‘Alight here,’ said the guard, letting down the steps.

‘Here!’ cried my uncle.

‘Here,’ rejoined the guard.

‘I'll do nothing of the sort,’ said my uncle.

‘Very well, then stop where you are,’ said the guard.

‘I will,’ said my uncle.

‘Do,’ said the guard.

The passengers had regarded this colloquy with great attention, and,

finding that my uncle was determined not to alight, the younger man

squeezed past him, to hand the lady out. At this moment, the ill-

looking man was inspecting the hole in the crown of his three-

cornered hat. As the young lady brushed past, she dropped one of her

gloves into my uncle's hand, and softly whispered, with her lips so

close to his face that he felt her warm breath on his nose, the single

word ‘Help!’ Gentlemen, my uncle leaped out of the coach at once,

with such violence that it rocked on the springs again.

'‘Oh! you've thought better of it, have you?’ said the guard, when he

saw my uncle standing on the ground.

'My uncle looked at the guard for a few seconds, in some doubt

whether it wouldn't be better to wrench his blunderbuss from him, fire

it in the face of the man with the big sword, knock the rest of the

company over the head with the stock, snatch up the young lady, and

go off in the smoke. On second thoughts, however, he abandoned this

plan, as being a shade too melodramatic in the execution, and

followed the two mysterious men, who, keeping the lady between

them, were now entering an old house in front of which the coach had

stopped. They turned into the passage, and my uncle followed.

Of all the ruinous and desolate places my uncle had ever beheld, this

was the most so. It looked as if it had once been a large house of

entertainment; but the roof had fallen in, in many places, and the

stairs were steep, rugged, and broken. There was a huge fireplace in

the room into which they walked, and the chimney was blackened

with smoke; but no warm blaze lighted it up now. The white feathery

dust of burned wood was still strewed over the hearth, but the stove

was cold, and all was dark and gloomy.

‘Well,’ said my uncle, as he looked about him, ‘a mail travelling at the

rate of six miles and a half an hour, and stopping for an indefinite

The Pickwick Papers