been in
Edinburgh, we spent some days there to view that beautiful and
interesting city. Such it was even in those days; but though it has
lost somewhat in picturesque effect, it has since then been greatly
improved.

It may seem strange that a sailor should be afraid of trusting himself
at sea; but reason as I might, I could not bring myself to take my wife
to the south by water. I therefore prepared to convey her to London by
coach, and from thence to Portsmouth. The expense was very great; but I
promised her that I would toil hard in whatever occupation I undertook
to make it up, and at last she acceded to my wishes. We calculated that
we should be about a week or ten days getting to London, for those were
times when even the coaches on the great northern road went very
leisurely along, and it was not for some time after that they were
superseded by the fast London and Edinburgh mail. Times have indeed
changed with all of us.

We left Edinburgh one morning at daybreak, and proceeded south to
Berwick, where we stopped. Our next stage was York. There we rested
the greater part of the day, for my wife seemed very much fatigued, and
when I saw how fine the weather continued, I began to repent that I had
not gone, as she wished, by sea. I had placed her inside, while I went
on the top of the coach. I observed that our fat old coachman, who,
although it was summer weather, was muffled up in a greatcoat, with a
red comforter up to his eyes, whenever we stopped to change horses went
into the bar of the roadside inn and took a pretty stiff glass of brandy
and water to keep out the damp, as he told his passengers. At last four
rather frisky horses were brought out and harnessed to the coach.

"Steady now, Mr Currycomb; we have some ugly hills to go up and down,"
remarked one of the passengers who had watched his drinking proceedings
with some little anxiety.

"Oh, never fear me, sir," answered the old man, in a thick, husky voice.
"I've driven this road, man and boy, for the last fifty years, and I
should think I know how to take a coach along it without anybody telling
me how to do it, do you see. If I thinks it's best to trot down a hill,
why I'll do it, and no one shall tell me not. That's what I've got to
say."

I have frequently met the same sort of obstinate characters among
seamen, the very men who manage to get their ships cast away; but I
fancied that they were not to be found among those who live a