- end_line
- 10433
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10358
- text
- to re-enter the coach; he would see him safely at his destination; and
then seating himself beside the driver on the box, commanded him to tell
the number given him by the gentleman.
"He don't know no numbers--didn't I say he didn't--that's what I got mad
about."
"Be still"--said the officer. "Sir"--turning round and addressing Pierre
within; "where do you wish to go?"
"I do not know the number, but it is a house in this street; we have
passed it; it is, I think, the fourth or fifth house this side of the
last corner we turned. It must be lighted up too. It is the small
old-fashioned dwelling with stone lion-heads above the windows. But make
him turn round, and drive slowly, and I will soon point it out."
"Can't see lions in the dark"--growled the driver--"lions; ha! ha!
jackasses more likely!"
"Look you," said the officer, "I shall see you tightly housed this
night, my fine fellow, if you don't cease your jabber. Sir," he added,
resuming with Pierre, "I am sure there is some mistake here. I perfectly
well know now the house you mean. I passed it within the last half-hour;
all as quiet there as ever. No one lives there, I think; I never saw a
light in it. Are you not mistaken in something, then?"
Pierre paused in perplexity and foreboding. Was it possible that Glen
had willfully and utterly neglected his letter? Not possible. But it
might not have come to his hand; the mails sometimes delayed. Then
again, it was not wholly out of the question, that the house was
prepared for them after all, even though it showed no outward sign. But
that was not probable. At any rate, as the driver protested, that his
four horses and lumbering vehicle could not turn short round in that
street; and that if he must go back, it could only be done by driving
on, and going round the block, and so retracing his road; and as after
such a procedure, on his part, then in case of a confirmed
disappointment respecting the house, the driver would seem warranted, at
least in some of his unmannerliness; and as Pierre loathed the villain
altogether, therefore, in order to run no such risks, he came to a
sudden determination on the spot.
"I owe you very much, my good friend," said he to the officer, "for your
timely assistance. To be frank, what you have just told me has indeed
perplexed me not a little concerning the place where I proposed to stop.
Is there no hotel in this neighborhood, where I could leave these ladies
while I seek my friend?"
Wonted to all manner of deceitfulness, and engaged in a calling which
unavoidably makes one distrustful of mere appearances, however specious,
however honest; the really good-hearted officer, now eyed Pierre in the
dubious light with a most unpleasant scrutiny; and he abandoned the
"Sir," and the tone of his voice sensibly changed, as he
replied:--"There is no hotel in this neighborhood; it is too off the
thoroughfares."
"Come! come!"--cried the driver, now growing bold again--"though you're
an officer, I'm a citizen for all that. You haven't any further right to
keep me out of my bed now. He don't know where he wants to go to, cause
he haint got no place at all to go to; so I'll just dump him here, and
you dar'n't stay me."
"Don't be impertinent now," said the officer, but not so sternly as
before.
"I'll have my rights though, I tell you that! Leave go of my arm; damn
ye, get off the box; I've the law now. I say mister, come tramp, here
goes your luggage," and so saying he dragged toward him a light trunk on
the top of the stage.
"Keep a clean tongue in ye now"--said the officer--"and don't be in
quite so great a hurry," then addressing Pierre, who had now re-alighted
from the coach--"Well, this can't continue; what do you intend to do?"
"Not to ride further with that man, at any rate," said Pierre; "I will
stop right here for the present."
- title
- Chunk 4