And all would have gone well but for the imprudence of the inside passenger who had distinguished himself by his protest against the placard. The coach was within a dozen paces of the Bear, the crowd was falling back from it, the peril, if it had been real, seemed past, the most timid was breathing again, when he thrust out his foolish head, and flung a taunt-which those on the roof could not hear-at the rabble.
Whatever the words, their effect was disastrous. A bystander caught them up and repeated them, and in a trice half-a-dozen louts flung themselves on the door and strove to drag it open, and get at the man; while others, leaning over their shoulders, aimed missiles at the inside passengers.
The guard saw that more than the glass of his windows was at stake; but he could do nothing. He was at the leaders' heads. And the passengers on the roof, who had risen to their feet to see the fray, were as helpless. Luckily the coachman kept his head and his reins. "Turn 'em into the yard!" he yelled. "Turn 'em in!"
The guard did so, almost too quickly. The frightened horses wheeled round, and, faster than was prudent, dashed under the low arch, dragging the swaying coach after them.
There was a cry of "Heads! Heads!" and then, more imperatively, "Heads! Stoop! Stoop!"
The warning was needed. The outsides were on their feet engrossed in the struggle at the coach door. And so quickly did the coach turn that-though a score of spectators in the street and on the balcony of the inn saw the peril-it was only at the last moment that Vaughan and the two passengers at the back, men well used to the road, caught the warning, and dropped down. And it was only at the very last moment that Vaughan felt rather than saw that the girl was still standing. He had just time, by a desperate effort, and amid a cry of horror-for to the spectators she seemed to be already jammed between the arch and the seat-to drag her down. Instinctively, as he did so, he shielded her face with his arm; but the horror was so near that, as they swept under the low brow, he was not sure that she was safe.
He was as white as she was, when they emerged into the light again. But he saw that she was safe, though her bonnet was dragged from her head; and he cried unconsciously, "Thank God! Thank God!" Then, with that hatred of a scene which is part of the English character, he put her quickly back into her seat again, and rose to his feet, as if he wished to separate himself from her.
But a score of eyes had seen the act; and however much he might wish to spare her feelings, concealment was impossible.
"Christ!" cried the coachman, whose copper cheeks were perceptibly paler. "If your head's on your shoulders, Miss, it is to that young gentleman you owe it. Don't you ever go to sleep on the roof of a coach again! Never! Never!"
"Here, get a drop of brandy!" cried the landlady, who, from one of the doors flanking the archway, had seen all. "Do you stay where you are, Miss," she continued, "and I'll send it up to you."
Then amid a babel of exclamations and a chorus of blame and praise, the ladder was brought, and Vaughan made haste to descend. A waiter tripped out with the brown brandy and water on a tray; and the young lady, who had not spoken, but had remained, sitting white and still, where Vaughan had placed her, sipped it obediently. Unfortunately the landlady's eyes were sharp; and as Vaughan passed her to go into the house-for the coach must be driven up the yard and turned before they could set off again-she let fall a cry.
"Lord, sir!" she said, "your hand is torn dreadful! You've grazed every bit of skin off it!"
He tried to silence her; and failing, hurried into the house. She fussed after him to attend to him; and Sammy, who was not a man of the most delicate perceptions, seized the opportunity to drive home his former lesson. "There, Miss," he said solemnly, "I hope that'll teach you to look out another time! But better his hand than your head. You'd ha' been surely scalped!"
The girl, a shade whiter than before, did not answer. And he thought her, for so pretty a wench, "a right unfeelin' un!"
Not so the Frenchman. "I count him a very locky man!" he said obscurely. "A very locky man."
"Well," the coachman answered with a grunt, "if you call that lucky-"
"Vraiment! Vraiment! But I-alas!" the Frenchman answered with an eloquent gesture, "I have lost my all, and the good fortunes are no longer for me!"
"Fortunes!" the coachman muttered, looking askance at him. "A fine fortune, to have your hand flayed! But where's" – recollecting himself-"where's that there fool that caused the trouble! D-n me, if he shall go any further on my coach. I'd like to double-thong him, and it'd serve him right!"
So when the ex-M.P. presently appeared, Sammy let go his tongue to such purpose that the political gentleman; finding himself in a minority of one, retired into the house and, with many threats of what he would do when he saw the management, declined to go on.
"And a good riddance of a d-d Tory!" the coachman muttered. "Think all the world's made for them! Fifteen minutes he's cost us already! Take your seats, gents, take your seats! I'm off!"
Vaughan, with his hand hastily bandaged, was the last to come out. He climbed as quickly as he could to his place, and, without looking at his neighbour, he said some common-place word. She did not reply, and they swept under the arch. For a moment the sight of the thronged marketplace diverted him. Then he looked at her, and he saw that she was trembling.
If he was not quite so wise as the Frenchman, having had no bonnes fortunes to speak of, he had, nevertheless, keen perceptions. And he guessed that the girl, between her maiden shyness and her womanly gratitude, was painfully placed. It could not be otherwise. A girl who had spent her years, since childhood, within the walls of a school at Clapham, first as genteel apprentice, and then as assistant; who had been taught to consider young men as roaring lions with whom her own life could have nothing in common, and from whom it was her duty to guard the more giddy of her flock; who had to struggle at once with the shyness of youth, the modesty of her sex, and her inexperience-above all, perhaps with that dread of insult which becomes the instinct of lowly beauty-how was she to carry herself in circumstances so different from any which she had ever imagined? How was she to express a tithe of the feelings with which her heart was bursting, and which overwhelmed her as often as she thought of the hideous death from which he had snatched her?
She could not; and with inborn good taste she refrained from the commonplace word, the bald acknowledgment, in which a shallow nature might have taken refuge. On his side, he guessed some part of this, and discerned that if he would relieve her he must himself speak. Accordingly, when they had left the streets behind them and were swinging merrily along the Newbury Road, he leant towards her.
"May I beg," he said in a low voice, "that you won't think of what has happened? The coachman would have done as much, and scolded you! I happened to be next you. That was all."
In a strangled voice, "But your hand," she faltered. "I fear-I-" She shuddered, unable to go on.
"It is nothing!" he protested. "Nothing! In three days it will be well!"
She turned her eves on him, eyes which possessed an eloquence of which their owner was unconscious. "I will pray for you," she murmured. "I can do no more."
The pathos of her simple gratitude was such that Vaughan could not laugh it off. "Thank you," he said quietly. "We shall then be more than quits." And having given her a few moments in which to recover herself, "We are nearly at Speenhamland," he resumed cheerfully. "There is the George and Pelican! It's a great baiting-house for coaches. I am afraid to say how much corn and hay they give out in a day. They have a man who does nothing else but weigh it out." And so he chattered on, doing his utmost to talk of indifferent matters in an indifferent tone.
She could not repulse him after what had passed. And now and then, by a timid word, she gave him leave to talk. Presently he began to speak of things other than those under their eyes, and when he thought that he had put her at her ease, "You understand French?" he said looking at her suddenly.
"I spoke it as a child," she answered. "I was born abroad. I did not come to England until I was nine."
"To