Sometimes he delivers a hare or
pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or newspaper to the door
of a public house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of
sly import, hands to some half-blushing, half-laughing house-maid
an odd-shaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. As the coach
rattles through the village every one runs to the window, and you
have glances on every side of fresh country faces and blooming
giggling girls. At the corners are assembled juntos of village
idlers and wise men, who take their stations there for the
important purpose of seeing company pass; but the sagest knot is
generally at the blacksmith's, to whom the passing of the coach
is an event fruitful of much speculation. The smith, with the
horse's heel in his lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls by; the
cyclops round the anvil suspend their ringing hammers and suffer
the iron to grow cool; and the sooty spectre in brown paper cap
laboring at the bellows leans on the handle for a moment, and
permits the asthmatic engine to heave a long-drawn sigh, while he
glares through the murky smoke and sulphurous gleams of the
smithy.
Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more than usual
animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if everybody was
in good looks and good spirits.
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