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whose appearance and speech amused and interested me. 

 A tall hony uncouth-looking young man with lantern 

 jaws and sunburncil skin, in a rough suit of tweeds and 

 thick boots; he was more like a working farmer than a 

 "commercial," who as a rule is a towny, dapper person. 

 I ventured the remark that he came from the north. 

 Oh yes, he replied, from a manufacturing town in York- 

 shire; he had been visiting the West of England for the 

 last two or three years, and this was the first time he 

 had elected to spend the night at Yeovil. He had nothing 

 more to do in the place, having finished his business 

 early in the afternoon. He could have got to Bristol 

 or gone on to Exeter; he was staying only to hear the 

 nightingale. He had never heard it, and he didn't want 

 to finish his rounds on this occasion and go back north 

 without that long-desired experience. 



These rough fellows from the north, especially from 

 Yorkshire and Lancashire, are always surprising us with 

 their enthusiasm, their aesthetic feeling! One Sunday 

 morning not long ago I was on the cathedral green at 

 Salisbury watching the pigeons and daws on the vast 

 pile, when I noticed a young working man with his 

 wife and child sitting on the grass by the elm-trees. 

 They had a luncheon basket with them, and w^ere evi- 

 dently out for the day. By-and-by the young man got 

 up and strolled over to where I was standing, looking 

 up at the birds soaring round the spire, and, entering 

 into conversation with me he told me that he was a zinc- 

 worker from Shcflield, that he had oeen sent south to 

 work at Tidworth in the erection of zinc and iron build- 



