It was still early when we regained the highway, and indeed throughout that day we never once arrived at familiar terms with time. Eight o’clock came, and wore the look of high noon; noonday seemed to herald the hour for tea; by five o’clock we awaited sundown; and at length, when night arrived, the backward vista to this early rising was achieved only by a mental effort, so lengthy was our day. XV. We breakfasted at a roadside inn, full early, not without inquiring glances from the landlady, for surely never before had she entertained such guests, so near the echo of cock-crow, and yet already dusty with travel. And so into Romsey, in company with a profane tinker, who ambled, clattering, beside us, scattering anathemas broadcast. Trade was bad, said he, and he hadn’t the price of a pint in his pockets. Perhaps we had? Assuredly; but there it remained. Whereupon ensued references to “torffs,” coloured with the British adjective. I have never happened upon Romsey in winter time, nor indeed on any other occasion save this, in a season of heat and drought, so say nothing as to its local name of Romsey-in-the-Mud. Its summer aspect is dry and somnolent; its streets apparently all too roomy for its present estate: but then we have not seen Romsey on market-day, which probably gives a different complexion to these streets, so ample and so unconventionally named. One enters Romsey from Winchester along The Hundred, and traverses the town through the Market Square and Horsefair, and leaves it for the New Forest by Mainstone. [Illustration: ROMSEY ABBEY.]