This is a public room set apart at most inns for
the accommodation of a class of wayfarers called travellers, or
riders; a kind of commercial knights-errant, who are incessantly
scouring the kingdom in gigs, on horseback, or by coach. They are the
only successors that I know of, at the present day, to the
knights-errant of yore. They lead the same kind of roving adventurous
life, only changing the lance for a driving-whip, the buckler for a
pattern-card, and the coat of mail for an upper Benjamin. Instead of
vindicating the charms of peerless beauty, they rove about spreading
the fame and standing of some substantial tradesman or manufacturer,
and are ready at any time to bargain in his name; it being the fashion
now-a-days to trade, instead of fight, with one another. As the room
of the hotel, in the good old fighting times, would be hung round at
night with the armour of wayworn warriors, such as coats of mail,
falchions, and yawning helmets; so the travellers room is garnished
with the harnessing of their successors, with box-coats, whips of all
kinds, spurs, gaiters, and oil-cloth covered hats.
I was in hopes of finding some of these worthies to talk with, but was
disappointed. There were, indeed, two or three in the room; but I
could make nothing of them.
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