Page:The George Inn, Southwark.djvu/26

 The way up to the galleries and bedrooms is by a winding broad staircase, old and worn by the use of thousands of travellers. The bedrooms are in keeping with the rest of the house, but those that still retain the old mahogany four-poster beds are those that prevent you from forgetting the days before fast travelling and cheap ornateness supplanted the more solid and useful. In these rooms nothing has changed for ages. The three-cornered washstands, the sets of steps for mounting into bed, the antique dressing-tables are all part and parcel of the ancient times. And, in many instances one bedroom leads into another, in the same way that Mr. Winkle's led into Mr. Tupman's in another old inn. In other rooms there are Tall-boys and other priceless pieces of furniture that would make a collector of antiques eager for a catalogue. And, as we pass along the passages, with its old balusters, and stop occasionally to lean over the rail to view the yard below, we can picture what it all looked like in the busy days of the coaching era. Here came loaded wagons from Kent, Surrey and Sussex: coaches and four from the south coast with mails and parcels and game—with the bustle of passengers eager for warmth—and the coachmen and the ostlers and the rest of them all in happy or anxious excitement. In those days the galleries ran round three sides of the yard and the wall opposite still shows the marks of where they once were. Although the perfect picture can only be imagined, and there remains only the one side for us to actually visualize the galleries and bedrooms running out of them, we can at least be thankful that even so much remains.

Up above the second tier are long and spacious barns of attics, once used by commericalcommercial [sic] travellers to exhibit their wares, and where there are more bedrooms. Some of the rooms are now empty and useless, and rats and mice can revel there to their hearts' delight.