and then it was, “Take me to her.” Sometimes it was staring and

bewildered, and then it was, “I don’t know her. I don’t

understand.”

After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy

would dig, and dig, dignow, with a spade, now with a great key,

now with his handsto dig this wretched creature out. Got out at

last, with earth hanging about his face and hair, he would

suddenly fall away to dust. The passenger would then start to

himself, and lower the window, to get the reality of mist and rain

on his cheek.

Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on

the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the

roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach

would fall into the train of the night shadows within. The real

Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of the past day,

the real strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real

message returned, would all be there. Out of the midst of them,

the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it again.

“Buried how long?”

“Almost eighteen years.”

“I hope you care to live?”

“I can’t say.”

Digdigdiguntil an impatient movement from one of the

two passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw

his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon

the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and

they again slid away into the bank and the grave.

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

“Buried how long?”

“Almost eighteen years.”

“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?”

“Long ago.”

The words were still in his hearing as just spokendistinctly in

his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his lifewhen the

weary passenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and

found that the shadows of the night were gone.

He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There

was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had

been left last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet

coppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden

yellow still remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold

and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and

beautiful.

“Eighteen years!” said the passenger, looking at the sun.

“Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!”

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Chapter IV

THE PREPARATION

W

hen the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of