Crossword-Solution: HOSTELERS 9 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 12

Almost of necessity the former class resorted for food and shelter to the public-houses, which were of two kinds--the inns kept by hostelers, and the lodging-houses kept by herbergeours.

The necessity of hostelers and herbergeours being freemen was due apparently to the survival of the old Saxon law of frank-pledge, which was still in force at the close of the reign of Edward III.

Obviously there would have been much unfairness in making hostelers and herbergeours answer for the misdeeds of persons with whom they had only transient relations, if there had been no system for preventing the escape of dishonest and desperate characters who would be especially susceptible to the attractions of a great city and could not be held in check by the fatherly admonitions of an anxious host.

And here it may be observed that, among other interferences with commerce and the liberty of the subject, hostelers were not allowed to make either bread or beer.

Perhaps it was because she felt that she had defended the ancient right of hostelers to rise in dignified front when a traveler spoke of a meal out of the regular hour, perhaps because there was a gentleness and sincerity in the tall, honest-looking man before her that reached her with an appeal lacking in those who commonly came and went before her counter.