Goldsmith’s description of a village inn is probably as applicable to the old Saxon eala-hus of a thousand years ago as it was to the alehouse of his own time, and as it is to many in the present day:—
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired, Where grey-beard mirth and smiling toil retired; Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news, much older than the Ale, went round. Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour’s importance to a poor man’s heart,
and the following descriptive verses of Leigh Hunt, entitled The Village Alehouse, a Picture in Detail, with but slight alterations, would serve equally as well:—
Dear ramblers all—an Alehouse sign You’ll own as good a sight as greets ye; When summer’s long, long mornings shine, Where leisure reigns, and ‘All hail’ meets ye.
There rests the waggon in its track,— A corn bag round each horse’s nose is; There comes the miller and his sack: And there at ease the beggar dozes.
There limps the ostler with his pails, And there the landlord stalks inspector; Two farmers there discuss their sales, And drain by turns one goblet’s nectar.
Hay ricks are near and orchard fruit; The cock’s shrill crow and flapping wing; The low contented neigh of brute; The pipe’s perfume, and tankard’s ding.
The fiddle’s scrape,—the milking cows,— The snapping cork,—the roaring joke:— The birds by thousands in the boughs:— The creaking wheel and whip’s loud stroke. {187}
Sunshine strews all the kitchen floor, Reposes on the home-field crop— Blisters the Doctor’s fine new door, And kisses copse and chimney top.
Clouds fleecy dot the blue immense— Farm-houses—cities—vales—and streams— And seats and parks and forests dense, Sleep stretch’d afar, in floods of beams.