“What do you say, Tom?”

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

They both listened.

“I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.”

“I say a horse at a gallop, Tom,” returned the guard, leaving his

hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. “Gentlemen!

In the King’s name, all of you!”

With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and

stood on the offensive.

The passenger booked by this history, was on the coachstep,

getting in; the other two passengers were close behind him, and

about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and

half out of it; they remained in the road below him. They all looked

from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the

coachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard

looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and

looked back, without contradicting.

The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and

labouring of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it

very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a

tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation.

The hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be

heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause was audibly expressive of

people out of breath, and holding the breath, and having the

pulses quickened by expectation.

The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the

hill.

“So-ho!” the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. “Yo

there! Stand! I shall fire!”

The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and

floundering, a man’s voice called from the mist, “Is that the Dover

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mail?”

“Never you mind what it is,” the guard retorted. “What are

you?”

“Is that the Dover mail?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I want a passenger, if it is.”

“What passenger?”

“Mr. Jarvis Lorry.”

Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his

name. The guard, the coachman, and the two other passengers

eyed him distrustfully.

“Keep where you are,” the guard called to the voice in the mist,

“because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in

your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight.”

“What is the matter?” asked the passenger, then, with mildly

quavering speech. “Who wants me? Is it Jerry?”

(“I don’t like Jerry’s voice, if it is Jerry,” growled the guard to

himself. “He’s hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.”)