Book The Second: Riches Chapter 19 The Storming of the Castle in the Air

The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most
travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls
of Rome, when Mr Dorrit's carriage, still on its last wearisome
stage, rattled over the solitary Campagna. The savage herdsmen and
the fierce-looking peasants who had chequered the way while the light
lasted, had all gone down with the sun, and left the wilderness
blank.

At some turns of the road, a pale flare on the horizon, like an
exhalation from the ruin-sown land, showed that the city was yet far
off; but this poor relief was rare and short-lived. The carriage dipped
down again into a hollow of the black dry sea, and for a long time there
was nothing visible save its petrified swell and the gloomy sky.

Mr Dorrit, though he had his castle-building to engage his mind, could
not be quite easy in that desolate place. He was far more curious, in
every swerve of the carriage, and every cry of the postilions, than he
had been since he quitted London. The valet on the box evidently quaked.

The Courier in the rumble was not altogether comfortable in his mind. As
often as Mr Dorrit let down the glass and looked back at him (which was
very often), he saw him smoking John Chivery out, it is true, but still
generally standing up the while and looking about him, like a man who
had his suspicions, and kept upon his guard. Then would Mr Dorrit,
pulling up the glass again, reflect that those postilions were
cut-throat looking fellows, and that he would have done better to have
slept at Civita Vecchia, and have started betimes in the morning.