GUARDS AND THEIR FEES. 397 



as lie expressed it, had eyes that looked through him. 

 Being a young man, and not wholly unsusceptible to 

 female charms, he entered into conversation respect- 

 ing her luggage. She remarked that he seemed a 

 good-natured person, and asked him to accompany 

 her into the coffee-room, where she gave him some 

 wine, saying that they should probably become better 

 acquainted during the journey, and succeeded in in- 

 ducing him to take her boxes. They were accordingly 

 put up on the coach, which at the usual time started 

 with four ladies inside, of whom the owner of the 

 boxes was one. At more than one place on the 

 journey, when the coach stopped for changes, the 

 guard was told that the lady was very ill, when 

 he went to the door, and suggested that she should 

 have. a little brandy, which he procured for her; but 

 on arriving at a little out-of-the-way place, about one 

 o'clock in the morning, where no medical or other 

 assistance was procurable, her condition had become 

 so serious that the coachman galloped over the stage 

 as fast as he could go, in order to reach Deptford 

 Inn. The usual time of arriving there was about two 

 o'clock in the morning, when the house was always 

 closed, and all the inmates in bed. It happened, 

 however, that on this particular morning the land- 

 lord's son haying passed his medical examination 

 in London, had come down, and the event was being 



