from a lantern below travelled round the bare wall and was gone. Beyond the window the still night was crazy with clatter of boots on the flags, and grating of wheels and the ring of iron on stone as startled horses plunged out of the boxes. And the pelted talk of the stableman was virile and very real. He rolled out on the floor.
“It’ll take the all of two hours. Will we catch the train? Is he bad yet?”
“There was too many tellin’ fur me to know anythin’. You got to be back in time to take the reg’lar coach down. That’s all I care. An’ as I had to guv yer a scratch team, you’ve got the old coach, Randal. It don’t matter if you smash that up.”
“D———,” said Randal, and clawed round the bedfoot for his clothes.
He took the steep back-stairs three at a time, and raced round to the mews. The stir of haste and disgust leavened all things. The men showed half -clothed in the lantern flashes, and from the moving rush of strenuous faces and hairy glossed quarters a voice cursed, copious and profound. Randal was utterly weary, for he had been on the box all day. Besides, he was robbed of the sleep which only gave him forgetfulness. He dived in where the jangle of steel sounded round the coach bulk, and grabbed a stableman under the fore carriage.
