122 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



let him know what sort of a carter he has.&quot; A Yankee driver, 

 so waked up, would have replied to the whip first. 



Gentlemen come up at a spanking pace, with tall, lithe, 

 worried-looking horses, in dog-carts, or in the saddle, screw 

 ing their heads as deep as they can into their drab coats, 

 bending low, and their hats pulled down tight upon their 

 brows, never hardly with an umbrella, but with a groom with 

 gold hat-band by their side sometimes. They look scowl- 

 ingly, as they approach, at me ; with my hat-brim turned up 

 before and down behind to shed the water from my face, my 

 water-proof cape tightly fastened at my waist behind, and 

 swelling and fluttering before, my arms folded under it, I re 

 turn their inquiring stare complacently ; and some, as they 

 come up, draw their lips resolutely tighter, and give me about 

 quarter of a nod, as if they understood and approved my 

 arrangement. 



Men on foot, and women, too, with clogs and pattens and 

 old green and blue umbrellas, and bundles and bags and bas 

 kets and hampers, and cages and parcels in handkerchiefs ; 

 old and young, lasses and lads, generally three or four couples 

 together, coming to town for a holiday, loudly laughing and 

 coarsely joking; bound to enjoy themselves spite of the 

 shameful indelicacy of the wind, and the chill drenching of 

 the rain, and the most misplaced attachment to their finery of 

 the spattering mud. 



