The
worst feature of the usage was that the garter must be taken off at the
door, and then and there presented to the porter, who received it on the
point of his official staff.
After entering Rochester, we went to the Maid's Garter and at once drove
into the courtyard, as the custom is with travellers intending to remain
all night.
When we left the coach and started to climb the steps to the great door,
we found the landlord and his retinue waiting to receive us. Frances was
in the lead, and when we reached the broad, flat stone in front of the
door, the head porter stepped before her, bowed, and asked humbly:--
"Is my lady maid or madam?"
Frances looked up in surprise, and he repeated his question.
"What is that to you, fellow?" asked Frances.
"It is this, my lady," returned the porter. "If my lady be a maid, she
must pay me one of her garters as her admission fee to this inn. If she
be madam, she enters free. It is a privilege conferred on the Maid's
Garter by good St. Augustine when he was Bishop of Canterbury, so long
ago that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."
"What nonsense is this?" asked Frances, turning to me, and Bettina asked
the same question with her eyes. I explained the matter, and Frances,
turning to the porter, said:--
"I'll buy you off with a jacobus or a guinea."
"Not a hundred guineas would buy me off, my lady," answered the porter,
bowing, "though I might say that a shilling usually goes with the
garter.
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