334 STAGE-COACH AND MAIL IN DAYS OF YORE 



among their acquaintance such proper young 

 men as Roderick llandom, who in Smollett's 

 romance performs such prodigies of valour in 

 the "Exeter My" somewhere about the neigh- 

 bourhood of Turnham Green. 



"When I had taken my seat," says E^oderick, 

 after an adventure of the kind already hinted at, 

 " Miss Snapper, who from the coach had seen 

 everything that had happened, made me a com- 

 pliment on my behaviour ; and said she Avas glad 

 to see me returned without having received 

 any injury ; her mother, too, owned herself 

 obliged to my resolution ; and the lawyer told 

 me I was entitled by Act of Parliament to a 

 reward of forty pounds for having apprehended 

 a highwayman. The soldier " — who had behaved 

 in the conventional style of poltroonery — ■'' ob- 

 served, with a countenance in which impudence 

 and shame, struggling, produced some disorder, 



that if I had not been in such a d d hurry 



to get out of the coach, he would have secured 

 the rogue effectually without all this bustle and 

 loss of time, by a scheme which my heat and 

 precipitation ruined. ' Por my part,' continued 

 he, ' I am always extremely cool on these 

 occasions.' 



" ' So it appeared by your trembling,' said 

 the young lady. 



" ' Death and the deuce ! ' cried he. ' Your 

 sex protects you, madam ; if any man on earth 

 durst tell me so much, I'd send him to hell in 

 an instant.' 



