Why Then, Said The Coachman, Did It Not Kill
Our Horses As Well As Yours; If They Had Been Equally Good, They Would
Have Held Out Equally.
- I do not pretend mine was as good, replied the
innkeeper, I cannot afford to feed my horses as
My lord does; but yet he
was a stout gelding, and if he had not been drove so very hard, and
perhaps otherwise ill used into the bargain, he would have been
alive now.
All this was sufficient to make Horatio imagine it was for the journey
which deprived him of his dear Charlotta, that this horse had been
hired, so tarried in the place where he was till the debate was over,
which ended not to the satisfaction of the innkeeper, who swore he would
not be fooled out of his money. As soon as the coachman was gone,
Horatio called him in, and asked what was the matter, and who it was
that endeavoured to impose upon him? on which the innkeeper readily told
him, that on such a day this coachman came to him and hired a horse in
order to make up a set to go to Rheines in Champaigne, my lord-baron
having three or four sick in the stable at that time. - Two days after,
said he, my horse was brought home all in a foam, and fell down dead in
less than three hours, and yet this rascally coachman refuses to pay
me for him.
Horatio humoured him in all he said, and let him go on his own way till
he had vented his whole stock of railing, and then asked him what
company were in the coach.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 138 of 369
Words from 38278 to 38559
of 102800
