CHAPTER V TAVERN RHYMES AND INSCRIPTIONS Beer has inspired many poets, and “jolly good ale and old” is part of a rousing rhyme; but much of the verse associated with inns runs to the hateful burden of “No Trust.” Thus, along one of the backwaters in Norwich city there stands the “Gate House” inn, displaying the following: The sun shone bright in the glorious sky, When I found that my barrels were perfectly dry. They were emptied by Trust; but he’s dead and gone home, And I’ve used all my chalk to erect him a tomb. A metrical version, you see, of that dreadful tale, “Poor Trust is dead.” Another version of the same theme is found at the “Buck and Bell,” Long Itchington, Warwickshire, in the lament: Customers came and I did trust them, Lost all my liquor and their custom. To lose them both it grieved me sore; Resolved I am to trust no more. A little public-house poetry goes a very long way. It need not be of great excellence to be highly appreciated, and, when approved, is very largely repeated all over the country. There was once--a matter of twenty years ago--a semi-rural inn, the “Robin Hood,” at Turnham Green, exhibiting a picture-sign representing Robin Hood and Little John, clad duly in the Lincoln green of the foresters and wearing feathered hats, whose like you see nowadays only on the heads of factory girls holiday-making at Hampstead and such-like places of public resort. This brave picture bore the lines: If Robin Hood is not at home, Take a glass with Little John-- a couplet that most excellently illustrates the bluntness of the English ear to that atrocity, a false rhyme. The experienced traveller in the highways and byways of the land will probably call to mind many repetitions of this sign. There is, for instance, one in Cambridgeshire, in the village--or rather, nowadays, the Cambridge suburb--of Cherry Hinton: Ye gentlemen and archers good, Come in and drink with Robin Hood. If Robin Hood be not at home, Then stay and sup with Little John. But, although such examples may be numerous, they cannot rival that very favourite sign, the “Gate,” with its sentiments dear to the heart of the typical Bung, who wants your custom and your coin, rather than your company: This gate hangs well And hinders none; Refresh and pay And travel on; or, as an American might more tersely put it, “Gulp your drink and git!” That, shorn of frills, is really the sentiment. It is not hospitable; it is not kindly; it would be even unwise did those who read as they run proceed to think as well. [Illustration: THE “GATE” INN, DUNKIRK.]