholas. - -"'Very bad,' said the landlord. As, of course, being a landlord, he would -say. - -"'I want to get on,' observed Nicholas, hesitating. 'I scarcely know what -to do.' - -"'Don't let me influence you,' rejoined the landlord. 'I wouldn't go on if -it was me.'" - -And so here they stayed the night, much to their advantage. - -The "handsome hotel," "between Park Lane and Bond Street," referred to in -Chapter XXXII. of _Nicholas Nickleby_, cannot be identified: there are, -and long have been, so many handsome hotels in that region. It was in the -coffee-room of this establishment that Nicholas encountered Sir Mulberry -Hawk; and the description of the affair brings back the memory of a state -of things long past. The "Coffee-room" with its boxes partitioned off, no -longer exists; there are no such things as those boxes anywhere now, -except perhaps in some old-fashioned "eating-houses." But in that period -of which Dickens wrote, the "coffee-room" of an hotel was an institution -not so very long before copied from the then dead or fast-expiring "Coffee -Houses" of the eighteenth century: once--in the days before clubs--the -meeting-places of wits and business men. The Coffee House had been the -club of its own particular age, and as there are nowadays clubs for every -class and all professions, so in that period there were special Coffee -Houses for individual groups of people, where they read the papers and -learned the gossip of their circle. - -Inns and hotels copied the institution of a public refreshment-room that -would nowadays be styled the restaurant, and transferred the name of -"Coffee-room," without specifically supplying the coffee; which, to be -sure, was a beverage fast growing out of fashion, in favour of wines, -beer, and brandy and water. No one drank whisky then. - -Fashions in nomenclature linger long, and even now in old-established inns -and hotels, the Coffee-room still exists, but has paradoxically come to -mean a public combined dining- and sitting-room for private guests, in -contradistinction from the Commercial-room, to which commercial travellers -resort, at a recognised lower tariff. - -There are inns also in _Oliver Twist_; not inns essential to the story, -nor in themselves prepossessing, but, in the case of the "Coach and -Horses" at Isleworth, remarkably well observed when we consider that the -reference is only in passing. Indeed, the topographical accuracy of -Dickens, where he is wishful to be accurate, is astonishing. The literary -pilgrim sets out to follow the routes he indicates, possibly doubtful if -he will find the places mentioned. There, however, they are (if modern -alterations have not removed them), for Dickens apparently visited the -scenes and from one eagle glance described them with all the accuracy of a -guide-book. - -Thus, Bill Sikes and Oliver, trudging from London to Chertsey, where the -burglary was to be committed, and occasionally getting a lift on the way, -are set down from a cart at the end of Brentford. At length they came to a -public-house called the "Coach and Horses"; a little way beyond which -another road appeared to turn off. And here the cart stopped. - -[Illustration: THE "COACH AND HORSES," ISLEWORTH.] - -One finds the "Coach and Horses," sure enough, at the point where -Brentford ends and Isleworth begins, by the entrance to Sion Park, and -near the spot where the road branches off to the left. The "Coach and -Horses" is not a picturesque inn. It is a huge, four-square lump of a -place, and wears, indeed, rather a dour and forbidding aspect. It is -unquestionably the house of which Dickens speaks, and was built certainly -not later than the dawn of the nineteenth century. In these latter days -the road here has been rendered somewhat more urban by the advent of the -electric tramway; but I have in my sketch of the scene taken the artistic -licence of omitting that twentieth-century development, and, to add an air -of verisimilitude, have represented Sikes and Oliver in the act of -approaching. The left-hand road beyond leads to a right-hand road, as in -the story, and this in due course to Hampton. - -The most interesting Dickensian inn, outside the pages of _Pickwick_, is -the "Maypole," in _Barnaby Rudge_. - -There never existed upon this earth an inn so picturesque as that drawn, -entirely from his imagination, by Cattermole, to represent the "Maypole." -You may seek even among the old mansions of England, and find nothing more -baronial. The actual "Maypole"--when found--is a sad disappointment to -those who have cherished the Cattermole ideal, and there is wrath and -indignation among pilgrims from over-seas when they come to it. This, -although natural enough, is an injustice to this real original, which is -one of the most picturesque old inns now to be found, and is not properly -to be made little of because it cannot fit an impossible artistic fantasy. - -I have hinted above that the "Maypole" requires some effort to find, and -that is true enough, even in these days when the England of Dickens has -been so plentifully elucidated and mapped out and sorted over. The prime -cause of this incertitude and boggling is that there really is a "Maypole" -inn, but at that very different place, Chigwell Row, two miles distant -from Chigwell and the "King's Head." Many years ago, the late James Payn -wrote an amusing account--as to whose entire truth we cannot vouch--of his -taking a party of enthusiastic American ladies in search of this scene of -_Barnaby Rudge_. They drove about the forest seeking (such was their -ignorance) the "Maypole," and not the "King's Head"; and found it, in a -low and ugly beerhouse from which drunken beanfeasters waved inviting pots -of beer. Eventually they left the forest convinced that the inn Dickens -described was a sheer myth. - -If the "King's Head" of fact--"such a delicious old inn opposite the -churchyard," as Dickens wrote of it to Forster--is not so wonderful an old -house as the "Maypole" of fiction and of Cattermole's picturesque fancy, -we must, at any rate, excuse the artist, who was under the necessity of -working up to the fervid description of it with which the story begins: -"An old building, with more gable-ends than a lazy man would care to count -on a sunny day; huge zig-zag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though -even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic -shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, -ruinous, and empty. The place was said to have been built in the days -of King Henry the Eighth; and there, was a legend, not only that Queen -Elizabeth had slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion, to -wit, in a certain oak-panelled room with a deep bay-window, but that next -morning, while standing upon a mounting-block before the door, with one -foot in the stirrup, the virgin monarch had then and there boxed and -cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty." - -[Illustration: THE "KING'S HEAD," CHIGWELL, THE "MAYPOLE" OF _BARNABY -RUDGE_.] - -Passing the references to sunken and uneven floors and old diamond-paned -lattices, with another to an "ancient porch, quaintly and grotesquely -carved," which does not exist, we come to a description of dark red -bricks, grown yellow with age, decayed timbers, and ivy wrapping the -time-worn walls,--all figments of the imagination. - -The real "Maypole," identified with the "King's Head" at Chigwell, in -Epping Forest, is not the leastest littlest bit like that. The laziest man -on the hottest day could easily count its gables, which number three large -ones[17] and a small would-be-a-gable-if-it-could, that looks as though it -were blighted in its youth and had never grown to maturity. The front of -the house is not of red brick, and never was: the present white plaster -face being a survival of its early years; while the front of the -ground-floor is weather-boarded. - -But it is a delightful old house, in a situation equally delightful, -standing opposite the thickly wooded old churchyard of Chigwell, just as -described in the story; the sign--a portrait head of Charles the -First--projecting from an iron bracket, and the upper storeys of the inn -themselves set forward, on old carved oak beams and brackets. There is no -sign of decay or neglect about the "King's Head." - -In _Martin Chuzzlewit_ the literary annotator and professor of -topographical exegesis finds an interesting problem of the first -dimensions in the question, "Where was the 'Blue Dragon' of that story -situated?" It is a matter which, it is to be feared, will never be -threshed out to the satisfaction of all seekers after truth. "You all are -right and all are wrong," as the chameleon is supposed to have said when -he heard disputants quarrelling as to whether he was green or pink; and -then turned blue, to confound them. But the chameleon, in this instance, -is no more: and we who have opinions may continue, without fear, to hold -them. - -Well, then: in the third chapter of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ we are -particularly introduced to an inn, the subject of an earlier allusion in -those pages, the "Blue Dragon," near Salisbury. In what direction it lay -from that cathedral city we are not told--whether north, south, east, or -west; and we only infer from incidents of the story, in which the inn is -brought into relation with the London mail and coaching in general, that -the "Blue Dragon" was at Amesbury, eight miles to the north of Salisbury, -by which route the famous "Quicksilver" Exeter mail to and from London -went, in the old coaching days, avoiding Salisbury altogether. The course -of the narrative, the situation of an old mansion on the Wilsford road -near Amesbury--generally pointed out as Pecksniff's home--and the position -of Amesbury, all seem at the first blush to point to that fine old inn, -the "George" at Amesbury, being the original of the "Blue Dragon"; and -this old inn certainly was not only a coaching-house, but was what another -claimant to the honour of being the real true original of the "Blue -Dragon"--the "Green Dragon" at Alderbury--could never have been: a -hostelry with accommodation sufficient for postchaise travellers such as -old Martin Chuzzlewit and Mary. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN DRAGON," ALDERBURY.] - -The "George" at Amesbury is a house of considerable size and architectural -character, and its beauties might fitly have employed the pencils of -Pecksniff's pupils, had that great and good man condescended to notice -anything less stupendous than cathedrals, castles, and Houses of -Parliament. As it was, however, the architectural studies of his young -friends were made to contemplate nothing meaner than "elevations of -Salisbury Cathedral from every possible point of sight," and lesser things -were passed contemptuously by. (Chap. I.) - -The "George," after the fine old church--that church in which Tom Pinch -played the organ--is the chief ornament of Amesbury, and that it was the -inn meant by Dickens when he wrote _Martin Chuzzlewit_ is in the village -an article of faith which no visitor dare controvert or dispute in any way -on the spot. Like the small boys who do not say "Yah!" and are not -courageous enough to make grimaces until safely out of arm's reach, we -only dare dispassionately discuss the _pros_ and _cons_ when out of the -place. It were not possible on the spot to object, "Yes, but," and then -proceed to argue the point with the landlord, who confidently shows you -old Martin Chuzzlewit's bedroom and a room with a descent of one step -inside, instead of the "two steps on the inside so exquisitely unexpected -that strangers, despite the most elaborate cautioning, usually dived in, -head first, as into a plunging-bath." - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," AMESBURY.] - -But the truth is, like many another literary landmark, the "Blue Dragon" -in _Martin Chuzzlewit_ is a composite picture, combining the features of -both the "George" at Amesbury, eight miles to the north of Salisbury, and -those of the "Green Dragon" at Alderbury, three miles to the south. Nay, -there were not so long ago at Alderbury those who remembered the -picture-sign of the "Green Dragon" there, which doubtless Dickens saw in -his wanderings around the neighbourhood. "A faded and an ancient dragon he -was; and many a wintry storm of rain, snow, sleet, and hail had changed -his colour from a gaudy blue to a faint lack-lustre shade of grey. But -there he hung; rearing in a state of monstrous imbecility on his -hind-legs; waxing with every month that passed so much more dim and -shapeless that as you gazed at him on one side of the sign-board it seemed -as if he must be gradually melting through it and coming out upon the -other." (Chap. III.) - -The sign has long since been replaced by the commonplace lettering of the -present day, but it was then, in Dickens's own words, "a certain Dragon -who swung and creaked complainingly before the village ale-house door," a -phrase which at once shows us that if by the "Blue Dragon" of the story -the "George" at Amesbury was intended to be described, that was a -derogatory description of the fine old hostelry. - -This brings us to the chief point upon which the validity of this claim of -the "Green Dragon" at Alderbury must rest. Dickens distinctly alludes to -the "Blue Dragon" as a "village ale-house," and such it is and has ever -been; while to the "George" at Amesbury that description cannot even now -justly apply, and certainly it could never in coaching times, when in the -heyday of its prosperity, have been so fobbed off with such a phrase. -Moreover, we will do well to bear in mind that old Chuzzlewit and his -companion did not put up at the inn--this "village ale-house"--from -choice. The gentleman was "taken ill upon the road," and had to seek the -first house that offered. - -Those curious in the byways of Dickens topography will find Alderbury -three miles from Salisbury, on the left-hand side of the Southampton road. -Half a mile from it, on the other side of the way, stands "St. Mary's -Grange," a red-brick building in a mixed Georgian and Gothic style, built -by Pugin, and locally reputed to be the original of Mr. Pecksniff's -residence: a circumstance which may well give us pause and opportunity for -considering whether Dickens had that distinguished architect in his mind -when creating the character of his holy humbug. - -[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE "GREEN DRAGON," ALDERBURY.] - -The "Green Dragon," which we have thus shown to have, at the least of it, -as good a title as the "George" at Amesbury to be considered the original -of the house kept by the genial Mrs. Lupin, friend of Tom Pinch, Mark -Tapley, and Martin Chuzzlewit in particular, and of her fellow-creatures -in general, does not directly face the highway, but is set back from it at -an angle, behind a little patch of grass. It is pre-eminently rustic, and -is even more ancient than the casual wayfarer, judging merely from its -exterior, would suppose; for a fine fifteenth-century carved stone -fireplace in what is now the bar parlour bears witness to an existence -almost mediæval. It is a beautiful, though dilapidated, work of Gothic art -of the Early Tudor period, ornamented with boldly carved crockets, -heraldic roses, and shields of arms, and is worthy of inspection for -itself alone, quite irrespective of its literary interest. - -A London inn intimately associated with _Martin Chuzzlewit_ finally -disappeared in the early part of 1904, when the last vestiges of the -"Black Bull," Holborn, were demolished. The "Black Bull," in common with -the numerous other old inns of Holborn, in these last few years all swept -away, stood just outside the City of London, and was originally, like its -neighbours, established for the accommodation of those travellers who, in -the Middle Ages, arrived too late in the evening to enter the City. At -sundown the gates of the walled City of London were closed, and, unless -the traveller was a very privileged person indeed, he found no entrance -until the next morning, and was obliged to put up at one of the many -hostelries that sprang up outside and found their account in the multitude -of such laggards by the way. The old "Black Bull," after many alterations, -was rebuilt in a very commonplace style in 1825, and in later years it -became a merely sordid public-house, with an unlovely pile of peculiarly -grim "model" dwellings in the courtyard. In spite of those later changes, -the great plaster effigy of the Black Bull himself, with a golden girdle -about his middle, remained on his bracket over the first floor window -until the house was pulled down, May 18th, 1904. - -[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "BLACK BULL," HOLBORN.] - -An amusing story belongs to that sign, for it was, in 1826, the subject of -a struggle between the landlord, one Gardiner, on the one side and the -City authorities on the other. The Commissioner of Sewers served a notice -upon Gardiner, requiring him to take his bull down, but the landlord was -obstinate, and refused to do anything of the kind, whereupon the -Commissioner assembled a storming-party of over fifty men, with ladders -and tackle for removing the objectionably large and weighty effigy. No -sooner, however, had the enemy begun their preparations, when, to their -astonishment, and to that of the assembled crowds, the bull soared -majestically and steadily to what Mrs. Gamp would doubtless have called -the "parapidge." Arrived there he displayed a flag with the bold legend, -"I don't intrude now." - -Some arrangement was evidently arrived at, for the bull occupied its -original place, above the first-floor window over the archway, for the -whole of the seventy-eight years between 1826 and 1904. - -The house is referred to in _Martin Chuzzlewit_ as the "Bull," and is the -place to which Sairey Gamp repaired from Kingsgate Street to relieve Betsy -Prig in the nursing of the mysterious patient. She found it "a little -dull, but not so bad as might be," and was "glad to see a parapidge, in -case of fire, and lots of roofs and chimley-pots to walk upon." - -There are no greatly outstanding inns to be found in _Bleak House_, the -"Dedlock Arms," really the "Sondes Arms" at Rockingham, being merely -mentioned. On the other hand, in _David Copperfield_ we find the "Plough" -at Blundeston mentioned, and that hotel at Yarmouth whence the London -coach started: only unfortunately it is not possible to identify it, -either with the "Crown and Anchor," the "Angel," or the "Star." - -In Parliament Street, Westminster, until 1899, stood the "Red Lion" -public-house, identified with the place where David Copperfield (Chapter -IX.) called for the glass of the "genuine stunning." The incident was one -of Dickens's own youthful experiences, and is therefore to be taken, -together with much else in that story, as autobiography. - -"I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the -bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten -what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember, one -hot evening, I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the -landlord: - -"'What is your best--your _very best_ ale a glass?' For it was a special -occasion, I don't know what. It may have been my birthday. - -"'Twopence-halfpenny,' says the landlord, 'is the price of the Genuine -Stunning ale.' - -"'Then,' says I, producing the money, 'just draw me a glass of the Genuine -Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.' - -"The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, with -a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round -the screen, and said something to his wife. She came out from behind it, -with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me.... They served -me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the -landlord's wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending -down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and -half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure." - -The "Blue Boar" in Whitechapel is referred to, and the "County Inn" at -Canterbury, identified with the "Fountain," where Mr. Dick slept. The -"little inn" in that same city, where Mr. Micawber stayed, and might have -said--but didn't--that he "resided, in short, 'put up,'" there, is -claimed to be the "Sun," but how, of all the little inns of -Canterbury--and there are many--the "Sun" should so decisively claim the -honour is beyond the wit of man to tell. It is an old, old inn that, -rather mistakenly, calls itself an "hotel," and the peaked, red-tiled -roof, the projecting upper storey, bracketed out upon ancient timbers, are -evidence enough that it was in being many centuries before the foreign -word "hotel" became acclimatised in this country. One may dine, or lunch, -or tea at the "Sun," in the ghostly company of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, but -although warm culinary scents may be noticed with satisfaction by the -hungry pilgrim, he misses the "flabby perspiration on the walls," -mentioned in the book. True, it is a feature readily spared. - -In the _Uncommercial Traveller_ a reference to the "Crispin and -Crispianus," at Strood, is found. It is a humble, weather-boarded inn, -whose age might be very great or comparatively recent. But, whatever the -age of the present house, there has long been an inn of the name on this -spot, the sign being referred back to St. Crispin's Day, October 25th, -1415, when Agincourt was fought and won. The sign is, however, doubtless -far older than that, and probably was one of the very many religious -inn-signs designed to attract the custom of thirsty wayfarers to Becket's -shrine. - -The brothers Crispin and Crispian were members of a noble family in -ancient Rome, who, professing Christianity, fled to Gaul and supported -themselves by shoemaking in the town of Troyes. They suffered martyrdom -at Soissons, in A.D. 287. The sanctity and benevolence of St. Crispin are -said to have been so great that he would steal leather as material for -shoes for the poor; for which, did he live in our times, he would still be -martyred--in a police-court, to the tune of several months' imprisonment. - -[Illustration: THE "CRISPIN AND CRISPIANUS," STROOD.] - -The picture-sign of the "Crispin and Crispianus" is said to be a copy of a -painting in the church of St. Pantaléon at Troyes, and certainly (but -chiefly because of much varnish, and the dust and grime of the road) looks -very Old-Masterish. The two saints, seated uncomfortably close to one -another, and looking very sheepish, appear to be cutting out a piece of -leather to the order of an interesting and gigantic pirate. - -A mysterious incident occurred in 1830 at this house, in the death of a -man who had acted as ostler at the coaching inns of Rochester and Chatham, -and had afterwards tramped the country as a hawker. He lay here dying, in -an upper room, and told the doctor who was called to him the almost -incredible story that he was really Charles Parrott Hanger, Earl of -Coleraine, and not "Charley Roberts," the name he had usually been known -by for twenty years. Although his life had been so squalid and apparently -poverty-stricken, he left £1,000 to his son, Charles Henry Hanger. - -The "Crispin and Crispianus," in common with most other erstwhile humble -inns, has experienced a social levelling-up since the time when Dickens -mentioned it as a house where tramping tinkers and itinerant clock-makers, -coming into Strood "yonder, by the blasted ash," might lie. In these -times, when the blasted dust of the Dover road is the most noticeable -feature, and a half-century has effected all manner of wonderful changes, -tramps and their kin find no harbourage at the old house, whose invitation -to cyclists and amateur photographers sufficiently emphasises its improved -status. - -In _Great Expectations_ is found a notice of the "Cross Keys," Wood -Street, Cheapside, a coaching inn abolished in the '70's; but it is merely -an incidental reference, on the occasion of Pip's coming to London by -coach from Rochester. The inns of that story are, indeed, not well seen, -and although that little boarded inn at Cooling, the "Horseshoe and -Castle," is identified as the "Three Jolly Bargemen" of the tale, you can -find in those pages no illuminating descriptive phrase on which to put -your finger and say, conscientiously, "Found!" - -Only at the close of the story, where, in Chapter LIV., Pip is -endeavouring to smuggle the convict, Magwitch, out of the country, down -the Thames, do we find an inn easily identified. That is the melancholy -waterside house below Gravesend, standing solitary on a raised bank of -stones, where Pip lands: "It was a dirty place enough, and I daresay not -unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good fire in the -kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various liquors to -drink. Also there were two double-bedded rooms--'such as they were,' the -landlord said." Outside there was mud: mud and slimy stones, and rotten, -slimy stakes sticking out of the water, and a grey outlook across the -broad river. - -This describes the actual "Ship and Lobster" tavern, on the shore at -Denton, below Gravesend, to which you come past the tramway terminus, down -a slummy street chiefly remarkable for grit and broken bottles, then -across the railway and the canal and on to the riverside where, in midst -of the prevalent grittiness that is now the most outstanding natural -feature, stands the inn, in company with the office of an alarming person -who styles himself "Explosive Lighterman," at Denton Wharf. - -There are even fewer inns to be found in _Our Mutual Friend_, where, -although the "Red Lion" at Henley is said to be the original of the -up-river inn to whose lawn Lizzie drags the half-drowned Wrayburn, we are -not really sure that Henley actually is indicated. That mention of a lawn -does not suffice: many riverside inns have lawns. In short, the edge of -Dickens's appreciation of inns was growing blunted, and he took less -delight, as he grew older, in describing their peculiarities. His whole -method of story-telling was changed. Instead of the sprightly fancy and -odd turns of observation that once fell spontaneously from him, he at last -came to laboriously construct and polish the action and conversation of a -novel, leaving in comparative neglect those side-lights upon localities -that help to give most of his writings a permanent value. - -Apart from the novels, we have many inns associated with Dickens by -tradition and in his tours and racily descriptive letters; and there, at -any rate, we find him, when not overweighted with the more than ever -elaborated and melodramatic character of his plots, just as full of -quaint, fanciful, and cheerful description as ever. - -[Illustration: THE "SHIP AND LOBSTER."] - -His tours began early. So far back as the autumn of 1838 Dickens and Phiz -took holiday in the midlands, coming at last to Shrewsbury, where they -stayed at the "Lion," or rather in what was at that time an annexe of the -"Lion," and has long since become a private house. Writing to his elder -daughter, Dickens vividly described this place: "We have the strangest -little rooms (sitting-room and two bedrooms together) the ceilings of -which I can touch with my hand. The windows bulge out over the street, as -if they were little stern windows in a ship. And a door opens out of the -sitting-room on to a little open gallery with plants in it, where one -leans over a queer old rail." - -Mr. Kitton[18] states: "This quaint establishment, alas! has been -modernised (if not entirely rebuilt) since those days, and presents -nothing of the picturesqueness that attracted the author of _Pickwick_." -But that is by no means the case. It stands exactly as it did, except that -since the business of the "Lion" has decreased, it no longer forms a part -of that great hostelry.[19] The blocked-up communicating doors between the -two buildings may still be seen on the staircase of the "Lion," and the -little house does still bulge over the pavement and closely resemble the -stern of an old man-o'-war. - -_The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices_, a light-hearted account of a tour -taken by Dickens and Wilkie Collins in 1857, begins with the travellers -being set down by the express at Carlisle, and ends, after many wanderings -in Cumberland and Lancashire, at Doncaster. It is largely an account of -inns, including the "Queen's Head," Hesket Newmarket, in Cumberland, -now a private house; and the "King's Arms," Market Street, Lancaster, -pulled down in 1880. The "King's Arms" was, from the exterior, commonplace -personified, but within doors you were surrounded by ancient oaken -staircases, mahogany panelling, and, according to Dickens, mystic old -servitors in black; and doubtless were so encompassed with mysteries and -forebodings that when you retired to rest--not being able in such a house -to merely "go to bed"--in one of the catafalque-like four-posters, you -immediately leapt between the sheets and drew the clothes over your head, -in fear of ghosts; dreaming uncomfortably that you were dead and lying in -state, and waking with a terrific start in the morning, at the coming of -the hot water and the tap at the door, with the dreadful impression that -the Day of Judgment was come and you summoned to account before the Most -High. These being the most remarkable features of the "King's Arms" at -Lancaster, it is perhaps not altogether strange that the house was at -length demolished and replaced by an uninteresting modern hotel, with no -associations--and no ghosts. - -[Illustration: THE "LION," SHREWSBURY, SHOWING THE ANNEXE ADJOINING, WHERE -DICKENS STAYED.] - -A weird story was told of the old inn, by which it seems that a young -bride was poisoned there, in a room pointed out as the "Bride's Chamber," -the criminal being duly hanged at Lancaster gaol. In memory of this -traditional romance, it was the custom to serve the incoming guests with a -piece of bride-cake. They might also, if they liked, sleep in the very -identical ancient black oak four-poster, in the room where the tragedy -took place; but, although there was sufficient eagerness to see it in -daylight, no very great competition was ever observed among guests for the -honour of occupying--we will not say sleeping in--that tragical couch. -Dickens himself, however, lay in it, and seems to have slept sufficiently -well; greatly, we may suppose, to his disappointment. - -Among those inns that no Dickensian neglects is "Jack Straw's Castle," on -Hampstead Heath, a house as commonplace and as little like any castle of -romance as it is possible to conceive. How else could it be? It was built -as a private residence in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, -with various additions and alterations, each one vulgarising the house a -step further, it now is little better than a London "public." The -Dickensian association is here a personal one, and somewhat thin at that. -It does not form a scene in any one of his stories, but was a house he -sometimes affected in his suburban walks. In 1837 we find him writing to -that "harbitrary gent," Forster, inviting him to a winter's walk across -the Heath, and adding, "I knows a good 'ous there where we can have a -red-hot chop for dinner and a glass of good wine." "This," says Forster, -"led to our first experience of 'Jack Straw's Castle,' memorable for many -happy meetings in coming years." - -How do myths germinate and sprout? Are they invented, or do they spring -spontaneously into being? Two myths cling to "Jack Straw's Castle": the -one that it stands upon the site of a fort thrown up by that peasant -leader in the reign of Richard the Second; the other that Dickens not only -visited the house, but often stayed there, a chair called "Dickens's Easy -Chair" being shown in what is represented as having been his bedroom. The -Great Dickens Legend is now well on its way, and the inns "where he -stayed" will at no distant day match the apocryphal "Queen Elizabeth's -Bedrooms" that amaze the historical student with their number. - -[Illustration: "JACK STRAW'S CASTLE."] - -The "Jack Straw" legend is old, although by no means so old as the house. -It is probable that the house was built on the site of some ancient -earthwork, but that might have been either much older or much later than -Jack Straw; and in any case history has nothing to say about the spot. - -The first reference to the inn by its present name appears to be in the -report of a horse-race on the Heath in 1748. In the same year an allusion -to it in Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_ speaks merely of "The Castle." - -The illustration printed here shows the bow-window of a good many years -ago, a somewhat picturesque feature now abolished in favour of an ugly -modern front. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -HIGHWAYMEN'S INNS - - -There is no doubt that, in a certain sense, all inns were anciently -hand-in-glove with the highwaymen. No hostelry so respectable that it -could safely give warranty for its ostlers without-doors and its servants -within. Mine host might be above suspicion, but not all his dependants; -and the gentlemen of the high toby commonly learnt from the staffs of the -inns what manner of guests lay there, what their saddle-bags or valises -held, and whither they were bound. No wealthy traveller, coming to his inn -overnight in those far-distant times, with pistols fully loaded and -primed, dared set forth again without narrowly examining his weapons, -whose charges, he would be not unlikely to discover, had mysteriously been -drawn since his arrival, and perhaps his sword fixed by some unknown -agency immovably in its scabbard. You figure such an one, too hurried at -his starting to look closely into his equipment, come unexpectedly in the -presence of a highwayman, and, his armoury thus raided, falling an easy -prey. - -These dangers of the wayside inns, and even of the greater and more -responsible hostelries in considerable towns, were so well known that -literature, from the time of Queen Elizabeth until that of the earlier -Georges, is full of them. Indeed, that singular person, John Clavel, -worthless and dissolute sprig of an ancient and respectable landed family -in Dorsetshire, especially recounts them in his very serious pamphlet, the -_Recantation of an Ill-led Life_, written from his prison-cell in the -King's Bench in 1627, and printed in the following year. He inscribes -himself "Gentleman" on his title-page, and in his "discouerie of the -High-way Law," written in verse, proceeds to "round upon" his late -confederates in the spirit of the sneak. All this was in the hope of a -pardon, which he apparently obtained, for he was at liberty, and still -renouncing his former evil courses, in 1634. - -One of the important heads of his pamphlet, addressed to travellers, is -"How a Traveller should carry himself at his inn." His advice reads -nowadays like that supererogatory kind generally known as "teaching your -grandmother to suck eggs"; but when we consider closely that in those -times knowledge was not widely diffused, and that to most people a journey -was a rare and toilsome experience, to be undertaken only at long -intervals and long afterwards talked of, John Clavel's directions to -wayfarers may have been really valuable. His pamphlet must, for some -reason or another, have been largely purchased, for three editions of it -are known. - -Thus he warns the traveller come to his inn: - - Oft in your clothier's and your grazier's inn, - You shall have chamberlains that there have been - Plac'd purposely by thieves, or else consenting - By their large bribes, and by their often tempting, - That mark your purses drawn, and give a guess - What's there, within a little, more or less. - Then will they grip your cloak-bags, feel their weight: - There's likewise in mine host sometimes deceit: - If it be left in charge with him all night, - Unto his roaring guests he gives a light, - Who spend full thrice as much in wine and beer - As you in those and all your other cheer. - -But the classic and most outstanding literary reference to these dark -features of old-time innkeeping is found in Shakespeare, in the First Part -of _King Henry the Fourth_. The scene is Rochester: an inn yard. Enter a -carrier, with a lantern in his hand, in the hours before daybreak. - - _1 Car._ Heigh ho! An't be not four by the day, I'll be hanged: - Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. - What, ostler! - - _Ost._ [_Within._] Anon, anon. - - _1 Car._ I pr'ythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the - point; the poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess. - - _Enter another_ Carrier. - - _2 Car._ Pease and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the - next way to give poor jades the bots: this house is turned upside - down, since Robin ostler died. - - _1 Car._ Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was - the death of him. - - _2 Car._ I think this be the most villainous house in all London road - for fleas: I am stung like a tench. - - _1 Car._ Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne'er a king in - Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock. - - _2 Car._ Why, they will allow us ne'er a jordan, and then we leak in - your chimney; and your chamber lie breeds fleas like a loach. - - _1 Car._ What, ostler! come away, and be hanged, come away. - - _2 Car._ I have a gammon of bacon, and two razes of ginger, to be - delivered as far as Charing-cross. - - _1 Car._ Odsbody! the turkies in my pannier are quite starved.--What, - ostler!--A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst - not hear? An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to break the pate of - thee, I am a very villain.--Come, and be hanged:--Hast no faith in - thee? - - _Enter_ Gadshill. - - _Gads._ Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock? - - _1 Car._ I think it be two o'clock. - - _Gads._ I pr'ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the - stable. - - _1 Car._ Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that, - i'faith. - - _Gads._ I pr'ythee, lend me thine. - - _2 Car._ Ay, when? canst tell?--Lend me thy lantern, quoth a?--marry, - I'll see thee hanged first. - - _Gads._ Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London? - - _2 Car._ Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant - thee.--Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen; they will - along with company, for they have great charge. - - [_Exeunt_ Carriers. - - _Gads._ What, ho! chamberlain! - - _Cham._ [_Within._] At hand, quoth pick-purse. - - _Gads._ That's even as fair as--at hand, quoth the chamberlain: for - thou variest no more from picking of purses, than giving direction - doth from labouring; thou lay'st the plot how. - - _Enter_ Chamberlain. - - _Cham._ Good morrow, master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you - yesternight: There's a franklin in the wild of Kent, hath brought - three hundred marks with him in gold: I heard him tell it to one of - his company, last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath - abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call - for eggs and butter: They will away presently. - - _Gads._ Sirrah, if they meet not with saint Nicholas' clerks, I'll - give thee this neck. - - _Cham._ No, I'll none of it: I pr'ythee, keep that for the hangman; - for, I know, thou worship'st saint Nicholas as truly as a man of - falsehood may. - - _Gads._ What talkest thou to me of the hangman? if I hang, I'll make a - fat pair of gallows: for, if I hang, old sir John hangs with me; and, - thou knowest, he's no starveling. Tut! there are other Trojans that - thou dreamest not of, the which, for sport sake, are content to do the - profession some grace; that would, if matters should be looked into, - for their own credit sake, make all whole. I am joined with no foot - land-rakers, no long-staff, six-penny strikers; none of these mad, - mustachio purple-hued malt-worms: but with nobility, and tranquillity; - burgomasters, and great oneyers; such as can hold in; such as will - strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink - sooner than pray: And yet I lie; for they pray continually to their - saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; - for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots. - - _Cham._ What, the commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in - foul way? - - _Gads._ She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in - a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk - invisible. - - _Cham._ Nay, by my faith; I think you are more beholden to the night, - than to fern-seed, for your walking invisible. - - _Gads._ Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as - I am a true man. - - _Cham._ Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. - - _Gads._ Go to; _Homo_ is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler - bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. - - [_Exeunt._ - -There was never any lack of evidence as to the complicity of innkeepers in -the doings of highwaymen. When John Nevison and his associates were tried -at York in 1684, for highway robbery, their headquarters were stated, on -oath, to have been at the "Talbot," Newark, where the landlord was -"supposed" to be cognisant of their business, and the ostler was known to -have been in their pay. Nevison, it should be said, was the man who really -did ride horseback to York in one day. He achieved the feat, and -established the celebrated _alibi_ by it, in 1676, before Turpin (who -never did anything of the kind) was born. But at last, in 1684, the end -came. He was arrested at the still existing "Three Houses" inn, at Sandal, -near Wakefield, and being found guilty, was executed on Knavesmire, York, -on May 4th, in that year. - -[Illustration: THE "THREE HOUSES INN," SANDAL.] - -A rather startling sidelight on these old-time aspects of inns was the -discovery, in 1903, of an ancient and long unsuspected staircase at the -"Bush," Farnham. In the course of extensive repairs the builders came upon -a staircase that had once led up among the rafters of the oldest part of -the house; and it was presumed by those learned in the history of that -picturesque Surrey town that, by connivance of the landlord at some -distant period, it was used by highwaymen as a hiding-place when hard -pressed. Near by the stairway a number of old coins were found, but most -of them were so worn and obliterated, that it was an impossibility to read -the date or any other part of the inscription. - -[Illustration: THE "CROWN" INN, HEMPSTEAD.] - -The most famous highwayman of all time--famous in a quite arbitrary and -irrational way, for he was at the bottom, rather than at the head of his -profession--is Dick Turpin, who was born at Hempstead, in Essex, in 1705, -at the "Crown" inn, his father being landlord of that hostelry, which -still faces the road, and looks on to the lane that winds up to the -village church. There is much that is appropriate, if you do but consider -it, in one who is to be a highwayman and finally to be hanged, being born -in a place called Hempstead; but this by the way. The ring of old trees -planted on an ancient circular earthwork beside the lane opposite his -birthplace (and seen in the illustration) is known locally as Turpin's -Ring. - -The youthful Turpin began his career as apprentice to a Whitechapel -butcher, and while still serving his indentures started his course of low -villainy by stealing some cattle from a Plaistow farmer. Fleeing from -justice, he joined a band of smugglers and sheep-stealers who had their -head-quarters in Epping Forest, and their store-house in a cave in the -neighbourhood of Chingford; a spot now occupied by a singularly -commonplace modern beer-house, like a brick box, named from this romantic -circumstance, "Turpin's Cave." - -A reward of fifty guineas was offered for the arrest of this precious -gang, but it was not until the amount was doubled that things grew -dangerous, and the unholy brotherhood was broken up. Turpin then took to -scouring the roads singly, until he met with Tom King, with whom he -entered into a partnership that lasted until he accidentally shot King -dead when aiming at a police-officer who was endeavouring to arrest both, -at the "Red Lion," Whitechapel, in 1737. - -[Illustration: "TURPIN'S CAVE," NEAR CHINGFORD.] - -His partner dead, Turpin, finding London too hot to hold him, removed -quietly to Welton, a Yorkshire village ten miles from Beverley, where he -set up as a gentleman horse-dealer, Palmer by name. He had not long been -domiciled in those parts before the farmers and others began to lose their -horses in a most unaccountable way, and so they might have continued to -lose and not discover the hand that spoiled them, but for the coarse and -brutal nature that was Turpin's undoing. Returning from a shooting -excursion in which he had apparently not succeeded in shooting anything, -the self-styled "Palmer" wantonly shot one of his neighbours' fowls. The -neighbour remonstrated with him and probably suggested that it required a -good shot to bring down game but that the domestic rooster was an easy -mark for a poor sportsman, whereupon the "gentlemanly horse-dealer" -threatened to serve him in the same way. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN DRAGON," WELTON.] - -One did not, even in 1739, threaten people with impunity and shot-guns. -Something unpleasant generally resulted; and "Palmer" was accordingly -arrested at the "Green Dragon" inn, Welton, on a charge of brawling; being -afterwards haled before the magistrates assembled at Petty Sessions at -Beverley, where, as he could produce no friends to speak on his behalf, -he was put back for further inquiries. Those inquiries resulted in his -being charged with stealing a black mare, blind of an eye, off Heckington -Common. In fiction--and especially in fiction as practised by Harrison -Ainsworth--Turpin at this point would in some way have sprung upon the -back of Black Bess, come ready to hand from nowhere in particular, and -would have been carried off triumphantly from the midst of his "enemies"; -but these things do not happen in real life, and he was, instead, lodged -in York Castle. Thence he wrote from his dungeon cell a letter to his -brother at Hempstead, imploring him in some way to cook him up a -character. This letter was not prepaid, and the brother, not recognising -the handwriting, refused to pay the sixpence for it demanded by the Post -Office. - -[Illustration: THE "THREE MAGPIES," SIPSON GREEN.] - -See now from what trivial incidents great issues hang. The village -postmaster chanced to be identical with the schoolmaster who had taught -Turpin to write. He was a man of public spirit, and travelled to York and -identified the prisoner there as the man who had been "wanted" for many -crimes. It was on April 17th, 1739, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, -that Dick Turpin was hanged on Knavesmire, York, and since then he has -become very much of a hero: perhaps the sorriest, the most sordid and -absolutely commonplace scoundrel that was ever raised on so undeserved a -pedestal. - -No district was more affected by highwaymen in the old days than Hounslow -Heath, and the fork of the roads, where the two great highways to Bath and -Exeter set out upon their several courses at the west end of what was once -Hounslow village and is now Hounslow town, used in those brave old days to -be decorated with a permanent gibbet, rarely without its scarecrow -occupant, in the shape of some tattered robber, strung up as a warning to -his fellows. Prominent amongst many stories that belong to this stretch of -country is that of the murder of Mr. Mellish, brother of the then Member -of Parliament for Grimsby, on a night in 1798, when returning from a day's -hunting with the King's Buckhounds in Windsor Forest. The carriage in -which his party were seated was passing the lonely old beerhouse called -the "Old Magpies," at Sipson Green, at half-past eight, when it was -attacked by three footpads. One held the horses' heads, while the other -two guarded the windows, firing a shot through them, to terrify the -occupants. No resistance was offered to the demand for money, and purses -and bank-notes were handed over, as a matter of course. Then the carriage -was allowed to proceed, a parting shot being fired after it. That shot -struck the unfortunate Mr. Mellish in the forehead, and he died shortly -after being removed to an upper room in an adjoining inn, still standing, -the "Three Magpies." The older and more humble inn, heavily thatched and -with a beetle-browed and sinister look, where the footpads had been -drinking before the attack, makes a picture, in the melodramatic sort, on -the Bath Road, even to-day. - -[Illustration: THE "OLD MAGPIES."] - -A very curious and authentic relic of those old times is found in that -secluded little inn, the "Green Man," a most innocent-looking, white, -plaster-faced house that seems a very bower of rustic simplicity and -guilelessness, standing at Hatton--"Hatton-in-the-Hinterland" as one feels -tempted to style it--a rural hamlet, "the world forgetting, by the world -forgot," tucked away in the beautiful orchard country between the angle -formed by those branching Bath and Exeter roads westward of Hounslow town. -It is to-day, as I have said, a beautiful district of orchards, where the -pink and white of the apple-blossom delights the eye in spring, and the -daffodil grows. There is an old rustic pound at Hatton, and in front of -the "Green Man" an idyllic pond where ducks quack and dive; and everything -seems as pure and unspotted from the world as those white Aylesbury ducks -themselves would appear to be. But Hatton is a Place with a Past, and the -"Green Man" not so green as you might suppose. For here spread the lonely -and sinister Heath, in days gone by, and at the "Green Man" the highwaymen -of the district, who all cherished the most magnificent thirsts, and would -not readily barter them away, foregathered in the intervals between -offering wayfarers an unwelcome choice between rendering money or life. -Sometimes the Bow Street runners--so called, in the contrariwise spirit, -because they never by any chance ran, unless it might be away--would, -daring very much indeed, poke inquisitive noses into the "Green Man," but -they never found any one more suspicious there than a drunken carter. For -why? Because in the little parlour on the left-hand side as you enter, -there is a veritable highwayman's hiding-hole at the back of the -old-fashioned grate, filling what was once an old-world chimney-corner. -Into this snug, not to say over-warm and possibly sooty place, one of the -starlight conveyers of property upon the Heath could creep on emergency -and wait until danger passed off. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN MAN," HATTON.] - -[Illustration: THE HIGHWAYMAN'S HIDING-HOLE.] - -That Putney Heath was a favourite resort of the gentry of the horse-pistol -and crape mask is a mere commonplace to the student of these byways of -history, and, however little it may be suspected by those who look in -casually at the "Green Man" that stands on the crest of Putney Hill, where -the Heath and the Portsmouth Road begin, that house was in the old days -rightly suspect. About it--and no doubt also in it--lurked that bright and -shining light of the craft, Jerry Avershawe, that bold spirit who, after -making his name a name of dread, and Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common -places to be avoided by all travellers with money and valuables to lose, -died on the scaffold at Kennington in 1795, in his twenty-second year. - -Footpads, too, frequented the "Green Man": despicable fellows, who were to -highwaymen what "German silver" and "American cloth" are to the real -articles. The footpads waited for revellers who had taken too much liquor -and were zig-zagging their unsteady way home, before they dared attack. A -curious little incident in this sort was enacted in 1773 at the "Green -Man." Two convivial fellows drinking there had been watched by two -footpads named William Brown and Joseph Witlock. When the two jolly topers -came forth and corkscrewed a devious course home-along, Messrs. Brown and -Witlock set upon them and secured the highly desirable booty of twenty -guineas and some snuff-boxes and pen-knives. It was ill gleaning for any -other of the fraternity, after thoroughgoing practitioners like these had -gone over the pockets of the lieges. The smallest involuntary -contributions were gratefully received, and they condescended even to -relieve a baker's boy of his little all, which was little indeed: -consisting of a silver buckle and some halfpence. It is rather -satisfactory, after all this, to learn that Messrs. Brown and Witlock were -hanged. - -The "Green Man" still keeps a stout, bolt-studded door, and the house, -seen across the road from where the large old-fashioned pound for strayed -horses, donkeys, and cattle stands on the Heath, presents a charming -scene. - -The "Spaniards" inn, that picturesque and picturesquely situated old -house, built about 1630, in what was then an extremely lonely situation on -the roadside between Hampstead and Highgate, stands actually in the parish -of Finchley. It occupies the site of a lodge-entrance into what was once -the Bishop of London's great rural park of Finchley, where there stood -until quite modern times a toll-gate that took tribute of all wayfarers. -The odd little toll-house itself is still a feature of the scene, and may -be noted on the left hand of the illustration. - -How the "Spaniards" derived its name is rather a matter of conjecture than -of ascertained, sheer, cold-drawn fact. If the generally received version -be correct, the name should be spelled with an apostrophe "s," to denote a -single individual; for, according to that story, the original lodge was -taken over by a Spaniard about 1620, and converted into a place of -entertainment for Londoners, who even then had begun to frequent -Hampstead and the Heath. The fact that the Spanish Ambassador, Gondomar, -retiring from the danger of plague in the infected air of London, resided -at neighbouring Highgate, 1620-22, may possibly have some bearing upon the -question. