‘The lady bears my name, Mr. Chumley Potts.’

With a bow to the lady’s profile and a mention of a glimpse at Baden, Potts ejaculated:  ‘It happened this morning?’

‘You allude to the marriage.  It happened this morning.’

‘How do I get to Canleys?’

’I drive you.  Another team from the Esslemont stables is waiting at the Royal.’

‘You stay at Canleys?’

‘No.’

’No?  Oh!  Funny, upon my word.  Though I don’t know why not—­except that people . . .’

‘Count your winnings, Chummy.’

Fleetwood remarked to his bride:  ’Our friend has the habit of soliloquizing in company.  I forgot to tell you of an appointment of mine at a place called Canleys, about twenty miles or more from here.  I gave my word, so I keep it.  The landlady at the inn, Mrs. Rundles, motherly kind of woman; she will be attentive.  They don’t cook badly, for an English inn, I have heard.  Madge here will act as your lady’s-maid for the time.  You will find her serviceable; she’s a bruiser’s lass and something above it.  Ines informed me, Madge, you were going to friends of yours at the Wells.  You will stay at the Royal and wait on this lady, who bears my name.  You understand?—­A girl I can trust for courage, if the article is in request,’ he resumed to his bride; and talked generally of the inn and the management of it, and its favoured position outside the village and contiguous to the river, upon which it subsisted.

Carinthia had heard.  She was more than ever the stunned young woman she had been since her mounting of the coach, between the village church and Lekkatts.

She said not a word.  Why should she? her object was won.  Give her that, and a woman’s tongue will consent to rest.  The dreaded weapon rest, also when she is kept spinning by the whip.  She gives out a pleasant hum, too.  Her complexion must be pronounced dull in repose.  A bride on her travels with an aspect of wet chalk, rather helps to scare mankind from marriage:  which may be good or bad; but she reflects a sicklier hue on the captured Chessman calling her his own.  Let her shine in privacy.

Fleetwood drew up at the Royal Sovereign, whereof the reigning monarch, in blue uniform on the signboard, curtseyed to his equally windy subjects; and a small congregation of the aged, and some cripples and infants, greeted the patron of Old England’s manfullest display, cheering at news of the fight, brought them by many little runners.

‘Your box has been conveyed to your room,’ he said to his bride.

She bowed.  This time she descended the coach by the aid of the ladder.

Ines, victorious in battle, had scant notice from his love.  ’Yes, I ’m glad,’ and she passed him to follow her newly constituted mistress.  His pride was dashed, all the foam of the first draw on the top of him blown off, as he figuratively explained the cause of his gloom to the earl.  ’I drink and I gets a licking—­that girl nurses and cossets me.  I don’t drink and I whops my man—­she shows me her back.  Ain’t it encouragement, my lord?’