526 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF
* Very well — then stop where you are,' said the guard.
" ' I will,' said my uncle.
" ' Do,' said the guard.
" The other passengers had regarded this colloquy with great atten- tion ; and finding that my uncle was determined not to alight, the younger man squeezed past him, to hand the lady out. At this moment the ill-looking man was inspecting the hole in the crown of his three- cornered hat. As the young lady brushed past, she dropped one of her gloves into my uncle's hand, and softly whispered with her lips, so close to his face that he felt her warm breath on his nose, the single word, ' Help !* Gentlemen, my uncle leaped out of the coach at once with such violence that it rocked on the springs again.
" ' Oh ! you've thought better of it, have you ? ' said the guard, when he saw my uncle standing on the ground.
" My uncle looked at the guard for a few seconds, in some doubt whether it wouldn't be better to wrench his blunderbuss from him, fire it in the face of the man with the big sword, knock the rest of the company over the head with the stock, snatch up the young lady, and go off in the smoke. On second thoughts, however, he abandoned this plan as being a shade too melodramatic in the execution, and followed the two mysterious men, who, keeping the lady between them, were now entering an old house in front of which the coach had stopped. They turned into the passage, and my uncle followed.
- ' Of all the ruinous and desolate places my uncle had ever beheld,
this was the most so. It looked as if it had once been a large house of entertainment, but the roof had fallen in, in many places, and the stairs were steep, rugged, and broken. There was a huge fire-place in the room into which they walked, and the chimney was blackened with smoke, but no warm blaze lighted it up now. The white feathery dust of burnt wood was still strewed over the hearth, but the stove was cold, and all was dark and gloomy.
" ' Well,' said my uncle as he looked about him, ' A mail travelling at the rate of six miles and a half an hour, and stopping for an inde- finite time at such a hole as this, is rather an irregular sort of proceed- ing I fancy. This shall be made known ; Til write to the papers.'
" My uncle said this in a pretty loud voice, and in an open unre- served sort of manner, with the view of engaging the two strangers in conversation if he could. But neither of them took any more notice of him than whispering to each other, and scowling at him as they did so. The lady was at the further end of the room, and once she ven- tured to wave her hand, as if beseeching my uncle's assistance.
" At length the two strangers advanced a little, and the conversation began in earnest.
" ' You don't know this is a private room ; I suppose, fellow,' said the gentleman in sky-blue.
" ' No I do not, fellow,' rejoined my uncle. ' Only if this is a private room specially ordered for the occasion, I should think the public room must be a very comfortable one;' with this, my uncle sat himself down in a high- backed chair and took such an accurate measure of the gentleman with his eyes, that Tiggin and WeJps could have supplied
