A map is a very useful thing: I wonder what people did without it before it was invented. Yet there were great travellers in those days, too, both by land and water. Adam began the first, and Noah the second, and they managed very well without either chart or compass, so that it is evident those instruments are nothing but luxuries, and ought to be done away with. Nevertheless, I feel that I should be much better off, and so would the reader too, if I could give here, on this page, a map of the county of ----, just to show him the relative position of the place called Buxton's Inn and the little village of Coldington-cum-Snowblast, which lay nearly north-west of Buxton's Inn, and at the distance, by the road, of about six miles. The innkeepers charge seven miles' posting, because it was the seventeenth part of a furlong beyond the six miles. However, a dreary little village it was, situated on one of the two roads to London, which was indeed somewhat shorter than the other, but so hilly, so tiresome, so bleak, and so stiff, as the post-boys termed it, that man and beast alike preferred the other road, and generally went to and from Tarningham by Buxton's Inn. Nevertheless, it was absolutely necessary that a pair or two of posters should be kept at Coldington, as that was the only direct road to several considerable towns; and though it was only an eight-mile stage, yet the cattle, when they had got over the hills, had no inclination to go further. The post-horses had engendered a public-house, which was designated by courtesy an inn, but it was a very solitary one, with very few visitors but those who took a glass of beer or spirits at the bar, and a chance mercantile traveller, who came to supply the two shops that ornamented the village, and slept there for the night. At a very early hour of the morning, however, on the day of which we have just been speaking, a post-chaise drew up to the door with horses from Buxton's Inn, and a fresh relay was immediately ordered to carry the travellers on towards Bristol. A tall, powerful, showily-dressed man got out with a lady closely veiled, whose costume spoke of Parisian manufacture; and while the portmanteaux and other articles of baggage were being taken into the doorway till they could be placed upon the new chaise, the gentleman paid the post-boy, and then asked if he was going back directly. "In about an hour, Sir," replied the man, touching his hat, with the look of one well satisfied with his fee. But at this reply the traveller looked blank, and said, "Well, it does not matter. I must get some lad to run over across the moor with this note to Mr. Wittingham. Just see for some one, my good fellow. He shall have half-a-crown for his pains."