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"The day after our arrival," continued the postillion, "I was sent, under the guidance of a lackey of the place, with a letter, which the priest, when he left, had given us for a friend of his in the Eternal City. We went to a large house, and on ringing, were admitted by a porter into a cloister, where I saw some ill-looking, shabby young fellows walking about, who spoke English to one another.
The spot which I had chosen was aloof from passengers, and shrowded in the deepest obscurity. Some time elapsed, when my attention was excited by the slow approach of an equipage. I presently discovered a coach and six horses, but unattended, except by coachman and postillion, and with no light to guide them on their way.
He embraced his Dulcinea with transports, and Betty seemed delighted to find him safe and sound. He told us triumphantly that he had beaten the rascally postillions, and had warded their stones off. "Where's the slashed postillion?" I asked. "He is drinking to my health with his comrade; they have both begged my pardon." "Yes," said Betty, "this gentleman gave him a crown." "What a pity!
He looked at his master and without a word went off to make his bed. Wogan sat down and went carefully over in his mind every minute of the time since he had entered Bologna. No one had noticed him when he rode in as the lady's postillion, no one. He was sure of that. The lady herself did not know him from Adam, and fancied him an Italian into the bargain of that, too, he had no doubt.
At the same instant the postillion raised his long whip, the four bays started, a group of ladies and gentlemen, headed by the master of ceremonies, waved their handkerchiefs, and it seemed as if Flora herself was setting forth to bless the earth with flowers.
I'm to go firing away in the dark in the cold po'chaise, and not so much as a game of ecarte possible, unless I stop and play with the postillion, the postillion; and the whole country swarming with thieves and rascals and highwaymen. 'I beg your lordship's pardon, put in the landlord, who now appeared in the doorway to announce the chaise, 'but this part of the North Road is known for safety.
It was darned and yellow, but it carried her back all the same, and recalled happy hours with wonderful vividness. She remembered the post-chaise and the postillion. "He was such a pert little fellow, and how we laughed at him! He must be either dead or a very shaky old man by now," said the old lady.
But we had not gone two hundred paces when the postillion stopped, a bundle of linen whirled through the window into the carriage, and the governess got in. I gave her a hearty welcome by embracing her, and made her sit down beside me, and so we drove off. In the ensuing chapter the reader will become more fully acquainted with my fresh conquest.
Out of this drowned-looking wretch the last spark of life was taken by the sum the postillion ventured to name; and if paying your utmost farthing without examination of the charge, and cheerfully stepping out to walk fifty miles, penniless, constituted a postillion's gentleman, Evan would have passed the test.
The day was only breaking, no one was in sight, so that after a few minutes' consideration, the best thing to do, appeared to get the other horse upon his legs, and despatching the postillion to Munich, then about three leagues distant, for a carriage, wait patiently on the road-side for his return.
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