CHAPTER LXXI
Her head bowed low; her bonnet drawn over her eyes; ignorant what course she took, and earnest only to discover any inlet into the country by which she might immediately quit the town; Juliet, with hurried footsteps, and trembling apprehensions, became again a Wanderer.
She passed through various streets, but, unacquainted with London, read, without any aid to her purpose, their names, till, printed in large characters, her eyes were struck with the word Piccadilly; and, presently, she was accosted by an ordinary man, who had a long whip in his hand, and who, holding open the door of a carriage, asked whether she would have a cast; saying that he was ready to set off immediately.
Finding that the vehicle was a stage-coach, she eagerly accepted the proposal, and seated herself next to an elderly woman.
The man demanded whether she meant to go all the way.
She answered in the affirmative; and, to her inexpressible satisfaction, was driven out of London.
Not to risk discovering to her fellow-travellers so extraordinary a circumstance, as that of beginning an excursion in utter ignorance where it might end, she forbore asking any questions; and left to the time of her alighting at the spot to which the stage was destined, her own acquaintance with her local situation.
It was not, therefore, till she descended from the coach, that she found that she had taken the road to Bagshot.
The immediate plan which, in her way, she had formed, was to enter the first shop that she saw open; thence to write to Gabriella; and then to stroll on to the nearest village, and lodge herself in the first clean cottage which could afford her a room.
The sight, however, of the Salisbury stage, gave her a desire to travel instantly further from London; and she asked whether there were a vacant place. She was immediately accommodated; and her journey thither, though long, and passed in dreadful apprehension, was without accident or event.