288 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XLn. 



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 train ready to leave for Bath. Here 

 I found that my friends had walked on, and after looking at the 

 "pump-room" and a grimy old cathedral, and getting a dinner, I 

 determined to follow them. There was no public conveyance 

 that evening, and I started on foot, thinking to overtake them at 

 Warminster. 



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

 porary 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 ; perhaps it was grander by help of the imagin- 

 ation in the obscurity of the rain and drifting 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 nu- 

 merous stately terrace-houses, of the same fine, soft-tinted sand- 

 stone (Bath-stone) that I described at Liverpool. It is a famous 



