Beyond the blue Mountains

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It was hot in the coach. The June sunshine was merciless, and the dust raised by the horses' hoofs powdered the hedges, penetrated the coach, tickled the throats of the travellers, and set their eyes smarting.

They had dined adequately at Brentford off salt pork and malt liquor, but now they were crossing Staines Bridge and their thirst and peevishness more and more inclined them towards slumber. They were aware of the hardness of their seats, of the jolting of the coach, of the increasing tedium of a journey that with luck would go on for four days, and without luck longer; they were aware of the proximity of each other, not always pleasant; they thought, not without uneasiness, of Bag-shot Heath. They should get over it in daylight, but they sat fingers crossed, guarding against ill luck, lest some mishap should befall the coach on its way across the Heath.

The merchant in the corner began to snore, his wife to nod. The middle-aged matron kept an unnecessarily watchful eye on her two daughters who were both fast approaching thirty, mousy-haired, one pimpled, the other pock-marked, and who seemed to be holding themselves in readiness for an attack on their virtue. It amused the girl of seventeen in the big straw hat, and the young man of eighteen with the leather brief-case across his knees.

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