In any of the
burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper
more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost
personality, to me, or than I am to them?
As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance,
the messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as
the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant
in London. So with the three passengers shut up in the narrow
compass of one lumbering old mail coach; they were mysteries to
one another, as complete as if each had been in his own coach and
six, or his own coach and sixty, with the breadth of a county
between him and the next.
The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at
ale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his
own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes
that assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface
black, with no depth in the colour or form, and much too near
together--as if they were afraid of being found out in something,
singly, if they kept too far apart.
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