'I won't go in this chaise!' shouted Mr. Alexander Trott, all his original fears recurring with tenfold violence. 'I shall be assassinated - I shall be - '
'Bravo, bravo,' whispered Overton. 'I'll push you in.'
'But I won't go,' exclaimed Mr. Trott. 'Help here, help! They're carrying me away against my will. This is a plot to murder me.'
'Poor dear!' said Mrs. Williamson again.
'Now, boys, put 'em along,' cried the mayor, pushing Trott in and slamming the door. 'Off with you, as quick as you can, and stop for nothing till you come to the next stage - all right!'
'Horses are paid, Tom,' screamed Mrs. Williamson; and away went the chaise, at the rate of fourteen miles an hour, with Mr. Alexander Trott and Miss Julia Manners carefully shut up in the inside.
Mr. Alexander Trott remained coiled up in one corner of the chaise, and his mysterious companion in the other, for the first two or three miles; Mr. Trott edging more and more into his corner, as he felt his companion gradually edging more and more from hers; and vainly endeavouring in the darkness to catch a glimpse of the furious face of the supposed Horace Hunter.
'We may speak now,' said his fellow-traveller, at length; 'the post-boys can neither see nor hear us.'
'That's not Hunter's voice!' - thought Alexander, astonished.
'Dear Lord Peter!' said Miss Julia, most winningly: putting her arm on Mr. Trott's shoulder. 'Dear Lord Peter. Not a word?'
'Why, it's a woman!' exclaimed Mr. Trott, in a low tone of excessive wonder.
'Ah! Whose voice is that?' said Julia; ''tis not Lord Peter's.'
'No, - it's mine,' replied Mr. Trott.
'Yours!' ejaculated Miss Julia Manners; 'a strange man! Gracious heaven! How came you here!'
'Whoever you are, you might have known that I came against my will, ma'am,' replied Alexander, 'for I made noise enough when I got in.'
'Do you come from Lord Peter?' inquired Miss Manners.
'Confound Lord Peter,' replied Trott pettishly. 'I don't know any Lord Peter. I never heard of him before to-night, when I've been Lord Peter'd by one and Lord Peter'd by another, till I verily believe I'm mad, or dreaming - '
'Whither are we going?' inquired the lady tragically.
'How should I know, ma'am?' replied Trott with singular coolness;for the events of the evening had completely hardened him.
'Stop stop!' cried the lady, letting down the front glasses of the chaise.
'Stay, my dear ma'am!' said Mr. Trott, pulling the glasses up again with one hand, and gently squeezing Miss Julia's waist with the other. 'There is some mistake here; give me till the end of this stage to explain my share of it. We must go so far; you cannot be set down here alone, at this hour of the night.'
The lady consented; the mistake was mutually explained. Mr. Trott was a young man, had highly promising whiskers, an undeniable tailor, and an insinuating address - he wanted nothing but valour, and who wants that with three thousand a-year? The lady had this, and more; she wanted a young husband, and the only course open to Mr. Trott to retrieve his disgrace was a rich wife. So, they came to the conclusion that it would be a pity to have all this trouble and expense for nothing; and that as they were so far on the road already, they had better go to Gretna Green, and marry each other;and they did so. And the very next preceding entry in the Blacksmith's book, was an entry of the marriage of Emily Brown with Horace Hunter. Mr. Hunter took his wife home, and begged pardon, and WAS pardoned; and Mr. Trott took HIS wife home, begged pardon too, and was pardoned also. And Lord Peter, who had been detained beyond his time by drinking champagne and riding a steeple-chase, went back to the Honourable Augustus Flair's, and drank more champagne, and rode another steeple-chase, and was thrown and killed. And Horace Hunter took great credit to himself for practising on the cowardice of Alexander Trott; and all these circumstances were discovered in time, and carefully noted down;and if you ever stop a week at the Winglebury Arms, they will give you just this account of The Great Winglebury Duel.