So, with such adventures, the first day passes, and reaching his inn, after a good supper, Will Marvel goes to bed and sleeps soundly.  But during the night he is wakened “by a shower beating against his windows with such violence as to threaten the dissolution of nature.”  Thus he knows that the next day will have its troubles.  “He joined himself, however, to a company that was travelling the same way, and came safely to the place of dinner, though every step of his horse dashed the mud in the air.”

In the afternoon he went on alone, passing “collections of water,” puddles doubtless, the depth of which it was impossible to guess, and looking back upon the ride he marvels at his rash daring.  “But what a man undertakes he must perform, and Marvel hates a coward at his heart.

“Few that lie warm in their beds think what others undergo, who have, perhaps, been as tenderly educated, and have as acute sensations as themselves.  My friend was now to lodge the second night almost fifty miles from home, in a house which he never had seen before, among people to whom he was totally a stranger, not knowing whether the next man he should meet would prove good or bad; but seeing an inn of a good appearance, he rode resolutely into the yard; and knowing that respect is often paid in proportion as it is claimed, delivered his injunctions to the ostler with spirit, and, entering the house, called vigorously about him.

“On the third day up rose the sun and Mr. Marvel.  His troubles and dangers were now such as he wishes no other man ever to encounter.”  The way was lonely, often for two miles together he met not a single soul with whom he could speak, and, looking at the bleak fields and naked trees, he wished himself safe home again.  His only consolation was that he suffered these terrors of the way alone.  Had, for instance, his friend the “Idler” been there he could have done nothing but lie down and die.

“At last the sun set and all the horrors of darkness came upon him. . . .  Yet he went forward along a path which he could no longer see, sometimes rushing suddenly into water, and sometimes encumbered with stiff clay, ignorant whither he was going, and uncertain whether his next step might not be the last.

“In this dismal gloom of nocturnal peregrination his horse unexpectedly stood still.  Marvel had heard many relations of the instinct of horses, and was in doubt what danger might be at hand.  Sometimes he fancied that he was on the bank of a river still and deep, and sometimes that a dead body lay across the track.  He sat still awhile to recollect his thoughts; and as he was about to alight and explore the darkness, out stepped a man with a lantern, and opened the turnpike.  He hired a guide to the town, arrived in safety, and slept in quiet.

“The rest of his journey was nothing but danger.  He climbed and descended precipices on which vulgar mortals tremble to look; he passed marshes like the Serbonian bog,* where armies whole have sunk; he forded rivers where the current roared like the Egre or the Severn; or ventured himself on bridges that trembled under him, from which he looked down on foaming whirlpools, or dreadful abysses; he wandered over houseless heaths, amidst all the rage of the elements, with the snow driving in his face, and the tempest howling in his ears.