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN MAN," PUTNEY.] - -It becomes a little difficult to believe in the "Spaniards" being so early -a place of popular resort; but, shaming the incredulous, there stands the -old house, visibly old, undoubtedly large and designed for the conduct of -a considerable business, and still comparatively lonely. It is also one of -those very few houses, out of an incredibly large number, which really can -make out a good claim to have been frequented by Dick Turpin. This spot -was well within the "Turpin Country," so to speak, as one speaks of -literary landmarks; it was included in his "sphere of influence," as they -say in international politics; or simply (as a policeman might put it) was -"on his beat." Turpin has so taken hold of the imagination that you find -legends of him in the most impossible places, but his real centre of -activity, before he fled into Yorkshire, was Epping Forest, and a radius -of twenty miles from Chingford just about covers his province. - -It is only in modern times that the "Spaniards" has been anxious to claim -Turpin. In that hero's period, and when highwaymen still haunted dark -roads and were hand-in-glove with many innkeepers, the "Spaniards" was no -doubt just as anxious to disclaim any such association. Thus we do not -find, in any memoirs of former landlords, "Turpin as I knew Him," or -anything of that kind. It is a pity, for we are in such a case reduced to -accept legends, and Heaven and the inquirer into these things alone know -what lies these legends tell. At the "Spaniards," however, we accept the -tradition that mine host, throughout a long series of years, had an -excellent understanding with the whole fraternity of road-agents, and with -Turpin in particular. - -[Illustration: THE "SPANIARDS," HAMPSTEAD HEATH.] - -It is not necessary to this general belief to place one's faith in the -truth of the stable attached to the house having been that of Black Bess, -because we know that famous mare to have been entirely the figment of -Harrison Ainsworth's imagination; and the quaint old tower-like -garden-house seen on the right hand of the accompanying picture of the inn -is itself so picturesquely suggestive of headlong flights and pursuits -that, whether Turpin _did_ hide in it, or not, it is obviously demanded by -all the canons of the picturesque that he _should_ be made to do so--and -accordingly he is. Thus we read: "This outhouse was a favourite -resting-place for Turpin, and many a time on the late return of the -marauder has it served as a bedroom. The underground passages that led to -the inn itself have been filled up, years ago. Formerly, here Dick was -safe enough. Were the two doors attacked by unpleasant visitors, he dived -through the secret trap-door into the underground apartment, there to -await the departure of the raging officers, or to betake himself to the -inn, if that were clear of attack." - -Oh! those "secret passages" and "underground apartments"! Do we not meet -them (in legend) everywhere? And have they not invariably been "filled up" -long ago? - -Forty-one years after Turpin had been hanged we find the "Spaniards" in -touch with actual, unquestionable history. June, 1780, was the time of the -"No Popery Riots" in London, when Newgate was fired by the mob, and half a -million pounds' worth of damage was done to business houses and private -residences. The Earl of Mansfield's town house, in Bloomsbury Square, was -destroyed, and the mob, pleased with their handiwork there, determined to -complete their revenge on the obnoxious judge by treating his country -mansion at Caen Wood in the same manner. - -Caen Wood still stands hard by the "Spaniards," which you must pass in -order to come to it from London. Here the landlord stood, with the tollbar -behind him, like another Horatius in the gate, and met the rioters as they -came with pikes and "No Popery" flags, and torches and firelocks, -streaming along the road. They were an unsuspicious mob, and a thirsty, -and when mine host invited them to partake of his best, free of charge, -and even to wallow in it, if they would, they did not stop to ask the -motive of such extraordinary generosity, but took him at his word and sat -boozing there until the detachment of Horse Guards, sent up in response to -the mounted messenger despatched by the landlord, had time to dispose -themselves in the Caen Wood grounds, and so to overawe their undisciplined -force. - -A very great deal of the "Spaniards'" picturesqueness is due to the rustic -setting of narrow lane and tall elms that frames it in, but that story of -the resourceful landlord and his artful way with those London furies gives -the house and the scenery a final dramatic touch. You fancy, if you stroll -that way some June evening, that you see him, in old-fashioned -dress--buckled shoes, worsted stockings, knee-breeches, scrubby -wig--standing in the roadway, tankard in one hand, churchwarden pipe in -the other, with assumed joviality confronting a rabble in equal parts -drunk and mad. You see the banner, "No Popery!" you hear the curses -and--without the aid of imagination, for the "Spaniards" is a going -concern--smell the drink. And presently you hear the gallop of the Horse -Guards and the rattle and jingle of their accoutrements. - -But you must not by any means come here on Easter Monday or any other -occasion of popular holiday, for amidst such wholesale merry-making -imagination becomes atrophied, and the ghosts of historic drama will not -condescend to share the stage with twentieth-century comedy. - - -_Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ - - - - -INDEX - - - Adelphi Hotel, Adelphi, i. 212, 264 - - Ale-stakes, i. 14-17 - - Anchor, Ripley, ii. 212, 242 - - Angel, Basingstoke, ii. 279 - - -- Bury St. Edmunds, i. 238 - - -- Colchester, i. 90 - - -- Ferrybridge, ii. 81 - - -- Grantham, i. 118-123 - - -- Guildford, ii. 57 - - -- Islington, i. 119 - - -- Stilton, ii. 48 - - Ass-in-the-Bandbox, Nidd, ii. 203 - - - Barge Aground, Brentford, ii. 203 - - -- Stratford High Road, ii. 203 - - Battle, Pilgrims' Hostel at, i. 97 - - Bay Tree Tavern, St. Swithin's Lane, ii. 290 - - Bear, Devizes, ii. 8-16 - - -- Esher, ii. 116 - - -- and Billet, Chester, ii. 74 - - Bear's Head, Brereton, ii. 62 - - Beaufort Arms, Bath, i. 254 - - Beckhampton Inn, i. 238 - - Bee-Hive, Eaumont Bridge, ii. 138 - - -- Grantham, ii. 192 - - Beetle-and-Wedge, Moulsford, ii. 195 - - Bell, Barnby Moor, i. 60, ii. 55, 81 - - -- Belbroughton, ii. 245 - - -- Berkeley Heath, i. 256 - - -- Dale Abbey, ii. 88, 90 - - -- Stilton, ii. 48-54 - - -- Tewkesbury, ii. 283-287 - - -- Warwick Lane, London, i. 30 - - -- Woodbridge, ii. 112 - - Bell and Mackerel, Mile End, ii. 129 - - Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, i. 229 - - Berkeley Arms, Tewkesbury, ii. 288 - - Birch Tree Tavern, St. Swithin's Lane, ii. 290 - - Black Bear, Sandbach, ii. 58 - - -- -- Tewkesbury, ii. 289 - - -- Boy, Chelmsford, i. 242 - - -- Bull, Holborn, i. 288-290 - - -- -- Newcastle-on-Tyne, i. 53 - - -- Horse, Cherhill, i. 232 - - -- Jack, Clare Market, i. 242-244 - - -- Swan, Kirkby Moorside, ii. 267 - - Blue Bell, Barnby Moor, i. 60, ii. 55, 81 - - -- Boar, Leicester, i. 202 - - -- -- Whitechapel, i. 291 - - -- Dragon, near Salisbury, i. 282-288 - - -- Lion, Muggleton, _i.e._ Town Malling, i. 226 - - -- Posts, Chester, i. 155-158 - - -- -- Portsmouth, ii. 137 - - Boar, Bluepitts, near Rochdale, ii. 197 - - Boar's Head, Eastcheap, ii. 253, 261 - - -- Middleton, ii. 218 - - Boot, Chester, ii. 78 - - Bottom Inn, Chalton Downs, near Petersfield, i. 270-274 - - Buck and Bell, Long Itchington, ii. 130 - - Bull, Dartford, i. 79-82 - - -- Fenny Stratford, ii. 111 - - -- Rochester, i. 221-223 - - -- Sissinghurst, ii. 244 - - -- Whitechapel, i. 242, 245 - - Bull and Mouth, St. Martin's-le-Grand, i. 228 - - Bull's Head, Meriden, ii. 80 - - -- Greengate, Salford, i. 7 - - Burford Bridge Hotel, near Dorking, ii. 273 - - Bush, Bristol, i. 255 - - -- Farnham, i. 309 - - - Capel Curig Inn, ii. 254 - - Carnarvon Castle, Chester, ii. 77 - - -- Arms, Guildford Street, ii. 289 - - Cart Overthrown, Edmonton, ii. 203 - - Castle, Conway, ii. 122 - - -- Marlborough, i. 60, ii. 8, 90-99 - - Cat and Fiddle, near Buxton, ii. 147 - - -- near Christchurch, ii. 181 - - Cat and Mutton, London Fields, ii. 139 - - Cats, Sevenoaks, ii. 191 - - Chapel House, near Chipping Norton, ii. 100-106 - - Cheney Gate, near Congleton, ii. 139 - - Chequers, Slapestones, ii. 134 - - -- of the Hope, Canterbury, i. 85 - - Civil Usage, Brixham, ii. 203 - - Clayton Arms, Godstone, ii. 30-34 - - Coach and Dogs, Oswestry, ii. 200 - - Coach and Horses, Chalton Downs, near Petersfield, i. 270 - - Coach and Horses, Isleworth, i. 276 - - Cock, Eaton Socon, i. 267 - - -- Great Budworth, ii. 69-71 - - -- Stony Stratford, ii. 43, 47 - - Cock and Pymat, Whittington, near Chesterfield, i. 181-184 - - County Inn, Canterbury, i. 291 - - Craven Arms, near Church Stretton, ii. 47 - - Cricketers, Laleham, ii. 167 - - Crispin and Crispianus, Strood, i. 292-295 - - Cross Hands, near Chipping Sodbury, ii. 85 - - Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, i. 295 - - Crow-on-Gate, Crowborough, ii. 205 - - Crown, Chiddingfold, ii. 242 - - -- Hempstead, i. 310 - - -- Oxford, ii. 101 - - -- Rochester, i. 223-225 - - -- Stamford, ii. 158 - - Crown and Treaty, Uxbridge, i. 161-169 - - Custom House, Chester, ii. 77 - - - Dale Abbey, ii. 88-90 - - Dedlock Arms, i. 290 - - De Quincey, T., on old inns, i. 57, ii. 274-279 - - Dial House, Bocking, ii. 226 - - Dick Whittington, Cloth Fair, i. 4 - - Dolphin, Potter Heigham, i. 159 - - Domus Dei, Southampton, i. 90 - - Dorset Arms, East Grinstead, ii. 35 - - Duchy Hotel, Princetown, ii. 149 - - - Eagle and Child, Nether Alderley, ii. 209 - - Edinburgh Castle, Limehouse, ii. 106-108 - - -- Regent's Park, ii. 126-128 - - Eight Bells, Twickenham, ii. 200 - - Epitaphs on Innkeepers, ii. 245-254 - - - Falcon, Bidford, ii. 89 - - -- Chester, ii. 74 - - Falstaff, Canterbury, i. 87 - - Feathers, Ludlow, ii. 18-25 - - Ferry inn, Rosneath, ii. 180 - - Fighting Cocks, St. Albans, i. 4 - - First and Last, Land's End, ii. 206 - - -- Sennen, ii. 206 - - Fish and Eels, Roydon, i. 118 - - Flitch of Bacon, Wichnor, ii. 79 - - Fountain, Canterbury, i. 291 - - Four Crosses, Hatherton, ii. 134 - - Fowler, J. Kearsley, of the White Hart, Aylesbury, i. 62 - - Fox and Hounds, Barley, ii. 153 - - Fox and Pelican, Grayshott, ii. 180 - - Fox-under-the-Hill, Strand, i. 255 - - - Garter, Windsor, ii. 261 - - Gate, Dunkirk, ii. 133 - - Gate Hangs Well, Nottingham, ii. 133 - - Gatehouse Tavern, Norwich, ii. 130 - - George, Amesbury, i. 283-287 - - -- Andover, ii. 16-18 - - -- Bridport, i. 180 - - -- Brighthelmstone, i. 181 - - -- Broadwindsor, i. 180 - - -- Colnbrook, i. 188 - - -- Crawley, ii. 152 - - -- Grantham, i. 267, ii. 55 - - -- Glastonbury, i. 107, 116 - - -- Greta Bridge, i. 268 - - -- Hayes Common, ii. 172 - - -- Huntingdon, ii. 47 - - -- Mere, i. 180 - - -- Norton St. Philip, i. 123-132 - - -- Odiham, ii. 44 - - -- Rochester, i. 82 - - -- St. Albans, i. 117, 119 - - -- Salisbury, ii. 263 - - -- Southwark, i. 31 - - -- Stamford, ii. 154-158 - - -- Walsall, i. 60 - - -- Wanstead, ii. 141 - - -- Winchcombe, i. 132-136 - - George and Dragon, Dragon's Green, ii. 117-119 - - -- Great Budworth, ii. 137 - - -- Wargrave-on-Thames, ii. 176 - - -- West Wycombe, ii. 222 - - George and Vulture, Lombard Street, i. 213, 251, 264 - - George the Fourth, Clare Market, i. 242-244 - - God's House, Portsmouth, i. 89 - - Golden Cross, Charing Cross, i. 213-220, ii. 72, 268 - - Grand Pump Room Hotel, Bath, i. 254 - - Great Western Railway Hotel, Paddington, i. 72 - - Great White Horse, Ipswich, i. 246-251 - - Green Dragon, Alderbury, i. 282-288 - - -- Combe St. Nicholas, ii. 109 - - -- Welton, i. 312 - - -- Wymondham, i. 95 - - Green Man, Hatton, i. 317 - - -- Putney Heath, i. 319 - - Green Man and Black's Head, Ashbourne, ii. 159 - - Grenadier, Whitley, ii. 138 - - Greyhound, Croydon, ii. 153 - - -- Sutton, ii. 153 - - -- Thame, i. 160 - - Guildford Arms, Guildford Street, ii. 290 - - - Halfway House, Rickmansworth, ii. 215 - - Hark to Bounty, Staidburn, ii. 204 - - -- Lasher, Castleton, ii. 204 - - -- Nudger, Dobcross, Manchester, ii. 204 - - -- Towler, Bury, Lancashire, ii. 204 - - Haycock, Wansford, ii. 80 - - Haygate Inn, near Wellington, Salop, ii. 80 - - Hearts of Oak, West Allington, ii. 87 - - Herbergers, i. 25 - - Hop-pole, Tewkesbury, i. 257, ii. 288 - - Horseshoe and Castle, Cooling, i. 295 - - Hostelers, i. 25 - - Hundred-and-One, The, ii. 129 - - Innkeepers, Epitaphs on, ii. 245-254 - - Isle of Skye, near Holmfirth, ii. 148 - - - Jack Straw's Castle, Hampstead Heath, i. 300-302 - - Johnson Dr., on inns, i. 43-46 - - Jolly Farmer, Farnham, ii. 217 - - - Keigwin Arms, Mousehole, ii. 230 - - King and Tinker, Enfield, i. 205-207 - - King Edgar, Chester, ii. 72-74 - - King's Arms, Lancaster, i. 299 - - -- Malmesbury, ii. 293 - - -- Salisbury, i. 180 - - -- Sandwich, ii. 228 - - King's Head, Aylesbury, i. 141-143, ii. 38 - - -- Chigwell, i. 277-283 - - -- Dorking, i. 230 - - -- Stockbridge, ii. 249 - - -- Thame, i. 160 - - -- Yarmouth, i. 207, ii. 114 - - - Labour in Vain, Stourbridge, ii. 199 - - Lamb, Eastbourne, ii. 57 - - Lawrence, Robert, of the "Lion," Shrewsbury, i. 60, ii. 250 - - Leather Bottle, Cobham, Kent, i. 230 - - -- Holborn, ii. 191 - - Leighton, Archbishop, i. 29 - - Lion, Shrewsbury, i. 60, 297, ii. 250, 274-279 - - Lion and Fiddle, Hilperton, ii. 195 - - Lion and Swan, Congleton, ii. 65-67 - - Living Sign, Grantham, ii. 192 - - Load of Mischief, Oxford Street, ii. 162 - - Locker-Lampson, F., on old inns, i. 58 - - Loggerheads, Llanverris, ii. 168 - - Lord Crewe Arms, Blanchland, i. 136-140 - - Lord Warden, Dover, i. 54 - - Luttrell Arms, Dunster, ii. 37-40 - - Lygon Arms, Broadway, ii. 2-8, 244 - - - Magpie, Little Stonham, ii. 153 - - -- and Stump, Clare Market, i. 242 - - Maiden's Head, Uckfield, ii. 37 - - Maid's Head, Norwich, ii. 40-42 - - Maison Dieu, Dover, i. 88 - - -- Ospringe, i. 84 - - Malt Shovel, Sandwich, ii. 228 - - Man Loaded with Mischief, Oxford Street, ii. 162 - - Marlborough Downs, i. 231-238 - - Marquis of Ailesbury's Arms, Manton, i. 232 - - -- Granby, Dorking, i. 230 - - Maund and Bush, near Shifnal, ii. 199 - - Maypole, Chigwell, i. 277-282 - - Miller of Mansfield, Goring-on-Thames, ii. 177 - - Molly Mog, ii. 271 - - Mompesson, Sir Giles, i. 37-41 - - Mortal Man, Troutbeck, ii. 169 - - Morison, Fynes, on English inns, i. 36 - - Music House, Norwich, i. 157 - - - Nag's Head, Thame, i. 160 - - Neptune, Ipswich, ii. 110 - - Newhaven Inn, near Buxton, ii. 255 - - New Inn, Allerton, ii. 80 - - -- Gloucester, i. 98-106 - - -- Greta Bridge, i. 268 - - -- New Romney, ii. 44 - - -- Sherborne, i. 106 - - Newby Head, near Hawes, ii. 149 - - Noah's Ark, Compton, i. 90 - - Nutley Inn, ii. 36 - - - Old Angel, Basingstoke, ii. 279 - - -- Bell, Holborn, i. 30 - - -- -- Chester, ii. 78 - - -- Black Jack, Clare Market, i. 242-244 - - -- Fox, Bricket Wood, ii. 201 - - -- Hall, Sandbach, ii. 58-62 - - -- House at Home, Havant, ii. 220 - - -- King's Head, Aylesbury, i. 141-143, ii. 38 - - -- -- Chester, ii. 77 - - -- Leather Bottle, Cobham, Kent, i. 230 - - -- Magpies, Sipson Green, i. 317 - - -- Rock House, Barton, ii. 196 - - -- Rover's Return, Manchester, i. 7 - - -- Royal Hotel, Birmingham, i. 258, ii. 268 - - -- Ship, Worksop, ii. 226 - - -- Star, York, ii. 158 - - -- Swan, Atherstone, ii. 227 - - -- Tippling Philosopher, Chepstow, ii. 203 - - -- White Swan, Piff's Elm, i. 202-205 - - Osborne's Hotel, Adelphi, i. 212, 264 - - Ostrich, Colnbrook, i. 188-201 - - - Pack Horse and Talbot, Turnham Green, ii. 192 - - Peacock, Eatanswill, i. 230 - - -- Rowsley, ii. 25-29 - - Pelican, Speenhamland, i. 208, ii. 293 - - Penygwryd Hotel, Llanberis, ii. 294-298 - - Pheasant, Winterslow Hut, ii. 102 - - Pickering Arms, Thelwall, ii. 71 - - Pie, Little Stonham, ii. 153 - - Pied Bull, Chester, ii. 78 - - _Piers Plowman_, i. 16-18 - - Piff's Elm, i. 202-205 - - Pilgrims' Hostel, Battle, i. 97 - - -- Compton, i. 90 - - Plough, Blundeston, i. 290 - - -- Ford, ii. 136 - - Pomfret Arms, Towcester, i. 259-263 - - Pounds Bridge, near Penshurst, ii. 220 - - - Queen's Arms, Charmouth, i. 180 - - -- Head, Hesket Newmarket, i. 299 - - -- Hotel, St. Martin's-le-Grand, i. 229 - - -- Burton-on-Trent, ii. 114 - - - Raven, Hook, ii. 86 - - -- Shrewsbury, i. 42, 60 - - Red Bull, Stamford, ii. 158 - - Red Horse, Stratford-on-Avon, ii. 47, 269-271 - - Red Lion, Banbury, i. 146 - - -- Canterbury, i. 51 - - -- Chiswick Mall, ii. 123-125 - - -- Egham, ii. 53-56 - - -- Glastonbury, i. 116 - - -- Great Missenden, ii. 198 - - -- Guildford, ii. 262 - - -- Hampton-on-Thames, ii. 159 - - -- Hatfield, ii. 55 - - -- Henley-on-Thames, ii. 299-301 - - -- High Wycombe, i. 184 - - -- Hillingdon, i. 169 - - -- Martlesham, ii. 113, 165 - - -- Ospringe, i. 84 - - -- Parliament Street, i. 265, 290 - - Reindeer, Banbury, i. 145, 147-155, 169 - - Ridler's Hotel, Holborn, i. 31 - - Robin Hood, Turnham Green, ii. 131 - - -- Cherry Hinton, ii. 131 - - Rose, Wokingham, ii. 271 - - Rose and Crown, Halifax, ii. 273 - - -- Rickmansworth, ii. 215 - - Rover's Return, Shudehill, Manchester, i. 7 - - Row Barge, Wallingford, ii. 178 - - Royal County Hotel, Durham, ii. 55 - - Royal George, Knutsford, ii. 279 - - -- Stroud, ii. 82 - - Royal Hotel, Bath, i. 255 - - -- Bideford, ii. 273 - - Royal Oak, Bettws-y-Coed, ii. 172-175 - - Rummyng, Elynor, i. 19-24 - - Running Footman, Hay Hill, i. 255, ii. 193 - - Running Horse, Leatherhead, i. 18-25 - - -- Merrow, ii. 233 - - - Salutation, Ambleside, ii. 292 - - Saracen's Head, Bath, i. 266 - - -- Southwell, i. 172-180 - - -- Towcester, i. 259-263 - - Serjeant's Inn Coffee House, i. 255 - - Seven Stars, Manchester, i. 6, 8-12 - - Shakespeare's Head, near Chipping Norton, ii. 100-106 - - Shears, Wantage, ii. 202 - - Shepherd's Shore, Marlborough Downs, i. 232-237 - - Ship and Lobster, Denton, near Gravesend, i. 296 - - -- Afloat, Bridgwater, ii. 203 - - -- Aground, ii. 203 - - Ship, Brixham, ii. 139 - - -- Dover, i. 54 - - Smiling Man, Dudley, ii. 203 - - Smoker, Plumbley, ii. 179 - - Soldier's Fortune, Kidderminster, ii. 136 - - Sondes Arms, Rockingham, i. 290 - - Spaniards, Hampstead Heath, i. 256, 320-327 - - Star, Alfriston, i. 93-97, ii. 165 - - -- Lewes, ii. 37 - - -- Yarmouth, ii. 42-44, 273 - - Stocks, Clapgate, ii. 202 - - Stonham Pie, Little Stonham, ii. 153 - - Sugar Loaves, Sible Hedingham, ii. 195 - - Sun, Canterbury, i. 292 - - -- Cirencester, i. 180 - - -- Dedham, ii. 225 - - -- Northallerton, ii. 248 - - Sunrising Inn, Edge Hill, ii. 299 - - Swan and Bottle, Uxbridge, i. 165 - - -- Charing, ii. 188 - - -- Ferrybridge, ii. 81, 83 - - -- Fittleworth, ii. 159, 183 - - -- Haslemere, ii. 242 - - -- Kirkby Moorside, ii. 267 - - -- Knowle, ii. 231-233 - - -- near Newbury, ii. 216 - - -- Preston Crowmarsh, ii. 179 - - -- Rickmansworth, ii. 214 - - -- Sandleford, ii. 217 - - -- Tewkesbury, ii. 288 - - -- Thames Ditton, ii. 292 - - -- Town Malling, i. 226 - - -- with Two Necks, Gresham Street, i. 54-56 - - - Tabard, Southwark, i. 77-79 - - Talbot, Atcham, ii. 80 - - -- Cuckfield, ii. 81 - - -- Newark, i. 308 - - -- Ripley, ii. 213 - - -- Shrewsbury, ii. 80 - - -- Southwark, i. 79 - - -- Towcester, ii. 115, 243 - - Tan Hill Inn, Swaledale, near Brough, ii. 145 - - Tankard, Ipswich, ii. 110 - - Thorn, Appleton, ii. 138 - - Three Cats, Sevenoaks, ii. 191 - - -- Cocks, near Hay, ii. 47 - - -- Crosses, Willoughby, ii. 303 - - -- Crowns, Chagford, i. 170-172 - - -- Horseshoes, Great Mongeham, ii. 197 - - -- Houses, Sandal, i. 308 - - -- Jolly Bargemen, Cooling, i. 295 - - -- Magpies, Sipson Green, i. 317 - - -- Queens, Burton-on-Trent, ii. 114 - - -- Tuns, Bideford, ii. 110 - - Town Arms, Eatanswill, i. 230 - - Traveller's Rest, Flash Bar, ii. 148 - - -- Kirkstone Pass, ii. 148 - - Treaty House, Uxbridge, i. 161-169 - - Trevelyan Arms, Barnstaple, ii. 40, 110 - - Trip to Jerusalem, Nottingham, ii. 134 - - Trouble House, near Tetbury, ii. 203 - - Turnspit Dogs, i. 48-51 - - Turpin's Cave, Epping Forest, i. 310 - - - Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bluepitts, near Rochdale, ii. 197 - - Unicorn, Bowes, i. 269 - - -- Ripon, ii. 121 - - - Verulam Arms, St. Albans, ii. 79 - - Vine, Mile-End, ii. 259 - - _Vision of Piers Plowman_, i. 16-18 - - Visitors' Books, ii. 291-308 - - - Waggon and Horses, Beckhampton, i. 233, 237 - - Wellington, Broadstairs, ii. 47 - - -- Market Place, Manchester, i. 7 - - -- Rushyford Bridge, i. 60 - - -- Tewkesbury, ii. 287 - - Whetstone, Chiswick Mall, ii. 124 - - White Bear, Fickles Hole, ii. 203 - - -- and Whetstone, Chiswick Mall, ii. 123-125 - - -- Bull, Ribchester, ii. 119-121 - - White Hart, Adwalton, ii. 255 - - -- Aylesbury, i. 62-67, 140 - - -- Bath, i. 254 - - -- Castle Combe, ii. 234 - - -- Drighlington, ii. 255 - - -- Eatanswill, i. 230 - - -- Glastonbury, i. 112 - - -- Godstone, ii. 30-34 - - -- Guildford, ii. 55 - - -- Hackney Marshes, ii. 257-259 - - -- Scole, ii. 150 - - -- Somerton, i. 185-187 - - -- Southwark, i. 226-228 - - -- Whitchurch, Hants, ii. 280 - - -- Widcombe, i. 254 - - -- Yard, Gray's Inn Road, ii. 106 - - White Horse, Eaton Socon, i. 267 - - -- Fetter Lane, i. 31, 219 - - -- Maiden Newton, ii. 289 - - -- Shere, ii. 241 - - -- Woolstone, ii. 211 - - White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, i. 253 - - White House, Hackney Marshes, ii. 259 - - White Lion, Maidstone, i. 226 - - White Swan, Henley-in-Arden, ii. 300 - - Who'd Have Thought It, Barking, ii. 204 - - Why Not, Dover, ii. 204 - - Widow's Son, Bromley-by-Bow, ii. 125-127 - - Windmill, North Cheriton, ii. 89-91 - - -- Salt Hill, i. 60 - - -- Tabley, ii. 179 - - Winterslow Hut, near Salisbury, ii. 102 - - Wizard, Alderley Edge, ii. 65-69 - - Wood's Hotel, Furnival's Inn, i. 31 - - World Turned Upside Down, Old Kent Road, ii. 204 - - -- near Three Mile Cross, ii. 204 - - Wright's, Rochester, i. 223-225 - - - Yacht, Chester, ii. 77, 304 - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Woman-shoemaker. - -[2] Warrener. - -[3] Needler: maker of needles. - -[4] Ditcher. - -[5] Bald. - -[6] Fiddler. - -[7] Ratter. - -[8] A mounted servant of a knight. - -[9] Welshman. - -[10] This is an ancient parallel with - - "Who comes there?" - "Grenadier." - "What d'ye want?" - "Pot o' beer." - "Where's yer money?" - "Haven't got." - "Get away, you drunken sot!" - -[11] A large hotel was also built outside Slough Station, eighteen miles -from Paddington, for weary and hungry travellers. Such were the quaint -ideas of the early railway directors, who could not forget the -necessities, the usages and customs of the coaching age, when inns at -short stages were indispensable. The hotel at Slough was from the first a -failure, and the building has long been an orphanage. - -[12] Another landlord of the "Tabard"--William Rutter, represented East -Grinstead in Parliament, 1529-1536. - -[13] Vol. II., p. 348. - -[14] For example, the Rev. Dr. Thackeray, late Chaplain of the Hackney -Union, licensee and active publican of the "Fish and Eels" at Roydon. - -[15] Cf. a lengthy description of the origin of the place-name "Shepherd's -Bush" in the West of London: _The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven -Road_, vol. i. pp. 55-57. Also compare the still-existent -"shepherd's-bush" thorn-trees on West Winch Common, Norfolk. - -[16] For further particulars respecting the "Bull," see _The Norwich -Road_, pp. 19-28, and _Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore_, vol. i., p. -324; vol. ii., pp. 227, 232-5, 343. - -[17] A newer extension, built in recent years, makes a fourth. - -[18] _The Dickens Country._ By F. G. Kitton, p. 167. - -[19] Within the last few months the lower part of the house has been -converted into a dairy, but the part described by Dickens remains -unaltered. - - - - -Transcriber's Notes: - -Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. - -Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. - -The original text includes a diamond symbol that is represented as -[Diamond] in this text version. - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I -(of 2), by Charles G. 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Harper—A Project Gutenberg eBook @@ -56,50 +56,7 @@ </style> </head> <body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I (of 2), by -Charles G. Harper - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I (of 2) - A Picturesque Account of the Ancient and Storied Hostelries - of Our Own Country - -Author: Charles G. Harper - -Illustrator: Charles G. Harper - -Release Date: October 2, 2013 [EBook #43865] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND, VOL I *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43865 ***</div> <p class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></p> @@ -8308,386 +8265,7 @@ Road</i>, pp. 19-28, and <i>Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore</i>, vol. i., p converted into a dairy, but the part described by Dickens remains unaltered.</p> - - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I -(of 2), by Charles G. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I (of 2) - A Picturesque Account of the Ancient and Storied Hostelries - of Our Own Country - -Author: Charles G. Harper - -Illustrator: Charles G. Harper - -Release Date: October 2, 2013 [EBook #43865] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND, VOL I *** - - - - -Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at -http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images -generously made available by The Internet Archive.) - - - - - - - - - -THE OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND - - - - -WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - -The Portsmouth Road, and its Tributaries: To-day and in Days of Old. - -The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike. - -The Bath Road: History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old Highway. - -The Exeter Road: The Story of the West of England Highway. - -The Great North Road: The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two Vols. - -The Norwich Road: An East Anglian Highway. - -The Holyhead Road: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two Vols. - -The Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road: The Great Fenland Highway. - -The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford, and Cromer Road: Sport and History on an -East Anglian Turnpike. - -The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road: The Ready Way to South -Wales. Two Vols. - -The Brighton Road: Speed, Sport, and History on the Classic Highway. - -The Hastings Road and the "Happy Springs of Tunbridge." - -Cycle Rides Round London. - -A Practical Handbook of Drawing for Modern Methods of Reproduction. - -Stage-Coach and Mail in Days of Yore. Two Vols. The Ingoldsby Country: -Literary Landmarks of "The Ingoldsby Legends." - -The Hardy Country: Literary Landmarks of the Wessex Novels. - -The Dorset Coast. - -The South Devon Coast. [_In the Press._ - - - - -[Illustration: THE ROADSIDE INN.] - - - - - THE OLD INNS OF OLD ENGLAND - - _A PICTURESQUE ACCOUNT OF THE - ANCIENT AND STORIED HOSTELRIES - OF OUR OWN COUNTRY_ - - - VOL. I - - - BY CHARLES G. HARPER - - - [Illustration] - - _Illustrated chiefly by the Author, and from Prints - and Photographs_ - - - LONDON: - CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED - 1906 - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - PRINTED AND BOUND BY - HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., - LONDON AND AYLESBURY. - - - - -[Illustration: PREFACE] - - -_It is somewhat singular that no book has hitherto been published dealing -either largely or exclusively with Old Inns and their story. I suppose -that is because there are so many difficulties in the way of one who would -write an account of them. The chief of these is that of arrangement and -classification; the next is that of selection; the last that of coming to -a conclusion. I would ask those who read these pages, and have perhaps -some favourite inn they do not find mentioned or illustrated here, to -remember that the merely picturesque inns that have no story, or anything -beyond their own picturesqueness to render them remarkable, are--let us be -thankful for it!--still with us in great numbers, and that to have -illustrated or mentioned even a tithe of them would have been impossible. -I can think of no literary and artistic work more delightful than the -quest of queer old rustic inns, but two stout volumes will probably be -found to contain as much on the subject as most people wish to know--and -it is always open to anyone who does not find his own especial favourite -here to condemn the author for his ignorance, or, worse, for his perverted -taste._ - -_As for methods, those are of the simplest. You start by knowing, ten -years beforehand, what you intend to produce; and incidentally, in the -course of a busy literary life, collect, note, sketch, and make extracts -from Heaven only knows how many musty literary dustbins and sloughs of -despond. Then, having reached the psychological moment when you must come -to grips with the work, you sort that accumulation, and, mapping out -England into tours, with inns strung like beads upon your itinerary, bring -the book, after some five thousand miles of travel, at last into being._ - -_It should be added that very many inns are incidentally illustrated or -referred to in the series of books on great roads by the present writer; -but as those works dealing with Roads, another treating of the History of -Coaching, and the present volumes are all part of one comprehensive plan -dealing with the History of Travel in general, the allusions to inns in -the various road-books have but rarely been repeated; while it will be -found that if, in order to secure a representative number of inns, it has -been, in some cases, found unavoidable to retrace old footsteps, new -illustrations and new matter have, as a rule, been brought to bear._ - -_The Old Inns of London have not been touched upon very largely, for most -of them are, unhappily, gone. Only the few existing ones have been -treated, and then merely in association with others in the country. To -write an account of the Old Inns of London would now be to discourse, in -the manner of an antiquary, on things that have ceased to be._ - -CHARLES G. HARPER. - - PETERSHAM, SURREY. - _September, 1906._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. INTRODUCTORY 1 - - II. THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF INNS 13 - - III. GENERAL HISTORY OF INNS 28 - - IV. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 42 - - V. LATTER DAYS 57 - - VI. PILGRIMS' INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS 76 - - VII. PILGRIMS' INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS (_continued_) 117 - - VIII. HISTORIC INNS 144 - - IX. INNS OF OLD ROMANCE 188 - - X. PICKWICKIAN INNS 210 - - XI. DICKENSIAN INNS 265 - - XII. HIGHWAYMEN'S INNS 303 - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - [Illustration] - - - SEPARATE PLATES - - THE ROADSIDE INN _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - THE LAST OF THE OLD GALLERIED INNS OF LONDON: THE "GEORGE," - SOUTHWARK. (_Photo by T. W. Tyrrell_) 32 - - THE KITCHEN OF A COUNTRY INN, 1797: SHOWING THE TURNSPIT - DOG. (_From the engraving after Rowlandson_) 48 - - WESTGATE, CANTERBURY, AND THE "FALSTAFF" INN 86 - - CHARING CROSS, ABOUT 1829, SHOWING THE "GOLDEN CROSS" INN. - (_From the engraving after T. Hosmer Shepherd_) 218 - - THE "GOLDEN CROSS," SUCCESSOR OF THE PICKWICKIAN INN, AS - REBUILT 1828 220 - - ROCHESTER IN PICKWICKIAN DAYS, SHOWING THE OLD BRIDGE AND - "WRIGHT'S" 224 - - THE "BELLE SAUVAGE." (_From a drawing by T. Hosmer Shepherd_) 228 - - THE DICKENS ROOM, "LEATHER BOTTLE," COBHAM 230 - - THE "BULL INN," WHITECHAPEL. (_From the water-colour drawing - by P. Palfrey_) 246 - - THE "WHITE HART," BATH 252 - - THE "BUSH," BRISTOL 256 - - THE "COACH AND HORSES," ISLEWORTH 276 - - THE "LION," SHREWSBURY, SHOWING THE ANNEXE ADJOINING, WHERE - DICKENS STAYED 298 - - THE "GREEN MAN," HATTON 318 - - THE HIGHWAYMAN'S HIDING-HOLE 318 - - -ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT - - Vignette, The Old-time Innkeeper _Title-page_ - - PAGE - - Preface v - - List of Illustrations xi - - The Old Inns of Old England, The "Black Bear," Sandbach 1 - - The Oldest Inhabited House in England: The "Fighting Cocks," - St. Albans 5 - - The "Dick Whittington," Cloth Fair 6 - - "Ye Olde Rover's Return," Manchester 7 - - The Oldest Licensed House in Great Britain: The "Seven Stars," - Manchester 11 - - An Ale-stake. (_From the Louterell Psalter_) 15 - - Elynor Rummyng 21 - - The "Running Horse," Leatherhead 25 - - Facsimile of an Account rendered to John Palmer in 1787 54 - - The Last Days of the "Swan with Two Necks" 55 - - Crypt at the "George," Rochester 83 - - Sign of the "Falstaff," Canterbury 88 - - House formerly a Pilgrims' Hostel, Compton 91 - - The "Star," Alfriston 93 - - Carving at the "Star," Alfriston 95 - - The "Green Dragon," Wymondham 96 - - The Pilgrims' Hostel, Battle 97 - - The "New Inn," Gloucester 99 - - Courtyard, "New Inn," Gloucester 103 - - The "George," Glastonbury 109 - - High Street, Glastonbury, in the Eighteenth Century (_From - the etching by Rowlandson_) 115 - - The "George," St. Albans 119 - - The "Angel," Grantham 121 - - The "George," Norton St. Philip 125 - - Yard of the "George," Norton St. Philip 131 - - Yard of the "George," Winchcombe 135 - - The "Lord Crewe Arms," Blanchland 139 - - The "Old King's Head," Aylesbury 141 - - The "Reindeer," Banbury 145 - - Yard of the "Reindeer," Banbury 149 - - The Globe Room, "Reindeer" Inn, Banbury 153 - - The "Music House," Norwich 157 - - The "Dolphin," Potter Heigham 159 - - The "Nag's Head," Thame 161 - - Yard of the "Greyhound," Thame 163 - - The "Crown and Treaty," Uxbridge 165 - - The "Treaty Room," "Crown and Treaty," Uxbridge 167 - - The "Three Crowns," Chagford 169 - - The "Red Lion," Hillingdon 170 - - Yard of the "Saracen's Head," Southwell 173 - - King Charles' Bedroom, "Saracen's Head," Southwell 177 - - The "Cock and Pymat" 181 - - Porch of the "Red Lion," High Wycombe 184 - - The "White Hart," Somerton 186 - - The "Ostrich," Colnbrook 191 - - Yard of the "Ostrich," Colnbrook 199 - - "Piff's Elm" 203 - - The "Golden Cross," in Pickwickian Days 215 - - The "Bull," Rochester 223 - - The "Swan," Town Malling: Identified with the "Blue Lion," - Muggleton 226 - - Sign of the "Bull and Mouth" 227 - - The "Leather Bottle," Cobham 229 - - The "Waggon and Horses," Beckhampton 233 - - "Shepherd's Shore" 235 - - "Beckhampton Inn" 239 - - The "Angel," Bury St. Edmunds 241 - - The "George the Fourth Tavern," Clare Market 243 - - Doorway of the "Great White Horse," Ipswich 247 - - The "Great White Horse," Ipswich 250 - - Sign of the "White Hart," Bath 255 - - "The Bell," Berkeley Heath 257 - - The "Hop-pole," Tewkesbury 259 - - The "Pomfret Arms," Towcester: formerly the "Saracen's Head" 260 - - The Yard of the "Pomfret Arms" 261 - - "Osborne's Hotel, Adelphi" 263 - - The "White Horse," Eaton Socon 267 - - The "George," Greta Bridge 269 - - The "Coach and Horses," near Petersfield 271 - - "Bottom" Inn 273 - - The "King's Head," Chigwell, the "Maypole" of _Barnaby Rudge_ 279 - - The "Green Dragon," Alderbury 283 - - The "George," Amesbury 285 - - Interior of the "Green Dragon," Alderbury 287 - - Sign of the "Black Bull," Holborn 289 - - The "Crispin and Crispianus," Strood 293 - - The "Ship and Lobster" 297 - - "Jack Straw's Castle" 301 - - The "Three Houses Inn," Sandal 308 - - The "Crown" Inn, Hempstead 309 - - "Turpin's Cave," near Chingford 311 - - The "Green Dragon," Welton 312 - - The "Three Magpies," Sipson Green 313 - - The "Old Magpies" 315 - - The "Green Man," Putney 321 - - The "Spaniards," Hampstead Heath 323 - - - - -[Illustration: The Old Inns of Old England] - - - - -CHAPTER I - -INTRODUCTORY - - -The Old Inns of Old England!--how alluring and how inexhaustible a theme! -When you set out to reckon up the number of those old inns that demand a -mention, how vast a subject it is! For although the Vandal--identified -here with the brewer and the ground-landlord--has been busy in London and -the great centres of population, destroying many of those famous old -hostelries our grandfathers knew and appreciated, and building in their -stead "hotels" of the most grandiose and palatial kind, there are happily -still remaining to us a large number of the genuine old cosy haunts where -the traveller, stained with the marks of travel, may enter and take his -ease without being ashamed of his travel-stains or put out of countenance -by the modish visitors of this complicated age, who dress usually as if -going to a ball, and whose patronage has rung the death-knell of many an -inn once quaint and curious, but now merely "replete with every modern -convenience." - -I thank Heaven--and it is no small matter, for surely one may be thankful -for a good inn--that there yet remain many old inns in this Old England of -ours, and that it is not yet quite (although nearly) a misdemeanour for -the wayfarer to drink a tankard of ale and eat a modest lunch of bread and -cheese in a stone-flagged, sanded rustic parlour; or even, having come at -the close of day to his halting-place, to indulge in the mild dissipation -and local gossip in the bar of an old-time hostelry. - -This is one of the last surviving joys of travel in these strange times -when you journey from great towns for sake of change and find at every -resort that the town has come down before you, in the shape of an hotel -more or less palatial, wherein you are expected to dine largely off -polished marble surroundings and Turkey carpets, and where every trace of -local colour is effaced. A barrier is raised there between yourself and -the place. You are in it, but not of it or among it; but something alien, -like the German or Swiss waiters themselves, the manager, and the very -directors and shareholders of the big concern. - -At the old-fashioned inn, on the other hand, the whole establishment is -eloquent of the place, and while you certainly get less show and glitter, -you do, at any rate, find real comfort, and early realise that you have -found that change for which you have come. - -But, as far as mere name goes, most inns are "hotels" nowadays. It is as -though innkeepers were labouring under the illusion that "inn" connotes -something inferior, and "hotel" a superior order of things. Even along the -roads, in rustic situations, the mere word "inn"--an ancient and entirely -honourable title--is become little used or understood, and, generally -speaking, if you ask a rustic for the next "inn" he stares vacantly before -his mind grasps the fact that you mean what he calls a "pub," or, in some -districts oftener still, a "house." Just a "house." Some employment for -the speculative mind is offered by the fact that in rural England an inn -is "a house" and the workhouse "_the_ House." Both bulk largely in the -bucolic scheme of existence, and, as a temperance lecturer might point -out, constant attendance at the one leads inevitably to the other. At all -events, both are great institutions, and prominent among the landmarks of -Old England. - -Which is the oldest, and which the most picturesque, inn this England of -ours can show? That is a double-barrelled question whose first part no man -can answer, and the reply to whose second half depends so entirely upon -individual likings and preferences that one naturally hesitates before -being drawn into the contention that would surely arise on any particular -one being singled out for that supreme honour. Equally with the morning -newspapers--and the evening--each claiming the "largest circulation," and, -like the several Banbury Cake shops, each the "original," there are -several "oldest licensed" inns, and very many arrogating the reputation of -the "most picturesque." - -The "Fighting Cocks" inn at St. Albans, down by the river Ver, below the -Abbey, claims to be--not the oldest inn--but the oldest inhabited house, -in the kingdom: a pretension that does not appear to be based on anything -more than sheer impudence; unless, indeed, we take the claim to be a joke, -to which an inscription, - - The Old Round House, - Rebuilt after the Flood, - -formerly gave the clue. But that has disappeared. The Flood, in this case, -seeing that the building lies low, by the river Ver, does not necessarily -mean the Deluge. - -This curious little octagonal building is, however, of a very great age, -for it was once, as "St. Germain's Gate," the water-gate of the monastery. -The more ancient embattled upper part disappeared six hundred years ago, -and the present brick-and-timber storey takes its place. - -[Illustration: THE OLDEST INHABITED HOUSE IN ENGLAND: THE "FIGHTING -COCKS," ST. ALBANS.] - -The City of London's oldest licensed inn is, by its own claiming, the -"Dick Whittington," in Cloth Fair, Smithfield, but it only claims to have -been licensed in the fifteenth century, when it might reasonably--without -much fear of contradiction--have made it a century earlier. This is an -unusual modesty, fully deserving mention. It is only an "inn" by courtesy, -for, however interesting and picturesque the grimy, tottering old -lath-and-plaster house may be to the stranger, imagination does not -picture any one staying either in the house or in Cloth Fair itself while -other houses and other neighbourhoods remain to choose from; and, indeed, -the "Dick Whittington" does not pretend to be anything else than a -public-house. The quaint little figure at the angle, in the gloom of the -overhanging upper storey, is one of the queer, unconventional imaginings -of our remote forefathers, and will repay examination. - -[Illustration: THE "DICK WHITTINGTON," CLOTH FAIR.] - -Our next claimant in the way of antiquity is the "Seven Stars" inn at -Manchester, a place little dreamt of, in such a connection, by most -people; for, although Manchester is an ancient city, it is so modernised -in general appearance that it is a place wherein the connoisseur of -old-world inns would scarce think of looking for examples. Yet it contains -three remarkably picturesque old taverns, and the neighbouring town of -Salford, nearly as much a part of Manchester as Southwark is of London, -possesses another. To take the merely picturesque, unstoried houses -first: these are the "Bull's Head," Greengate, Salford; the "Wellington" -inn, in the Market-place, Manchester; the tottering, crazy-looking tavern -called "Ye Olde Rover's Return," on Shude Hill, claiming to be the "oldest -beer-house in the city," and additionally said once to have been an old -farmhouse "where the Cow was kept that supplied Milk to The Men who built -the 'Seven Stars,'" and lastly--but most important--the famous "Seven -Stars" itself, in Withy Grove, proudly bearing on its front the statement -that it has been licensed over 560 years, and is the oldest licensed house -in Great Britain. - -[Illustration: "YE OLDE ROVER'S RETURN," MANCHESTER.] - -The "Seven Stars" is of the same peculiar old-world construction as the -other houses just enumerated, and is just a humble survival of the ancient -rural method of building in this district: with a stout framing of oaken -timbers and a filling of rag-stone, brick, and plaster. Doubtless all -Manchester, of the period to which these survivals belong, was of like -architecture. It was a method of construction in essence identical with -the building of modern steel-framed houses and offices in England and in -America: modern construction being only on a larger scale. In either -period, the framework of wood or of metal is set up first and then clothed -with its architectural features, whether of stone, brick, or plaster. - -The "Seven Stars," however, is no skyscraper. So far from soaring, it is -of only two floors, and, placed as it is--sandwiched as it is, one might -say--between grim, towering blocks of warehouses, looks peculiarly -insignificant. - -We may suppose the existing house to have been built somewhere about 1500, -although there is nothing in its rude walls and rough axe-hewn timbers to -fix the period to a century more or less. At any rate, it is not the -original "Seven Stars" on this spot, known to have been first licensed in -1356, three years after inns and alehouses were inquired into and -regulated, under Edward the Third; by virtue of which record, duly -attested by the archives of the County Palatine of Lancaster, the present -building claims to be the "oldest Licensed House in Great Britain." - -There is a great deal of very fine, unreliable "history" about the "Seven -Stars," and some others, but it is quite true that the inn is older than -Manchester Cathedral, for that--originally the Collegiate Church--was not -founded until 1422; and topers with consciences remaining to them may lay -the flattering unction to their souls that, if they pour libations here, -in the Temple of Bacchus, rather than praying in the Cathedral, they do, -at any rate (if there be any virtue in that), frequent a place of greater -antiquity. - -And antiquity is cultivated with care and considerable success at the -"Seven Stars," as a business asset. The house issues a set of seven -picture-postcards, showing its various "historic" nooks and corners, and -the leaded window-casements have even been artfully painted, in an effort -to make the small panes look smaller than they really are; while the -unwary visitor in the low-ceilinged rooms falls over and trips up against -all manner of unexpected steps up and steps down. - -It is, of course, not to be supposed that a house with so long a past -should be without its legends, and in the cellars the credulous and -uncritical stranger is shown an archway that, he is told, led to old -Ordsall Hall and the Collegiate Church! What thirsty and secret souls they -must have been in that old establishment! But the secret passage is -blocked up now. Here we may profitably meditate awhile on those "secret -passages" that have no secrets and afford no passage; and may at the same -time stop to admire the open conduct of that clergyman who, despising such -underhand and underground things, was accustomed in 1571, according to the -records of the Court Leet, to step publicly across the way in his -surplice, in sermon-time, for a refreshing drink. - -"What stories this old Inn could recount if it had the power of language!" -exclaims the leaflet sold at the "Seven Stars" itself. The reflection is -sufficiently trite and obvious. What stories could not any building tell, -if it were so gifted? But fortunately, although walls metaphorically have -ears, they have not--even in literary imagery--got tongues, and so cannot -blab. And well too, for if they could and did, what a cloud of witness -there would be, to be sure. Not an one of us would get a hearing, and not -a soul be safe. - -But what stories, in more than one sense, Harrison Ainsworth told! He told -a tale of Guy Fawkes, in which that hero of the mask, the dark-lantern and -the powder-barrel escaped, and made his way to the "Seven Stars," to be -concealed in a room now called "Ye Guy Fawkes Chamber." Ye gods! - -[Illustration: THE OLDEST LICENSED HOUSE IN GREAT BRITAIN: THE "SEVEN -STARS," MANCHESTER.] - -We know perfectly well that he did not escape, and so was not concealed in -a house to which he could not come, but--well, there! Such fantastic -tales, adopted by the house, naturally bring suspicion upon all else; and -the story of the horse-shoe upon one of its wooden posts is therefore, -rightly or wrongly, suspect. This is a legend that tells how, in 1805, -when we were at war with Napoleon, the Press Gang was billeted at the -"Seven Stars," and seized a farmer's servant who was leading a horse with -a cast shoe along Withy Grove. The Press Gang could not legally press a -farm-servant, but that probably mattered little, and he was led away; but, -before he went, he nailed the cast horse-shoe to a post, exclaiming, "Let -this stay till I come from the wars to claim it!" He never returned, and -the horse-shoe remains in its place to this day. - -The room adjoining the Bar parlour is called nowadays the "Vestry." It -was, according to legends, the meeting-place of the Watch, in the old days -before the era of police; and there they not only met, but stayed, the -captain ever and again rising, with the words, "Now we will have another -glass, and then go our rounds"; upon which, emptying their glasses, they -all would walk round the tables and then re-seat themselves. - -A great deal of old Jacobean and other furniture has been collected, to -fill the rooms of the "Seven Stars," and in the "Vestry" is the "cupboard -that has never been opened" within the memory of living man. It is -evidently not suspected of holding untold gold. Relics from the New Bailey -Prison, demolished in 1872, are housed here, including the doors of the -condemned cell, and sundry leg-irons; and genuine Carolean and Cromwellian -tables are shown. The poet who wrote of some marvellously omniscient -personage-- - - And still the wonder grew - That one small head could carry all he knew, - -would have rejoiced to know the "Seven Stars," and might have been moved -to write a similar couplet, on how much so small a house could be made to -hold. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF INNS - - -Inns, hotels, public-houses of all kinds, have a very ancient lineage, but -we need not in this place go very deeply into their family history, or -stodge ourselves with fossilised facts at the outset. So far as we are -concerned, inns begin with the Roman Conquest of Britain, for it is absurd -to suppose that the Britons, whom Julius Caesar conquered, drank beer or -required hotel accommodation. - -The colonising Romans themselves, of course, were used to inns, and when -they covered Britain with a system of roads, hostelries and mere -drinking-places of every kind sprang up beside them, for the accommodation -and refreshment alike of soldiers and civilians. There is no reason to -suppose that the Roman legionary was a less thirsty soul than the modern -soldier, and therefore houses that resembled our beer-shops and rustic -inns must have been sheer necessaries. There was then the _bibulium_, -where the bibulous boozed to their hearts' content; and there were the -_diversoria_ and _caupones_, the inns or hotels, together with the -posting-houses along the roads, known as _mansiones_ or _stabulia_. - -The _bibulium_, that is to say, the ale-house or tavern, displayed its -sign for all men to see: the ivy-garland, or wreath of vine-leaves, in -honour of Bacchus, wreathed around a hoop at the end of a projecting pole. -This bold advertisment of good drink to be had within long outlasted Roman -times, and indeed still survives in differing forms, in the signs of -existing inns. It became the "ale-stake" of Anglo-Saxon and middle English -times. - -The traveller recognised the ale-stake at a great distance, by reason of -its long pole--the "stake" whence those old beer-houses derived their -name--projecting from the house-front, with its mass of furze, or garland -of flowers, or ivy-wreath, dangling at the end. But the ale-houses that -sold good drink little needed such signs, a circumstance that early led to -the old proverb, "Good wine needs no bush." - -On the other hand, we may well suppose the places that sold only inferior -swipes required poles very long and bushes very prominent, and in London, -where competition was great, all ale-stakes early began to vie with one -another which should in this manner first attract the attention of thirsty -folk. This at length grew to be such a nuisance, and even a danger, that -in 1375 a law was passed that all taverners in the City of London owning -ale-stakes projecting or extending over the king's highway "more than -seven feet in length at the utmost," should be fined forty pence and be -compelled to remove the offending sign. - -We find the "ale-stake" in Chaucer, whose "Pardoner" could not be induced -to commence his tale until he had quenched his thirst at one: - - But first quod he, her at this ale-stake - I will bothe drynke and byten on a cake. - -We have, fortunately, in the British Museum, an illustration of such a -house, done in the fourteenth century, and therefore contemporary with -Chaucer himself. It is rough but vivid, and if the pilgrim we see drinking -out of a saucer-like cup be gigantic, and the landlady, waiting with the -jug, a thought too big for her inn, we are at any rate clearly made to see -the life of that long ago. In this instance the actual stake is finished -off like a besom, rather than with a bush. - -[Illustration: AN ALE-STAKE. _From the Louterell Psalter._] - -The connection, however, between the Roman garland to Bacchus and the -mediaeval "bush" is obvious. The pagan God of Wine was forgotten, but the -advertisment of ale "sold on the premises" was continued in much the same -form; for in many cases the "bush" was a wreath, renewed at intervals, and -twined around a permanent hoop. With the creation, in later centuries, of -distinctive signs, we find the hoop itself curiously surviving as a -framework for some device; and thus, even as early as the reign of Edward -the Third, mention is found of a "George-in-the-hoop," probably a picture -or carved representation of St. George, the cognisance of England, engaged -in slaying the dragon. There were inns in the time of Henry the Sixth by -the name of the "Cock-in-the-Hoop"; and doubtless the representation of -haughty cockerels in that situation led by degrees to persons of -self-sufficient manner being called "Cock-a-hoop," an old-fashioned phrase -that lingered on until some few years since. - -In some cases, when the garland was no longer renewed, and no distinctive -sign filled the hoop, the "Hoop" itself became the sign of the house: a -sign still frequently to be met with, notably at Cambridge, where a house -of that name, in coaching days a celebrated hostelry, still survives. - -The kind of company found in the ale-stakes--that is to say, the -beer-houses and taverns--of the fourteenth century is vividly portrayed by -Langland, in his _Vision of Piers Plowman_. In that long Middle English -poem, the work of a moralist and seer who was at the same time, beneath -his tonsure and in spite of his orders, something of a man of the world, -we find the virtuous ploughman reviewing the condition of society in that -era, and (when you have once become used to the ancient spelling) doing so -in a manner that is not only readable to moderns, but even entertaining; -while, of course, as evidence of social conditions close upon six hundred -years ago, the poem is invaluable. - -We learn how Beton the brewster met the glutton on his way to church, and -bidding him "good-morrow," asked him whither he went. - -"To holy church," quoth he, "for to hear mass. I will be shriven, and sin -no more." - -"I have good ale, gossip," says the ale-wife, "will you assay it?" And so -glutton, instead of going to church, takes himself to the ale-house, and -many after him. A miscellaneous company that was. There, with Cicely the -woman-shoemaker, were all manner of humble, and some disreputable, -persons, among whom we are surprised to find a hermit. What should a -hermit be doing in an ale-house? But, according to Langland's own showing -elsewhere, the country was infested with hermits who, refusing restriction -to their damp and lonely hermitages, frequented the alehouses, and only -went home, generally intoxicated, to their mouldy pallets after they had -drunk and eaten their fill and roasted themselves before the fire. - -Here, then: - - Cesse the souteresse[1] sat on the bench, - Watte the warner[2] and hys wyf bothe - Thomme the tynkere, and tweye of hus knaues, - Hicke the hakeneyman, and Houwe the neldere,[3] - Claryce of Cockeslane, the clerk of the churche, - An haywarde and an heremyte, the hangeman of Tyborne, - Dauwe the dykere,[4] with a dozen harlotes, - Of portours and of pyke-porses, and pylede[5] toth-drawers. - A ribibour,[6] a ratonere,[7] a rakyer of chepe, - A roper, a redynkyng,[8] and Rose the dissheres, - Godfrey of garlekehythe, and gryfin the walshe,[9] - An vpholderes an hepe. - -All day long they sat there, boozing, chaffering, and quarrelling: - - There was laughing and louring, and "let go the cuppe," - And seten so till euensonge and son gen vmwhile, - Tyl glotoun had y-globbed a galoun and a Iille. - -By that time he could neither walk nor stand. He took his staff and began -to go like a gleeman's bitch, sometimes sideways and sometimes backwards. -When he had come to the door, he stumbled and fell. Clement the cobbler -caught him by the middle and set him on his knees, and then, "with all the -woe of the world" his wife and his wench came to carry him home to bed. -There he slept all Saturday and Sunday, and when at last he woke, he woke -with a thirst--how modern _that_ is, at any rate! The first words he -uttered were, "Where is the bowl?" - -A hundred and fifty years later than _Piers Plowman_ we get another -picture of an English ale-house, by no less celebrated a poet. This famous -house, the "Running Horse," still stands at Leatherhead, in Surrey, beside -the long, many-arched bridge that there crosses the river Mole at one of -its most picturesque reaches. It was kept in the time of Henry the Seventh -by that very objectionable landlady, Elynor Rummyng, whose peculiarities -are the subject of a laureate's verse. Elynor Rummyng, and John Skelton, -the poet-laureate who hymned her person, her beer, and her customers, both -flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Skelton, whose -genius was wholly satiric, no doubt, in his _Tunning_ (that is to say, the -brewing) of _Elynor Rummyng_, emphasised all her bad points, for it is -hardly credible that even the rustics of the Middle Ages would have rushed -so enthusiastically for her ale if it had been brewed in the way he -describes. - -His long, rambling jingles, done in grievous spelling, picture her as a -very ugly and filthy old person, with a face sufficiently grotesque to -unnerve a strong man: - - For her visage - It would aswage - A manne's courage. - Her lothely lere - Is nothyng clere, - But vgly of chere, - Droupy and drowsy, - Scuruy and lowsy; - Her face all bowsy, - Comely crynkled, - Woundersly wrynkled, - Lyke a rost pygges eare - Brystled wyth here. - Her lewde lyppes twayne, - They slauer, men sayne, - Lyke a ropy rayne: - A glummy glayre: - She is vgly fayre: - Her nose somdele hoked, - And camously croked, - Neuer stoppynge, - But euer droppynge: - Her skin lose and slacke, - Grayned like a sacke; - Wyth a croked backe. - Her eyen jowndy - Are full vnsoundy, - For they are blered; - And she grey-hered: - Jawed like a jetty, - A man would haue pytty - To se how she is gumbed - Fyngered and thumbed - Gently joynted, - Gresed and annoynted - Vp to the knockels; - The bones of her huckels - Lyke as they were with buckles - Together made fast; - Her youth is farre past. - Foted lyke a plane, - Legged lyke a crane; - And yet she wyll iet - Lyke a silly fet. - - * * * * - - Her huke of Lincoln grene, - It had been hers I wene, - More than fourty yere; - And so it doth apere. - For the grene bare thredes - Loke lyke sere wedes, - Wyddered lyke hay, - The woll worne away: - And yet I dare saye - She thinketh herselfe gaye. - - * * * * - - She dryueth downe the dewe - With a payre of heles - As brode as two wheles; - She hobles as a gose - Wyth her blanket trose - Ouer the falowe: - Her shone smered wyth talowe, - Gresed vpon dyrt - That bandeth her skyrt. - -[Illustration: ELYNOR RUMMYNG.] - - And this comely dame - I vnderstande her name - Is Elynor Rummynge, - At home in her wonnynge: - And as men say, - She dwelt in Sothray, - In a certain stede - Bysyde Lederhede, - She is a tonnysh gyb, - The Deuyll and she be syb, - But to make vp my tale, - She breweth nappy ale, - And maketh port-sale - To travelers and tynkers, - To sweters and swynkers, - And all good ale-drynkers, - That wyll nothynge spare, - But drynke tyll they stare - And brynge themselves bare, - Wyth, now away the mare - And let vs sley care - As wyse as a hare. - Come who so wyll - To Elynor on the hyll - Wyth Fyll the cup, fyll - And syt there by styll. - Erly and late - Thyther cometh Kate - Cysly, and Sare - Wyth theyr legges bare - And also theyr fete. - - * * * * - - Some haue no mony - For theyr ale to pay, - That is a shrewd aray; - Elynor swered, Nay, - Ye shall not beare away - My ale for nought, - By hym that me bought! - Wyth, Hey, dogge, hey, - Haue these hogges away[10] - Wyth, Get me a staffe, - The swyne eate my draffe! - Stryke the hogges wyth a clubbe, - They haue dranke up my swyllyn tubbe. - -The unlovely Elynor scraped up all manner of filth into her mash-tub, -mixed it together with her "mangy fists," and sold the result as ale. It -is proverbial that "there is no accounting for tastes," and it would -appear as though the district had a peculiar liking for this kind of brew. -They would have it somehow, even if they had to bring their food and -furniture for it: - - Insteede of quoyne and mony, - Some bryng her a coney, - And some a pot wyth honey; - Some a salt, some a spoone, - Some theyr hose, some theyr shoone; - Some run a good trot - Wyth skyllet or pot: - Some fyll a bag-full - Of good Lemster wool; - An huswyfe of trust - When she is athyrst - Such a web can spyn - Her thryft is full thyn. - Some go strayght thyther - Be it slaty or slydder, - They hold the hyghway; - They care not what men say, - Be they as be may - Some loth to be espyd, - Start in at the backesyde, - Over hedge and pale, - And all for good ale. - Some brought walnuts, - Some apples, some pears, - And some theyr clyppying shears. - Some brought this and that, - Some brought I wot ne're what, - Some brought theyr husband's hat. - -and so forth, for hundreds of lines more. - -The old inn--still nothing more than an ale-house--is in part as old as -the poem, but has been so patched and repaired in all the intervening -centuries that nothing of any note is to be seen within. A very old -pictorial sign, framed and glazed, and fixed against the wall of the -gable, represents the ill-favoured landlady, and is inscribed: "Elynor -Rummyn dwelled here, 1520." - -Accounts we have of the fourteenth-century inns show that the exclusive, -solitary Englishman was not then allowed to exist. Guests slept in -dormitories, very much as the inmates of common lodging-houses generally -do now, and, according to the evidence of old prints, knew nothing of -nightshirts, and lay in bed naked. They purchased their food in something -the same way as a modern "dosser" in a Rowton House, but their manners and -customs were peculiarly offensive. The floors were strewed with rushes; -and as guests generally threw their leavings there, and the rushes -themselves were not frequently removed, those old interiors must have been -at times exceptionally noisome. - -Inn-keepers charged such high prices for this accommodation, and for the -provisions they sold, that the matter grew scandalous, and at last, in the -reign of Edward the Third, in 1349, and again in 1353, statutes were -passed ordering hostelries to be content with moderate gain. The "great -and outrageous dearth of