Chapter XXXI, stopped to dine, when out for a walk whilst on a visit to

Yarmouth.

But let us return to David on the coach waiting to start for Salem House,

Blackheath, via London. Having suffered a good deal of chaff from the

maids and others over the huge dinner he was supposed to have eaten, the

coach started on its journey, during which the jokes about his appetite

continued. He reached his destination at last, having approached London

"by degrees, and got, in due time, to the inn in the Whitechapel

district," he says, "for which we were bound. I forget whether it was the

Blue Bull or the Blue Boar; but I know it was the Blue Something, and that

its likeness was painted up on the back of the coach." Here, more solitary

than Robinson Crusoe, he went into the booking-office, and, "by invitation

of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and sat down on the scale

at which they weighed the luggage." Thus he waited until called for by Mr.

Mell, when the clerk "slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over to

him, as if I were weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for."

This inn was the Blue Boar, an old coaching inn long demolished, where the

daily coach from Yarmouth made its halting place. There is still a relic

of it in the shape of a sculptured effigy of a boar, with gilded tusks and

hoofs, built into the wall of a tobacco factory marking the site of the

inn.

In Chapter XI of the book, describing David's start in life on his own

account, there are one or two inns and taverns mentioned where he partook

of meals and other refreshment. He tells us he had "a plate of bread and

cheese and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our

place of business, called the Lion, or the Lion and something else that I

have forgotten." This has not definitely been identified, but may have

been the White Swan at Hungerford Stairs, referred to later. On another

occasion he went into a public-house one hot evening and said to the

landlord, "What is your best--your _very best_--ale a glass?"

"Twopence-halfpenny is the price of the Genuine Stunning ale," was the

reply. "Then," says I, producing the money, "just draw me a glass of the

Genuine Stunning, if you please, with a good head to it." Having served

him, the landlord invited his wife to join him in surveying the little

customer and "the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door of the

bar, and bending down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was

half-admiring and half-compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am

sure."

This incident actually occurred to Dickens himself when a lad in the

blacking factory, for he has admitted it to be so, in his own words,

recorded in Forster's "Life," Book 1, Chapter XI. He there states that on

the occasion in question he "went into a public-house in Parliament

Street, which is still there, though altered, at the corner of the short

street leading into Cannon Row." The public-house where it took place was

the Red Lion at 48 Parliament Street, and is situated at the corner of

Derby Street. There is a Red Lion public-house there to-day--not the same

one Dickens visited--that was demolished in 1899--but on the same spot. It

is more pretentious than the old one, but keeps its red lion rampant as a

sign, and has a bust of the novelist, standing within a niche in the front

of the building as a hall-mark of its Dickensian association.

The "little public-house close to the river, with an open space before it,

where some coal-heavers were dancing," referred to in the same chapter,

was the Fox under the Hill[1] in the Adelphi.

There are two inns in Canterbury associated with the book, the county inn

where Mr. Dick stayed when on his visits to David Copperfield every

alternate Wednesday, and the "little inn" where Mr. Micawber stayed on his

first and subsequent visits to the ancient city.

The county inn was without doubt the Royal Fountain Hotel in St.

Margaret's Street, for it was invariably referred to in the coaching days

as _the_ county inn of the city, in the same manner that David speaks of

it in the seventeenth chapter of David Copperfield, where he tells us that

he "saw Mr. Dick every alternate Wednesday when he arrived by stage-coach

at noon, to stay until next morning.... Mr. Dick was very partial to

gingerbread. To render his visits more agreeable, my aunt had instructed

me to open a credit for him at a cake shop, which was hampered with the

stipulation that he should not be served with more than one shilling's

worth in the course of any one day. This, and the reference of all his

little bills at the county inn where he slept, to my aunt, before they

were paid, induced me to suspect that he was only allowed to rattle his

money, and not to spend it."

On these occasions, Mr. Dick would be constantly in the company of David,

and on the Thursday mornings he would accompany him from the hotel to the

coach office before going back to school. And so the Royal Fountain Hotel

has added to its traditions that of being the hotel where Mr. Dick slept.

Dickens does not describe it in detail, and does not even refer to it

again in the book; but on the 4th of November, 1861, which he describes as

a "windy night," Dickens himself stayed there after giving a reading of

_David Copperfield_ at the theatre. Writing to his daughter Mamie on that

date he says, "a word of report before I go to bed. An excellent house

to-night, and an audience positively perfect. The greatest part of it

stalls, and an intelligent and delightful response in them, like a touch

of a beautiful instrument. 'Copperfield' wound up in a real burst of

feeling and delight."

This letter was headed "Fountain Hotel, Canterbury." Dickens visited the

city again in the summer of 1869, driving there from Gads Hill with some

American friends, and made the Fountain Hotel his halting place, whilst he

and his companions explored the city. They drove into Canterbury just as

the bells of the cathedral were ringing for afternoon service, George

Dolby informs us, and "turned into the by-street in which the Fountain

Hotel is situated, where the carriages and horses were to be put up," and

where the party took tea prior to starting back for home.

"The inns in England are the best in Europe, those in Canterbury are the

best in England, and the Fountain wherein I am now lodged as handsomely as

I were in the King's palace, the best in Canterbury." So wrote the

Ambassador of the Emperor of Germany to his master on the occasion of his

visit to this country to attend the marriage ceremony of Edward the First

to his second Queen, Margaret of France, in Canterbury Cathedral on the

12th of September, 1299.

The Royal Fountain Hotel, as it is now called, is one of the oldest inns

in England; indeed, it is so old as to claim that the wife of Earl Godwin,

when she came to meet her husband on his return from Denmark in the year

1029, stayed there. It also claims to have been the temporary residence of

Archbishop Lanfranc whilst his palace was being built in 1070; and there

is a legend associated with it that the four knights who murdered Thomas à

Becket made it their rendezvous in 1170.

To-day the inn still retains its old-world atmosphere, although certain of

its apartments and appurtenances have been made to conform to modern

requirements. Its passages and stairs are narrow and winding, antique

furniture, brasses, and copper utensils are in great evidence, and the

huge kitchen with its wide fire-place and open chimney still reminds us of

the old days. Upstairs is a spacious room measuring some forty or fifty

feet in length, in the centre of which is one of those priceless tables

made in separate pieces going the whole length of the room, looking, when

we last saw it, with scores of chairs set around it, like a gigantic

elongated board-room table waiting for a meeting to begin. This room is

used for banquets, and often the Mayor holds his official dinners there.

But it would seem that the chief claimants to its use is "The Canterbury

Farmers' Club and East Kent Chamber of Agricultural Commerce," for its

walls are covered with portraits in oils of some of the past presidents,

whilst a long list of them dating from 1855-1919 hangs in a prominent

position.

The "little inn" where Mr. and Mrs. Micawber stayed on the occasion when

they thought it was so advisable that they should see the Medway in the

hope of finding an opening in the coal trade for Mr. Micawber is the Sun

Inn in Sun Street, once the stopping-place for the omnibus which plied

between Canterbury and Herne Bay.

It will be remembered that David was taking tea with the Heeps when

suddenly Mr. Micawber appeared. David, rather apprehensive of what his old

friend might say next, hurried him away by asking, "Shall we go and see

Mrs. Micawber, sir?" and they both sallied forth, Mr. Micawber humming a

tune on the way. "It was a little inn where Mr. Micawber put up, and he

occupied a little room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room,

and strongly flavoured with tobacco smoke. I think it was over the

kitchen, because a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the

chinks of the floor, and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. I

know it was near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and jingling

of glasses. Here, recumbent on a sofa, underneath a picture of a

race-horse, with her head close to the fire and her feet pushing the

mustard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was Mrs.

Micawber."

Undaunted by the fact that his resources were extremely low, Mr. Micawber

pressed David to dine with him, and the repast was accordingly arranged.

David describes it as "a beautiful little dinner. Quite an elegant dish

of fish; the kidney end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat, a

partridge, and a pudding. There was wine and there was strong ale; and

after dinner Mrs. Micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands.

Mr. Micawber was uncommonly convivial.... He got cheerfully sentimental

about the town and proposed success to it, observing that Mrs. Micawber

and himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable.... As the punch

disappeared, Mr. Micawber became still more friendly and convivial. Mrs.

Micawber's spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang 'Auld Lang Syne.'... In

a word, I never saw anybody so thoroughly jovial as Mr. Micawber was, down

to the very last moment of the evening, when I took a hearty farewell of

himself and his amiable wife."

[Illustration: "The Little Inn" Canterbury

_Drawn by F. G. Kitton_]

The "little inn" is the scene of another incident in the book, as narrated

in Chapter LII, where Uriah Heep is exposed. David, Mr. Dick, Traddles,

and Betsey Trotwood are invited down to Canterbury "to assist at an

explosion." Arriving by the Dover Mail, they all put up at this inn on the

recommendation of Mr. Micawber, and there awaited his arrival. It is

recorded that they got into the hotel with some trouble in the middle of

the night, and "went shivering at that uncomfortable hour" to their

respective beds, through various close passages, "which smelt as if they

had been steeped for ages in a solution of soup and stables." In the

morning David took a stroll, and states how he "looked at the old house

from the corner of the street ... the early sun was striking edgewise on

its gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold, and some beams of

its old peace seemed to touch my heart."

They all breakfasted together, full of anxiety and impatience for Mr.

Micawber's appearance, which was punctually timed at the first chime of

the half-hour.

This "little inn," with its gables and lattices telling of its age, still

occupies the angle of the peaceful streets close to the Cathedral Close.

