[Illustration: Aheny Hill, showing the Constabulary Barrack destroyed by the Insurgents. 1848] Night soon fell drearily upon the water. I engaged a berth from one of the sailors, and before half an hour, lost all consciousness of country and friends, of wind and tide, and hope, and shame, and peril, in tranquil repose. On ascending next morning, the shores of England were in view, and we sailed up the channel to the mouth of the Avon under a calm and mellow sky. I had some breakfast with one of the cowherds. We were delayed several hours waiting for the tide, which were spent for the most part in making difficult evolutions; and exhibiting to the cabin passengers the peculiar qualities of the _Juverna_. Night had fallen before we reached Bristol, and I slipped away from the boat, amid the confusion and bustle which checked the progress of the gay and rich, around whose footsteps avarice had gathered an eager and jostling crowd. Rude contact with, and unsavoury odours from, the unclean multitude shocked their nervous sensibility, as they made their way to their hotels amidst obtrusive obsequiousness, while the lone outlaw's pathway lay free through the open street and uncontaminated air. But a wretched exterior has its disadvantages also. I dared not present myself at a hotel, and many of the humbler hostelries refused me admittance, believing, no doubt, either that the seeds of pestilence were in my rags, or not a copper in my pocket. Indeed, to no brain but that of a very imaginative genius would the possibility of such a superfluity as a pocket suggest itself. All the beds were "full." At last I thought me of an expedient. I called for a glass of ale, for which payment in advance was duly demanded. I handed a sovereign, which at once emptied a bed, provided I slept in a room with another person which I refused, feeling that I had acquired a footing. I had something to eat, and finally found that there was a vacant room. The next day was Sunday. No trains travelled to London except third class. This was rather unlucky, for I was aware that certain straitened gentlemen were often obliged, by stress of circumstances--the pressure of business which brooked not a moment's delay--reluctantly to avail themselves of this mode of conveyance. I felt, too, that the loyalty of these slender aristocrats, was on a par with the unhappy incidents which compelled them to consort with vulgar people, that is to say, so constrained, that however much against the impulses of their generous natures, they could not omit any opportunity of manifesting the sentiment in its full intensity, I selected my company on this occasion, being only anxious to exclude the "_arbiters elegantiarum_," Of my "_compagnons de voyage_," some were in gin, some in fumes and some in glee, and the journey passed off without an incident.