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Presently I pulled up before the big old seventeenth-century posting-house in the long, quiet village of Ripley, once noted in the late Victorian craze of the "push-bike" as being the Mecca of the daring cyclist who ran out of London and back.
It was an animal of strength and mettle, and Michael Strogoff, accomplished horseman as he was, could make good use of it. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. Michael Strogoff, compelled to wait till nightfall, in order to pass the fortifications, but not desiring to show himself, remained in the posting-house, and there partook of food. There was a great crowd in the public room.
"I was giving a representation," he said, "in the hall of the posting-house in the little town of Slagelse; there was a splendid audience, entirely juvenile excepting two respectable matrons. All at once, a person in black, of student-like appearance, entered the room, and sat down; he laughed aloud at the telling points, and applauded quite at the proper time.
Come and breakfast at the neat white inn, of yore a posting-house of fame. The stables are now turned into cottages; and instead of a dozen spruce ostlers and helpers, the last of the postboys totters sadly about the yard and looks up eagerly at the rare sight of a horse to feed.
Opposite the Breton arme the inn and posting-house at the entrance of the village of Gavrillac M. de Vilmorin interrupted his companion just as he was soaring to the dizziest heights of caustic invective, and Andre-Louis, restored thereby to actualities, observed the carriage of M. de La Tour d'Azyr standing before the door of the hostelry. "I don't believe you've been listening to me," said he.
Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions' whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in his travelling carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him.
In the Pickwickian days it was a busy posting-house for the coaches from London to many parts of Norfolk. Before Mr. Pickwick carried out his determination to pursue Jingle, he had occasion to visit the "Magpie and Stump," "situated in a court, happy in the double advantage of being in the vicinity of Clare Market and closely approximating to the back of New Inn."
"I will stop at the first posting-house," said Danglars to himself. He still felt the same self-satisfaction which he had experienced the previous evening, and which had procured him so good a night's rest. He was luxuriously stretched in a good English calash, with double springs; he was drawn by four good horses, at full gallop; he knew the relay to be at a distance of seven leagues.
She was now rolling away, with a train of dust behind her wheels in the golden sunlight, and a wise young gentleman followed her with ardent eyes and sighed profoundly as the distance increased. I told the postilions on no account to pass the carriage, but to keep it steadily in view, and to pull up at whatever posting-house it should stop at.
The party reached London by nightfall, leaving their horses at the Posting-House over against Westminster, and being ferried over the water, where Lady Esmond's coach was already in waiting.
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