But Dickens's designation of it is hardly fitting, for it is quite a

commodious building with stabling for about a dozen horses. It is,

perhaps, a trifle smaller than when Dickens knew it, for the rooms on the

ground-floor corner and one side are used as a jeweller's and a butcher's

shop respectively.

The inn still boasts of its "splendid accommodation for all," and is

determined that its identification with Dickens should not be overlooked.

On one side of the building is a hanging sign bearing the words:

THE SUN INN

BUILT 1503

THE "LITTLE INN"

OF DICKENS FAME

whilst in case this should be missed by pilgrims, it has, painted up on

the wall the other side:

SUN HOTEL

FORMERLY KNOWN AS

"THE LITTLE INN"

MADE FAMOUS BY

CHAS. DICKENS

IN HIS TRAVELS THRO' KENT

BUILT 1503

It would seem that the proprietor who was responsible for these words was

a little uncertain of the exact association of his "Little Inn" with

Dickens. But, being determined to receive some of the reflected glory of

the novelist's fame, and evidently ignorant of the book in which his

"Little Inn" figured, played for safety in the use of a general, rather

than a specific phrase.

The inn is worth a visit, for it is still quaint, attractive, and

picturesque. Although actually built, as we are told, in 1503, we

understand that it was altered in the seventeenth century. Anyway, it is

sufficiently old to be in keeping with its ancient surroundings.

Turning to London, there is the Piazza Hotel in Covent Garden, mentioned

by Steerforth in Chapter XXIV, where he was going to breakfast with one of

his friends, which was no doubt the well-known coffee-house at the

north-eastern angle of Covent Garden Piazza. It was the favourite resort

of the actors and dramatists of the period. Sheridan and John Kemble often

dined together in its coffee-room, and there is a record of them

disagreeing on a certain matter. Sheridan, in a letter replying to one

from Kemble, told him he attributed his letter "to a disorder which I know

ought not to be indulged. I prescribe that thou shalt keep thine

appointment at the Piazza Coffee-House to-morrow at five, and, taking four

bottles of claret instead of three, to which in sound health you might

stint yourself, forget that you ever wrote the letter, as I shall that I

ever received it."

Dickens stayed there himself in 1844 and again in 1846, two letters from

him to his wife being dated from there.

The Piazza facade where stood the coffee-house was taken down to build the

Floral Hall, which is reputed to have been modelled on the Crystal Palace.

In Chapter XXXV, David Copperfield, after a plunge in the old Roman bath

in Strand Lane, went for a walk to Hampstead, and got some breakfast on

the Heath. The inn where he took his repast, although not named, no doubt

was Jack Straw's Castle. This is the only allusion to the famous hostelry

in Dickens's books that we know of, but the novelist frequented it in his

earlier writing years, when he was very fond of riding and walking, and

indulged those forms of recreation to his profit during that hard-worked

period of his literary career.

In those brilliant days of Pickwick he would wander in all directions out

of the London streets, and invite Forster to accompany him on these jaunts

by sending him brief commands to join him. One of these ran: "You don't

feel disposed, do you, to muffle yourself up and start off with me for a

good brisk walk over Hampstead Heath? I know a good 'ous where we can have

a red-hot chop for dinner, and a glass of good wine." And off they went,

leading, as Forster says, to their "first experience of Jack Straw's

Castle, memorable for many happy meetings in coming years."

On another occasion, whilst writing _The Old Curiosity Shop_, Maclise

accompanied them, but this time they drove to the Heath and then walked to

the "Castle." Here Dickens read to his friends a number of the new story.

Again, in 1844, he wrote: "Stanfield and Mac have come in, and we are

going to Hampstead to dinner. I leave Betsey Prig as you know, so don't

you make a scruple about leaving Mrs. Harris. We shall stroll leisurely

up, to give you time to join us, and dinner will be on the table at Jack

Straw's at four." A few months later, it is recorded, they dined there

again, and it is evident that the old inn was a favourite haunt of the

novelist on such occasions, and the Dickens traditions have so clung to it

that during the flight of time they have become, as such traditions do,

somewhat exaggerated. To-day, visitors are not only shown the chair he sat

on, but have pointed out to them the bedroom he used to sleep in. There is

no record, however, that he ever stayed the night there, or any reason

for believing that he did, seeing how easy it was for him and his friends

to get there and back from town. But Jack Straw's Castle has good reasons

for being proud of its literary associations; for, in addition to those of

Dickens and his famous friends, such names as Washington Irving,

Thackeray, Du Maurier, Lord Leighton, and a host of others may be

mentioned as frequenting it. To say nothing of the fact that "The Castle"

is mentioned in Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_.

[Illustration: JACK STRAW'S CASTLE, as it was in 1835

_Drawn by L. Walker from an old engraving_]

Apart, however, from its literary associations, Jack Straw's Castle has a

romantic history. It is generally agreed that its name is derived from

that of the notorious peasant leader of the rising in the reign of Richard

II. And this may be so in spite of the fact that its present designation

is not older than the middle of the eighteenth century.

The Peasants' Revolt took place in 1381, and we are told that it is more

than likely that the Hampstead villeins took part in the famous march to

London. One authority says that "the St. Albans men, in their advance to

join Jack Straw at his headquarters at Highbury, might or might not have

passed through Hampstead. If a contingent of adherents was ready to join

them at Hampstead, they probably took the village into their route,

especially as it would give them particular pleasure to make an offensive

demonstration against the Knights Hospitallers, who had a temple there and

were the objects of bitter hatred. The attack of the mob upon the house of

the Knights Hospitallers at Highbury is a well-known incident of the

rising. Whether they visited Hampstead or not, they passed at no great

distance from it--near enough to bring the Hampstead villeins within their

influence. May it not be that the events of these few days provided the

reason for the local name of Jack Straw's Castle? The mere fact of there

being Hampstead sympathisers with Jack Straw who held their meetings at a

certain house would be sufficient excuse to gain that house the title of

Jack Straw's Castle."

Sir Walter Besant thought that, although there is no direct evidence of

Jack Straw being connected with the hostelry named after him, "it is quite

possible that the Heath formed a rendezvous for the malcontents of his

time." In early days there had been an earthwork on the site, which might

have given rise to the name "Castle." Referring to this point, Professor

Hales, who leans to the opinion that Jack Straw was no more than a generic

appellation, and instances the fact of there being an inn called Jack

Straw's Castle in a village near Oxford, says: "'Jack Straw's Castle' is

so commanding and important that there can be little doubt there would be

erected upon it some kind of earthwork or fort at a very early period.

Traces of both the Neolithic and the Bronze Age man have been found on and

near the Heath, and, possibly enough, both these races raised or held on

the spot some rude fortification which subsequent times would call a

'Castle.' This being so, we have only to infer, from facts already stated,

that the place was used as a tryst for the local partisans of Jack Straw

to arrive at the origin of the name of 'Jack Straw's Castle'--that is, the

Castle of the Jack Strawites."

To-day, Jack Straw's Castle is the favoured resort of the district, and

perhaps the Dickens traditions act as the strongest lodestone to visitors,

and do more to sustain its popularity than any others. At any rate, the

Dickensian pilgrim on his ramble through Hampstead places great store on

Jack Straw's Castle for the simple and justifiable reason that it had such

attractions for the great novelist.

The "little, dirty, tumble-down public-house" at the foot of Hungerford

Stairs, where the Micawber family were lodged the night before their

departure for Australia, was called the Swan. It was there at the time

Dickens worked in the factory as a boy, and appears in contemporary

pictures of Hungerford Stairs. The Micawbers occupied one of the wooden

chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath. We read that Betsey

Trotwood and Agnes were there, "busily making some little extra comforts

in the way of dress for the children. Peggotty was quietly assisting with

the old insensible work-box, yard measure, and bit of wax candle before

her that had outlived so much." In that ramshackle old inn was enacted

that last wonderful scene with Mr. Micawber, when he insisted on making

punch in England for the last time. Having obtained the assurance that

Miss Trotwood and Miss Wickfield would join him in the toast, he

"immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be quite at home;

and in due time returned with a steaming jug," and quickly served out the

fragrant liquid in tin mugs for his children, and drank from his own

particular pint pot himself.

There are three other inns calling for brief reference. The Gray's Inn

Coffee-House, where David Copperfield stayed on his return from abroad,

was first mentioned in _The Old Curiosity Shop_, and is dealt with in our

chapter devoted to that book; the Golden Cross at Charing Cross, a

prominent feature in Chapter XIX, is commented upon at length in "The Inns

and Taverns of Pickwick"; and the coffee-house in Doctors' Commons where

Mr. Spenlow conducted David Copperfield to discuss a certain delicate

matter (Chapter XXXVIII) demolished in 1894.

CHAPTER X

BLEAK HOUSE, LITTLE DORRIT, HARD TIMES

SOL'S ARMS--THE DEDLOCK ARMS--THE LONDON COFFEE--HOUSE--PEGASUS'

ARMS--ETC.

There are very few inns of any importance mentioned in _Bleak House_, and

only one that plays any prominent part in the story. The one at Barnet,

where Esther Summerson hired the carriage to drive to Mr. Jarndyce's

house, was no doubt meant to be the Red Lion, and is dealt with in the

first chapter of the present volume; while the White Horse Cellar, where

she alighted on her entry into London from Reading, claims attention in

"The Inns and Taverns of Pickwick."

Of the two other taverns, Sol's Arms, where the inquest on Nemo was held,

and the Dedlock Arms at Chesney Wold, the former is the chief.

