the shilling, are matters foreign to our purpose; which is
to track the rolling wheels, and bear the travellers company on their
cold, bleak journey.

It was a bitter day. A keen wind was blowing, and rushed against them
fiercely: bleaching the hard ground, shaking the white frost from the
trees and hedges, and whirling it away like dust. But little cared Kit
for weather. There was a freedom and freshness in the wind, as it came
howling by, which, let it cut never so sharp, was welcome. As it swept
on with its cloud of frost, bearing down the dry twigs and boughs and
withered leaves, and carrying them away pell-mell, it seemed as though
some general sympathy had got abroad, and everything was in a hurry,
like themselves. The harder the gusts, the better progress they
appeared to make. It was a good thing to go struggling and fighting
forward, vanquishing them one by one; to watch them driving up,
gathering strength and fury as they came along; to bend for a moment,
as they whistled past; and then to look back and see them speed away,
their hoarse noise dying in the distance, and the stout trees cowering
down before them.

All day long, it blew without cessation. The night was clear and
starlight, but the wind had not fallen, and the cold was piercing.
Sometimes--towards the end of a long stage--Kit could not help wishing
it were a little warmer: but when they stopped to change horses, and he
had had a good run, and what with that, and the bustle of paying the
old postilion, and rousing the new one, and running to and fro again
until the horses were put to, he was so warm that the blood tingled and
smarted in his fingers' ends--then, he felt as if to have it one
degree less cold would be to lose half the delight and glory of the
journey: and up he jumped again, right cheerily, singing to the merry
music of the wheels as they rolled away, and, leaving the townspeople
in their warm beds, pursued their course along the lonely road.

Meantime the two gentlemen inside, who were little disposed to sleep,
beguiled the time with conversation. As both were anxious and
expectant, it naturally turned upon the subject of their expedition, on
the manner in which it had been brought about, and on the hopes and
fears they entertained respecting it. Of the former they had many, of
the latter few--none perhaps beyond that indefinable uneasiness which
is inseparable from suddenly awakened hope, and protracted expectation.

I