were not yet
open), a building that surpassed in beauty anything that I had
before seen, I set off for Gloucester.

No mischance, nor indeed any incident of note, befell me during the
remainder of my journey. I passed the next night in a wagon,
swaddled in a load of fresh mown hay, the driver with rustic
friendliness inviting me to keep him company on his dark journey.
On the third night after my departure from the Hall I trudged,
weary and footsore, into Bristowe, and sought a bed at the White
Hart in Old Market Street, this tavern having been recommended to
me by the friendly hay-cart man.

Next day, when I went out to view the city of which I had heard so
much, I was struck with wonderment, not merely at its size, wherein
it dwarfed Shrewsbury and all the towns through which I had passed,
but at its noise and bustle. Shrewsbury was a sleepy old town,
where life went on very placidly from day to day, and the sight of
these busy, though narrow, streets with their many fine buildings
and their swarms of people, the dogs drawing little carts of
merchandise, the river with its bridges, the floating basin with
many tall ships, the quays thronged with sailors and lightermen,
filled me not only with wonder, but with a sense of loneliness and
insignificance.

Among all these folk, intent upon their various occupations, what
place was there for me, I wondered? I got in the way of a line of
men on the quay side carrying large bales which I presumed had been
unloaded from a ship there moored. One of them hustled me violently
aside, another made a coarse jest upon me, and, raw and
inexperienced as I was, bewildered by the strangeness of it all, I
felt a sinking at the heart, and questioned for the first time
whether I had been wise in forsaking the scenes I knew and
venturing unbefriended into this outpost of the great world.

I was standing apart, gazing at the shipping, when an old,
weather-beaten sailor, smoking a black pipe, came up and accosted
me.

"Lost your bearings, matey?" he said in a very hoarse voice, which
yet had a tone of friendliness.

No doubt I looked foolish, for I knew no more than the dead what he
meant.

"Lor' bless you," he went on, "I knows all about it. 'Tis fifty
year since I made a course for that 'ere port from Selwood way, and
I stood like a stuck pig--like as you be standing now. Be you out
o' Zummerzet, like me?"

I told him I came from Shrewsbury.

"Never heard tell of it," he said,