THE Green Dragon stood in High Street within sound of the Cathedral bells, and was the point of migration to the worldly part of the county, just as the Cathedral was the point of migration to the spiritual. The Hereford and Brecon coach started from its door, and one morning, a few days after the ball, a little crowd had collected as usual to see it off. It was nine o’clock, and the day had not sent out what little heat it possessed; the ostlers were shivering as they stood at the horses’ heads, and the guard blew on his fingers whenever he had the courage to take them from his pockets. The coachman, great man, had not as yet left the landlord’s room, in which he was spending his last minutes before starting, talking to the landlady by the fire, and occasionally casting an eye through the glass door which opened upon the main entrance where the passengers were assembling.
“Guard, guard,” cried an old lady, standing near a page who led a Blenheim spaniel, “will you kindly look among the boxes and see whether a small dog’s water-tin is there? It is marked ‘Fido,’ and has ‘Miss Crouch, Belle Vue Villas, Laurel Grove, Gloucester,’ printed upon the bottom.”
“It’s all right, ’m,” replied the guard immovably, “I saw to it myself.” The luggage had been put upon the coach a couple of hours earlier before the horses were harnessed, and he and the ostlers exchanged winks.
The page-boy sidled up to his mistress. “I’ve got it ’ere, mum—under my arm, mum,” he said, holding out the article.
The passengers smiled with meaning, and Isoline Ridgeway, who was among them, giggled audibly.
“If your memory for the mail-bags is not better than your memory for the luggage,” remarked Fido’s owner, “there are many who will have to wait for their letters, my man.”
The passengers smiled again, but this time not at the old lady.
Miss Ridgeway the elder had left the comfort of her snug Georgian house at this unusually early hour to see her niece off by the Brecon coach, which was to put her down at the toll-gate lately demolished by Rebecca, near the foot of Crishowell Lane, at which place her uncle was to meet her.
Isoline wore a fur-trimmed pelisse, and her head was enveloped in a thick veil, which her aunt had insisted upon her wearing, both as a protection against the east wind and any undesirable notice which her face might attract. The two ladies stood in the shelter of the Green Dragon doorway while the coachman, who had torn himself from the fire, was gathering up the reins, and the passengers were taking their seats. Miss Crouch, with Fido on her lap, was installed inside, and the guard was holding the steps for Isoline to mount, when Harry Fenton came rushing up wrapped in a long travelling-coat.