victuals kept up in all the realm by innkeepers -and other retailers of victuals, to the great detriment of the people -travelling across the realm" was such that no less a penalty would serve -than that any "hosteler or herberger" should pay "double of what he -received to the party damnified." Mayors and bailiffs, and justices -learned in the law, were to "enquire in all places, of all and singular, -of the deeds and outrages of hostelers and their kind," but it does not -appear that matters were greatly improved. - -[Illustration: THE "RUNNING HORSE," LEATHERHEAD.] - -It will be observed that two classes of innkeepers are specified in those -ordinances. The "hosteler" was the ordinary innkeeper; the "herberger" was -generally a more or less important and well-to-do merchant who added to -his income by "harbouring"--that is to say, by boarding and -lodging--strangers, the "paying guests" of that age. We may dimly perceive -something of the trials and hardships of old-time travel in that -expression "harbouring." The traveller then came to his rest as a ship -comes into harbour from stormy seas. The better-class travellers, coming -into a town, preferred the herberger's more select table to the common -publicity of the ordinary hostelry, and the herbergers themselves were -very keen to obtain such guests, some even going to the length of -maintaining touts to watch the arrival of strangers, and bid for custom. -This was done both openly and in an underhand fashion, the more rapacious -among the herbergers employing specious rogues who, entering into -conversation with likely travellers at the entrance of a town, would -pretend to be fellow-countrymen and so, on the understanding of a common -sympathy, recommending them to what they represented to be the best -lodgings. Travellers taking such recommendations generally found -themselves in exceptionally extortionate hands. These practices early led -to "herbergers" being regulated by law, on much the same basis as the -hostelers. - -Not many records of travelling across England in the fourteenth century -have survived. Indeed the only detailed one we have, and that is merely a -return of expenses, surviving in Latin manuscript at Merton College, -Oxford, concerns itself with nothing but the cost of food and lodging at -the inns and the disbursements on the road, made by the Warden and two -fellows who, with four servants--the whole party on horseback--in -September, 1331, travelled to Durham and back on business connected with -the college property. The outward journey took them twelve days. They -crossed the Humber at the cost of 8_d._, to the ferry: beds for the entire -party of seven generally came to 2_d._ a night, beer the same, wine -1-1/4_d._, meat 5-1/2_d._, candles 1/4_d._, fuel 2_d._, bread 4_d._, and -fodder for the horses 10_d._ - - - - -CHAPTER III - -GENERAL HISTORY OF INNS - - -The mediaeval hostelries, generally planned in the manner of the old -galleried inns that finally went out of fashion with the end of the -coaching age, consisting of a building enclosing a courtyard, and entered -only by a low and narrow archway, which in its turn was closed at -nightfall by strong, bolt-studded doors, are often said to owe their form -to the oriental "caravanserai," a type of building familiar to Englishmen -taking part in the Crusades. - -But it is surely not necessary to go so far afield for an origin. The -"caravanserai" was originally a type of Persian inn where caravans put up -for the night: and as security against robbers was the first need of such -a country and such times, a courtyard capable of being closed when -necessary against unwelcome visitors was clearly indicated as essential. -Persia, however, and oriental lands in general, were not the only -countries where in those dark centuries robbers, numerous and bold, or -even such undesirables as rebels against the existing order of things, -were to be reckoned with, and England had no immunity from such dangers. -In such a state of affairs, and in times when private citizens were -careful always to bolt and bar themselves in; when great lords dwelt -behind moats, drawbridges, and battlemented walls; and when even -ecclesiastic and collegiate institutions were designed with the idea that -they might ultimately have to be defended, it is quite reasonable to -suppose that innkeepers were capable of evolving a plan for themselves by -which they and their guests, and the goods of their guests, might reckon -on a degree of security. - -This was the type of hostelry that, apart from the mere tavern, or -alehouse, remained for so many centuries typical of the English good-class -inns. It was at once, in a sense--to compare old times with new--the hotel -and railway-station of an age that knew neither railways nor the class of -house we style "hotel." It was the fine flower of the hostelling business, -and to it came and went the carriers' waggons, the early travellers riding -horseback, and, in the course of time, as the age of wonderful inventions -began to dawn, the stage and mail-coaches. Travellers of the most gentle -birth, equally with those rich merchants and clothiers who were the -greatest travellers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, inned at -such establishments. It was at one such that Archbishop Leighton ended. He -had said, years before, that "if he must choose a place to die in, it -should be an inn, it looking like a pilgrim's going home, to whom this -world was an inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion of it." He -died, that good and gentle man, at the "Bell" in Warwick Lane, in 1684. - -London, once rich in hostelries of this type, has now but one. In fine, it -is not in the metropolis that the amateur of old inns of any kind would -nowadays seek with great success; although, well within the memory of most -people, it was exceptionally well furnished with them. It was neither good -taste nor good business that, in 1897, demolished the "Old Bell," Holborn, -a pretty old-world galleried inn that maintained until the very last an -excellent trade in all branches of licensed-victualling; and would have -continued so to do had it not been that the greed for higher ground-rent -ordained the ending of it, in favour of the giant (and very vulgar) -building now occupying the spot where it stood. That may have been a -remunerative transaction for the ground-landlord; but, looking at these -commercial-minded clearances in a broader way, they are nothing less than -disastrous. If, to fill some private purses over-full, you thus callously -rebuild historic cities, their history becomes merely a matter for the -printed page, and themselves to the eye nothing but a congeries of crowded -streets where the motor-omnibuses scream and clash and stink, and citizens -hustle to get a living. History, without visible ancient buildings to -assure the sceptical modern traveller that it is not wholly lies, will -never by itself draw visitors. - -Holborn, where the "Old Bell" stood, was, until quite recent years, a -pleasant threshold to the City. There stood Furnival's Inn, that quiet -quadrangle of chambers, with the staid and respectable Wood's Hotel. Next -door was Ridler's Hotel, with pleasant bay-window looking upon the street, -and across the way, in Fetter Lane, remained the "White Horse" coaching -inn; very much down on its luck in its last years, but interesting to -prowling strangers enamoured of the antique and out-of-date. - -The vanished interest of other corners in London might be enlarged upon, -but it is too melancholy a picture. Let us to the Borough High Street, -and, resolutely refusing to think for the moment of the many queer old -galleried inns that not so long since remained there, come to that sole -survivor, the "George." - -You would never by mere chance find the "George," for it has no frontage -to the street, and lies along one side of a yard not at first sight very -prepossessing, and, in fact, used in these days for the unsentimental -purposes of a railway goods-receiving depot. This, however, is the old -yard once entirely in use for the business of the inn. - -The "George," as it now stands, is the successor of a pre-Reformation inn -that, formerly the "St. George," became secularised in the time of Henry -the Eighth, when saints, even patron saints, were under a cloud. It is an -exceedingly long range of buildings, dating from the seventeenth century, -and in two distinct and different styles: a timbered, wooden-balustraded -gallery in two storeys, and a white-washed brick continuation. The long -ground-floor range of windows to the kitchen, the bar, and the -coffee-room, is, as seen in the illustration, protected from any accidents -in the manoeuvring of the railway waggons by a continuous bulkhead of -sleepers driven into the ground. It is pleasing to be able to bear witness -to the thriving trade that continues to be done in this sole ancient -survivor of the old Southwark galleried inns, and to note that, however -harshly fate, as personified by rapacious landlords, has dealt with its -kind, the old-world savour of the inn is thoroughly appreciated by those -not generally thought sentimental persons, the commercial men who dine and -lunch, and the commercial travellers who sleep, here. - -But, however pleasing the old survivals in brick and stone, in timber and -plaster, may be to the present generation, we seem, by the evidence left -us in the literature and printed matter of an earlier age, to have -travelled far from gross to comparatively ideal manners. - -[Illustration: THE LAST OF THE OLD GALLERIED INNS OF LONDON: THE "GEORGE," -SOUTHWARK. _Photo by T. W. Tyrrell._] - -The manners common to all classes in old times would scarce commend -themselves to modern folk. We get a curious glimpse of them in one of a -number of Manuals of Foreign Conversation for the use of travellers, -published towards the close of the sixteenth century in Flanders, then a -country of great trading importance, sending forth commercial travellers -and others to many foreign lands. One of these handy books, styled, rather -formidably, _Colloquia et dictionariolum septem linguarum_, including, as -its title indicates, conversation in seven languages, was so highly -successful that seven editions of it, dating from 1589, are known. The -traveller in England, coming to his inn, is found talking on the subject -of trade and civil wars, and at length desires to retire to rest. The -conversation itself is sufficiently strange, and is made additionally -startling by the capital W's that appear in unconventional places. "Sir," -says the traveller, "by your leave, I am sum What euell at ease." To which -the innkeeper replies: "Sir, if you be ill at ease, go and take your rest, -your chambre is readie. Jone, make a good fier in his chambre, and let him -lacke nothing." - -Then we have a dialogue with "Jone," the chambermaid, in this wise: - -_Traveller_: My shee frinde, is my bed made? is it good? - -"Yea, Sir, it is a good feder bed, the scheetes be very cleane." - -_Traveller_: I shake as a leafe upon the tree. Warme my kerchif and bynde -my head well. Soft, you binde it to harde, bryng my pilloW and cover mee -Well: pull off my hosen and Warme my bed: draWe the curtines and pinthen -With a pin. - -Where is the camber pot? - -Where is the priuie? - -_Chambermaid_: FolloW mee, and I Will sheW you the Way: go up streight, -you shall finde them at the right hand. If you see them not you shall -smell them Well enough. Sir, doth it please you to haue no other thing? -are you Wel? - -_Traveller_: Yea, my shee frinde, put out the candell, and come nearer to -mee. - -_Chambermaid_: I Wil put it out When I am out of the chamber. What is your -pleasure, are you not Well enough yet? - -_Traveller_: My head lyeth to loWe, lift up a little the bolster, I can -not lie so loWe.--My shee friende, kisse me once, and I shall sleape the -better. - -_Chambermaid_: Sleape, sleape, you are not sicke, seeing that you speake -of kissyng. I had rather die then to kisse a man in his bed, or in any -other place. Take your rest in God's name, God geeue you good night and -goode rest. - -_Traveller_: I thank you, fayre mayden. - -In the morning we have "Communication at the oprysing," the traveller -calling to the boy to "Drie my shirt, that I may rise." Then, "Where is -the horse-keeper? go tell him that hee my horse leade to the river." - -Departing, our traveller does not forget the chambermaid, and asks, "Where -is ye maiden? hold my shee freend, ther is for your paines. Knave, bring -hither my horse, have you dressed him Well?" "Yea, sir," says the knave, -"he did Wante nothing." - -Anciently people of note and position, with large acquaintance among their -own class, expected, when they travelled, to be received at the country -houses along their route, if they should so desire, and still, at the -close of the seventeenth century, and at the beginning of the eighteenth, -the custom was not unknown. Even should the master be away from home, the -hospitality of his house was not usually withheld. From these old and -discontinued customs we may, perhaps, derive that one by no means -obsolete, but rather still on the increase, of guests "tipping" the -servants of country houses. - -This possibility of a traveller making use of another man's house as his -inn was fast dying out in England in the time of Charles the Second. -Probably it had never been so abused in this country as in Scotland, where -innkeepers petitioned Parliament, complaining, in the extraordinary -language at that time obtaining in Scotland, "that the liegis travelland -in the realme quhen they cum to burrowis and throuchfairis, herbreis thame -not in hostillaries, but with their acquaintance and friendis." - -An enactment was accordingly passed in 1425, forbidding, under a penalty -of forty shillings, all travellers resorting to burgh towns to lodge with -friends or acquaintances, or in any place but the "hostillaries," unless, -indeed, they were persons of consequence, with a great retinue, in which -case they personally might accept the hospitality of friends, provided -that their "horse and meinze" were sent to the inns. - -When the custom of seeking the shelter, as a matter of course, of the -country mansion fell into disuse, so, conversely, did that of naming inns -after the local Lord of the Manor come into fashion. Then, in a manner -emblematic of the traveller's change from the hospitality of the mansion -to that of the inn, mine host adopted the heraldic coat from the great -man's portal, and called his house the "---- Arms." It has been left to -modern times, times in which heraldry has long ceased to be an exact -science, to perpetrate such absurdities as the "Bricklayers' Arms," the -"Drovers' Arms," and the like, appropriated to a class of person unknown -officially to the College of Heralds. - -According to Fynes Morison, who wrote in 1617, we held then, in this -country, a pre-eminence in the trade and art of innkeeping: "The world," -he said, "affords not such inns as England hath, for as soon as a -passenger comes the servants run to him: one takes his horse, and walks -him till he be cold, then rubs him and gives him meat, but let the master -look to this point. Another gives the traveller his private chamber and -kindles his fire, the third pulls off his boots and makes them clean; then -the host or hostess visits him--if he will eat with the host--or at a -common table it will be 4_d._ and 6_d._ If a gentleman has his own -chamber, his ways are consulted, and he has music, too, if he likes." - -In short, Morison wrote of English inns just anterior to the time of -Samuel Pepys, who travelled much in his day, and tells us freely, in his -appreciative way, of the excellent appointments, the music, the good fare -and the comfortable beds he, in general, found. - -But this era in which Morison wrote was a trying time for all innkeepers -and taverners. The story of it is so remarkable that it repays a lengthy -treatment. - -In our own age it is customary to many otherwise just and fair-minded -people to look upon the innkeeper as a son of a Belial, a sinner who -should be kept in outer darkness and made to sit in sackcloth and ashes, -in penance for other people's excesses. On the one side he has the -cormorants of the Inland Revenue plucking out his vitals, and generally, -if it be a "tied" house, on the other a Brewery Company, selling him the -worst liquors at the best prices, and threatening to turn him out if he -does not maintain a trade of so many barrels a month. Always, from the -earliest times, he has been the mark for satire and invective, has been -licensed, sweated, regulated, and generally put on the chain; but he -probably had never so bad a time as that he experienced in the last years -of James the First. Already innkeepers were licensed at Quarter Sessions, -but in 1616 it occurred to one Giles Mompesson, the time-serving Member of -Parliament for the rotten borough of Great Bedwin, in Wiltshire, that much -plunder could be extracted from them and used to replenish the Royal -Exchequer, then at a low ebb, if he could obtain the grant of a monopoly -of licensing inns, over-riding the old-established functions in that -direction of the magistrates. - -Giles Mompesson was no altruist, or at the best a perverted one, who put -his own interpretation upon that good old maxim, "Who works for others -works for himself." He foresaw that while such a State monopoly, under -his own control, might bring a bountiful return to the State, it must -enrich himself and those associated with him. He imparted the brilliant -idea to that dissolute royal favourite, George Villiers, Duke of -Buckingham, who succeeded in obtaining him a patent for a special -commission to grant licenses to keepers of inns and ale-houses. The patent -was issued, not without great opposition, and the licensing fees were left -to the discretion of Mompesson and his two fellow-commissioners, with the -only proviso that four-fifths of the returns were to go to the Exchequer. -Shortly afterwards Mompesson himself was knighted by the King, in order, -as Bacon wrote, "that he may better fight with the Bulls and the Bears and -the Saracen's Heads, and such fearful creatures." Much virtue and power, -of the magisterial sort, in a knighthood; likely, we consider, King and -commissioners, and all concerned in the issuing of this patent, to impress -and overawe poor Bung, and therefore we, James the First, most sacred -Majesty by the grace of God, do, on Newmarket Heath, say, "Rise, Sir -Giles!" - -The three commissioners wielded full authority. There was no appeal from -that triumvirate, who at their will refused or granted licenses, and -charged for them what they pleased, hungering after that one-fifth. They -largely increased the number of inns, woefully oppressed honest men, wrung -heavy fines from all for merely technical and inadvertent infractions of -the licensing laws, and granted new licenses at exorbitant rates to -infamous houses that had but recently been deprived of them. During more -than four years these iniquities continued, side by side with the working -of other monopolies, granted from time to time, but at last the gathering -storm of indignation burst, in the House of Commons, in February, 1621. -That was a Parliament already working with the leaven of a Puritanism -which was presently to leaven the whole lump of English governance in a -drastic manner then little dreamt of; and it was keen to scent and to -abolish abuses. - -Thus we see the House, very stern and vindictive, inquiring into the -conduct and working of the by now notorious Commission. In the result -Mompesson and his associates were found to have prosecuted 3,320 -innkeepers for technical infractions of obsolete statutes, and to have -been guilty of many misdemeanours. Mompesson appealed to the mercy of the -House, but was placed under arrest by the Sergeant-at-Arms while that -assembly deliberated how it should act. Mompesson himself clearly expected -to be severely dealt with, for at the earliest moment evaded his arrest -and was off, across the Channel, where he learnt--no doubt with cynical -amusement--that he had been "banished." - -The judgment of the two Houses of Parliament was that he should be -expelled the House, and be degraded from his knighthood and conducted on -horseback along the Strand with his face to the horse's tail. Further, he -was to be fined L10,000, and for ever held an infamous person. - -Meanwhile, if Parliament failed to lay the chief offender by the heels, it -did at least succeed in putting hand upon, and detaining, one of his -equally infamous associates, himself a knight, and accordingly susceptible -of some dramatic degradation, beyond anything to be possibly wreaked upon -any common fellow. Sir Francis Mitchell, attorney-at-law, was consigned to -the Tower, and then brought forth from it to have his spurs hacked off and -thrown away, his sword broken over his head, and himself publicly called -no longer knight, but "knave." Then to the Fleet Prison, with certainty on -the morrow of a public procession to Westminster, himself the central -object, mounted, with face to tail, on the back of the sorriest horse to -be found, and the target for all the missiles of the crowd: a prospect and -programme duly realised and carried out. - -Mompesson we may easily conceive hearing of, and picturing, all these -things, in his retreat over sea, and congratulating himself on his prompt -flight. But he was, after all, treated with the most extraordinary -generosity. The same year, the fine of L10,000 was assigned by the House -to his father-in-law (which we suspect was an oblique way of remitting it) -and in 1623 he is found petitioning to be allowed to return to England. He -was allowed to return for a period of three months, on condition that it -was to be solely on his private affairs, but he was no sooner back than -he impudently began to put his old licensing patent in force again. On -August 10th he was granted an extension of three months, but overstayed -it, and was at last, February 8th, 1624, ordered to quit the country -within five days. It remains uncertain whether he complied with this, or -not, but he soon returned; not, however, to again trouble public affairs, -for he returned to Wiltshire and died there, obscurely, about 1651. He -lives in literature, in Massinger's play, _A New Way to pay Old Debts_, as -"Sir Giles Overreach." - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY - - -The inns of old time, serving as they did the varied functions of clubs -and assembly-rooms and places of general resort, in addition to that of -hotel, were often, at times when controversies ran high, very turbulent -places. - -The manners and customs prevailing in the beginning of the eighteenth -century may be imagined from an affray which befell at the "Raven," -Shrewsbury, in 1716, when two officers of the Dragoons insisted in the -public room of the inn, upon a Mr. Andrew Swift and a Mr. Robert Wood, -apothecary, drinking "King George, and Damnation to the Jacobites." The -civilians refused, whereupon those military men drew their swords, -but--swords notwithstanding--they were very handsomely thrashed, and one -was placed upon the fire, and not only had his breeches burnt through in a -conspicuous place, but had his person toasted. The officers then, we -learn, "went off, leaving their hatts, wigs and swords (which were broke) -behind them." - -One did not, it will be gathered from the above, easily in those times -lead the Quiet Life; but that was a heated occasion, and we were then -really upon the threshold of that fine era when inns, taverns, and -coffee-houses were the resort, not merely of travellers or of thirsty -souls, but of wits and the great figures of eighteenth-century literature, -who were convivial as well as literary. It was a great, and, as it seems -to the present century, a curious, time; when men of the calibre of -Addison, of Goldsmith and of Johnson, acknowledged masters in classic and -modern literature, smoked and drank to excess in the public parlours of -inns. But those were the clubs of that age, and that was an age in which, -although the producers of literature were miserably rewarded, their -company and conversation were sought and listened to with respect. - -When Dr. Johnson declared that a seat in a tavern chair was the height of -human felicity, his saying carried a special significance, lost upon the -present age. He was thinking, not only of a comfortable sanded parlour, a -roaring fire, and plenty of good cheer and good company, but also of the -circle of humbly appreciative auditors who gathered round an accepted wit, -hung upon his words, offered themselves as butts for his ironic or satiric -humour, and--stood treat. The great wits of the eighteenth century -expected subservience in their admirers, and only began to coruscate, to -utter words of wisdom or inspired nonsense, or to scatter sparkling quips -and jests, when well primed with liquor--at the expense of others. The -felicity of Johnson found in a tavern chair was derived, therefore, -chiefly from the homage of his attendant humble Boswells, and from the -fact that they paid the reckoning; and was, perhaps, to some modern ideas, -a rather shameful idea of happiness. - -Johnson, who did not love the country, and thought one green field very -like another green field, when he spoke of a tavern chair was of course -thinking of London taverns. He would have found no sufficient audience in -its wayside fellow, which indeed was apt, in his time and for long after, -to be somewhat rough and ready, and, when you had travelled a little far -afield, became a very primitive and indeed barbarous place. - -At Llannon, in 1797, those sketching and note-taking friends, Rowlandson -and Wigstead, touring North and South Wales in search of the picturesque, -found it, not unmixed with dirt and discomfort, at the inns. Indeed, it -was only at one town in Wales--the town of Neath--that Wigstead found -himself able to declare, "with strict propriety," that the house was -comfortable. Comfort and decency fled the inn at Llannon, abashed. This, -according to Wigstead, was the way of it: "The cook on our arrival was in -the suds, and, with unwiped hands, reached down a fragment of mutton for -our repast: a piece of ham was lost, but after long search was found -amongst the worsted stockings and sheets on the board." - -Then "a little child was sprawling in a dripping-pan which seemed recently -taken from the fire: the fat in this was destined to fry our eggs in. -Hunger itself even was blunted," and the travellers left those delicacies -almost untouched. Not even the bread was without its surprises. "I devoted -my attention to a brown loaf," says Wigstead, "but on cutting into it was -surprised to find a ball of carroty-coloured wool; and to what animal it -had belonged I was at a loss to determine. Our table-cloth had served the -family for at least a month, and our sitting-room was everywhere decorated -with the elegant relics of a last night's smoking society, as yet -unremoved." - -All this was pretty bad, but perhaps even the baby in the dripping-pan, -the month-old table-cloth, and the hank of wool in the loaf were to be -preferred to what they had experienced at Festiniog. They had not at first -purposed to make a halt at that place, having planned to stay the night at -Tan-y-Bwlch, where the inn commanded a view over a lovely wooded vale. The -perils and the inconveniences of the vile road by which they had come -faded into insignificance when they drew near, and they began to reckon -upon the comforts of a good supper and good beds at Tan-y-Bwlch. They even -disputed whether the supper should be chickens or chops, but all such vain -arguments and contentions faded away when they drew near and a stony-faced -landlord declared he had no room for them. - -We can easily sympathise here with those travellers in search of the -picturesque, for we have all met with the like strokes of Fate. No doubt -the beauties of the view suddenly obscured themselves, as will happen -when you can get nothing to eat or drink; and probably they thought of Dr. -Johnson, who a few years earlier had held the most beautiful landscape -capable of being improved by a good inn in the foreground. But a good inn -where they cannot or will not receive you, is, in such a situation, -sorrow's crown of sorrow, an aggravation and a mockery. - -It was a tragical position, and down the sounding alleys of time vibrates -strange chords of reminiscence in the breasts of even modern tourists of -any experience. We too, have suffered; and many an one may say, with much -tragical meaning, "_et ego in Arcadia vixit_." - -Alas! for the frustrated purpose of Messrs. Rowlandson and Wigstead, -Tan-y-Bwlch could not, or would not, receive them, and they had no choice -but to journey three more long Welsh miles to Festiniog in the rain. It -sometimes rains in Wales, and when it does, it rarely knows when to leave -off. - -Arrived there, they almost passed the inn, in the gathering darkness, -mistaking it for a barn or an outhouse; and when they made to enter, they -were confronted by an extraordinary landlady with the appearance of one of -the three witches in _Macbeth_. - -"Could they have beds?" - -Reluctantly she said they could, telling them (what we know to be true -enough) that she supposed they only came there because there was no -accommodation at Tan-y-Bwlch. - -The travellers made no reply to that damning accusation, and hid their -incriminating blushes in the congenial gloom of the fast-falling night. It -was a situation in which, if you come to consider it, no wise man would -give "back answers." You have a landlady who, for the proverbial two pins, -or even less, would cast you forth; and when so thrust into the -inhospitable night, you have seventeen mountainous miles to go, in a -drenching rain, before any other kind of asylum is reached. - -Wigstead remarks that they "were not a little satisfied at being under any -kind of roof," and the words seem woefully inadequate to the occasion. - -There were no chops that night for supper, nor chickens; and they fed, -with what grace they could summon up, on a "small leg of starved mutton -and a duck," which, by the scent of them, had been cooked a fortnight. For -sauce they had hunger only. - -"Our bedrooms," says Wigstead, "were most miserable indeed: the rain -poured in at every tile in the ceiling," and the sheets were literally -wringing wet; so that, in Wigstead's elegant phrasing, they "thought it -most prudent to sacrifice to _Somnus_ in our own garments, between -blankets": which may perhaps be translated, into everyday English, to mean -that they slept in their own clothes. - -They saw strange sights on that wild tour, and, in the course of their -hazardous travels through the then scarcely civilised interior of the -Principality, came to the "pleasant village" of Newcastle Emlyn, -Carmarthenshire, where they found a "decent inn" in whose kitchen they -remarked a dog acting as turnspit. That the dogs so employed did not -particularly relish the work is evident in Wigstead's remark: "Great care -must be taken that this animal does not observe the cook approach the -larder. If he does, he immediately hides himself for the remainder of the -day," acting, in fact, like a professional "unemployed" when offered a -job! - -A familiar sight in the kitchen of any considerable inn of the long ago -was the turnspit dog, who, like the caged mouse or squirrel with his -recreation-wheel, revolved a kind of treadwheel which, in this instance, -was connected with apparatus for turning the joints roasting at the fire, -and formed not so much recreation as extremely hard work. The dogs -commonly used for this purpose were of the long-bodied, short-legged, -Dachshund type. - -Machinery, in the form of bottle-jacks revolved by clockwork, came to the -relief of those hard-working dogs so long ago that all knowledge of -turnspits, except such as may be gleaned from books of reference, is now -lost, and illustrations of them performing their duties are exceedingly -rare. Rowlandson's spirited drawing is, on that account, doubly welcome. - -[Illustration: THE KITCHEN OF A COUNTRY INN, 1797: SHOWING THE TURNSPIT -DOG. _From the engraving after Rowlandson._] - -Turnspits were made the subject of a very illuminating notice, a -generation or so back, by a former writer on country life: "How well do I -recollect," he says, "in the days of my youth watching the operations of a -turnspit at the house of a worthy old Welsh clergyman in Worcestershire, -who taught me to read! He was a good man, wore a bushy wig, black worsted -stockings, and large plated buckles in his shoes. As he had several -boarders as well as day-scholars, his two turnspits had plenty to do. They -were long-bodied, crook-legged and ugly dogs, with a suspicious, unhappy -look about them, as if they were weary of the task they had to do, and -expected every moment to be seized upon, to perform it. Cooks in those -days, as they are said to be at present, were very cross; and if the poor -animal, wearied with having a larger joint than usual to turn, stopped for -a moment, the voice of the cook might be heard, rating him in no very -gentle terms. When we consider that a large, solid piece of beef would -take at least three hours before it was properly roasted, we may form some -idea of the task a dog had to perform in turning a wheel during that time. -A pointer has pleasure in finding game, the terrier worries rats with -eagerness and delight, and the bull-dog even attacks bulls with the -greatest energy, while the poor turnspit performs his task with -compulsion, like a culprit on a tread-wheel, subject to scolding or -beating if he stops a moment to rest his weary limbs, and is then kicked -about the kitchen when the task is over." - -The work being so hard, how ever did the dogs allow themselves to be put -to it? The training was, after all, extremely simple. You first, as Mrs. -Glasse might say, caught your dog. That, it will be agreed, was -indispensable. Then you put him, ignorant and uneducated, into the wheel, -and in company with him a live coal, which burnt his legs if he stood -still. He accordingly tried to race away from it, and the quicker he spun -the wheel round in his efforts the faster followed the coal: so that, by -dint of much painful experience, he eventually learned the (comparatively) -happy medium between standing still and going too fast. "These dogs," it -was somewhat unnecessarily added, "were by no means fond of their -profession." Of course they were not! Does the convict love his crank or -treadmill, or the galley-slave his oar and bench? - -The turnspit was once so well-known an institution that he found an -allusion in poetry, and an orator was likened, in uncomplimentary fashion, -to one: - - His arguments in silly circles run, - Still round and round, and end where they begun. - So the poor turnspit, as the wheel runs round, - The more he gains, the more he loses ground. - -These unfortunate dogs acquired a preternatural intelligence. A humorous, -but probably not true, story is told, illustrating this. It was at Bath, -and some of them had accompanied their mistresses to church, where the -lesson chanced to be the tenth chapter of Ezekiel, in which there is an -amazing deal about self-propelled chariots, and wheels. When the dogs -first heard the word "wheel" they started up in alarm; on its occurring a -second time they howled dolefully, and at the third instance they all -rushed from the church. - -Strangely modern appear the grievances raised against innkeepers in the -old times. The bills they presented were early pronounced exorbitant, and -so, in spite of measures intended for the relief of travellers, they -remained. Indeed, throughout the centuries, until the present day, the -curious in these matters will find, not unexpectedly, that innkeepers -charged according to what they considered their guests would grumble -at--and pay. - -The eighteenth-century _locus classicus_ in this sort is the account -rendered to the Duc de Nivernais, the French Ambassador to England, who in -1762, coming to negotiate a treaty of peace, halted the night, on his way -from Dover to London, at the "Red Lion," Canterbury. - -For the night's lodging for twelve persons, with a frugal supper in which -oysters, fowls, boiled mutton, poached eggs and fried whiting figure, the -landlord presented an account of over L44. Our soldiers fought the -Frenchman; mine host did his humble, non-combatant part, and fleeced him. - -This truly magnificent bill has been preserved, not, let us hope, for the -emulation of other hotel-keepers, but by way of a "terrible example." -Here it is: - - L s. d. - Tea, coffee, and chocolate 1 4 0 - Supper for self and servants 15 10 0 - Bread and beer 3 0 0 - Fruit 2 15 0 - Wine and punch 10 8 8 - Wax candles and charcoal 3 0 0 - Broken glass and china 2 10 0 - Lodging 1 7 0 - Tea, coffee, and chocolate 2 0 0 - Chaise and horses for the next stage 2 16 0 - ------- - 44 10 8 - ======= - -The Duke paid the account without a murmur, only remarking that innkeepers -at this rate should soon grow rich; but news of this extraordinary charge -was soon spread all over England. It was printed in the newspapers, amid -other marvels, disasters and atrocities, and mine host of the "Red Lion," -like Byron in a later age, woke up one morning to find himself famous. - -The country gentlemen, scandalised at his rapacity, boycotted his inn, and -his brother innkeepers of Canterbury disowned him. The unfortunate man -wrote to the _St. James's Chronicle_, endeavouring to justify himself, and -complaining bitterly of the harm that had been wrought his business by the -continual billeting of soldiers upon him. But it was in vain he protested; -his trade fell off, and he was ruined in six months. - -Sometimes, too, there was a difference of opinion as to whether a bill had -or had not actually been paid, as we see by the following indignant -letter: - - Normanton near Stamford. - 2{d} Sept{r} 1755. - - Madam, - - My Lord Morton Received a Letter from you of the 5{th} Aug{t} - inclosing a Bill drawn by you on his Lp for L6 1 11, and to make up - this sum p{r} your Account annexed to the above-mentioned Letter, you - charge twelve shillings for his Servant's eating, for which he is - ready to Swear he paid you in full; then you charge for the Horses Hay - for 35 Nights notwithstanding you was ordered to send the horse out to - grass, and by the by when the horse came to London he was so poor as - if he had been quite neglected which seems probable as he mended soon - after he came here; at any rate you have used my Lord ill in the whole - affair, and if you or your Servants have committed any accidental - mistake either in the Lads Board or the horses hay pray see to rectify - it soon, because things of that sort not cleard up and satisfied are - very hurtfull to People in your publick way especially with those to - whom you have already been obliged, and who at any rate will not be - imposed upon. I am-- - - Madam-- - Your humble sert - JOHN MILNE. - - To - M{rs} Beaver - at the Black Bull - Newcastle - upon Tine, - free - Morton. - -Then there was Dover, notorious for high prices. "Thy cliffs, _dear_ -Dover! harbour and hotel," sang Byron, who bitterly remembered the "long, -long bills, whence nothing is deducted." The "Ship," the hotel probably -indicted by the poet, has long since disappeared, but that gigantic -caravanserai, the "Lord Warden Hotel," could at one time, in its -monumental charges, have afforded him material for another stanza. -Magnificent as were the charges made by overreaching hosts elsewhere, they -all paled their ineffectual sums-total before the sublime heights of the -account rendered to Louis Napoleon when Prince-President of France. He -merely remarked that it was truly princely, and paid. - -[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF AN ACCOUNT RENDERED TO JOHN PALMER IN 1787.] - -If, on the other hand, that famous coaching hostelry, the "Swan with Two -Necks," in Lad Lane, in the City of London, charged guests for their -accommodation as moderately as the accompanying bill for stabling a horse, -the establishment should have been popular. This bill, printed here in -_facsimile_ from the original, was presented, April 16th, 1787, to John -Palmer, the famous Post Office reformer, and shows that only one shilling -and ninepence a night was charged. Yet he was at that time a famous man. -Three years before he had established the first mail-coach, and was -everywhere well known, and doubtless, in general, fair prey to renderers -of bills. - -[Illustration: THE LAST DAYS OF THE "SWAN WITH TWO NECKS."] - -The "Swan with Two Necks," whence many coaches set out, until the end of -such things, was often known by waggish people as the "Wonderful Bird," -and obtained its name from a perversion of the "Swan with Two Nicks": -swans that swam the upper Thames and were the property of the Vintners' -Company being marked on their bills with two nicks, for identification. -Lad Lane is now "Gresham Street," but, apart from its mere name, is a lane -still; but the old buildings of the "Swan with Two Necks" were pulled down -in 1856. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -LATTER DAYS - - -A host of writers have written in praise--and rightly in praise--of that -fine flower of many centuries of innkeeping evolution, the Coaching Inn of -the early and mid-nineteenth century. Hazlitt, Washington Irving, De -Quincey, are all among the prophets; De Quincey, ceasing for the while his -mystical apocalyptic style, mournfully lamenting the beginnings of the end -that came even so long ago as his day, which, after all, ended not so very -long ago, for although he seems so ancient, he died only in 1859. He -writes, in early railway times, of "those days," the days in question -being that fine period in coaching and innkeeping, the '20's of the -nineteenth century. - -"What cosy old parlours in those days," he exclaims, "low-roofed, glowing -with ample fires and fenced from the blasts of the doors by screens whose -folding doors were, or seemed to be, infinite! What motherly landladies! -won, how readily, to kindness the most lavish by the mere attractions of -simplicity and youthful innocence, and finding so much interest in the -bare circumstance of being a traveller at a childish age! Then what -blooming young handmaidens; how different from the knowing and worldly -demireps of modern high roads! And sometimes grey-headed, faithful -waiters, how sincere and attentive by comparison with their flippant -successors, the eternal 'Coming, sir, coming,' of our improved -generation!" - -They all tell the same tale; those whose privilege it was to witness the -meeting of the old order and the new. - -"It was interesting," says Mr. Locker-Lampson, writing of old times, "as -the post-chaise drew up at the door of the roomy and comfortable hostel -where we were to dine or sleep, to see Boniface and his better half -smilingly awaiting us--Us in particular!--waiter and chamber-lasses -grouped behind them. The landlady advances to the carriage-window with a -cordial, self-respecting, 'Will you please to alight.' I remember that the -landlord, who announced dinner, sometimes entered with the first dish and -placed it on the table, bowing as he retired. Why, it all seems as if it -were but yesterday! Now it is gone for ever." - -Yes, irrevocably gone. Most of the old inns are gone too, and in their -place, only too frequently, the traveller finds the modern, company-owned -hotel, with a foreign manager who naturally takes no interest in the -guests he, as a matter of fact, rarely sees, and with whom no guest could -possibly foregather. In the modern barrack hotel the guest must -necessarily be impersonal--one of a number going to swell the returns. No -one quite willingly resigns himself to being a mere number; it is, -indeed, one of the greatest of the convict's trials that he has lost his -name and become identified only by a letter and a row of figures. Just in -the same way, when we stay at hotels our self-respect is revolted at being -received and dismissed with equal indifference, and there are many who -would gladly resign the innovations of electric light and hydraulic lifts -for that "welcome at an inn" of which Shenstone speaks. The philosophy of -these regrets must, in fact, be sought in that illuminating phrase, "_Us -in particular_." We travellers are unwilling to be thought of merely as -numbers identical with those of our bedrooms, and we like to believe, -against our own better judgment, that the old-fashioned hosts and -hostesses were pleased to see _us_; which of course, in that special -sense, was not the case. But a little make-believe sometimes goes a great -way, and we need never, unless we have a mind to distress ourselves, seek -the tongue of humbug in the cheek of courtesy. - -The landlord of a good coaching house was a very important person indeed. -Not seldom he was a large owner of horses and employer of labour; a man of -some culture and of considerable wealth. He was not only a good judge of -wine and horseflesh, but of men and matters, and not merely the servant, -but the self-respecting and respected friend, of the gentry in his -neighbourhood. He was generally in evidence at his house, and he or his -wife would have scorned the idea of appointing a manager to do their work. -In those days, and with such men along the road, it was an established -rule of etiquette for the coming guest to invite his host to take a glass -of wine with him and to exchange the news. But the type has become quite -extinct, and even their old houses have been either demolished or else -converted into private residences. Such hosts were Mr. and Mrs. Botham, of -the "Windmill" at Salt Hill; or the long succession of notable landlords -of the "Castle" at Marlborough, on the Bath Road; such were Clark, of the -"Bell," Barnby Moor, and Holt of the "Wheatsheaf," Rushyford Bridge, on -the Great North Road,--to name but those. - -They were men, too, of considerable influence, and, when equipped with -determination, wielded a certain amount of power, and brought great -changes to pass; as when Robert Lawrence, of the "Lion" at Shrewsbury, by -dint of great personal exertions, brought the line of travel between -London and Dublin through Shrewsbury and Holyhead, instead of, as -formerly, through Chester. He died in 1806, and the curious may yet read -on his mural monument in St. Julian's Church how he was "many years -proprietor of the 'Raven' and 'Lion' inns in this town," and that it was -to his "public spirit and unremitting exertions for upwards of thirty -years, in opening the great road through Wales between the United -kingdoms, as also for establishing the first mail-coach, that the public -in general have been greatly indebted." - -Almost equally forceful were some of the old-time proprietors of the -"George" at Walsall. In 1781 Mr. Thomas Fletcher, one of an old and -highly respected family in that town, gave up the "Dragon" in High Street -and built the great "George Hotel." He even procured an Act of Parliament -by which the present road from Walsall to Stafford was made, thereby -bringing Walsall out of a by-road into the direct line of traffic. He also -caused the Birmingham road to be straightened and widened, and gradually -brought coaching and posting through the town. His successors, Fletcher -and Sharratt, were equally energetic. In 1823 they remodelled the -"George," giving it the classic-columned front that confers a kind of -third-cousin relationship to the British Museum, with unappetising and -gruesome thoughts of dining on fried mummy and kippered parchments. The -columns, which are still very solemnly there--or were, a year ago--came -from the Marquis of Donegall's neighbouring seat of Fisherwick Hall, -demolished about that time, and the placing of them here was celebrated by -an inaugural feast, "the colonnade dinner," presided over by Lord -Hatherton, a great patron of the house. - -Those wonder-working innkeepers also, in 1831, promoted the Bill by which -the present Birmingham road through Perry Bar was made, superseding the -old route by Hamstead and Handsworth church. - -Unfortunately, those fine old innkeepers, whatever else they were, were -not usually cultivators of the art of literary expression, and did not -write their memoirs and reminiscences. Yet they could, had they chosen, -have told an interesting tale of men and matters. Consider! They were in -the whirl of life, and often knew personages and affairs, not merely by -report, but at first hand. What would not the historian of social England -give for such reminiscences? They would open the door to much that is now -sealed, and would clothe the dry bones of mere facts with romance. - -One such innkeeper, Mr. J. Kearsley Fowler, who kept the "White Hart," -Aylesbury, in the last few years of its existence, has, however, left us -something by which we may see, described at first-hand, the life and -surroundings of a first-class old coaching and posting inn between 1812 -and those middle years of the '60's, when a few branch-road coaches were -yet left, and the Squire and Agriculture were still prosperous. - -He tells us, of his own knowledge, that the innkeepers had by far the -largest amount of capital invested in the country towns, where, as men -generally of superior manners and education, from their constant -association with the leading nobility, clergy, and magistracy, they took a -prominent position, both socially and politically, the leading houses -being the head quarters, respectively, of Whigs and Tories. - -The "White Hart" at Aylesbury was generally believed to have dated back to -the time of Richard the Second, and in the time of the Wars of the Roses -to have been the rendezvous of the White Rose party, while the "Roebuck" -was affected to the Red Rose. - -Until 1812 the "White Hart" retained its fine mediaeval, three-gabled -frontage, with first floor overhanging the ground-floor, and the second -overhanging the first. Elaborately carved barge-boards decorated the -gables. In the centre of the front was a great gateway with deeply reeded -oaken posts and heavy double doors, which could be closed on occasion; -but, in the growing security of the land, had scarce within the memory of -man been shut to. Within was a spacious courtyard, partly surrounded by a -gallery supported on stout oaken pillars and reached by a staircase. From -this gallery, as in most other mediaeval hostelries, the bedrooms and -principal sitting-rooms opened. The "Coffee Room" and "Commercial Room" -were at either side of the entrance from the street: the "Commercial Room" -itself having, before the days of "commercials," once been called "the -Change," and used, as asserted by local tradition, as the place where the -principal business transactions of the town were conducted, over suitable -liquor. - -On the side opposite was the room called the "Crown," where the collectors -of customs and excise, and other officials periodically attended. In the -"Mitre," an adjoining room, the Chancellor of the Bishop of Lincoln, and -the "Apparitor" of the Archdeacon had of old collected, for three hundred -years, the dues or fees of the Church. Another room, the "Fountain," was -perhaps originally a select bar. Running under the entire frontage of the -house was the extensive cellarage, necessarily spacious in days when every -one drank wine, and many deeply. - -At the end of the yard was the great kitchen, and beyond it large gardens -and a beautiful, full-sized bowling-green. Gigantic elms, at least three -centuries old, bordered the gardens, which were further screened from -outside observation by dense shrubberies of flowering shrubs, laburnums, -lilacs, mountain-ash, acacias, and red chestnuts. Ancient walnut-trees and -shady arbours completed this lovely retreat. - -But this was not all. Beyond this very delightful, but merely ornamental, -portion was an orchard stocked with fine apple- and pear-trees: codlins, -golden and ribston pippins, Blenheim orange, russets and early -June-eatings, Gansell's bergamot pear, and others. Three very fine -mulberry-trees, at least three centuries old, and of course a varied and -extensive stock of bush-fruit, were included in this orchard, and in -addition there was the kitchen-garden. - -In the orchard were the cow-houses and piggeries, and the hospital for -lame or ailing horses. A mill-stream ran at the bottom, and in the midst -of it was a "stew," a shallow pond for freshwater fish, in which was kept -an "eel-trunk," a strong iron box about four feet long and two feet wide -and deep, perforated with holes. The lid of this contrivance was fastened -with lock and key, and was under the charge of the man-cook, who was head -of the servants. When eels were required for table, the trunk would be -hauled up to bank by a strong iron chain, and emptied. - -The stables had stalls for about fifty horses, and over them were lofts -for hay, straw, and corn. Harness-rooms, waiting-room for the postboys, -and an "ostry," _i.e._, office and store-room for the ostler, were -attached, together with chaise and coach-houses. The establishment of the -"White Hart"--and it was typical of many others in the old days--covered -from five to six acres. - -The staff of such a house was, of course, large. Besides the innkeeper and -his wife, both of them working hard in the conduct of the business, there -were housekeeper, barmaid, man-cook, waiter and under-waiter, kitchenmaid, -scullerymaid, chambermaid, laundress, housemaid, nurse, boots, ostler, -tap-boy, first-turn postboy, and generally an extra woman: sixteen -persons, whom the innkeeper had to lodge and feed daily, in addition to -his guests. - -The "White Hart" was re-fronted in a very plain, not to say ugly, manner -in 1813, and finally demolished in 1863. Not even that most lovely and -most famous feature of it, the celebrated "Rochester room," was spared. -This was a noble apartment, built as an addition to the back of the house -in 1663 by the Earl of Rochester, as a return for a signal service -rendered by the landlord in that time--perilous to such Cavaliers as -he--the Commonwealth. It seems, according to Clarendon, that the Earl and -Sir Nicholas Armour came riding horseback into the town one night and put -up at the "White Hart," then kept by a landlord named Gilvy, who was -affected strongly in favour of Cromwell and all his doings. The local -magistrate, hearing of the visit of the Earl, sent secretly to the -innkeeper requesting him to detain the travellers' horses the next -morning, so that neither of them should be able to leave, pending an -inquiry upon their business; but the thing was not done secretly enough. -Probably one of the servants of the inn told those two guests of something -ominous being afoot; at any rate, the Earl had Gilvy up and questioned -him, and, telling him how probably the lives of himself and friend were in -his hand, gave him forty Jacobuses and suggested that they should, without -a word, depart that night. Clarendon expresses himself as unable to decide -whether the gold or the landlord's conscience prompted his next action. At -any rate, Gilvy conducted the two fugitives from the inn at midnight "into -the London way." They reached London and then fled over sea, while the -landlord was left to invent some plausible story to satisfy the Justice of -the Peace, who in his turn was suspected by Cromwell of being a party to -the escape. - -At the Restoration, the landlord received a brimming measure of reward. He -was thanked by the King, and the Earl built for him that noble room, -forty-two feet long, by twenty-three wide, that was the pride and glory of -the "White Hart" for just two hundred years. It was panelled from floor -to ceiling in richly carved oak, set off with gilding, and embellished -with the figures of Peace and Concord and the initials C R, while the -ceiling was painted with nymphs and cherubim by Antonio Verrio. - -Nothing has more changed from its former condition than the old inn which -has become the modern hotel. The "George," the "Crown and Anchor," the -"Wellington," or the "King's Head," had an individuality which was never -lost. There was a personal kind of welcome from the landlord and the -landlady that simulated the hospitality of a friendly host and hostess, -mingled with the attention of a superior sort of body-servant. You were -not handed over to a number and a chambermaid, like a document in a -pigeon-hole tabulated by a clerk; but the hostess herself showed you your -rooms, and begged you to put a name to anything you might fancy. There was -no general coffee-room then, save for commercial travellers and such -social gentlemen as preferred even inferior company to solitude. There was -no table d'hote dinner other than the ordinary, between twelve and two, -which was chiefly made for the convenience of travellers by the -stage-coach, who halted here for change and refreshment. Even the ladies -who might be on the road were served and kept apart from the, perhaps, -doubtful gents below; and mine host himself brought in the first dish and -set it on the table of the private room, which was as much _de rigueur_ -then for ladies as the copper warming-pan and the claret with the yellow -seal, or the thick, deep red luscious port of old, ordered by the knowing -for the good of the house. - -In the country the pretty little inn, with its honeysuckled porch and -scrambling profusion of climbing roses up to the bedroom windows, had an -even more home-like character in its methods of dealing with its guests. -Here the servants stayed on for years, till they grew to be as much part -of the establishment as the four-poster hung with red moreen and the -plated sconces for candles. And here everything was of perfect -cleanliness, and as fresh as fragrant. The eggs and milk and butter were -all sweet and new. Generous jugs of cream softened the tartness of the -black-currant pudding or the green-gooseberry tart. The spring chickens -and young ducklings had been well fed; the mutton was home-grown and not -under five years; the beef was home-grown too, and knew nothing of -antiseptic preparations or frozen chambers; and the vegetables came direct -from the garden, and had been neither tinned nor carted for miles in huge -waggon loads, well rammed down and tightly compressed. And all the meat -was roasted before an open fire, diligently basted in the process, till -the gravy lightly frothed on the browned skin, and the appetising scent it -gave out had no affinity with the smell of fat on heated iron, which for -the most part accompanies the modern roast in the modern oven. The linen -invariably smelt of lavender or dried rose-leaves, of which big bags were -kept among the sheets; but the washing apparatus was poor, and the -illumination was scanty. Wax candles in silver or plated branched -candlesticks, that vaguely suggested churches and sacraments, shed a -veritably "dim religious" glimmer in the sitting-room, and appeared -expensively under the form of "lights" in the bill--mistily suggestive of -food for hungry cats. - -Yet the old country inn had, and still has--for it is not wholly -extinct--its charms that weigh against any little defect. - -Of all this quasi-home life which belonged to the old inn of the past, the -hotel of the present has not a trace. For certain forms of luxury the -modern hotel is hard to beat. Thick carpets deaden the footsteps of -stragglers through the corridors, and your boots, invariably kicked into -infinities by midnight guests, do not--as they do in the older houses--fly -noisily along the bare boards. The rooms are lighted with electric light, -but usually set so high as to be useless for all purposes of reading or -working. In the drawing-room are luxurious chairs of all shapes and sizes; -in the reading-room papers of all colours, to suit here the red-hot -Radical and there the cooler Conservative. The billiard-room attracts the -men after dinner as--if in the country--the tennis-ground or the -golf-links had attracted them through the day. The telephone does -everything you want. Carriages, theatres, quotations, races, a doctor if -you are ill, a motor-car if you are well--nothing within the range of -human wants that can be ordered and not chosen comes amiss to the -telephone and its manipulators. All the rough edges of life are smoothed -down to satin softness. All the friction is taken away. A modern hotel is -as the isle of Calypso or the Garden of Armida, where all you have to do -is to make known your wants and pay the bill. - -But it has not one single strain of Home in it. Home is the place where -the out-of-date lingers, and where modern conveniences that add to the -complexity and the worry of life have no corner. At the modern hotel you -are a document in a pigeon-hole--a number, not a person--an accident, not -substantive. The chambermaid does not wait on you, but on the room. You -get up, breakfast, dine, according to the times fixed by the management. -You cannot have your bath before a certain hour, and the bacon is not -frizzled until nine o'clock. Luncheon is probably elastic because it is -cold, and potatoes can be kept hot without difficulty. Dinner is, of -course, fixed, and you take it in masses together: or so took it, for in -late years, especially in the first hotels of London, a revulsion of -feeling has led to the long tables being abolished, and small ones -installed, where, almost privately amid the throng, you and your little -party may dine. As a rule the waiters are Swiss and the meat is foreign, -the cook is a Frenchman and called a _chef_; and the materials are -inferior. The vegetables are tinned, and oysters, lobsters, salmon, and -hare in May follow suit. The sauces are all exactly the same in one hotel -as in another, and much margarine enters into their composition. Electric -bells emphasise the monotonous ordering of the whole concern, where as -little character is expressed in the ring as in the number it indicates; -and speaking-tubes sound in the corridors, like domestic fog-horns or -railway whistles, calling the chambermaids or waiters of such-and-such a -floor to listen to their orders from below. Wherever you go you find -exactly the same things--the same order, the same management, the same -appliances and methods. You arrive without a welcome, you leave without a -farewell. Your character is determined according to the tips you give on -parting, and an hour after you have gone your personality is forgotten. -But, above all things, Heaven save us from falling ill in the modern -hotel. No one cares for you, and no one even has the decency to make a -pretence of doing so. - -Sometimes, however, if you go somewhat out of the season, and before the -rush of visitors begins, you get to a certain degree behind the scenes, -and learn a little of the heart and humanity of the management. The -chambermaid has time to have a little chat with you in the morning, and -the head waiter gives you bits of local information both interesting and -new. The manageress is not too busy for a few minutes' gossip across the -counter which separates her from the hall, and screens her off in a -sanctuary of her own. And you may find her cheerful, chatty, kindly, and -willing to please for the mere pleasure of pleasing. - -In the monster hotels of London and the great cities, while there may yet -be a "season"--a period of extra pressure and overcrowding--there is no -such slack time as the giant caravanserais of holiday resorts experience. - -The pioneer of the many-storeyed, "palatial" hotels, gorgeous with marble -pavements, polished granite columns, lifts and gigantic saloons, was the -"Great Western Railway Hotel" at Paddington.