and clinging to their bodies; one particularly
pretty fellow, standing under a little tower
with no roof to it, built into such a wall
as the Picts and Scots might have erected,
looked out upon us with an Irish
complacency, that made me laugh aloud. My
companions, become by this time mere human
sponges—Thompson's waterproof, by the bye,
as wet on one side as the other, and
looking like a great piece of blotting-paper—
were quite incapable of seeing humour in
anything; nor did they take any interest in
the cost of these little nags, from five pounds
up to the fancy price of fifteen, with which,
as well as with much other useful information,
I attempted to favour them.

Arriving at last at the village, where
the people seemed to be going about much as
usual, and the day not to be considered by
any means a wet one, we asked a crowd of
men who were standing about a cottage door,
which was the way to the inn?

"This is the inn," said they, "and nothing
but it."

It was a four-roomed dwelling, of which
one apartment was a sleeping-room, and the
other three were filled with sixty-eight copper-
coloured natives from the neighbouring iron
mines. Kidd Shinar, who had fed himself in
the spirit for the last five miles upon imaginary
beefsteaks and cutlets at the very least,
with tarts and clotted cream to follow; who
had been warming his hands and drying himself,
in idea, by a blazing fire in a private
room; who had almost gone to bed, I may say,
by anticipation, in a magnificent chamber,
attended by obsequious waiters with
continuous brandy and water, hot—Kidd Shinar
groaned.

Olive Thompson and I took him by the
hands in pity, and led him in, and these rude
men, touched by our inexpressibly pitiable
condition, made room for us around the little
fire. They themselves were wet, it is true,
but it was their normal state to be so, for
upon Exmoor it always rains. They crowded
round Kidd Shinar's umbrella (that was) and
around mine, which was entirely paralysed
on one side, as though they were unaware
of the original intention of umbrellas.

"Ask for a private room," said Shinar,
dolefully.

"With turtle and devilled whitebait,"
added Thompson; "do!"

But, room was made for us at the table,
presently, and we sat down to cold meat and
capital beer. Wherever we sat, or moved, or
hung our hats or coats, or stood still, there
was a puddle. Whenever we shook our
heads in the negative, a halo of rain-water
was cast from them as from a housemaid's
mop. Shinar's moustaches hung down
perpendicularly from his lip like those of a
Chinese mandarin. After these two men
had dined, however, their sentiments and
feelings were so greatly changed that they
proceeded to contemplate walking a mile and
a half up-hill to an open moor whereupon the
race-course was, and thither at last they
went. As, in the first place, I had not been,
so cast down by misfortune as they, so I was
not now so unduly excited by cold meat and
partial dryness as to venture out again
unnecessarily, but remained in company with
about half of our copper-coloured friends.

They were as fine and intelligent looking
a set of men as I ever saw, and the one
or two women among them, remarkably
bright-eyed and cleanly. There was no
drunkenness, to be called so, and very
little quarrelling; but I was told that there
were almost as many folks in that Exmoor
beer-house every day as upon this particular
occasion. The village Simonsbath,
which will soon be a town, and probably one
day a very large one, is at present in its
infancy; but a handsome church is built
there, and a parsonage—the clergyman not
yet appointed; we will hope for mechanics'
institute and lending library in due
time. The mines in its neighbourhood have
been taken on trial by three of the largest
companies in England, and bid fair to
make a populous haunt and busy mart of
this barren and unproductive moor. I
confess that I like the miner, and think
him a very civil fellow at bottom. He won't
be domineered over, and he won't stand soft
soap (nor any other soap, to look at him);
but when you have drunk out of his own
quart pot, and taken a spark from his own
short pipe, he is an honest, kind-hearted,
sensible person, and has as large a stock of
good feelings about him as of bad words.
I, for my part, got on capitally with my
neighbours on either side; and, if I did treat
them to a glass or two, it was not until I had
partaken of their own hospitality first.
Their conversation ran, for the most part,
upon the prospects of the pits: "if the lode
goes wedge-like, with the smaller end down,
why then it soon comes to an end; but, if the
small end is uppermost, there's no knowing
where it mayn't spread below," they said;
and seemed to take an interest in the matter
generally, apart from its relation to
themselves. They did not complain much of
anything, except of "Capel," who seemed to
stand in the way of everybody dreadfully.
He made their work harder; he lowered
their wages; he doubled their toil-time;
and he defrauded, at the same moment, the
whole of the three companies. I took him
to be some wicked overlooker, or unjust
steward, for a long while, until I learned
that Capel broke their pick-axes and shovels.
When I asked who he really was, in order to
expose such a ruffian, in this journal, he
turned out to be some unpleasant mineral
substance, which the miners are constantly
coming upon, hard as the iron they are in
search of, but not nearly so valuable.

There was a deal of singing going on all
this time, for the most part neither spirited,