At Length, The Carriage
Arrived At A Place Where The Road Wound Up A Long Hill.
Mrs. Popkins
had sunk into a sleep; the young ladies were reading the last works of
Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, and the dandy was hectoring the
postilions from the coach box.
The Alderman got out, as he said, to
stretch his legs up the hill. It was a long winding ascent, and obliged
him every now and then to stop and blow and wipe his forehead with many
a pish! and phew! being rather pursy and short of wind. As the
carriage, however, was far behind him, and toiling slowly under the
weight of so many well-stuffed trunks and well-stuffed travellers, he
had plenty of time to walk at leisure.
On a jutting point of rock that overhung the road nearly at the summit
of the hill, just where the route began again to descend, he saw a
solitary man seated, who appeared to be tending goats. Alderman Popkins
was one of your shrewd travellers that always like to be picking up
small information along the road, so he thought he'd just scramble up
to the honest man, and have a little talk with him by way of learning
the news and getting a lesson in Italian. As he drew near to the
peasant he did not half like his looks. He was partly reclining on the
rocks wrapped in the usual long mantle, which, with his slouched hat,
only left a part of a swarthy visage, with a keen black eye, a beetle
brow, and a fierce moustache to be seen.
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