Town Versus Country | Page 2

fine velvets--all green and gold, like
our great peacock. Well! we shall soon see. He comes to-night, you say?
'Tis not above six o'clock by the sun, and the Wantage coach don't
come in till seven. Even if they lend him a horse and cart at the Nag's
Head, he can't be here these two hours. So I shall just see the ten acre
field cleared, and be home time enough to shake him by the hand if he
comes like a man, or to kick him out of doors if he looks like a dandy."
And off strode the stout yeoman in his clouted shoes, his leather gaiters,
and smockfrock, and a beard (it was Friday) of six days' growth;
looking altogether prodigiously like a man who would keep his word.
Susan, on her part, continued to thread the narrow winding lanes that

led towards Wantage; walking leisurely along, and forming as she went,
half unconsciously, a nosegay of the wild flowers of the season; the
delicate hare-bell, the lingering wood-vetch, the blue scabious, the
heaths which clustered on the bank, the tall graceful lilac campanula,
the snowy bells of the bindweed, the latest briar-rose, and that species
of clematis, which, perhaps, because it generally indicates the
neighbourhood of houses, has won for itself the pretty name of the
traveller's joy, whilst that loveliest of wild flowers, whose name is now
sentimentalised out of prettiness, the intensely blue forget-me-not, was
there in rich profusion.
Susan herself was not unlike her posy; sweet and delicate, and full of a
certain pastoral grace. Her light and airy figure suited well with a fair
mild countenance, breaking into blushes and smiles when she spoke,
and set off by bright ringlets of golden hair, parted on her white
forehead, and hanging in long curls on her finely-rounded cheeks.
Always neat but never fine, gentle, cheerful, and modest, it would be
difficult to find a prettier specimen of an English farmer's daughter than
Susan Howe. But just now the little damsel wore a look of care not
usual to her fair and tranquil features; she seemed, as she was, full of
trouble.
"Poor William!" so ran her thoughts, "my father would not even listen
to his last letter because it poisoned him with musk. I wonder that
William can like that disagreeable smell. I and he expects him to come
down on the top of the coach, instead of which, he says that he means
to purchase a--a--(even in her thoughts poor Susan could not master the
word, and was obliged to have recourse to the musk-scented billet)
britschka--ay, that's it!--or a droschky; I wonder what sort of things
they are--and that he only visits us en passant in a tour, for which, town
being so empty, and business slack, his employer has given him leave,
and in which he is to be accompanied by his friend Monsieur
Victor--Victor--I can't make out his other name--an eminent perfumer
who lives next door. To think of bringing a Frenchman here,
remembering how my father hates the whole nation! Oh dear, dear!
And yet I know William. I know why he went, and I do believe, in spite
of a little finery and foolishness, and of all the britschkas, and

droschkies, and Victors, into the bargain, that he'll be glad to get home
again. No place like home! Even in these silly notes that feeling is
always at the bottom. Did not I hear a carriage before me? Yes!--no!--I
can't tell. One takes every thing for the sound of wheels when one is
expecting a dear friend!--And if we can but get him to look, as he used
to look, and to be what he used to be, he won't leave us again for all the
fine shops in Regent Street, or all the britschkas and droschkies in
Christendom. My father is getting old now, and William ought to stay
at home," thought the affectionate sister; "and I firmly believe that what
he ought to do, he will do. Besides which--surely there is a carriage
now." Just as Susan arrived at this point of her cogitations, that sound
which had haunted her imagination all the afternoon, the sound of
wheels rapidly advancing, became more and more audible, and was
suddenly succeeded by a tremendous crash, mixed with men's
voices--one of them her brother's--venting in two languages (for
Monsieur Victor, whatever might be his proficiency in English, had
recourse in this emergency to his native tongue) the different
ejaculations of anger and astonishment which are pretty sure to
accompany an overset: and on turning a corner of the lane, Susan
caught her first sight of the britschka or droschky, whichever it might
be, that had so much puzzled her simple apprehension, in the shape of a
heavy-looking open carriage garnished