I find it necessary to relate the circumstances, because they
are such as could not have occurred unless under a singular combination
of accidents. In those days, the oblique and lateral communications
with many rural post-offices were so arranged, either through necessity
or through defect of system, as to make it requisite for the main
north-western mail (_i.e._, the _down_ mail) on reaching Manchester to
halt for a number of hours; how many, I do not remember; six or seven,
I think; but the result was that, in the ordinary course, the mail
recommenced its journey northwards about midnight. Wearied with the
long detention at a gloomy hotel, I walked out about eleven o'clock at
night for the sake of fresh air; meaning to fall in with the mail and
resume my seat at the post-office. The night, however, being yet dark,
as the moon had scarcely risen, and the streets being at that hour
empty, so as to offer no opportunities for asking the road, I lost my
way, and did not reach the post-office until it was considerably past
midnight; but, to my great relief (as it was important for me to be in
Westmoreland by the morning), I saw in the huge saucer eyes of the
mail, blazing through the gloom, an evidence that my chance was not yet
lost. Past the time it was; but, by some rare accident, the mail was
not even yet ready to start.
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