162 SOME GENTLEMAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



" Wrong in all the lines and dead beat in the tune," quoth Black 

 Harry. 



" No such thing," said the coachman : " ray guard, sir, is of an 

 envious disposition," he added, addressing me. " Squint-eyed Chard, 

 as the song says, loved a practical joke ; so one day he called a young 

 countryman from thefoot of the hill, to hitch up the skid with which 

 he had locked one of his hind wheels. The friction, of course, had 

 made it as hot as if it had just come out of a smith's forge, and the 

 goodnatured boy, before he could drop it, burnt his thumb. This 

 made the passengers laugh, and so served Squint-eyed Chard's pur- 

 pose. But how did it end ? come Harry, strike up." 



" Shan't ! von't put my feet into dead men's shoes for nobody 

 finish your mess, if you can, as you've begun it. " 



" I can but fail/' said Ralph, " so here goes with a good heart 



" Oh ! the yokel boy was soon forgot 



Who'd made such fun, 

 And the day arrived, when on that spot 



'Cute Chard was done. 

 Across the grove 

 A bumpkin strove 

 The mail to intercept 



" This was in the middle of the hill, and Chard thinking that the 

 boy had a short parcel, which might be kept out of the way-bill and 

 put a shilling or so into his pocket, with great difficulty stopped the 

 coach. The lad slackened in his pace, being apparently worn out 

 w r ith a long run. Chard impatiently urged him on by loud impreca- 

 tions, and began most bitterly to regret that he had pulled up, for 

 the weight of his coach was pressing heavily on the withers of his 

 wheelers, and the leaders were almost unmanageably fidgetty. At 

 length the boy, nearly exhausted, and after a long delay, reached the 

 hedge that separated the hill-grove from the road, and says he, keep- 

 ing well out o' the reach of Chard's flogger, says he, 



" 'Twas once your turn 



My thumb to burn, 

 By gosh ! it made me feel 



So now I wants my knife to grind 

 On your hind wheel." 



Into all this torn-foolery I gladly entered with the morbid zest of a 

 man in bitter trouble. I never was less merry at heart, and yet I 

 laughed prodigiously. An old woman's gossip would have been 

 grateful even if it possessed no other virtue than that of relieving the 

 intense pressure of one idea upon my mind. MARIA was written in 

 letters of fire upon my brain. To extinguish the intensity of its 

 glare, even for an hour a moment was comfort was happiness. 

 I never yearned so ardently to fly from myself to abandon my 

 identity. I was sick to my very soul ! Maria but to proceed with 

 my journey. 



A few miles further on, the coachman asked me if I would so far 

 oblige him as to relinquish my seat in favour of a particular friend of 

 his, a country banker, from whom he occasionally heard something 

 about his father. " He won't turn in," said Ralph, " so I always 



