Just beyond the church, going from the bridge, the High Street was so
wide that the houses on either side were separated by a space of over two
hundred feet. This elongated space was the market-place. In the centre
was the Moot Hall, a quaint little building, supported on oak pillars,
and in the shelter underneath the farmers assembled on market day. All
round the Moot Hall, and extending far up and down the street, were
cattle-pens and sheep-pens, which were never removed. Most of the shops
were still bow-windowed, with small panes of glass, but the first
innovation, indicative of the new era at hand, had just been made. The
druggist, as a man of science and advanced ideas, had replaced his bow-
window with plate-glass, had put a cornice over it, had stuccoed his
bricks, and had erected a kind of balustrade of stucco, so as to hide as
much as possible the attic windows, which looked over, meekly protesting.
Nearly opposite the Moot Hall was the Bell Inn, the principal inn in the
town. There were other inns, respectable enough, such as the Bull, a
little higher up, patronised by the smaller commercial travellers and
farmers, but the entrance passage to the Bull had sand on the floor, and
carriers made it a house of call. To the Bell the two coaches came which
went through Eastthorpe, and there they changed horses. Both the Bull
and the Bell had market dinners, but at the Bell the charge was three-and-
sixpence; sherry was often drunk, and there the steward to the Honourable
Mr. Eaton, the principal landowner, always met the tenants. The Bell was
Tory and the Bull was Whig, but no stranger of respectability, Whig or
Tory, visiting Eastthorpe could possibly hesitate about going to the
Bell, with its large gilded device projecting over the pathway, with its
broad archway at the side always freshly gravelled, and its handsome
balcony on the first floor, from which the Tory county candidates, during
election times, addressed the free and independent electors and cattle.