'If you want your fortune
told, I'll tell you a bit of it. You won't be drowned. That's a
consolation for you.'
Before he could retort or turn away, the coachman put an end to the
dialogue by giving him a cut with his whip, and biddig him get out for a
surly dog. The guard jumped up to his seat at the same moment, and they
drove off, laughing; leaving him to stand in the road and shake his fist
at them. He was not displeased though, on second thoughts, to have
been taken for an ill-conditioned common country fellow; but rather
congratulated himself upon it as a proof that he was well disguised.
Wandering into a copse by the road-side--but not in that place; two or
three miles off--he tore out from a fence a thick, hard, knotted stake;
and, sitting down beneath a hayrick, spent some time in shaping it, in
peeling off the bark, and fashioning its jagged head with his knife.
The day passed on. Noon, afternoon, evening. Sunset.
At that serene and peaceful time two men, riding in a gig, came out
of the city by a road not much frequented. It was the day on which Mr
Pecksniff had agreed to dine with Montague.
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