Our Town (Volume 1); Or, Rough Sketches of Character, Manners, & C

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1834. Excerpt: ... We will take a short walk down that narrow dirty lane towards the Bishop's house, and ten to one we see something of him. It is about the time for his daily drive, or ride, and perhaps we may see his wife, too. Yes, the schoolmaster is abroad--there he goes, driving a heavy animal, that looks as if he had just escaped from a dung-cart, which he good-naturedly calls his chaise-horse. The worthy gentleman keeps but one. A horse of all work. No sinecure has he. Not even the sabbath is to him a day of rest. He draws his master and mistress, or carries the former, to church on Sundays; he carries his master out for exercise, and his mistress may be seen flankinghim with a whip like a London hackney coachman's in her various junketings, on week days. All this is regular work to him in fine weather, and on wet, dirty, miserable days, when everybody else is in enjoyment within doors, this poor beast is carting his own hay and straw, and dragging manure for the garden and paddock. Any other horse but himself would be worn to a skeleton by such constant labour, but he is of that class of animals which always look fat, chiefly from the original rotundity of form given them by nature. There is not an angle about him, the very tips of his ears are round. There is the schoolmaster's wife, too, seated by his side in that clumsy-looking gig, with all the majesty of Cleopatra sailing down the Cydnus. She is only five feet eleven inches and a quarter in height, and, as you may see, towers far above her lord. Her shoulders are sharp, her waist is strait, her figure is flat, and her legs thick--at least at the ankles. Her face would be tolerable, but for its expression of pride and ill-humour. Her dress of pea-green silk does not exactly suit her gaunt figure; her straw...