"Oh! I meant no disrespect to your equipage, I assure you," returned the young man, smiling. "Only, I supposed that I must be near my journey's end. Is it far to Berganton?"
"That depends. 'The last straw breaks the camel's back.' It is three miles, more or less. But I should have said, from your face, that you would want to stop this side of that."
"Do I look so tired? Indeed I am not."
"Um—no, I should say not. But faces show something besides weariness,—'like father, like son,' you know. If your looks are to be trusted, there's an old mansion about a quarter of a mile farther on, whose door ought to open to you of its own accord—if it can open at all."
The young man smiled and shook his head. "I am sorry that my looks should belie me," said he, "but I have no claim upon the said mansion's hospitality."
"Umph! 'tis a wise child that knows its own father. Tush, tush, man!" he added, hastily, seeing the young man's cheek flush, "I meant no harm; proverbs run from my tongue like water from a Dutch roof. Besides, Nao ha palavra maldita se naõ fora mal entendida,—that is to say, 'No word is ill-spoken which is not ill-taken.' But come! come! jump in! I'll carry you to Berganton, since that's your goal, and welcome. The night is drawing on apace; you'll be glad of my pilotage before we get there."
The young man glanced down the darkening road, from which the last ray of sunlight had vanished, and seemed still to hesitate; but finally sprang lightly into the chaise, and the horse jogged on.
"Proverbs," continued the old man, treating his three last sentences as mere parentheses, "have been the study of my life. I know Lord Chesterfield bans them as vulgar, but is he wiser than Solomon? or better authority than Cicero and Scaliger and Erasmus and Bacon and Bentley? Bah! the whole gist of his writings might be compressed into two or three of the maxims that he affects to despise. 'Fair-and-Softly goes far in a day,' will live when his 'Letters' are forgotten. And a good reason why. Proverbs are the royal road to wisdom. They're the crystallized experience of the ages. They epitomize the minds and manners of the people that brought them forth. Who but a 'smooth, fause' Lowland Scot, for instance, would have said 'Rot him awa' wi' butter an' eggs?' Who but a marauding Hielander would have declared, 'It's a bare moor that ane goes o'er and gets na a coo?' Who but poor priest-ridden, king-ridden Spain would have said, Fraile que pide par Dios, pide por dos, 'The friar that begs for God, begs for two;' Quien la vaca del rey come flaca, gorda la paga, 'He who eats the king's cow lean, pays for it fat;'—but I ought to beg your pardon, perhaps you know Spanish?"
"Not very well," good-naturedly replied the young man, taking pity on his companion's inveterate habit of translation, and the delight which it plainly afforded him.
"Well enough, I suppose, to know that it's a mine of wealth to the proverb-hunter," rejoined the old man graciously. "Here, now, is a good one, of a different character,—Adonde vas, mal? Adonde mas hay, 'Whither goest thou, misfortune? To where there is more?' And here is a pertinent question for people who live well without visible resources,—Los que cabras no tienen, y cabritos venden, de donde les vienen? 'They who keep no goats, and yet sell kids, where do they get them?' But, after all, for right sharp and serviceable proverbs, commend me to the Danish. Here is an old collection that I've lately picked up, printed at Copenhagen, in 1761;—-just let me read you two or three."