It looked, however, altogether so
unpromising, that he would have been almost relieved to hear that
Nutter's body had been found drowned in the river.
Still there was a chance that he made good his retreat. If he had not
paid his fare in Charon's packet-boat, he might, at least, have crossed
the channel in the _Trevor_ or _Hillsborough_ to Holyhead. Then, deuce
was in it, if he did not make a fair run for it, and earth himself
snugly somewhere. 'Twas lighter work then than now. 'The old saying at
London, among servants,' writes that good-natured theatrical wag, Tate
Wilkinson, 'was, "I wish you were at York!" which the wronged cook has
now changed for, "I wish you were at Jamaica." Scotland was then
imagined by the cockney as a dreary place, distant almost as the West
Indies; _now_'(reader, pray note the marvel) 'an agreeable party may,
with the utmost ease, dine early in the week in Grosvenor Square, and
without discomposure set down at table on Saturday or Sunday in the new
town of Edinburgh!' From which we learn that miracles of celerity were
already accomplishing themselves, and that the existing generation
contemplated their triumphs complacently.
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