The day was fine, and the hearts of all seemed light and gay.  The coach, though slow, was clean and smart, the harness bright and well-polished, while the sleek brown horses poked their heads about at ease, without the torture of the bearing-rein.  The coachman, like his vehicle, was heavy, and had he been set on all fours, a party of six might have eat off his back.  Thus they proceeded at a good steady substantial sort of pace; trotting on level ground, walking up hills, and dragging down inclines.  Nor among the whole party was there a murmur of discontent at the pace.  Most of the passengers seemed careless which way they went, so long as they did but move, and they rolled through the Garden of England with the most stoical indifference.  We know not whether it has ever struck the reader, but the travellers by Dover coaches are less captious about pace than those on most others.

And now let us fancy our friends up, and down, Shooter’s Hill, through Dartford, Northfleet, and Gravesend—­at which latter place, the first foreign symptom appears, in words, “Poste aux Chevaux,” on the door-post of the inn; and let us imagine them bowling down Rochester Hill at a somewhat amended pace, with the old castle, by the river Medway, the towns of Chatham, Strood and Rochester full before them, and the finely wooded country extending round in pleasing variety of hill and dale.  As they reach the foot of the hill, the guard commences a solo on his bugle, to give notice to the innkeeper to have the coach dinner on the table.  All huddled together, inside and out, long passengers and short ones, they cut across the bridge, rattle along the narrow street, sparking the mud from the newly-watered streets on the shop windows and passengers on each side, and pull up at the “Pig and Crossbow,” with a jerk and a dash as though they had been travelling at the rate of twelve miles an hour.  Two other coaches are “dining,” while some few passengers, whose “hour is not yet come,” sit patiently on the roof, or pace up and down the street with short and hurried turns, anxious to see the horses brought out that are to forward them on their journey.  And what a commotion this new arrival creates!  From the arched doorway of the inn issue two chamber-maids, one in curls the other in a cap; Boots, with both curls and a cap, and a ladder in his hand; a knock-kneed waiter, with a dirty duster, to count noses, while the neat landlady, in a spruce black silk gown and clean white apron, stands smirking, smiling, and rubbing her hands down her sides, inveigling the passengers into the house, where she will turn them over to the waiters to take their chance the instant she gets them in.  About the door the usual idlers are assembled.—­A coachman out of place, a beggar out at the elbows, a sergeant in uniform, and three recruits with ribbons in their hats; a captain with his boots cut for corns, the coachman that is to drive to Dover, a youth in a straw hat and a rowing shirt,