The Holloway road was soon reached, and gave the coachman the opportunity of curdling the thin man’s blood with a series of reminiscences of all the desperate characters who had ever frequented it.
“Was it not on this stretch that Grimaldi was once robbed?” asked the Duke, who, as a small boy, had been regaled with all these stories.
“Ah, that it was!” nodded the coachman approvingly. “And only ten or so years ago! But ven they took his vatch, d’ye see, it had his phiz drawed on it, a-singing of ‘Me and my Neddy’, and they gave it to him back again, because he was werry well-liked.”
“I saw him once,” the Duke said. “At Sadler’s Wells, I think it was; I remember he made me laugh very much.”
“Veil, and so he would do, sir, seeing as that was his lay, in a manner of speaking. And how far am I to have the pleasure of carrying of you, sir?”
“Only to Baldock,” the Duke replied.
The coachman shook his head, and said that it was a pity, as there were few stretches of road this side of Biggleswade where he would care to run the risk of handing over the reins to one, who, he clearly perceived, was fair itching to tool the coach. The thin man, who overheard this, instantly raised such a storm of protest that the Duke felt obliged to set his mind at rest, and assure him that he had no desire to take the reins. The tolerant man, who seemed to have taken a dislike to his neighbour, gave his dispassionate opinion of spoilsports in general, and Friday-faced ones in particular; and aconsequential gentleman embarked on a long story about a spirited team of blood-horses which he was in the habit of driving.
When Finchely Common, with all its lurking dangers, had been safely passed, most of the passengers were feeling too sharp-set to think of much beyond the breakfast awaiting them in Barnet; and when the coach drove into the yard of the inn at Barnet, nearly everyone hurried into the coffee-room, where a couple of over-driven waiters were running about with piled trays, and mechanical cries of “Coming directly, sir!”
The Duke had consumed little more than a running banquet at the Saracen’s Head, but he did not feel inclined to join in the scramble for coffee and ham, and instead wandered a little way up the street to stretch his legs. On his previous journeys to the north, he had changed horses at the Red Lion, but this noted house did not condescend to stage-coaches, although its landlord resorted to some extremely low stratagems to snatch custom from his hated rival at the Green Man, farther up the street. It was not an unknown thing for his ostlers to rush out into the road to intercept some private carriage whose owner had no notion of changing horses, and to drag it into the yard, and forcibly to provide a fresh pair for it. The Duke had the good fortune to witness a spirited bout of fisticuffs between two of the yellow-jacketed post-boys hired by the Red Lion against three blue-habited ones from the Green Man, and watched with amused appreciation the efforts of an old gentleman in a chaise-and-pair to convince the ostlers of the Red Lion that since he was only travelling as far as to Welwyn, he stood in no need of fresh horses.
When he returned to the coach, and climbed again on to the roof, the Duke found that everyone but the coachman, who had been regaled in the yard with strong drink and flattery, was in a ruffled frame of mind. Even the tolerant man said that to be asked to pay the full price for breakfast when one had had barely time to swallow two scalding mouthfuls of coffee, and had been unable to eat the ham for want of a knife and fork, was a scandalous state of affairs which ought to be looked to.
The Duke had long since discovered that riding on the roof of the stage-coach did not agree with his constitution. It had held the amusement of novelty for a few miles, but the swaying and lurching, added as they were to a very uncomfortable seat, soon made even the coachman’s instructive conversation pall upon him. His head had begun to ache; he had never, he remembered, been a good traveller. Baldock seemed to be a very long way off; and by the time Stevenage was reached, and the coachman attempted to lure him into making a bet as to which of the famous SixHills were the longest distance apart, he refused to humour him, merely replying wearily: “The first and the last. I learned that when I was still in short-coats.”
The coachman was disappointed in him, forthis time-honoured catch was generally good for a drink at the next halt. He began to think the box-seat passenger a mean-spirited young man, but revised his opinion when, upon setting him down outside the White Horse at Baldock, he received a guinea from him. He decided then that the Duke was half-flash and half-foolish, and was sorry to be seeing the last of him.
The guard having unearthed the Duke’s valise from the recesses of the boot, his Grace was left standing with it at his feet in the road, waiting for someone to run out and carry it into the inn.
But it appeared that inns patronized by stage-coach travellers were not staffed by servants falling over themselves to wait upon guests, so the Duke was obliged to pick up the valise, and to carry it into the inn himself.
The front door opened into a passage, leading at the back of the premises into a lobby, from which the stairs rose to the upper floor. The coffee-room and the tap-room both gave on to the passage, the former of these being an old-fashioned apartment with only one table, which ran its length.
The Duke set down his valise, and as he did so a door opened at the back of the house, and a stout landlady Issued forth. She greeted the Duke civilly, but sharply, saying: “Good day, sir, and what may I do for you?”
“I should like to hire a room, if you please,” said the Duke, with his gentle dignity.
Her eyes ran over him. “Yes, sir. How long would you be staying, if I may ask?”
“I am not perfectly sure. A day or two, perhaps.” Her quick scrutiny having taken in every detail of the quiet elegance which characterized his dress, she directed her gaze to his face. She seemed to like what she saw there, and allowed her features to relax their severity. She said, still briskly, but in a tone that held a hint of motherliness: “I see, sir. A nice front bedchamber you would like, and a private parlour, I daresay. You won’t care to be sitting in that noisy coffee-room.”
The Duke thanked her, and said that he thought he should be glad of the parlour.
“Come from London on the coach, sir?” said Mrs. Appleby. “Nasty racketing things they be! Shaking all your bones together until you’re fair wore-out with holding on to the side to stop yourself falling off. I can see you’re tired, sir: you look downright bagged!”
“Oh, no!” Gilly said, blushing faintly. “I have just a touch of the headache, that is all.”
“I’ll fetch you up a pot of tea directly, sir, for there’s nothing like it, and I’ve a kettle right on the boil at this very moment. Myself, I could never abide the way those coaches sways over the road: it makes a body’s stomach rise up against them, and that’s the truth. Polly! Ned! Take up the young gentleman’s bag to No. 1, Ned; and you, my girl, get some kindling and set a fire going in the Pink Parlour! Bustle about, now! Don’t stand there gawping!”
“Thank you, but I shan’t need a fire: it is quite warm,” said Gilly.
“You’ll be more comfortable with a bit of a blaze in the grate, sir,” said Mrs. Appleby firmly. “Very treacherous these autumn days are, and you don’t look very stout to me, if you will pardon the liberty. But no need to be afraid of damp sheets in my house, and if you should happen to fancy a hot posset going to bed you have only to pull the bell, and I shall brew it for you, and with pleasure.”