It was a charming evening, mild and bright. The four
grays skimmed along, as if they liked it quite as well
as Tom did; the bugle was in as high spirits as the grays;
the coachman chimed in sometimes with his voice; the
wheels hummed cheerfully in unison; the brass work on 5
the harness was an orchestra of little bells; and thus as they
went clinking, jingling, rattling smoothly on, the whole
concern, from the buckles of the leaders' coupling reins to
the handle of the boot, was one great instrument of music.

Yo-ho! Past hedges, gates, and trees; past cottages, and
barns, and people going home from work. Yo-ho! Past
donkey chaises drawn aside into the ditch, and empty
carts with rampant horses whipped up at a bound upon the
little watercourse and held by struggling carters close to5
the five-barred gate until the coach had passed the narrow
turning in the road. Yo-ho! By churches dropped down
by themselves in quiet nooks, with rustic burial grounds
about them, where the graves are green and daisies sleep—for
it is evening—on the bosoms of the dead. 10

Yo-ho! Past streams in which the cattle cool their feet,
and where the rushes grow; past paddock fences, farms,
and rickyards; past last year's stacks, cut slice by slice
away, and showing in the waning light like ruined gables,
old and brown. Yo-ho! Down the pebbly dip, and through 15
the merry water splash, and up at a canter to the level
road again. Yo-ho! Yo-ho!

Yo-ho! Among the gathering shades, making of no
account the reflection of the trees, but scampering on
through light and darkness, all the same, as if the light of 20
London fifty miles away were quite enough to travel by,
and some to spare. Now, with a clattering of hoofs and
striking out of fiery sparks, across the old stone bridge,
and down again into the shadowy road, and through the
open gate, and far away, into the world. Yo-ho! 25

See the bright moon! High up before we know it,
making the earth reflect the objects on its breast like water—hedges,
trees, low cottages, church steeples, blighted stumps,
and flourishing young slips, have all grown vain upon a
sudden, and mean to contemplate their own fair images till 30
morning. The poplars yonder rustle, that their quivering
leaves may see themselves upon the ground. Not so the
oak; trembling does not become him; and he watches
himself in his stout old burly steadfastness without the
motion of a twig.

The moss-grown gate, ill-poised upon its creaking hinges,
crippled and decayed, swings to and fro before its glass 5
like some fantastic dowager: while our own ghostly likeness
travels on, through ditch and brake, upon the plowed land
and the smooth, along the steep hillside and steeper wall,
as if it were a phantom hunter.

Yo-ho! Why, now we travel like the moon herself. 10
Hiding this minute in a grove of trees; next minute in a
patch of vapor; emerging now upon our broad, clear course;
withdrawing now, but always dashing on, our journey is a
counterpart of hers. Yo-ho! A match against the moon.

The beauty of the night is hardly felt when day comes 15
leaping up. Two stages, and the country roads are almost
changed to a continuous street. Yo-ho! Past market
gardens, rows of houses, villas, crescents, terraces, and
squares, and in among the rattling pavements. Yo-ho!
Down countless turnings, and through countless mazy 20
ways, until an old innyard is gained, and Tom Pinch, getting
down quite stunned and giddy, is in London.

"Five minutes before the time, too!" said the driver, as
he received his fee from Tom.

—Martin Chuzzlewit.