w that
we were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of
mind. On the contrary, my fear is, that I am miserably and shamefully
deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and
distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances
upon my energies, when the signal is flying for _action_. But, on the other
hand, this accursed gift I have, as regards _thought_, that in the first
step towards the possibility of a misfortune, I see its total evolution: in
the radix I see too certainly and too instantly its entire expansion; in
the first syllable of the dreadful sentence, I read already the last. It
was not that I feared for ourselves. What could injure _us_? Our bulk and
impetus charmed us against peril in any collision. And I had rode through
too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were
matter of laughter as we looked back upon them, for any anxiety to rest
upon _our_ interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke,
that could betray _me_ who trusted to its protection. But any carriage that
we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I
remarked this ominous accident of our situation. We were on the wrong side
of the road. But then the other party, if other there was, might also be on
the wrong side; and two wrongs might make a right. _That_ was not likely.
The same motive which had drawn _us_ to the right-hand side of the road,
viz., the soft beaten sand, as contrasted with the paved centre, would
prove attractive to others. Our lamps, still lighted, would give the
impression of vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us, would
rely upon _us_ for quartering.[1] All this, and if the separate links of
the anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw--not discursively or
by effort--but as by one flash of horrid intuition.

[Footnote 1: "_Quartering_"--this is the technical word; and, I presume
derived from the French _carlayer_, to evade a rut or any obstacle.]

Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil which _might_ be
gathering ahead, ah, reader! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of
woe, seemed to steal upon the air, as again the far-off sound of a
wheel was heard! A whisper it was--a whisper from, perhaps, four miles
off--secretly announcing a ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less
inevitable. What could be done--who was it that could do it--to check the