There were
interruptions, at times, that we hailed as alleviations. At times
the cart was bogged, once it was upset, and we must alight and lend
the driver the assistance of our arms; at times, too (as on the
occasion when I had first encountered it), the horses gave out, and
we had to trail alongside in mud or frost until the first peep of
daylight, or the approach to a hamlet or a high road, bade us
disappear like ghosts into our prison.
The main roads of England are incomparable for excellence, of a
beautiful smoothness, very ingeniously laid down, and so well kept
that in most weathers you could take your dinner off any part of
them without distaste. On them, to the note of the bugle, the mail
did its sixty miles a day; innumerable chaises whisked after the
bobbing postboys; or some young blood would flit by in a curricle
and tandem, to the vast delight and danger of the lieges. On them,
the slow-pacing waggons made a music of bells, and all day long the
travellers on horse-back and the travellers on foot (like happy Mr.
St. Ives so little a while before!) kept coming and going, and
baiting and gaping at each other, as though a fair were due, and
they were gathering to it from all England. No, nowhere in the
world is travel so great a pleasure as in that country. But
unhappily our one need was to be secret; and all this rapid and
animated picture of the road swept quite apart from us, as we
lumbered up hill and down dale, under hedge and over stone, among
circuitous byways.
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