Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

In which another old Friend encounters Smike, very opportunely and
to some Purpose

The night, fraught with so much bitterness to one poor soul, had
given place to a bright and cloudless summer morning, when a north-
country mail-coach traversed, with cheerful noise, the yet silent
streets of Islington, and, giving brisk note of its approach with
the lively winding of the guard's horn, clattered onward to its
halting-place hard by the Post Office.

The only outside passenger was a burly, honest-looking countryman on
the box, who, with his eyes fixed upon the dome of St Paul's
Cathedral, appeared so wrapt in admiring wonder, as to be quite
insensible to all the bustle of getting out the bags and parcels,
until one of the coach windows being let sharply down, he looked
round, and encountered a pretty female face which was just then
thrust out.

'See there, lass!' bawled the countryman, pointing towards the
object of his admiration. 'There be Paul's Church. 'Ecod, he be a
soizable 'un, he be.'

'Goodness, John! I shouldn't have thought it could have been half
the size. What a monster!'

'Monsther!--Ye're aboot right theer, I reckon, Mrs Browdie,' said
the countryman good-humouredly, as he came slowly down in his huge
top-coat; 'and wa'at dost thee tak yon place to be noo--thot'un
owor the wa'? Ye'd never coom near it 'gin you thried for twolve
moonths. It's na' but a Poast Office! Ho! ho! They need to charge
for dooble-latthers. A Poast Office! Wa'at dost thee think o'
thot? 'Ecod, if thot's on'y a Poast Office, I'd loike to see where
the Lord Mayor o' Lunnun lives.'

So saying, John Browdie--for he it was--opened the coach-door, and
tapping Mrs Browdie, late Miss Price, on the cheek as he looked in,
burst into a boisterous fit of laughter.

'Weel!' said John. 'Dang my bootuns if she bean't asleep agean!'

'She's been asleep all night, and was, all yesterday, except for a
minute or two now and then,' replied John Browdie's choice, 'and I
was very sorry when she woke, for she has been SO cross!'

The subject of these remarks was a slumbering figure, so muffled in
shawl and cloak, that it would have been matter of impossibility to
guess at its sex but for a brown beaver bonnet and green veil which
ornamented the head, and which, having been crushed and flattened,
for two hundred and fifty miles, in that particular angle of the
vehicle from which the lady's snores now proceeded, presented an
appearance sufficiently ludicrous to have moved less risible muscles
than those of John Browdie's ruddy face.

'Hollo!' cried John, twitching one end of the dragged veil. 'Coom,
wakken oop, will 'ee?'

After several burrowings into