these vehicles transports you and me through the heart of this
cultivated country."

"I am certain," said Mr Escot, "that a wild man can travel an immense
distance without fatigue; but what is the advantage of locomotion? The
wild man is happy in one spot, and there he remains: the civilised man
is wretched in every place he happens to be in, and then congratulates
himself on being accommodated with a machine, that will whirl him to
another, where he will be just as miserable as ever."

We shall now leave the mail-coach to find its way to Capel Cerig, the
nearest point of the Holyhead road to the dwelling of Squire Headlong.




CHAPTER III
The Arrivals


In the midst of that scene of confusion thrice confounded, in which we
left the inhabitants of Headlong Hall, arrived the lovely Caprioletta
Headlong, the Squire's sister (whom he had sent for, from the
residence of her maiden aunt at Caernarvon, to do the honours of his
house), beaming like light on chaos, to arrange disorder and harmonise
discord. The tempestuous spirit of her brother became instantaneously
as smooth as the surface of the lake of Llanberris; and the little fat
butler "plessed Cot, and St Tafit, and the peautiful tamsel," for
being permitted to move about the house in his natural pace. In less
than twenty-four hours after her arrival, everything was disposed in