“So away goes lunch, and off goes you and the ‘Sir,’ a trampousin’ and a trapsein’ over the wet grass agin (I should like to know what ain’t wet in this country), and ploughed fields, and wide ditches chock full of dirty water, if you slip in, to souse you most ridikelous; and over gates that’s nailed up, and stiles that’s got no steps for fear of thoroughfare, and through underwood that’s loaded with rain-drops, away off to tother eend of the estate, to see the most beautiful field of turnips that ever was seen, only the flies eat all the plants up; and then back by another path, that’s slumpier than t’other, and twice as long, that you may see an old wall with two broke-out winders, all covered with ivy, which is called a ruin. And well named it is, too, for I tore a bran new pair of trousers, most onhandsum, a scramblin’ over the fences to see it, and ruined a pair of shoes that was all squashed out of shape by the wet and mud.
“Well, arter all this day of pleasure, it is time to rig up in your go-to-meetin’ clothes for dinner; and that is the same as yesterday, only stupider, if that’s possible; and that is Life in the Country.
“How the plague can it be otherwise than dull? If there is nothin’ to see, there can’t be nothin’ to talk about. Now the town is full of things to see. There is Babbage’s machine, and Bank Governor’s machine, and the Yankee woman’s machine, and the flyin’ machine, and all sorts of machines, and galleries, and tunnels, and mesmerisers, and theatres, and flower-shows, and cattle-shows, and beast-shows, and every kind of show, and what’s better nor all, beautiful got-up women, and men turned out in fust chop style, too.
“I don’t mean to say country women ain’t handsum here, ‘cause they be. There is no sun here; and how in natur’ can it be otherways than that they have good complexions. But it tante safe to be caged with them in a house out o’ town. Fust thing you both do, is to get spooney, makin’ eyes and company-faces at each other, and then think of matin’, like a pair of doves, and that won’t answer for the like of you and me. The fact is, Squire, if you want to see women, you musn’t go to a house in the country, nor to mere good company in town for it, tho’ there be first chop articles in both; but you must go among the big bugs the top-lofty nobility, in London; for since the days of old marm Eve, down to this instant present time, I don’t think there ever was or ever will be such splendiferous galls as is there. Lord, the fust time I seed ‘em it put me in mind of what happened to me at New Brunswick once. Governor of Maine sent me over to their Governor’s, official-like, with a state letter, and the British officers axed me to dine to their mess. Well, the English brags so like niggers, I thought I’d prove ‘em, and set ‘em off on their old trade jist for fun. So, says I, stranger captain, sais I, is all these forks and spoons, and plates and covers, and urns, and what nots, rael genuwine solid silver, the clear thing, and no mistake. ‘Sartainly,’ said he, ‘we have nothin’ but silver here.’ He did, upon my soul, just as cool, as if it was all true; well you can’t tell a military what he sais ain’t credible, or you have to fight him. It’s considered ongenteel, so I jist puts my finger on my nose, and winks, as much as to say, ‘I ain’t such a cussed fool as you take me to be, I can tell you.’
“When he seed I’d found him out, he larfed like any thing. Guess he found that was no go, for I warn’t born in the woods to be scared by an owl, that’s a fact. Well, the fust time I went to lord’s party, I thought it was another brag agin; I never see nothin’ like it. Heavens and airth, I most jumpt out o’ my skin. Where onder the sun, sais I to myself, did he rake and scrape together such super-superior galls as these. This party is a kind o’ consarvitory, he has got all the raree plants and sweetest roses in England here, and must have ransacked the whole country for ‘em. Knowin’ I was a judge of woman kind, he wants me to think they are all this way; but it’s onpossible. They are only “shew frigates” arter all; it don’t stand to reason, they can’t be all clippers. He can’t put the leake into me that way, so it tante no use tryin’. Well, the next time, I seed jist such another covey of partridges, same plumage, same step, and same breed. Well done, sais I, they are intarmed to pull the wool over my eyes, that’s a fact, but they won’t find that no easy matter, I know. Guess they must be done now, they can’t show another presarve like them agin in all Britain. What trouble they do take to brag here, don’t they? Well, to make a long story short; how do you think it eventuated, Squire? Why every party I went to, had as grand a shew as them, only some on ‘em was better, fact I assure you, it’s gospel truth; there ain’t a word of a lie in it, text to the letter. I never see nothin’ like it, since I was raised, nor dreamed nothin’ like it, and what’s more, I don’t think the world has nothin’ like it nother. It beats all natur. It takes the rag off quite. If that old Turk, Mahomed, had seed these galls, he wouldn’t a bragged about his beautiful ones in paradise so for everlastinly, I know; for these English heifers would have beat ‘em all holler, that’s a fact. For my part, I call myself a judge. I have an eye there ain’t no deceivin’. I have made it a study, and know every pint about a woman, as well as I do about a hoss; therefore, if I say so, it must be so, and no mistake. I make all allowances for the gear, and the gettin’ up, and the vampin’, and all that sort o’ flash; but toggery won’t make an ugly gall handsum, nohow you can fix it. It may lower her ugliness a leetle, but it won’t raise her beauty, if she hante got none. But I warn’t a talkin’ of nobility; I was a talkin’ of Life in the Country. But the wust of it is, when galls come on the carpet, I could talk all day; for the dear little critters, I do love ‘em, that’s a fact. Lick! it sets me crazy a’most. Well, where was we? for petticoats always puts every thing out o’ my head. Whereabouts was we?”
“You were saying that there were more things to be seen in London than in the country.”
“Exactly; now I have it. I’ve got the thread agin. So there is.
“There’s England’s Queen, and England’s Prince, and Hanover’s King, and the old Swordbelt that whopped Bony; and he is better worth seem’ than any man now livin’ on the face of the univarsal airth, let t’other one be where he will, that’s a fact. He is a great man, all through the piece, and no mistake. If there was—what do you call that word, when one man’s breath pops into ‘nother man’s body, changin’ lodgins, like?”
“Do you mean transmigration?”
“Yes; if there was such a thing as that, I should say it was old Liveoak himself, Mr. Washington, that was transmigrated into him, and that’s no mean thing to say of him, I tell you.