Dotheboys Hall, Squeers’s academy, has been identified as being at Bowes, and at the Unicorn Inn there Dickens is said to have met Shaw, the original of Squeers. It was Squeers’s custom, we are told, “to drive over to the market town every evening, on pretence of urgent business, and stop till ten or eleven o’clock at a tavern he much affected,” and no doubt it was to the Unicorn that he repaired.
This ancient inn stands midway in the village and was at that time the most important inn between York and Carlisle. A dozen or more coaches changed every day in its yard, which was, and still is, with its abundant stabling, one of the largest of the ancient road-side hostelries surviving the old coaching days. It is still unspoiled, and we believe remains much the same as when Dickens and Phiz drew up there and partook of a substantial lunch, and ultimately interviewed the veritable Mr. Shaw, Squeers’s prototype.
The next inn carries us a good way into the story and brings us in company with Nicholas and Smike on their tramp to Portsmouth. Chapter XXII of the book describes how these two, having deserted Squeers, sally forth to seek their fortune at the naval port. On the first evening they arrived at Godalming, where they bargained for two beds and slept soundly in them. On the second day, they reached the Devil’s Punch Bowl, at Hindhead, and Nicholas, having read to Smike the inscription upon the stone, together they passed on with steady purpose until they were within twelve miles of Portsmouth, just beyond Petersfield. Here they turned off the path to the door of a road-side inn, where they learned from the landlord that it was not only “twelve long miles” to their destination, but a very bad road. Following the advice of the innkeeper Nicholas decided to stay where he was for the night, and was led into the kitchen. Asked what they would have for supper “Nicholas suggested cold meat, but there was no cold meat—poached eggs, but there were no eggs—mutton chops, but there wasn’t a mutton chop within three miles, though there had been more last week than they knew what to do with, and would be an extraordinary supply the day after to-morrow.” Nicholas determined to leave the decision entirely to the landlord, who rejoined: “There’s a gentleman in the parlour that’s ordered a hot beefsteak pudding and potatoes at nine. There’s more of it than he can manage, and I have very little doubt that, if I ask leave, you can sup with him. I’ll do that in a minute.” In spite of Nicholas’s disinclination to consent to do any such thing, the landlord hurried off and in a few minutes Nicholas was shown into the presence of Mr. Vincent Crummles, who was rehearsing his two sons in “what is called in play-bills a terrific combat” with broadswords.
After the rehearsal was finished Nicholas and Crummles drew round the fire and the conversation revealed the latter’s profession and business. The appearance of the beefsteak pudding put a stop to the discussion for the time being; but after Smike and the two young Crummleses had retired for the night Nicholas and Mr. Vincent Crummles continued their conversation over a bowl of punch, which sent forth “a most grateful and inviting fragrance.” Under the influence of this stimulant Mr. Vincent Crummles proposed that Nicholas should join his theatrical company.
“There’s genteel comedy in your walk and manner, juvenile tragedy in your eye, and touch-and-go farce in your laugh,” said Mr. Vincent Crummles. “You’ll do as well as if you had thought of nothing else but the lamps from your birth downwards.” After further flattery and persuasiveness, Nicholas agreed to try, and without more deliberation declared it was a bargain and gave Mr. Vincent Crummles his hand upon it.
Next morning they all continued their journey to Portsmouth in Mr. Vincent Crummles’s “four-wheeled phaeton” drawn by his famous pony.
Dickens does not name the inn in which this incident took place, and beyond stating it was twelve miles from Portsmouth gives no other indication helpful in identifying it.
THE BOTTOM INN, NEAR PETERSFIELD
Drawn by C. G. Harper
Mr. Charles G. Harper however says from Dickens’s very accurate description there can be no question as to the identical spot the novelist had in mind, which is just below Petersfield. There is an inn, the Coach and Horses, standing by the wayside to-day, but according to Mr. Harper it did not exist at the time of the story, so that the inn to which Dickens referred was the Bottom Inn, or Gravel Hill Inn, as it was sometimes called, which stood there in those days, and exists to-day as a gamekeeper’s cottage.