like the "learned friend" of Crotchet Castle, a course as tortuous as
that of a river, but in a reverse process; beginning by being dark and
deep, and ending by being transparent.


The Author of "Headlong Hall".

_March_ 4, 1837.






H E A D L O N G H A L L

---*---

CHAPTER I
The Mail


The ambiguous light of a December morning, peeping through the windows
of the Holyhead mail, dispelled the soft visions of the four insides,
who had slept, or seemed to sleep, through the first seventy miles of
the road, with as much comfort as may be supposed consistent with the
jolting of the vehicle, and an occasional admonition to _remember the
coachman_, thundered through the open door, accompanied by the gentle
breath of Boreas, into the ears of the drowsy traveller.