232 THE COACHING ERA 



asleep, he perpetually bolted and rolled against me, 

 with the whole weight of his body, more than once he 

 was very near pushing me entirely off my seat." 



When Moritz arrived at Northampton he went 

 straight to bed, and the next day resolved to con- 

 tinue his journey to London in some other stage- 

 coach. 



"The journey from Northampton to London I can 

 again scarcely call a journey; but rather a perpetual 

 motion, or removal from one place to another, in a 

 close box; during your conveyance you may, perhaps, 

 if you are in luck, converse with two or three people 

 shut up with you. But I was not so fortunate; for my 

 three travelling companions were all farmers, who slept 

 so soundly, that even the hearty knocks of the head 

 with which they often saluted each other, did not 

 awaken them. 



"Their faces, bloated and discoloured by their copious 

 use of ale and brandy, looked as they lay before me, 

 like so many lumps of dead flesh. When now and then 

 they woke, sheep, in which they all dealt, was the first 

 and last topic of their conversation. One of the three, 

 however, differed not a little from the other two; his 

 face was sallow and thin, his eyes quite sunk and hollow, 

 his long lank fingers hung quite loose, and as if detached 

 from his hands. He was, in short, the picSlure of avarice 

 and misanthropy. The former he certainly was; for at 

 every stage he refused to give the coachman the accus- 

 tomed perquisite, which everybody else paid, and every 

 farthing he was forced to part with, forced a P — d 

 d — m from his heart. As he sat in the coach, he seemed 

 anxious to shun the light; and so shut up every window 

 he could come at, except when now and then I opened 



