rebounded with a racketty hop, skip and jump, down the side of
the deep ravine on the edge of which the way was coasting.
Then making up for his delay by a mode of locomotion which
seemed to speak him kindred to the squirrels, he swung himself
over difficult places by the help of hanging branches of
trees, and bounded from rock to rock, till he was again far
ahead of the horses, and of the road too, lost out of sight in
another direction. Now and then a few rich notes of a German
air came down, or up, to the coach tantalizingly. Certainly
Mr. Rollo was enjoying himself; and it was made more
indubitably certain to the poor plodders along inside the
coach, by the faint fumes of an excellent cigar which 'whiles'
made themselves perceptible.

Now to say the truth, it was all tantalizing to Wych Hazel. In
the first place she was, as she had said, 'cramped to death,'
physically and mentally,--both parts of her composition just
spoiling for a fight; and whereas she had hitherto kept her
face well out of the window, now she drew it resolutely
within, for with somebody to look at, it did not suit Miss
Hazel's ideas to be looking. She could not tease Mr. Falkirk,
who had gone to sleep; Mr. Kingsland was absolutely beyond
reach, except of rather thorny wishes; and when at length the
dilettante cigar perfumes began to assert themselves, Wych
Hazel flung the rest of her patience straight out of the
window, and looked after it. The coach was stopping just then
by another wayside inn, to exchange mail-bags and water the
horses, and favoured by the gathering dusk, a sharp business
transaction at once went into effect between the young lady
within and some one without; wherof nothing at first