708 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



but yet it clung to me, and fancy persisted in sticking a dunce's cap on his 

 head. Shakspeare says that "he who runs may read," and I had seen him 

 run a good shilling's worth after an umbrella that dropped from the coach ; 

 it was a presumptuous opinion, therefore, to form, but I formed it notwith- 

 standing that he was a perfect stranger to all those booking-offices where 

 the clerks are schoolmasters. Morally speaking, I had no earthly right 

 to clap an ideal Saracen's Head on his shoulders ; but, for the life of me, 

 I could not persuade myself that he had more to do with literature than the 

 Blue Boar. 



Women are naturally communicative : after a little while the female in 

 the dickey brought up, as a military man would say, her reserve, and entered 

 into recitative with the guard during the pauses of the key-bugle. She in- 

 formed him in the course of conversation, or rather dickey gossip, that she 

 was an invaluable servant, and, as such, had been bequeathed by a deceased 

 master to the care of one of his relatives at Putney, to exert her vigilance as 

 a housekeeper, and to overlook every thing for fifty pounds a-year. " Such 

 places," she remarked, " is not to be found every day in the year." 



The last sentence was prophetic ! 



" If it's Putney," said the guard, " it's the very place we're going through. 

 Hold hard, Tom, the young woman wants to get down." Tom immediately 

 pulled up ; the young woman did get down, and her two trunks, three band- 

 boxes, her bundle, and her hand -basket were ranged round her. " I've had 

 a very pleasant ride," she said, giving the fare with a smirk and a curtsey to 

 the coachman, " and am very much obliged," dropping a second curtsey to 

 the guard, " for other civilities. The boxes and things is quite correct, 

 and won't give further trouble, Mr. Guard, except to be as good as pint out 

 the house I'm going to." The guard thus appealed to, for a moment stood 

 all aghast ; but at last his wits came to his aid, and he gave the following 

 lesson in geography. 



" You're all right ourn a'n't a short stage, and can't go round setting 

 people down at their own doors ; but you're safe enough at Putney don't 

 be alarmed, my dear you can't go out of it. It's all Putney, from the bridge 

 we've just come over, to the windmill you almost can't see t'other side of 

 the common." 



" But, Mr. Guard, I've never been in Putney before, and it seems a 

 scrambling sort of a place. If the coach can't go round with me to the 

 house, can't you stretch a pint and set me down in sight of it ?" 



" It's impossible that's the sum total ; this coach is timed to a minute, 

 and can't do more for outsides if they was all Kings of England." 



"I see how it is," said the female, bridling up, while the coachman, out 

 of patience, prepared to do quite the reverse ; " some people are very civil, 

 while some people are setting beside 'em in dickies ; but give me the paper 

 again, and I'll find my own ways." 



" It's chucked away," said the guard, as the coach got into motion ; 

 " but just ask the first man you meet any body will tell you." 



" But I don't know who or where to ask for," screamed the lost woman 

 after the flying Rocket ; " I can't read ; but it was all down in the paper as 

 is chucked away." 



A loud flourish of the bugle to the tune of " My Lodging is on the Cold 

 Ground" was the only reply ; and as long as the road remained straight, I 

 could see " the Bewildered Maid" standing in the rnidst of her baggage, as 

 forlorn as Eve, when, according to Milton 



" The world was all before her, where to choose 

 Her place-" 



