One religious order never attempted to divert the increasing stream of guests into the inns. With the Knights Hospitallers all comers were welcomed; the entertainment of strangers remained their chief duty. The accounts of their house in Clerkenwell for the year 1337 show that they had spent more than their whole revenue--at least £8,000, the reason being, as the prior explains, the hospitality given to strangers, members of the royal family and other grandees who all expected to be entertained in accordance with their rank. A noble would occasionally send his whole suite to the convent in order to save expense. The Knight monks finding no Paynim to demolish became an order of hotel-keepers, and travellers never failed to profit by the generous fare provided in their numerous establishments. [Illustration: Yard of the White Horse, Dorking] At Dorking, when the Knights departed, the innkeeper took their place and continues to keep up the old traditions. The _White Cross_ is now the _White Horse_, though not from any similarity of names but because the Earls of Arundel, and afterwards the Dukes of Norfolk, were lords of the manor. In later life the _White Horse_ was a famous coaching house, and rebuildings have apparently destroyed any feature older than say three centuries. Perhaps it was in the yard of this house, where a noble old vine spreads green fragrance over the great white gables, that Charles Dickens met the individual who sat for the portrait of Tony Weller. Deep underneath the building are a series of vaults cut out of the sandstone--maybe a relic of the Hospitallers. In one of the lowest is a curious old well. Tradition has it that these cellars were used in the smuggling days. To lovers of the road the quaint gables and broad oriels of the _White Horse_ are no mean landmark, for they are the destination of a real old-fashioned coach and four running hither from Charing Cross daily during the summer months. CHAPTER III THE HOSPICES Mention of the Knights Hospitallers brings us by an easy stage to pilgrimages; it was the original purpose of this order to keep open the route to the Holy Places and to assist the sick and needy pilgrims on their journey. Some pious merchants of Amalfi obtained permission to found a refuge for destitute pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, about the middle of the eleventh century. At first the brethren of St. John were content with nursing the sick and relieving the hungry in the Jerusalem Hospice, and in this work of mercy earned the toleration of Saladin when he once more captured Jerusalem from the Christians. But at this time they had already taken to the sword and had become very active and trenchant members of the Church Militant.