This the guard
declines to allow, and this matter being otherwise arranged, on we go
again. Through "Merrie Islington" to Highgate, where we pass under the
great archway, then newly built; on to Barnet, where we stop to change
horses, and where I stand up to have a look at my fellow outside
passengers. There is not a lady amongst us. Coachman, guard, and
passengers, we are fourteen. We all wear "top" hats, of which five are
white; each hat, white or black, has its band of black crape. King
William IV. was lately dead, and every decently dressed man in the
country then wore some badge of mourning.
During the whole of that long day we rattled on. Through sleepy towns
and pleasant villages; past the barracks at Weedon, near which we cross
a newly-built bridge, on the summit of which the coachman pulls up, and
we see a deep cutting through the fields on our right, and a long and
high embankment on the left. Scores of men, and horses drawing
strange-looking vehicles, are hard at work, and we are told that this is
to be the "London and Birmingham Railway," which the coachman adds "is
going to drive _us_ off the road.
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