There are excuses for the mistake often made by old patrons, for the idea of the management is to entice them in, in the hope of reforming them. But if those old customers were at all observant they would at once perceive, and make due deductions from, the odd change in the sign that still, as of yore, is upheld on its old-fashioned post by the kerbstone. Instead of proclaiming that So-and-So’s Fine Ales are sold at the “Edinburgh Castle,” it now reads: “No drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of God.” The sham mediævalism of this castellated house is a mean affair of grey plaster, but the interior of the great building is surprisingly well appointed. Mission services alternate with concerts and entertainments for the people and drill-exercises for the Barnardo boys. The ex-public-house is, in fact, whatever it may look like from without, a centre whence a measure of sweetness and light is dispensed in an intellectually starved purlieu. CHAPTER IV INNS WITH RELICS AND CURIOSITIES Just as most cathedrals, and many ancient churches, are in these days unconsciously looked upon by antiquaries rather as museums than as places of worship, so many ancient inns attract the tourist and the artist less as places for rest and refreshment than subjects for the pencil, the brush, or the camera; or as houses where relics, curious or beautiful, remain, of bygone people, or other times. Happy the traveller, with a warm corner in his heart for such things, who comes at the close of day to a house historic or well stored with such links that connect us with the past. There are, indeed, even in these days, when many a house has been ransacked of its interesting features, to furnish museums and private collections, still a goodly number of inns containing curious relics, old panelling, and ancient furniture. Still, for example, at the “Green Dragon,” Combe St. Nicholas, two miles from Chard, the fifteenth-century carved oak settle of pronounced ecclesiastical character remains in the tap-room, and beery rustics continue to this day to use it, even as did their remote ancestors, the Colin Clouts of over four hundred years ago; while at Ipswich, in the “Neptune” inn that was once a private mansion before it entered public life, the fine Tudor dresser, or sideboard, with elaborately carved Renaissance canopy and “linen-fold” panelling, is yet left, despite the persuasions and the long purses of would-be purchasers.