have a long night
journey alone with a strange man. I glanced at the cloaked and veiled
figure which sank awkwardly into the opposite corner of the vehicle, and
then leaned forward to remove some of my little packages from the seat;
in so doing I brushed against her bonnet.

"'I beg your pardon, madam,' I said politely; 'I was removing these
parcels, fearing they might incommode you.'

"'All right, all right, miss,' said the man, a red-faced, vulgar-looking
personage; 'don't you trouble about Jenny, she'll do very well;' and he
proceeded to settle his companion in the corner rather unceremoniously.

"'Is she his sister or his wife, I wonder,' I thought; 'he does not seem
particularly courteous to her;' and I took a dislike to my
fellow-passenger on the spot. He, however, was happily indifferent to my
good or evil opinion; pulling a cap from his pocket, he exchanged his
hat for it, settled himself comfortably by his companion's side, and, in
a few moments, was sound asleep, as his snores proclaimed. I could not
follow his example. I felt terribly lonely, and not a little nervous. As
we sped along at what appeared to my inexperience such a break-neck rate
(ten miles an hour seemed so _then_, before railways whirled you along
like lightning), I began to recall all the dismal stories of coach
accidents, and of highwaymen, which I had read or heard of during my
quiet village existence. Suppose, on this very moor which we were now
crossing, a highwayman rode up and popped a pistol in at the window. I
myself had not much to lose, though I should have been extremely
reluctant to part with the new silk purse which my mother had netted for
me, and in which she and father had each placed a guinea--coins not too
plentiful in our country vicarage in those days. And suppose the
highwayman was not satisfied with mere robbery, but should oblige me to
alight and dance a minuet with him on the heath, as did Claud Duval;
suppose--here my nervous fears took a fresh turn, for the cloaked lady
opposite began to move restlessly, and the man, half waking, gave her a
brisk nudge with his elbow and cried sharply,--

"'Now, then, keep quiet, I say.'

"This was a strange manner in which to address a lady. Could this man be
sober, I thought, and a shiver ran through me at the idea of being
doomed to spend so many hours in company with a possibly intoxicated,
and certainly surly man. How rudely he addressed his companion, how
little he seemed t