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第4章（第2页）

t was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in

November, before the first of the persons with whom this

history has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond

the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter’s Hill. He walked uphill

in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers

did; not because they had the least relish for walking exercise,

under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness,

and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had

three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the

coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to

Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however,

in combination, had read that article of war which forbade a

purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some

brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team had

capitulated and returned to their duty.

With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their

way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between

whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often