[THE LADY IN THE COACH]
It was not until I was three parts across the heath upon the adventure that I had gotten any suspicion I was forestalled. The night was very thick, owing to a pack of clouds that lay furled upon the moon, and till then was as still as a mouse. But Calypso's hoofs started a wether bleating near by, and it ran jumping into the distance, with its silly bell a-tinkling round its neck. And just upon that the noise of a commotion far off came down to me, and, pulling up the mare, I set my ears to the valley. I knew the coach must be wobbling along two miles this side of Belbury, and I reckoned to meet it by the fork. But this news, as you may conjecture, put me in a taking. There was none along that road save me and Creech's lot, and 'twas gall to me to play jackal to Dan, or to anyone else for the matter of that; so, putting my boots into Calypso, I rode down the valley at a gallop, but I had gone no farther than a few hundred paces when a clatter of nags came up the road to my left, and I stopped the roan dead. I was not to be taken like a fool, all agape with chagrin, and I held up under the cover of a tall furze bush, till all four were by, passing like shadows into the night.
"Damn Creech!" I says to myself, for I had scarce a crown to my pocket. But seeing that vexation would not serve me, I rode on, mighty discomfited, and presently entered the high road near the foot of the heath. Right afore me, and wrapt in the shadows of a black clump of trees, was the hulk of the stage, out of which proceeded a clamour of excited voices. When I came up with it the coachman was gathering his reins for a start, but at sight of me rising out of the darkness he dropped 'em again.
"Save us!" he cried, with an oath, "here's more of the gentry," and stared at me very sullen.
At this exclamation an instant silence fell inside the coach, and then a head was poked cautiously through the window.
"'Tis useless, my good man," said a thin, high voice. "We are by this plucked to our bare bones, and sit grinning in them."
"Heaven save us from this accursed heath! I feared 'twould be so," says someone else, with a whine.
"Faith," says I, coming to a stop alongside, "'tis an honour you put upon me. I have been mistaken afore now for his Highness, and for Jack Ketch too, but 'tis the first time I was dubbed gentleman of the highway."
The old fellow at the window rolled his eyes over me without a word, and pretty sharp eyes they were.
"And who may you be, then?" says he, with a queer smile upon his lean face.