Browne's purse, and said,

"'Don't be frightened, I will not hurt you.'

"'No, you won't frighten the lady,' I said.

"'No, I give you my word I will not hurt you,' he replied.

"Lady Browne gave him her purse, and was going to add her watch; but he said,

"'I am much obliged to you; I wish you good night,' pulled off his hat, and rode away.

"'Well,' said I, 'you will not be afraid of being robbed another time, for, you see, there is nothing in it.'

"'Oh! but I am,' she said; 'and now I am in terror lest he return, for I have given him a purse with bad money in it, that I carry on purpose.'"

Again we read that not only was it dangerous to travel in bygone days from a fear of being robbed and murdered, but the roads were so bad that scarcely a day passed but a coach stuck fast in the mud, and remained there until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighbouring farm to tug it out of the slough. On the best lines of communication the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the road often such that it was hardly possible to distinguish it in the dusk from the uninclosed heath and fen which lay on both sides."

"Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary, was in danger of losing his way on the Great North Road, between Barnby Moor and Tuxford, and actually lost it between Doncaster and York. Pepys and his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their way between Newbury and Reading. In the course of the same tour they lost their way near Salisbury, and were in danger of having to pass the night on the Plain. It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the road was available for wheeled carriages. Often the mud lay deep on the right and the left, and only a narrow track of firm ground rose above the quagmire. At such times obstructions and quarrels were frequent, and the path was sometimes blocked up during a long time by carriers, neither of whom would break the way.

"Thoresby has recorded in his diary many perils and disasters that befell him. On one occasion he learned that the floods were out between Ware and London, that passengers had to swim for their lives, and that a higgler had perished in the attempt to cross. In consequence of these tidings he turned out of the high road, and was conducted across some meadows, where it was necessary for him to ride to the saddle skirts in water. In the course of another journey he narrowly escaped being swept away by an inundation of the Trent.

"Of course, during the period the waters were out coaches ceased to run. Thoresby was afterwards detained at Stamford four days on account of the state of the roads, and then ventured to proceed only because fourteen Members of the House of Commons, who were going up in a body to Parliament with guides and numerous attendants, took him into their company."

The great route through Wales to Holyhead was in such a state that, in 1685, Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Viceroy, on his way to Ireland, was five hours in travelling fourteen miles from St. Asaph to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris he was forced to walk great part of the way, and the Countess was carried in a litter. His coach was, with great difficulty, and by the help of many hands, brought after him entire. In general, carriages were taken to pieces at Conway, and borne on the shoulders of stout Welsh peasants to the Menai Strait.

At that period, and long after, the passage in the ferry-boat at the Menai Strait was slow and tedious, and the packet-boat from Holyhead to Kingstown seldom crossed over under eight or ten hours. Now a man may, as I did last Autumn, breakfast in London, and sit down to a half-past seven dinner in Dublin.

In Sussex the roads were so bad that when Prince George of Denmark visited the stately mansion of Petworth in wet weather he was six hours in going nine miles, and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hands should be on each side of his coach in order to prop it. Of the carriages which conveyed his retinue, several were upset and injured. A letter from one of his suite has been preserved, in which the unfortunate gentleman-in-waiting complains that during fourteen hours he never once alighted, except when his coach was overturned or stuck fast in the mud.

Great contrast is offered in this narrative to the present state of travelling; "only, to be sure," as Macaulay writes, "people did get up again with their heads on after a roll in the Sussex mud, which, unhappily, is not always the case after a railway collision."

Arthur Young, who travelled in Lancashire in 1770, has left us the following account of the state of the roads at that time.

"I know not," he says, "in the whole range of language, terms sufficiently expressive to describe this awful road. Let me most seriously caution all travellers who may accidentally propose to travel this terrible country to avoid it as they would a pestilence, for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs by overthrows or breakings down. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud, only from a wet Summer. What, therefore, must it be after a Winter? The only mending it receives is tumbling in some loose stones, which serve no other purpose than jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner. Let me persuade all travellers to avoid this terrible country, which must either dislocate their bones with broken pavement or bury them in muddy sand."

In a well-known passage, Arthur Young vents his spleen at the expense of the municipal authorities of Lancashire, and reproachfully reminds them that, thanks to their abominable highways, London often suffers from want of animal food, while country farmers are unable to get more than five farthings a pound for good beef!

A coach and six is in our time never seen, except as part of some pageant; the frequent mention, therefore, of such equipages in old books is likely to mislead. We hear of private carriages and public stage-coaches of six, and attribute to magnificence what was really the effect of a very disagreeable necessity. A pair of horses now would do ten times the work six did in the days I write of, and I cannot illustrate this better than by giving Vanbrugh's most humorous description of the way in which a country gentleman, newly chosen a Member of Parliament, came up to London. On that occasion all the exertions of six beasts, two of which had been taken from the plough, could not save the family coach from being embedded in a quagmire.

The scene takes place at Uncle Richard's house in London, previous to the arrival of his nephew, Sir Francis Headpiece, a country gentleman and Parliament man, who was strongly addicted to malt-liquor and field sports. Although only forty-two years of age, it appears that Sir Francis had drunk two-and-thirty tuns of ale, while in the pursuit of the chase he had broken his right arm, his left leg, and both his collar-bones.

Uncle Richard had just read his wiseacre nephew's letter, when James, the footman, enters hastily.

"Sir, Sir," he exclaims, "they're all a-coming; here's John Moody arrived already. He's stamping about the streets in his dirty boots, asking every man he meets if they can tell where he may have a good lodging for a Parliament man, till he can hire such a house as becomes him. He tells them his lady and all the family are coming too, and that they are so nobly attended they care not a fig for anybody. Sir, they have added two cart-horses to the four old bays, because my Lady will have it said she came to town in her coach-and-six; and, ha, ha! heavy George, the ploughman, rides postilion."

"Very well, James,"