The Clockmaker | Page 5

poor Mohawk, that you, the admiration of all but the envious, the great Mohawk, the oracle horse, the standard by which all other horses are measured--trots next to Mohawk, only yields to Mohawk, looks like Mohawk--that you are, after all, only a counterfeit, and pronounced by a straggling Yankee to be merely "a pretty fair trotter!"
"If he was trained, I guess he might be made to do a little more. Excuse me, but if you divide your weight between the knee and the stirrup, rather most on the knee, and rise forward on the saddle, so as to leave a little daylight between you and it, I hope I may never ride this circuit again, if you don't get a mile more an hour out of him."
What! not enough, I mentally groaned, to have my horse beaten, but I must be told that I don't know how to ride him; and that, too, by a Yankee! Aye, there's the rub--a Yankee what? Perhaps a half-bred puppy, half Yankee, half Bluenose. As there is no escape, I'll try to make out my riding master. "Your circuit?" said I, my looks expressing all the surprise they were capable of--"your circuit, pray what may that be?"
"Oh," said he, "the eastern circuit--I am on the eastern circuit, sir."
"I have heard," said I, feeling that I now had a lawyer to deal with, "that there is a great deal of business on this circuit. Pray, are there many cases of importance?"
"There is a pretty fair business to be done, at least there has been, but the cases are of no great value--we do not make much out of them, we get them up very easy, but they don't bring much profit." What a beast, thought I, is this! and what a curse to a country, to have such an unfeeling pettifogging rascal practising in it--a horse jockey, too--what a finished character! I'll try him on that branch of his business.
"That is a superior animal you are mounted on," said I; "I seldom meet one that can travel with mine."
"Yes," said he coolly, "a considerable fair traveller, and most particular good bottom." I hesitated; this man who talks with such unblushing effrontery of getting up cases, and making profit out of them, cannot be offended at the question--yes, I will put it to him.
"Do you feel an inclination to part with him?"
"I never part with a horse sir, that suits me," said he. "I am fond of a horse: I don't like to ride in the dust after every one I meet, and I allow no man to pass me but when I choose." Is it possible, I thought, that he can know me--that he has heard of my foible, and is quizzing me, or have I this feeling in common with him?
"But," continued I, "you might supply yourself again."
"Not on this circuit, I guess," said he, "nor yet in Campbell's circuit."
"Campbell's circuit--pray, sir, what is that?"
"That," said he, "is the western--and Lampton rides the shore circuit; and as for the people on the shore, they know so little of horses that, Lampton tells me, a man from Aylesford once sold a hornless ox there, whose tail he had cut and nicked for a horse of the goliah breed."
"I should think," said I, "that Mr. Lampton must have no lack of cases among such enlightened clients."
"Clients, sir!" said my friend, "Mr. Lampton is not a lawyer."
"I beg pardon, I thought you said he rode the circuit."
"We call it a circuit," said the stranger, who seemed by no means flattered by the mistake; "we divide the Province, as in the Almanac, into circuits, in each of which we separately carry on our business of manufacturing and selling clocks. There are few, I guess," said the Clockmaker, "who go upon TICK as much as we do, who have so little use for lawyers; if attornies could wind a man up again, after he has been fairly run down, I guess they'd be a pretty harmless sort of folks."
This explanation restored my good humour, and as I could not quit my companion, and he did not feel disposed to leave me, I made up my mind to travel with him to Fort Lawrence, the limit of his circuit.

No. II
The Clockmaker.
I had heard of Yankee clock peddlers, tin peddlers, and bible peddlers, especially of him who sold Polyglot Bibles (all in english) to the amount of sixteen thousand pounds. The house of every substantial farmer had three substantial ornaments: a wooden clock, a tin reflector, and a Polyglot Bible. How is it that an American can sell his wares, at whatever price he pleases, where a Bluenose would fail to make a sale at all? I will enquire of the Clockmaker the secret of his success.
"What a pity it is,