SANDITON
CHAPTER I
A Gentleman and Lady travelling from Tunbridge towards
that part of the Sussex Coast which lies between Hastings
and E. Bourne, being induced by Business to quit the high
road, and attempt a very rough Lane, were overturned in toiling
up its long ascent half rock, half sand. The accident happened just
beyond the only Gentleman’s House near the Lane—a House,
which their Driver on being first required to take that direction,
had conceived to be necessarily their object, and had with most
unwilling Looks been constrained to pass by. He had grumbled
and shaken his shoulders so much indeed, and pitied and cut his
Horses so sharply, that he might have been open to the suspicion
of overturning them on purpose (especially as the Carriage was
not his Masters own) if the road had not indisputably become
considerably worse than before, as soon as the premises of the
said House were left behind—expressing with a most intelligent
portentous countenance that beyond it no wheels but cart wheels
could safely proceed. The severity of the fall was broken by their
slow pace and the narrowness of the Lane, and the Gentleman
having scrambled out and helped out his companion, they neither
of them at first felt more than shaken and bruised.