The same horses (with one exception) took us through from Brighton to Inverness. This has surprised some horsemen here, but little do they know of the roads and climate, or of Perry's care. Our average distance, omitting days when we rested, was thirty-two miles, and horses will actually improve on such a journey, as ours did, if not pushed too fast and not forced to pull beyond their strength up steep hills. The continual desire of most of our party to dismount and enjoy a walk gave our horses a light coach where the road was such as to bring them to a walk, and they were actually in better condition after the journey than when we started.
For luncheon, "good my liege, all place a temple and all seasons summer," but for lodgings and entertainment for man and beast, how did we manage these? Shall we not take our ease in our inn? and shall not mine host of The Garter, ay and mine hostess too, prove the most obliging of people? I do not suppose that it would be possible to find in any other country such delightful inns at every stage of such a journey. Among many pretty objects upon which memory lovingly rests, these little wayside inns stand prominently forward. The very names carry one back to quaint days of old: "The Lamb and Lark," "The Wheat Sheaf," "The Barley Mow." Oh, you fat wight! your inn was in Eastcheap, but in your march through Coventry, when you wouldn't go with your scarecrows, it was to some wayside inn you went, you rogue, with its trailing vines, thatched roof, and pretty garden flower-pots in the windows; and upon such excursions it was, too, that you acquired that love of nature which enabled the master with six words to cover most that was un-unsavory in your character, and hand you down to generations unborn, shrived and absolved. Dear old boy--whom one would like to have known--for after all you were right, Jack: "If Adam fell in an age of innocency, what was poor Jack Falstaff to do in an age of villainy!" There was something pure and good at bottom of one who left us after life's vanities were o'er playing with flowers and "babbling o' green fields." These country hostelries are redolent of the green fields. It is in such we would take our ease in our inn. The host, hostess, and servants assembled at the door upon our arrival, and welcomed us to their home, as they also do when we leave to bid us God-speed. We mount and drive off with smiles, bows, and wavings of the hands from them; and surely the smiles and good wishes of those who have done so much to promote our comfort over night are no bad salute for us as we blow our horn and start on the fresh dewy mornings upon our day's journey.