too STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



" Beiiii^ oljlijj;'e(l to hestir my sell' to got l)ack to 

 London, as the time clreAV near w hen the llamhurg 

 captain with whom I intended to retnrn had fixed 

 his departnre, I determined to take a phxce as far 

 as Northampton on the outside. But this ride 

 from Leicester to Northampton I shall remember 

 as long as I live. 



" The coach drove from the yard through a part 

 of the house. The inside passengers got in from 

 the yard, l)ut we on the outside were obliged to 

 clamber up in the street, because we should have 

 had no room for our heads to pass under the gate- 

 way. My companions on the tojD of the coach 

 were a farmer, a young man very decently dressed, 

 and a blackamoor. The getting up alone was at 

 the risk of one's life, and when I Avas up I was 

 obliged to sit just at the corner of the coach, with 

 nothing to hold on 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 I saw certain 

 death before me. All T could do was to take still 

 tighter hold of the handle, and to be strictly 

 careful to preserve my balance. The machine 

 rolled along with prodigious rapidity over the 

 stones through the town of Leicester, and every 

 moment Ave seemed to fly into the air, so much so 

 that it appeared to me a complete miracle that we 

 stuck to the coach at all. But we Avere com- 

 pletely on the A\ ing as often as Ave passed through 

 a village or Avent doAvn a hill. 



"This continual fear of death at last became 

 insupportable to me, and therefore, no sooner Avere 



