CHAPTER IX 



PKOSPERITY CONTINUED 



A Long Frost — Fair on the Thames — Journey to the North — Guinea 

 Pigs — A Younger Brother — Charming Domicile — Edinburgh — 

 Messrs. J. & J. Ballantyne — Departure — Deep Snow— Pleasant 

 Eide by Moonlight — Carlisle — Liverpool — Delightful Com- 

 panions — A Morning's Walk — Peace — Two False Steps — A 

 Master of Hounds — Our Peoples — Scene in a "Wood — 

 A Yorkshire Tyke — Laughing Philosophy — Whitechapel — 

 Somerset House — Portsmouth Dockyard — The Commissioner. 



I OUGHT to have stated that the year 1814 — a year big 

 with events of vast importance to the nations of Europe 

 — was introduced by a frost which, for its intensity and 

 length of duration, has not been equalled in England in 

 the memory of that respectable authority the oldest 

 inhabitant. It was general throughout the island, and 

 was accompanied in many parts with a great fall of snow. 

 Communication by coach or carriage of any sort was, on 

 many roads, for a while suspended. Even postal arrivals 

 and departures were uncertain, and the mail-bags to 

 important cities and commercial towns could only be 

 conveyed on horses' backs. 



A general holiday seemed to be established in London. 

 The Thames was frozen over, and a fair held daily on the 

 ice. A bullock was roasted whole near the spot where 

 the middle arch of the present bridge now stands. Crowds 



