IN SOMERSET 275 



From Glastonbury I made to Wells, a rare 

 nice city or town. Wells has water, good water, 

 heaping itself up at the springs and running over. 

 Also it has the Mendip Hills, inviting you to 

 climb into the keen air from the Atlantic. Wells 

 has one excellent hotel, the Swan, and maybe 

 more, and a big square, on which the Bishop's or 

 cathedral close makes. Clean it is all over, fresh 

 and smart are its lads and lassies — the latter with 

 complexions no town would allow long, and the 

 former a rolling mouthful kind of pronunciation 

 rather than accent, at first striking you as laboured 

 affectation. Elbow-room and lots of it is 

 apparently cheap and indisputably plenty in Wells. 

 Flowers grow about the town as if smoke was an 

 unknown quantity ; trees as if too many of them 

 had been committed to the care of barbers instead 

 of masters of woodcraft, for they seem to pollard 

 or poll every sort. There is reason in all things. 

 What, I wonder, is the one for pollarding elms, 

 beeches, oaks, limes, ashes, poplars, willows, 

 larches, and alders, when they do so well left to 

 carry up maiden growth. Whatever may be 

 the justification for the method, you do see it illus- 

 trated somewhat extravagantly. For instance, take 

 the line of elms by the moat of my Lord Bishop's 

 Palace next door to the Cathedral. I scarcely 

 dare get nearer than next door to Wells Cathedral, 

 for I must be on to Burnham, and you want a 

 week to do the Minster, more by token that the 

 guide-books are good and the grand architecture 

 appeals to even a novice. Then there is the 

 wonderful clock, with its men in armour outside 

 who strike the quarters and hours, the Jack who 

 sits up in a corner and kicks the strikers with his 

 spurred heels, and the mounted knights who run 



