Tales of a Wayside Inn

One of the nice things about the bed-and-breakfast is that you stand a fair chance of meeting somebody at the breakfast table and getting into a conversation. And now that I’ve written that sentence, it strikes me how bizarre it would have seemed to someone before our time, that you could go to an inn or a hotel and expect not to meet anybody! And you didn’t have to be like the rather frightened Ishmael in Moby-Dick, when at first he gets quartered with, and has to share the same bed with, the pagan harpooner Queequeg — though they quickly become fast friends. You’d meet people in the big dining area or by the hearth before you ever retired to bed. Why, that was most of the fun of it. Jessica and I got to have that fun when we stayed at a couple of hostels in Sweden. But what do I do when I stay alone at a hotel? I get a snack or something from the vending machine, then shut myself in my room, take off my shoes, and give Debra a call. Otherwise it’s all silence, except for the muffled noises of the elevator going up or down, or of other guests in the hallway; but I don’t hear them at night, since I use earplugs.

So then, imagine what it was like in Longfellow’s day, to stop at an old wayside inn, bright with lamps and the fire in the hearth, and actually talk to people gathered there, some of them strangers to everyone else, some of them local and known to one another. We’ve done here the most famous of the tales that his imaginary guests tell in Tales of a Wayside Inn — Paul Revere's Ride. But our selection today comes from the opening of his book, describing an old inn, sort of away from the most-traveled roads, in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He puts us in the scene. It’s night, and the wind outside is a bit strong, so that you’d welcome a warm and bright fire, and the good smell of food and drink, and human voices, and something else besides: music.

I said yesterday that in old times — before Edison’s Talking Machine — a music store sold what you needed to make music, not to hear it already made by somebody else. Now, suppose all at once there were no more tapes, no vinyl records, no television, but we were thrown back on our own resources for making music. Where would we start? We’d want to learn again how to sing. We’d get out the old guitar. We’d look for somebody getting rid of a piano. We might get together with other people to make up a choir or a barbershop quartet. But I think we would start. Human life without music? Is it possible?

We might say something similar about what else is going on as Longfellow’s poem begins. We’d have to talk to each other — fancy that! Not only would we have to do it; we’d be aching to do it. I say so, though I was a quiet boy growing up. We’d have to play chess or backgammon or rummy. And what would we laugh at? We’d have to tell funny stories. We’d have to do comic skits, or play charades, or do something else to let down our guard and risk looking silly. I’ve read about such happy entertainment in my old magazines from the 1890’s: puppet shows your kids put on themselves, for example. Most of our readers will remember when they were kids, and Mom said, to get the youngsters out from underfoot, “Go outside and play!” Well, here it would be as if God himself said, “You people of mine — start talking to each other and have some fun already!”

So here’s how Longfellow began his book of poetry, all set in that one room, one evening, in that small hotel in Sudbury. He’s already saying, effectively, that there ought to be more such places, and it would be a shame indeed if they passed from the earth. I think he was right.

One Autumn night, in Sudbury town,
Across the meadows bare and brown,
The windows of the wayside inn 
Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves 
Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves,
Their crimson curtains rent and thin.

As ancient is this hostelry
As any in the land may be, 
Built in the old Colonial day,
When men lived in a grander way, 
With ampler hospitality,
A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall, 
And stairways worn, and crazy doors, 
And creaking and uneven floors, 
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. 

A region of repose it seems, 
A place of slumber and of dreams,
Remote among the wooded hills! 
For there no noisy railway speeds,
Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds; 
But noon and night, the panting teams
Stop under the great oaks, that throw
Tangles of light and shade below, 
On roofs and doors and window-sills. 
Across the road the barns display 
Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay,
Through the wide doors the breezes blow,
The wattled cocks strut to and fro, 
And, half effaced by rain and shine, 
The Red Horse prances on the sign. 
Round this old-fashioned, quaint abode 
Deep silence reigned, save when a gust
Went rushing down the county road, 
And skeletons of leaves, and dust, 
A moment quickened by its breath, 
Shuddered and danced their dance of death, 
And through the ancient oaks o'erhead 
Mysterious voices moaned and fled.

But from the parlor of the inn 
A pleasant murmur smote the ear, 
Like water rushing through a weir,
Oft interrupted by the din 
Of laughter and of loud applause, 
And, in each intervening pause,
The music of a violin. 
The fire-light, shedding over all 
The splendor of its ruddy glow,
Filled the whole parlor large and low;
It gleamed on wainscot and on wall,
It touched with more than wonted grace
Fair Princess Mary’s pictured face;
It bronzed the rafters overhead, 
On the old spinet’s ivory keys
It played inaudible melodies,
It crowned the somber clock with flame, 
The hands, the hours, the maker’s name,
And painted with a livelier red 
The Landlord’s coat-of-arms again;
And, flashing on the window-pane, 
Emblazoned with its light and shade 
The jovial rhymes, that still remain,
Writ near a century ago, 
By the great Major Molineaux,
Whom Hawthorne has immortal made.

Before the blazing fire of wood
Erect the rapt musician stood;
And ever and anon he bent 
His head upon his instrument,
And seemed to listen, till he caught
Confessions of its secret thought,
The joy, the triumph, the lament,
Who from the far-off noisy town 
Had to the wayside inn come down, 
To rest beneath its old oak-trees. 
The fire-light on their faces glanced, 
Their shadows on the wainscot danced, 
And, though of different lands and speech, 
Each had his tale to tell, and each 
Was anxious to be pleased and please.

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