From this inn, and under the guidance of the landlord, the two idle apprentices mounted Carrock—with what disastrous effects to Mr. Idle on the way down, readers of the story well know.
On again reaching the inn, under uncomfortable circumstances, they remained only a few hours, and continued the tour to Wigton in a covered carriage. Here, Mr. Idle was “melodramatically carried to the inn’s first floor and laid upon three chairs.” The King’s Arms is said to be the Wigton inn referred to, but no details are given of it in the book.
Their next halting place was Allonby, where they put up at the Ship. Thomas Idle, we are informed, “made a crab-like progress up a clean little bulk-headed staircase, into a clean little bulk-headed room, where he slowly deposited himself on a sofa, with a stick on either hand of him, looking exceedingly grim,” and both partook of dinner. The little inn is described as delightful, “excellently kept by the most comfortable of landladies and the most attentive of landlords.” It still exists, and, “as a family and commercial hotel and posting-house commanding extensive views of the Solway Firth and the Scottish Hills,” is apparently little altered since Dickens and Collins visited it. Its Dickensian associations are cherished by the owner to-day, who shows with pride the room occupied by the two literary giants.
After their visit to Lancaster, already referred to, the two idle apprentices went on to Doncaster, and arrived there in the St. Leger Race week. They put up at the Angel Hotel, where they had secured rooms, which Dickens described as “very good, clean and quiet apartments on the second floor, looking down into the main street.” His own room was “airy and clean, little dressing-room attached, eight water-jugs ... capital sponge bath, perfect arrangement, exquisite neatness.”
Doncaster during the race week is described as a collection of mad people under the charge of a body of designing keepers, horse-mad, betting-mad, vice-mad. But the two novelists managed to find it enticing enough to remain there a week.
The Angel Hotel was often called the Royal because Queen Victoria stayed there in 1851. It was built in 1810, has always been a celebrated hotel, and was a busy coaching-inn in those days. It remains much as it was when Thomas Idle lay in the room for a week with his bad ankle and his friend Francis Goodchild went roaming around the city with his usual observant eyes.
CHAPTER XIV
Sketches by Boz and The Uncommercial Traveller