London
I annoyed my fellow-passenger on the roof by occasionally falling against
him when the coach gave a lurch to his: side; and indeed, if the road had
been less smooth and level than it is, I should have fallen off from
weakness. Of this annoyance he complained heavily, as perhaps, in the
same circumstances, most people would; he expressed his complaint,
however, more morosely than the occasion seemed to warrant, and if I had
parted with him at that moment I should have thought of him (if I had
considered it worth while to think of him at all) as a surly and almost
brutal fellow. However, I was conscious that I had given him some cause
for complaint, and therefore I apologized to him, and assured him I would
do what I could to avoid falling asleep for the future; and at the same
time, in as few words as possible, I explained to him that I was ill and
in a weak state from long suffering, and that I could not afford at that
time to take an inside place. This man's manner changed, upon hearing
this explanation, in an instant; and when I next woke for a minute from
the noise and lights of Hounslow (for in spite of my wishes and efforts I
had fallen asleep again within two minutes from the time I had spoken to
him) I found that he had put his arm round me to protect me from falling
off, and for the rest of my journey he behaved to me with the gentleness
of a woman, so that at length I almost lay in his arms; and this was the
more kind, as he could not have known that I was not going the whole way
to Bath or Bristol. Unfortunately, indeed, I _did_ go rather farther
than I intended, for so genial and so refreshing was my sleep, that the
next time after leaving Hounslow that I fully awoke was upon the sudden
pulling up of the mail (possibly at a post-office), and on inquiry I
found that we had reached Maidenhead--six or seven miles, I think, ahead
of Salthill. Here I alighted, and for the half-minute that the mail
stopped I was entreated by my friendly companion (who, from the transient
glimpse I had had of him in Piccadilly, seemed to me to be a gentleman's
butler, or person of that rank) to go to bed without delay. This I
promised, though with no intention of doing so; and in fact I immediately
set forward, or rather backward, on foot. It must then have been nearly
midnight, but so slowly did I creep along that I heard a clock in a
cottage strike four before I turned down the lane from Slough to Eton.
The air and the