Whilst the principals were thus employed, the cottager's wife was endeavouring to learn from Hans who and what they were. "That poor lady seemed dreadfully tired," said she. "When she came, she looked just like a drooping daffadowndilly; when the gentleman lifted her from her horse—oh! it was quite moving to see her!"
"Ja!" said Hans.
"However, though her illness should occasion a little delay," continued the cottager; "I opine that you must be unreasonable to grumble, when you consider the delightful occasion it affords you of refreshing your olfactory nerves by partaking of a little of this odoriferous atmosphere."
"My what nerves?" asked Hans.
"Your olfactory nerves," replied the learned cottager, with a look of the greatest possible contempt: "that is, the nerves that line the membrane of the nasal organ. Every child knows that the nasal fossæ are formed to receive sensations, as by their depth and extent a larger surface is given to the pituitary membrane, and these soft sinuses, or cavities, are enabled to retain a greater mass of air loaded with odoriferous matter."
Poor Hans stood aghast at this explanation, which he found something like that said to be given by Dr. Johnson, when he called network a complicated concatenation of rectangular angles; and afraid to speak, lest he should draw upon himself a new volley of words as astounding as the last, he remained silent, staring at his companions with much the same kind of feeling as that with which a wild man of the woods just caught, might be supposed to gaze upon enlightened Europeans.
"Can you give me some more warm milk?" asked Clara, who now descended in search of refreshments for the Queen.
"Do you think so much of the tepid lacteous fluid good for the lady?" asked the cottager, as she put some milk into a saucepan.
"She can take nothing else," returned Clara. "How delightfully that girl sings!" continued she, listening with rapture to a milk-maid, who was chanting an Italian bravura as she was milking her cow.
"Yes," replied the cottager; "Angelica sings well. The parieties of her larynx are in a very tense condition, and her trachea is quite cartilaginous. But here comes my good man," continued she; "he has been hard at work all day in the roads, and I am sure he must want some refreshment."