by the hand, while the horses were changing.
And because I had a bundle of tracts that fitted their condition, and
because the newly married often pay for a thing beyond its worth, I
approached the chaise-door.

The fresh horses were in as I began my apologies; and the post-boy
was settling himself in the saddle. Judge of my astonishment when he
leant back, cut me sharply across the calves with his long whip, and
before I could yell had started his horses up the opposite hill at a
gallop. The hind wheel missed my toes by an inch. In three minutes
the carriage and red coat were but a speck on the road that led up to
the downs.

I returned to my mug, emptied it moodily, broke a fine repartee on
the sergeant's dull head (he was consumed with mirth), and followed
the same road at a slow pace; for my business took me along it.

I was on the downs, and had walked, perhaps, six miles, when again I
saw the red speck ahead of me. It was the post-boy--a post-boy
returning on foot, of all miracles. He came straight up to meet me,
and then stood in the road, barring my path, and tapping his
riding-boot with the butt of his whip--a handsome young fellow, well
proportioned and well set up.

"I want you," he said, "to walk back with me to Bleakirk."

"Upon my word!" I cried out. "Considering that Bleakirk is six miles
away, that I am walking in the other direction, and that, two hours
back, you gave me a cursed cut over the legs with that whip, I fancy
I see myself obliging you!"

He regarded me moodily for about a minute, but did not shift his
position.

"Why are you on foot?" I asked.

"Oh, my God!" he cried out quickly, as a man might that was stabbed;
"I couldn't trust myself to ride; I _couldn't_." He shuddered, and
put a hand over his eyes. "Look here," he said, "you _must_ walk
home with me, or at least see me past the Chalk-pit."

Now the Chalk-pit, when spelt with a capital letter, is an especially
deep and ugly one on the very edge of the Bleakirk road, about two
miles out of the village. A weak fence only separates its lip from
the macadam. It is a nasty place to pass by night with a carriage;
but here it was broad day, and the fellow was walking. So I didn't
take him at all.

"Listen to me," he went on in a dull voice; "do you remember sitting
beside this road, close on ten years back? And a boy and girl who
came along this road together and asked you to marry them?"

"Bless my soul! Were yo