“Very. Wake up!” said Sir Richard, wondering what more imprudent remarks might be hovering on her tongue.
She yawned, and straightened herself. An altercation seemed to be in progress between the guard and someone standing in the inn-yard. A farmer, who had boarded the coach at Calne, and was seated beside Pen, said that he thought the trouble was that the would-be passenger was not upon the way-bill.
“Well, he cannot come inside, that is certain!” said the thin woman. “It is shocking, the way one is crowded already!”
“Where are we?” enquired Pea.
“Chippenham,” responded the farmer. “That’s where the Bath road goes off, see?”
She sat forward to look out of the window. “Chippenham already? Oh yes, so it is! I know it well.”
Sir Richard cocked an amused eye at her. “Already?” he murmured.
“Well, I have been asleep, so it seems soon to me. Are you very weary, sir?”
“By no means. I am becoming entirely resigned.”
The new passenger, having apparently settled matters with the guard, at this moment pulled open the door, and tried to climb up into the coach. He was a small, spare man, in a catskin waistcoat, and jean-pantaloons. He had a sharp face, with a pair of twinkling, lashless eyes set deep under sandy brows. His proposed entrance into the coach was resolutely opposed. The thin woman cried out that there was no room; the lawyer’s clerk said that the way the Company over-loaded its vehicles was a scandal; and the farmer recommended the newcomer to climb on to the roof.