The Iron Master Read Online Free

we are!’
    Mr Sorrowcole jammed his hat hard down over his eyes, which were pinpoints of battle. He arched over his team, vast and formidable, wheezing, ‘Hold on to your seat, Harry, and keep a-winding of that there horn. That old Dreadnought can’t take a fast turn, and we’re on the crown of the road. But we shall cut it very fine. Hooroar!’ and he laid his whip upon the galloping team. They were almost flying now, ears laid back, eyes starting, coats lathered.
    ‘You bloody fools!’ yelled the Macclesfield Dreadnought. ‘We’ll have you in t’ditch!’
    ‘Hooroarr’ cried Mr Sorrowcole raucously. ‘Hooroar, my beauties!’
    The leather flourished and cracked.
    ‘Make way for the Mail!’ bawled Mr Walters.
    His scarlet uniform endowed him with more than mortal courage. He wound his horn fit to wake the dead. While William roared, ‘Make way! Make way!’ through the funnel of his hands, and Parson Peplow prayed in the corner of the carriage.
    Now the two teams were galloping almost neck and neck, and for a flashing moment William feared both gladiators might irrevocably crash. Just for a second he could have touched the leading horse of the stage-coach, then with inches to spare the little Mail was drawing away and the Dreadnought was heeling, wavering, swerving.
    ‘I said,’ Mr Sorrowcole growled, ‘as it couldn’t take a fast corner.’
    There was a splintering of wood, a shattering of glass. The coachman hauled on his reins, the lathered team tossed up their heads and whinnied with terror. Too late, too late. With a final lurch, roll and crash, the Dreadnought sank into a ditch and halted: one wheel spinning silently.
    Then William whipped off his hat and cried, ‘Hurrah! Well done, Mr Walters! Well driven, Mr Sorrowcole! Hurrah for King George and the Mail!’
    The stranded pachyderm, its lamps gleaming like reproachful eyes, was already fading into the dark. Night closed about them once more. The Great North Road was their own again. As the Mail bowled along, and Mr Sorrowcole allowed the horses to move back into a steady canter, the guard wound his horn in victory. It was not a crow of delight, or the rude blare of the conqueror, rather was there something elegiac, something poignant in that music of the highway. A victory had been gained, in the name of the King. William drew up the window and sat down, breathless, muddy, and smiling.
    He must have fallen asleep, for when he woke it was daylight; and the sound of cobbles under the wheels, and the winding horn, informed him and the drowsy clergyman that Ashbourne was reached. The guard was at their door in a trice, crying, ‘Five minutes, sirs, while we change the horses!’
    In the courtyard of the inn two ostlers were waiting with a fresh team ready-harnessed, and they set to with a will. The rain had stopped, a wintry sunlight illumined the landscape, and smells of coffee, hot toast and fried chops stole from the kitchen of The Wagon and Horses. While a gentleman and his wife were ushered aboard the Mail, William and Parson Peplow relieved themselves behind a hedge.
    ‘I think I shall partake of a first breakfast,’ joked the clergyman, ‘and welcome a second one at Derby!’
    ‘I shall join you, sir,’ cried William, sniffing the fresh air and the smell of frying.
    ‘If only one could wash and shave,’ mourned the parson, ‘but there is no time. I shall not care to greet my sister with unshaven cheeks.’
    ‘I dare say I shall breakfast and shave in London tomorrow morning, before I greet my sister,’ said William, ‘for we shall arrive well before they wake.’
    ‘That is Charlotte, is it not?’ enquired Parson Peplow comfortably as they walked briskly back. ‘She is young, of course?’ Wistfully.
    ‘Nineteen at Lammastide, and expecting her first child shortly, sir.’
    The mail-guard was propelling Mr Sorrowcole back on to the box.
    ‘I’ve got to pass water, haven’t I?’ the coachman grumbled. ‘I’m not a bleeding