The original of Sol's Arms was the old Ship Tavern which once stood at the

corner of Chichester Rents off Chancery Lane. It is first referred to in

Chapter XI as the place of the coroner's inquest. "The coroner is to sit

in the first-floor room at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings

take place twice a week, and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of

professional celebrity, faced by Little Swills the comic vocalist.... The

Sol's Arms does a brisk stroke of business all the morning."

According to Allbut, Dickens took the name from a tavern in the Hampstead

Road where the harmonic meetings of the Sol's Society were held, and it

certainly seems that he adapted its characteristics to the Ship.

At the appointed hour the coroner arrived, and was conducted by the beadle

and the landlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, "where he puts his hat on

the piano, and takes a Windsor chair at the head of the long table, formed

of several short tables put together, and ornamented with glutinous rings

in endless involutions, made by the pots and glasses. As many of the jury

as can crowd together at the tables sit there. The rest get among the

spittoons and pipes, or lean against the piano."

All in readiness, the famous inquest on Nemo, with poor Joe as a witness,

took place, after which the Sol's Arms gradually "melts into the shadowy

night, and then flares out of it strong in gas."

That was a special event for the Sol's Arms, which generally speaking was

just a tavern frequented by lawyers' clerks and the inhabitants of

Chichester Rents and its neighbourhood. It, no doubt, was Krook's habitual

place of call, it certainly was patronized by Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins,

and Mr. Guppy must often have looked in; but its chief claim to fame was

its being the meeting place of the Harmonic Company, of whom Little Swills

was so distinguished a member.

Although Chichester Rents, which exists to-day, is not the same Chichester

Rents as when the Old Ship Tavern was there, and Krook lived there, with

Miss Flite as a lodger, one is easily reminded of these things, and of the

inquest, of Poor Joe, and of the great Little Swills, when one wanders

through this district of Dickens Land.

It is common knowledge that Chesney Wold, the country seat of the Dedlocks

of the story, was Rockingham Castle, the home of the Hon. Richard Watson

and Mrs. Watson, to whom Dickens dedicated _David Copperfield_. There is,

therefore, no difficulty in tracing the Dedlock Arms. The village of

Chesney Wold was the village of Rockingham. In Rockingham is an old inn

bearing the date of 1763, known as Sonde's Arms, which stands for the

Dedlock Arms of the story.

_Little Dorrit_ is almost as devoid of reference to inns and taverns that

count as _Bleak House_. In few cases the references are as a rule but

passing ones. Perhaps the most interesting is to the Coffee-House on

Ludgate Hill, where Arthur Clennam stayed, for it remains almost as it was

in those days.

In the third chapter of the first book, Dickens gives one of those telling

pen-pictures of London for which he had no rival. It is of rather a dull

and doleful hue, and depicts the aspect the city presents on a Sunday:

"gloomy, close and stale." Arthur Clennam had just arrived from Marseilles

by way of Dover and its coach "The Blue-Eyed Maid," and "sat in the window

of a coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, counting one of the neighbouring bells,

making sentences and burdens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and

wondering how many sick people it might be the death of in the course of

the year. At the quarter, it went off into a condition of deadly-lively

importunity, urging the populace in a voluble manner to Come to church,

Come to church, Come to church! At the ten minutes, it became aware that

the congregation would be scanty, and slowly hammered out in low

spirits, They _won't_ come, they _won't_ come, they _won't_ come! At

the five minutes it abandoned hope, and shook every house in the

neighbourhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per second,

as a groan of despair. 'Thank heaven!' said Clennam when the hour struck,

and the bell stopped."

[Illustration: THE LONDON COFFEE HOUSE, LUDGATE HILL

_From an old Engraving_]

The particular coffee-house in whose window Clennam sat was the famous old

London Coffee-House, and the particular church whose bells prompted his

reflections, so microscopically described by the novelist, must have been

St. Martin's next door. There can be little doubt of this, for we are told

that Clennam "sat in the same place as the day died, looking at the dull

houses opposite, and thinking, if the disembodied spirits of former

inhabitants were ever conscious of them, how they must pity themselves for

their old places of imprisonment.... Presently the rain began to fall in

slanting lines between him and those houses, and people began to collect

under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look hopelessly at the

sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster."

That "public passage opposite" must have been what is now the entrance to

Ludgate Square.

With these facts to guide us, we can supply the name and location of the

coffee-house on Ludgate Hill. It exists to-day, nestling close to St.

Martin's Church, on the west side, and, but for the substitution of a

plate-glass shop-front, is to all intents and purposes unchanged in its

outward appearances from what it was when Clennam sat in meditation at one

of its windows.

The illustration from an old engraving by S. Jenkins, after a drawing by

G. Shepherd, shows the coffee-house and church as they were in 1814; and,

if comparison of the picture of the former building is made with the

present structure, it will be seen that it is practically identical,

except so far as the ground floor is concerned.

The house was first opened as a coffee-house in 1731 by one James Ashley,

and its vast cellars stretched under Ludgate Hill to the foundations of

the city walls. In those days, it was "within the Rules of the Fleet

Prison, and was noted for the sales held there of booksellers' stocks and

literary copyrights," and used to afford hospitality to the juries from

the Old Bailey sessions when they disagreed. The grandfather of John

Leech, the illustrator of _A Christmas Carol_ was the landlord of the

tavern for some years, and later the father of the famous _Punch_ artist

became the tenant, and filled it with the merry crowd associated with Mr.

Punch's early days. Leech was followed as landlord by Mr. Lovegrove from

the Horn Tavern in Doctors' Commons.

There is a casual mention of the famous old George Inn in the Borough High

Street, in Chapter XXII of Book 1 of _Little Dorrit_, where Tip Dorrit is

spoken of as going into the inn to write a letter; and also passing

references to Garraway's and the Jerusalem Coffee-House, as occasional

resorts of Mr. Flintwinch. Full details concerning the George and

Garraway's will be found in "The Inns and Taverns of Pickwick."

The Jerusalem Coffee House was one of the oldest in the city of London,

and was famous for its news-rooms, where merchants and captains connected

with the commerce of India, China and Australia could see and consult the

files of all the most important papers from those countries, as well as

the chief shipping lists.

The hotel in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, where Mr. Dorrit stayed when

he reached London from the Continent, was probably Mivart's, and is dealt

with in the chapter devoted to Nicholas Nickleby.

Coketown, of _Hard Times_, is generally supposed to be Manchester. We

suspect it to be a composite picture, with a good deal of Preston in it,

and other manufacturing towns as well. It is not possible, therefore, to

identify the one or two inns which figure in the story.

The hotel where Mr. James Harthouse stayed when he went there with an

introduction to Mr. Bounderby might be any hotel in any town; and there

seems no means of tracing the original of the "mean little public-house

with red lights in it" at Pod's End, where Sissy Jupe brought Gradgrind

and Bounderby. Dickens describes it "as haggard and as shabby as if, for

want of custom, it had itself taken to drinking and had gone the way all

drunkards go, and was very near the end of it."

The name he gives to the public-house was the Pegasus' Arms. The Pegasus'

leg, he informs us, might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath

the winged horse upon the sign-board, the Pegasus' Arms was inscribed in

Roman letters. Beneath that inscription, again, in a flowing scroll, the

painter had touched off the lines:

Good malt makes good beer,

Walk in, and they'll draw it here;

Good wine makes good brandy,

Give us a call, and you'll find it handy.

These lines were taken from an old inn-sign, the Malt Shovel, which once

stood at the foot of Chatham Hill.

CHAPTER XI

A TALE OF TWO CITIES AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS

THE ROYAL GEORGE, DOVER--YE OLD CHESHIRE CHEESE--THE THREE JOLLY

BARGEMEN--THE CROSS KEYS, WOOD STREET--HUMMUM'S, COVENT GARDEN--THE

SHIP AND LOBSTER, GRAVESEND--THE FOX UNDER THE HILL, DENMARK HILL

Notwithstanding the fact that _A Tale of Two Cities_ is to some persons

Dickens's best book, or the one that many prefer to any other, it is the

most barren for our purpose. Apart from the fact that its scenes are laid

chiefly in another country, those that concern our own supply little

enough material in the way of taverns that can be identified.

In Chapter IV of Book 1, Dickens gives a fine description of the London

Mail Coach's journey to Dover, but no incident associated with an inn is

touched upon on the way, and not until the journey is terminated at Dover

is an inn mentioned by name.

"When the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon,"

we are told, "the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened the coach

door, as his custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a

mail journey from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an

adventurous traveller upon."

Here Mr. Lorry, the only passenger left, shaking himself of straw,

alighted from the coach and engaged a room for the night, where he awaited

the arrival of Lucy Manette for the momentous interview which was to

terminate in their voyage to Calais.

We cannot, however, discover that there was any hotel with the name of the

Royal George in Dover at that or any other period; but Robert Allbut,

hunting for one to serve its purpose, hit upon the King's Head Hotel,

which he says was the old coaching-house for the London Mail, and

therefore must have been the hostelry Dickens had in mind. Other

authorities mention the Ship, long since disappeared, upon whose site now

stands the Lord Warden Hotel, where Dickens often stayed himself, and

occasionally mentions in his writings. Taking into consideration the date

of the story, one may rightly assume that the Ship was the hotel at which

Mr. Lorry's coach deposited him. It was the Ship no doubt that Byron sang

of in the following verse:

Thy cliffs, dear Dover! harbour and hotel;

Thy custom-house, with all its delicate duties;

Thy waiters running mucks at every bell;

Thy packets, all whose passengers are booties

To those who upon land or water dwell;

And last, not least, to strangers uninstructed,

Thy long, long bills, whence nothing is deducted.

