Ch. 2: The Mail (p. 9-16)

Thoughts, Vocab, and Explanations:

• Shooter's Hill: sounds like a lovely neighborhood, no?
   
• I am super glad that long-distance transportation no longer requires people to get out and walk uphill in the mud next to the thing they paid to ride in.  (Actually: I feel like that happened to my friend once on an Amtrak train?  But usually.)  I do love the picture Dickens paints here, though: "the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath." (9) Basically the horses pulled a "don't make me turn this carriage around" and then everyone had to get out and walk.  (I think it's the word "mutinous" that I love in that sentence; it personifies the horses in a funny and surprising way.)
   
• Oh right: we're meant to focus on this jumpy passenger, not the horses.  (Man, it has been too long since I read Black Beauty.) 
  
• Does Dickens use creepy mist at the beginning of all his novels?  I remember next to nothing about Hard Times but there's definitely creepy mist in Great Expectations, too.

• Oh good: these people are all wrapped up so that each of them could be absolutely anyone.  That's a useful way to set things up for later.  (You should know that this readalong is unusual in that the last time I read this book was when I was in 10th grade--and I only kind of read it--so I really only have the sketchiest knowledge of the plot.  Therefore my predictions and questions here are going to be for real.)
  
• "substratum" (p. 11)--a layer beneath something, usually used to describe rock or dirt under the ground (but here used to describe the cutlasses upon which several guns are resting in the guard's substantial traveling arsenal.  Only Dickens.)
  
• Ok, the stage is pretty well set here: everyone thinks everyone else is probably a highwayman.  So when a strange horse comes galloping up out of the dark, no one is happy about it.  The passengers very much want to get in--but our guy hangs in the doorway which keeps everyone else out.  The guard is serious about all that weaponry (and sassy, to boot: "'I don't like Jerry's voice, if it is Jerry', growled the guard to himself.  'He's hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.'" (14) Also all the cracks about what happens if he makes a mistake.  (You die.))

• Jarvis?
  
•  Love how we're in the same position as the characters here: "Recalled to life?  What the heck does that mean?"  (Actually, no, I don't love it, it drives me nuts!  And makes me want to buy the next installment--pretty sneaky, Dickens.  Pretty sneaky.)

• While all this is going on, the other passengers have gotten into the coach, hidden their valuables, and pretended to be asleep.  You know, just in case.

• Joe and Tom are my favorites already and I have to say, I'm pretty bummed that Dickens has made it so clear that this novel is not about them.
  
• Also, what is Jerry hiding? "You'd be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!" (16)
  

Takeaways:  Traveling by mail coach was terrifying and sometimes muddy; some guy named Jarvis is the first important character we've met; Jarvis is to wait for a girl (Mam'selle, short for Mademoiselle, meaning an unmarried woman) at Dover; Jarvis speaks in code.  Also, Dickens writes great supporting characters but I guess the whole English-speaking world already knew that.