THE CRIME IN THE SUMMER-HOUSE.

Mrs. Stimcoe, having begged Captain Branscome to take watch for a while over the invalid, and having helped me to pack a few clothes in a handbag, herself accompanied me to the coach-office, where we found the Royal Mail on the point of starting.  The outside passengers, four in number, had already taken their seats—­two on the box beside the coachman, and two on the seat immediately behind; and by the light of the lamp overhanging the entry I perceived that their heads were together in close conversation, in which the coachman himself from time to time took a share, slewing round to listen or interject a word and anon breaking off to direct the stowage of a parcel or call an order to the stable-boys.  Mrs. Stimcoe had stepped into the office to book my place, and while I waited for her, watching the preparations for departure, my curiosity led me forward to take a look at the horses.  There, under the lamp, the coachman caught sight of me.

“Whe-ew!” I heard him whistle.  “Here’s the boy himself!  Going along wi’ us, sonny?” he asked, looking down on me and speaking down in a voice which seemed to me unnaturally gentle—­for I remembered him as a gruff fellow and irascible.  The outside passengers at once broke off their talk to lean over and take stock of me; and this again struck me as queer.

“Jim!” called the coachman (Jim was the guard).  “Jim!”

“Ay, ay!” answered Jim, from the back of the roof, where he was arranging the mail-bags.

“Here’s an outside extry.”  He lowered his voice, so that I caught only these words:  “The youngster . . .  Minden Cottage . . .  I reckoned they’d be sending—­”

“Hey?”

Jim the guard bent over for a look at me, and scrambled down by the steps of his dickey, just as Mrs. Stimcoe emerged from the office.  She was pale and agitated, and stood for a moment gazing about her distractedly, when Jim blundered against her, whereat she put out a hand and spoke to him.  I saw Jim fall back a step and touch his hat.  He was listening, with a very serious face.  I could not hear what she said.

“Cert’nly, ma’m’,” he answered.  “Cert’nly, under the circumstances, you may depend on me.”

He mounted the coach again, and, climbing forward whispered in the back of the coachman’s ear.  The passengers bent their heads to listen.  They nodded; the coachman nodded too, and stretched down a hand.

“Can you climb, sonny, or shall we fetch the steps for you?  There, I reckoned you was more of a man than to need ’em!”

Mrs. Stimcoe detained me for a moment to fold me in a masculine hug.  But her bosom might have been encased in an iron corselet for all the tenderness it conveyed.  “God bless you, Harry Brooks, and try to be a man!” Her embrace relaxed, and with a dry-sounding sob she let me go as I caught the coachman’s hand and was swung up to my seat; and with that we were off and up the cobble-paved street at a rattle.