plodding team; the light post-coach that achieved the journey from the
White Hart, Salisbury, to the Swan with Two Necks, London, in two days;
the strings of packhorses that had not yet left the road; my lord's gilt
postchaise-and-six, with the outriders galloping on ahead; the country
squire's great coach and heavy Flanders mares; the farmers trotting to
market, or the parson jolting to the cathedral town on Dumpling, his wife
behind on the pillion--all these crowding sights and brisk people greeted
the young traveller on his summer journey. Hodge, the farmer's boy, took
off his hat, and Polly, the milkmaid, bobbed a curtsey, as the chaise
whirled over the pleasant village-green, and the white-headed children
lifted their chubby faces and cheered. The church-spires glistened with
gold, the cottage-gables glared in sunshine, the great elms murmured in
summer, or cast purple shadows over the grass. Young Warrington never had
such a glorious day, or witnessed a scene so delightful. To be nineteen
years of age, with high health, high spirits, and a full purse, to be
making your first journey, and rolling through the country in a
postchaise at nine miles an hour--O happy youth! almost it makes one
young to think of him! But Harry was too eager to give more than a
passing glance at the Abbey at Bath, or gaze with more than a moment's
wonder at the mighty Minster at Salisbury. Until he beheld Home it seemed
to him he had no eyes for any other place.

At last the young gentleman's postchaise drew up at the rustic inn on
Castlewood Green, of which his grandsire had many a time talked to him,
and which bears as its ensign, swinging from an elm near the inn porch,
the Three Castles of the Esmond family. They had a sign, too, over the
gateway of Castlewood House, bearing the same cognisance. This was the
hatchment of Francis, Lord Castlewood, who now lay in the chapel hard by,
his son reigning in his stead.