[11] Since that huge pile set -the fashion, hundreds of others, huger and more magnificent, have been -built at Charing Cross, Euston, St. Pancras, Marylebone and other London -termini, with big brothers--in every way as big and well-appointed--in -provincial towns. They are the logical outcome of the times, the direct -successors of the coaching and posting inns that originally came into -existence to supply the wants, in food and lodging, of travellers set down -at the places where the coaches stopped. The final expression of the -coaching hostelry is still to be seen in London, in instructive company -with one of the largest of the railway hotels, in the Strand, where the -"Golden Cross," built in 1832, looks upon the "Charing Cross Hotel" of -the South-Eastern Railway. - -The management of a great modern hotel is no easy thing. It demands the -urbanity of an ambassador, the marketing instincts of a good housewife, -the soldier's instinct for command, the caution of a financier, and a gift -for judging character. All these things--natural endowments, or the result -of training--must go to the making of an hotel-manager who has, perhaps, a -couple of hundred people on his staff, and hundreds of guests, many of -them unreasonable, to keep satisfied. - -It has lately become a commonplace to say that cycling and the motor-car -have peopled the roads again. The old coaching inns have entered upon a -new era of prosperity by reason of the crowds of cyclists who fare forth -from London along the ancient highways, or explore, awheel, the -neighbourhoods of provincial towns. The "last" coach-driver, coach-guard, -and post-boy, killed off regularly by the newspapers, still survive to -witness this new cult of the wheel, and the ultimate ostlers of the -coaching era, a bit stiff in the joints, shaky at the knees, and generally -out of repair, have come forth blinking, from the dark and cavernous -recesses of their mouldering stables, all too large now for the horses -that find shelter there, to take charge of the machines of steel and iron -and rubber that will carry you infinite distances without fatigue. - -There are elements of both fun and pathos in the sight of an old ostler -cleaning a muddy bicycle in a coach-yard from which the last coach-horses -departed nearly two generations ago. As a boy, he started life in the -place as a stable-help, and had scarce finished his novitiate when the -railway was opened and the coaches dropped off one by one, after vainly -appealing to the old-fashioned prejudices of their patrons to shun the -trains and still travel by the highways. How he has managed to retain his -place all this time goodness only knows. Perhaps he has been useful in -looking after the horses that work the hotel 'bus to and from the station; -and then the weekly market-day, bringing in the farmers with their gigs -and traps from outlying villages, is still an institution. For such -customers old George had, no doubt, the liveliest contempt in the fine old -free-handed days of coaching; but this class of business, once turned over -cheerfully to second- or third-rate inns, has long been eagerly shared -here. - -To watch him with a bicycle you would think the machine a sensitive beast, -ready to kick unless humoured, for as he rubs it down with a cloth he -soothes it with the continuous "'ssh-ssh, 'ssh" which has become -involuntary with him, from long usage; while if indeed it can't kick, it -succeeds very fairly in barking his shins with those treacherous pedals. -All the persuasive hissing in the world won't soothe a pedal. - -As for the motor-cars which are now finding their way into the old -inn-yards, the old ostler stands fearfully aloof from them, and lets the -driver of the motor look after the machine himself. The New Ostler, who -will be produced by the logic of events in the course of a very few more -years, will be an expert mechanic, and able to tittivate a gear and grind -in a valve of a motor-car, or execute minor repairs to a bicycle, just as -readily as an ostler rubs down or clips a horse. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -PILGRIMS' INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS - - -Inns, or guest-houses for the proper lodging and entertainment of -travellers bent on pilgrimage, were among the earliest forms of -hostelries; and those great bournes of religious pilgrimage in mediaeval -times--the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, the tomb of Edward -the Second in Gloucester Cathedral, the relics of St. Dunstan at -Glastonbury, and the more or less holy objects of superstitious reverence -at Walsingham, St. Albans, and indeed, in most of our great abbeys, -attracting thousands of sinners anxious to clear off old scores and begin -afresh--were full of inns for the entertainment of every class of -itinerating sinner; from the Abbot's guest-house, at the service of the -great, to the hostels for the middle classes, and the barns and outhouses -where the common folk appropriately herded. - -The Abbots and other dignified ecclesiastics were thus among the earliest -innkeepers, but they conducted their business on lines that would be -impossible to the modern hotel-keeper, for they commonly boarded and -lodged their guests free of charge, confident, in the religious spirit of -the time, that the offerings to be made at the shrines, which were the -objects of those old-time painful journeys, would amply repay the costs -and charges of their entertaining, and leave a very handsome surplus for -the good of the Abbey. - -Chaucer's description of pilgrimages made to Canterbury gives us a very -good idea of the varied character of the crowds setting forth upon their -journey to that most popular of shrines; and we learn from him and from -many other contemporary sources that the bearing of these crowds was -scarce what we should expect of miserable sinners, not only conscious of -their sins, but humbly seeking that spiritual spring-clean--absolution. -They were gay and light-hearted, reckless, and exceedingly improper, and -rarely failed to deeply scandalise the innkeepers along the roads. - -The "Tabard," whence Chaucer's pilgrims set out on that April morning in -1383, has long been a thing of the past. It was in 1307, one hundred and -thirty-seven years after Becket's martyrdom, that the Abbot of Hyde, at -Winchester, built the first house, which seems to have been in two -portions: one a guest-house for the brethren of Hyde and other clergy -coming to London to wait upon that mighty political and religious -personage, my Lord Bishop of Winchester, whose London palace stood close -by, on Bankside; the other a more or less commercially conducted inn. When -Chaucer conferred immortality upon the "Tabard," in 1383, the lessee of -that hostelry was the "Harry Bailly" of _The Canterbury Tales_, a real -person, and probably an intimate friend whom Chaucer thus delighted to -honour. - -This was no mere red-nosed and fat-paunched purveyor of sack and other -quaint liquors of that time, but one who had been Member of Parliament for -Southwark in 1376 and again in 1379,[12] and was a person not only of -considerable property, but a dignified and well-mannered -man--better-mannered and of cleaner speech, we may suspect, than Chaucer's -pilgrims themselves: - - A seemly man our hoste was withal - For to have been a marshal in a hall. - A large man was he, with eyen steep, - A fairer burgess is there none in Chepe; - Bold of his speech, and wise, and well ytaught; - And of manhood lacked righte nought, - Eke thereto he was right a merry man. - -Such a host, and no less a person, could have sat at supper with his -guests, even with such gentles as the Knight and his son, the Squire, and -the Lady Abbess; and thus only is he able to take charge of, and to assume -leadership over, the party of twenty-nine on the long four days' -pilgrimage to Canterbury, and to reprove or praise each and all, according -to his mind. - -The "Tabard" derived its name from the sleeveless ceremonial heraldic -coat, tricked out with gold and colours, worn by heralds. At a -comparatively early date, however, the "science of fools," as heraldry has -severely been called, grew neglected, and "tabards" became little -understood by common people. The sign of the house was accordingly changed -to the "Talbot" about 1599; but even that has grown mysterious, and only -folk with very special knowledge now know what a "talbot" was. In those -days the meaning was well understood, and especially at inns, for it was -the name of a fierce breed of dog--the old English hound, something -between a mastiff and a bull-dog--kept chiefly by packmen to mount guard -over their pack-horses and goods. - -Both "Tabard" and "Talbot" are now nothing more substantial than memories. -Little could have been left of the historic house in 1676, when the great -fire of Southwark swept away many of the old inns. A newer "Talbot" then -arose on the site, and stood until 1870: itself of so venerable an -appearance that it was not difficult to persuade people of its being the -veritable house whence Chaucer's pilgrims set forth those many centuries -ago. - -The pilgrims only made Dartford the first night, a fifteen-miles' journey -that would by no means satisfy those inclined nowadays to follow their -trail. We are not, however, vouchsafed any definite information as to -Dartford, and the oldest portions of the existing "Bull" inn there are -not, by perhaps two hundred years, old enough to have housed that -miscellaneous party. But there was an inn, frequented by pilgrims, at that -time upon the same site, and the "Bull" claims to be one of the oldest -licensed houses in Kent--as well it may, for it is known to date back to -1450. In Chaucer's time the landlord was, we are told, one Urban Baldock, -himself a friend of the poet, and the source whence a great deal of -information respecting pilgrims and their ways was gathered by him for -_The Canterbury Tales_. - -The oldest part of the "Bull" is the courtyard, galleried after the -ancient style, but in these practical and in many ways unsentimental times -roofed in with glass and used as a corn-market. Behind the carved wooden -balusters of the gallery are the bedrooms, until late years largely given -up to dust and cobwebs, but now rebuilt and again in use. Those who care -for things that have had their day will think it fortunate that merely -alteration, and not destruction, has been suffered here. - -For the rest, the "Bull" at Dartford is Georgian, and its long brick -front, with nine windows in a row, bears a strong family likeness to that -of its namesake at Rochester. The bull himself, in great black effigy, -occupies a monumental position among the chimney-pots, whence he looks -down, like Nelson in Trafalgar Square, upon busy streets. - -There have been happenings at the "Bull" in times much later than those of -pilgrimage. On August 17th, 1775, a room off the gallery was the scene of -an affray that led to Joseph Stacpoole, William Gapper, and James Lagier -being indicted for shooting "John Parker, Esq.," described as an Irish -gentleman of fortune. - -It seems that Joseph Stacpoole had lent John Parker and his brother -Francis various sums of money, amounting in all to L3,000, and had very -seriously embarrassed himself in doing so. He could not succeed in getting -payment, and as he had good reason to suspect that the Parkers intended to -abscond over sea, he followed them to Dartford, with his attorney and a -bailiff. Hearing that they were staying with some friends at the "Bull," -Stacpoole sent Lagier, the bailiff, with a writ into the room they -occupied, himself and Gapper following. - -No sooner did the hot-headed Parker see the bailiff than he cried out, -"Zounds! where are my pistols?" and one of his friends dashed out a candle -with his hand and upset the only other. In this dim and dangerous -situation the bailiff, mortally afraid for himself, cried out for help, -and Stacpoole and Gapper came rushing in. Parker's friends then seized -Stacpoole by the collar, and seem to have shaken him so violently that -they shook off the contents of a carbine he was carrying, with the result -that Parker himself was shot through the body with three bullets. When -that happened Parker's brother fled to London, a Mr. Masterson ran -downstairs, and a Mr. Bull, who had taken a prominent part in the -collaring, was in so great a hurry that he jumped over the gallery into -the yard. - -The trial of Stacpoole and his two co-defendants did not take place until -March 20th, 1777, when all were acquitted. - -The last picturesque incident in the history of the "Bull" took place in -1822, when George the Fourth came posting along the road and the post-boy -stopped here to change horses. He had just asked Essenhigh, the landlord, -who that "damned pretty woman" was whom he saw at one of the windows, and -mine host had only just replied that it was his wife, when a hostile -crowd, in sympathy with "the persecuted" Queen Caroline, who had died the -year before, began to "boo" and howl at the King. "When gentlemen meet, -compliments pass," says the adage, and one Callaghan, a journeyman -currier, thrust forward and roared out, in the face of the "First -Gentleman in Europe," "You are a murderer!" a remark which possesses the -recommendation neither of truth nor politeness, and resulted, in this -instance, in the outrageous Callaghan being punched on the head and felled -to the ground by one of the King's faction. The King himself drove off in -such a hurry that the postboy fell off his horse on leaving the town. - -The pilgrims' hostels that once existed at Rochester are things of the -past, but it seems not unlikely that the "George," in the High Street, -almost opposite the Pickwickian "Bull," was once something in this nature, -for although the modern frontage is absolutely uninteresting, not to say -distressingly ugly, and although it is now nothing more than a -public-house, the very large and very fine Early English crypt, now used -as a beer-cellar, shows that a building of semi-ecclesiastical nature -once stood on the site. The "George" is an old sign, the present house -being built on the ruins of one destroyed by fire a hundred and twenty -years ago. - -The crypt, built of chalk, with ribs and bosses of Caen stone, is roofed -with four-part vaulting, and is in four bays, the whole 54 ft. in length, -by nearly 17 ft. wide, and 11 ft. high. - -[Illustration: CRYPT AT THE "GEORGE," ROCHESTER.] - -Beside the Dover Road, which is of course the pilgrims' road from London -to Canterbury, one mile short of Faversham town, stands the village of -Ospringe, identified by some antiquaries as the site of the Roman station -of _Durolevum_. Time was when those who made pilgrimage to Canterbury came -to Ospringe through a water-splash, a little stream that flowed across -the highway and no one thought worth while bridging. And so it remained, -through the coaching age, until modern times. Now it is covered over, and -Ospringe is at this day a quite remarkably dusty place. - -There remain, built into the "Red Lion" inn beside the way, fragments of a -"maison Dieu," or God's House, that stood here so early as the time of -Henry the Second: a hostel established for the reception of travellers, -and maintained for many years by the Knights Templars and Brethren of the -Holy Ghost. Here travellers of all classes found a lavish hospitality -awaiting them, and, so sparsely settled was the country in those -centuries, that even kings were glad of this rest-house--and of others -like it elsewhere. King John, who was for ever spoiling the Church, and -bringing upon himself, and the country with him, Papal excommunications -major and minor, and yet was always sponging upon abbots and their kind -for board and lodging, had what is described as a _camera regis_ here, -which seems to modern ears to indicate that he practised photography, -centuries before the invention of it. The _camera_ in this case is, -however, only the mediaeval chronicler's Latin way of saying that a room -was kept for the King's use. - -A landed gentleman of the neighbouring Preston-by-Faversham, one Macknade -by name, who died in 1407, left, among many other bequests, L1 to the -"Domus Dei" of Ospringe, together with L10 for the repair of the highway -between that point and Boughton-under-Blean. In this manner he hoped to be -remembered in the prayers of travellers; and to the same end of bidding -for Aves and paternosters for the repose of his soul, he bequeathed 20 -pence to all prisoners in Kentish gaols, 12 pence to all debtors similarly -situated, L23 to the minor religious houses of the county, and a larger -sum to the principal abbeys. In addition to these items we find one of 10 -cows, left to Preston church, for the purpose of maintaining a lighted -taper at the Easter Sepulchre there. Let us hope his solicitude for his -soul has not been without its due results. - -The "maison Dieu" of Ospringe was disestablished long before the general -ruin of such institutions was ordained, in the time of Henry the Eighth. -In 1479 we find the place inhabited by two brethren, survivors of the -eight who once welcomed and made good cheer for pilgrims; but they forsook -it the next year, and in 1480-81 it was, as a derelict religious house, -escheated to the Crown. - -Canterbury itself was, of course, once full of such travellers' rests. -Chief among these was the inn called "The Chequers of the Hope," at the -corner of Mercery Lane, leading to the Cathedral; but, although the lower -part of the walls and the mediaeval crypt remain, the present aspect of the -building is modern and commonplace. It is, in point of fact, a "Ladies' -Outfitting" shop. - -Travellers in those centuries seem to have been in many ways well cared -for. The hospitality of the "houses of God" and pilgrims' halts, however, -does but show the bright side of the medal, and implies a very dark -reverse. - -Good, charitable folks, as we have seen, were rightly sorry for wayfarers, -and gave or bequeathed money for lightening the trials and tribulations of -their lot. The Church itself regarded the succouring of all such as one of -its first duties, and so granted all manner of ghostly privileges to such -persons as would build causeways, improve roads, or establish hostels. The -bargain seemed in those times a fair one, and induced many to give who -would not otherwise have given. To buy absolution for gold, or a few days -less purgatory by charitable bequest was good business; but we may wonder -if those who thus purchased remission of sins or an "early door" into -Paradise sometimes spared a pitying thought for those poor devils who had -not the needful for such indulgences. - -[Illustration: WESTGATE, CANTERBURY, AND THE "FALSTAFF" INN.] - -Day after day travellers--whose very name comes from "travail" = toil or -trouble--journeyed amid dangers, and, when by mischance they were -benighted, suffered agonies of apprehension. They intended only to -"journey"--to travel by day, as the original sense of that word -indicated--and were afflicted with the liveliest apprehensions when night -came and found them still on the road. Toiling in the hollow roads, deep -in ruts and mud, with terror they saw the sun go down while yet the -friendly town was far away, and came at last, in fear and darkness, to the -walled city, only to find its gates closed for the night. Every -fortified town closed its gates at sunset; else, in those dangerous times, -what use your gates and walls? As reasonably might the modern citizen -leave his street door wide open all night, as the mediaeval town not close -its gates when the hours of darkness were come; and so those travellers -and pilgrims who, from much story-telling, praying, or feasting along the -road, arrived late at Canterbury, found the portals of Westgate sternly -closed against them. Originally they were obliged to lie outside, under -the walls or in the fields, instead of being made welcome at the -comfortable hostels within, where a man might find jolly company in the -rush-strewn hall, and for food and drink be free of the best; but, for the -accommodation of such laggards, the suburb of St. Dunstan, without the -walls of Canterbury, sprang up at a very early date, and to the custom -they thus brought we owe the existence of the "Falstaff" inn, itself -containing some fine "linen-pattern" panelling of the time of Henry the -Seventh; but not, of course, the original house that, under some other -name than the "Falstaff," was early established for the entertainment of -late-comers. - -The "Falstaff" is a prominent feature of the entrance to Canterbury, and -forms, with the stern drum towers of Westgate, built about 1380, as fine -an entrance to a city as anything to be found in England. The present sign -of the house derives from the instant and extraordinary popularity that -Shakespeare's Fat Knight obtained, from his first appearance upon the -Elizabethan stage. The present "Falstaff" is a very spirited rendering, -showing the Fat Knight with sword and buckler and an air of determination, -apparently "just about to begin" on those numerous "men in buckram" -conjured up by his ready imagination on Gad's Hill. There is an air about -this representation of him irresistibly reminiscent of that song which -gave British patriots in 1878 the name of "Jingoes." There are no patriots -now: only partisans and placemen--but that is another tale. This Falstaff -evidently "don't want to fight; but by Jingo"--well, you know the rest of -it. - -[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "FALSTAFF," CANTERBURY.] - -Not only pilgrims and travellers from London to Canterbury were thus -looked after, but those also coming the other way, and thus we find a -Maison Dieu established at Dover in the reign of King John by that great -man, Hubert de Burgh, Chief Justiciary of England. A master and a staff of -brethren and sisters were placed there to attend upon the poor priests -and the pilgrims and strangers of both sexes, who applied for food and -lodging. Kings cannot be classed in any of these categories; but they also -are found not infrequently making use of the institution, on their way to -or from France--and departing without a "thank ye." The only one who seems -to have benefited the Maison Dieu very much was Henry the Third, who -endowed it with the tithe of the passage fare and L10 a year from the port -dues. - -It is scarce necessary to say who it was that disestablished the Maison -Dieu. The heavy hand of Henry the Eighth squelched it, in common with -hundreds of other religious and semi-religious institutions. At the time -of its suppression the annual income was L231 16_s._ 7_d._, representing -some L2,500 in our day. The master, John Thompson, who had only been -appointed the year before, was an exceptionally fortunate man, being -granted a pension of L53 6_s._ 8_d._ a year. The buildings were then -converted into a victualling office for the Navy. - -At last, in 1831, the Corporation of Dover purchased them, and the ancient -refectory then became the Town Hall and the sacristy the Sessions House, -and so remained until 1883, when a new Town Hall was built. - -Similar institutions existed at others of the chief ports. At Portsmouth -was the Hospital of St. Nicholas, or "God's House," founded in the reign -of Henry the Third by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester. It is now -the Garrison Church. At Southampton the "Domus Dei" was dedicated to St. -Julian, patron of travellers, and now, as St. Julian's Hospital and -Church, is in part an almshouse, sheltering eight poor persons, and partly -a French Huguenot place of worship. - -The Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury from Southampton and Winchester was never -a road for wheeled traffic, and remained in all those centuries when -pilgrimage was popular, as a track for pedestrians, along the hillsides. -It avoided all towns, and thus precisely what those pilgrims who -wearifully hoofed it all the way did for shelter remains a little obscure: -although it seems probable that wayside shelters, with or without -oratories attached to them, were established at intervals. Such, -traditionally, was the origin of the picturesque timbered house at -Compton, now locally known as "Noah's Ark." - -Colchester was a place of import to pilgrims in old wayfaring times, for -it lay along the line of the pilgrims' trail to Walsingham. Among the inns -of this town, and older than any of its fellows, but coyly hiding its -antiquarian virtues of chamfered oaken beams and quaint galleries from -sight, behind modern alterations, is the "Angel" in West Stockwell Street, -whose origin as a pilgrims' inn is vouched for. Weary suppliants, on the -way to, or returning from, the road of Our Lady of Walsingham, far away on -the road through and past Norwich, housed here, and misbehaved themselves -in their mediaeval way. It would, as already hinted, be the gravest -mistake to assume pilgrims to have been, _qua_ pilgrims, necessarily -decorous; and, indeed, modern Bank Holiday folks, compared with them, -would shine as true examples of monkish austerity. - -[Illustration: HOUSE FORMERLY A PILGRIMS' HOSTEL, COMPTON.] - -The shrine at Walsingham, very highly esteemed in East Anglia, drew crowds -from every class, from king to beggar. The great Benedictine Abbey of St. -John of Colchester sheltered some of the greatest of them, while others -inned at such hostelries as the "Angel," and the vulgar, or the merely -impecunious, if the weather were propitious, lay in the woods. - -Pilgrims would boggle at nothing, as was well known at the time. That they -could not be trusted is evident enough in the custom of horse-masters, who -let out horses on hire to such travellers, at the rate of twelvepence from -Southwark to Rochester, and a further twelvepence from Rochester to -Canterbury. They knew, those early keepers of livery-stables, that little -chance existed of ever seeing their horses again unless they took -sufficient precautions. They therefore branded their animals in a -prominent and unmistakeable way, so that all should know such, found in -strange parts of the country, to be stolen. - -Ill fared the unsuspecting burgess who met any of these sinners on the way -to plenary indulgence, for they would, not unlikely, murder him for the -sake of anything valuable he carried; or, out of high spirits and the -sheer fun of the thing, cudgel him into a jelly; arguing, doubtless, that -as they were presently to turn over a new leaf, it mattered little how -soiled was the old one. Drunkenness and crime, immorality, obscenity, and -licence of the grossest kind were, in fact, the inevitable accompaniments -of pilgrimage. - -[Illustration: THE "STAR," ALFRISTON.] - -Although East Anglia was in the old days more plentifully supplied with -great monastic houses than any other district in England, the destruction -wrought in later centuries has left all that part singularly poor in the -architectural remains of them: and even the once-necessary guest-houses -and hostels have shared the common fate. That charming miniature little -house, the "Green Dragon" at Wymondham, in Norfolk, may, however, as -tradition asserts, have once been a pilgrims' inn dependent upon the great -Benedictine Abbey, whose gaunt towers, now a portion of the parish church, -rise behind its peaked roofs. - -[Illustration: CARVING AT THE "STAR," ALFRISTON.] - -The beautiful little Sussex village of Alfriston--whose name, by the way, -in the local shibboleth, is "Arlston"--a rustic gem not so well known as -it deserves, possesses a very fine pilgrims' inn, the "Star," a relic of -old days when the bones of St. Richard of Chichester led many a foot-sore -penitent across the downs to Chichester, in quest of a clean spiritual -bill of health. Finely carved woodwork is a distinguishing feature of this -inn, whose roof, too, has character of its own, in the heavy slabs of -stone that do duty for slates, and bear witness to the exceptional -strength of the roof-tree that has sustained them all these centuries. The -demoniac-looking figure seen on the left-hand of the illustration is not, -as might perhaps at first sight be supposed, a mediaeval effigy of Old -Nick, or an imported South Sea Islander's god, but the figure-head of some -forgotten ship of the seventeenth century, wrecked on the neighbouring -coast, off Cuckmere Haven. Ancient carvings still ornament the wood-work -of the three upper projecting windows, the one particularly noticeable -specimen being a variant of the George and Dragon legend, where the saint, -with a mouth like a potato, no nose to speak of, and a chignon, is seen -unexpectedly on foot, thrusting his lance into the mouth of the dragon, -who appears to be receiving it with every mark of enjoyment, which the -additional face he is furnished with, in his tail, does not seem to share. -The left foot of the saint has been chipped off. All the exterior woodwork -has been very highly varnished and painted in glaring colours, from the -groups under the windows to the green monkey and green bear contending on -the angle-post for the possession of a green trident. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN DRAGON," WYMONDHAM.] - -[Illustration: THE PILGRIMS' HOSTEL, BATTLE.] - -The old pilgrims' hospice of Battle Abbey still remains outside the great -gateway, and now offers refreshments to those modern pilgrims who flock in -thousands, by chars-a-banc, on cycles, or afoot, to Battle in search of -the picturesque; or merely, in many cases, to complete the conventional -round of sight-seeing prescribed for visitors to Hastings. It is a -typically Sussexian building of domestic appearance, framed in stout oak -timbering, and filled with plaster and rubble, and was probably built -early in the fifteenth century. - -The so-called "New" Inn, at Gloucester, when actually new, the matter of -four hundred and fifty years ago, was erected especially for the -accommodation of pilgrims flocking to the tomb of the murdered King Edward -the Second, who, by no means a saintly character in life, was in death -raised by popular sentiment to the status of something very like a holy -martyr. He had been weak and vicious, but those who on September 21st, -1327, put him to a dreadful death in the dungeons of Berkeley Castle acted -on behalf of others worse than he, and the horror and the injustice of it -had the not unnatural effect of almost canonising the slain monarch. - -The Abbot of St. Peter's at Gloucester, John Thokey, when all others, -fearing the vengeance of the murderers, dared not give the King's body -burial, begged it and buried it, with much reverence, within the Abbey -walls. His Abbey, now the Cathedral of Gloucester, reaped unexpected -benefits from the humane instincts of that good and pitiful man, for -"miracles" were wrought at the "martyr's" tomb, and abundant -thank-offerings continued to flow in, and at last enabled the great Abbey -to be rebuilt. - -[Illustration: THE "NEW INN," GLOUCESTER.] - -It became eventually a pressing need to provide housing outside the -Abbot's lodgings for the stream of pilgrims, and accordingly the New -Inn was built in the middle of the fifteenth century (1450-1457) by -John Twynning, a monk of that establishment, of whom we know little or -nothing else than that he was, according to the records of his time, a -"laudable man." It remained until quite recent years the property of the -Dean and Chapter of Gloucester. - -The inn is reached through an archway in Northgate Street, and is -arranged, as usual in mediaeval inns, around a courtyard. Still the old -gables look down upon the yard and, as of yore, the ancient galleries, -rescued from the decay and neglect of some seventy years ago, run partly -around first and second floors. Existing side by side with those antique -features, the quaint windowed bar of the coaching era is now itself a -curiosity. In short, mediaeval picturesqueness, Jacobean carved oak, -commercial and coffee-rooms of the coaching age, and modern comforts -conjoin at the New Inn, so that neither a wayworn pilgrim, were such an -one likely to appear, nor a seventeenth century horseman, nor even a -Georgian coachman, redolent of the rum-punch that was the favourite drink -in coaching days, would seem out of place. - -Summer and autumn transfigure the courtyard into the likeness of a rustic -bower, for it is plentifully hung with virginia-creepers, from amidst -whose leaves the plaster lion who mounts guard on the roof of the bar -looks as though he were gazing forth from his native jungle. - -I do not know in what way John Twynning--or Twining, as we should no -doubt in modern times call him--was to be reckoned laudable, but if he -were thought praiseworthy for anything outside his religious duties it was -probably by reason of the skill with which he built this pilgrims' hostel. -You perceive little of his work from the street, for at that extraordinary -period when stucco was fashionable and plaster all the rage, the timbered -front of the building was covered up in that manner, and so remains. But -the great building is still constructionally the house that -fifteenth-century monk left, and how well and truly he built it, let its -sound and stable condition, after four centuries and a half of constant -use, tell. - -Such modern touches as there are about this quaintly named "New" inn are -the merest light clothing upon its ancient body, and the sitting-rooms and -forty or so bedrooms, cosy and comfortable to us moderns, are but modern -in their carpets and fittings, and in the paper that decorates their -walls, in between the stout dark timber framing. - -The house is built chiefly of chestnut, traditionally obtained from -Highnam, some three miles from the city; and everywhere the enormous -beams, in some places polished, in others rough, are to be seen. In their -roughest, most timeworn condition, they overhang the narrow passage now -called New Inn (formerly Pilgrims') Lane, where, at the angle, a most -ornately carved corner-post, very much injured, exhibits a mutilated angel -holding a scroll, in the midst of fifteenth-century tabernacle-work. - -[Illustration: COURTYARD, "NEW INN," GLOUCESTER.] - -As usual in these ancient inns with courtyards and galleries, plays and -interludes were formerly acted here, and it is said that the accession of -Queen Elizabeth was proclaimed on these flagstones. - -That galleries open to the air, with the bedrooms and others giving upon -them, were not so inconvenient as generally nowadays supposed is evident -enough here, where they are still in use, as they were centuries ago. The -only difference is that they are carpeted nowadays, instead of being bare -floors. - -A staircase from the courtyard leads up to the first-floor gallery, still -screened off by the old open-lattice gates reaching from floor to ceiling, -originally intended to prevent stray dogs entering. - -Portions of the "New Inn" let off in the days of its declining prosperity -have in modern times been taken back again: among them the large -dining-hall overlooking the lane, for many years used as a Sunday school -for the children of St. Nicholas parish, and other rooms looking upon -Northgate Street. - -In short, the old "New" inn impresses the beholder with a very insistent -sense of being a live institution, a "going concern." Most ancient inns of -this character are merely poor survivals; archaeologically interesting, but -wan veterans tottering to decay and long deserted by custom. Here, -however, there is heavy traffic down in the yard: the ostler is busy in -his "Ostry" (the name is painted over the door), bells are ringing, people -and luggage coming and going; the big railway parcel-office is as full of -parcels as it could have been when it was a coach-office; appetising -scents come from glowing kitchens, and to and from private rooms are -carried trays of as good things as ever pilgrims feasted upon, at the end -of their pilgrimage. - -There existed, until about 1859, another very notable "New" inn, probably -the work of the Abbots of Sherborne, and intended for the reception of -visitors to that beautiful Dorsetshire abbey. That splendid old hostelry, -with a noble front of yellow sandstone, built in the Perpendicular style -of architecture, probably about 1420, was the finest example of an inn of -its period in England, but it was ruthlessly, and with incredible -stupidity, demolished, and the only pictorial record of it appears to be -an entirely inadequate, severe, and unsympathetic little wood-cut in -Parker's _Domestic Architecture_.[13] It figures in Mr. Thomas Hardy's -story of _The Woodlanders_ as the "Earl of Wessex" inn at "Sherton Abbas." - -It was in those "good old days" that are so interesting to read about, and -were so ill to live in, that the ancient hospice flourished most bravely. -When ways were not merely rough and lonely, but were also infested by -"sturdye beggaris," "maysterless men," and others who would not hesitate -to do the solitary traveller a hurt, the good abbots or monks who -established wayside houses of entertainment where no secular innkeeper -dared were truly benefactors to their species. The relic of just such a -place, on a road once extremely lonely and dangerous, is to be found along -the present highway between Brecon and Llandovery, in South Wales, some -two miles westward of the town of Brecon. The road runs terraced above the -southern bank of the river Usk, through a rugged country where, in ancient -times, Welsh chieftains and outlaws, alike lawless and beggarly, knocked -the solitary traveller on the head and went over his pockets amid the -appropriately dramatic scenery of beetling crag and splashing waterfall. -At the gate of this lurk of bandits the holy monks of Malvern Priory -founded an hospitium, on the spot where stand to-day the ancient and -picturesque church and the few houses of the village of Llanspyddid: whose -Welsh name, indeed, means the Hospice Church. - -Nothing, unfortunately, is left of that "spythy," or hospice, they so -piously built and maintained, for, its usefulness long overpast, it was -left to decay: but the church they built, in which travellers returned -thanks for the succour vouchsafed them, remains by the roadside. It is a -romantic-looking church, placed in an appropriate setting of extremely -ancient and funereal-looking yews that lead up darkly to the heavy north -porch, beautifully decorated with carved woodwork. - -The "George" at Glastonbury presents the finest exterior of all these -pilgrims' inns, for it stands to-day very much as it did in the time of -Edward the Sixth, when it was built (1475) by Abbot John Selwood for the -accommodation of such pilgrims as were not personages. There has ever been -a subtle distinction between a personage and a mere person. The great -ones, the high and mighty of the land, on pilgrimage were made much of, -and entertained by my lord Abbot in appropriately princely fashion, in the -Abbot's lodgings: the middle-class pilgrims were lodged at the Abbot's -inn, and the residue lay where best they might: perhaps in some -guesten-hall, or possibly in the open air. - -Pilgrimages to Glastonbury were less numerous and popular than those to -the pre-eminent Shrine of the Blessed St. Thomas at Canterbury, but they -were not few, for the story of this great mitred Somersetshire Abbey is -one of the marvels and legendary wonders that, however greatly they may -stagger the twentieth-century capacity for belief, were of old implicitly -relied upon. Few were those who in mediaeval times questioned their -genuineness, and those who did so kept their doubts prudently to -themselves. - -This marvellous lore narrates how it was to St. Joseph of Arimathea that -the Abbey owed its origin. In A.D. 63 he came, with eleven companions, -wandering among the bogs and morasses of this western land, and discovered -this elevated ground rising above the marshes, further topped by the -commanding peak of Glastonbury Tor. "Weary all!" they exclaimed, as they -sank down, exhausted, on the spot called Weary All Hill to this day, -although its name is properly "Wirrall." Here St. Joseph thrust his staff -into the ground, and, taking root and blossoming every Christmas Day for -over fourteen hundred years, it was known in all Christendom as the Holy -Thorn. - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," GLASTONBURY.] - -The Holy Thorn itself was a sight to see, for, whatever its origin, it did -actually blossom on or about Christmas, as descendants from the parent -stock do to this day. The original hawthorn--or what was looked upon in -the time of Queen Elizabeth as the original--was fanatically attacked by -an early Puritan who succeeded in felling one of its two trunks, and was -proceeding to destroy the other, when he struck his leg instead, and had -an eye gouged out by a flying chip: an incident that would have pleased -the old monks, had they not been dead and gone a generation earlier. This -capacity in the Holy Thorn for taking its own part did not avail when a -Cromwellian soldier-saint, a half-century or so later, cut it down. -Nothing in the tragical way appears to have happened to him. - -An object of even greater veneration than the Holy Thorn was the body of -St. Dunstan, stolen by the monks of Glastonbury from Canterbury, and for -long centuries a source of great revenue, in the shape of offerings from -the faithful, eager for his spiritual good offices or for the healing -touch of his relics. - -That which was too staggering for the belief of old-time pilgrims was -never discovered. At Glastonbury they were shown a part of Moses' rod, -some milk and some hair of the Virgin, part of the hem of the Saviour's -garment, a nail from the Cross, and a thorn from the Crown of Thorns. No -one ever questioned those blasphemous mediaeval Barnums, who showed a -sample of the manna that fed the children of Israel, and the incredible -item of "the dust of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three children -sacrificed in the burning fiery furnace, with the bone of one of them"; -and so they humbugged the devout for centuries. - -Pilgrims of all kinds, bringing offerings, each one according to his -means, were clearly to be encouraged, and there was from a very early -period an "Abbot's Inn" at Glastonbury. This stood on the site of the -present "White Hart" until about 1755, when, to prevent it falling, it was -pulled down. It had, however, ceased to be the Abbot's Inn about 1489, the -newly built "George" then taking its place. How dilapidated was the more -ancient building may be understood from the story which tells of an -auction being held on an upper floor, just before its demolition. "Going, -going!" exclaimed the auctioneer, and then, as he accepted a bid, "Gone!": -whereupon the entire flooring of the room gave way, and every one and -everything were, with a tremendous crash, precipitated down to the ground -floor. - -Abbot Selwood, who ruled from 1456 to 1493, built the "George" for -middle-class pilgrims, and gave them board and lodging free for two days. -He did so from a strictly business point of view; and we may even suspect -that, if his guests made a longer stay, he recompensed himself by -overcharging. - -Although a room is shown in which King Henry the Eighth is said to have -slept--heavens! did they treat _him_ as a middle-class pilgrim?--and a -room with oaken beams is termed the "Abbot's Room," there is little to be -seen within, save the original stone newel staircase leading upstairs and -a stone bench in the cellar now christened the Penitents' Seat, on which, -if you please, sinners under conviction sat, with water up to their knees. -For my part, although the perennial spring is there, I remain sceptical of -aught but beer-barrels and hogsheads of wine ever having occupied that -Penitents' Form. Penitents frequenting the cellars where the booze is kept -are suspect. - -The exterior, however, is a very fine example of the late Perpendicular -phase of Gothic architecture, as applied to domestic or semi-domestic -uses. The battlements formerly had stone figures peering from each -embrasure, figures traditionally said to have represented the Twelve -Caesars, or the Twelve Apostles. Exactly _how_ this was managed can hardly -be seen, for there are but seven openings. Only one figure now remains, -and he looks little like a Caesar, and very much less like an Apostle. - -At the present time the "George" is a "family and commercial" hotel. Its -notepaper would seem to indicate that it is not the house for Dissenters, -for it displays, beneath a mitre and crossed croziers, an aspiration in -Latin to the effect that "May the Anglican Church Flourish." Our withers -are wrung: we are galled, and wince. - -The "Red Lion," opposite the "George," with fine stone-embayed window and -frontage dated 1659, was formerly the Porter's Lodge and gateway of the -Abbey. - -A very spirited view of Glastonbury, including the "George," in the -eighteenth century was executed, as an etching, by Rowlandson, and shows -us, in his inimitable manner, the life and bustle of an old English -country town on market-day. There you see a post-chaise and four being -driven at top speed through the town, bringing disaster to a woman dealer -in crockery, whose donkey, lashing out with his hind-legs, is upsetting -the contents of his panniers; and there at the town-pump, in those days -before house-to-house water-supply, are the gossipping servants, very -beefy about the ankles, filling their pitchers and pipkins. - -[Illustration: HIGH STREET, GLASTONBURY, IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. _From -the etching by Rowlandson._] - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -PILGRIMS' INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS (_continued_) - - -At St. Albans we have still something in the way of a pilgrim's inn. St. -Albans was, of course, the home of the wonder-working shrine of St. Alban, -the proto-martyr of Britain, and by direct consequence a place of great -pilgrimage and a town of many inns. Here is the "George," one of the -pleasantest of the old inns remaining in the place, with an old, but -scarce picturesque frontage, relieved from lack of interest by a quaint -sundial, inscribed _Horas non numero nisi serenas_, and a more than -usually picturesque courtyard. - -The house is mentioned so early as 1448 as the "George upon the Hupe." In -those times it possessed an oratory of its own, referred to in an ancient -licence, by which the Abbot authorised the innkeeper to have Low Mass -celebrated on the premises, for the benefit of "such great men and nobles, -and others, as shall be lodged here." - -Let us try to imagine that inn, licensed for the sale of wine and -spirituous liquors and for religious services! It seems odd, but after all -not so odd as these mad times of our own, when public-houses are converted -into missions, and ordained clergymen of the Church of England become -publicans and serve drinks across the counter in the interest of -temperance and good behaviour.[14] - -No traces of that oratory now remain in the "George." It is one of the -most comfortable of old houses, and full of old panelling and old prints -and furniture, but the "great men and nobles" have long ceased to lodge -here, and it is now only frequented by "others." The chapel was desecrated -at the time of the Reformation, and was afterwards in use as part of the -stables. - -The carving seen in the illustration over the archway is no integral part -of the inn, but was brought from old Holywell House in 1837, on the -destruction of that mansion, of which it formed the decorative pediment. - -The Church, as already shown, was the earliest innkeeper in those days -when travellers travailed in difficulties and dangers; and semi-religious -bodies often acted the same hospitable part. The Knights Templars and the -Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem kept hostelries at various -places, prominent among them the old house which is now the "Angel" at -Grantham. - -The "Angel," in common with other inns of the same name, derived its sign -in the far-off thirteenth century from a religious picture-sign of the -Annunciation, and we may readily see how, in the fading of the picture, -the rest of the group gradually sank out of sight, leaving only that -bright announcing messenger visible to passers-by. Undoubtedly the "Angel" -at Islington obtained its name in this way: staggering though the thought -may be to those who know that merely secular public-house, in that roaring -vortex of London traffic. - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," ST. ALBANS.] - -The attitude of greeting in the pose of the angelic figure led in course -of time to such a sign being often called the "Salutation": hence the -various old inns of that name in different parts of the country were -originally "Angels." - -The "Angel" at Grantham is a quaint admixture of ancient and modern. It -was a hostel, and bore this name even so early as the reign of King John, -for beneath its roof that monarch held his Court in the February of 1213. -We do not, however, find anything nowadays so ancient in the "Angel," for -every vestige of the building in which that shifty and evasive monarch -lodged has disappeared. This is by no means to say that the "Angel" is of -recent date. It belongs in part to the mid-fourteenth and fifteenth -centuries--a more than respectable age. From the midst of the town of -Grantham it looks out upon the Great North Road, and in truth, facing a -highway of so great and varied historic doings, no building can have -witnessed more in the way of varied processions. History, made visible, -has passed by, in front of these windows, for at least five hundred years, -beginning with the gorgeous cavalcades of kings and courts and armies -going or coming on missions of peace or war to and from Scotland, and at -last--what a contrast!