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and after that never once upon wheels? Perhaps it was easier then than now. The pavements were much freer for pedestrians; the wheel traffic was little and slow; the noise was not so distracting and wearing; the crossings suggested little danger, and compelled no delays.

Yet I do remember that my father, soon after that date, persuaded Mr. Ordish, of Ingleby, a farmer and self-taught philosopher, to go up for a week's visit to my kind cousins, and see London for the first time. The poor man was so dazed, stunned, and stupefied by the endless variety of sights and sounds, that at the end of the second day he found himself in the case of Queen Sheba, for there was no more spirit left in him. He could only entreat to be allowed to return home immediately, and his condition was so alarming that it was deemed best to comply. His preparation, however, had been very different from mine. I had always lived in towns. His home and the home of his ancestors was a quiet little nook near the southern bank of the Trent, and close to the rock-hewn habitation of an anchorite, well known as Anchorchurch. Mr. Ordish, like the old anchorite, required time and perfect quiet for his lucubrations. An old woman of his parish relates that when he heard of the first intended railway-the Manchester and Liverpool, I suppose-he took to his bed, and after a week got up, saying, 'England will be a network of railways.'

CHAPTER LIV.

MY SUBSEQUENT JOURNEYS.

My subsequent journeys between Derby and London, near thirty of them in five years, were not so costly or so comfortable. I had to be content with the stage-coaches, and, though I think there was always an appeal to my choice, I travelled mostly outside in all weathers. The journey took seventeen or eighteen hours, and there was always a night in it. What cold, what wet, what snow, did I not suffer! What wakefulness, what sleepiness! Towards the close of a wakeful night, there was no life in me, not even enough for sleep. I felt as one of Milton's convict souls, wedged in deep-ribbed ice. When the sun had risen an hour or two sleep came, not to refresh, but to torture me. As I sat, one long summer's day, in the back seat of the basket, or boot, and kept continually nodding, with my legs dangling over the hind wheel, an old lady on the opposite seat conceived the very natural apprehension that I might fall forwards and be probably killed. So besides continually scolding, she watched my eyes, and whenever they closed gave me a sharp poke in the ribs with her umbrella. It is quite possible that she saved my life, for which I still thank her.

I once travelled vis-à-vis with a thin, pale, elderly woman, ill-clad in black, who never once got down, or even moved to shake off the snow that settled on her lap and shoulders. I spoke to the guard about

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349 her. He said she had come from Edinburgh, and had not moved since changing coaches, which she would have to do once. She feared that if she once got down she would not be able to get up again. She had taken no food of any kind. I have frequently heard similar instances of endurance in the longsuffering sex, some incredible but for the authority they came with.

In May 1800, my mother, in her seventeenth year, came to London with her younger sister from Bridlington. They came in a collier, at the invitation of its owner, a relative. The winds proved adverse, and they were tossed about a whole fortnight. My mother scarcely touched a morsel of solid food; her sister not a morsel, only a few cups of coffee. On their arrival at a relative's house my mother went to bed. In a few hours she was waked up. 'You must go to Drury Lane, for the King is to be there, and you may not have another chance of seeing him.' She went. Her friend secured her a good place in the pit, just before the royal box. In a few minutes the King appeared in his box. Almost immediately a man stood up, within a yard of her, and discharged a pistol at him. This was Hatfield.

Happening to return home a few days later than usual one Christmas, I found myself the only passenger. Outside and inside the coach was piled and crammed with fish and oysters. I was inside, and had hardly room to squeeze in. The guard was full of apologies, but appealed to his own hard case. There were a hundred and thirty packages to be dropped all along the road, and he had no little diffi

My

culty in finding them. I had to help him. situation improved gradually, but upon my arrival at Derby a certain 'ancient-fish-like smell' betrayed my company on the road.

The outside had the advantage over the inside in the variety and interest of the passengers. All families that could afford it travelled post in those days. It was not the thing for a young lady to travel alone in a public conveyance. How young ladies travelled I know not, but they did not travel so much as now. More than half the inside passengers on my route were 'Manchester warehousemen' and others, whose business lay both in London and in Manchester, and who were bound to visit one or the other place once a fortnight or so. They were hard-working, hard-worked men, and they made the journey as much a rest as possible, saying little-indeed, having little to say. The smell of the inside of a coach after a long night of closed windows is a thing never to be forgotten. I use the present tense, for here it is

now.

Outside we had characters and incidents. One journey I sat behind young Lockett, only child of our next-door neighbour, a very handsome and agreeable fellow, but who cared for little but cigars, so they said. He thought I did little credit to Charterhouse when I declined his kind offer of brandy-and-water and a cigar.

I have to thank a Scotchman for teaching me good manners. One hot day, three-quarters on our way to town, I took out a bunch of grapes, and was consuming them one by one. 'I like grapes,' he

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bserved, looking at my treasure. So I had to divide them, and did not bless him at the time, though I do now.

I sat once beside a young gentleman who had arrived from Brazil the day before. On some rooks rising from a field he looked astonished, and said he had not been aware there were eagles in England. It has ever since added to the respect I feel for these birds, in whose company I have lived more than half my life, and am still living.

In one respect the road had a great advantage over the rail. It afforded many opportunities for stretching your legs, working your lungs, and quickening your circulation. At a steep hill, or a bit of bad road, the coachman would come to the door and invite gentlemen to relieve the horses by getting out and walking. I was always only too glad to accept the invitation. I remember walking four miles, with all the other passengers, in what were then the deep sands between Retford and Worksop. It often occurred to me that as it had been within Lord Lincoln's experience and under his observation that this road. had been at last macadamised, he might have given the public the benefit of that example when our army was suffering horrors for want of a hard road to Balaclava.

The coaches stopped twenty minutes for breakfasts, dinners, and teas. Half-frozen and cramped as I was I usually gave up the meal, and, after duly warning the coachman, set off walking and running. I frequently made three miles, sometimes nearly four, before the coach overtook me, and occasionally re