Chapter IV. The Stage Coach
Now, sir, time to get up, if you please. Tally-ho coach for Leicester'll be round in half an hour, and don't wait for nobody.” So spake the boots of the Peacock Inn Islington, at half-past two o'clock on the morning of a day in the early part of November 183-, giving Tom at the same time a shake by the shoulder, and then putting down a candle; and carrying off his shoes to clean.
Tom and his father arrived in town from Berkshire the day before, and finding, on inquiry, that the Birmingham coaches which ran from the city did not pass through Rugby, but deposited their passengers at Dunchurch, a village three miles distant on the main road, where said passengers had to wait for the Oxford and Leicester coach in the evening, or to take a post-chaise, had resolved
