I dined here on cold meat and salad.  This, or else eggs and salad, was my usual supper, and my dinner too, at the inns at which I stopped.  It was but seldom that I had the good fortune to get anything hot.  The salad, for which they brought me all the ingredients, I was always obliged to dress myself.  This, I believe, is always done in England.

The road was now tolerably pleasant, but the country seemed here to be uniform and unvaried, even to dulness.  However, it was a very fine evening, and as I passed through a village just before sunset several people who met me accosted me with a phrase which, at first, I thought odd, but which I now think civil, if not polite.  As if I could possibly want information on such a point as they passed me, they all very courteously told me, “’Twas a fine evening,” or “A pleasant night.”

I have also often met people who as they passed me obligingly and kindly asked:  “How do you do?” To which unexpected question from total strangers I have now learned to answer, “Pretty well, I thank you; how do you do?” This manner of address must needs appear very singular to a foreigner, who is all at once asked by a person whom he has never seen before how he does.

After I had passed through this village I came to a green field, at the side of which I met with an ale-house.  The mistress was sitting at the window.  I asked her if I could stay the night there.  She said No!” and shut the window in my face.

This unmannerliness recalled to my recollection the many receptions of this kind to which I have now so often been exposed, and I could not forbear uttering aloud my indignation at the inhospitality of the English.  This harsh sentiment I soon corrected, however, as I walked on, by recollecting, and placing in the opposite scale, the unbounded and unequalled generosity of this nation, and also the many acts of real and substantial kindness which I had myself experienced in it.

I at last came to another inn, where there was written on the sign:  “The Navigation Inn,” because it is the depot, or storehouse, of the colliers of the Trent.

A rougher or ruder kind of people I never saw than these colliers, whom I here met assembled in the kitchen, and in whose company I was obliged to spend the evening.

Their language, their dress, their manners were, all of them, singularly vulgar and disagreeable, and their expressions still more so, for they hardly spoke a word, without adding “a G-d d—­ me” to it, and thus cursing, quarrelling, drinking, singing, and fighting, they seemed to be pleased, and to enjoy the evening.  I must do them the justice to add, that none of them, however, at all molested me or did me any harm.  On the contrary, every one again and again drank my health, and I took care not to forget to drink theirs in return.  The treatment of my host at Matlock was still fresh in my memory, and so, as often as I drank, I never omitted saying, “Your healths, gentlemen all!”