London to John O Groat's. 65 



do you mean ?" She meant what she said, and it was 

 as true as two and two make four ; and she was not to 

 be beaten out of it by a stare of astonishment, however 

 a discomfited man might expand his eyes with wonder, 

 or cloud his face with chagrin. It was a patent fact. 

 There, on the opposite side of the street, was the house 

 in which I slept the night before ; and here, just coming 

 up to the door of the inn, was the good lady of my host. 

 Her form and voice, and other identifications, dispelled 

 the mist of the mistake ; and it came out as clear as day 

 that I had followed the direction of my host, to bear to 

 the left, far too liberally, and that I had been walking 

 at my best speed in a "vicious circle" for full two hours 

 and a half, and had landed just where I commenced, at 

 least within the breadth of a narrow street of the same 

 point. 



My good friends urged me to stop and dine with 

 them, and then make a fair start for the end of my 

 week's journey. But it was still twelve miles to Saffron 

 Walden, and I was determined to put half of them 

 behind me before dinner. So, taking a second leave of 

 them in the course of three hours, I set out again on 

 my walk, a wiser man in the practical understanding 

 of the proverb, " The longest way around is the shortest 

 way there." At 2 P.M. I reached Thetford, and recti- 

 fied my first notion of the town, formed when I mistook 



