When, however, they cleared the noble lodge and got upon the unscraped mud of the Deepdebt turnpike, the pace soon slackened, and, instead of the gig running away with the old mare, she was fairly brought to her collar.  Being a game one, however, she struggled on with a trot, till at length, turning up the deeply spurlinged, clayey bottomed cross-road between Rookgate and Clamley, it was all she could do to drag the gig through the holding mire.  Bump, bump, jolt, jolt, creak, creak, went the vehicle.  Jack now diving his elbow into the lad’s ribs, the lad now diving his into Jack’s; both now threatening to go over on the same side, and again both nearly chucked on to the old mare’s quarters.  A sharp, cutting sleet, driving pins and needles directly in their faces, further disconcerted our travellers.  Jack felt acutely for his new eight-and-sixpenny hat, it being the only article of dress he had on of his own.

Long and tedious as was the road, weak and jaded as was the mare, and long as Jack stopped at Starfield, he yet reached Jawleyford Court before the messenger Harry.

As our friend Jawleyford was stamping about his study anathematizing a letter he had received from the solicitor to the directors of the Doembrown and Sinkall Railway, informing him that they were going to indulge in the winding-up act, he chanced to look out of his window just as the contracted limits of a winter’s day were drawing the first folds of night’s muslin curtain over the landscape, when he espied a gig drawn by a white horse, with a dot-and-go-one sort of action, hopping its way up the slumpey avenue.

‘That’s Buggins the bailiff,’ exclaimed he to himself, as the recollection of an unanswered lawyer’s letter flashed across his mind; and he was just darting off to the bell to warn Spigot not to admit any one, when the lad’s cockade, standing in relief against the sky-line, caused him to pause and gaze again at the unwonted apparition.

‘Who the deuce can it be?’ asked he of himself, looking at his watch, and seeing it was a quarter-past four.  ’It surely can’t be my lord, or that Jack Spraggon coming after all?’ added he, drawing out a telescope and opening a lancet-window.

‘Spraggon, as I live!’ exclaimed he, as he caught Jack’s harsh, spectacled features, and saw him titivating his hair and arranging his collar and stock as he approached.

‘Well, that beats everything!’ exclaimed Jawleyford, burning with rage as he fastened the window again.

He stood for a few seconds transfixed to the spot, not knowing what on earth to do.  At last resolution came to his aid, and, rushing upstairs to his dressing-room, he quickly divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and slipped on a dressing-gown and night-cap.  He then stood, door in hand, listening for the arrival.  He could just hear the gig grinding under the portico, and distinguish Jack’s gruff voice saying to the servant from the top of the steps, ‘We’ll start directly after breakfast, mind.’  A tremendous peal of the bell immediately followed, convulsing the whole house, for nobody had seen the vehicle approaching, and the establishment had fallen into the usual state of undress torpor that intervenes between calling hours and dinner-time.