The Foundling

by Georgette Heyer

“Veil, and so he would do, sir, seeing as that was his lay, in a manner of speaking. And how far am I to have the pleasure of carrying of you, sir?”

“Only to Baldock,” the Duke replied.

The coachman shook his head, and said that it was a pity, as there were few stretches of road this side of Biggleswade where he would care to run the risk of handing over the reins to one, who, he clearly perceived, was fair itching to tool the coach. The thin man, who overheard this, instantly raised such a storm of protest that the Duke felt obliged to set his mind at rest, and assure him that he had no desire to take the reins. The tolerant man, who seemed to have taken a dislike to his neighbour, gave his dispassionate opinion of spoilsports in general, and Friday-faced ones in particular; and aconsequential gentleman embarked on a long story about a spirited team of blood-horses which he was in the habit of driving.

When Finchely Common, with all its lurking dangers, had been safely passed, most of the passengers were feeling too sharp-set to think of much beyond the breakfast awaiting them in Barnet; and when the coach drove into the yard of the inn at Barnet, nearly everyone hurried into the coffee-room, where a couple of over-driven waiters were running about with piled trays, and mechanical cries of “Coming directly, sir!”

The Duke had consumed little more than a running banquet at the Saracen’s Head, but he did not feel inclined to join in the scramble for coffee and ham, and instead wandered a little way up the street to stretch his legs. On his previous journeys to the north, he had changed horses at the Red Lion, but this noted house did not condescend to stage-coaches, although its landlord resorted to some extremely low stratagems to snatch custom from his hated rival at the Green Man, farther up the street. It was not an unknown thing for his ostlers to rush out into the road to intercept some private carriage whose owner had no notion of changing horses, and to drag it into the yard, and forcibly to provide a fresh pair for it. The Duke had the good fortune to witness a spirited bout of fisticuffs between two of the yellow-jacketed post-boys hired by the Red Lion against three blue-habited ones from the Green Man, and watched with amused appreciation the efforts of an old gentleman in a chaise-and-pair to convince the ostlers of the Red Lion that since he was only travelling as far as to Welwyn, he stood in no need of fresh horses.

When he returned to the coach, and climbed again on to the roof, the Duke found that everyone but the coachman, who had been regaled in the yard with strong drink and flattery, was in a ruffled frame of mind. Even the tolerant man said that to be asked to pay the full price for breakfast when one had had barely time to swallow two scalding mouthfuls of coffee, and had been unable to eat the ham for want of a knife and fork, was a scandalous state of affairs which ought to be looked to.

The Duke had long since discovered that riding on the roof of the stage-coach did not agree with his constitution. It had held the amusement of novelty for a few miles, but the swaying and lurching, added as they were to a very uncomfortable seat, soon made even the coachman’s instructive conversation pall upon him. His head had begun to ache; he had never, he remembered, been a good traveller. Baldock seemed to be a very long way off; and by the time Stevenage was reached, and the coachman attempted to lure him into making a bet as to which of the famous SixHills were the longest distance apart, he refused to humour him, merely replying wearily: “The first and the last. I learned that when I was still in short-coats.”

The coachman was disappointed in him, forthis time-honoured catch was generally good for a drink at the next halt. He began to think the box-seat passenger a mean-spirited young man, but revised his opinion when, upon setting him down outside the White Horse at Baldock, he received a guinea from him. He decided then that the Duke was half-flash and half-foolish, and was sorry to be seeing the last of him.

The guard having unearthed the Duke’s valise from the recesses of the boot, his Grace was left standing with it at his feet in the road, waiting for someone to run out and carry it into the inn.

But it appeared that inns patronized by stage-coach travellers were not staffed by servants falling over themselves to wait upon guests, so the Duke was obliged to pick up the valise, and to carry it into the inn himself.