The
coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round it as it began the descent.
One of the squires in attendance upon the coach, a Biscayan, was listening to all Don Quixote was saying, and, perceiving that he would not allow the coach to go on, but was saying it must return at once to El Toboso, he made at him, and seizing his lance addressed him in bad Castilian and worse Biscayan after his fashion, "Begone, caballero, and ill go with thee; by the God that made me, unless thou quittest coach, slayest thee as art here a Biscayan."
The Biscayan, when he saw him coming on, though he wished to dismount from his mule, in which, being one of those sorry ones let out for hire, he had no confidence, had no choice but to draw his sword; it was lucky for him, however, that he was near the coach, from which he was able to snatch a cushion that served him for a shield; and they went at one another as if they had been two mortal enemies.
My uncle peeped out of the coach window as they emerged from the yard, and observed that the other mails, with coachmen, guards, horses, and passengers, complete, were driving round and round in circles, at a slow trot of about five miles an hour.
'At present, however, his thoughts were occupied with the young lady who sat in the farthest corner of the coach, with her face muffled closely in her hood; the gentleman with the sky-blue coat sitting opposite to her; the other man in the plum-coloured suit, by her side; and both watching her intently.
And now the dawn breaks at the end of the fourth stage, and the coach pulls up at a little roadside inn with huge stables behind.
Tom finds a difficulty in jumping, or indeed in finding the top of the wheel with his feet, which may be in the next world for all he feels; so the guard picks him off the coach top, and sets him on his legs, and they stump off into the bar, and join the coachman and the other outside passengers.
After this, he took another blow at the horn by way of refreshment; and, having now exhausted his usual topics of conversation, folded his arms as well as he could in so many coats, and falling into a solemn silence, looked carelessly at the familiar objects which met his eye on every side as the coach rolled on; the only things he seemed to care for, being horses and droves of cattle, which he scrutinised with a critical air as they were passed upon the road.
At Eton Slocomb there was a good coach dinner, of which the box, the four front outsides, the one inside, Nicholas, the good-tempered man, and Mr Squeers, partook; while the five little boys were put to thaw by the fire, and regaled with sandwiches.
To divert my mind, I took up the newspaper which had covered the little basket of refreshments, and which now lay at the bottom of the
coach, blushing with a deep-red stain and emitting a potent spirituous fume from the contents of the broken bottle of Kalydor.
I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this big
coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to hold; for the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was something larger than two English heavy night
coaches, and might have been the twin-brother of a French Diligence.
I began to think whether it would be best to trust boldly in my disguise, and my lucky position outside the
coach, or whether I should abandon my fellow-passengers immediately.
'Be not surprised, sir,' says she, 'that I am able to tell you every step you took that day from the cloister in Smithfield to the Spring Garden at Knightsbridge, and thence to the in the Strand, and how you were left asleep in the
coach afterwards.
It was a little disconcerting to me, to find, when I was being helped up behind the
coach, that I was supposed to have eaten all the dinner without any assistance.
It was so dark when I entered the
Coach that I could not distinguish the Number of my Fellow-travellers; I could only perceive that they were many.