"It's come loose," said one voice; "it'll be on the road."
"Bah! a wheen letters," said another; "you'll no' stop us in the cold for that."
"It's just a simple accident," said the third. But the guard held up to the light the ends of a strap cut through, clean and clear, evidently by some very sharp instrument.
"It's been nae woman, it's been some robber in disguise,—it's been a got-up thing," he cried, throwing a glance of suspicion at John, who stood aghast, holding the lamp unconsciously quite close to the bundle of the mail-bags, and gazing at them as if there was something there that could elucidate the mystery. He began to put one thing to another confusedly in his mind.
"A got-up thing! Could it be a got-up thing? It was a woman certainly," he said to himself, but aloud,—"a woman certainly, and a small woman."
"Maybe a laddie in a woman's dress," said an officious bystander.
"Were there mony letters in't?" said another, with unseasonable curiosity.
"And what," said another, authoritatively, "had the mail-bags to do in the inside of the coach?"
This question made a silence in the group, which the guard broke suddenly and loudly.
"Get back to your seats," he said; "and Jamie, push them to their stiffest, those beasts of yours: this has to be seen into. It's robbery on the Queen's highway," he said, with a vague threat which cowed them all.