But it has long ago gone, and in its place the fashionable Lord Warden now

stands.

Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, that popular tavern in Fleet Street, was never, we

believe, ever mentioned in any one of Dickens's books by name, nor can we

discover that it was alluded to or described even under an assumed name.

It is known that he visited it, and the menu card bearing a picture of

what is known as Dr. Johnson's room, with Dickens and Thackeray seated at

the table presided over by the shade of the lexicographer itself, is

familiar to visitors.

[Illustration: THE OLD CHESHIRE CHEESE]

Dickens students, however, are of opinion that the Cheshire Cheese is the

tavern where Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton dined after the trial at the

Old Bailey, described in Chapter IV of Book 2. The evidence offered for

this is as follows:

Darnay tells Carton that he is faint for want of food.

"Then why the devil don't you dine? I dined myself while those numskulls

were deliberating which world you should belong to--this, or some other."

"Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well in," replied Carton.

"Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate Hill to Fleet

Street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here they were shown a

little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a

good plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat opposite to him at the

same table, with his separate bottle of port before him, and his full

half-insolent manner upon him."

The Cheshire Cheese no doubt was the tavern Dickens was thinking of when

he wrote the foregoing passages. It certainly was the resort of the

literary and legal professions in those days, as it has been since. It is

too well known to warrant any detailed account of it here. Besides, its

two-and-a-half-century history is too packed with anecdote and story to

allow of adequate description in our limited space. An excellent book is

issued by the proprietors fully dealing with its past, and copiously

illustrated.

There seems to be a growing desire on the part of Dickens students to

prove that Cooling, the hamlet in Kent near to Gads Hill is not the spot

where are laid certain scenes of _Great Expectations_, in spite of the

fact that Dickens told Forster it was. We do not propose to argue the

matter here. The chief point at issue seems to be that there is no

blacksmith's forge at Cooling, whereas there is at Chalk and at Hoo, two

other villages in the district that claim the honour. Yet at Chalk there

are no "graveyard lozenges," but at Hoo we believe there happens to be

both lozenges in the churchyard and a forge in the village.

On the other hand, we are told there _was_ a blacksmith's forge at Cooling

in Dickens's time. If, therefore, we accept Cooling as Joe Gargery's

village, the Horseshoe and Castle Inn there would stand for the Three

Jolly Bargemen where Joe Gargery and Pip used to while away certain hours

of the evening, as described in Chapter X of the book.

It is first referred to on the occasion when Pip had promised "at his

peril" to bring Joe home from it. "There was a bar at the Jolly

Bargemen," Pip tells us, "with some alarmingly long chalk scores in it on

the wall at the side of the door" which seemed never to be paid off. They

had been there ever since he could remember, and had grown more than he

had. There was a common-room at the end of the passage with a bright large

kitchen fire, where Joe smoked his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle. It was

here that Pip again encountered his convict who stirred his drink with the

file Pip had borrowed for him earlier in the story, and where he was

presented with a shilling wrapped in "two fat sweltering one-pound notes

that seemed to have been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the

cattle markets in the country."

It is the scene of many incidents in the story. Indeed, it was the meeting

place of all the men of the village, to whom Mr. Wopsle read the news

round the fire, and where all the gossip of the district was retailed.

The Horseshoe and Castle is a typical village inn, in all appearances like

a doll's house, built of wood in a quite plain fashion, lying a little

back from the road. It was in this inn that Mr. Jaggers unexpectedly

appeared one day enquiring for Pip, which ultimately resulted in the

change in Pip's fortune and his journey to London.

Pip's journey from "our town," as he calls it, to the Metropolis, was, we

read, "a journey of about five hours. It was a little past midday when the

four-horse stage-coach by which I was passenger got into the ravel of

traffic frayed out about the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London."

This incident of the early life of Pip, related in 1860, was a

reminiscence of Dickens's early childhood, which he recalls in _The

Uncommercial Traveller_, when he tells us that, as a small boy, he "left

Dullborough in the days when there were no railroads in the land," and he

left it in a stage-coach. "Through all the years that have since passed,"

he goes on, "have I ever lost the smell of the damp straw in which I was

packed--like game--and forwarded, carriage paid, to the Cross Keys, Wood

Street, Cheapside, London.... The coach that carried me away was

melodiously called Timpson's Blue-Eyed Maid, and belonged to Timpson at

the coach office up street." In speaking of Dullborough and "our town," it

is known that Dickens was referring to Rochester.

The Cross Keys was a notable coaching inn of those days, and the Rochester

coaches started and ended their journey there. It was demolished over

fifty years ago. Although Dickens does not give us one of his pleasant

pen-pictures of it, he refers to it occasionally in other of his stories,

such as _Little Dorrit_ and _Nicholas Nickleby_.

Another one-time famous London inn, referred to in _Great Expectations_,

but no longer existing, is Hummum's, in Covent Garden.

When Pip received that note one evening on reaching the gateway of the

Temple, warning him not to go home, he hired a chariot and drove to

Hummum's, Covent Garden. He spent a very miserable night there. In those

times, he tells us, "a bed was always to be got there at any hour of the

night, and the chamberlain, letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the

candle next in order on his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom

next in order. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back,

with a despotic monster of a four-post bed in it, straddling over the

whole place, putting one of its arbitrary legs into the fire-place, and

another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little washing-stand

in quite a Divinely Righteous manner."

He goes on to wail of his doleful night. The room smelt of cold soot and

hot dust, the tester was covered in blue-bottle flies, which he thought

must be lying up for next summer. "When I had lain awake a little while,

those extraordinary voices, with which silence teems, began to make

themselves audible. The closet whispered, the fire-place sighed, the

little washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in

the chest of drawers."

He then thought of the unknown gentleman who once came to Hummum's in the

night and had gone to bed and destroyed himself and had been found in the

morning weltering in his blood. Altogether a dismal, doleful and miserable

experience of Hummum's. But no doubt Pip's liver or nerves were the cause

of it, not the hotel.

Another reference to it is made in _Sketches by Boz_ in the chapter

describing the streets in the morning. Speaking of the pandemonium which

reigns in Covent Garden at an early hour after daybreak, the talking,

shouting, horses neighing, donkeys braying, Dickens says "these and a

hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner's

ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen who are

sleeping at Hummum's for the first time."

There is an hotel standing in Covent Garden with the same name to-day,

but, although it is on the same spot, it is not the Hummum's of which Pip

speaks. That was demolished long ago, and was the scene of a marvellous

ghost story told in Boswell's Johnson concerning Parson Ford.

The Ship at Gravesend, mentioned as the waterside inn where Pip and his

assistants managed to row the convict Magwitch, with the idea of smuggling

him out of the country, is known as the Ship and Lobster.

[Illustration: THE SHIP AND LOBSTER, GRAVESEND

_Drawn by C. G. Harper_]

Having run alongside a little causeway made of stones, Pip left the rest

of the occupants of the boat and stepped ashore, and found the light they

had observed from the river to be in the window of a public-house. "It was

a dirty place enough, and I daresay not unknown to smuggling adventurers;

but there was a good fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to

eat and various liquors to drink. Also there were two double-bedded

rooms--'such as they were,' the landlord said.... We made a very good meal

by the kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms.... We found that

the air was carefully excluded from both as if air was fatal to life; and

there were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should

have thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off,

notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found."

Outside this inn Magwitch was again captured, and transferred to a galley,

where Pip eventually joined him and accompanied him to his destination.

Dickens knew Gravesend well, and his description of the Ship and Lobster

is a faithful one. It is situated on the shore at Denton, a village

adjoining the town, not far from the official Lighterman's at Denton

Wharf. At one time it flourished as a popular tea-garden resort.

There are two other inns in the book that must not be overlooked. The Blue

Boar at Rochester, where Pip stayed when he visited his old town, which

was the Bull Inn there, and is dealt with in "The Inns and Taverns of

Pickwick"; and the tavern where Wemmick's wedding-breakfast was held. This

is said to be the Fox under the Hill, nearly at the top of Denmark Hill.

It is now a modern public-house, but sixty or seventy years ago it was an

old wayside inn--a pleasant little tavern, and a favourite resort,

especially on Sunday evenings in the summer, for the youthful population

of Walworth and Camberwell.

We close this chapter with the brief account of the festive occasion:

"Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away

upon the rising ground beyond the green[2] and there was a bagatelle board

in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the

solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer unwound

Wemmick's arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a

high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and

submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done. We

had an excellent breakfast, and, when anyone declined anything on the

table, Wemmick said, 'Provided by contract you know; don't be afraid of

it!' I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the Castle,

saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could."

CHAPTER XII

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND

THE SIX JOLLY FELLOWSHIP-PORTERS--THE THREE MAGPIES--THE SHIP,

GREENWICH--THE WHITE LION--THE ANGLERS' INN--THE EXCHEQUER

COFFEE-HOUSE

The outstanding tavern in _Our Mutual Friend_ is that with the

pleasant-sounding name of The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, the favoured

resort of Rogue Riderhood, Gaffer Hexam, and their boon companions, which

is so closely associated with the unravelling of the mystery of John

Harmon. It exists to-day as the Grapes, and continues to be the favoured

resort of river watermen whose business keeps or brings them to the

picturesque Reach.

