The cottages and the village life of rural England . ted, useful institution in the village, the centre•of much social activity, and not a mere place for boosing labourers. Sometimes you meet with an inn away from the village on theroadside for the refreshment of travellers as they journeyed tomarket. A good example of such a hostelry is the famous Maypole inn in Epping Forest, so picturesquely described byDickens in Barnaby Rudge. It was an old building withits huge zigzagged chimneys and more gable ends than a lazyman would care to count on a sunny day. It had diamond-paned lattice windows,
The cottages and the village life of rural England . ted, useful institution in the village, the centre•of much social activity, and not a mere place for boosing labourers. Sometimes you meet with an inn away from the village on theroadside for the refreshment of travellers as they journeyed tomarket. A good example of such a hostelry is the famous Maypole inn in Epping Forest, so picturesquely described byDickens in Barnaby Rudge. It was an old building withits huge zigzagged chimneys and more gable ends than a lazyman would care to count on a sunny day. It had diamond-paned lattice windows, large and grotesquely carved porch withhigh-backed settles. There was extensive stabling, then in ajuinous condition, and the house had formerly been a place ofimportance, the seat of some county family. It was a Tudorliouse. Queen Elizabeth had slept there when she had gone a-iunting, in an oak-panelled room with a deep bay window, andere departing in the morning she is said to have cuffed a pageior leaving undone what he ought to have done. 142. LIFE OF RURAL ENGLAND Dickens also describes another comfortable roadside inn onthe Marlborough Downs, where Tom Smart found comfort andrefreshment and, incidentally, a wife, one stormy evening whenthe cheerful lights of its windows attracted the cold and wearytraveller. It was a charming old house with a deep porch andgable-topped windows, and within the blazing fire burning inthe grate invited the slippered feet of Tom Smart, no less thanthe neat chambermaid who laid the table for supper, and therows of green bottles with gold labels, and jars of pickles andpreserves, and cheeses and boiled hams, and rounds of beef andother delectable foods. No wonder Tom married the buxomowner of all these creature comforts. But the description isuseful for our purpose in conveying to us modern folk the com-forts and resources of an old-fashioned roadside inn of the earlyeighteenth century. This reputation of good inns in England dates back to th
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectcottage, bookyear1912
