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. One of the
three, however, differed not a little from the other two; his face
was sallow and thin, his eyes quite sunk and hollow, his long, lank
fingers hung quite loose, and as if detached from his hands. He
was, in short, the picture of avarice and misanthropy. The former
he certainly was; for at every stage he refused to give the coachman
the accustomed perquisite, which every body else paid; and every
farthing he was forced to part with, forced a "G-d d - n" from his
heart. As he sat in the coach, he seemed anxious to shun the light;
and so shut up every window that he could come at, except when now
and then I opened them to take a slight view of the charms of the
country through which we seemed to be flying, rather than driving.
Our road lay through Newport Pagnell, Dunstable, St. Albans, Barnet,
to Islington, or rather to London itself. But these names are all I
know of the different places.
At Dunstable, if I do not mistake, we breakfasted; and here, as is
usual, everything was paid for in common by all the passengers; as I
did not know this, I ordered coffee separately; however, when it
came, the three farmers also drank of it, and gave me some of their
tea.
They asked me what part of the world I came from; whereas we in
Germany generally inquired what countryman a person is.
When we had breakfasted, and were again seated in the coach, all the
farmers, the lean one excepted, seemed quite alive again, and now
began a conversation on religion and on politics.
One of them brought the history of Samson on the carpet, which the
clergyman of his parish, he said, had lately explained, I dare say
very satisfactorily; though this honest farmer still had a great
many doubts about the great gate which Samson carried away, and
about the foxes with the firebrands between their tails.
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