of the image of Holy Mary, and to say that I hoped
it had recovered from its horsewhipping; but he interrupted
me, paid me the money for the fare, and gave me a crown
for myself, saying he would not detain me any longer.
I say, partner, I am a poor postillion, but when
he gave me the crown I had a good mind to fling it
in his face. I reflected, however, that it was
not mere gift-money, but coin which I had earned, and
hardly too, so I put it in my pocket, and I bethought
me, moreover, that, knave as I knew him to be, he
had always treated me with civility; so I nodded to
him, and he said something which, perhaps, he meant
for Latin, but which sounded very much like ‘vails,’
and by which he doubtless alluded to the money which
he had given me. He then went into the house
with the rest, the coach drove away which had brought
the others, and I was about to get on the box and
follow; observing, however, two more chaises driving
up, I thought I would be in no hurry, so I just led
my horses and chaise a little out of the way, and
pretending to be occupied about the harness, I kept
a tolerably sharp look-out at the new arrivals.
Well, partner, the next vehicle that drove up was
a gentleman’s carriage which I knew very well,
as well as those within it, who were a father and
son, the father a good kind old gentleman, and a justice
of the peace, therefore not very wise, as you may suppose;
the son a puppy who has been abroad, where he contrived
to forget his own language, though only nine months
absent, and now rules the roast over his father and
mother, whose only child he is, and by whom he is
thought wondrous clever. So this foreigneering
chap brings his poor old father to this out-of-the-way
house to meet these Platitudes and petty-larceny villains,
and perhaps would have brought his mother too, only,
simple thing, by good fortune she happens to be laid
up with the rheumatic. Well, the father and
son, I beg pardon, I mean the son and father, got down
and went in, and then after their carriage was gone,
the chaise behind drove up, in which was a huge fat
fellow, weighing twenty stone at least, but with something
of a foreign look, and with him—who do you
think? Why, a rascally Unitarian minister, that
is, a fellow who had been such a minister, but who,
some years ago leaving his own people, who had bred
him up and sent him to their college at York, went
over to the High Church, and is now, I suppose, going
over to some other church, for he was talking, as
he got down, wondrous fast in Latin, or what sounded
something like Latin, to the fat fellow, who appeared
to take things wonderfully easy, and merely grunted
to the dog Latin which the scoundrel had learnt at
the expense of the poor Unitarians at York.
So they went into the house, and presently arrived
another chaise, but ere I could make any further observations,
the porter of the out-of-the-way house came up to me,
asking what I was stopping there for? bidding me go
away, and not pry into other people’s business.
‘Pretty business,’ said I to him, ‘that
is being transacted in a place like this,’ and
then I was going to say something uncivil, but he
went to attend to the new corners, and I took myself
away on my own business as he bade me, not, however,
before observing that these two last were a couple
of blackcoats.”