The first person of interest in this story was on his way to Dover on a Friday night in late November. He was walking slowly, along with two other passengers, up the muddy road on Shooter's Hill. Beside them was the Dover Mail coach. They were not walking because they wanted exercise, but because the mud and the hill had forced the horses to stop three times already. Once the horses had even pulled the coach to the side, planning to turn it back down the hill if they could. But that had been when the driver and the guard, with ropes and a whip, had proved that animals do not have a mind of their own. The team of horses had obeyed and returned to their climb.
With their heads hanging and their tails shaking, the animals pushed through the thick mud, moving this way and that as if their legs were about to fall off. Each time the driver would let them stop for a rest, one of the lead horses would shake its head and its whole body as if to say, "It’s not possible; we’ll never make it.” As the horse shook, so did the nerves of the passengers.
Below them was heavy fog. It had moved up to them now, like an evil spirit looking for a place to rest. It was wet and cold, moving like waves on a dangerous ocean. It was so thick that, even in the light of the coach lanterns, one could see but a few yards ahead. The clouds coming from the noses of the tired horses joined with the fog, to make it look like it had all come from them.
The three passengers were covered up to their eyes, and over their ears, and they all were wearing heavy boots. Not one could say what the others looked like, and they did not talk either, as they each tried to hide what they were thinking. In those days, anyone could be a robber or be working for a robber. Every stop on the way had people who were being paid to tell secrets. The guard on the Dover Mail was thinking about that on that Friday night in November, 1775, as he stood on his shelf at the back of the coach, stamping his feet and keeping an eye and a hand on the weapon box. In it were six or eight guns with bullets already in them; and there was a covering of knives at the bottom of the box. The guard did not trust the passengers; the passengers did not trust each other or the guard; and the driver trusted only the horses, and then he only trusted that they were not good enough for the job.
"Whoa!” said the driver. "So then, one more pull and we’ll be at the top, no thanks to you animals, for all the trouble you’ve been.” And then, "Hey, Joe!”
"Hello?” the guard answered.
"What time do you make it?”
"At least ten minutes after eleven.”
"Good God! And still not at the top. Go! Get on with you!”
The horse that had been shaking itself stopped when the whip hit it, and it started climbing again. The others followed. The coach was moving, and the passengers walked close beside it in the deep mud. If any of them had tried to run ahead into the fog, they would have been in danger of being shot by a highway robber.
That last push carried the Dover Mail to the top of the hill. The horses stopped there to breathe deeply. The guard jumped down to set the brake for the trip down the other side, and to open the door for the passengers to climb in.
"Hey, Joe!” the driver called down in a warning voice, from his seat on the top.
"What is it, Tom?” They both stopped to listen.
"Sounds like a horse walking this way, Joe.”
"Running's more like it, Tom,” the guard answered, leaving the door and jumping to his place at the back. "People! In the King’s name, all of you!” he said as he picked up his gun and looked down the hill behind them.
The passenger we are most interested in was standing on the step, and the others were still on the ground. He stayed there, half in and half out. They all looked from the driver to the guard and back to the driver... and they listened. The driver and guard looked behind them, and even the lead horse turned its head and lifted its ears.
Now that the noise of climbing the hill had stopped, it was very quiet. The heavy breathing of the horses shook the coach quietly, in a way that made the coach, too, look worried. Hearts were pumping, and the breathing was that of tired people... if one could say that anyone was breathing at all.
They could hear a fast horse racing up the hill.
"You there! Stop, or I’ll shoot!” the guard cried out.
The horse stopped and from the fog a man’s voice asked, "Is that the Dover Mail?”
"Not your business what it is!” the guard shouted back. "What are you?”
"Is that the Dover Mail?”
"Why do you want to know?”
"I want one of your passengers if it is.”
"What passenger?”
"Mr. Jarvis Lorry.”
The man on the steps showed that it was his name. The others looked at him like he was dangerous.
"Stay where you are,” the guard said to the voice in the fog. "If I have an accident with this gun, you won’t live to know of it. Now, Lorry, you answer him.”
"What’s wrong?” the man on the step shouted back. "Who is it? Is that you, Jerry?”
"I don’t like Jerry’s voice,” the guard said to himself. "Too deep and rough for me.”
"Yes, it is, Mr. Lorry.”
"What’s the problem?”
"A letter from T. and Company.”
"I know this man,” he said to the guard as he stepped down. The other passengers were happy to have him out of the way. They quickly climbed in, shut the door, and pulled up the window.
"Let him come up. There’s no danger," Lorry said.
"I hope not; but I can’t be sure of it either,” the guard said to himself. “Hello there!”
"Hi to you too,” Jerry said in his deep voice.
"Just come at a walk. You hear me? And if you have a gun on your saddle, don’t let your hand go near it. My nerves make me jump a lot, and when I do bullets fly. So let’s look at you.”
The shape of a horse and a rider came slowly out of the cloud, and over to the side of the coach. The rider leaned over to give a small, folded piece of paper to the passenger, looking up at the guard as he did it. His horse was tired, and the horse and its rider were covered in mud, from the horse’s feet to the rider’s hat.
"Guard?” said the passenger with the confidence of a businessman.
The guard, with his right hand ready to shoot, his left on the gun's barrel, and his eye on the rider, answered, "Sir?"
"There's nothing to fear. I'm from Tellson's Bank. You must know Tellson's Bank, in London. I'm going to Paris on business. I'll buy you a drink. May I read this?
"If you do it quickly."
He opened it in the light of the lantern on that side of the coach, and read it, first to himself, and then out loud. "Wait for the woman at Dover.”
“You see, it's not long at all. Jerry, say that my answer is Called back to life."
Jerry moved in his saddle. "That's a strange answer."
"You tell them that; and they'll know that it's from me. Be careful as you go; and good night to you."
With that, the passenger climbed inside the coach. The other passengers did nothing to help him in. They had each secretly tried to hide their watches and money in their boots, and were now trying to make him think that they were asleep. There was no good reason for doing it, but it protected them from having to make a choice about what else to do.
The coach moved off, with the fog becoming thicker as they rolled down the hill. The guard returned his gun to the weapon box.
"Tom!" he called softly over the top of the coach. "Yes, Joe," answered the driver.
"Did you hear what he said?"
"Yes, I did, Joe."
"What do you make of it?"
"Nothing at all, Joe."
"Strange that," the guard said almost to himself. "Because that's just what I made of it too."
Left alone at the top of the hill, Jerry gave his horse a rest, and and cleaned some of the mud off his face.
"Called back to life. That's a strange thing to say," he whispered to himself. "Very strange, I'm sure."