Monastic inns--Village inns--Highwaymen--Inn signs--Famous inns-- Man-traps.
In almost every village in England there is an inn. Before the Reformation there were very few of these hostelries, as travellers were always accommodated at the monasteries, each of which, as we have seen, had a hospitium, or guest-house, where their wants were attended to by special officers appointed for the purpose, and where they could remain for several days. But the destruction of the monasteries produced many changes in the condition of the country; it introduced the necessity of a poor law, for the poor were always relieved by the monasteries; it required the erection of schools and places for education, as all the education of the country had been carried on in these monastic buildings; and when the old guesthouses ceased to exist, travellers, merchants, and pedlars required some place in which to lodge when they moved about the country, and inns became plentiful as time went on. Hence in almost every village in England there is an inn, which is generally a landmark; and if you wish to direct a stranger to some place where he desires to go, you doubtless tell him to turn to the right by "The Bull," or to keep straight on until he comes to "The Magpie." Indeed, a friend of mine, who is a strong teetotaler, asserts that the only good use inns have is to help people to find their road. But old inns have a great history. In former days they used to be meeting-places of plotters and conspirators. All the distinguished people in the country used to pass through the villages and towns on the great roads through the country, and when the horses were being changed they used to partake of the good fare which the landlord provided. Those were busy times for the old inns, when there was stabling for fifty or sixty horses, and the coaches used to rattle through the village to the inn door long before the iron horses began to drag their freight of passengers along the iron roads, and the scream of the engines took the place of the cheerful notes of the posthorn.
Sometimes a gentleman would ride to an inn door on a beautiful, fleet-looking steed, and receive a hearty welcome from the landlord; but the pistols in his belt looked ominous, and presently some soldiers would steal noiselessly into the inn where the gentleman was refreshing himself, and there would be heard the sounds of vigorous fighting; and often, in some wonderful way, Claude Duval or the noted Dick would fight his way out, whistle to his steed, jump into the saddle, and ride away before his less nimble pursuers had recovered from their astonishment. Very many exciting scenes have taken place in our old inns, but in these days railways have changed all things; and in many streets where the coaches used to rattle along, and the place was alive with merry sounds, the moss now grows, and all is silence and desolation. We should certainly think it inconvenient to take three days to travel from London to Bath, and it would not be pleasant to have a visit from Dick Turpin on the way, and to have all one's valuables appropriated by that notorious highwayman; but in these days of worry and busy bustling it would be refreshing to catch a glimpse of those quiet times when people were not so much in a hurry, and to hear the sound of the posthorn once more instead of the whistle of the steam-engine.