The Shadow of Albion by Andre Norton, Rosemary Edghill Read Free Book Online

more a Reverend than I am, Dickie Blaine, and your kind isn’t wanted
    here,“ the newcomer said meaningfully.
     
    If Sarah had possessed any doubts about the „Reverend’s“ bona fides, they were
    substantiated by the speed with which the man took to his heels.
     
    „I suppose I must thank you, sir,“ she said to her rescuer.
     
    He shifted the keg upon one work-shirted shoulder and grinned down at her from
    his formidable height, a brilliant white smile upon his smooth ebony face.
     
    „The docks is no place for a mite of a girl like you. Run along back to your nurse
    before worse happens to you, little miss,“ he said, not unkindly.
     
    „But I must reach the Goat and Compasses! They said on the – I have heard that
    the London Mail leaves .from there, but I don’t know where it is,“ Sarah finished in
    a rush.
     
    „The Mail, eh? Skipping out on your articles to become an Abbess, eh?“ The
     

 
    man’s easy smile was gone, and he regarded her critically.
     
    Sarah gathered her dignity as best she could, though she had understood not one
    word of what seemed to be a condemnation of her plan.
     
    „I do not perfectly collect your meaning, sir. I am from Baltimore – and I have an
    appointment in London.“
     
    He inspected her for one more critical moment, and then the easy smile returned.
    „American, eh? Well, then, best you come along of me. I knows the Goat. Just you
    come along of old Cerberus, Missus, and he’ll have you there quick as cat can lick
    her ear – aye, and safe aboard the Mail as well.“
     
    With the aid of her Brobdingnagian companion, Sarah reached the Goat and
    Compasses without further incident. There Cerberus delivered his keg and Sarah
    purchased her ticket. At his advice, she purchased a dish of coffee as well, which
    allowed her the use of the common parlor in which to await the coach’s arrival. The
    last she saw of her savior was his head and massive shoulders towering over me
    press of humanity in the street as he strode in the direction of the docks once more.
     
    Several hours later, Sarah looked back upon that moment as the last one in which
    she had enjoyed any degree of physical comfort whatever. Upon the coach’s
    summons, she had left the coffee room of the Goat and Compasses to be packed,
    with ten other fortunate passengers who had paid the extra shilling to ride „inside,“
    into the Mail’s cramped, stuffy, ill-sprung, unpadded interior.
     
    Over the thunder of the horses’ hooves, Sarah could hear the crack of the whip
    and the hoarse cries of the driver. Though the horses would receive frequent
    changes, the driver would not, and Sarah wondered with some small part of her
    mind how he would endeavor to maintain such a performance until they reached
    London with tomorrow’s noon.
     
    The vehicle had rattled quite fearfully at first – its entire exterior was covered with
    bags and bundles, the possessions of the passengers, and those persons who had
    chosen for reasons of economy to ride on the roof – but now everything capable of
    making noise had either fallen off or been jammed immobile into some corner of the
    coach. Everything, Sarah reflected unhappily, except the passengers, who continued
    to be flung back and forth at the whim of rut and road.
     
    The pauses the coach made to take up mail and discharge passengers were the
    only respite from the eternal battering of the journey, and none of them, even those
    including a change of team, lasted more than a few minutes. Day fell into night and
    Sarah dozed fitfully, body numbed at last by the relentless jarring of the coach’s
    headlong progress.
     
    She roused to see the faint light of dawn leaking in through the coach’s leather
    curtains, and pushed one aside to see where they were.
     
    Beyond the coach window lay a landscape unlike any she had ever known:
    treeless and flat, strangely colorless in the grey morning light. To her left she could
    see what she thought at first