Page:Eliot - Adam Bede, vol. III, 1859.djvu/14

4 in her pocket, and the way so long and difficult. Unless she could afford always to go in the coaches,—and she felt sure she could not, for the journey to Stoniton was more expensive than she had expected,—it was plain that she must trust to carriers' carts or slow waggons; and what a time it would be before she could get to the end of her journey! The burly old coachman from Oakbourne, seeing such a pretty young woman among the outside passengers, had invited her to come and sit beside him; and feeling that it became him as a man and a coachman to open the dialogue with a joke, he applied himself as soon as they were off the stones to the elaboration of one suitable in all respects. After many cuts with his whip and glances at Hetty out of the corner of his eye, he lifted his lips above the edge of his wrapper, and said,

"He's pretty nigh six foot, I'll be bound, isna he now?"

"Who?" said Hetty, rather startled.

"Why, the sweetheart as you've left behind, or else him as you're goin' arter—which is it?"

Hetty felt her face flushing and then turning pale. She thought this coachman must know something about her. He must know Adam, and