When Dickens was engaged on his book, it is said that he wrote some

chapters in a house adjoining the Grapes, overlooking the river. The

Dropsical Tavern, as he calls it, was then known as the Bunch of Grapes,

which, by a process of clipping, became first the Grapes Inn, and then

finally the Grapes, by which it is known at the present time. Its front

entrance is at 76 Narrow Street, Limehouse, and occupies little more space

(as noted by the novelist) than to allow for its front door. Although the

front of the building has been modernised, it still remains as narrow and

tall as when Dickens likened it to "a handle of a flat iron set upright on

its broadest end." The inn has been very little altered in other respects

since he so minutely described it. Certainly, an ordinary public-house bar

has cut off a portion of the original bar, and, if in those days "the

available space in it was not much larger than a hackney-coach," its area

is even smaller to-day, but yet quite comfortable enough to "soften the

human breast."

It is in describing this bar that Dickens gives the clue to the

identification of the tavern. "No one," he says, "could have wished the

bar bigger, that space was so girt in by corpulent little casks, and by

cordial bottles radiant with fictitious _grapes in bunches_, and by lemons

in nets, and by biscuits in baskets, and by polite beer-pulls that made

low bows when customers were served with beer ... and by the landlady's

own small table in a snugger corner near the fire...." Many of these

alluring etceteras have given place to others, perhaps less enticing, and

among those that have gone are the cordial bottles with the "grapes in

bunches" on them. We have learned, however, from the present genial

hostess, Mrs. Higgins, that at one time, not only did the cordial bottles

bear the engraved sign of a bunch of grapes, but certain of the windows

also were so embellished, and it was only a few years ago, when the front

was altered, that these disappeared.

It is not, however, necessary merely to rely on this piece of

identification to assure us that the Grapes Inn was the original of the

Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, for a visit to it with Chapter VI of _Our

Mutual Friend_ for a guidance leaves no doubt in the mind. Therein we read

that "the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, already mentioned as a tavern of a

dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of hale

infirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, and

hardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet

outlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house.

Externally, it was a narrow, lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows

heaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with

a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed, the whole house,

inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impended over the

water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver

who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all."

That is how Dickens describes the river frontage of the Six Jolly

Fellowship-Porters, and his words apply just as accurately to the Grapes

Inn. As one stands on the crazy wooden verandah, which is reached from the

foreshore by steep wooden steps, one can call to mind the scene in the

book describing Gaffer Hexam landing the "found drowned," and then, by

turning into the "tap and parlour" behind, "which gave on to the river,

and had red curtains to match the noses of the regular customers," one

finds oneself in the room where the inquest on John Harmon was held, with

Gaffer Hexam as witness before the coroner's jury, Mr. Mortimer Light wood

as "eminent solicitor," and Mr. Inspector watching the proceedings on

behalf of the Home Office. The room is not used for such purposes to-day,

but is put to the more pleasant one of social intercourse between workers

on the great waterway during and after their labours, who, if you are so

disposed, will welcome you there, and discourse on the mystery of tides

and ships. If you accept them as fellow-creatures you may be invited to a

game of darts, meanwhile regaling yourself with the modern substitutes for

"those delectable drinks" known in the days when Miss Abbey Potterson

reigned supreme on her throne as sole proprietor and manager of the

Fellowship-Porters, as Purl, Flip, and Dog's Nose. These watermen reach

this haven, if the tide is out, by means of the wooden steps; when the

tide is high and the house is "all but afloat," the small row-boats are

brought into use and the occupants approach the inn like veritable

gondoliers and moor their craft outside whilst they refresh themselves

within.

[Illustration: THE GRAPES INN, LIMEHOUSE

_Photograph by T. W. Tyrrell_]

Beyond this room is the small one which served as Miss Abbey Potterson's

haven. "This haven," Dickens says, "was divided from the rough world by a

glass partition and a half-door with a leaden sill upon it for the

convenience of resting your liquor; but over this half-door the bar's

snugness so gushed forth that, albeit customers drank there standing, in a

dark and draughty passage where they were shouldered by other customers

passing in and out, they always appeared to drink under an enchanting

delusion that they were in the bar itself."

The glass partition and the half-door, over which Gaffer Hexam is seen

leaning in Marcus Stone's picture in the book, is still there, but is not

now used for the same purpose. It is the private entrance to the back of

the modern public bar.

What Dickens said of the antiquity of the Fellowship-Porters is true of

the Grapes Inn. "The wood forming the chimney-pieces, beams, partitions,

floors, and doors of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters seemed in its old

age fraught with confused memories of its youth. In many places it had

become gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old trees; knots

started out of it, and here and there it seemed to twist itself into some

likeness of boughs. In this state of second childhood, it had an air of

being in its own way garrulous about its early life. Not without reason

was it often asserted by the regular frequenters of the Porters that, when

the light shone full upon the grain of certain panels, and particularly

upon an old corner cupboard of walnut wood in the bar, you might trace

little forests there, and tiny trees like the parent tree in full

umbrageous leaf." Unfortunately, most of these oak panels and beams are

now hidden from view by varnished match-boarding, but some of the panels

and some of the beams remain exposed to confirm Dickens's fanciful

picture.

Miss Abbey Potterson, the mistress of this establishment, was "a tall,

upright, well-favoured woman, though severe of countenance, and had more

the air of a schoolmistress than mistress of the Six Jolly

Fellowship-Porters." Here she ruled supreme, and at the closing time she

ordered one after the other to leave with such admonitions as "George

Jones, your time is up! I told your wife you should be punctual," and so

all wished Miss Abbey good night and Miss Abbey wished good night to all.

She knew how to manage the rough class of river-men who frequented her

house, and was the more respected for it. "Being known on her own

authority as Miss Abbey Potterson," Dickens tells us, "some waterside

heads, which (like the water) were none of the clearest, harboured muddled

motions that, because of her dignity and firmness, she was named after, or

in some sort related to, the Abbey at Westminster. But Abbey was only

short for Abigail, by which name Miss Potterson had been christened at

Limehouse Church some sixty years and odd before."

Without recording all the references in the book to the

Fellowship-Porters, we note that, towards the end of it, John and Bella

paid an official visit to the police station and visited afterwards the

Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters with Mr. Inspector for purposes of

identification. During this visit, Mr. Inspector gives this very good

character to the inn, "a better-kept house is not known to our men. What

do I say? Half so well a kept house is not known to our men. Show the

Force the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, and the Force--to a

constable--will show you a piece of perfection." This, no doubt, was

Dickens's own opinion, too.

The Grapes to-day serves the same purpose as did the Six Jolly

Fellowship-Porters in the story, and is of as good repute. It is the house

of call of the watermen from the river in the day-time and from the road

after work is done, and it seems to be conducted by the present hostess

much as it was by Miss Abbey Potterson, not so rigidly perhaps, but with

the same good-natured friendliness which is reflected in the attitude and

behaviour of all the frequenters. There does not even seem the necessity

for a Bob Glibbery; at any rate, we have not met his successor on the

occasions of our visits there. Nor does his room down "towards the bed of

the river," where he was ordered to proceed to his supper, exist at the

present time. That must have been somewhere contiguous to the secret

smuggling arches which ran under the building from the river, now filled

in.

[Illustration: LIMEHOUSE REACH

_Drawn by L. Walker_]

The Grapes Inn is a place to visit. If one can choose a fine summer's

evening to sit under "the corpulent windows" on the "crazy wooden

verandah" and watch the busy river with its myriads of craft floating by,

one can enjoy the view and atmosphere much as did Whistler, Napier Hemy,

and Dickens himself.

In J. Ashby Sterry's "A River Rhymer," is a set of verses entitled "Down

Limehouse Way," two of which may be appropriately quoted here:

Close by I mind an inn you'll find,

Where you will not refuse

To rest a bit, as there you sit,

And gaze on river views--

'Tis very old--with windows bold,

That bulges o'er the tide;

Whence you can spy ships passing by

Or watch the waters glide!

You can sit in the red-curtained bay

And think, while you're puffing a clay,

'Tis no indecorum

To drink sangarorum--

While musing down Lime'us way!

You'll find this spot--now does it not

Recall and keep alive

The varied crew Charles Dickens drew

In eighteen sixty-five?

Here Hexam plied his trade and died,

And Riderhood conspired;

While things they'd pop at Pleasant's shop,

When cash might be required!

Here under Miss Abbey's firm sway,

Who made all her clients obey,

Was ruled with discretion

And rare self-possession

The "Porters" down Lime'us way!

The name of the Fellowship-Porters which Dickens adopted for the sign of

Miss Abbey Potterson's public-house was that of one of the old City

Guilds. For over 800 years the City of London successfully claimed and

exercised the sole right to unload grain vessels arriving in the Thames,

and realised enormous revenues from the privilege. In 1155, the Guild or

Brotherhood of Fellowship-Porters was incorporated and a charter was

granted. It was reincorporated in 1613, and appointed by the City to carry

or store corn, salt, coals, fish, and fruit of all kinds.

The Fellowship-Porters at one time numbered 3,000 members, and the Guild

had the power granted by act of Council in 1646 to choose twelve rulers,

the Lord Mayor and Aldermen reserving the right to appoint one of the

number. The company had a hall of its own which stood near to the

Waterman's Hall in St. Mary's Hill, Billingsgate, but had no livery or

arms, and ranked the nineteenth in the order of procedure. Membership

carried with it the freedom of the City by payment of £2 18s. 6d., and

five guineas to Fellowship Hall--these fees being demanded before they

could work as dock labourers. When Millwall Docks were built, the City

challenged the docks on the matter of their privilege, and the case went

to the Law Courts. It was then discovered that the Charter could not be

produced, it having been destroyed by the Great Fire of London, so it was

supposed. This blow ruined the Guild, and some thirty years ago the

organization was wound up, the then present members being deprived of

work, pensions, and everything else their Charter entitled them to as

Freemen of the City.

