Since you have a great respect for Mr Mitford, sir, so have I. But hitherto I have been a stranger to his merits.
SEWARD.
The best of you Scottishers are intolerably ignorant about England.
TALBOYS.
In the first place, Mr North, when does the Curfew toll, or ring?—for hang me if I remember—or rather ever knew. And in the second place, when does the Evening Bell give tongue?—for hang me if I am much better informed as to his motions. Yet I should know something of the family of the Bells. Say—eight o'clock. Well. It is summer-time, I suppose; for you cannot believe that so dainty a person in health and habits, as the Poet Gray, would write an Elegy in a Country churchyard in winter, and well on towards night. True, that is a way of speaking; he did not write it with his crow-quill, in his neat hand, on his neat vellum, on the only horizontal tomb-stone. But in the Churchyard he assumes to sit—probably under a Plane-tree, for sake of the congenial Gloom. Season of the year ascertained—Summer—time of Curfew—eight—then I can find no fault with the Ploughman. He comes in well—either as an image or a man. He must have been an honest, hard-working fellow, and worth the highest wages going between the years 1745 and 1750. At what hour do ploughmen leave the stilts in Cambridgeshire? We must not say at six. Different hours in different counties, Buller.
BULLER.
Go on—all's right, Talboys.
TALBOYS.
It is not too much to believe that Hodge did not grudge, occasionally, a half-hour over, to a good master. Then he had to stable his horses—Star and Smiler—rub them down—bed them—fill rack and manger—water them—make sure their noses were in the oats—lock the stable before the nags were stolen—and then, and not till then,
"The Ploughman homewards plods his weary way."