THE EXETER ROAD 



97 



patient wheeler and rides off for help to Bagshot. In 

 under an hour the landlord of The King's Arms is seen 

 approaching, with anticipation of a week's good company 

 beaming in his eye, and surrounded by a goodly array 

 of stable boys bearing torches, and ostlers armed with 

 staves. There is also brandy for the frost-bitten, and a 

 post-chaise for the wounded. The timely succour is 

 greeted by the castaways with a faint cheer. Truth to 

 say it has not come before it was wanted, or before the 

 guard, still on highwaymen intent, has fired off his empty 

 blunderbuss at the party of rescue. All the way to The 

 King's Arms he babbles of the hundred pounds due to him 

 for ridding the heath of a footpad ; the shepherd consults 

 the lawyer meanwhile as to damages and as to how an 

 action would lie ; the captain swears that his recent 

 experience was nothing to what he has known in the 

 Low Countries ; Mirabel presses Belinda's hand, and the 

 pressure is ever so faintly returned ; the snow falls and 

 falls as if it never intended to stop, and the party arrive 

 finally at The King's Arms, Bagshot, where a wonderful 

 display of good cheer oppresses a groaning table — 

 " Iris-tinted rounds of beef, marble-veined ribs, gelatinous 

 veal pies, colossal hams, gallons of old ale, bins full of 

 old port and burgundy." 



And here, in the midst of old English plenty, my 

 travellers are snowed up for nearly a week. And 

 Mirabel proposes to Belinda, and is accepted ; and the 

 man of law drinks a congratulatory bottle of port with 

 the fortunate wooer ; and proposes himself to the widow 

 next day, and is refused ; and Mirabel drinks a bottle 

 of port with him — a consolatory one this time ; and 

 the guard is forgiven by the shepherd ; and the captain 

 is rude to Betty the chambermaid, and gets his face 

 slapped for his pains in a long oak corridor ; and so in 

 the old coaching days, when Exeter was five days' 

 journey from London, and ladies wore hoops and 

 farthingales, and gentlemen bag wigs and three-cornered 

 hats, the old coaching world went round. 



