The next day we had gone coaching again. This time I had the front seat of the coach. My neighbour was an elegant young man who had the manner and the bearing of a Prince of the blood Royal. Having taken the day before a Royal Prince for a colonist, Sergy this time promoted my neighbour to the post of State Minister at least, and I felt sure he was no less a person than a Royalty travelling incognito. At a stoppage one of the horses had cast a shoe, and one can easily imagine how we felt when my aristocratic neighbour began to shoe the horse—he was a blacksmith! Our driver put into good spirits by frequent sips taken at the stoppages, seemed to have completely forgotten his business. He drove recklessly, taking the corners in a way that made me gasp; I had to hold fast to the seat not to be thrown out of the omnibus at every turn. I couldn’t bear it any longer and begged our driver to go slower, but it only made him rush down the inclines at the speed of an express train, turning in the same time his back to the horses and chatting with the passengers. He boasted of how well he could manage his long whip, and waving it right and left, he caught the rake of a villager who was passing on the road. Luckily the idea didn’t come to our driver to lift the man like a spilikin in the air. Half-way on we stopped at Ventnor, a resort for consumptive patients, to give a rest to the horses. We saw numerous invalids drawn through the streets in their bath-chairs. We continued our way by an avenue of trees bending over and forming a roof, and towards four o’clock we rattled into the quiet village of Carisbrooke, and tore like a hurricane through the narrow streets, scattering the crowd of dogs and hens before us. The village with its white cottages and grass growing liberally out of the broken pavement, looked very cosy. We saw a group of women all down on their knees cheerfully doing their washing in the stream, laughing and chatting together, and village children who were playing at soldiers near a puddle where the ducks were quacking. The foaming horses came to a stop before the Red Lion Inn, and everyone descended. We had dinner at the inn, consisting of soup tasting like dish-water, and slices of mutton not thicker than a sheet of paper, and they charged us five shillings for the meagre repast! A two hours’ halt gave us time to visit the picturesque ruins of old Carisbrooke Castle, after which we flung ourselves with satisfaction upon the grass under a stack of hay, and had for company an ancient white cart-horse who chewed his bunch of hay under an old ash tree. We felt quite bucolic, it was so cool and nice here, and the new-mown hay smelt so sweetly. Meanwhile our coachman had put out his horses and gone to lie down. When we returned to the inn we found him stretched full length on the grass under the shade of a big tree, his face covered with his hat, sleeping the sleep of the just. The