Book I - Chapter II. The Mail

by Charles Dickens

　　It 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 itlumbered up Shooter's Hill. He walked up hill in the mireby the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers did;not because they had the least relish for walking exercise, under thecircumstances, but because the hill, and the harness, and the mud,and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had three timesalready come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across the road,with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whipand coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read that articleof war which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument,that some brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team had capitulatedand returned to their duty.

　　With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their waythrough the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles,as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As oftenas the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with awary "Wo-ho! so-ho- then!" the near leader violently shook hishead and everything upon it--like an unusually emphatic horse,denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever theleader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervouspassenger might, and was disturbed in mind.

　　There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamedin its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking restand finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made itsslow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed andoverspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea mightdo. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light ofthe coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards ofroad; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as ifthey had made it all.

　　Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hillby the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbonesand over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the threecould have said, from anything he saw, what either of the othertwo was like; and each was hidden under almost as many wrappersfrom the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of histwo companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of beingconfidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might bea robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, when everyposting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in "the Captain's"pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript,it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of theDover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, onethousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter'sHill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail,beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chestbefore him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six oreight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass.

　　The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guardsuspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one anotherand the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachmanwas sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he couldwith a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testamentsthat they were not fit for the journey.

　　"Wo-ho!" said the coachman. "So, then! One more pull and you'reat the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough toget you to it!--Joe!"

　　"Halloa!" the guard replied.

　　"What o'clock do you make it, Joe?"

　　"Ten minutes, good, past eleven."

　　"My blood!" ejaculated the vexed coachman, "and not atop ofShooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you! "

　　The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decidednegative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three otherhorses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on,with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by itsside. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they keptclose company with it. If any one of the three had had thehardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead intothe mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair wayof getting shot instantly as a highwayman.

　　The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill.The horses stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down toskid the wheel for the descent, and open the coach-door to letthe passengers in.

　　"Tst! Joe!" cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking downfrom his box.

　　"What do you say, Tom?"

　　They both listened.

　　"I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe."

　　"_I_ say a horse at a gallop, Tom," returned the guard, leavinghis hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place."Gentlemen! In the kings name, all of you!"

　　With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, andstood on the offensive.

　　The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step,getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, andabout to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach andhalf out of; they re-mained in the road below him. They alllooked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to thecoachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guardlooked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears andlooked back, without contradicting.

　　The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling andlabouring of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, madeit very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses communicated atremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a state ofagitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhapsto be heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause was audiblyexpressive of people out of breath, and holding the breath, andhaving 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 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 himdistrustfully.

　　"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 rightin your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight."

　　"What is the matter?" asked the passenger, then, with mildlyquavering speech. "Who wants me? Is it Jerry?"

　　("I don't like Jerry's voice, if it is Jerry," growled the guardto himself. "He's hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.")

　　"Yes, Mr. Lorry."

　　"What is the matter?"

　　"A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co."

　　"I know this messenger, guard," said Mr. Lorry, getting down intothe road--assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by theother two passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach,shut the door, and pulled up the window. "He may come close;there's nothing wrong."

　　"I hope there ain't, but I can't make so 'Nation sure of that,"said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. "Hallo you!"

　　"Well! And hallo you!" said Jerry, more hoarsely than before.

　　"Come on at a footpace! d'ye mind me? And if you've got holstersto that saddle o' yourn, don't let me see your hand go nigh 'em.For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takesthe form of Lead. So now let's look at you."

　　The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddyingmist, and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood.The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handedthe passenger a small folded paper. The rider's horse was blown,and both horse and rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs ofthe horse to the hat of the man.

　　"Guard!" said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence.

　　The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raisedblunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman,answered curtly, "Sir."

　　"There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson's Bank.You must know Tellson's Bank in London. I am going to Parison business. A crown to drink. I may read this?"

　　"If so be as you're quick, sir."

　　He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side,and read--first to himself and then aloud: "`Wait at Dover forMam'selle.' It's not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that myanswer was, recalled to life."

　　Jerry started in his saddle. "That's a Blazing strange answer, too,"said he, at his hoarsest.

　　"Take that message back, and they will know that I received this,as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night."

　　With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in;not at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who hadexpeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots,and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. With nomore definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originatingany other kind of action.

　　The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closinground it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced hisblunderbuss in his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of itscontents, and having looked to the supplementary pistols that he worein his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in whichthere were a few smith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box.For he was furnished with that completeness that if the coach-lampshad been blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he hadonly to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks welloff the straw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if hewere lucky) in five minutes.

　　"Tom!" softly over the coach roof.

　　"Hallo, Joe."

　　"Did you hear the message?"

　　"I did, Joe."

　　"What did you make of it, Tom?"

　　"Nothing at all, Joe."

　　"That's a coincidence, too," the guard mused, "for I made thesame of it myself."

　　Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile,not only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from hisface, and shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which might becapable of holding about half a gallon. After standing with thebridle over his heavily-splashed arm, until the wheels of themail were no longer within hearing and the night was quite stillagain, he turned to walk down the hill.

　　"After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won't trustyour fore-legs till I get you on the level," said this hoarsemessenger, glancing at his mare. "`Recalled to life.' That's aBlazing strange message. Much of that wouldn't do for you, Jerry!I say, Jerry! You'd be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life wasto come into fashion, Jerry!"