Stilton lies some three miles ahead, and, two miles before reaching it, the old “Crown and Woolpack,” a very large red-brick posting-house, part of it still occupied as an inn, the rest used as cottages, while the stables are given over to spiders and lumber.
Passing this, the road presently begins to rise gently, and then, level again, widens out to almost treble its usual width, where a long street of mingled old houses and cottages, a medley of stone, brick, and plaster, stands, strangely silent. This is Stilton, dreaming of bygone busy times. Had the railway touched here, things would have worn a very different aspect at Stilton to-day. Let us, therefore, thank the shades of that Marquis of Exeter, and of the others who resisted the railway, and by causing it to describe a wide loop instead of hugging the road, unwittingly contributed to the preservation in a glass case, as it were, of this old coaching centre.
Night and day the coaches kept Stilton awake, and if for a few minutes there was no coach, the post-chaises at one end of the social scale, and the fly-wagons at the other, kept the inns busy. Stilton buzzed with activity then. From the far North came the drovers, doing twenty miles a day, with their sheep and cattle, their pigs and geese; animal creation marching, martyrs in their sort, to Smithfield. At Stilton they shod the cattle, like horses, and one blacksmith’s business here consisted of nothing else than this.
The glory of Stilton has departed, and the “Bell” and the “Angel” face one another, dolefully wondering in what channels the tide of business now flows. The “Bell” is more racy of the soil than the “Angel,” just as it is also much older. We are here in a stone district, and the “Bell” is a building of that warm yellowish stone characteristic of these parts. Built at the very beginning of the seventeenth century, it was already of a respectable age when the brick “Angel” opposite began to rise from its foundations. The older house is the feature of Stilton, its great sign, with the mazy quirks and curls of its wrought-iron supports, projecting far out towards the road, and arresting the eye on first entering the street. The sign itself is painted on copper, for the sake of lightness, but has long been supported by a crutch, in the shape of a post. With this ornamental iron-work, incomparably the finest sign on the road, it was in the old days the subject of many wagers made by coachmen and guards with unwary strangers who did not, like those artful ones, know its measurements. It measures in fact 6 ft. 2¾ inches in height.
The old “Talbot” inn still has its coach gallery, or balcony, in front.
The “Angel,” in the best days of posting, became the principal house at Stilton, and the little public-house of that name next door to the commanding brick building which is now a private residence was only the tap of the hotel. But the “Bell,” that has seen the beginning and the end of the “Angel,” still survives, with memories of the days when the delicacy which renders the name of Stilton world-famous had its origin. Allusion is hereby made—need one explain it?—to “Stilton” cheese. They say those old stagers who knew it when its local reputation first began to be dispersed throughout the country—that Stilton cheese is not what it was. What is? The “English Parmesan,” they called it then, when their palates first became acquainted with it, but it deserved better of them than that. It was a species of itself, and not justly comparable with aught else. But Stilton cheese is not, nor ever was, made at Stilton, or anywhere near it. It originated with Mrs. Paulet of Wymondham, near Melton Mowbray, who first supplied it to Cooper Thornhill, the once celebrated landlord of the “Bell,” for the use of the table provided for the coach passengers and other travellers who dined there. Mrs. Paulet’s cheeses immediately struck connoisseurs as a revelation, and they came into demand, not only on Thornhill’s table, but were eagerly purchased for themselves or friends by those who travelled this way. Thornhill was too business-like a man to give away the secret of the make, and he did very well for himself, charging as he did half-a-crown a pound. Then the almost equally famous Miss Worthington, of the “Angel,” began to supply “Stilton” cheeses, so that scarce any one came through the place but was asked to buy one. Nor did travellers usually wait to be asked. If it happened that they did not want any for themselves, they were usually charged by friends with commissions to purchase as they passed through. Smiling waiters and maidservants, Miss Worthington herself, rosy, plump, benevolent-looking, asked travellers if they would not like to take away with them a real Stilton cheese. Miss Worthington, the kindly, whose lavender-scented beds were famed along the whole length of the Great North Road—there she stood, declaring that they were real Stilton cheeses! Nor were travellers for a long while any the wiser. Stilton folks kept the secret well. But it gradually leaked out. A native of those parts, too, was the traitor. “Pray, sir, would you like a nice Stilton cheese to take away with you?” asked the unsuspecting landlady, as the coach on whose outside he was seated drew up.
“Do you say they are made at Stilton?” he asked in reply.
“Oh, yes,” said she.
Then came the crushing rejoinder. “Why, Miss Worthington, you know perfectly well that no Stilton cheese was ever made at Stilton; they’re all made in Leicestershire, and as you say your cheeses are made at Stilton, they cannot be good, and I won’t have one.” The secret was then, of course, exploded.