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He opened his eyes fully, and looked out over the waste of Hounslow Heath, across which the chaise was by this time making its way. Adventure upon Hounslow Heath! He mused. Well, yes, let us suppose a highwayman. But in broad daylight? Alas, no, that is a trifle too improbable, my friend. And would it be an adventure, I wonder? I am such a depressingly good shot. It could be nothing more than an incident, enlivening for the moment, perhaps, but not – oh, not capable of holding one’s interest!
The chaise had passed a gibbet, with a blackened shrivelled figure hanging in chains which creaked mournfully in the wind, but of live highwaymen there was no sign. The Heath, at three o’clock on an autumn afternoon, was the haunt only of peewits and snipe, and the only object of interest seemed to be that common enough sight; a chaise stranded on the road with a wheel off.
His lordship had a good view of this through the windows of the door in front of him. The chaise, obviously a hired vehicle, sprawled drunkenly at the side of the road, while the single post-boy, having taken his pair out of the shafts, stood consulting with the passenger, a young gentleman in a badly fitting suit of clothes, who stood with his cloak-bag beside him, rather helplessly surveying the wreck of his conveyance.
The Earl observed all this as his own chaise bore down upon the other, and sighed, and let down the window and ordered the postilions to stop.
The young gentleman in the road looked up as the chaise drew up alongside him. It was seen that he was a very young gentleman, hardly out of school, judged his lordship. He was dressed in a plain blue coat with silver buttons and buff breeches under a long travelling cloak, and he wore his own curling fair hair brushed back from his face and tied in the nape of his neck with a black riband. A muslin cravat round his throat, top-boots, and a hat clutched under one arm completed his toilet. He looked hot and disconsolate and – yes, decided his lordship, looking lazily down into the upturned face – oddly suspicious. The eyes, which were celestial blue, held a challenge, at variance with a somewhat womanish cast of countenance. The Earl opened the door of the chaise, and said in his pleasant, languid voice:
‘How unfortunate! Consider me entirely at your service, I beg of you.’
The young gentleman hunched a shoulder, replying rather ungraciously: ‘Thank you. It is nothing – a broken lynch-pin.’
The Earl seemed to be slightly amused at this grudging form of address. He said:
‘So I perceive. Do you mean to stay by your chaise indefinitely, or would you like me to take you up with me as far as the next stage?’
The young gentleman flushed.
‘You are very good, sir,’ he said gruffly. An anxious frown knit his brow. All at once he blurted out:
‘Delay is fatal to me! I must reach Bath!’
‘How I envy you!’ remarked his lordship.
‘Envy me?’ exclaimed the young gentleman in tones of great astonishment.
‘Certainly. To be under an obligation – however irksome, to have a set purpose – how refreshing!’ said the Earl, between a smile and a sigh.
Then, observing that the other was regarding him with a good deal of misgiving, he added:
‘Oh, I am quite sane, I assure you! Come, you had best step up beside me. You will be able to hire another chaise at Longford, I dare say.’
The young gentleman still seemed to hesitate for a moment or two, but after a despairing glance cast at his wrecked chaise, and a very searching one at the Earl, he murmured that he was much obliged, and climbed up into the other chaise.
He took his seat beside the Earl; his cloak-bag was stowed in the boot, and, the steps being put up again, the chaise was soon moving forward at a brisk rate. The young gentleman glanced at his lordship, and said with careful formality:
‘Sir, I must thank you for your courtesy. Had my need been less urgent I should have scrupled to have thrust myself upon you, but it is imperative that I should lose no time on the road.’
A suspicion that the youth might be escaping from school crossed the Earl’s mind, but was banished by the next words, delivered somewhat haltingly:
‘You think it very odd, I dare say, sir, but my presence is – is instantly required in Bath.’
The Earl said, with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Can it be that I am assisting at an elopement?’
‘Well, no, sir, not precisely an elopement,’ replied the young gentleman, colouring.
The Earl, although an idle curiosity had been roused in him, was too well-bred to press the point. He merely inclined his head and remarked:
‘You will no doubt be able to hire another chaise at Longford, or Colnbrook.’
‘Yes, but –’ The young man broke off, his cheeks still more flushed, and turned his head away to gaze out of the side-window.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said.
There was a pause.
‘If you like to mention my name at the George, at Colnbrook,’ said his lordship gently, ‘I believe you will have no trouble.’
