eady, and
I set forward to feel my way, with an assurance that I had nothing to do
but keep right a-head, the road being as straight as a hickory pole.

The morning was fine, but cold: the stars yet twinkled brightly; but
their light did not suffice to make my way very clear to me; so I
followed my directions implicitly, and for some time briskly.
Unluckily, a sea of mist was to be passed as I went through the low
grounds; and, whilst in this, I could not discern my horse's ears for
the soul of me, notwithstanding that the punctuality of the steamer
demanded that I should lose no time.

I had a good nag under me, however, and rattled on merrily enough,
thinking to myself what a very priggish person it must have been who
first promulgated the saying, that no wise traveller ever quits his
hostel before the sun gets up, or remains out of it after the sun has
gone to bed. "There were no steamers at six A.M. in those times," said I
to myself, as I conned over the musty aphorism; "and travelling must
have been done by this methodical person at a very slow pace." At this
moment I heard the rattle of boards, and became aware that I was on a
bridge: I instantly reined up, when, rattle! up tilts some loose plank,
and in goes one of my nag's legs up to the shoulder. To fall back upon
his haunches, make a rear up, and, in answer to a sharp blow of the
spur, suddenly to bolt over something and into somewhere, was the action
of a moment: in the tumble, that succeeded his leap, I got a couple of
confounded hard raps on the side of the head, which convinced me I had
not lighted among feathers.

My horse was either the most stunned or the most frightened, for I was
first on my feet; and after scrambling up a hank below the end of the
bridge, I made shift to urge my nag to get on his legs and regain the
road.

My upper story was a good deal confused, but knowing there was no time
to be lost, after ascertaining that the horse's knees were not broken,
and that my bones though shaken were all whole, up I got and away we
started, with a new, and, as it turned out, a bad departure. I
congratulated myself on being so easily let off; for, had a plank turned
on the middle of the bridge instead of the extremity, the forward spring
of my horse would have precipitated us into the river, which was less
desirable infinitely than the dry ditch down whose bank we had rolled.

On I pushed, and up got the day, slowly but, brightly enough: a spire
a