We smoke from morn till night,
While cheerily ring our footsteps,
Right, left, right."
"Well done, Corry! I thought at first it was your own composition, but I see it is an English song."
"Yes, it came out long ago as 'The Tramp's Song' in Sharpe's Magazine, where I found it, and changed moor and moorland to north and norland, as better suited to our purpose. It's a good song."
"What kind of vehicle is that just in front of us?"
"It's a pole on four wheels drawn by a team of oxen, and I'm going to make a triumphant entry into Collingwood on it. The driver is a negro, as black as my boots—were." Coristine soon overtook the remarkable vehicle, and accosted the driver, telling him that he had ridden on horses, donkeys, mules, and once each on a cow, a camel and an elephant; in all sorts of carriages, carts and waggons, even to a gun carriage, but never on a pole behind an ox team. Had he any objections to letting him and his friend get aboard? The coloured gentleman showed a fine set of ivory, and said he had no dejections in the leas', and guessed the oxen didn't hab none. "The po-ul," he remarked, "is thar, not foh ridin' on, but ter keep the axles apaht, so's ter load on bodes and squab timbah. If yoh's that way inclined, the po-ul aint a gwine ter break frew, not with yoh dismenshuns. Guess the oxen doan hab ter stop fer yoh bof ter git aboahd?"
"Not a bit," said Coristine, as he jumped on the pole behind the driver. "Come on, Wilks, it's a cross between the tight rope and the tiller of the Susan Thomas." But the dominie refused to be charmed or inveigled into a position of peril or ridicule.
"Yoh best take this yeah feed-bag ter save yoh pants and fezz'etate the keepin' of yoh ekilibroom," said the courteous darkey, as he handed the lawyer one of the bags that formed his own cushion.
"Wilks, with a feed-bag under you, riding on a rail is just heavenly."