“Three and sixpence for dinner, sir, if you please, and threepence for ale.”
“Experience makes fools wise,”
I exclaimed, as with an empty stomach I reseated myself upon the box.
“St—st—go along! a fine town this, sir!”
“Is it?”
“Don’t you think so, sir?
“I never was in such a half starved, hungry looking place in my life,” cried I, at that time feeling the cravings of nature strong within me, and fancying I saw the ghost of a London cook shop, flitting before my eyes.
The road from Birmingham to Shrewsbury, if travelled by night, gives a stranger a glowing idea of the “fiery regions,” never mentioned to “ears polite.” No description can come up to the flaming reality exhibited in the appearance of this country; hundreds of hills of burning coke blaze in all directions, and the air is scarcely endurable from the gaseous qualities of the smoke, which sweeps across the road in huge columns, almost suffocating every passenger who ventures upon that dismal tract.
But increasing horrors gather round the devoted tourist as he advances further, on the road to Wolverhampton: thousands of indistinct forms move in the glare of the distant fires, or flit, like a legion of black devils, over the burning coals; sometimes standing in bold relief before the blazing chimneys of fifty or sixty steam engines, that send up bursts of flame glaring in all directions; and imagination might picture thousands of fallen angels, tossing their flaming brands above their heads, in frantic sport and direful revelry.
Groups of grinning imps sat scattered near the road side, whose yellings made the welkin ring again as we passed by them. Roaring Bacchanals filled the air with their drunken shouts; and withered hags held out their bony hands for alms, to be expended in liquid fire for their throats.