It was a cold grey day in late November. The weather had changed overnight, when a backing
wind brought a granite sky and a mizzling rain with it, and although it was now only a little after
two o’clock in the afternoon the pallor of a winter evening seemed to have closed upon the hills,
cloaking them in mist. It would be dark by four. The air was clammy cold, and for all the tightly
closed windows it penetrated the interior of the coach. The leather seats felt damp to the hands,
and there must have been a small crack in the roof, because now and again little drips of rain
fell softly through, smudging the leather and leaving a dark-blue stain like a splodge of ink.
The wind came in gusts, at times shaking the coach as it travelled round the bend of the road,
and in the exposed places on the high ground it blew with such force that the whole body of the
coach trembled and swayed, rocking between the high wheels like a drunken man.
The driver, muffled in a greatcoat to his ears, bent almost double in his seat in a faint endeavour
to gain shelter from his own shoulders, while the dispirited horses plodded sullenly to his
command, too broken by the wind and the rain to feel the whip that now and again cracked
above their heads, while it swung between the numb fingers of the driver.
The wheels of the coach creaked and groaned as they sank into the ruts on the road, and
sometimes they flung up the soft spattered mud against the windows, where it mingled with the
constant driving rain, and whatever view there might have been of the countryside was
hopelessly obscured.
The few passengers huddled together for warmth, exclaiming in unison when the coach sank
into a heavier rut than usual, and one old fellow, who had kept up a constant complaint ever
since he had joined the coach at Truro, rose from his seat in a fury; and, fumbling with the
window-sash, let the window down with a crash, bringing a shower of rain upon himself and his
fellow-passengers. He thrust his head out and shouted up to the driver, cursing him in a high
petulant voice for a rogue and a murderer; that they would all be dead before they reached
Bodmin if he persisted in driving at breakneck speed; they had no breath left in their bodies as it
was, and he for one would never travel by coach again.
Whether the driver heard him or not was uncertain: it seemed more likely that the stream of
reproaches was carried away in the wind, for the old fellow, after waiting a moment, put up the
window again, having thoroughly chilled the interior of the coach, and, settling himself once
more in his corner, wrapped his blanket about his knees and muttered in his beard.
His nearest neighbour, a jovial, red-faced woman in a blue cloak, sighed heavily, in sympathy,
and, with a wink to anyone who might be looking and a jerk of her head towards the old man,
she remarked for at least the twentieth time that it was the dirtiest night she ever remembered,
and she had known some; that it was proper old weather and no mistaking it for summer this
time; and, burrowing into the depths of a large basket, she brought out a great hunk of cake and
plunged into it with strong white teeth.
Mary Yellan sat in the opposite corner, where the trickle of rain oozed through the crack in the
roof. Sometimes a cold drip of moisture fell upon her shoulder, which she brushed away with
impatient fingers.
She sat with her chin cupped in her hands, her eyes fixed on the window splashed with mud
and rain, hoping with a sort of desperate interest that some ray of light would break the heavy
blanket of sky, and but a momentary trace of that lost blue heaven that had mantled Helford
yesterday shine for an instant as a forerunner of fortune.
