ll
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.

'In one instant, after the clock struck two, the whole of this deserted
and quiet spot had become a scene of most extraordinary life and
animation. The mail coach doors were on their hinges, the lining was
replaced, the ironwork was as good as new, the paint was restored, the
lamps were alight; cushions and greatcoats were on every coach-box,
porters