The manner of it may be guessed. In the old, easy-going days some impudent squatter sat down on that wide selvedge of open space beside the road and built the primeval hovel from which the “Vine” sprang, and in the course of time, by the mere lapse of twenty-one years, acquired a title to the site. Hence the isolated building, standing in advance of the general line of houses. But, if the illustration be carefully scanned, it will be noted that at some very much later period the then owner, much more impudent than the original grabber of public, or “waste” land, seems to have stolen an additional piece. This is evident enough, not only in the different styles and periods of the building, but in the manner in which the little attic windows in the roof are obscured by the addition. CHAPTER XV INNS IN LITERATURE Inns occupy a very large and prominent place in the literature of all ages. A great deal of Shakespeare is concerned with inns, most prominent among them the “Boar’s Head,” in Eastcheap, scene of many of Falstaff’s revels; while at the “Garter,” at Windsor, Falstaff had “his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing bed and truckle-bed,” and his chamber was “painted about with the Story of the Prodigal, fresh and new.” It is difficult to see what the old dramatists could have done without inns. In Farquhar’s _Beaux’ Stratagem_ we find some of the best dialogue to be that at the inn at Lichfield, between Boniface, the landlord, and Aimwell. “I have heard your town of Lichfield much famed for ale,” says Aimwell: “I think I’ll taste that.” “Sir,” replies the landlord, “I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; ’tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy, and will be just fourteen years old the fifth day of next March, old style.” “You’re very exact in the age of your ales.” “As punctual, sir, as in the age of my children. I’ll show you such ale. Here, tapster, broach number 1706, as the saying is. Sir, you shall taste my _anno domini_. I have lived in Lichfield, man and boy, above fifty years, and, I believe, have not consumed eight-and-fifty ounces of meat.” “At a meal, you mean, if one may guess your sum by your bulk.” “Not in my life, sir; I have fed freely upon ale. I have ate my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale.” Izaak Walton, going a-fishing in the river Lea, was not ashamed to call at the “Swan,” Tottenham High Cross, and drink ale, and call it “nectar.”