This assemblage of sick persons gave me the idea
of an hospital, and depressed me still more. I felt some degree of
fever, was very restless all night, and so I kept my bed very late
the next morning, until the woman of the house came and aroused me
by saying she had been uneasy on my account. And now I formed the
resolution to go to Leicester in the post-coach.
I was now only four miles from Loughborough, a small, and I think,
not a very handsome town, where I arrived late at noon, and dined at
the last inn on the road that leads to Leicester. Here again, far
beyond expectation, the people treated me like a gentleman, and let
me dine in the parlour.
From Loughborough to Leicester was only ten miles, but the road was
sandy and very unpleasant walking.
I came through a village called Mountsorrel, which perhaps takes its
name from a little hill at the end of it. As for the rest, it was
all one large plain, all the way to Leicester.
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.
