CHAPTER V.
“He is a cunning coachman that can turn well in a narrow room.”
Old Play: from Lamb’s Specimens.
“Here are two pilgrims,
And neither knows one footstep of the way.”
HEYWOOD’s Duchess of Suffolk, Ibid.
The chaise had scarce driven from the inn-door when a coach stopped to change horses on its last stage to the town to which Philip was, bound. The name of the destination, in gilt letters on the coach-door, caught his eye, as he walked from the arbour towards the road, and in a few moments he was seated as the fourth passenger in the “Nelson Slow and Sure.” From under the shade of his cap, he darted that quick, quiet glance, which a man who hunts, or is hunted,—in other words, who observes, or shuns,—soon acquires. At his left hand sat a young woman in a cloak lined with yellow; she had taken off her bonnet and pinned it to the roof of the coach, and looked fresh and pretty in a silk handkerchief, which she had tied round her head, probably to serve as a nightcap during the drowsy length of the journey. Opposite to her was a middle-aged man of pale complexion, and a grave, pensive, studious expression of face; and vis-a-vis to Philip sat an overdressed, showy, very good-looking man of about two or three and forty. This gentleman wore auburn whiskers, which met at the chin; a foraging cap, with a gold tassel; a velvet waistcoat, across which, in various folds, hung a golden chain, at the end of which dangled an eye-glass, that from time to time he screwed, as it were, into his right eye; he wore, also, a blue silk stock, with a frill much crumpled, dirty kid gloves, and over his lap lay a cloak lined with red silk. As Philip glanced towards this personage, the latter fixed his glass also at him, with a scrutinising stare, which drew fire from Philip’s dark eyes. The man dropped his glass, and said in a half provincial, half haw-haw tone, like the stage exquisite of a minor theatre, “Pawdon me, and split legs!” therewith stretching himself between Philip’s limbs in the approved fashion of inside passengers. A young man in a white great-coat now came to the door with a glass of warm sherry and water.
“You must take this—you must now; it will keep the cold out,” (the day was broiling,) said he to the young woman.
“Gracious me!” was the answer, “but I never drink wine of a morning, James; it will get into my head.”
“To oblige me!” said the young man, sentimentally; whereupon the young lady took the glass, and looking very kindly at her Ganymede, said, “Your health!” and sipped, and made a wry face—then she looked at the passengers, tittered, and said, “I can’t bear wine!” and so, very slowly and daintily, sipped up the rest. A silent and expressive squeeze of the hand, on returning the glass, rewarded the young man, and proved the salutary effect of his prescription.
“All right!” cried the coachman: the ostler twitched the cloths from the leaders, and away went the “Nelson Slow and Sure,” with as much pretension as if it had meant to do the ten miles in an hour. The pale gentleman took from his waistcoat pocket a little box containing gum-arabic, and having inserted a couple of morsels between his lips, he next drew forth a little thin volume, which from the manner the lines were printed was evidently devoted to poetry.
The smart gentleman, who since the episode of the sherry and water had kept his glass fixed upon the young lady, now said, with a genteel smirk:
“That young gentleman seems very auttentive, miss!”
“He is a very good young man, sir, and takes great care of me.”