Just as I was thinking of putting up for the night at the next inn or public-house I should arrive at, I heard what sounded like a coach coming up rapidly behind me.
Induced, perhaps, by the weariness which I felt, I stopped and looked wistfully in the direction of the sound; presently up came a coach, seemingly a mail, drawn by four bounding horses--there was no one upon it but the coachman and the guard; when nearly parallel with me it stopped.
"Want to get up ?" sounded a voice, in the true coachman-like tone--half querulous, half authoritative.

I hesitated; I was tired, it is true, but I had left London bound on a pedestrian excursion, and I did not much like the idea of having recourse to a coach after accomplishing so very inconsiderable a distance.

"Come, we can't be staying here all night," said the voice, more sharply than before.

"I can ride a little way, and get down whenever I like," thought I; and springing forward I clambered up the coach, and was going to sit down upon the box, next the coachman.
"No, no," said the coachman, who was a man about thirty, with a hooked nose and red face, dressed in a fashionably cut great coat, with a fashionable black castor on his head.

"No, no, keep behind--the box a'n't for the like of you," said he, as he drove off; "the box is for lords, or gentlemen at least." I made no answer.