had assembled at our house, immediately upon
knowledge of what was to be about London, every man known to be a good
stitcher upon our side of Exmoor. And for three days they had
worked their best, without stint of beer or cider, according to the
constitution of each. The result, so they all declared, was such as to
create admiration, and defy competition in London. And to me it seemed
that they were quite right; though Jeremy Stickles turned up his nose,
and feigned to be deaf in the business.

Now be that matter as you please--for the point is not worth
arguing--certain it is that my appearance was better than it had been
before. For being in the best clothes, one tries to look and to act
(so far as may be) up to the quality of them. Not only for the fear of
soiling them, but that they enlarge a man's perception of his value. And
it strikes me that our sins arise, partly from disdain of others, but
mainly from contempt of self, both working the despite of God. But men
of mind may not be measured by such paltry rule as this.

By dinner-time we arrived at Porlock, and dined with my old friend,
Master Pooke, now growing rich and portly. For though we had plenty of
victuals with us we were not to begin upon them, until all chance of
victualling among our friends was left behind. And during that first day
we had no need to meddle with our store at all; for as had been settled
before we left home, we lay that night at Dunster in the house of
a worthy tanner, first cousin to my mother, who received us very
cordially, and undertook to return old Smiler to his stable at Plover's
Barrows, after one day's rest.

Thence we hired to Bridgwater; and from Bridgwater on to Bristowe,
breaking the journey between the two. But although the whole way was so
new to me, and such a perpetual source of conflict, that the remembrance
still abides with me, as if it were but yesterday, I must not be so long
in telling as it was in travelling, or you will wish me farther;
both because Lorna was nothing there, and also because a man in our
neighbourhood had done the whole of it since my time, and feigns to
think nothing of it. However, one thing, in common justice to a person
who has been traduced, I am bound to mention. And this is, that being
two of us, and myself of such magnitude, we never could have made our
journey without either fight or running, but for the free pass which
dear Annie, by some means (I know not what), had procured from Ma