Down the side of the rock there are broad ledges, and it is on one of
these that the market-place is built. At the bottom of the rock lies the
jumble of cottages known most erroneously as Seatown, and round the rock
runs the river Pol, slipping away at last through woods and hills and
valleys into the sea. At high tide you can go all the way by river to the
sea, and in the summer, this makes a pleasant and beautiful excursion. It
is because of this that Seatown has, perhaps, some right to its name,
because in one way and another sailors collect in the cottages and at the
"Dog and Pilchard," that pleasant and democratic hostelry of which, in
1897, Samuel Hogg was landlord. Many visitors have been known to declare
that Seatown was "too sweet for anything," and that "it would be really
wicked to knock down the ducks of cottages," but "the ducks of cottages"
were the foulest and most insanitary dwelling-places in the south of
England, and it has always been to me amazing that the Polchester Town
Council allowed them to stand so long as they did. In 1902, as all the
Glebeshire world knows, there was the great battle of Seatown, ending in
the cottages' destruction. In 1897 those evil dwelling-places gloried in
their full magnificence of sweet corruption, nor did the periodical
attacks of typhoid alarm in the least the citizens of the Upper Town. Once
and again gentlemen from other parts paid mysterious official visits, but
we had ways, in old times, of dealing with inquisitive meddlers from the
outside world.

Because the market-place was half-way down the Rock, and because the
Rectory of St. James' was just below the market-place, the upper windows
of that house commanded a wonderful view both of the hill, High Street and
Cathedral above it, and of Seatown, river and woods below it. It was said
that it was up this very rocky street from the river, through the market,
and up the High Street that the armed enemies of the Black Bishop had
fought their way to the Cathedral on that great day when the Bishop had