me a kind of company.  The night fell, and the shine of the fire brightened and blinked on the panelled wall.  Our illuminated windows must have been visible not only from the back lane of which Fenn had spoken, but from the court where the farmers’ gig awaited them.  In the far end of the firelit room lay my companions, the one silent, the other clamorously noisy, the images of death and drunkenness.  Little wonder if I were tempted to join in the choruses below, and sometimes could hardly refrain from laughter, and sometimes, I believe, from tears—­so unmitigated was the tedium, so cruel the suspense, of this period.

At last, about six at night, I should fancy, the noisy minstrels appeared in the court, headed by Fenn with a lantern, and knocking together as they came.  The visitors clambered noisily into the gig, one of them shook the reins, and they were snatched out of sight and hearing with a suddenness that partook of the nature of prodigy.  I am well aware there is a Providence for drunken men, that holds the reins for them and presides over their troubles; doubtless he had his work cut out for him with this particular gigful!  Fenn rescued his toes with an ejaculation from under the departing wheels, and turned at once with uncertain steps and devious lantern to the far end of the court.  There, through the open doors of a coach-house, the shock-headed lad was already to be seen drawing forth the covered cart.  If I wished any private talk with our host, it must be now or never.

Accordingly I groped my way downstairs, and came to him as he looked on at and lighted the harnessing of the horses.

‘The hour approaches when we have to part,’ said I; ’and I shall be obliged if you will tell your servant to drop me at the nearest point for Dunstable.  I am determined to go so far with our friends, Colonel X and Major Y, but my business is peremptory, and it takes me to the neighbourhood of Dunstable.’

Orders were given to my satisfaction, with an obsequiousness that seemed only inflamed by his potations.

CHAPTER XIV—­TRAVELS OF THE COVERED CART

My companions were aroused with difficulty:  the Colonel, poor old gentleman, to a sort of permanent dream, in which you could say of him only that he was very deaf and anxiously polite; the Major still maudlin drunk.  We had a dish of tea by the fireside, and then issued like criminals into the scathing cold of the night.  For the weather had in the meantime changed.  Upon the cessation of the rain, a strict frost had succeeded.  The moon, being young, was already near the zenith when we started, glittered everywhere on sheets of ice, and sparkled in ten thousand icicles.  A more unpromising night for a journey it was hard to conceive.  But in the course of the afternoon the horses had been well roughed; and King (for such was the name of the shock-headed lad) was very positive that he could drive us without misadventure.  He was as good as his word; indeed, despite a gawky air, he was simply invaluable in his present employment, showing marked sagacity in all that concerned the care of horses, and guiding us by one short cut after another for days, and without a fault.