awn and the sunrise, where can they be ever seen in
perfection but from a coach roof? You want motion and change and music
to see them in their glory--not the music of singing men and singing
women, but good, silent music, which sets itself in your own head, the
accompaniment of work and getting over the ground.

The Tally-ho is past St. Albans, and Tom is enjoying the ride, though
half-frozen. The guard, who is alone with him on the back of the coach,
is silent, but has muffled Tom's feet up in straw, and put the end of an
oat-sack over his knees. The darkness has driven him inwards, and he
has gone over his little past life, and thought of all his doings and
promises, and of his mother and sister, and his father's last words; and
has made fifty good resolutions, and means to bear himself like a brave
Brown as he is, though a young one. Then he has been forward into the
mysterious boy-future, speculating as to what sort of place Rugby is,
and what they do there, and calling up all the stories of public schools
which he has heard from big boys in the holidays. He is choke-full of
hope and life, notwithstanding the cold, and kicks his heels against the
back-board, and would like to sing, only he doesn't know how his friend
the silent guard might take it.

And now the dawn breaks at the end of the fourth stage, and the coach
pulls up at a little roadside inn with huge stables behind. There is a
bright fire gleaming through the red curtains of the bar window, and
the door is open. The coachman catches his whip into a double thong, and
throws it to the hostler; the steam of the horses rises straight up
into the air. He has put them along over the last two miles, and is two
minutes before his time. He rolls down from the box and into the inn.
The guard rolls off behind. "Now, sir," says he to Tom, "you just jump
down, and I'll give you a drop of something to keep the cold out."

Tom finds a difficulty in jumping, or indeed in finding the top of the
wheel with his feet, which may be in the next world for all he feels;
so the guard picks him off the coach top, and sets him on his legs, and
they stump off into the bar, and join the coachman and the other outside
passengers.

Here a fresh-looking barmaid serves them each with a glass of early purl
as they stand before the fire, coachman and guard exchanging business
remarks. The purl warms the cockles of Tom's heart, and makes him cough.

"Rare tackle that, sir, of a cold mo