Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

the details of war, and seemed to love the history of sieges, and battles, and victories, which had raised his country to such pre-eminence, although it was contrary to his principles and practice to pay those taxes by which the war had been supported.

Our dandy soldier, "nothing loth," gratified this inclination, and entertained us with an animated account of the principal events in the Peninsular and subsequent campaigns, with a precision which denoted actual observation, although there was nothing he said that might have induced the supposition of his being actually engaged in them. The Quaker and myself were delighted with his modesty as well as with his histories, but the Jew was unmoved;—no tale of danger excited the least exclamation-no account of hazardous enterprise called forth an expression of surprise-no detail of gallant action, or of victory, warmed him into admiration. At length, an animated description of Waterloo, so given as to carry our imagination into the action itself, was succeeded by an account of the appearance of the field on the day subsequent to the battle. On his mentioning the immense number of dead bodies with which such a large space was covered, for the first time we caught a glance of animation from the keen dark eye of the Israelite, who, directing his whole attention to this part of the description, waited silently till it was finished-when, in a half whisper to the Quaker, he mournfully exclaimed, "Mine Got, what a large quantity of old clothes there must have been !"

After setting down the Jew and the Sportsman, the quaker and myself travelled silently along until the attention of us both was attracted to a remarkably neat little man, clad completely in black;—his hat was perched upon the top of his head, and cocked a little on one sidehe was travelling at a pretty round pace, but appeared

[ocr errors]

very careful even in his hurry not to dirty his black silk stockings-he carried a new umbrella over his shoulder in the fashion of a firelock, and by his eyes turned up to the heavens, seemed to be watching for an opportunity of using it. Having hailed the coachman by a knowing motion of the fore-finger, Jehu drove up-" Please to take care of my umbrella," said the little man. The umbrella was handed up, and the gentleman in black seated in a moment by the side of the coachman. He immediately resumed his umbrella, and, placing it in its original posture over his shoulder, nearly put the quaker's eyes out with the ferrule. Our new companion was not at all silent; he seemed unable to speak on any subject except that of the weather, and, even on this one, confined all his remarks and questions to rain." I thought it would rain when I set out-But it has not rained yet. Do you think it will rain, Sir?—I hope you had not a rainy night of it.-Have you had much rain in town, Sir? We want rain very much in this part of the country. I wonder whether they want rain in Suffolk.Rainy seasons are very unwholesome.-If we had more rain, we should not have so much dust."-This last pithy observation was excited by the wheels of the mail having passed through one of those numerous heaps of dust which had been swept to the side of the road preparatory to its removal; a circumstance which had discomposed the gentleman in black by having lodged a few particles of dust on his clothes. During the period which he occupied in remedying this accident, we had a little cessation from his perpetual alarum; but upon my replying to some question of the quaker's, upon the subject of taking degrees at Oxford, the word struck upon his ear, and he immediately exclaimed, "Pray, Sir, at what number of degrees did ye say the thermometer was, when you last saw it?" At this very moment the shackle

of one of the springs gave way, and the coach being quite on the side of the road, the shock was so great, that away went coach, coachman, guard, and passengers. I had scarcely time to observe the little gentleman's umbrella opening of itself, and its master sprawling in the air, before I found myself seated beside the quaker in a soft ditch. Being luckily more frightened than hurt, we both ran to the assistance of the screaming insides, whom, with the help of the coachman (the guard thought more of his bags than the passengers) we succeeded in extricating. We were all rubbing our bruises, lamenting the accident, and considering what was to be done, when a little figure, bearing the resemblance of a walking heap of dust, moulded into the shape of a man, stepped up to the other side of the carriage and addressed the coachman with," Pray, Sir, have you seen my umbrella?”— "No," replied Jehu, rather surlily-who the devil are you?"—"I was the gentleman in black," rejoined the little personage, in the same smali smirky tone of voice, and, indeed, it required his own assertion to enable us to recognise our companion with the umbrella;fortunately for his inside, but unfortunately for his outside, he had been pitched into the middle of one of the identical dust hills, which had before annoyed him, and had crept out so covered, that there was not a speck of his black to be seen.

As the accident had happened close to Birmingham, and as the guard had found a conveyance for his bags, insides and outsides determined to walk to the town;when feeling some little pain by my fall, and no interest in those who were likely to be my companions, I determined not to pursue my journey till some well-filled coach should present me with the hope of more interesting insides and outsides, to form the subject of any future lucubration.

SCRAPS,

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.

"Inest sua gratia parvis."

Extract from a Letter from " Jonas, an Ex-Mail-Horse."

Soon after, I found myself a fresh and healthy young horse, in the hands of a dealer ;-and oh! Sir, now comes the bitter tale of woe. Men change themselves sometimes into strange and disgusting animals, and think themselves happy and respectable; but never to the deadliest foe I have had, would I wish the misery of being, as I was, tortured to death in the traces of that curse upon horse-flesh, a fast-travelling mail. I have much to say, and I am sure that from so intelligent and all-knowing a being*, you would like to hear much; but I have been of late so distressed for breath, that I have the greatest horror of wasting it: I will, therefore, only just beg you to imagine, as well as you can, the panting, the toil, the sweat, the agony, the terrors, the painthe labouring of the heart and lungs-the reeling of the head-the sinking of the knees-the bursting of the eyes-the lolling tongue-the parched throat-the brutal and maliciously-aimed scourgings-and all the dreadful miseries to which the poor animal is doomed who, for the despatch of business, must run ten miles an

*In the former part of the letter, Jonas relates divers transmigrations, from the time of Alexander the Great downwards.-ED.

[blocks in formation]

hour! You may imagine it as much as you will, but you must come infinitely short of the sad reality: I know it, but I cannot tell it.

I felt a little consolation, one night, at the outset of the stage (we worked only seven miles an hour then)— to hear the guard (who having no passengers thought it unnecessary to take care of the bags, and had therefore perched himself on the box) say to the coachman, (excuse these parentheses, for I have the rumbling of the wheels yet in my head,) I felt a little consolation, I say, to hear him, after d- his eyes, remark to the coachman that there was a bill then in the house-(ah, Sir, I was in that house when I was not a horse)-for preventing cruelty to animals. I was consoled, Sir, for I hoped for some relief; but good heavens!" what a piece of work is man :"-" There is, is there?" said the dram-drinking brute who drove us, giving me at the same moment a furious cut over the eyes, though I assure you, Sir, I was then drawing more than my share, while the offwheeler was running in slack traces ;-" There is-is there?" said he, b- his limbs-(and here, Sir, I could not help joining in his curse, which, for a horse, you know was wrong)—" and there's another bill in the house, too, I hear 'em say, for making the mail run twelve miles an hour." I heard, and my heart sunk within me I don't know if the bill passed, but we soon found that we must run ten miles in the hour. The first dreadful evening came on: in the 15th mile I laboured in agony; a hill was then before us, but we must not slacken :-the whip resounded;-the curse roared over our heads:-we strained-we panted-we reeled-we trembled—we groaned !--Already at the brow of the hill we had arrived, when my heart burst, and I

« ForrigeFortsæt »