CHAPTER XLIV.
THE JOURNEY HOME COMMENCES.
Hamilton left Munich the next day in the mail for Frankfort; he had secured the place beside the conductor in the front part of the coach, which formed a kind of open carriage, and where he intended to smoke, and think, and sleep undisturbed. His late conversation with Crescenz had made a deep impression on him; it had again filled his mind with doubts and fears, which deprived him of his habitual cheerfulness, while his usual source of amusement when travelling—studying the characters or foibles of his companions—had lost all interest for him. He did not ask the name or condition of any one of the persons with whom he moved under the same roof a whole night and two days, and no one contradicted the young student, who, on leaving at Wurtzburg, observed with a glance towards Hamilton, “As unsociable a fellow as ever I met! A thorough Englishman!”
He wandered about the streets until the coach was again ready to start, and then, although the weather had completely cleared up, and the country, refreshed by the rain, was by no means uninteresting, he sunk back into his corner, and overpowered by weariness, fell fast asleep. When he awoke it was quite dark, and as he raised himself slowly from his slumbers, the conductor called out, “Halt!—who is booked for Aschaffenburg? Who gets out here?”
Some passenger from the inside of the coach spoke, and Hamilton asked, “Is there a good hotel here?”
“Very good.”
“Then let me out—my legs are cramped, and my head and shoulders battered and bruised. I say, Hans, you can go on to Frankfort, and bespeak rooms for me at the Hotel d’Angleterre. Give me my carpet-bag and dressing-case, as fast as you can,” and Hamilton was stamping his feet on the ground with a feeling of relief amounting to pleasure, when a man with a lantern came up to him and demanded his passport.
“My passport?—directly—I shall be in Frankfort about twelve o’clock to-morrow, Hans,” cried Hamilton, as the coach drove off; and having delivered up his passport, he watched the man with the lantern enter an adjacent house, saw the light pass from one window to the other, until it finally disappeared, and all was dark.
“This is pleasant,” he said, looking around him, “and I don’t know the way to the hotel, or even the name of it!”
“I am here sir, with a wheelbarrow for the luggage,” said a voice near him, and Hamilton’s eyes now becoming accustomed to the darkness, he perceived a man standing close to him, and a dark figure at a little distance sitting among some trunks and boxes.