Jones no sooner appeared before the great doors of the barn, which were open, than a masculine and very rough voice from within demanded, who was there?—To which Jones gently answered, a friend; and immediately asked the road to Coventry.
“If you are a friend,” cries another of the men in the barn, “you had better alight till the storm is over” (for indeed it was now more violent than ever;) “you are very welcome to put up your horse; for there is sufficient room for him at the end of the barn.”
“You are very obliging,” returned Jones; “and I will accept your offer for a few minutes, whilst the rain continues; and here are two more who will be glad of the same favour.” This was accorded with more good-will than it was accepted: for Partridge would rather have submitted to the utmost inclemency of the weather than have trusted to the clemency of those whom he took for hobgoblins; and the poor post-boy was now infected with the same apprehensions; but they were both obliged to follow the example of Jones; the one because he durst not leave his horse, and the other because he feared nothing so much as being left by himself.
Had this history been writ in the days of superstition, I should have had too much compassion for the reader to have left him so long in suspense, whether Beelzebub or Satan was about actually to appear in person, with all his hellish retinue; but as these doctrines are at present very unfortunate, and have but few, if any believers, I have not been much aware of conveying any such terrors. To say truth, the whole furniture of the infernal regions hath long been appropriated by the managers of playhouses, who seem lately to have laid them by as rubbish, capable only of affecting the upper gallery; a place in which few of our readers ever sit.
However, though we do not suspect raising any great terror on this occasion, we have reason to fear some other apprehensions may here arise in our reader, into which we would not willingly betray him; I mean that we are going to take a voyage into fairy-land, and introduce a set of beings into our history, which scarce any one was ever childish enough to believe, though many have been foolish enough to spend their time in writing and reading their adventures.
To prevent, therefore, any such suspicions, so prejudicial to the credit of an historian, who professes to draw his materials from nature only, we shall now proceed to acquaint the reader who these people were, whose sudden appearance had struck such terrors into Partridge, had more than half frightened the post-boy, and had a little surprized even Mr Jones himself.
The people then assembled in this barn were no other than a company of Egyptians, or, as they are vulgarly called, gypsies, and they were now celebrating the wedding of one of their society.
It is impossible to conceive a happier set of people than appeared here to be met together. The utmost mirth, indeed, shewed itself in every countenance; nor was their ball totally void of all order and decorum. Perhaps it had more than a country assembly is sometimes conducted with: for these people are subject to a formal government and laws of their own, and all pay obedience to one great magistrate, whom they call their king.
Greater plenty, likewise, was nowhere to be seen than what flourished in this barn. Here was indeed no nicety nor elegance, nor did the keen appetite of the guests require any. Here was good store of bacon, fowls, and mutton, to which every one present provided better sauce himself than the best and dearest French cook can prepare.
Aeneas is not described under more consternation in the temple of Juno,