"I don't know--I don't know that," said Ralph, rising with
ill-concealed agitation, and stalking out of the room, without the
curtest leave-taking.


VI.

On Tuesday, Ralph was walking through Kendal on his northward journey.
The day was young. Ralph meant to take a meal at the old coaching
house, the Woodman, in Kirkland, by the river Kent, and then push on
till nightfall.

The horn of the incoming coach fell on his ear, and the coach
itself--the Carlisle coach, laden with passengers from back to
front--swept into the courtyard of the inn at the moment he entered it
afoot.

There was a little commotion there. A group of the serving folk, the
maids in their caps, the ostlers bareheaded, and some occasional
stable people were gathered near the taproom door. The driver of the
coach got off his box and crushed into the middle of this company. His
passengers paused in their descent from the top to look over the heads
of those who were on the ground.

"Drunk, surely," said one of these to another; "that proclamation was
not unnecessary."

"Some poor straggler, sir; picked him up insensible and fetched him
along," said one of the ostlers.