Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/387

Rh From The Spectator.

Mr. Charles Dickens and Mr. Wilkie Collins went on their "Lazy Tour" in their ironically-assumed character of "Two Idle Apprentices," they halted for a time at Lancaster, the half-way stage between London and Scotland, and they put up at the King's Arms. That comfortable, quaint old inn looks as if it might have sheltered the helter-skelterers from the north in many troublous times, and the ponderous sign suspended above its doorway might have suggested the Dragon in "Martin Chuzzlewit," had not that rampant animal creaked in its place in contemporary history long before the idle apprentices set forth upon their tour. The sojourn of the friends at the King's Arms led to the writing, by Mr. Dickens, of one of his most fantastic fictions. In the ghost of the hanged man in the story on "A Bridal Chamber," the ghost with a queer twitch of one nostril, as if it had been caught up by a hook, we recognize the first outline of the elaborated picture of Mr. Jaggers' office, in "Great Expectations;" while the rest of the tale is a variation of the "Madman's Story" in "Master Humphry's Clock." The tale supplied the King's Arms Inn with the only thing which it wanted for the thorough establishment of its claim to the interest of antiquity, a ghost of its own; and so authentic has that article of property become, that persons visiting the town have been gravely asked whether they "mind" the chance of seeing the old man who was hanged at Lancaster Castle!

What with its panelled entrance-hall, its solid oaken screen, with recesses like a pair of pulpits on either side, its fine old staircase, richly carved, almost black with age, as solid as the fortune of the prosperous merchant who owned the house in 1625, and the ghost contributed by Mr. Dickens, the King's Arms had an undeniable claim to be regarded as something uncommon among inns, but it was to become more uncommon still. The really grand and artistic staircase, and the curious carved fittings of the old inn, appealed to the imagination of Mr. Dickens, and led him to inspire "his good friend Mr. Sly" — as an autograph inscription on the famous novelist's portrait which hangs over the staircase designates the landlord — with an ambition to collect ancient furniture, tapestry, china, and other objects suitable to the style and the antiquity of the house. The King's Arms has since then assumed a museum-like appearance, and the collection which has just been dispersed was well worth a visit, before the objects which composed it were removed from their accustomed places, and withdrawn from daily use, to the undignified confusion of a sale by auction in a dismantled billiard-room. For the old inn is to be pulled down, in the interest of street-widening, and a new hotel, with all the modern improvements, is to take its place. Visitors will hardly find themselves so comfortable among the marble and the gilding, and though one might not particularly miss the ghost of the hanged man, there are old associations which one will miss. A week ago the King's Arms was like the room in which Little Nell lies sleeping, in the beautiful illustration to one of the earliest chapters of "The Old Curiosity Shop" in the original edition; with its dim, panelled corridors, hung with old pictures and complicated brackets, and lined with ancient chairs, whose backs and legs are perfect marvels of carving; its spacious rooms, with beam-crossed ceilings and heavy oaken doors, whence any sort of people except those of to day, in any sort of costume except such clothes as we are wearing, might naturally be expected to issue, and descending the ancient staircase, lighted by fine chandeliers, disdainful of the vulgar gas that flaunts hard by, betake themselves to sedan chairs at the stair-foot, or to glass coaches at the old doorway, or even to sober steeds and pillions in the courtyard. In the background, seen from the wide hall, the ruddy light of the old kitchen sent warm reflections out upon the dark shining carved timber which is everywhere, in rail and door, and wainscoting and recess, lining the passages in which one could not easily find one's way, but did not mind, for a sense of friendly leisure and at-homeishness settled immediately upon one's spirits, and every step disclosed objects not the least like the ordinary furniture of an inn. For instance, one was led through a grove of suspended hams, irresistibly suggestive of Mark Tapley and Mrs. Lupin, to the inspection of a quantity of crown Derby ware, and a choice assortment of monsters in Chinese pottery. Miss Austen's Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris might have sipped their tea from the former, and Miss Ferrier's Lady Julia Douglas added the latter to the collection which cost her "adored Henry" so dear. The numbered hours of the old inn were ticked off by old clocks; one has been telling its unheeded tale for two hundred years, a sturdy 