In this experimental humour, and with so little to help
me, it was a miracle that I should have brought my enterprise to a
good end; and there are several saints in the calendar who might be
happy to exchange with St. Ives!
I had slept that night in a good inn at Wakefield, made my
breakfast by candle-light with the passengers of an up-coach, and
set off in a very ill temper with myself and my surroundings. It
was still early; the air raw and cold; the sun low, and soon to
disappear under a vast canopy of rain-clouds that had begun to
assemble in the north-west, and from that quarter invaded the whole
width of the heaven. Already the rain fell in crystal rods;
already the whole face of the country sounded with the discharge of
drains and ditches; and I looked forward to a day of downpour and
the hell of wet clothes, in which particular I am as dainty as a
cat. At a corner of the road, and by the last glint of the
drowning sun, I spied a covered cart, of a kind that I thought I
had never seen before, preceding me at the foot's pace of jaded
horses. Anything is interesting to a pedestrian that can help him
to forget the miseries of a day of rain; and I bettered my pace and
gradually overtook the vehicle.
The nearer I came, the more it puzzled me. It was much such a cart
as I am told the calico printers use, mounted on two wheels, and
furnished with a seat in front for the driver.
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