The Attache | Page 4

endeavoured to keep it constantly in view; and if at any time I shall be supposed to have erred (I say "supposed," for I am unconscious of having done so) I must claim the indulgence always granted to involuntary offences.
Now the patience of my reader may fairly be considered a "private right." I shall, therefore, respect its boundaries and proceed at once with my narrative, having been already quite long enough about "uncorking a bottle."
CHAPTER II.
A JUICY DAY IN THE COUNTRY.
All our preparations for the voyage having been completed, we spent the last day at our disposal, in visiting Brooklyn. The weather was uncommonly fine, the sky being perfectly clear and unclouded; and though the sun shone out brilliantly, the heat was tempered by a cool, bracing, westwardly wind. Its influence was perceptible on the spirits of every body on board the ferry-boat that transported us across the harbour.
"Squire," said Mr. Slick, aint this as pretty a day as you'll see atween this and Nova Scotia?--You can't beat American weather, when it chooses, in no part of the world I've ever been in yet. This day is a tip-topper, and it's the last we'll see of the kind till we get back agin, I know. Take a fool's advice, for once, and stick to it, as long as there is any of it left, for you'll see the difference when you get to England. There never was so rainy a place in the univarse, as that, I don't think, unless it's Ireland, and the only difference atween them two is that it rains every day amost in England, and in Ireland it rains every day and every night too. It's awful, and you must keep out of a country-house in such weather, or you'll go for it; it will kill you, that's sartain. I shall never forget a juicy day I once spent in one of them dismal old places. I'll tell you how I came to be there.
"The last time I was to England, I was a dinin' with our consul to Liverpool, and a very gentleman-like old man he was too; he was appointed by Washington, and had been there ever since our glorious revolution. Folks gave him a great name, they said he was a credit to us. Well, I met at his table one day an old country squire, that lived somewhere down in Shropshire, close on to Wales, and says he to me, arter cloth was off and cigars on, 'Mr. Slick,' says he, 'I'll be very glad to see you to Norman Manor,' (that was the place where he staid, when he was to home). 'If you will return with me I shall be glad to shew you the country in my neighbourhood, which is said to be considerable pretty.'
"'Well,' says I, 'as I have nothin' above particular to see to, I don't care if I do go.'
"So off we started; and this I will say, he was as kind as he cleverly knew how to be, and that is sayin' a great deal for a man that didn't know nothin' out of sight of his own clearin' hardly.
"Now, when we got there, the house was chock full of company, and considerin' it warn't an overly large one, and that Britishers won't stay in a house, unless every feller gets a separate bed, it's a wonder to me, how he stowed away as many as he did. Says he, 'Excuse your quarters, Mr. Slick, but I find more company nor I expected here. In a day or two, some on 'em will be off, and then you shall be better provided.'
"With that I was showed up a great staircase, and out o' that by a door-way into a narrer entry and from that into an old T like looking building, that stuck out behind the house. It warn't the common company sleepin' room, I expect, but kinder make shifts, tho' they was good enough too for the matter o' that; at all events I don't want no better.
"Well, I had hardly got well housed a'most, afore it came on to rain, as if it was in rael right down airnest. It warn't just a roarin', racin', sneezin' rain like a thunder shower, but it kept a steady travellin' gait, up hill and down dale, and no breathin' time nor batin' spell. It didn't look as if it would stop till it was done, that's a fact. But still as it was too late to go out agin that arternoon, I didn't think much about it then. I hadn't no notion what was in store for me next day, no more nor a child; if I had, I'd a double deal sooner hanged myself, than gone brousing in such place as that, in sticky weather.
"A