"John! I'm afraid we were too many this morning for that shying left-wheeler. Now, if he should take to kicking—" 66 Kicking! Mr. Timwiddy!" screamed Mrs. Flumgarten. 66 Kicking! Mr. Timwig!" echoed Mrs. Muff. Herodotus (who practised what he preached) said, "When telling a lie will be profitable, let it be told!"-" He may lie," said Plato, "who knows how to do it in a suitable time." So thought John Tomkins! who hoping to frighten his unwelcome customers into an omnibus, and drive home Uncle Timothy in capital style, so aggravated the possible kickings, plungings, takings fright, and runnings away of that terrible left-wheeler, that the accommodating middle-aged gentleman was easily persuaded by the ladies to lighten the weight and diminish the danger, by returning to town by some other conveyance. And it was highly entertaining to mark the glum looks of John when he doggedly put the horses to, and how he mischievously laid his whipcord into the sensitive flanks of the "shying left-wheeler," that honoured every draft on his fetlocks, and confirmed the terrifying anticipations and multiplications of the veracious John Tomkins! 66 Song sweetens toil, however rude the sound," -and John sweetened his by humming the following, in which he encored himself several times, as he drove Mrs. Flumgarten and family to town. Dash along! splash along! hi, gee ho! Save me from a tough yarn twice over told— Save me from a Jerry Sneak, and save me from a scold. A horse is not a mare, and a cow is not a calf; A woman that talks all day long has too much tongue by half. To the music of the fiddle I like to figure in; But off I cut a caper from the music of the chin! When Madam's in her tantrums, and Madam 'gins to cry; If you want to give her change, hold an ingun to your eye; But if she shakes her pretty fist, and longs to come to blows, You may slip through her fingers, if you only soap your nose! K 5 Dash along! splash along! hi, gee ho! No horse so fast can gallop as a woman's tongue can go. "Needs must," I 've heard my granny say, "when the devil drives." I wish he drove, instead of me, this brace of scolding wives! CHAPTER X. "GIVE me a woman as old as Hecuba, or as ugly as Caifacaratadaddera, rather than Mrs. Flumgarten! Were the annoyance confined to herself, I should cry, Content,'-for she who sows nettles and thorns is entitled to reap a stinging and prickly harvest. Ill temper should ride quarantine, and have a billet de santé, before it is let loose upon society." : These were among the ruminations of Uncle Timothy as he sauntered homeward through the green fields. Two interesting objects lay before him the village church and grave-yard, and a row of ancient almshouses, the pious endowment of a bountiful widow, who having been brought to feel what sorrow was, had erected them, as the last resting-place but one, for the aged and the poor. There dwelt in our ancestors' a fine spirit of humanity towards the helpless and the needy. The charitable pittance was not doled out to them by the hand of insolent authority; but the wayfarer, heart-weary, and foot-sore, claimed at the gates of these pious institutions 2 (a few of which still remain in their primitive simplicity) his loaf, his lodging, and his groat, which were dispensed, generally with kindness, and always with decency. Truly we may say, that what the present generation has gained in head (and even this admission is subject to many qualifications), it has lost in heart! "Before the Reformation, there were no Poor's Rates. The charitable dole, given at the religious houses, and the church-ale in every parish, did the business. "In every parish there was a Church-house, to which belonged spits, pots, &c. for dressing provision. Here the housekeepers met, and were merry, and gave their charity. The young people came there too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, &c. Mr. A. Wood assures me, that there were few or no almshouses before the time of Henry the Eighth ; that at Oxon, opposite Christchurch, was one of the most ancient in England.”—Aubrey MSS. 2 Was it ever intended—is it just-is it fitting, that the Masterships of St. Cross at Winchester, and St. Katharine's, London, should be such sumptuous sinecures ? |