called hotels; but whether it called itself a cow, or horse,
or stag, or angel, or a blue or green something, I cannot
remember. They gave me what they called a beefsteak pie--a
tough crust and under it some blackish cubes carved out of the
muscle of an antediluvian ox-and for this delicious fare and a
glass of stout I paid three shillings and odd pence.

As I came away Shepton Mallet was shaken to its foundations by
a tremendous and most diabolical sound, a prolonged lupine
yell or yowl, as if a stupendous wolf, as big, say, as the
Anglo-Bavarian brewery, had howled his loudest and longest.
This infernal row, which makes Shepton seem like a town or
village gone raving mad, was merely to inform the men, and,
incidentally, the universe, that it was time for them to knock
off work.

Turning my back on the place, I said to myself, "What a fool I
am to be sure! Why could I not have been satisfied for once
with a cup of coffee with my lunch? I should have saved a
shilling, perhaps eighteen-pence, to rejoice the soul of some
poor tramp; and, better still, I could have discussed some
interesting questions with that charming rosy-faced woman.
What, for instance, was the reason of her quarrel with the
apostle; by the by, she never rebuked me for misquoting his
words; and what is the moral effect (as seen through her clear
brown eyes) of the Anglo-Bavarian brewery on the population of
the small town and the neighbouring villages?"

The road I followed from Shepton to Wells winds by the
water-side, a tributary of the Brue, in a narrow valley with