There are others, of course--the Red Lion at Henley; the old Warboys
hostelry at Cookham; the Angler at Marlowe; the French Horn across the
black water and within rifle-shot of the White Hart--a most pretentious
place, designed for millionnaires and spendthrifts, where even chops and
tomato-sauce, English pickles, chowchow and the like, ales in the wood
and other like commodities and comforts, are dispensed at prices that
compel all impecunious, staid painters like myself to content themselves
with a sandwich and a pint of bitter--and a hundred other inns along the
river, good, bad, and indifferent. But yet with all their charms I am
still loyal to my own White Hart.
Mine is an inn that sets back from the river with a rose-garden in front
the like of which you never saw nor smelt of: millions of roses in a
never-ending bloom. An inn with low ceilings, a cubby-hole of a bar next
the side entrance on the village street; two barmaids--three on
holidays; old furniture; a big fireplace in the hall; red-shaded lamps
at night; plenty of easy-chairs and cushions. An inn all dimity and
cretonne and brass bedsteads upstairs and unlimited tubs--one fastened
to the wall painted white, and about eight feet long, to fit the largest
pattern of Englishman. Out under the portico facing the rose-garden and
the river stand tables for two or four, with snow-white cloths made gay
with field-flowers, and the whole shaded by big, movable Japanese
umbrellas, regular circus-tent umbrellas, their staffs stuck in the
ground wherever they are needed. Along the sides of this garden on the
gravel-walk loll go-to-sleep straw chairs, with little wicker tables
within reach of your hand for B.& S., or tea and toast, or a pint in a
mug, and down at the water's edge seafaring men like Fin and me find a
boathouse with half a score of punts, skiffs, and rowboats, together
with a steam-launch with fires banked ready for instant service.
And the people in and about this White Hart inn!
There are a bride and groom, of course. No well-regulated Thames inn can
exist a week without a bride and groom. He is a handsome, well-knit,
brown-skinned young fellow, who wears white flannel trousers, chalked
shoes, a shrimp-colored flannel jacket and a shrimp-colored cap
(Leander's colors) during the day, and a faultlessly cut dress-suit
at night.
She has a collection of hats, some as big as small tea-tables; fluffy
gowns for mornings; short frocks for boating; and a gold belt, two
shoulder-straps, and a bunch of roses for dinner. They have three dogs
between them--one four inches long--well, perhaps six, to be
exact--another a bull terrier, and a third a St. Bernard as big as a
Spanish burro. They have also a maid, a valet, and a dog-cart, besides
no end of blankets, whips, rugs, canes, umbrellas, golf-sticks, and
tennis-bats. They have stolen up here, no doubt, to get away from their
friends, and they are having the happiest hours of their lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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