Rattlin the Reefer | Page 2

much longer in operation, the
worthy landlord, instead of carrying on his business profitably, would
have been carried off peremptorily, by a catarrh, his wife's nursing, and
a doctor; but, fortunately, it struck one of the post-boys that rain was
not necessary to a conversation, and sleet but a bad solvent of a
mystery; so the posse adjourned into the tap, in order that the subject
might be discussed more at the ease of the gentlemen who fancied
themselves concerned in it.

"And you have not seen her face?" said mine host of the Crown.
"Shouldn't know her from Adam's grandmother," said the post-boy who
had ridden the wheel-horses. "Howsomedever, I yeerd her sob and
moan like a wheel as vants grease."
"You may say that," said the other post-boy, a little shrivelled old man,
a good deal past sixty; "we lads see strange soights. I couldn't a-bear to
see her siffer in that 'ere manner--I did feel for her almost as much as if
she'd been an 'oss."
The landlord gave the two charioteers force de complimens for the
tenderness of their feelings, the intensity of which he fully
comprehended, as he changed for each his guinea, the bounty of the
lady. When he found them in proper cue, that is to say, in the middle of
their second glass of brandy-and-water, he proceeded in his
cross-examination, and he learned from them that they had been
engaged to wait at a certain spot, on an extensive heath some twelve
miles distant; that they had hardly waited there an hour when a private
carriage, containing the lady in question and a gentleman, arrived; that
the lady, closely veiled, had been transferred from the one conveyance
to the other, and that the post-boys had been ordered to drive with the
utmost speed to the destination where they now found themselves.
This account seemed to satisfy the scruples of the landlord, which, of
course, were by no means pecuniary, but merely moral, when in
bounced the fiery-visaged landlady. He was forced to stand the
small-shot of his wife. Poor man! he had only powder to reply to it, and
that, just now, was woefully damp.
"You lazy, loitering, do-little, much-hindering, prateapace sot! here's
the lady taken alarmingly ill. The physician has been sent for, and his
carriage will be at the door before you blow that ill-looking nose of
yours, that my blessed ten commandments are itching to score
down--you paltry --- ah!"
With a very little voice, and a very great submission, mine host
squeaked out, "Have you seen the lady's face?"

"Face! is it face you want? and ladies' faces too--haven't I got face
enough for you--you apology, you!"
What the good woman said was indubitably true. She had face enough
for any two moderately-visaged wives, and enough over and above to
have supplied anyone who might have lost a portion of theirs. However,
I will be more polite than the landlady, and acquaint the reader, that no
one yet of the establishment had seen the lady's face, nor was it
intended that anyone should.
As this squabble was growing into a quarrel the physician arrived; he
had not been long alone with the unknown, before he sent for a surgeon,
and the surgeon for a nurse. There was so much bustle, alarm, and
secrecy, above-stairs, that the landlord began to consider which of the
two undertakers, his friends, he should favour with the anticipated job,
and rubbed his hands as he dwelt on the idea of a coroner's inquest, and
the attendant dinner. The landlady was nearly raving mad at being
excluded from what she supposed was the bed of death. Hot flannels
and warm water were now eagerly called for--and these demands were
looked upon as a sure sign that dissolution approached.
The stairs approaching the lady's chamber were lined with master,
mistress, man-servant and maid-servants, all eagerly listening to the
awful bustle within. At length there is a dead silence of some minutes.
The listeners shuddered.
"It is all over with her!" ejaculates one tender-hearted manoeuvrer of
the warming-pan, with her apron in the corner her eye. "Poor lady! it is
all over with her!"
It was exactly two in the morning of the 21st that a shrill cry was heard.
Shortly after, the door was flung open by the nurse, and a new edition
of an embryo reefer appeared in her arms, and very manfully did the
play of his lungs make everyone present aware that somebody had
made his appearance. The supposed bed of death turned out to be a bed
of life, and another being was born to wail, to sin, and to die, as
myriads have wailed, and sinned, and died before him.

CHAPTER TWO.
I AM DECIDEDLY AN INCUMBRANCE--BEGIN LIFE WITH
HALF A DOZEN FRUITLESS