THE VILLAGE INN.  
There is nothing more characteristic in rural life than a village alehouse, or inn. It is the centre of information, and the regular, or occasional rendezvous of almost everybody in the neighbourhood. You there see all sorts of characters, or you hear of them. The whereabout of everybody all around is there perfectly understood. I do not mean the low pothouse—the new beer-shop of the new Beer-bill, with LICENSED TO BE DRUNK ON THE PREMISES blazoned over the door in staring characters—the Tom-and-Jerry of the midland counties—the Kidley-Wink of the west of England. No, I mean the good old-fashioned country alehouse; the substantial, well-to-do old country alehouse—situated on a village green, or by the road-side, with a comfortable sweep out of the road itself for carriages or carts to come round to the door, and stand out of all harm’s way. The nice old-fashioned house, in a quiet, rural,[481] out-of-the-way, old-fashioned district. The very house which Goldsmith in his day described—
Where grey-beard mirth and smiling toil retired,
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
It is a low, white-washed, or slap-dashed, or stuccoed, or timber-framed house, with its various roof, and steep gables; its casement windows above, bright and clean, peeping out from amongst vines or jasmines, where the innkeeper’s neat daughter, who acts the parts of chambermaid, barmaid, and waiter, may be seen looking abroad; and its ample bay-windows below, where parties may do the same, and where, as you pass, you may occasionally see such parties—a pleasant-looking family, or a group of young, gay people, with merry, and often very sweet faces amongst them;—their post-chaise, travelling-carriage, barouche, or spring-cart, according to their several styles and dignities, standing at the door, under the great spreading tree. Ay, there is the old spreading tree, that is as old, and probably older than the inn itself. It is an elm, with a knotty mass of root swelled out around the base of its sturdy stem into a prodigious heap—into a seat, in fact, on holiday occasions, for a score of rustic revellers, or resters. In some cases, where the root has not been so accommodating, a good stout bench runs round it; or where the root is at all endangered by scratching dogs, picking and hewing children, or rooting pigs of the village, it has heaped up a good mound of earth round it; or it is protected by a circle of wattled fence.
You see the tree is a tree of mark and consequence; it is, indeed, the tree. It is looked upon as part and parcel of the concern; of as much consequence to the house as its sign; and it is often the sign itself:—The Old Elm-Tree! Or it may be a yew—the very yew out of which Robin Hood and Little John, Will Scarlett, or Will Stutely cut their bows—yes, that house is “The Robin Hood.” Or it may be a mighty ash—the One-Ash, or the Mony-Ash, as in the Peak of Derbyshire. Or it is an oak of as much dignity—The Royal-Oak. Or it is a whole grove or cluster, by character or tradition—The Seven-Sisters—or The Four-Brothers—or The Nine-Oaks—all of which sisters, brothers, or nine companions, except[482] one, are decayed, dropped off, or thrown down, as many a family beside has been. See!—the sign hangs in it, or is suspended on its post just by, bearing the likeness of the original tree, attempted by some village artist.
Just such a tree and such a house, all my Surrey, and many of my metropolitan readers are familiar with at the foot of St. Anne’s Hill, by Chertsey. The Golden-Grove, kept by James Snowden,—who does not know it, that loves sweet scenery, sweet associations, or a pleasant steak and pipe, or a tea-party on a holiday of nature, in one of the most delicious nests imaginable? Yes! there is a nice old village inn for you; and such a tree! There you have the picture of the Golden-Grove all in a blaze of gold—somewhat dashed and dimmed, it is true, by the blaze of many suns,—but there it is, in front of the inn, and by the old tree. The inn, the hanging gardens and orchards, the rustic cottages scattered about, the rich woods and splendid prospects above, the beautiful meadows and winding streams below; why, they are enough to arrest any traveller, and make him put up his horse, and determine to breathe a little of this sweet air, and indulge in this Arcadian calm, amid these embowering woodlands. And where is he? Below, in those fair meadows, amid those cottage roofs and orchard trees, rises the low, square church-tower of Chertsey:—Chertsey, where Cowley lived and died; and where his garden still remains, as delicious as ever, with its grassy walk winding by his favourite brook, and the little wooden bridge leading into the richest meadows. And where his old house yet remains, saving the porch pointing to the street, which was taken down for the public safety, but the circumstance and its cause recorded on a tablet on the wall, with this concluding line—
Here the last accents flowed from Cowley’s tongue.
