'Pretty business,' said I to
him, 'that is being transacted in a place like this,' and then I
was going to say something uncivil, but he went to attend to the
new corners, and I took myself away on my own business as he bade
me, not, however, before observing that these two last were a
couple of blackcoats."
The postillion then proceeded to relate how he made the best of his
way to a small public-house, about a mile off, where he had
intended to bait, and how he met on the way a landau and pair,
belonging to a Scotch coxcomb whom he had known in London, about
whom he related some curious particulars, and then continued:
"Well, after I had passed him and his turn-out, I drove straight to
the public-house, where I baited my horses, and where I found some
of the chaises and drivers who had driven the folks to the lunatic-
looking mansion, and were now waiting to take them up again.
Whilst my horses were eating their bait, I sat me down, as the
weather was warm, at a table outside, and smoked a pipe, and drank
some ale, in company with the coachman of the old gentleman who had
gone to the house with his son, and the coachman then told me that
the house was a Papist house, and that the present was a grand
meeting of all the fools and rascals in the country, who came to
bow down to images, and to concert schemes--pretty schemes no
doubt--for overturning the religion of the country, and that for
his part he did not approve of being concerned with such doings,
and that he was going to give his master warning next day.
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