有声名著之双城记 Chapter02
CHAPTER IIThe Mail
It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late inNovember, before the first of the persons with whom thishistory has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyondthe Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter's Hill. He walkeduphill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of thepassengers did; not because they had the least relish forwalking exercise, under the circumstances, but because thehill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all soheavy that the horses had three times already come to a stop,beside once drawing the coach across the road, with themutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins andwhip and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had readthat article of war which forbad a purpose otherwise stronglyin favour of the argument, that some brute animals are enduedwith Reason; and the team had capitulated and returned totheir duty.
With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed theirway through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling hebetween whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the largejoints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them toa stand, with a wary `Wo-ho! so-ho then!' the near leaderviolently shook his head and everything upon it--like anunusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be gotup the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, thepassenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and wasdisturbed in mind.
There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it hatroamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit,seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely coldmist, made its slow way through the air in ripples thatvisibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves ofan unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut outeverything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its ownworkings and a few yards of road; and the reek of thelabouring horse steamed into it, as if they had made it all.
Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up thehill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to thecheek-bones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one ofthe three could have said, from anything he saw, what eitherof the other two was like; and each was hidden under almost asmany wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes ofthe body, of his two companions. In those days, travellerswere very shy of being confidential on short notice, foranybody on the road might be a robber or in league withrobbers. As to the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in `the Captain's' pay, rangingfrom the landlord to the lowest stable nondescript, it was thelikeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mailthought to himself, that Friday night in November, onethousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering upShooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behindthe mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand onthe arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay atthe top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on asubstratum of cutlass.
The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that theguard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected oneanother and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, andthe coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; as to whichcattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath onthe two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey.
`Wo-ho!' said the coachman. `So, then One more pull andyou're at the top and be damned to you, for I have had troubleenough to get 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, lookingdown from 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 king's 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,and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in thecoach and half out of it; they remained in the road below him.
They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from theguard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked backand the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leaderpricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting.
The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling andlabouring of the coach, added to the stillness of he nightmade it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horsescommunicated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were ina state o] agitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loudenough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the quiet pausewas audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holdingthe breath, an' having the pulses quickened by expectation.
The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously upthe hill.
`So-ho!' the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. `Yothere! Stand! I shall fire!'
The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing andfloundering, a man's voice called from the mist, `Is that theDover mail?'
`Never you mind what it is?' the guard retorted. `Wham areyou?'
`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 themist, `because, if I should make a mistake, it could never beset right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorryanswer 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 theguard to 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 downinto the road--assisted from behind more swiftly than politelyby the other two passengers, who immediately scrambled into hecoach, shut the door, and pulled, up the window. `He may comeclose; there's nothing wrong.'
`I hope there ain't, but I can't make so `Nation sure ofthat,' 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 gotholsters to that saddle o' yourn, don't let me see your handgo nigh 'em. For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when Imake one it takes the form of Lead. So now let's look at you.'
The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through theeddying mist, and came to the side of the mail, where thepassenger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyesat the guard, handed the passenger a small folded paper. Therider's horse was blown, and both horse and rider were coveredwith mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of the man.
`Guard!' said the passenger, in a tone of quiet businessconfidence.
The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of hisraised blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye On thehorseman, 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 Paris onbusiness. 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, andread--first to himself and then aloud: `"Wait at Door 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 strangeanswer, too,' said he, at his hoarsest.
`Take that message back, and they will know that I receivedthis, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Goodnight.'
With those words the passenger opened tile coach-door and gotin; not at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who hadexpeditiously secreted their watches and purses in theirboots, and were now making a general pretence of being asleep.
With no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard oforiginating any other kind of action.
The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mistclosing round it as it began the descent. The guard soonreplaced his blunderbuss in his arm-chest, and, having lookedto the rest of its contents, and having looked to thesupplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to asmaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a fewsmith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For hewas furnished with that completeness that if the coach-lampshad been blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen,he had only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint andsteel sparks well off the straw, and get a light withtolerable safety and ease (if he were 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 towipe the mud from his face, and shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which might be capable of holding about half a gallon.
After standing with the bridle over his heavily-splashed arm,until the wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing andthe night was quite still again, he turned to walk down thehill.
`After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won'ttrust your fore-legs till I get you on the level,' said thishoarse messenger, glancing at his mare. `"Recalled to life."That's a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn't do foryou Jerry! I say, Jerry! You'd be in a Blazing bad way, ifrecalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!' |