“Now, by the lord!” he muttered—“if my Nemesis has not lain with me at mine own inn!”
He was scowlingly speculating as to the possibility of his having to tail a second day in the wake of this rumbling jaundice, when he uttered a startled exclamation and, drawing into the covert of the window curtains, stood peering down into the yard.
For the hirer of the chaise—to whom early rising would appear to be a right condition of posting—was at that moment issued from the inn, and was mounting, without any affectation of leisure, the step of the vehicle.
Mr. Tuke, thinking of that presentation to his view, two nights before, of a lank, long back in the pit of the theatre, came hurriedly from his hiding-place; and at that instant, the traveller turned and flashed an upward glance at the window. With the very movement, he gave a hoarse order to the post-boy, wrenched open the door of the carriage, plunged in, and, before peeping Tom could gather his perceptions, the chaise was rolling and clattering out of the yard.
So—ho! there was business afoot! Where hitherto was all avoidance and reluctance, now must be haste and scurry and pursuit. The squalid rogue Brander posting it like a lord! Surely there must be some momentous reason for the outlay.
The gentleman at this point, wild with eagerness and impatience, stood below presently on the yard-steps to bolt a mouthful of meat and bread while his horse was saddling. Ten minutes later he was off and set to the chase, pounding it along at what rate he durst on the icy roads.
“If they are pointed for Andover, well and good,” he murmured. “Do they take cross-tracks for the ‘Dog and Duck,’ I shall know what to apprehend.”
With the thought, he swerved from the main-road into the first of the homeward by-ways; cantered down a mile of close-set lanes; turned a corner leading to a stretch of open downs, and—there, going one before him, small in the distance, was the vehicle he pursued.
To overtake and constitute himself its rear-guard—such must be his object. An easily attained one, it would appear; but his horse was scarcely fresh, and a slip on those glassy ruts might ruin all.
He settled himself doggedly to the chase. Such veritably it became; for soon it was evident that the quarry knew itself to be pursued, and tactically wished to allure him on to a destructive speed. But, little by little the horseman gained on the other. He got near enough to mark Brander’s head thrust intermittently from the window—by and by to hear faintly the rascal’s voice cursing on his leaping postillion. Suddenly the leading party took an unexpected way, brought out on the high-road leading from Winchester to Stockbridge, and went careering for the latter place at a gallop.