第277章

"The ill-looking gentleman received his three-cornered hat in silence, looked at the hole in the middle with an inquiring air, and finally stuck it on the top of his wig with a solemnity the effect of which was a trifle impaired by his sneezing violently at the moment, and jerking it off again.

"`All right!' cried the guard with the lantern, mounting into his little seat behind.Away they went.My uncle peeped out of the coach-window as they emerged from the yard, and observed that the other mails, with coachmen, guards, horses, and passengers, complete, were driving round and round in circles, at a slow trot of about five miles an hour.My uncle burnt with indignation, gentlemen.As a commercial man, he felt that the mail bags were not to be trifled with, and he resolved to memorialise the Post-office on the subject, the very instant he reached London.

"At present, however, his thoughts were occupied with the young lady who sat in the farthest corner of the coach, with her face muffled closely in her hood; the gentleman with the sky-blue coat sitting opposite to her;the other man in the plum-coloured suit, by her side, and both watching her intently.If she so much as rustled the folds of her hood, he could hear the ill-looking man clap his hand upon his sword, and could tell by the other's breathing (it was so dark he couldn't see his face) that he was looking as big as if he were going to devour her at a mouthful.This roused my uncle more and more, and he resolved, come what come might, to see the end of it.He had a great admiration for bright eyes, and sweet faces, and pretty legs and feet; in short, he was fond of the whole sex.

It runs in our family, gentlemen--so am I.

"Many were the devices which my uncle practised, to attract the lady's attention, or at all events, to engage the mysterious gentlemen in conversation.

They were all in vain; the gentlemen wouldn't talk, and the lady didn't dare.He thrust his head out of the coach-window at intervals, and bawled out to know why they didn't go faster? But he called till he was hoarse;nobody paid the least attention to him.He leant back in the coach, and thought of the beautiful face, and the feet and legs.This answered better;it whiled away the time, and kept him from wondering where he was going, and how it was that he found himself in such an odd situation.Not that this would have worried him much, any way--he was a mighty free and easy, roving, devil-may-care sort of person, was my uncle, gentlemen.

"All of a sudden the coach stopped.`Hallo!' said my uncle, `What's in the wind now?'

"`Alight here,' said the guard, letting down the steps.

"`Here!' cried my uncle.

"`Here,' rejoined the guard.

"`I'll do nothing of the sort,' said my uncle.

"`Very well, then stop where you are,' said the guard.

"`I will,' said my uncle.

"`Do,' said the guard.

"The other passengers had regarded this colloquy with great attention, and, finding that my uncle was determined not to alight, the younger man squeezed past him, to hand the lady out.At this moment, the ill-looking man was inspecting the hole in the crown of his three-cornered hat.As the young lady brushed past, she dropped one of her gloves into my uncle's hand, and softly whispered, with her lips so close to his face that he felt her warm breath on his nose, the single word `Help!' Gentlemen, my uncle leaped out of the coach at once, with such violence that it rocked on the springs again.

"`Oh! You've thought better of it, have you?' said the guard when he saw my uncle standing on the ground.

"My uncle looked at the guard for a few seconds, in some doubt whether it wouldn't be better to wrench his blunder-buss from him, fire it in the face of the man with the big sword, knock the rest of the company over the head with the stock, snatch up the young lady, and go off in the smoke.

On second thoughts, however, he abandoned this plan, as being a shade too melodramatic in the execution, and followed the two mysterious men, who, keeping the lady between them, were now entering an old house in front of which the coach had stopped.They turned into the passage, and my uncle followed.

"Of all the ruinous and desolate places my uncle had ever beheld, this was the most so.It looked as if it had once been a large house of entertainment;but the roof had fallen in, in many places, and the stairs were steep, rugged, and broken.There was a huge fire-place in the room into which they walked, and the chimney was blackened with smoke; but no warm blaze lighted it up now.The white feathery dust of burnt wood was still strewed over the hearth, but the stove was cold, and all was dark and gloomy.

"`Well,' said my uncle, as he looked about him, `A mail travelling at the rate of six miles and a half an hour, and stopping for an indefinite time at such a hole as this, is rather an irregular sort of proceeding, I fancy.This shall be made known.I'll write to the papers.'

"My uncle said this in a pretty loud voice, and in an open unreserved sort of manner, with the view of engaging the two strangers in conversation if he could.But, neither of them took any more notice of him than whispering to each other, and scowling at him as they did so.The lady was at the father end of the room, and once she ventured to wave her hand, as if beseeching my uncle's assistance.

"At length the two strangers advanced a little, and the conversation began in earnest.

"`You don't know this is a private room, I suppose, fellow?" said the gentleman in sky-blue.

"`No, I do not, fellow,' rejoined my uncle.`Only if this is a private room specially ordered for the occasion, I should think the public room must be a very comfortable one;' with this my uncle sat himself down in a high-backed chair, and took such an accurate measure of the gentleman, with his eyes, that Tiggin and Welps could have supplied him with printed calico for a suit, and not an inch too much or too little, from that estimate alone.

"`Quit this room,' said both the men together, grasping their swords.

"`Eh?' said my uncle, not at all appearing to comprehend their meaning.