For a great part of the way Doctor Barnard and his companion had a fine controversy about their respective religions, for which each was alike zealous. Nay: it may be the Rector invited Mr Weston to take a place in his postchaise in order to have this battle, for he never tired of arguing the question between the two churches. Towards the close of the day Master Denis Duval fell {148} asleep on Doctor Barnard's shoulder, and the good-natured clergyman did not disturb him. I woke up with the sudden stoppage of the carriage. The evening was falling. We were upon a lonely common, and a man on horseback was at the window of the postchaise. "Give us out that there box! and your money!" I heard him say in a very gruff voice. O heavens! we were actually stopped by a highwayman! It was delightful. Mr Weston jumped at his pistols very quick. "Here's our money, you scoundrel!" says he, and fired point-blank at the rogue's head. Confusion! the pistol missed fire. He aimed the second, and again no report followed! "Some scoundrel has been tampering with these," says Mr Weston, aghast. "Come," says Captain Macheath, "come, your--" But the next word the fellow spoke was a frightful oath; for I took out my little pistol, which was full of shot, and fired it into his face. The man reeled, and I thought would have fallen out of his saddle. The postillion, frightened, no doubt, clapped spurs to his horse, and began to gallop. "Shan't we stop and take that rascal, sir?" said I to the Doctor. On which Mr Weston gave a peevish kind of push at me, and said, "No, no. It is getting quite dark. Let us push on." And, indeed, the highwayman's horse had taken fright, and we could see him galloping away across the common. I was so elated to think that I, a little boy, had shot a live highwayman, that I dare say I bragged outrageously of my action. We set down Mr Weston at his {149} inn in the Borough, and crossed London Bridge, and there I was in London at last. Yes, and that was the Monument, and then we came to the Exchange, and yonder, yonder was St Paul's. We went up Holborn, and so to Ormonde Street, where my patron lived in a noble mansion; and where his wife, my lady Denis, received me with a great deal of kindness. You may be sure the battle with the highwayman was fought over again, and I got due credit from myself and others for my gallantry. (_Denis Duval_.) CHARLES DICKENS 1812-1870 STORM "Don't you think that," I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of London, "a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one like it." "Nor I,--not equal to it," he replied. "That's wind, sir. There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long."