“And your manner of fighting,” said I, “was the manner employed by Sergeant Broughton?”

“Yes,” said my new acquaintance; “it was the manner in which he beat every one who attempted to contend with him, till, in an evil hour, he entered the ring with Slack, without any training or preparation, and by a chance blow lost the battle to a man who had been beaten with ease by those who, in the hands of Broughton, appeared like so many children.  It was the way of fighting of him who first taught Englishmen to box scientifically, who was the head and father of the fighters of what is now called the old school, the last of which were Johnson and Big Ben.”

“A wonderful man, that Big Ben,” said I.

“He was so,” said the elderly individual; “but had it not been for Broughton, I question whether Ben would have ever been the fighter he was.  Oh! there was no one like old Broughton; but for him I should at the present moment be sneaking along the road, pursued by the hissings and hootings of the dirty flatterers of that blackguard coachman.”

“What did you mean,” said I, “by those words of yours, that the coachmen would speedily disappear from the roads?”

“I meant,” said he, “that a new method of travelling is about to be established, which will supersede the old.  I am a poor engraver, as my father was before me; but engraving is an intellectual trade, and by following it, I have been brought in contact with some of the cleverest men in England.  It has even made me acquainted with the projector of the scheme, which he has told me many of the wisest heads of England have been dreaming of during a period of six hundred years, and which it seems was alluded to by a certain Brazen Head in the story-book of Friar Bacon, who is generally supposed to have been a wizard, but in reality was a great philosopher.  Young man, in less than twenty years, by which time I shall be dead and gone, England will be surrounded with roads of metal, on which armies may travel with mighty velocity, and of which the walls of brass and iron by which the friar proposed to defend his native land are the types.”  He then, shaking me by the hand, proceeded on his way, whilst I returned to the inn.

CHAPTER XXVII

Francis Ardry—­His Misfortunes—­Dog and Lion Fight—­Great Men of the World.

A few days after the circumstance which I have last commemorated, it chanced that, as I was standing at the door of the inn, one of the numerous stage-coaches which were in the habit of stopping there, drove up, and several passengers got down.  I had assisted a woman with a couple of children to dismount, and had just delivered to her a band-box, which appeared to be her only property, which she had begged me to fetch down from the roof, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and heard a voice exclaim, “Is it possible, old fellow, that I find you in this place?” I turned round, and, wrapped in a large blue cloak, I beheld my good friend Francis Ardry.  I shook him most warmly by the hand, and said, “If you are surprised to see me, I am no less so to see you; where are you bound to?”