It was a very poor theatre--being, indeed, not a theatre at all, and little better than a barn. The audience, however, was good, and well dressed, and the ladies handsome. The performance was over by eleven o’clock, and the company dismissed. Mr. Murray concludes his account of the evening’s entertainment by very sourly observing that their time and that of the rest of the audience might have been better employed than in seeing a few stupid rogues endeavouring to imitate what some of them really were. The coach left Grantham at two o’clock the next morning; much too early, considering the short rest the night’s gaiety had left them. But there was no choice--they were under authority, and had to obey. That person would be a fool who, having paid £3 8s. 6d. for a seat in a stage-coach from Newcastle to London, should consent to lose it by not rising betimes. The worst of it was, that here one had to take care of one’s self, because no one would wait upon him or return him his money. Observe the passengers, therefore, all, in the coach by 2 a.m. The company being seated, the driver went off as fast as if he would have driven them to Stamford in the twinkling of an eye. So early was the hour that we are not surprised to be told that the author fell asleep by the time they were clear of the town, and doubtless the others did the same. It may be remarked here that a very excellent proof of this being a fictitious journey is found in there being no mention of the passengers being turned out of the coach to walk up the steep Spitalgate Hill--a thing always necessary at that period of coaching history. The remainder of this not-inaptly named _Travels of the Imagination_ is made up chiefly of a long disquisition upon sleep--itself highly soporific--which only gives place to remarks upon the journey when the coach arrives on Highgate Hill. Coming over that eminence, they had a peep at London. “It must be a wonderful holy place,” he suggests to the other passengers, “there are so many church steeples to be seen.” The others, who must have known better, said nothing. “Are we there?” he asked when they had reached Islington. “No, not there yet.” “Is it a large place: four times as large, for instance, as Newcastle?” “Ten times as large.” “Where are the town walls?” “There are no walls.” At last they reached Holborn, and the end of the journey, where the company dispersed and our chronicler went to bed. CHAPTER III DOWN THE ROAD IN DAYS OF YORE II.--FROM LONDON TO NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE IN 1830 We also will make a tour down the road. It shall not be, in the strictly accurate sense of the word, a “journey,” for we shall travel continuously by night as well as day--a thing quite unknown when that word was first brought into use, and unknown to coaching until about 1780, when coaches first began to go both day and night, instead of inning at sundown at some convenient hostelry on the road.