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My postillion to this station was a communicative fellow, and gave me some information about the value of labour. In the winter the usual wages of labourers are two marks a week, with board. Shoemakers, tailors, and other mechanics average about the same daily.
The postillion chose to remember that now. I should not like to leave out the tobacco in this good change that was wrought in him. However, he presently astonished Evan by pulling up his horses, and crying that he was on his way to Hillford to bait, and saw no reason why he should not take a lift that part of the road, at all events.
Archdeacon Clitheroe, he told me, a prodigious dignitary, and one who lived but a lane or two back, and at the distance of only a mile or two out of the direct road. I showed him the king's medallion. "Take the lady there, and at full gallop," I cried. "Right, sir! Mind yourself," says the postillion.
The postillion was ahead of me, but hearing the noise made by the fall he came up and disengaged me; I was not hurt, but my horse was lame. I immediately took the horse of the postillion, to which I was entitled, but the insolent fellow getting hold of the bit refused to let me proceed.
"What shall I ride post? How delightful!" "You must only cover eight or ten posts a day, for you have no need to risk your life by riding all night." "Yes, yes; but I am to dress like a postillion, am I not?" "Yes; I will have a handsome jacket and a pair of leather breeches made for you, and you shall have a flag with the arms of France on it." "They will take me for a courier going to London."
Nothing pleases me better than to see a fat old lady, glittering all over with fine silks and jewels, leaning back in her cushioned carriage, with her beloved little lapdog in her arms two elegant drivers, four prancing horses, and a splendid little postillion in front; two stalwart footmen, in plush breeches, behind, with variegated yellow backs like a pair of wasps.
She did so under the impression that we were going back to her mother's, but without taking the trouble to undeceive her I had a carriage and pair got ready, and told the postillion to drive to Uccellatoio, the first post on the Bologna road. "Where in the world are we going?" said she. "Bologna." "How about mamma?" "She will come on to-morrow." "Does she know about it?"
His good qualities attracted the attention of M. Bayou de Libertas, the agent on the estate, who taught him reading, writing, and arithmetic, elements of knowledge, which hardly one in ten thousand of his fellow-slaves possessed. M. Bayou made him his postillion, which gave him advantages much above those of the field slaves.
While my postillion was endeavouring, by mighty efforts, with a heavy stone, to turn the handle of the door, and thus liberate me from my cage, I perceived that the host came forward and said something to him on replying, to which, he ceased his endeavours to open the door, and looked vacantly about him. Upon this I threw down the sash, and called out "I say, is not this the Croix Blanche?"
It was quite dark before we reached Gudvangen, thoroughly tired and as hungry as wolves. My postillion, on hearing me complain, pulled a piece of dry mutton out of his pocket and gave it to me. He was very anxious to learn whether brandy and tobacco were as dear in America as in Norway; if so, he did not wish to emigrate.
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