“It is our own fault,” resumed the feminine voice; “we may thank ourselves for all the inconveniences we meet with. I thank God I never travelled so before. I am sure, if my lady or Sir John were to know where we are, they would not sleep this night for vexation. I wish to God we had written for the chariot; I know we shall never be forgiven.”
“Come, come, my dear,” replied the captain, “it don’t signify fretting now; we shall laugh it over as a frolic; I hope you will not suffer in your health. I shall make my lord very merry with our adventures in the diligence.”
The unsophisticated lads were greatly impressed by this talk. Not so the others. “Some people,” broke in another woman’s voice, “give themselves a great many needless airs; better folks than any here have travelled in wagons before now. Some of us have rode in coaches and chariots, with three footmen behind them, without making so much fuss about it. What then! we are now all on a footing; therefore let us be sociable and merry. What do you say, Isaac? Is not this a good motion, you doting rogue? Speak, old Cent. per cent.! What desperate debt are you thinking of? What mortgage are you planning? Well, Isaac, positively you shall never gain my favour till you turn over a new leaf, grow honest, and live like a gentleman. In the meantime, give me a kiss, you old fool.”
The words, accompanied by hearty smack, enlivened the person to whom they were addressed to such a degree, that he cried, in a transport, though with a faltering voice: “Ah, you baggage! on my credit you are a waggish girl—he, he, he!” This laugh introduced a fit of coughing which almost suffocated the poor usurer—for such they afterwards found was the profession of their fellow-traveller.
At their stopping-place for the night they had their first opportunity of viewing these passengers. First came a brisk, airy girl, about twenty years of age, with a silver-laced hat on her head instead of a cap, a blue stuff riding-suit, trimmed with silver, very much tarnished, and a whip in her hand. After her came, limping, an old man, with a worsted night-cap buttoned under his chin and a broad-brimmed hat slouched over it, an old rusty blue cloak tied about his neck, under which appeared a brown surtout that covered a threadbare coat and waistcoat, and a dirty flannel jacket. His eyes were hollow, bleared, and gummy; his face shrivelled into a thousand wrinkles, his gums destitute of teeth, his nose sharp and drooping, his chin peaked and prominent, so that when he mumped or spoke they approached one another like a pair of nut-crackers; he supported himself on an ivory-headed cane, and his whole figure was a just emblem of winter, famine, and avarice.
The captain was disclosed as a little thin creature, about the age of forty, with a long, withered visage very much resembling that of a baboon. He wore his own hair in a queue that reached to his rump, and on it a hat the size and cock of Antient Pistol’s. He was about five feet and three inches in height, sixteen inches of which went to his face and long scraggy neck; his thighs were about six inches in length; his legs, resembling two spindles or drumsticks, two feet and a half; and his body the remainder; so that, on the whole, he appeared like a spider or grasshopper erect. His dress consisted of a frock of bear-skin, the skirts about half a foot long, a hussar waistcoat, scarlet breeches reaching half-way down his thighs, worsted stockings rolled up almost to his groin, and shoes with wooden heels at least two inches high; he carried a sword very nearly as long as himself in one hand, and with the other conducted his lady, who seemed to be a woman of his own age, still retaining some remains of good looks, but so ridiculously affected that any one who was not a novice in the world would easily have perceived in her deplorable vanity the second-hand airs of a lady’s woman.
This ridiculous couple were Captain and Mrs. Weazel. The travellers all assembled in the kitchen of the inn, where, according to the custom of the time, such impecunious wayfarers were entertained; but the captain desired a room for himself and his wife, so that they might sup by themselves, instead of in that communal fashion. The innkeeper, however, did not much relish this, but would have given way to the demand, providing the other passengers made no objection. Unhappily for the captain’s absurd dignity, the others did object; Miss Jenny, the lady with the silver-trimmed hat, in particular, observing that “if Captain Weazel and his lady had a mind to sup by themselves, they might wait until the others should have done.” At this hint the captain put on a martial frown and looked very big, without speaking; while his yoke-fellow, with a disdainful toss of her nose, muttered something about “creature!” which Miss Jenny overhearing, stepped up to her, saying, “None of your names, good Mrs. Abigail. Creature! quotha—I’ll assure you—no such creature as you, neither—no quality-coupler.” Here the captain interposed, with a “D—n me, madam, what do you mean by that?”
“Sir, who are you?” replied Miss Jenny; “who made you a captain, you pitiful, trencher-scraping, pimping curler? The army is come to a fine pass when such fellows as you get commissions. What, I suppose you think I don’t know you? You and your helpmate are well met: a cast-off mistress and a bald valet-de-chambre are well yoked together.”
“Blood and wounds!” cried Weazel; “d’ye question the honour of my wife, madam? No man in England durst say so much—I would flay him, carbonado him! Fury and destruction! I would have his liver for my supper!” So saying, he drew his sword and flourished it, to the great terror of Strap; while Miss Jenny, snapping her fingers, told him she did not value his resentment that!