But in provincial towns the coaching inn is not quite left desolate; it is the place of departure and arrival for the carrier’s van. One need only search any local directory to discover the enormous number of these conveyances and the various inns from which they start. The rustic still prefers this method of travel to any other, and if the tourist is not in a hurry the box seat of a carrier’s cart is the ideal place from which to study rural affairs. The carrier knows everybody in the district and he is often a dry kind of philosopher, if not an archæologist or naturalist. Win his heart and he will divulge unexpected secrets, besides securing for you the most comfortable night’s lodging. His recommendation will prove a passport admitting into every grade of village society.
When the world proves unkind, when the loneliness and disappointments of life press hard upon you—if Fortune has dealt you a humiliating rebuff—then, if you have a few shillings left, one night spent in an old wayside coaching inn will brace your system up and give you heart to face your troubles once more with a new courage. The world you have left may have despised you. Within the walls of this old hostelry, landlord, waiter, chambermaid, exist only to obey your lightest whim. You are the luminary round which this little world revolves—the “gentleman in the parlour.” As Washington Irving so well puts it: “To a homeless man there is a momentary feeling of independence as he stretches himself before an inn fire; the armchair is his throne, the poker is his sceptre, and the little parlour his undisputed empire.” If you condescend to join the company in the tap-room, still further honour awaits you. Your pronouncements on things temporal or things eternal have acquired an acknowledged value; your opinion is invited and universally deferred to; and the oldest inhabitant will for your special benefit invent a new series of reminiscences. In short, you will feel the truth of all that Dr. Johnson has laid down on the subject: “At a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospects of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, sir; there is nothing which has been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.”
The White Hart, Witham
A few minutes’ gossip with the landlord after closing time, and you sink to rest in the depth of a feather bed, which removes the last vestiges of the care that has beset you. Early in the morning you rise refreshed and vigorous, ready after a walk round the old-fashioned garden to devour unlimited supplies of ham and eggs washed down by coffee. It is only in real old coaching inns that they possess the secret of brewing old English coffee—a beverage that owes nothing to the poisonous intoxicating berry of Arabia, discovered by the brothers Shirley. We believe it is manufactured by roasting and grinding some species of scarlet runner. As a breakfast drink it is unequalled. This coffee is the last of a series of exhilarating experiences before you go your way rejoicing and awake to all the graces of life. The bill will not be exorbitant—that is, if you have been reasonable in your demands—and the landlord contemplates with pleasure your return on a future occasion.
We love the coaching inn, not only as the home of practical good cheer, but for the romantic memories that cling to it. Scarcely one of them but has its story of the eloping couple, whose chaise slipped out at the back gate just as the heroine’s father alighted to make inquiries at the front door; the details vary, but the lovers always escape in the nick of time with the connivance of Boniface. In a corner of the gallery of one old inn near Huntingdon, a narrow door is shown, fitting so exactly that when closed no person except those in the secret could trace it. Here some Dick Turpin or Claude Duval might lie in wait and peep over the balcony to choose his prey among the passengers stopping for the night; or find safe hiding from the Bow Street runners. Romance easily gathered around the journey by coach. Whereas a railway acquaintance ends when the passengers each go his or her own way from the arrival platform, the companions on the coach-top met again in the coffee-room, and might renew their intimacy at breakfast next morning. Between London and York there was ample time and opportunity for any suitable young couple to arrive at a good understanding with one another.
None of the coaching inns had a more remarkable history than the Castle Inn at Marlborough. Built by Francis, Lord Seymour, in the reign of Charles II from the reputed designs of Webb, Inigo Jones’ pupil and son-in-law, this sumptuous manor-house was the favourite residence of the Seymour family. During its occupation by Frances, Countess of Hertford, and afterwards Duchess of Somerset, in the early years of the eighteenth century, many of the leading wits and scholars of the age were invited here. Dr. Watts, the hymn-writer, James Thomson, author of “The Seasons,” and Elizabeth Rowe are all said to have composed their lays in the grottoes and extravagantly-arranged gardens. When the house passed by marriage into the hands of the Northumberland family it was neglected as a superfluous residence, and at last was let on lease as an inn to a Mr. Cotterell. It was a broad-fronted stately mansion, the most splendid and best appointed hotel in England during that age. Before the grand portico no less than forty coaches changed horses every day. The service was magnificent. A dinner of twenty-two covers could, if necessary, be served up on silver.
The great Lord Chatham once stayed several weeks at the Castle Inn. He was detained there on his way back to London from Bath, by a relapse of gout. His own suite demanded twenty rooms, and the exigencies of State during that time strained the resources of the hotel to the utmost. He required the whole staff, waiters, ostlers and boot-boys to wear his livery. Mr. Stanley Weyman has seized on just this critical moment, and has woven round the Castle Inn the sweetest and most enthralling of his many novels.
Other romances of real life are associated with it. Driving through Marlborough and halting at the Castle Inn, a certain Duke of Chandos heard screams in the inn-yard. Hastening to the spot he found a beautiful girl being brutally beaten by an ostler. When the Duke interfered, the ostler declared that the young woman was his wife, and therefore that he had an indefeasible right to beat her. However, he was willing to compromise the matter by selling his wife for £20. The Duke paid the money, took the young woman away, and, so we are told, afterwards made her Duchess of Chandos.
