This arrangement of an inn, I presume, is very ancient, and
it resembles what I have seen in the hospitals, free schools, and other
charitable establishments in the old English towns; and, indeed, all
large houses were arranged on somewhat the same principle.
By and by two or three young men came in, in wide-awake hats, and loose,
blouse-like, summerish garments; and from their talk I found them to be
students of the University, although their topics of conversation were
almost entirely horses and boats. One of them sat down to cold beef and
a tankard of ale; the other two drank a tankard of ale together, and went
away without paying for it,--rather to the waiter's discontent. Students
are very much alike, all the world over, and, I suppose, in all time; but
I doubt whether many of my fellows at college would have gone off without
paying for their beer.
We reached Southampton between seven and eight o'clock. I cannot write
to-day.
June 15th.--The first day after we reached Southampton was sunny and
pleasant; but we made little use of the fine weather, except that S-----
and I walked once along the High Street, and J----- and I took a little
ramble about town in the afternoon. The next day there was a high and
disagreeable wind, and I did not once stir out of the house. The third
day, too, I kept entirely within doors, it being a storm of wind and
rain. The Castle Hotel stands within fifty yards of the water-side; so
that this gusty day showed itself to the utmost advantage,--the vessels
pitching and tossing at their moorings, the waves breaking white out of a
tumultuous gray surface, the opposite shore glooming mistily at the
distance of a mile or two; and on the hither side boatmen and seafaring
people scudding about the pier in waterproof clothes; and in the street,
before the hotel door, a cabman or two, standing drearily beside his
horse.
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