'Over the hills' was his air.
It rose to the two watchers on the moor with the most cheerful sentiment of human company and travel, and at the same time in and around the 'Green Dragon' it woke up a great bustle of lights running to and fro and clattering hoofs.

Presently after, out of the darkness to southward, the mail grew near with a growing rumble.

Its lamps were very large and bright, and threw their radiance forward in overlapping cones; the four cantering horses swarmed and steamed; the body of the coach followed like a great shadow; and this lit picture slid with a sort of ineffectual swiftness over the black field of night, and was eclipsed by the buildings of the 'Green Dragon.' Mr.Archer turned abruptly and resumed his former walk; only that he was now more steady, kept better alongside his young conductor, and had fallen into a silence broken by sighs.

Nance waxed very pitiful over his fate, contrasting an imaginary past of courts and great society, and perhaps the King himself, with the tumbledown ruin in a wood to which she was now conducting him.
'You must try, sir, to keep your spirits up,' said she.

'To be sure this is a great change for one like you; but who knows the future ?' Mr.Archer turned towards her in the darkness, and she could clearly perceive that he smiled upon her very kindly.