ed of both sexes; under every shed and
bulk small groups of link-boys gamed away the earnings of the day; or
one more weary than the rest, gave way to sleep, and let the fragment of
his torch fall hissing on the puddled ground.

Then there was the watch with staff and lantern crying the hour, and
the kind of weather; and those who woke up at his voice and turned them
round in bed, were glad to hear it rained, or snowed, or blew, or froze,
for very comfort's sake. The solitary passenger was startled by the
chairmen's cry of 'By your leave there!' as two came trotting past
him with their empty vehicle--carried backwards to show its being
disengaged--and hurried to the nearest stand. Many a private chair,
too, inclosing some fine lady, monstrously hooped and furbelowed, and
preceded by running-footmen bearing flambeaux--for which extinguishers
are yet suspended before the doors of a few houses of the better
sort--made the way gay and light as it danced along, and darker and more
dismal when it had passed. It was not unusual for these running gentry,
who carried it with a very high hand, to quarrel in the servants' hall
while waiting for their masters and mistresses; and, falling to blows
either there or in the street without, to strew the place of skirmish
with hair-powder, fragments of bag-wigs, and scattered nosegays. Gaming,
the vice which ran so high among all classes (the fashion being of
course set by the upper), was generally the cause of these disputes;
for cards and dice were as openly used, and worked as much mischief, and
yielded as much excitement below stairs, as above. While incidents like
these, arising out of drums and masquerades and parties at quadrille,
were passing at the west end of the town, heavy stagecoaches and scarce
heavier waggons were lumbering slowly towards the city, the coachmen,
guard, and passengers, armed to the teeth, and the coach--a day or so
perhaps behind its time, but that was nothing--despoiled by highwaymen;
who made no scruple to attack, alone and single-handed, a whole caravan
of goods and men, and sometimes shot a passenger or two, and were
sometimes shot themselves, as the case might be. On the morrow, rumours
of this new act of daring on the road yielded matter for a few hours'
conversation through the town, and a Public Progress of some fine
gentleman (half-drunk) to Tyburn, dressed in the newest fashion, and
damning the ordinary with unspeakable gallantry and grace, furnishe