Peggie exclaimed and ran out to find that the post-chaise had not yet arrived. Then there was scurrying and scampering, and James, bareheaded and bereft of his stately deliberation, hurried to the livery-stable, and presently returned in the belated vehicle. The postboy, with many oaths and strange-sounding asseverations, protested that his master had mistaken the order for noon, and that he had been loitering about the yard all morning, waiting for the appointed time. Another explanation might have been afforded by Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert, who could also have cleared up the mysterious presence of two golden guineas in the postboy’s pocket. Thus it was within an hour or so of noon, when Prue, having received Lady Drumloch’s blessing and exchanged many kisses and last words with Peggie (from whom she had rarely been parted even for a week at a time), took her seat in the post-chaise with her two substantial leather valises strapped on the roof and her valuables in the dressing-case under her feet. She had often traveled the Tunbridge Road before in attendance upon Queen Anne, whose physicians were in the habit of recommending the Tunbridge waters as a corrective to the royal indulgence in the pleasures of the table. So when she had amused herself by observing the queer little stalls on London Bridge, where the closely packed throng compelled the chaise to proceed at a foot-pace, and wondered why everybody and everything looked so strange and different in Southwark, from those on the more fashionable side of the river, she soon grew tired of the squalid streets and dreary country beyond and still more bored by having no one to talk to, and composing herself in a corner of the carriage, courted such uneasy slumber as the rough road permitted. During the earlier stages of the journey there was no lack of company. In those days travelers, unless well armed or otherwise protected, were greatly averse to solitude even in broad daylight, and Prue, though far from timid, was not displeased to find that the queen’s visit to Tunbridge, in the balmy springtime, was drawing thither quite a rush of visitors. Gallants on horseback, lumbering family-coaches and dashing chariots followed one another in quick succession, some forging ahead, only to be overtaken, perhaps, in a ditch with a wheel off, or at the post-house waiting for relays—a mishap that kept Prue waiting a couple of hours at Seven Oaks, to her great chagrin. However, the inn was hospitable and a good dinner compensated in some measure for the delay, though the afternoon shadows were perceptibly lengthening when the journey was resumed. The road was more lonely now, those lucky folk who had secured the earliest relays having hurried forward to make the most of the daylight, and others, whose turn was yet to come, lingering impatiently behind or resigning themselves to the dire alternative of spending a night at the inn.