“I don't see nothing a-followin' them,” said Mr. Truelock, shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed.
“No—there is nothing,” said Tom.
“They're in fear o' summat, or they'd never go at that lick,” observed Mr. Truelock, who was inwardly conjecturing the likelihood of their pulling up at his door.
“Lawk! there was a jerk. They was nigh over at the finger-post turn,” said Tom, with a grin.
And now the vehicle and the reeking horses were near. The post-boys held up their whips by way of signal to the “Royal Oak” people on the steps, and pulled up the horses with all their force before the door. Trembling, snorting, rolling up wreaths of steam, the exhausted horses stood.
“See to the gentleman, will ye?” cried one of the postilions.
Mr. Truelock, with the old-fashioned politeness of the English innkeeper, had run down in person to the carriage door, which Tom had opened. Master and man were a little shocked to behold inside an old gentleman, with a very brown, or rather a very bilious visage, thin, and with a high nose, who looked, as he lay stiffly back in the corner of the carriage, enveloped in shawls, with a velvet cap on, as if he were either dead or in a fit. His eyes were half open, and nothing but the white balls partly visible. There was a little froth at his lips. His mouth and delicately-formed hands were clenched, and all the furrows and lines of a selfish face fixed, as it seemed, in the lock of death. John Truelock said not a word, but peered at this visitor with a horrible curiosity.
“If he's dead,” whispered Tom in his ear, “we don't take in no dead men here. Ye'll have the coroner and his jury in the house, and the place knocked up-side down; and if ye make five pounds one way ye'll lose ten the tother.”
“Ye'll have to take him on, I'm thinkin',” said Mr. Truelock, rousing himself, stepping back a little, and addressing the post-boys sturdily. “You've no business bringin' a deceased party to my house. You must go somewhere else, if so be he is deceased.”
“He's not gone dead so quick as that,” said the postilion, dismounting from the near leader, and throwing the bridle to a boy who stood by, as he strutted round bandily to have a peep into the chaise. The postilion on the “wheeler” had turned himself about in the saddle in order to have a peep through the front window of the carriage. The innkeeper returned to the door.