90 EARLY HARVEST 



expressed himself anxious to make amends for the long 

 neglect I had experienced, though, as he said, he feared I 

 should not find it a very lucrative appointment. 



I began my first journey down, and performed it 

 Avithout meeting with any incident worth recording. The 

 weather was exceedingly mild ; for though it was the 

 month of March, it was more like May or June, and all 

 the windows were up as I drove down the principal street 

 to the " Bull." This season, I must also observe, was the 

 earliest ever remembered, and there had not been the 

 slightest frost during the past winter. The corn was 

 ready for the sickle before the end of June, and completely 

 harvested before July was out. 



On my pulling up, who should I see on the pavement, 

 clutching his stick, but my friend Monops, who, it turned 

 out, had driven the Fakenham coach down the night 

 before. On my getting otf the box, he accosted me 

 with, — 



" Well, young man, T have ordered dinner for you at 

 my lodgings, boiled fowl and bacon.' 



"Very kind of you," I replied. Being a perfect 

 stranger in the place, I resolved to accept his invitation ; 

 therefore, after answerino; a few interroo-atives made in 

 the kindest manner by my friend of yesterday, and 

 iindino; that the coach had started for its ultimate 

 destination with a paucity of passengers, I accompanied 

 him. 



Never having been at Cambridge, my thoughts re- 

 verted to the Sister University, and I already began in 

 my mind to draw comparisons between them ; but I 

 looked around in vain for the beautiful High Street of 



