Towards evening I came to a pleasant meadow just before I got to
Leicester, through which a footpath led me to the town, which made a
good appearance as I viewed it lengthways, and indeed much larger
than it really is.
I went up a long street before I got to the house from which the
post-coaches set out, and which is also an inn. I here learnt that
the stage was to set out that evening for London, but that the
inside was already full; some places were, however, still left on
the outside.
Being obliged to bestir myself to get back to London, as the time
drew near when the Hamburg captain, with whom I intend to return,
had fixed his departure, I determined to take a place as far as
Northampton on the outside.
But this ride from Leicester to Northampton I shall remember as long
as I live.
The coach drove from the yard through a part of the house. The
inside passengers got in in the yard, but we on the outside were
obliged to clamber up in the public street, because we should have
had no room for our heads to pass under the gateway.
My companions on the top of the coach were a farmer, a young man
very decently dressed, and a blackamoor.
The getting up alone was at the risk of one's life, and when I was
up I was obliged to sit just at the corner of the coach, with
nothing to hold by but a sort of little handle fastened on the side.
I sat nearest the wheel, and the moment that we set off I fancied
that I saw certain death await me. All I could do was to take still
safer hold of the handle, and to be more and more careful to
preserve my balance.
The machine now rolled along with prodigious rapidity, over the
stones through the town, and every moment we seemed to fly into the
air, so that it was almost a miracle that we still stuck to the
coach and did not fall. We seemed to be thus on the wing, and to
fly, as often as we passed through a village, or went down a hill.
At last the being continually in fear of my life became
insupportable, and as we were going up a hill, and consequently
proceeding rather slower than usual, I crept from the top of the
coach and got snug into the basket.
"O, sir, sir, you will be shaken to death!" said the black, but I
flattered myself he exaggerated the unpleasantness of my post.
As long as we went up hill it was easy and pleasant. And, having
had little or no sleep the night before, I was almost asleep among
the trunks and the packages; but how was the case altered when we
came to go down hill! then all the trunks and parcels began, as it
were, to dance around me, and everything in the basket seemed to be
alive, and I every moment received from them such violent blows that
I thought my last hour was come. I now found that what the black
had told me was no exaggeration, but all my complaints were useless.
I was obliged to suffer this torture nearly an hour, till we came to
another hill again, when quite shaken to pieces and sadly bruised, I
again crept to the top of the coach, and took possession of my
former seat. "Ah, did not I tell you that you would be shaken to
death?" said the black, as I was getting up, but I made him no
reply. Indeed, I was ashamed; and I now write this as a warning to
all strangers to stage-coaches who may happen to take it into their
heads, without being used to it, to take a place on the outside of
an English post-coach, and still more, a place in the basket.
About midnight we arrived at Harborough, where I could only rest
myself a moment, before we were again called to set off, full drive,
through a number of villages, so that a few hours before daybreak we
had reached Northampton, which is, however, thirty-three miles from
Leicester.
From Harborough to Leicester I had a most dreadful journey, it
rained incessantly; and as before we had been covered with dust, we
now were soaked with rain. My neighbour, the young man who sat next
me in the middle, that my inconveniences might be complete, every
now and then fell asleep; and as, when asleep, he perpetually bolted
and rolled against me, with the whole weight of his body, more than
once he was very near pushing me entirely off my seat.
We at last reached Northampton, where I immediately went to bed, and
have slept almost till noon. To-morrow morning I intend to continue
my journey to London in some other stage-coach.
CHAPTER XIII.
London, 15th July, 1782.
The journey from Northampton to London I can again hardly call a
journey, but rather a perpetual motion, or removal from one place to
another, in a close box; during your conveyance you may, perhaps, if
you are in luck, converse with two or three people shut up along
with you.
But I was not so fortunate, for my three travelling companions were
all farmers, who slept so soundly that even the hearty knocks of the
head with which they often saluted each other, did not awake them.
Their faces, bloated and discoloured by their copious use of ale and
brandy, looked, as they lay before me, like so many lumps of dead
flesh. When now and then they woke, sheep, in which they all dealt,
was the first and last topic of their conversation.
