"Not stop to play!" echoed the manager: "why, my good fellow, they will pull the house down. You must stop to play, and post up to London afterwards. I'll take care that a chaise and four are waiting for you at the stage-door, and that everything shall be ready for you to start, the moment you have finished your business."
He played with the same success to a brilliant house, received 294l. from the manager as his remuneration for three nights, threw himself into the chaise, and at twelve o'clock, within a few minutes after he had quitted the stage, was on his road to London.
The weather was tempestuous, the roads in a most desperate condition, and, to make matters worse, he treated the postboys so liberally in the hope of accelerating their speed, that they became so drunk as to be scarcely able to sit their horses. After various escapes and perils, they discovered, at the end of an unusually long stage, that they had come fourteen miles out of the road, "all in consequence," as one of the boys said, with many hiccups, and much drunken gravity, "all in consequence of only taking one wrong turn."
The result of this combination of mischances was, that he did not reach Salt Hill until seven o'clock on the following evening; having been nineteen hours on the road. Here he jumped into another chaise which fortunately stood ready at the door, and hurried up to London, without venturing to stay for any refreshment whatever. He drove straight to the theatre, where he found his friend awaiting his arrival with great trepidation. Hearing that the overture to the piece in which he was to perform was then playing, he gave his friend the 294l. to take care of, ran to his dressing-room, dressed for his part, which Farley had already made preparations for performing himself, and went on the stage the moment he got his cue, much to the astonishment of his friends, and greatly to the surprise of some individuals connected with the management of the theatre, who had anticipated a very different result from his visit to Birmingham.
CHAPTER XV.
1808 to 1809.
Covent Garden Theatre destroyed by fire—Grimaldi makes a trip to Manchester: he meets with an accident there, and another at Liverpool—The Sir Hugh Middleton Tavern at Sadler's Wells, and a description of some of its frequenters, necessary to a full understanding of the succeeding chapter.