f you think I'm a beggar!" I fully expected them to
blow away, for I could not spare a hand to hold them; but I watched
my opportunity when he was punishing the unfortunate fresh team, and
pounced on them, thrusting the dirty heap back into his great-coat
pocket. At the next stage a very tidy woman came out, with a rather
large bundle, containing fresh linen, she said, for her son, who was ill
in the hospital at Timaru. She booked this, and paid her half-crown for
its carriage, entreating the drunken wretch to see that it reached her
son that night. He wildly promised he should have it in half-an-hour,
and we set off as if he meant to keep his word, though we were some
forty miles off yet; but he soon changed his mind, and took a hatred to
the parcel, saying it would "sink the ship," and finally tried to kick
it over the splash-board. I seized it at the risk of losing my balance,
and hugged it tight all the way to Timaru, carrying it off to the hotel,
where I induced a waiter to take it up to the hospital.

After we had changed horses for the last time, and I was comforting
myself by the reflection that the journey was nearly over, we heard
shouts and screams from the inside passengers. F---- persuaded Jim with
much trouble to pull up, and jumped down to see what was the matter. A
strong smell of burning and a good deal of smoke arose from inside the
coach, caused by the lunatic having taken off both his boots and lighted
a fire in them. It was getting dark and chilly; the other passengers,
including the policeman, had dozed off and the madman thought that
as his feet were very cold, he would "try and warm them a bit;" so he
collected all the newspapers with which his fellow-travellers had been
solacing the tedium of their journey, tore, them up into shreds, with
the addition of the contents of a poor woman's bundle, and made quite
a cheerful blaze out of these materials. It was some time before the
terrified women could be induced to get into the coach again; and it was
only by Jims asseverations, couched in the strongest language, that if
they were not "all aboard" in half a minute, he would drive on and leave
them in the middle of the plains, that they were persuaded to clamber in
to their places once more.

How thankful I was when we saw the lights of Timaru! I was stunned and
bewildered, tired beyond the power of words to describe, and black and
blue all over from being jolted about. The road had been an excellent