In fine, I had but just time to take a hasty walk round
Lancaster Castle, and see what I could of the town on my way,--a not very
remarkable town, built of stone, with taller houses than in the middle
shires of England, narrow streets up and down an eminence on which the
castle is situated, with the town immediately about it. The castle is a
satisfactory edifice, but so renovated that the walls look almost
entirely modern, with the exception of the fine old front, with the
statue of an armed warrior, very likely John of Gaunt himself, in a niche
over the Norman arch of the entrance. Close beside the castle stands an
old church.
The train left Lancaster at half past nine, and reached Liverpool at
twelve, over as flat and uninteresting a country as I ever travelled. I
have betaken myself to the Rock Ferry Hotel, where I am as comfortable as
I could be anywhere but at home; but it is rather comfortless to think of
hone as three years off, and three thousand miles away. With what a
sense of utter weariness, not fully realized till then, we shall sink
down on our own threshold, when we reach it. The moral effect of being
without a settled abode is very wearisome.
Our coachman from Grasmere to Windermere looked like a great beer-barrel,
oozy with his proper liquor. I suppose such solid soakers never get
upset.
THE LAUNCH.
August 2d.--Mr. ------ has urged me very much to go with his father and
family to see the launch of a great ship which has been built for their
house, and afterwards to partake of a picnic; so, on Tuesday morning I
presented myself at the landing-stage, and met the party, to take passage
for Chester.
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