--ending with the hotel omnibus to or from the -railway-station, with the luggage of "commercials." - -[Illustration: THE "ANGEL," GRANTHAM.] - -A very tragical incident in history was enacted in the great room, now -divided into three, that once extended the whole length of the frontage on -the first floor. Perhaps it was in the bay of the beautiful Gothic oriel -window lighting this room that Richard the Third signed the death-warrant -of the Duke of Buckingham, October 19th, 1483. That it was signed in this -room we know. What was his manner when he put his hand to that deed? Did -he declaim anything in the "off with his head; so much for Buckingham," -dramatic way, as we are led by Colley Cibber's stage-version of -Shakespeare's _Richard the Third_ to suppose he did? Or did he silently -treat it as a matter of stern, imperious necessity of statecraft? Had he -possessed the dramatic sense, he certainly would have mouthed some such -bloodthirsty phrase, and, turning on his heel in the self-satisfied -attitude of triumphant villainy we know so well, would have made a -striking exit, as per stage directions, curling a villainous and -contemptuous lip, in the manner that never yet failed to bring down the -heartfelt hatred, and the hisses, of the gallery. - -It is, however, to be sadly supposed that the King did nothing of that -sort. He could not play to the gallery--for it was not there; he probably -did not turn upon his heel, nor curl his lip, for the Stage, whence you -learn the trick of these things, had not yet come into existence. And if -you do but consider it, most of the great doings of the world, bloody or -legislative, or what not, have been done--not, if it please you, -"enacted"--without a due sense of their dramatic and spectacular -possibilities. They all came in the day's work, and the issues were too -tremendous, the risks too great and impending, for the personages involved -in them to enjoy the leisure for posing. - -The old embayed stone frontage of the "Angel" has survived many a shock -and buffet of Time, and, although the mullions of most of its windows have -long since been removed, in the not unnatural demand for more light, the -antiquity of the house is manifest to the most commercial, and least -antiquarian, traveller. On either side of the Gothic archway by which you -enter, the carved heads of Edward the Third and his heroic Queen Philippa -still appear, and at the crown of the arch, serving the purpose of a -supporting corbel to the beautiful oriel window above, is a sculptured -angel supporting a shield of arms. - -The historic "Angel," scene of so many centuries of conviviality, has long -been made to foster the cause of temperance. Indeed, for two hundred years -past, ages before Temperance became a Cause with capital letters and -capital endowments, the rent of the house went towards this object, under -the will of one Michael Solomon, who, dying in 1706, directed that a -sermon should be annually preached in Grantham church, "strongly -denouncing drunkenness," the cost to be met out of the rental of the -"Angel." But the most cynical stroke of chance befell in November, 1905, -when the preacher of this counterblast against drink, paid for out of the -profits of a licensed house, was the Reverend Gerald Goodwin, son of the -chief proprietor of a prominent Newark brewery. - -The "George," at Norton St. Philip, claiming to have been licensed in -1397, has stirring history, as well as antiquity and beauty, to recommend -it. You who are curious as to where the village of Norton stands may take -the map of Somerset and presently, scanning the county to the south of -Bath, discover it set down about seven miles to the south of that ancient -city, in a somewhat sequestered district. The reason of so large and so -grand a hostelry being in existence since the Middle Ages in so small a -village is not, at the first blush, evident, and it is only when the -ancient history of Norton itself is explored that the wherefore of it is -found. - -It seems, then, that the land hereabout was in those far-off times the -property of the old Priory of Hinton Charterhouse--that old Carthusian -house whose brethren were the best farmers, wool-growers, and -stock-raisers of their time in the West Country. As early as the reign of -Henry the Third the monastery was licensed to hold a fair here in May, on -the vigil, the feast, and the morrow of the festival of SS. Philip and -James; and again, in 1284, secured a charter conferring the right of -holding a market at "Norton Charterhouse" every Friday, instead of, as -formerly, at the bleak and much-exposed Hinton. In 1345 the Priory was -further empowered to annually hold a fair on the feast of the Decollation -of St. John at Norton: an institution that, although the Priory went the -way of all its kind over five hundred and fifty years ago, remained a -yearly fixture on August 28th and 29th until quite recent times. It was -known locally, for some reason now undiscoverable, as "Norton Dog Fair." - -The fair in its last years degenerated into the usual thing we understand -nowadays as a fair: a squalid exhibition of Fat Women and Two-headed -Calves; a gaudy and strepitous saturnalia of roundabouts and mountebanks; -but it was--or they were, for, as we have already seen, there were at one -time two--originally highly important business conventions. The principal -business then transacted was the selling of wool and cloth, and it was for -the purpose of helping their trade as wool-growers, and for the benefit -generally of their very lucrative fairs, that the monks of Hinton -Charterhouse in the fourteenth century built as a hostel that which is -to-day the "George" inn. - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," NORTON ST. PHILIP.] - -For generations the merchants and wool-staplers exposed their wares and -did their business in the street, or in a large upper room of the house, -and long continued to do so when in course of time the whole thing had -been altogether secularised. - -The cyclist who comes to Norton St. Philip from Bath has a weary time of -it, among the hills, by Odd Down, Midford, and Freshford; and only when he -has come uphill to windy Hinton Charterhouse are his toils over, and the -rest of the way easy. It is a broad, modern road, but the observant may -yet see the disused Abbot's Way going, narrow, and even more steep, over -the fields, to the left hand; and we may well imagine the joy of the old -travellers along it when they saw the grey church tower in the village, -nestling in a fold of the hills, and heard those sweet-toned bells of -Norton that still sound so mellow on the ear, and are the identical "very -fine ring of six bells" that Pepys heard on June 12th, 1668, and -pronounced "mighty tuneable." - -The "George" keeps unmistakable evidences of its semi-ecclesiastical -origin, and the Gothic character of the solid stonework in the lower -storey points to the latter half of the fourteenth century. The curious -and exceedingly picturesque contrast between the massive masonry below and -the overhanging timbered upper part has led, without any other evidence, -to the conjecture that the house must at some time have suffered from -fire, or otherwise been injured and partly rebuilt; but such instances of -mixed methods in ancient building are numerous. - -History of a romantic kind has been enacted here, for it was in the street -of Norton St. Philip, that a furious skirmish was fought, June 26th, 1685, -between the untrained and badly armed rustics of the rebel Duke of -Monmouth, and the soldiers of King James, under command of the weak and -vacillating Lord Feversham. The rebel peasantry, armed only with pikes, -scythes, and billhooks, that day withstood and routed their enemies, and -they held the village that night, Monmouth himself sleeping in one of the -front bedrooms of the "George." It was while dressing at this window the -following morning that he was fired at by some unknown person desirous of -earning the reward offered by James for the taking of his nephew's life. -The bullet, however, sped harmlessly by that preserver and champion of the -Protestant liberties of the country: hence the invincible anonymity of the -firer of that shot. Had Monmouth died thus, it is conceivable he would -have come down to us a more manly historic figure. - -The interior of the "George" is woefully disappointing, after the -expectations raised by the noble exterior. It was obviously never ornately -fitted, and long generations of neglect and misuse have resulted in the -house being, internally, little better than a mere wreck, with the -installation of a vulgar bar to insult the Gothic feeling of the place. -The property now belongs to the Bath Brewery Company, and is not merely -that abomination, a "tied house," but is maintained in a barely habitable -condition, the Company being reported of opinion that the Somersetshire -Archaeological Society--interested, as all archaeologists must be, in a -house so architecturally and historically interesting--should restore the -building. If that report be true, it is a striking example of colossal -impudence. - -On the ground-floor, the present Tap-room keeps a large fire-place with -old-fashioned grate. Above, mounting by a stone spiral staircase to the -first floor, is the room used by Monmouth (the one to the right hand in -the view), and known as the "King's Room." Its door, floor, and walls are -of the roughest, as also are those of the adjoining room. On the floor -above, running the whole length of the building, under the roof, is the -long room used by the old wool-merchants as their market: and a darksome -and makeshift place, under the roof-timbers, it is, and must have been at -the best of times. To-day the floor is rotten, and you must go delicately, -lest you fall through to the next floor, and then through that to the -ground, where only the explorer can feel secure. - -It is the same tale of far-gone decay in the yard, to which you enter, as -also to the house itself, by the great archway in the village street. It -was always a small yard, but was partly galleried. The tottering remains -of the gallery, with brewhouse below, are left, still filled with the -enormous casks built in the brewhouse itself, and only to be removed by -demolishing them. The rooms are mere ruins. If ever the interior and the -yard of the "George" are restored it will be a great and an expensive -work; but it is to be feared that, Norton St. Philip being an unlikely -place for lengthened resort--visitors coming from curiosity from Bath for -merely an hour or so--such a work will never be undertaken. - -In even worse case, from an archaeologist's point of view, is the "George" -at Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire; for it stands in the High Street of a -busy little town, and has been disastrously altered in recent years by the -brewers who own it. Brewers have no undue leanings toward historic or -architectural sentiment, and in this instance their object was to fit -their house for use as a commercial hotel. Accordingly, they caused the -ancient stone face to be pulled down and have replaced it by an imitation -timbered gabled front. Something of what the old front was like may be -discovered at the back, where the date, 1583, may be seen on the -stonework, together with an inscription to the effect that it was restored -in 1706. - -The "George" was originally built as a pilgrims' inn by the Abbots of -Winchcombe and Hayles, whose noted West Country shrines attracted many -thousands of the pious and the sinful in days gone by. At Winchcombe they -had the body of St. Kenelm, the Saxon boy-king who succeeded to the -throne of Mercia in A.D. 822, and, according to legendary lore, was -murdered at the instigation of his sister Cwoenthryth, who desired his -place. Kenelm was but seven years of age, but already so pious, if we are -to believe the story, that the poisons at first administered to him -refused their customary effects, and there was nothing for it but to -strike his head off. Piety, therefore, was not proof against cold steel. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "GEORGE," NORTON ST. PHILIP.] - -His tutor, the treacherous Askobert, was induced to perform this act, in -the lonely forest of Clent. To the astonishment of Askobert, a white dove -flew from the severed neck and soared away into the sky. Naturally -surprised by such a marvel, he nevertheless was not unnerved, and buried -the body under a thorn-bush and went his way. Cwoenthryth in due course -succeeded, and reigned for some two years, when the inevitable vengeance -fell. It came about in a curious way--as do all these retributions in -monastic legends. The Pope was celebrating Mass in his Cathedral of St. -Peter when a dove that had been observed there poised itself over the high -altar and dropped from its beak a piece of parchment inscribed, "In Clent -in Cowbach Kenelm Kynge's child lieth under a thorn, his head taken from -him." - -This strange message was conveyed to England, and an expedition, formed of -the monks of Winchcombe and Worcester, set off to the forest of Clent. -Arrived there, the expeditionary force was guided to the thorn-tree by a -white cow, and duly found the body. After disputing whose property it was -to become, they decided that, as they were all wearied with the journey -and their exertions, they should, every one, lie down and rest, the body -to become the possession of those who should first arise. The Winchcombe -men were first awake, and were well away over the hills with their prize -before the monks of Worcester ceased from their snoring, yawned, opened -their eyes, and found the treasure gone. - -The miraculous power of St. Kenelm manifested itself on the way, for the -men of Winchcombe, fainting on their journey for lack of water, prayed, -for the love of him, to be guided to some spring; when immediately a gush -of water burst forth from the hillside. Thus refreshed, they came into -Winchcombe, where the wicked Cwoenthryth, whom later generations have -agreed to name, in more simple fashion, Quenride, was reading that very -comminatory Psalm, the 109th, wherein all manner of disasters are invoked -upon the Psalmist's enemies. There has ever been considered some especial -virtue in reciting prayers and invocations backwards, and Quenride, having -gone through the Psalm in the ordinary way, was proceeding to take it in -reverse when the procession came winding along the street. At that moment -her eyes fell out; and, to bear witness to the truth of the story, the -Abbey of Winchcombe long exhibited, among the greatest of its treasures, -the blood-stained psalter on whose pages they fell--which, of course, was -convincing. - -Can we wonder that, in those credulous ages, pilgrimage to Winchcombe -should have been a popular West Country practice? And if not to St. -Kenelm's shrine, there was the peculiarly holy relic of the neighbouring -Abbey of Hayles, where the monks treasured nothing less tremendous than a -bottle of Christ's blood. This in after years--as was to be supposed--was -discovered to be a blasphemous imposture, the precious phial being -declared by the examining Commissioners in the time of Henry the Eighth to -contain merely "an unctuous gum, coloured." - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "GEORGE," WINCHCOMBE.] - -A pilgrims' inn at Winchcombe was, in view of the crowds naturally -resorting to either or both of these Abbeys, a very necessary -institution, and for long the "George" so remained. - -The ways of the brewers with the old house have been already in part -recorded and the destruction of much of interest deplored, but there still -remains a little of its former state. There is, for instance, the great -archway at the side, with the oaken spandrels carved with foliage and the -initials R. K.; standing for Richard Kyderminster, Abbot of Winchcombe at -some period in the fifteenth century. Through this archway runs the yard, -down to the back of the town, and there is what is still called the -"Pilgrims' Gallery," on one side. One scarcely knows which of the two -courses adopted by the brewers with this old inn was the most disastrous: -the actual demolition of the old frontage, or the "restoration" of the -Pilgrims' Gallery in so thorough a manner that it is, in almost every -respect, a new structure. Nor does it, as of old, conduct to bedrooms, for -that part of the house giving upon it has been reconstructed as a large -room, available for entertainments or public dinners. - -There is something peculiarly appropriate in the refectory of a monastic -house becoming an inn. Such is the history of the "Lord Crewe Arms," at -Blanchland. - -It is a far cry to that picturesque and quiet village, in stern and rugged -Northumberland; but you may be sure that, however wild and forbidding the -surrounding country, the site and the immediate neighbourhood of an -ancient abbey will prove to be fertile, sheltered, and beautiful; and -Blanchland, the old home of an Abbey of Praemonstratensian canons, is no -exception to this rule. - -Whichever way the traveller comes into Blanchland, he comes by hills more -or less precipitous, and by moors chiefly remarkable for their savage and -worthless nature, and it is a welcome change when, from the summit of a -steep hill, he at last looks down upon the quiet place, nestling in a -hollow on the Northumbrian side of the little river Derwent, that here -separates the counties of Northumberland and Durham. - -Down there, still remote from the busy world, the village is slowly but -surely fading out of existence, as we learn from the cold, dispassionate -figures of the Census returns, which record the fact that in 1811 the -inhabitants numbered 518, while in 1901 they were but 232. - -It is a compact little place. There is the ancient bridge, built by the -monks, across the Derwent, still, in the words of Froissart, "strong and -rapid and full of large stones and rocks"; and there are the church-tower, -the old Abbey gatehouse, the "Lord Crewe Arms," and some few houses, -forming four sides of a square. "The place," as Walter Besant truly says -in his novel, _Dorothy Forster_, "has the aspect of an ancient and decayed -college." - -Blanchland owes everything to its old abbey, conducted under the rules of -the original brethren of Premonte, and even derived its name of Blanche -Lande from the white habits of the monks; just as Whitland in -Carmarthenshire, took its name from a similar history. - -The Abbey of Blanchland was founded here, at "Wulwardshope," as the place -was originally named, in 1163, and, rebuilt and added to from time to -time, flourished until the heavy hand of Henry the Eighth and his -commissioners ended it, in 1536. In all those long centuries it had -remained obscure, both in its situation and its history; and was indeed so -difficult to come to that tradition tells a picturesque story of mediaeval -Scottish raiders failing to find the place and so returning home, when its -situation was revealed to them by the bells the monks were ringing, to -express joy at their deliverance. Alas! it was their own funeral knell the -brethren rang; for, guided by the sound, those Border ruffians entered -Blanchland, burnt its Abbey and slew the monks. - -Shortly after the suppression of the Abbey under Henry the Eighth, the -monastic lands became the property, and the domestic buildings of the -Abbey the home, of the Radcliffe family, and afterwards of the Forsters, -who, according to the wholly irreverent, and half-boastful, half-satirical -local saying, were older than the oldest of county families, for "the -Almighty first created the world and Adam and Eve, and then He made the -Forsters." - -Blanchland was at last lost to that long-descended race by the treason of -General Forster, who was concerned in the rising of 1715, and so -forfeited his estates; and in 1721 the property was purchased by Nathaniel -Crewe, Bishop of Durham, who at the age of sixty-seven had married Dorothy -Forster, at that time twenty-four years of age. - -[Illustration: THE "LORD CREWE ARMS," BLANCHLAND.] - -The present inn, the "Lord Crewe Arms," is a portion of the old refectory -buildings on the west side of the cloister garth, but many alterations and -additions have been made since those times, and the actual oldest part is -the ancient monastic fireplace, very much disguised by later generations, -and in the fact that it is now in use as the fireplace of the modern -kitchen. - -In the fine drawing-room of the inn, formerly the ball-room of the Forster -mansion, hangs a portrait of Lord Crewe, that time-serving reactionary -sycophant under James the Second and would-be toady to William the Third. -His public life was a version, on a higher plane, of that of the -celebrated Vicar of Bray, and he succeeded admirably in his determination -to stick to his principles--to live and die Bishop-Palatine of Durham; for -as Lord Bishop he remained until his death, aged eighty-nine, in 1722, in -the reign of George the Second. - -But he well deserves the honour of the inn being named after him, for he -left his wealth in various charities, the rent of the inn itself forming a -portion of the income of the Crewe trustees. - -Our ultimate example of a monastic hostel is found at Aylesbury, a town -whose name would, to imaginative persons, appear at the first blush to -indicate a happy hunting-ground for old inns; but although--Shakespeare to -the contrary--there is usually very much in a name, the meaning is not -always--and in place-names not often--what it would seem to be. Thus, -Aylesbury is not the town of ale, but (a very different thing), -Aeglesberge, _i.e._ "the Church Town," a name it obtained in Saxon times, -when the surrounding country was godless, and this place exceptionally -provided. - -At the same time, Aylesbury--the place also of ducks and of dairies--_was_ -once notable for an exceedingly fine inn: none other than the great -galleried "White Hart," first modernised in 1814, when its gabled, -picturesque front was pulled down and replaced by a commonplace red-brick -front, in the style, or lack of style, then prevalent; and finally cleared -away in 1863, to make room for the existing Corn Exchange and Market -House. - -[Illustration: THE "OLD KING'S HEAD," AYLESBURY.] - -Coming into Aylesbury, in quest of inns, one looks at that building with -dismay. Was it really to build such a horrific thing they demolished the -"White Hart"? How deplorable! - -Aylesbury is a town where, late at night, the police foregather in the -reverberative Market Square, instead of going their individual beats; and -there, through the small hours, they talk and laugh, hawk and spit, and -make offensive noises, until the sleepless stranger longs to open his -window and throw things at them. Happy he whose bedroom does not look upon -their rendezvous! But this is merely incidental. More germane to the -matter under consideration is the fact that, although the "White Hart" be -gone, Aylesbury still keeps a remarkably fine inn, of the smaller sort, in -the "Old King's Head," which, if not indeed a pilgrims' inn, seems to have -been originally built by some religious fraternity as a hospice or -guest-house for travellers. Of its history and of the original building -nothing is known, the present house dating from 1444-50. You discover the -"Old King's Head" in a narrow street off the market-place, and at the -first glimpse of it perceive that here is something quite exceptionally -fine. A sketch is, if it be any good at all, always worth a page of -description, and so we will let the accompanying illustration take the -place of mere verbiage. Only let it be observed that the larger gable and -the window in it are new, having been rebuilt in 1880. - -The great window, entirely constructed of oak, is the chief feature of the -exterior, just as the noble room it lights is the principal object of -interest in the house itself. The point most worthy of consideration here -is that in this remarkably fine window, and in the room itself, you have -an unaltered and unrestored work of the fifteenth century. In early ages -the house was an inn with some ecclesiastical tie, and when it passed from -the hands of the brotherhood (whoever they may have been) that once owned -it, and became a secularised hostelry, it seems to have continued its -career with very little alteration beyond that of adopting as a sign the -"King's Head": that king doubtless originally Henry the Eighth himself. -The house was, in the seventeenth century, one of the Aylesbury inns that -issued tokens, for in museums and private collections are still to be -found copper pieces inscribed "At ye King's Head In Aillsburey, W.E.D. -1657." There still existed, until comparatively recent times, traces of -old galleries in the extensive yard, but modern changes have at last -completely abolished them. - -The fine room of which the great window forms one complete side was no -doubt originally the common-room of the hostel. It is now the tap-room. A -fine lofty hall it makes: oaken pillars, black with age, springing from -each corner, based upon stone plinths and supporting finely moulded beams -that, crossing in the ceiling, divide it into nine square compartments. -The great window, divided by mullions and a transom into twenty lights, is -of course seen to best advantage from within, and still keeps much of the -original armorial stained glass. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -HISTORIC INNS - - -It can be no matter for surprise that many inns have historic -associations. Indeed, when we consider that in olden times the hostelries -of town and country touched life at every point, and were once the centre -of local life, it becomes rather surprising that not more tragic events, -more treaties and conferences, and more plots and conspiracies are -associated with such places of public resort. - -Strange, mysterious plotters, highwaymen, and great nobles resorted to -them, and, coming to things more domestic, there, under the inn's -hospitable roof, town councils not infrequently met in those times before -ever "municipal buildings" were dreamed of, and conducted their business -over a cheering, and inebriating, cup. Your inn was, in short, then at -once your railway-station, club, hotel, reading-room and mart. There were -distinct advantages, in the social sense, in all this. It meant -good-fellowship when respectable townsfolk were not ashamed to spend a -winter evening in the parlour of a representative inn, or play a game of -bowls in summer on the bowling-green with which most such houses were once -furnished, and the man who now glowers in unneighbourly and solitary way -over his hearthstone, would expand, with such opportunities, into as -good-natured a fellow as any of the olden time. - -[Illustration: THE "REINDEER," BANBURY.] - -The inns of Banbury make some historic figure. It was in one of them--the -chronicler says not which--that the dispute took place between the two -Yorkist commanders, which led to the battle of Danesmoor being lost by -their side, in July, 1469. - -The occasion was the revolt of the great Earl of Warwick against Edward -the Fourth. To intercept Warwick at Northampton the Earl of Pembroke was -marching with a force from Gloucestershire, and was joined on the -Cotswolds by Lord Stafford of Southwick, newly raised a step in the -peerage by being created Earl of Devon. Lord Stafford's troops numbered -six thousand good archers: a very welcome reinforcement; but, even so, the -combined forces dared not at once risk an engagement with the rebels at -Daventry, and fell back upon Banbury. There a quarrel took place between -Lord Stafford and the Earl of Pembroke, all on account of a pretty girl. -Says Hall: "The earle of Pembroke putt the Lorde Stafforde out of an Inne, -wherein he delighted muche to be, for the loue of a damosell that dwelled -in the house: contrary to their mutuall agrement by them taken, which was, -that whosoeaver abteined first a lodgyng should not be deceaved nor -remoued. After a greate many woordes and crakes, had betwene these twoo -capitaines, the lord Stafford of Southwyke, in greate dispite departed -with his whole compaignie and band of Archers, leauynge the erle of -Pembroke almost desolate in the toune." - -Accordingly, so weakened, the next day the Earl of Pembroke was defeated. -He took refuge in Banbury church, but, according to Hall, was dragged -forth by the fierce John Clapham, who beheaded him in the porch with his -own hands. - -Possibly it was at the "Red Lion," in the High Street, that the damosell -lived who caused all the strife between those great lords. If so, it -renders that fine old house the more interesting. Modern needs, and a not -unreasonable desire to keep incoming guests and their belongings dry, have -caused the picturesque courtyard to be roofed in with glass, thus hiding -many of its pictorial qualities; but you still enter from the street by a -fifteenth-century oaken portal, much blunted by wear and tear and many -successive coats of paint and varnish in all those succeeding centuries; -yet indubitably still fifteenth-century work. - -But the most picturesque inn at Banbury is the "Reindeer." History is -silent as to the why or the how of its acquiring that name, and is indeed -dumb in almost every other respect concerning the old house. The -"Reindeer," both in itself and in its situation, is scarcely like the "Red -Lion," an hotel. You look in at the "Reindeer" for a drink and for -curiosity only; for the house does not precisely invite guests, and -probably does most business on market days, when country folk from -neighbouring villages throng the strait and crooked streets of Banbury and -put up their traps in its yard and insist on liberally drinking the health -of one another. Parson's Street, indeed, the situation of the "Reindeer," -is a market-street and crowded shopping centre, where brazen-tongued -salesmen exhort housewives to "buy, buy, buy"; or indulge in rhapsodical, -exclamatory passages in praise of their goods. You are gazing, let us say, -outside the "original" Banbury-cake shop, opposite, upon the magpie black -and white of the "Reindeer" frontage, when a parrot-like voice is heard -exclaiming, in ecstatic rapture, "O what loverly heggs!" and, turning, you -perceive, not a grey parrot in a gilded cage, but a white-aproned -provision-dealer's assistant, unfortunately at large. Fleeing into the -courtyard of the inn, you still hear faint cries of "_There's_ 'am!" "O -mother! what butter!" - -The neighbourhood, it will be perceived, does not in these days lend -itself to quiet residence, and although, by the evidence of its -architecture, the "Reindeer" was doubtless at one time one of the chief -hotels of the town, it has long ceased to hold anything like that -position. - -The old oaken gates and the black-and-white timbering above appear to be -the oldest portions of the house: the gates themselves inscribed with the -date "1570" on one side, and on the other - - "IHON . KNIGHT [Diamond] IHONE . KNIGHT [Diamond] DAVID HORN." - -The great feature of the inn is, however, the noble oak-panelled chamber -known, for whatever inscrutable reason, as the "Globe Room." Exterior and -interior views of it are the merest commonplaces in Banbury. There are, in -fact, three things absolutely necessary, nay, almost sacramental, for the -stranger to do in Banbury, without having performed the which he is a -scorn and a derision. The first of these indispensable performances is the -eating, or, at any rate, the buying of Banbury cakes. And here let me add -that the Banbury cakes of Banbury have a lightness and a toothsomeness -entirely lacking in the specious impostors made elsewhere. Just as -there are no other such pork-pies as those of Melton Mowbray, and as -Shrewsbury cakes can apparently only be made at Shrewsbury, so the -"Banburys" made in other towns are apt to lie as heavy on your chest as a -peccadillo upon a tender conscience. But in their native town they -disappear, to the accompaniment of cups of tea, with a rapidity alarming -to the pocket, if not to the stomach; for they cost "tuppence" apiece, and -a hungry pedestrian or cyclist finds no difficulty in demolishing half a -dozen of them. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "REINDEER," BANBURY.] - -The second of these necessary observances is the viewing of Banbury Cross: -not the old original famous Banbury Cross of the nursery rhyme, to which -many generations of children have been invited to "ride a cock-horse" to -see the tintinnabulatory lady with bells on her fingers and bells on her -toes; _that_ cross was destroyed by the Puritans, and the modern one is -not even a copy of it, for no man knoweth what the original was like. - -The third of these necessary rites is the viewing of the "Globe Room" at -the "Reindeer." What the exterior of that room is like, let the -illustration of the courtyard show. The date of its building is still -faintly traceable in the figures "1637" on the masonry of the gable. They -charge you threepence to view the interior, and if so be you cannot frame -to admire the richly decorated plaster ceiling for yourself, the printed -notice that a cast has been taken from it, and is to be seen in South -Kensington Museum, is calculated to impress the intellectually snobbish. -For our own part, seeing things with our own eyes and judging of them -comparatively, there seems no very adequate reason for South Kensington -acquiring such a cast, unless, indeed, (which is unthinkable) the -Department of Science and Art is bent upon copies of all the old ceilings -in the country. This is, in short, to say that although the plaster -decoration of the "Globe Room" is fine, it is neither so intrinsically -fine, nor so original above all others, that it deserves so great an -honour. The really supremely fine feature of the room is the beautiful -Jacobean panelling in oak, now almost coal-black with age, covering the -walls from floor to ceiling, and designed and wrought in unusually -thorough and bold style. There is not a finer room of its period in the -country, and it may even be questioned (leaving the mere matter of size -alone) if there is even another quite so fine or in every detail so -perfect. - -The reason of this magnificently panelled apartment being added to the -older and very much less ornate portion of the inn is obscure; and it will -be noted, as a matter of curiosity, that, entered as it is only by a -doorway from the open courtyard, the room is not, structurally a part of -the house. The name of the "Globe Room" given to it is not explained in -any way by the decorations or by its history, which is as obscure as its -origin. Tradition says Cromwell "held a council" here, and accordingly, -although history does not tell us anything specifically about it, a -picture, reproduced in a variety of ways, showing a number of stern and -malignant Roundheads interrogating an elegant and angelic-looking Royalist -clad in white, and bearing a very strong likeness to Charles the First -himself, is one of the commonplaces of the town. - -[Illustration: THE GLOBE ROOM, "REINDEER" INN, BANBURY.] - -For one of the most entertaining examples of history enacted at an inn, we -must shift the scene to Chester. - -Among the ancient inns of that city, long since retired from the -innkeeping business is the "Blue Posts," a house in its day historic by -reason of one dramatic incident: an incident so dramatic that it would -almost seem to have been borrowed from the stage. It was the year 1558, -the last of the reign of Queen Mary, of bloody memory, and Dr. Henry Cole, -Dean of St. Paul's, was come to Chester on his way to Ireland, where he -had work to do, in the persecution of the Irish Protestants. He lodged for -the night at the "Blue Posts," in Bridge Street, and in the evening the -Mayor of Chester called upon him there. - -The Dean made no secret of his mission. To him it was a labour of love to -bring imprisonment and torture, fire and stake, to correct the religious -errors of those Protestants over sea. Had he not already distinguished -himself by a revolting and bloodthirsty sermon, on the occasion of -Cranmer's sentence of martyrdom? - -In conversation with the Mayor, he drew from his travelling valise the -Royal commission for his errand. "Here," he exclaimed, with exultation, -"here is that will lash the heretics of Ireland!" - -Now, whether the landlady was in the room at the time, or listening at the -keyhole--in a manner traditional among landladies--does not appear; but -she overheard the conversation, and, having a brother, a Protestant, in -Dublin, was alarmed for his safety in particular, and, let us hope, for -that of Protestants in general. So, that night, when the Dean was -doubtless dreaming of the shackles and gyves, the faggots and the rackings -he was bringing to the heretics of Ireland, Mrs. Mottershead, the landlady -with the sharp ears, abstracted the fateful commission, and in its stead -placed a pack of cards, with the knave of clubs showing satirically at the -top. O! daring and witty Mrs. Mottershead! - -We may, if gifted with anything like a due sense of humour, well chuckle -at the outraged feelings of the Lord President of the Council of Ireland -when the Dean, all unconscious, presented him with this unconventional -authority. My Lord, however, summoned some humour of his own, wherewith to -meet the situation. "Let us," said he, "have another commission, and we -will meanwhile shuffle the cards." - -Crestfallen, the emissary returned, and did actually obtain a new -commission, but when again arrived at Chester, and awaiting a fair wind -for Ireland, he heard of the Catholic Queen's death and the accession of -her Protestant sister; and so found his way back to London once more. - -[Illustration: THE "MUSIC HOUSE," NORWICH.] - -The episode would fitly end in the Dean being flung, loaded with chains, -into some loathsome dungeon; but although he was, in fact, committed to -the Tower in 1560, after having been deprived of all his preferments, such -dramatic completeness was lacking. But, at any rate, he was transferred to -the Fleet Prison, and, after a long captivity, seems to have died there in -1580. - -Meanwhile, virtue was rewarded, in the person of Mrs. Mottershead, who was -granted a pension of L40 a year, representing perhaps L500 a year in our -own day. - -The former "Blue Posts," where this historic interlude was played, was -long since refronted in respectable, but dull, red brick, and is now, or -was recently, a boot-shop. But although no hint of its former self is -given to the passer-by, those who venture to make a request, are shown a -fine upstairs room, with elaborately pargeted ceiling, still known as the -"Card Room." - -The "Music House" inn, King Street, Norwich, situated in what is now a -poor and densely populated part of that city, has a vaulted cellar of -Norman masonry, a vestige of the time when the Norwich Jews were very rich -and numerous. The house of which it formed part was then the residence of -one Moyses, and afterwards of Isaac, his nephew, who in the reign of King -John seems to have come, like many of his race, to some mysterious and -uncomfortable end, probably in the dungeons of Norwich Castle. In the -course of time the famous Paston family came into possession of the house, -and in 1633 the great lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, resided here. Shortly -afterwards it became the meeting-place of the "city music," ancestors of -modern town bands, who seem to have practised the waits and other -performances within, until they had their parts sufficiently perfect to -dare inflict them on the city. Hence the sign of the "Music House." - -In the same neighbourhood we have the "Dolphin" inn at Potter Heigham, a -place sadly changed in modern times. - -Potter Heigham is no longer rural, and the long, long and narrow street -leading to it, out of Norwich, is crowded with the waggons and -railway-lorries of the old city's expanding commerce. In midst of all this -rumbling of wheels over uneven pavements stands the "Dolphin" inn, the -home in his declining days of Bishop Hall, who rented it for some ten -years, until his death there, in 1656, in his eighty-second year. - -[Illustration: THE "DOLPHIN," POTTER HEIGHAM.] - -It was a comparatively new house then, for while you see the date, 1587, -over the entrance door and a merchant's mark and the initials R B on -either side, a prominent gable shows the date 1629 done, very large, in -vitrified brick. - -Still you come grandly into the house, though it be a humble tavern now, -between an old pillared entrance, and across a courtyard, and in the house -are Jacobean fireplaces, with a fine newel staircase carved in the manner -of an old church bench-end, with an heraldic lion and the Gothic foliage -known as a "poppy head." The "Dolphin" would be capable, if it were -differently situated, of being converted into a handsome old-world hotel, -but the poor and crowded neighbourhood of Potter Heigham forbids anything -of that kind, and so it remains humble and unassuming. - -A tragical little story belongs to the humble old "Nag's Head" inn at -Thame, formerly the "King's Head." The old sign of it was used as a -gallows for a Parliamentary rebel who had deserted his side and joined the -King, and was so unlucky as to be captured. Those Puritans had a grim -humour. One of the condemned man's executioners, before turning him off, -turned his face, bound with a handkerchief, to the sign, with the words: -"Nay, sir, you must speak one word with the King before you go. You are -blindfold, and he cannot see, and by and by you shall both come down -together." And then he was hoisted up. - -There is another historic house at Thame, for it was into the yard of the -"Greyhound" in that town that John Hampden came, lying mortally wounded -upon the neck of his horse, from the skirmish of Chalgrove Field, on June -18th, 1643. He had unwillingly taken arms against oppression and -iniquitous taxation, and was thus at the outset killed. No enemy's bullet -laid him low: it was his own pistol, overloaded by a careless servant, -that, exploding, shattered his hand. He died, on the 24th, of lockjaw. - -The front of the house has been rebuilt, and the yard somewhat altered, -since the patriot rode in at that tragical time; but the house is in -essentials the inn of his day. Long since ceased to be an inn, it is now -occupied as a furnishing ironmonger's shop and warehouse. - -[Illustration: THE "NAG'S HEAD," THAME.] - -The "Crown and Treaty House" inn at Uxbridge, long known to would-be beery -rustics by the affectionately wistful name of the "Crown and Treat Ye," is -a genuinely historic house. It stands away beyond the tramway terminus, -facing the road at the very extremity of Uxbridge town, as you cross -canal and river and so leave Middlesex for Buckinghamshire; and although -very much of its real antiquity is disguised by modern paint and plaster, -it is in fact the surviving portion of the great mansion built in 1575 by -one of the Bennet family, and, at the opening of the war between King and -Parliament, in the occupation of one "Mr. Carr." - -The meeting here of leading spirits on either side of the contending -forces was well meant. It began January 20th, 1645, and was convened for -the purpose of "taking into consideration the grievances of which each -party complained, and to propose those remedies which might be mutually -agreeable." Unfortunately, little sincerity attended the actual meeting. -The King's party were unyielding, and the military successes of the -Parliament rendered the leaders of that side ill-disposed to give away in -talk that which they had won in the field. Moreover, like most conferences -in which religious as well as political questions were the subjects of -discussion, those debates only further inflamed mutual hatreds and further -sundered the already wide points of disagreement. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "GREYHOUND," THAME.] - -There were sixteen commissioners on either side, and for three weeks they -argued without coming to any settlement. Neither side would give way, for -either was convinced of its ability to finally crush the other by force of -arms. Much blood had already been shed, indecisively, and passions ran -high. Uxbridge was selected as a kind of half-way house between London, -held strongly by the Parliament, and Oxford, as strongly held for the -King; and when the empty verbiage was done, the propositions put forth -scouted, and the pretensions disallowed, the parties separated, falling -back respectively to London and to Oxford, to recommence those hostilities -for which they were spoiling. Treaty, therefore, there was not: only an -ominous truce between Right Divine and People's Will. - -The Earl of Clarendon, in his _History of the Rebellion_, gives an -interesting account of these fruitless meetings: - -"There was," he says, "a good house at the end of the town which was -provided for the Treaty. Above was a fair room in the middle of the house, -handsomely dressed up for the Commissioners to sit in; a large square -table being placed in the middle with seats for the Commissioners; one -side being sufficient for those of either party: and a rail for those who -should be thought necessary to be present, which went round. There were -many other rooms on either side of this great room for the Commissioners -to retire to, when they thought fit to consult by themselves, and there -being good stairs at either end of the house they never went through each -other's quarters, nor met, but in the great room." - -Neither side used the house, except for these meetings, the Royalists -being appropriately accommodated at the "Crown," which then stood in the -middle of the High Street, in the centre of the town, opposite the -still-existing "White Horse," and the Parliament people at the "George." - -[Illustration: THE "CROWN AND TREATY," UXBRIDGE.] - -In those times the highway out of Uxbridge, ceasing to be broad and -straight, left the High Street of Uxbridge by a sharp turning to the right -and went in a narrow way called Johnson's Row to the crossing of the -Colne, which was effected to the north of the present bridge and was made -in two stages by wooden bridges, using the still-surviving island in the -middle of the river as a kind of natural pier or abutment. The road -therefore crossed, in a more or less direct fashion, from immediately in -front of the "Swan and Bottle" inn to where the present flour-mill stands, -cautiously using that very considerable island on the way. The modern -road, with its bridge of seven arches, on the other hand, boldly spans the -river at its widest part, and seeks no help midway. It is all very clear -and palpable to you who stand on the bridge and see how the road across it -swoops round, at a very noticeable angle, to join the older road at the -flour-mill; but Johnson's Row was demolished 1905-6, to make an approach -to the new railway-station, and the old landmarks are growing obscured. It -was the making of this road in 1785 that changed the fortunes of the -Treaty House. The new highway was cut through its gardens, and the house -itself brought from private life and a dignified seclusion to face the -wayfaring world. What else, then, could it do but become an inn? - -[Illustration: THE "TREATY ROOM," "CROWN AND TREATY," UXBRIDGE.] - -The house, although even now not small, was once much larger. Its least -imposing front is turned to the street and is not improved by the modern -appointments of a public-house. The great feature of the building is the -room on the first floor, called, with what appears to be insufficient -warranty, the "Treaty Room," the real place of meeting having been, -apparently, the front room, now divided by a partition into two. It was -doubtless its being immeasurably the finest room in the house that led to -the so-called "Treaty Room" being selected for that honour. It is, in -fact, a noble apartment, greatly neglected for these many years past, but -grand in spite of indifference and decay. There are smeary -picture-postcards of it to be purchased in Uxbridge, and it has been -photographed by enthusiastic visitors times without number, generally -without success; for it is a dark interior, and the wood-carving is -shallow and does not yield sufficient pictorial light and shade for the -cameras to do it justice. It should be added, by way of comparative -criticism, that, although this panelling is itself so fine, it does not -for a moment compare with the bold and effective work of the "Globe Room" -at the "Reindeer," Banbury. There you have a massiveness of construction -and a breadth of design almost architectural: here there are no bold -projections, and the recurrent flat pilasters are covered with an -intricate Renaissance scroll and strap-work, which, although in itself -good, is too small in scale to be highly effective. - -[Illustration: THE "RED LION," HILLINGDON.] - -The "Red Lion" at Hillingdon, near Uxbridge, has its small share in the -troubled story of the Stuarts, although, to be sure, its plastered front -is a thought too modern-looking. Here Charles the First, escaping from -the besieged city of Oxford, lay the first night of his distracted -wanderings through England that led him eventually to the end of his armed -resistance, at Southwell. - -[Illustration: THE "THREE CROWNS," CHAGFORD.] - -The "Three Crowns" at Chagford, South Devon, now a favourite old-world -haunt of tourists visiting Dartmoor, illustrates still another incident in -that internecine warfare. It was originally a manor-house built in the -time of Henry the Eighth by Sir John Whyddon, a native of Chagford, who -went to London to seek his fortune, and, as a lawyer, found it. He became -a Judge of the King's Bench, was knighted, and we are gravely told that he -was the first judge to ride to Westminster on a horse: his predecessors, -and his learned contemporary brethren, had gone on mules. - -In the troubled times of the Civil War, when Royalist and Roundhead -disturbed even these remote nooks of the country, Chagford was attacked by -the Royalists under Sir John Berkeley. In the street-fighting, according -to Clarendon, "they lost Sidney Godolphin, a young gentleman of -incomparable parts. He received a mortal shot by a musket, a little above -the knee, of which he died on the instant, leaving the misfortune of his -death upon a place which could never otherwise have had a mention in the -world." Ay! but that was written in days long before the appreciation of -picturesque scenery had brought troops of visitors to Chagford. - -Young Godolphin bled to death on a stone seat of what is now, as Charles -Kingsley wrote, "a beautiful old mullioned and gabled Perpendicular inn." - -What was once the "great hall" of the old mansion is now a schoolroom. -Both face the church, on the other side of the narrow street, as an old -manor-house should do, and in summer time the gossipers lounge and talk, -and interpolate their gossiping with loud horse-laughs, far into the -night, greatly to the annoyance of visitors. Have I not heard, with these -ears, the raising of a sash at some incredible hour, and the voice of some -native of Bawston or N'York, exclaiming indignantly, "See yur, you darned -skunks, clear out of it!" whereupon, with cat-calls and insults in the -_patois_ of Devonshire, fortunately not with ease to be understood by -strangers from the U.S., that village convention has dispersed. - -Many historic memories linger around that ancient and beautiful house, the -"Saracen's Head" at Southwell, in the Sherwood Forest district of -Nottinghamshire. Southwell, whose hoary Minster has in modern times become -a cathedral, has fallen into a dreamless slumber since the last of the -coaches left the road, and as the traveller comes into its quiet streets, -in whose midst the great Norman church stands solemnly, like some grey -architectural ghost, he feels that he has come into a place whose last -days of activity ended considerably over half a century ago. - -The "Saracen's Head" was built in that interesting, but vague, period of -"ever so long ago"; the nearest attempt at determining its age to which -most chroniclers dare commit themselves. Whether the existing house is the -same building as that of this name conveyed by the Archbishop of York in -1396 to John Fysher and his wife Margaret, does not appear, but there -seems very little reason to doubt that, although greatly altered and added -to from time to time, the present "Saracen's Head" is, essentially, in its -ancient timbering, the identical structure. - -The frontage of the inn, now as ever the chief inn of Southwell, little -indicates its great age, for it is covered with a coat of grey plaster, -and, were it not for the enormously substantial oaken doors of the -coach-entrance, and the peep through the archway of the old courtyard, -the casual wayfarer might pass the historic house by. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "SARACEN'S HEAD," SOUTHWELL.] - -For it is historic, in an intimate and a melancholy way. Dismissing in a -word the remote visits paid by Edward the First and Edward the Third to -Southwell, when they are stated to have lodged at the "Saracen's Head," we -come to the harassed wanderings of Charles the First over the distracted -England of his time. That unhappy King well knew Southwell and the -"Saracen's Head." They were associated with the opening and the closing -scenes of his fight with Parliament and people, for he rested at the inn -on August 17th, 1642, on the way to raise the Royal Standard at Nottingham -on the 22nd; and at last, on May 5th, 1646, he abandoned the nearly four -years' struggle against fate, surrendering himself here to the Scottish -Commissioners. Between those two fateful days he was certainly once at -Southwell, and possibly more often. - -The story of his last visit has a pathos of its own that we need not be -Royalist to perceive. In March, 1646, the King at length saw his hopes to -be desperately failing everywhere, even in the loyal West; garrisons of -towns, castles, and fortified houses had been compelled to yield, and -himself reduced to fleeting, the embarrassed head of an impossible cause, -from place to place; bringing upon places and persons devoted to him a -common ruin. Friends began to despair of his shifty and untrustworthy -policy towards themselves and in negotiations with the enemy, and although -their loyalty was hardly ever in doubt, for they were fighting, after all, -not merely for the King personally, but for an order of things in which -their interests were involved, they had by this time exhausted energies -and wealth in a vain effort, and perhaps thought peace at almost any price -to be by this time preferable to the uncertainties of civil war, in which -the only certainty seemed to be that, whoever eventually won, they must -needs in the meanwhile be continually making further sacrifices. - -The King was at Oxford when he at length came to a decision by some means -to end the struggle; by flight over sea, or by surrendering himself to the -enemy: in the hope, in that alternative, that the sanctity of Kingship -would enable him by some means to snatch an advantage out of the very jaws -of defeat and ruin. The first thought was to take flight from the country, -by the port of King's Lynn, but that was at length abandoned for the -idea--a fatal _tertium quid_, as it proved--of surrendering, not to the -English army and the Parliament, but to the Scots, who, he thought, were -likely to make better terms for him. The Scottish army was at that time -engaged upon the siege of the Royalist castle of Newark, near Southwell; -and to Southwell the King, therefore, went from Oxford, in disguise. He -left Oxford on April 26th, and, to the last incapable of being -straightforward, even toward his own, gave out to his council that he was -going to London, to treat with Parliament. On May 3rd he was at Stamford, -and came to the "Saracen's Head" at Southwell at seven o'clock in the -morning of May 5th, accompanied by Ashburnham and his chaplain, Dr. -Hudson, but travelling with them as Ashburnham's servant. At the inn he -was received by Montreuil, the French Ambassador to Scotland, who had been -advised of his coming. The King, believing himself in every sense free, -invited the Scottish Commissioners over to dinner at the inn, from the -Bishop's Palace, where they had their quarters; and in what is now the -Coffee Room, the negotiations took place that ended in the King's yielding -to the Scots. It would, in any case, have so ended, for the Commissioners -came by invitation, as guests to dinner, but were so astonished at -finding the King so tamely coming within their grasp that they had not the -remotest idea of letting him go again, and would, if needs were, have -forcibly detained him. He was removed the same day to the neighbouring -Kelham Hall, where he formed the richest prize and the bitterest source of -contention between the English and the Scots, and all but caused a further -warfare. Eventually, the Scottish Commissioners, true to the national love -of money, sold their principles and their prisoner for L400,000 and -withdrew themselves and their forces across the border. The story ends -tragically, in Westminster, with the execution of the King on January -30th, 1649. - -The Coffee Room of the "Saracen's Head" is a beautiful apartment, formed -out of two rooms, and rich in panelling and deeply recessed windows. The -bedroom upstairs, where the King is said to have slept, is, in the same -manner, formed by abolishing the partition that once made two rooms of it; -and there they still show the pilgrims after things of sentimental and -historic interest the ancient four-poster bed on which the King slept. - -This history seems to have greatly upset Dr. Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand -and afterwards of Lichfield, who stayed at the "Saracen's Head" in 1858, -and slept--or rather, failed to sleep--in this historic bed. For my part, -although a pilgrim--and a sentimental one at that--I found the -four-poster, despite its associations, as inviting to slumber as any -other; but then, I had cycled eighty-one miles that day, and--not being a -bishop--had nothing on my conscience. - -[Illustration: KING CHARLES' BEDROOM, "SARACEN'S HEAD," SOUTHWELL.] - -Dr. Selwyn was so obsessed with the memories of that room and the house -that he arose in the middle of the night, and lighted his bedroom candle -and wrote a long set of couplets, sentimental, pietistic, and very jingly -and inferior. I have a mental picture of him sitting up in bed, or perhaps -at the dressing-table in his night-shirt, gruesomely cold on that March -night, running his fingers through his hair and gazing at the ceiling for -the inspiration which does not seem to have come; for a more uninspired -set of verses it would be difficult to find. But you shall judge: - - I cannot rest--for on the spot where I have made my bed, - O'erwearied with the strife of State, a King hath laid his head. - - Thy sacred head, ill-fated Charles, hath lain where now I lie; - And thou hast passed, in Southwell Inn, as sleepless night as I. - - I cannot rest--for o'er my mind come thronging full and fast, - The stories of the olden time, the visions of the past. - - 'Twas here he rested ere he raised his standard for the fight; - Here called on Heaven to help his cause, My God, defend the right! - - Here gather'd round him all the flow'r of England's chivalry; - And here the vanquished Monarch closed his days of liberty. - - I cannot rest--for Cromwell's horse are neighing in mine ear; - E'en in the Holy House of God their ringing hoofs I hear. - - Lord! wilt Thou once again endure it stable vile to be? - The proud usurper's charger rein'd fast by Thy sanctuary. - - I cannot rest--for Wolsey's pride, and Wolsey's deep disgrace-- - The pomp, the littleness of man--speak from this ancient place. - - Here gloriously his summer days he spent in kingly state; - Here his last summer sadly pined, bow'd by the stroke of Fate. - - How mighty was he when he rul'd from Tweed to Humber's flood! - How lowly when he came to die, forsaken by his God! - - I cannot rest--for holier thoughts the lingering night beguile, - Of the glad days when gospel light went forth o'er Britain's Isle. - - 'Twas here the Bishop of the North, Paulinus, pitch'd his tent, - Here preached the living Word of God, baptizing in the Trent. - - Hence have the preachers' feet gone forth thro' all the country wide; - And daughter-churches have sprung up, nursed at their mother's side. - - Here have the clerks of Nottingham, and yeomen bold and true, - Held yearly feasts at Whitsuntide, and paid their homage due. - - Here many a mitred head of York, and priests and men of peace, - Have lived in penitence and prayer, and welcomed their release. - - And hence the daily choral song, the gospel's hopes and fears, - Have sounded forth to Christian hearts, beyond a thousand years. - - 'Tis thus, o'er England's hill and dale, have passed by Heaven's decree, - A changing light, a chequer'd shade, a mingled company. - - The good, the bad, have had their day, the Lord hath worked His will; - And England keeps her ancient faith, purer and brighter still. - - Where are they now, the famous men who lived in olden time? - They never see the noonday sun, nor hear the midnight chime. - - They sleep within their narrow cell, waiting the trumpet's voice; - Lord! grant that I may rest in peace, and when I wake--rejoice. - - _Saracen's Head, Southwell, 5th March, 1858._ - -Byron had stayed often at the inn, many years before, and in 1807 wrote an -impromptu on the death of a local carrier, John Adams, who travelled to -and from the house, and lived drunk and died drunk: - - John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell, - A _Carrier_ who _carried_ his can to his mouth well; - He _carried_ so much and he _carried_ so fast, - He could _carry_ no more--so was _carried_ at last: - For the liquor he drank, being too much for one, - He could not _carry_ off--so is now _carri_-on. - -It will already have been noticed that the Stuarts and their troubles -contributed most of the historic associations belonging to our old -hostelries; and we have not yet quite done with them. The incidents of -Charles the Second's flight in 1651, after the battle of Worcester, -include a halt of one night at the "Sun," Cirencester, the well-known -escape from the "Queen's Arms," an inn--that is an inn no longer--at -Charmouth, and visits to the "George" at Bridport, and a house of the same -name at Broadwindsor. The "King's Arms" at Salisbury is associated with -meetings and conferences of the King's supporters, who, while he lay in -hiding at Heale House, considered there the best way of conducting him to -the coast and safety. The route chosen lay through Mere, where, at the -"George" inn (rebuilt in the eighteenth century) Colonel Phelips and -Charles, travelling as his servant, Will Jackson, called. The Colonel, an -acquaintance of the landlord, descended into the cellar of the inn, to -sample the liquors of the house, while "Will Jackson" stood respectfully -aside. Mine host, however, was an hospitable man, and, turning to the -servant, with jug and glass, said, "Thou lookest an honest fellow--here's -a health to the King!" The "honest fellow," whether taken aback by the -suddenness of it, or acting an unwilling part, made some difficulty in -replying; whereupon the landlord mildly took the Colonel to task for the -kind of man he had brought. - -[Illustration: THE "COCK AND PYMAT."] - -From another "George"--the "George" at Brighthelmstone, in after years -styled the "King's Head"--the King escaped to France. - -Nor even yet have we quite done with the hapless Stuarts, of whom -undoubtedly Charles the Second was the most fortunate. - -One of the most historic of inns was the famous "Cock and Pymat" at -Whittington, near Chesterfield. It is now only to be spoken of in the past -tense because, although there is still an inn of that name at -Whittington, it is not the famous "Revolution House" itself, but only a -modern building to which the old sign of the "Cock and Magpie"--for that -is the plain English of "Pymat"--has been transferred. - -Whittington in these times is a very grim and unlovely village, in the -dismal colliery district of Chesterfield, whose wicked-looking crooked -spire gives an air of _diablerie_ to its immediate surroundings; but two -centuries and a quarter ago, when James the Second was on the throne, and -busily engaged in undermining the religious and Parliamentary liberties of -the realm, it was a tiny collection of houses on a lonely moor, and an -ideal place for meetings of conspirators. There and then those very mild -and constitutional plotters who, despite their mildness, did actually -succeed in overturning that already insecure monarch, met and formulated -their demands. - -The house in which they gathered was then an inn so noted for its fine -home-brewed ale that packmen and others made it a regular place of call, -and often, we are told, went considerable distances out of their way, -rather than miss a draught of the genuine Whittington nut-brown. - -The bold men who met in the room still known as the "Plotting Parlour" had -nothing in common with such plotters as Guy Fawkes. Their methods were -rather those of debating societies than of misguided persons with dark -lanthorns and slow matches; but those were times when even the mildest -debater who ever rose to a point of order would have been in danger of -his life; and so undoubtedly the little gathering that met here in -1688--William, fourth Earl of Devonshire, Sir Thomas Osborne, Earl of -Danby, afterwards Duke of Leeds, and John D'Arcy--were bold men and brave. - -They drew up a complaint, moderately worded, and appended to it a sturdy -resolution. They declared that "invasions had been made of late Years on -our Religion and Laws, without the consent of Parliament, freely and duly -chosen," and begged King James to grant again the constitutional right, -hardly won by our forefathers, of a free Parliament. "But," they added, -"if, to the great Misfortune and Ruin of these Kingdoms it prove -otherwise, we further declare that we will to our utmost defend the -Protestant religion, the Laws of the Kingdom, and the Rights and Liberties -of the People." - -The Stuarts, although a romantic, were a wrong-headed and a stiff-necked -race. They must needs for ever be trying conclusions with their stubborn -heads against every brick wall within reach, and would never bow before -the storms of their own raising. James, true to his blood, would no more -yield than would any other of his house; and in that same year came the -Prince of Orange and brushed him lightly aside. - -The chair in which the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Devonshire presided at -the "Cock and Pymat" was long since transferred to Hardwick Hall, and in -the course of years the greater part of the old inn was demolished, the -remaining portion being now a private house. - -[Illustration: PORCH OF THE "RED LION," HIGH WYCOMBE.] - -The porch of that chief hotel of High Wycombe, the "Red Lion," has become -in these last generations historic; but while we may find, throughout the -country, inns associated with the entirely fictitious incidents of novels -displaying notices of their fame, there is not yet even the most modest of -tablets affixed to the front of the "Red Lion," to inform the present -generation that from the roof of the projecting portico Benjamin Disraeli, -afterwards Prime Minister of England, made his first political speech. -Thrice, and every time unsuccessfully--twice in 1832, and in 1834--he -sought to enter Parliament as Member for this town. He made a public entry -on June 3rd, 1832, and spoke from beside the lion that, still very red and -fierce, stands to this day on the roof of the portico. He appeared there -in the dandified costume of his youth--tightly strapped trousers, -frock-coat very tight in the waist and very full and spreading in the -skirts--and made a picturesque figure as, in the excitement of his -harangue to the free and independent electors, he from time to time flung -back the long black curls of his luxuriant hair. Mr. D'Israeli--as he then -spelled his name--appeared as an independent candidate, and was proposed -by a Tory and seconded by a Radical. He polled little more than half the -number of votes cast for his opponent, and how small was the electorate in -those days of a restricted franchise we may see from this election return: - - Grey 23 - D'Israeli 12 - -- - Majority 11 - -Among inns of highly dubious historic associations may be mentioned the -"White Hart" at Somerton, Somerset: that gaunt and cold-looking town built -of the local grey-blue limestone that so utterly destroys the summery -implication of the place-name. - -[Illustration: THE "WHITE HART," SOMERTON.] - -The inn claims to have been partly built of the stones of Somerton Castle, -and a tiny opening, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, in the gable -of the small and not otherwise particularly interesting house, is pointed -out as the window of "King John's Prison." The "King John" in question was -not our own shabby and lying Lackland, but an infinitely finer fellow--if -one may so greatly dare as to name a king a "fellow"--King John of France, -taken prisoner at the battle of Poictiers and held to ransom in England. -But there appears to be a considerable deal of confusion in the statement -that the French King was ever in custody in Somersetshire, for it was from -the Castle of Hertford to Somerton Castle in Lincolnshire that he was -removed, for greater security, in 1359. But those grave authorities, the -county histories of Somerset and Lincolnshire, alike claim to have had the -custody of that illustrious prisoner, in the 33rd year of Edward the -Third, at their respective Somertons, and the antiquaries of either -narrate how one Sir Saier de Rochford was granted two shillings a day for -the keeping of him. - -Apart from this unfounded claim, the "White Hart" is pictorially -remarkable for its White Hart effigy, of an enormous size in proportion to -that of the house. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -INNS OF OLD ROMANCE - - -Romance, as we have already seen, was enacted in many ways in the inns of -long ago. Love and hatred, comedy and tragedy, and all the varied moods by -which human beings are swayed, have had their part beneath the roofs of -the older hostelries; as how could they fail to do in those times when the -inn was so essential and intimate a part of the national life? The -romantic incidents in which old inns have their part are in two great -divisions: that of old folklore, and the other of real life. To the realm -of folk-tales belongs the story told of an ancient hostelry that stood on -the site of the "Ostrich," Colnbrook. - -The decayed coaching town of Colnbrook, in Middlesex, seventeen miles from -Hyde Park Corner, on the great road to Bath, is little changed from the -time when the coaches ceased running through it, seventy years ago. Still -do the old red-brick houses on either side of the narrow, causeway-like -street wear their seventeenth, their eighteenth, or their early -nineteenth-century look unchanged, and the solid, stolid red-faced -"George" inn yet seems to be awaiting the arrival of the mail, or of some -smart post-chaise nearing London or setting out on the second stage of -the 105-3/4 miles to Bath. - -Colnbrook is perhaps the best illustration of a coaching town ruined by -railways that it is possible to discover, and certainly the nearest to -London. How great its fall since those prosperous days of 1549, when it -was incorporated as a market-town! Its charter was renewed in 1632, and, -judging from the many houses in its narrow street built about 1700-1750, -the prosperity of the place survived unimpaired for certainly considerably -over another century. It is now merely a village, but, as a result of its -former highway importance, still a place of inns. There are at least ten -even now surviving; and it is quite safe to assume that any -important-looking old house, now in private occupation, facing the long -thoroughfare, was once a hostelry. - -The "George," already mentioned, although re-fronted at some period of the -eighteenth century, is older within, and an old gable overlooking the -stable yard even has a sixteenth-century barge-board surviving. Of rather -more human interest is the decorative and spiky iron-work fixed on the -ground-floor window-sills of the frontage, which clearly shows that the -architect of the building, when he drew out his design, had forgotten the -loungers of Colnbrook, and, in placing his sills at the height above the -ground of the average chair, had unwittingly provided the lazy with seats -in the most advantageous position. Hence the afterthought of the -decorative but penetrative ironwork. - -But the oldest and most interesting building in Colnbrook is the "Ostrich" -inn, whose long, gabled timber-and-plaster front, now partly divided up -into shops and tenements, is clearly of Elizabethan date. It is -picturesque, rambling, shabby outside, and shabby and darkling within, and -the most satisfactory part of it is without doubt the little courtyard -through the archway, where, turning round on the cobble-stones, you get a -picturesque and a sunny view of steep roofs, dormer windows, dove-cot, and -white-washed walls covered with grape-vines. - -The present "Ostrich" is the successor of a much more ancient inn. There -have been, in fact, several inns on this site. The first appears to have -been a guest-house, or hospice--"_quoddam hospitium in via Londoniae apud -Colebroc_"--founded by one Milo Crispin, and given, in 1106, in trust to -the Abbey of Abingdon, for the good of travellers in this world and the -salvation of his soul in the next. - -It would seem to be from this circumstance that the inn obtained its name, -for it was early known as the "Ospridge," a kind of orthographic half-way -house between the former "hospice" and the present "Ostrich." - -If we may believe the old chroniclers' statements--and there is no reason -why we should not--the house became in after years a place of resort for -guests going to and from Windsor Castle; and here the ambassadors robed -themselves before being conducted the last few miles, and so into the -Royal presence. Froissart chronicles four ambassadors to Edward the Third -dining with the King: "So they dyned in the Kynge's chamber, and after -they departed, lay the same night at Colbrook." - -[Illustration: THE "OSTRICH," COLNBROOK.] - -How it happened that the inn kept its customers after the dreadful murders -traditionally said to have been committed here by wholesale in the reign -of Henry the First, certainly not fifty years after the hospice was given -to Abingdon Abbey, there is no explaining. The ancient pamphlets that -narrate the Sweeny Todd-like particulars do not enlighten us on that head. - -The undiluted horror of the whole thing is exceedingly revolting, and one -would rather not give a further lease of life to it, but that in an -account of Old Inns their unpleasing story must needs be set forth, in -company with their lighter legends. Moreover, the late sixteenth-century -romance of _Thomas of Reading_, in which the story occurs, is by way of -being a classic. It was written, probably in 1598, by one Thomas Delaney, -and is a lengthy narrative of a wealthy clothier of that name, otherwise -Thomas Cole. Characterised variously as "a fabulous and childish history," -and as "a mixture of historical fact and fictitious narrative," it was, at -any rate, a highly successful publication, for by 1632 it had reached its -sixth edition, and eventually was circulated, broadcast, as a penny -chap-book. - -According to this "pleasant and famous historie," there was once upon a -time, in the days of Henry the First, one Thomas Cole, a wealthy clothier -of Reading, who was used frequently to travel on his business between that -town and London. Commonly he journeyed in company with two intimate -clothier friends, Gray of Gloucester and William of Worcester. He himself -was a worshipful man, of honesty and great wealth, and was usually known -as Thomas of Reading. The three would usually dine at the "Ostrich" on the -way to London, and on the return sleep there. We are asked to believe that -this business man, Thomas Cole, on such occasions gave the money he -carried into the care of the landlady overnight, and that by this -misplaced confidence he was marked down for destruction. - -Jarman, the innkeeper, and his wife had long been engaged in what is -rather delicately styled the "systematic removal" of wealthy guests, and -had devised an ingenious murder-trap in the principal bedroom, by which -the bed, firmly secured to a trap-door, was in the dead of night, when the -house resounded to the intended victim's snoring, plunged suddenly into a -huge copper filled with boiling water, placed in the room below. He was -then "polished off," as Sweeny Todd himself would say, and should it -happen that other guests of the night before asked after the missing one, -they would be told that he had taken horse early and gone away. - -The victim's horse would be taken to a distance and disguised, his clothes -destroyed, his body thrown into the Colne, or into the Thames at -Wraysbury, and his money added to the fortune mine host and his wife were -thus rapidly acquiring. - -As Thomas Cole had business in London more frequently than his friends, it -naturally followed that he sometimes went alone. On the first such -occasion he was, according to the author of this "pleasant historie," -"appointed to be the fat pig that should be killed: For it is to be -understood that when they plotted the murder of any man, this was alwaies -their terme, the man to his wife, and the woman to her husband: 'Wife, -there is now a fat pig to be had if you want one.' Whereupon she would -answer thus: 'I pray you put him in the hogstie till to-morrow.'" - -He was accordingly given the room--the condemned cell, so to speak--above -the copper, and by next morning would doubtless have been floating -inanimate down the Thames, had not his friend Gray unexpectedly joined him -in the evening. On another occasion his hour was nearly come, when -Colnbrook was aroused at night by people riding post-haste from London -with news that all Chepe was ablaze; and he must needs be up and away -without sleeping, for he had interests there. - -The innkeeper was wrathy at these mischances; "but," said he, in a phrase -even yet heard, "the third time will pay for all." - -Yet again the threatened clothier came riding alone, but in the night he -was roused by the innkeeper himself to help quiet a riotous dispute that -had arisen in the house over dice. - -On another occasion he fell ill while staying at the "Ostrich," or the -"Crane," as some accounts name the house, and had to be nursed; but the -fifth time was fatal. Omens pursued him on that occasion, and many another -would have turned back. His horse stumbled and broke a leg, and he had to -find another, and when he had done so and had resumed his journey, he was -so sleepy he could scarce sit in the saddle. Then, as he drew near -Colnbrook, his nose began to bleed. - -The happenings of the day depressed him when at last he had come to the -inn. He could take nothing, and the innkeeper and his wife remarked upon -it. - -"Jesu, Master Cole," quoth they, "what ails ye to-night? Never before did -we see you thus sad. Will it please you to have a quart of burnt sack?" - -"Willingly," he rejoined; but presently lapsed into his former mood. - -"I have but one child in the world," said he, "and that is my daughter, -and half that I have is hers and the other half my wife's. But shall I be -good to nobody but them? In conscience, my wealth is too much for a couple -to possess, and what is our religion without charity? And to whom is -charity more to be shown than to decayed householders? Tom Dove, through -his love of jollity and good-fellowship, hath lost his all. Good my Oast, -lend me a pen and inke, for straightway I will write a letter vnto the -poore man, and something I will give him. God knows how long I shall -live." - -"Why, Master Cole," said the innkeeper, when shown what the clothier had -written, "'tis no letter, but a will you have written." - -"'Tis true," said Cole, "and I have but written that which God put into my -mind." Then, folding and sealing it, he desired his host to despatch it, -and was not satisfied until he himself had hired the carrier. Then he fell -a-weeping, and so went to bed, to the accompaniment of many other dolorous -signs and portents. "The scritch-owle cried piteously, and anon after the -night-rauen sate croaking hard by the window. 'Jesu have mercy vpon me,' -quoth hee, 'what an ill-favoured cry doe yonder carrion birds make;' and -thereupon he laid him down in his bed, from whence he neuer rose againe." - -The innkeeper also was shaken by these ominous things, and would have -spared his guest; but his wife was of other mettle. - -"What," said she, "faint you now?"--and showed him the gold that had been -given into her care. - -In the end they served the unfortunate Cole as they had many another, and -threw his body into the little river that runs near by: hence, according -to the old accounts, the name of the place, originally Cole-in-brook! - -This last ridiculous, infantile touch is sufficient to discredit the -whole story, and when we learn that, according to one account thirteen, -and by the testimony of another no fewer than sixty, travellers had been, -in like manner, "removed," we are inclined to believe the whole thing the -invention of some anonymous, bloody-minded pamphleteer, and care little -whether the innkeeper and his wife were hanged (as we are told) or retired -with a fortune and founded a family. - -At any rate, one cannot understand the persistent attempt to connect the -so-called "Blue Room" of the present house with the fatal bedroom. If -there is any truth at all in the story of Master Cole, his tragical ending -was accomplished in a house demolished eight hundred years ago; for we -have it, in the words of the writer of _Thomas of Reading_, that "the King -(Henry the First) commanded the house should be quite consumed with fire -and that no man should ever build vpon that cursed ground." - -In the same manner, the recent attempts to connect Turpin with the -"Ostrich" will not bear the least investigation. - -[Illustration: YARD OF THE "OSTRICH," COLNBROOK.] - -This ghastly story claimed, with such extraordinary zeal, by the "Ostrich" -is by no means the only one of its kind, for many an old tale of horror -has for its central feature the wicked innkeeper who robbed and murdered -his guests. The most famous, and most revolting, legend is that included -in the career of St. Nicholas of Myra, which serves to show that this -licensed-victualling depravity was international. The true story of St. -Nicholas is not miraculous, and is simply earnest of his good and pitiful -nature. He entreated, and secured from Eustathius, governor of Myra, the -pardon of three men imprisoned in a tower and condemned to die, and is -often represented with a tower at the side of him and three mannikins -rising out of it. In the course of time the tower became a tub, and the -little men were changed into children, and those changes in their turn -gave rise to a wholly fictitious story that fairly outranges all the other -incredible marvels of the dark ages. According to this tale, an innkeeper, -running short of bacon, seized three little boys, cut them up, and pickled -them in a salting-tub. St. Nicholas, hearing that they had gone to the inn -and had disappeared there, had his saintly suspicions aroused. He asked -for the pickle-tub, addressed it in some form of words that unfortunately -have not been preserved to us, and straightway the fragments sorted -themselves out, and pieced themselves together, and the children went off -to play. - -A curious feature of the old frontage of the "Ostrich" was the doorway -made in coaching times in the upper storey for the convenience of -passengers, who were in this manner enabled to step directly into the -house from the roofs of the coaches. There are those still living who -remember this contrivance; but the space has long been filled in, and the -sole vestige of it is an unobtrusive wooden sill resting on the timbering -beneath the swinging sign. - -Romance, very dark and gory, clothes the memory of the "Blue Boar" at -Leicester, a house unfortunately pulled down in the '30's of the -nineteenth century. According to tradition, Richard the Third, coming to -Leicester and finding the castle already dilapidated, stayed at the inn -before the battle of Bosworth, and slept in the huge oaken four-poster bed -which remained in the house until the date of its demolition. It was not -only a bed, but also a treasure-chest, for in the time of one Clark, who -kept the house in the later years of Queen Elizabeth and the earlier part -of the reign of James the First, a great store of gold coin was discovered -in the framework of it. Mrs. Clark, making up the bed hastily, shook it -with more than usual vigour, when, to her surprise, a gold coin dropped -out. Examination led to the discovery that the bedstead had a false bottom -and that the space between was one vast cash-box. Clark did not at the -time disclose the find, and so became "mysteriously" rich. In the course -of a few years he was gathered to his fathers, and his widow kept on the -house, but was murdered in 1613 for the sake of her gold by a maidservant, -who, together with no fewer than seven men accomplices, was duly hanged -for the crime. - -[Illustration: "PIFF'S ELM."] - -The difficulty of resolving tradition into fact, of putting a date to -legends and tracing them to their origin, is generally insurmountable. Let -us take, for example, the "Old White Swan," at "Piff's Elm." Casting a -roving eye upon the map of Gloucestershire, I see by chance, between -Tewkesbury and Gloucester, a place so named. It tells me vaguely of -romance, and I resolve, at all hazards, to go to that spot and sketch, if -sketchable, the inn I suspect to be there, and note the story that -belongs, or should belong, to it. In due course I come to that lonely -place, and there, to be sure, is an inn--once a considerable house on the -old coaching and posting route between Cheltenham and Tewkesbury--and not -only an inn, but a picturesque one, fronted with the giant stump of an -elm--whether Piff's or another's, who shall say? - -And Piff himself? Whether he was a highwayman or was murdered by a -highwayman; or if he were a suicide who hanged himself from the elm -associated with him, or a criminal gibbeted there, I cannot tell you, nor -can any one else. Some stories say one thing, some another, and others -still put quite different complexions upon it. In that choice of legends -lurks romance itself, perhaps reduced from the highest realms of tragedy -by the unfortunately farcical name of the mysterious Piff. - -Equally romantic, and irreducible to cold-drawn fact, is the legend of -King James and the Tinker, associated with the "King and Tinker" inn at -White Webbs Lane, in what was once Enfield Chase. According to the tale, -King James the First, hunting in the woodlands that surrounded his palace -of Theobalds, lost himself, and, drawing rein at the inn--whatever then -was the sign of it--encountered a tinker drinking a modest stoup of ale -in the porch. - -"What news, good fellow?" asked the horseman. - -"No news that I wot of," replied the tinker, "save that they say the -King's out a-hunting in the Chase to-day. I should like to see the King, -although I suppose he's very much like other folk." - -"So you'd like to see the King?" queried his Majesty. - -"Ay, just for the sake of saying so," replied the tinker. - -"Mount behind me, then," said the King, "and I will show you him." - -"But how shall I know him when I see him?" - -"Easily enough. You will know him by his remaining covered." - -Soon the King came upon his retinue, all of whom promptly bared their -heads. "Now, my friend, where is the King?" asked his Majesty, turning, -with a smile, in his saddle. - -"There's only we two covered, and since I know I'm no king, I--O! pardon, -your Majesty!" replied the now trembling tinker. - -The King laughed. "Now," said he, "since you have seen how a King looks, -you shall also see how he acts," and then, drawing his sword, he knighted -the tinker on the spot; or, in the words of the brave old ballad: - - "Come, tell me thy name." "I am John of the Dale, - A mender of kettles, and fond of good ale."-- - "Then rise up, Sir John, for I'll honour thee here,-- - I make thee a Knight of five hundred a year!" - -Well may the mark of exclamation stand there, not only at the general -improbability of such a thing, but at the preposterous idea of the niggard -James the First being guilty of an act of unreasonable generosity. But one -must not question the legend at the "King and Tinker," where it is -devoutly cherished. I have before me a four-page pamphlet, issued at the -inn, wherein the ancient ballad is printed at length and surmounted, not -very convincingly, by a woodblock in the Bewick manner, showing a number -of sportsmen in the costume of George the Third's time, about, in a most -unsportsmanlike way, to ride over the hounds. In the distance is Windsor -Castle. It will be conceded that, as an illustration of the King James and -the Tinker legend, this is lacking in some of those intimate touches that -would make the incident live again. - -But the legend and the ballad are much older than the days of James the -First. They are, in fact, to be found, on substantially the same lines, in -most centuries and many countries, Haroun-al-Raschid is found, in the -_Arabian Nights_, in circumstances not dissimilar: while the story of -Henry the Second--or, as some versions have it, Henry the Eighth--and the -Miller of Mansfield is another familiar parallel. There again we find the -King riding away in the forest from his courtiers, only in that instance -it is the Forest of Sherwood. He is given shelter by the miller, and -shares a bed with the miller's son, Dick. Next morning the agitated -courtiers discover the King, who knights his host, "Sir John Cockle," and -eventually names him ranger of Sherwood, with a salary of L300. - -From romance of this almost fairy-tale kind let us turn to the equally -astonishing, but better established, story associated with the once-famed -"Pelican" at Speenhamland, on the outskirts of Newbury. The Peerage, which -has long appeared to exist almost exclusively for the purpose of -scandalising staid folk by the amazing marriages of its members, included -in 1744 a Duke of Chandos; Henry Brydges, the second Duke, at that time a -widower. He and a friend, dining at the "Pelican" on their way from Bath -to London in that year, were interrupted by an unwonted excitement that -appeared to be agitating the establishment. Inquiring the cause, they were -told that a man was about to sell his wife in the inn yard. "Let us go and -see," quoth the Duke; and they accordingly went forth into the courtyard -and saw a handsome, modest-looking young woman enter, in the approved -manner, with a halter round her neck, and led by her husband, who is -described as a "brutal ostler." - -It was a remarkable instance of love at first sight. The name of this -fortunate young woman was Ann Wells. The Duke bought her (the price is not -stated) and married her on Christmas Day. She died in 1757, at Keynsham, -near Bristol, leaving an only daughter, Lady Augusta, who married a Mr. -Kearney. - -There remained until recent times a funeral hatchment in Keynsham Church -on which the arms of this greatly daring Duke were impaled with those -found by the Herald's College for his plebeian wife: "three fountains (for -'Wells') on a field azure." - - - - -CHAPTER X - -PICKWICKIAN INNS - - -What visions of Early Victorian good-fellowship and conviviality, of the -roast-beef and rum-punch kind, are called up by the title! The Pickwickian -Inn was, in the '30's of the nineteenth century, the last word in -hospitable comfort, and its kitchen achieved the topmost pinnacle of -culinary refinement demanded by an age that was robust rather than -refined, whose appetites were gross rather than discriminating, and whose -requirements seem to ourselves, of a more sybarite and exacting -generation, few and modest. The Pickwickian age was an age of prodigious -performances in eating and drinking, and our ancestors of that time, so -only they had great joints, heaped-up dishes, and many bottles and -decanters set before them, cared comparatively little about delicate -flavours. The chief aim was to get enough, and the "enough" of our -great-grandfathers would nowadays be a surfeit to ourselves. If it were -not then quite the essential mark of a jolly good fellow to be carried up -to bed at the end of an evening with the punch and the old port, a man who -shirked his drink was looked upon with astonishment, almost suspicion, and -the only use in those deep-drinking days and nights for table-waters was -to help a man along the road to recovery, after "a night of it." - -Then to be otherwise than of a Pickwickian rotundity was to be not merely -a poor creature, but generally connoted some mental crook or eccentricity; -while fatness and hearty good-nature were thought of almost as -interchangeable terms. - -'Twas ever thus. Even Shakespeare loved the well-larded, and makes Julius -Caesar, who himself was sufficiently lean, say: - - Let me have men about me that are fat; - Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: - Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look: - He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. - -In the time of Dickens they were still suspect; and when at last Wilkie -Collins made his villainous Count Fosco a fat villain, the new departure -seemed to that generation a wanton, extravagant flying in the face of -nature. - -There are even yet to be found substantial old inns something after the -Pickwickian ideal, but they are few and far between, and they are none of -them Pickwickian to the core. Rarely do you see nowadays the monumental -sideboards, with the almost equally monumental sirloins of beef and the -like, and even the huge cheese, last of the old order of things to survive -upon these tables, is nowadays generally represented by a modest wedge. - -It is true that even the Pickwickians did not always happen upon -well-ordered inns, for the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich was severely -criticised by Dickens; but such exceptions do but serve to prove the -Dickensian rule, that there was no such place, and there never had been -any such place, as the hostelry of the coaching age for creature-comforts -and good service. Dickens had already, when he began writing _The Pickwick -Papers_ at the age of twenty-five, an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of -inns, especially of country inns. It was, like his own Mr. Weller's -knowledge of London, "extensive and peculiar." His fount of information -about country inns, at any rate, was acquired at an early and receptive -age, in his many and hurried journeys as a reporter, when, on behalf of -_The Morning Chronicle_, he flew--flew, that is to say, as flying was then -metaphorically understood, at an average rate of something under ten miles -an hour--by coach, east, west, north, and south, in the capacity of -Parliamentary reporter, despatched to "take" the flow of eloquence from -Members, or would-be Members of Parliament, addressing the conventionally -"free and enlightened" voters of the provinces. - -No fewer than fifty-five inns, taverns, etc., London and provincial, are -named in _Pickwick_, many of them at considerable length; but, so great -and sweeping have been the changes of the last seventy years, only twelve -now remain. The London houses, with the exception of Osborne's Hotel, John -Street, Adelphi--now the "Adelphi" Hotel--and the "George and Vulture," -in George Yard, Lombard Street--in these days almost better known as -Thomas's Restaurant--have been either utterly disestablished or remodelled -beyond all knowledge. - -_Pickwick_ is the very Odyssey of inns and travel. You reach the second -chapter and are whirled away at once from London by the "Commodore" coach, -starting from the "Golden Cross," Charing Cross, for Rochester, and only -cease your travels and adventures at inns in Chapter LI., near the end of -the story. Meanwhile you have coasted over a very considerable portion of -England with the Pickwickians: from Rochester and Ipswich on the east, to -Bath and Bristol on the west, and as far as Birmingham and Coventry in the -Midlands. - -He who would write learnedly and responsibly on the subject of Pickwickian -Inns must bring to his task a certain amount of foreknowledge, and must -add to that equipment by industry and research--and even then he shall -find himself, after all, convicted of errors and inadequacies; for indeed, -although the Pickwickians began their travels no longer ago than 1827, the -changes in topography for one thing, and in manners and customs for -another, are so great that it needs a scientific historian to be -illuminating on the subject. - -To begin at the usual place, the beginning, the history of the "Golden -Cross," the famous inn whence the Pickwickians started, offers a fine -series of snares, pitfalls, traps, and rocks of offence to him who does -not walk warily, for the "Golden Cross" of to-day, although a coaching inn -remodelled, is by no means the original of that name, and indeed stands on -quite a different (although neighbouring) site. - -Changes in the geography of London have been so continuous, so intricate, -and so puzzling that few people at once realise how the inn can have stood -until 1830 at the rear of King Charles the First's statue, on the spot now -occupied by the south-eastern one of the four lions guarding the Nelson -Column. - -At that time Charing Cross was still the narrow junction of streets seen -in Shepherd's illustration, where the "Golden Cross" inn is prominent on -the left hand, and Northumberland House, the London palace of the Dukes of -Northumberland (pulled down in 1874), more prominent on the right. The -block of buildings, including the "Golden Cross," was removed, in 1830, to -form part of the open space of Trafalgar Square, and the site of the ducal -mansion is now Northumberland Avenue. - -There had long been a "Golden Cross" inn here: how long we do not know, -but a house of that name was in existence in 1643, for in that year we -find the Puritans demanding the removal of the, to them, offensive sign of -the cross. It was then a half-way house at the little village of Charing, -midway between the then entirely separate and distinct cities of London -and Westminster. In front of it, on the site of King Charles's statue, -stood the ancient cross of Charing, erected, long centuries before, to the -memory of Queen Eleanor. - -[Illustration: THE "GOLDEN CROSS," IN PICKWICKIAN DAYS.] - -The earliest picture we have of the "Golden Cross" inn is a view by -Canaletti, engraved in 1753, showing a sign projecting boldly over the -footpath. As the architectural style of the house shown in that view is -later than that prevailing in the reign of Charles the First, the inn must -obviously have been rebuilt at least once in the interval. This building -is again illustrated in a painting executed certainly later than 1770, -according to the evidence of the sign, which, instead of the old gallows -sign in Canaletti's picture, is replaced by a board fixed against the -front of the building, in obedience to the Acts of Parliament, 1762-70, -forbidding overhanging signs in London. That such measures were necessary -had been made abundantly evident so early as 1718, when a heavy sign had -fallen in Bride Lane, Fleet Street, tearing down the front of the house -and killing four persons. - -In this view, later than 1770, and probably executed about 1800, we have -the "Golden Cross" inn of _Pickwick_. Its successor, the Gothic-fronted -building generally associated by Dickens commentators with that story, was -built in 1828 and demolished two years later. Dickens wrote _Pickwick_ in -1836: when both the house he indicated and its successor were swept away, -and the very site cleared and made a part of the open road; but, as he -specifically states that the Pickwickians began their travels on May 13th, -1827, it must needs have been the predecessor of the Gothic building from -which they set forth on the "Commodore" coach for Rochester. - -The inn at that time had a hospitable-looking front and a really handsome -range of coffee-room windows looking out upon the street. Beside them you -see the celebrated archway of Jingle's excited and disjointed cautions: -"Terrible place--dangerous work--other day--five children--mother--tall -lady, eating sandwiches--forgot the arch--crash--knock--children look -round--mother's head off--sandwich in her hand--no mouth to put it -in--head of a family off--shocking, shocking!" - -The great stable-yard and the back premises probably remained untouched, -for when David Copperfield came up by coach from Canterbury, the "Golden -Cross" was, we learn, "a mouldy sort of establishment," and his bedroom -"smelt like a hackney-coach, and was shut up like a family -vault"--characteristics not generally associated with new buildings. - -But, indeed, although references to the "Golden Cross" are plentiful in -literature, they are few of them flattering: "A nasty inn, remarkable for -filth and apparent misery," wrote Edward Shergold, early in the nineteenth -century, and he was but one of a cloud of witnesses to the same effect. It -is thus a little difficult to understand a writer in _The Epicure's -Almanack_ for 1815, who says, in the commendatory way, that the fame of -the "Golden Cross" had spread "from the Pillars of Hercules to the Ganges; -from Nova Scotia to California." - -[Illustration: CHARING CROSS, ABOUT 1829, SHOWING THE "GOLDEN CROSS" INN. -_From the engraving after T. Hosmer Shepherd._] - -At that period this was the chief booking-office for coaches in the West -End of London, and it was to that quarter what the "Bull and Mouth" was to -the City. To that commanding position it had been raised by William Horne, -who came here from the "White Horse" in Fetter Lane, in 1805. He died in -1828, and was succeeded by his son, the great coach-proprietor, Benjamin -Worthy Horne, who further improved the property, and was powerful enough -to command respect at the councils of the early railways. Under his rule, -beneath the very shadow of the Charing Cross Improvement Act, by whose -provisions Trafalgar Square was ordained and eventually created, the house -was rebuilt, with a frontage in the Gothic manner. Shepherd's view of -Charing Cross, published December 18th, 1830, shows this immediate -successor of the Pickwickian inn very clearly, with, next door, the -establishment of Bish, for whose lotteries Charles Lamb was employed to -write puffs. - -When the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, who had the Charing Cross -improvement in charge, cleared the ground, the inn migrated to the new -building, some distance eastwards, the present "Golden Cross," 452, West -Strand, which, like the whole of the West Strand, in the Nash, -stucco-classic manner, was designed in 1832, by Mr. (afterwards Sir -William) Tite. - -Maginn lamented these changes, in the verses "An Excellent New Ballad; -being entitled a Lamentation on the Golden Cross, Charing Cross": - - No more the coaches shall I see - Come trundling from the yard, - Nor hear the horn blown cheerily - By brandy-bibbing guard. - King Charles, I think, must sorrow sore, - Even were he made of stone, - When left by all his friends of yore - (Like Tom Moore's rose) alone. - - * * * * * - - O! London won't be London long, - For 'twill be all pulled down; - And I shall sing a funeral song - O'er that time-honoured town. - -According to a return made to Parliament of the expenses in connection -with these street improvements, "10 Houses and the Golden Cross Inn, -Stable Yards, &c.," were purchased for L108,884 4_s._; the inn itself -apparently, if we are to believe a statement in _The Gentleman's -Magazine_, 1831, with three houses in St. Martin's Lane and two houses and -workshops in Frontier Court, costing L30,000 of that sum. - -The present building was planned with a courtyard, and had archways to the -Strand and to Duncannon Street. The last remains, and is in use as a -railway receiving-office, but the Strand archway, the principal entrance, -was built up and abolished in 1851. - -[Illustration: THE "GOLDEN CROSS," SUCCESSOR OF THE PICKWICKIAN INN, AS -REBUILT 1828.] - -The first house to which Mr. Pickwick and his followers--the amorous -Tupman, Winkle the sportsman, and the poetic Snodgrass--came at the -close of their first day's travel is still in being. I name the "Bull" at -Rochester, which long ago adopted Jingle's recommendation, and blazoned it -on the rather dingy forefront, of grey brick: "Good house--nice beds." It -is still very much as it was when Dickens conferred immortality upon it; -only there are now portraits of him and pictures of Pickwickian characters -on the walls of the staircase. Still you may find in the hall the -"illustrious larder," rather like a Chippendale book-case, behind whose -glass doors the "noble joints and tarts" are still placed--only I think -they have not now the nobility or the aldermanic proportions demanded by -an earlier generation--and the cold fowls are indubitably there. The "very -grove" of dangling uncooked joints is, if one's memory of such things -serves, not as described, in the hall, but depending, as they commonly are -made to do in old inns, from hooks in the ceiling of the archway entrance. -The custom excites the curiosity of many. To the majority of observers it -has seemed to be by way of advertisement of the good cheer within; but the -real reason is sufficiently simple: it is to keep the joints fresh and -sweet in the current of air generally to be reckoned upon in that -situation. - -The ball-room, with the "elevated den" for musicians at one end, is a real -room, and you wonder exceedingly at the smallness, not only of the den, -but of the room itself, where the fine flower of Dockyard society -gathered and fraternised with the even finer flower of that belonging to -the Garrison: the two, joining forces, condescending to, or sneering upon, -the vulgar herd of tradesmen and their wives. - -In this somewhat exiguous apartment Tupman and Jingle danced, and the -bellicose Dr. Slammer, of the 97th Regiment, glared; and the society of -Chatham and Rochester had, you cannot help thinking, a very close and -tightly packed evening. - -They take their Pickwickian associations very seriously at the "Bull," -which, by the way, is an "inn" no longer, but an "hotel." In 1836, the -Princess Victoria and her mother, travelling to London, were detained by -stress of weather that rendered it dangerous to cross the bridge, and they -reluctantly stayed at Rochester the night. Who were low-class -Pickwickians, that they should stand before such distinction? So the old -house for a while took on a new name, and became the "Victoria and Bull," -and then, Royal associations gradually waning and literary landmarks -growing more popular, the "Bull and Victoria," finally, in these last -years, revered again to its simple old name. - -That Royal visit is well-nigh forgotten now, and you are no longer invited -to look with awe upon the rooms occupied by those august, indubitably -flesh-and-blood travellers; but you _are_ shown the bedrooms of the -entirely fictitious Pickwickians. - -"So this is where Mr. Pickwick is supposed to have slept?" remarked a -visitor, when viewing bedroom No. 17 by favour of a former landlord. That -stranger meant no offence, but the landlord was greatly ruffled. -"_Supposed_ to have slept? He _did_ sleep here, sir!" - -"O ye verities!" as Carlyle might have exclaimed. - -[Illustration: THE "BULL," ROCHESTER.] - -Many Dickens commentators have long cherished what Horace Walpole might -have styled a "historic doubt" as to what house was that one in Rochester -referred to by Jingle as Wright's. "Wright's, next house, dear--very -dear--half a crown in the bill if you look at the waiter--charge you more -if you dine at a friend's than they would if you dined in the -coffee-room--rum fellows--very." But "Wright's" really was the next -"house"--house, that is to say, in the colloquial sense, by which -"public-house" is understood, and not by any means next door. - -There is every excuse for writers on Dickens-land going wrong here, for -the real name of the old house to which Wright came, somewhere about 1820, -and on which he imposed his own was the "Crown." - -The old "Crown" fronted on to the High Street, and was one of those old -galleried inns already mentioned so plentifully in these pages. It claimed -to have been built in 1390, and its yard was not only the spot where, -unknown to all save his intimates, Henry the Eighth had his first peep at -his intended consort Anne of Cleves, whom that disappointed connoisseur in -feminine beauty immediately styled a "Flanders mare"; but was in all -probability the original of the inn-yard in _Henry the Fourth_, whence -Shakespeare's flea-bitten carriers with their razes of ginger and other -goods for London, sleepless probably on account of those uncovenanted -co-partners of their beds, set forth, by starlight, yawning, with much -talk of highway dangers. At the "Crown" too, once stayed no less a -personage than Queen Elizabeth; while some two centuries later Hogarth and -his fellow-roysterers stayed a night in the house, on their "Frolic" down -Thames. - -[Illustration: ROCHESTER IN PICKWICKIAN DAYS, SHOWING THE OLD BRIDGE AND -"WRIGHT'S."] - -When Wright came to the "Crown," he, like any other monarch newly come to -his own, made sweeping alterations. Antiquity, gabled frontages, -elaborately carved barge-boards, and all such architectural vanities were -nothing to him, nor indeed were they much to any one else in that grossly -unappreciative era, and he left that portion of the house to carriers and -the like, used all their lives to be leeched by diminutive lepidoptera. -Wright did business with customers of more tender hide, who had -preferences for more civilised lodgment, and housed the great, the rich, -and the luxurious, travelling post to and fro along the Dover Road. For -their accommodation he built a remarkably substantial and amazingly ugly -structure--a something classical that might, by the look of it, be either -town hall, heathen temple, or early dissenting chapel--in the rear, and -facing the river. This was the building essentially "Wright's." It still -stands, and people with sharp eyes, who look very hard in the right place, -will yet discover a ghostly "Wright's" on what Mrs. Gamp would call the -"parapidge." - -Such a place would naturally impress a poor strolling actor like Jingle, -whose humorous sally, "charge you more if you dine at a friend's than they -would if you dined in the coffee-room," is a perversion of the well-known -charge for "corkage" made by hotel-keepers when a guest brings his own -wine. - -Wright himself has, of course, long since gone to that place where -innkeepers who make extravagant demands upon travellers are held to -account. - -The course of _Pickwick_ now takes us to "Muggleton," as to whose -identity much uncertainty has long been felt. It is a choice between -Maidstone and Town Malling, and as the distances given in the book between -Rochester and Dingley Dell and "Muggleton" cannot be made to agree with -either Town Malling or Maidstone, it is a poor choice at the best. At the -former the "Swan" is pointed to as the real "Blue Lion," and at Maidstone -the "White Lion." - -[Illustration: THE "SWAN," TOWN MALLING: IDENTIFIED WITH THE "BLUE LION," -MUGGLETON.] - -Chapter X. takes us back to London, and there brings on to the crowded -stage of _Pickwick_, for the first time, Sam Weller, engaged as "Boots" of -the "White Hart" in the Borough, in going over the foot-gear of the -guests. - -[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "BULL AND MOUTH."] - -This is how Dickens described the yard of the "White Hart." It is a -little clean-cut cameo of description, vividly portraying the features of -those old galleried inns that are now no more: "The yard presented none of -that bustle and activity which are the usual characteristics of a large -coach inn. Three or four lumbering waggons, each with a pile of goods -beneath its ample canopy about the height of the second-floor window of an -ordinary house, were stowed away beneath a lofty roof which extended over -one end of the yard; and another, which was probably to commence its -journey that morning, was drawn out into the open space. A double tier of -bedroom galleries with old clumsy balustrades ran round two sides of the -straggling area, and a double row of bells to correspond, sheltered from -the weather by a little sloping roof, hung over the door leading to the -bar and coffee-room. Two or three gigs or chaise-carts were wheeled up -under different little sheds and pent-houses, and the occasional heavy -tread of a cart-horse, or rattling of a chain at the further end of the -yard, announced to anyone who cared about the matter that the stable lay -in that direction. When we add that a few boys in smock-frocks were lying -asleep on heavy packages, woolpacks, and other articles that were -scattered about on heaps of straw, we have described as fully as need be -the general appearance of the 'White Hart' inn, High Street, Borough." - -This one of the many picturesque old galleried inns of that street was -demolished in 1865. - -Sam is busily engaged, at moment of his introduction, cleaning eleven -pairs of boots belonging to the sleepers in the galleried bedrooms above. - -"A loud ringing of one of the bells was followed by the appearance of a -smart chambermaid in the upper sleeping gallery, who, after tapping at one -of the doors and receiving a request from within, called over the -balustrades: - -"'Sam.' - -"'Hallo!' - -"'Number Twenty-two wants his boots.' - -"'Ask Number Twenty-two whether he'll have 'em now, or wait till he gets -'em,'" was the reply. - -Presently to this waggish person enter Mr. Pickwick, Old Wardle, and -Perker, the lawyer. "'Pretty busy, eh?'" asks the lawyer. - -"Oh, werry well, sir; we shan't be bankrupts, and we shan't make our -fort'ns. We eats our biled mutton without capers, and don't care about -horse-radish wen we can get beef;" which just about figures the middling -and declining fortunes of the old Borough inns at that period. - -[Illustration: THE "BELLE SAUVAGE." _From a drawing by T. Hosmer -Shepherd._] - -The "Bull and Mouth" inn, casually mentioned in Chapter X., was the great -coaching inn that stood in St. Martin's-le-Grand, on the site of the -Post Office building adjoining the church of St. Botolph. In 1830 it was -rebuilt and re-named the "Queen's Hotel," and so remained until 1887. The -enormous plaster sign of the "Bull and Mouth," that was placed over the -entrance to the stables in the by-street of that name, and kept its place -there when the stables became a railway goods yard, is now in the -Guildhall Museum. - -[Illustration: THE "LEATHER BOTTLE," COBHAM.] - -The "Belle Sauvage," on Ludgate Hill, another fine old galleried inn -whence the coaches for the eastern counties largely set forth, is the -subject of allusion in Chapters X. and XLIII. The house was pulled down -many years ago, but the yard, now very commonplace, remains. It was known -as "Savage's Inn" so long ago as the reign of Henry the Sixth, and -alternatively as the "Bell in the Hoop." So early as 1568, when the -property was bequeathed to the Cutler's Company "for ever," the "Belle -Sauvage" myth was current; and thus we see that when Addison, in _The -Spectator_, suggested the "beautiful savage" idea, he was but -unconsciously reviving an ancient legend or witticism. One other variant, -that ingeniously refers the sign of the inn to one Isabella Savage, a -former landlady, seems to have created her for the purpose. - -The "Marquis o' Granby" at Dorking, kept by the "widder" who became the -second Mrs. Weller, has been identified by some with the late "King's -Head" in that town; while the "Town Arms," the "Peacock," and the "White -Hart" at "Eatanswill" (_i.e._ Ipswich) have never been clearly traced. - -No difficulty of identification surrounds the "Old Leather Bottle" at -Cobham, to whose rustic roof the love-lorn Tupman fled to hide his -sorrows, in Chapter XI. It is to-day, however, a vastly altered place from -the merely "clean and commodious village ale-house" in which Mr. Pickwick -found his moping, but still hungry, friend, and its "Dickens Room" is a -veritable museum. Additions have been made to the house, and it is now -more or less of a rustic hotel, with the sign of the leather bottle -swinging in the breeze, and beneath it our Mr. Pickwick himself, in the -immortal attitude depicted in the frontispiece to _The Pickwick Papers_, -declaiming, with one arm outstretched, the other tucked away under his -coat-tails. - -[Illustration: THE DICKENS ROOM, "LEATHER BOTTLE," COBHAM.] - -The "inn on Marlborough Downs," referred to in the Bagman's Story in -Chapter XIV., is still the subject of much heated controversy among -Dickens commentators. Sandwiched as it is (in the story told by a stranger -to the Pickwickians at "Eatanswill") between Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds, -it appears to be a vague recollection dragged in, neck and crop, by -Dickens, of some inn he had casually noticed in 1835, when travelling -between London and Bristol. "But," it has been asked, "_what_ inn was he -thinking of, if indeed, of any specific inn at all?" - -The Bagman with the Lonely Eye, who told the story of Tom Smart and the -widow-landlady of this wayside hostelry, spoke of Tom Smart driving his -gig "in the direction of Bristol" across the bleak expanse, and of his -mare drawing up of her own accord "before a roadside inn on the right-hand -side of the way, about half a quarter of a mile from the end of the -downs." - -We are met here, at the very outset, by some puzzling discrepancies and by -a wide choice, "Marlborough Downs" being a stretch of wild, inhospitable -chalk-down country extending the whole of the fourteen miles between -Marlborough and Devizes, and being still "Marlborough Downs" at the -threshold of Devizes itself. Moreover, the same characteristic features -are common to both the routes to Bath and Bristol that branch at -Beckhampton and go, left by way of Devizes, and right through Calne and -Chippenham. - -The "half a quarter of a mile from the end of the Downs" by the Devizes -route brings you, in the direction Tom Smart (of the firm of Bilson and -Slum) was going, to a point a half, or three quarters, of a mile from -Devizes town, where, neither on the right hand nor the left, was there -ever an inn. The same distance from the end of this weird district on the -Calne and Chippenham route conducts to the "Black Horse" inn at Cherhill, -full in view of the great white horse cut on the hillside in 1780, and -standing, correctly enough, on the right-hand side of the way. Could this -inn possibly have been the house referred to by Dickens? I have never seen -it suggested. - -[Illustration: THE "WAGGON AND HORSES," BECKHAMPTON.] - -Indeed, earnest people who would dearly, once for all, wish to settle this -knotty point, are like to be embarrassed by the numerous inns, not one of -them greatly resembling the house described by Dickens, that have claims -to be considered the original, and stand, _all_ of them, upon the proper -side of the road. Some commentators press the claim of the "Marquis of -Ailesbury's Arms" at Manton, or Clatford, a mile out of Marlborough, and -local opinion at the time of _The Pickwick Papers_ being written -identified the house with the lonely inn of Shepherd's Shore, midway -between Beckhampton and Devizes, in the very midst of the wild downs--the -downs of Marlborough--that are there at their wildest and loneliest. -Whatever the correctitude or otherwise of what should be an expert -view, certainly the inn of Shepherd's Shore is a thing of the past, as in -the story, where it is described as having been pulled down. There were, -indeed, at different periods two inns so called, and now both are gone. -"Old Shepherd's Shore" stood, as also did the new, beside the Wansdyke, -but at a considerable distance in a north-westerly direction, on the _old_ -road to Devizes, now a mere track. Of "New Shepherd's Shore" only a -fragment remains, and although that fragment is inhabited, it is not any -longer an inn. - -[Illustration: "SHEPHERD'S SHORE."] - -The scene is entirely in accord with the description of the Downs in the -Bagman's Story (only the spot is in the _midst_ of the wilderness, and not -near the end of it), and he who even nowadays travels the still lonesome -way will heartily echo the statement that there are many pleasanter -places. The old coachmen, who had exceptional opportunities of -observation, used to declare that the way between Beckhampton and -Shepherd's Shore was the coldest spot on all the road between London and -Bath. - -The eerie nature of the spot is emphasised by the circumstance of the -remaining portion of the house standing beside that mysterious -pre-historic earthwork, the great ditch and embankment of the Wansdyke, -that goes marching grimly across the stark hillsides. The Wansdyke has -always impressed the beholder, and accordingly we find it marked on old -maps as "Deuill's Ditch." - -The name of "Shepherd's Shore" has been, and still is, a sore