Part 2 (1/2)

The commercial room is across the yard, over which on one occasion Mr. Wopsle was reciting Collin's ode to Pip in Great Expectations with such dramatic effect that the commercials objected and sent up their compliments with the remark that ”it wasn't the Tumbler's Arms.”

From the hall runs the staircase upon which took place the famous scene between Dr. Slammer and Jingle, ill.u.s.trated so spiritedly by Phiz. Those who remember the incident--and who does not?--can visualize it all again as they mount the stairs to the bedrooms above, which the Pickwickians occupied. They remain as d.i.c.kens described them, even in some cases to the very bedsteads and furniture, and are still shown to the interested visitor.

”Winkle's bedroom is inside mine,” is how Mr. Tupman put it. That is to say, the one led out of the other, and they are numbered 13 and 19; but which is which no one knows. Number 18, by the way, is the room the Queen slept in on the occasion of her visit, eight months after the appearance of the first part of Pickwick.

Number 17 is claimed as Mr. Pickwick's room, which is also the one d.i.c.kens occupied on one occasion, and the one spoken of in Seven Poor Travellers, from which the occupant a.s.sured us that after the cathedral bell struck eight he ”could smell the delicious savour of turkey and roast beef rising to the window of my adjoining room, which looked down into the yard just where the lights of the kitchen reddened a ma.s.sive fragment of the castle wall”

[ill.u.s.trations: Staircase at the ”Bull.” Orchestra in Ballroom at the ”Bull”]

An important feature in those days, and presumably to-day, was the ballroom, ”the elegant and commodious a.s.sembly rooms to the Winglebury Arms.” In The Pickwick Papers d.i.c.kens thus describes it: ”It was a long room, with crimson-covered benches, and wax candles in gla.s.s chandeliers. The musicians were securely confined in an elevated den, and quadrilles were being systematically got through by two or three sets of dancers. Two card tables were made up in the adjoining card-room, and two pair of old ladies and a corresponding number of stout gentlemen were executing whist therein.”

The room itself is little altered; although the gla.s.s chandeliers have been removed, there still remains at the end the veritable elevated den where the fiddlers fiddled. During the war it was turned into a dining-room on account of the military and naval demands of the town; but there may come a time when it will revert to its old glory and tradition.

On the evening of the Pickwickians' arrival Jingle remarks that there is a ”Devil of a mess on the staircase, waiter. Forms going up--carpenters coming down--lamps, gla.s.ses, harps. What's going forward?”

”Ball, sir,” said the waiter.

”a.s.sembly, eh?”

”No, sir, not a.s.sembly, sir. Ball for the benefit of charity, sir.”

This was the famous ball at which the incident occurred resulting in the challenge to a duel between Dr. Slammer and Winkle, the details of which require no reiteration here.

But the pleasant fact remains that the Bull Inn exists to-day and the d.i.c.kens tradition clings to it still. One instinctively goes there as the centre of the d.i.c.kensian atmosphere with which the old city of Rochester is permeated.

The Bull Inn should never lose its fame. Indeed, as long as it lasts it never will, because Pickwick can never be forgotten. The present-day traveller will go by rail, or some day by an aerial 'bus, and may forget the old days during his journey; but when he arrives there and walks into the inn yard, whole visions of the coaching days will come back to him, and prominent amongst them will be the arrival of the ”Commodore” coach with the Pickwickians on board, and the departure of the chaise with the same company with Winkle struggling with the tall mare, on their way to Dingley Dell, which resulted so disastrously. He might be curious enough to want to discover the ”little roadside public-house with two elm trees, horse-trough and a sign-post in front,” where the travellers attempted to put up the horse. That, however, has not been discovered, although d.i.c.kens no doubt had a particular one in his mind at the time.

During their stay at Manor Farm, Dingley Dell, the Pickwickians visited Muggleton to witness the cricket match between Dingley Dell and all Muggleton. ”Everybody whose genius has a topographical bent,” says d.i.c.kens, ”knows perfectly well that Muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses and freeman,” but so far no topographer has discovered which corporate town it was. Some say Maidstone, others Town Malling. Until that vexed question has been settled, however, the identification of the ”large inn with a sign-post in front, displaying an object very common in art, but very rarely met with in nature--to wit, a Blue Lion with three legs in the air, balancing himself on the extreme point of the centre claw of his fourth foot,” cannot definitely be verified.

The same remark applies to the Crown Inn, where Jingle stopped on the same occasion.

[ill.u.s.tration: The Swan Inn, Town Malling. Drawn by C. G. Harper]

At Maidstone there is a ”White Lion,” and at Town Malling there is the ”Swan.” Which of these is the original of the inn where Mr.

Wardle hired a chaise and four to pursue Jingle and Miss Rachael, and on whose steps, the following Christmas, the Pickwickians, on their second visit to Dingley Dell, were deposited ”high and dry, safe and sound, hale and hearty,” by the Muggleton Telegraph, when they discovered the Fat Boy just aroused from a sleep in front of the tap-room fire, must be left to the choice of the reader.

CHAPTER IV THE ”WHITE HART,” BOROUGH

The pursuit of Jingle and Miss Wardle by the lady's father and Mr.

Pickwick, culminates in the ”White Hart,” which, in days gone by, was one of the most famous of the many famous inns that then stood in the borough of Southwark. Long before d.i.c.kens began to write, the ”White Hart” was the centre of the coaching activity of the metropolis south of the Thames, and .was one of the oldest inns in the country.

Travellers from the Continent and the southern and eastern counties of England to London made it their halting-place, whilst from a business standpoint it had scarcely a rival. Coaches laden with pa.s.sengers and wagons full of articles of commerce made the courtyard of the inn always a bustling and busy corner of a hustling and busy neighbourhood. In the coaching era, therefore, the ”White Hart” was a household word to travellers and business men.

d.i.c.kens, with his magic pen and inventive genius, made it a household word to the inhabitants of the whole globe, who never had occasion to visit it either for business or pleasure.

Its history goes back many centuries: as far back as 1400, and possibly earlier than that. Its sign was taken from the badge of Richard II, who adopted the emblem of the ”White Hart” from the crest of his mother, Joanna of Kent. A fine old inn of the highest type, the ”White Hart” no doubt was the resort of the most prominent n.o.bles and retainers of the time, public men of the period and amba.s.sadors of commerce. It is not surprising, therefore, that it figures in English history generally, and was particularly mentioned by Shakespeare. It certainly was the centre of many a stirring scene, and events of feasting and jollity, besides being a place where great trade was transacted.