Excerpt
In my twentieth year my first visit was made to London—how long since need not be said, lest I make discoveries. I arrived at the "Swan with two necks," in Lad Lane, to the imminent peril of my own one, on entering the yard of that then famous hostelry, the gate of which barely allowed admission to the coach itself—and first set foot on London ground, midst the bustle of some half-dozen coaches, either preparing for exit, or discharging their loads of passengers and parcels.
Four "insides" were turned out, and eight "outsides" turned in—I, amongst the unfortunates of the latter class, taking possession of the nearest point I could to the coffee-room fire. It is to be recollected that in those days one had but four chances in his favour, against perhaps forty applicants for the interior of the mail—and he who was driven in winter, by necessity of time, to the top of a coach in Liverpool, and from thence to Lad Lane, and found himself in the coffee-room there unfrozen, might be well contented. So felt I, then,—and doubly so now, as I think of the dangers of flood, and road, and neck, which I encountered in a twenty-six hours' journey, exposed to the "pelting of the pitiless storm,"—for it snowed half the way.
Dinner discussed, and its etceteras having been partaken, in full consciousness of the comforts which surrounded me, contrasted with the discomforts, &c. from which I had escaped,—I sank into an agreeable reverie; and during a vision,—I must not call it a doze,—composed of port wine and walnuts—the invigorating beams of Wallsend coal—an occasional fancied jolt of the coach—the three mouthfuls of dinner, by the name, I had gotten at Oxford—and the escape of my one neck, when, goose as I was, I presented it where two seemed to be an essential by the sign of the habitation and the dangers of the gate,—I was aroused by a crash, something like the noise of the machine which accompanies the falling of an avalanche or a castle, or some such direful affair at "Astley's;" and starting up, I thought,—had the coach upset? but, much to my gratification, found myself a safe "inside." Still came crash after crash, until I thought it high time to see as well as hear. "What on earth is the matter?" said I to the first waiter I met, as I descended from the coffee-room, and got to the door of the "tap," or room for accommodation of the lower grade of persons frequenting the establishment. "Oh! sir," said he, "it is two dreadful Irishmen fighting: one has broken a table on the other's head; the other smashed a chair." I stopped short, and well do I recollect that the blood rushed to my face as I turned away; I confess, too, that while returning to the coffee-room, when the waiter followed and asked, should he bring tea, I "cockneyfied" my accent as much as possible, in the hope that he should not know I was an Irishman:—such was my shame for my country at the moment.
Many minutes, however, had not elapsed until I felt shame another way—namely, that I should for a moment deny the land which gave me birth;—and I at once determined to ascertain the facts and particulars of the outrage. Down I went, therefore, again, and entering the tap-room, found that in truth a table had been broken, and a chair too, not to speak at all of the heads; but, on further investigation, it appeared that the table, being weak in constitution, sunk under the weight of one of the belligerents, who jumped upon it to assail the other with advantage,—and that the chair had been smashed by coming in contact with the table; the gentleman on the ground having thought it fair to use a chair in his defence when his enemy took to the larger piece of furniture:—hence the awful crash, crash—that awoke me from my—vision....