puzzle to -all who have cause to write of it. Often written "Shord," and pronounced -by the country folk "Shard," just as old seventeenth-century Aubrey prints -it, antiquaries believe the name to derive from "shard," a fragment: here -specifically a break in the Wansdyke, made in order to let the road (or -the sheep-track) through; "shard" itself being the Middle-English version -of the Anglo-Saxon "sceard," a division, a boundary, or a breach. - -The name may, however, as I conceive it, be equally well a corrupt version -of "Shepherd's Shaw." "Shaw" = the old Anglo-Saxon for a coppice, a clump -of trees, or a bush. We see, even to-day (as of course merely a -coincidence) a clump of trees on the mystic tumulus beside the remains of -the house: trees noticeable enough on these otherwise naked downs, now, as -from time immemorial, a grazing-ground for sheep. In this view Shepherd's -Shore would be equivalent to "Shepherd's Shaw," and that to "Shepherd's -Wood," or "Shepherd's Bush." A shepherd's bush was commonly a thorn-tree -on a sheep-down, used as a shelter, or as a post of observation, by -shepherds watching their flocks. Such bushes, by constant use, assumed -distinctive and unmistakable forms,[15] and in old times were familiarly -known by that name. - -But, to resume matters more purely Dickensian: it is the "Waggon and -Horses" inn at Beckhampton that most nearly realises the description of -the house in _The Pickwick Papers_, although even here you most -emphatically go up into the house (as the illustration shows) instead of -taking "a couple of steep steps leading down." It is "on the right-hand -side of the way," and being at a kind of little cultivated oasis at the -hamlet of Beckhampton, where the roads fork on the alternative routes to -Bath and Bristol, it may be considered as "about half a quarter of a mile" -from the recommencement (not the end) of the Downs. - -The "Waggon and Horses" is just the house a needy bagman such as Tom Smart -would have selected. It was in coaching days a homely yet comfortable -inn, that received those travellers who did not relish either the state or -the expense of the great "Beckhampton Inn" opposite, where post-horses -were kept, and where the very _elite_ of the roads resorted. - -"The humble shall be exalted and the proud shall be cast down," and it so -happened that when the Great Western Railway was opened to Bath and -Bristol on June 30th, 1841, the great inn fell upon ruination, while its -humbler neighbour has survived--and does very well, thank you. It should -be added that in the view presented here you are looking eastward, back in -the direction of Marlborough. The great dark hill beside the road in the -middle distance is the vast pre-historic tumulus, the largest known in -Europe, famous as Silbury Hill. - -The great house that was once "Beckhampton Inn" is now, and long has been, -Mr. Samuel Darling's training-stables for racehorses. There is probably no -better-kept lawn in England than that triangular plot of grass in front of -the house, where--as you see in the picture--the roads fork. - -[Illustration: "BECKHAMPTON INN."] - -The "Angel" at Bury St. Edmunds, the scene of many stirring incidents in -Chapters XV. and XVI., is an enormous house of very severe and -unornamental architecture, that looks as though it were an exercise in -rectangles and a Puritan protest in white Suffolk, dough-like brick, -against the mediaeval pomps and vanities of the beautiful carved stone -Abbey Gatehouse, upon which it looks, gauntly, across the great open, -plain-like, empty thoroughfare of Angel Hill. This, the chief -coaching-and posting-house of Bury, was built in 1779 upon the site of a -fifteenth-century "Angel," and the present structure still stands upon -groined crypts and cellars. - -[Illustration: THE "ANGEL," BURY ST. EDMUNDS.] - -None may be so bold as to name for certain that tavern off Cheapside in -Chapter XX., to which the worried Mr. Pickwick "bent his steps" after the -interview with Dodson and Fogg, in Freeman's Court, Cornhill. We know it -was in some court on the right-hand, or north, side of Cheapside; but, on -the other hand, we do not know how far Mr. Pickwick had proceeded along -that thoroughfare when Sam recommended, as a suitable place for "a glass -of brandy and water warm," the "last house but vun on the same side the -vay--take the box as stands in the first fireplace, 'cos there an't no leg -in the middle o' the table, wich all the others has, and it's wery -inconwenient." Probably Grocers' Hall Court is meant. It has still its -coffee-and chop-houses. - -There it is that Tony Weller is introduced, and suggests that, as he is -"working down" the coach to Ipswich in a couple of days' time, from the -"Bull" inn Whitechapel, Mr. Pickwick had better go with him. An incidental -allusion is made in the same place to the "Black Boy" at Chelmsford, a -fine old coaching inn, destroyed in 1857. - -Mr. Pickwick was a good--nay, a phenomenal--pedestrian for so stout a man. -From Cheapside--fortified possibly by the brandy and water--he walked to -Gray's Inn, there ascending two pairs of steep (and dirty) stairs, and -thence to Clare Market, and the "Magpie and Stump," described as "situated -in a court, happy in the double advantage of being in the vicinity of -Clare Market and closely approximating to the back of 'New Inn.'" - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE THE FOURTH TAVERN," CLARE MARKET.] - -It was "what ordinary people would designate a public-house," and has been -identified by most with the "Old Black Jack" in Portsmouth Street, or its -next-door neighbour, the "George the Fourth Tavern," both demolished in -1896. The last-named house was remarkable for entirely overhanging the -pavement, the very tall building being supported on wooden posts springing -from the kerb. In the words of Dickens: "In the lower windows, which were -decorated with curtains of a saffron hue, dangled two or three printed -cards, bearing reference to Devonshire cyder and Dantzic spruce, while a -large black board, announcing in white letters to an enlightened public -that there were 500,000 barrels of double stout in the cellars of the -establishment, left the mind in a state of not unpleasing doubt and -uncertainty as to the precise direction in the bowels of the earth in -which this mighty cavern might be supposed to extend. When we add that the -weather-beaten sign-board bore the half-obliterated semblance of a magpie -intently eyeing a crooked streak of brown paint, which the neighbours had -been taught from infancy to consider as the 'stump,' we have said all that -need be said of the exterior of the edifice." - -The "Black Jack," next door, was in the eighteenth century the scene of -one of the famous Jack Sheppard's exploits. The Bow Street runners entered -the house after him, and, as they went in at the door, he jumped out of a -first-floor window. In thieving circles the house was afterwards known as -"The Jump." The "Black Jack," however, romantic though the title sounds, -did not owe its name to Sheppard, but to that old style of vessel, the -leathern jacks or jugs of the Middle Ages. For their better preservation, -the old leathern jacks were often treated with a coating of pitch: hence -the name of "pitcher," at a very early period enlarged to denote jugs in -general, whether of leather or of earthenware. - -The proverbial pitcher that goes often to the well and is broken at last -could not possibly be a leathern one, for the greatest virtue of the -leathern vessel was its indestructible nature, well set forth in the old -song of "The Leather Bottel": - - And when the bottle at last grows old, - And will good liquor no longer hold, - Out of its sides you may make a clout - To mend your shoes when they're worn out; - Or take and hang it upon a pin-- - 'Twill serve to put hinges and odd things in. - So I hope his soul in Heaven may dwell - Who first found out the Leather Bottel. - -Such leather bottles, some of them very ancient, are often to be found, -even at this day, in the barns and outhouses of remote hamlets, with a -side cut away to receive those "hinges and odd things" of the verse. They -are also often used to hold cart-grease. - -The "Bull," Whitechapel, whence Mr. Tony Weller "worked down" to Ipswich, -was numbered No. 25, Aldgate High Street. It stood in the rear of the -narrow entry shown in the accompanying illustration. Rightly, it will be -seen, did Mr. Tony Weller advise the "outsides" on his coach to "take care -o' the archvay, gen'lm'n." The "Bull" was long occupied by the widowed -Mrs. Ann Nelson--one of those stern, dignified, magisterial women of -business who were a quite remarkable feature of the coaching age, who saw -their husbands off to an early grave, and alone carried on the peculiarly -exacting double business of innkeeping and coach-proprietorship, and did -so with success. Mrs. Ann Nelson--no one ever dared so greatly as to spell -her name "Anne"--was the Napoleon and Caesar combined of the coaching -business on the East Anglian roads, and accomplished the remarkable -feat--remarkable for an innkeeper in the East End of London--of also -owning that crack mail-coach of the West of England Road, the Devonport -"Quicksilver." As Mrs. Nelson would permit no "e" to her Christian name, -so also she would never hear of her house being called "hotel." It was, to -the last, the "Bull Inn"; as you see in the illustration, with Martin's -woollen-drapery shop, formerly that of James Johnson, whip-maker, on the -one side and that of Lee, the confectioner, on the other. Richard Lee -himself you perceive standing on the pavement, taking a very keen interest -in the coach emerging from the yard, as he had every reason to do; for he, -like William Lee, his father before him, was a partner, though not a -publicly acknowledged one, with Mrs. Nelson, and the money he made out of -his jam tarts he invested, with much profit to himself, in that autocratic -lady's coaching speculations. - -From the date of the opening of the Eastern Counties Railway, in 1839, the -business of the "Bull" began to decline, and the house was at length sold -and demolished in 1868.[16] - -[Illustration: THE "BULL INN," WHITECHAPEL. _From the water-colour drawing -by P. Palfrey._] - -The journey from the "Bull" ended at the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich, a -house that still survives and flourishes on the notice (including even the -abuse) that Dickens gave it. The "Great White Horse" is neither ancient -nor beautiful; but it _is_ great and it _is_ white, for it is built of a -pallid kind of brick strongly suggesting under-done pastry, and it is in -these days the object to which most visitors to Ipswich first turn -their attention, whether they are to stay in the house or not. - -[Illustration: DOORWAY OF THE "GREAT WHITE HORSE," IPSWICH.] - -In the merry days of the road, when this huge caravanserai was built, it -was justly thought enormous; but it has been left to the present age to -build many hotels in town and country capable of containing half-a-dozen -or more hostelries the size of the "Great White Horse," which by -comparison with them is as a Shetland pony is to the great hairy-legged -creatures that still, even in these "horseless" times, haul waggons and -brewers' drays. - -Especially did the bulk of this house strike the imagination of that young -reporter of the London _Morning Chronicle_ who in 1830 was despatched to -Ipswich for the purpose of reporting a Parliamentary election. That -reporter was, of course, Dickens. The inn made so great an impression upon -him that, when he wrote about it in the pages of _Pickwick_, a few years -later, his description was as exact as though it had been penned on the -spot. - -It was not a flattering description. Few more severe things have ever been -said of an inn than those Dickens said of the "Great White Horse." Yet, -such is the irony of time and circumstance, the house Dickens so roundly -attacked is now eager, in all its advertisements, to quote the Dickensian -association; and the adventures of Mr. Pickwick in the double-bedded room -(now identified with No. 36) of the elderly lady in yellow curl-papers -have attracted more visitors than the unfavourable notice has turned away. - -"The 'Great White Horse,'" said Dickens, "is famous in the neighbourhood -in the same degree as a prize ox, or county-paper-chronicled turnip, or -unwieldy pig--for its enormous size. Never were there such labyrinths of -uncarpeted passages, such clusters of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge -numbers of small dens for eating or sleeping in, beneath any one roof, as -are collected together between the four walls of the 'Great White Horse' -at Ipswich." - -The house was evidently then an exception to the rule of the "good old -days," of comfort and good cheer and plenty of it; for, passing the -corpulent and insolent waiter, "with a fortnight's napkin under his arm -and coeval stockings on his legs," Mr. Pickwick entered only to find the -dining-room "a large, badly furnished apartment, with a dirty grate, in -which a small fire was making a wretched attempt to be cheerful, but was -fast sinking beneath the dispiriting influence of the place. After the -lapse of an hour, a bit of fish and a steak were served up to the -travellers," who then, ordering "a bottle of the worst possible port wine, -at the highest possible price, for the good of the house, drank brandy and -water for their own." - -I may here mention the singular parallel in Besant and Rice's novel, _The -Seamy Side_, where, in Chapter XXVIII., you will find Gilbert Yorke going -to the hotel at Lulworth, in Dorset, and there ordering, like another Will -Waterproof, "for the good of the house," "a pint of port" after dinner. -He, we are told, could not drink "the ardent port of country inns," and -therefore "he poured the contents of the bottle into a pot of mignonette -in the window.... The flowers waggled their heads sadly and then drooped -and died," as of course, being notoriously total abstainers, they could -not choose but do. But it was unfair, alike to the port and the plants. - -[Illustration: THE "GREAT WHITE HORSE," IPSWICH.] - -How changed the times since those when Mr. Pickwick stayed at the "Great -White Horse!" We read how, after his unpleasant adventure with the lady in -the yellow curl-papers, he "stood alone, in an open passage, in the middle -of the night, half dressed," and in perfect darkness, with the -uncomfortable knowledge that, if he tried to find his own bedroom by -turning the handles of each one in succession "he stood every chance of -being shot at, and perhaps killed, by some wakeful traveller." No one in a -similar position would have that fear now: and even American guests, -commonly supposed to "go heeled," _i.e._ to carry an armoury of -six-shooters about them, do not invariably sleep with their -shooting-irons under their pillows. - -The exterior of the "Great White Horse" is much the same as when Dickens -saw it, "in the main street of Ipswich, on the left-hand side of the way." -Still over the pillared portico trots the effigy of the Great White Horse -himself, "a stone statue of some rampacious animal, with flowing mane and -tail, distantly resembling an insane cart-horse"; but the old courtyard -has in modern times been roofed in with glass, and is now a something -partaking in equal parts of winter-garden, smoking-lounge, and bar. - -Returning again to London from Ipswich, Mr. Pickwick, giving up his -lodgings in Goswell Road with the treacherous Mrs. Bardell, took up his -abode in "very good old-fashioned and comfortable quarters, to wit, the -'George and Vulture' Tavern and Hotel, George Yard, Lombard Street." - -One may no longer stay at the "George and Vulture," and indeed, if one -might, I do not know that any one would choose, for after business hours, -and on Sundays and holidays, the modern George Yard, now entirely hemmed -in with the enormous buildings of banks and insurance-companies, is a -dismally deserted and forbidding place. The sunlight only by dint of great -endeavour comes at a particular hour slanting down to one side of the -stony courtyard, and the air is close and stale. But on days of business, -and in the hours of business, in the continual stream of passers-by, you -do not notice these things. Many of those whom you see in George Yard -disappear, a little mysteriously it seems, in an obscure doorway, tucked -away in an angle. It might, in most likelihood, be a bank to which they -enter; but, as a sheer matter of fact, it is the "George and Vulture": in -these days one of the most famous of City chop-houses. - -I have plumbed the depths of depravity in chops, and have found them often -naturally hard, tasteless, and greasily fat; or if not naturally depraved, -the wicked incapacity of those who cook them has in some magic way -exorcised their every virtue. It matters little to you whether your chop -be innately uneatable, or whether it has acquired that defect in the -cooking: the net result is that you go hungry. - -At the "George and Vulture," as before noted, you may not stay--or "hang -out," as it was suggested by Bob Sawyer that Mr. Pickwick did--but there -you do nowadays find chops of the best, cooked to perfection on the grill, -and may eat off old-world pewter plates and, to complete the ideality of -the performance, drink ale out of pewter tankards; all in the company of a -crowded roomful of hungry City men, and in a very Babel of talk. And, ah -me! where does the proprietor get that perfect port? - -Between Chapters XXVI. and XXXIV. we have a perfect constellation--or -rather, a species of cloudy Milky Way--of inns, nebulous, undefined; but -in Chapter XXXV. we find Mr. Pickwick, on his way to Bath, waiting for the -coach in the travellers'-room of the "White Horse Cellar," Piccadilly, -a very brilliant star of an inn, indeed, in its day; but rather a -migratory one, for in the coaching age it was removed from its original -site at the corner of Arlington Street, where the Ritz Hotel stands now, -to the opposite side of the road, at the corner of Albemarle Street. There -it remained until 1884, when the old house was pulled down and the present -"Albemarle" built in its stead. - -[Illustration: THE "WHITE HART," BATH.] - -Mr. Pickwick was "twenty minutes too early" for the half-past seven -o'clock in the morning coach, and so, leaving Sam Weller single-handedly -to contend with the seven or eight porters who had flung themselves upon -the luggage, he and his friends went for shelter to "the -travellers'-room--the last resource of human dejection"--railways in -general and the waiting-rooms of Clapham Junction in especial not having -at that time come into existence, to plunge mankind into deeper abysms of -melancholia. - -"The travellers'-room at the 'White Horse Cellar' is, of course, -uncomfortable; it would be no travellers'-room if it were not. It is the -right-hand parlour, into which an aspiring kitchen fireplace appears to -have walked, accompanied by a rebellious poker, tongs, and shovel. It is -divided into boxes, for the solitary confinement of travellers, and is -furnished with a clock, a looking-glass, and a live waiter: which latter -article is kept in a small kennel for washing glasses, in a corner of the -apartment." - -So now we know what the primeval ancestor of the Railway Waiting-room, -with its advertisements of cheap excursions to places to which you do not -want to go, and its battered Bible on the table was like, and it seems -pretty clear that, whatever the travellers'-room of a coaching inn might -have been, its present representative is a degenerate. - -Chapter XXXV. sees Mr. Pickwick and his friends arrived at Bath and duly -installed in "their private sitting-rooms at the 'White Hart' Hotel, -opposite the great Pump-room, where the waiters, from their costume, might -be mistaken for Westminster boys, only they destroy the illusion by -behaving themselves much better." - -Until its last day, which came in 1864, the great "White Hart," owned by -the Moses Pickwick from whose name Dickens probably derived that of the -immortal Samuel, maintained the ceremonial manners of an earlier age, and -habited its waiters in knee-breeches and silk stockings, while the -chambermaids wore muslin caps. The Grand Pump-room Hotel now stands on the -site of the "White Hart," and the well-modelled effigy of the White Hart -himself, seen in the illustration of the old coaching inn, has been -transferred to a mere public-house of the same name in the slummy suburb -of Widcombe. - -Round the corner from Queen Square, Bath, is the mean street where Dickens -pilgrims may gaze upon the "Beaufort Arms," the mean little public-house -identified, on a very slender thread, with the "greengrocer's shop" to -which Sam Weller was invited to the footmen's "swarry." The identification -hangs chiefly by the circumstance that it is known to have been the -particular meeting-place of the Bath footmen, just as the "Running -Footman" in Hay Hill, London, is even at this day the chosen house of call -for the men-servants around Berkeley Square. - -[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "WHITE HART," BATH.] - -The "Royal Hotel," whence Mr. Winkle fled by branch coach to Bristol, is -not to be found, and the "Bush" at Bristol itself is a thing of the past. -It stood in Corn Street, and was swept out of existence in 1864, the -Wiltshire Bank now standing on the site of it; but how busy a place it was -in Pickwickian days let the old picture of coaches arriving and departing -eloquently tell. - -The inns of the succeeding chapters--the tavern (unnamed) at Clifton, the -"Farringdon Hotel," the "Fox-under-the-Hill," overlooking the river from -Ivy Bridge Lane in the Strand, the "New Hotel," Serjeant's Inn Coffee -House, and Horn's Coffee House--are merely given passing mention, and it -is only in Chapter XLVI. that we come to closer touch with actualities, in -the arrest of Mrs. Bardell in the tea-gardens of the "Spaniards" inn, -Hampstead Heath. The earwiggy arbours of that Cockney resort are still -greatly frequented on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays. - -A very modest and comparatively little-known Pickwickian house is the -"Bell," Berkeley Heath, on the dull, flat high-road between Bristol and -Gloucester, unaltered since the day when Mr. Pickwick set forth by -post-chaise with Mr. Bob Sawyer and his fellow-roysterer, Ben Allen, from -the "Bush" at Bristol for Birmingham. Here they had lunch, as the present -sign-board of the inn, gravely and with a quaint inaccuracy, informs us: -insisting that it was "Charles Dickens and party" who so honoured the -"Bell." They had come only nineteen miles, and without any exertion on -their own part, yet when they changed horses here, at half-past eleven -a.m., Bob Sawyer found it necessary to dine, to enable them "to bear up -against the fatigue." - -"'Quite impossible!' said Mr. Pickwick, himself no mean trencherman. - -"'So it is,' rejoined Bob; 'lunch is the very thing. Hallo, you sir! Lunch -for three, directly, and keep the horses back for a quarter of an hour. -Tell them to put everything they have cold on the table, and some bottled -ale, and let us taste your very best Madeira.'" - -[Illustration: THE "BUSH," BRISTOL.] - -Those were truly marvellous times. All the way from Bristol those three -had been drinking milk-punch, and had emptied a case-bottle of it, and we -may be quite sure (although it is not stated) that they made havoc of a -prodigious breakfast before they started; Yet they did "very great -justice" to that lunch, and when they set off again the case-bottle was -filled with "the best substitute for milk-punch that could be procured on -so short a notice." - -[Illustration: "THE BELL," BERKELEY HEATH.] - -"At the 'Hop-Pole' at Tewkesbury they stopped to dine; upon which occasion -there was more bottled ale, with some more Madeira, and some port besides; -and here the case-bottle was replenished for the fourth time." Therefore, -it is evident that, twice on the twenty-four miles between Berkeley Heath -and Tewkesbury, they had a re-fill. - -We do not find Gloucester mentioned, although it must have been passed on -the way; but, under those circumstances, we are by no means surprised. - -The "Hop Pole" at Tewkesbury is still a "going concern," and, with the -adjoining gabled and timbered houses, is a notable landmark in the High -Street. Nowadays it proudly displays a tablet recording its Pickwickian -associations. - -A drunken sleep (for it could have been nothing else) composed those two -"insides," Mr. Pickwick and Ben Allen, on the way to Birmingham, while, -thanks in part to the fresh air, Sam Weller and Bob Sawyer "sang duets in -the dickey." By the time they were nearing Birmingham it was quite dark. -The postboy drove them to the "Old Royal Hotel," where an order for that -surely very necessary thing, soda-water, having been given, the waiter -"imperceptibly melted away": a proceeding that, paradoxically enough, -seems to have been initiated by the house itself, years before; for it was -about 1825, two years before the Pickwickians are represented as starting -on their travels, that the "Old Royal" was transferred from Temple Row to -New Street, and there became the "New Royal." - -The inn at Coventry, at which the post-horses were changed on the journey -from Birmingham, is unnamed, unhonoured, and unsung; but very famous, in -the Pickwickian way, is the "Saracen's Head" at Towcester, or "Toaster," -as the townsfolk call it, even though its identity is a little obscured by -the sign having been exchanged for that of the "Pomfret Arms." The change, -which was actually made in April, 1831, was a complimentary allusion to -the Earls of Pomfret, who before the title became extinct, in 1867, -resided at the neighbouring park of Easton Neston. - -[Illustration: THE "HOP-POLE," TEWKESBURY.] - -In all essentials the inn remains the same as the old coaching hostelry to -which Mr. Pickwick and his friends drove up in their post-chaise, after -the long wet journey from Coventry. As "at the end of each stage it rained -harder than it had done at the beginning," Mr. Pickwick wisely decided to -halt here. - -"There's beds here," reported Sam; "everything's clean and comfortable. -Wery good little dinner, sir, they can get ready in half an hour--pair of -fowls, sir, and a weal cutlet; French beans, 'taturs, tarts, and tidiness. -You'd better stop vere you are, sir, if I might recommend." - -[Illustration: THE "POMFRET ARMS," TOWCESTER: FORMERLY THE "SARACEN'S -HEAD."] - -At the moment of this earnest colloquy in the rain the landlord of the -"Saracen's Head" appeared, "to confirm Mr. Weller's statement relative to -the accommodations of the establishment, and to back his entreaties with a -variety of dismal conjectures regarding the state of the roads, the doubt -of fresh horses being to be had at the next stage, the dead certainty of -its raining all night, the equally mortal certainty of its clearing up in -the morning, and other topics of inducement familiar to innkeepers." - -[Illustration: THE YARD OF THE "POMFRET ARMS."] - -When Mr. Pickwick decided to stay, "the landlord smiled his delight" and -issued orders to the waiter. "Lights in the Sun, John; make up the fire; -the gentlemen are wet!" he cried anxiously, although, doubtless, if the -gentlemen had gone forward they might have been drowned, for all he cared. - -And so the scene changed from the rain-washed road to a cosy room, with a -waiter laying the cloth for dinner, a cheerful fire burning, and the -tables lit with wax candles. "Everything looked (as everything always does -in all decent English inns) as if the travellers had been expected, and -their comforts prepared for days beforehand." - -Upon this charming picture of ease at one's inn descended the atrabilious -rival editors of _The Eatanswill Gazette_ and _The Eatanswill -Independent_, the organs respectively of "blue" and "buff" shades of -political opinion. Pott of the _Gazette_, and Slurk of the _Independent_ -each found his rival sheet lying on the tables of the inn; but what either -of those editors or those newspapers were doing here in Northamptonshire -(Eatanswill being a far-distant East Anglian town, by general consensus of -opinion identified with Ipswich) is one of those occasional lapses from -consistency that in _Pickwick_ give the modern commentator and annotator -food for speculation. - -When the inn was closed for the night Slurk retired to the kitchen to -drink his rum and water by the fire, and to enjoy the bitter-sweet luxury -of sneering at the rival print; but, as it happened, Mr. Pickwick's party, -accompanied by Pott, also adjourned to the kitchen to smoke a cigar or so -before bed. How ancient, by the way, seems that custom! Does any guest, -anywhere, in these times of smoking-rooms, withdraw to the kitchen to -smoke his cigar, pipe, or cigarette? - -How the rival editors--the "unmitigated viper" and the "ungrammatical -twaddler"--met and presently came from oblique taunts to direct abuse of -one another, and thence to a fight, let the pages of _The Pickwick -Papers_ tell. For my part, I refuse to believe that there were ever such -journalists. - -[Illustration: "OSBORNE'S HOTEL, ADELPHI."] - -What was once the kitchen of the "Saracen's Head" is now the bar-parlour -of the "Pomfret Arms"; but otherwise the house is the same as when Dickens -knew it. The somewhat severe frontage loses in a black-and-white drawing -its principal charm, for it is built of the golden-brown local ferruginous -sandstone of the district. - -The journey to London is carried abruptly from Towcester to its ending at -the "George and Vulture"; and with "Osborne's Hotel in the Adelphi" the -last inn to be identified in the closing scenes of _Pickwick_ is reached. -That staid family hotel, still existing in John Street, and now known as -the "Adelphi," is associated with the flight of Emily Wardle and -Snodgrass. The sign of the last public-house in the story, "an excellent -house near Shooter's Hill," to which Mr. Tony Weller, no longer "of the -Bell Savage," retired, is not disclosed. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -DICKENSIAN INNS - - -The knowledge Dickens possessed of inns, old and new, was, as already -said, remarkable. His education in this sort began early. From his early -years in London, at the blacking factory, when he sampled the "genuine -stunning" at the "Red Lion," Parliament Street, through his experiences as -a reporter of election speeches in the provinces, when long coach journeys -presented a constant succession of inns and posting-houses, circumstances -made him familiar with every variety of house of public entertainment; and -afterwards, as novelist, he enlarged upon inns from choice, realising as -he did that in those days romance had its chief home at them. - -Dickensian inns, as treated of in this chapter, are those houses, other -than the inns of _Pickwick_, associated with Dickens personally, or -through his novels. It is hardly necessary to add at this day, that either -association is assiduously cultivated, and that we have almost come to -that dizzy edge of things where, in addition to the inns Dickens is -certainly known to have mentioned or visited, those he would have treated -of or stayed at, had he known better, will come under review, together -with a further paper on the inns he did not immortalise, and why not. - -When Dickens first visited Bath, in May, 1835, as a reporter, he stayed, -according to tradition, at the humble "Saracen's Head," in Broad Street, -and there also, according to tradition, he was assigned a humble room in -an outhouse down the yard. A dozen times, if we may believe a former -landlady's story, he went with lighted candle across the windy yard to his -bedroom; a dozen times, the wind puffed it out, and he never uttered a -mild d----! It is a remarkable instance of restraint, likely to remain in -the recollection of any landlady. - -The "Saracen's Head" cherishes these more or less authentic recollections, -and you are shown, not only the room, but the "very bedstead"--a hoary -four-poster--upon which Dickens slept; and if you are very good and -reverent, and sufficiently abase yourself before the spirit of the place, -you will be allowed to drink out of the very mug he is said to have drunk -from and sit in the identical chair he is supposed to have sat in; and -accordingly, when Dickensians visit Bath they sit in the chair and drink -from the mug to the immortal memory, and do not commonly stop to consider -this marvellous thing: that the humble, unknown reporter of 1835 should be -identified by the innkeeper of that era with the novelist who only became -famous two years later. - -Going by the Glasgow Mail to Yorkshire in January, 1838, in company with -"Phiz," Dickens acquired the local colour for _Nicholas Nickleby_. We -hear, in that story, how the coach carrying Nicholas, Squeers, and the -schoolboys down to Dotheboys Hall, dined at "Eaton Slocomb," by which -Eaton Socon, fifty-five miles from London, on the Great North Road, is -indicated. There, in that picturesque village among the flats of -Huntingdonshire, still stands the charming little "White Horse" inn, which -in those days, with the long-vanished "Cock," divided the coaching -business on that stage. - -[Illustration: THE "WHITE HORSE," EATON SOCON.] - -Grantham does not figure largely in the story, in whose pages the actual -coach journey is lightly dismissed. There we find merely a mention of the -"George" as "one of the best inns in England"; but in his private -correspondence he refers to that house, enthusiastically, as "the very -best inn I have ever put up at": and Dickens, as we well know, was a -finished connoisseur of inns. - -The "George" at Grantham is typically Georgian: four-square, red-bricked -and prim. It replaced a fine mediaeval building, burnt down in 1780; but -what it lacks in beauty it does, according to the testimony of innumerable -travellers, make up for in comfort. At the sign of the "George," says one, -"you had a cleaner cloth, brighter plate, higher-polished glass, and a -brisker fire, with more prompt attention and civility, than at most other -places." - -From Grantham to Greta Bridge was, in coaching days, one day's journey. -There the traveller of to-day finds a quiet hamlet on the banks of the -romantic Greta, but in that era it was a busy spot on the main coaching -route, with two large and prosperous inns: the "George" and the "New Inn." -The "New Inn," where Dickens stayed, is now a farmhouse, "Thorpe Grange" -by name; while the "George," standing by the bold and picturesque bridge, -has itself retired from public life, and is now known as "the Square." -Under that name the great, unlovely building is divided up into tenements -for three or four different families. - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," GRETA BRIDGE.] - -From Greta Bridge Dickens proceeded to Barnard Castle, where he and Phiz -stayed, as a centre whence to explore Bowes, that bleak and stony-faced -little town where he found "Dotheboys Hall," and made it and Shaw, the -schoolmaster, the centre of his romance. The "Unicorn" inn at Bowes is -pointed out as the place where the novelist met Shaw, afterwards drawing -the character of "Squeers" from his peculiarities. The rights and the -wrongs of the Yorkshire schools, and the indictment of them that Dickens -drew, form still a vexed question. Local opinion is by no means altogether -amiably disposed towards the memory of Dickens in this matter; and -although those schools were gravely mismanaged, we must not lose sight of -the fact that this expedition undertaken by Dickens was largely a -pilgrimage of passion, in which he looked to find scandals, and did so -find them. To what extent, for the sake of his "novel with a purpose," he -dotted the i's and crossed the t's of the wrongs he found must ever be a -subject for controversy. - -The course of _Nicholas Nickleby_ brings us, in Chapter XXII., to the long -tramp undertaken by Nicholas and Smike from London to Portsmouth, on "a -cold, dry, foggy morning in early spring." They made Godalming the first -night, and "bargained for two humble beds." The next evening saw them well -beyond Petersfield, at a point fifty-eight miles from London, where the -humble "Coach and Horses" inn stands by the wayside, and is perhaps the -inn referred to by Dickens. The matter is doubtful, because, although the -story was written in 1838, when the existing road along the shoulder of -the downs at this point had been constructed, with the present "Coach and -Horses" beside it, replacing the older inn and the original track that -still goes winding obscurely along in the bottom, it is extremely likely -that Dickens described the spot from his childish memories of years -before, when, as a little boy, he had been brought up the road with the -Dickens family, on their removal from Landport. At that time the way was -along the hollow, where the "Bottom" inn, or "Gravel Hill" inn, then -stood, in receipt of custom. The house stands yet, and is now a -gamekeeper's cottage. - -[Illustration: THE "COACH AND HORSES," NEAR PETERSFIELD.] - -Whichever of the two houses we choose, the identity of the spot is -unassailable, because, although in the story it is described as twelve -miles from Portsmouth, and is really thirteen, no other inn exists or -existed for miles on either side. The bleak and barren scene is -admirably drawn: "Onward they kept with steady purpose, and entered at -length upon a wide and spacious tract of downs, with every variety of -little hill and plain to change their verdant surface. Here, there shot up -almost perpendicularly into the sky a height so steep, as to be hardly -accessible to any but the sheep and goats that fed upon its sides, and -there stood a huge mound of green, sloping and tapering off so delicately, -and merging so gently into the level ground, that you could scarce define -its limits. Hills swelling above each other, and undulations shapely and -uncouth, smooth and rugged, graceful and grotesque, thrown negligently -side by side, bounded the view in each direction; while frequently, with -unexpected noise, there uprose from the ground a flight of crows, who, -cawing and wheeling round the nearest hills, as if uncertain of their -course, suddenly poised themselves upon the wing and skimmed down the long -vista of some opening valley with the speed of very light itself. - -[Illustration: "BOTTOM" INN.] - -"By degrees the prospect receded more and more on either hand, and as they -had been shut out from rich and extensive scenery, so they emerged once -again upon the open country. The knowledge that they were drawing near -their place of destination gave them fresh courage to proceed; but the way -had been difficult and they had loitered on the road, and Smike was tired! -Thus twilight had already closed in, when they turned off the path to the -door of a road-side inn, yet twelve miles short of Portsmouth. - -"'Twelve miles,' said Nicholas, leaning with both hands on his stick, and -looking doubtfully at Smike. - -"'Twelve long miles,' repeated the landlord. - -"'Is it a good road?' inquired Nicholas. - -"'Very bad,' said the landlord. As, of course, being a landlord, he would -say. - -"'I want to get on,' observed Nicholas, hesitating. 'I scarcely know what -to do.' - -"'Don't let me influence you,' rejoined the landlord. 'I wouldn't go on if -it was me.'" - -And so here they stayed the night, much to their advantage. - -The "handsome hotel," "between Park Lane and Bond Street," referred to in -Chapter XXXII. of _Nicholas Nickleby_, cannot be identified: there are, -and long have been, so many handsome hotels in that region. It was in the -coffee-room of this establishment that Nicholas encountered Sir Mulberry -Hawk; and the description of the affair brings back the memory of a state -of things long past. The "Coffee-room" with its boxes partitioned off, no -longer exists; there are no such things as those boxes anywhere now, -except perhaps in some old-fashioned "eating-houses." But in that period -of which Dickens wrote, the "coffee-room" of an hotel was an institution -not so very long before copied from the then dead or fast-expiring "Coffee -Houses" of the eighteenth century: once--in the days before clubs--the -meeting-places of wits and business men. The Coffee House had been the -club of its own particular age, and as there are nowadays clubs for every -class and all professions, so in that period there were special Coffee -Houses for individual groups of people, where they read the papers and -learned the gossip of their circle. - -Inns and hotels copied the institution of a public refreshment-room that -would nowadays be styled the restaurant, and transferred the name of -"Coffee-room," without specifically supplying the coffee; which, to be -sure, was a beverage fast growing out of fashion, in favour of wines, -beer, and brandy and water. No one drank whisky then. - -Fashions in nomenclature linger long, and even now in old-established inns -and hotels, the Coffee-room still exists, but has paradoxically come to -mean a public combined dining- and sitting-room for private guests, in -contradistinction from the Commercial-room, to which commercial travellers -resort, at a recognised lower tariff. - -There are inns also in _Oliver Twist_; not inns essential to the story, -nor in themselves prepossessing, but, in the case of the "Coach and -Horses" at Isleworth, remarkably well observed when we consider that the -reference is only in passing. Indeed, the topographical accuracy of -Dickens, where he is wishful to be accurate, is astonishing. The literary -pilgrim sets out to follow the routes he indicates, possibly doubtful if -he will find the places mentioned. There, however, they are (if modern -alterations have not removed them), for Dickens apparently visited the -scenes and from one eagle glance described them with all the accuracy of a -guide-book. - -Thus, Bill Sikes and Oliver, trudging from London to Chertsey, where the -burglary was to be committed, and occasionally getting a lift on the way, -are set down from a cart at the end of Brentford. At length they came to a -public-house called the "Coach and Horses"; a little way beyond which -another road appeared to turn off. And here the cart stopped. - -[Illustration: THE "COACH AND HORSES," ISLEWORTH.] - -One finds the "Coach and Horses," sure enough, at the point where -Brentford ends and Isleworth begins, by the entrance to Sion Park, and -near the spot where the road branches off to the left. The "Coach and -Horses" is not a picturesque inn. It is a huge, four-square lump of a -place, and wears, indeed, rather a dour and forbidding aspect. It is -unquestionably the house of which Dickens speaks, and was built certainly -not later than the dawn of the nineteenth century. In these latter days -the road here has been rendered somewhat more urban by the advent of the -electric tramway; but I have in my sketch of the scene taken the artistic -licence of omitting that twentieth-century development, and, to add an air -of verisimilitude, have represented Sikes and Oliver in the act of -approaching. The left-hand road beyond leads to a right-hand road, as in -the story, and this in due course to Hampton. - -The most interesting Dickensian inn, outside the pages of _Pickwick_, is -the "Maypole," in _Barnaby Rudge_. - -There never existed upon this earth an inn so picturesque as that drawn, -entirely from his imagination, by Cattermole, to represent the "Maypole." -You may seek even among the old mansions of England, and find nothing more -baronial. The actual "Maypole"--when found--is a sad disappointment to -those who have cherished the Cattermole ideal, and there is wrath and -indignation among pilgrims from over-seas when they come to it. This, -although natural enough, is an injustice to this real original, which is -one of the most picturesque old inns now to be found, and is not properly -to be made little of because it cannot fit an impossible artistic fantasy. - -I have hinted above that the "Maypole" requires some effort to find, and -that is true enough, even in these days when the England of Dickens has -been so plentifully elucidated and mapped out and sorted over. The prime -cause of this incertitude and boggling is that there really is a "Maypole" -inn, but at that very different place, Chigwell Row, two miles distant -from Chigwell and the "King's Head." Many years ago, the late James Payn -wrote an amusing account--as to whose entire truth we cannot vouch--of his -taking a party of enthusiastic American ladies in search of this scene of -_Barnaby Rudge_. They drove about the forest seeking (such was their -ignorance) the "Maypole," and not the "King's Head"; and found it, in a -low and ugly beerhouse from which drunken beanfeasters waved inviting pots -of beer. Eventually they left the forest convinced that the inn Dickens -described was a sheer myth. - -If the "King's Head" of fact--"such a delicious old inn opposite the -churchyard," as Dickens wrote of it to Forster--is not so wonderful an old -house as the "Maypole" of fiction and of Cattermole's picturesque fancy, -we must, at any rate, excuse the artist, who was under the necessity of -working up to the fervid description of it with which the story begins: -"An old building, with more gable-ends than a lazy man would care to count -on a sunny day; huge zig-zag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though -even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic -shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, -ruinous, and empty. The place was said to have been built in the days -of King Henry the Eighth; and there, was a legend, not only that Queen -Elizabeth had slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion, to -wit, in a certain oak-panelled room with a deep bay-window, but that next -morning, while standing upon a mounting-block before the door, with one -foot in the stirrup, the virgin monarch had then and there boxed and -cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty." - -[Illustration: THE "KING'S HEAD," CHIGWELL, THE "MAYPOLE" OF _BARNABY -RUDGE_.] - -Passing the references to sunken and uneven floors and old diamond-paned -lattices, with another to an "ancient porch, quaintly and grotesquely -carved," which does not exist, we come to a description of dark red -bricks, grown yellow with age, decayed timbers, and ivy wrapping the -time-worn walls,--all figments of the imagination. - -The real "Maypole," identified with the "King's Head" at Chigwell, in -Epping Forest, is not the leastest littlest bit like that. The laziest man -on the hottest day could easily count its gables, which number three large -ones[17] and a small would-be-a-gable-if-it-could, that looks as though it -were blighted in its youth and had never grown to maturity. The front of -the house is not of red brick, and never was: the present white plaster -face being a survival of its early years; while the front of the -ground-floor is weather-boarded. - -But it is a delightful old house, in a situation equally delightful, -standing opposite the thickly wooded old churchyard of Chigwell, just as -described in the story; the sign--a portrait head of Charles the -First--projecting from an iron bracket, and the upper storeys of the inn -themselves set forward, on old carved oak beams and brackets. There is no -sign of decay or neglect about the "King's Head." - -In _Martin Chuzzlewit_ the literary annotator and professor of -topographical exegesis finds an interesting problem of the first -dimensions in the question, "Where was the 'Blue Dragon' of that story -situated?" It is a matter which, it is to be feared, will never be -threshed out to the satisfaction of all seekers after truth. "You all are -right and all are wrong," as the chameleon is supposed to have said when -he heard disputants quarrelling as to whether he was green or pink; and -then turned blue, to confound them. But the chameleon, in this instance, -is no more: and we who have opinions may continue, without fear, to hold -them. - -Well, then: in the third chapter of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ we are -particularly introduced to an inn, the subject of an earlier allusion in -those pages, the "Blue Dragon," near Salisbury. In what direction it lay -from that cathedral city we are not told--whether north, south, east, or -west; and we only infer from incidents of the story, in which the inn is -brought into relation with the London mail and coaching in general, that -the "Blue Dragon" was at Amesbury, eight miles to the north of Salisbury, -by which route the famous "Quicksilver" Exeter mail to and from London -went, in the old coaching days, avoiding Salisbury altogether. The course -of the narrative, the situation of an old mansion on the Wilsford road -near Amesbury--generally pointed out as Pecksniff's home--and the position -of Amesbury, all seem at the first blush to point to that fine old inn, -the "George" at Amesbury, being the original of the "Blue Dragon"; and -this old inn certainly was not only a coaching-house, but was what another -claimant to the honour of being the real true original of the "Blue -Dragon"--the "Green Dragon" at Alderbury--could never have been: a -hostelry with accommodation sufficient for postchaise travellers such as -old Martin Chuzzlewit and Mary. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN DRAGON," ALDERBURY.] - -The "George" at Amesbury is a house of considerable size and architectural -character, and its beauties might fitly have employed the pencils of -Pecksniff's pupils, had that great and good man condescended to notice -anything less stupendous than cathedrals, castles, and Houses of -Parliament. As it was, however, the architectural studies of his young -friends were made to contemplate nothing meaner than "elevations of -Salisbury Cathedral from every possible point of sight," and lesser things -were passed contemptuously by. (Chap. I.) - -The "George," after the fine old church--that church in which Tom Pinch -played the organ--is the chief ornament of Amesbury, and that it was the -inn meant by Dickens when he wrote _Martin Chuzzlewit_ is in the village -an article of faith which no visitor dare controvert or dispute in any way -on the spot. Like the small boys who do not say "Yah!" and are not -courageous enough to make grimaces until safely out of arm's reach, we -only dare dispassionately discuss the _pros_ and _cons_ when out of the -place. It were not possible on the spot to object, "Yes, but," and then -proceed to argue the point with the landlord, who confidently shows you -old Martin Chuzzlewit's bedroom and a room with a descent of one step -inside, instead of the "two steps on the inside so exquisitely unexpected -that strangers, despite the most elaborate cautioning, usually dived in, -head first, as into a plunging-bath." - -[Illustration: THE "GEORGE," AMESBURY.] - -But the truth is, like many another literary landmark, the "Blue Dragon" -in _Martin Chuzzlewit_ is a composite picture, combining the features of -both the "George" at Amesbury, eight miles to the north of Salisbury, and -those of the "Green Dragon" at Alderbury, three miles to the south. Nay, -there were not so long ago at Alderbury those who remembered the -picture-sign of the "Green Dragon" there, which doubtless Dickens saw in -his wanderings around the neighbourhood. "A faded and an ancient dragon he -was; and many a wintry storm of rain, snow, sleet, and hail had changed -his colour from a gaudy blue to a faint lack-lustre shade of grey. But -there he hung; rearing in a state of monstrous imbecility on his -hind-legs; waxing with every month that passed so much more dim and -shapeless that as you gazed at him on one side of the sign-board it seemed -as if he must be gradually melting through it and coming out upon the -other." (Chap. III.) - -The sign has long since been replaced by the commonplace lettering of the -present day, but it was then, in Dickens's own words, "a certain Dragon -who swung and creaked complainingly before the village ale-house door," a -phrase which at once shows us that if by the "Blue Dragon" of the story -the "George" at Amesbury was intended to be described, that was a -derogatory description of the fine old hostelry. - -This brings us to the chief point upon which the validity of this claim of -the "Green Dragon" at Alderbury must rest. Dickens distinctly alludes to -the "Blue Dragon" as a "village ale-house," and such it is and has ever -been; while to the "George" at Amesbury that description cannot even now -justly apply, and certainly it could never in coaching times, when in the -heyday of its prosperity, have been so fobbed off with such a phrase. -Moreover, we will do well to bear in mind that old Chuzzlewit and his -companion did not put up at the inn--this "village ale-house"--from -choice. The gentleman was "taken ill upon the road," and had to seek the -first house that offered. - -Those curious in the byways of Dickens topography will find Alderbury -three miles from Salisbury, on the left-hand side of the Southampton road. -Half a mile from it, on the other side of the way, stands "St. Mary's -Grange," a red-brick building in a mixed Georgian and Gothic style, built -by Pugin, and locally reputed to be the original of Mr. Pecksniff's -residence: a circumstance which may well give us pause and opportunity for -considering whether Dickens had that distinguished architect in his mind -when creating the character of his holy humbug. - -[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE "GREEN DRAGON," ALDERBURY.] - -The "Green Dragon," which we have thus shown to have, at the least of it, -as good a title as the "George" at Amesbury to be considered the original -of the house kept by the genial Mrs. Lupin, friend of Tom Pinch, Mark -Tapley, and Martin Chuzzlewit in particular, and of her fellow-creatures -in general, does not directly face the highway, but is set back from it at -an angle, behind a little patch of grass. It is pre-eminently rustic, and -is even more ancient than the casual wayfarer, judging merely from its -exterior, would suppose; for a fine fifteenth-century carved stone -fireplace in what is now the bar parlour bears witness to an existence -almost mediaeval. It is a beautiful, though dilapidated, work of Gothic art -of the Early Tudor period, ornamented with boldly carved crockets, -heraldic roses, and shields of arms, and is worthy of inspection for -itself alone, quite irrespective of its literary interest. - -A London inn intimately associated with _Martin Chuzzlewit_ finally -disappeared in the early part of 1904, when the last vestiges of the -"Black Bull," Holborn, were demolished. The "Black Bull," in common with -the numerous other old inns of Holborn, in these last few years all swept -away, stood just outside the City of London, and was originally, like its -neighbours, established for the accommodation of those travellers who, in -the Middle Ages, arrived too late in the evening to enter the City. At -sundown the gates of the walled City of London were closed, and, unless -the traveller was a very privileged person indeed, he found no entrance -until the next morning, and was obliged to put up at one of the many -hostelries that sprang up outside and found their account in the multitude -of such laggards by the way. The old "Black Bull," after many alterations, -was rebuilt in a very commonplace style in 1825, and in later years it -became a merely sordid public-house, with an unlovely pile of peculiarly -grim "model" dwellings in the courtyard. In spite of those later changes, -the great plaster effigy of the Black Bull himself, with a golden girdle -about his middle, remained on his bracket over the first floor window -until the house was pulled down, May 18th, 1904. - -[Illustration: SIGN OF THE "BLACK BULL," HOLBORN.] - -An amusing story belongs to that sign, for it was, in 1826, the subject of -a struggle between the landlord, one Gardiner, on the one side and the -City authorities on the other. The Commissioner of Sewers served a notice -upon Gardiner, requiring him to take his bull down, but the landlord was -obstinate, and refused to do anything of the kind, whereupon the -Commissioner assembled a storming-party of over fifty men, with ladders -and tackle for removing the objectionably large and weighty effigy. No -sooner, however, had the enemy begun their preparations, when, to their -astonishment, and to that of the assembled crowds, the bull soared -majestically and steadily to what Mrs. Gamp would doubtless have called -the "parapidge." Arrived there he displayed a flag with the bold legend, -"I don't intrude now." - -Some arrangement was evidently arrived at, for the bull occupied its -original place, above the first-floor window over the archway, for the -whole of the seventy-eight years between 1826 and 1904. - -The house is referred to in _Martin Chuzzlewit_ as the "Bull," and is the -place to which Sairey Gamp repaired from Kingsgate Street to relieve Betsy -Prig in the nursing of the mysterious patient. She found it "a little -dull, but not so bad as might be," and was "glad to see a parapidge, in -case of fire, and lots of roofs and chimley-pots to walk upon." - -There are no greatly outstanding inns to be found in _Bleak House_, the -"Dedlock Arms," really the "Sondes Arms" at Rockingham, being merely -mentioned. On the other hand, in _David Copperfield_ we find the "Plough" -at Blundeston mentioned, and that hotel at Yarmouth whence the London -coach started: only unfortunately it is not possible to identify it, -either with the "Crown and Anchor," the "Angel," or the "Star." - -In Parliament Street, Westminster, until 1899, stood the "Red Lion" -public-house, identified with the place where David Copperfield (Chapter -IX.) called for the glass of the "genuine stunning." The incident was one -of Dickens's own youthful experiences, and is therefore to be taken, -together with much else in that story, as autobiography. - -"I was such a child, and so little, that frequently when I went into the -bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter, to moisten -what I had had for dinner, they were afraid to give it me. I remember, one -hot evening, I went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the -landlord: - -"'What is your best--your _very best_ ale a glass?' For it was a special -occasion, I don't know what. It may have been my birthday. - -"'Twopence-halfpenny,' says the landlord, 'is the price of the Genuine -Stunning ale.' - -"'Then,' says I, producing the money, 'just draw me a glass of the Genuine -Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.' - -"The landlord looked at me in return over the bar, from head to foot, with -a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round -the screen, and said something to his wife. She came out from behind it, -with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me.... They served -me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the Genuine Stunning; and the -landlord's wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending -down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and -half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure." - -The "Blue Boar" in Whitechapel is referred to, and the "County Inn" at -Canterbury, identified with the "Fountain," where Mr. Dick slept. The -"little inn" in that same city, where Mr. Micawber stayed, and might have -said--but didn't--that he "resided, in short, 'put up,'" there, is -claimed to be the "Sun," but how, of all the little inns of -Canterbury--and there are many--the "Sun" should so decisively claim the -honour is beyond the wit of man to tell. It is an old, old inn that, -rather mistakenly, calls itself an "hotel," and the peaked, red-tiled -roof, the projecting upper storey, bracketed out upon ancient timbers, are -evidence enough that it was in being many centuries before the foreign -word "hotel" became acclimatised in this country. One may dine, or lunch, -or tea at the "Sun," in the ghostly company of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, but -although warm culinary scents may be noticed with satisfaction by the -hungry pilgrim, he misses the "flabby perspiration on the walls," -mentioned in the book. True, it is a feature readily spared. - -In the _Uncommercial Traveller_ a reference to the "Crispin and -Crispianus," at Strood, is found. It is a humble, weather-boarded inn, -whose age might be very great or comparatively recent. But, whatever the -age of the present house, there has long been an inn of the name on this -spot, the sign being referred back to St. Crispin's Day, October 25th, -1415, when Agincourt was fought and won. The sign is, however, doubtless -far older than that, and probably was one of the very many religious -inn-signs designed to attract the custom of thirsty wayfarers to Becket's -shrine. - -The brothers Crispin and Crispian were members of a noble family in -ancient Rome, who, professing Christianity, fled to Gaul and supported -themselves by shoemaking in the town of Troyes. They suffered martyrdom -at Soissons, in A.D. 287. The sanctity and benevolence of St. Crispin are -said to have been so great that he would steal leather as material for -shoes for the poor; for which, did he live in our times, he would still be -martyred--in a police-court, to the tune of several months' imprisonment. - -[Illustration: THE "CRISPIN AND CRISPIANUS," STROOD.] - -The picture-sign of the "Crispin and Crispianus" is said to be a copy of a -painting in the church of St. Pantaleon at Troyes, and certainly (but -chiefly because of much varnish, and the dust and grime of the road) looks -very Old-Masterish. The two saints, seated uncomfortably close to one -another, and looking very sheepish, appear to be cutting out a piece of -leather to the order of an interesting and gigantic pirate. - -A mysterious incident occurred in 1830 at this house, in the death of a -man who had acted as ostler at the coaching inns of Rochester and Chatham, -and had afterwards tramped the country as a hawker. He lay here dying, in -an upper room, and told the doctor who was called to him the almost -incredible story that he was really Charles Parrott Hanger, Earl of -Coleraine, and not "Charley Roberts," the name he had usually been known -by for twenty years. Although his life had been so squalid and apparently -poverty-stricken, he left L1,000 to his son, Charles Henry Hanger. - -The "Crispin and Crispianus," in common with most other erstwhile humble -inns, has experienced a social levelling-up since the time when Dickens -mentioned it as a house where tramping tinkers and itinerant clock-makers, -coming into Strood "yonder, by the blasted ash," might lie. In these -times, when the blasted dust of the Dover road is the most noticeable -feature, and a half-century has effected all manner of wonderful changes, -tramps and their kin find no harbourage at the old house, whose invitation -to cyclists and amateur photographers sufficiently emphasises its improved -status. - -In _Great Expectations_ is found a notice of the "Cross Keys," Wood -Street, Cheapside, a coaching inn abolished in the '70's; but it is merely -an incidental reference, on the occasion of Pip's coming to London by -coach from Rochester. The inns of that story are, indeed, not well seen, -and although that little boarded inn at Cooling, the "Horseshoe and -Castle," is identified as the "Three Jolly Bargemen" of the tale, you can -find in those pages no illuminating descriptive phrase on which to put -your finger and say, conscientiously, "Found!" - -Only at the close of the story, where, in Chapter LIV., Pip is -endeavouring to smuggle the convict, Magwitch, out of the country, down -the Thames, do we find an inn easily identified. That is the melancholy -waterside house below Gravesend, standing solitary on a raised bank of -stones, where Pip lands: "It was a dirty place enough, and I daresay not -unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good fire in the -kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various liquors to -drink. Also there were two double-bedded rooms--'such as they were,' the -landlord said." Outside there was mud: mud and slimy stones, and rotten, -slimy stakes sticking out of the water, and a grey outlook across the -broad river. - -This describes the actual "Ship and Lobster" tavern, on the shore at -Denton, below Gravesend, to which you come past the tramway terminus, down -a slummy street chiefly remarkable for grit and broken bottles, then -across the railway and the canal and on to the riverside where, in midst -of the prevalent grittiness that is now the most outstanding natural -feature, stands the inn, in company with the office of an alarming person -who styles himself "Explosive Lighterman," at Denton Wharf. - -There are even fewer inns to be found in _Our Mutual Friend_, where, -although the "Red Lion" at Henley is said to be the original of the -up-river inn to whose lawn Lizzie drags the half-drowned Wrayburn, we are -not really sure that Henley actually is indicated. That mention of a lawn -does not suffice: many riverside inns have lawns. In short, the edge of -Dickens's appreciation of inns was growing blunted, and he took less -delight, as he grew older, in describing their peculiarities. His whole -method of story-telling was changed. Instead of the sprightly fancy and -odd turns of observation that once fell spontaneously from him, he at last -came to laboriously construct and polish the action and conversation of a -novel, leaving in comparative neglect those side-lights upon localities -that help to give most of his writings a permanent value. - -Apart from the novels, we have many inns associated with Dickens by -tradition and in his tours and racily descriptive letters; and there, at -any rate, we find him, when not overweighted with the more than ever -elaborated and melodramatic character of his plots, just as full of -quaint, fanciful, and cheerful description as ever. - -[Illustration: THE "SHIP AND LOBSTER."] - -His tours began early. So far back as the autumn of 1838 Dickens and Phiz -took holiday in the midlands, coming at last to Shrewsbury, where they -stayed at the "Lion," or rather in what was at that time an annexe of the -"Lion," and has long since become a private house. Writing to his elder -daughter, Dickens vividly described this place: "We have the strangest -little rooms (sitting-room and two bedrooms together) the ceilings of -which I can touch with my hand. The windows bulge out over the street, as -if they were little stern windows in a ship. And a door opens out of the -sitting-room on to a little open gallery with plants in it, where one -leans over a queer old rail." - -Mr. Kitton[18] states: "This quaint establishment, alas! has been -modernised (if not entirely rebuilt) since those days, and presents -nothing of the picturesqueness that attracted the author of _Pickwick_." -But that is by no means the case. It stands exactly as it did, except that -since the business of the "Lion" has decreased, it no longer forms a part -of that great hostelry.