meditation over, I left the milestone and proceeded on my way in the
same direction as before until the night began to close in. I had always
been a good pedestrian; but now, whether owing to indisposition or to not
having for some time past been much in the habit of taking such lengthy
walks, I began to feel not a little weary. Just as I was thinking of
putting up for the night at the next inn or public-house I should arrive
at, I heard what sounded like a coach coming up rapidly behind me.
Induced, perhaps, by the weariness which I felt, I stopped and looked
wistfully in the direction of the sound; presently up came a coach,
seemingly a mail, drawn by four bounding horses--there was no one upon it
but the coachman and the guard; when nearly parallel with me it stopped.
'Want to get up?' sounded a voice, in the true coachman-like tone--half
querulous, half authoritative. I hesitated; I was tired, it is true, but
I had left London bound on a pedestrian excursion, and I did not much
like the idea of having recourse to a coach after accomplishing so very
inconsiderable a distance. 'Come, we can't be staying here all night,'
said the voice, more sharply than before. 'I can ride a little way, and
get down whenever I like,' thought I; and springing forward I clambered
up the coach, and was going to sit down upon the box, next the coachman.
'No, no,' said the coachman, who was a man about thirty, with a hooked
nose and red face, dressed in a fashionably-cut greatcoat, with a
fashionable black castor on his head. 'No, no, keep behind--the box
ain't for the like of you,' said he, as he drove off; 'the box is for
lords, or gentlemen at least.' I made no answer. 'D--- that off-hand
leader,' said the coachman, as the right-hand front horse made a
desperate start at something he saw in the road; and, half rising, he
with great dexterity hit with his long whip the off-hand leader a cut on
the off cheek. 'These seem to be fine horses,' said I. The coachman
made no answer. 'Nearly thoroughbred,' I continued; the coachman drew
his breath, with a kind of hissing sound, through his teeth. 'Come,
young fellow, none of your chaff. Don't you think, because you ride on
my mail, I'm going to talk to you about 'orses. I talk to nobody about
'orses except lords.' 'Well,' said I, 'I have been called a lord in my
time.' 'It must have been by a thimble-rigger, then,' said the coachman,
bending back, and half turning his face round wi