the palings at these mails - about a dozen of which he remembered to

have seen, crowded together in a very forlorn and dismantled state,

inside. My uncle was a very enthusiastic, emphatic sort of person,

gentlemen; so, finding that he could not obtain a good peep between

the palings he got over them, and sitting himself quietly down on an

old axle-tree, began to contemplate the mail coaches with a deal of

gravity.

'There might be a dozen of them, or there might be more - my uncle

was never quite certain on this point, and being a man of very

scrupulous veracity about numbers, didn't like to say - but there they

stood, all huddled together in the most desolate condition imaginable.

The doors had been torn from their hinges and removed; the linings

had been stripped off, only a shred hanging here and there by a rusty

nail; the lamps were gone, the poles had long since vanished, the

ironwork was rusty, the paint was worn away; the wind whistled

through the chinks in the bare woodwork; and the rain, which had

collected on the roofs, fell, drop by drop, into the insides with a hollow

and melancholy sound. They were the decaying skeletons of departed

mails, and in that lonely place, at that time of night, they looked chill

and dismal.

'My uncle rested his head upon his hands, and thought of the busy,

bustling people who had rattled about, years before, in the old

coaches, and were now as silent and changed; he thought of the

numbers of people to whom one of these crazy, mouldering vehicles

had borne, night after night, for many years, and through all

weathers, the anxiously expected intelligence, the eagerly looked-for

remittance, the promised assurance of health and safety, the sudden

announcement of sickness and death. The merchant, the lover, the

wife, the widow, the mother, the school- boy, the very child who

tottered to the door at the postman's knock - how had they all looked

forward to the arrival of the old coach. And where were they all now?

Gentlemen, my uncle used to SAY that he thought all this at the time,

but I rather suspect he learned it out of some book afterwards, for he

distinctly stated that he fell into a kind of doze, as he sat on the old

axle-tree looking at the decayed mail coaches, and that he was

suddenly awakened by some deep church bell striking two. Now, my

uncle was never a fast thinker, and if he had thought all these things,

I am quite certain it would have taken him till full half-past two

o'clock at the very least. I am, therefore, decidedly of opinion,

gentlemen, that my uncle fell into a kind of doze, without having

thought about anything at all.

Be this as it may, a church bell struck two. My uncle woke, rubbed

his eyes, and jumped up in astonishment.

The Pickwick Papers