Night and day the coaches kept Stilton awake, and if for a few minutes there was no coach, the post-chaises at one end of the social scale, and the fly-wagons at the other, kept the inns busy. Stilton buzzed with activity then. From the far North came the drovers, doing twenty miles a day, with their sheep and cattle, their pigs and geese; animal creation marching, martyrs in their sort, to Smithfield. At Stilton they shod the cattle, like horses, and one blacksmith’s business here consisted of nothing else than this. The glory of Stilton has departed, and the “Bell” and the “Angel” face one another, dolefully wondering in what channels the tide of business now flows. The “Bell” is more racy of the soil than the “Angel,” just as it is also much older. We are here in a stone district, and the “Bell” is a building of that warm yellowish stone characteristic of these parts. Built at the very beginning of the seventeenth century, it was already of a respectable age when the brick “Angel” opposite began to rise from its foundations. The older house is the feature of Stilton, its great sign, with the mazy quirks and curls of its wrought-iron supports, projecting far out towards the road, and arresting the eye on first entering the street. The sign itself is painted on copper, for the sake of lightness, but has long been supported by a crutch, in the shape of a post. With this ornamental iron-work, incomparably the finest sign on the road, it was in the old days the subject of many wagers made by coachmen and guards with unwary strangers who did not, like those artful ones, know its measurements. It measures in fact 6 ft. 2¾ inches in height. The old “Talbot” inn still has its coach gallery, or balcony, in front.