A very spirited view of Glastonbury, including the “George,” in the eighteenth century was executed, as an etching, by Rowlandson, and shows us, in his inimitable manner, the life and bustle of an old English country town on market-day. There you see a post-chaise and four being driven at top speed through the town, bringing disaster to a woman dealer in crockery, whose donkey, lashing out with his hind-legs, is upsetting the contents of his panniers; and there at the town-pump, in those days before house-to-house water-supply, are the gossipping servants, very beefy about the ankles, filling their pitchers and pipkins. [Illustration: HIGH STREET, GLASTONBURY, IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. _From the etching by Rowlandson._] CHAPTER VII PILGRIMS’ INNS AND MONASTIC HOSTELS (_continued_) At St. Albans we have still something in the way of a pilgrim’s inn. St. Albans was, of course, the home of the wonder-working shrine of St. Alban, the proto-martyr of Britain, and by direct consequence a place of great pilgrimage and a town of many inns. Here is the “George,” one of the pleasantest of the old inns remaining in the place, with an old, but scarce picturesque frontage, relieved from lack of interest by a quaint sundial, inscribed _Horas non numero nisi serenas_, and a more than usually picturesque courtyard. The house is mentioned so early as 1448 as the “George upon the Hupe.” In those times it possessed an oratory of its own, referred to in an ancient licence, by which the Abbot authorised the innkeeper to have Low Mass celebrated on the premises, for the benefit of “such great men and nobles, and others, as shall be lodged here.” Let us try to imagine that inn, licensed for the sale of wine and spirituous liquors and for religious services! It seems odd, but after all not so odd as these mad times of our own, when public-houses are converted into missions, and ordained clergymen of the Church of England become publicans and serve drinks across the counter in the interest of temperance and good behaviour.[14] No traces of that oratory now remain in the “George.” It is one of the most comfortable of old houses, and full of old panelling and old prints and furniture, but the “great men and nobles” have long ceased to lodge here, and it is now only frequented by “others.” The chapel was desecrated at the time of the Reformation, and was afterwards in use as part of the stables. The carving seen in the illustration over the archway is no integral part of the inn, but was brought from old Holywell House in 1837, on the destruction of that mansion, of which it formed the decorative pediment.