Nevertheless, two idle young fellows in the
vehicle, or rather on the top of it, were so much amused with the
deliberation which I used in ascending to the same place of
eminence, that I thought I should have been obliged to pull them
up a little. And I was in no good-humour at an unsuppressed
laugh following my descent when set down at the angle, where a
cross road, striking off from the main one, led me towards
Glentanner, from which I was still nearly five miles distant.
It was an old-fashioned road, which, preferring ascents to
sloughs, was led in a straight line over height and hollow,
through moor and dale. Every object around me; as I passed them
in succession, reminded me of old days, and at the same time
formed the strongest contrast with them possible. Unattended, on
foot, with a small bundle in my hand, deemed scarce sufficient
good company for the two shabby-genteels with whom I had been
lately perched on the top of a mail-coach, I did not seem to be
the same person with the young prodigal, who lived with the
noblest and gayest in the land, and who, thirty years before,
would, in the same country, have, been on the back of a horse
that had been victor for a plate, or smoking aloof in his
travelling chaise-and-four.
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