Ovington's Bank

by Stanley John Weyman

“Walk? Walk on to——” the ostler couldn’t voice his astonishment. “Walk?”

“Ay, walk, and be hanged to you!” Clement cried, and without another word plunged into the darkness of the long, straight road, his bag in his hand. The road ran plain and wide before him, he couldn’t miss it; the distance, according to Paterson, which he had in his handbag, was no more than two miles, and he thought that he could do it in half an hour.

But, once away, under the trees, under the midnight sky, in the silence and darkness of the country-side, the fever of his spirits made the distance seem intolerable. As he tramped along the lonely road, doubtful of the wisdom of his action, the feeling of strangeness and homelessness, the sense of the uselessness of what he was doing, grew upon him. At this rate he might as well walk to London! What if there were no horses at Meriden? Or if he were stayed farther up the road? He counted the stages between him and London, and he had time and enough to despair of reaching it, before he at last, at a good four miles an hour, strode out of the night into the semicircle of light which fell upon the road before the Bull’s Head at Meriden. Thank heaven, there were lights in the house and people awake, and some hope still! And more than hope, for almost before he had crossed the threshold a sleepy boots came out of the bar and met him, and “Horses? Which way, sir? Up? I’ll ring the ostler’s bell, sir!”

Clement could have blessed him. “Double money to Coventry if I leave the door in ten minutes!” he cried, taking out his watch. And ten minutes later—or in so little over that time as didn’t count—he was climbing into a chaise and driving away: so well organized after all—and all defects granted—was the posting system that at that time covered England. To be sure, he was on one of the great roads, and the Bull’s Head at Meriden was a house of fame.

He had availed himself of the interval to swallow a snack and a glass of brandy and water, and he was the warmer for the exercise and in better spirits; pluming himself a little, too, on the resolution which had plucked him from his difficulty at the Stone Bridge. But he had lost the greater part of an hour, and the clocks at Coventry were close on three when he rattled through the narrow, twisting streets of that city. Here, early as was the hour, he caught rumors of the panic, and hints were dropped by the night-men in the inn yard—in sly reply, perhaps, to his adjurations to hasten—of desperate men hurrying to and fro, and buying with gold the speed which meant fortune and life to them. Something was said of a banker who had shot himself at Northampton—or was it Nottingham?—of London runners who had passed through in pursuit of a defaulter; of a bank that had stopped, “up the road.” “And there’ll be more before all’s over,” said his informant darkly. “But it’s well to be them while it lasts! They’ve money to burn, it seems.”

Clement wondered if this was an allusion to the crown piece that he had offered. At any rate the ill-omened tale haunted him as he left the city behind him, and, after passing under the Cross on Knightlow Hill, and over the Black Heath about Dunsmoor, committed himself to the long, monotonous stretch of road that, unbroken by any striking features, and regularly dotted with small towns that hardly rose above villages, extended dull mile after dull mile to London. The rumble of the chaise and the exertions he had made began to incline him to sleep, but the cold bit into his bones, his feet were growing numb, and as often as he nodded off in his corner he slid down and awoke himself. Sleet, too, was beginning to fall, and the ill-fitting windows leaked, and it was a very morose person who turned out in the rain at Dunchurch.

However, luck was with him, and he got on without delay to Daventry, and had to be roused from sleep when his postboy pulled up before the famous old Wheat-sheaf that, wakeful and alight, was ready with its welcome. Here cheerful fires were burning and everything was done for him. A chaise had just come in from Towcester. The horses’ mouths were washed out while he swallowed a crust and another glass of brandy and water, the horses were turned round, and he was away again. He composed himself, shivering, in the warmer corner, and, thanking his stars that he had got off, was beginning to nod, when the chaise suddenly tilted to one side and he slid across the seat. He sat up in alarm and felt the near wheels clawing at the ditch, and thought that he was over. A moment of suspense, and through the fog that dimmed the window-panes flaming lights blazed above him and over him, and the down mails thundered by, coach behind coach—three coaches, the road quivering beneath them, the horses cantering, the guards replying with a volley of abuse to the postboy’s shout of alarm. Huge, lighted monsters, by night the bullies of the road, they were come and gone in an instant, leaving him staring with dazzled eyes into the darkness. But the shave had not bettered his temper. The stage seemed a long one, the horses slow, and he was fretting and fuming mightily, and by no means as grateful as he should have been for the luck that had hitherto attended him, when at last he jogged into Towcester.

Alas, the inn here was awake, indeed, in a somnolent, grumpy, sullen fashion, but there were no horses. “Not a chance of them,” said the sleepy boots, nicking a dirty napkin towards the coffee room. “There are two business gents waiting there to get on—life and death, ’cording to them. They’re going up same way as you are, and they’ve first call. And there’s a gentleman and his servant for Birmingham—down, they are, and been waiting since eleven o’clock and swearing tremendous!”

“Then I’ll take mine on!” Clement said, and whipped out into the night and ran to his chaise. But he was too late. The gentleman’s servant had been on the watch, he had made his bargain and stepped in, and his master was hurrying out to join him. “The devil!” cried Clement, now wide awake and very angry. “That’s pretty sharp!”

“Yes, sir, sharp’s the word,” said the boots. It was evident that night work had made him a misanthrope, or something else had soured him. “They’d be no good for Brickhill anyway. It’s a long stage. You’ll take a bed?”