little heed to the cut of his coat or external appearances, but his linen was scrupulously clean. We felt puzzled what position in the varied economy of life to assign to him, nor did any chance remarks of his help us in this respect. But, after all, who or what he might be was no business of ours. "Have you seen the old bridge yet?" was one of his first questions. Then he went on to say, "You must not miss that, it is the queerest bridge in England; it was constructed by the old monks originally; there's a curious building right in the middle of it, on the site of an ancient chapel in which prayers used to be offered up for the safety of travellers starting on a journey, and thanks were given for their safe arrival. When the chapel and priests were done away with, a lighthouse was put up in its place to help the river traffic, so I've been told; then the lighthouse got burnt down; and afterwards, when the people found that they could get along without either chapel or lighthouse, the place was converted into a dwelling-house, and that's what it is now. There's not many folk, I fancy, in these times, who have their home in the middle of a bridge! It is a wonderful old building, you must not miss it on any account," and we promised that we would not. "Then there's our church," he went on; "the spire of it has been blown down twice, though you might not think it on such a day as this; but it does blow terribly hard here at times: the wind comes up the river and sweeps down upon us in the winter, now and then, hard enough to take you off your legs. I've been blown down myself by it when crossing
