"I should say it was!" muttered the young lady, as the remains of what had been a carry-all were pulled up beside the platform by the skinny skeleton of what might once have been a horse. "It's a rattletrap!"
There was no choice, however, for that was the only public conveyance at the station, and the young lady's trunk was already whisked in behind the dashboard, and the driver was waiting for her.
"THE ONLY PUBLIC CONVEYANCE AT THE STATION."
He could afford to wait, as it would be hours before another train would be in.
There was no door to open in that "carriage." It was all door except the top and bottom, and the pretty passenger was neither helped nor hindered in finding her place on the back seat.
If the flag-man was more disposed to ask questions than to answer them, "Michael" said few words of any kind except to his horse. To him, indeed, he kept up a constant stream of encouraging remarks, the greater part of which would have been hard for an ordinary hearer to understand.
Very likely the horse knew what they meant, for he came very near breaking from a limp into a trot several times, under the stimulus of all that clucking and "g'lang now."
The distance was by no means great, and Michael seemed to know the way perfectly. At least, he answered, "Yes'm, indade," to several inquiries from his passenger, and she was compelled to be satisfied with that.
"What a big house it is! And painters at work on it, too!" she exclaimed, just as Michael added a vigorous jerk of the reins to the "Whoa!" with which he stopped his nag in front of an open gate.