It was along this road that Richard Linnell, Mellersh, and James Bell had cantered, and then turned off at the cross, on the night of their pursuit, and the chalky way looked much the same beneath twinkling stars on the night succeeding the day when Louis Gravani had had his interview with Claire, as on that of Mrs Pontardent’s party.
The similarity was increased by the presence of a yellow post-chaise; but it was not drawn up at the back of Mrs Pontardent’s garden, but here on the short turf close up to the trees and opposite the finger-post.
The chaise, an old yellow weather-beaten affair, seemed to be misty, and the horses indistinct in the darkness, looking quite the ghost of a vehicle that might be expected to fade away like a trick of the imagination, everything was so still. The very horses were asleep, standing bent of knee and with pendent heads. One of the wheelers, however, uttered a sigh now and then as if unhappy in its dreams, for it was suffering not from nightmare, a trouble that might have befallen any horse, but from the weight of the sleeping postboy on its back. The man evidently believed in his steed as an old friend, and had lain forward over the pommel of his saddle, half clasping the horse’s neck, and was sleeping heavily, while his companion, who rode one of the leaders, had dismounted and seated himself upon the turf where the road was cut down through the chalk, so that his legs were in the channel and his back against a steep bank.
They had been asleep quite an hour, when a quick step was heard, a misty-looking figure in a long grey wrapper, and closely-veiled, came along the road, stopped short by the postboys, retreated and whispered softly as the turf opposite was reached:
“Hist! Are you there? Oh, gracious! What a wicked girl I am! He has not come.”
The figure seemed to take courage and approached the chaise again.
“He may be inside,” she said softly, and going on tip-toe to the door her hand was raised to the fastening, when one of the wheelers snorted and half roused the mounted postboy.
“Hullo, then, old gal,” he muttered loudly. “Yo—yo—yo—yo—yo! Gate—gate.”
“What shall I do?” exclaimed the veiled figure, and she seized one of the spokes of the wheel and clung to it as the other postboy, slightly roused by his companion, took up his cry and shouted drowsily:
“Yo—yo—yo—yo—yo! Gate—gate!”