A party of young gentlemen, who had been spectators of a cock-fight held in the district, had been taken up at Chippenham, and had crowded on to the roof. From the sounds preceding thence, it seemed certain that they had been refreshing themselves liberally. There was a good deal of shouting, some singing, and much drumming with heels upon the roof. The motherly woman and the thin spinster began to look alarmed, and the lawyer’s clerk said that the behaviour of modern young men was disgraceful. Pen was too deeply engaged in conversation with Jimmy Yarde to pay much heed to the commotion, but when, after the coach had rumbled on for another five miles, the pace was suddenly accelerated, and the top-heavy vehicle bounced over ruts and pot-holes, and swung perilously first to one side and then to the other, she broke off her enthralling discourse, and looked enquiringly at Sir Richard.
A violent lurch flung her into his arms. He restored her to her own seat, saying dryly: “More adventure for you. I hope you are enjoying it?”
“But what is happening?”
“I apprehend that one of the would-be sprigs of fashion above has taken it into his head to tool the coach,” he replied.
“Lord ha’ mercy!” exclaimed the motherly woman. “Do you mean that one of they pesky, drunken lads is a-driving of us, sir?”
“So I should suppose, ma’am.”
The spinster uttered a faint shriek. “Good God, what will become of us?”
“We shall end, I imagine, in the ditch,” said Sir Richard, with unruffled calm.
Babel at once broke forth, the spinster demanding to be let out at once, the motherly woman trying to attract the coachman’s notice by hammering against the roof with her sunshade, the farmer sticking his head out of the window to shout threats and abuse, Jimmy Yarde laughing, and the lawyer’s clerk angrily demanding of Sir Richard why he did not do something?
“What would you wish me to do?” asked Sir Richard, steadying Pen with a comfortingly strong arm.