EOADS IN BYGONE DAYS. 



37 



robbed another time, for, you see, there is no- 

 thing in it.' 



" ' Oh ! but I ara,' she said ; ' and now I am 

 in terror lest he return, for I have given him 

 a purse with bad money in it, tliat I carry on 

 purpose.' " 



Again we read that not only was it dangerous 

 to travel in by-gone days from a fear of being 

 robbed and murdered, but the roads were so 

 bad that scarcely a day passed but a coach stuck 

 fast in the mud, and remained there until a 

 team of cattle could be procured from some neigh- 

 bouring farm to tug it out of the slough. On 

 the best lines of communication the ruts were 

 deep, the descents precipitous, and the road 

 often such that it was hardly possible to 

 distinofuish it in the dusk from the uuin- 

 closed heath and fen which lay on both 

 sides." 



" Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary, was in danger 

 of losing his way on the Great North Road, 

 between Barnby Moor and Tuxford, and actually 

 lost it between Doncaster and York. Pepys and 

 his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their 

 way between Newbury and Reading. In the 

 course of the same tour they lost their way near 

 Salisbury, and were in danger of having to pass 