You then, poetical or enthusiastic traveller or visitant, tread the ground which Abraham Cowley trod in his retirement; and what is more, you tread the ground which Charles James Fox trod in his retirement. The hill above is St. Anne’s,—conspicuous through a great part of Surrey, Berks, Bucks, Herts, and Middlesex, delightful for its woods and for its splendid panoramic views, including the winding Thames, Cooper’s Hill, celebrated by Sir John Denham,[483] Hampstead, Highgate, Harrow, and mighty London itself, but still more delightful to the patriotic visitant, as the place where Fox retired to refresh himself after his parliamentary contests, and to recruit himself for fresh struggles for his country. It is a place which Rogers by his pen, and Turner by his pencil, have made still more sacred. Who does not know the lines of Rogers in his poem of Human Life, in his last splendidly-embellished edition of his works, referring to Fox?—
And now once more where most he wished to be,
In his own fields, breathing tranquillity—
We hail him—not less happy Fox, than thee!
Thee at St. Anne’s so soon of care beguiled,
Playful, sincere, and artless as a child!
Thee, who wouldst watch a bird’s nest on the spray,
Through the green leaves exploring, day by day.
How oft from grove to grove, from seat to seat,
With thee conversing in thy loved retreat,
I saw the sun go down!—Ah, then ’twas thine,
Ne’er to forget some volume half divine,
Shakspeare’s or Dryden’s—through the chequered shade
Borne in thy hand behind thee as we strayed;
And where we sate (and many a halt we made),
To read there with a fervour all thine own,
And in thy grand and melancholy tone,
Some splendid passage, not to thee unknown,
Fit theme for long discourse.—Thy bell has tolled!
—But in thy place among us we behold
One who resembles thee.
There is the place, drawn by Turner, exactly as it is; and there is still living the widow of the great statesman, at the advanced age of upwards of ninety years.
It must be confessed that the Golden-Grove is located in a very golden situation, and then—its tree! I suppose that is scarcely to be rivalled. I have placed on my title-page the King of Belgium’s tree, but James Snowden’s tree is every whit as remarkable.
It is a grand old elm, with massy, wide-spreading horizontal branches, on which is laid a stout oaken floor, fenced in by a strong parapet of boards and palisades. It is an aerial, arborean lodge, reached by an easy flight of steps, furnished with seats and tables, and canopied by the green awning of the whole tree’s foliage—just[484] the sylvan bower that makes one long to see a joyous party in it on a summer’s day, looking out with glad faces on the passers by; or a rustic company, with their homely pots of ale, and the smoke of their pipes circling out amongst the green leaves about them.
This is the old-fashioned country alehouse, such as I am speaking of, only that we are still merely at the entrance of it, still lingering and haunting about the door, while the landlady and her daughter are on the fidgets to receive us, and the old landlord comes out with his bare head, and his rustic bow, and greets us with—“A fine old tree that, sir! Their heads don’t ache as planted it, sir;” and the hostler is advancing from the stable to take charge of our vehicle. But walk in. How clean it is! Bless us, what a nice snug parlour! What an ample, comfortable kitchen, or house-place as they call it, with its wide fireplace! What an array of plates, dishes, and bright pewter pots on the shelves around, and of hams and flitches dangling from the ceiling. It is a substantial place; there is no fear of starvation here. The joint is turning at the fire, and the tea-kitchen stands for ever boiling, ready to mix a tumbler of spirits, or to make coffee or tea at all hours.
