Another feature peculiar to old country inns was the ale-bench, a seat in front of the house where the thirsty wayfarer might rest and take his modest quencher. An ancient institution was the ale-bench. It is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon poem _Beowulf_ and in the sixteenth century seems to have been considered the appropriate resting place of sententious and argumentative persons. One of the old Homilies (1547) alludes to those “which upon the ale-benches delight to set forth certain questions.” Another institution of the old alehouse, corresponding in fact to the modern _bar_, was called the _ale-stond_, an allusion to which is to be found in _Marprelate’s Epistle_: “Therefore at length Sir Jefferie bethought him of a feat whereby he might both visit the ale-stond and also kepe his othe.” In the sixteenth century the keeper of an alehouse was fancifully called an _ale-draper_. Chettle, in his _Kind-Hearts’ Dreame_ (1592), has the following:—“I came up to London and fell to be some tapster, hostler, or chamberlaine in an inn. Well, I got me a wife; with her a little money; when we are married seeke a house we must; no other occupation have I but an ale-draper.” _The Discoverie of the Knights of the Poste_ (1597) also contains an allusion to the phrase:—“‘So that nowe hee hath left brokery, and is become a draper.’ ‘A draper!’ quoth Freeman, ‘what draper? of woollin or of linnen?’ ‘No,’ qd he, ‘an ale-draper, wherein he hath more skil then in the other.’” Innkeepers in Whitby are denominated ale-drapers in the parish registers of last century. In those good old days before the introduction of mail-coaches, to say nothing of the more modern means of transit, hospitality to the traveller was the rule in country districts. The Water Poet tells in his _Pennilesse Pilgrimage_ that he travelled “on foot from London to Edinburgh in Scotland, not carrying money to or fro, neither begging, borrowing or asking meat.” However, from what he goes on to relate, this description of his journey needs to be accepted with some slight reservation, for he gives a comical recital of how “from Stamford we _rode_ the next day to Huntingdon, where we lodged at the Post-master’s house at the signe of the Crowne.” The landlord appears, and “very {191} bountifully called for three quarts of wine and sugar and some jugges of beere. He did drink and begin healths like a horse-leach, and swallowed downe his cuppes without feeling, as if he had had the dropsie, or nine pound of spunge in his maw. In a word, as he is a Poste, he dranke poste, striving and calling by all means to make the reckoning great, or to make us men of great reckoning. But in his payment he was tyred like a jade, leaving the gentleman that was with me to discharge the terrible shott, or else one of my horses must have laine in pawne for his superfluous calling and unmannerly intrusion.”