The driver, a loutish fellow, shock-headed and turnip-faced, returned not a word to my salutation, but savagely flogged his horses. The tired animals, who could scarce put the one foot before the other, paid no attention to his cruelty; and I continued without effort to maintain my position alongside, smiling to myself at the futility of his attempts, and at the same time pricked with curiosity as to why he made them. I made no such formidable a figure as that a man should flee when I accosted him; and, my conscience not being entirely clear, I was more accustomed to be uneasy myself than to see others timid. Presently he desisted and put back his whip in the holster with the air of a man vanquished.
“So you would run away from me?” said I. “Come, come, that’s not English.”
“Beg pardon, master; no offence meant,” he said, touching his hat.
“And none taken!” cried I. “All I desire is a little gaiety by the way.”
I understood him to say he didn’t “take with gaiety.”
“Then I will try you with something else,” said I. “O, I can be all things to all men, like the apostle! I dare to say I have travelled with heavier fellows than you in my time, and done famously well with them. Are you going home?”
“Yes, I’m a-goin’ home, I am,” he said.
“A very fortunate circumstance for me!” said I. “At this rate we shall see a good deal of each other, going the same way; and, now I come to think of it, why should you not give me a cast? There is room beside you on the bench.”
With a sudden snatch he carried the cart two yards into the roadway. The horses plunged and came to a stop. “No, you don’t!” he said, menacing me with the whip. “None o’ that with me.”