“The master’s nursing his horses, miss,” remarked Judson. “Hinkson will have told him where to take his chance. He’ll challenge short of the Salfords pike, I’ll be bound.”
“How far to Horley?” Miss Taverner asked. “No more than a couple of miles now, miss, downhill all the way.”
She smiled. “He may yet miss his chance.” Over the lonely common a long, gradual fall of ground led down to the Weald, past Petridge Wood and Salfords. The team picked up their pace, and for a quarter of a mile Peregrine could not slip by. But just when Miss Taverner was entertaining reasonable hopes of maintaining her lead, her offside leader went lame, and Peregrine dashed by in an eddy of dust.
There was nothing for it but to follow at a sober pace, and by the time the curricle stopped at the Chequers in Horley, Peregrine had accomplished his change, and was away again. His old team were being led off when Miss Taverner drew up; she caught a glimpse of his tail-board vanishing down the street; and realized, from the sight of a waiter going back into the inn with an empty tankard on a tray, that hehad allowed himself time for refreshment.
The Chequers, which was the half-way house, was busy, and swarmed with ostlers. A London-bound coach, heralding its arrival with three long blasts of the horn, drove up as Miss Taverner’s horses were being taken out; a bell clanged somewhere in the stables; the first turn-out was shouted for; and almost before the coach had pulled up the new team, with post-boys already mounted, was being led out.
In addition to the stage, several private vehicles, including a post-chaise carrying a smart-looking lady and gentleman, who stared curiously at Miss Taverner, were drawn up in the big yard. There was a young man with a gig, who seemed to have driven in from somewhere in the neighbourhood. Having quizzed Miss Taverner for several minutes, he started to come towards her curricle, but encountered such a frosty look from her that he changed his mind, and began to curse one of the ostlers instead. Judith had sent to procure a glass of lemonade, but finding herself the object of so much interest, she was sorry to have done so, and would have preferred to drive on with a parched throat than to have been obliged to stay in the yard to be impertinently scrutinized. She began to be uncomfortable, to wish that she had not embarked on such an adventure, and for the first time to realize the impropriety of being upon the box of a gentleman’s curricle, unattended except for her groom, and upon the busiest turnpike-road in the whole south country. A very small tiger, who seemed to belong to an elegant tilbury drawn by match-greys, and with its owner’s scarlet-lined driving-coat hanging negligently over one of the panels, looked her over with an expression of strong derision, openly nudged one of the ostlers, said something behind his hand, and sniggered. But just at that moment a lean, saturnine gentleman with a club-foot came out of the inn, and the grin was promptly wiped from the tiger’s face, and he sprang to attention. The gentleman limped up to the tilbury, pulling on his gloves. He saw Miss Taverner, and looked her up and down till she blushed; then he shrugged his shoulders, got into his carriage, and drove off.
“That’s the Earl of Barrymore, miss,” volunteered Judson. “Him they call Cripplegate.”
The fresh team had been put-to by this time, and the lemonade drunk. Miss Taverner gave her horses the office to start, and swung out of the yard.
The tilbury was already out of sight, for which she was profoundly thankful, and if Judson was to be believed, there would be little fear of catching up with it.
Miss Taverner now had a fast team of brown horses in hand, and all the difference of strengthy, quick-actioned beasts from the badly-matched four she had been obliged to drive over the second stage was soon felt. The milestones seemed to flash by, and from the circumstances of the road being in excellent repair, and Judson knowing every inch of it, she was able to make up her lost time, and to reach Crawley not very far behind her brother, who had got himself into difficulties with a farm wagon just at the narrow part of the road by the George inn.