Only twice did I receive, as it were, a whiff
of the highway. The first reached my ears alone. I might have
been anywhere. I only knew I was walking in the dark night and
among ruts, when I heard very far off, over the silent country that
surrounded us, the guard's horn wailing its signal to the next
post-house for a change of horses. It was like the voice of the
day heard in darkness, a voice of the world heard in prison, the
note of a cock crowing in the mid-seas--in short, I cannot tell you
what it was like, you will have to fancy for yourself--but I could
have wept to hear it. Once we were belated: the cattle could
hardly crawl, the day was at hand, it was a nipping, rigorous
morning, King was lashing his horses, I was giving an arm to the
old Colonel, and the Major was coughing in our rear. I must
suppose that King was a thought careless, being nearly in
desperation about his team, and, in spite of the cold morning,
breathing hot with his exertions. We came, at last, a little
before sunrise to the summit of a hill, and saw the high-road
passing at right angles through an open country of meadows and
hedgerow pollards; and not only the York mail, speeding smoothly at
the gallop of the four horses, but a post-chaise besides, with the
post-boy titupping briskly, and the traveller himself putting his
head out of the window, but whether to breathe the dawn, or the
better to observe the passage of the mail, I do not know.
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