"Well, Miss, it was for your sake, more than anybody else's. But you must promise, honour bright, not to let her ladyship know of it; for it might be the death of her. It took me by surprise, and it hath almost knocked me over; for I never could have thought there was more troubles coming. But who do you think I ran up against, to Exeter?"
"How can I tell? Don't keep me waiting. That kind of riddle is so hateful always."
"Master Tom, Miss Nicie! Your brother, Master Tom! 'Sir Thomas Waldron' his proper name is now. You know they have got a new oil they call gas, to light the public places of the big towns with, and it makes everything as bright as day, and brighter than some of the days we get now. Well, I was intending to come on last night by the Bristol mail, and wait about till you was up; and as I was standing with my knapsack on my shoulder, to see her come in from Plymouth, in she comes, and a tall young man dressed all in black, gets down slowly from the roof, and stands looking about very queerly.
"'Bain't you going no further, Sir?' says the Guard to him very civil, as he locked the bags in; 'only allows us three minutes and a half,'—for the young man seemed as if he did not care what time it was.
"'No. I can't go home;' says he, as if nothing mattered to him. I was handing up my things, to get up myself, when the tone of his voice took me all of a heap.
"'What, Master Tom!' says I, going up to him.
"'Who are you?' says he. 'Master Tom, indeed!' For I had this queer sort of hat on, and cloak, like a blessed foreigner.
"Well, when I told him who I was, he did not seem at all as he used to be, but as if I had done him a great injury; and as for his luggage, it would have gone on with the coach, if the Guard had not called out about it.
"'Come in here;' he says to me, as if I was a dog, him that was always so well-spoken and polite! And he turned sharp into The Old London Inn, leaving all his luggage on the stones outside.