A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE FIRST RECALLED TO LIFE - CHAPTER II The Mail

Description

• Author: Charles Dickens

It was the Dover road that lay, on a
Friday night late in November, before the first of the persons with whom this history has
business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up
Shooter's Hill. He walked uphill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the
passengers did; not because they had the least relish for walking exercise, under the
circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all
so heavy that the horses had three times already come to a stop, beside once drawing the
coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and
whip and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of war which
forbad a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are
endued with Reason; and the team had capitulated and returned to their duty.

With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud,
floundering and stumbling he between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the
large joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary
`Wo-ho! so-ho then!' the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it--like
an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever the
leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was
disturbed in mind.

There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it hat roamed in its forlornness up the
hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold
mist, made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread
one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out
everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings and a few yards of
road; and the reek of the labouring horse steamed into it, as if they had made it all.

Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail.
All three were wrapped to the cheek-bones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one
of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like;
and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the
eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of being
confidential on short notice, for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with
robbers. As to the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce
somebody in `the Captain's' pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable
nondescript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail
thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and
seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind
the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him,
where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols,
deposited on a substratum of cutlass.

The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers,
the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and
the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear
conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the
journey.

`Wo-ho!' said the coachman. `So, then One more pull and you're at the top and be damned to
you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to it--Joe!'

`Halloa' the guard replied.

`What o'clock do you make it, Joe?'

`Ten minutes, good, past eleven.'

`My blood' ejaculated the vexed coachman, `and not atop of Shooter's yet! Tst! Yah! Get on
with you!'

The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided
scramble for it, and the three other horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail
  struggled on, with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by its side.
They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one
of the three had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead into
the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly
as a highwayman.

The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses stopped to breathe
again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel for the descent, and open the coach-door
to let the passengers in.

`Tst Joe!' cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down from his box.

What do you say, Tom?'

They both listened.

`I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.'

`I say a horse at a gallop, Tom,' returned the guard, leaving his hold of the door, and
mounting nimbly to his place. `Gentlemen!

In
the king's name, all of you!'

With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on the offensive.

The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step: getting in; the two other
passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in
the coach and half out of it; they remained in the road below him. They all looked from
the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman
looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears
and looked back, without contradicting.

The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouring of the coach,
added to the stillness of he night made it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses
communicated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a state o] agitation.
The hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the
quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding the breath, an'
having the pulses quickened by expectation.

The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill.

`So-ho!' the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. `Yo there! Stand! I shall fire!'

The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, a man's voice
called from the mist, `Is that the Dover mail'

`Never you mind what it is?' the guard retorted. `Wham are you'

`Is that the Dover mail'

`Why do you want to know'

`I want a passenger, if it is.'

`What passenger',

`Mr. Jarvis Lorry.'

Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, the coachman, and
the two other passengers eyed him distrustfully.

`Keep where you are,' the guard called to the voice in the mist, `because, if I should
make a mistake, it could never be set right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of
Lorry answer straight.'

`What is the matter' asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering speech. `Who wants
me? Is it Jerry'

(`I don't like Jerry's voice, if it is Jerry,' growled the guard to himself. `He's hoarser
than suits me, is Jerry.')

`Yes, Mr. Lorry.'

`What is the matter'

`A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co.'

`I know this messenger, guard,' said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the road--assisted from
behind more swiftly than politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scrambled
into he coach, shut the door, and pulled, up the window. `He may come close; there's
nothing wrong.'

`I hope there ain't, but I can't make so `Nation sure of that,' said the guard, in gruff
soliloquy. `Hallo you!'

`Well! And hallo you!' said Jerry, more hoarsely than before.

`Come on at a footpace! d'ye mind me? And if you've got holsters to that saddle o' yourn,
don't let me see your hand go nigh 'em. For I'm a devil at a quick mistake, and when I
make one it takes the form of Lead. So now let's look at you.'

