The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard
suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another
and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman
was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could
with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments
that they were not fit for the journey.

"Wo-ho!" said the coachman. "So, then! One more pull and you're
at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to
get you to it!--Joe!"

"Halloa!" the guard replied.

"What o'clock do you make it, Joe?"

"Ten minutes, good, past eleven."

"My blood!" ejaculated the vexed coachman, "and not atop of
Shooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!"

The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided
negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other
horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on,
with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by its
side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they kept
close company with it. If any one of the three had had the
hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead into
the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way
of getting shot instantly as a highwayman.