The conversation turned on Londoners and their horrid ways in the country, and how they drove over people; and Mr. Wilkins said that there ought to be something done to stop it, for at holiday times and on Sundays a lot of roughs came from London, and, when they got drunk in the evening, drove at such a rate and so carelessly that it was a mercy people weren’t killed every day.
He said there ought to be two or three of the inhabitants in places that suffered from the nuisance made special constables, and be about every Sunday evening to look out for the wretches, and have them caught and brought to justice.
The conversation was still on the same subject when it was closing time, and they all had to go. The London physician told me he was going by the half-past nine train in the morning, and to be sure and have his bill ready: and I promised to see that it should be. Then he said good night and went to bed; and we went to bed about a quarter of an hour after, and I went to sleep and dreamed that a man in a dog-cart was driving over me, and I was running away, and the faster I ran the faster he drove, and I was just falling down and the dog-cart was coming over my body, when somebody shouted, “Hi! hi! hi!” and I woke up with a start.
And somebody was shouting “Hi!” and hammering at our bedroom door.
I sat bolt upright in bed to see if I was awake, and then I woke Harry, who’d sleep, I believe, if somebody was hammering on his head instead of on the door.
“Harry!” I screamed, “there’s something the matter. See who it is.”
He got up and opened the door, and there was Jones, our village policeman.
“Hullo!” says Harry, “how the devil did you get in?”
“Walked in,” he said; “do you know your front door’s open?”
“What!” said Harry. “Why, I bolted and barred it myself.”