[Picture: Bedford Bridge, at the foot of which stood the house in which ‘Mark Rutherford’ was born] To return to Bedford. In my boyhood it differed, excepting an addition northwards a few years before, much less from Speed’s map of 1609 than the Bedford of 1910 differs from the Bedford of 1831. There was but one bridge, but it was not Bunyan’s bridge, and many of the gabled houses still remained. To our house, much like the others in the High Street, there was no real drainage, and our drinking-water came from a shallow well sunk in the gravelly soil of the back yard. A sewer, it is true, ran down the High Street, but it discharged itself at the bridge-foot, in the middle of the town, which was full of cesspools. Every now and then the river was drawn off and the thick masses of poisonous filth which formed its bed were dug out and carted away. In consequence of the imperfect outfall we were liable to tremendous floods. At such times a torrent roared under the bridge, bringing down haystacks, dead bullocks, cows, and sheep. Men with long poles were employed to fend the abutments from the heavy blows by which they were struck. A flood in 1823 was not forgotten for many years. One Saturday night in November a man rode into the town, post-haste from Olney, warning all inhabitants of the valley of the Ouse that the “Buckinghamshire water” was coming down with alarming force, and would soon be upon them. It arrived almost as soon as the messenger, and invaded my uncle Lovell’s dining-room, reaching nearly as high as the top of the table. [Picture: ‘The Bedford Times’ Coach, which made its last journey to London on November 21, 1846] The goods traffic to and from London was carried on by an enormous waggon, which made the journey once or twice a week. Passengers generally travelled by the _Times_ coach, a hobby of Mr. Whitbread’s. It was horsed with four magnificent cream-coloured horses, and did the fifty miles from Bedford to London at very nearly ten miles an hour, or twelve miles actual speed, excluding stoppages for change. Barring accidents, it was always punctual to a minute, and every evening, excepting Sundays, exactly as the clock of St. Paul’s struck eight, it crossed the bridge. I have known it wait before entering the town if it was five or six minutes too soon, a kind of polish or artistic completeness being thereby given to a performance in which much pride was taken. The Bedford Charity was as yet hardly awake. No part of the funds was devoted to the education of girls, but a very large part went in almsgiving. The education of boys was almost worthless. The head-mastership of the Grammar School was in the gift of New College, Oxford, who of course always appointed one of their Fellows. Including the income from boarders, it was worth about £3,000 a year. [Picture: The Old Meeting-house]