ty
of parochial gossips seated within over their churchwardens; but as I
drew near, the board displayed its superscription, and I could read the
name of Smethurst, and the designation of "Canadian Felt Hat
Manufacturers." There was no more hope of evening fellowship, and I
could only stroll on by the river-side, under the trees. The water was
dappled with slanting sunshine, and dusted all over with a little mist
of flying insects. There were some amorous ducks, also, whose
love-making reminded me of what I had seen a little farther down. But
the road grew sad, and I grew weary; and as I was perpetually haunted
with the terror of a return of the tic that had been playing such ruin
in my head a week ago, I turned and went back to the inn, and supper,
and my bed.

The next morning, at breakfast, I communicated to the smart waitress my
intention of continuing down the coast and through Whitehaven to
Furness, and, as I might have expected, I was instantly confronted by
that last and most worrying form of interference, that chooses to
introduce tradition and authority into the choice of a man's own
pleasures. I can excuse a person combating my religious or philosophical
heresies, because them I have deliberately accepted, and am ready to
justify by present argument. But I do not seek to justify my pleasures.
If I prefer tame scenery to grand, a little hot sunshine over lowland
parks and woodlands to the war of the elements round the summit of Mont
Blanc; or if I prefer a pipe of mild tobacco, and the company of one or
two chosen companions, to a ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward,
and weary, I merely state these preferences as facts, and do not seek to
establish them as principles. This is not the general rule, however, and
accordingly the waitress was shocked, as one might be at a heresy, to
hear the route that I had sketched out for myself. Everybody who came to
Cockermouth for pleasure, it appeared, went on to Keswick. It was in
vain that I put up a little plea for the liberty of the subject; it was
in vain that I said I should prefer to go to Whitehaven. I was told that
there was "nothing to see there"--that weary, hackneyed, old falsehood;
and at last, as the handmaiden began to look really concerned, I gave
way, as men always do in such circumstances, and agreed that I was to
leave for Keswick by a train in the early evening.

AN EVANGELIST

Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a place with "nothi