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Agatha was at her side as the young lady looked out the window of her father’s rather ancient and distinctly unmodish post-chaise-and-four, holding the strap as the conveyance rattled and lurched its way along the London road.
    At first, the novelty of travelling without her father sustained Truthful, but that was soon replaced by a weariness brought on by the discomfort, and the total lack of conversation from Agatha, who sat silently next to her, doubtless brooding on the evil city that lay ahead.
    After several hours travel, Truthful’s weariness gave way to a troubled sleep, filled with dreams of the Admiral’s feverish stare and his virulent accusations. His voice seemed to fill Truthful’s head with shouts of anger, growing louder and louder until she suddenly woke and realised there
was
shouting, but they were shouts of alarm, not of anger.
    For a muzzy second she wondered where she was. Then even as Truthful realised she was in the carriage, the vehicle tilted over at an alarming angle. There was a resounding crack as something broke behind them. Truthful was flung to the floor, Agatha fell against her, and then they were both hurled against the door as the coach came to an abrupt halt and rolled over onto its side, accompanied by the panicked neighing of the horses and the shouts of footman and groom.
    Truthful lay stunned for a moment, then pulled herself out from underneath a semi-conscious Agatha, and climbed up the now vertical bench, using the leather hand-straps to good advantage. She struggled with the door for a moment, then flung it open like a hatch, and popped her head out, only to have her hair blow back in her face in a most disorderly way,her bonnet having slid to the back of her head. Below her, Agatha raised herself up on one elbow and hissed “Lunnon!”
    But Truthful saw they were still in the country and many miles from London. Their own coach had been run off the road and into a ditch adjoining a large pasture, and was the subject of much attention from half a dozen curious cows. A little further on, a mail coach was also turned over in the ditch on the other side of the road, and people were climbing out of it (or picking themselves off the road) and shaking their fists and swearing at an old gentleman in a disreputable driving coat. The coachman, Truthful thought, and clearly the man responsible for the accident.
    At that moment, Smith the footman saw Truthful perched precariously half out of the carriage door and hurried over.
    “Are you all right, milady?” he asked anxiously.
    “Yes, thank you, Smith,” replied Truthful calmly. “But what has happened to Tom?”
    “I’m here milady,” said a voice from the front of the coach, followed by the emergence of the angry groom. “If we don’t have two of the horses lame at least, if not worse, it’ll be a surprise, and thank heaven they’re not the Admiral’s own! There just wasn’t anything I could do, milady. I do beg your pardon.”
    “Don’t worry, Tom,” said Truthful. “I can see what must have happened. The road is far too narrow here, and on a bend too! I thought the mail coaches were driven more carefully than the common stage, but I see that is not the case!”
    “Well, for the most part they are, milady,” said Smith. “But I reckon it weren’t one of the regular coachmen at the reigns. That old gager there probably paid them off in gin to let him ply the whip. I saw him at the last change a-buying them blue ruin or somesuch.”
    “Paid them off in gin!” exclaimed Truthful, much shocked. “I am sure that is distinctly against the law, and clearly very dangerous to all concerned. I shall have a word to say to that fellow.”
    She started to climb further out the door, but got stuck till Smith climbed up and lifted her out and handed her down to Tom, much as they had done when she was a small child, for both were old family retainers.
    She had just got firmly on the ground, and was in the process of dealing