THE YORK ROAD 305 



were not sitting absolutely in the water, as I am sorry 

 to say the old ladies were ; still they were sitting in 

 wet clothes, which is the next thing to it — and in this 

 situation commanded as fine a prospect of water above, 

 below, and around, as has been seen by travellers I 

 should say since the flood. In addition to this not alto- 

 gether gratifying panorama of flood effects, unseen 

 dangers were on every side ; to wit, a large ditch on one 

 side, and a series of huge heaps of stones on the other : 

 both pleasantly invisible by reason of the great waters, 

 but both clearly there for a specific purpose ; the stones 

 to overturn the coach ; the ditch to receive it when it 

 had been overturned. It must have been a truly critical 

 five minutes for the Regent, Tom Hennesy, the passen- 

 gers, the horses and everybody else, but they all got 

 safely through and thanked their stars. 



At Wandsford, thirty miles or so further down the 

 road, this same coach nearly came to an overturn with- 

 out the aid of water, through the combined efforts of a 

 smart set of red roans who were fit for any gentleman's 

 drag, a young coachman too full of valour, and a very 

 awkward, old and narrow bridge. The roans were fresh, 

 and declined to face it. The coachman (young Norval, 

 I mean young Percival, was his name) dropped into them. 

 Upon which the roans committed themselves to a suc- 

 cession of sudden antics, too rapidly consecutive to be 

 followed. What principally followed however was that 

 in the twinkling of an eye the people on the Regent 

 coach found themselves once more at the door of the 

 Haycock Inn. A place of entertainment which they had 

 a moment previously left, but with this radical change in 

 the general position of affairs — the horses' heads pointed 

 to London instead of to Stamford. 



Young Percival having no explanation to offer as to 

 how such a phenomenon could have occurred, handed 

 the reins to old Barker, much to the relief of the out- 

 side passengers, who had seldom felt so like humming tops 

 in their lives, and by reason of the altitude at which 



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