[Gutenberg 41489] • One of Clive's Heroes: A Story of the Fight for India

Excerpt:

One fine autumn evening, in the year 1754, a country cart jogged eastwards into Market Drayton at the heels of a thickset shaggy-fetlocked and broken-winded cob. The low tilt, worn and ill-fitting, swayed widely with the motion, scarcely avoiding the hats of the two men who sat side by side on the front seat, and who, to any one watching their approach, would have appeared as dark figures in a tottering archway, against a background of crimson sky.

As the vehicle jolted through Shropshire Street, the creakings of its unsteady wheels mingled with a deep humming, as of innumerable bees, proceeding from the heart of the town. Turning the corner by the butchers' bulks into the High Street, the cart came to an abrupt stop. In front, from the corn-market, a large wooden structure in the centre of the street, to the Talbot Inn, stretched a dense mass of people, partly townsfolk, as might be discerned by their dress, partly country folk who, having come in from outlying villages to market, had presumably been kept in the town by their curiosity or the fair weather.

"We'n better goo round about, measter," said the driver to the passenger at his side. "Summat's afoot down yander."

"You're a wise man, to be sure. Something's afoot, as you truly say. And being troubled from my youth up with an inquiring nose, I'll e'en step forward and smell out the occasion. Do you bide here, my Jehu, till I come back."

"Why, I will then, measter, but my name binna Jehu. 'Tis plain Tummas."