CHAPTER VI.


On my way towards our lodgings I resolved to look in at a humble tavern,
in the coffee-room of which the Captain and myself habitually dined. It
was now about the usual hour in which we took that meal, and he might be
there waiting for me. I had just gained the steps of this tavern when a
stagecoach came rattling along the pavement and drew up at an inn of
more pretensions than that which we favored, situated within a few doors
of the latter. As the coach stopped, my eye was caught by the Trevanion
livery, which was very peculiar. Thinking I must be deceived, I drew
near to the wearer of the livery, who had just descended from the roof,
and while he paid the coachman, gave his orders to a waiter who emerged
from the inn,--"Half-and-half, cold without!" The tone of the voice
struck me as familiar, and the man now looking up, I beheld the features
of Mr. Peacock. Yes, unquestionably it was he. The whiskers were
shaved; there were traces of powder in the hair or the wig; the livery
of the Trevanions (ay, the very livery,--crest-button and all) upon that
portly figure, which I had last seen in the more august robes of a
beadle. But Mr. Peacock it was,--Peacock travestied, but Peacock still.
Before I had recovered my amaze, a woman got out of a cabriolet that
seemed to have been in waiting for the arrival of the coach, and
hurrying up to Mr. Peacock, said, in the loud, impatient tone common to
the fairest of the fair sex, when in haste, "How late you are!--I was
just going. I must get back to Oxton to-night."

Oxton,--Miss Trevanion was staying at Oxton! I was now close behind the