After a sound sleep at the Ram's Head I sallied out,
bought a fine staff of knobby oak at a shop in the High Street, and
after viewing the outside of the cathedral (the doors were not yet
open), a building that surpassed in beauty anything that I had
before seen, I set off for Gloucester.
No mischance, nor indeed any incident of note, befell me during the
remainder of my journey. I passed the next night in a wagon,
swaddled in a load of fresh mown hay, the driver with rustic
friendliness inviting me to keep him company on his dark journey.
On the third night after my departure from the Hall I trudged,
weary and footsore, into Bristowe, and sought a bed at the White
Hart in Old Market Street, this tavern having been recommended to
me by the friendly hay-cart man.
Next day, when I went out to view the city of which I had heard so
much, I was struck with wonderment, not merely at its size, wherein
it dwarfed Shrewsbury and all the towns through which I had passed,
but at its noise and bustle. Shrewsbury was a sleepy old town,
where life went on very placidly from day to day, and the sight of
these busy, though narrow, streets with their many fine buildings
and their swarms of people, the dogs drawing little carts of
merchandise, the river with its bridges, the floating basin with
many tall ships, the quays thronged with sailors and lightermen,
filled me not only with wonder, but with a sense of loneliness and
insignificance.
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