I have also often met people who as they passed me obligingly and
kindly asked: "How do you do?" To which unexpected question from
total strangers I have now learned to answer, "Pretty well, I thank
you; how do you do?" This manner of address must needs appear very
singular to a foreigner, who is all at once asked by a person whom
he has never seen before how he does.
After I had passed through this village I came to a green field, at
the side of which I met with an ale-house. The mistress was sitting
at the window. I asked her if I could stay the night there. She
said No!" and shut the window in my face.
This unmannerliness recalled to my recollection the many receptions
of this kind to which I have now so often been exposed, and I could
not forbear uttering aloud my indignation at the inhospitality of
the English. This harsh sentiment I soon corrected, however, as I
walked on, by recollecting, and placing in the opposite scale, the
unbounded and unequalled generosity of this nation, and also the
many acts of real and substantial kindness which I had myself
experienced in it.
I at last came to another inn, where there was written on the sign:
"The Navigation Inn," because it is the depot, or storehouse, of the
colliers of the Trent.
A rougher or ruder kind of people I never saw than these colliers,
whom I here met assembled in the kitchen, and in whose company I was
obliged to spend the evening.
Their language, their dress, their manners were, all of them,
singularly vulgar and disagreeable, and their expressions still more
so, for they hardly spoke a word, without adding "a G-d d - me" to
it, and thus cursing, quarrelling, drinking, singing, and fighting,
they seemed to be pleased, and to enjoy the evening. I must do them
the justice to add, that none of them, however, at all molested me
or did me any harm. On the contrary, every one again and again
drank my health, and I took care not to forget to drink theirs in
return. The treatment of my host at Matlock was still fresh in my
memory, and so, as often as I drank, I never omitted saying, "Your
healths, gentlemen all!"
When two Englishmen quarrel, the fray is carried on, and decided,
rather by actions than by words; though loud and boisterous, they do
not say much, and frequently repeat the same thing over and over
again, always clinching it with an additional "G - d - you!" Their
anger seems to overpower their utterance, and can vent only by
coming to blows.
The landlady, who sat in the kitchen along with all this goodly
company, was nevertheless well dressed, and a remarkably well-
looking woman. As soon as I had supped I hastened to bed, but could
not sleep; my quondam companions, the colliers, made such a noise
the whole night through. In the morning, when I got up, there was
not cue to be seen nor heard.
I was now only a few miles from Nottingham, where I arrived towards
noon.
This, of all the towns I have yet seen, except London, seemed to me
to be one of the best, and is undoubtedly the cleanest. Everything
here wore a modern appearance, and a large place in the centre,
scarcely yielded to a London square in point of beauty.
From the town a charming footpath leads you across the meadows to
the high-road, where there is a bridge over the Trent. Not far from
this bridge was an inn, where I dined, though I could get nothing
but bread-and-butter, of which I desired to have a toast made.
Nottingham lies high, and made a beautiful appearance at a distance,
with its neat high houses, red roofs, and its lofty steeples. I
have not seen so fine a prospect in any other town in England.
I now came through several villages, as Ruddington, Bradmore, and
Buny, to Castol, where I stayed all night.
This whole afternoon I heard the ringing of bells in many of the
villages. Probably it is some holiday which they thus celebrate.
It was cloudy weather, and I felt myself not at all well, and in
these circumstances this ringing discomposed me still more, and made
me at length quite low-spirited and melancholy.
At Castol there were three inns close to each other, in which, to
judge only from the outside of the houses, little but poverty was to
be expected. In the one at which I at length stopped there was only
a landlady, a sick butcher, and a sick carter, both of whom had come
to stay the night. This assemblage of sick persons gave me the idea
of an hospital, and depressed me still more. I felt some degree of
fever, was very restless all night, and so I kept my bed very late
the next morning, until the woman of the house came and aroused me
by saying she had been uneasy on my account. And now I formed the
resolution to go to Leicester in the post-coach.
I was now only four miles from Loughborough, a small, and I think,
not a very handsome town, where I arrived late at noon, and dined at
the last inn on the road that leads to Leicester. Here again, far
beyond expectation, the people treated me like a gentleman, and let
me dine in the parlour.
From Loughborough to Leicester was only ten miles, but the road was
sandy and very unpleasant walking.
