Their faces, bloated and discoloured by their copious use of ale and brandy, looked, as they lay before me, like so many lumps of dead flesh.  When now and then they woke, sheep, in which they all dealt, was the first and last topic of their conversation.  One of the three, however, differed not a little from the other two; his face was sallow and thin, his eyes quite sunk and hollow, his long, lank fingers hung quite loose, and as if detached from his hands.  He was, in short, the picture of avarice and misanthropy.  The former he certainly was; for at every stage he refused to give the coachman the accustomed perquisite, which every body else paid; and every farthing he was forced to part with, forced a “G-d d—­n” from his heart.  As he sat in the coach, he seemed anxious to shun the light; and so shut up every window that he could come at, except when now and then I opened them to take a slight view of the charms of the country through which we seemed to be flying, rather than driving.

Our road lay through Newport Pagnell, Dunstable, St. Albans, Barnet, to Islington, or rather to London itself.  But these names are all I know of the different places.

At Dunstable, if I do not mistake, we breakfasted; and here, as is usual, everything was paid for in common by all the passengers; as I did not know this, I ordered coffee separately; however, when it came, the three farmers also drank of it, and gave me some of their tea.

They asked me what part of the world I came from; whereas we in Germany generally inquired what countryman a person is.

When we had breakfasted, and were again seated in the coach, all the farmers, the lean one excepted, seemed quite alive again, and now began a conversation on religion and on politics.

One of them brought the history of Samson on the carpet, which the clergyman of his parish, he said, had lately explained, I dare say very satisfactorily; though this honest farmer still had a great many doubts about the great gate which Samson carried away, and about the foxes with the firebrands between their tails.  In other respects, however, the man seemed not to be either uninformed or sceptical.

They now proceeded to relate to each other various stories, chiefly out of the Bible; not merely as important facts, but as interesting narratives, which they would have told and listened to with equal satisfaction had they met them anywhere else.  One of them had only heard these stories from his minister in the church, not being able to read them himself.

The one that sat next to him now began to talk about the Jews of the Old Testament, and assured us that the present race were all descended from those old ones.  “Ay, and they are all damned to all eternity!” said his companion, as coolly and as confidently as if at that moment he had seen them burning in the bottomless pit.