The sun was rising as Clement’s coach rattled down the Foregate between the old Norman towers that crown the Castle Hill, and the long austere front of the school, with its wide low casements twinkling in the first beams. Early milk-carts drew aside to give the coach passage, white-eyed sweeps gazed enviously after it, mob-caps at windows dreamt of holidays and sighed to be on it and away. Soon it burst merrily from the crowded houses and met the morning freshness and the open country and the rolling fields. The mists were rising from the valley behind, as the horses breasted the ascent above the old battle-field, swept down the farther slope, and at eight miles an hour climbed up Armour Hill between meadows sparkling with dew and coverts flickering with conies. Down the hill at a canter, which presently carried it rejoicing into Wem. There the first relay was waiting, and away again they went, bowling over the barren gorse-clad heath that brought them presently through narrow twisting streets to the White Lion at Whitchurch. Again, “Horses on!” and merrily they travelled down the gentle slope to the Cheshire plain, where miles of green country spread themselves in the sunshine, a land of fatness and plenty, of cheese and milk and slow-running brooks. The clock on Nantwich church was showing a half after eight, as with a long flourish from the bugle they passed below it, and halted for breakfast at the Crown, in the stubborn old Round-head town. Half an hour to refresh, topping up with a glass of famous Nantwich ale, and away again. But now the sun was high, the world abroad, the roads were alive with traffic. Onwards from Nantwich, where they began to run alongside the Ellesmere Canal, with its painted barges and gay market boats, the road took on a new importance, and many a smiling wayside house, Lion or Swan, cheered the travellers on their way. Spanking four-in-hands, handled by lusty coachmen, the autocrats of the road, chaises-and-four with postboys in green or yellow, white-coated farmers and parsons on hackneys, commercials in gigs, and publicans in tax-carts, pedlars, packmen, the one-legged sailor, and Punch and Judy—all these met or passed them; and huge wains laden with Manchester goods and driven by teamsters in smocks with long whips on their shoulders. And the inns! The inns, with their swaying signs and open windows, their benches crowded with loungers and their yards echoing with the cry of “Next team!”—the inns, with their groaning tables and huge joints and gleaming silver, these came so often, swaggered so loudly, imposed themselves so royally, that half the life of the road seemed to be in and about them.