11G AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



BATH. WARMINSTER. SURLY POSTMASTER. A DOUBTFUL CHARACTER. 



POLITE INNKEEPER AND PRETTY CHAMBERMAID. THE TAP-ROOM FIRE 

 SIDE. RUSTIC CIVILITY. RAINY MORNING IN A COUNTRY INN. COMING 



TO MARKET. THE ROAD IN A STORM. SCUDDING. 



TT was raining hard when I again reached Bristol, and I at 

 * once jumped on board a traia ready to leave for Bath. 

 Here I found that my friends had walked on, and after look 

 ing at the &quot; pump-room&quot; and a grimy old cathedral, and get 

 ting a dinner, I determined to follow them. There was no 

 public conveyance that evening, and I started on foot, thinking 

 to overtake them at &quot;Warminster. 



At the top of a high hill I stopped under a tree during a 

 temporary torrent of rain, and looked back at what I could 

 not help thinking would be a grand view if there were but a 

 gleam of sunshine upon it ; but perhaps it was grander by 

 help of the imagination in the obscurity of the rain and drift 

 ing scud and murky cloud of smoke that was swept fragrant 

 towards me from the city. Bath is situated among and up 

 the sides of extensive hills, and the country about it is much 

 of it well wooded and studded with numerous villas. The 

 town is remarkably well built, with numerous stately ter 

 race-houses, of the same fine, soft-tinted sandstone (Bath- 

 stone) that I described at Liverpool. It is a famous old wa 

 tering-place, you know ; &quot; a mort of merry-making&quot; there has 

 been in it in days past, but now, though by no means a de- 



