230 THE COACHING ERA 



and their wives, and Moritz was much concerned for 

 the women's safety. That the danger of their position 

 was very real, he shortly afterwards proved, for when 

 the time came to return to London he took a place 

 on the roof of the Northampton coach, and soon 

 repented the rashness that had led him to trust himself 

 in such a perilous position. 



"But this ride from Leicester to Northampton, I 

 shall remember as long as I live," he wrote tragically. 

 "The coach drove from the yard through a part of the 

 house. The inside passengers got in, in the yard; but 

 we on the outside were obliged to clamber up in the 

 public street, because we should have had no room for 

 our heads to pass under the gateway. My companions 

 on the top of the coach were a farmer, a young man 

 very decently dressed, and a black-a-moor. 



"The getting up alone was at the risk of one's life, 

 and when I was up I was obliged to sit just at the corner 

 of the coach, with nothing to hold by, but a sort of 

 little handle,^ fastened on the side. I sat nearest the 

 wheel; and the moment that we set off, I fancied that I 

 saw certain death await me. All I could do was to 

 take still safer hold of the handle, and to be more and 

 more careful to preserve my balance. 



"The machine now rolled along with prodigious 

 rapidity, over the stones through the town, and every 

 moment we seemed to fly into the air; so that it was 

 almost a miracle that we still stuck to the coach, and 

 did not fall. We seemed to be thus on the wing, and to 

 fly, as often as we passed through a village, or went down 

 a hill. 



^ These in the advertisements of the time were called "Bows 

 on the top," 



