The companion of the three hundred and sixty-fifth part of one out of seventy years, is a person to whom we may well attach some importance; and the young traveller looked with no small eagerness to see who was about to fill that station in relation to himself. The first thing that his eyes fell upon, as he turned round, was a dark brown cabriolet, whirled along with the speed of lightning by a tall bay horse, full of blood and action, and covered with harness, which, though somewhat elaborate and evidently costly, was guarded by scrupulous good taste from being gaudy. Behind the vehicle appeared a smart active boy in groom's apparel, but with no distinctive livery to designate him as the tiger of Colonel this, or the Earl of that, though a cockade in his hat told that his master pretended to either military or naval rank. Where the young traveller stood, the appearance of the driver was not to be discerned; but, from the style of the whole turn-out, he began to doubt that his anticipations in regard to their approaching companionship were fallacious, when, dashing up to the pavement, the horse was suddenly drawn up, the groom sprang to the head, and the person within at length made his appearance.
He was a young man of about seven-and-twenty, tall, and rather gracefully than strongly made; but still with a breadth of chest, and a sort of firm setting on his feet, which spoke a greater degree of personal strength than appeared at a casual glance. His clothes were all of that peculiar cut which combines the most decided adherence to the prevailing fashion, with a very slight touch of its extravagance. Every thing, however, in the whole of his apparel, was in good keeping, as the painters call it; and though the colours that appeared therein, were such as no one but a man of rank and station in society would have dared to wear, the general hue of the whole was dark.
"He's a dandy!" thought the young traveller, with a somewhat contemptuous curl of the lip as the other descended from the cabriolet; but the moment after, hearing him bid the boy tell Swainson not to forget to give Brutus a ball on Wednesday night--and to walk Miss Liddy for an hour twice every day in the park, he concluded that he was a gentleman horse-jockey--a thing, in his unsophisticated ideas, equally detestable with a dandy. Scarcely had he come to this conclusion--and his conclusions, be it remarked, were formed very quickly--when the stranger strode rapidly past him. The cabriolet drove away, and its owner--with a quantity of glossy black hair escaping from under his hat, and mingling with whiskers more glossy still--entered the inn-yard, and proceeded to the coach-office.
The other traveller followed, in hopes of seeing some signs of approaching departure; and, as he did so, he heard the reply of the book-keeper to something which the owner of the cabriolet had asked. "No room outside, sir;--very sorry, indeed--got our full number,"--he had got three more, by the way,--"plenty of room inside.--That 'ere gentleman's going inside, 'cause he can't get room out."
"Well, inside be it then," replied the other.
The book-keeper began to write. "What name, sir?"
"Burrel!" replied the stranger.
"Any luggage?"
"None," answered Burrel.
"One pound ten shillings and sixpence, sir, if you please!" said the book-keeper; and, as Burrel paid the money, the coachman's cry of, "Now, gentlemen, if you please!" sounded through the yard.