Another notable tavern in _Our Mutual Friend_ is the Ship, at Greenwich,

where two memorable little dinners were given. The first was the occasion

when, Bella Wilfer having been presented with a purse and a fifty-pound

bank-note by Mr. Boffin, took her dear old father, the cherub, to

Greenwich by boat on a secret expedition, as she called it, and

entertained him to dinner there.

First calling for her father at his City office, where the messenger

described her to her father as "a slap-up gal in a bang-up chariot," she

handed him the purse with instructions, not to be disregarded, to "go to

the nearest place where they keep everything of the very very best, ready

made; you buy and put on the most beautiful suit of clothes, the most

beautiful hat, and the most beautiful pair of bright boots (patent

leather, Pa, mind!) that are to be got for money; and you come back to

me." After half an hour he came back "so brilliantly transformed that

Bella was obliged to walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty times

before she could draw her arm through his and delightfully squeeze it."

She then ordered him to "take this lovely woman out to dinner." The

question came, "Where shall we go, my dear?" "Greenwich!" said Bella

valiantly. "And be sure you treat this lovely woman with everything of the

best." And off they went in quest of the boat to take them down the river,

and eventually arrived at the Ship Tavern. The little expedition down the

river to reach it, we are told, "was delightful, and the little room

overlooking the river into which they were shown for dinner was

delightful. Everything was delightful. The park was delightful, the lunch

was delightful, the dishes of fish were delightful, the wine was

delightful. Bella was more delightful than any other item in the

festival." And, as they sat together looking at the ships and steamboats

making their way to the sea with the tide that was running down, "the

lovely woman imagined all sorts of voyages for herself and Pa." So

enchanted did Pa become that he was as willing "to put his head into the

Sultan's tub of water as the beggar-boys below the window were to put

_theirs_ in the mud"; and so the happy moments flew by and the time came

to ring the bell, and pay the waiter, and return to London.

Later on in the same identical room in the same identical tavern

overlooking the Thames, the same delightful couple, with John Rokesmith,

partook of another delightful dinner. Earlier in the day Bella Wilfer had

become Mrs. John Rokesmith and celebrated the event with breakfast at

Bella's cottage at Blackheath, and with a dinner at the Ship Tavern later,

Bella's father being the only other guest.

"What a dinner! Specimens of all the fishes that swim in the sea surely

had swum their way to it, and, if samples of the fishes of divers colours

that made a speech in the 'Arabian Nights,' and then jumped out of the

frying pan, were not to be recognised, it was only because they had all

become of one hue by being cooked in the batter among the whitebait. And

the dishes being seasoned with Bliss--an article which they are sometimes

out of at Greenwich--were of perfect flavour, and the golden drinks had

been bottled in the golden age and hoarding up their sparkles ever since."

The whole function was a sheer delight, a crowning success; but the full

appreciation of its charm cannot be indicated by short quotations; it must

be read in detail to be thoroughly enjoyed. The scene inspired J. Ashby

Sterry to again drop into poetry:

A wedding banquet here must dwell

Within one's brightest recollection;

Where Bella, John and Pa, as well,

Made merry o'er the choice refection!

The sparkling wine, the happy pair,

With all their aged affection;

The bland "Archbishop's" tender care,

And Rumpty Wilfer's smart oration!--

A scene where fun and pathos blend,

With all the heart and truth that lend

A charm unto "Our Mutual Friend!"

Alas! the tavern in which these happy hours were spent is a thing of

the past, but its prosperous and palmy days are recorded in Time's annals.

[Illustration: THE SHIP HOTEL, GREENWICH

_Drawn by L. Walker_]

In the days when Greenwich was famous for its whitebait dinners, the town

was noted for its hotels overlooking the waterside. The chief of these was

the Ship, whilst another notable one was the Trafalgar, hard by,

patronised by members of the Cabinet of the day, who led the fashion in

these functions; it being "the correct thing" then, when a little special

festivity was forward, to resort to one of these inns at Greenwich for the

purpose, it is not surprising to learn that on several occasions Dickens

and his literary and artistic coterie followed the custom by arranging

social gatherings in celebration of some event connected with one of the

company either at the Ship or the Trafalgar. As early as 1837 we find him

suggesting Greenwich for a friendly meeting-place.

But there were two very noteworthy occasions associated with Dickens when

Greenwich was selected for jovial and pleasant parties of close friends.

The first of these took place on the novelist's return from America in

1842, when a few of his kindred spirits adopted this method for welcoming

him back to England. Among the company were Talfourd, Tom Hood, Monckton

Milnes, B. W. Procter, D. Maclise, R.A., Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., Captain

Marryat, "Ingoldsby" Barham, George Cruikshank, and John Forster. "I wish

you had been at Greenwich the other day," he wrote to Felton, "where a

party of friends gave me a private dinner; public ones I have refused.

C---- was perfectly wild at the reunion, and, after singing all manner of

marine songs, wound up the entertainment by coming home (six miles) in a

little open phaeton of mine, _on his head_, to the mingled delight and

indignation of the metropolitan police. We were very jovial, indeed."

On the other occasion Dickens was the instigator of the feast. This was in

1843, when, on the retirement of John Black from the editorial chair of

the old _Chronicle_, the novelist arranged a dinner in honour of his old

friend at Greenwich, on the 20th of May. Dickens ordered all things to

perfection and the dinner succeeded in its purpose, as in other ways,

quite wonderfully, Forster tells us. Among the entertainers were Sheil and

Thackeray, Fonblanque and Charles Buller, Southwood Smith and William

Johnson Fox, Macready and Maclise, as well as Forster and Dickens.

These dinners took place at the Ship or the Trafalgar, both well known to

the novelist, as was Greenwich generally, for he frequently refers to the

ancient town and its customs in his writings.

The Ship Tavern was originally built with a weather-board front,

overlooking the river. But, about the middle of the last century, the

newer and much handsomer structure as seen in our illustration, was

erected upon the site of the original one, and its pretty garden was the

scene of many gay parties, whilst its rooms often rang with merriment from

the festive diners. After the waning of the fashion for whitebait

banquets, it long maintained its popularity with visitors to the Thames

historic town.

_Our Mutual Friend_ is essentially a story of the Thames, and certainly

the inns and taverns of the book are either on the water's edge or in

close proximity to it. The two already dealt with are below London Bridge,

in the midst of the busy traffic of trade, whilst the remainder are

situated in its more picturesque district where pleasure is sought.

It will be recalled that, when Mrs. Boffin and the secretary set out in

search of the charming orphan recommended by the Rev. Frank Milvey, they

hired a phaeton and made their way to the abode of Mrs. Betty Higden in

whose care was the child. They discovered that old lady in complicated

back settlements of "Muddy Brentford," and, having left their equipage at

the sign of the Three Magpies, continued their quest on foot. A second

visit to Brentford is recorded later in the book, on which occasion a

carriage was ordered, for Bella and Sloppy were also of the party. "So to

the Three Magpies as before; where Mrs. Boffin and Miss Bella were handed

out, and whence they all went on foot to Mrs. Betty Higden's."

No other allusion to the inn is made than the bare mention of the name;

but the original inn to which Dickens alludes undoubtedly is the Three

Pigeons, that ancient hostelry at Brentford whose history is associated

with Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and their contemporaries, many of whom

referred to it in their plays and essays. In Goldsmith's _She Stoops to

Conquer_, it will be remembered, Tony Lumpkin sings a song in praise of

it, whilst two scenes of the comedy take place in the inn.

Lowen, a leading actor in Shakespeare's company, we are told, kept the inn

at the time, and Shakespeare personally instructed him in Henry VIII. It

was a well-known coaching inn then, and at one time its stables occupied

several acres.

In 1905 it was partially reconstructed, and in 1916 it was closed under

order of the licensing justices of Middlesex.

[Illustration: THE RED LION HOTEL, HAMPTON

_Drawn by C. G. Harper_]

In the chapter describing the flight of Betty Higden we are told that her

pilgrimage took her through Chertsey, Walton, Kingston, and Staines, and

so on to her journey's end. One day she was sitting in a market-place on a

bench outside an inn. Here she became nervous of those who questioned

her, and determined to move on. As she left the spot she had looked over

her shoulder before turning out of the town, and had seen the "sign of the

White Lion hanging across the road, and the fluttering market booths and

the old grey church, and the little crowd gazing after her, but not

attempting to follow her."

Although the name of this town is not mentioned, there is no doubt that

the description is of Hampton, and that the inn is the Red Lion, whose

picturesque sign still spans the street, with the view of the "old grey

church" behind it.

The scenes of the fourth book bring us to the district of Henley, although

the name is never mentioned and the locks and inns are given fictitious

names. But it has not been difficult to locate the spots from the

novelist's accurate descriptions. The only inn which plays an important

part in the unravelling of the story in this neighbourhood is given the

name of the Anglers' Inn. All authorities identify this as the Red Lion,

Henley. It was here that Eugene Wrayburn found accommodation when in

pursuit of Lizzie Hexam. The inn is on the west bank of the river and

north of the bridge, and, being a favourite resort of anglers, the name

Dickens gives it is appropriate enough. It was to this inn that Lizzie

Hexam brought the apparently lifeless body of Eugene Wrayburn after her

brave rescue of it from the water, following the murderous attack on him

by Bradley Headstone.

