The cab was faded, the
wheels encrusted with ancient mud, the horse old and wheezy, but the
cabman, standing now thinner than ever against the sky, was, in spite of a
tattered top hat, filled with that cheerful optimism that belongs to the
Cornishman who sees an opportunity of "doing" a foreigner.
"I want to drive to Treliss," said Peter.
They bargained. The battered optimist obtained the price that he demanded
and cocked his eye, derisively, at the rising moon.
Peter surveyed the cab.
"I'll sit with you on the box," he said.
The thin driver made way for him. It was a high jolting cab of the
old-fashioned kind, a cab you might have sworn was Cornish had you seen it
anywhere, a cab that smelt of beer and ancient leather and salt water, a
cab that had once driven the fashion of Treliss to elegant dances and now
must rattle the roads with very little to see, for all your trouble, at the
end of it.
The sleeping fields, like grey cloths, stretched on every side of them and
the white road cut into the heart of the distance. It was a quarter to
eight and a blue dusk. The driver tilted the top hat over one ear and they
were off.
"I know this road as yer might say back'ards. Ask any one down along
Treliss way. Zachy Jackson they'll say--which is my name, sir, if yer
requirin' a good 'orse any time o' day. Zachy Jackson! which there ain't
no man,--tarkin' of 'orses, fit to touch 'im, they'll tell yer and not far
wrong either.
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