Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/632

530 530 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

else, and the young lady drew in her head, and pulled up the window. He jumped upon the box, squared his elbows, adjusted the ribands, seized the whip which lay on the roof, gave one flick to the off leader, and away went the four long-tailed, flowing-maned black horses, at fifteen good English miles an hour, with the old mail coach behind them — whew ! how they tore along !

" But the noise behind grew louder. The faster went the old mail, the faster came the pursuers — men, horses, dogs, were leagued in the pursuit. The noise was frightful, but above all rose the voice of the young lady, urging my uncle on, and shrieking 'faster ! faster !'

'' They whirled past the dark trees as feathers would be swept before a hurricane. Houses, gates, churches, haystacks, objects of every kind they shot by, Avith a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let loose. But still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle could hear the young lady wildly screaming ' faster ! faster ! '

were white with foam ; and yet the noise behind increased, and yet the young lady cried ' faster ! faster ! ' My uncle gave a loud stamp upon the boot in the energy of the moment, and— found that it was grey morning, and he was sitting in the wheelwright's yard on the box of an old Edinburgh mail, shivering with the cold and wet, and stamp- ing his feet to warm them ! He got down, and looked eagerly inside for the beautiful young lady — alas ! there was neither door nor seat to the coach — it was a mere shell.
 * ' My uncle plied whip and rein, and the horses flew onward till they

in the matter, and that everything had passed exactly as he used to relate it. He remained staunch to the great oath he had sworn to the beautiful young lady : refusing several eligible landladies on her account, and died a bachelor at last. He always said what a curious thing it was that he should have found out, by such a mere accident as his clambering over the palings, that the ghosts of mail-coaches and horses, guards, coachmen, and passengers, were in the habit of making journeys regularly every night ; he used to add that he believed he was the only living person who had ever been taken as a passenger on one of these excursions ; and I think he was right, gentlemen — at least I never heard of any other."
 * ' Of course my uncle knew very well that there was some mystery

" I wonder what these ghosts of mail-coaches carry in their bags,** said the landlord, who had listened to the whole story with profound attention.

" The dead letters of course," said the Bagman.

" Oh, ah— to be «ure," rejoined the landlord. " I never thought of that."

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