At about half past twelve we reached Patterdale, at the foot of
Ullswater, and here took luncheon. The hotels are mostly very good all
through this region, and this deserved that character. A black-coated
waiter, of more gentlemanly appearance than most Englishmen, yet taking a
sixpence with as little scruple as a lawyer would take his fee; the
mistress, in lady-like attire, receiving us at the door, and waiting upon
us to the carriage-steps; clean, comely housemaids everywhere at hand,--
all appliances, in short, for being comfortable, and comfortable, too,
within one's own circle. And, on taking leave, everybody who has done
anything for you, or who might by possibility have done anything, is to
be feed. You pay the landlord enough, in all conscience; and then you
pay all his servants, who have been your servants for the time. But, to
say the truth, there is a degree of the same kind of annoyance in an
American hotel, although it is not so much an acknowledged custom. Here,
in the houses where attendance is not charged in the bill, no wages are
paid by the host to those servants--chambermaid, waiter, and boots--who
come into immediate contact with travellers. The drivers of the cars,
phaetons, and flys are likewise unpaid, except by their passengers, and
claim threepence a mile with the same sense of right as their masters in
charging for the vehicles and horses. When you come to understand this
claim, not as an appeal to your generosity, but as an actual and
necessary part of the cost of the journey, it is yielded to with a more
comfortable feeling; and the traveller has really option enough, as to
the amount which he will give, to insure civility and good behavior on
the driver's part.
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