These country inns are, of course, some greater, some less; some richer, some more simple—according to their custom, situation, or other contingent circumstances; but they are generally clean to a miracle, and plentiful places. The travelling carriages stop to bait there, for it is between towns; the squire comes there occasionally, for he patronizes it, and has all private and public meetings held there. Most probably it is his own property, and its sign the arms of his family; and what is quite as likely, the landlord is his old servant. Half of these places are kept by old servants of the neighbouring families, who have married and retired to public life. The groom, the coachman, nay the valet or the butler, has married the lady’s maid, or the comely laundress, or a daughter of a neighbouring farmer, and there is nothing he can so readily fashion himself to as an inn. It is something after his own way—he is still waiting on somebody at table or at carriage. He is knowing in horses and dogs, and he can’t be well spared out of the neighbourhood. He is acquainted with all the farmers, and their acquaintance all round, and they come to the house. In[485] nine cases out of ten he has a farm attached to his inn. In other cases, our country innkeeper is a maltster too, or a miller; and these are the country inns for good cheer. O, what cream, what fresh butter, what fresh eggs, what fresh vegetables, what plump tender pullets, what geese and ducks for the roasting, with all appendages of peas and onions, cucumbers and asparagus, can that larder produce which is situated in the Goshen of rural plenty; where the malt-kiln is at hand instead of the druggist’s shop; where barley is steeped instead of coculus; where the hostel has a plentiful garden at its back, and a good farm behind that.
Go up to your bed-chamber; you are delighted with its sweetness—its freshness—its cleanness. You fairly stand to snuff up the air that comes in at the open window. You turn to admire the clean white bed—the snowy sheets—the fresh carpet—the old-fashioned walnut drawers, and wide elbow-chairs of massy workmanship, with damask cushions, clean, though much worn, which have been purchased at the sale of some ancient manor-house. All is as bright and clean as busy and country hands can make them. There is lavender in the drawers! You may, indeed, if you please, be laid in lavender; for you have only to look out of your window, and the garden below has whole hedges of lavender, and there are trees of rosemary nailed up your walls to the very window-sills of the room. And then you see such filbert-bushes, such damson, and plum, and apple, and pear trees, that you have visions of apple dumplings, damson tarts, and a hundred other rural dainties. And now, if you want to study the character of the place; if you are staying some few days, and are curious in “the short and simple annals of the poor;” if you want to paint like Moreland or Gainsborough; or to vie with Miss Mitford in sunshiny pictures of an English village, there you are in the very watch-tower of observation.
You look out on the green, and there comes all the population—the old to talk and smoke their pipes, the young to play at skittles, nine-pins, quoits, or cricket. You see out over fields and farms; whatever, or whoever you meet with in your walks,—cottage or hall, man, woman, or child,—your landlord can give the whole history and mystery of it; and besides, as I have said, there every[486] body comes. The clergyman himself comes there sometimes to meet his neighbours, on parish or other affairs. All the gentlemen farmers and plodding farmers, the keepers, the labourers,—every body has some business at one time or another there. There are the privileged guests of the bar, the frequenters of the best parlour, the rustic circle of the kitchen fireside. There the wedding-party comes, and often dines there. There the very followers of the funeral find some occasion or need of comfort to draw them.[28] There the soldier on furlough halts—the recruits marching to their destination halt too. If it be a country that is at all frequented for its natural beauty or curiosities, or for sporting, there is always some wild-looking animal or other, a “man at a loose end,” ready to guide you to the moors, to act as a marker, to carry your game-bag, or your fishing-basket. In all such places there is a wit, an eccentric, a good singer. The Will Wimbles, the broken-down gentlemen, the never-do-wells, all come there. You may see them, and hear them, and when they are gone, may hear all their oddities and their histories; and every evening you shall hear every piece of news, for five miles round, as related and canvassed over by the guests amongst themselves. Many of these landlords are themselves perfect originals; and by their humour, their racy anecdotes, and “random shots of country wit,” draw numbers to their ingle. If any of my readers have heard old Matthew Jobson, of the Nag’s Head, Wythburn, at the foot of Helvelyn............