porter, 'Can thou tell me what
these bells mean?'--'Well, I suppose something is up. They say
Sebastopol is took, and the Rushans run away.'--_A la bonne heure_; but
won't they come back again, think you?

On the whole I say, when you get your little Suffolk cottage, you must
have in it a 'chamber in the wall' for me, _plus_ a pony that can trot,
and a cow that gives good milk: with these outfits we shall make a
pretty rustication now and then, not wholly _Latrappish_, but only
_half_, on much easier terms than here; and I shall be right willing to
come and try it, I for one party.--Meanwhile, I hope the Naseby matter
is steadily going ahead; sale _completed_; and even the _monument_
concern making way. Tell me a little how that and other matters are. If
you are at home, a line is rapidly conveyed hither, steam all the way:
after the beginning of the next week, I am at Chelsea, and (I dare so)
there is a fire in the evenings now to welcome you there. Shew face in
some way or other.

And so adieu; for my hour of riding is at hand.

Yours ever truly,

T. CARLYLE.

39. TO MRS. WALSH,

CHELSEA: Sept. 5, 1836.

My dear Aunt,

Now that I am fairly settled at home again, and can look back over my
late travels with the coolness of a spectator, it seems to me that I
must have tired out all men, women and children that have had to do with
me by the road. The proverb says 'there is much ado when cadgers ride.'
I do not know precisely what 'cadger' means, but I imagine it to be a
character like me, liable to head-ache, to sea-sickness, to all the
infirmities 'that flesh is heir to,' and a few others besides; the
friends and relations of cadgers should therefore use all soft
persuasions to induce them to remain at home.[119]

I got into that Mail the other night with as much repugnance and
trepidation as if it had been a Phalaris' brazen bull, instead of a
Christian vehicle, invented for purposes of mercy--not of cruelty. There
were three besides myself when we started, but two dropped off at the
end of the first stage, and the rest of the way I had, as usual, half of
the coach to myself. My fellow-passenger had that highest of all
terrestrial qualities, which for me a fellow-passenger can possess--he
was silent. I think his name was Roscoe, and he read sundry long papers
to himself, with the pondering air of a lawyer.

We breakfasted at Lichfield, at five in the morning, on muddy coffee and
scorched toast, which mad