said he, at his hoarsest.

"Take that message back, and they will know that I received this,
as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night."

With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in;
not at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had
expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots,
and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. With no
more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originating
any other kind of action.

The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing
round it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his
blunderbuss in his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of its
contents, and having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore
in his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which
there were a few smith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box.
For he was furnished with that completeness that if the coach-lamps
had been blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had
only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well
off the straw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he
were lucky) in five minutes.

"Tom!" softly over the coach roof.

"Hallo, Joe."

"Did you hear the message?"