As darkness fell, the Severn was all astir with pleasure-boats, while happy ragamuffins, getting their fireworks for nothing, thronged the further bank. Rockets went skittering over our heads, fire-wheels spluttered and whizzed, and as the first of the fire-balloons flashed up, a baby voice behind us piped: "O mummy, mummy! See! There's a somebody died and going up to heaven." Altogether the Floral Fête was as sweet-natured and pleasurable a festival as ever we chanced upon and completed our subjugation to this old town that the Severn so lovingly embraces. To quote from a black-letter ballad treasured in the Bodleian: "The merry Town of Shrowsbury God bless it still, For it stands most gallantly Upon a high hill. It standeth most bravely For all men to see. Then every man to his mind, Shrowsbury for me!" The county of Shropshire smooths away on the east into a level pasture-land belonging to the central plain of England, but its western portion is roughened by the spurs of the Welsh mountains. Its own mountain is the Wrekin, a solitary height a few miles to the east of Shrewsbury. The summit commands so wide a view that the toast of Salopians everywhere is "All round the Wrekin." South of the Severn run several ranges of hills down toward the hop-gardens and apple-orchards of Hereford and Worcester. Of these, "Clee Hills," the highest of the ranges, "be holy in Shropshire."[7] North Salop has a coal-field, with its accompanying prosperity and disfigurement,--busy factories, belching furnaces, houses that tip and tumble from the hollowing out of the ground beneath. We rioted in our memorable motor car through several of these grimy towns, Wellington among them, and Newport, where the runaway Shrewsbury balloon came safely down. Wellington cherishes a legend relating to a bad old giant of Wales, who, having a spite against the Mayor of Shrewsbury, purposed to choke up the Severn and drown out the town. So he started off with a heavy sack of earth over his shoulder, but lost his way, like the stupid giant he was, and met, near Wellington, a cobbler carrying home a bag of boots and shoes to mend. The giant asked him how far it was to Shrewsbury, and the cobbler, emptying his sack of ragged footwear, declared he had worn out all those boots and shoes on the road. This so discouraged the giant that he flung down his burden of earth, forming the Wrekin, and trudged meekly home again.