“An why didn’t ye spake sooner, sor? It’s meself’s the boy to get it out of the bastes if it’s to be done at all;” and the effect of the golden spur was soon visible in the way in which the mire of the cross-country road flew up from the whirling wheels.
For a couple of hours now, with the present and the preceding post-boy, had this chase been carried on,—now one chaise, now the other, being to the fore; the explanation of this being of the simplest character.
Lieutenant Brace Norton, of H.M.S. “Icarus,” had just arrived in port, and was, as he put it, homeward bound after his first voyage with the rank of lieutenant. In fact, he took so much pride in his epaulette, won after no end of midshipman’s adventures, that, until better sense prevailed, he had had some thought of wearing it home. He had travelled as far as the county town by rail, and now, having a rather large idea of his own importance, was finishing his journey in one of the post-chaises—scarce things then—left upon the road. At the railway station he had twice encountered a fair young face, small, dark, oval, and with a pair of sad-looking, lustrous eyes, their owner leaning upon the arm of a tall, grey-haired gentleman; and after making his way to the hotel and ordering his conveyance, spending the time consumed in getting it ready by smoking a cigar, he was startled, upon going to the door to lounge about the steps, by seeing the same travellers take their places in a chaise which had been prepared before his own.
“Do you know who that gentleman is?” he had said to the landlord, who had bowed his visitors to the door.
“Can’t say, sir, I’m sure,” was the reply. “Please excuse me, sir—I’m wanted.”
“Here waiter, my chaise; look sharp!” exclaimed the young lieutenant, slipping a shilling into the man’s hand, on seeing the direction the first chaise had taken. “Hurry them on, there’s a good fellow, and tell them to put in the best pair of horses.”
“Best pair’s gone, sir, with number one chaise, but I’ll get them to look alive.”
In spite of his stamping with impatience, and conducting himself in a most unreasonable manner, even to going into the yard himself, and hoisting the sluggish post-boy—a youth of about sixty—into his jacket, a full quarter of an hour elapsed before the chaise began to rattle out of the yard with the traveller in it.
“Here—hi! stop!” shouted a voice, as they turned down the main street.
“What the deuce now?” exclaimed the traveller, as the post-boy pulled up, after nearly running into a flock of sheep, and the waiter came panting up.