A DEVONSHIRE INN
To enter a strange town on foot and unencumbered—leaving one's bag at the station or sending it on in advance—is a prudent course, for it liberates the traveller to select his inn at his ease. A man carrying luggage is not free; the bag in a way pledges him, at any rate proclaims the fact that he is a traveller and will probably need a bed, and makes it the more difficult for him to extricate himself from the hostel that within doors has failed to come up to the promise of the exterior—as too often is the hostel's habit.
All unburdened, then, I entered Kingsbridge at lunch-time at the top of its steep main street, and as I walked down it I cast my glances this side and that to see which inn seemed most promising. The woman who, at Yealmpton, had given me some bread and cheese, had named the "Anchor" as the best. A man who had beaten me at billiards at Devonport had mentioned another; and, left to myself, I found myself more taken by the façade of a third.
I did, however, nothing rash; I looked carefully at all, and then I entered the one with the agreeable façade and asked for lunch.
Never have I done a wiser thing.
It is odd how trifling are the determining factors in some of the most momentous decisions that face us in life. Here was I alone, and tired, and in a strange part of the country, with the necessity before me of finding "a home from home" for three or four days, and yet, even without entering any of the other inns, I agreed to stay in this one. And why? Well, a little because the landlord (a big, strong, leisurely man with a white beard and a massive head), who himself did the waiting, was pleasant and attentive, and a little because his daughter, who had charge of the bar, was attentive and pleasant. But the real reason was pickled onions. Such was the excellence of these divine roots that I let everything else go. Nights might be bad, but lunches and dinners would be good: for were there not these onions, pickled according to a recipe of the host's mother, now with God, in her day famous for the best ways of preserving and curing and, indeed, of doing everything that a good housewife should? The enthusiasm displayed by this patriarchal Boniface for his mother was perfectly charming, its novelty being part of its charm. Very big landlords with white beards and footfalls that shake the house do not, as a rule, talk about their mothers at all. Should they, through strange martial vicissitudes, come, as this one had done, to wait at table, they wait and go. But this one hovered, and talked reverently of his mother's household genius, giving me the while such delicious proofs of it that I could not have torn myself away.
To those exquisite esculents I shall be eternally grateful, for they brought me into knowledge of one of the most interesting of inns. It is a survival; indeed, to my great satisfaction, the word "posting" occurred in my bill, for a journey by wagonette to a distant village was thus ennobled. The stables are immense, and contained one horse. The coach-house is immense, and contained seventeen carriages of various kinds, from omnibus to dogcart, but chiefly broughams, all in a state of mouldiness. Coming by degrees to be recognised as a member of the little family which, by ceaseless activity, ran this unwieldy place—father, daughter, a superb cook, a maid-servant, and an ostler—I was free to wander as I would, and exploring the various floors and passages I came upon a billiard table whose cushions belonged to the Stone Age, and an assembly-room with a musicians' gallery. In the kitchen I watched at her mysteries the admirable lady who cooked and carried on the noble traditions of the landlord's mother as set forth in a manuscript book in her own hand. In the bar parlour I watched the landlord, according to the new regulations, water down his spirits, and heard instalments of his long life, spent wholly, in this "house" and that, in ministering to the wants of his fellow-creatures—tired, or hungry, or thirsty, but chiefly thirsty. Then later in the evening the little cosy room would fill, and I would quietly take my place as one of the best listeners that its habitués had ever talked to. Listening is an old accomplishment of mine, and here, amid the friendliest of strangers, I gave it full play; and you would be surprised to know how much I know of Kingsbridge life. Probably their surprise would be even greater.
And still I have not really begun to describe this most alluring inn. In the cellar, for example, there was some '47 port....