o on
again, if you have only stopped for that.'

He uncorked the bottle with the help of his teeth; and putting it to his
lips, took a long draught.

'I wish we had never started on this journey. This is not,' said
Montague, recoiling instinctively, and speaking in a voice that betrayed
his agitation; 'this is not a night to travel in.'

'Ecod! you're right there,' returned Jonas, 'and we shouldn't be out
in it but for you. If you hadn't kept me waiting all day, we might have
been at Salisbury by this time; snug abed and fast asleep. What are we
stopping for?'

His companion put his head out of window for a moment, and drawing it in
again, observed (as if that were his cause of anxiety), that the boy was
drenched to the skin.

'Serve him right,' said Jonas. 'I'm glad of it. What the devil are we
stopping for? Are you going to spread him out to dry?'

'I have half a mind to take him inside,' observed the other with some
hesitation.

'Oh! thankee!' said Jonas. 'We don't want any damp boys here; especially
a young imp like him. Let him be where he is. He ain't afraid of a
little thunder and lightning, I dare say; whoever else is. Go on,
driver. We had better have HIM inside perhaps,' he muttered with a
laugh; 'and the horses!'

'Don't go too fast,' cried Montague to the postillion; 'and take care
how you go. You were nearly in the ditch when I called to you.'

This was not true; and Jonas bluntly said so, as they moved forward
again. Montague took little or no heed of what he said, but repeated
that it was not a night for travelling, and showed himself, both then
and afterwards, unusually anxious.

From this time Jonas recovered his former spirits, if such a term may be
employed to express the state in which he had left the city. He had his
bottle often at his mouth; roared out snatches of songs, without the
least regard to time or tune or voice, or anything but loud discordance;
and urged his silent friend to be merry with him.

'You're the best company in the world, my good fellow,' said Montague
with an effort, 'and in general irresistible; but to-night--do you hear
it?'

'Ecod! I hear and see it too,' cried Jonas, shading his eyes, for the
moment, from the lightning which was flashing, not in any one direction,
but all around them. 'What of that? It don't change you, nor me, nor our
affairs. Chorus, chorus,

It may lighten and storm,
Till it hunt the red worm
From the