This is not the general rule, however, and accordingly
the waitress was shocked, as one might be at a heresy, to hear the
route that I had sketched out for myself. Everybody who came to
Cockermouth for pleasure, it appeared, went on to Keswick. It was in
vain that I put up a little plea for the liberty of the subject; it
was in vain that I said I should prefer to go to Whitehaven. I was
told that there was 'nothing to see there' - that weary, hackneyed,
old falsehood; and at last, as the handmaiden began to look really
concerned, I gave way, as men always do in such circumstances, and
agreed that I was to leave for Keswick by a train in the early
evening.
AN EVANGELIST
Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a Place with 'nothing
to see'; nevertheless I saw a good deal, and retain a pleasant, vague
picture of the town and all its surroundings. I might have dodged
happily enough all day about the main street and up to the castle and
in and out of byways, but the curious attraction that leads a person
in a strange place to follow, day after day, the same round, and to
make set habits for himself in a week or ten days, led me half
unconsciously up the same, road that I had gone the evening before.
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