Works of Charles Dickens - Charles Dickens [6592]
The day was hot and sunny, the town in the zenith of its dulness, and with the exception of these few idlers, not a living creature was to be seen. Suddenly, the loud notes of a key-bugle broke the monotonous stillness of the street; in came the coach, rattling over the uneven paving with a noise startling enough to stop even the large-faced clock itself. Down got the outsides, up went the windows in all directions, out came the waiters, up started the ostlers, and the loungers, and the post-boys, and the ragged boys, as if they were electrified--unstrapping, and unchaining, and unbuckling, and dragging willing horses out, and forcing reluctant horses in, and making a most exhilarating bustle. 'Lady inside, here!' said the guard. 'Please to alight, ma'am,' said the waiter. 'Private sitting-room?' interrogated the lady. 'Certainly, ma'am,' responded the chamber-maid. 'Nothing but these 'ere trunks, ma'am?' inquired the guard. 'Nothing more,' replied the lady. Up got the outsides again, and the guard, and the coachman; off came the cloths, with a jerk; 'All right,' was the cry; and away they went. The loungers lingered a minute or two in the road, watching the coach until it turned the corner, and then loitered away one by one. The street was clear again, and the town, by contrast, quieter than ever.
'Lady in number twenty-five,' screamed the landlady.--'Thomas!'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'Letter just been left for the gentleman in number nineteen. Boots at the Lion left it. No answer.'
'Letter for you, sir,' said Thomas, depositing the letter on number nineteen's table.
'For me?' said number nineteen, turning from the window, out of which he had been surveying the scene just described.
'Yes, sir,'--(waiters always speak in hints, and never utter complete sentences,)--'yes, sir,--Boots at the Lion, sir,--Bar, sir,--Missis said number nineteen, sir--Alexander Trott, Esq., sir?--Your card at the bar, sir, I think, sir?'
'My name IS Trott,' replied number nineteen, breaking the seal. 'You may go, waiter.' The waiter pulled down the window-blind, and then pulled it up again--for a regular waiter must do something before he leaves the room--adjusted the glasses on the side-board, brushed a place that was NOT dusty, rubbed his hands very hard, walked stealthily to the door, and evaporated.
There was, evidently, something in the contents of the letter, of a nature, if not wholly unexpected, certainly extremely disagreeable. Mr. Alexander Trott laid it down, and took it up again, and walked about the room on particular squares of the carpet, and even attempted, though unsuccessfully, to whistle an air. It wouldn't do. He threw himself into a chair, and read the following epistle aloud:-
'Blue Lion and Stomach-warmer, 'Great Winglebury. 'Wednesday Morning.
'Sir. Immediately on discovering your intentions, I left our counting-house, and followed you. I know the purport of your journey;--that journey shall never be completed.
'I have no friend here, just now, on whose secrecy I can rely. This shall be no obstacle to my revenge. Neither shall Emily Brown be exposed to the mercenary solicitations of a scoundrel, odious in her eyes, and contemptible in everybody else's: nor will I tamely submit to the clandestine attacks of a base umbrella-maker.
'Sir. From Great Winglebury church, a footpath leads through four meadows to a retired spot known to the townspeople as Stiffun's Acre.' [Mr. Trott shuddered.] 'I shall be waiting there alone, at twenty minutes before six o'clock to-morrow morning. Should I be disappointed in seeing you there, I will do myself the pleasure of calling with a horsewhip.
'HORACE