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Drive him there now, in God’s name, before the Uhlans come clattering on your heels!" He turned, strode away to the ambulance once more, climbed in, and placed one big arm around the sick driver’s shoulder, drawing the man’s head down against his breast. "Bonne chance!" he called back to the airman, who had now seated himself beside Maryette.
It ended by signal abruptly, nowhere in particular, between two lamp-posts before a large drapery establishment—a long range of shops already lapped up in sheets of corrugated iron for the night. Tendering a coin through the trap door the fare slipped out and away, leaving an effect of uncanny, eccentric ghastliness upon the driver’s mind.
“Yes,” agreed Jack. “Lead the way.” “T’ank yo’, sah; t’ank yo’, sah. Follow me, sah.” Jack’s mulatto guide led him down the street a little way, then around a corner. Here a rickety old cab with a single horse attached, waited. A gray old darkey sat on the driver’s seat. “Step right inside, sah. We’ll be dere direckly. Marse Truax’ll be powahful glad to see yo’, sah.”
He looked carefully at the cabs, and at last observed a smart-looking young man driving a fresh likely horse at a walking pace beside the pavement. He caught the driver’s eye and raised his stick, and turning suddenly to the Baron with a gesture of annoyance, exclaimed, “Forgive my rudeness, Baron, I’m afraid I must leave you.
A rapid cooling down of our driver’s extravagance of manner was the immediate result of our entering upon the well-kept paths, and between smooth lawns; we went at a decent trot, following a semicircular road, by which we were brought immediately in front of a noble mansion. We soon learned all about it from the landlord of the inn.
This is the only mode of accounting for the fact that there are thousands of hands which perform to admiration in driving, with the most severe bits, but which are quite unfit to be trusted in riding with anything but a snaffle bridle; for, in driving, the terret-pad prevents false indications on the bit, therefore to ensure true ones being given, two hands are used, or when one only, two fingers are placed between the reins instead of the fourth finger only, consequently the horse obeys the slightest touch, and consequently his mouth and the driver’s hand become mutually more light; but put the driver and driven together, as rider and ridden, with the same bit, the reins in one hand, and the fourth finger only between them, and what will follow?
That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the sight of the driver’s face he started back in blank astonishment. “Bonker!” “It is I indeed, my dear Baron,” replied that gentleman, politely. “I must ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience.
The beauty of such a conveyance, as compared with the railway travelling of to-day, was that there was no occasion to be in a flurry if you wanted to travel by it. Goldsmith—for such was the proprietor and driver’s name—when he came to a place was in no hurry to leave it.
He climbed up beside the driver, still in a breathless condition, and detailed to him how he had received word, just before the coach started, by a messenger who came across-country on horseback, that his cousin was dying. After he had answered the driver’s minutest questions, he sat back and reflected upon his course with satisfaction.
When the pony-carriage had approached as near Wildfell Hall as the road would permit—unless, indeed, it proceeded up the long rough lane, which Mrs. Graham would not allow—the young widow and her son alighted, relinquishing the driver’s seat to Rose; and I persuaded Eliza to take the latter’s place.
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