[19] The blocked-up communicating doors between the -two buildings may still be seen on the staircase of the "Lion," and the -little house does still bulge over the pavement and closely resemble the -stern of an old man-o'-war. - -_The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices_, a light-hearted account of a tour -taken by Dickens and Wilkie Collins in 1857, begins with the travellers -being set down by the express at Carlisle, and ends, after many wanderings -in Cumberland and Lancashire, at Doncaster. It is largely an account of -inns, including the "Queen's Head," Hesket Newmarket, in Cumberland, -now a private house; and the "King's Arms," Market Street, Lancaster, -pulled down in 1880. The "King's Arms" was, from the exterior, commonplace -personified, but within doors you were surrounded by ancient oaken -staircases, mahogany panelling, and, according to Dickens, mystic old -servitors in black; and doubtless were so encompassed with mysteries and -forebodings that when you retired to rest--not being able in such a house -to merely "go to bed"--in one of the catafalque-like four-posters, you -immediately leapt between the sheets and drew the clothes over your head, -in fear of ghosts; dreaming uncomfortably that you were dead and lying in -state, and waking with a terrific start in the morning, at the coming of -the hot water and the tap at the door, with the dreadful impression that -the Day of Judgment was come and you summoned to account before the Most -High. These being the most remarkable features of the "King's Arms" at -Lancaster, it is perhaps not altogether strange that the house was at -length demolished and replaced by an uninteresting modern hotel, with no -associations--and no ghosts. - -[Illustration: THE "LION," SHREWSBURY, SHOWING THE ANNEXE ADJOINING, WHERE -DICKENS STAYED.] - -A weird story was told of the old inn, by which it seems that a young -bride was poisoned there, in a room pointed out as the "Bride's Chamber," -the criminal being duly hanged at Lancaster gaol. In memory of this -traditional romance, it was the custom to serve the incoming guests with a -piece of bride-cake. They might also, if they liked, sleep in the very -identical ancient black oak four-poster, in the room where the tragedy -took place; but, although there was sufficient eagerness to see it in -daylight, no very great competition was ever observed among guests for the -honour of occupying--we will not say sleeping in--that tragical couch. -Dickens himself, however, lay in it, and seems to have slept sufficiently -well; greatly, we may suppose, to his disappointment. - -Among those inns that no Dickensian neglects is "Jack Straw's Castle," on -Hampstead Heath, a house as commonplace and as little like any castle of -romance as it is possible to conceive. How else could it be? It was built -as a private residence in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, -with various additions and alterations, each one vulgarising the house a -step further, it now is little better than a London "public." The -Dickensian association is here a personal one, and somewhat thin at that. -It does not form a scene in any one of his stories, but was a house he -sometimes affected in his suburban walks. In 1837 we find him writing to -that "harbitrary gent," Forster, inviting him to a winter's walk across -the Heath, and adding, "I knows a good 'ous there where we can have a -red-hot chop for dinner and a glass of good wine." "This," says Forster, -"led to our first experience of 'Jack Straw's Castle,' memorable for many -happy meetings in coming years." - -How do myths germinate and sprout? Are they invented, or do they spring -spontaneously into being? Two myths cling to "Jack Straw's Castle": the -one that it stands upon the site of a fort thrown up by that peasant -leader in the reign of Richard the Second; the other that Dickens not only -visited the house, but often stayed there, a chair called "Dickens's Easy -Chair" being shown in what is represented as having been his bedroom. The -Great Dickens Legend is now well on its way, and the inns "where he -stayed" will at no distant day match the apocryphal "Queen Elizabeth's -Bedrooms" that amaze the historical student with their number. - -[Illustration: "JACK STRAW'S CASTLE."] - -The "Jack Straw" legend is old, although by no means so old as the house. -It is probable that the house was built on the site of some ancient -earthwork, but that might have been either much older or much later than -Jack Straw; and in any case history has nothing to say about the spot. - -The first reference to the inn by its present name appears to be in the -report of a horse-race on the Heath in 1748. In the same year an allusion -to it in Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_ speaks merely of "The Castle." - -The illustration printed here shows the bow-window of a good many years -ago, a somewhat picturesque feature now abolished in favour of an ugly -modern front. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -HIGHWAYMEN'S INNS - - -There is no doubt that, in a certain sense, all inns were anciently -hand-in-glove with the highwaymen. No hostelry so respectable that it -could safely give warranty for its ostlers without-doors and its servants -within. Mine host might be above suspicion, but not all his dependants; -and the gentlemen of the high toby commonly learnt from the staffs of the -inns what manner of guests lay there, what their saddle-bags or valises -held, and whither they were bound. No wealthy traveller, coming to his inn -overnight in those far-distant times, with pistols fully loaded and -primed, dared set forth again without narrowly examining his weapons, -whose charges, he would be not unlikely to discover, had mysteriously been -drawn since his arrival, and perhaps his sword fixed by some unknown -agency immovably in its scabbard. You figure such an one, too hurried at -his starting to look closely into his equipment, come unexpectedly in the -presence of a highwayman, and, his armoury thus raided, falling an easy -prey. - -These dangers of the wayside inns, and even of the greater and more -responsible hostelries in considerable towns, were so well known that -literature, from the time of Queen Elizabeth until that of the earlier -Georges, is full of them. Indeed, that singular person, John Clavel, -worthless and dissolute sprig of an ancient and respectable landed family -in Dorsetshire, especially recounts them in his very serious pamphlet, the -_Recantation of an Ill-led Life_, written from his prison-cell in the -King's Bench in 1627, and printed in the following year. He inscribes -himself "Gentleman" on his title-page, and in his "discouerie of the -High-way Law," written in verse, proceeds to "round upon" his late -confederates in the spirit of the sneak. All this was in the hope of a -pardon, which he apparently obtained, for he was at liberty, and still -renouncing his former evil courses, in 1634. - -One of the important heads of his pamphlet, addressed to travellers, is -"How a Traveller should carry himself at his inn." His advice reads -nowadays like that supererogatory kind generally known as "teaching your -grandmother to suck eggs"; but when we consider closely that in those -times knowledge was not widely diffused, and that to most people a journey -was a rare and toilsome experience, to be undertaken only at long -intervals and long afterwards talked of, John Clavel's directions to -wayfarers may have been really valuable. His pamphlet must, for some -reason or another, have been largely purchased, for three editions of it -are known. - -Thus he warns the traveller come to his inn: - - Oft in your clothier's and your grazier's inn, - You shall have chamberlains that there have been - Plac'd purposely by thieves, or else consenting - By their large bribes, and by their often tempting, - That mark your purses drawn, and give a guess - What's there, within a little, more or less. - Then will they grip your cloak-bags, feel their weight: - There's likewise in mine host sometimes deceit: - If it be left in charge with him all night, - Unto his roaring guests he gives a light, - Who spend full thrice as much in wine and beer - As you in those and all your other cheer. - -But the classic and most outstanding literary reference to these dark -features of old-time innkeeping is found in Shakespeare, in the First Part -of _King Henry the Fourth_. The scene is Rochester: an inn yard. Enter a -carrier, with a lantern in his hand, in the hours before daybreak. - - _1 Car._ Heigh ho! An't be not four by the day, I'll be hanged: - Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. - What, ostler! - - _Ost._ [_Within._] Anon, anon. - - _1 Car._ I pr'ythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the - point; the poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess. - - _Enter another_ Carrier. - - _2 Car._ Pease and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the - next way to give poor jades the bots: this house is turned upside - down, since Robin ostler died. - - _1 Car._ Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was - the death of him. - - _2 Car._ I think this be the most villainous house in all London road - for fleas: I am stung like a tench. - - _1 Car._ Like a tench? by the mass, there is ne'er a king in - Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock. - - _2 Car._ Why, they will allow us ne'er a jordan, and then we leak in - your chimney; and your chamber lie breeds fleas like a loach. - - _1 Car._ What, ostler! come away, and be hanged, come away. - - _2 Car._ I have a gammon of bacon, and two razes of ginger, to be - delivered as far as Charing-cross. - - _1 Car._ Odsbody! the turkies in my pannier are quite starved.--What, - ostler!--A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst - not hear? An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to break the pate of - thee, I am a very villain.--Come, and be hanged:--Hast no faith in - thee? - - _Enter_ Gadshill. - - _Gads._ Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock? - - _1 Car._ I think it be two o'clock. - - _Gads._ I pr'ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the - stable. - - _1 Car._ Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that, - i'faith. - - _Gads._ I pr'ythee, lend me thine. - - _2 Car._ Ay, when? canst tell?--Lend me thy lantern, quoth a?--marry, - I'll see thee hanged first. - - _Gads._ Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London? - - _2 Car._ Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant - thee.--Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen; they will - along with company, for they have great charge. - - [_Exeunt_ Carriers. - - _Gads._ What, ho! chamberlain! - - _Cham._ [_Within._] At hand, quoth pick-purse. - - _Gads._ That's even as fair as--at hand, quoth the chamberlain: for - thou variest no more from picking of purses, than giving direction - doth from labouring; thou lay'st the plot how. - - _Enter_ Chamberlain. - - _Cham._ Good morrow, master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you - yesternight: There's a franklin in the wild of Kent, hath brought - three hundred marks with him in gold: I heard him tell it to one of - his company, last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath - abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call - for eggs and butter: They will away presently. - - _Gads._ Sirrah, if they meet not with saint Nicholas' clerks, I'll - give thee this neck. - - _Cham._ No, I'll none of it: I pr'ythee, keep that for the hangman; - for, I know, thou worship'st saint Nicholas as truly as a man of - falsehood may. - - _Gads._ What talkest thou to me of the hangman? if I hang, I'll make a - fat pair of gallows: for, if I hang, old sir John hangs with me; and, - thou knowest, he's no starveling. Tut! there are other Trojans that - thou dreamest not of, the which, for sport sake, are content to do the - profession some grace; that would, if matters should be looked into, - for their own credit sake, make all whole. I am joined with no foot - land-rakers, no long-staff, six-penny strikers; none of these mad, - mustachio purple-hued malt-worms: but with nobility, and tranquillity; - burgomasters, and great oneyers; such as can hold in; such as will - strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink - sooner than pray: And yet I lie; for they pray continually to their - saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; - for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots. - - _Cham._ What, the commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in - foul way? - - _Gads._ She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in - a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk - invisible. - - _Cham._ Nay, by my faith; I think you are more beholden to the night, - than to fern-seed, for your walking invisible. - - _Gads._ Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as - I am a true man. - - _Cham._ Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. - - _Gads._ Go to; _Homo_ is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler - bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. - - [_Exeunt._ - -There was never any lack of evidence as to the complicity of innkeepers in -the doings of highwaymen. When John Nevison and his associates were tried -at York in 1684, for highway robbery, their headquarters were stated, on -oath, to have been at the "Talbot," Newark, where the landlord was -"supposed" to be cognisant of their business, and the ostler was known to -have been in their pay. Nevison, it should be said, was the man who really -did ride horseback to York in one day. He achieved the feat, and -established the celebrated _alibi_ by it, in 1676, before Turpin (who -never did anything of the kind) was born. But at last, in 1684, the end -came. He was arrested at the still existing "Three Houses" inn, at Sandal, -near Wakefield, and being found guilty, was executed on Knavesmire, York, -on May 4th, in that year. - -[Illustration: THE "THREE HOUSES INN," SANDAL.] - -A rather startling sidelight on these old-time aspects of inns was the -discovery, in 1903, of an ancient and long unsuspected staircase at the -"Bush," Farnham. In the course of extensive repairs the builders came upon -a staircase that had once led up among the rafters of the oldest part of -the house; and it was presumed by those learned in the history of that -picturesque Surrey town that, by connivance of the landlord at some -distant period, it was used by highwaymen as a hiding-place when hard -pressed. Near by the stairway a number of old coins were found, but most -of them were so worn and obliterated, that it was an impossibility to read -the date or any other part of the inscription. - -[Illustration: THE "CROWN" INN, HEMPSTEAD.] - -The most famous highwayman of all time--famous in a quite arbitrary and -irrational way, for he was at the bottom, rather than at the head of his -profession--is Dick Turpin, who was born at Hempstead, in Essex, in 1705, -at the "Crown" inn, his father being landlord of that hostelry, which -still faces the road, and looks on to the lane that winds up to the -village church. There is much that is appropriate, if you do but consider -it, in one who is to be a highwayman and finally to be hanged, being born -in a place called Hempstead; but this by the way. The ring of old trees -planted on an ancient circular earthwork beside the lane opposite his -birthplace (and seen in the illustration) is known locally as Turpin's -Ring. - -The youthful Turpin began his career as apprentice to a Whitechapel -butcher, and while still serving his indentures started his course of low -villainy by stealing some cattle from a Plaistow farmer. Fleeing from -justice, he joined a band of smugglers and sheep-stealers who had their -head-quarters in Epping Forest, and their store-house in a cave in the -neighbourhood of Chingford; a spot now occupied by a singularly -commonplace modern beer-house, like a brick box, named from this romantic -circumstance, "Turpin's Cave." - -A reward of fifty guineas was offered for the arrest of this precious -gang, but it was not until the amount was doubled that things grew -dangerous, and the unholy brotherhood was broken up. Turpin then took to -scouring the roads singly, until he met with Tom King, with whom he -entered into a partnership that lasted until he accidentally shot King -dead when aiming at a police-officer who was endeavouring to arrest both, -at the "Red Lion," Whitechapel, in 1737. - -[Illustration: "TURPIN'S CAVE," NEAR CHINGFORD.] - -His partner dead, Turpin, finding London too hot to hold him, removed -quietly to Welton, a Yorkshire village ten miles from Beverley, where he -set up as a gentleman horse-dealer, Palmer by name. He had not long been -domiciled in those parts before the farmers and others began to lose their -horses in a most unaccountable way, and so they might have continued to -lose and not discover the hand that spoiled them, but for the coarse and -brutal nature that was Turpin's undoing. Returning from a shooting -excursion in which he had apparently not succeeded in shooting anything, -the self-styled "Palmer" wantonly shot one of his neighbours' fowls. The -neighbour remonstrated with him and probably suggested that it required a -good shot to bring down game but that the domestic rooster was an easy -mark for a poor sportsman, whereupon the "gentlemanly horse-dealer" -threatened to serve him in the same way. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN DRAGON," WELTON.] - -One did not, even in 1739, threaten people with impunity and shot-guns. -Something unpleasant generally resulted; and "Palmer" was accordingly -arrested at the "Green Dragon" inn, Welton, on a charge of brawling; being -afterwards haled before the magistrates assembled at Petty Sessions at -Beverley, where, as he could produce no friends to speak on his behalf, -he was put back for further inquiries. Those inquiries resulted in his -being charged with stealing a black mare, blind of an eye, off Heckington -Common. In fiction--and especially in fiction as practised by Harrison -Ainsworth--Turpin at this point would in some way have sprung upon the -back of Black Bess, come ready to hand from nowhere in particular, and -would have been carried off triumphantly from the midst of his "enemies"; -but these things do not happen in real life, and he was, instead, lodged -in York Castle. Thence he wrote from his dungeon cell a letter to his -brother at Hempstead, imploring him in some way to cook him up a -character. This letter was not prepaid, and the brother, not recognising -the handwriting, refused to pay the sixpence for it demanded by the Post -Office. - -[Illustration: THE "THREE MAGPIES," SIPSON GREEN.] - -See now from what trivial incidents great issues hang. The village -postmaster chanced to be identical with the schoolmaster who had taught -Turpin to write. He was a man of public spirit, and travelled to York and -identified the prisoner there as the man who had been "wanted" for many -crimes. It was on April 17th, 1739, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, -that Dick Turpin was hanged on Knavesmire, York, and since then he has -become very much of a hero: perhaps the sorriest, the most sordid and -absolutely commonplace scoundrel that was ever raised on so undeserved a -pedestal. - -No district was more affected by highwaymen in the old days than Hounslow -Heath, and the fork of the roads, where the two great highways to Bath and -Exeter set out upon their several courses at the west end of what was once -Hounslow village and is now Hounslow town, used in those brave old days to -be decorated with a permanent gibbet, rarely without its scarecrow -occupant, in the shape of some tattered robber, strung up as a warning to -his fellows. Prominent amongst many stories that belong to this stretch of -country is that of the murder of Mr. Mellish, brother of the then Member -of Parliament for Grimsby, on a night in 1798, when returning from a day's -hunting with the King's Buckhounds in Windsor Forest. The carriage in -which his party were seated was passing the lonely old beerhouse called -the "Old Magpies," at Sipson Green, at half-past eight, when it was -attacked by three footpads. One held the horses' heads, while the other -two guarded the windows, firing a shot through them, to terrify the -occupants. No resistance was offered to the demand for money, and purses -and bank-notes were handed over, as a matter of course. Then the carriage -was allowed to proceed, a parting shot being fired after it. That shot -struck the unfortunate Mr. Mellish in the forehead, and he died shortly -after being removed to an upper room in an adjoining inn, still standing, -the "Three Magpies." The older and more humble inn, heavily thatched and -with a beetle-browed and sinister look, where the footpads had been -drinking before the attack, makes a picture, in the melodramatic sort, on -the Bath Road, even to-day. - -[Illustration: THE "OLD MAGPIES."] - -A very curious and authentic relic of those old times is found in that -secluded little inn, the "Green Man," a most innocent-looking, white, -plaster-faced house that seems a very bower of rustic simplicity and -guilelessness, standing at Hatton--"Hatton-in-the-Hinterland" as one feels -tempted to style it--a rural hamlet, "the world forgetting, by the world -forgot," tucked away in the beautiful orchard country between the angle -formed by those branching Bath and Exeter roads westward of Hounslow town. -It is to-day, as I have said, a beautiful district of orchards, where the -pink and white of the apple-blossom delights the eye in spring, and the -daffodil grows. There is an old rustic pound at Hatton, and in front of -the "Green Man" an idyllic pond where ducks quack and dive; and everything -seems as pure and unspotted from the world as those white Aylesbury ducks -themselves would appear to be. But Hatton is a Place with a Past, and the -"Green Man" not so green as you might suppose. For here spread the lonely -and sinister Heath, in days gone by, and at the "Green Man" the highwaymen -of the district, who all cherished the most magnificent thirsts, and would -not readily barter them away, foregathered in the intervals between -offering wayfarers an unwelcome choice between rendering money or life. -Sometimes the Bow Street runners--so called, in the contrariwise spirit, -because they never by any chance ran, unless it might be away--would, -daring very much indeed, poke inquisitive noses into the "Green Man," but -they never found any one more suspicious there than a drunken carter. For -why? Because in the little parlour on the left-hand side as you enter, -there is a veritable highwayman's hiding-hole at the back of the -old-fashioned grate, filling what was once an old-world chimney-corner. -Into this snug, not to say over-warm and possibly sooty place, one of the -starlight conveyers of property upon the Heath could creep on emergency -and wait until danger passed off. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN MAN," HATTON.] - -[Illustration: THE HIGHWAYMAN'S HIDING-HOLE.] - -That Putney Heath was a favourite resort of the gentry of the horse-pistol -and crape mask is a mere commonplace to the student of these byways of -history, and, however little it may be suspected by those who look in -casually at the "Green Man" that stands on the crest of Putney Hill, where -the Heath and the Portsmouth Road begin, that house was in the old days -rightly suspect. About it--and no doubt also in it--lurked that bright and -shining light of the craft, Jerry Avershawe, that bold spirit who, after -making his name a name of dread, and Putney Heath and Wimbledon Common -places to be avoided by all travellers with money and valuables to lose, -died on the scaffold at Kennington in 1795, in his twenty-second year. - -Footpads, too, frequented the "Green Man": despicable fellows, who were to -highwaymen what "German silver" and "American cloth" are to the real -articles. The footpads waited for revellers who had taken too much liquor -and were zig-zagging their unsteady way home, before they dared attack. A -curious little incident in this sort was enacted in 1773 at the "Green -Man." Two convivial fellows drinking there had been watched by two -footpads named William Brown and Joseph Witlock. When the two jolly topers -came forth and corkscrewed a devious course home-along, Messrs. Brown and -Witlock set upon them and secured the highly desirable booty of twenty -guineas and some snuff-boxes and pen-knives. It was ill gleaning for any -other of the fraternity, after thoroughgoing practitioners like these had -gone over the pockets of the lieges. The smallest involuntary -contributions were gratefully received, and they condescended even to -relieve a baker's boy of his little all, which was little indeed: -consisting of a silver buckle and some halfpence. It is rather -satisfactory, after all this, to learn that Messrs. Brown and Witlock were -hanged. - -The "Green Man" still keeps a stout, bolt-studded door, and the house, -seen across the road from where the large old-fashioned pound for strayed -horses, donkeys, and cattle stands on the Heath, presents a charming -scene. - -The "Spaniards" inn, that picturesque and picturesquely situated old -house, built about 1630, in what was then an extremely lonely situation on -the roadside between Hampstead and Highgate, stands actually in the parish -of Finchley. It occupies the site of a lodge-entrance into what was once -the Bishop of London's great rural park of Finchley, where there stood -until quite modern times a toll-gate that took tribute of all wayfarers. -The odd little toll-house itself is still a feature of the scene, and may -be noted on the left hand of the illustration. - -How the "Spaniards" derived its name is rather a matter of conjecture than -of ascertained, sheer, cold-drawn fact. If the generally received version -be correct, the name should be spelled with an apostrophe "s," to denote a -single individual; for, according to that story, the original lodge was -taken over by a Spaniard about 1620, and converted into a place of -entertainment for Londoners, who even then had begun to frequent -Hampstead and the Heath. The fact that the Spanish Ambassador, Gondomar, -retiring from the danger of plague in the infected air of London, resided -at neighbouring Highgate, 1620-22, may possibly have some bearing upon the -question. - -[Illustration: THE "GREEN MAN," PUTNEY.] - -It becomes a little difficult to believe in the "Spaniards" being so early -a place of popular resort; but, shaming the incredulous, there stands the -old house, visibly old, undoubtedly large and designed for the conduct of -a considerable business, and still comparatively lonely. It is also one of -those very few houses, out of an incredibly large number, which really can -make out a good claim to have been frequented by Dick Turpin. This spot -was well within the "Turpin Country," so to speak, as one speaks of -literary landmarks; it was included in his "sphere of influence," as they -say in international politics; or simply (as a policeman might put it) was -"on his beat." Turpin has so taken hold of the imagination that you find -legends of him in the most impossible places, but his real centre of -activity, before he fled into Yorkshire, was Epping Forest, and a radius -of twenty miles from Chingford just about covers his province. - -It is only in modern times that the "Spaniards" has been anxious to claim -Turpin. In that hero's period, and when highwaymen still haunted dark -roads and were hand-in-glove with many innkeepers, the "Spaniards" was no -doubt just as anxious to disclaim any such association. Thus we do not -find, in any memoirs of former landlords, "Turpin as I knew Him," or -anything of that kind. It is a pity, for we are in such a case reduced to -accept legends, and Heaven and the inquirer into these things alone know -what lies these legends tell. At the "Spaniards," however, we accept the -tradition that mine host, throughout a long series of years, had an -excellent understanding with the whole fraternity of road-agents, and with -Turpin in particular. - -[Illustration: THE "SPANIARDS," HAMPSTEAD HEATH.] - -It is not necessary to this general belief to place one's faith in the -truth of the stable attached to the house having been that of Black Bess, -because we know that famous mare to have been entirely the figment of -Harrison Ainsworth's imagination; and the quaint old tower-like -garden-house seen on the right hand of the accompanying picture of the inn -is itself so picturesquely suggestive of headlong flights and pursuits -that, whether Turpin _did_ hide in it, or not, it is obviously demanded by -all the canons of the picturesque that he _should_ be made to do so--and -accordingly he is. Thus we read: "This outhouse was a favourite -resting-place for Turpin, and many a time on the late return of the -marauder has it served as a bedroom. The underground passages that led to -the inn itself have been filled up, years ago. Formerly, here Dick was -safe enough. Were the two doors attacked by unpleasant visitors, he dived -through the secret trap-door into the underground apartment, there to -await the departure of the raging officers, or to betake himself to the -inn, if that were clear of attack." - -Oh! those "secret passages" and "underground apartments"! Do we not meet -them (in legend) everywhere? And have they not invariably been "filled up" -long ago? - -Forty-one years after Turpin had been hanged we find the "Spaniards" in -touch with actual, unquestionable history. June, 1780, was the time of the -"No Popery Riots" in London, when Newgate was fired by the mob, and half a -million pounds' worth of damage was done to business houses and private -residences. The Earl of Mansfield's town house, in Bloomsbury Square, was -destroyed, and the mob, pleased with their handiwork there, determined to -complete their revenge on the obnoxious judge by treating his country -mansion at Caen Wood in the same manner. - -Caen Wood still stands hard by the "Spaniards," which you must pass in -order to come to it from London. Here the landlord stood, with the tollbar -behind him, like another Horatius in the gate, and met the rioters as they -came with pikes and "No Popery" flags, and torches and firelocks, -streaming along the road. They were an unsuspicious mob, and a thirsty, -and when mine host invited them to partake of his best, free of charge, -and even to wallow in it, if they would, they did not stop to ask the -motive of such extraordinary generosity, but took him at his word and sat -boozing there until the detachment of Horse Guards, sent up in response to -the mounted messenger despatched by the landlord, had time to dispose -themselves in the Caen Wood grounds, and so to overawe their undisciplined -force. - -A very great deal of the "Spaniards'" picturesqueness is due to the rustic -setting of narrow lane and tall elms that frames it in, but that story of -the resourceful landlord and his artful way with those London furies gives -the house and the scenery a final dramatic touch. You fancy, if you stroll -that way some June evening, that you see him, in old-fashioned -dress--buckled shoes, worsted stockings, knee-breeches, scrubby -wig--standing in the roadway, tankard in one hand, churchwarden pipe in -the other, with assumed joviality confronting a rabble in equal parts -drunk and mad. You see the banner, "No Popery!" you hear the curses -and--without the aid of imagination, for the "Spaniards" is a going -concern--smell the drink. And presently you hear the gallop of the Horse -Guards and the rattle and jingle of their accoutrements. - -But you must not by any means come here on Easter Monday or any other -occasion of popular holiday, for amidst such wholesale merry-making -imagination becomes atrophied, and the ghosts of historic drama will not -condescend to share the stage with twentieth-century comedy. - - -_Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._ - - - - -INDEX - - - Adelphi Hotel, Adelphi, i. 212, 264 - - Ale-stakes, i. 14-17 - - Anchor, Ripley, ii. 212, 242 - - Angel, Basingstoke, ii. 279 - - -- Bury St. Edmunds, i. 238 - - -- Colchester, i. 90 - - -- Ferrybridge, ii. 81 - - -- Grantham, i. 118-123 - - -- Guildford, ii. 57 - - -- Islington, i. 119 - - -- Stilton, ii. 48 - - Ass-in-the-Bandbox, Nidd, ii. 203 - - - Barge Aground, Brentford, ii. 203 - - -- Stratford High Road, ii. 203 - - Battle, Pilgrims' Hostel at, i. 97 - - Bay Tree Tavern, St. Swithin's Lane, ii. 290 - - Bear, Devizes, ii. 8-16 - - -- Esher, ii. 116 - - -- and Billet, Chester, ii. 74 - - Bear's Head, Brereton, ii. 62 - - Beaufort Arms, Bath, i. 254 - - Beckhampton Inn, i. 238 - - Bee-Hive, Eaumont Bridge, ii. 138 - - -- Grantham, ii. 192 - - Beetle-and-Wedge, Moulsford, ii. 195 - - Bell, Barnby Moor, i. 60, ii. 55, 81 - - -- Belbroughton, ii. 245 - - -- Berkeley Heath, i. 256 - - -- Dale Abbey, ii. 88, 90 - - -- Stilton, ii. 48-54 - - -- Tewkesbury, ii. 283-287 - - -- Warwick Lane, London, i. 30 - - -- Woodbridge, ii. 112 - - Bell and Mackerel, Mile End, ii. 129 - - Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, i. 229 - - Berkeley Arms, Tewkesbury, ii. 288 - - Birch Tree Tavern, St. Swithin's Lane, ii. 290 - - Black Bear, Sandbach, ii. 58 - - -- -- Tewkesbury, ii. 289 - - -- Boy, Chelmsford, i. 242 - - -- Bull, Holborn, i. 288-290 - - -- -- Newcastle-on-Tyne, i. 53 - - -- Horse, Cherhill, i. 232 - - -- Jack, Clare Market, i. 242-244 - - -- Swan, Kirkby Moorside, ii. 267 - - Blue Bell, Barnby Moor, i. 60, ii. 55, 81 - - -- Boar, Leicester, i. 202 - - -- -- Whitechapel, i. 291 - - -- Dragon, near Salisbury, i. 282-288 - - -- Lion, Muggleton, _i.e._ Town Malling, i. 226 - - -- Posts, Chester, i. 155-158 - - -- -- Portsmouth, ii. 137 - - Boar, Bluepitts, near Rochdale, ii. 197 - - Boar's Head, Eastcheap, ii. 253, 261 - - -- Middleton, ii. 218 - - Boot, Chester, ii. 78 - - Bottom Inn, Chalton Downs, near Petersfield, i. 270-274 - - Buck and Bell, Long Itchington, ii. 130 - - Bull, Dartford, i. 79-82 - - -- Fenny Stratford, ii. 111 - - -- Rochester, i. 221-223 - - -- Sissinghurst, ii. 244 - - -- Whitechapel, i. 242, 245 - - Bull and Mouth, St. Martin's-le-Grand, i. 228 - - Bull's Head, Meriden, ii. 80 - - -- Greengate, Salford, i. 7 - - Burford Bridge Hotel, near Dorking, ii. 273 - - Bush, Bristol, i. 255 - - -- Farnham, i. 309 - - - Capel Curig Inn, ii. 254 - - Carnarvon Castle, Chester, ii. 77 - - -- Arms, Guildford Street, ii. 289 - - Cart Overthrown, Edmonton, ii. 203 - - Castle, Conway, ii. 122 - - -- Marlborough, i. 60, ii. 8, 90-99 - - Cat and Fiddle, near Buxton, ii. 147 - - -- near Christchurch, ii. 181 - - Cat and Mutton, London Fields, ii. 139 - - Cats, Sevenoaks, ii. 191 - - Chapel House, near Chipping Norton, ii. 100-106 - - Cheney Gate, near Congleton, ii. 139 - - Chequers, Slapestones, ii. 134 - - -- of the Hope, Canterbury, i. 85 - - Civil Usage, Brixham, ii. 203 - - Clayton Arms, Godstone, ii. 30-34 - - Coach and Dogs, Oswestry, ii. 200 - - Coach and Horses, Chalton Downs, near Petersfield, i. 270 - - Coach and Horses, Isleworth, i. 276 - - Cock, Eaton Socon, i. 267 - - -- Great Budworth, ii. 69-71 - - -- Stony Stratford, ii. 43, 47 - - Cock and Pymat, Whittington, near Chesterfield, i. 181-184 - - County Inn, Canterbury, i. 291 - - Craven Arms, near Church Stretton, ii. 47 - - Cricketers, Laleham, ii. 167 - - Crispin and Crispianus, Strood, i. 292-295 - - Cross Hands, near Chipping Sodbury, ii. 85 - - Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, i. 295 - - Crow-on-Gate, Crowborough, ii. 205 - - Crown, Chiddingfold, ii. 242 - - -- Hempstead, i. 310 - - -- Oxford, ii. 101 - - -- Rochester, i. 223-225 - - -- Stamford, ii. 158 - - Crown and Treaty, Uxbridge, i. 161-169 - - Custom House, Chester, ii. 77 - - - Dale Abbey, ii. 88-90 - - Dedlock Arms, i. 290 - - De Quincey, T., on old inns, i. 57, ii. 274-279 - - Dial House, Bocking, ii. 226 - - Dick Whittington, Cloth Fair, i. 4 - - Dolphin, Potter Heigham, i. 159 - - Domus Dei, Southampton, i. 90 - - Dorset Arms, East Grinstead, ii. 35 - - Duchy Hotel, Princetown, ii. 149 - - - Eagle and Child, Nether Alderley, ii. 209 - - Edinburgh Castle, Limehouse, ii. 106-108 - - -- Regent's Park, ii. 126-128 - - Eight Bells, Twickenham, ii. 200 - - Epitaphs on Innkeepers, ii. 245-254 - - - Falcon, Bidford, ii. 89 - - -- Chester, ii. 74 - - Falstaff, Canterbury, i. 87 - - Feathers, Ludlow, ii. 18-25 - - Ferry inn, Rosneath, ii. 180 - - Fighting Cocks, St. Albans, i. 4 - - First and Last, Land's End, ii. 206 - - -- Sennen, ii. 206 - - Fish and Eels, Roydon, i. 118 - - Flitch of Bacon, Wichnor, ii. 79 - - Fountain, Canterbury, i. 291 - - Four Crosses, Hatherton, ii. 134 - - Fowler, J. Kearsley, of the White Hart, Aylesbury, i. 62 - - Fox and Hounds, Barley, ii. 153 - - Fox and Pelican, Grayshott, ii. 180 - - Fox-under-the-Hill, Strand, i. 255 - - - Garter, Windsor, ii. 261 - - Gate, Dunkirk, ii. 133 - - Gate Hangs Well, Nottingham, ii. 133 - - Gatehouse Tavern, Norwich, ii. 130 - - George, Amesbury, i. 283-287 - - -- Andover, ii. 16-18 - - -- Bridport, i. 180 - - -- Brighthelmstone, i. 181 - - -- Broadwindsor, i. 180 - - -- Colnbrook, i. 188 - - -- Crawley, ii. 152 - - -- Grantham, i. 267, ii. 55 - - -- Glastonbury, i. 107, 116 - - -- Greta Bridge, i. 268 - - -- Hayes Common, ii. 172 - - -- Huntingdon, ii. 47 - - -- Mere, i. 180 - - -- Norton St. Philip, i. 123-132 - - -- Odiham, ii. 44 - - -- Rochester, i. 82 - - -- St. Albans, i. 117, 119 - - -- Salisbury, ii. 263 - - -- Southwark, i. 31 - - -- Stamford, ii. 154-158 - - -- Walsall, i. 60 - - -- Wanstead, ii. 141 - - -- Winchcombe, i. 132-136 - - George and Dragon, Dragon's Green, ii. 117-119 - - -- Great Budworth, ii. 137 - - -- Wargrave-on-Thames, ii. 176 - - -- West Wycombe, ii. 222 - - George and Vulture, Lombard Street, i. 213, 251, 264 - - George the Fourth, Clare Market, i. 242-244 - - God's House, Portsmouth, i. 89 - - Golden Cross, Charing Cross, i. 213-220, ii. 72, 268 - - Grand Pump Room Hotel, Bath, i. 254 - - Great Western Railway Hotel, Paddington, i. 72 - - Great White Horse, Ipswich, i. 246-251 - - Green Dragon, Alderbury, i. 282-288 - - -- Combe St. Nicholas, ii. 109 - - -- Welton, i. 312 - - -- Wymondham, i. 95 - - Green Man, Hatton, i. 317 - - -- Putney Heath, i. 319 - - Green Man and Black's Head, Ashbourne, ii. 159 - - Grenadier, Whitley, ii. 138 - - Greyhound, Croydon, ii. 153 - - -- Sutton, ii. 153 - - -- Thame, i. 160 - - Guildford Arms, Guildford Street, ii. 290 - - - Halfway House, Rickmansworth, ii. 215 - - Hark to Bounty, Staidburn, ii. 204 - - -- Lasher, Castleton, ii. 204 - - -- Nudger, Dobcross, Manchester, ii. 204 - - -- Towler, Bury, Lancashire, ii. 204 - - Haycock, Wansford, ii. 80 - - Haygate Inn, near Wellington, Salop, ii. 80 - - Hearts of Oak, West Allington, ii. 87 - - Herbergers, i. 25 - - Hop-pole, Tewkesbury, i. 257, ii. 288 - - Horseshoe and Castle, Cooling, i. 295 - - Hostelers, i. 25 - - Hundred-and-One, The, ii. 129 - - Innkeepers, Epitaphs on, ii. 245-254 - - Isle of Skye, near Holmfirth, ii. 148 - - - Jack Straw's Castle, Hampstead Heath, i. 300-302 - - Johnson Dr., on inns, i. 43-46 - - Jolly Farmer, Farnham, ii. 217 - - - Keigwin Arms, Mousehole, ii. 230 - - King and Tinker, Enfield, i. 205-207 - - King Edgar, Chester, ii. 72-74 - - King's Arms, Lancaster, i. 299 - - -- Malmesbury, ii. 293 - - -- Salisbury, i. 180 - - -- Sandwich, ii. 228 - - King's Head, Aylesbury, i. 141-143, ii. 38 - - -- Chigwell, i. 277-283 - - -- Dorking, i. 230 - - -- Stockbridge, ii. 249 - - -- Thame, i. 160 - - -- Yarmouth, i. 207, ii. 114 - - - Labour in Vain, Stourbridge, ii. 199 - - Lamb, Eastbourne, ii. 57 - - Lawrence, Robert, of the "Lion," Shrewsbury, i. 60, ii. 250 - - Leather Bottle, Cobham, Kent, i. 230 - - -- Holborn, ii. 191 - - Leighton, Archbishop, i. 29 - - Lion, Shrewsbury, i. 60, 297, ii. 250, 274-279 - - Lion and Fiddle, Hilperton, ii. 195 - - Lion and Swan, Congleton, ii. 65-67 - - Living Sign, Grantham, ii. 192 - - Load of Mischief, Oxford Street, ii. 162 - - Locker-Lampson, F., on old inns, i. 58 - - Loggerheads, Llanverris, ii. 168 - - Lord Crewe Arms, Blanchland, i. 136-140 - - Lord Warden, Dover, i. 54 - - Luttrell Arms, Dunster, ii. 37-40 - - Lygon Arms, Broadway, ii. 2-8, 244 - - - Magpie, Little Stonham, ii. 153 - - -- and Stump, Clare Market, i. 242 - - Maiden's Head, Uckfield, ii. 37 - - Maid's Head, Norwich, ii. 40-42 - - Maison Dieu, Dover, i. 88 - - -- Ospringe, i. 84 - - Malt Shovel, Sandwich, ii. 228 - - Man Loaded with Mischief, Oxford Street, ii. 162 - - Marlborough Downs, i. 231-238 - - Marquis of Ailesbury's Arms, Manton, i. 232 - - -- Granby, Dorking, i. 230 - - Maund and Bush, near Shifnal, ii. 199 - - Maypole, Chigwell, i. 277-282 - - Miller of Mansfield, Goring-on-Thames, ii. 177 - - Molly Mog, ii. 271 - - Mompesson, Sir Giles, i. 37-41 - - Mortal Man, Troutbeck, ii. 169 - - Morison, Fynes, on English inns, i. 36 - - Music House, Norwich, i. 157 - - - Nag's Head, Thame, i. 160 - - Neptune, Ipswich, ii. 110 - - Newhaven Inn, near Buxton, ii. 255 - - New Inn, Allerton, ii. 80 - - -- Gloucester, i. 98-106 - - -- Greta Bridge, i. 268 - - -- New Romney, ii. 44 - - -- Sherborne, i. 106 - - Newby Head, near Hawes, ii. 149 - - Noah's Ark, Compton, i. 90 - - Nutley Inn, ii. 36 - - - Old Angel, Basingstoke, ii. 279 - - -- Bell, Holborn, i. 30 - - -- -- Chester, ii. 78 - - -- Black Jack, Clare Market, i. 242-244 - - -- Fox, Bricket Wood, ii. 201 - - -- Hall, Sandbach, ii. 58-62 - - -- House at Home, Havant, ii. 220 - - -- King's Head, Aylesbury, i. 141-143, ii. 38 - - -- -- Chester, ii. 77 - - -- Leather Bottle, Cobham, Kent, i. 230 - - -- Magpies, Sipson Green, i. 317 - - -- Rock House, Barton, ii. 196 - - -- Rover's Return, Manchester, i. 7 - - -- Royal Hotel, Birmingham, i. 258, ii. 268 - - -- Ship, Worksop, ii. 226 - - -- Star, York, ii. 158 - - -- Swan, Atherstone, ii. 227 - - -- Tippling Philosopher, Chepstow, ii. 203 - - -- White Swan, Piff's Elm, i. 202-205 - - Osborne's Hotel, Adelphi, i. 212, 264 - - Ostrich, Colnbrook, i. 188-201 - - - Pack Horse and Talbot, Turnham Green, ii. 192 - - Peacock, Eatanswill, i. 230 - - -- Rowsley, ii. 25-29 - - Pelican, Speenhamland, i. 208, ii. 293 - - Penygwryd Hotel, Llanberis, ii. 294-298 - - Pheasant, Winterslow Hut, ii. 102 - - Pickering Arms, Thelwall, ii. 71 - - Pie, Little Stonham, ii. 153 - - Pied Bull, Chester, ii. 78 - - _Piers Plowman_, i. 16-18 - - Piff's Elm, i. 202-205 - - Pilgrims' Hostel, Battle, i. 97 - - -- Compton, i. 90 - - Plough, Blundeston, i. 290 - - -- Ford, ii. 136 - - Pomfret Arms, Towcester, i. 259-263 - - Pounds Bridge, near Penshurst, ii. 220 - - - Queen's Arms, Charmouth, i. 180 - - -- Head, Hesket Newmarket, i. 299 - - -- Hotel, St. Martin's-le-Grand, i. 229 - - -- Burton-on-Trent, ii. 114 - - - Raven, Hook, ii. 86 - - -- Shrewsbury, i. 42, 60 - - Red Bull, Stamford, ii. 158 - - Red Horse, Stratford-on-Avon, ii. 47, 269-271 - - Red Lion, Banbury, i. 146 - - -- Canterbury, i. 51 - - -- Chiswick Mall, ii. 123-125 - - -- Egham, ii. 53-56 - - -- Glastonbury, i. 116 - - -- Great Missenden, ii. 198 - - -- Guildford, ii. 262 - - -- Hampton-on-Thames, ii. 159 - - -- Hatfield, ii. 55 - - -- Henley-on-Thames, ii. 299-301 - - -- High Wycombe, i. 184 - - -- Hillingdon, i. 169 - - -- Martlesham, ii. 113, 165 - - -- Ospringe, i. 84 - - -- Parliament Street, i. 265, 290 - - Reindeer, Banbury, i. 145, 147-155, 169 - - Ridler's Hotel, Holborn, i. 31 - - Robin Hood, Turnham Green, ii. 131 - - -- Cherry Hinton, ii. 131 - - Rose, Wokingham, ii. 271 - - Rose and Crown, Halifax, ii. 273 - - -- Rickmansworth, ii. 215 - - Rover's Return, Shudehill, Manchester, i. 7 - - Row Barge, Wallingford, ii. 178 - - Royal County Hotel, Durham, ii. 55 - - Royal George, Knutsford, ii. 279 - - -- Stroud, ii. 82 - - Royal Hotel, Bath, i. 255 - - -- Bideford, ii. 273 - - Royal Oak, Bettws-y-Coed, ii. 172-175 - - Rummyng, Elynor, i. 19-24 - - Running Footman, Hay Hill, i. 255, ii. 193 - - Running Horse, Leatherhead, i. 18-25 - - -- Merrow, ii. 233 - - - Salutation, Ambleside, ii. 292 - - Saracen's Head, Bath, i. 266 - - -- Southwell, i. 172-180 - - -- Towcester, i. 259-263 - - Serjeant's Inn Coffee House, i. 255 - - Seven Stars, Manchester, i. 6, 8-12 - - Shakespeare's Head, near Chipping Norton, ii. 100-106 - - Shears, Wantage, ii. 202 - - Shepherd's Shore, Marlborough Downs, i. 232-237 - - Ship and Lobster, Denton, near Gravesend, i. 296 - - -- Afloat, Bridgwater, ii. 203 - - -- Aground, ii. 203 - - Ship, Brixham, ii. 139 - - -- Dover, i. 54 - - Smiling Man, Dudley, ii. 203 - - Smoker, Plumbley, ii. 179 - - Soldier's Fortune, Kidderminster, ii. 136 - - Sondes Arms, Rockingham, i. 290 - - Spaniards, Hampstead Heath, i. 256, 320-327 - - Star, Alfriston, i. 93-97, ii. 165 - - -- Lewes, ii. 37 - - -- Yarmouth, ii. 42-44, 273 - - Stocks, Clapgate, ii. 202 - - Stonham Pie, Little Stonham, ii. 153 - - Sugar Loaves, Sible Hedingham, ii. 195 - - Sun, Canterbury, i. 292 - - -- Cirencester, i. 180 - - -- Dedham, ii. 225 - - -- Northallerton, ii. 248 - - Sunrising Inn, Edge Hill, ii. 299 - - Swan and Bottle, Uxbridge, i. 165 - - -- Charing, ii. 188 - - -- Ferrybridge, ii. 81, 83 - - -- Fittleworth, ii. 159, 183 - - -- Haslemere, ii. 242 - - -- Kirkby Moorside, ii. 267 - - -- Knowle, ii. 231-233 - - -- near Newbury, ii. 216 - - -- Preston Crowmarsh, ii. 179 - - -- Rickmansworth, ii. 214 - - -- Sandleford, ii. 217 - - -- Tewkesbury, ii. 288 - - -- Thames Ditton, ii. 292 - - -- Town Malling, i. 226 - - -- with Two Necks, Gresham Street, i. 54-56 - - - Tabard, Southwark, i. 77-79 - - Talbot, Atcham, ii. 80 - - -- Cuckfield, ii. 81 - - -- Newark, i. 308 - - -- Ripley, ii. 213 - - -- Shrewsbury, ii. 80 - - -- Southwark, i. 79 - - -- Towcester, ii. 115, 243 - - Tan Hill Inn, Swaledale, near Brough, ii. 145 - - Tankard, Ipswich, ii. 110 - - Thorn, Appleton, ii. 138 - - Three Cats, Sevenoaks, ii. 191 - - -- Cocks, near Hay, ii. 47 - - -- Crosses, Willoughby, ii. 303 - - -- Crowns, Chagford, i. 170-172 - - -- Horseshoes, Great Mongeham, ii. 197 - - -- Houses, Sandal, i. 308 - - -- Jolly Bargemen, Cooling, i. 295 - - -- Magpies, Sipson Green, i. 317 - - -- Queens, Burton-on-Trent, ii. 114 - - -- Tuns, Bideford, ii. 110 - - Town Arms, Eatanswill, i. 230 - - Traveller's Rest, Flash Bar, ii. 148 - - -- Kirkstone Pass, ii. 148 - - Treaty House, Uxbridge, i. 161-169 - - Trevelyan Arms, Barnstaple, ii. 40, 110 - - Trip to Jerusalem, Nottingham, ii. 134 - - Trouble House, near Tetbury, ii. 203 - - Turnspit Dogs, i. 48-51 - - Turpin's Cave, Epping Forest, i. 310 - - - Uncle Tom's Cabin, Bluepitts, near Rochdale, ii. 197 - - Unicorn, Bowes, i. 269 - - -- Ripon, ii. 121 - - - Verulam Arms, St. Albans, ii. 79 - - Vine, Mile-End, ii. 259 - - _Vision of Piers Plowman_, i. 16-18 - - Visitors' Books, ii. 291-308 - - - Waggon and Horses, Beckhampton, i. 233, 237 - - Wellington, Broadstairs, ii. 47 - - -- Market Place, Manchester, i. 7 - - -- Rushyford Bridge, i. 60 - - -- Tewkesbury, ii. 287 - - Whetstone, Chiswick Mall, ii. 124 - - White Bear, Fickles Hole, ii. 203 - - -- and Whetstone, Chiswick Mall, ii. 123-125 - - -- Bull, Ribchester, ii. 119-121 - - White Hart, Adwalton, ii. 255 - - -- Aylesbury, i. 62-67, 140 - - -- Bath, i. 254 - - -- Castle Combe, ii. 234 - - -- Drighlington, ii. 255 - - -- Eatanswill, i. 230 - - -- Glastonbury, i. 112 - - -- Godstone, ii. 30-34 - - -- Guildford, ii. 55 - - -- Hackney Marshes, ii. 257-259 - - -- Scole, ii. 150 - - -- Somerton, i. 185-187 - - -- Southwark, i. 226-228 - - -- Whitchurch, Hants, ii. 280 - - -- Widcombe, i. 254 - - -- Yard, Gray's Inn Road, ii. 106 - - White Horse, Eaton Socon, i. 267 - - -- Fetter Lane, i. 31, 219 - - -- Maiden Newton, ii. 289 - - -- Shere, ii. 241 - - -- Woolstone, ii. 211 - - White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, i. 253 - - White House, Hackney Marshes, ii. 259 - - White Lion, Maidstone, i. 226 - - White Swan, Henley-in-Arden, ii. 300 - - Who'd Have Thought It, Barking, ii. 204 - - Why Not, Dover, ii. 204 - - Widow's Son, Bromley-by-Bow, ii. 125-127 - - Windmill, North Cheriton, ii. 89-91 - - -- Salt Hill, i. 60 - - -- Tabley, ii. 179 - - Winterslow Hut, near Salisbury, ii. 102 - - Wizard, Alderley Edge, ii. 65-69 - - Wood's Hotel, Furnival's Inn, i. 31 - - World Turned Upside Down, Old Kent Road, ii. 204 - - -- near Three Mile Cross, ii. 204 - - Wright's, Rochester, i. 223-225 - - - Yacht, Chester, ii. 77, 304 - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Woman-shoemaker. - -[2] Warrener. - -[3] Needler: maker of needles. - -[4] Ditcher. - -[5] Bald. - -[6] Fiddler. - -[7] Ratter. - -[8] A mounted servant of a knight. - -[9] Welshman. - -[10] This is an ancient parallel with - - "Who comes there?" - "Grenadier." - "What d'ye want?" - "Pot o' beer." - "Where's yer money?" - "Haven't got." - "Get away, you drunken sot!" - -[11] A large hotel was also built outside Slough Station, eighteen miles -from Paddington, for weary and hungry travellers. Such were the quaint -ideas of the early railway directors, who could not forget the -necessities, the usages and customs of the coaching age, when inns at -short stages were indispensable. The hotel at Slough was from the first a -failure, and the building has long been an orphanage. - -[12] Another landlord of the "Tabard"--William Rutter, represented East -Grinstead in Parliament, 1529-1536. - -[13] Vol. II., p. 348. - -[14] For example, the Rev. Dr. Thackeray, late Chaplain of the Hackney -Union, licensee and active publican of the "Fish and Eels" at Roydon. - -[15] Cf. a lengthy description of the origin of the place-name "Shepherd's -Bush" in the West of London: _The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven -Road_, vol. i. pp. 55-57. Also compare the still-existent -"shepherd's-bush" thorn-trees on West Winch Common, Norfolk. - -[16] For further particulars respecting the "Bull," see _The Norwich -Road_, pp. 19-28, and _Stage-coach and Mail in Days of Yore_, vol. i., p. -324; vol. ii., pp. 227, 232-5, 343. - -[17] A newer extension, built in recent years, makes a fourth. - -[18] _The Dickens Country._ By F. G. Kitton, p. 167. - -[19] Within the last few months the lower part of the house has been -converted into a dairy, but the part described by Dickens remains -unaltered. - - - - -Transcriber's Notes: - -Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. - -Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. - -The original text includes a diamond symbol that is represented as -[Diamond] in this text version. - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Inns of Old England, Volume I -(of 2), by Charles G. 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