The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, and came to the
side of the mail, where the passenger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes
at the guard, handed the passenger a small folded paper. The rider's horse was blown, and
both horse and rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of the
man.

`Guard!' said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence.

The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised blunderbuss, his left
at the barrel, and his eye On the horseman, answered curtly, `Sir.'

`There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson's Bank. You must know Tellson's Bank
in London. I am going to Paris on business. A crown to drink. I may read this'

`If so be as you're quick, sir.'

He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and read--first to himself and
then aloud: `"Wait at Door for Mam'selle." It's not long, you see, guard. Jerry,
say that my answer was, RECALLED TO LIFE.'

Jerry started in his saddle. `That`s a Blazing strange answer, too,' said he, at his
hoarsest.

`Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as well as if I wrote.
Make the best of your way. Good night.'

With those words the passenger opened tile coach-door and got in; not at all assisted by
his fellow-passengers, who had expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their
boots, and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. With no more definite
purpose than to escape the hazard of originating any other kind of action.

The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round it as it began the
descent. The guard soon replaced his blunderbuss in his arm-chest, and, having looked to
the rest of its contents, and having looked to the supplementary pistols
that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were
a few smith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was furnished with that
completeness that if the coach-lamps had been blown and stormed out, which
did occasionally happen, he had only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel
sparks well off the straw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he were
lucky) in five minutes.

`Tom!' softly over the coach-roof.

`Hallo, Joe.'

`Did you hear the message'

`I did, Joe.'

`What did you make of it, Tom'

`Nothing at all, Joe.'

`That's a coincidence, too,' the guard mused, `for I made the same of it myself Jerry,
left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not only to ease his spent
horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which
might be capable of holding about half a gallon. After standing with the bridle over his
heavily-splashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing and the
night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill.

`After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won't trust your fore-legs till I
get you on the level,' said this hoarse messenger, glancing at his mare. `"Recalled
to life." That's a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn't do for you Jerry! I
say, Jerry! You'd be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion,
Jerry!'

Disclaimer:
Contents of this page are indexed from the Internet. All actions are under your responsability. Email us to report illegal contents or external links and we'll remove them immediately.

Please check the description for download links if any or do a search to find alternative books.

Can't Download?
Please search mirrors if you can't find download links for "A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE FIRST RECALLED TO LIFE - CHAPTER II The Mail" in "Description" and someone else may update the links. Check the comments when back to find any updates.

Search Mirrors
Maybe some mirror pages will be helpful, search this book at top of this page or click here to find more info.

1. Ebooks list page : 258
2. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE FIRST RECALLED TO LIFE - CHAPTER IV The Preparation
3. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE FIRST RECALLED TO LIFE - CHAPTER I The Period
4. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE FIRST RECALLED TO LIFE - CHAPTER VI The Shoemaker
5. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE FIRST RECALLED TO LIFE - CHAPTER V The Wine-shop
6. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE FIRST RECALLED TO LIFE - CHAPTER III The Night Shadows
7. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE THIRD THE TRACK OF A STORM - CHAPTER XIV The Knitting Done
8. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE THIRD THE TRACK OF A STORM - CHAPTER XV The Footsteps Die out for Ever
9. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE SECOND THE GOLDEN THREAD - CHAPTER III A Disappointment
10. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE THIRD THE TRACK OF A STORM - CHAPTER XII Darkness
11. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE THIRD THE TRACK OF A STORM - CHAPTER XI Dusk
12. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE SECOND THE GOLDEN THREAD - CHAPTER X Two Promises
13. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE THIRD THE TRACK OF A STORM - CHAPTER III The Shadow
14. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE THIRD THE TRACK OF A STORM - CHAPTER I In Secret
15. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE SECOND THE GOLDEN THREAD - CHAPTER XV Knitting
16. A Tale Of Two Cities - BOOK THE SECOND THE GOLDEN THREAD - CHAPTER I Five Years Later