jump inside, when down on his head came
rolling a couple of Dutch cheeses that Mrs. Polwhele had crammed on
the top of her belongings. This raised his temper, and he began to
drag parcel after parcel out and fling them in the mud, shouting that
no passenger had a right to fill up the inside of a coach in that
fashion. Thereupon Jim sent an ostler running to the landlady that
owned the Highflyer, and she told Bligh that he hadn't booked his
seat yet: that the inside was reserved for Mrs. Polwhele: and that he
could either take an outside place and behave himself, or be left
behind to learn manners. For a while he showed fight: but Mr. Sharl
managed to talk sense into him, and the parcels were stowed again and
the door shut but a minute before Mrs. Polwhele came downstairs and
took her seat as innocent as a lamb.

"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" struck in Jim the
Guard, making himself heard above the pillaloo. "Carry on as if the
coach belonged to ye, hey? Come down and take your coat off, like a
man, and don't sit there making fool faces at me!"

"My friend is not making faces," began Mr. Sharl, very gentle-like,
trying to keep the peace.

"Call yourself his friend!" Jim snapped him up. "Get off, the pair
of you. Friend indeed! Go and buy him a veil."

But 'twas easily seen that Mrs. Polwhele couldn't be carried farther.
So Sammy Hosking pulled up at a farmhouse a mile beyond St. Germans:
and there she was unloaded, with her traps, and put straight to bed:
and a farm-boy sent back to Torpoint to fetch a chaise for her as
soon as she recovered. And the Highflyer--that had been delayed
three-quarters of an hour--rattled off at a gallop, with all on board
in the worst of tempers.

When they reached Falmouth--which was not till after ten o'clock at
night--and drew up at the "Crown and Anchor," the first man to hail
them was old Parson Polwhele, standing there under the lamp in the
entry and taking snuff to keep himself awake.

"Well, my love," says he, stepping forward to help his wife down and
give her a kiss. "And how have you enjoyed the journey?"

But instead of his wife 'twas a bull-necked-looking man that swung
himself off the coach-roof, knocking the Parson aside, and bounced
into the inn without so much as a "beg your pardon."

Parson Polwhele was taken aback for the moment by reason that he'd
pretty nigh kissed the fellow by accident; and before he could
recover, Jim the Guard