The public road, which comes up the side of that
stream, and crosses it at a bridge about a quarter of a mile from the
place where I was standing, runs partly through enclosures and
plantations, and partly through open pasture land. It is a childish
amusement perhaps,--but my life has been spent with children, and why
should not my pleasures be like theirs?--childish as it is then, I must
own I have had great pleasure in watching the approach of the carriage,
where the openings of the road permit it to be seen. The gay glancing of
the equipage, its diminished and toy-like appearance at a distance,
contrasted with the rapidity of its motion, its appearance and
disappearance at intervals, and the progressively increasing sounds that
announce its nearer approach, have all to the idle and listless
spectator, who has nothing more important to attend to, something of
awakening interest. The ridicule may attach to me, which is flung upon
many an honest citizen, who watches from the window of his villa the
passage of the stage-coach; but it is a very natural source of amusement
notwithstanding, and many of those who join in the laugh are perhaps not
unused to resort to it in secret.
On the present occasion, however, fate had decreed that I should not
enjoy the consummation of the amusement by seeing the coach rattle past
me as I sat on the turf, and hearing the hoarse grating voice of the
guard as he skimmed forth for my grasp the expected packet, without the
carriage checking its course for an instant.
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