Suddenly, from thoughts like these I was awakened to a sullen sound, as of some motion on the distant road. It stole upon the air for a moment; I listened in awe; but then it died away. Once roused, however, I could not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is that I am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies when the signal is flying for _action_. But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regards _thought_, that in the first step towards the possibility of a misfortune I see its total evolution; in the radix of the series I see too certainly and too instantly its entire expansion; in the first syllable of the dreadful sentence I read already the last. It was not that I feared for ourselves. _Us_ our bulk and impetus charmed against peril in any collision. And I had ridden through too many hundreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that were matter of laughter to look back upon, the first face of which was horror, the parting face a jest--for any anxiety to rest upon _our_ interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray _me_ who trusted to its protection. But any carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I remarked this ominous accident of our situation,--we were on the wrong side of the road. But then, it may be said, the other party, if other there was, might also be on the wrong side; and two wrongs might make a right. _That_ was not likely. The same motive which had drawn _us_ to the right-hand side of the road--viz., the luxury of the soft beaten sand as contrasted with the paved centre--would prove attractive to others. The two adverse carriages would therefore, to a certainty, be travelling on the same side; and from this side, as not being ours in law, the crossing over to the other would, of course, be looked for from _us_. [Footnote: It is true that, according to the law of the case as established by legal precedents, all carriages were required to give way before royal equipages, and therefore before the mail as one of them. But this only increased the danger, as being a regulation very imperfectly made known, very unequally enforced, and therefore often embarrassing the movements on both sides.] Our lamps, still lighted, would give the impression of vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us would rely upon _us_ for quartering. [Footnote: "_Quartering_":--This is the technical word, and, I presume, derived from the French _cartayer_, to evade a rut or any obstacle.] All this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw, not discursively,