Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/534

 the cold out of his stomach." This stimulant was accordingly administered by Alice, and paid for by Sir George, who had not lived at Hamilton Hill without learning the etiquette of coach travelling as practised on the north road. While he placed some silver on the counter, it did not escape him that both functionaries had been drinking freely, possibly to console them for the lack of company, while Slap-Jack, grinning in delight, whispered to his mate—

"If you an' me was to go for to take our spell at the wheel, half-slewed, like them chaps, my eyes, wot a twistin' we should get to-morrow mornin' afore eight bells!"

With so light a freight there was less delay in changing horses than usual. Scarcely a quarter of an hour had elapsed since its arrival ere four moderate-looking animals were harnessed to the coach. The luggage was hoisted on, old Robin rewarded, Mrs. Dodge paid, Alice kissed with much energy by her sweetheart, and Sir George, with Florian, invited to take their places on the front seat behind the driver; then the two seamen clambered up beside the guard, the whip cracked, the hoofs clattered, the whole machine creaked and jingled, while Smoke-Jack, removing the pipe from his mouth with a certain gravity, expressed his devout hope that "old brandy-face would keep her well up in the wind and steer small!"

It was a cold night, and a cheerless, though light as day, for the moon had risen and the ground was white with snow. Sir George, wrapped in his cloak, with his hand on the butt of a pistol, after some vague remarks about the weather, which Florian appeared not to hear, relapsed into the silence of one who prepares all his energies for an approaching crisis.

The Jesuit seemed unconscious of his companion's existence. Pale as death, even to the lips, his face set, his teeth clenched, his eyes fixed on the horizon before him, as his mental sight projected itself into the unknown future he had this night resolved to penetrate, there pervaded the whole bearing of the man that unearthly air of abstraction peculiar to those who are doomed, whose trial is over, whose sentence is recorded, for whom henceforth there can be neither hope nor fear.

Sir George meditated on a thousand possible contingencies. Already his mind had overleaped the immediate