So that
we enjoyed for an instant a picture of free life on the road, in
its most luxurious forms of despatch and comfort. And thereafter,
with a poignant feeling of contrast in our hearts, we must mount
again into our wheeled dungeon.
We came to our stages at all sorts of odd hours, and they were in
all kinds of odd places. I may say at once that my first
experience was my best. Nowhere again were we so well entertained
as at Burchell Fenn's. And this, I suppose, was natural, and
indeed inevitable, in so long and secret a journey. The first
stop, we lay six hours in a barn standing by itself in a poor,
marshy orchard, and packed with hay; to make it more attractive, we
were told it had been the scene of an abominable murder, and was
now haunted. But the day was beginning to break, and our fatigue
was too extreme for visionary terrors. The second or third, we
alighted on a barren heath about midnight, built a fire to warm us
under the shelter of some thorns, supped like beggars on bread and
a piece of cold bacon, and slept like gipsies with our feet to the
fire. In the meanwhile, King was gone with the cart, I know not
where, to get a change of horses, and it was late in the dark
morning when he returned and we were able to resume our journey.
In the middle of another night, we came to a stop by an ancient,
whitewashed cottage of two stories; a privet hedge surrounded it;
the frosty moon shone blankly on the upper windows; but through
those of the kitchen the firelight was seen glinting on the roof
and reflected from the dishes on the wall.
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