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The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance
·
James Wilson Hyde
62
"We
flew
away
from
Glasgow
on
the
top
of
the
mail,
ten
miles
an
hour,
past
steaming
meadows
and
smoking
chimneys,
to
the
Cumberland
lakes,
to
Keswick,
Kendal,
and
the
prettiest
towns
and
villages.
The
whole
country
is
like
a
drawing-room.
The
rocky
walls
are
papered
with
bushes,
moss,
and
firs;
the
trees
are
carefully
wrapped
up
in
ivy;
there
are
no
walls
or
fences,
only
high
hedges,
and
you
see
them
all
the
way
up
flat
hill-tops.
On
all
sides
carriages
full
of
travellers
fly
along
the
roads;
the
corn
stands
in
sheaves;
slopes,
hills,
precipices,
are
all
covered
with
thick,
warm
foliage.
Then
again
our
eyes
dwelt
on
the
dark-blue
English
distance--many
a
noble
castle,
and
so
on,
until
we
reached
Ambleside.
There
the
sky
turned
gloomy
again,
and
we
had
rain
and
storm.
Sitting
on
the
top
of
the
'stage,'
and
madly
careering
along
ravines,
past
lakes,
up-hill,
down-hill,
wrapped
in
cloaks,
and
umbrellas
up,
we
could
see
nothing
but
railings,
heaps
of
stones
or
ditches,
and
but
rarely
catch
glimpses
of
hills
and
lakes.
Sometimes
our
umbrellas
scraped
against
the
roofs
of
the
houses,
and
then,
wet
through,
we
would
come
to
a
second-rate
inn,
with
a
high
blazing
fire,
and
English
conversation
about
walking,
coals,
supper,
the
weather,
and
Bonaparte.
Yesterday
our
seats
on
the
coach
were
accidentally
separated,
so
that
I
hardly
spoke
to
Klingemann,
for
changing
horses
was
done
in
about
forty
seconds.
I
sat
on
the
box
next
by
the
coachman,
who
asked
me
whether
I
flirted
much,
and
made
me
talk
a
good
deal,
and
taught
me
the
slang
of
horsemanship.
Klingemann
sat
next
to
two
old
women,
with
whom
he
shared
his
umbrella.
Again
manufactories,
meadows,
parks,
provincial
towns,
here
a
canal,
there
a
railway,
then
the
sea
with
ships,
six
full
coaches
with
towering
outsiders
following
each
other;
in
the
evening
a
thick
fog,
the
stage
running
madly
in
the
darkness.
Through
the
fog
we
see
lamps
gleaming
all
about
the
horizon;
the
smoke
of
manufactories
envelops
us
on
all
sides;
gentlemen
on
horseback
ride
past;
one
coach-horn
blows
in
B
flat,
another
in
D,
others
follow
in
the
distance,
and
here
we
are
at
Liverpool."
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