The Romany Rye eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 596 pages of information about The Romany Rye.

The Romany Rye eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 596 pages of information about The Romany Rye.
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.”

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The Romany Rye from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.