I stopped in to see the factory, and found four girls rolling the cigarettes and a man blending the tobaccos. He told me that the Earl had planted twenty-five acres with tobacco, and that it did very well; but it was not used alone, as it was too dark, but blended with the lighter Maryland, brought from America. I bought a packet of the cigarettes in the interests of this narrative, but they did not seem to me in any way extraordinary.
I went on again and stopped in at the parish church, which was at one time a Trinitarian Friary, or White Abbey, founded seven hundred years ago. It was falling into ruins, when the Earl, who seems omnipotent in these parts, restored it and fitted it up as a church and turned it over to the Catholics. There is a big school attached to it now, and as I entered the grounds, a white-coifed nun who was sitting at a window looking over some papers, fled hastily. The church itself is chiefly remarkable for a very beautiful five-lighted window over the altar. Just outside is a handsome Celtic cross, surmounting the fountain where the villagers get their water.
There was a store farther down the street, and I stopped in to get some postcards. It was the most crowded store I ever saw, the ceiling hung with tinware, the shelves heaped with merchandise of every kind, and the floor so crowded with boxes and barrels that there was scarcely room to squeeze between them. I remarked to the proprietor that he seemed to carry a large stock, and he explained that he tried to have everything anybody would want, for it was foolish to let any money get away. While we were talking, a girl came in to sell some eggs. She had them in a basket, and the man took them out, but instead of counting them, he weighed them.
I went on back to the station, after that, through the driving rain, and I was very wet by the time I got there--wet on the outside, that is, but warm and dry and happy underneath. And at the station, I found three men, who were engaged in a heated argument as to whether a man weighed any more after he had eaten dinner than he did before. One of the men contended very earnestly that one could eat the heartiest of meals without gaining an ounce of weight if one only took the precaution of drinking a mug or two of beer or porter with the meal, since the drink lightened the brain and so neutralised the weight of the food in the stomach. He asserted that he had seen this proved more than once, and that he was willing to bet on it. He was also willing to bet that he could put twelve pennies into a brimming glass of stout without causing it to spill. As the village was a mile away, there was no place to get a glass of stout and try this interesting experiment.