An Inn of Times gone by - A First-rate Publican - Hay and Corn - Old-fashioned Ostler - Highwaymen - Mounted Police -Grooming.
THE inn, of which I had become an inhabitant, was a place of infinite life and bustle.Travellers of all descriptions, from all the cardinal points, were continually stopping at it; and to attend to their wants, and minister to their convenience, an army of servants, of one description or other, was kept; waiters, chambermaids, grooms, postillions, shoe-blacks, cooks, scullions, and what not, for there was a barber and hair-dresser, who had been at Paris, and talked French with a cockney accent; the French sounding all the better, as no accent is so melodious as the cockney.Jacks creaked in the kitchens turning round spits, on which large joints of meat piped and smoked before great big fires.
There was running up and down stairs, and along galleries, slamming of doors, cries of "Coming, sir," and "Please to step this way, ma'am," during eighteen hours of the four-and-twenty.Truly a very great place for life and bustle was this inn.And often in after life, when lonely and melancholy, I have called up the time I spent there, and never failed to become cheerful from the recollection.
I found the master of the house a very kind and civil person.
Before being an inn-keeper he had been in some other line of business; but on the death of the former proprietor of the inn had married his widow, who was still alive, but, being somewhat infirm, lived in a retired part of the house.Ihave said that he was kind and civil; he was, however, not one of those people who suffer themselves to be made fools of by anybody; he knew his customers, and had a calm, clear eye, which would look through a man without seeming to do so.The accommodation of his house was of the very best description;his wines were good, his viands equally so, and his charges not immoderate; though he very properly took care of himself.
He was no vulgar inn-keeper, had a host of friends, and deserved them all.During the time I lived with him, he was presented by a large assemblage of his friends and customers with a dinner at his own house, which was very costly, and at which the best of wines were sported, and after the dinner with a piece of plate estimated at fifty guineas.He received the plate, made a neat speech of thanks, and when the bill was called for, made another neat speech, in which he refused to receive one farthing for the entertainment, ordering in at the same time two dozen more of the best champagne, and sitting down amidst uproarious applause, and cries of "You shall be no loser by it!" Nothing very wonderful in such conduct, some people will say; I don't say there is, nor have I any intention to endeavour to persuade the reader that the landlord was a Carlo Boromeo; he merely gave a quid pro quo; but it is not every person who will give you a quid pro quo.Had he been a vulgar publican, he would have sent in a swinging bill after receiving the plate; "but then no vulgar publican would have been presented with plate;" perhaps not, but many a vulgar public character has been presented with plate, whose admirers never received a quid pro quo, except in the shape of a swinging bill.
