"Good-bye," said I. "Barbara," she suggested. "Good-bye, Barbara!" said I, and lifted the hand to my lips. "At Tonbridge, Perry!" repeated Anthony. "At Tonbridge!" said I, whereupon the postillion vituperated the rain and wind, chirruped to his horses, and the chaise rolled away into the tempestuous dark. For them, rain and wind and darkness, for me such comfort as the inn afforded, but of the three it was I who was desolate and forlorn. CHAPTER IX DESCRIBES THE WOES OF GALLOPING JERRY, A NOTORIOUS HIGHWAYMAN "An' now--wot about my door?" demanded a gruff voice. Starting, I turned to find the landlord at my elbow and immediately my forlornness grew intensified. I felt miserably helpless and at a loss, for the man's sullen face seemed to hold positive menace and I yearned mightily for Anthony's masterful presence beside me or a little of his polite ferocity. "Come--wot about my door?" demanded the landlord, more threatening than ever. "Ten shillin' won't mend my door--" "What door?" I questioned, fronting his insolent look with as much resolution as I could summon. "The door as you an' that desp'rit villain broke betwixt ye--fifteen shillin'--ah, a pound won't pay for the mendin' o' my door--wot about it--come!" Here he lurched towards me, shoulders hunched, chin brutally out-thrust so that I shrank instinctively from him, perceiving which, he grew the more aggressive. "That will do!" said I in woefully feeble imitation of Anthony's masterful manner. "That will do--and what is more--" "Oh, will it do? Wot about my door?" "You may charge it in your bill--" "Not me, by goles! 'T is money as I wants--thirty shillin'--in my 'and--this 'ere very moment." "I intend to stay the night, so will you please have a fire lighted in your best--" "Thirty-five shillin's the word--in my 'and--this moment--my fine little gent--that's wot!" Feeling myself quite powerless to cope with this drunken creature, I shrank before him, trembling with mingled rage and disgust; perceiving which, he scowled the fiercer and thrust a hairy fist into my face. Threatened thus with bodily harm, I glanced hastily over my shoulder with some wild notion of ignominious flight, but dignity forbidding, I stood my ground sick with apprehension and with my sweating hands tight-clenched. "Smell it!" quoth the landlord, setting his fist under my nose. "Which is it t' be,--forty shillin' or this?" I was groping for my purse when over my shoulder came a large, plump, red hand that took my scowling aggressor by an ear and tweaked it till he writhed, and turning, I beheld the large, plump woman who, putting me aside, interposed her comfortable bulk before me.