"She rowed hard--rowed desperately, but never wildly--and seldom removed

her eyes from him in the bottom of the boat.... The boat touched the edge

of the patch of inn lawn sloping gently to the water. There were lights in

the windows, but there chanced to be no one out of doors. She made the

boat fast, and again by main strength took him up, and never laid him down

until she laid him down in the house."

This patch of green lawn sloping gently to the river coincides with that

of the Red Lion, Henley. It was also in this inn, some weeks later, that

Lizzie and Eugene were married. It was still uncertain if he would

recover, and, in conformity with his wish, the ceremony was performed

round his bed, the Rev. Frank Milvey officiating, Bella and her husband,

Mortimer Lightwood, Mrs. Milvey and Jenny Wren being in attendance.

The Red Lion is a famous old coaching-inn, as well as a fishing and

boating one of renown. It is not only very old but large. Standing by the

bridge in prominent fashion it appeals to the eye at once:

'Tis a finely toned, picturesque, sunshiny, place,

Recalling a dozen old stories;

With a rare British, good-natured, ruddy-hued face,

Suggesting old wines and old Tories.

to quote once more from Ashby Sterry's rhymes.

It was on a window in this old inn that Shenstone the poet scratched with

a diamond about 1750 that celebrated stanza of his:

Who'er has travelled life's dull round,

Where'er his stages may have been,

May sigh to think how oft he found

The warmest welcome at an inn;

--at least, so tradition has it. But Mr. Charles G. Harper thinks it

doubtful, and feels that the Henley referred to by historians must have

been Henley-in-Arden.

There is one inn mentioned in the book which has not, that we are aware

of, been identified. It is the Exchequer Coffee-House, Palace Yard,

Westminster, the address given by Mr. Julius Handford to Mr. Inspector on

the occasion when he viewed the body of the drowned man (Bk. 1, Chapter

III).

CHAPTER XIII

THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD AND THE LAZY TOUR OF TWO IDLE APPRENTICES

WOOD'S HOTEL, FURNIVAL'S INN--THE TILTED WAGON--THE TRAVELLERS'

TWOPENNY--THE CROZIER, CLOISTERHAM--THE KING'S ARMS, LANCASTER--THE

SHIP, ALLONBY--THE ANGEL, DONCASTER, AND OTHERS

It is a curious fact that Wood's Hotel, one of London's old-time inns

which must have been familiar to Dickens in his very early days--even

before he commenced writing his _Pickwick Papers_--did not furnish a scene

in any of his books until it figured in _Edwin Drood_, his last.

As early as 1834, when on the staff of the "Morning Chronicle," Dickens

lived at 13 Furnival's Inn, and in the following year moved to No 15,

where he commenced _The Pickwick Papers_, and where he took to himself a

wife and where his first child was born.

During these days Wood's Hotel occupied the north side of the quiet

quadrangle of Furnival's Inn, and Dickens must have known it well. It was

a staid and respectable house with an air about it of domestic comfort,

suitable for country visitors, and where, we are informed, family prayers,

night and morning, were included in the accommodation.

Its stately building of four stories had dignity added to it by the four

tall white stone pillars in the centre portion of the front reaching to

the third floor. Although stolid-looking, it was not aggressively so, nor

was it altogether unpicturesque, with its grass plot immediately before

the entrance, encircling a statue of the founder of the inn, surrounded by

white posts connected by chains.

Its imposing appearance from without reflected the comforts which the

inside of a reputable family hotel is expected to provide. At such an

hotel one would naturally look for courteous attention from waiters and

chambermaids, and good meals cleanly served, and at Wood's no

disappointment in these respects was experienced. Indeed, Dickens conveys

that idea in referring to it in _Edwin Drood_.

Entering through the archway of Furnival's Inn, the hotel caught the eye

immediately, and acted as a relief to the straight, angular, and flat

appearance of the buildings which formed the once famous quadrangle so

intimately associated with Dickens.

It is believed by some, and was definitely stated to be a fact by a writer

in the American magazine, the "Cosmopolitan," for May, 1893, and again by

a writer in the "Middlesex and Hertfordshire Notes and Queries," July,

1895, that Dickens in his bachelor days had apartments on the second floor

of the hotel in the right-hand corner, and that in the latter years of its

existence the walls of this same room were decorated with pictures of

scenes and characters from his works.

We have, however, been unable to find any authority for this statement.

But it is quite possible that he frequented the hotel, and we may even

assume that he and his friends, Hablôt K. Browne and Robert Young, who

occupied rooms in Furnival's when they were executing engravings for

Pickwick, would perhaps chat over details in a snug room in the hotel,

when they would be joined by their other friend and engraver, Finden.

Bearing all these ideas in mind, it is certainly a little strange that

Dickens waited for his last book before he introduced the hotel into his

writings.

In that book we are told that Mr. Grewgious crossed over to the hotel in

Furnival's Inn from Staple Inn opposite for his dinner "three hundred days

in the year at least," and after dinner crossed back again. On one

occasion, a very important interview between him and Edwin Drood took

place in his chambers, and Edwin was pressed to stay for a meal. "We can

have dinner in from just across Holborn," Grewgious assured him, and

Bazzard, his clerk, was not only invited to join them, but asked if he

would mind "stepping over to the hotel in Furnival's, and asking them to

send in materials for laying the cloth.... For dinner we'll have a tureen

of the hottest and strongest soup available, and we'll have the best made

dish that can be recommended and we'll have a joint (such as a haunch of

mutton) and we'll have a goose, or a turkey, or any little stuffed thing

of that sort that may happen to be in the bill of fare--in short, we'll

have whatever there is on hand."

Bazzard, after bringing out the round table, accordingly withdrew to

execute the orders. His return with the waiters gives Dickens an

opportunity for one of his humorous descriptive passages which we make no

excuse for quoting in full:

"Bazzard returned, accompanied by two waiters--an immovable waiter, and a

flying waiter; and the three brought in with them as much fog as gave a

new roar to the fire. The flying waiter, who had brought everything on his

shoulders, laid the cloth with amazing rapidity and dexterity; while the

immovable waiter, who had brought nothing, found fault with him. The

flying waiter then highly polished all the glasses he had brought, and the

immovable waiter looked through them. The flying waiter then flew across

Holborn for the soup, and flew back again, and then took another flight

for the made-dish, and flew back again, and then took another flight for

the joint and the poultry, and flew back again, and between whiles took

supplementary flights for a great variety of articles, as it was

discovered from time to time that the immovable waiter had forgotten them

all. But, let the flying waiter cleave the air as he might, he was always

reproached on his return by the immovable waiter for bringing fog with him

and being out of breath. At the conclusion of the repast, by which time

the flying waiter was severely blown, the immovable waiter gathered up the

table-cloth under his arm with a grand air, and, having sternly (not to

say with indignation) looked on at the flying waiter while he set clean

glasses round, directed a valedictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious,

conveying: 'Let it be clearly understood between us that the reward is

mine, and that _nil_ is the claim of this slave,' and pushed the flying

waiter before him out of the room."

Thus the waiters of Wood's Hotel, which was the name of the hotel referred

to, although not mentioned by Dickens. Later in the book, we get a more

intimate association with it. After the murder of Edwin Drood, Rosa Bud

hurriedly takes coach from Rochester and presents herself to her guardian

in his chambers. She is tired and hungry, naturally, and Grewgious,

concerned for her welfare, asks her what she will take after her journey.

"Shall it be breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea or supper?" he enquires.

"Your rest, too, must be provided for," he went on; "and you shall have

the prettiest chamber in Furnival's. Your toilet must be provided for, and

you shall have everything that an unlimited head chambermaid--by which

expression I mean a head chambermaid not limited as to outlay--can

procure."

[Illustration: WOOD'S HOTEL, FURNIVAL'S INN

_Drawn by L. Walker_]

"Rosa thanked him, but said she could only take a cup of tea. Mr.

Grewgious, after several times running out, and in again, to mention such

supplementary items as marmalade, eggs, watercresses, salted fish, and

frizzled ham, ran across to Furnival's without his hat, to give his

various directions. And soon afterwards they were realised in practice,

and the board was spread."

After a friendly chat over tea, he escorted her to her rooms. He "helped

her to get her hat on again, and hung upon his arm the very little bag

that was of no earthly use, and led her by the hand (with a certain

stately awkwardness, as if he were going to walk a minuet) across Holborn,

and into Furnival's Inn. At the hotel door, he confided her to the

unlimited head chambermaid, and said that while she went up to see her

room he would remain below, in case she should wish it exchanged for

another, or should find that there was anything she wanted."

Rosa's room was airy, clean, comfortable, almost gay. The Unlimited had

laid in everything omitted from the very little bag (that is to say,

everything she could possibly need) and Rosa tripped down the great stairs

again, to thank her guardian for his thoughtful and affectionate care of

her.

"'Not at all, my dear,' said Mr. Grewgious, infinitely gratified; 'it is I

who thank you for your charming confidence and for your charming company.

Your breakfast will be provided for you in a neat, compact, and graceful

little sitting-room (appropriate to your figure) and I will come to you at

ten o'clock in the morning. I hope you don't feel very strange indeed in

this strange place.'

"'Oh no, I feel so safe!'

"'Yes, you may be sure that the stairs are fireproof,' said Mr. Grewgious,

'and that any outbreak of the devouring element would be perceived and

suppressed by the watchmen.'"

Having seen Rosa comfortably settled, he left her, assuring the night

porter as he went that, "if someone staying in the hotel should wish to

send across the road to me in the night, a crown will be ready for the

messenger."

