Wolverhampton, with its red furnaces glaring
out from the darkness like angry eyes. Twenty
miles in a certain omnibus hired for the day,
in which there was much shouting, much
laughing, much cracking of jokes, and
munching of apples; in which there were
twenty happy schoolboys going twenty miles
to see the grand royal Castle of Windsor, and
play cricket afterwards, in the royal park;
in which there was a schoolmaster so smiling,
so urbane, so full of merry saws and humorous
instances, that his scholars quite forgot
he had a cane at home; in which there was
a bland usher, who had brought a white
neckcloth and a pocket Horace with him for the
sake of appearances, but who evidently longed
to cut off the tails of his black coat, and be a
boy immediately; in which there was one
young gentleman who thought the twenty
miles the happiest and most glorious he had
ever journied, and began to write in his mind
volume the first of a romance, strictly
historical, of which he was the hero, Windsor
Castle the scene, and all Miss Strickland's
queens of England the heroines.

Yes; and the twenty miles in that barouche
of glory, drawn by four grey horses, with pink
postboys, which dashed round Kennington
Common about eleven in the forenoon on the
last Wednesday in May; the barouche that
stopped so long at Cheam Gate, and had a
hamper strapped behind it containing
something else besides split peas and water; which
coming home had so many satiric spirits and
Churchills hitherto unknown, in it, and was
so merry a barouche, so witty a barouche, not
to say so drunken a barouche. Ah me! the
miles and the minutes have glided away
together.

There dwells upon my mind a twenty miles
journey that I once performed on foot—the
dullest, most uninteresting, most uneveutful
twenty miles that ever pedestrian
accomplished. It was a very stupid walk indeed.
There was literally "nothing in it;" so it is
precisely for that reason (to bear out a
crotchet I have), that I feel inclined to
write a brief chronicle of the twenty miles
I walked along the highroad from Lancaster
to Preston.

When was it? Yesterday, last week, a
dozen years ago? Never mind. For my
purpose, let it be now; put on your sparrow-
bills; gird up your loins, and walk twenty
miles with me.

It is a very threatening summer's morning.
Not threatening rain or thunder; the glass
and the experience of the last ten days laugh
that idea to scorn. But the morning threatens
nevertheless. It threatens a blazing hot day.
General Phœbus has donned his vividest
scarlet coat, his brightest golden epaulettes,
his sheeniest sword. He is determined upon
a field-day, and serves out redhot shot to his
bombardiers. I leave the grey old legendary
town of Lancaster, with its mighty castle, its
crumbling church, its steep quaint streets.
I leave the tranquil valley of the Lune; the
one timber-laden schooner, and row of
dismantled warehouses which now represent the
once considerable maritime trade of
Lancaster (oh, city of the Mersy, erst the haunt
of the long-legged Liver, you have much to
answer for!); I leave the rippling waters of
Morecambe Bay, with its little pebbly
watering-place.of Poulton-le-Sauds. I leave
the neighbourhood of the mountains of
Westmoreland and Cumberland; the memories of
Peter Bell and his solitary donkey; the
white doe of Rhylstone: the thousand
beautiful spots in the loved district, sun-
lighted by the memories of learned
Southey, and tuneful Wordsworth, and strong
John Wilson, and gentle, docile, erring
Hartley Coleridge (there is not a cottager
from Lancaster to Kendal, from Kendal to
Windermere, but has stories to tell about
puir Hartley, affectionately recalling his
simple face and ways); I leave all these
to walk twenty miles to the town of
spindles and smoke, bricks and cotton-bales.
I can give but a woman's reason for this
perverse walk. I will walk it. The gentleman
who was asked why he drank such a
quantity of soda-water, answered conclusively
"Because I like it, John." I therefore
will walk twenty miles on a hot day to the
ugliest town in England because I choose to
do so.

There is a place called Scotforth, about two
miles out, where I begin to fry. There is a
place called Catterham (I think) two miles
further, where I begin to broil. Then
I begin to feel myself on fire. There is a
place where there is a merciful shadow
thrown by a high bank and hedge, and
there, in defiance of all the laws of
etiquette and the usages of society, I take off
my coat and waistcoat, and walk along with
them thrown over my arm, as though I were
a tramp. I wonder what the few people I
meet think of me, for I am decently attired,
and have positively an all-round collar.
How inexpressibly shocked that phaeton-full
of Lancastrians that has just passed me (I
have a strong idea that I took tea with
some of them last week) must be. What
can the burly farmer in the the chaise-cart,
who pulls up and says interrogatively,
"teaaking a weauork?" think. I wonder
at all this; but much more do I wonder
where the next beer-oasis in this dusty desert is.

I had fortified myself with a good breakfast,
and a "dobbin" of brown ale before I
left Lancaster, and had sternly said to
myself, "no beer till Garstaing," which is half
way. But at the very outset of my twenty miles,
at Scotforth, I was sorely tempted to turn
aside (two roads diverge there) towards the
pleasant village of Cockerham, on the road
to which I know of a beery nook, where
there is a little woman licensed to be drunk
on the premises, in a tiny house, whose back