Mary thanked him and went in.  She was not, however, quite sure that her baggage was safe, intrusted thus to the charge of a strange boy, and so she took a seat near the window, where she could keep an eye upon it.  There was a blue chest near these trunks, which looked like a sailor’s chest, and Marco, being tired of standing, sat down upon this chest.  He had, however, scarcely taken his seat, when he saw a coach with four horses, coming round a corner.  It was driven by a small boy not larger than Marco.  It wheeled up toward the door, and came to a stand.  Some men then put on the sailor’s chest and the trunks.  Mary Williams came out and got into the coach.  She sat on the back seat.  Forester and Marco got in, and took their places on the middle seat.  A young man, dressed like a sailor, took the front seat, at one corner of the coach.  These were all the passengers that were to get in here.  When every thing was ready, they drove away.

The stage stopped, however, in a few minutes at the door of a handsome house in the town, and took a gentleman and lady in.  These new passengers took places on the back seat, with Mary Williams.

This company rode in perfect silence for some time.  Forester took out a book and began to read.  The gentleman on the back seat went to sleep.  Mary Williams and Marco looked out at the windows, watching the changing scenery.  The sailor rode in silence; moving his lips now and then, as if he were talking to himself, but taking no notice of any of the company.  The coach stopped at the villages which they passed through, to exchange the mail, and sometimes to take in new passengers.  In the course of these changes Marco got his place shifted to the forward seat by the side of the sailor, and he gradually got into conversation with him.  Marco introduced the conversation, by asking the sailor if he knew how far it was to Montpelier.

“No,” said the sailor, “I don’t keep any reckoning, but I wish we were there.”

“Why?” asked Marco.

“O, I expect the old cart will capsize somewhere among these mountains, and break our necks for us.”

Marco had observed, all the morning, that when the coach canted to one side or the other, on account of the unevenness of the road, the sailor always started and looked anxious, as if afraid it was going to be upset.  He wondered that a man who had been apparently accustomed to the terrible dangers of the seas, should be alarmed at the gentle oscillations of a stage-coach.

“Are you afraid that we shall upset?” asked Marco.

“Yes,” said the sailor, “over some of these precipices and mountains; and then there’ll be an end of us.”

The sailor said this in an easy and careless manner, as if, after all, he was not much concerned about the danger.  Still, Marco was surprised that he should fear it at all.  He was not aware how much the fears which people feel, are occasioned by the mere novelty of the danger which they incur.  A stage-driver, who is calm and composed on his box, in a dark night, and upon dangerous roads, will be alarmed by the careening of a ship under a gentle breeze at sea,—­while the sailor who laughs at a gale of wind on the ocean, is afraid to ride in a carriage on land.