To the hotel next morning Mr. Grewgious went faithfully to time with Mr.

Crisparkle, who had followed Rosa up from Rochester as fast as he could.

Soon also Tartar arrived. After a long consultation between them about Mr.

Landless and the use Tartar's chambers could be put to for certain spying

purposes, Tartar took Rosa and Mr. Grewgious for a row up the river.

Apartments ultimately being found for Rosa elsewhere, she left Wood's

Hotel, and no further reference is made to it in the book.

In 1898 Furnival's Inn was demolished with its hotel. Upon its site now

stand an insurance company's huge premises.

In Chapter XV, detailing Neville Landless's long tramp from Cloisterham,

we are told that he stopped at the next road-side tavern to refresh.

Dickens describes it in the following words:

"Visitors in want of breakfast--unless they were horses or cattle, for

which class of guests there was preparation enough in the way of

water-trough and hay--were so unusual at the sign of the Tilted Wagon that

it took a long time to get the wagon into the track of tea and toast and

bacon; Neville, in the interval, sitting in a sanded parlour, wondering in

how long a time after he had gone the sneezy fire of damp fagots would

begin to make somebody else warm. Indeed, the Tilted Wagon was a cool

establishment on the top of a hill, where the ground before the door was

puddles with damp hoofs and trodden straw; where a scolding landlady

slapped a moist baby (with one red sock on and one wanting) in the bar;

where the cheese was cast aground upon a shelf in company with a mouldy

table-cloth and a green-handled knife in a sort of cast-iron canoe; where

the pale-faced bread shed tears of crumbs over its shipwreck in another

canoe; where the family linen, half-washed and half dried, led a public

life of lying about; where everything to drink was drunk out of mugs, and

everything else was suggestive of a rhyme to mugs: the Tilted Wagon, all

these things considered, hardly kept its painted promise of providing good

entertainment for man and beast."

Mr. Edwin Harris, in his guide to Dickensian Rochester, has identified the

Coach and Horses on the top of Strood Hill as the original of the Tilted

Wagon.

The Travellers' Twopenny, where the boy deputy was a "man-servant," as he

explained to Jasper, was originally the White Duck, and afterwards Kit's

lodging-house, and stood in the Maidstone Road at Rochester. It

degenerated into a crazy wooden sort of cheap public-house, and was not

demolished before it was necessary. On its site now stands a business

warehouse.

The Crozier, the "Orthodox Hotel," where Datchery lodged in the same city,

was the Crown, and is dealt with in "The Inns and Taverns of Pickwick."

In the late autumn of 1857, Dickens and Wilkie Collins started "on a ten

or twelve days' expedition to out-of-the-way places, to do (in inns and

coast corners) a little tour in search of an article and in avoidance of

railroads." Their selection was the Lake District, but the outcome of

their expedition was not one article merely but a series of five under the

title of _The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices_, written in

collaboration. The two idle apprentices were Francis Goodchild and Thomas

Idle, the first name being the pseudonym of Dickens.

These misguided young men, they inform us in the narrative, "were actuated

by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip in any direction. They had

no intention of going anywhere in particular; they wanted to see nothing;

they wanted to know nothing; they wanted to learn nothing; they wanted to

do nothing. They wanted only to be idle ... and they were both idle in the

last degree." In that spirit they set forth on their journey.

Carrock Fell, Wigton, Allonby, Carlisle, Maryport, Hesket Newmarket, were

all visited in turn, and the adventures of the twain in these spots duly

set forth in the pages of the book. In due course they came to Lancaster,

and, the inn at that town being the most important of the tour, we deal

with it first.

The travellers were meditating flight at the station on account of Thomas

Idle being suddenly filled with "the dreadful sensation of having

something to do." However, they decided to stay because they had heard

there was a good inn at Lancaster, established in a fine old house; an inn

where they give you bride-cake every day after dinner. "Let us eat

bride-cake," they said, "without the trouble of being married, or of

knowing anybody in that ridiculous dilemma." And so they departed from the

station and were duly delivered at the fine old house at Lancaster on the

same night.

This was the King's Arms in the Market Street, the exterior of which was

dismal, quite uninviting, and lacked any sort of picturesqueness such as

one associates with old inns; but the interior soon compensated for the

unattractiveness of the exterior by its atmosphere, fittings and customs.

Being then over two centuries old, it had allurement calculated to make

the lover of things old happy and contented. "The house was a genuine old

house," the story tells us, "of a very quaint description, teeming with

old carvings, and beams, and panels, and having an excellent staircase,

with a gallery or upper staircase cut off from it by a curious fence-work

of old oak, or of old Honduras mahogany wood. It was, and is, and will be,

for many a long year to come, a remarkably picturesque house; and a

certain grave mystery lurking in the depth of the old mahogany panels, as

if they were so many deep pools of dark water--such, indeed, as they had

been much among when they were trees--gave it a very mysterious character

after nightfall."

A terrible ghost story was attached to the house concerning a bride who

was poisoned there, and the room in which the process of slow death took

place was pointed out to visitors. The perpetrator of the crime, the story

relates, was duly hanged, and in memory of the weird incident bride-cake

was served each day after dinner.

The complete story of this melodramatic legend is narrated to Goodchild by

a spectre in the haunted chamber where he and his companion had been

writing.

Dickens wove into the story much fancy and not a little eerieness, and it

is said that the publicity given to it in _Household Words_, in which it

first appeared, created so much interest that the hotel was sought out by

eager visitors who love a haunted chamber. As this was situated in an

ancient inn with its antique bedstead all complete, to say nothing of the

curious custom of providing bride-cake at dinner in memory of the

unfortunate bride, the King's Arms, Lancaster, discovered its fame

becoming world-wide instead of remaining local.

At the time of the visit of Dickens and Wilkie Collins to this rare old

inn, the proprietor was one Joseph Sly, and Dickens occupied what he

termed the state bedroom, "with two enormous red four-posters in it, each

as big as Charley's room at Gads Hill." He described the inn as "a very

remarkable old house ... with genuine rooms and an uncommonly quaint

staircase." A certain portion of the "lazy notes" for the book were, we

are told, written at the King's Arms Hotel.

[Illustration: THE KING'S ARMS, LANCASTER

_Drawn by L. Walker_]

On their arrival, Dickens and Collins sat down to a good hearty meal. The

landlord himself presided over the serving of it, which, Dickens writes in

a letter, comprised "two little salmon trout; a sirloin steak; a brace of

partridges; seven dishes of sweets; five dishes of dessert, led off by a

bowl of peaches; and in the centre an enormous bride-cake. 'We always have

it here, sir,' said the landlord, 'custom of the house.' Collins turned

pale, and estimated the dinner at half a guinea each."

Mr. Sly became quite good friends with the two distinguished novelists,

and cherished with great pride the signed portrait of Dickens which the

author of _Pickwick_ presented him with. He left the old place in 1879 and

it was soon afterwards pulled down and replaced by an ordinary commercial

hotel. Although the bride-cake custom was abandoned, and the haunted

chamber with its fantastic story swept away, it is interesting to know

that the famous oak bedstead, in which Dickens himself slept, was acquired

by the Duke of Norfolk.

Mr. Sly, who died in 1895, never tired of recalling the visit of the two

famous authors. He took the greatest pride in his wonderful old inn, and

found real delight in conducting visitors over the building and telling

amusing stories about Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Indeed, he was so proud

of the association that he obtained Dickens's permission to reprint those

passages of _The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices_ relating to the

hostelry, in pamphlet form, with an introductory note saying, "The reader

is perhaps aware that Mr. Charles Dickens and his friend Wilkie Collins,

in the year 1857, visited Lancaster, and during their sojourn stayed at

Mr. Sly's King's Arms Hotel."

There is a further association with the inn and Dickens to be found in

"Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions." We find it recorded there that Doctor

Marigold and his Library Cart, as he called his caravan, "were down at

Lancaster, and I had done two nights' more than the fair average business

(though I cannot in honour recommend them as a quick audience) in the open

square there, near the end of the street where Mr. Sly's King's Arms and

Royal Hotel stands."

"Doctor Marigold" was published in 1865, seven years after Dickens's

visit. But he not only remembered the King's Arms, but also Mr. Sly, the

proprietor, who thus became immortalised in a Dickens story. Mr. Sly

evidently was a popular man in the town, and his energy and good nature

were much appreciated. That this was so, the following paragraph bears

witness:

It is recorded as an historical fact that, on the marriage of H.R.H. the

Prince of Wales, the demonstration made in Lancaster exceeded any held out

of the Metropolis. The credit of this success is mainly due to Mr. Sly,

who proposed the programme, which included the roasting of two oxen whole,

and a grotesque torchlight procession. The manner in which the whole

arrangements were carried out was so satisfactory to the inhabitants of

the town and neighbourhood that, at a meeting held a short time after the

event, it was unanimously resolved to present Mr. and Mrs. Sly with a

piece of plate, of a design suitable to commemorate the event. The sum

required was subscribed in a few days, the piece of plate procured, and

the presentation was made in the Assembly Rooms on the 9th of November by

the High Sheriff, W. A. F. Saunders, Esq., of Wennington Hall, in the

presence of a numerous company.

In its palmy days the King's Arms was a prominent landmark for travellers

_en route_ to Morecambe Bay, Windermere, the Lakes, and Scotland. It was

erected in 1625, and in the coaching era was the head hotel in the town

for general posting purposes, and was the most suitable place for tourists

to break their journey going North, or in returning. Consequently, it was

one of the most important in the North of England.