hour with him.[417]

Before three set out for Cheltenham, a long and uninteresting drive,
which we achieved by nine o'clock. My sister-in-law [Mrs. Thomas Scott]
and her daughter instantly came to the hotel, and seem in excellent
health and spirits.

_November_ 22.--Breakfasted and dined with Mrs. Scott, and leaving
Cheltenham at seven, pushed on to Worcester to sleep.

_November_ 23.--Breakfasted at Birmingham, and slept at Macclesfield. As
we came in between ten and eleven, the people of the inn expressed
surprise at our travelling so late, as the general distress of the
manufacturers has rendered many of the lower class desperately
outrageous. The inn was guarded by a special watchman, who alarmed us by
giving his signal of turn out, but it proved to be a poor deserter who
had taken refuge among the carriages, and who was reclaimed by his
sergeant. The people talk gloomily of winter, when the distress of the
poor will be increased.

_November_ 24.--Breakfasted at Manchester. Ere we left, the senior
churchwarden came to offer us his services, to show us the town,
principal manufactures, etc. We declined his polite offer, pleading
haste. I found his opinion about the state of trade more agreeable than
I had ventured to expect. He said times were mending gradually but
steadily, and that the poor-rates were decreasing, of which none can be
so good a judge as the churchwarden. Some months back the people had
been in great discontent on account of the power engines, which they
conceived diminished the demand for operative labour. There was no
politics in their discontent, however, and at present it was
diminishing. We again pressed on--and by dint of exertion reached Kendal
to sleep; thus getting out of the region of the stern, sullen, unwashed
artificers, whom you see lounging sulkily along the streets of the towns
in Lancashire, cursing, it would seem by their looks, the stop of trade
which gives them leisure, and the laws which prevent them employing
their spare time. God's justice is requiting, and will yet further
requite those who have blown up this country into a state of
unsubstantial opulence, at the expense of the health and morals of the
lower classes.

_November_ 25.--Took two pair of horses over the Shap Fells, which are
covered with snow, and by dint of exertion reached Penrith to breakfast.
Then rolled on till we found our own horses at Hawick, and returned to
our own home at Abbotsford about three in